0:01:00 – Speaker 2
Greetings and salutations. Welcome to Embrace your Storm. Thank you for joining us. I’m Jonathan Nadeau, your host, as always, and, yes, you got it. We’ve got another exciting episode, and don’t forget, we have Foxwoods on August 26th, 27th, 28th the Tornado Music and Film Festival. We’re definitely not going to want to miss this, because there’s a lot of exciting stuff going on and some very interesting people are going to be there. So you’re not going to want to miss this. And so today we’re speaking with Lisa. She has submitted Broken Branches. This is a great film, which it also leads into something else that’s really awesome that she’s doing and we’ll get into that very soon. But, lisa, thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me. It’s my pleasure. So, lisa, before we get into Broken Branches, how did you get into Broken Branches? How did you even get involved into film? What brought you to this medium for creation?
0:01:55 – Speaker 3
I came into filmmaking as a writer, oh there you go.
I’ve written I’ve always wrote little stories, little poems and things like that but I didn’t know what to do with it, how to get it produced, even what I had. And so once I met a filmmaker and he explained to me the process of getting something out there, the copyright writing of it and just making a plan basically. And once I connected with this filmmaker he helped me see that I could do this and it was a possibility, and he kind of gave me a recipe for how to bring my show cooking with munchies, how to get it produced. And so even after talking to him, I still was kind of hesitant can I do this? And then on January 1st, I remember, he called me and he said you’ve got this, you can do it. And that was all the encouragement that I needed. And I started writing these episodes of cooking with munchies and went from there, no kidding.
0:03:15 – Speaker 2
So I love hearing that, because you’re just like, yeah, I don’t know, I don’t know if I can do this or whatever, but a lot of people probably think like that. But man just takes that one person, I guess, right you?
0:03:27 – Speaker 3
got that one person.
0:03:30 – Speaker 2
And you got a courage, but you know what? At the end of the day, you still had to execute it, though, and you did.
0:03:37 – Speaker 3
This is true. And I’m used to being the person who encourages other people to follow their dreams. That’s my role, so it was nice to have it come back to me full circle.
0:03:50 – Speaker 2
There you go. Now that’s awesome. So you started writing cooking with munchies. Now was that your first thing that you got actually involved with film creation.
0:04:01 – Speaker 3
Then it wasn’t just the writing, yeah, so so once I started, once I started writing cooking with munchies, I just started doing all kind of research. I went to YouTube, college and there you go, and Google University and myself a lot of how to direct. I taught myself how to direct by watching some of the greats and listening to their pointers and then producing was easy because I am the hostess with the mostest. I threw this luau for like my best friend and I for like 12 years in a row and it was like one of the biggest parties in Indianapolis.
So I’m used to producing, you know, finding locations and finding people and doing that, so that kind of came naturally to me. But yeah, just, you know, just getting getting started. And then once I really got in, once I did cooking with munchies and decided I was going to do my next project, which was my feature. And I did a feature because I didn’t know that usually you start with shorts.
0:05:11 – Speaker 2
When you are a filmmaker, right, I didn’t part of that wisdom to me.
0:05:16 – Speaker 3
So I went for a whole hog on this feature and before I started filming the feature I would go to other filmmakers and volunteer on their set. So I could see some of the pitfalls and, and you know, and some of the things that worked and see what talent they use it with. That worked and was, you know, dedicated to the project. So that helped a lot and it started helping me get to learn who the other filmmakers were at the time in Indiana.
0:05:50 – Speaker 2
That’s really cool. That’s actually a good tip. I think is because of one of the last interviews too. He spent a lot of time on set and other films and everything. And you’re saying the same thing like hey, you know, volunteer and hey, one to how you and see what goes on, and that way you know when it comes time for you to call the shots or whatever, you’re not going to be caught off. I mean, you’re going to get caught off guard anyways, but you at least have some sort of idea of sort of what to expect you know and I know what’s coming.
0:06:22 – Speaker 3
I know something’s coming.
0:06:25 – Speaker 2
Absolutely.
0:06:27 – Speaker 3
But it also gives you allies because if you go on, a film with someone set. You know they really are grateful for that, so they will be there, hopefully, in your time of need. Even if it’s for information or advice or encouragement.
0:06:44 – Speaker 2
So now that you got involved with like the directing and producing, do you still like writing more or do you like one of those other two more?
0:06:53 – Speaker 3
I would have to say I like writing more because I do it daily.
Oh, yeah, and it’s something you can do daily and you don’t have to involve anyone else and you can and write wherever you are. And so, yeah, writing is my first love and that comes from a family of writers. I come from a family of people who have written, but no, my grandmother, like, wrote songs, and my mom and brother and my aunt would write letters to the editor and get recie, but no one, and even my two daughters they were celebrated in school for their writing capabilities, but none of us had no one had written a book in a family. Through all of this talent in my immediate family and I had other people outside of the immediate family who had written books, but I wasn’t really close to them at the time so it didn’t resonate, but I was like somebody needs to write a book. We have all of this talent. And then that’s when my sister and I wrote a book called Shattered Perceptions and I ended up writing the script for that. So that’s another script that I’m currently shopping.
0:08:03 – Speaker 2
But it’s just starting somewhere.
0:08:05 – Speaker 3
You just have to start somewhere.
0:08:07 – Speaker 2
Exactly, no, exactly. So then, what brought you to? Well, I guess we have to actually talk about your concept, because Broken Branches is kind of like this second story within that kind of sort of series or whatever. Right, because you did the other yeah. So I guess you have to talk about your tree series, which this is awesome. I love this concept.
0:08:28 – Speaker 3
Yeah, so it’s trees. When I lived in Indiana Fort Wayne to be more specific, which is where I was born and raised I had this large picture window at my house and I was looking out at this tree and it was just a large tree in our front yard and I thought, wow, this tree has seen so many changes in this neighborhood. I was thinking more specifically to our neighborhood and that’s where the idea came from for trees. It’s like the trees of the world have been watching the humans that inhabit this planet.
And now they are telling the secrets of the humans. Yeah, so it’s all kind of, as we have a treehouse, blue, that damn tree, the sugar maple tree, old, sprucey, so they’re all in broken branches, of course, and they’re all stories that either involve a tree or have tree in the title, mm yeah, they’re all like lessons. They’re all in their entertaining, the very diverse cast in different ones, but they all have a life meeting, basically of how to treat people.
0:09:45 – Speaker 2
And I loved. The more you talk about it and I hear you explain it, the more I can even see it and encapsulate what you sort of compare it to, even though it’s not this at all, but the Twilight Zone.
0:09:55 – Speaker 3
Correct, right, right.
0:09:56 – Speaker 2
Like the Twilight Zone in Capulet 8.
0:10:00 – Speaker 3
Oh, I think you muted yourself.
0:10:03 – Speaker 2
I thought that had a phone call. I’m hoping hopefully we’re still recording. But I’m going to say is the oh yeah, the Twilight Zone, where you know it doesn’t necessarily have this like you know, life lesson meeting thing, but they do have like a point within the show you know. So it’s so exactly that it encapsulates that for sure, like, and it’s I just I can tell the audience about the first, the film that he did the play. I’m sorry, I forgot the title Something Cooper.
0:10:31 – Speaker 3
Plantation.
0:10:32 – Speaker 2
Yeah.
0:10:32 – Speaker 3
So one of the things about trees is when, when the show first comes on, there’s a narrator who explains the story, kind of like how Ryce Irling used to do Sirling used to do. He would explain the story. But in this, this series, there’s someone different, and sometimes they emerge from a tree or sometimes they’re just walking in nature with oh man, that’s cool.
And so with Cooper’s Plantation. It’s about a young girl who lives in the big house. She’s a slave and she lives in the big house and she thinks everything is wonderful because she doesn’t have it like the slaves in the field. But there’s a young man who, who fancies her and wants her to run away with him, and but she has to decide if her life in the big house is better or is it better to run away into the unknown?
0:11:30 – Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:11:31 – Speaker 3
So yeah, so this is very it grabs you and that one, actually, you can see on YouTube that that really awesome. Cooper Plantation is on YouTube.
0:11:43 – Speaker 2
Yes, cool, I’ll be watching that after we get off here. But yeah, so which leads us to Broker branches, which is in the festival that’s going to be at Foxwood here in August, 26, 27, 28. So tell the audience like a little listen offices have broken branches.
0:11:57 – Speaker 3
A broken branches is about a woman who has raised this child, a young girl, since she was an infant and it’s her aunt’s child, and her and her boyfriend are raising this child, where the aunt gets cleaned from drugs, comes back and wants to take the child from them and not even allow them to have a relationship going forward, and the girl is now eight years old. And so this mother is going to do all that she can to keep her family together.
0:12:29 – Speaker 2
Wow.
0:12:31 – Speaker 3
So the line from this story is ice cream makes everything better, and so I can’t tell you what that means. I don’t know how to give it away, but no, exactly, that’s perfect.
0:12:44 – Speaker 2
Better yes, that’s perfect. So again, I love the concept of your trees. The broken branches is amazing. I’m going to watch the plantation after we get off this. And, lisa, is there anything else you wanted to mention? Is there any other projects you’re working on or help you need with anything? Give a shout out to the world and see what comes back to you.
0:13:06 – Speaker 3
So currently I have a book also called the Final Round. The Final Round, round 16. It’s about a man named Robert W Lee. He’s out of Jersey and currently I think he’s like 87, 88 years old. He’s the first black man to lead and only black man to lead a sports organization in the United States which was boxing, and he Wow, yeah, and so he was really big in boxing and doing great things, and they decided to use him as a pawn to try to get to Don King. So many people who are familiar with boxing knows Don King.
Yeah, yeah, Because of Mike Krayt and everything I’m spoken, didn’t care, doesn’t care what people think of him, and so they wanted to, wanted Mr Lee and his son to create a narrative about Don King to help them basically kick him out of boxing and arrest him. And when they refused to do that, they went after Mr Lee and his son.
0:14:13 – Speaker 2
No kidding.
0:14:14 – Speaker 3
Yeah, and so it’s a story of injustice. And Mr Lee had a fabulous, had a fabulous life, including being a first black police officer in this area. He worked in the boxing commission in New Jersey traveling.
0:14:33 – Speaker 2
He’s been longer alive.
0:14:34 – Speaker 3
No, he’s still here. I just talked to another guy, oh I thought you said.
0:14:38 – Speaker 2
I thought you said had that’s what you’re using. Yeah, what he had.
0:14:41 – Speaker 3
you know he did all of this yeah yeah, I see, I see. And I worked with him to create his memoirs. And then we’re working on a documentary. So the documentary is like 90% complete. We have to get it edited. We were trying to decide if we were going to add another famous boxer to the mix, but we do have. Michael Spinks, and Riddick Boe are part of the documentary.
0:15:08 – Speaker 2
Nice.
0:15:09 – Speaker 3
So that’s the next thing that will be coming out. And then I’m a writer. I have numerous scripts that I am looking to get produced and you have a website or anything, or my website is Lisa madewellcom, l-i-s-a-m-a-y-d-w-e-l-lcom. Yes, and then you can find me on all platforms using my name, either going forward or backwards.
0:15:35 – Speaker 2
Yeah, and I’ll put links in the show notes to all kinds of stuff too. Is that way they can get the stuff that?
0:15:40 – Speaker 3
way, and another thing that I didn’t mention was that Broken Branches was made in Lithuania. No kidding, that’s cool. Yeah, I went to a film camp there and my script was selected and they put it and we randomly got into groups. You pick from a box of DP’s, a box of producer, a box of sound, and then we had so many days, a few days, to make the film, edit it and everything. Wow. And then the awards we had an award with the community in a part of Lithuania and Broken Branches won all but maybe three awards.
0:16:20 – Speaker 2
Wow, that’s amazing. Even the story then about it was amazing. Wow, that is so cool. Like it’s awesome to see people like you doing things like this and reaching levels like this. Like it’s cool when people are on the right path, everything just kind of I don’t want to say everything falls into place, because it’s not all rainbows and unicorns.
0:16:41 – Speaker 1
But it’s nice to see things like that work out well.
0:16:45 – Speaker 3
You know what?
0:16:46 – Speaker 2
I’m saying Right. It’s an assurance to let you know, like you know, what I’m on the right path, exactly, exactly.
0:16:51 – Speaker 3
Yes, and just surrounding yourself with positive people and people in the industry and networking are how you can continue to push forward.
0:17:02 – Speaker 2
And you know what? That’s how we end the episode. That’s exactly it. Wise words, Lisa. So, everyone again. You’ll check out Broken Branches at Tornado Music and Film Festival. Fox Woods is going to be August 26th, 27th, 28th. There’s going to be a lot of awesome people there. Hopefully Lisa is going to be there. Everyone that we’ve talked to so far is coming up Lisa.
0:17:23 – Speaker 3
Yes, I’m doing my best to make it there. All right, but there you go, yeah, yeah.
0:17:26 – Speaker 2
Four months, you have plenty of times. So it’s going to be no abuses, yeah, yeah, so for everyone. Thank you for listening. Lisa again, thanks for your time and coming on. We appreciate you so much. Oh, no problem Thank you so much, and everyone, thank you for listening, downloading and don’t forget, embrace your storm.
0:17:44 – Speaker 1
See ya Tornado with Jonathan Nado. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe now. See you first to hear new episodes with more stories of inspiration about the highs and lows of life and how embracing the storm is so much more fulfilling of a life than being crushed by the weight of the world. And until then, we hope you’re inspired to do something, whether it’s creating, participating or learning, whatever leads you to your personal passion.
