23 - How to Blow Up a Pipeline filmmakers

Our friends Daniel Goldhaber, Ariela Barer, Daniel Garber, and Jordan Sjol visit Screen Slate HQ to talk about their new film How to Blow Up a Pipeline, which adapts Andreas Malm's nonfiction book of the same name into a heist-style eco-thriller. We get into the research and adaptation process, stealing locations, balancing Barer’s screenwriting and actor roles, and the art of editing as edging. Plus: what does Andreas Malm think of CAM?

Related links:
Trailer/showtimes/Q&As
How to Blow Up a Pipeline book

Transcript

Jon Dieringer: 0:20

You are listening to the Screen Slate Podcast. I'm your host John Derringer, and on this episode I am thrilled to speak with the team behind how to blow up a pipeline a new eco thriller based on Andreas, mom's nonfiction book about sabotage and property destruction and climate activism. In this fictionalized story modeled after a heist film, we follow a group of people from disparate backgrounds who get together to build bombs and demolish oil infrastructure. On this episode, I am joined by many multi hyphenate its director, producer and CO writer Daniel Goldhaber, actress and CO writer Ariela barer. Editor Daniel Garber and CO writer Jordan Shoal. We cover a lot of ground from their approach to adapting the book to the research process to shooting 16 millimeter around the country and a low budget during COVID-19. And some of the initial responses and reactions to the film among a whole lot of other stuff. I want to give a hearty shout out to all of Screen Slate 's Patreon supporters. This podcast is 100% backed by our Patreon members, we don't have a secret oil benefactor, we don't have that Ford foundation money. Everything we do is enabled by the generosity of our listeners. So you can visit patreon.com/screen Slate, throw us a few bucks a month you get access to the discord that myself and our writers and other Patreon members are on. And let's do special events, promotional discounts and more. So that's patreon.com/screen slate. And with that said, it's time to blow this shit up. Welcome to the Screen Slate Podcast, how to blow up a pipeline team.

Daniel Garber: 1:51

Hello, hello. Thanks for bringing the pipeline into the office.

Jon Dieringer: 1:55

Oh, yeah, totally. Thanks for coming out to Screen Slate HQ. So we have we have two Danny's we have Dana Gould, Haber and Daniel Garber, who have collaborated on many films. In fact, one thing I wanted to ask you about maybe this is a good way to start is that the film is credited to all four of you as a film by and could you talk about that decision?

Daniel Goldhaber: 2:15

It was just a typo actually.

Jon Dieringer: 2:19

Like Jon Dieringer. Yeah.

Daniel Goldhaber: 2:22

This is I think, a good time for you to air your gripes that your name is spelled incorrectly.

Jon Dieringer: 2:27

upfront. Yeah, yeah, it's cool. I'm honored that way. I have like plausible deniability, if the film is, you know, canceled that which it won't be

Daniel Goldhaber: 2:37

now. No, I mean, I think that movies are made as collectives, they're just rarely credited or recognized is that and, you know, also the collective effort that it took to make this film goes far beyond even just the four of us. But I think that something that started with my first film, Cam, was was, you know, that was a movie that I made with another filmmaker, Isa Motzei. And that, you know, through that process, you know, we were just thinking a lot about, we were making it in this very collective effort and like, how do you kind of communicate that collective effort? I think that we have this really flawed notion that the director is the auteur and as the sole visionary of a film, but often that's just not the case. I think that's totally the case sometimes. But I think that it doesn't have to be. And so I think like in this film, you know, a lot of us wore multiple hats. But I think that, ultimately, at the end of the day, the thing that I think was shared between the four of us is like, what is this movie? What is the identity of this film? What is this film saying? And, you know, I think that it just was very clear by the end of post production that like, this is what it was. And that, you know, that doesn't mean that many other people didn't contribute monumentally to the movie from the other crew. And department heads to the other cast members. But I think that like it was the four of us kind of figuring out what are we saying, and how are we saying it? I think it's been cool seeing people not just embrace that, that kind of draw parallels between the way the movie was made somewhat collectively and the story itself,

Jon Dieringer: 4:14

and how did you come upon the idea to adapt this book? I'm sure that's a very common question that you probably have great catch

Daniel Goldhaber: 4:22

the first time that we've heard it,

Jon Dieringer: 4:25

I should specify too in case anyone's, you know, listening totally cold and doesn't know this is based on a nonfiction book, which has been, you know, fictionalized and radically adapted in that sense.

Jordan Sjol: 4:35

Yeah. So that I think the book first came to me I'm also a grad student. I'm almost done being a grad student. Oh, congratulations. Yeah.

Jon Dieringer: 4:46

We're at you got away doing

Jordan Sjol: 4:49

it. Yeah. I'm finishing the program and literature at Duke University. Sort of program started by Jamison. So Verso Books and the like heard usually sort Look at my attention span. And I think I was looking for something else on the website. I can't even remember what else. But, you know, Andreas book has this great cover, and it's got this great title. So yeah,

Jon Dieringer: 5:09

I mean, I'll confess, I've totally bought Versa books on the aesthetics, you know, when they do the 50% off. It's kind of like, the radical version of the criterion 50% That's,

Daniel Garber: 5:21

that's the business model. Yeah,

Jordan Sjol: 5:23

they throw in a free ebook. You know, it's good stuff. It's totally. But yeah, showed up and I went, I went to LA to, you know, during the height of COVID, to, to one of the places where COVID was worst, which was a great idea and potted up with Danny and Ariela and I read the book, and Danny read the book, and Ariella read the book, and we're all pretty excited about it. And I didn't, I didn't pitch turning into a movie,

Daniel Goldhaber: 5:50

I had always been interested in making a heist film. And, you know, my parents work in climate science. And I kind of grew up with climate neum from a very young age, and, and always kind of wanted to tell a story about fighting climate change, and about, you know, kind of environmental activism. And I think, you know, just the combination of the book is title, the politics, the ideas, there was kind of a lightbulb moment of, you know, a bunch of kids in the desert struggling with a bomb. And I think that you know, that the basic idea of doing this is like a heist action process movie, followed very quickly. From there. We contacted Andreas, we started, you know, interviewing him interviewing other activists, he connected us to spend about two months doing research. But it wasn't until kind of Ariela kind of cracked the opening 10 pages, which kind of put the ensemble together. And also, I think suggested a tone and an approach and a rhythm of the film that I think we actually knew that we had something. Yeah. And obviously, throughout that process we were talking with Dan, you know, I've been working with Dan for basically, since I started making real movies. You know, it's been almost 15 years that we've been working together. We started talking very early on in this process. And he went and bought the book. And you know, so that was, it was always kind of a collaboration in some form or another between the the four of

Jon Dieringer: 7:13

us. Yeah, all right, Ariela, do you want to talk about your approach to starting this first 10 pages and kind of coming up for the fictional framework for the story?

Ariela Barer: 7:24

Yeah, I mean, we'd had a lot of conversations generally about wanting it to be a heist movie, wanting it to be very process driven. And at the same time, we were talking to pretty much any expert in anything that could help us make this movie and in turn, meeting just so many interesting characters. And we had kind of talked about certain archetypes that we wanted to follow in this story. But we didn't have anything concrete. And I think I just kind of came in one day with like a list of characters like eight characters and their general story, where they would come from and why they would be here and all of their names. And I think the only name that changed was Alicia, since that one that just kind of became a very solid foundation for us to make our process driven heist movie. But I mean, even from there, we were still playing with structure. At first, it was going to be one flashback at the center of the movie. But we found that all of the discussions that we needed in the movie to, you know, appropriately adapt the ideas of the book wouldn't really makes sense once you're already doing the act. So thus, the multiple flashback structure was born. And we were just kind of rolling with the punches as we went on. Because it was just a really nonstop breathless process of making this movie. And I think it's felt in the movie itself because of that.

Jon Dieringer: 8:55

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of urgency to it. I think there's urgency, obviously, in the story of how do we address climate change, there's urgency to this particular mission there on there's even, you know, I would say urgency to the idea of making an independent film, during, you know, COVID-19. I mean, I'm wondering if you could talk about choosing these different characters to focus on you have, you know, someone who reads is vaguely sort of right leaning, although I don't think that's necessarily clear in the film, teaming up with more like radical, younger leftist types. Was it important to you to represent a constellation of people and ideologies coming around a common cause?

Ariela Barer: 9:36

I think the idea kind of started with us saying, What if it was us and our friends and we went and did this? And there was the version of it that could be about like whiteness and entitlement like in this battle, you know, when the three of us are writing something. It is a predominantly white group, and then we kind of just very quickly realized that is the least interesting version. Have what we specifically want to do, we wanted to sort of fantasy heist movie that was invigorating and inspiring. And we realized we really needed to be true to like, who would be on the front lines? And who would be the most affected by this? And also just truly the honest answer is, if it were us and our friends, it would look like a group like this, a lot of the characters are based off of us and our friends specifically. So very quickly, when we started talking to people, these characters became who they are. Jordan, do you

Jon Dieringer: 10:29

want to follow up on that as well?

Jordan Sjol: 10:32

Yeah, we started talking very early in this project, especially when it first started, when we were looking at other media about generally, let's say, left wing radical action, how there's this tendency for these stories to be stories of infighting and failure and defeat. And also, I think, as people on the left have seen a lot of infighting. And so part of, you know, part of wanting to tell the story was also telling a story of people coming together who might have different motivations, and who might not necessarily agree about all of the all of the finer points of why they want to do what they want to do. But knowing that they have the same goal, and being able to get together on the same goal and say, well, we can leave, we can leave some of the other stuff aside. And I think to similar end, Dwayne's character who's like very close to my heart, I grew up in Wyoming, I know a lot of I know, a lot of Dwayne's is, in part, in the movie to be a little bit of a strike against this way that the environmental activism has been so separated into a left right binary in this country, which is very recent, and I think really stands in the way of people finding the other people who share their material interests, and getting together and working towards a common goal, even if they have different beliefs underpinning what they want.

Jon Dieringer: 11:57

Yeah, I sort of wonder, too, I mean, I guess speaking of leftist infighting, you know, some people might say, it's sort of like, naive to try to tell a story in which people come around a common cause. Gerber, you look like yeah,

Daniel Garber: 12:10

I feel like that's just not it's not really a criticism, because it's something that people don't say about so many other movies, so many other action movies in particular, about, you know, Marvel movies, or like, pretty right wing movies like Top Gun Maverick or something. It's not as if people are coming out against that and saying, Well, this is totally unrealistic. It's like, that's not really the point. I mean, of course, our aesthetic is way more grounded than a lot of other films. And so there is an element of realism in the aesthetic approach. But still, on some level, I think one thing that movies can do that a lot of other mediums don't do as effectively is make concrete and visible, a version of reality that does not currently exist. And that's exciting. And that's invigorating. That's one of the reasons that people go to the movies. So I don't really think that the fact that it's somewhat utopian in a sense, is is really a deficit in the film. It's actually I think, part of the design of the film.

Jon Dieringer: 13:07

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's really interesting, too, that the way you talk about the film, it's almost like, you know, one could say, a spoiler, and that you're very open about how you wanted to, I think, as you were saying earlier, Jordan, like, tell a story that has joy in it or, you know, frankly, success.

Jordan Sjol: 13:27

Well, so much of Andres his book, which I actually just was rereading, because I've been doing some q&a s and reading it is it's really joyful, because he goes through these historical precedents. I mean, his point is to show the property destruction was used in so many of these movements that we've sort of sanitized in the way that we're telling them, but he goes through through these movements, and there is this real sense of like, look, it worked. Look, it worked. Look, it worked, there are things that can be done. And, and that story of success. And that feeling of possibility is something that I think people in power would really like us to not feel right now.

Jon Dieringer: 14:02

So what were some of these conversations with Andreas like when you first approached him like Goldhaber? Are you the first person to reach out to him or

Daniel Goldhaber: 14:10

Yeah, I'm a big fan of the cold email. We just found texting. Yeah, we just found Andreas his email online and emailed him and immediately got the most aggressive auto reply that I've ever gotten from somebody. I like to throw those up from time to time. But Andreas is are like, you know, I am on paternity leave. I will not be responding to emails for the next three months. Do not try to contact me like, I'm out. Yeah, I've

Jon Dieringer: 14:36

got I've got a lot of respect. Yeah. But then we're like, oh, when everyone's virtual, yeah, it's hard to say like, I'm out of the office when we're all in the office. So I'm just like, I'm not going to respond to your email and like, just because I'm tweeting 50 times a day.

Daniel Goldhaber: 14:52

And so yeah, we we, we were like, Oh no, this is not you know, this is not going to happen and then a couple or days later, he responded and was like this, this sounds awesome, I'd really love to meet and we met with him and, and, and kind of you know, walked him through our pitch. And Andreas has kind of a very severe face and demeanor. And so you know, I think he was in bed, like,

Jordan Sjol: 15:18

staring down his stomach like at the

Jon Dieringer: 15:22

like Joe Biden photo.

Daniel Goldhaber: 15:24

We're just like, just frowning, just wedding out, when we get through kind of our proposal of how we want to kind of approach this, she's like, this sounds great. Like I'm in like, I'll put you in touch with verso, like, I totally get what you're doing. I love it cool. And he's been kind of just nothing but supportive. You know, he, he connected us with a bunch of activists and people in the space who, you know, added just like so much context to, you know, not just what the film should be, but how it should be that way and how we should be thinking about the film and, you know, read a lot of drafts of the script. And and, you know, his one big note on the script was that he didn't believe that we still had punks in the United States. He wasn't sure that that was actually accurate. Yeah, you know, but but, and it was always nice to have this kind of, you know, philosophical and almost existential stopgap on the movie. You know, we always kind of knew that, you know, we could keep pushing the theory. And, and, and, you know, really refining what the movie was, and be able to show it to him and kind of know that, like, you know, he would, he would have a barometer check on whether or not we were kind of staying true to what the ideas were and, and so he was always just like, extremely supportive and extremely kind of helpful and kind of guiding us through that process.

Jon Dieringer: 16:42

Yeah. And had he seen cam.

Daniel Goldhaber: 16:45

I don't know when he watched cam, or if he's seen cam, I honestly don't remember if he ever watched just curious Yeah, I can text him and ask him. Yeah, do it right now.

Jon Dieringer: 16:56

No disconnect.

Daniel Goldhaber: 16:57

I'll do it. Cool. Maybe

Jon Dieringer: 16:59

we can put him on the phone? Um, yeah, no, I mean, that's super. That's super interesting. And I guess it also leads into the question of interfacing with different activist groups, and like understanding this culture, how did you approach that?

Daniel Goldhaber: 17:15

Versus he did see cam and that it's great with a lot of exclamation points. Awesome. Sorry to derail?

Ariela Barer: 17:23

No, that was important. Um, the thought process was one of my favorite parts of writing this movie, we were met with a degree of suspicion at first from people, but we generally just engaged so earnestly that I think, those suspicions did not last long into conversations with people. And we very, very seriously took every note that we were given from activists, that was kind of one of the most important things for me. While I, while I care a lot about making a good movie, and I think making the best movie is the best political thing that we could do for this movement. I also kind of had this mantra in the back of my mind the whole time where I could forgive myself, if the movies less than great, can't forgive myself if it hurts this movement. And that's really, and engaging on that level, I think we were able to get some really lovely productive conversations with activists that I continue to keep up with, and I'm a big fan of,

Jon Dieringer: 18:29

is there anything in particular that was in the script that, you know, you felt you had to change in response to a note not had to change in the sense that you know, anyone forced you but just had to, maybe that led you to rethink anything that you had written?

Daniel Goldhaber: 18:45

Most of this stuff, I think was stuff that was like, kind of architectural and infrastructural in the script like it. I think that the problem that a lot of people make when they're making movies, or telling stories about things that are outside of their experience, is I think that they'll like write a first draft and then show it to a consultant and be like, What do you think? And, and that's kind of assuming that somebody from outside the film industry is going to be able to give, like, great notes on a screenplay, which is like a very strange and bizarre document. I think that for us, like, and this was also the process that, you know, I have on cam and that, you know, I've done other projects with both Jordan and Ariela and Dan, now that, you know, I think that when you're you're doing work, and you're doing research outside of your own experience, I think it's really important to start that research before you start writing and before you even know what you're writing or what you're or how you're thinking about something. And, you know, I think that one of the reasons that we were able to build trust with people on this project is because we were going in saying, all right, we're gonna adapt, how to blow up a pipeline. It's going to be a heist movie in which people blow up a pipeline. What do you think we should to do with that, how do you think we should tell that story? We don't know. Like, we don't really know what our way in is, we don't really know who these people are, we don't really know like, what the narrative structure should be. And like, I think one of the earliest questions we asked is like, what is the worst version of this movie to you? What, what scares you about, like, how we could screw this up. And I think that that's the thing is that we had all of those conversations before we wrote anything down on paper. And it was entirely just like, open forum, we weren't even really structuring the movie, we were just collecting ideas. And, you know, and then we were like taking that all into the shop, and, you know, talking through it and sorting through, you know, well, this person said this thing, and we disagree with that we disagree with what this person thinks about the film. But we really liked this thing. And like that thing, and, you know, this one person disagrees with something else, this person said, that feels like that's a disagreement that would actually probably dramatically play itself out in the movie. And so it was kind of all of those conversations ultimately got woven into the script. And I think by the time we were writing, we kind of knew what we were trying to say and how we were trying to say it. So we didn't actually share the script, almost at all with any of those consultants are those people kind of across the political and ideological spectrum, you know, because I think that by the point that we were writing, it was really about trying to make it the best film possible. And I also think that we had enough eyes on it to keep it from being kind of politically treacherous. Yeah. They've all watched the movie, though. Yeah. Now they've all watched

Jon Dieringer: 21:36

the movie, and whatever some of those responses been. I hate

Daniel Goldhaber: 21:41

you go to hell. Why would you do this to me? No, it's

Jon Dieringer: 21:45

actually I mean, you mentioned earlier, like asking people what the worst version of the movie would be like, what were you know, were there any interesting responses to that question? Like, you know, I don't know. Having Rambo show up. And like just shooting the pipeline, or, I don't know,

Jordan Sjol: 22:04

I think one thing we heard a lot was the version of the movie that feels finger waggy. That is they blow this pipe line up. And then that was a really bad thing to do. And they have to be contrite. And they have to pay their penance. And they have to, you know, I think that would have been a exactly counter to what we wanted to do.

Jon Dieringer: 22:24

I mean, it's interesting to like, as you're saying this too, and I'm thinking about what kind of works well about the movie is thinking of everyone got really into Columbo during the pandemic. And you know, the whole premise of that show is you know, who the murderer is. And it's sort of like the the dramas like, how was he going to catch him? And I think that's something that works really well. And pipeline is, again, you know, you've been fairly open about like, the title kind of tells you what is going to happen in the movie, but it's it's the dramas and how you get there. I think that also speaks to the heist narrative, which you've mentioned. And do you want to talk about, like certain films that are maybe outside of the, I guess, traditional spectrum of like, radical cinema that you were drawing on? Like, maybe, you know, to me, it seems like, sorcerer and thief are kind of, like touch points.

Daniel Goldhaber: 23:17

It's, it's so funny, because the one movie that everybody mentioned, is sorcerer, and the one movie that we didn't watch as a reference film, and that we literally never spoke about while making this movie was sorcerer. That's

Jon Dieringer: 23:31

crazy. That's crazy to me, never

Daniel Garber: 23:33

seen sorcerer.

Jon Dieringer: 23:36

It's a total, it's a total, like how to blow up a pipeline. I think what I think maybe part of the reason I think there are maybe two things that people are making that connection about. One is the way that the backstories are kind of woven in, like it's very much about, you know, a very specific task, but then you kind of weave in these backstories that go outside of that space and that timeline, which you do in this film, and then, you know, also I think Gavin's score, which is fantastic. And the film feels very, like tangerine, dreamy.

Daniel Goldhaber: 24:14

That was a thief. Yeah, we had a lot of thief in the movie. There was so

Daniel Garber: 24:19

much so much watching Michael man. I mean, often when I would get stuck in the edit. I mean, in the early days anyway, I would just throw on the first like 15 minutes of thief and be like, Alright, I've gotten my head in the game now.

Jon Dieringer: 24:31

Yeah. I mean, I think another thing that that Michael Mann does is really interesting as part of his research process where he's talking to like cops and criminals, and I wondered if you could talk about that aspect of research in your film where you know, you're speaking to activists but you're also speaking to like DHS people about you know,

Daniel Goldhaber: 24:51

well like Michael Mann we were just high on amphetamine the entire time so that yeah, that really helped us. Kill any horses, ya know? I mean, yeah, it definitely was a cross section of activists, academics, journalists, pipeline experts. And and, you know, yeah, we, we were very early on in the process luckily connected to somebody who is a bond expert, who is a contractor who works in counterterrorism. And, and who is, you know, just somebody who's a giant bomb nerd and hates that bomb building is always extremely inaccurate and movies. Sure, yeah, wanted to help us get the details, right. And, you know, just kind of everything that's in the movie is something that you could put together with an intelligent enough Google search. But I think that he helped us, he just helped us kind of understand, where would they source the materials from? And how would they do that staying under the radar, and, you know, all of the little details things like, the way that Michael packs, the blasting caps is like a fairly inside baseball kind of DIY solution to like, packing blasting caps, so that if you slip, you don't kill yourself, or, you know, in His Word, spend the rest of your life, having your wife open your ketchup bottles. You know,

Jon Dieringer: 26:07

I mean, even even like a thing like that, which, you know, as I recall, not in the film, but it's like, that's the kind of context and color you get that you can only get from speaking to people like that. And,

Daniel Goldhaber: 26:20

and this was also, you know, that particular expert is also somebody who is, you know, on a more personally conservative point of the ideological spectrum, and was somebody who never read the script or anything, but absolutely, we were thinking about in terms of, you know, the representation of Dwayne and you know, how might Dwayne engage with, with with with with these things?

Jordan Sjol: 26:42

Well, and also and also Michael as Bom nerd, like there was some effective stuff going on there, too. Yeah. And I mean, there's something to just, I get it, I get it, that it's exciting to build bombs after doing this, like doing all of this research and going through, you know, the Mujahideen improvised explosive handbook and going through declassified, like, improvised explosive handbooks from the US military and everything. There are these ways that you start to see how these little small things that you can do yourself fit together, that you sort of get I think, going through this research process started to understand why people get Pyro maniacal.

Jon Dieringer: 27:24

Yeah. Well, it's like, you know, in a way,

Daniel Goldhaber: 27:27

all the bombs in the movie for real.

Jon Dieringer: 27:31

I'm glad to see you. So have all of your fingers attached opening girl and ketchup bottles. But yeah, I mean, it's sort of like, you know, what do we all do in elementary school? It's like, you know, you put the fucking arm for getting vinegar and baking soda together and make like the little volcano and it's cool as fuck. And then next thing, you know, you're blowing blowing up pipelines.

Daniel Goldhaber: 27:56

Jordan did not actually.

Jon Dieringer: 28:00

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was just kind of curious about, you know, pulling everything together, especially working on such a small budget in during COVID, which I think, you know, it's really challenging. This is something I hear from filmmakers a lot, but don't really see discussed online or in articles a lot. But it is just like how resource intensive it is to keep your sets safe. And, you know, both in terms of like, the practical efforts, and also the financial resources. So, yeah, it just seems like mounting the production itself, is this sort of pipeline ask activity? And I wondered if you could talk about that.

Ariela Barer: 28:44

Yeah, I would say most of the energy you get in the film was born out of pure necessity, because of limited resources. I think it's like, very easy to forget, now that we have Nyan attached that this was a completely independent production. And we were rewriting scenes on the day just because we realized we did not have time for three scenes make it one scene, you know. And I'm actually very grateful that that happened because it streamline the ideas and it got everyone's so focused, and it was just pure passion being channeled into every minute of this movie. And I think you can kind of feel that when you watch it. But yeah, we I mean, we were very serious about the safety during the explosives and,

Jordan Sjol: 29:30

and in COVID, and we had some the benefit of some help from a New Mexico program, helping us fund some of our COVID testing, which was also a huge No, it was New Mexico project in the whole project and allowed us to make this movie because they sponsored and paid for the COVID testing and yeah, we I mean, we would not have been able to make this movie during COVID. On this timeline. If our cast and crew were just punching the clock. The people involved in this movie cared about it and that saved us

Daniel Goldhaber: 29:58

virtually no COVID positives on this film.

Jon Dieringer: 30:01

Yeah. Which is remarkable. I mean, I feel like every everyone I've talked to has had some sort of shutdown or like having to, you know, quickly replace other crew members or get temporary replacements in order to keep shooting. Because of COVID.

Daniel Goldhaber: 30:15

We did lose two actors for one roll to COVID. Unfortunately,

Jon Dieringer: 30:21

wait, is that true?

Daniel Goldhaber: 30:22

Yeah, that's true. Not none of them main ensemble, but we had I didn't die. Yeah, but we had an actor I won't say who was actually cast for the FBI agent who was like going to be it was going to be a really cool cameo. And the day before we shot, John him her husband tested positive for COVID. And then we couldn't shoot with her and then and then we cast another actor in that role. And then that actor got food poisoning and then Damn, not even COVID Not even ice. I don't know why I said two to COVID COVID. And one, two bad shrimp salad. All right.

Ariela Barer: 31:01

So grateful that FBI plotline is what it is, though, and that it didn't become overly distracting by the cool cameo? Yeah, I think

Daniel Goldhaber: 31:10

that was a much more significant. There was like a lot more FBI material in the movie that got cut out.

Ariela Barer: 31:15

Yeah, yes. Didn't have the time to do it. And I think it kind of becomes the perfect balance now. While focusing on that, more of the Act and the main characters.

Jon Dieringer: 31:27

And I mean, speaking, speaking of the actors, I mean, or do you want to talk about preparing for your role? Also, I think you're the first actor we've had, um, Screen Slate Podcast. Yeah. Honored? No, it's a great honor for us. Yeah.

Ariela Barer: 31:40

Put that in all my bio. All right. Um, oof pressure. No, I'm preparing for Sochi as an actor was nearly impossible because I was showing writer brain. And we were talking about this today on set, we're often I couldn't even process things until we were shooting it. But we also very intentionally were writing so cheap with that in mind, once we decided I would be the character having sort of the author of The Plan and the author of the movie be one became a way for us to comment on our own roles in this whole thing. Also, it became convenient that she was so constantly on the brink of implosion under stress, because that was me on set and in between takes off, and I'd have to go rewrite a scene instead of preparing for my coverage, and then just launch into it and see how that went. And it became almost experimental. And it's really like a as a process. For me, it's not a way I've ever worked before, but it's kind of so interesting to watch. And in hindsight, it was so raw, there was very little crafting of it, that could be done until later. But it was really fun. Because of that it was pure impulse in a way that I hope to carry with me in future work.

Daniel Goldhaber: 33:03

I mean, making the movie was kind of pure impulse for kind of all of us, I think maybe we had more time to, I think think in the edit. But even then, the the the last, I'd say two, three weeks of the Edit, despite having worked very kind of methodically for several months. We like started just like cutting huge swaths of the movie out. And we cut close to two minutes of the film out in the last four days of the edit. And I think we actually cut a full minute out in the last day of the edit. Yeah, it or if not the last day and a half or so they think 90 seconds. Yeah,

Daniel Garber: 33:40

I believe you. But I've totally blocked that out. I have no memory of this

Daniel Goldhaber: 33:44

standard, like a 16 hour edit day One day, which which is just I think, virtually impossible for one's eyes. When fingers. And that was a that was a tough one.

Jon Dieringer: 33:56

But it seems like you have so much moving parts, especially when you have this, this brain story and jumping back and forth with different stories. And, you know, because many of the characters in the film overlap, you know, personally, there are decisions you probably had to make about, you know, what, if this makes sense, like what is whose story when you have characters who were like in relationships, etc.

Daniel Garber: 34:21

Yeah, it's true. It's all kind of in meshed. And it's a little bit hard to separate out the individual threads. Because yeah, it is ultimately about this collective action and building up one of the characters inevitably ends up building up the entire ensemble and why I think one of the things that was sort of strange about this edit, compared to most others that I've done is that the basic identity of the thing and the basic shape of it was pretty much in place since the beginning and I know we had all these worries about, well, will this sort of flashback structure even work at all? Are we going to have to fundamentally rethink how to structure this film, and fortunately, it did, at least kind of work from the very Beginning at least it worked well enough that we saw a path to making it work as well as as,

Jon Dieringer: 35:06

try a version that was like, you know, chronological or

Daniel Garber: 35:10

we didn't. I mean, that was definitely something that was always kind of on the table. And just knowing how difficult it was going to be to pull that off. We ultimately decided that it didn't make sense if it was somewhat working from the first assembly, it didn't make sense to scrap the whole thing and try a version that would

Daniel Goldhaber: 35:27

be so funny chronological now is like an experiment. Yes, see what happens.

Jon Dieringer: 35:33

Yeah, like the Gasper, no way. Yeah, reversed.

Daniel Garber: 35:39

I mean, I do have to give a lot of credit to all the writers here who I think really thought through so many of these issues and in the structure, well, before the footage reached my hands, so I'm happy that it worked. So well to begin with. And I think that one of the one of the struggles was that, because it worked well enough, at the beginning, there were all sorts of little things that could have been improved, like they could have gone from, from fine to actually very good. And we just, we weren't bumping on those things, because people were captivated enough by the main experience of the heist, that, that it didn't force us into a position where we had to address those issues. And so it was really at the end of the process, we were really being hard on ourselves and saying, Well, this is decent, but could this be great? Yeah, we actually started to make a lot of those changes.

Daniel Goldhaber: 36:29

And it's a funny thing with this process, because it's true that like a lot of people like give Dan credit for like the the the the the Edit credit for kind of the cuts, you know, back that the flashback cuts, you know, which I think is a some of the most obvious editing of the year, in a way, that's great, and I love but those are all of those cuts were scripted. And it's actually funny, because the challenge of the Edit was not those cuts, which were all fairly easy to make. But it was getting them all to work, I think is that is the challenge. And it's kind of you know, I think that the biggest challenge that we actually had in the edit, when you have kind of a very, you have a nonlinear structure like this that's still kind of working inside of this action genre. It's like getting all of the characters to be legible, and getting all those backstories balanced, pacing wise and getting all the information to work was really challenging, but also even just like receiving and decoding the feedback was really hard.

Jon Dieringer: 37:32

You build up to these great climaxes before you then cut to the backstory, and I think that's something it feels very, like, punchy or something where it's just like,

Daniel Garber: 37:45

yeah, totally. I mean, I think structurally even though all that stuff was set, getting the exact pacing rights, that people have a certain expectation that is then not fulfilled at the right moment. I think that that's really what the challenge was like, like you're

Jon Dieringer: 37:59

really in such a way and then it cuts you know, right? Right?

Daniel Garber: 38:05

Exactly. You create you create a desire or an expectation for the audience, and then intentionally withhold that force them to sit through something else. So that then when you get back to the main storyline, you can then fulfill that desire and it's sort of like creating that sort of suspension and expectation that that sort of enables you to buy the time for these flashbacks. Yeah. Do you have a more succinct answer to that question?

Daniel Goldhaber: 38:34

Is the origin I knew exactly what you just heard

Ariela Barer: 38:49

it's just edging

Jon Dieringer: 38:52

it is. I was really trying to like not use the word climax. I was like, but yeah, every word I could think of felt very. Yeah. Oh, radically loaded.

Ariela Barer: 39:02

And Val, I mean, like not to discredit any of the like, brilliant work, Dan. He obviously understands the technique and executed it perfectly in the movie. Yeah, it's not just edging you know, I would never take away the power of edging in this movie.

Jon Dieringer: 39:20

I think it's a skill. Yeah, it takes practice. Yeah. Edging Master I think would be the name of the episode edging with Daniel Garber and Heather. Yeah.

Daniel Goldhaber: 39:35

But it's also it's, it's, I will say that like associative editing Matka editing is like, one of the most I don't know, it's, it's, it's probably like one of the most cinematic things that there is. And it's also like, it's something that if you actually look at like a lot of what makes Spielberg great like an understanding Have like associative and match cut editing that is kind of built into the shot composition. And the narrative structure is like half of what makes his movies tick. Like that man is a master of the transition. And you also

Jon Dieringer: 40:13

have these these very, like micro, I guess I shouldn't say very micro moments, but like on more of a micro level, so not thinking structurally. But moment to moment of creating suspense around the bomb making and, you know, both the, the sort of patience and the detail that goes into it, but then also the suspense and the fear of it, this going to explode. Is this gonna work? And could you talk about creating some of those moments?

Daniel Garber: 40:42

Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think that a lot of it is about providing the audience with exactly the right information that they need to understand why something is suspenseful, or why there's some sort of real risk to one of the characters. And, and so much of it is also about not giving them too much information, I think that there's a degree of being in the dark, that is actually very helpful when it comes to creating that sort of tension. If you just have this ambient sense that things could go wrong at any moment. That's often more helpful than saying, specifically, this is the thing that you should be worrying about. And so a lot of a lot of the editing, especially in the early days was about figuring out what information to withhold where to make the audience wonder what's going to happen.

Jon Dieringer: 41:27

I'm curious about the locations like was it difficult to get permission to we didn't

Daniel Goldhaber: 41:32

have any I mean, we don't need it, the shots in North Dakota were all stolen. They shot in LA in front of that refinery was just be shot by the refinery. And then the valve station was the one that was kind of diciest. But that was actually on the property that we shot on this big ranch, called Diamond tail in New Mexico. And that valve station is just on that property. And so we had the ability to shoot outside of the fence, just kind of based on our location agreement with the ranch, we started to get a little bit ambitious. And we actually were like, can we get into the valve station because that would be sick. And so our location manager, very enterprising, Lee called the the company and was like, Hey, we're making a movie about a pipeline being built. And then some kids come along and try to sabotage it. And there's a scene that takes place at a valve station, can we shoot in this? Like, can we shut the valve station, and they were like, totally not a problem. Really excited would love to support the New Mexico film industry would just love to take a look at the script. And then we'll like get into the approval process. And they never heard back from us. Very whipped

Jon Dieringer: 42:46

up like a maybe like a short film. You know, we

Daniel Goldhaber: 42:49

would have had to do what I heard that Kirk Douglas did when he made Spartacus when he was putting together the all star cast, which is that they sent a version of the script to every actor in which it appeared that that actor was the lead actor and to get them to sign on to the film. Yeah. Which is a brilliant idea. But we were so tight on production that we didn't have time to produce a fake version of the movie.

Jon Dieringer: 43:10

Yeah. Interesting. No, it's crazy. I actually I don't think I ever mentioned I was like, detained at a pipeline or not a pipeline, an oil refinery once per taking photos. Because like, there's one of my basically, in my hometown, there's like all this fire shooting out of it. And I was with a friend. And this was, you know, probably mid 2000s were like young getting into photography. And we're just like taking pictures of this pipeline. And these two dudes showed up kind of like in your movie and like detained us and called the FBI. But I think part of that too, just speaks to like the the sort of post 911 moment and yeah, so it was kind of curious if anyone like showed up and tried to try to bust you guys.

Daniel Goldhaber: 43:59

No, we also there was like a little bit of weird attention in North Dakota but nothing that I would say is like concrete. People like knew we were in town making a movie about oil and we got some like, weird looks and questions but we weren't we were pretty lucky and we were also lucky because there's some shots in Bakersfield that we went in and got on a day of pickups and we were also stealing all that like I was literally we were like I was like hanging out a car window for that shot where it drives by the oil derricks

Ariela Barer: 44:32

camera through fence, like gaps and fences to get shots inside of the

Daniel Goldhaber: 44:40

little montage where like the oil is shutting off. Yeah, got in Bakersfield.

Jon Dieringer: 44:46

Cool. So yeah, I mean, maybe maybe we could talk about just the reception to the film both you know what you've had so far at festivals and also kind of what you hope you know how you would like the film to be received.

Daniel Garber: 44:58

I mean, I think younger people But in general tend to respond very positively to it. And that's something that's been very gratifying. I mean, I think in a somewhat condescending way, sometimes people from older generations say things like I'm so I'm so glad that your generation is going to solve all of these problems that we created. And, and I find that really irritating. And I guess I would just rather than making a film that sort of panders to older generations, I would rather have a film that really speaks to the people who are likely to be making change in the world. And if it resonates with them, then that's, that seems like a major victory, right? And

Jon Dieringer: 45:37

also people who are going to have to live through the worst of it, you know, totally, you know, really sad to think of, you know, the people who are fucking everything else are just gonna, like, die. Or any consequences. Yeah.

Ariela Barer: 45:52

I mean, speaking of younger generations, there was this. We've been, we've been traveling a lot with a movie, and I did a film festival in Spain, where we showed the movie to two groups of high schools, students that we had, like two different screenings for several different high schools in the area. And it was so interesting. I mean, they responded really positively to the movie. And then there was kind of a q&a after and it was funny that at first the kids wanted to be kind of trollee kids about it. And and they, of course, it was right after, like, soup had been thrown on paintings, and they had so many jokes about it. Yeah, you know, which is fine. But then, you know, using the movie as kind of like a point of reference, we were actually able to have a really cool discussion about property destruction. Yeah, kids ended up engaging.

Daniel Goldhaber: 46:44

I think that there's like, a really funny kind of, I'm not, I'm not accusing you of doing this. But there's this kind of like, slightly leading question thing, when people ask that question where I think they like, they look like they want us to be like, we, we hope that people go and do X, Y, and Z, and it's a call to arms. But I think that like what I really believe about, I think what we all believe about the movie is that like, there does not need to be one desired response from any piece of art, and especially from a politically engaged piece of art. I think that the idea is, as Arielle was saying, like, we're trying to ask a question. And that question is, in the face of climate apocalypse, what tactics are necessary, unjustifiable to avert it? And I think that there's not necessarily Well, there are plenty of wrong answers. But I think that the conversation, the cultural conversation around that is really important. And that there are hopefully way more than one thing that comes out of a cultural conversation and a cultural shift of confronting, you know, what an escalation of tactics means, and how it can be, you know, implemented, and how, you know, activists who are currently on the ground today, fighting this fight can be supported, and how the support of that fight can create new legal precedents that can, you know, allow us and enable us to, you know, force a move towards a different, more sustainable future. All of these things are related to each other, all of the kinds of, you know, more formal systemic change that we're looking for, rests on the back of, you know, activists and and I think that understanding the fact that, generally speaking, we have been lied to about the legacy of social justice movements in this country and in the world, and about the place that sabotage and direct action has had in those getting people to recognize that and think about that, and empathize with that and making that tactile and immediate to our current moment, I think has a lot of value. Because I hope and believe that people will take that and do stuff with it.

Jon Dieringer: 48:56

Yeah.

Jordan Sjol: 48:58

So a great reaction is going out. And by Andreas, his book, it is good for consciousness raising,

Daniel Goldhaber: 49:05

I never great reaction with it. going and getting involved. Yeah, getting involved. There are there are tons of people and organizations that are fighting this fight right now that are doing things that are extremely impactful and far less extreme than blowing up a pipeline. If that is not your bag, you know, and it's like, look at, you know, what's happening in Atlanta right now, there are a number of groups and organizations that are you supporting the cops city fight in Atlanta, look into the case of Jessica reznicek and Ruby Montoya. You know, look into the guy. There are so many different movements that are probably you know, in your own backyard and I think that that getting involved with those and figuring out how to wield your own place in your own life to engage with the movement is basically all that you can do as a person and I think that we can Can you really send this message that you need to do more than that somehow? But I think that that's, that's a flaw, I think, do what you can. And and that's a great place to start.

Jon Dieringer: 50:10

Yeah. I mean, this would be a great place to end the episode. I am curious, though, to ask what the discussions have been like working with neon when you sold the film, like, typically, I think the way people approach marketing films now is like, getting involved with various communities, like identifying which groups may be interested in the film. But there's also a slippery slope of like not wanting to exploit social justice movements. Yeah. And then also, of course, on a totally different level, just sensitivities around the potential, let's say, like, political blowback to the film, like is neon at all, you know, has there been any concern of like, Oh, we're gonna, I don't know, if someone's gonna get mad, a right wing politician is going to get mad at the film.

Daniel Goldhaber: 50:58

Think that the first you know, that the the rules that we had in the research process hold here, you know, we approach anybody that we're thinking of partnering with and say, Hey, there's this movie that is related to the work that you're doing? How can we be helpful to you? How can we be a resource to you? How can we use our platform to help you, and those are conversations that are still ongoing, it takes time, I think that as the movie gains more purchase in the world, right now, we're all trying to figure out what those partnerships can and will look like. But I think for us, there's no real desire, from the neon end of things, or from the US end of things, to partner with groups to sell the movie, we would like to be able to point them in the right directions, because people come out of the movie feeling energized. And, you know, it's important for us that we're directing them in places to use that energy in ways that are productive. But that also, to do that, we need a lot of information, we need partnership. And also we don't want to, I think ever make it feel, wherever have it be that we're kind of inserting ourselves also into a conversation in which we don't belong. So it's about that kind of cooperation, that dialogue and that conversation. On the other side of things. I think that it's similar, there's there's absolutely no fear, and no real concern about blowback or pushback. I think that, from our perspective, conversation about the film is good. I think that it's just about the fact that we all need to feel like we can fully stand behind what the film is, and what the messaging is, and what the marketing is. And that is a that is a conversation that, you know, again, is ongoing, you know, I I really hope that you know, three weeks from now, I don't have to write you, John, oh, no, a piece of marketing came out that we didn't all align on and, you know, now we have to disown that piece of marketing that, that that hasn't been the case yet. You know, like, thus far, it's been like an extraordinarily harmonious and collaborative effort in in, you know, making sure that we're, we're doing everything we can to, you know, first and foremost ask that question, that that, you know, I kind of outlined earlier in a way that is entertaining and accessible and provocative. Like it's okay to be provocative that the idea is to provoke conversation and to provoke cultural movement. But you have to be provocative with a purpose. And I think we all have had a lot of clarity on that purpose. And I think we just hope that we can continue down the path that we've been on.

Jon Dieringer: 53:34

All right, thank you how to blow up a pipeline team. It's been a pleasure to have you at the Screen Slate compound. And yeah, we hope you'll be back in the future and wish you great success with how to build up a pipeline opening in April 7,

Daniel Goldhaber: 53:51

April, seventh in New York, LA San Francisco, Austin, Orland in Seattle, Portland and Seattle. And then April 14, going wide across the country Whoa,

Jon Dieringer: 54:02

really wait like how many theaters and they don't tell me like but like, will you be able to see it in Canton, Ohio, you might be able to like Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna tell my parents. This has been the Screen Slate Podcast. I'm your host Jon Dieringer. I want to thank you for listening and thanks to our special guests Daniel gold haber Ariela barer, Daniel Garber and Jordan Shoal. And thanks to Kayla here for helping us set this one up, and extra huge shout out to our Patreon members for making this possible. If you would like to join them and support the show, you can visit patreon.com/screen slate. In addition to the discord special event invites you also help us pay writers maintain our online listings platform. Keep the daily newsletter going, and of course back the show. Last but not least, be sure to subscribe to the pod on iTunes, Spotify iHeart Radio or wherever you listen. We are currently experiencing pod mageddon at Screen Slate we have so many pods coming up. Tomorrow we have another one with a grid. Kelly Reichardt who needs no introduction. And next week we have yet another episode with Christopher Burghley about his fantastic new feature sick of myself. Also with quick plug, I'll be doing a q&a with Christopher next Wednesday, April 12 at IFC Center at the 730 screening of sick of myself, so don't miss that. I think it's a really wonderful film that should definitely be on your radar. And so with all that said, thanks for listening, and we will see you tomorrow with Kelly Reichardt.