Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Voted #1 Radio Station in the Missoula Valley, Trail 1033's Official Podcast makes exclusive on-air interviews, performances, new music and interesting conversations available to you on demand.
Enjoy daily uploads following community interviews on the Morning Trail show with Robert Chase, occasional live performances from both new and landmark bands and artists. Check out the Lunchbox every weekday at Noon, as Mike Smith dishes up a great block of themed music, interviews and more. New music your thing? Every Tuesday 6PM-7PM, enjoy The New Show hosted and produced by Tommy Evans.
Catch so much more interesting and timely conversation and, of course, amazing music from Robert, Mike and Tommy - LIVE- on The Trail 1033FM in Missoula and around the world at trail1033.com every day from 6AM until 9PM.
See what we're up to at trail1033.com or give us a call at 406-721-6800
[MUSIC]
MIKE SMITH:
Trail 103.3—it’s The Morning Trail. I’m Mike Smith. Nice to be with you. And nice to be joined by director and producer, filmmaker Johanna Gustin. Johanna—welcome.
JOHANNA GUSTIN:
Hello. Thanks for having me.
MIKE:
Johanna— I was practicing it before we went on the air, so that’s why I almost screwed that up. Thank you for coming in. You’re from the Bay Area.
JOHANNA:
I am. That’s where I’m at now.
MIKE:
And some people might be saying, “Which Bay?” Well, generally around here, when we say “the Bay Area,” we mean San Francisco.
JOHANNA:
Correct.
MIKE:
You haven’t always been in San Francisco.
JOHANNA:
No. I’m New York originally—but I kind of randomly spent most of my adult life living in Germany: in Hamburg and then in Berlin.
MIKE:
Wow.
JOHANNA:
Yeah. Hamburg is where I met my husband, who I collaborate with on most of my films. And he moved with me to the Bay Area for me to do a master’s program.
MIKE:
How nice. Is he German?
JOHANNA:
He is German, yes.
MIKE:
Cool. What were you doing in Germany—besides meeting the love of your life, and your collaborator, Jonathan?
JOHANNA:
Gosh… I kind of stumbled into being in Germany randomly. I went on an abroad program in college, then kind of moved back. I got a Fulbright and moved back—and then just stuck around, which the State Department does not want you to do. But I did.
MIKE:
Well, I had some yogurt earlier and I’m getting a little hungry, so it brings me to this: what’s the thing you miss about Germany?
JOHANNA:
Oh God… I don’t think anything.
Actually— all the German Americans are going to be mad at me. But no… I don’t eat pork, so that was always a little tough in Germany.
MIKE:
Yeah, because sometimes as a foreigner you might not even know what’s in that sausage.
JOHANNA:
No—they don’t tell you how it’s made. That’s the whole point.
MIKE:
Right—you don’t want to see it. But it’s probably quite tasty. It’s nice to have you in Missoula. You were saying you had a little sinus infection, so you haven’t been out partying.
JOHANNA:
No, not too much. I think tonight will be my party night. I’m feeling a lot better.
MIKE:
I think you’ve earned it—maybe go have a beverage of choice after your film.
The first thing that caught my eye about your film I Think About Birds is… one: what’s in the name?
JOHANNA:
So the film is not entirely about birds. It’s about online dating coaches—and it’s mirroring this algorithmic vortex you can get sucked into on platforms like YouTube, which can get pretty toxic.
The idea is that my algorithm is comprised of toxic online dating coaches… and bird videos—specifically bird mating-ritual videos.
MIKE:
Right. Some commonalities there.
JOHANNA:
Yeah—though what I’m showing in the film is that there are a lot of bird species that feel very romantic in comparison to some of the advice these dating coaches get into.
MIKE:
Because the birds are like: “Hey, I like your song.” “I like your dancing.” “I like the nest you created.” Let’s do this.
JOHANNA:
Exactly. And now I’m completely obsessed with birds that I find very romantic.
MIKE:
What are some of the top species of romantic birds?
JOHANNA:
Bald eagles.
MIKE:
Oh, no kidding.
JOHANNA:
Bald eagles are so romantic. They mate for life. They share housework very equitably. And if they don’t spend the winter together—so if they’re apart for part of the year—when they come back together, they do these synchronized flights. They hook their talons together and do this spiral—this “death spiral”—towards the ground, and then break apart suddenly and fly away… and then come back and do it again.
MIKE:
That is beautiful. What a metaphor for falling in love, right? This crazy fall toward earth—trusting this other person—you’re going to make it safely together.
I can hear some of my raptor-research friends in the area saying, “Mike, you didn’t already know that?” It’s nice to learn. So: the romance of the bald eagle. That’s really cool.
How do they not hit the ground and crash?
JOHANNA:
They release before they hit the ground. They do not hit the ground.
MIKE:
Okay—good. You take risks together, right? It’s beautiful.
Birds, in many cases, are more romantic than human beings.
JOHANNA:
I can believe that.
MIKE:
One of the photos for your film—an eyeball with a reflected screen—it takes a moment. At first it’s just a reflection, and then the more you look at it, you’re like… “I don’t really like that.”
JOHANNA:
Yeah—and that’s my eyeball. That is me.
MIKE:
I mean, it’s an attractive eye. Hazel?
JOHANNA:
More hazel. It depends what I’m wearing.
MIKE:
Okay. Well: director Johanna Gustin is in the studio—and Nick Davis from the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival is here as well.
You’ve got a screening tonight at six o’clock, a screening at the Wilma on Saturday, and then it’ll be available to stream between February 22nd and 26th.
Now—13 minutes. The question I ask everyone, unless they have a 90-minute documentary, is: how do you get it all into one? You probably have to leave some very good footage on the editing-room floor.
JOHANNA:
Yeah. With this film, it’s interesting—it’s what’s called a desktop documentary. I’m calling it a mostly desktop documentary because there are scenes that I filmed, but most of it takes place on my desktop.
So you’re literally embodying me going down this algorithmic rabbit hole. Because of that, my footage was all of YouTube.
Constructing this film was very different than other films I’ve made, where I have ten hours of footage I shot and I’m whittling it down.
I did it for my school program, and my professor said: between winter quarter and spring quarter—by the time spring break is over—you need to have finished filming. And for me, that meant: I had to have downloaded everything I was going to use.
So I spent my spring break downloading, I think, like 50 hours of footage from YouTube—because I was like, “I don’t know what I might need.” There was a lot I didn’t use. More than you could watch.
MIKE:
That’s pretty wild. We had a film archivist in here yesterday—and that seems like their job. But you’re the director, and the archivist, and the editor, and everything else on this film.
JOHANNA:
Yes—along with my husband.
MIKE:
Here’s what it says for everybody out there: “A journey down the algorithmic rabbit hole of online dating coaches takes a personal turn as the filmmaker ponders her own marriage…” You were talking about these dating coaches online. I can believe it exists—I just never really thought about it. You said it can get toxic.
Are they out for money?
JOHANNA:
Yes. I mean… the term “red pill” is in the public lexicon. A lot of them—even if they’re not explicit—are operating from that underlying ideology.
It’s very gender-essentialist: men are like this, women are like this. Men are essentially trying to trick as many women as they can into sleeping with them. Women are trying to trick men into marrying them—“locking them down”—and it’s all framed around this idea of a “high value male,” quote-unquote.
And I’m like: at what point does being compatible factor into this? Clearly it doesn’t.
At the end of the day, the videos are all: “Click the link below in my bio to sign up for my 10-step dating course to land as many eights, nines, and tens as you can.” Then it becomes a pyramid scheme—coaching other people to become dating coaches who coach more dating coaches. It’s just like everything else.
And—there’s also this thread of manifestation. Like if you vision-board hard enough, the man of your dreams will come to you… and financial abundance… and all you have to do is envision it. It’s this very American idea, and it’s—lack of a better word—nuts.
MIKE:
It says: “As the computer screen collides with the natural world and everyday life, the film traces a growing preoccupation with the inherent emotional risks of intimacy.”
Is there anything good out there online, as far as meeting people?
JOHANNA:
I think stay away from anybody who claims to have answers, right? That’s always good advice.
My husband and I met on Tinder. It was a different Tinder back then—and that was 2018. I think things have gotten a little more dire since then. But we’re definitely an online-dating success story.
And we fly against everything these dating coaches would tell you. The dynamics of our relationship are much more like bald eagles than like… peacocks, right?
MIKE:
Oh, that’s lovely. It seems like you can get some things out of the way online—shared interests—then you meet and see if there’s chemistry.
JOHANNA:
For us, that was film.
MIKE:
So you’re life partners—and creative partners. Is this your first film together?
JOHANNA:
No—this is our… gosh… I guess our fourth film together. If you’re counting music videos and sketch comedy, it’s probably more like our sixth thing together. We even worked for a mommy blogger once making recipe videos. So we’ve been working together on something or another for almost our whole relationship.
MIKE:
It’s nice to stay busy as a filmmaker.
NICK DAVIS:
I’m going to lead with a question: was Jonathan in Germany when you connected on Tinder?
JOHANNA:
Yes—but I was in Germany too. We were both living in Hamburg, and we were practically neighbors—about ten minutes apart by foot when we matched.
MIKE:
Wow.
JOHANNA:
Yeah. He was working at a commercial production company—an in-house director/cinematographer shooting commercials in Hamburg.
NICK:
I encourage anybody interested in this topic at all to go. It’s a wonderful film—clever, innovative—just an excellent film. We’re very pleased to have it here.
I’ll mention: it is a world premiere. It’s in the Mini-Doc Competition. And a reminder: the festival is Academy-qualifying for short docs and for our Mini-Doc—so those winners automatically become eligible.
MIKE:
That reminds me to remind everybody: the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival—here in Missoula—it’s a bigger festival than we should be allowed to have. We’re punching upward with it, because we’ve got so much great talent— including the director of I Think About Birds, Johanna Gustin.
Do you like meeting other filmmakers? Talking shop?
JOHANNA:
Oh, of course. It’s funny—if I go to a party with anybody other than filmmakers, I’m usually totally lost. But if I’m with filmmakers—even if I’ve never met them—I’m fine. That’s what we like to talk about.
And I’ve been to three different types of festivals:
There are super industry-focused festivals—like Sundance—where there are other filmmakers and a lot of industry business people.
Then there are very filmmaker-focused festivals—where it’s mostly you and the other filmmakers, and you’re all patting each other on the back and watching each other’s stuff.
And then there are audience-focused festivals—where screenings are packed with people who live in the town and the region. That’s what this is—and that’s wonderful.
When a theater is packed with people, you don’t always get that at industry festivals. They’re important festivals, but sometimes the screenings are empty. That live reaction is so great.
MIKE:
Nick, you’ve been part of this festival for years.
NICK:
Indeed. The only reason we’re here 23 years down the road is: that first screening ever announced—Doug Hawes-Davis and Drew Carr founded the festival—they had no idea if anybody was going to show up. There was a line around the corner and the Roxy sold out.
The community has shown up consistently since then, and honestly it is the single biggest reason we’re still here.
I want to thank all the sponsors—you can go to the website and find them, and you can also see the pamphlet. When you go to a film, you see who locally sponsored it.
And I’ve got to mention the KettleHouse—Al Pils was in here the other day and he said, “This festival was conceived over KettleHouse beers on the Myrtle Street taproom,” by Doug Hawes-Davis and others.
MIKE:
It was.
Johanna Gustin—thank you so much for coming in. I’ll give you the parting thoughts here about your film, about life, about dating, about eagles—whatever you want to say.
JOHANNA:
Well—this is the world premiere, and I couldn’t ask for a better festival to premiere at. I’ve wanted to come to Big Sky for a while, so this is a dream come true.
I’m really proud of this film. I love this film. And my experience so far has been that watching it in a group with other people is really the way to watch it.
Obviously, if you can only stream it—that’s great. But if you’re able to come to a screening, I think you’ll have a good time. It’s a fun one.
MIKE:
We’re up against it—the way we deal with the digital realm, and trying to bring that into our lives… I Think About Birds is the name of the film.
Johanna Gustin—director and producer, along with her husband Jonathan Gustin.
It’s showing tonight at the Zootown Arts Community Center at 6:00, at the Wilma at 12:30 on Saturday, and will be available for streaming beginning February 22.
NICK:
Okay—one last plug: the awards ceremony for the festival this year is tonight at seven o’clock at the Wilma. It’s free and open to the public. I highly encourage people to go to the six o’clock screening and see this film, and you’d still have time to catch part of that ceremony if you’re interested.
It’s a great week to watch films here in Missoula—whether that’s at the Wilma, the ZACC, the MCT, or the Roxy.
MIKE:
Johanna, thank you so much for coming in.
JOHANNA:
Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.
MIKE:
Hope you have a great time here at Big Sky.
JOHANNA:
I think I will continue having a great time. It’s been great.
MIKE:
And the next time you come to town, by all means, look us up. Let’s dive into some love—some organic love.
[MUSIC — Bob Marley]