Interview: Jon Brunson of ‘Addicted to the Outdoors’

Posted on August 18, 2009 at 8:00 am

Jon and Gina Brunson are Addicted to the Outdoors and so that is the name of their television show on the Outdoor Channel. Now they are working on a new show that will include their six children, ranging from age 5-16. I spoke to Brunson about how it feels to be on a reality television program and the steps he takes to make sure that his family is not subjected to the tabloid pressures that have been so difficult for Jon and Kate, the Hogans, and other families on television.
What steps do you take to make sure that this is a positive experience for your family?
We do things a whole lot differently from most reality shows. We control everything, as much as it can be controlled. The reason we’re so successful and it keeps the family together instead of a marriage-breaker is the way we run things. I don’t come from a traditional TV background. I had to figure it out on my own, for myself on down. Our employees, producers, cameramen, they really know just one way and that is my way. Every single person who works for us has an iron-clad contract that they cannot take any of the footage but more important these are people who have worked for us for years and they know what we want. We do things a lot differently than many mainstream reality shows do. Our TV show is pretty much outside the house. The kids are on camera if they’re on the trip. We keep them sheltered so much from it.
We’ve had several mainstream producers approach us over the past two years to offer us a reality TV show spin-off of our show, to bring cameras into the house, about how we run the show and have three different companies and juggle six kids. It is fun and exciting and interesting. We talked to them and said, “We think that could be a good product.” But the reason we decided to keep it all in-house and launch it as a web-based show, which we should be launching this month, is so that we could maintain control. It is called “Meet the Brunsons.”
We can always go mainstream. If we control this in-house and establish a fan base we can always take it to a network and hook up with a mainstream producer but we can build the product our way. If it gets too personal we can turn it off, we can just shut it down. If it works well and we’re comfortable, we can always have the option to allow strangers into our house. Our family is the most important thing to us. So we have to be the ones to decide whether the cameras are on or off, whether to keep them out for the day or give the family a break.
No matter how good and exciting it is, if I give them a signal, they shut the camera down. If you bring a mainstream production company in, their job is to get the drama. Their job is not your family’s best interest, it is ratings and money. We don’t run cameras 24-7, which a lot of the others do. If you want to make sure you don’t miss anything good you have to do that, but we do not. And we let the kids be involved in the process. If it’s weird or embarrassing to the 16 year old we’ll tweak it or edit it or change it. I won’t do something to make the show look a little better if it is going to embarrass my son. Family first, product second. In many cases on other shows it is the other way around. They will try to sell you by saying, “It’s going to be good TV, so let’s just do it.” People get sucked in. Even if it is a hit with millions of viewers I will shut it down if it is not right for the family. And I won’t even blink. I won’t think twice about it.
How do you decide what to make public and what to keep private in your show?
“Addicted to the Outdoors” is reality-based, but it is more about Gina and me and the things we do and the trips we make and the kids are occasionally on the show. As we move more into “Meet the Brunsons,” we’re learning. There’s no secret formula; we’re easing into it. To me, the determination comes more on the edit than up front. The footage does not leave us and go to LA. It stays in our control. The crew make what they think is the best show and then I have the final edit. They know what we like and they have a pretty good feel for what we want. And then they bring it to me. There are times when I’m not sure when we’re filming and it looks fine, and other times when I think something is okay while we’re filming and it is not right when I see it.
The product is overseen by me extremely closely. I tell them, “Tweak this, cut this, make this shorter,” and that is what they do. Our kids are as normal as you can find. It doesn’t really compute to them that we’re on TV. When it comes to standard reality television, their job is to get the drama. Their job is to produce a product that will generate ratings and make money. Their job is not what is best for your family.
How has the program made your family closer?
Prior to going full-blown TV/entertainment, before we made that transition, I owned a marketing company. I worked like a mad man, 6-7 days a week, 100 hours a week, but making a living in the outdoors was what I always wanted to do. I told my parents when I was 15 years old that by the time I was 35 I was going to spend my life in the outdoors. I got there by 32, a couple of years ahead of my goal.
Since I began doing this, I shifted gears and started spending a whole lot more time with the family. I always made time for the family but could not spend the time I wanted to at home. Now we spend tons of time together. With the exception of the trips, we’re home, and I don’t got to an office. I turn my phone off at 7 and we eat dinner at the table every night. It’s family time. We both come from a traditional background. My dad was a Southern Baptist preacher. So the show has helped us because I went from working a normal job being away 5-6 days a week, to being home 3-4 weeks straight with the kids and traveling all over the world with my wife, doing things we love, and she’s my best friend. My goal is to be in a place financially where I can able to hang out with my wife and kids and hunt and camp and fish and goof off.
Do you have a favorite trip?
Man, there’s a bunch — it’s hard to pick! We love going over the US. Africa is one of my favorite trips, I love New Zealand. They’re all completely different experiences. We love Alaska, we’re going back there again this year. Canada, Mexico. They’re all a blast. The kids love Colorado and the mountains and the snow. They went skiing there for the first time and some of them said they wanted to live there when they grow up.
What is the most important lesson for people to learn from your travels?
Conservation first and foremost, trying to keep the outdoor lifestyle alive. Hunting, fishing, camping, outdoors — those are traditions we like to see passed down in families. The charities we are involved in are about teaching kids about the outdoors. Taking care of property, game, making sure that it’s going to be around for our grandchildren, great-grandkids, great-great-grandkids will be able to enjoy them.

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Interview Television

Interviews about ‘Adam’ — Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne

Posted on August 6, 2009 at 8:00 am

Hugh Dancy plays the title role in “Adam,” the story of a man with Asperger Syndrome, a form of social dyslexia that is on the autism spectrum. As the movie begins, Adam’s father has just died and he must learn to function on his own. Rose Byrne plays Beth, his new neighbor, who finds Adam’s inability to say anything but the literal truth an appealing quality because of her own losses and disappointments.

Hugh, one thing that really struck me in your performance was your walk, which really communicated a lot about the character. How did that develop?

It was a less conscious process than you might imagine. I never walked in my apt seven different ways to try to develop the right one. It was more learning the ways in which people are and are not tactile, being aware of the feeling of certain clothing, observation, obviously, and instinct. The first scene we filmed was the first one in the movie, the scene at my father’s grave. I waited until the camera was rolling and then had to walk away.

I was also impressed with your American accent and way of speaking — very different from the American accent you did in “The Jane Austen Book Club.”

It was as much about figuring out the voice as the accent. What I worked on was the delivery and tonality that is fairly typical of that condition. Getting that right and getting the rhythms right is what really mattered.

Tell me about what made you want to do this film.

What drew me to it was the way the character was treated, as a character as a bunch of symptoms. He is not labeled, until a good third of the way into the film, so you get to know him before you hear what his diagnosis is.

I understand that you and your fiancee, Claire Danes, have now both played characters with Asperger Syndrome.

She plays Temple Grandin in an HBO biopic. I had already finished this film before she took the role, so we shared research and we discussed both characters with each other.

***

Rose, Adam is such an unusual and fascinating character that it must have been a challenge to make Beth and her concerns carry as much weight in the story. How did you make that work?

Beth had a crappy relationship with guys and a father who was overbearing and larger than life. Adam was the antithesis of all the people she was exposed to. And it was important that the romance took a while. That helped to make her role in the story stronger.

I was very interested in the way Beth’s clothes helped to convey her character. How did you work with the costume designer to determine what would best tell her story?

We talked about it a lot. Alysia Raycraft designed the costumes and she jumped at the chance to be creative with Beth and a little eccentric with the clothing. Beth favors vintage clothing, second hand things. We are a little surprised when we see how wealthy her parents’ home is because her clothes and apartment show that she has eschewed her middleclass-ness. A lot of the clothes were mine. Prada heels weren’t in the budget!

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Interview: Max Mayer of ‘Adam’

Posted on August 5, 2009 at 3:59 pm

Max Mayer is the writer/director behind the sensitive and insightful new film, “Adam,” the story of a young man with Asperger Syndrome (Hugh Dancy) who is befriended by his new neighbor (Rose Byrne). He is an exceptionally thoughtful and engaging person and I truly loved talking with him about the film.
Tell me how this film came about.
I listened to an NPR radio show with a young man who had Asperger Syndrome, talking about his challenges, how the world seemed to him, about trying to figure out how to interact, how it felt when people nodded and smiled and he was feeling outside of the joke. I was really moved by that, and I am not that moved that often. I thought I should figure out what this is about and the more I learned the better it seemed a metaphor for human relations in general.
And then this guy started talking in my head. And the script began to come together.
Did you and the cast do a lot of research on Asperger Syndrome?
Yes. By chance, Hugh is engaged to Claire Danes and she did a movie about Temple Grandin . So, Aspy is spoken here.
Many people with Asperger Syndrome become extremely focused on fact-intensive subjects, and in this film Adam is very knowledgeable about astronomy. Is that a particular specialty of yours?
The spaceman metaphor happened organically. I’ve always been interested in cosmology and astronomy, but as soon as it becomes mathematical I can’t do it any more. And it is always on the list of interests for people with Asperger Syndrome. It made sense to me that Adam’s dad would have gotten him a space suit that was a prize possession, and he would wear it not for fun or to pretend but because it was utterly logical and sensible to use.
How do you project yourself into the mind of someone whose thinking patterns are so different from those of a writer, who is at the other end of the spectrum in terms of being attuned to others?
I was a psychology major at college, but it was all about rats and chemicals so I retreated into theater. I was trained as an actor to begin by interpreting the text extremely literally. It’s the first time I’ve thought about this but that was part of why it felt easy to me to write this guy. It is so easy, especially for young actors, to read sarcasm or irony or some sort of off-kilter interpretation into the text and not investigate what the words mean, and that was beaten into us at NYU, to begin with just the words. And that is how Adam speaks.
The movie treats all of its characters with great tenderness.
When I first wrote it, it was a bit bleaker, he was more clearly on his own. But the people who read it said, “You can’t do that! Why was I watching this?” Then I tried it the other way and let them get back together, but I didn’t like it and had to figure out why I didn’t like it. It was like saying “just kidding” about the rest of the movie. I did want to say something positive about their development and make it clear that they had ended up some place that was a good place for them to be.
I got so enthralled with Adam that as I started to write it Beth was a little bit of a cipher. I had to round her out and round her parents out. I wanted to make sure everyone had a legitimate point of view. The father makes the point about care-taking, to give the stronger point of view in the voice of the heel. It needs somebody that good because it comes late in the movie structurally.
Central Park plays an important role in the film.
I love Central Park. And it is like Adam and Beth. Manhattan is a rock with buildings, and then there is this romantic splash of green in the middle. As they say in the film, they weren’t supposed to be there, but they were. It’s Adam’s place, a place he feels comfortable, in the midst of an unbelievably intimidating metropolis.
Your background is in theater, so as you begin to work in movies, who are some of the films and film-makers who influenced you?
“The Last Emperor, many of Stanley Kubrick’s movies, Hal Ashby’s movies, including “Being There” — some similarity to “Adam” in that one, “Midnight Cowboy,” “The Graduate,” the way some of the music in that film is used — and “Adam” has a scene where we see the characters reacting very differently to that movie. I was also influenced by playwrights like Sam Shepard, Eugne O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Shakespeare, of course, John Patrick Shanley.
What makes you laugh?
Miscomunication makes me laugh, “Who’s on first,” Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, George Carlin.
I can tell you are a writer — that answer is very word-oriented.
Theater is language-based. But what I love about movies is that I still feel like a freshman which is really great. Movie directing is every bit as good a job as it is cracked up to be, working with the actors and finding the moments. In movies, it doesn’t have to be replicable, you don’t have to get there every night, and after it is all over you get this unbelievable time called editing. When you are in the editing room, you can make them do it over and over, make them look at what you want them to look at, you never give it over to the actors. In the theater, you can go out for a smoke when the audience comes in. But in a movie, the director has the final word.
TOMORROW: Interview with Dancy and Byrne

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Behind the Scenes Directors Interview

Interview: AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig of ‘Witch Mountain’

Posted on August 3, 2009 at 3:58 pm

The young stars of Race to Witch Mountain talked to me about making the movie, a re-imagining of the Disney classic, Escape to Witch Mountain, about a brother and sister with extraordinary powers. AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig could not have been more fun to talk to — they were both so bright, engaged, polite, curious, and excited about the film. It was easy to see why they work together so well on screen. They have an effortless chemistry, a shared perspective, and great chemistry. When they assured me that they were the best of friends, I believed it.

One of the big challenges of making this movie had to be acting as though you could really see all of the effects that were not added in until later. How did you know what to visualize and where to look?

AnnaSophia: Andy was really great about explaining everything, all the visuals. And a lot of it was there — the only green screen work we did was in the cab.

You had to play characters who looked like human children but in reality were aliens for whom everything on Earth was new and strange. How do you create those characters?

Alexander: It was a really good opportunity for both of us because we had creative freedom to sculpt our own characters. No one really knows what aliens are like so we got to form our own characters.

Did you coordinate with each other to make sure that your characterizations were consistent?

Alexander: We became super-close. Since we were playing not just aliens from the same planet but brother and sister, we had to have to have similar qualities. So we would share our ideas. And then she just shut me down whenever I suggested anything! (laughs)

AnnaSophia: We would go over stuff and talk about it with each other. And his suggestions were great!

How do you create that feeling of excitement and urgency?

AnnaSophia: That is part of what we do as actors. And it is one thing Andy was great about, reminding us to keep our energy up, that you don’t know these these people are following you. Alexander was great about that, helped me keep focused on the fact that we were running for our lives.

Tell me about working with Duane Johnson! I’ll bet he is a lot of fun.

Alexander: Working with Duane is a joy. He is honestly a phenomenal guy, like an older brother to us. It was an inspiration to work with someone who came from so little, achieved so much, and is still such a genuine guy, such a professional.

Who are the actors who inspire you?

AnnaSophia: Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman — I want to go to university like her — Scarlett Johansson, Leonardio DiCaprio isincredible.

Alexander: I agree on all of her choices! Meryl Streep is phenomenal, Leonardo DiCaprio is truly inspirational, a phenomenal actor, Johnny Depp is an amazing amazing actor, unreal, Brad Pitt is another one I admire.

Tell me about Andy Fickman, the director. I saw him at Comic-Con and really enjoyed his enthusiasm.

Alexander: Andy is great — it’s like a toy store exploded in his office. He knows how to surround you in the environment of the story and makes you believe in the project.

Do you believe that there is life on other planets?

AnnaSophia: We have such a large universe, there must be something out there.

Alexander: I totally agree, the options and imagination are limitless, we can’t be the one planet out of all these billions to have life.

I have one copy of the DVD to give away to the first person who writes me at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Witch Mountain” in the subject line. Tell me why you like this movie!

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Actors Interview

Comic-Con 2009: Interviews for ‘Alien Trespass’ and ‘Boondock Saints II’

Posted on July 29, 2009 at 12:40 pm

I am a huge Eric McCormack fan and enjoyed his retro sci-fi movie Alien Trespass, so it was a special treat to get a chance to talk with him and writer/director R.W. Goodwin (of “X-Files”) at Comic-Con about the DVD release. Goodwin emphasized that the film is not a parody of cheesy 50’s sci-fi movies or even a tribute; his intention was to create a film that would look and feel as though it had actually been made half a century ago and had just been re-discovered. He loves the “great, sweet, really earnest” films of that era and wanted to “put ourselves in that space.”

I asked McCormack what he thought about in creating the character of Urp, an alien who inhabits the body of an Earth scientist, and he said that the image he held in his mind was when Urp has to drive a car for the first time. “He’s obviously intelligent,” McCormack said. “He piloted a rocket ship to get to earth. But everything is new to him. So I thought of him as more child-like than robotic. Ted’s body is a stolen car he is learning how to operate.” Here he talks about his favorite scene.

And it was a lot of fun to talk to Clifton Collins, Jr. and Julie Benz about their upcoming film, “Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day.” Benz said she seems to be doing nothing but vigilante stories — “Rambo,” “The Punisher,” “Dexter,” and now this sequel to the cult favorite about two brothers who take the law into their own hands and famously end the film asking whether they are good or evil, saint or vigilantes. Collins and Benz join the returning cast of the 1999 original, including Billy Connelly, Norman Reedus, and Sean Patrick Flannery as the father and sons who go after the bad guys.

Collins is one of my favorite actors, most recently seen as the number two bad guy in Star Trek, but I have been a fan since he appeared in The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit in 1998. He told me that he was “not in the first film but was around it,” knew writer/director Troy Duffy’s journey from bartender to film-maker (as documented in the movie Overnight) and “once I read it, who didn’t want to be a part of ‘Boondock Saints?’ Everybody did.”

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Festivals Interview