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hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is [Music] morbid it's a special morbid it's a
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special morbid we have some directors on today honey o we have any award-winning
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directors at that uh mle and Chapman way they are brothers we have them on the show today you might know them from Wild
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Wild Country or Untold and perhaps now from Kings of Tupelo which is a three-part documentary it dropped on
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Netflix back in December I think it was December 11th there are probably going to be some spoilers in this episode so
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we definitely highly suggest that you watch it before you listen to this but and it is so good listen to it or watch
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it listen to it and watch it watch it the the order that we would love for you to do this in is watch it and then list
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listen to it correct and you know what live your own life though make your own choices on wild do but they were great
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to talk to they were awesome to talk to this story has crazy details there's rice and Lace letters being sent to
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President Obama if anybody remembers that from I think 2013 there's a deep dark conspiracy about Black Market body
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parts y severed heads and freezers and somehow that all culminates into an Elvis impersonator massive Feud with a
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Taekwondo instructor as as it usually does yeah so if that doesn't entice you I love you but I don't know what's wrong
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with you but I don't know what you like okay I I don't know what you could possibly like but if that does entice
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you keep listening so before we get into the details of the kings of Tupelo we wanted to talk a little bit about how
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you guys got into film making in the first place it's obviously something that's in your blood so was it something
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that you guys were always interested in yeah it's a it's a it's an interesting question I think uh Mac and I grew up in
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a family that has worked in the film industry our uh our father was a screenplay writer uh growing up and
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wrote screenplays for films and um we've had uncles and auns who are producers and actors and things like that and so
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um it was kind of always around us but truthfully Mac and I kind of love sports growing up and so really we played a lot
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of sports and then I think we got older and realized uh there was zero chance of
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us ever becoming professional athletes uh which my my my dream is still don't don't kill my yeah right I'm a 34y old
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guy and i' still got a great jump shot there's still time never give up there's still things that we kind of got like uh
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obsessed with music and film and the Arts in in high school and and really kind of came to it on her own in a way
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and um I was kind of studying cinematography and Mac was actually studying his hisory at the time and this
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was around you know 2007 2008 um and quickly realized that there was like kind of new ways to make documentary
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films like I think we kind of grew up where documentaries were kind of like the vegetables so they were like the
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broccoli of the entertainment industry yes we were starting to see like more entertaining more thrilling more Artful
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documentary film making and so we kind of dove in and around 2010 and kind of been doing it ever since nice awesome so
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for our listeners that have not seen this specific documentary at Kings of Tupelo can you give us a brief overview
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of what takes place and kind of what the story is All About cuz there's a lot there yes I think brief is probably the
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most important word in that question so I'll I'll do my best because it's it's a
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weird story but basically in 2013 kind of one of our country's preeminent Elvis impersonators had been arrested um for
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trying to assassinate President Barack Obama and had sent poison in the mail a poison called ryson just very potent
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dangerous rare um poison and uh basically a week later he was released from uh interrogation from prison uh and
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it had been announced that he had been framed by a local rival pirani instructor in the town of tupo
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Mississippi where they're both from and so that's kind of the headline uh we flew out to Tupelo Mississippi which is
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the birthplace of Elvis Presley um in 2020 started meeting with a lot of the characters and kind of quickly realized
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that there was a whole hell of a lot more to the story than just that insane headline so um our journey began in 2020
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probably I'd say is when we kind of started working on this full-time you left out so much chat you left out you
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left out that was not easy said the dog don't realize what a great job I did you
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really did that was like that was like that was like 4% of the documentary kiding it's so wild too cuz if you heard
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that synopsis or read that synopsis on the back of like a fiction book you'd be like that's a lot like you that's crazy
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that's a little far-fetched it's like this is real we always say like if we like pitch this as a a narrative film
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like no one would ever that's wild No One's Gonna buy that yeah that was our experience too like we the first time we
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you know when you go into Tupelo you you fly into Memphis and then it's like 90 minutes south you cross over the state
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border and into Mississippi and like it you're not really driving to anything like you know you just kind of like go
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to tupo it always felt like kind of like the town from like big fish a little bit
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where it's like you kind of like go off this like eaten path to this dirt road and like you see these like telephone
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wires with like everyone's like shoes like strung up and like no one really like leaves this town but it's like a
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really like cool magical place uh but it was interesting like because when we first got there there was almost an
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element that I was like a little nervous I would wince when I would tell people I
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was there because we kind of just by the by by the fact that there was like seven
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or eight or nine or 10 of us in our film crew and we have film cameras and we had
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like a small production band like people just notice you immediately and they ask
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you like what you're doing there but they're very friendly about it it's like a very like hospitable welcome and it
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almost like went telling them you know like oh we're doing like the 2013 Presidential assassination cuz like a
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small town you would think that would like not not that that's not they wouldn't be that excited that the
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Netflix talking would be doing something on that story and it felt like their reaction was like the exact exact
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opposite like they were so stoked that like Netflix that someone was coming it down to do something like kind of
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involved with Elvis but more on this like whackadoo crazy story with all these like really fascinating characters
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and it was like that almost like set the tone for the whole dock where it's like
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oh we can actually have like a lot of a lot of fun with this one it's it's and I
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think we certainly did it was it was cool yeah that's amazing cuz I would assume that you probably don't run into
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that a lot where people are so willing to talk to you like that and especially in a small town too yeah it's I mean
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like especially in La no one wants to be on camera everyone's like very angry when they see cameras and when we got
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the two not only were they excited but there are certain characters in our story who play Like the quote unquote
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role of the villain or the bad guy and they were like so excited by that opportunity and even the opportunity to
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to be the the bad guy in this story and so uh we had so much fun we quickly realized down in the South uh especially
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in Tupelo and Mississippi that they love telling stories you know they love embellishing the truth they love
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heightening the truth they're just such larger than like characters they they're
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they're proud of their eccentricities and I think kind of where we're from is a little bit different people kind of
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hide their quirks and their weird things and it was just so much fun and so refreshing to be in the South where um
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it's really a badge of honor your eccentricity and we truly had a great time hanging out with these characters
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and getting to film them that's so cool I love the way you guys open the documentary too where you talk about how
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southern people and the south in general is just so good at storytelling because
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immediately that documentary opens and you're like oh this is going to first of all you know it's going to be a tale if
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you read the description and then the way it starts you're like this is a cozy Vibe I like this it was our uh like we
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always joke that that was like our version of like legal display was just using using like a William fauler quote
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like and then Steve Holland who's our our Mississippi Undertaker kind of just waxs his poetic on on uh yeah exactly
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what chap said just like how they love to embellish stories for for a good time because it was interesting like there
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was so much to this documentary that like I think it it took a while to make it I think it took us like you know from
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from like real production to finishing was at least two 2 and a half years you know and then we had important from
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Netflix so it's like it wasn't like we needed to like rally resources like we went at it pretty quickly um but like to
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investigate like all the truth claims in this documentary like I think would have
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taken like 10 years to make it easily so there was kind of an element of like when we were down there like within
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reason I think we just tried to like ride the waves of these interviews and some of the outlandish stuff that was
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that was being said said to us so when did this story first like come across your desk I guess I would say was it the
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presidential assassination that you heard of first or was it another element of the story yeah I mean so 2013 we just
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had like a very faint memory honestly of just the first part of the story that an
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Elvis impersonator had been arrested for trying to assassinate the president so just that headline kind of always stayed
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with us and then in 2020 I kind of became fascinated with small towns and and small towns that have these
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incredibly uh bizarre and human stories that maybe other people don't know and I
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was doing re church and kind of stumbled across tupo which is like a world unto itself it's just filled with Elvis
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statues and Elvis murals and they're kind of like the The Stepbrother to to graceand and Memphis with where Elvis is
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really known for and and then all like just researching Tupelo I saw that the presidential assassination Story the two
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main characters lived in Tupelo and so then I started reading it again Mac and I started researching we we flew out
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there in 2020 not even knowing is it a short dock is it a feature what is it and like I said we met Paul Kevin Curtis
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who's the main character who was arrest initially arrested for for trying to assassinate Obama and and within 10
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minutes I was like Kevin is an incredible Storyteller he's an incredible character uh he's so Dynamic
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on screen and he just has an amazing story that no one really knows about and so that was kind of the impetus that
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started at all that makes sense he really is such a good Storyteller it was wild and I love the story board that you
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guys kind of intertwin throughout the documentary that's awesome I was going to say that was it was the way you guys
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shot this that like you get that town like while you watch it like you feel that town you get that it's like this
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like it's over the top in like the best way like everyone is shot like so dynamically and in such like Dynamic
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environments for who they are like you just got everybody it was so it's always awesome to hear I mean like we're we're
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less maybe like investigative documentary filmmakers and tried like storytelling I think as as what and the
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tupo is a character in the story so it was important for us that itd be heightened we always said it kind of
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felt like a Tim Burton movie or something a little bit of an upside down world and uh it was important for us to
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capture that had a little bit of a Twilight Zone uh feel the best way possible very much um and so it's always
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really cool to hear that that stuff resonates and and comes through yeah it was interesting because even like um
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yeah when we went to like Kevin's camper that was like we knew like this is like
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a really like authentic interesting place that that Kevin lives in you know and it was not easy cuz we we like to
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shoot with three cameras for talking head interviews which is like you know you at least need two but three is just
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to get you like an extra angle if you want it um but it but literally like it could only like thank God chat my my
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brother knows how to do sound because like I kind of would ask the questions chat would do sound and run one camera
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and then our cinematographer David Bolan who just like look shot so much amazing
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stuff in this series that it just look so good uh he was like operating two cameras at the same time oh my God just
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it was it was a tight spot it was we couldn't get like an everone in there but uh but no tupo is kind of like a
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little bit like one of the last documentary series we made wild wall country there was a town called analou
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and like it very culturally different places but whenever you're a filmmaker and you like get into a town and you're
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like oh my God anywhere I point the camera it looks great like it's cool cuz it's real it's authentic and uh you
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really get those in thisly these like small historic towns and then CH is cool too just because like Elvis is just
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pervasive everywhere there's like every street corner has an Elvis statue or an Elvis mural or like and his like he he
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looks at you like everywhere you go in that town and such a Vibe it is a Vibe like and in a weird way like we always
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felt like that that was like the subtext to the insanity of these characters was
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like only like the most famous person probably of all time in western civilization Elvis Presley like came
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from this Tiny Town and everyone here today is like in their own kind of perverse perverted but really like
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interesting Fantastical way is like trying to reach that level of like uh notoriety like the like illusion of
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grand yours are there so um you know that that was always fun to kind of play around with that Stu even when Laura
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said there was one thing that she said where she was like every girl wanted to sleep with one of the El Elvis
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impersonators like growing up just something he wanted to do and I was like absolutely like of course relatable who
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she said the bucket list she said it like it's just like that's just what you do like she's so
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much fun Laura is a great character she really L very honest and yeah I I I that
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cracked me up when she said that and and not shameful way but in a in a very uh owned it and very prideful way
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from yeah that's how she said matter exactly so good did I read that one of you guys used to do autopsies is that
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correct Selena yeah I was I'm an I was an autopsy technician I guess you're always an autopsy I ask you a question
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I'm curious yeah you're your interpretation and take on this body parts Black Market conspiracy it's just
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like just we were America is listening all right America is listening you're about to
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piss off half of America and become the hero to the hat so just choose the side choose the side you want to be on I'll
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choose I'm going to step my toe over it's I can when he said he went like when he said he went down into the morg
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and he was cleaning up and like when he said he just like opened a fre a fridge to like get a Dr Pepper I was like from
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where but he was like we don't have those down there but when he said he opened it up and he saw at first he said
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he you know I saw a severed head and I saw these body parts I was like all right the severed head strange it
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probably shouldn't be there but body parts in a freezer are very typical and I was like it would freak somewhat like
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you know that you have to store them you're preserving them for research and for tissue sampling and for donations
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anything like interesting I mean we would store entire like spinal columns in the freezer sometimes so it's like if
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you opened that you'd be like what it would look like Hannibal from Outsider would look strange but for someone who
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has experience knows like okay these things get tested for diseases apologies and it looks strange because it's by
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itself curious this this is an odd question but I did I love that we're talking to like our the best expert on
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this issue on the podcast and not and not the documentary film that we made it's kind of giving me joy um but I
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did have a conversation with someone that also worked in I think a dental morg is what it was called which I I
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don't like I guess it's yes I don't know it's like that something but identify teeth and people yeah I guess so
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something like that was in New York City and he and he made the point but I'm curious if this was your experience
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where he was like my Lord was surprisingly like messier than you would think Messier in terms of like gr it's
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grotesque it can get grotesque down there so I'm curious if that was your take or if it's like no like that's not
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how it's not like it get bad M so that's always it's funny because I think like the CSI effect yeah has made people
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think that like morgs are these like Hightech super pristine everything is like glass and like yeah like and it's
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like we were very clean and it was cleaned every night and you know procedures were followed and like things
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were taken care of that way but it's a wreck I mean it's like there's like a car shop or something you're going to
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have it's just like so like and and Things Are surprisingly like not high-tech like when you know I always
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tell people like when we you have to cut the ribs to take the chest plate off and
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get to everything we would use Home Depot hedge Cutters to cut ribs it wasn't like we had a rib cutter that was
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that so they're like the orange handle like very interesting but it was there was a lot of like lot of blood smears
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get on things it's it's not you clean up at the end yeah somebody walks in there
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in the middle of the day pouring question I think they're a are curious about there are no Dr Peppers
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in all right Peppers got that one on your Authority all right of him just taking Hazmat off for a Dr Pepper I love
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that so much that was the other thing I was like dear God what a what a choice I
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was like no way something you touched on earlier I do feel like Tupelo is a character it's
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almost more of a character than it is of a setting so what was it like spending those N9 months there capturing
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everything you did the way kind of documentaries are made now is it's much more of like a factory machine where you
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know you're given two weeks of filming you have to film all of your interviews and all your b-roll in this amount of
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time and I think the one really cool thing about our partnership with Netflix is they really give us like the
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resources and the time to go live in these places and make these documentaries and I think when if when
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you just fly into somewhere as an outsider with c for 10 days and then just throw people
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on camera and then leave there's something like very like nonh human about it I feel like you don't actually
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really get to know the people the way of life what they do so most importantly for us it was just about us getting to
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spend time with these people have meals with these people sit around the fire with these people and um like learn how
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to embrace the weirdness of their lives but also like honoring the weirdness and
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and the humanity behind it and so being out there for 9 months you know it's a cliche but it does kind of become a big
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family with all the different subjects and you get to know their families and by the time you start filming there just
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is an inherent trust we know them they know us um and I think it really lends towards kind of getting these more
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authentic and and insightful looks into these characters in their lives and like
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it was so funny CU like since the documentary comes out like yeah there there has been like a big reaction to
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like wow these are some like weird characters you know but I was always like well like what about the two dudes from
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La that chose to go spend like 10 months like like that's weirder than any and I was like if they're if they're
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weird but like I think we're the weirdest of them all to be like a part of this uh but no like I said at the top
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like they were just so welcoming in a way like I literally remember the only time I think and not that like Kevin or
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Laura cared about this but it did crack me up the only time I felt like I ever put my foot in my mouth was when you
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call when when I called some someone an Elvis in person and like I got pulled aside and was like
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politely but sternly told that they're called Elvis tribute artists they're not Elvis
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impersonator more serious than and I always messed that up I was never able to really commit the Elvis tribute
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artist to to it's a Memory it's a mouth you're like writing it on your hand in between takes it's a it's it's a wild
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town like it's you know we even have some sections that are a little like heavier but but that was like our
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experience there like Kennedy who's Kevin's son kind of goes on a little bit of like a monologue and it was one of
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the more interesting interviews that I think we did and he talks about the poverty that like he feels like he and
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the kids around him have have have kind of lived in and it's true it's like these towns tupo has elvest so that does
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go a long way in terms of like an economy and tourism and it is like a nice down but um it's an interesting
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experience when you start to get outside of talo and you start to like drive around more in the South and Mississippi
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and you you you run into areas that our time capsules from like the 1950s and as
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a filmmaker that's an interesting experience but as a human it's also uh it's heavy you know it's heavy you go to
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a town that literally has you know like I said has is is kind of a time capsule so it's a weird amalgamation you know
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but like one that uh was was was poetic and and very interesting definitely it's
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like an extended field trip to one of the coolest places I bet really is really is it's a good way of putting it
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also I think our favorite part about being down there is like get off their phones and they talk and they hang out
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and they eat dinners and they cook I think for us like being from California grow up in Los Angeles everyone's so
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tied to their computers and their phones and honestly my favorite part was just like eating barbecue outside listening
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to pyas and and hearing them talk about stories was like for my soul at least we
00:22:20
very very uh healthy and very positive yeah just like disconnecting while reconnecting yeah Excel 100% that was
00:22:27
poetic you know I try that end scene where you guys are at the party with uh uh what's the Senator's name who opened
00:22:35
up the documentary Steve Holland Holland Steve Holland yeah yeah Steve Holland when you guys are sitting with him and
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like his family and everything and then you go to the end with Kevin's family I'm like I want to go there it just
00:22:47
feels so wholesome it really did I know it does it's like like it's uh and like again we were we were there to talk to
00:22:54
them about a presidential assassination plot that like has that that deals with body parts that were like chopped up in
00:23:00
a hospital and they flew right past that they like didn't they I didn't mean to cut you off Chad but I do find I she
00:23:08
nailed it like it was just like there's a Simplicity that is just like intoxicating which is like let's eat
00:23:14
good food let's not judge each other let's share a bunch of weird [ __ ] stories and let's have a good time and
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let's have a beer and then and let's do a lot of karaoke and sing a lot of Elda songs God I it was a it was a really fun
00:23:28
nine months for us that we spent out there you must have heard so much Elvis like so much Elvis music I was going to
00:23:34
say those n months how many facts did you learn about Elvis approximately that you did not know it it was interesting
00:23:41
there was a point in the documentary where I think I was like two months in at Tupelo and I was meeting a lot of
00:23:48
people and talking about a lot of people and I was actually tired and exhausted with how many times this had happened
00:23:55
with people I met where they would ask me they they would talk about graceand and I would be like well I eventually
00:24:01
I'd have to interject and say I have never been to graceand and then they would just like that was the ultimate
00:24:06
like stop like we need to go right now to grin so I I I remember like driving back to Memphis which is like 90 minutes
00:24:14
to get back to Memphis uh to go to graceand uh to to take the tour and uh you know graceland's cool but those
00:24:20
tours I have to say that those tours are like 3 4 hours long so it's like that that was like when I like I got my like
00:24:27
Elvis Ed got my got my master's degree in Elvis on on the graand tour um but no Elvis like yeah they play as I mean the
00:24:36
other cool thing is like you think you go there to be like um all right like let's go to on an important day like
00:24:42
Elvis the day Elvis died is like typically actually like the biggest Celebration Day or obviously a birthday
00:24:47
is big but it's like every week there's something else like oh this is the week that Elvis performed his first guitar
00:24:54
concert at Mila Middle School like and then it's like cool we're all going to go to mil middle school and like see the
00:24:59
celebration so Elvis is everywhere but uh it was fun I don't know chap we learned a lot about Elvis one of my
00:25:07
favorite factoids that didn't make it in and I have no idea if it's true or not but our main character called Kevin
00:25:12
Curtis is a uh uh has a a foot fetish he is he is very into into women's speak part of the documentary and uh I
00:25:24
remember him telling me that he has it on good authority um that he heard heard it from uh family members very close to
00:25:30
Elvis that Elvis as well had a foot fetish felt like it was another thing that spiritually connected him to the
00:25:37
king uh and it always it always found that always made me laugh but and also one my favorite images the first time we
00:25:43
got there I didn't even know it was Elis week which is like people fly from all over the world to come and I remember
00:25:50
just like walking by and like passing a man in eldis outfit Elvis impersonator then he turned the corner and see
00:25:56
another Elvis impersonator and then I turned another corner I saw like an elves Sone person like drinking coffee
00:26:01
and smoking a cigarette outside the coffee shop and like these images it was just such bizarre imagery then finally
00:26:08
ma told me that that it's Elvis week and that's why there was literally hundreds
00:26:11
of Elvis impersonators just walking around the town it was like a it was like I don't
00:26:17
know if you see being Johan malovich but there's this scene where he walks in and
00:26:20
it's just it's just a restaurant full of John M that was that was our experience out
00:26:29
I know seriously so setting Elvis aside for a moment and going back to the meat of the story which of course includes
00:26:35
Elvis I read that you guys typically look for three things going into film making do you mind telling us a little
00:26:41
bit about what they are and how they kind of applied to this story yeah uh I think like we talked about a little bit
00:26:47
but we're always looking for like a strong setting a strong location I think uh especially for me there's so much
00:26:52
stuff on Instagram and Tik Tok and you see so many images that when I watch a documentary I really want to travel to
00:26:59
places I have not been and learn about them and learn about the cultures so setting location is always really
00:27:04
important to us and no no better place than the birthplace of the king of rock and roll and then I think we're always
00:27:11
looking for larger than light characters in a way I found when um you have subjects who can uh be brutally open and
00:27:20
honest about their wants their desires their insecurities their failures their accomplishments that it really allows
00:27:29
them to like hold a mirror up to the audience and for some reason allows us as the audience I think to think about
00:27:35
our own lives and and thinking what are our desires and wants and needs and having someone Larger than Life perform
00:27:42
that role I've just always found it makes it easier for the audience to kind of think about their own lives in a way
00:27:46
and so we're always looking for like really interesting characters and then I think we're also always looking for
00:27:52
incredible twists and turns and stories where you do not know where they're going next and
00:27:58
there's kind of two types of documentary film making you have documentary films that are very like activist driving um
00:28:04
with like an an important message and those are super important for so many reasons I just think the as an audience
00:28:11
is you already know what the message is you already know who the good people are
00:28:15
who the bad people are and it's just a different viewing experience so for us I think we're always looking to subvert
00:28:21
expectations keep the audience on their toes we never want the audience to think
00:28:26
they know where the story is going next um and so finding locations great towns great settings great characters and then
00:28:33
a great story of twist and turns is kind of like the three things I think we're always looking for and I think you like
00:28:38
touched on something interesting too which it's like you I think we're actually at like an interesting time in
00:28:44
the world of documentaries and documentary film making especially at the the major platforms where um you
00:28:49
know I I think in the last couple years it's it's like fair to say that there is
00:28:53
a shift toward stories that people already have some familiarity or an understanding of and those
00:29:01
documentaries are fascinating too that are on like hey you think you know this topic but let me go ahead and subvert
00:29:07
your expectations or present a little bit of a different side or something like that it's a little bit of a
00:29:13
different type of documentary because those comes with its own challenges and obstacles over the course of Chapman and
00:29:19
and my own career I think that We've Ended to gravitate towards documentaries that most people and by most people I
00:29:27
mean 99 8 5% of people if you stop them on the street and ask them about the 2013 ricey Presidential assassination
00:29:34
story they wouldn't really know what that story is so they're coming to It For the First Time wild wild country was
00:29:39
like that too like yes people in in eastern Oregon certainly remembered the rash Nishi that they were around and and
00:29:45
and cognizant in the 80s but for most people where I come from in Southern California my age obviously had had had
00:29:52
no recognition um and it's interesting because I think that those stories that have the familiarity that have a name
00:29:59
that have you know just a little bit more name recognition usually do tend to do a little bit better on these
00:30:04
platforms so I think that's the way that the industry is going but for Chap and I
00:30:08
that's always like a big question mark is like do we want to make a story that people think that they know and and
00:30:13
figure out how to make it interesting from there or do we want to make a story that um you're going to have not zero
00:30:19
familiarity with and hopefully you're just along for the ride for all these twists and turns you know that's the
00:30:23
thing cuz I remember hearing of course about like the 2013 Presidential attempted assassination but it that was
00:30:29
the very tip of the iceberg in this story everything every time I thought I knew where this story was going it was
00:30:34
like nope we're going this way now yeah that that's part of the fun I think or at least what I'm an audience member
00:30:39
like that's what I enjoy I like being on the edge of my seat I like thinking that
00:30:44
okay I know who this character is and then boom they end up turning out to be something totally different or
00:30:48
unexpected and it it's we're trying to I mean it can sound crude but we are trying to make entertainment people have
00:30:55
busy lives there's a lot of things uh you can spend your time doing I think we take responsibility seriously that if
00:31:03
someone's going to sit down and press play we feel we owe it to people to uh to really give them an experience and
00:31:10
sometimes we do better at that than others but that's always the goal at least is uh every time you press play We
00:31:14
want to make sure you know you're going you're going on a ride I think you guys are in the the right mindset though with
00:31:20
the way you do it with like taking a story that most people will not be familiar with because I mean personally
00:31:25
I love those much more because I love being able to be like I just heard this story and none of you are going to know
00:31:31
about it but I need to tell you everything and now you need to watch this and I think it's also I think
00:31:36
people are starting to have an appetite for more like original and unique content too like slowly I think we're
00:31:42
going to get there because I think people are getting sick of even like you know the fictionalized like narrative
00:31:47
movies that are just kind of like being redone and it's the same thing and people are looking for Original Stories
00:31:53
and original content so I think like slowly people are going to come around to realizing that like
00:31:58
you want to learn something new like you want to go into something totally blind yeah we definitely hope so and I
00:32:05
think I I I'm the same way you are like when I see something about a story I didn't know like I'm so much more
00:32:09
inclined to want to call my friends or my family and about it discuss it and share it to me that's like the the best
00:32:17
part about doing this is talking to your colleagues at work and sharing stories about what you've seen and and what what
00:32:24
uh what impacted you so I hope so we we love these kind of off the be weird stories uh and and hopefully we'll be
00:32:32
able to continue doing them I think you guys are kind of definitely starting to become known for the the weirder stories
00:32:38
and just wild fascinating document our mom certainly think so she's like oh God what's this other one now she's she
00:32:46
wants she wants us to do like a great easy like a like a cooking documentary on yeah kind of make a great yeah you
00:32:54
could but you could flip it on its head discover something crazy about cooking knives in kitchens or anything's going
00:32:59
to happen oh yeah so what was different though about making this film than some others that
00:33:05
you've made in the past think we kind of touched on it a little bit but it it quickly became clear that it was going
00:33:13
to be impossible to like fact check or investigate a lot of these claims you know and so in the beginning we were
00:33:22
sitting there kind of twiddling our thumbs like what do we do here and I just think we decided early on like
00:33:26
let's just f embrace the madness and the mythology and the storytelling and it's
00:33:32
such a part of the culture and these characters like let's find a way to make that a tension point of the story um is
00:33:40
Kevin telling the truth you know he the story starts early on with him finding a
00:33:45
severed head in in a morg in a hospital which kind of kickstarts the whole path to the presidential assassination and so
00:33:52
so much of it for us became um exploring the humans inside of the story and maybe
00:33:58
less the um actual like True Crime facts if that makes sense and so I think that's what made this one a little bit
00:34:05
more difficult to make is yeah well it's like kind of on that point like what Chapman and I would like we always
00:34:10
talked about especially with our editor Neil Michael John who was like a big part of our character and our producer
00:34:16
Juliana and and and everyone on our team is like because we've made true crime documentaries before but we learn like
00:34:23
conspiracy is actually like a weird cousin to True Crime where it's like True Crime can rely on facts and like
00:34:29
motivation of individuals and like that is a part of the fun game of like who done it you know and we've made those
00:34:36
documentaries and we LED making those documentaries conspiracy is like this weird amalgamation of like well a the
00:34:43
conspiracy itself is super confusing so but but it needs to be like accurately or not accurate but it needs to be like
00:34:50
comprehendable in the editing of it right like it needs to be comprehendable to like a wide audience to understand
00:34:55
what the conspiracy is but then there's this whole side game of like yeah and is
00:34:59
this conspiracy real or not and then you're like cool that's a whole another thing that we need to like kind of dive
00:35:04
into and like balance the scales a little bit of like maybe it's true maybe it's not um but like and then and then
00:35:11
what was weird about this is like the whole conspiracy of Kevin's conspiracy and body part's conspiracy and then like
00:35:17
Everett's conspiracy that was above Kevin's conspiracy it got like City in the sense of like wait what is real and
00:35:24
what is not and like are people even understand understanding what the conspiracy is so so I feel like that was
00:35:31
the the genre of like we made kind of a weird conspiracy comedy documentary but the conspiracy was was the weird part to
00:35:37
to figure out was certainly my experience but I didn't mean to cut you off chat but I like that I don't even
00:35:42
think we succeeded at that either yeah I watch it and I'm like still confused the story but been three years
00:35:50
but you learn something new every time you watch it you're like oh yeah like oh maybe it does sense now after watching
00:35:55
for the hund times better than a town and people with like deep deep lore that you can't verify that it's all just like
00:36:04
hearsay 100% it's like pass through like telephone style that was my favorite part is like all the would kind of share
00:36:10
the same story but like little details with all change and so I was like some curl of Truth here you know but um it
00:36:19
gets built upon and built upon and for us that that was part of the fun and I just think the other kind of hard thing
00:36:24
about this one was like I'm not too worried about spoilers for a while but uh is like the first half of the
00:36:31
documentary is kind of made to convince you that one person committed this crime
00:36:37
um and then there's kind of like a big rug pull and a reveal that it was possibly someone else who had framed him
00:36:43
and so I think we had never really seen that in a documentary before like how do
00:36:47
we convince an audience 100% that this guy did it um when he didn't you know is difficult you know and so uh that was a
00:36:56
a process that took us a while to kind of figure out but like I said I think those kind of reveals and twists and
00:37:02
turns make it more fun so uh it was difficult but I think it made it more fun to make also yeah our producer for
00:37:07
our show we watched it at the same time we came into the office the next day and
00:37:11
we're like we're sitting here watching this and you actually forget that the man who's talking most of the time
00:37:17
you're sitting there and you're like wait how is he not in prison every now and again but then you're like okay wait
00:37:22
but there's so much happening that it doesn't even matter we'll get there yeah it's so like we set up the crime CRI
00:37:27
earlier which is someone tried to kill the president and then it cuts to a guy swimming in his outdoor pool who did it
00:37:35
so we you kind of know right away like okay I maybe didn't do it or what but then our job was like okay but now we're
00:37:43
going to convince you for the next 90 minutes that this guy most likely did do this and I think a lot of people the
00:37:49
experience you did which like he's not in jail but like a lot of this is adding up and um this is getting very strange
00:37:56
and and then I think you learn uh obviously that he was framed and set up and then you get to learn and meet the
00:38:01
new character which was for I mean it was funny too because do you know this documentary was almost like three parts
00:38:09
sorry in terms of the production which like we went made it Paul Kevin Curtis documentary and then this middle part
00:38:14
was like federal law enforcement going and interviewing them because they have a whole perspective and a isy journey
00:38:20
themselves and then the third part was obviously Edward Dutchy who is in prison and all the prison phone calls that we
00:38:25
did with him but it was interesting like federal law enforcement without like blazingly
00:38:31
saying it I could tell there was a little bit of understandable sensitivity of like listen we do a lot of cases and
00:38:39
of we understand that you want to make a documentary on the one out of 1,000 that
00:38:44
we arrested the wrong guy and we know that and we did and they're like you know we're not sure about on the concept
00:38:52
of this documentary because we did get it wrong and we don't want to come off as completely in that that our jobs
00:38:58
and I remember being like I don't think that's the case like I think a lot of people are G to understand like why you
00:39:03
made the first arrest you did like at least like that's the structure of how it work making the documentary you know
00:39:10
and uh it's been interesting because as since the documentar is come out I've very never have heard like oh yeah like
00:39:16
FBI really messed up this one I think I think everyone kind of knows that like follows the journey and gets why
00:39:23
certainly arrested arrested Kevin you know yeah there's never once during it that you're like wow like the the FBI is
00:39:30
the problem here like you're just like yeah I get it I I love in the third episode when FBI agents like reluctant
00:39:37
reluctantly admits that it was a pretty good frame job I always kind of I always
00:39:41
kind of appreciated that that was so good and I love when Kevin is like I don't even like rice like what are you
00:39:47
talking about that was the exonerating fact of the entire investigation was the fact that it was that too it's perfect
00:39:53
perfect for the like I don't think this guy made r that was one of our like early on with just like pre not pre-
00:40:00
interviewing but you know it's like you go to dinner with Laura or you know Jack
00:40:04
the brother or pauland or blah blah blah and like or the kids Kevin's kids and like you kind of definitely like picked
00:40:10
up early that like uh how excited they got when they found out how hard it is to make rice in because like me I was
00:40:18
not a biology major so it's like rice in like that it's nothing Kevin's intelligence for anyone but but like
00:40:25
they were I don't think any of us know the like chemical compound designs and they're like that's innocent
00:40:34
dude maybe it's the guy holding the Mena card over there yeah I think it's men guy over here exactly that's the other
00:40:40
thing too I like how you guys kind of sprinkle in a little bit about Everett Dutchy like in part one and part two and
00:40:47
then part three comes along and you're like oh [ __ ] yeah I remember that guy just from a little bit of Parts one and
00:40:52
two yeah that's really interesting you bring that up because that was honestly like a huge discussion point for us
00:40:58
while making this in the initial Cuts you didn't learn anything about him until until it was revealed that Kevin
00:41:05
had been framed but then it started to feel like a little cheap where you're like okay wow it's shocking but I don't
00:41:11
know this guy at all and right really tried to sprinkle him in a few times throughout uh I honestly wish we could
00:41:19
have figured out more ways to do it I think it I think it would have been interesting to even have done it a
00:41:24
couple more times but it was a little bit like an Agatha Christy novel where you're like yes you have to set up the
00:41:30
characters and the suspects and like that's actually really hard to do in documentary because you can't just make
00:41:35
things up and it so but uh I'm glad that you pointed that out because it was it was
00:41:41
fun to kind of find subtle ways to sprinkle in the real the real suspect uh throughout uh so that when it's revealed
00:41:49
that it's him you do have a little bit of a memory of who he is yeah it's effective definitely effective going off
00:41:55
that a little bit more there's so many things like we're talking about everything right now there's so many
00:41:59
things that happen in this case and you guys really do an amazing job of connecting it all by the end what was
00:42:04
the process like did you like lay everything out on the floor were you moving things
00:42:09
around the one of the fun Parts about this crime is that you know so three people got this poison in the mail where
00:42:18
were victims of it these three victims were you know major enemies so to speak of Paul Kevin Curtis the that was Frank
00:42:28
which is why the FBI obviously thought it was Kevin but what made it interesting is that you learned that
00:42:34
these three characters were also Everett the guy who actually did send the I were
00:42:39
enemies of his as well and so this is where it started to get a little complex in terms of like wow they share the same
00:42:46
enemies like how can we set this up in a way um and organize it in a way that audiences can kind of understand that
00:42:55
component of it and so you know we we had the note cards we had uh yes we had this the string on the walls I remember
00:43:03
walking in look watching M lose his mind because he was in charge of doing most of the research and and there are times
00:43:10
where M would just start ranting and I was like I'm not following anything you're saying right but uh sure enough
00:43:16
like I said I think we kind of figured it out by the end but I'm still not 100% convinced that we even know all the
00:43:23
facts that everything happen I don't think you ever could no tot no but you did do a great job of
00:43:29
connecting it it's easy to follow for sure by the end of it you get what's happening for sure yeah and like CHF
00:43:35
said my dad was screenwriter and he I think it's an Ernest hingu quote where he said writing is rewriting but I think
00:43:41
that's the same thing with like editing and that was certainly our experience was like more than other documentaries
00:43:46
we've made we have uh we really PL with structure a lot on this one we had we were moving sections around like to just
00:43:54
kind of set it up because it to go a little deeper on something that we've touched on is the concept of like hey we
00:44:01
wanted the audience to really think Kevin did this by the time the rug pull happens at the end of episode two where
00:44:06
you find out he didn't do it but that is as much of a plot game plot a A to B to
00:44:14
C to D on plot points as it is like a psychological descent in Kevin's mind as you feel like you real like for someone
00:44:22
to do a presidential assassination make rice and put it in envelopes of mail to the president like I think you really
00:44:27
need to feel like that person is psychologically capable of wanting to do something like that you know and that
00:44:34
was certainly like a big part of the editing and a lot of the aesthetic and the music and everything else that kind
00:44:39
of went into the series is like not just explaining like yeah how how kind of like how Kevin gets to this point you
00:44:46
know and it's a little bit of a personal Journey that that you follow with him to
00:44:49
go on but then again the the weirdest part of making this documentary was like technically none of that is true Kevin
00:44:56
didn't do so so you're kind of like always faking your way through to make it feel like he did in a certain way
00:45:03
just to set up the gag that he didn't do it so maybe it was worth it maybe it was
00:45:10
maybe this is the stupidest documentary when you explain it I'm like this sounds
00:45:14
so dumb sounds like so stupid like you guys spend three years of your life let us do this to tell like one joke like
00:45:20
one joke it was such a good joke though no it's so worth so much to work with fake your way just getting slowly
00:45:29
depressed on this podcast just real how stupid our documentary is no it's amazing I I dedicated probably four
00:45:38
hours total just sitting in my living room on a snow day I was like I think this is the best series I've ever
00:45:44
watched that's very nice of you that feels good that was great in the editing process one of my last questions for you
00:45:50
is was there anything that didn't make it in that you wish had or that you know just couldn't have there's actually two
00:45:56
sections that we wor on quite a bit that ended up not making the cut for one reason or the other one was that we had
00:46:03
like a pretty interesting um conversation and look into mental health and and Kevin's mental health and how
00:46:10
his family feels about what he struggling with and uh Kevin had like a very Frank and honest discussion about
00:46:17
medications he's been on and how certain medications have made him feel over the
00:46:21
years and why he doesn't want to take certain medications and um it was like a really raw and honest look into it I
00:46:29
think for time reasons we are never able to um quite figure out how to get it in
00:46:35
there but I I I thought it was like a really kind of just like beautifully honest look at at what he talks about
00:46:41
his struggles what that experience has been for family members I think one of the one of the real first reasons we
00:46:48
wanted to make this was when we were researching I kind of became obsessed with this Reddit thread and it was for
00:46:55
um family members who had lost loved ones to the qanon conspiracy and it was just their point of view it wasn't the
00:47:03
point of view of the conspiracy theorist and it like you would read these posts and it was such a strange combination of
00:47:10
being like really [ __ ] hilarious and equally heartbreaking and I'm like this is such a odd thing because it's so easy
00:47:19
to talk about conspiracy theorist or this and that but when it's a wife or a husband or a brother or a best friend
00:47:26
that's a little bit of a different experience to watch someone you love go through this and so that was kind of
00:47:32
diving into not only a conspiracy theorist story but what is it like for the people around this person was
00:47:37
important to us and I think the kind of conversation in the mental health really
00:47:41
kind of played into that I wish we could have included it but we couldn't her time and then the other interesting one
00:47:47
was um you know in 1992 Kevin our main character had uh and this is 20 years before the Ry is sent
00:47:55
to Obama had a a standoff with the Chicago Police SWAT team and had driven to an ex-girlfriend's house and entered
00:48:04
the home with a gun and then was threatening to kill himself inside the home and it turned into a big standoff
00:48:11
and this was also a big look into Kevin's mental health and what he struggled with and it was also a big
00:48:18
piece of evidence that the FBI used in the presidential Rising attack to say look this guy's unstable this is why we
00:48:27
beli that he did this and so all that was like a really interesting storyline and thread that would have added I think
00:48:33
another layer to the onion uh but ended up kind of on The Cutting Room floor yeah people thought there were too many
00:48:38
layers to the onions already no more layers it was it was unique like like Steve Holland could be a character in a
00:48:48
featur link documentary like his story from like and I know he's like a larger than life character but he also like
00:48:55
wielded like incredible effective power like in the Mississippi State Legislature and is responsible for like
00:49:02
an array of like unbelievable programs like for the people of Mississippi for the state of Mississippi like I it was
00:49:09
always like and I I think every filmmaker has this and and we produce as much as we direct so I've been on the
00:49:15
producing side of these conversations where it's like you're with a filmmaker that's like oh my God I could do like
00:49:19
six parts I could do eight parts like there is a bit of a Mis exploration in the state of Mississippi that to this
00:49:27
day fascinates me like and it's hard to explain unless you got to that state in a way but it is like every left right
00:49:34
turn you make every you can take a drive a highway go go anywhere on the highway
00:49:39
like it is a the most fertile ground for like such fascinating fascinating stories and people that I think there's
00:49:46
a reason that like William funner was from Oxford I think there's a reason that there's like the southern Noir that
00:49:52
like eccentricity is a religion down there that like they can tell stories the way they do and it was just I almost
00:50:00
felt like we were always having to restrain ourselves from being like Oh my god do we go make a 15minute documentary
00:50:06
on this section of Mississippi that's kind of T tangentially tied and of course you like never do because
00:50:11
eventually you're like Hey we're making a Netflix documentary and you really need to keep the narrative like as tight
00:50:15
as possible otherwise people will click off um but it was a unique experience just spending so much time down there
00:50:21
and just like God I wish we could have done like eight parts on this state and connected all these crazy pieces of
00:50:26
information together you're going to have to go back for it's calling me back talking myself into it right
00:50:34
now I do think even with the things that you didn't get to include like that conversation with Kevin about his
00:50:39
medical history his mental health history and even you know the incident that happened with his girlfriend I
00:50:45
think the conversations that you did include with one of his girlfriends and even his kids those conversations that
00:50:52
really shined through and kind of highlighted the the mental health section that you didn't feel like put in
00:50:57
there that's really that's really cool to hear yeah I think like a lot of it is implied or you kind of pick up on kind
00:51:03
of naturally and um I think yeah some of my favorite sections like yeah there's a
00:51:07
lot of funny Dark hilarious stuff but some of my favorite stuff was the stuff with his kids um and friends and family
00:51:14
and and hearing about their perspectives and kind of what they've been through I
00:51:18
think it just kind of added a level of heart and Humanity to the story and um I'm glad to hear that even if we weren't
00:51:25
able to include those sections it still kind of is inferred and you kind of feel
00:51:29
it in with yeah definitely all right I have two questions left for you guys one is serious and one is kind of kidding
00:51:35
when do you think Kevin Curtis's missing pieces is going to hit Netflix and are you going to help them work on it that
00:51:40
is an and you know what's funny is uh so I remember Uh Kevin when he sat down and
00:51:45
told us like listen he's bring this book called missing pieces I will say that when he handed it to me it was a little
00:51:50
shorter than I expected it was like you know I was expecting I was hoping for the the tune of of of research and a
00:51:56
little thinner than that so I was like okay I got to got to figure this out work to do some work on a little bit he
00:52:03
got got work like pump up the word count here just a little bit um but he was the
00:52:08
one that said like hey after all I I'm taking him out the story we've been interviewing him he's like I've come to
00:52:13
the conclusion that missing pieces is not a missing piece to my body parts conspiracy but it's something in my
00:52:19
personal life and it's it's been family you know and so I was like wow that was like very poignant and and powerful and
00:52:26
uh Kevin can just charm you like that like and genuinely too like like a sincere guy I but it the whole thing
00:52:34
started because the Secret Service stole his manuscript you know where they raided his home there was something so
00:52:41
funny to me that like it just feels like something he would make up or say and then it's like 100% true they took his
00:52:48
hard drives and he his manuscript and had to rewrite it from yeah maybe that's why it's smaller than I expected maybe
00:52:54
maybe the Secret Service is sitting on the the real expansive missing pieces that's out there authentic but I already
00:52:59
have the Injustice free missing pieces I think the government needs toas Missie I
00:53:04
remember going out to dinner with Kevin's family members and I would tell them that story about missing pieces and
00:53:10
it's not like Kevin was hiding that from them or something but I was like hey I think that like Kevin's in a spot where
00:53:16
this is he's like this is where he's at right now and I found this really beautiful and every single person I went
00:53:21
out to dinner with said that's that's New York TOS bestseller so that's that's what I hope it is I I I I hope it's a
00:53:27
New York is I want what that family wants but doubt it he's an incredible Storyteller he's got a imagination he's
00:53:36
really funny with words I'm I'm rooting for him I'm I'm hoping he can free missing
00:53:42
pieces someone needs to file a Freedom of Information Act to get yes get get the big one yes somebody listening get
00:53:52
on that go and then last question for you guys I'm so excited to see whatever you make next is there anything that you
00:53:59
have in the works or anything you want to tease or plug uh the thing that we're working on right now is we are working
00:54:04
on it's a big doc series for Netflix we were able to announce it I think on Christmas day but like we said we grew
00:54:11
up with sports and we are going to do very different than GSA tupo so I I'll brace you for that it is very not it'll
00:54:19
be interesting you like this time but it is a 10p part series on Jerry Jones Jimmy Johnson the F basically the the
00:54:26
the the Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s and Jerry Jones's story it's a big we're partnered with sky dance and NFL films
00:54:33
and we're doing it with Netflix and in the Sports World this story is a bit of a white whale because Jerry and Jimmy
00:54:40
Jimmy was the coach Jerry's the owner they have an interesting backstory where they won Super Bowls together and then
00:54:45
they went their separate ways we're we're able to interview all these characters along with Troy Amman and
00:54:50
Michael Irvin and N Smith so it's a very Sports one we have more volumes of Untold coming out um but we e and flow
00:54:57
like sports sports documentaries are stuff that we we love making and there's just a huge audience for that and it's a
00:55:02
great part of of the business that we do and then once we spend a couple years doing sports stuff we always end up
00:55:08
gravitating back towards like a Kings of Tupelo or W country or or something that's a little bit more off the beaten
00:55:14
path but chap any anything else to mention no I just remember being like man it's so weird being a documentary
00:55:19
filmmaker because we went from filming inside Kevin's camper so like the next week we were filming Jerry Jones on his
00:55:27
private jet and just like this such this is too weird our lives are too strange some we're excited for Dallas Cowboys
00:55:36
it's coming out this summer um and then uh we're just in the early stages of researching um some more strange op de
00:55:45
beating path stories and so amazing well thank you guys so much for all the extra
00:55:49
Insight I loved so much it was great so much for on thanks for watching and thanks for all the nice words we had
00:55:55
really fun that was so much fun chatting with them I loved that they were amazing yes
00:56:00
definitely so guys if you have not yet watched uh Kings of tup below you got to get on that it's still on Netflix it's a
00:56:07
three-part series and still somehow even throughout that hour-long conversation with Chapman and mlan we really only hit
00:56:15
the tip of the ice oh yeah it's G to it's one of those that you're going to want to tell everybody about after you
00:56:20
watch it it definitely is so look out for that we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird
00:56:33
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