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well welcome back to the ex homeschoolers Club I of course your host Jacob goodon and today I am joined by my
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friend Kira uh many of you will probably remember her as Kira Hatton but she is now Kira minshaw did I say that
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correctly okay yep very cool um we kind of know each other a little bit um there's definitely
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an age Gap uh where it's like a 4 AG uh four-year age gap between us um and uh
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so we don't know each other super well but we're gonna get to know each other
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better today and uh so Cara thank you for coming on the show thank you for having me this is really cool excited
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yeah I'm I'm stoked you reached out to me and that's been one of the greatest
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things about this show is having people reach out so um you know I I guess to kick it off like one if you have a story
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please like reach out to me and come on the show share it with me even if you don't want to come on the show and just
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you know we need to reconnect as a community as a homeschool weirdo Community we need to reconnect so bakira
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let's set the scene for your homeschool life okay um siblings Family Life how
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long were you homeschooled um that kind of thing like walk me kind of through an
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overall picture of your homeschool Journey yeah so my journey is a little bit chaotic um I moved to California
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when I was three and a half okay um I have a younger sister and younger brother we are all 18 months apart wow
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so yeah lots of fighting growing up but we love each other all the same um I my parents were not folks who were
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like we're gonna homeschool our children they we moved to Filmore California and
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the school system was horrible I think it still is pretty bad to the point like the city of Filmore is like you don't
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have to go to our school you can go to any other school that's okay usually that's not the case with public school
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right um so my parents tried putting me into private school in Filmore because it was close by um so I did private
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school kindergarten and the age cut off in California is very different than it is
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around the world or at least around the rest of the country um so if I so started technically young um if I had
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gone to if I was born in the midwest I would have been a year behind what I am okay um so kindergarten was fine I loved
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it but my parents were like private school is not financially wise espe especially since
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we have three kids so we're going to try homeschooling our first grader and my
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mom had never even kind of dreamt about homeschooling she would tell you that if
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when she was a young adult if someone told her she'd be homeschooling her kids
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she would have laughed in their faces um but she Tri most homeschooled moms to be
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honest I think most of them were like this is not the life I envisioned for myself yep yep um and so she tried it
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for a year and it she did it like the very Raw Pure homeschooling where you don't have a co-op or anything and we
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were all so miserable um same so I was like man I miss like seeing friends and stuff and so my parents were
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like okay well we either put her back in private school or we have to figure something out not sure what we're
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supposed to be doing but maybe we hold her back because she's so young and if she
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were to go to college she's going to be 17 when she starts college and I don't know if we're
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okay with that so they tried holding me back by putting me into a different private school so I did first grade
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again kind of for only like a month or two I forget how long I was there short period of time because I uh was one of
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the smarter ones in the class and because of that I was being um abused and bullied by the teachers oh gee
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that's fun and I didn't learn anything um yeah and so my parents were like not
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this and so they took me out and they put me in second grade they're like you
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know what holding her back isn't a good thing we're going to put her in private
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school second grade again and that was good that was a good year learned a lot of social skills there um but then the
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third grade teacher we heard was abusing the children and then this was in a time
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where kids weren't listen heard they weren't heard so there were all these
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kids in third grade being like duct taped and locked in the closet if they got a bad grade or misbehaved just a
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little bit um and I was terrified I believed my friends who were a year ahead of me telling me these things um
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and I am grateful to have parents who believe me and they're like you know what homeschooling it is but we're gonna
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try a co-op because we've been hearing about co-ops and that sounds like a good
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thing to do later on that teacher ended up being fired so Justice was served but good I
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was homeschooled because of that and and then that's when I entered the scene of
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group Solutions was about third grade yeah um and then we like I think the a year later we joined a
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cheve um so did that for all the way up until sophomore year of high school uh we introduced
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classical conversations which was kind of like a um almost like a charter school system but you met every week and
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you took more um standardized testing and stuff and it was smaller classes with the exact same teacher and the
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exact same students so it's more of like a traditional class setup and that was
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really good but it was weird because I was like the only girl it was me and one other girl in the whole class um and
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then after sophomore year my parents got divorced and moved to Ohio and went to public school and finished out High
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School there we'll get more into some of the homeschool stuff but that transition to
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go to public school was that like a big shock for you or do you feel like it wasn't I mean there's a lot going on in
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life too so may maybe there was a big shock just in general but like but was that difficult challenging like was it
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easy all of a sudden so I think because I had done two years of private school as a
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kid it wasn't a total shot for me okay um if anything I was just really angry because I thought it was stupid
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because public school system I had teachers be like well we still have 40 minutes and you
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can't leave this room so I want you to just do this work right for no reason
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and I'm like this is the most ridiculous design you we're done with with all the
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learning we're supposed to do today and you legally just have to keep us in this
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little box and in the midwest at least the schools is like a prison literally there you cannot go
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outside at all and not every and very few classrooms have Windows for tornado reasons yeah so it's just dark overhead
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lighting for eight hours yeah just stuck inside dang man that yeah well and if you're used to
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homeschool I mean that's the great thing about it is like if you do math in 15
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minutes then math is done in 15 minutes if it takes you four hours then it took you four hours like there's no in
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between you know what I mean yeah um and yeah well and then also sometimes being
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able to work on your own schedule is like also helpful like I was more of a night person and so I did school a lot
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at night you know and everyone in my house would be asleep and I would be up reading you know right yeah
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when you put yourself in a Traditional School setting it's not always the case
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that you get you don't get that luxury you know exactly yeah everyone was really
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impressed that way too yeah yeah absolutely no I my my wife went to private school and but she would talk
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about like getting up and having to get ready for school and I'm like that just
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sounds awful like it just I'm like my first two my first two hours of school
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were in my pajamas you know um you know and definitely like more of that what people think of as
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that more traditional homeschool experience right of like a kid in their pajamas and you know whatever but yeah
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that was something my my parents they I think they were afraid of us becoming stereotypical homeschool
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kids so they're like by 88 AM you need to be dressed and at the table okay my my see my mom I
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think tried to do that and then I think it was just a losing battle for her like
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it was just we fought it so hard that I think she just gave up where she's like
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makesense they're getting there but it's you know um I don't know no it was funny because
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she was so used to me being uh this more night person and then when I got when I
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moved home after college for a year I got a job as a barista well when you drink coffee first thing in the morning
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most people got to show up to work you know I was Jo up to work leaving having to get up at 4:00 a.m. be at work by you
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know 5:30 6 um you know kind of a thing and she's like who is this person because I've never met him before
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uh I'm like you know it's 8:30 at night I'm like I'm going to bed I'll see you
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tomorrow that's awesome so with the homeschooling stuff so classical conversations this I'm a little bit
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familiar with this because my cousin who was also homeschooled classical conversations um in comparison to
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something like a group Solutions are there particular classes you choose like oh this is what I'm
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going to take through classical conversation no it's just that it it's its own kind of curriculum that you sign
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up for so what what exactly what kind of stuff is being taught through classical
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conversations classical conversations was a good hybrid of taking like traditional like schooling that you
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would see at a private school or public school and merging it with um a co-op like group Solutions so you would meet
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only one once a week you had the same teacher teaching all of the subjects um we had a Let's see we had a
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[Music] Bible class that we had to take we did a history we did um a debate SL politics
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class um there was math grammar and I think oh and in art but the art sophomore year was um theater so
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we had to put on a Shakespeare play okay um it was a lot more um rigorous than something like group Solutions right
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especially because it was weekly oh and and and um I took Latin so it was a language yeah that is something about
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classical conversations if you if you were in classical conversations your whole um childhood you would have been
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fluent in Latin okay well that's it interesting yeah that's honestly a great
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skill I agree because Latin is the the base of basically every language uh Under the Sun yeah and just so for
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anyone listening who's like not familiar with anything we're talking about when
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we say like group Solutions classical conversations you did a great job explaining what classical conversations
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is group Solutions on the other hand of that was basically an every other week meeting that
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was uh three periods so you took three different classes and taught by other parents other homeschool parents and it
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was a mix of like there were some academic things like you could take a science class you could take an English
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class you could take things like that but then there was also fun classes mixed in there like cooking guitar class
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uh I know there was a games class at one point they talk golf uh know film making
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yeah I think the golf only lasted one year one of the dads I think taught that um
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and I we I took a class one year that was oh man I'm trying to remember what
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it was but we did we like joined up with the golf class for one week and I think
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it it was just really clear that none of us were good at it and also like golf clubs are
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expensive um and I'm pretty sure as kids we didn't really understand that so I
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think we were also just like beating these clubs to to death potentially um but I I don't know
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anyway but yeah but it was kind of more of a less a little bit less structured I
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know parents did have to submit like their curriculum of like what they were going to teach in the syllabus and all
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that kind of stuff but it was to your point it's not a weekly thing it's not a
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build out of like every single year you're going to be guaranteed you have these classes it's really up to moms to
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parents to be like well next year I'm going to teach this kind of a thing um
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and the other thing with group Solutions was that if you wanted to participate in
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group Solutions you as a parent had a role to teach a class so it wasn't just
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a like oh sign your kids up drop them off that kind of a thing it was like you also are actively being a teacher of
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something um as well so well we were chatting beforehand that your mom kind of headed up yearbook for group
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Solutions um both as a class and then also just as a thing that we got to take home at the end of the year um and uh
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and then I also know that you are a filmmaker um type person but do you get that kind
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of creative picking up a camera aspect of your of your life from your mom I get it actually from both my
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parents which surprises a lot of people because my dad is not artistic um but he both of my parents triy to go into
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the film industry okay when they were about 20 years old okay um my dad wanted to do the editing side of things and my
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mom wanted to do acting then realiz she want to be behind the camera and then both of them somewhere
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in the early 20s either like my Dad tried the industry hated how they treated people and was like this isn't
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for me so he went down business route became good at that and then my mom um still had a heart for it but kind of in
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a similar vein was like I don't like how Hollywood is so if if the industry was
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like it today when she was looking at careers I think she would have continued um because there's just it's not just
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Hollywood now you've got all the things um right and I think she would have gone
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into it so um to that degree I have two Storyteller parents um and I just kind of found it myself they never push it on
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me they never even told me that they were they were that was something they wanted to do until I started picking up
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on it because it it started when I was in fifth grade um there was this little iPod Touch app called video star and you
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could make a whole music video with it and I would Wrangle up my neighborhood friends and we I would write a story
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with them and direct them I just it was so much fun and then I join video production with group Solutions and that
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was kind of where that really kicked off obviously Phil still making kind of yeah
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birthed out of those early years those you know grade school years and then that was kind of what you pursued in
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college so once you graduated was it an instant I'm going to I'm headed to
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college or did you did you take some time and then yeah and then what did the College Years look like and then and
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then we'll get into a little bit more of like what you're doing today I have to go to it started at the
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video production class in group Solutions um I took that class my in middle school and that's where I got I
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learned like the whole art of film making and I fell in love with it um my script got chosen my first semester to
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be made and so we made the typing Terror starring Caleb svard and Emily Aldrich yes and um I just fell in love with it
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but I didn't know that was what I wanted to do to make a living so I started
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pursuing interior design like all through high school and then moved went to public school and I missed making
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videos so much that I created a club and I started teaching people basically took the idea of video
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production the class and made a video production Club it was like the coolest thing I've ever done with my life um my
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mom was like Kira you're not going to want to hear this but I think you want
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to go into film I was like you don't know what you're talking about and then
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like a month later I was like I'm sorry you know exactly what you're talking
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about and so I went to the University of Cincinnati and studied film making um and I brought the club with me and it is
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still doing its thing today it's oh wow how old is it now it's about eight years old now wow
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it's cool to just see how many people have like fall in love with film making
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and stuff yeah yeah College itself um was really hard MH uh for not the reasons probably you're thinking um it
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was hard more socially and emotionally other than um also going through a pandemic with it right
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um but when I look back on it like it was a complete waste of my time um the only thing that made it
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worth it was video production club and that's where I met my husband okay otherwise the schooling itself I was
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very prepared for because of how I was homeschooled homeschooling prepared me more for University than
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um public school did probably because of time management right so you said so during pandemic so
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you were in college 2020 when did you when did you start college when did you finish I started 2018 graduated um fall
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of 2019 or sorry 21 21 okay so I had three and a half years years yeah okay very cool just to kind of give people an
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idea too of like um that's one of the questions I've been getting more and
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more and I I feel bad sometimes when I don't get this answered of like well how
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old are you guys I'm like well I'm 28 but I'm interviewing people who are like
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all over the Spectrum um you know uh older than me younger than me all those types of things so okay so continue 2019
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2021 you're in college pandemic video Club all these wonderful things best thing to come out of it was
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a husband y I would argue that my the best thing to come out of my college experience was my wife so I'm with you
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at least with my industry like like going to University they made it seem like you needed a degree in order to do
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but no you just need to learn how to network yeah which I did learn that I did learn how to network I appreciate
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that but I wouldn't say it was worth that much money so after College then like how long did it take for you to get
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kind of started in like okay I'm actually like making a living doing this oh making a living doing it um
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technically yeah good question I the Arts are definitely the underpaid We Do It For Love of the Game not not for
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always exactly well I technically started working locally two months after I started
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college so I've been my I've had my own business since 2018 as a independent contractor
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and I've done a lot of local commercials and video projects here in Cincinnati
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since then um but once I graduated um it took like nine months for work to pick up granted um Co really
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hurt the film industry because for a while there we couldn't make anything and then we could only make stuff if we
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were all six feet apart and that's really hard to do in front of a camera and behind a camera most of the sets are
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like house and everybody's in tight quarters and you have gear and Equipment
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you're all breathing on each other anyway but it made it difficult because then also we had to like take covid
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tests every day we on set but what after that nine Monon period I got brought on
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to a Netflix movie and I moved to Atlanta for six months and got to work on that and that was the coolest
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experience I've ever had um and then I came back to Cincinnati got married planned to move
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to Atlanta ended up not moving to Atlanta um and I've just been doing local commercials since um and then I'll
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go back down to Atlanta when there is work but the Hollywood industry is kind of in a crisis right now yeah we're
00:22:28
being p patient yeah hey sometimes sometimes you just kind of wait for that right project sometimes but y so so I
00:22:36
did a little bit of snooping because I think you are the only person within my network of people I'm
00:22:42
pretty sure who h no I take this back I was gonna say you're the only person I
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know with an IMDb page that's not true because I did interview uh uh Andy Lopez
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or Lowa I'm sorry I interviewed Laura Lopez um but um chatting with the Lopez
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twins um they also have Im dbes so you're not the only person I know with IM dph but anyway but that was when I
00:23:09
was preparing for our conversation I was like okay I got to check this out I got
00:23:13
to see what you've worked on and this Netflix movie that is coming out right
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it's not out yet um merch yeah it looks really cool tell us a little bit about
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that and then what you did for for that movie so the movie is called the electric stage I'm allowed to say that
00:23:29
now um it's called the electric State it's a Russo Russo brother film um and
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it's going to come out March 14th I was a staffed on set production assistant for that movie so I worked
00:23:48
with the I worked really closely with the assistant directors as an assistant directing Department um and my job
00:23:56
ranged from every everything but mainly my purpose was to um be the source of communication to everybody on set keep
00:24:06
everybody on time make sure set was running smoothly make sure everyone was safe um manage the cast make sure they
00:24:14
were where they needed to be on time um when we did re-shoot back in the spring actually we went we did a whole
00:24:22
another month of re shoots I was promoted to the motion capture production assistant so then I was in
00:24:28
charge of managing the motion team so they're actors who wear the really cool
00:24:33
bodysuits who we get to put animated characters on their movements later on in the production so all the robots are
00:24:41
actually real people um yeah which was fun and so that oh that's cool that was
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my department I got to oversee and take care of yeah and I'm gonna drop a link
00:24:50
to watch the trailer because the trailer just dropped recently um but yeah uh Millie Bobby Brown Chris Pratt uh in a
00:24:59
world where robots exist and not not every robot looks the same they all are like really I watched a trailer last
00:25:04
night I was like this movie looks awesome it's gonna be really sweet it's
00:25:11
uh written by the same writers who did Captain America and who did um Lion witch in the
00:25:19
wardrobe um it I highly recommend watching it I was lucky to be able to work on it yeah
00:25:27
no for for sure cuz like I'm stoked I'm stoked I'm like um and I don't get that I don't get
00:25:35
that excited for movies that are not like yeah you know what I mean like they're not I don't know we're in a
00:25:41
crisis right like you said we're in a crisis right now where everything is like remakes and sequels and all that
00:25:46
kind of stuff and so um yeah but watching that I was like I'm genuinely interested in this um for the Sci-Fi
00:25:52
element for you know the story looks really cool and things like that I wanted to bring up another project
00:25:58
that's on your IMDb page because because I have questions about this I have not
00:26:02
watched this show but you worked on a show that's called homeschooled yeah tell me about that
00:26:10
because I'm I definitely added it to my watch list last night oh my goodness um
00:26:17
homeschooled was my very first television project um we filmed season 2 um spring
00:26:27
of 2020 we actually got shut down by Co and had to rewrite the whole script and come
00:26:31
back in September so that was a whole mess um but I got to be the second assistant director for it um and it was
00:26:40
so much fun um it's very low quality very low budget um but it's just fun to to make a story
00:26:50
about another perspective of homeschooling because the concept of this show is this is a larger homeschool
00:26:57
family with a big sister who like angrily left home for a long time and then um finds out she gets a call one
00:27:03
day that her parents died so now she has to raise her younger siblings um and just the Journey of
00:27:14
relearning family and love and kindness and just being able to face trauma as a family unit and overcome it and she
00:27:23
homeschools all of them hey I mean that story is not that far off from some people's reality um I know people that
00:27:30
are living that right now so uh definitely will be giving it a watch um because I was like I was just intrigued
00:27:37
right off the bat by I was like I was like is this a school project what is like what is this no this is like a
00:27:43
legit it's on Roku I believe um so anyway yeah again another thing to add to the watch list uh if you're
00:27:51
interested if you want to see what K has worked on um check out her IMDb B page and then you know give give these movies
00:27:59
a watch it's been fun please do please do um okay so I want to talk a little bit
00:28:07
about like storytelling if you're if you're down because um it's something that I'm I'm
00:28:17
actively trying to learn right I'm I'm actively trying to learn how to tell a
00:28:21
good story how to make the show engaging how to you know that kind of a thing but
00:28:27
you know as someone who does that for a living like I don't know tell tell me about it
00:28:33
like give me um a nugget of a nugget of gold here I guess um but like is there anything in particular that you feel
00:28:41
like if someone's wanting to learn how to tell a good story whether it's film
00:28:45
photography whatever podcast um you know where where should they start what you know what should they be looking
00:28:53
for you want to start by figuring out what kind of story you're trying to tell
00:28:59
yeah it helps to think in framework of genre are you trying to tell a story that is joyful are you trying to sell a
00:29:08
painful story are you trying to bring um I and then I guess you want to ask yourself the next question is like well
00:29:17
then who are you trying to reach and how are you trying to reach them because like you can be telling a
00:29:23
really sad story but if it just ends on the sad note then what was the point but if
00:29:29
you're trying to tell a sad story that provokes an action for somebody to start
00:29:33
making a difference in the world there you go right I think those are just like when it comes to the first
00:29:40
two questions you ask yourself is what kind of story you're trying to tell and
00:29:44
who you're trying to tell it to this show originally started with kind of this idea
00:29:51
of kind of just sharing the bad about homeschooling kind of the nasty right and most of that stemmed from from my
00:29:58
own like having left it looking back things I didn't like I think I had overall a good homeschool experience but
00:30:05
I know a lot of people who didn't and so I was like oh I want to just kind of
00:30:08
like focus in on that and tell these stories and then I sat with it for about a year and I was like I think this is
00:30:15
the wrong choice because it it's very easily just going to become well you're
00:30:20
just hateful kind of a thing um because there's not there's not a purpose behind
00:30:25
it other than like let's just share these stories right and what I settled on was kind of
00:30:31
what the slogan of the show is which is The Good the Bad and the Ugly of homeschooling which is we have great
00:30:37
stories we have hilarious times of being homeschooled kids we also have some really bad times and there's some really
00:30:42
ugly out there um and I wanted to hopefully create a space that people felt safe talking about any and all of
00:30:51
that um and so that's why some episodes are going to be much more happy you know
00:30:57
because people had good experiences or that's just what we're choosing to focus
00:31:00
on that day other people they had some bad stuff and we gota we gota chat about it um but I think that's helped kind of
00:31:09
having that direction like you said of kind of choosing why do I want to tell this and then what's the outcome of this
00:31:14
and that part for me came from I met a homeschool family here in Tennessee and I realized that I was like they don't
00:31:22
know what they don't know right Mom and Dad don't know this is this is the first
00:31:26
time they're homeschooling anybody they don't know what they don't know but
00:31:31
right can I provide them an opportunity to hear stories of what I know about what worked what didn't work um and can
00:31:38
I get my friends to come along with me to tell those stories right um because the things that work for me didn't work
00:31:44
for everybody the things that worked for somebody didn't you know right you know
00:31:49
I think a lot of people now are learning to tell stories right we have such an influx of content creation and things
00:31:54
like that but people lack the idea of like how do you tell a good story right what is the purpose of it um so that's
00:32:02
important do you have anything in the works right now that you can talk about I'm finally breaking into writing and
00:32:09
directing my own commercials so that's exciting um otherwise I've been screenwriting because so Hollywood is in
00:32:17
a major crisis right now I think we're seeing the downfall of Hollywood um like
00:32:23
there's a mass Exodus of filmmakers leaving the industry right so what I'm
00:32:29
doing right now is hunkering down in screenwriting and working on buttoning up my scripts so if and when things do
00:32:38
start opening back up I can submit my work right I think what's really interesting and I mean you might know
00:32:45
more about this than I do but so a couple years ago I went to a really big podcasting convention and there
00:32:53
was people from iHeart Radio there there was people from ABC there was people from um uh like Amazon
00:33:03
like these big companies right and one of the things they were talking about was at the time a lot of scripts that
00:33:10
people were writing were getting picked up to do these podcasts um to do a podcast version and storytelling and if
00:33:17
they could effectively tell that story just through audio then they were starting to get picked up for a movie or
00:33:24
television show or some other media right animation that kind of thing and so I think that's interesting I don't
00:33:33
know if you're still seeing if that's still pretty prevalent um now or not but
00:33:40
I mean I definitely think it's prevalent I think it's just hard right now the
00:33:45
people with the money who will pick up the scripts aren't making things right
00:33:48
now right right yeah well I it's hard I think a lot of the big the big the big
00:33:55
boys that are playing they yeah they're cashing in on sequels and you know reboots and all
00:34:03
that kind of a thing you know and it doesn't help when like the biggest movie
00:34:07
of this year is a Marvel franchise movie right that doesn't that doesn't help
00:34:14
when you want to get other projects made that have nothing to do with any of that
00:34:17
so we are due for an indie Revolution here soon though so yeah yeah so what do you think of Studios like I know like a
00:34:27
24 you know they put out a good number of stuff and I know obviously like you know there's there are some really cool
00:34:36
like film festivals that happen um I know na Nashville does their own Film Festival it's a lot of documentaries but
00:34:42
there are some like shorter films as well um but yeah do you think it's what
00:34:50
do you think I don't know do you have any thoughts on what it's going to take
00:34:53
for things to kind of Flip or you think it's just time it's just time because we're already starting that um
00:35:00
because to put it in perspective people I know who've done been in this industry
00:35:03
for 20 or more years are switching careers because they can't put a roof over their head anymore right um it's
00:35:11
it's a matter of maker break it's either going to be the industry completely collapses and
00:35:20
we're going to go a while without making anything because we don't can't afford
00:35:22
to make anything or um it's going to be people are going to be like you know
00:35:26
what we're tired of this and then there's going to be a special group of
00:35:29
people with money who will fund Independent films and they're going to be like yeah we're tired of watching the
00:35:34
same movies over and over again so we're just gonna use our own money and we're
00:35:37
gonna make stuff right that's what I think is gonna happen it's just a matter
00:35:42
of when yeah I think it'd be interesting to see too a rise of like people kind of like a
00:35:53
crowdfunded movie industry to some degree right um that's what stud okay so because I had this I used
00:36:03
to work in the web 3 Arena crypto all that kind of stuff which I know it's like dirty bad words to a lot of people
00:36:10
and you know just reeks of scammy um I was just a production guy I just made the videos behind the scenes um oh yeah
00:36:18
but one of the things that they they talked about was using something like an nft right to have people buy into a
00:36:26
project um and kind of own a piece of that right and there's many ways to do
00:36:30
this but um there was a couple movies at the time that were getting made that I thought was really interesting right
00:36:35
it's like you spend $300 I get to own this piece of this movie right um and I
00:36:41
get to have my name in the credits and all these things um exclusive access to the release all those types of things
00:36:47
but we get to make this movie that if enough people are behind it it could be a blockbuster right it
00:36:54
could be this Mega film um and so I don't know I like like you said Angel Studios does that um but I don't
00:37:04
know maybe that's a way forward for some people hey it's better than where we're
00:37:09
at right now but we need to figure out the streaming service thing that's what
00:37:13
the that's what's causing most of the issu yes yeah yeah because that has a
00:37:16
lot to do with it's like royalties right it's a big a big chunk of it right and
00:37:20
royalties with streaming is just like Absolut in the in the right now exactly it's like doesn't exist right
00:37:27
yeah yeah so no it's important people need to get paid and exactly you are correct yeah the music industry is the
00:37:35
same way right it's like people people look at the the success stories of people like a Taylor Swift and things
00:37:41
like that but uh but you know your average little Hometown band on Spotify is making pennies on the dollar uh with
00:37:49
their streams so support support artists guys um if you can we need it not everything not everything is free and be
00:37:58
okay with the fact that sometimes you got to pay um to watch something that being said do you still
00:38:05
enjoy going to the movies is there something about like like if you're gonna watch a film or even a TV show but
00:38:14
like um do you find it more magical to be in a movie theater than at home okay 100% well especially
00:38:23
because we've taken away that magic we're like we're gonna just you can pull it up on your laptop on your
00:38:33
phone the screen can get smaller and smaller and you're gonna watch these grandio movies that we're spent like 300
00:38:40
billion dollars on and you're gonna watch it like that big and you're gonna
00:38:46
be like eh it was okay no you gotta like like maybe go get dressed up bring a date get some popcorn like walk into an
00:38:54
experience let yourself be surrounded by high quality speakers with projectors with higher quality lenses than your TV
00:39:02
or your phone and just let yourself just like forget the world for a minute somewhere you can't pause the movie and
00:39:09
just enjoy the story yeah when you're in an environment where like kids can be
00:39:14
screaming or you hear ambulances or you're you have to use bathrooms you keep pausing it you're taking yourself
00:39:19
out of the story and out of the purpose of a movie or a play is to help the audience like forget your life for a
00:39:28
moment and just jump into a different story yeah experience someone else's emotions I can I can definitely attest I
00:39:36
recently went and saw um a movie called rear window which is a very old movie um
00:39:42
but it this was like the 60th anniversary of that movie or something so they re-released it in theaters and
00:39:48
um one it's an amazing film if you haven't watched it it's absolutely
00:39:51
fantastic um have you seen this movie that I'm talking about no okay I know about it though yeah so but the overall
00:39:59
the basic premise of the movie is a guy in a wheelchair looking out his back window and he can see all of his
00:40:04
neighbors and he starts to uncover this like murder plot and he he sees this glimpse into everyone's life through the
00:40:12
rear window right um the movie is very simple but like to watch it in a movie theater was so magical right it was just
00:40:19
like we were there with other people who were passionate about this movie who it
00:40:24
it felt very much like oh like none of us everyone knows what's going to happen
00:40:28
to this movie but because we've all seen it before but there was just some magic
00:40:32
about we're all here together it was like watching it again for the first time so exactly go to the movies people
00:40:37
just do it just take yourself take yourself out on a date whether it's with somebody or not I like going myself me
00:40:44
too get yourself a popcorn go do it okay I want to Pivot you talked about making
00:40:51
commercials so I'm interested in that as well because now like you said you're starting to
00:40:59
direct them you're starting to kind of be the head honcho on these guys what
00:41:04
what are you looking at when it comes to a commercial of like the storytelling aspect I mean obviously directing is
00:41:10
different than writing but it can overlap a little bit but you know what are you looking for
00:41:17
when you either pitch one of these or you get pitched a commercial to direct or something like that like is there
00:41:23
something you're looking forward to a story or a genre that you're like okay I
00:41:27
want to I want to learn how to tell this story I want to tell this particular thing so for I work on a lot of
00:41:34
commercials just to pay the bills but when I am able to write and direct them I try to make mine look like a short
00:41:43
film okay um I try to tell ones that tell a story like a drama or a comedy ones that revolve around a character or
00:41:53
an event or a collective of people on a similar mission I tell a beginning middle and end even if it's only 30
00:42:01
seconds those are kind of the one those those are the stories that I do best directing those are the ones that if I'm
00:42:09
going to work in commercial that's what I want to be doing otherwise I've worked
00:42:12
on a bunch of random stuff like dude wipes um that was an interesting [Laughter]
00:42:21
one I have a friend who he I went to college with and he was a part of the like Old Spice team that has made some
00:42:29
of the Old Spice commercials and I was always just like what are these they're
00:42:36
really cool they're creative like they keep they stick in your brain um but yeah sometimes you're just like what is
00:42:42
this like you know and then everyone's also seen that that commercial of like
00:42:47
come on down to whatever and it's like what is this what what are we selling
00:42:52
right um but yeah uh when I was reading through your LinkedIn and stuff and kind
00:43:00
of prepping and I was thinking about like commercials I don't know if you're
00:43:03
familiar with like Rett and Link they're the good mythical morning guys um but
00:43:08
years and years ago they used to also make commercials and they would put a comedy spin on them there is a Taxidermy
00:43:16
um uh place in ohigh California um and the guy who runs it goes by Chuck Testa and if you've never seen that commercial
00:43:24
I highly recommend anybody just like go on YouTube look up like Chuck Tesa it's
00:43:29
so funny it's it's like a poorly made commercial like that's what that's kind
00:43:34
of what their bre and B was like they just make these kind of like awful commercials but they were like hilarious
00:43:38
right they told some kind of story yeah um but this guy was such a character and
00:43:43
uh I ran into him one day at a coffee shop and I was like you're Chuck Testa
00:43:48
like it just stuck with um this kind of cultural day it's just really funny anyway but uh I know you make better
00:43:55
commercials than that I watched a couple last night I was like these are way better than that but that's where my
00:44:00
brain instantly went was like these really and maybe it's because also going
00:44:05
back to like The Homeschool days and the the class the video production class you
00:44:10
guys did a great job but also looking back at that stuff do you cringe at all are you like oh yeah what I have a
00:44:18
little thumb drive that I keep in a safe and I don't want people see it but it
00:44:24
has all the music videos that I made in fifth sixth and seventh grade yeah horrible but I go back every once in a
00:44:32
while like from every like down in the pits of like ah not progressing as an artist where I go I remember down in the
00:44:38
pits I put that in and I look at them and I'm like wow just to see like little
00:44:44
Kira just being like just enjoying the process not caring what the result was just reminds me that like okay it may
00:44:53
not have turned out good but there was more joy made in that than there was in the like 500 million project or whatever
00:45:01
yeah and it's just a good reminder and also just being like okay I'm also I'm
00:45:05
I'm not there anymore I'm over here now so it's like there's been progress made
00:45:09
yeah it's just encouraging yeah I mean I work with a lot of YouTubers there's
00:45:15
this kind of theory in the YouTube world right now that if if every video you make is just 1% better just 1%
00:45:23
better you make a 100 videos you're 100% better right like it it that's all it
00:45:29
takes and that's a lot of videos that's a lot of time it's a 10 there's the
00:45:32
other the other um a lot of people talk about like the 10,000 hours this is kind
00:45:36
of a musician thing but it's it's been co-opted by everybody else but you know
00:45:41
if you spent 10,000 hours playing guitar you'll be a master at it th hours writing movies filming them directing
00:45:49
them whatever you will be a master at it right so um I don't know if you knew
00:45:54
this I talked about this on my episode with carye France but Carrie and I made a movie together kind of around the same
00:45:59
time that the group Solutions stuff was happening my mom gave us extra credit in a class we made
00:46:05
a full length movie I doubt many people not I know for a fact many people have not seen it it's about
00:46:13
50 people who showed up um I will not be sending it to you it's awful um it's awful uh maybe
00:46:22
I'll try to find a clip of it or something and send it put it out there it'll it'll end up on the internet at
00:46:26
some point um I'm trying to protect other people who are in it um who also know that it
00:46:31
was cringy um but but you know hey sometimes we got to put it out there but there was so
00:46:38
much there's so much fun that went into making that um and I even though I was
00:46:43
never a part of like your video production Club I remember watching and seeing you guys like have so much fun
00:46:49
making it and it just looked it just looks so cool and I'm jealous I going back I would have been like Mom put me
00:46:57
in I want I want in um to this group of people if people are interested in commercials or film making or something
00:47:04
like that and you maybe don't know what you're doing maybe reach out to Kira
00:47:08
maybe she can point you in the right direction or maybe she is the right direction happy to help I love teaching
00:47:14
people good good this has been awesome are there any memories stories cringy moments that have kind of popped up to
00:47:22
memory that you're like okay we haven't talked about this yet just it's just
00:47:27
been especially today just preparing for this I I've had just like had to like
00:47:33
unlock the little memory box in the back of my head um because I started blocking
00:47:39
most of it out I think yeah um I was bullied a lot even though which is something people are shocked by when I
00:47:46
say because they're like well you're were homeschooled well yeah but I was never the cool kid and that
00:47:52
was always really hard um so I blocked out most of my memories but the memor I do have that were really good usually
00:47:58
were revolved around like Mile High Pine um that was one of the coolest Community volunteering
00:48:08
experiences I've ever done and I've done a lot of different volunteering things
00:48:13
but that one was like you could just got to go help this camp in the mountains just like clean up and get ready for
00:48:22
their summer camp or prepare them for winter I forget exactly what it was but we did both but yeah yeah and there was
00:48:31
just really good community and we would like have the evenings to just play games and this big they called it the
00:48:38
ark it was this big giant building where you had like basketball courts indoor basketball courts and you had like fball
00:48:45
on that jazz and we also would like sing worship songs around the fire which was
00:48:49
always really cool under the stars but that's where like I start started to like I got to meet my best friend there
00:48:57
we Emily and I were school friends before that but that's where we became like really good
00:49:06
friends yeah and friendship has always been something that's really important
00:49:11
to me um because I grew up in Filmore California and my dad didn't ever let us
00:49:17
have any friends over when he was home and that usually was like a small window between after school hours before he got
00:49:25
home so it was very lonely out there and it was hard cuz not a lot of people in the more Coastal side of California
00:49:36
wanted to drive their kids 50 minutes to go have a play date yeah or vice versa but gas was expensive so it was
00:49:45
hard for us to go to the other side too absolutely I think that's important I
00:49:52
think that's something that not a lot of us have like chatted 100% about because it's like I
00:50:01
got asked this I got I got an email from uh a viewer on YouTube and they were asking about bullying and I was I was
00:50:10
like I don't remember they being bullying but I know that it happened because now in chatting with people I
00:50:17
realize that it did and um and on behalf of someone who I I know that I've bullied people I want to say
00:50:26
I'm sorry that that happened to you that's like awful you know um and nobody deserves
00:50:31
that um and you know so I just wanted to say that does happen in The Homeschool community and
00:50:40
there are ways to be on the look out for it and I've said it before on the show
00:50:45
I'll say it again if you see something say something um that goes for all types
00:50:49
of different things but but bullying especially because bullying just it n it sucks and but I'm glad that
00:50:57
you still have friends from the h school days um Emily is awesome uh Emily has been on
00:51:04
the show before um go listen to her episode as well we chat about our homeschool days as well her
00:51:12
homeschool days and um yeah I'm glad that I'm glad that you guys are still
00:51:18
friends you know me too yeah yeah and yeah to your point friendship is important and I think that for parents
00:51:27
who are looking to homeschool their kids right knowing where you live and the people that are around you and and you
00:51:35
know one of the big myths about homeschooling is like well homeschool kids are sheltered and they're protected
00:51:41
and they're uh unsocialized unsocialized that's what I'm looking for
00:51:46
and it's true and not true it can be true right like you were isolated and Filmore
00:51:52
but they're so and I don't want to say your parents made a mistake and being
00:51:57
like oh we're going to homeschool our kids cuz that's not true at all but
00:52:01
maybe there was other homeschool families within Filmore that they maybe could have done a better job being like
00:52:07
okay hey there's other kids here in Filmore um that we can we can be with and also to all those homeschool
00:52:13
families and the rest I get why you didn't want to drive to Filmore it's a
00:52:16
ways out there it is way out there but but yeah I don't want that to go though I don't want to go that I um
00:52:27
if you have an extrovert kid they're gonna hang out with people that's what I
00:52:31
did I was an extrovert being raised to be an introvert um yeah and I was the kid I would go door too in my
00:52:38
neighborhood be like knock knock knock the parent would open the door like who's this scrawny little child I'd be
00:52:44
like can so and so come out and play and then they'd be like my kid playing outside I'll ask but I don't think
00:52:52
that's GNA happen and then after like repetitive pestering they would come outside and
00:52:59
then before I knew it I had like the whole neighborhood doing like dance competitions and talent shows and
00:53:09
creating tag version eight like we were super creative and like it just if you have an extrovert kid let them be an
00:53:17
extrovert and make that was that made it living in Filmore really awesome because
00:53:23
I made a lot of cool friends with people who didn't they grew up they were in
00:53:27
public or private school and weren't allowed to go play outside it was like you go to school and you do homework you
00:53:32
eat dinner and you go to bed and then I would jump in and be like can they play outside for an hour and then the parents
00:53:39
would be like well they have homework but an hour an hour is fine that's fine
00:53:44
yeah and then before I knew it we would be up till like 10 p.m. and our parents would be like I don't know they need to
00:53:50
go to bed but they're having so much fun and they're outside it's kind of a
00:53:54
win-win look at that Winn K Kira out here doing the Lord's work going door to
00:54:01
door I was they probably feared you as much as you know we we fear when the Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking
00:54:07
through the neighborhood yeah they saw they saw you coming and they were like oh
00:54:12
no the parents eventually got me they would just be like they would just call their kids name as soon as they saw me
00:54:19
outside and they would send them out just go yeah that's fun though that's
00:54:25
fun it's fun to kind of grow up in a area too where you've got kids like in
00:54:29
the neighborhood that do stuff and you know just be kids and be stupid and you know make cringy stuff like you
00:54:37
said you have a whole backlog catalog of all you know the memories of doing that
00:54:43
kind of stuff and that's awesome so yeah and like you said I love that you go
00:54:48
back and review it right when you feel down and you're like no like but that's
00:54:53
awesome so this has been awesome I'm glad we I'm glad you that and um yeah
00:55:00
and and to the audience if you have a story you want to share like please reach out um it's Instagram on Instagram
00:55:07
at exhs club or you can email me exhs [email protected] and you know and that's how we get
00:55:14
reconnected like this and I'll say this too if you see someone on the show that
00:55:19
you're like oh my God I remember this person text them write them a message say hi say what's up you know if it puts
00:55:26
somebody in your brain to talk to them that's the Universe telling you to to
00:55:30
talk to them okay just send them a message um they're not too busy they're
00:55:35
not too stressed they're not you know if they ignore it they ignore it but like
00:55:39
just trust me trust me on this one just do it put it out in the universe okay the universe is telling you to do
00:55:44
something do it that being said Thank you again Kira for coming on this has been wonderful thanks for having me and
00:55:51
uh yeah and we're going to stay much better connected and become better friends in these coming years I see it I
00:55:57
see it happening please do so uh yeah for the rest of you this has been the X homeschoolers Club we'll be
00:56:03
back next week remember comment like subscribe do all of the normal things um I don't want to beg you to do it but
00:56:09
please do it helps grow the show and uh yeah reach out to your friends if you enjoyed this maybe share this with a
00:56:15
friend who hasn't watched the show um and uh yeah until next week peace out [Music]
00:56:33
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