The Art of Manliness - #192： Becoming Batman

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so some have said

00:00:19.300 that comic book superheroes is modernity's version of the great greek myths and just as

00:00:25.300 ancient greeks use the stories of achilles or odysseus or hercules as guides on how to live

00:00:30.320 their lives many modern individuals who grew up on superhero stories have found inspiration in them

00:00:35.740 on how to live a heroic life even if they're just regular joe blows well my guest day on the podcast

00:00:41.300 is a documentarian who has created films about real life people who have been inspired by comic

00:00:46.360 book heroes to do good in their own lives his name is brett culp and he's the director of one film

00:00:50.940 called legends of the night which looks at how the batman legend has transformed people's lives

00:00:56.480 as well as the forthcoming documentary called look to the sky and today's podcast brett and i discuss

00:01:01.940 why batman is such an enduring superhero and how he's inspired you know a millionaire to dress up

00:01:07.140 like batman and visit kids in the hospital and a child psychologist to start using comic books to

00:01:12.340 teach troubled children about you know skills like resilience and courage and we also discuss brett's

00:01:17.660 unique way of showing these films so that he can raise money for charity so if you love comic books

00:01:22.620 you're gonna love this podcast even if you're not a big fan of comic books you're gonna enjoy it's a

00:01:26.280 really uplifting story be sure to check out the show notes for links to resources mentioned during

00:01:30.860 the show you can find them at aom.is slash culp and as always if you enjoy the podcast please

00:01:36.540 consider giving us a review on itunes or stitcher brett culp welcome to the show oh it's a pleasure to

00:01:49.780 be here thanks for inviting me and it's always wonderful to connect with another guy with a

00:01:53.360 great name all right yeah brett it's it is an awesome name so you're a filmmaker particularly you

00:01:59.980 do documentaries right and two of the documentaries you've done have been about superheroes but it's

00:02:06.300 it's different it's not about the superheroes themselves it's more about how these superheroes

00:02:11.420 comic book superheroes have had have influenced people uh to you know inspire them to go out and

00:02:17.440 do good themselves so i'm curious i mean how did you decide to explore this topic of how childhood

00:02:24.740 comics would be here particularly batman and superman uh inspire people to go do good themselves

00:02:30.000 well it's you know it's actually a very personal story for me when when my i have two boys and my

00:02:37.180 youngest son judah when he was in kindergarten he started to have some challenges emotional mental

00:02:43.340 relationships social um and so we started he went through some tests and we finally ended up in

00:02:49.980 the experts office and she started saying things to us based on the test results she was seeing

00:02:56.120 using words like autism and sensory processing disorder and uh attention attention deficit and all

00:03:05.260 these different things uh that i kind of had a sense of but i didn't really understand and but but then

00:03:11.800 she took it a step further and she said you know and based on this information here's jude here's what

00:03:19.700 you can expect for judah's life you know he's never gonna excel in school he's never gonna you know

00:03:26.340 do well in you know relationships he's never really gonna be able to achieve things he's never really

00:03:31.840 gonna have a job and we went through all this stuff with her and we walked out got in the car and my

00:03:37.400 wife looked over at me and said that is a lie that that's a lie about our son that is not true that is

00:03:44.180 not who he is i don't believe that and we we had this expert paint a picture for us about what our

00:03:52.260 son was going to be but we chose as a family to see a very different picture and that picture was of

00:03:58.280 our son as a superhero standing on the top of the swing set wind blowing through his cape looking out

00:04:04.800 into the distance into the person that he would become and the good he would do in the world

00:04:10.140 and i think that time for me put this really thing in my gut about it's not just my son it's

00:04:18.240 that all of us have the capacity to be a superhero and that was the story i wanted to live out in my

00:04:25.420 family but i also wanted to empower people and make them feel like they could do it too and so i'm a

00:04:32.360 filmmaker that's my voice that's my place where i can speak to the world and so i think even though i

00:04:38.000 didn't understand all the pieces of it at the time i was really drawn to the idea of making a movie that

00:04:43.240 said you know we all can be superheroes and even if we're broken and hurt and have gone through

00:04:50.520 difficulties even if we don't feel like we have superpowers we have that ability and that launched

00:04:56.340 me down a filmmaking journey of making what what ultimately became the documentary film legends of

00:05:01.600 the night all right so legends of the night that's about batman that's right how did you start

00:05:05.760 why did you start off with batman well batman is for many people the most identifiable superhero for

00:05:12.960 the classic cliche that he's the superhero with no superpowers uh and you can say he's a billionaire

00:05:19.700 and that's his superpower but the bottom line is he's just a guy and and i think we connect with that i

00:05:25.700 think you know we look at our own lives and say you know hey i'm just a guy and and the power of batman

00:05:31.460 is also the bruce swing character that he came out of brokenness you know that he's this little kid

00:05:37.540 that experiences the worst possible thing you can experience the loss of his parents at a very

00:05:43.140 important age in his development and i think he could have easily gone very internal with that pain

00:05:49.160 and he could have said you know look at this terrible hand i was dealt in life and you know i've

00:05:54.820 got all this money and i've got all this power he could just be sitting in his house with beautiful

00:05:59.460 girls playing video games eating doritos all day but he doesn't do that he does the opposite

00:06:04.780 instead he says you know what i am going to devote my life to making sure that nobody else goes through

00:06:11.520 what i went through i'm going to try to help people i'm going to use this pain as a catalyst

00:06:16.980 as an inspiration and motivation to do good in the world and you can debate whether or not there's

00:06:22.720 some insanity in that there probably is but we're all a little insane you know we all in genius there's

00:06:30.220 always a little bit of insanity and so i think we connect to batman because we want to look at our

00:06:35.460 own lives and say i am broken i have gone through difficulty i have gone through pain but i believe deep

00:06:42.860 in my gut that these difficulties i've been through can ultimately become the motivation and strength

00:06:49.860 to to turn me not only into a superhero but for me to use that as a superpower to help other people

00:06:56.200 right so yeah i like that idea about he didn't batman didn't go inward because a lot of times like

00:07:00.500 you know people who have depression one of the things that therapists talk about is that if you

00:07:04.540 start renumerating like just like going internal and just thinking about your like you just get more

00:07:08.300 depressed but when you have like an external locus you know when you look at others and you start

00:07:12.260 helping others like that's actually one of the best ways to help your depression exactly to to engage

00:07:18.180 you know we we tend to want to withdraw as you just said but the truth of life is that the beauty

00:07:23.660 is in the engagement and it's messy you know relationships are not easy uh connection is not

00:07:29.860 easy but that's the those are the beautiful spaces of life awesome so let's talk about some of the people

00:07:34.140 you interviewed in the documentary um so starting off with um is michael uselin yeah michael uselin and that

00:07:41.780 was one of the most exciting interviews we got to do because michael is the guy who as a child

00:07:47.280 really had a vision of bringing a more dark and serious batman you know to the screen so you know

00:07:53.240 i mean if you grew up you know in the 80s um you know your first exposure to batman might have been

00:07:59.060 tim burton's right uh you know michael 19 1989 you know michael keaton jack nicholson batman movie

00:08:05.900 but for generation before that it was adam west and corny and silly and batman was kind of a joke

00:08:13.880 but michael uselin had this vision of bringing a very dark and serious batman to the world and he

00:08:20.960 fought for 10 years in hollywood as a movie producer to get that movie made and and it finally

00:08:27.180 happened and really because of michael we have this vision of batman that is very different than what

00:08:33.620 the generation before us had um and really that whole michael's work i mean i can i don't say this in

00:08:40.040 the film but i can say it pretty unabashedly today michael's work on batman 1989 is what created this

00:08:47.180 superhero culture we're living in today because that's when hollywood started to see this was big

00:08:52.280 money there was big money in superheroes and so now you know now we're proliferated with superhero

00:08:58.320 movies and if you're mad about that blame blame michael uselin right and i mean so i mean what was his

00:09:03.700 large i mean why did he want to bring this sort of darker edgier batman what was his like

00:09:07.260 larger mission with with the franchise you know i mean in the movie and in the interview that i had

00:09:13.780 with him he pretty much says that you know when he was a kid and this television show came on and

00:09:20.300 everybody was laughing at batman that was like a personal offense to him he had like grown up

00:09:25.520 loving batman as a comic book character and those stories were much more dark and serious and he was

00:09:32.480 mad that people were making fun of batman and he had this vision of kind of redeeming the character

00:09:38.480 um taking it back to its its roots on some level and so it was like a personal mission for him to to do

00:09:47.340 that and he was practically laughed out of hollywood because of it in fact you see in the movie dc comics

00:09:52.880 didn't even want to sell it to him because they thought batman was dead they thought it was a stupid

00:09:58.100 you know it was done that nobody wanted batman anymore and so i think it was a very personal

00:10:03.700 mission i think what i love about the way we told his story in legends of the night is you see

00:10:09.120 this very personal journey he went on he had on some level kind of become batman to get that movie made

00:10:15.680 right yeah i mean he like he's he sunk he like sunk his fortune into it like he did he put some skin

00:10:20.800 in the game he rolled the dice so there's a lot of pieces of his story that we left out but it was

00:10:25.200 kind of like one of those things where if this hadn't happened he would have been a laughingstock

00:10:29.140 in hollywood his career probably would have been done and he would have financially potentially been

00:10:34.100 done as well and so he took a huge risk right so we have him to think for like dark knight rises as

00:10:39.540 batman begins you bet you he's the executive producer on all those movies and and when you see

00:10:44.580 batman superman in march he will be listed as the executive producer of that movie as well okay so yeah

00:10:50.660 michael he had a lot to do with saving batman from the zip pow wow blammy uh batman i remember

00:10:58.980 watching those as a kid and they were they were fun but yep it was really jokey um so let's talk about

00:11:04.580 some of these other people who they also grew up watching batman or reading batman comics and these

00:11:11.480 are just these aren't movie producers these are just regular folks who decided like they wanted to

00:11:16.300 actually become batman that's right and not just like you know follows the example about doing good

00:11:21.860 but like they became batman and two of the characters i thought were really great uh was

00:11:26.240 lenny and i guess he just died which is he did he did it was so sad for me when it happened last year

00:11:32.860 oh my goodness tell us a little bit about lenny because he has an interesting story because this

00:11:36.680 guy he he's sort of he was sort of like bruce wayne he had he was a successful businessman yep uh had

00:11:41.760 lots he was like had lots of money but he decided to become the batman for a good cause that's right

00:11:49.080 that's right i mean he he had this thing happen where he attended a children's hospital event

00:11:55.260 rented a batman costume and went and he saw the magic of how these kids responded to it and he kind

00:12:02.180 of felt like it was a calling really i mean he he kind of almost mentally engaged with how people

00:12:07.500 symbolically would see batman uh as a protector as a friend as a you know something like that and so

00:12:13.480 he kind of got just really emotionally jazzed about that and when he sold a business uh that he had spent

00:12:20.780 his career working on he decided to take some time off and just took like a year of his life and this

00:12:26.040 is all he did uh you know he bought he built this amazing batmobile that he traveled around the country

00:12:32.800 with he visited children's hospitals all over the u.s and canada um as batman and you know then gave

00:12:39.740 these kids presents and it was really i got to go with him to three different hospitals in film

00:12:45.040 and just watching i mean even for me i mean i think we captured some level of it in the documentary but

00:12:51.960 even for me as a person just following him around to these three hospital visits it was just like

00:12:57.940 this is magical what's going on here the way these kids are responding the way it's it's really like

00:13:04.280 they're they are for a moment all of the mess they're in all of the difficulty it just like

00:13:12.100 disappears for a minute and all they're experiencing is this symbolic batman image in their hospital room

00:13:20.560 and so it really was a powerful thing and i think you kind of feel it as you watch his story in the

00:13:25.440 in legends of the night right yeah i mean i i got a little teary-eyed watching it's like you know

00:13:29.500 it's amazing like it's not only the kids but like the the parents and the adults like they actually

00:13:33.920 like you could tell like for a minute there like there's like moments where like they suspended

00:13:37.640 belief they're like this is actually batman yes yes yes yeah it's a weird thing where you know

00:13:44.840 when he would when i was filming with him and i'd walk around with him for an hour or so and then he'd

00:13:48.940 walk into another room and take off the mask and now he was lenny again there was something in me that

00:13:53.400 was like no no no you know what i mean this is not he's batman no he's not lenny you know it was

00:13:59.340 really there's something magical in that yeah obviously had the power of the symbol of batman

00:14:04.680 uh-huh that's right batman is a symbol like that's right he means something to me from my childhood

00:14:09.880 and i know you transfer it into those spaces right and then the other character not a character he's a

00:14:16.020 person um we don't know his real name uh he's the petaluma batman oh my goodness and that that's

00:14:23.400 the greatest thing so so this guy when he was like 18 years old he like as kind of a dare as a joke

00:14:31.620 you know dressed up like batman and went and did some good in in his community of petaluma california

00:14:37.440 and the people just loved it and he just kept doing it and so this guy petaluma batman when he

00:14:43.780 was 18 19 uh he's now retired so you can't see him anymore he's kind of done uh i think he went off

00:14:50.320 to college and i to this day nobody there was only like five people in the community that actually knew

00:14:55.220 who he was he kept his identity a secret he didn't tell anybody i don't know who he is i had to have him

00:15:01.880 sign some you know relief document but then i took that document folded it in half put it in a

00:15:07.380 folder and never looked at it because i wanted to retain the magic of that personally as a filmmaker

00:15:12.220 and so he just goes around the city doing good things he shows up at special events in the

00:15:18.180 community he raises money for charity uh he helps people he had a huge facebook group where people

00:15:24.940 would post needs and he would share them and he would help and he's he's wearing this like you know

00:15:30.480 it's it's a great it's great that you brought up these two stories because they are really the

00:15:34.940 opposite ends of the spectrum here you got lenny who's a millionaire successful business guy

00:15:40.460 running around in this perfect you know replica costume and hundred thousand dollar batmobile and

00:15:47.600 all of this stuff and then on the other hand you got petaluma batman who's this high school kid

00:15:52.380 wearing a t-shirt he got a kmart and a mask from walmart you know this cheapy little plastic mask

00:15:58.900 and he's running around doing good in his community on an electric scooter on an electric scooter

00:16:04.100 right this little electric scooter that halfway through the night always runs out of charge and

00:16:08.340 he has to push it around for the rest of the night you know i i think the contrast in there is a

00:16:13.880 beautiful image of even how batman and the superhero spirit can be in our own life you can start

00:16:19.420 wherever you are and be whoever you are and still channel that superhero spirit wherever you you don't

00:16:25.960 have to wait till later you can start now right and what i love about petaluma batman is like

00:16:30.620 again even though his like outfit was sort of like chintzy like the community embraced it like

00:16:35.820 this is batman like that's right i think you even mentioned like the high school kids just ate it up

00:16:40.240 they kind of became a status symbol to like get your picture taken with the petaluma batman so you

00:16:44.680 can share on instagram or snapchat or whatever yep yep yep that's right oh it did it did and they

00:16:49.600 loved him they loved him in that community they would do news reports about him um you know he was

00:16:55.140 and he's a super cool guy super cool again i never saw him without his mask but that's the way it's

00:17:00.140 supposed to be i think right exactly so this was interesting um i think it's kind of maybe this is

00:17:05.320 where your personal story connects uh on a real visceral level um with the documentary but i thought

00:17:13.280 it was interesting there's there's there's a psychologist out there who uses comic books but

00:17:18.400 specifically batman comic books yeah in his therapy for children and teens um i thought that was pretty

00:17:25.400 cool can you tell us a bit more about this guy and what what he's doing with the batman comics to help

00:17:29.500 children and teens with whatever issues they might have yeah so dr patrick o'connor when i filmed him

00:17:34.400 he was based in charlotte north carolina at a practice called southeast psych but now he is actually

00:17:40.620 teaching in chicago so he's he's in the chicago area as a teacher and um you know there has been

00:17:48.180 this whole movement recently and i i i got into it when i started into this film and i thought it was

00:17:54.320 kind of a fluke filming patrick who was essentially what he was doing was bringing these comic books

00:17:59.820 into therapy with young people particularly teenage boys in particular who were having trouble accessing

00:18:06.020 their feelings and so when he would get to a root he created this entire index which is still free

00:18:12.460 online it's called comicspedia and you can just google comicspedia and find it and he has listed

00:18:19.440 hundreds of comics based he's referenced them based on the psychological things they talk about and so

00:18:27.400 when he would sit with a client and he would realize okay they're having an issue with this

00:18:31.280 rather than diving into it he would say well you know he would pull up his database and pull out a

00:18:37.600 batman comic and say just sit here for a minute and read this batman comic because you can read a

00:18:42.200 comic book in just a few minutes really they're pretty short read this comic and then after we're done

00:18:46.860 let's talk about it and essentially what he was doing was using story and storytelling as a way of

00:18:53.260 creating safety for people to to to get in touch with their own emotions because it's much safer to

00:19:01.020 project your own experiences and feelings onto another character than it is sometimes to talk

00:19:08.160 about them yourself and so that's what he was doing and i've since learned in the process of

00:19:13.460 sharing legends of the night uh over the past couple of years that there are lots of therapists and

00:19:19.120 different people that use that sort of storytelling therapy to help help people it was just unique that

00:19:26.060 patrick was using batman in particular uh because he's he's a character that a lot of teenagers relate

00:19:31.340 to right i thought that was an interesting uh thread you had uh woven throughout the documentary the

00:19:36.360 idea of the power of story and you get a bunch of academics on there talking about how story can

00:19:41.380 transform lives yes and the batman story is like it's alive i mean we think it was like this silly

00:19:48.260 comic book thing but it really is like it's like this it follows sort of like the meta myths that

00:19:52.740 are woven in throughout all the great myths of human history yes and like i think you interviewed

00:19:59.000 john gotchell who we've had on the podcast and he mentioned that oftentimes we think of comic books

00:20:03.640 and fiction as a way to escape but he says actually no that's not what's going on like we're actually

00:20:07.660 figuring life out with stories i like what what jonathan talks about about story being like a a virtual

00:20:16.440 reality simulator it allows us the opportunity to feel and experience things without having the risk

00:20:25.700 of doing it ourselves so you know that's why we connect with certain stories you know you watch a

00:20:30.540 movie and it makes you cry because you know or have some certain heightened emotion uh because you think

00:20:37.300 to yourself what would i do if i was in that situation how would i behave would i be like that this guy

00:20:44.200 over here that's kind of the judas character who betrays everybody and is the weak character or would

00:20:50.320 i be the strong character that you know is the hero in this situation and what we want to be as you go

00:20:56.860 through that virtual you know reality simulator we all then want to get to the end feeling empowered

00:21:02.320 and strengthened that we would be that hero and so it gives us the opportunity to kind of emotionally

00:21:08.020 mentally even spiritually sort of live that out without the risk of making a wrong decision in real life

00:21:15.860 that's awesome um so you not only highlight people who are doing good in the film but you actually

00:21:21.900 did some good uh when you released this film can you tell us a little bit about the the charity aspect

00:21:26.680 of whenever you released uh legends of the night yeah so you know after after we finished this film

00:21:32.280 you know there's this typical path you're supposed to take with an independent film which includes film

00:21:36.880 festivals and sales agents and distributor negotiations and all this stuff and i got to the end of it

00:21:43.920 and was really feeling like you know i want this to be more than a business interaction or engagement i want

00:21:51.140 there to be something about the way we distribute this that is in the spirit of of the movie that expresses

00:21:58.500 the message of the movie that we all can be superheroes and so we we worked with a um a distributor a

00:22:05.240 theatrical distributor called tug and what tug allows people to do is to request screenings of movies

00:22:11.680 in their local theater um and you can do it with classic movies and famous movies from the past and all

00:22:18.220 that kind of stuff but you can also do it with independent films and so our idea was to let to

00:22:24.060 essentially put our movie on tug as like a first way of releasing it and let people request screenings of

00:22:29.860 the movie at their local theater with the idea behind it be you request the screening

00:22:34.560 and then pick a charity and we will give our companies proceeds from that screening to the charity you

00:22:41.800 choose and then what we encourage them to do is to engage get the charity engaged with the screening as

00:22:48.580 well so that the charity can get some exposure some pr sign up some volunteers so it wasn't just a you know

00:22:55.340 a money maker because we kind of envisioned it like hey you know maybe you're going to just make a few

00:22:59.860 hundred dollars for this charity off ten dollar you know movie ticket sales but that that you could

00:23:06.100 really help the people that attend engage and inspire them to essentially say after the movie hey if you

00:23:11.900 left this movie feeling inspired to be a superhero like batman you can connect with this charity right here

00:23:17.180 and help them sign up right now make a donation whatever you want to do and so we threw that out to the

00:23:24.060 world we had no idea what would happen uh whether people would want to do that but they did and it was

00:23:29.860 really an incredible experience the film has now played in over a hundred cities around the world through this

00:23:37.040 distribution option that and it's still continuing to go on um we've raised uh that that effort has raised over

00:23:44.640 eighty thousand dollars for charitable organizations doing a variety of things all over the world and again it's

00:23:51.540 continuing there's a screening that's happening in bristol in the united kingdom that got scheduled

00:23:57.020 for may it's sold out in seven days 250 seats they've now scheduled three more screenings so that's still

00:24:04.600 going on because even though legends of the night is now on netflix and itunes and hulu here in the u.s

00:24:10.540 it's not on those platforms in europe so the only way still to see it in europe is to is through creating a

00:24:17.180 theatrical event so anyway we've just been it's been an incredible experience and one that once we

00:24:23.180 went through that we were like we want to continue this we don't just want this to be a one-off we want

00:24:28.540 to keep pushing ahead with this that's that's really great i love that um so it seems like after you did

00:24:33.660 legends of the night like you got bit by the superhero bug yeah and now you're working on superman

00:24:39.620 so you know this movie the next movie is that we're that i'm in production on right now is called

00:24:44.680 look to the sky and it's a little bit of a different twist because this movie is not about

00:24:50.580 people that were influenced by superman it's just about people young people particularly all these

00:24:56.480 people are young people who have demonstrated the spirit of superman or the superhero spirit

00:25:02.920 it's kind of a movie about it's really at its core whereas legends of the night was kind of a movie

00:25:07.740 about story and how storytelling works this is really a movie about hope uh you know we look at the

00:25:13.740 world and everything looks so dark and so depressing and you know i i hesitate even to open my facebook

00:25:19.420 feed some days to see what people are going to be posting about politics or something terrorism or

00:25:25.800 shooting or something going on in the world and it starts to make you feel like man this is just

00:25:31.600 what's going on i'm depressed just watching what's going on in the world around me and so our goal

00:25:37.520 would look to the sky is to restore some hope and to help people reconnect with hope by seeing the

00:25:43.980 stories of young people who have overcome difficulties who have helped their communities

00:25:50.420 who've really done some amazing things because children you know young people they're the future

00:25:56.160 of who we're going to be and so our goal is to create a movie where people can spend you know 80

00:26:01.420 minutes engaged with those kinds of stories and hopefully walk away feeling like you know what

00:26:07.500 there is just so much positivity in the world so many wonderful things it's about where you choose

00:26:13.460 to focus and i think when we choose to bring those kind of hopeful stories into our lives

00:26:17.880 then it multiplies into the world that's great i mean i know we don't want to do any spoilers uh too

00:26:22.660 much the film hasn't out yet but i mean can you highlight maybe talk about one of the the young

00:26:26.740 people you uh interview or highlight in the the film sure sure so that the the the trailer for

00:26:33.140 that movie is is on our website and you can get a sense of some of that by going to our website

00:26:37.800 risinghero.org but but yeah i mean there's a couple of great stories on there i mean one about a

00:26:43.740 a boy a young boy who you know was was in the mountains with a small group of people and a younger

00:26:51.400 boy fell in the water and the rapids like took him down i mean it was really a potentially

00:26:56.600 life-threatening situation and this you know 10 year old boy without hardly even thinking about it

00:27:03.040 just jumps in the water and saves this kid's life you know that kind of act of bravery and

00:27:08.160 unselfishness we're used to living in a world where we don't think that's really going on but it is

00:27:13.360 uh and that story is a example of of you know a young person risking his life to save another

00:27:19.680 person's life it's really a beautiful story we also um have a great story in there about a young

00:27:25.980 lady who went through some bullying uh because of a condition she has called alopecia where she

00:27:31.660 lost all of her hair uh when she was in middle school and it was really like an emotionally

00:27:36.100 devastating thing for her went through a lot of bullying but ultimately became it became like kind

00:27:42.140 of a empowering thing for her where she kind of really learned who she was and found her own

00:27:47.500 identity and now she she really has this mission called natural day where she encourages other young

00:27:54.300 people to be who they are to be themselves to embrace who they are and not to feel like they

00:28:00.360 have to conform to something it's really a very beautiful superhero story and young people who have

00:28:06.720 done good who've given up their birthday you know instead to you know for the for money going to

00:28:13.360 presence to go to feed a school in haiti and i just got back from haiti from a trip to haiti with

00:28:18.500 this young girl who'd helped the school there and so i mean these stories are just the best of the

00:28:24.240 human spirit they're the they express who we want to be and how we want to live and how we want our

00:28:29.480 kids to live and i hope it'll provide a lot of inspiration for people it sounds like an antidote to

00:28:34.300 cynicism it does it does that's what i hope it will be and you know for me as a filmmaker i want to just

00:28:40.700 share what i've been experiencing and seeing from these films yeah so uh you're a busy guy because

00:28:46.920 not only are you working on this is in production you have another film in production yeah yeah which

00:28:51.380 is really interesting to me because as it's it's about fathers and daughters yeah um and i've got a

00:28:56.740 two-year-old daughter yeah um and so this when i watched the trailer it really hit home for me so

00:29:02.320 can you tell us a little bit about the film a voice that carries yeah yeah a voice that carries which

00:29:07.140 we're just starting production on now um is really our goal with that film is to empower fathers to

00:29:14.580 engage with their daughters in a in a really positive way um you know the research is showing

00:29:19.820 that you know some fathers their mindset particularly with their daughter is that oh well it's you know

00:29:25.340 it's really the job of a mother type figure to really you know be the influence but what the

00:29:30.920 research is showing is that a father's engagement interaction affirmation is just as powerful if not

00:29:39.420 sometimes more powerful in in the development of a young girl and her sense of confidence her sense of

00:29:47.180 identity her sense of strength and empowerment and so you know that's our goal with the film we're

00:29:52.880 going to tell the stories of some fathers and daughters who have really either gone through

00:29:58.800 difficulties or worked through something or done something amazing but the goal of the movie

00:30:03.060 is to show how deep and how powerful that relationship can be how impactful it can be

00:30:09.660 and hopefully inspire and motivate fathers of daughters of all ages to really engage and to also give them

00:30:17.180 some tools some equipping um some insights as to how they can do that in a way because i know some

00:30:23.100 fathers are get they get uncomfortable you know particularly when their daughters become teenagers or

00:30:27.720 preteens it's like i don't know what to do here and so you know our hope is that they'll walk away not only

00:30:32.860 motivated to to really stay in that relationship um mentally and emotionally but also give them some

00:30:40.680 valuable insights and and inspirations to where they can they can do that so uh our goal with that film

00:30:46.840 so so look to the sky is a little further ahead we're looking at releasing that for these charity screenings

00:30:52.060 like we did the legends of the night in early 2017 um and then uh we're targeting uh for father's day

00:30:59.060 of 2017 with a voice that carries so uh we'll see that's just starting up now but that's that's our

00:31:05.660 hope and where did you get the idea to start exploring because you know i guess do you have

00:31:08.960 daughters you just have two sons no i have two sons this particular film i'm partnering with an

00:31:14.160 organization called southeast psych i mentioned them a little while ago but they're a they're a huge

00:31:18.820 psychology practice in uh in charlotte north carolina and this was actually we've worked

00:31:24.400 together on some things and they're actually also production partners uh working with me on look

00:31:30.440 to the sky and um they presented me with this idea and said we'd love to do this so this is in many

00:31:37.080 ways really a partnership between the two of us uh creating this i'm kind of providing the creative

00:31:42.460 vision but they're providing a lot of behind the scenes um uh background work to make the film a

00:31:48.420 reality and and i i'm i'm super excited about that and that's that's been one of the the positive

00:31:53.680 things when we did legends of the night it was kind of just me and my wife our family just kind of

00:31:57.580 doing it but the more we kind of got our dream out into the world and showed people what we were

00:32:02.420 doing and what we wanted to do the more people were inspired to kind of join us and come along

00:32:06.660 beside and and bring their own ideas and their own inspirations and so it's been fun it's been

00:32:12.260 fun to watch that that kind of expand over time you're leveraging the power of story yes

00:32:18.160 that's exactly right that's exactly right we're bringing them into our story and they're bringing

00:32:22.500 us into theirs great well hey brett this has been a great conversation where can people learn more

00:32:27.700 about the films you mentioned one website where else can people find out yeah i would say the the the

00:32:32.400 best place to go is to risinghero.org um so risinghero.org you can learn about legends of the night

00:32:40.120 you can learn about look to the sky and there are links to the to a voice that carries as well

00:32:45.740 um you can see all that right there and my personal website if you want to learn more about

00:32:50.200 me and what i do is my name brettculp.com awesome well brett colp thank you so much for your time

00:32:55.360 it's been a pleasure thanks for inviting me brett my guest today was brett colp he's the creator of

00:33:00.180 legends of the night as well as the forthcoming film look to the sky you can find more information

00:33:04.460 about these films at risinghero.org and also make sure to check out the show notes for this episode

00:33:09.460 at aom.is slash colp well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more

00:33:17.360 manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and

00:33:21.580 if you enjoy this podcast i'd really appreciate it if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher

00:33:25.280 help spread the word about the show and as always i appreciate your continued support

00:33:29.540 and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:33:33.060 do

00:33:38.660 you

00:33:40.220 you

The Art of Manliness - April 16, 2016

#192： Becoming Batman

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