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Episode 349: Pinball – The Man Who Saved The Game. The film

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·28m 57s·analyzed·Sep 23, 2022
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TL;DR

Directors reveal 'Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game' film focuses on Roger Sharpe life beyond the pinball ban lawsuit.

Summary

Austin Bragg and Meredith Bragg discuss their feature film 'Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game,' a narrative dramatization of Roger Sharpe life and his role in lifting pinball bans in the 1970s. The film stars Mike Feist as young Roger and Dennis Boutsikaris as older Roger, with Crystal Reed playing Ellen. The filmmakers emphasize the story transcends pinball, focusing on themes of family, struggle, and personal relationships. The film is premiering at major festivals including Hamptons, Heartland, Newport Beach, Santa Fe, and Rain Dance, with distribution plans to be announced.

Key Claims

  • The filmmakers spent approximately three cumulative hours on the first phone call with Roger Sharpe, and days of total conversation across multiple Skype calls during the pandemic

    high confidence · Austin Bragg discussing initial contact with Roger: 'once you get Roger on the phone, you're going to be there a while. So we chatted with Roger for, oh gosh, probably three hours. That was one question.'

  • The screenplay took approximately a year to write and refine before shooting began

    high confidence · Austin discussing pandemic writing process: 'It took us a better part of a year I think to write, to get the script into a shape that we felt good about.'

  • Austin Bragg nor Meredith are particularly skilled at pinball and do not own pinball machines

    high confidence · Meredith stating: 'the dirty secret, which I think I've said enough now that it probably is not a secret, is that Austin Bragg or I are particularly good at pinball. We don't have pinball machines in our home.'

  • Roger Sharpe was an executive producer on the film and recommended Dennis Boutsikaris for the role of older Roger

    high confidence · Austin: 'I think he was the first one to mention him' regarding Dennis Boutsikaris casting

  • The Moving Picture Institute (MPI) funded both 'A Piece of Cake' short and the Pinball feature film

    high confidence · Austin: 'A Piece of Cake was also done by MPI, the Moving Picture Institute, which funded Pinball as well.'

  • Roger Sharpe was concerned about the pinball accuracy in the film, wanting correct scoring and sound effects

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis: 'Roger told me one of the things... he was very concerned about the accuracy of, you know, did that score 100 points? Did it make that sound?'

  • The film will premiere at multiple festival venues: Hamptons, Heartland, Newport Beach, Santa Fe, and Rain Dance Film Festival in London (which will close the festival)

    high confidence · Austin listing festival schedule: 'the Hamptons, followed by Heartland, and then we'll be able to Newport Beach in California, Santa Fe, and then we'll be in London... close the Rain Dance Film Festival'

Notable Quotes

  • “once you get Roger on the phone, you're going to be there a while. So we chatted with Roger for, oh gosh, probably three hours. That was one question.”

    Austin Bragg @ ~15:00 — Illustrates Roger Sharpe's storytelling depth and how the filmmakers discovered the feature-length potential of his life story

  • “the dirty secret, which I think I've said enough now that it probably is not a secret, is that Austin Bragg or I are particularly good at pinball. We don't have pinball machines in our home.”

    Meredith Bragg @ ~30:00 — Explains the outsider perspective the filmmakers brought, potentially making the film more universally accessible beyond the hardcore pinball community

  • “maybe this is a film? Maybe? And that's pretty much how it came out. It was just sort of a long process of talking with him and seeing if there was something there and pulling that thread”

    Austin Bragg @ ~12:00 — Demonstrates the organic, unplanned evolution from documentary interest to feature film development

  • “Roger feared that he would be murdered by the pinball mom. I mean, and I think a lot of people on the cast and crew took it to heart as well.”

    Meredith Bragg @ ~55:00 — Shows the filmmakers' awareness of and respect for the dedicated pinball community's scrutiny

  • “to us in the pinball community, Roger has always been a superhero. So I see everybody getting on board with this film.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~65:00 — Captures the cultural significance of Roger Sharpe within the pinball community and positions the film as superhero narrative

  • “It certainly helps in that sort of germination phase when you're writing... and documentary, it's like chipping away at a piece of marble. You know, how much of the story are you cutting away and how much do you have to build up from scratch?”

    Austin Bragg @ ~40:00 — Articulates the creative challenge of adapting true stories versus fictional narratives

  • “having two people allows us to problem solve two different places at once, which is always... 90% of the job is just you know the story, you know what you want. Your job is to not let it break while whatever random things might happen”

Entities

Austin BraggpersonMeredith BraggpersonRoger SharpepersonEllen SharpepersonSeth SharpepersonJosh SharpepersonMike FeistpersonDennis BoutsikarispersonCrystal Reedperson

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: Major feature film about Roger Sharpe and the pinball ban story is premiering at multiple prestigious film festivals with theatrical release strategy planned

    high · Film premiering at Hamptons, Heartland, Newport Beach, Santa Fe, and closing Rain Dance Film Festival in London; pinballfilm.com website set up for ticket sales and updates

  • ?

    community_signal: Feature film adaptation of pinball history may introduce broader mainstream audiences to Roger Sharpe's story and the pinball community

    high · Directors explicitly designed film to be accessible to non-pinball audiences; film focuses on universal family themes beyond pinball mechanics; festival acceptance indicates mainstream appeal

  • ?

    historical_signal: Professional dramatization of Roger Sharpe's life and the pinball ban saga being created for wider distribution

    high · Directors conducted extensive interviews with Roger, Ellen, Seth, James Hamilton, and others to ensure accuracy; Roger involved as executive producer

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Pinball industry figure Eddie Kramer involved in film production; Roger Sharpe serving as executive producer and advisor

    high · Eddie Kramer listed as cast/crew member; Roger's involvement in script approval and casting decisions; Roger as executive producer

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Filmmakers intentionally approached story from outside perspective rather than deep pinball community knowledge to ensure broader narrative appeal

    high · Meredith: 'the dirty secret... is that neither Austin or I are particularly good at pinball. We don't have pinball machines in our home'; Austin noting outsider perspective helped find universal themes

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.087

0:00
No matter what you are I will always be with you Cause no matter what you do Girl, I'll go with you It's time for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teolis. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. Check out our Facebook group. We're on Twitter and Instagram at pinballprofile, email pinballprofile at gmail.com. Many of us in the pinball community know the story of how Roger Sharp had to prove that pinball was a game of skill. Some people actually have no idea, but because of Roger, he helped lift the ban of pinball in the 70s. What we are about to find out is that there is more to the man, his family, and his struggles. We're soon going to see this unfold on the big screen in Pinball, the Man Who Saved the Game. And joining us right now, writers and directors Austin and Meredith Bragg. Thank you very much for coming on the program. Thank you, Meredith. This is an absolute joy to see this on the screen. It's a story that has meant so much to all of us. And even explaining to non-pinball people that that really happened. There was a law. Yes, this all happened. And one man basically saved this. So thank you for making the film. What made you reach out to Roger and say, hey, we want to make a movie about your story? Good question. I'll take this, Austin. I don't remember how we first learned that pinball used to be illegal in many places and jurisdictions around the country. But we have a Google Doc filled with sort of germs of ideas for documentaries or films or shorts. And this was on the list. and occasionally I will go through the doc and just reach out to people. We'll just send cold emails to people or just see if there's anything that pops up to us as we were looking for a project. And I emailed him out of the blue and just asked him if he would talk. And at that stage, I had no idea what it could be. There was a good chance this would be a documentary. I watched a particularly good documentary that Vice had produced about Roger. and I thought, well, I want to see if there's something else I can do. I didn't want to retread the same ground that they had. And so, as you've had Roger on numerous times on your podcast, once you get Roger on the phone, you're going to be there a while. So we chatted with Roger for, oh gosh, probably three hours. That was one question. That was exactly that. That was one question.
2:40
And it was then that I learned all the other things. First of all, I just wanted to, you know, sort of separate fact from fiction about what had actually occurred, get it straight from him. But then I learned a little bit more about what was happening around his life that, you know, wasn't as, may have been a little bit more universal than strictly pinball, which is a great hook. But I was looking for something a little larger about Ellen. That's when I learned about Seth and his family. That's when I learned about him being a writer at GQ. and it was after that when I hung up with him. I think I thought, maybe this is a film? Maybe? And that's pretty much how it came out. It was just sort of a long process of talking with him and seeing if there was something there and pulling that thread and I'm glad we did. Austin and Meredith, you've been famous for making award-winning short films. You talk to Roger. There is no way this could have been a short film. In fact, I'm going to be there at the Hampton Film Festival, and I'm wondering, is the runtime like 10 hours? Or what are we talking here? We did have to do a little bit of compression, but it's true. Meredith, I think, did that first phone call with Roger, and I think I got a call or an email soon after saying, I think this is actually a feature. and basically this turned into our pandemic project. Through the course of the pandemic, we would get on to Skype and we would talk to Roger for, I mean, cumulatively we probably spoke to Roger for days, right? That easy. That length, about anything you could possibly imagine. Of course, you know, 99% of that doesn't make the film, But a lot of it, you know, was in that first outline or that first draft, because there's just so many interesting facets to Roger's story that you can't just, you know, sum up in that one little city hall meeting. So it was kind of a challenge to, you know, bring that all into a manageable length.

  • Mike Feist appears in almost every scene of the film and was praised for his work and character

    high confidence · Austin: 'Mike has had a huge sort of burden on this film, right? I mean, he's in almost every scene.'

    • Austin Bragg @ ~45:00 — Explains the practical and creative benefits of co-directing the feature film

    Lindsay Weissmullerperson
    Jeff Teolisperson
    James Hamiltonperson
    Eddie Kramerperson
    Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Gameproduct
    Pinball Profileorganization
    Moving Picture Institute (MPI)organization
    Hamptons Film Festivalevent
    Heartland Film Festivalevent
    Newport Beach Film Festivalevent
    Santa Fe Film Festivalevent
    Rain Dance Film Festivalevent
    Viceorganization
    Reason Magazineorganization
    International Flipper Pinball Association (IFPA)organization
  • ?

    product_launch: Feature film following traditional festival premiere circuit before wider distribution; multiple festival acceptances across US and UK

    high · Five major festivals announced; producers at MPI handling festival submissions; streaming/theatrical distribution details to follow

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Professional film production about pinball history signifies growing mainstream cultural interest in the sport and its stories

    medium · Feature film greenlit by MPI; cast includes BAFTA-nominated actor (Mike Feist) and established TV/Broadway actors; Roger positioned as 'superhero' in mainstream context

  • ?

    community_signal: Filmmakers acutely aware of pinball community's scrutiny regarding accuracy of game details; took deliberate steps to ensure historical accuracy

    high · Meredith: 'Roger feared that he would be murdered by the pinball mom'; sound designers obtained machine-accurate effects from West Coast collection; verified scores and mechanics accuracy

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Feature film produced and completed during COVID-19 pandemic; pandemic actually enabled writing and development process

    high · Initial contact with Roger February 2020, pandemic occurred immediately after; pandemic lockdown freed time for writing and Skype interviews with Roger over months

  • ?

    business_signal: Moving Picture Institute backing production and actively handling distribution strategy and festival submissions

    high · MPI funded both short film 'A Piece of Cake' and the feature; MPI 'at the forefront in terms of getting the word out and getting in touch with these festivals'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Documentary and narrative film projects both being created around Roger Sharpe/pinball ban story; Vice previously produced documentary

    high · Austin watched Vice documentary about Roger; chose not to retread same ground; indicates multiple media outlets recognizing story value

    • 4:51
    But, you know, outside of a little bit of time compression, I think pretty much everything that we're putting on the screen there is true. and when it's not we call it out which you'll see at the end of the film because Roger wants the truth out there not necessarily the fiction so we play with that a bit I think people who know Roger will get a kick out of it you don't have to know Roger to enjoy the film but people who do will understand a little bit more and laugh at a few things and also Dennis Boutikaris who plays the older Roger is just fantastic And I think we really lucked out to get him. No doubt. Yeah. I talked with Roger, and he was thrilled when casting came about. And you got Dennis Utzkaras, who we know from recently Better Call Saul, and he's won many awards on stage as well. I mean, that's a good get. But you can say that about your entire cast, and we'll get to them in a second. But, yeah, this initial call, Roger told me, was kind of February of 2020. And then we have this thing called the pandemic happen. and yet still you've been able to write film this movie and now we're going to be seeing it in a few weeks this is extremely exciting that there had to be some hurdles to get through this pandemic and did that pandemic maybe help you with the writing process it certainly helped that we were you know cooped up with little else to do uh you know we've got our job we've got our kids but there's no commute anymore.
    6:21
    There's a lot of time that we could funnel into this. And, you know, we could always connect with Roger on the phone or on Skype and hash things out that way. It took us a better part of a year I think to write, to get the script into a shape that we felt good about. And it's just a lot of it was, you know, weekends and evenings, just carving out the time. We didn't do any, really, there weren't any other extracurricular activities happening. So there was some, I guess that does help a little bit when the pandemic happens, but it's something you have to do regardless. You just have to carve the time to wrestle with the material and find a way that you find compelling, that Roger would find compelling and accurate enough to get his seal of approval And that an audience who may know nothing about pinball or Roger might find compelling And that was important to us getting Roger you know getting his thumbs up on this project So he was involved when we were, you know, putting together drafts of the script, and we wanted to make sure that we were doing things that he would approve of. You know, I think he probably would have changed a few details in the script. But I'm glad that we got his backing on this. He's very humble in the sense that you really want to make a movie about me. And the answer is yes, Roger. That's why you're asked to speak at so many different places. And you're very eloquent. You've written so many books. Basically, for the same reason I've done this podcast for six years, I'm more interested in the person. Pinball is what kind of draws us together. But we all come from different walks of life. and this is a movie sure it has pinball but really it is about the man and his struggles and meeting ellen meeting seth and bringing it all together and prior to this interview with you roger and i've talked several times and just talked about similarities myself being a child with a single mother and in that time frame too when that was not the norm right and in fact i remember going to a new school after my parents split up and people were asking where is your father and i'm I'm like, it was just better to say he was dead, which is a horrible thing. He wasn't dead, but he also wasn't part of my life. So the struggles the kids have, the struggle the single mother has, and we're going to see that. And then this man comes in and just finds happiness and love and a family, and we know the happily ever after story. And it's exciting. It's more than pinball, this movie. I think people need to understand that. Oh, absolutely. I mean, the dirty secret, which I think I've said enough now that it probably is not a secret, is that neither Austin or I are particularly good at pinball.
    9:06
    We don't have pinball machines in our home. We came at it from a different direction. We just thought the story was interesting and unique.
    9:14
    And, you know, the people who are listening to this podcast obviously know the story, so I'm not giving anything away here. But, you know, we know that we're going to have this showdown in a courtroom. That's always, you know, that's a great ending. It's a great spot to end a film, but the question is, how do you make it universal? And I think that may be one of the benefits, actually, to us not being so steeped in the pinball community. We've become much more, but not at the outset, is that we looked at the story from a slightly different perspective than maybe a huge pinhead might. Now, that said, I think I'm a little better at pinball than when we started. We are definitely better. We are definitely better. It's still terrible by the metric of anyone listening to this podcast. Agreed. Well, I mean, for those that know, Roger has children, and his one son who looks after the International Flipper Pinball Association, I mean, he's never won a major. I just need to point that out that Josh is still searching for that major. Wow. If you know this podcast, you know the shots to Josh, they come frequent. So, anyway. It's got cold in here.
    10:23
    It's almost winter here in Canada. I am just thoroughly impressed with that this has come to life, and you've put together this incredible cast. We talked about Dennis, and we'll get to him in a second, but Mike Feist, who we recently saw in West Side Story, the Steven Spielberg production, BAFTA-nominated, and he's done several things on Broadway and off-Broadway. I mean, that was a real coup, if you will, to get him to play young Roger. Yeah, and more than anything else, just a fantastic human being. I mean, Mike has had a huge sort of burden on this film, right? I mean, he's in almost every scene. And, you know, somebody who is as kind and as open and, you know, willing to try things, Mike was just invaluable to this production. Absolutely. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And hats off to our casting director, Lindsay Weissmuller, who... No doubt.
    11:23
    basically put him in front of us and said, you know, look at this guy. And, you know, West Side hadn't come out. It was coming out a few months after we shot, after we wrapped. But I think she just knew. She knew how good he was. And I'm thrilled, thrilled to have had him. I mean, he's fantastic. And, I mean, so many of our, much of our cast, I would say Crystal Reed as well, who plays Ellen, just the two of them together, just phenomenal. There's so many wonderful people who agreed to be in this film, and we can't thank them enough because at the end of the day, that's who you're going to be seeing on the screen are these people, and they have to bring it, and they all did. It's just, yeah, I can't say enough about the actors and the cast and the whole crew. Just fantastic. Ellen has been on this program on our Mother's Day edition show, And she's a very private woman and an incredible artist and a proud mother and wonderful wife. And I did ask Roger, because he's obviously seen the film, how did Ellen feel about it? She loved it, of course. But, you know, it's in a way a very private person. So here you are on the big screen. Here's my life story. Ta-da! And, you know, thank you to Austin and Meredith for portraying her in such a wonderful light. and people are going to see that, and those that know the Sharp family know that they're great, and this is going to make a wonderful story. We mentioned Dennis Boutsikaris, who is playing the older version of Roger. Roger, who is also an executive producer on this film, was thrilled beyond belief to have him play an older Roger. I'm pretty sure that it was his recommendation. He was on his short list, if I remember correctly. Yeah, I think he was the first one to mention him. And, you know, I think we got on a quick call with Dennis fairly early in the casting process. And, I mean, it was pretty clear we had a lot of fun with Dennis. You know, he's just so excellent. And the only real shame is how little he got to interact with the other people on screen. But, you know, he's such a strong, gifted actor. He's able to carry those scenes all by himself. Well, let's talk about the two of you. I mean, you've been making these short films for quite some time and award-winning at all these film festivals. Recently, you did a very funny comedy piece called A Piece of Cake. And by the way, don't think I didn't catch that. The premise of that story is a little girl wants silver balls on her cake, and here you are making a film about silver balls. So I hope you guys can branch out on the next film, get away from the silver ball. But I'm glad you're doing this, but there is some kind of connection there. Branch out. We're looking for a third. Sputnik, maybe?
    14:17
    The falls just start getting larger. Yeah. If we go somewhere we be set Exactly To make a major film to do a full film was this always the goal Because you had such incredible success with the short films What made you say, okay, this was always the plan and this is the story? What was this? I don't know if I think you're giving us a lot of credit. I'm not sure that we pre-planned much of this. I love making, I love creating things. I love making content. And I always want to get better and challenge myself. and we regularly make content for Reason, which is a magazine, and we make video content there. And the short films were just sort of using some of the skills that we've learned there, sort of branching out and making something bigger. And that was scary, to make something with a larger cast and crew. And A Piece of Cake was also done by MPI, the Moving Picture Institute, which funded Pinball as well. and that was sort of proved to us that we could do this. And so the next step was to try to do something even bigger. And so we wrote this screenplay, never knowing, you never know if these things would happen or not. You can't bank on any of this because there's just so many, so many stars have to align for a film to get greenlit and shot and made. And it just so happened that MPI wanted to make a film and there was another one that wasn't quite ready yet. An hour of scripts they thought was good enough and ready to go. And so we were fast-tracked. It was surprising, but I don't know if I could say it was planned so much as it was an opportunity that we were so grateful to have and we couldn't say no to. So now it was just up to us to make it as good as possible so we could honor the opportunity we've been given. You have to understand that for so long, Meredith and I were making content by ourselves with our friends. You know, we had no crew. We were the crew. You know, Meredith was behind the camera. One of us was holding a boom pole. We're all setting up the lights. I mean, it was really just sort of DIY building dollies out of skateboard wheels. And so this process by which, you know, we started making these shorts with an actual crew and working with the DP has been really fantastic because, you know, we may have a wide breadth of knowledge, but not very deep. And so having all of these, you know, specialists who are so good at their craft really elevates what we're able to do. And I'll also add, I think that because it's usually it's, you know, Austin and I and occasionally we'll have, you know, another person or two other people who are part of the production team. I'm using air quotes because it's so small. But I think that when we have people, artists who are so good at their craft, we really love collaborating with them and we love soaking up as much as we can. You know, we love hearing their ideas. We are definitely not dictators on set. or, I mean, we play well with others. And I think part of that is because we're so grateful. We've done everything. We've done catering. We've done costuming. We've done props. We've done art design. We've acted in front of these things. And to watch people who are truly gifted at it, we have this appreciation of it that I do think comes from our background. And that extends to the cast as well, to sort of work back, just the ability to sit down with Mike or to sit down with Crystal or Dennis and talk through these things and find new wrinkles as you go. I mean, it's just working with people at this level, it's a whole different world. It's refreshing to hear because I've heard horror stories of film sets where this is the director and director is another word for dictator. And here are the two of you splitting duties, writing, directing. And not only that, it's just bringing in the entire team. and there are no bad ideas. Let's kind of brainstorm and let's figure out what's going to work best. Whereas others are, no, my single-minded vision, it's going to be this way. I was wondering before you had mentioned that how you were going to divide things up because there are two of you. There can only be one person in the director's chair. I guess the other one takes the AD chair. But it sounds like it was very organic to maneuver through this movie with the both of you and the cast. Yeah, I would also say most of the time any sort of disagreements that we all said I might have about a script or how we're going into a film or a shoot. That's all been worked out. And there are a few we think very much alike. I think our comedy tastes are similar. But if we had any, that's all worked out well before we're with other people. And so in some ways, having two people allows us to problem solve two different places at once, which is always, I mean, when you're directing, I would say that's 90% of the job is just you know the story, you know what you want. Your job is to not let it break while whatever random things might happen are going to happen. It's just the nature of making movies. You know, unexpected things happen, and you have to figure out how you're going to react to it. And the fact that there are two of us can be really helpful at times. We definitely separated a few times, so one person would go talk with this group while another person was on set directing, and then we'd swap. It also really helps when you have that moment when you're staring at a scene and you're thinking, I don't know what to do right now.
    20:04
    You can just tag out and say, I need to rely on your brain for the moment. Yeah, yeah. In creating this movie, Pinball the Man Who Saved the Game, was it easier? Was it more difficult? What were some of the restraints you had in creating this true story? When you've done other films, the short films, this is all fiction. It's all a clean slate. Whereas this, you've got to be accurate a little bit. Did that help or hurt? It certainly helps in that sort of germination phase when you're writing.
    20:38
    Meredith likes to talk about the difference between features in documentary and narrative. And documentary, with narrative, it's like building something with clay. and documentary, it's like chipping away at a piece of marble. You know, how much of the story are you cutting away and how much do you have to build up from scratch? So in that sense, it's certainly easier. It's also a lot harder because we're dealing with real people. We're dealing with real things that happen. There's, you know, we're not doing car chases or explosions in this film, right? It's just not that kind of movie. so you know there's only so much wiggle room you have when you're writing when you're basing it off a true story like this yeah I agree I love it I love it becomes a problem to solve which I you know I like puzzles you have a lot of information and you know certain things that you have to stay true to and then there are certain things that maybe are unknown and you have to you can conform a little bit to the story that you creating But both of us have done documentary work and I think that's really helpful when it comes to looking at a true story and finding a narrative through line that will feel satisfying to an audience. That, in many ways, that's the job of a documentarian is to try to figure out how to take all of this information and make it interesting. And this felt similar. And it does not hurt to have someone like Roger who, as we mentioned before, someone like Roger who will tell you his life story and give you, I mean, he was an open book. He would tell us everything. And then, you know, we got to talk with people around Roger, obviously Ellen, Seth, James Hamilton, the photographer from Pinball, the book. We spoke with him and a number of other people who knew Roger. And so we got to learn the story from their perspective as well. And then we synthesized it. I love it. I think creativity works best when there are some guardrails and it forces you to sort of figure out how to stay in the lane. If it's completely open, it can actually be a little bit difficult to find that grain, that thread that you want to pull. In making this film, I've noticed some of the cast and crew, and I saw Eddie Kramer, who the pinball community knows as one of the techs, and certainly a big part in New York. Roger told me one of the things, I mean, the story is obviously the big part of this movie, but he was very concerned about the accuracy of, you know, did that score 100 points? Did it make that sound? So the pinball nerds, and we are nerds, wouldn't go, hey, wait a second here. And he said it's very accurate. Yeah, well, we have done our best to get everything right in the pinball world because I think Roger feared that he would be murdered by the pinball mom.
    23:41
    I mean, and I think a lot of people on the cast and crew took it to heart as well. I mean, our audio guys, we literally had somebody getting machine-accurate sound effects from, you know, somebody's collection up in, what was it, Seattle? I think it was somewhere on the West Coast, yeah. But, you know, making sure that the scores are correct. And look, you guys know this more than we do. There's going to be something wrong. I'm sure of it. I'm sure when you guys sit down and pause and go frame by frame, something's off, and I apologize. I blame Meredith. it's Roger saying a sentence in under 100 words that's the error well you know Roger said that when he was younger he talked more in headlines he was an ad guy and so when he was younger he spoke in headlines and later he spoke in paragraphs and so we decided to take that to heart it certainly helped with the pacing and to be fair the conceit of the film is that this is Roger telling a story so you know it's a 90 minute story i think that's that's accurate yeah that's on brand you two are very modest and very humble uh when you're talking about this little film that you've created but it's not easy to get into film festivals and you are going to be at several you have to be approved they have to uh say yeah this is worthy of the film festival you've got a lot coming up i mentioned in the Hamptons. There's one in Indiana coming up. Yeah, so tell us where we're going to be able to see this film and what can the pinball community do to, oh, I don't know, make a petition to Ted Sarandos and, hey, let's get this on Netflix. Call up Hulu, Apple. What do we need to do to help get this widely distributed? Sure. Yes, I can tell you as of the time we're recording this, I believe the film festivals that are public are the Hamptons, followed by Heartland, and then we'll be able to Newport Beach in California, Santa Fe, and then we'll be in London. We'll actually go to Rain Dance. It's going to close the Rain Dance Film Festival, which is a huge honor. We're thrilled. I would say show up. If you can come, if you're nearby, I would go to pinballfilm.com, and there's a nice button there where you can get updates and throw your email in, because there will be more. There are more that will be announced, and they'll be rolling out. Hopefully it'll come to a city near you, and you can come watch it. You can get a ticket and watch it. But I think right now that's number one. And then at Pinball Film, you can sign up for Instagram, and I'm sure they have Instagram and all the social media links there, and that'll keep updated that way. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter and all that great stuff. I think that's number one, and just spread the word. But I just want people to watch it, and then I want to hear what you thought of it. I'm so nervous and curious to know how people react to this. But I think, as you mentioned, the fact that we were admitted into these Seagist Film Festivals, it feels really good. And when you're on day 14 on set of a shoot, you're just hoping that what you're making connects with an audience and that it works out and that people will enjoy it and that you're doing it justice to the people involved and the people who the cast and crew and others who have given their time and their their brainpower and really are pushing for this film. And to see it be accepted into these festivals is a huge relief, and it's gratifying and humbling. Yeah, I'm excited that this is Roger's story finally getting out into the wider world, I hope. And, you know, I have to give credit to our producers at MPI, because they've really been at the forefront in terms of getting the word out and getting in touch with these festivals.
    27:56
    And, you know, at this point, we're just sort of along for the ride. You know, they've been saying for years, Hollywood is only interested in superhero movies. But to us in the pinball community, Roger has always been a superhero. So I see everybody getting on board with this film. Pinball, the man who saved the game. Go to pinballfilm.com to find out more. sign up and hopefully you will be seeing this movie very very soon austin and meredith bragg i cannot thank you enough for coming on this program i know you've got a busy slate over the next few weeks and appreciate your time and thank you for making this wonderful film thank you for having us jeff thank you so much this has been your pinball profile you can find everything on pinballprofile.com we're on twitter and instagram at pinball profile email pinballprofile at gmail.com i'm jeff yours.