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David Bellino
185 Plays3 years ago
David Bellino began his career as a music video director-producer for various recording artists, management companies and record labels. During this time, Virgin Records selected Bellino to direct the Rolling Stones “Voodoo Lounge” interactive media title. He continued with Virgin as a production consultant on the band’s multimedia-enhanced ”Stripped” album. Bellino then became the creative force and producer behind a number of digital media products for Universal, MCA, EMI/Capitol and Hasbro. In 2013, he founded Left of Creative to expand creative and production services for corporate and government clients. This growth has resulted in improved communications within the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and U.S Department of Justice through dynamic storytelling, documentary filmmaking, and digital media. Left of Creative remains a pioneer in virtual reality concepts, applications and production logistics. Bellino was one of the first filmmakers to showcase an immersive VR experience inside the cockpit of the F/A-18 aircraft and on the deck-plate of The Navy’s premier aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.
He’s an award-winning director-producer, having received Billboard accolades for his interactive media work. With a proven track record across industry sectors, his work has made an impact for Universal Pictures, Lionsgate, Sony, BMG, MCA, Shell, VISA, U.S. Navy, U.S. DOJ, NASA/JPL, Hasbro, Virgin and more. Bellino’s documentary film “The Guest List”, the story of America’s deadliest rock concert, was recently acquired for broadcast with a television premiere slated for early 2021 and a theatrical / VOD version in post-production in preparation for subsequent release. As a filmmaker and multimedia producer, Bellino continues his work for high profile clients and develops original documentary and unscripted programming.
https://www.independentri.com/news/article_4ad968b8-8f6f-11ec-a8b9-c39e27468280.html
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:03
Speaker
you are listening to something rather than nothing creator and host ken dalante editor and producer peter bower
00:00:18
Speaker
This is Ken Volante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast and I have director David Bellino here who is a documentary filmmaker and recently put out
The Station Fire Documentary Introduction
00:00:34
Speaker
the guest list documentary which is on wheels station we'll get into how to access this important documentary and some of the personal aspects of the of this tragedy of the station fire in Rhode Island an event in 2003 before we get into that David thank you so much for coming on to the show and and welcome on to the program
00:01:03
Speaker
Well, thank you Ken for having me. I appreciate it.
00:01:06
Speaker
Yeah. And thank you for spending the time.
David Bellino's Journey into Filmmaking
00:01:11
Speaker
We're going to get into some questions of art and making documentaries. But I know in just speaking with you briefly, the scope of the story, the guest list, which debuted just a couple of months ago on the Reels network.
00:01:36
Speaker
Can you tell us, David, just as far as how you ended up getting involved in this project and what the station fire was for you as you try to tell this story? A very big story, as you mentioned.
00:02:02
Speaker
So take us into the guest list in Station FAR.
00:02:07
Speaker
So briefly, most of it has to do with my career path and my life path, which took me from Rhode Island initially, growing up, going to school in my 20s out to Los Angeles. And when I hit LA in the Sunset Strip, it was hard rock, heavy metal, hairband world for real. It's everything you see of what the 80s, the late 80s was really like.
00:02:37
Speaker
I was able to live it, and my career started as a music video director in that world in Los Angeles. So working with the bands, the hair bands, the craziness that went on, it was a great time in life. I mean, it was just a party, and it was also just a lot of fun, a lot of happiness, and very different.
00:03:00
Speaker
than today in some ways, but not being negative. So that career path, as I started as a Rhode Island native, it's a very small community here in Rhode Island. I was putting Los Angeles into this jungle for many, many years, 20 years in that industry. And it all came around full circle when I
Personal Connection to the Station Fire
00:03:24
Speaker
Basically, I had two young girls that we just had, my wife and I, three-year-old, a one-year-old, and we decided to move back to Rhode Island just from a family and community and, you know, just going back to the small town to raise the family and so forth. It just so happened that it was right before the fire. So when my wife and I moved back,
00:03:48
Speaker
We're staying in my parents' house while our house is being built. They were in Florida, so we were doing the best we could with a one-year-old and a three-year-old.
00:03:56
Speaker
sleeping in our parents' bedroom again. I'll never forget waking up the morning or the fire and seeing the news. It happened at 11 o'clock or so the night before. But of course, if a lot of people were sleeping and not watching the news, that's what you woke up to. Ironically, the station nightclub was about 15 minutes from my house, where my parents' house were staying. I didn't know about the show. It was not well promoted at all.
Motivation to Tell the Fire's Story
00:04:23
Speaker
But the world had changed at that point in time, on the morning of submarine planes forested.
00:04:31
Speaker
And to this day, it's still America's deadliest rock concert. And just briefly, the band Great White, who was a relatively popular band at the time back in the 80s, I'm so circle there, back in Hollywood. They, as most of the rock and heavy metal bands were on quite a roller coaster ride over the next 15, 20 years of their career. They were considered jokes and people were laughing at the fact that these hair bands
00:04:58
Speaker
So it basically drove them to play these really small, crappy, you know, basically the type of nightclub that the station was, and that's all. They could only fill 100 to 400 people, and that's really the only places they could play. So it was kind of ironic that that morning there was something inside of me that was like, you know what, someday,
00:05:26
Speaker
to be the one to tell the story I don't know why like whether it's because I came from the rock world and I'm from Rhode Island and years later just ironically enough no one had you know took taken the story to this level you know there's been little things here and there are a lot of press of course not a national press happened at the time but no one ever took the commitment to produce any type of narrative or documentary there was a very
00:06:02
Speaker
And that was the most extensive work that was ever done on the fire in terms of what happened and who was responsible and the human stories and so forth.
00:06:14
Speaker
without getting ahead of myself. Basically, there was something inside me. I don't know what it was. But I just had to be the one to tell the story because I understood the rock world. I understood these bands. And I was from Rhode Island on a personal level. And I understood how small-knit the community was. And I knew how devastating this was. And by just moving back here, it was pretty crazy.
Documentary Production Journey
00:06:37
Speaker
But as you know, the fire happened in 2003.
00:06:40
Speaker
And I didn't start producing the documentary until 2015. So you're saying, well, you know, 12 years. Well, no one had done anything. And the story just kind of, I don't want to say disappeared. But I was, fortunately, I guess, the one that was able to bring it back to life, which is a whole other philosophical discussion, I guess you get into in terms of why.
00:07:06
Speaker
you know, all those things that go with it. But that's generally what happened in terms of why did David happen to be the one to bring this to the screen. Yeah, yeah. And thank you, David, for that, you know, kind of that that personal, that personal connection to it. And I appreciate, you know, your comments. I'm during during the show, I cover a lot of I cover a lot of metal. I
00:07:36
Speaker
I'm a really big Doom Metal fan. And I'm of the age of knowing a lot of the, you know, Hear Metal bands and those bands in 80s. And I think something you said there, which was really, you know, really true about how, you know, the popular reaction to certain styles of music and
00:07:57
Speaker
I think in talking about the safety of clubs, I know in reading the Killer Showbook and of course seeing your documentary, just thinking about the various places as a music fan where, whether it's you caught up in things or you just don't look, it's a rock show, it's supposed to be a crappy place or something in your head.
00:08:23
Speaker
I just never really thought prior to the station fire about safety and exits. Of course, that's paramount in the story of the devastating fire, preventable fire at the great white concert, the station fire.
Creative Process in Filmmaking
00:08:50
Speaker
So David, one of the things, and I hope everybody's listening gets to, we'll get into accessing the guest list short series documentary. One of the things that I really appreciated about the work you did on that was
00:09:12
Speaker
different vantage points or approaches to this really huge story, right? Because it's a true crime story. It's a story of survival. It's a story of justice. And it's a study of kind of deep, strange occurrences. And I think from the different ways you approached it, you were able to cover
00:09:39
Speaker
a lot of different ways of looking at this story. With regards to making a film of this sort where it is a tragedy, but the stories are so powerful. The people, you know, I'm from Rhode Island, Pawtucket, Rhode Island originally. I can hear
00:10:03
Speaker
the Rhode Island voices, I can hear the kind of unique aspect and reaction to when there's been wrongdoing or corruption. There's a lot of emotional content in this, David. How did you move through this with your goal of really trying to tell the story the best way and the right way? What was that effort like for you?
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it gets into the whole process of being a documentary filmmaker in the first place and why you want to take on a story and probably the most magical thing is that I'm not sure
00:10:48
Speaker
I don't want to say most documentary filmmakers don't know exactly what they're making at the beginning, but it is true. It's a process of evolution and creation. You're shaping something. You obviously know the subject matter. You know the issues you want to attack and some of the themes possibly. I knew what I was doing in terms of moving forward with the Station nightclub documentary.
00:11:18
Speaker
months and months and years of the guest list. Where did the guest list come from? Well, the guest list came from a concept of something I'd read and I picked up about Jack Russell's guest list. And I'm thinking to myself, my God.
00:11:34
Speaker
you know, we're taking a story and we're evolving it around the people who were actually, who put on the guest list that, you know, those two days prior to the show. It's just fascinating to me and something that people, you know, would obviously do anything for, especially rock fans and so forth. Oh my gosh, in the great white guest list and having it be essentially a guest list, you know? And so just these things that kept popping up
00:12:05
Speaker
It just formed itself in a sense where I started making decisions. It started out as one thing and turned into another. It took me many years just to develop the relationships with the people. And we had some really good topics, and one was the power of the stories. And in a sense, it's the performance that you would typically use that terminology with an actor and actress that they
00:12:31
Speaker
present an incredible performance in a scripted film. Well, in documentary, it's not performance, it's real. But I'll tell you, these people are so, we're so devastated, and it's still a very, very sensitive topic that in order to get the so-called, quote, unquote, performance that we've got out of those subjects, they're not actors, they're not actresses, they're real people. But in order to
00:12:58
Speaker
see the emotion that you saw in their faces, you're not going to stick a camera in front of their face after meeting them, you know, for 10 minutes, like you do in the news. I mean, you have to develop a relationship so they trust you. They trust their feelings will be in their emotions. And so it took many years just to develop that. And so people don't understand the five years making this thing. It wasn't that the camera was rolling for five years.
00:13:24
Speaker
This is what it takes to get down to the root of what you saw and how people feel comfortable telling you the story. So all these ingredients, you know, just the guest list and things and music and how important rock music was to these people and all the stuff.
00:13:46
Speaker
It just, this is not in your head initially, right? So in other words, okay, I have this idea. This is stuff that happens over the course of the process of documentary filmmaking, which goes back to your whole theme here is art. That is the art. I mean, that's what it's about. It's so
Discussion on the Station Fire's Chaos and Impact
00:14:06
Speaker
fascinating being a documentary filmmaker to have a core topic and to have an idea of what you want to do.
00:14:14
Speaker
and watch this piece of art develop in front of your eyes with your brain and your hands are forming this and it's the editorial choices and cinematography choices and the sound design choices all these things that
00:14:31
Speaker
go into this ingredients that at the end of the day when you watch it, you know, were you touched, were you moved, did you cry, did you laugh, did you, you know, all of these things that you want to affect people as a filmmaker, that is the art form is making those choices, you know, of doing those things and to tell the story.
00:14:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And there's some powerful, there's some really powerful moments in the stories of folks who didn't go and did go. And I think your instincts on the idea of the guest list from Jack Russell, where you have this
00:15:11
Speaker
real deep uh chance right you know somebody could have been there somebody was too tired they ended up being there they were there later and um it's it's you know you've been leaving the concept of think and uh you can hear that and yeah exactly it's it's by chance and
00:15:32
Speaker
happening to be in the tattoo parlor that specific night for whatever reason. You couldn't write this stuff. And I agree on some of the, within the story, and so folks know a little bit more specifically about
00:15:56
Speaker
With the station fire, the actual physical location was a rundown and rather unsafe and kind of, well, an unexpected location and there had been some soundproofing done.
00:16:17
Speaker
with a flammable type of foam in order to mitigate some of the noise in the neighborhood from the station. This flammable material went up extremely quickly and there was one primary exit. The speed
00:16:37
Speaker
of the fire and David Bolino's The Guestless covers this about 90 seconds from early in the show when some pyrotechnics catch the wall ablaze about 90 seconds to get out in a panic scene with dark smoke and kind of caustic air a real chaotic scary hell-like
00:17:05
Speaker
landscape, and it happened so very quickly. And the randomness and some of the things we were talking about, David, just as far as chance, whether you were there, where you located when things happened, just played out to just incredible and at time tragic consequences with the loss of life of 100
00:17:31
Speaker
hundred people in this incredible fire. And David, I learned that a little bit earlier, and I didn't quite realize this at the time, there had been a Chicago, a stampede in Chicago at a show just a few days earlier in 2003. And another incredible piece of the story was that the fire marshal
00:18:00
Speaker
had commented on that story in Chicago and made comments doubting such a thing would occur in Rhode Island, which happened a few days later in the jurisdiction. I find some of the pieces in the story that you tell about the guest list about
00:18:22
Speaker
I don't know if it's the deep RNAs, the deep tragedy in at times feeling like randomness. David, did you end up being surprised about this story? Did there seem to be more of those elements where you're like, this is just too strange, too dark to be real?
00:18:46
Speaker
Yes, and I think when I read John's book, I mean, there's a lot of things that had to come together for this to be made. I mean, this project was almost canceled probably, I'd say, at least three or four times for various reasons. And the more, you know, when I read John's book and I talked to John originally, I told him my ideas, a lot of what I'd read in the book
00:19:15
Speaker
You know, just the concept of tattoos, for instance, and knowing there's two, a beautiful young couple were both killed the night of the fire together. They were just married a year prior. And it had to do with them showing up in a tattoo parlor the same night on the show that Jack Russell was in the tattoo parlor, happened to put him on his guest list. Well, later, as I began to read John's book, realizing that the only way some of these people could be identified
00:19:44
Speaker
was by the tattoos, how badly burned they were, but yet the illness and the element of how tattoos are in the skin, they're used to identify people. Just the whole irony of that. The whole tattoos being such a rock and roll thing, and tattoos being able to tell the story, and then one of the...
00:20:10
Speaker
characters in our film at the end creates a tattoo photo gallery to tell the stories of these victims. So just that alone, the concept of tattoos and how important that was. It's dark. Talk about dark, being able to, the only way that you're identified is the same thing.
00:20:34
Speaker
All these things you're talking about, it's just fascinating, the love of music. And like you said, going back to your comment about the Stampede, well, one of the owners of the club, one of the brothers, that night thought it was a great idea to do a story about nightclub safety based on what had happened also in Chicago. And he brought a cameraman, one of his cameramen, he used to be a news reporter as well.
Role of Video and Tattoos in Investigation
00:21:04
Speaker
into the club that night, the night of the show, just coincidentally, to get B-roll to do a story on nightclub safety, going back to the comment about, oh, this could never happen here. So that's why the fire was captured inside the way it was. You've got to remember, this was before cell phone cameras and before
00:21:23
Speaker
Twitter and YouTube, this is just before that, just before the break of that, you know, early 2000s, which is fascinating because we don't see those kind of stories captured that way. It was just from the single news camera. And that ironically, the reason why that news reporter news camera man was there was because the club owner invited him there to do a story at nightclub safety.
00:21:44
Speaker
So all of these things you're talking about, these chances and faith and darkness, and I just thought that was fascinating. So as a filmmaker, again, going back to the topic of art, I personally just tend to be, I don't want to say on the darker side, but it fascinates me. And if I can draw a line from that darkness into something that means something to somebody, because the things we're talking about, even though they're hard to
00:22:13
Speaker
deal with. I mean, made it forward, you know, some of the people who I interviewed asked me, why are you doing this? How could you do a documentary on this? I mean, it's almost like it was taboo. You can never touch this topic. It's so dark. But personally, going back from the artist standpoint, I think that's what fascinates people. And if you can bring some kind of light from that or draw
00:22:41
Speaker
some type of conclusion for people or help people along the lines. That's kind of my motivation. I'm fascinated by these topics, but I also wanted to do some good. Yeah, and absolutely. And I wanted to ask about that, David, and hearing about creating this art. And I understand
00:23:10
Speaker
or think about the dynamics that you mentioned, I think part of the thing in discussing art in creating documentary film and with the purpose towards telling these stories potentially healing, I think the role of art within the documentary itself when you saw the photographic
00:23:33
Speaker
exhibit and display and with the survivors. I saw a lot of creative pieces where people are trying to make sense of what happened. This is a question I have in particular for you about the station fire itself and what had happened in Chicago.
00:23:56
Speaker
Did you discover as a result of the investigative part of telling this story and digging deeper? Did you believe or see the conditions that created this tragedy?
00:24:16
Speaker
Did you think there's been progress made on this, say nightclub safety?
Post-Fire Safety Changes and Skepticism
00:24:23
Speaker
Did you see progress made on this made in Rhode Island or on a bigger scale nationwide? Well, I think like anything, when something happens in that magnitude, unfortunately,
00:24:41
Speaker
politics kicks in, right? So the state of Rhode Island, okay, we have to do something. And I'm not saying that people wouldn't want to or shouldn't change things, whether it's fire codes, sprinklers. So yeah, things have changed to some extent.
00:25:02
Speaker
But one of our characters in the film, one of my subjects is Jay McGraw-Flynn. And Jay was a Battalion Chief for Rhode Island for many, many years. Ironically, as a first responder, he also lost two people. And those are that young couple I was telling you about earlier in the story here.
00:25:22
Speaker
He has a lot of bitterness. And I think one of the things that you'll see if you do watch the film is the anger that still resides inside of these people. And just the frustration, the anger, the injustice. You hit on those when you were...
00:25:39
Speaker
introducing me in terms of their themes and so forth running through this movie. One of the things I got into with Jerry and as well as Jim Gay and Jim, Jim is another character in the film who lost his only son. Very different attitudes, very different personalities.
00:25:56
Speaker
But they both, one of the most important things to them was, is this going to change? Is this ever going to happen again? If anything, there's some good comfortness so that other parents and so forth can never go through this again. And I think you see that things do change for a while, and then they begin to revert back. I don't know the details on it. I'm not in that world necessarily.
00:26:22
Speaker
I can tell you from people like Jay, when you do watch this film, you believe Jay. He's a very believable, authentic person. And being in the business of firefighting for 30 years, you know, I believe him. I believe John
00:26:43
Speaker
from an attorney's perspective. So I think things change to some extent, but they begin to sort of revert back again. It's like any other type of tragedy that happens around the world. All the attention is paid and people need to do something, right? They need to justify
00:27:01
Speaker
making changes in the political world that they live in. But how long that stays, 10 years later, who knows? So again, I can't really get specific about what specific law has changed and then reverted back, but that's the general vibe that I get, and these are some very reliable, believable people.
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah, and I appreciated that the pieces with McLaughlin. I was watching it and my girlfriend said, I think you might have
00:27:40
Speaker
grown up with it with that guy. There was just something that was Rhode Island, something about like, just the response, just the raw, honest response to being screwed over that, you know, and there's a Rhode Island thing in there that I picked up of just this cynicism of where's the justice? Where
00:28:01
Speaker
What about, what about us? And, uh, it was really powerful. I know something that I was able to be like, yeah, man. Yeah. I mean, I was yelling at the judge during the documentary. Uh, it's, um, really captured that, um, that real gut reaction. And, um, it's, it's, it's a real, it's really moving piece. I think in particular for me.
00:28:28
Speaker
you know, being a Rhode Islander, I think it can impact, but the story is just incredible. So, David, about the conceptual question, and I know we've gotten into it a bit as far as, you know, what art is. Documentary, I adore documentary film, and as I've started to try to make small documentary films and just learning, I've just become amazed at
00:28:59
Speaker
all the difficult choices and all the things that they go into it. But as far as the art form of documentary filmmaking or art in general, as a creator, David, what is art?
Art as Expression in Documentary Filmmaking
00:29:18
Speaker
If you're creating something, what are you trying to do in creating that art? Yeah, I think, you know,
00:29:26
Speaker
It's expressing, I mean, the best way I guess I could put it is that we have something to say as artists, right? So whatever that may be. In my case, as a filmmaker, in general, and if you're talking about documentaries specifically, in this case, you have something to say, you know? I mean, you really have a story to tell. The art comes in, I think, in the choices as to how you,
00:29:57
Speaker
you know, paint the picture for someone. So I have something to say, but if I express it a certain way, people are going to be moved and pay attention to it, as opposed to this way, like a painting, like anything else. So, you know, you can take any example from the movie, from the film, and draw an analogy to that. I think in the case of
00:30:23
Speaker
Using Jay McGrofflin as an example is a perfect example of choice because as an artist, it doesn't seem like art, but making that choice to include a character in my film, the way he looks, right? So, you know, the bald man, the t-shirt, the tractor in the background,
00:30:49
Speaker
The voice, I mean, all those elements comprise a composition on the screen, right? You're watching and you're listening to this character. And at the end of the day, I felt that my audience would really believe Jay McLaughlin, believe him, fall in love with him, maybe be angry with him, all the things you're saying, right? He's yelling at the judge, too. So the choices as a, going back to my choices as a artist,
00:31:19
Speaker
That's an artistic choice. I mean, I know it sounds like it's more of a factual, you know, sit someone down in front of the camera and have them tell you something. But that is very much an artistic choice. Because at the end of the day, it's making sure that it's being expressed properly, that you're going to pay attention.
00:31:40
Speaker
You're going to pay attention to the way he looks, the colors that he's wearing, his accent, what he's telling you, all that stuff. So you don't realize it, but that's what we do. That is making those, and that's just one example.
00:31:56
Speaker
scattered with imagery and snow falling and seasons. Let me just give you this final example. It's not overly obvious, but one of the biggest things to me being in New England is how important the seasons are. The spring, summer, winter, fall, and the changes.
00:32:19
Speaker
that take place between. And the reason why that was so important to me is because I saw the pain that these people went through and I saw the pain that when fall began to change to winter, you know, when the colors started dissipating and the gray skies started covering Rhode Island and the snow started to fall. These people, their brains and their hearts just completely switched.
00:32:43
Speaker
It switches back to 2003. They feel it coming, you know what I'm saying? Like Paula and Jay feel when February comes on. And so, in the same way when the spring comes, it's almost like a relief, right? Like, you know, the first green grass or the first flower blossoms. It's almost like, I don't have to deal with that winter again, meaning I don't have to deal with these memories again.
00:33:11
Speaker
And I don't have to deal with the memories of Michael's birthday being one week before the fire when he got his tattoo. It's all this crazy stuff. So as a filmmaker, to make those choices, to make sure that the seasons are represented visually or whatever. Again, artistic choice to tell my story. So although documentary used to be a long time ago, very much more traditional, if you will, in terms of the format and the structure.
Evolution of Documentary Format
00:33:40
Speaker
I mean, look at docs today, some of the best docs on Netflix and so forth. I mean, they're basically feature films. Who are you kidding? I mean, they're beautiful, multi-million dollar. And they're done that way for a reason is because the art has been injected into this format so much over the past 10 to 15 years that the documentary format has just completely changed. And the bar is set extremely high now. Yeah.
00:34:09
Speaker
The, and thank you, thank you for your comments, David. I really appreciate it and kind of like a little bit of a peep into, and I have such a strong connection to this story, but it's been a little bit of a while, you know, to, you know, with your film just being out to kind of get back to it, and of course, Killer Show on the excellent breakdown of, you know,
00:34:38
Speaker
of the station fire, a really incredible expose legal analysis. And otherwise, one of the things I wanted to ask you, David, of course, there's so, so much to the story so much, you know, that that wouldn't make its way into the guest list as far as telling the story.
00:35:05
Speaker
the way that you did. Is there a part or not a character? I don't mean to refer to somebody as that, but the person or somebody or subject or something that you saw
00:35:24
Speaker
connected to this story that You kind of like wanted to convey or you're like man There was a lot more to this but it just didn't fit into what I was doing just about what you had seen and putting this together Yeah 350 hours of content I have that had to be shaped into 88 minutes. So think about that 350 hours Wow So
00:35:54
Speaker
If you look at the characters that, I mean, I'll give you two examples. Jack Russell, lead singer, incredible documentary character, the rise and fall of a rock star. He was in jail 55 times before he was 18 years old. His mother gave him his first Beatles album, and he said after his first listening to the Beatles that I am going to be a rock star. And he sat in jail and wrote songs.
00:36:24
Speaker
Jack Russell as a character alone would be an entire episode if I were to do the guest list as a series, as a six-part, four-part series.
00:36:39
Speaker
a lead singer, how someone who has a dream of being a rock star actually can rise to that level and play stadiums in the form. And having told these stories, I mean, Jack's story is an amazing story. And then ironically, having him years later
00:36:56
Speaker
be the target of, I mean, in many sense, he's considered a murderer for people here in Rhode Island. And just that aspect alone, I mean, the controversy and just having Jack in this movie, I can't even tell you in Rhode Island how that played. So that's an example of, as you watch the guest list, the immediate minute version on television and reels,
00:37:21
Speaker
We obviously get into Jack. I think I balanced it enough so you understand Jack to some extent.
00:37:29
Speaker
your question kind of leads to, you know, how deep could you get? And it's a fascinating, fascinating story, which gives much more texture and much more backstory. And you would feel about Jack much differently, right? So it's a really interesting topic that you get into here when you talk about control that filmmakers, documentary filmmakers have over the volume control. How I want you to feel about Jack Russell,
00:38:00
Speaker
I mean, that gets into a whole philosophical discussion about documentary filmmakers. What I didn't use, what I did use, how I used it. How to be accurate, how to be cinematic. So that's one part of your question is an example of a story that's so much richer.
00:38:20
Speaker
a subject that's so much richer. Another topic that means what you just asked me is how many things are missing from the story. And I can tell you one story, a very short story here about another
00:38:37
Speaker
Two young kids, two young, who also, not the story of Jenny and Mike, who you'll see on the guest list, who are the two college kids that got to interview Jack Russell that night, and unfortunately put on the guest list. One of them made it out, one of them didn't. But there was another story of two friends who used to bootleg shows. They used to go all around the country and just bootleg on their old, you know, Sony Walkman and record all the shows, you know.
00:39:05
Speaker
And one of the stories I had to leave out, and trust me, this is one of the most painful decisions I had to make in this documentary just for time, was to leave out that story. Because what many people don't know is that that show was bootlegged, and the audio recording
00:39:23
Speaker
was found under the body of one of the kids who perished that night. And ATF recovered that. And many people don't know about that, except if you read the Blake Killer show. But it's not just the cameraman's video that you see on the news, but there was more to it. And the story of those two friends was something I unfortunately had to move out of this.
00:39:51
Speaker
I guess if you, if you really understand the guest list in terms of how deep the story should go or could go with these subjects and these characters and also the stories that you didn't care about, you can kind of get a sense how 88 minutes was a very difficult challenge to tell the story. Yeah. Yeah. I could, um, and it just.
00:40:17
Speaker
thinking about in terms of artistic choices. And in looking at the film and taking up the issue of Jack Russell, for example, I thought you did a phenomenal job to, you know,
00:40:36
Speaker
I'm sure there are decisions around where you encounter people and saying there's no friggin way you can put that you know, there's don't put that person don't even show that person or But there's so much unresolved I think within this story and you talking about you know that your your exposition here is like an extended treatment of this where they
00:40:59
Speaker
there hadn't been that. There's a lot unresolved for people to encounter. So I think you present folks in a way to be like, how do you make a decision about about Jack Russell, who wants to help, who
00:41:20
Speaker
screwed up or was near around incredibly tragic screw-ups or mistakes and is trying to help and people don't want his help and you just you've done something or you've been involved in something and you try to make it right and how the hell do you do that it's unresolved you know can you can you help should you help and I think it's important even though those
00:41:48
Speaker
That that lacks resolution, um to It's something to deal with I guess right It's a very good point and I specifically especially with jack is I didn't want to leave the decision of how you're going to feel remember we talked a little bit about the volume control level and Setting it to a one out of ten. I mean could I make jack look like you know a very
00:42:14
Speaker
I can make Jeff look any way that, trust me, and it was a big challenge for me. It took many, many months in the editing room to make sure that it was balanced. Because at the end of the day, what I want to do as a viewer
00:42:30
Speaker
to do is have all the information you need and the emotions you need and the backstory you needed. And like I mentioned about Jack, it's so much more that you didn't see or whatever. But I think the choices that were made in the time frame that I have were sufficient to make you feel different. Because it's funny when people leave the film how many people feel one way or the other about Jack. So I know I did my job, right? Because if everybody left the film thinking the same way about Jack, then I did not do my job.
00:43:00
Speaker
If everybody needs feeling something different about Jack, that means they took and they interpreted the scenes and his feelings and his emotions and his dialogue and everything, and they interpret it the wrong way, right? So a long time great white fan who, you know, or the parent of someone who died that night are going to feel very different about Jack Russell. So, but the point is, is that I took a lot of time in trying to, and that goes for all subjects.
00:43:29
Speaker
When it comes to Joe Kennan, who is the brain survivor, of course you fall in love with Joe and Carrie and Hadley and their family, and you tell the story of survival. I mean, that's a little bit more biased in a sense where, you know, how can you not do anything except fall in love with Joe Kennan? But in the case of Jack Russell,
00:43:46
Speaker
it's very subjective and so I wanted to make sure it was very important to me especially after all the hurdles that we went through and you can imagine the film without Jack Russell let's put it that way because it was Jack Russell's guest list and it just wouldn't be the same movie so
00:44:03
Speaker
One of the challenges I had, I had many people on the island not want to participate because Jack was in the film and I had to stand my ground and say, look, you have to, again, how can you tell these people that they can't feel the way they feel? I get it. I understand it. I'm not against what they're symbolizing here, but I said,
00:44:24
Speaker
This can't be a story about Rhode Island. A lot of people aren't going to care. I hate to tell you, but it has to be a global story. It has to be the rock star, the rise, the fall. It has to be global themes of survival. It has to be, you know,
00:44:39
Speaker
You make a story about Rhode Island and it's going to sit on the shelf. If you make a big story that has a lot of things that anybody in the world can relate on themes and topics, then people will pay attention and they'll see that little girl in Rhode Island. It's basically a metaphor, right? So that's why I said, look, you know, and it's a very, if you think about this, what I'm going to say here, it's a choice between Jack Russell or somebody who's a station fire survivor.
00:45:10
Speaker
and say to yourself as a documentary filmmaker, how could you possibly make that choice? Well, that's the reason why, is because in the grand scheme of things at a global level, that was what was gonna make the film more successful and watched by a bigger viewing audience, which is the whole point, so that people, more people in the world would see Joe Kennan and understand if Jack was in the movie. And it sounds crazy, and it sounds completely,
00:45:37
Speaker
in reverse of what you would think, but that's the philosophy I had to use. Not that I had to justify putting Jack in the film, it's my film, but I was trying to explain to people who are critics that this is why it's important to have that dimension and have those layers of things in a movie.
Processing Emotions through Art
00:45:58
Speaker
Again, going back to the choices of art to make it a better film.
00:46:05
Speaker
Yeah. And I wanted to thank you for making the series, the guest list. I think in the questions that I ask about art and, you know, just about what it does for us and emotionally and processing. For me, you know, me reading the book, The Killer Show and seeing your excellent and considered
00:46:31
Speaker
documentary, the guest list. For me, it helps me. It helps me move through those things. And having known somebody who perished in the fire, Mike Gonsal is known as Dr. Metal, my best friend's cousin.
00:46:52
Speaker
It isn't an abstract. As abstract as the show can be, as some of the questions – and I have another question or two that is abstract – but as abstract as the question seems sometimes, it's for me, experiencing the art, the documentary.
00:47:11
Speaker
The book has helped me now, many years later, just try to make sense of it and try to understand its meaning. So I just wanted to point out how important it is, and for a lot of folks, personally connected or not.
00:47:31
Speaker
Well, two quick things just before I forget is Dr. Meadow and Mike Gonzalez. Ironically, we actually have a four or five minute segment put together. Going back to my topic to you about how much you wanted to fit in and we couldn't, but we do have
00:47:51
Speaker
a segment on his story that wasn't able to be put into this version with W.H.J.Y. and the whole piece. So that was also, I don't want to say a regret, because saying regret, these choices had to be made for reasons.
00:48:06
Speaker
for the most part. But that was one topic. The other topic I just want to touch on quickly when you mentioned the book, Killer Show. One of the pieces that had to come together was John's book, Killer Show. And just like Jack Russell, just like all these other pieces that the film would not have been made without, I had to convince John. Because John originally is not a Jack Russell fan.
00:48:27
Speaker
As you can tell from the book. But John eventually really understood it. And John and I became very close. And we made a powerful duo because he agreed to come on as co-producer. And he agreed to let me use the book as the foundation story based upon. So that's where my fact came from. So the credibility of the film increased significantly having the book as the foundation. So the way we kind of marketed this in a sense
00:48:52
Speaker
is that because we had a very short amount of time on the documentary, at least this version, hopefully it would go to the multi-part series, but this 88-minute version...
00:49:02
Speaker
If you take the doc and the book together, and you think of it as a package, and just like you said, read the book, then watch the doc, those two elements of art combine because the book can get into much deeper factual stuff, and basically books do what books do, but you don't have that music and the emotion and the characters and the faces and all that stuff you do in the doc. So when you combine those two together,
00:49:28
Speaker
Um, and you read it and you read the book and you watch the document makes a very powerful statement It will affect people as a package Yeah, and excellent, uh as I mentioned john barrelic the um, uh killer show, um, Uh is generally available. Um, I ordered it uh prior to watching prior to watching your film, uh
00:49:53
Speaker
the series, David. Without the deliberate marketing that way, I viewed them very much as together and just high quality, thorough work on very complicated issues. Hey, David, I got the big question here. It's one of those big philosophical questions here at the end.
The Message and Impact of 'The Guest List'
00:50:23
Speaker
I wanted to ask you as a creator, maybe as a maker of art and things, why is there something rather than nothing? When I see that or hear that question, the only thing I can think of is
00:50:46
Speaker
I'm putting it in my terms of the same question I got from the rock stars is, why did you do this? Why would you do this? That's kind of the question, right? It's almost like, because if I didn't, there would have been nothing. And so I guess, to me, it's because I think you have something to say.
00:51:10
Speaker
And without something to say, in this world, you won't have that viewpoint. And so, again, going back to this specific example, I feel this is something because it's something that nobody has experienced before. Nobody would ever experience this story this way without creating what I created.
00:51:38
Speaker
we wouldn't be having this conversation, and people who I've talked to who saw certain scenes and they started crying, that never would have happened in their life, right? So it's almost like if that never happened, then the subsequent
00:51:53
Speaker
things that trickle down from that would never happen either. So, I don't know, I guess it's just a question that's very, obviously a very philosophical question, but that's what makes life. I mean, by creating new viewpoints and new experiences and new art, so that the biggest thrill I get is watching people react.
00:52:15
Speaker
and having it change their life. I mean, there's nothing more powerful than someone saying, I just watched a movie and, you know, I just, I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the ceiling of something. And, you know, the fact that as an artist, you can change someone's life who just watches it because it affects them so much, for whatever reason, because they can relate to it and they have a personal relate to it.
00:52:40
Speaker
And I guess I'll just punctuate it by saying Jim Gayhan, who was the father of the only child, said to me, thank you so much for doing this, because now people would finally see the nightmare that we have to live with every single day as a parent. Because this will never go away. So something rather than nothing is, I guess I just helped the parent somehow
00:53:04
Speaker
in some way maybe cope with the rest of his life every day because there's now a story that has a viewpoint that they can feel, hey, my son's story and my brother's story and my father's story and my mother's story is finally out there for the world to see, right? So they have something. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for that. Hey, David,
00:53:30
Speaker
Hey, everybody, we can speak with David Bellino, the director of the guest list. He works in films, documentary, filmmaker, creator, and artist. David, can you tell the listeners where to go to contact you or to contact what you make to find the guest list?
00:53:58
Speaker
Yeah, what should they do? Where should they go? Yeah, I would say one thing is the guestlistfilm.com. The guestlistfilm.com is a website. It also has an email contact
00:54:15
Speaker
on there and theguestlessfilm.com is a pretty extensive site that gets into the story and so forth. On that we describe the broadcast partner that we have. So currently
00:54:34
Speaker
There's an 88 minute documentary television version on the Reels channel, that's R-E-E-L-Z. So in terms of the airing and finding out more about the network and when it's on and so forth, if you go to Reels.com, R-E-E-L-Z.com, you can search for the share of the guest list and they will
00:54:57
Speaker
You'll see when it will air again if they have it scheduled. It'll probably get generally it'll probably air another Probably four to six times this year on television The premiere was February 20th and the reason for that was because that's the anniversary of the fire We actually premiered the documentary on the night of the anniversary of the 19th anniversary of the fire
00:55:20
Speaker
The way Reels works is since the premiere was on February 20th. It was about two months ago. The Reels channel waits until May 1st, which is actually yesterday. And the guest list should be available on the Reels app. So there is an app, again, if you search for REELZ, that you can watch an on-demand version. And then on August 1st, probably the most important thing,
00:55:49
Speaker
For those who don't have Reels or know what Reels is or don't have a cable subscription because Reels is provided by certain carriers like Verizon, AT&T, so forth and so on. But if you're only a streaming person and all you do is Amazon and Roku and those kind of things, on August 1st, Reels is moving the documentary to their streaming platform.
00:56:13
Speaker
So that starting August 1st, you will be able to go to Amazon Prime, Roku, Pludu, and some of those other streaming platforms. And if you search under the Reels shows, you'll be able to find a guest list after August 1st on the streaming platforms.
00:56:30
Speaker
Well, that's wonderful to hear the access folks will have to this very important documentary. And David, I do want to thank you for your time coming on to the show.
00:56:50
Speaker
It's such a topic that you've invested so much into and trying to tell the story the best way possible for folks. It's a very impressive piece of work. I want to thank you for making it. And thank you for coming on to the show to kick around a little bit of philosophy, but just really to talk about life.
00:57:15
Speaker
you know, overcoming and perseverance and much respect and love to all the victims and also their families in the station fire. Thank you, David, for coming on the show and for, you know, for your bravery and your artfulness in telling this story and the stories that you tell. Really appreciate it.
00:57:45
Speaker
Yeah, thank you very much, too, for having me. I appreciate it. And again, I'll also pass along the same thank you to the participants, because just touching on what you said, the whole motivation reason behind being in the film for many of these people is because they wanted to help somebody in the future. And if a father could help another father down the road or so forth and so on, that's what being the motivation is to teach people, let people learn, hope this never happens again.
00:58:14
Speaker
I'm glad I was the one that was able to take that and put it in some type of artistic form and go up to life. Amen. Thank you so much, David. Great pleasure talking with you and learning from you. And best of luck in all you do. I really appreciate you. Thank you. I appreciate it again. Thanks for having me. All righty.
00:58:45
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.