SPOTLIGHT - Taylor Morden (Getting LOST)

[00:00:18] Welcome to Wilhelm, I am your host Ben Beck and today we're stepping back into the mysterious, thrilling and unforgettable world of Lost.

[00:00:25] Since it first premiered 20 years ago, Lost has become a cultural phenomenon that redefined television, captivating audiences with its layered storytelling, unforgettable characters and mind-blowing twists.

[00:00:39] In this episode, we're celebrating the legacy of this groundbreaking show and exploring the making of a new documentary that dives deep into its development and lasting impact.

[00:00:49] The film features incredible insights from the cast, crew and brought to life through the support of passionate fans around the world.

[00:00:57] My guest today is no stranger to nostalgia and storytelling, you may know him as the director of The Last Blockbuster, as well as a number of other great documentaries.

[00:01:05] And now, he's turned his talents towards celebrating one of the most iconic shows in TV history.

[00:01:11] Please welcome the director and co-producer of Getting Lost, Taylor Morden.

[00:01:16] Taylor, welcome to Wilhelm.

[00:01:18] Thanks for having me Ben, I am happy to talk about Lost.

[00:01:23] I want to start off by saying, so I have a number of things to thank you for that we will get through as we progress.

[00:01:30] The first, of course, you know, thank you for willing to give your time to come on and talk about the documentary.

[00:01:39] You were nice enough to let me view an early copy, not an early copy, but a finished copy just before it's released.

[00:01:48] And I have to say, this is not blowing smoke in any way.

[00:01:52] This is quite honestly, in my opinion, one of the best documentaries as far as like a television, like behind the scenes of a television series or movie.

[00:02:02] This is quite honestly one of the best documentaries I've ever, I've had the opportunity to see.

[00:02:07] Wow.

[00:02:08] Thank you so much.

[00:02:09] You missed an opportunity there for blowing smoke, smoke monster pun.

[00:02:12] But oh, damn it.

[00:02:13] I know.

[00:02:14] I know.

[00:02:15] We'll get over it.

[00:02:17] Thank you so much.

[00:02:18] That's that's so great to hear.

[00:02:19] I'm assuming based on that, that you were a lost fan, because I can tell based on people's response to the documentary, whether or not they were, you know, people like, oh, you did such a good job.

[00:02:31] It looks nice.

[00:02:32] And I'm like, you never saw the show.

[00:02:34] You just like, look at the pretty people and they're telling stories.

[00:02:37] Neat.

[00:02:37] Yeah, no, I was a huge.

[00:02:39] That was I am a huge fan of loss, like so much so that my I do.

[00:02:44] I have a spinoff podcast called revisited where my co host and I go back and we choose a TV show that we want.

[00:02:50] That's already wrapped up and we go back, start from the beginning, week to week, episode to episode and just break it down.

[00:02:55] And loss was the first show we did nice.

[00:02:58] So we went back and her and I had already seen the series a number of times at that point.

[00:03:04] But it was really interesting because we knew as podcasters were like, OK, we have to dive deep when we go in and podcast.

[00:03:12] And as so many podcasts about lost have done and it we had so many new insights going through that we never got the third, fourth or fifth time we watched it.

[00:03:26] But this sixth time we picked up on stuff.

[00:03:29] And that's one of the things I love about this show so much is that you it doesn't matter how many times you watch the show, you are picking up on new things.

[00:03:37] You are learning new things.

[00:03:38] You are developing new opinions about different characters and and such.

[00:03:43] So, yeah, to say I was a fan is pretty much an understatement.

[00:03:47] Great.

[00:03:47] Well, then you are exactly who we made the documentary for.

[00:03:51] I also was am one of one of you, one of us.

[00:03:55] Yeah, that and that was going to be one of my first questions, too, was I would have to imagine when you choose something like lost.

[00:04:01] This is not just done on a whim.

[00:04:03] This is done because you yourself are a massive fan of the property.

[00:04:06] Yeah.

[00:04:07] Yeah, exactly.

[00:04:08] I mean, years before I ever thought about making movies or documentaries or doing what I do now, I was just a fan of stuff.

[00:04:17] You know, I'm a pop culture junkie growing growing up.

[00:04:20] It was like Star Wars and Ninja Turtles and stuff like that.

[00:04:23] And then I wasn't into that much.

[00:04:27] The early 2000s were kind of a rough time for pop culture.

[00:04:31] We don't we don't remember it well now, but like for nerd stuff, you know, it was still in that, you know, comic books are over here nerdy.

[00:04:40] Oh, we got a Spider-Man movie.

[00:04:42] Great.

[00:04:42] We got an X-Men, but they're not going to wear the costumes, that kind of thing.

[00:04:45] That was the time.

[00:04:47] And this TV show comes out and everybody says, you got to watch the show.

[00:04:51] You got to watch the show.

[00:04:52] It's great.

[00:04:53] Meanwhile, every other TV show is like, you know, CSI Wyoming and Law and Order this or American Idol.

[00:05:02] Right.

[00:05:02] It's just that's what TV was.

[00:05:04] So I wasn't watching TV at all, you know, and then the show comes out and I saw a random episode, which is not the way to watch Lost.

[00:05:11] I saw the the Walt episode in season one special, the Michael and Walt episode, which made no sense.

[00:05:17] And I thought it was a terrible show and confusing.

[00:05:20] And why is there?

[00:05:21] I think this kid has magic powers, but like that's not what the show is about.

[00:05:25] What are we doing?

[00:05:27] But, you know, come season two, I went to the blockbuster video, rented all the DVDs to get caught up.

[00:05:33] And I got it like, oh, you have to start at the beginning.

[00:05:36] You have to watch them all in order.

[00:05:37] That wasn't a thing with TV.

[00:05:39] Right.

[00:05:40] Like before, unless you're talking about like Twin Peaks or something, you could just watch any episode of, you know, Matlock or TV wasn't good.

[00:05:51] It was like story of the week kind of stuff that.

[00:05:55] Yeah.

[00:05:55] Yeah.

[00:05:56] Friends Seinfeld.

[00:05:58] Friends was still on TV.

[00:06:00] That's a fun thing I like to point out to people when Lost came out.

[00:06:04] Friends was on.

[00:06:05] And that's how much of a game changer Lost was.

[00:06:07] It came out and it was just like, oh, no, TV can be amazing and smart and nerdy and cool and still have your, you know, pretty people and your nice shots.

[00:06:20] And, you know, but it's not going to wrap up every week and you're going to have to get into it.

[00:06:25] And it was one of the first shows I think that rewarded you for like being smart and being into it.

[00:06:31] Yeah.

[00:06:32] Yeah.

[00:06:32] Like doing the extracurriculars, right?

[00:06:34] The, the blogs, the podcasts, the, the alternative reality game, the comic books, the everything that they had.

[00:06:42] Um, you know, it rewarded that by putting all these Easter eggs in and, and doing that.

[00:06:48] So, yeah, I mean, yeah, I've been a fan for, since almost the beginning.

[00:06:53] I didn't, I didn't get on board at the beginning because like I said, uh, TV was kind of bad.

[00:06:58] So it was hard to believe people when, you know, when they were saying like how great the show was, you got to check out the show.

[00:07:05] It's great.

[00:07:05] I'm like, what the heck are you talking about?

[00:07:07] It's on ABC.

[00:07:10] It can't possibly be great.

[00:07:12] Yeah.

[00:07:13] And, and I'm with you too on the whole, like, it's a show that rewarded you about being smart and it still does to this day.

[00:07:19] Cause not to go back on, you know, how the fact that we covered the series, but you know, with internet being the way it is today with Google searches and everything going back and rewatching it again, as a podcaster, this time, there were so many things we Googled every week from literary references to philosophical references.

[00:07:36] And it's why like we ended up going so much deeper into the conversation this time.

[00:07:41] And to imagine, you know, that Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof and all these great writers that were part of this show had all this stuff then that they were incorporating into the show before you had access to figure out what it was just showed how smart that the show was for its time.

[00:07:58] Right.

[00:07:59] It didn't, it didn't talk down to people in the way that most TV does still does.

[00:08:05] You know, now they're making shows and they're like, how, how easy is it for people to scroll on their phone while the show is on in the background?

[00:08:12] That's like a network mandate.

[00:08:13] Right.

[00:08:13] Yeah.

[00:08:14] How, how to screen or dual screen or whatever is the show.

[00:08:18] Um, and lost is like the exact opposite of that.

[00:08:21] Like if you blink, you'll miss some very important thing.

[00:08:24] That's not going to pay off now, but it's going to pay off in season four, episode six.

[00:08:27] And you're going to be like, Oh, of course that thing from the thing with the thing.

[00:08:32] But it also, to be fair, we've met a lot of people over the last few years making this documentary who didn't do the deep dives, who weren't looking up the books and, you know, going on the message boards and didn't go deep into the mythology.

[00:08:47] And it was still like a fun show with pretty people on a beach going on adventures.

[00:08:51] Like it plays on multiple levels.

[00:08:54] You can be like, you know, Kate, Jack Sawyer, will they, won't they relationship drama fan.

[00:09:01] And it's still a good show.

[00:09:02] Yeah.

[00:09:03] And, you know, and you, it's, this has touched on the documentary.

[00:09:07] I don't want to, I'm not going to talk too much about things that are talked about in the documentary.

[00:09:10] Cause I want people to see the documentary and not have for them.

[00:09:14] Um, yeah, uh, I want that for you as a matter of fact, but you know, one of the things that is mentioned and this has been brought up even before the documentary came out is like, this is one of the first shows that I remember being.

[00:09:27] Appointment television for me.

[00:09:28] Like I had to watch it when it was on, because if you didn't, you felt like you had to wait.

[00:09:34] And not only was this like the first instance of appointment television.

[00:09:37] I remember this was also water cooler talk the next day.

[00:09:40] I remember going into work at the time and talking to everybody that had, that hadn't seen it.

[00:09:47] And if you didn't see it, you weren't part of it.

[00:09:49] You had to walk away because you didn't want anything spoiled.

[00:09:52] And I also worked for a radio station at the time.

[00:09:55] And this is the first time I worked for their morning show here in Philadelphia.

[00:09:58] And I remember distinctly, this is the only show that they made sure they blocked out a period of time during the morning show to talk about lost.

[00:10:07] And they had viewing parties for lost.

[00:10:10] They were such big fans of this.

[00:10:13] They had like season premiere viewing parties, season finale viewing parties.

[00:10:17] I can't remember the name of the actor.

[00:10:19] He's in the documentary, but he played Ernst.

[00:10:22] Oh, yeah.

[00:10:24] Danny Roebuck.

[00:10:25] Danny Roebuck.

[00:10:26] We had him as a guest and I got to be like his handler for the night.

[00:10:30] So I was just hanging out with Danny Roebuck all night.

[00:10:33] And of course, like he signed a picture and just signed at dynamite.

[00:10:37] But that's just who he is.

[00:10:40] But like this was the first time I had ever remembered this being such a big deal to so many people.

[00:10:47] Radio stations, people at work, water cooler talk.

[00:10:50] Like it was just it was an incredible thing to kind of be a part of.

[00:10:55] Yeah, I totally agree.

[00:10:58] And I remember that, you know, you say water cooler.

[00:11:02] I was in college at the time.

[00:11:04] So it was we didn't have a water cooler, but we had like the quad or wherever you hang.

[00:11:09] Yeah.

[00:11:09] But yeah, like I have friends to this day that I met because, oh, you're into Lost?

[00:11:16] I'm into Lost.

[00:11:17] Let's talk about it because it would air weekly and you'd have to watch it live.

[00:11:22] And then you'd have seven days with nothing else to do but listen to podcasts, go on the message boards, talk about it.

[00:11:29] I mean, I was lucky I was in college.

[00:11:31] I had a little bit of free time on my hands.

[00:11:33] So I may have got a little too obsessed, you know, going down the proverbial rabbit hole of Lost.

[00:11:40] But what it did, to your point about the radio station, is it permeated other aspects of pop culture in a way that was very unique because, you know, things like Comic Con, things like, you know, the morning shows, the radio shows everywhere.

[00:11:58] People are talking about it because it was not only like the first of this like deep dive show where everybody used the Internet to try to solve mysteries together.

[00:12:08] And like we became this this team of detectives, right, trying to figure out what's in the hatch and all that.

[00:12:14] But at the same time, this was the very tail end of giant network shows that had 20 million people every week tuning in at the same time, watching the same thing.

[00:12:27] Like there's almost nothing like the Super Bowl now, right, or the finale of American Idol or something.

[00:12:34] I don't even know if that's still on The Bachelor, something like that.

[00:12:37] We'll get the kind of numbers that Lost would get on its worst episode back then.

[00:12:42] Yeah.

[00:12:42] You know, and so it had this really specific place in television history of being one of the last giant network shows, you know, right up there with your friends and your, you know, Seinfeld and The Office, things like that.

[00:13:01] And being one of the first like internet scavenger hunt type of things.

[00:13:08] And it's just that that convergence of the end of this era and the beginning of this era is never going to happen again.

[00:13:15] And Lost because of the mystery aspect and because of the amazing people who were making it was kind of the perfect thing for that moment in time.

[00:13:24] Right.

[00:13:25] Because it gave us something to talk about, something to think about.

[00:13:27] And we're just figuring out like, you know, season one of Lost, there's no Facebook, right?

[00:13:33] We're talking about it on MySpace.

[00:13:34] We're talking about it on Messenger.

[00:13:36] Yeah.

[00:13:37] On message boards, on actual old school message boards.

[00:13:41] I think at that time IMDB was still around and they had, IMDB had message boards at that time.

[00:13:47] They don't anymore.

[00:13:48] You can talk about it like in the episode comments on IMDB.

[00:13:51] Yeah.

[00:13:51] Yeah, for sure.

[00:13:52] And then they made their own, JJ Abrams coming off of Alias and I forget the name of the writer, but who worked on Buffy.

[00:14:00] Like they knew about message boards and they're like, we got to have a message board.

[00:14:03] So they made their own where people could get together.

[00:14:05] And then, you know, over the course of the six years of Lost, Facebook comes out, Twitter comes out.

[00:14:11] And these are things that are now just like part of everyday life.

[00:14:16] But it was so brand new.

[00:14:18] You would have this weird thing that, again, is never going to happen again because people didn't know, not, you know, the cast and crew of Lost didn't know, maybe don't engage with all the fans on Facebook.

[00:14:30] And so you had like Jorge Garcia on Facebook messaging people and hanging out and like going on fan podcasts that he had no business.

[00:14:39] You know, he's on the biggest show in the world.

[00:14:41] And he's just like, what's Twitter?

[00:14:43] I guess we're friends now.

[00:14:44] I guess I'm just hanging out.

[00:14:48] I've heard stories of him just showing up at people's houses and watching Lost.

[00:14:51] And it's just weird.

[00:14:53] And now everybody's so guarded because it's been around so long.

[00:14:56] They're like, do not talk to the internet trolls.

[00:14:58] It's not a safe space.

[00:15:00] Yeah.

[00:15:01] I mean, and it's very clear just from the conversation that, you know, obviously you were just as passionate about the show as so many other people were and still are to this day, obviously, because now we have Getting Lost, which is, you know, the documentary that you directed and you co-produced.

[00:15:16] So let's dive into that a little bit because like that's what I want people to know about and to be able to see once it's, you know, once there's more opportunities.

[00:15:27] But, you know, when you talk about Getting Lost, what were some of the first steps that you had to go through?

[00:15:33] Once you had this idea in your head that Lost is the show you want to make this documentary about, what were some of the first steps that you had to go through in order to begin this process?

[00:15:44] That's a great question because I had the idea over a decade ago, but I knew that it was too soon because people were still kind of down on the ending of Lost.

[00:15:55] You know, famously, there were 20 million people who loved Lost and then it ended and there were like 10 million people who hated it.

[00:16:02] And so I, I thankfully was not one of those people.

[00:16:05] I actually was that, but there was this window from like 2010 to almost 2020 where like, if you were talking about Lost, it was, you know, I think Bobby Moynihan says in the doc, oh, like, oh, you like that dumb show.

[00:16:18] And then you'd have to get in an argument about whether or not they were dead the whole time.

[00:16:23] So it felt too soon.

[00:16:25] But then, you know, I've sort of my stock and trade is nostalgia.

[00:16:30] I do these documentaries about the nineties because I refuse to live in the present time.

[00:16:36] And I know that nostalgia comes in these 20 year waves and we knew the 20 year anniversary of Lost premiering was coming up 2024.

[00:16:44] And so three years ago I was on a podcast, much like I am right now with my friend Ralph, who used to have a Lost podcast called the Darmalars.

[00:16:56] And then later had one with Jorge Garcia about Kaiju, like a Godzilla podcast for a few years.

[00:17:03] So I had kept up with that.

[00:17:04] And during the pandemic, he put out a Facebook thing, like who wants to come on my podcast last minute and talk about whatever.

[00:17:10] And we talked about VHS tapes and blockbuster video and all that.

[00:17:14] And at the end of it, I was like, you know, would you be interested at all in helping me make a documentary about Lost?

[00:17:22] And he was like, no.

[00:17:25] And then, you know, I did some follow up, did some emails.

[00:17:29] And because he had never done a documentary, but he produced a ton of podcasts.

[00:17:33] And I had to sort of convince him that it's kind of the same skill set.

[00:17:37] Like we're booking interviews, right?

[00:17:39] We're combining stories.

[00:17:41] We're gathering stories.

[00:17:44] And trust me, I can put it together and make the thing.

[00:17:47] You just have to help me gather the stories.

[00:17:49] And so then once he was on, this was a little over three years ago now, we just started planning.

[00:17:56] And we made spreadsheets of, you know, topics because we were both, he had podcasted about Lost for almost the entire run.

[00:18:05] And we're in this fan community.

[00:18:07] We knew, you know, who the players were who were like still active in the fan community, which isn't that many, but it's more than you'd think for a 20-year-old TV show.

[00:18:17] You know, it's kind of like Star Trek in that way.

[00:18:19] There are just people who will not let go of this island.

[00:18:23] Yeah.

[00:18:24] And so we just started making lists.

[00:18:26] Like, wouldn't it be great?

[00:18:28] Oh, let's just do a pie in the sky.

[00:18:29] It would be great if we could interview J.J. Abrams about Lost.

[00:18:33] Well, like, well, do you know J.J.?

[00:18:35] No.

[00:18:35] Do you know J.J.?

[00:18:36] No.

[00:18:36] Well, how are we going to do that?

[00:18:38] Because we're just indie film, you know, people.

[00:18:43] But Ralph was friends with Jorge.

[00:18:46] And he also played in a weekly Fireball Island game with Michael Giacchino, who was a composer of Lost.

[00:18:53] And went on to be maybe the greatest.

[00:18:56] Oh, he's huge now.

[00:18:58] Yeah.

[00:18:58] Oh, yeah.

[00:18:59] And he's very well connected.

[00:19:01] And so we thought, okay, we could start there.

[00:19:03] We know these guys.

[00:19:06] And we asked if they would be in a documentary.

[00:19:08] And they're like, maybe.

[00:19:11] You know, they had to think about it because it's like, who are we and what are we doing?

[00:19:13] And you have to kind of prove yourself that, no, no, no.

[00:19:16] We're fans.

[00:19:17] We love this thing.

[00:19:19] We want to make, you know, this 20-year retrospective.

[00:19:22] And at first we were like, well, surely ABC is going to do something.

[00:19:25] And we'll just be the fan one.

[00:19:27] And there'll be an official reunion show or something like Friends just did.

[00:19:32] Or like, you know, any of these big shows that does like a reunion 20 years later.

[00:19:39] And so we thought, well, we'll just do something.

[00:19:41] And it'll be about the fans.

[00:19:42] And we know, you know, we're friends with Jay and Jack and all these podcasters from back in the day and bloggers.

[00:19:49] And we can make the fan perspective documentary about Lost.

[00:19:53] And so we started doing that.

[00:19:54] And we started reaching out to people.

[00:19:56] And what ended up happening was we reached out to that full spreadsheet of people we thought, wouldn't it be great?

[00:20:05] Wouldn't it be great if we could get in touch with Terry O'Quinn or Josh Holloway or Evangeline Lilly?

[00:20:10] Oh, my goodness.

[00:20:11] Wouldn't that be amazing?

[00:20:12] So we wrote them all down.

[00:20:13] And we started reaching out.

[00:20:15] And we started getting a lot of no's.

[00:20:16] Like, no, thank you.

[00:20:17] I don't want to, you know.

[00:20:19] And you reach out through agents and managers.

[00:20:20] And sometimes you just never hear back, right?

[00:20:23] It's not a no, but it's nothing.

[00:20:26] And so we just kept going and kept going.

[00:20:29] And word started to get out behind the scenes.

[00:20:32] There's like text threads between some of the cast still.

[00:20:35] And they start talking about, are you going to be in this documentary?

[00:20:38] Are you going to be in this documentary?

[00:20:39] Should we just all be in this documentary?

[00:20:43] And so it's a lot of just persistence and not really taking no for an answer and just doing it for three years.

[00:20:54] And I would keep going down to L.A. and be like, all right, we booked, you know, Emily DeRaven is in town for a Comic-Con because she lives in Australia.

[00:21:01] And we can't afford to fly to Australia.

[00:21:03] So we've got to get down there.

[00:21:05] And stuff like that would just keep happening.

[00:21:09] And it spiraled and it became, you know, I think sort of this, not the official 20-year retrospective documentary, but it's pretty damn close.

[00:21:19] And it's the only thing that people did, really.

[00:21:22] Yeah.

[00:21:22] I mean, I would count this as like the, in my opinion, after watching this, like to me, this is the official documentary of Lost 20 years later.

[00:21:30] Especially when you look at, you know, you're talking about all the different star power that you, you know, you contacted to get into it.

[00:21:36] The star power that you have every time a new face would pop up and be like, oh, that's great.

[00:21:40] That's great.

[00:21:41] Like this part, like Greg Grunberg is in here.

[00:21:43] Evangeline Lilley's in.

[00:21:44] Like Jorge was great.

[00:21:46] Bobby Moynihan is fantastic in this documentary.

[00:21:48] He's so much fun.

[00:21:50] And one of the faces that popped up in the documentary that I was not surprised, but incredibly happy because he's been on my podcast a couple times.

[00:21:58] And I know for a fact, because he's told me he doesn't do podcasts or this kind of thing very often was MC Ganey.

[00:22:07] Yeah.

[00:22:08] You had MC on and I was so happy to see him on because I had reached out to him to, because I'm just a fan of him as a character actor.

[00:22:17] Lost aside, like everything he's done from Con Air and all this other great stuff.

[00:22:23] And I reached out through his publicist and I got an email back from him and he's like, I don't do podcasts, but I'm friends with some of the people that you've had on your podcast.

[00:22:33] So I will happen.

[00:22:35] I listened to a couple episodes and I'll happily do it.

[00:22:38] He came on, we talked about other stuff.

[00:22:40] And then I mentioned that we were covering Lost at that time.

[00:22:43] And he's like, well, do you want to talk Lost?

[00:22:45] I'm like, are you willing to come on that podcast?

[00:22:47] He's like, you just tell me when and I'll come on and we'll just talk Lost for like an hour.

[00:22:51] And he did.

[00:22:52] And he was great.

[00:22:53] So I was very happy to see MC pop up in the literature as well.

[00:22:58] MC Ganey.

[00:22:58] And that was one of those ones where we had tried reaching out through a publicist or through whoever's listed when you look people up.

[00:23:07] And got no response, got no response.

[00:23:09] And then we had done an interview with Fred Lane, who plays the air marshal in the pilot and was also in the Con Air that he's in with MC Ganey.

[00:23:23] He didn't have any scenes together in Lost, but he's like, oh, I know MC Ganey from some other, you know, another movie.

[00:23:30] Do you want me to call him?

[00:23:32] And then, you know, calls him right in front of us.

[00:23:34] And like, that's how we end up getting in touch with people.

[00:23:38] Yeah.

[00:23:38] Like there's a phone call in the documentary that I won't spoil, but it's pretty cool and pretty iconic.

[00:23:46] And when that happened on camera, like that was real.

[00:23:50] That's how we got in touch with that person.

[00:23:53] Oh, I know.

[00:23:54] Yep.

[00:23:54] I know.

[00:23:55] I know what you're talking about.

[00:23:56] Yep.

[00:23:56] I know what you're talking about.

[00:23:57] So MC Ganey, it's like, you know, I don't have his email address, but I have his phone number.

[00:24:03] Like it was that kind of thing.

[00:24:06] Yeah.

[00:24:06] And he's such a, I don't know.

[00:24:08] He's a cool guy.

[00:24:09] Yeah.

[00:24:10] He's a cool guy.

[00:24:10] He's a very, I'm trying to think of the word for it.

[00:24:16] Like he, he's, he doesn't live very much in the public eye.

[00:24:18] Like he, where he lives, he, him and his wife just go to farmer's markets and they live like a barefoot lifestyle.

[00:24:26] And yeah, but he's, so he's very, very matter of fact, no bullshit.

[00:24:31] Like he'll just tell you how it is.

[00:24:33] How it really is.

[00:24:34] Not, not, and not to divert from anything else too, but I'll, I'll share a little, just a personal story about MC because of where I live in Philadelphia.

[00:24:41] We had, there was a time a couple of years back where there were some riots in the city and I hadn't spoken like, and we had already done both interviews for both podcasts, like two months prior.

[00:24:54] And just to show you like how great of a guy he was when those riots started happening, I got a random text message.

[00:25:01] Just saying like, Hey brother, I know you're in Philadelphia.

[00:25:04] Just making sure you're all right.

[00:25:05] I see in what's going on.

[00:25:07] Just making sure you're okay.

[00:25:08] And I'm like, great.

[00:25:09] That's like class right there.

[00:25:10] Like you can't, you can't beat that.

[00:25:12] But going back to like the star power, like I was so surprised, not because I, I didn't think it was, it was impossible, but seeing Michael Emerson, Terry O'Quinn, like all Elizabeth Mitchell, like all these amazing characters.

[00:25:27] Being part of this documentary and sharing their stories and not just the stars, but JJ Abrams, Michael Giacchino, like the number of people that you have in this documentary is staggering, but it's like in the most wonderful way.

[00:25:41] It's too many.

[00:25:42] Let's be honest.

[00:25:43] It's too many.

[00:25:44] We didn't set, like I said, we didn't set out to do that, but at a certain point, you're just like, we gotta, we gotta keep going.

[00:25:53] Yeah.

[00:25:54] We gotta keep trying.

[00:25:55] And we, we did, and we were shooting, uh, we premiered this in LA on September 22nd, which was the 20th anniversary of the actual premiere date and the crash of oceanic flight 815.

[00:26:08] Um, and we shot our last interview was with JJ Abrams, uh, not cause he was late to say yes, but because scheduling with him is as you can imagine impossible.

[00:26:21] Yeah.

[00:26:21] And rescheduling is a constant thing worse.

[00:26:24] And so that ended up happening in like mid August, uh, with the premiere date locked and the movie mostly cut.

[00:26:32] And we're like, okay, I guess I have three weeks to recut the movie and, and finish it.

[00:26:38] And we, the version that played in that theater, which is pretty much what you saw the finished thing.

[00:26:45] I think we exported that 12, maybe 16 hours before it played in the theater.

[00:26:50] It was like skin of our teeth.

[00:26:52] We had a backup version that had less JJ Abrams in it that we could have played.

[00:26:56] It wasn't going to be a disaster, but it's, you know, and that's the sort of thing of like, yes, there are too many.

[00:27:02] We shot, I should know this number, but it's like 90 interviews or something like that.

[00:27:07] Uh, and some of them aren't in the movie, but there are a lot.

[00:27:14] And to your point about seeing people pop up on screen started doing the edit.

[00:27:21] And we started to do that on purpose in a way that it's like watching lost, right?

[00:27:27] In season one, there's these 13 characters that you fall in love with.

[00:27:31] You don't know anything about any of these other people.

[00:27:33] And then at the end of season one, you meet, you know, MC Ganey, right?

[00:27:38] And all of a sudden there's more people and it just keeps happening.

[00:27:41] And then season four, they're like, there's a whole freighter full of people and there's a helicopter.

[00:27:44] And then there's this, and then there's these other others.

[00:27:47] And then there's these other others.

[00:27:50] And so I like to think of it as, yes, there are a lot of people in the documentary, but if you look at the IMDB for lost, we didn't even have 10%.

[00:27:59] No.

[00:27:59] The people who actually worked on the show.

[00:28:02] So it is a parallel in a fun way of like, oh, who are we going to see next?

[00:28:07] And that was fun for us too.

[00:28:09] Because like I said, we would get a random message from somebody that's like, hi, I'm, you know, so-and-so's agent.

[00:28:16] They heard about your documentary.

[00:28:19] How do we set up this interview?

[00:28:20] And I'm like, well, they weren't even on our radar.

[00:28:22] That's wild.

[00:28:23] Yeah.

[00:28:24] Yeah.

[00:28:25] It's, I mean, and there are, you know, we talk about as many people that are part of it.

[00:28:30] There are a couple people that are not a part of the documentary.

[00:28:33] And I'm sure it was by no stretch of you trying to get these people.

[00:28:38] And there's actually, I, any, when people see the documentary, I encourage you, because there is a little bit of a funny post-credit scene about that.

[00:28:46] That I thought was a lot of fun of somebody who's not part of the documentary.

[00:28:51] Was there anybody, this is kind of like a two-part question.

[00:28:54] Was there anybody that you were just really disappointed you couldn't get to be a part of it?

[00:28:59] I've realized that's, that's kind of a spoiler because people will know they're not in the documentary.

[00:29:03] I mean, it's all Google-able.

[00:29:05] Like the poster of the movie lists who's in it and the IMDb is available.

[00:29:11] If they're not in the trailer, they're probably not in, you know.

[00:29:14] Yeah.

[00:29:14] It's all publicly available.

[00:29:16] So you don't have to beat around the bush.

[00:29:18] Matthew Fox is not in our documentary.

[00:29:20] Yeah.

[00:29:21] And it's not from a lack of trying.

[00:29:22] And it's, I wouldn't say I was disappointed.

[00:29:26] I've met Matthew Fox.

[00:29:28] I've watched interviews with Matthew Fox.

[00:29:29] I don't, you know, I could go either way.

[00:29:33] Right.

[00:29:33] But I thought for sure when we started this, he doesn't anymore, but he lived in Bend, Oregon, where I also lived.

[00:29:42] I had run into him around town many times.

[00:29:46] Everybody, I knew 50 people that know him, 10 people that have his phone number.

[00:29:52] I got in touch with his next door neighbor.

[00:29:54] We put a thing in the local newspaper that was like, there's a documentary coming about Lost.

[00:30:02] If Matthew Fox is reading this, he should probably be in the movie.

[00:30:06] Like we tried really hard.

[00:30:08] Yeah.

[00:30:09] And we never got a reason or anything back from his team.

[00:30:15] And we never heard from him.

[00:30:17] And that's just, that's just how it goes, you know, and it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

[00:30:25] Had we not somehow magically been able to get everyone else from the show.

[00:30:30] Like when we started this, it's like, oh, we're going to have a couple people from the cast and a couple of writers and some fans.

[00:30:35] And that's the movie.

[00:30:37] And then when you have like 12 of the 14 main characters, people are really eyeballing the other missing people.

[00:30:44] And like, well, you know, why, why, you know, you have all these people and not the ones that are missing.

[00:30:53] And it's like, sorry, sorry, we did too good a job.

[00:30:58] Yeah.

[00:30:59] But now you're focusing on what we weren't able to do.

[00:31:02] But again, we're indie filmmakers.

[00:31:03] We didn't have a budget really.

[00:31:05] So it's not like we're offering people money.

[00:31:08] The people who are in the movie are there because they wanted to be in the movie because they still love talking about Lost.

[00:31:14] And they love the fans.

[00:31:15] And they recognize that we were fans.

[00:31:18] And so I like to think of it as like, oh, the people who you see in the movie are the people who wanted to be in the movie.

[00:31:25] We're not twisting anybody's arm.

[00:31:27] There's nobody.

[00:31:28] We have no power.

[00:31:29] We're not threatening anything.

[00:31:31] We're just like, if you want to do this, great.

[00:31:34] And if not, also great.

[00:31:37] But like I said, it came out weird because we ended up with so many people that it is very obvious.

[00:31:43] Like there are a few main cast people who, for different reasons, didn't want to be in a documentary about Lost.

[00:31:51] And that's fine.

[00:31:53] I don't want to be in a documentary about anything.

[00:31:56] So I get it.

[00:31:58] Yeah, because, you know, when I was watching, as I've been following the production of everything happening, you know, following the Facebook page, you were posting any time there were new interviews or new people were joining.

[00:32:10] Even though I'm sure those interviews were already recorded.

[00:32:13] But this was probably as you were editing, you were posting that these people were going to be a part of it.

[00:32:18] And one of the ones that popped up, and I only know this from experience with myself, is because I've tried having him.

[00:32:24] I've reached out to his people when we were covering Lost to get him, if you'd be willing to come on.

[00:32:29] One of the people we reached out to was Michael Emerson, who I just adore.

[00:32:33] And his agent was like, yeah, he would absolutely love to come on because he loves talking about Lost.

[00:32:37] And we just couldn't make it work.

[00:32:39] But Terry O'Quinn was another one that we had reached out to.

[00:32:43] And the response we got was, well, Terry would be willing to come on a podcast, but he doesn't really want to talk about Lost.

[00:32:49] Like, he just wants to talk about current projects and everything else.

[00:32:53] And we were like, well, that's fine.

[00:32:54] That's perfectly acceptable.

[00:32:55] We'll reach out at another time when we have something else we're going to, we want to discuss.

[00:33:00] And then I saw in the trailer that he was part of yours.

[00:33:03] And I'm like, well, shit, these guys must have some clout because they got Terry to talk about Lost when nobody else can do it.

[00:33:10] I think for Terry, the vibe I got, and I've spent, you know, one day with the man talking about Lost, but very kind.

[00:33:22] And, you know, just a wonderful, wonderful guy.

[00:33:27] A little bit intimidating when you first, you know, walk up and he opens the door and says, hi, I'm Terry.

[00:33:33] And you're like, that's John Locke and you're scaring me.

[00:33:35] You know, you still got that smoke monster vibe.

[00:33:39] Spoiler alert.

[00:33:40] You're just missing the scar on your face for this to be complete.

[00:33:43] Exactly.

[00:33:45] But we talked about that.

[00:33:47] Like, while we're setting up equipment, he's like, you know, I don't really do interviews about Lost.

[00:33:54] And I think he was one of the later ones.

[00:33:56] So we, what we did is we would edit a sizzle reel, like a 10 minute thing of the movie.

[00:34:02] And we would keep adding people, you know, we shoot the Josh Holloway interview and put Josh in the sizzle.

[00:34:07] And we shoot with Damon Lindelof and put him in the sizzle.

[00:34:11] So you'd know, like, okay, it's looking legit.

[00:34:14] And it looks kind of like a movie.

[00:34:16] And it sounds like a documentary.

[00:34:18] And it's, you know, it is what it is.

[00:34:21] And so we would send that out to people.

[00:34:23] And I think with Terry, it was like he could see that it was going to be the 20 year celebration of the show.

[00:34:31] It wasn't just like a podcast or an interview or we want to soundbite for this magazine.

[00:34:37] It was like, no, we are going to really celebrate the legacy of the show.

[00:34:42] And it's kind of a one time only thing.

[00:34:46] So we did have that going for us.

[00:34:48] I think at a certain point, people recognized.

[00:34:52] I don't want to say like this documentary was a big deal, but like in the fan community, this documentary was a big deal.

[00:34:59] There was some legitimacy behind everything that, yeah.

[00:35:03] Which kind of leads me to one of the other thank yous that I had for you for this conversation.

[00:35:09] You know, we talk about the star power, obviously, which is a huge part of it.

[00:35:13] And getting their behind the scenes aspects and talking about their sharing their stories too.

[00:35:18] But one of the things I want to thank you for when it comes to this documentary is the inclusion of the fans.

[00:35:23] Because the fans are such a huge part of this documentary.

[00:35:27] And, you know, you do deep dives in exploring what this show meant to the fans.

[00:35:32] How this show changed lives of so many of the fans.

[00:35:36] From people meeting and marrying each other to just incorporating such a community with each other.

[00:35:42] And one of the, and part of the whole fan incorporation that you do is including podcasters like myself and so many other people.

[00:35:50] So, that was just such a great addition watching this documentary.

[00:35:57] I mean, I know I was late to the game when it came to podcasting.

[00:36:00] You know, there was already hundreds of podcasts about Lost by this point.

[00:36:05] But it was still exciting to be a part of it because there were still people listening.

[00:36:09] There were still people discovering new things about the show.

[00:36:12] As we were progressing through and learning new things ourselves about the show.

[00:36:16] So, it's such a huge element that I loved about this documentary was incorporating the fans, their stories, and like podcasters included about that.

[00:36:27] Well, thank you.

[00:36:28] That means a lot to me because that's something I had to sort of, I don't want to say fight for.

[00:36:33] But like, you know, the movies, it's long and there's a lot in it.

[00:36:38] And not everybody, you know, cares about that aspect.

[00:36:44] But the people who were there watching it, listening to podcasts.

[00:36:50] Like for me, I didn't know what a podcast was.

[00:36:53] And then Lost comes out and I'm reading on the message boards and they're like, you can listen to somebody talk about this show for two hours.

[00:37:01] And they're going to, you know, like I'm not a big literary person.

[00:37:05] So, when a book would show up in the thing, I'm not going to go read that book.

[00:37:10] But I will listen to a podcast where somebody who did read the book explains the similarities, right?

[00:37:15] That's sort of my thing.

[00:37:18] And podcasts, like for the first year, I just thought that's what podcast meant.

[00:37:22] It's people talking about Lost on the internet, right?

[00:37:26] That's what a podcast is.

[00:37:28] Because no one was listening to podcasts in 2004, 2005.

[00:37:32] Like there weren't a lot.

[00:37:34] And we touch on that in the documentary.

[00:37:35] There was a moment, you know, where many of the top 50 podcasts at all were about Lost.

[00:37:42] You know, and some of them were like way above podcasts that are still going now.

[00:37:48] They're like big, you know, corporate giant podcasts.

[00:37:51] And it would just be like a husband and wife in their garage with an iPhone.

[00:37:56] Like people didn't even have good microphones back then because no one knew.

[00:38:00] But to me, that's part of it.

[00:38:04] Because that's how I experienced Lost.

[00:38:06] And I sneakily like to make these documentaries a little bit autobiographical.

[00:38:11] Because I made it so I get to put whatever I want in there.

[00:38:15] But the podcast element for me was like such a big and a life-changing thing.

[00:38:21] Because now I listen to so many podcasts.

[00:38:24] And I go on podcasts.

[00:38:25] And we talk about Lost.

[00:38:27] It's still a big part of my life.

[00:38:30] Podcasts about Lost.

[00:38:31] So I think that aspect was something three years ago when we didn't know if we were going to have any cast or, you know, Damon or Carlton or JJ or anybody.

[00:38:43] We're just like, well, Jorge had a podcast.

[00:38:46] So we'll talk about podcasts.

[00:38:48] And that was always part of the outline of the documentary.

[00:38:52] And it got smaller and smaller.

[00:38:53] There's actually a 30-minute deleted scene that will be on the digital and the Blu-ray release that's just my first cut of the podcast segment.

[00:39:03] Before all the producers and everybody were like, you got to – that's too much.

[00:39:07] We can't just spend a half an hour like diving into how they made the official Lost podcast and how all these things worked.

[00:39:15] I'm like, yeah, you're probably right.

[00:39:17] But it's neat for me.

[00:39:18] So it's on the DVD.

[00:39:22] Because the fan aspect is, I think, the main part of the story that we're telling that has never been told.

[00:39:32] Because a lot of these stories we've heard – I mean, the behind-the-scenes stuff and the actors telling what their experience was.

[00:39:40] Some of it's new because it's 20 years later, so they have a different perspective.

[00:39:44] But there's stories in there that I've heard before because I watched all the DVD extras and I listened to all the podcasts.

[00:39:50] And I know a lot about Lost.

[00:39:52] It's one of the most documented shows of all time.

[00:39:56] So it was always important to have something new, something that's never been in a documentary or in a DVD extra.

[00:40:03] And that's the way the show impacted people and the lasting legacy and how it really impacted people's lives.

[00:40:12] So that was always going to be a part of the documentary.

[00:40:15] And it is the thing, I think, that means the most to me because it's personal.

[00:40:22] Like, these are people I've known for 20 years.

[00:40:24] And putting their stories out there in a way that's like, this is how TV can be more than just a show.

[00:40:33] Like, it can be – for a lot of us, it's like we had this shared experience, like this trauma of watching this show together.

[00:40:41] Like, you and I have this in common.

[00:40:43] We just met, you know, a half hour ago.

[00:40:47] But I know, like, we have a shared experience.

[00:40:50] There's a common connection now because of this, yeah.

[00:40:52] We have memories.

[00:40:54] Yours will be slightly different than mine.

[00:40:56] But, like, I can talk about Juliet hitting that bomb with that rock.

[00:41:01] And you and I are going to feel the same, like, rush of emotion because we lived through it.

[00:41:07] It's like if we were at some event that happened in real life.

[00:41:11] You know, if we were both at the same concert or the same sporting event and the big team won the most touchdown points or whatever.

[00:41:18] You know, that feeling from a TV show is like that's the connection that I wanted to tell the story of.

[00:41:28] And I think it's so cool because now I get to meet people like you and, you know, more and more people I hear from who are like, yes, this did matter.

[00:41:37] And, yes, and we all lived through this thing together.

[00:41:41] And then when the show ended and a lot of people wanted to make fun of it and drag the finale through the mud, those of us who defended it lived through that.

[00:41:52] That trauma, you know, of spending years being like, no, no, no, you don't understand.

[00:41:56] It's actually good and here's why.

[00:41:58] And then finding the people who just didn't get it and being like, well, I guess I give up on you.

[00:42:02] We're not talking about this anymore.

[00:42:04] We had a number of listeners to our podcast that were in that boat.

[00:42:08] They did.

[00:42:08] They were not crazy about the finale.

[00:42:10] They loved the show.

[00:42:11] But up until a certain point, we're not crazy about the finale.

[00:42:13] And we kept telling people from like early on in the podcast, like stick with us.

[00:42:19] Wait till we get to the finale, because when we get there, we will explain this to you why this worked and you will have all this backing behind it.

[00:42:30] And when it was over, we told people like, reach out, let us know.

[00:42:34] Did we change your mind?

[00:42:36] And we had quite a few people be like, you know what?

[00:42:38] I'm sold.

[00:42:39] Like I I'm convinced it was a great finale because we we explained it like we we set people up.

[00:42:47] But you talk about like these shared things when you talk about Juliet hitting the bomb.

[00:42:51] Like when you said that, like I immediately put my head down because I remember my emotion during all of that.

[00:42:58] And it instantly brought up other like not Penny's boat is another one.

[00:43:03] And we have to go back.

[00:43:05] We have to go back.

[00:43:06] But there's another moment that I remember being so intense and so frustrating at the same time.

[00:43:11] And that is Ben lying on the table.

[00:43:15] Jack doing the operation on the radio telling Kate to go.

[00:43:19] The episode ends with Jack yelling, damn it, Kate, run.

[00:43:23] Damn it, Kate, run.

[00:43:24] Fade to black.

[00:43:25] I got chills.

[00:43:25] And then we had to wait four months because they were going on strike and we had to wait for the show to return.

[00:43:32] Yeah.

[00:43:33] Yeah.

[00:43:34] And we missed out.

[00:43:35] I think we lost two episodes of lost to that writer's strike.

[00:43:38] Yeah.

[00:43:39] And they ended up putting all the freighter people into one episode instead of each of them getting their own.

[00:43:45] That's why we don't have a Charlotte episode or a Miles episode.

[00:43:49] They had to share.

[00:43:50] Yeah.

[00:43:51] But I mean, it's rough times.

[00:43:54] It was.

[00:43:54] It was.

[00:43:55] I'm going to stick with that.

[00:43:56] That was rough for us.

[00:43:57] Oh, no, no.

[00:43:58] I wasn't kidding.

[00:43:59] Like the waiting.

[00:44:01] The strike was one thing.

[00:44:02] And then they would also have midseason breaks sometimes.

[00:44:05] Yeah.

[00:44:05] Like you do.

[00:44:06] Because, you know, for the first three seasons, they're making 22, 23 hours of television per year.

[00:44:15] They're at the scale.

[00:44:16] They're shooting on film.

[00:44:18] They're on location.

[00:44:19] They're making, you know, what looks better than movies that are being made now that are playing in theaters every week.

[00:44:27] And so, I mean, we're lucky we got as much as we did as fast as we did.

[00:44:32] And I think it really kind of wreaked havoc on people like Damon and Jack Bender and these people who are actually doing the job.

[00:44:44] But those pause, those breaks, like not knowing what was in the hatch for months, not knowing what happened when Julia had hit the bomb.

[00:44:53] We have to go back and then wait.

[00:44:55] What does that mean?

[00:44:56] And now wait several months before they even address what a flash forward is.

[00:45:02] Things like that.

[00:45:04] Ugh.

[00:45:05] Yeah.

[00:45:05] You had to be there.

[00:45:06] Like I hate to be like the old person yelling at the clouds.

[00:45:09] Like people who stream it now, it's still a great show, but you don't get it.

[00:45:15] Yeah.

[00:45:16] You're never going to feel those feelings of like a season premiere was so much better than it is if you stream it now because you had months of anticipation.

[00:45:25] And all of it filled up of like, what's going to happen?

[00:45:28] And then the premieres and finales were always these giant, you know, multi-part, huge episodes that were like pulling out all the stops to be these great episodes.

[00:45:37] And they're just like now you stream it and it's just like the next episode.

[00:45:42] It's one of those things.

[00:45:44] Like when it comes to movies and television, there's at the top of my list, there's a TV show and there's a movie that if I could just scrub them from my brain to experience them again for the first time, lost is it for television.

[00:45:55] If I could just scrub it and relive all of that, even through the frustration of it all, I would still just want to go back and re-experience those feelings and those emotions and everything for the first time.

[00:46:09] Movies wise, it's seeing Avengers Endgame in the theater because that was just such a huge thing that brought me back to childhood, seeing different elements of that.

[00:46:20] But yeah, lost is one of those things that if I could scrub from my brain just to re-experience, I would.

[00:46:25] So both of your things are Evangeline Lilly vehicles.

[00:46:28] I like that.

[00:46:29] Oh, that's true.

[00:46:30] I didn't even think about that.

[00:46:31] And what's funny is I actually met Evangeline at our show at Rhode Island Comic-Con last year.

[00:46:36] She was there and it was during the actor strike.

[00:46:39] So they couldn't talk about anything, but she just wanted to talk about her children's book anyway that she had just put out.

[00:46:45] So it worked out perfectly.

[00:46:46] And she was incredibly nice and such too.

[00:46:49] But, you know, we talk about like all this different emotion that the show brings up.

[00:46:53] I want to put it out there that your documentary does the same exact thing.

[00:46:56] You know, when you're talking to the cast and crew in the beginning, there's a lot of humor.

[00:47:00] We mentioned Bobby Moynihan being a part of it, who adds a lot of the humor.

[00:47:04] Jorge has a lot of it when he looks at the camera and such like he's just absolutely great.

[00:47:10] But when you talk, when you go into talking about the fan stuff and the connections that they made, there's a lot of emotion to the point where I started getting choked up a number of times because of some of the stories that are being told.

[00:47:23] And then that kind of leads me to the to the last thank you I have, too, is that there is a portion of this documentary.

[00:47:30] And I won't go into too much detail where you pull no punches and you address something that kind of needed to be addressed and hearing it from the people involved.

[00:47:43] Like if you look at like, for example, like the Vince McMahon documentary that just came out on Netflix, like he backed out and didn't do any interviews when all of that stuff came up.

[00:47:52] Yeah, you address it and you address it to those people and hearing those responses from those people was shocking, but also kind of reassuring at the same time.

[00:48:04] Like it helped rebuild some faith in the in fandom that I had because of taking responsibility.

[00:48:11] Yeah, well, thank you that that was one of the toughest things for your listeners that may not be familiar.

[00:48:19] There was a sort of a bombshell Vanity Fair article that came out a year and a half ago while we were making this movie.

[00:48:26] So like I said, we started out making one movie and we ended up making a whole different thing.

[00:48:33] And that article addressed some of these pretty toxic and horrible things that were going on behind the scenes of Lost in the writer's room interpersonally between writers and showrunners and and some cast as well.

[00:48:51] And it's in this book called Burn It Down by Mo Ryan.

[00:48:54] It's a great book.

[00:48:56] It's a tough read because Lost is just one chapter and it's just like every show you loved from the early 2000s had not all similar things, but just pretty awful stuff.

[00:49:10] And it all kind of stems from people in power, you know, going unchecked in the Hollywood, especially television system where they're just people put in charge of things who often have never been in charge of anything.

[00:49:23] They're just like a good writer.

[00:49:25] Like, well, now you run a for all intents and purposes, billion dollar company.

[00:49:30] Good luck.

[00:49:31] You're also a CEO.

[00:49:33] Oh, you're good at art.

[00:49:34] Can you also run a Fortune 500 company?

[00:49:38] Turns out not so well.

[00:49:39] Those skill sets tend not to be complimentary.

[00:49:45] And so that came out and we spent a long time honestly thinking we're just going to scrap the whole project because it felt disingenuous not to address it.

[00:50:01] But also that's not what we want to do.

[00:50:04] I'm the fun popcorn blockbuster video guy.

[00:50:07] I'm not the hard hitting, you know, sexism, racism documentary guy.

[00:50:12] That's not me.

[00:50:15] But in talking with the other fans and the people who were really affected by it, we're talking to people who have tattoos of the show all over their body.

[00:50:25] And they're like, what do I do?

[00:50:29] Like, what do I do with this information?

[00:50:30] How do I process this?

[00:50:31] And the fans, we sort of came together and we talked through it and we worked through it.

[00:50:37] And we talked to some of the people involved on both sides.

[00:50:43] And we sort of came to this conclusion of like, it's a disservice to the people who were wronged or who weren't a part of the problem to write off their work.

[00:50:56] You know, you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[00:50:58] And so it became very important to handle that sincerely and to address it with the people who were named in this article and this book in a way that was, you know, we're not trying to give anybody a pass.

[00:51:20] But also, we were very clear with certain interviewees that it's like, if you're not going to address, if you're not going to talk about this one topic, we can't talk about any topics.

[00:51:29] You know, like we're, it's not, it's not our job to keep putting people up on a pedestal or, you know, glorifying things.

[00:51:42] You know, if we're not going to address the elephant in the room, then I guess we're just not going to do it.

[00:51:46] So I felt fortunate that it worked out the way it did.

[00:51:52] There's certainly people we reached out to after that book came out that did not want to be in a documentary and did not want to talk about it.

[00:51:58] And I fully understand that.

[00:51:59] Like I said, I don't want to be in a documentary at all, especially something that's, you know, an unpleasant portion of your past or your story.

[00:52:09] So it was tough.

[00:52:12] Like, that's not the kind of movie I wanted to make.

[00:52:15] But again, you can't, it's really irresponsible to ignore that kind of thing.

[00:52:20] Like imagine, you know, I just can't imagine making a documentary about Lost, reading that and just being like, well, that doesn't matter.

[00:52:30] Yeah.

[00:52:31] It doesn't make a lot of sense to push it to the side because it's doing like, like you said, it does a disservice to the fans who have been so loyal to, to the show.

[00:52:39] So it does a disservice to the people who, who were involved directly.

[00:52:44] So, so, so yeah.

[00:52:45] So like, I appreciate the fact that it was brought up during the documentary.

[00:52:48] It's not like, it's not like half the documentary is this lighthearted thing.

[00:52:53] And then the other half is just like this dark, you know, miserable piece.

[00:52:57] Like you, you handle it incredibly well.

[00:52:59] It, you know, you spend the proper amount of time discussing it.

[00:53:04] And it's kind of, again, like kind of maybe reassuring or at least restorative to hear it from the people who were called out and who were directly involved in it.

[00:53:16] Like that, that they're actually addressing it.

[00:53:20] And that made me, that reassured me a little bit more too, as a fan.

[00:53:23] Cause I was, I was familiar with, with all of that, you know, when that came out as well.

[00:53:28] So, so yeah.

[00:53:29] So I, I appreciate the fact that, that it's, that it's addressed in the documentary.

[00:53:34] So, um, I know we're, we're running close to, to about our amount of time, but, um, before we wrap things up, what has been, you've been screening the documentary now, um, for a couple of different times.

[00:53:46] I know you have some other stuff.

[00:53:48] You have a live, uh, screening that's going to be coming up as well with the Q and a that I know Jorge Garcia was just added to be a part of as well.

[00:53:56] What has been the overall reaction so far from the fans who have had the opportunity to see the documentary?

[00:54:02] It's been really positive people, you know, like you said, they go through a range of emotions.

[00:54:10] I've, I've been fortunate enough to see it in theaters a few times and people laugh and people cry.

[00:54:16] And there's something very, um, very special about bringing people together to watch a thing.

[00:54:26] That's about how a thing brought people together.

[00:54:28] You know, it's like meta, you know, it's, it's not unlike the finale of lost when you gather people in that church, you know, spoiler alert.

[00:54:37] I who's listening to this that doesn't know how lost ends.

[00:54:40] That's crazy.

[00:54:40] Um, but you know what I mean?

[00:54:43] Like the feeling when we had our, our world premiere in Los Angeles, uh, the theater, I think it holds 450 people.

[00:54:52] It, it sold out right away.

[00:54:54] We had, you know, a lot of the cast came, we had fish biscuit cookies.

[00:55:01] We had the actual polar bear from the pilot in the lobby of that theater.

[00:55:05] Like it's nine feet tall and people were taking pictures with it.

[00:55:08] Uh, we had costumes from season one on display and screen use props everywhere.

[00:55:14] People were dressed up.

[00:55:15] People were celebrating it in a way that like we used to do used to go to comic-con in between lost seasons for that lost panel to find out some little tidbit of what's coming next.

[00:55:27] And there used to be fan meetups and these, these events and people would come together around the show.

[00:55:35] And a lot of those people maybe hadn't seen each other in 15 years since the show ended.

[00:55:40] So my favorite thing about doing the screenings is seeing people either that I had met a long time ago and hadn't seen in 15 years or 18 years, uh, or people seeing each other.

[00:55:53] I mean, we had people come to some of these screenings from all over the world and meet people that they've talked to online for a decade that they've never met in person.

[00:56:03] And so it's sort of this meta thing of, we made a documentary about how a show brought people together.

[00:56:10] And then our documentary brought people together.

[00:56:13] Um, you know, I made a documentary about blockbuster video, almost closing.

[00:56:17] And then because the documentary was so successful, the store is thriving.

[00:56:21] It's still open.

[00:56:22] Yeah.

[00:56:22] Like I, I try to impact the communities that we're documenting, but yeah, it's been really, really great.

[00:56:31] Also the online community people, you know, like we started this, we had like a hundred Instagram followers and 50 people on Facebook and they would talk to each other for the first time in years.

[00:56:44] And we would have these conversations about lost.

[00:56:46] And we would have these conversations about lost that are really fun, but also really personal and human and this connection.

[00:56:52] And now we've got thousands of people in our comments section, you know, some trashing our approach to the documentary.

[00:57:00] Some loving it.

[00:57:01] Most asking where Matthew Fox is, but it's that sort of real life connection that to me was always the heart of the story.

[00:57:12] And the fact that we're able to do that at some of these real life screenings.

[00:57:18] And, and we have this virtual screening coming up on December 7th.

[00:57:22] That is our last, you know, sort of semi theatrical.

[00:57:26] It's through eventive.

[00:57:27] So you watch it on your TV in your living room, but we're really encouraging people to like get your friends over that you used to watch lost with have that reunion, have a watch party because that's the way to experience it.

[00:57:40] And, you know, we'll send out drink recipes and snack recipe and like, let's all do this as a big party.

[00:57:46] And then there's going to be a live live stream Q and a after that.

[00:57:50] We are trying to get the cast all to come on.

[00:57:52] And we, we don't know who's going to be there yet.

[00:57:54] Jorge has said he's available that day.

[00:57:58] I'll give you an official scoop, but Bobby Moynihan is going to be there.

[00:58:01] Nice.

[00:58:02] It's going to be great.

[00:58:03] Yeah.

[00:58:03] Super fun.

[00:58:04] And people will be able to, there'll be a live chat, right?

[00:58:07] So that's another way that we can sort of bring people together before, you know, in a few weeks, we're just going to put it up.

[00:58:15] It'll be up for rent on Amazon.

[00:58:16] It'll be up on Apple and Google and all the places.

[00:58:21] And then it's, it's still fun.

[00:58:22] You can still watch it with your family, find your cousin, your brother, your sister.

[00:58:26] You used to watch lost with and, and have that reunion and that connection.

[00:58:31] It's the best way to experience this.

[00:58:33] I'm not going to discourage anyone from watching it, you know, on a train ride on their phone by themselves.

[00:58:38] That's also good.

[00:58:39] It's a good movie, but getting people together to celebrate this thing.

[00:58:45] That's about getting people together.

[00:58:47] There's like a meta joy to that, that I don't think we could have anticipated making this movie and putting it out.

[00:58:54] And I'm so glad we got to play it in theaters.

[00:58:56] There's this played in like 50 theaters, over a hundred screenings all over the world.

[00:59:01] And we see pictures of people like in Spain, there were hundreds of people and it was like translated into Spanish and they could watch it.

[00:59:09] And they got together and there's people dressed up and in Hawaii and in London and all these cool things.

[00:59:15] I like, we're just indie filmmaker.

[00:59:19] You know, we, we didn't anticipate that that would happen.

[00:59:22] And that's kind of, I think the power of this show and this fandom more so than anything we did.

[00:59:28] It's like people, I think we're dying for an excuse just to get back together and talk about lost again.

[00:59:34] Yeah.

[00:59:34] And it, you know, it, and I love the fact that it's going to be releasing for people to, to rent it or purchase on Amazon and such.

[00:59:41] Um, it's a shame though, that a screening never came to Philadelphia because I know they would have loved it here.

[00:59:48] Cause as I mentioned, you know, the morning show used to talk about it.

[00:59:51] There were people that were calling in every week to be a part of it.

[00:59:54] Philadelphia would have been a great audience.

[00:59:56] And I know that morning show, cause they're still on would have absolutely loved to have been involved with it.

[01:00:00] If you happened to, did bring it here.

[01:00:02] That would have been great.

[01:00:03] We, we tried, it was really hard for the screens.

[01:00:06] We tried to have someone who was involved with the doc, like be there.

[01:00:11] So that's why we were playing in these random cities.

[01:00:14] It seemed random if you looked at our screening list, but it wasn't random.

[01:00:17] It was like, oh no, one of our producers lives there.

[01:00:20] Or one of the cast, you know, the fans who are in the movie lives there and can host a Q and a, or can bring props to the theater.

[01:00:29] It's a shame we never talk sooner.

[01:00:30] Cause I could have hooked you up to here in Philly.

[01:00:33] We could have set it up, but our theatrical window was such, because we really want to get the movie out so that everyone could watch it while it's still the 20th anniversary.

[01:00:43] Yeah.

[01:00:43] Which, you know, we're now it's not quite December.

[01:00:47] So we're a little over a month away from it being the 21st anniversary.

[01:00:52] That's not a special, you know, we're trying to honor the 20th anniversary by getting the movie out this year, which was our goal three years ago.

[01:01:00] So, yeah.

[01:01:01] So for, for people who want to follow along, check it out, you know, see the clips, see what you guys are doing, see about, learn about the virtual screening.

[01:01:12] What's the easiest way for people to go about finding all of the information about the documentary?

[01:01:18] They can go to getting lost doc.com and we're at getting lost doc on all the social media platforms.

[01:01:28] And that's where we're posting info as it come, you know, where it's going to be available when, like, we don't know what date it's coming to Amazon yet.

[01:01:35] So if you follow us, you'll see a post about it and our website, we're keeping up to date.

[01:01:42] We're still playing one more time in theaters.

[01:01:44] If any of your listeners happen to be in Orange County, California, and this happens to come out.

[01:01:51] What day is it?

[01:01:51] Wednesday by Saturday.

[01:01:53] Nevermind.

[01:01:53] Oh, this will be up by Friday.

[01:01:55] So great.

[01:01:56] So Saturday tomorrow, this is playing one last time theatrically in Orange County where our producer Ralph lives.

[01:02:03] And that was just because the first one sold out and the theater was like, can we please do another one?

[01:02:08] Because the theater owner was a huge lost fan and didn't get to see it the first time.

[01:02:13] Like things like that keep happening.

[01:02:15] And we keep meeting random people who are like, oh, I was a huge lost fan.

[01:02:21] And it's, it's not always people you would expect.

[01:02:23] You know, it's all kinds of people, which is really, really amazing.

[01:02:28] Yeah.

[01:02:29] Well, I have a number of friends who are incredibly excited for this documentary.

[01:02:33] Um, they're incredibly jealous about the fact that I got the opportunity to see it before they did.

[01:02:39] And I'm going to continue rubbing that in until they make sure to get tickets to the virtual screening or buy the documentary when it releases.

[01:02:46] Uh, and I'll, by the time that happens, I'll tell them, well, I've already watched it three times.

[01:02:51] So you're behind.

[01:02:53] Um, but, um, before I let you go, any idea on what you want to do next?

[01:02:59] Once you're, once all of this with lost wraps up and getting lost wraps up, do you have any ideas in your head for maybe the next documentary down the line?

[01:03:07] The next bit of nostalgia you're going to tap into?

[01:03:10] Yeah.

[01:03:10] I've got a lot of ideas for documentaries, but I found that if I say them out loud, uh, you won't, you won't do them or you'll end up.

[01:03:17] Somebody else will just do it.

[01:03:18] Yeah.

[01:03:18] They get stolen.

[01:03:19] Um, there's a example of that.

[01:03:22] That was a sitcom based on the last blockbuster that Netflix.

[01:03:26] Oh, Hey, I don't know where they came up with that.

[01:03:28] It's crazy.

[01:03:29] They just thought of that.

[01:03:31] Um, I never watched it cause I heard it wasn't that good.

[01:03:33] Oh, it's, it's real bad.

[01:03:35] Um, but we, we can say that cause it was already canceled.

[01:03:38] So it's, you know, yeah.

[01:03:39] The cast is amazing.

[01:03:40] All those people are great, but Bobby Moynihan is in that show by the way.

[01:03:44] Oh, is he really?

[01:03:44] Yeah.

[01:03:45] Oh, okay.

[01:03:46] It's great.

[01:03:47] Um, no, I just, I, I can't.

[01:03:50] Say things that are just ideas because then it gets made and I get sad.

[01:03:54] Um, cause you have ideas and that's why I have ideas, but I do have, um, my first scripted

[01:04:01] narrative feature is in the works.

[01:04:03] We actually shot it while we were making this lost documentary and I'm editing it now.

[01:04:07] Uh, it's a horror comedy in the, uh, universe of public domain characters being turned into

[01:04:16] horror things, which is controversial, but at least people are talking about it.

[01:04:19] Um, and it's a, a Bambi creature feature called vampire.

[01:04:24] Oh no.

[01:04:25] So, and that should be done in a couple of months.

[01:04:28] So that'll be the next thing coming out from pop motion picture.

[01:04:31] I have friends who will absolutely adore it already.

[01:04:34] I can, I can tell you that right now.

[01:04:36] It's fine.

[01:04:37] We do not take it very seriously.

[01:04:40] Yeah.

[01:04:40] And I think that's the best way to approach those two.

[01:04:42] Oh, for sure.

[01:04:43] If anybody does one seriously, they're out of luck.

[01:04:47] They just announced a Popeye one, which looks like it might be serious.

[01:04:50] Popeye, the Popeye, the Slayer man, I think it's called clever, clever word play.

[01:04:57] Um, but, uh, Taylor, thank you so much for coming on and talking about the documentary.

[01:05:02] Um, I'm glad we got to talk about this.

[01:05:04] Like I said, I, you were nice enough to send me a screen or copy of it.

[01:05:08] I watched it.

[01:05:09] I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[01:05:10] Um, I encourage all the listeners out there that are listening to make sure to,

[01:05:15] to get the tickets to the digital screening on December set to the virtual screening on

[01:05:19] December 7th, stick around for the Q and a, like you said, get your friends together,

[01:05:23] watch it all together.

[01:05:25] That's the best way to do it.

[01:05:26] I'm most likely, even though I've seen the documentary, I'm, I'm going to support the

[01:05:30] project that I'm most likely going to tune into the virtual screening as well, especially

[01:05:34] knowing that Bobby Moynihan is probably going to be part of the Q and a cause that's just

[01:05:37] going to make it a blast.

[01:05:39] Um, but yeah, thank you so much for, for learning your time and coming on to talk about

[01:05:45] it.

[01:05:45] Thanks for having me.

[01:05:47] So, uh, to everybody else out there.

[01:05:49] Thank you guys so much for listening.

[01:05:50] Um, if you want to check out all of our coverage of lost, as I mentioned with, with Taylor,

[01:05:55] uh, that's over on revisited pod.com.

[01:05:58] You can hear all the episodes of all of our coverage of that, uh, revisited pod.com on

[01:06:03] all the socials.

[01:06:03] And of course for Wilhelm, make sure you're following and subscribing, go to welcome to

[01:06:07] Wilhelm, Wilhelm.com and you'll find all the links there.

[01:06:10] Uh, but in the meantime, we'll see you guys on another episode of Wilhelm.

[01:06:14] Take care.