Ep. 136: ‘SABER’ Director Matthew Wiatt

Thank you. Hey, y'all. It's me, Tara Strong, a.k.a. Miss Minutes for Bama Geeks. I hope you're ready to watch, and if you don't, I will have to prune you. Stay on your sacred timeline. And a happy Saturday evening to you. This is weird for us. We're normally live on Sunday nights, but we are thrilled to join you here on a Saturday night, right in the middle of your weekend. We're the Bama Geeks. Of course, I'm Brock. Way across there is Jess, my wife, and Kevin and Bo are down below. And you've seen the stuff we put out on social media over the last twenty four hours. And we are happy to say hello to Mr. Matt Wyatt. How are you doing, Matt? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on. Thank you so much for being here. We are we're thrilled that you're going to be in our fair city in about a week. Exactly in a week from right now. Yes, I will definitely be there. Yeah, for sure. Matt is the director of a documentary called Saber, and we have had the privilege of seeing it, all of us, and it is fantastic. And so we can't wait to discuss that with you tonight. If you want to see the trailer and learn more about it, saberdoc.com. That is right, Matt, right? I think so, yeah. Okay. Sabredoc.com, that's going to show you the info about it on top of what you're going to learn here tonight. And Dan, if you are in the Birmingham area, he is screening this at the Sidewalk Film Festival, which is happening this week. It's always a massive film festival here in Birmingham. It's been going on now for a quarter of a century. And he will be in town screening this next Saturday night as we're live now. Next Saturday night in one week at seven thirty on August twenty ninth at one of our favorite places, the Lyric Theater. which is right across from our old pal Gary Jones at the Alabama Theater. Granted, Gary is part of the Lyric Theater as well, so I'm hoping that Matt and Gary can meet because they'll have a good time. Definitely. But if you want tickets to that, sidewalkfest.com, that's where you can find tickets information on that, but specifically Saturday, August twenty ninth at the Lyric Theater at seven thirty p.m. Central Time. That's where you can go and see Matt and watch Sabre. Yes. So, Matt, we'll let you do the honors. Tell us a little bit about the film. Yeah, Saber is about competitive lightsaber dueling. So it's a competitive sport. It's about they wear full pads, full armor, and they hit each other with lightsabers. And more than just about combat, it's about the community that forms around the sport. And it was a really cool project to find and make. How did you find those guys? I found this on TikTok. I was scrolling through TikTok, just randomly scrolling. And one of the people we ended up featuring in the film, Alec, popped up in my newsfeed, popped up in my feed. So I watched he was doing he was talking about different types of lightsaber. So I started looking at it, found out he was doing competitive lightsaber dueling. I just did a deep dive into his social account. He's like, if you look him up on TikTok, I don't think he posts anymore, but he has like twenty thousand followers or something. It's sort of crazy, but just sort of like left it alone. But he's I guess he's sort of an influencer. But it was sort of so I found him and then I sent him a message like, what is this? Like, give me more information. I found out he lived an hour away from me. So then he invited me to a meet. I went to it and I just saw these people more than the fights. I saw this community around all the athletes that were participating. And I was like, my wife was with me, who's a producer and writer of the film of the film also. And we both looked at each other and said, I think there's a story here. Yeah. So that that's how it that's how it started is we just we got a tick tock and then Alec invited me to an event. And then I saw the community and was like, I think there might be a story here. Well, you found a wonderful story. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. And also, if you're watching live tonight here on YouTube, hop in the chat. Matt will be happy to answer any questions you've got. So I kind of want to ask you about your background, Matt. How did you get into documentary filmmaking? Documentary filmmaking. So I went to college for production. So I've been doing production with my brother-in-law and my wife for about twenty years, doing all types of commercial work, all types of things. I actually started off doing, before that, working at PBS, doing an animal pet show, and then also a cable show back in the day. You guys might remember it. You're more... my age demographic. So Passport to Europe with Samantha Brown, Great Hotels with Samantha Brown. I was an intern for that show on the Travel Channel and worked from the office, so I didn't get to go anywhere. I just researched and did stuff right out of college for the travel show. So I learned how to tell stories and sort of do that HGTV type of pet shows, travel shows, cooking shows, those type of things. And then I worked with my my wife and brother in law at a production company, and we've been doing commercials and all types of things. But what we really love is telling real stories. So that's our path. And that's what we've done. This is our second feature. Our first feature film is my wife directed called Fly Like a Girl. It's about women in aviation. It was a fun one. We got distribution, so it went everywhere. We've done two feature-length documentaries. We have another one we're working on now. We do all types of production for commercials and stuff, but then also do branded entertainment with all different types of companies where we can tell documentaries. We did one with an agricultural lending company where we went and told documentaries of farmers around the US. That was a fun project we did where we got to go all over and capture the farmer's story and have them share it about Feeding America. So that was a really cool project we worked on too. So we've told all types of stories, all types of things, trying to bridge the gap of commercial work and then also filmmaking too. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, this Saber is a fantastic story. Really, as we were talking before we started the stream, it really hit home with us because we've all all four of us met through the Alabama Ghostbusters, the Ghostbusters fandom and community eons ago. yes well technically bo and i met much much earlier yeah yeah yeah yeah those guys met in high school they just didn't know it yeah until they connected with ghostbusters it's kind of funny how a lot of them came about they all kind of in a same way the three of them ran in similar circles and they weren't aware of it at the time and then the ghostbusters community brought them all together and then they started piecing piecing things together and similarities in their worlds and people they knew and interactions. So, yeah. What Brock's leading into there is the camaraderie, just the community built around it and just the drive to want to have fun. And if you can do something good for the community or do something good to better yourself or better the community, that was what we were all about. So just like... watching the film you know um i was by the by the end of it i was like look before i'm gonna be honest with you i'm a big star wars fan i didn't even know saber legion was a thing before i watched this i didn't either before i started making it it's it's something it's it's amazing yeah Yeah, I mean, it made all the sense in the world. I was like, of course, Star Wars fans have done this. Of course, we're rabid with this stuff. Fandom no longer surprises me anymore. It's still I'm like, oh, that's cool. I didn't know about that. But OK, I'm not surprised. So by the end of this, the film, I'm cheering for these folks. I'm cheering for the documentary. And I'm like, this already happened. But. yeah i'm cheering you want them yeah you want them to do yeah it's i get choked up when i still watch it sometimes just like hoping something will happen so i don't want to give away spoilers but yeah it's just like yeah i'm on the i know what's happening i know the music cues i know everything that's going to happen i'm still like will it happen well will it oh okay what's going to happen next it's just one of those things yeah it's it's it's definitely but like the story we really the story revealed itself of more of like a found family and come up just found family and just people becoming like best friends over a shared uh passion of hitting each other with client giant glow sticks as they call it so it's just a it's very fun for sure I did like that line in the, in there. Yeah. I mean, it's simplistic, but so accurate describes it. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Oh, and that's, you know, and that's another shared thing that, that, that three of us also, or, you know, the us here can relate to as well, because, um, you know, as we were talking to the member episode, when you mentioned that, uh, that, uh, Brock and Bo and myself, uh, regular attendees of dragon con and, uh, But overall, what keeps us coming back year after year is the found family. We call it family reunion because this is a time where we get to see these people that we love and hold dear to our hearts. They live out of state. We all come together at this one point. this time of the year to be able to spend that time with each other. So the, the, the whole message in your film about, you know, find your found family or, or the people that come into your lives and you create a family with them. Yeah. Yes. And what's really cool is we just did a screening at the, um, They just had the World Championships a couple weeks ago in Minneapolis. And we got a theater and we screened it for all the members of the Saber Legion that were there. So like, fifty to a hundred people there watching this film. It was so cool because they were watching it and seeing themselves, seeing people they knew on the screen. And whenever a new person would come up, they'd all start applauding for that person. It was just a really cool experience to see. I had it had to be surreal for them because they're like that. That's like that Spider-Man meme, them all pointing at each other. It's like, that's me on the screen. That person's there. It was just it was a really cool experience to see them all experiencing the movie for the first time in a theater setting like that. Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I really. One thing I really liked about it is, with us in the Ghostbusters community, we get to put our own spin on our costumes and things like that. Seeing them pour their personalities into their gear is amazing. Yeah, that was a we didn't get to go very in-depth with that in the actual movie, but you can see it in the film. It's pretty amazing. Like there's no like there's rules about what protective gear you have to wear. Like it has to be a certain type for actually protecting you. But other than that, you can paint it, you can do any types of things on it. And there's so many amazing cool characters. You can just see their masks just painted all different. There's Deadpool. There's all different types of characters out there. And it's just pretty it's pretty fun. We, Jess and I got a good chuckle out of the, the butthead. Oh yeah. It was Beavis, not butthead. Like we're talking about with the fine family. Like, I think like this, this is special. Like you're talking about our age, like our age group. Like there's a good camaraderie because like Kat, she discussed about finding, you know, finding people, you know, that, you know, you didn't think people love the same thing you did like you do, which I think like our age group, we're still kind of the last generation of where like all the nerdy stuff was like, oh, you like that? Where now it's like, oh, you like that? everybody likes that, you know, nothing wrong with it. I'm glad to see things grow and flourish, but it's a little bit different, you know, going from isolation, then you find that and you're like, Oh, this is, I've, I've found my tribe, my, my family. It's, it's like, it's, it's a very interesting way. Cause like I said, let's like, so go and keep going back. We found each other early days of the internet forums online. or, you know, or, or, you know, just email groups. I mean, it was, you know, a different time. And I mean, I'm, I'm glad for the technology, but also I'm kind of like, you know, it's still like, you know, you want to be the old curmudgeon, like we did it this way back then, you know, but it's, it's a wonderful feeling. That was the one thing like watching the, the, the vibes, the, the emotions that I got just once I got hooked in, I was like, Oh, this reminds me of what it was like. yep yeah so with that uh we have a question leading into that um molly thanks for joining us tonight and uh what part of the documentary stuck with you the most so i guess that kind of as if it's a general question for all of us i'm assuming yeah i would think for you guys probably that'd be my guess I think really what we're just kind of discussing here is that, you know, I just figured it was a documentary about, you know, the Saber Legion, just what it's about and the tournament or whatever. But again, when you tell the stories of the people that are involved in this, you know, the human element and the human stories of all of it, I would have to say is probably what stuck with me the most too. Yep. Yep. Yeah, for me, Kat really, really stuck out. Yeah. And her journey through all this was wonderful. As you said, no spoilers. It's hard. Trying to tiptoe around that. But just, again, watching her journey through the fights and growing and, you know, getting better and finding herself. Yeah. And something that's interesting with that, when I was at the World Championships a few weeks ago, people were saying they connected with, they know Kat personally, but they would connect with what she went through in the tournament is what they've all been through themselves. They've all been in those situations and felt the same way that she felt in the film. So I was just a very I never thought about that myself. But when they they were all like, yeah, they all can relate and felt that the same way she had felt in the film. They also had that same type of experience, which I just thought was really cool because it's not just the way it's the way the community comes around her in that film. And the film is just pretty amazing. And I think everyone in the same religion has felt that before. And I actually got to participate at the I did my first fight in a tournament at the World Championships. And I had Jared in my corner, Alec in my corner, giving me points and stuff as I was doing it. So it was a lot of fun. So just it was cool. Actually, I hadn't done it, but I've been practicing since I finished the film, but I hadn't actually gone to a competition yet. So it was a lot of fun to actually put on the pads, put on the helmet and just see what it was like to do it in a competition. So it was a lot of fun. Yeah. And going back into the, the, the previous thing we were all talking about, you know, finding each other, you know, back in the day before the, before social media and everything, you know, with, with Kat going into the comic book store and finding, you know, finding all these things that she was interested in. And she felt safe there. Yeah, exactly. One of my best friends from high school, I've been a Star Trek fan my entire life. I grew up while the animated Star Trek series was on and the first movie was coming out. But going through school, I never told anybody how much I love Star Trek and I just couldn't do it. But one of my best friends I found in high school, we had we had connected with that and went to our first ever convention. It was a Star Trek convention in nineteen ninety three. and still not being able to openly talk about that because you know the jocks and everything and yes in school exactly exactly so seeing her find that safe space among those people was fantastic yeah and and it's such a and that's when we we did our before we started the film we did a pre-interview with her and over zoom because she's in south florida and she could just articulate and tell that story about how she found found friends and found her family just through the comic book store and through the saber legion was just like okay this is definitely there's something here we have to film her and we have to film her doing this and tate's in south florida if you're ever down there that is an amazing comic book story as you can tell i've heard about that place it looks beautiful it's amazing yeah Real quick, we got Darnay. Welcome to the chat. He's a fellow. He's been to Megacon. He's been down there a couple times. Howdy. And if you guys ever get way too rowdy with what you're doing with saber fighting, he might be somebody to come help you. We don't want to give away his business, but he can patch you up. I did get some when I, when I, you get hit hard. So I've, I've had a few bruises, even if you're wearing the full HEMA jacket and everything, like I've had bruises on my arms and stuff where I was like, Oh, that, that, that hurt a little bit. Nothing bad, but it's just like, wow, that you, it's pretty crazy how hard they hit. Wow. Well, I was like, go ahead. I was like, yeah, I can amaze about a hit. Cause I mean, you know, you're, you're still that competitive, but then when that adrenaline gets pumping, I'm sure, you know, you're, you're trying to be competitive, but the next thing you know, it's wow. You know, and nobody's trying to hurt anyone. It's just more like you're swinging a stick at people. So it's, it's, it's, it's a lot of fun though, for sure. I guess you get caught up in the excitement of it all. Like you said, the adrenaline. And then it's just, you don't almost kind of realize that you're just in that moment and doing that tournament. So, yeah. One of the most humorous things that I found from this, and this is not a knock on it, it makes the most sense in the world, but everyone wears fencing gear. It's like you guys are doing basically heavier versions of fencing gear. And I'm like, you know what? I didn't draw the parallel until that point. And I was like, you guys are just doing a much more cool version of fencing. Yeah. There is something called HEMA, which is historical European weapons that people fight with. And those are the, like, they do steel swords. Alec, what doesn't Alec do? Alec does that. He's actually an instructor in steel swords. So the rules are with the protective gear is that you have to protect certain areas. It has to be a certain thickness for it. And HEMA gear, which is what a lot of people use because it's made for steel swords, really works well for the lightsaber dueling because it's going to protect you. So a lot of people wear that. But the fencing helmet is everyone needs to wear one of those because of how fast the blades go, for sure. Yeah, exactly. And no one wants to say they got their eye poked out by a plastic sword. Not at all. It is polycarbonate, so it is very hard. It's pretty crazy. I'll bring mine with me at the screening next week, so if anyone wants to hold a dueling saber, I'll have one with us so you can see it. If anybody wants to get hit by a dueling saber, I will not be hitting people, but they can look at it. Watch the movie. And maybe the thing you were talking about with the metal swords, I have to say, you may have one of the most Florida shots in your, where Kat is practicing in her backyard with that little lagoon, with the little palm tree. I don't know why, but I was just like, this might be the most Florida thing I've ever seen in this beautiful... You just need a gator on the shore. Exactly. I did notice that the gate was open, so I was like... There's definitely gators in there, I'm sure of that. Well, I tell you what, you can go to, again, sabredoc.com to learn more about the Bimble. We'll bring up some pictures that you've got from on the website. Sure. And you can just kind of, if you don't mind walking us through what we're seeing. Yeah, that's Kat in Tate's comic book, the comic book store, her just looking around. That's when we were actually filming there. So that was a fun place to be. You can see there's just so much stuff going on inside that store. Yeah. yeah so that's where that is that's kat who's in the film she's one of the two people we follow it's her and alec are the two main subjects of the film but yeah that's that's at tate's her uh looking at the comic book store i i know this feeling that she's experiencing right now yeah yeah like oh can i can i survive on ramen and yeah other cheap things for the next month so that i can buy all these things that are here yeah we uh her comment about uh not enough storage in the house and Yeah, it kind of resonates, especially with this household. Yeah, we're actually in the process, Matt, of offloading a lot of things because we're hoping to move next summer. And if Kat wants some stuff, let us know. Be careful what you ask for. That's the one thing I like you talking about, like, you know, I liked about her now is like, you know, you have the beginner's journey and then you have the experienced person who's been there. And that's that was another good thing that really resonated with me on this. And that's a cat in her. She's the one in the middle there hugging everyone. That's actually. a bunch of female fighters after they, uh, did, I think just a practice run doing a tag team fights, which tag team sort of funny. It's a, we didn't have time to go over it in the documentary, but that's when you're, you are with someone and then you, uh, just like pro wrestling, you can tag out and switch out people. And so it's just sort of a funny way to do it. And yeah, so they do a tag team type of things, but yeah, that's a, that's cat with a bunch of other female fighters in South Florida, just sort of showing the, them being all friends and there's Alec. Yeah. Yeah. That's at a mega con in Orlando. I think that's his Luke Skywalker cosplay going on right there. But yeah, Alec is an amazing guy. I think he does everything. I wouldn't surprise you if you're like, hey, do you do this? He'd be like, yeah, I'm proficient in that. Just name anything. I'm pretty sure he can do that. He's an Irish step dancer. He teaches music. He does all types of things. He did MMA also, am I correct? He did MMA in college, which I didn't even know that was a thing, but I guess... I guess it is. He did MMA and he he's a licensed physical therapist and he was getting bruised up a lot. And so his clients were like, I think his boss was like, Hey, are you OK? He's like, what's going on? So he stopped doing MMA and went into a more competitive sword sport. So he does all types of fencing, all different types of sword disciplines. So he's and I think he's ranked number six in the world right now in the Sabre Legion. And I think he was number one in exotics, which exotics is a type of it's basically think of like Darth Maul with his doubles. Yeah. Double blade or Kylo Ren. Yeah. Kylo Ren with the cross guard. Right. Some people have pikes. It's just all different. They have rules about the total length of the blade, but then it's just free. Any any weird type of weapons you want to do, you can do. And I think he did really well in that this past tournament. But yeah, so he's a renaissance man for sure. He could have had the perfect joke. He could have said, I'm not supposed to talk about Fight Club. He told me that's the rule. Uh, that's Alec, uh, where that's outside in Orlando actually for a meetup. They try to do meetups, um, try to keep them as affordable as possible for people. They have loaner gear for people to wear when they, uh, if you want to just come check it out. And, uh, this was a meet in Orlando at a public park that we have filmed for the film. And that's Alec on the left with his, uh, like perfect fencing stance. But yeah, it's a, it's a really cool community because they have, if you go to the save religions website, you can find they're on discord. They're on Facebook. Um, And they have different meetups around the country and around the world where you can find people and they have loaner gear. So you can just really just go and check it out and see what it's like to get hit with a lightsaber. It's a really cool group. That's Kat in South Florida at a meet getting ready to fight someone. You can see in the back there's someone in a Spider-Man outfit. I think that's Chris. I don't know the other ones. I saw him too. I noticed him in the film too. That's Jared in the middle and then Kat on the left there. That's in Vegas. Just a cool still image we caught just showing the community of people. Okay. There's Kat again, getting ready to fight. I think there's a crazy clown guy in the back. I love that she chose a samurai sword like hilt for her. Everyone sort of has the suba on it because with... with lightsaber blades since they're uh polycarbonate plastic they'll just slide down so that's a way to help prevent um someone getting an easy point with it going so they have a rule about how big this so everyone has a suba like that on their uh on their lightsaber hilt because otherwise someone could get a lot of points on you just by sliding the uh the blade down okay that's that's what everybody has you don't have to have it like in the tournament in vega or in minneapolis a few weeks ago some people don't have it but It's smart to have it because it can prevent easy points for people. Okay. It's kind of like hard mode, I guess. Yes. That's a group shot of the group in South Florida after a meet. So, yeah. You can see all their different sabers. They're all lit up different colors. A lot of the sabers are base lit. I don't know how nerdy you want to get into lightsaber talk, but that means they have an LED in the bottom and it lights up the lightsaber that's clear. And there are things called pixel sabers that you can hook on that have pixels inside of it, but they try to keep the electronics as minimum as possible because they are hitting them against each other and they don't want stuff to break. So that's a lot of them. And a lot of them now just have like some type of little LED flashlight you stick in the bottom and turn on. But yeah, it's a pretty cool. I have mine. have mine right here okay yeah oh hang on let's see well see that was the that was the the thing i was really interested there was uh they were doing the scoring in teams everyone was red versus blue so i was wondering if that was going to you know you like in competition you had to do a red a red hilt or red red saber versus now they put a I, it helps with the line judging if, uh, someone has a red saber and someone has a different color, but there are, there are some matches where people will both have red sabers. So the judges really have to pay attention to what's going on. But yeah, so that's the, yeah. I noticed that's what I was like watching, you know, watching the, um, the fighting take place and you know, the line judges, I mean, they really have to just be just totally focused in on that. Yeah. Just the speed of everything and how it happens. Yeah. So for people, there's four line judges and then there's a center judge. And what the center judge, it's their bout, their tournament. They're the ones that make the final call. And they use the line judges just to be like, what did you see? They don't have to go with what they said, but they just use them as a guidance for them. But it's really just... There's places you're not allowed to hit. So it's really what the judges see. And they hold up in the because I got to actually line judge at the tournament a few weeks ago for the first time. So that was that was a new experience for me because I had never actually participated in doing that. So it was it was a different thing to do for sure. But like, it's very fast. I a lot of times if you don't know, you just don't hold one up. And it's like, I don't I don't know what happened. It's very it's very fast for sure. And it's very quick. Yeah, we kept watching the points in your documentary. And I'm like, well, how did that hit? Yeah. Yeah. Pick it out. Yeah. And they they're the judges are very good at at picking that out. It's a very they work. They they work out, especially the center. The head judge in the middle is very acute and knows what's going on with everything. So it's a very it's very intense, though. It's very fast. And yeah. As the tournament goes on, they get the more experienced people towards the end of the tournament. It's people that have a very good eye for it for sure. I was not in the final rounds judging for sure. Is this an annual tournament? They do a world championship every year, and this year was the first year it was in Minneapolis, which is actually where the Saber Legion was birthed. That's where the founders were from, and it started from. Because CombatCon, where it had been in Vegas previous years, CombatCon ended last year, so they're no longer doing the big tournament there. And CombatCon was all types of Hema different types of weapons that were there But they are now doing just like regional events around the country But so the Sabre Legion had to find a new place So last year it was in Minneapolis or this last couple weeks It was in Minneapolis for the first time for the World Championship They have different tournaments all the different charters put on a tournament every year too. So like Florida will have her own California all the different areas will have a big national tournament, too Roughly how many people nationally or internationally take part in this? I am not sure at the actual time. tournament the national tournament world tournament that was a few weeks ago there were about seventy to a hundred fighters there for the national tournament but each charter probably has it just depends on how the charter is going I know in Florida they have about forty fifty people alone because they have groups that meet in Orlando South Florida and I think Jacksonville also so they have a bunch of so each area it just depends how many people are there but there's a lot of a lot of people, they might not make it to the national tournament, they'll make it to the regional tournament. So there's definitely a lot of people everywhere that do it. And there's also different disciplines of lightsaber dueling. There's different types, like there's things not associated with the Saber Legion that do different types. There's like light speed fencing where it's just more like traditional fencing with lightsabers. There's people that do choreography. There's all different types of lightsaber sports out there, which is just crazy. Yeah. I mean, I'm more familiar with the choreography. I knew that existed because you've seen people do fan films of it. And you can definitely tell these people are professional. They've definitely practiced together. And I've seen clubs doing that. But I had no idea before this that there was one where it was competitive fighting. That was actually really cool and a revelation there. I really like that. And what I like about the Saber Legion is it's not... It takes place in a square court and there's not there's rules about where you can hit people, but there's not like rules on the type of style you can do, like different type. I learned this from Alec, who's a sword expert, like different types of sword disciplines have different rules on where you can hit, like very like you can only hit them from here to here on the arm or something like there's very specific rules for different types of disciplines and sword fighting for a bunch of different ones but with the saber legion they just say hey you can't hit someone in the back of the head you can't hit someone in certain places of your body in the neck but other than that it's like it's a real lightsaber so if someone hits you on the arm that's a point if someone hits you in the shin that's a point so it's very uh it's it's interesting they call it the mma of sword fighting because it's sort of There's so many different disciplines. And that's why someone like Alec is very, does well in it because the top fighters are trained in all different types of swordplay. So they know all different types of ways to combat with a lightsaber. Because you never quite know how somebody's going to approach you. No. So it's very, it's, you have no idea. So it's a fun thing to do for sure. So I got a question. Being with the subject matter and all the other... Everybody had their personality. Did you run any challenges with this? Say from the mouse with you doing something Star Wars related. Even though I know you're not doing it as Star Wars. Yeah, for sure. How did that affect you... that part of it. I know you're doing a documentary, but like... Before we even started production of this, when I had the idea, and our team here, my wife and my brother-in-law, we were like, okay, this could be a good story. First thing we did was contact our entertainment attorney to see, is this even a possible story to tell? What can we do? Where can we go? What do we have to say? What do we have to say? So we contacted our fair use entertainment attorney to really figure out what what the guidelines are. What can we do? Where can we go with the story? So that's the documentary filmmaking. One of the big things like people always ask, what do I need to do? Like, how do you do this? It's like the biggest thing is getting a good entertainment attorney and also making sure, you know, all the paperwork you have to do because we deliver a movie for distribution and stuff. There's just so much back end stuff that people don't even realize about yeah i figured that would have been a fun challenge kind of like because i mean because nowadays don't get me wrong it's you know they got to protect their intellectual properties i get all that but then at the same time like you said you're doing something fun for awareness of a fandom or a community and i just it latched onto something that's very pop culture yes for sure i know that's got to be that challenge so that's that's good to know i figured it was something along that lines but i wasn't sure yeah and thankfully you was allowed to do it on your own like hopefully there was no like studio interference like saying you know we're not yet we aren't into distribution yet so yeah yeah because we've known of some other documentaries on fandom that that kind of happened and it kind of painted a bad light so yeah we wanted to make sure i want i hope this you know this does that does not happen because like i said this is a wonderful story thank you yeah like yeah an interesting subject with just amazing human subject matter Thank you. Yeah, there's a lot of fun to make. So in trying to get distribution, that's what going to these film festivals are for, correct? Yeah, the film festivals help get a buzz about the film and different distribution people and selling agents go to film festivals and look for movies and things like that. So that'll be our next step. We screened at, we premiered at the Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival. We've screened at the Comic-Con in San Diego, which was an amazing opportunity to be on a panel and have your name. Like that's just a surreal experience a few weeks ago. So yeah, so we're building that buzz. And then the next step will be putting together the talking to distribution companies and talking to streamers and figuring out what the next steps are. So tell us the process of getting into San Diego Comic Con and getting to to experience that. Yeah, with San Diego Comic Con has a film festival and it's just like any other film festival. You some of them have entry fees. I don't think San Diego Comic Con actually does. And you submit a screener and that's about it like a lot of film festivals don't even want any don't want anything else they just want the screener you can send them other stuff about the film but they just really want to watch the screener and judge the film on its own merit and see if it gets in and it was one of those things where we that was one of the festivals we're like okay we'll submit it we'll see what happens who knows we think it might do well there but yeah so we submitted it there and then we uh got an email and said we were in and it was a surreal moment for sure being able to be on a panel at Comic-Con, be there just with all the amazingness that happens there. So it was really cool, but it was pretty much like any other film festival. And film festivals are a weird world for sure if you're not familiar with it, because it's basically you send your movie out, random people watch it and judge it and decide if it makes it, if they want to put it in their lineup for the festival or not. Okay. Yeah. It's just, it's wow. There's no real magic to it. It's just like, here's the movie and they have different volunteer. Some of them have paid people, some of the volunteers and they screen it and they watch it and they're like, thumbs up, thumbs down. You have no, no idea why or what. So it's just one of those weird, there's no rhyme or reason for it. So, yeah. How long ago did you submit it for a sidewalk? Sidewalk, it's about a, I think it's festival season. We started submitting a year ago about now for film festivals. I think we finished, actually had Picture Lock finish the film about a year ago around this time period. And then you start submitting and doing the full film festival cycle. This will probably be our last film festival before we start going into distribution. We strategically didn't enter a ton of festivals just because we were like, We just want to hit some big ones, some ones that we think the film would do well at, and then just move on and then go to the distribution phase. So this will be the last screening before we figure out where we're going to go next for distribution-wise. Oh, that's awesome. Excuse me. As we've said and shared a while ago, if you go to sidewalkfest.com and if you're just joining us, the Sabre will be screened at Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham one week from right now. Yes. It's eight thirty seven here. And this thing is playing one week from right now. It's going to be here. Yeah, it's going to be a fun experience. I'll be there and my wife will be there also as a producer and writer of the film with me. And we'll be able to answer any questions also there. But it will probably be one of the last times you get to see it for a while. Because distribution, it takes a while to figure out when. So if you're interested in seeing it, I would definitely recommend coming out because it might be... Who knows? A streamer could buy it and be like, oh, we want to wait till May the fourth to release it. Who knows? So it's going to be you have no idea as far as when and where it will be. But we're going to definitely be exploring distribution options. But if you're in the Birmingham area and you're interested in it, definitely come out and see it. It'll be a fun time for sure. Yep. Next Saturday night, August twenty ninth. When the audio version of the audio version of this episode should come out Wednesday. So if you're just hearing this on Wednesday on the audio version, Sidewalk Fest. Yeah. Sidewalk Fest dot com. Grab your ticket and get over there on Saturday night. Yes, we're excited to share it with Birmingham, excited to see the city. It'll be fun. That's the one cool thing about doing film festivals. We got to explore Boston, got to explore San Diego. So it'll be fun to see Birmingham and see all the different films and what's going on in downtown. Yeah, come with an empty stomach because we have food around. It's amazing. You really can't go wrong with many places. That sounds great. Yeah, and we'll be sure and cool the city off for you by at least five degrees from where you are right now. I'm in Florida, so heat index is like one-twelve, so it'll be like being home. It's fine. Yeah, the humidity and heat around here so far has not been the funnest, but probably nothing like... Not as bad as where you are. But no gators. There we go. We do have bears roaming around. We do have bears roaming around here and there. It's kind of a big thing recently. We've had bear spottings in places in and around Birmingham. We used to have a random billy goat, too. That's right. Maybe the bear got it. So my background, I'm a former television reporter. And so my background is in the media. So I'm really, you know, filmmaking is an area that I have not tackled. I'd love to hear about your process. Like I saw in some of your shots, some of the cutaway shots that you were using, I could see you had multiple cameras at any one point filming these interviews and all. Tell me about the process of just getting there and setting up. For the actual sit-down interviews, I did set up a bunch of cameras for those just so I'd have edit points and be able to do some different editing. In Vegas, we only had two cameras. Then we had their live streaming cameras that we were able to cut to. For everything else, it was probably a single camera. I just did cutaways around four different things so that we could... get different moments and things and that comes from i guess when oh when you ask my background one of the things we did or i did early early on twenty years ago was filming weddings so it'd be just like you'd have to be able to get those cutaways and get those different things when you're doing it i i always tell people like a great place to learn how to do filmmaking is doing event coverage because usually it's you're by yourself and you got to get everything and you have to figure out how to tell that story so that was one thing uh for all the different scenes and things, it was literally one camera, just me and just filming with the camera, just going around. I shot most of it with a C three hundred on an easy rig. If you want to get nerdy about different types of gear and stuff. But yeah, and I ran audio myself to the camera. So I was capturing it. So it was a very skeleton crew of just me and my wife just going through and filming all these different scenarios for sure. That's amazing. I'm actually going out of state tomorrow to do some camera work for work. So first time flying with any of our bigger gear. So I'm kind of nervous about that. Yeah, flying just like with flying with lightsabers as we covered in the film. It's definitely – I'm used to it now, but usually it's definitely – Definitely talk with the gate or whichever airline you're flying with and see what their actual policy is for media gear and stuff. Because sometimes you get a cheaper rate, sometimes you don't. It's a very interesting, always carry on your batteries. That's something you always have to do. When we fly with gear, we carry camera body and lenses and batteries we take with us as our carry on and everything else we check. But yeah, it's definitely a different world. Yeah. It's funny you were talking about, you know, flying with the lightsabers, you know, in relation to, you know, we have, like I said, we have friends all over the country and even some, you know, out of the country that are, you know, part of the Ghostbusters fandom that have flown into conventions and, you know, flying with a proton pack. So, yeah, it's. I've always heard one of the ways that everybody was always has a picture from the movie and with it to kind of be like, oh, point of reference. So, you know, that always helps out. Yeah, it's definitely flying with sabers, flying with any electronic gear is always it's it's it really just as I think Kat says it in or Kat or Alec say it in the movie, it's like it really just depends about your TSA. Yeah. Yeah. You never know. I'm TSA pre, so that helps a little bit, but you never you never know when you're flying for sure. No, for sure. Yeah, my my entire carry on gear when I get to the airport tomorrow morning is my carry on bag is my hard camera case with my video camera in it and everything. So I'm checking my clothing and everything else. That's how you do it. Yeah, he told me he was like, this is not leaving my side. It is going with me. Yeah. I was flying for some commercial shoot one time, and we were carried on our camera gear, and they lost our luggage. So I had to go to Walmart or Target and buy some clothes because I did not have any for the shoot the next day. But it's rather that than because you can't buy a professional camera wherever you are. Yeah, you take the loss on the clothes. Yes, for sure. Who's that guy over there that's got the expensive equipment that looks like M&M? Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, I would rather deal with lost clothing than having my finance director go in. You need how much again? Well, I tell you, I'm really looking forward. We will. Unfortunately, Jess and I will be out of town next week and otherwise we would we would love to come meet you. Yes. Now we've got a family vacation plan for when I get back off the trip. Unfortunately, we're leaving on Friday. But I hope you enjoy Birmingham. It's how long will you be here? Uh, we're driving up on my parents live in Tallahassee. So we're going to stay there on Thursday and then drive up Friday morning and then be there through Monday, I think. So we'll be there the whole festival. I think, well, the big part of the festival starts on Friday. So we'll be there Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And then my, I don't know if our air, if we're coming back, I think we're coming back Monday. So yeah, we'll be there a good solid three days for sure. It'll be fine. Let's list some places they need to go. Let's list some places they need to go. Come on. food wise or are we talking just places to visit in general i mean you got to go see vulcan i mean that's the big one maybe go see go to the southern um at uptown yes that would be that's a that's a really good example of some really really good food fantastic food yeah yeah Um, let's give them some more. That's the first one that popped up in my head. Of course, he's got to visit the, the Alabama, the Alabama, the Alabama, the Alabama, the Alabama, the Alabama, the Alabama, the Alabama, the Alabama, the Alabama, the Alabama, um there's a great uh place down there it's uh called up down it's like a barcade arcade with all oh nice um old uh pinball machines and arcade games and and they serve pizza by the slice so yeah it's a it's a really interesting place right there um i mean there's a lot right there and that seems from my search it just seems birmingham's such a cool place and that like sidewalk is such a cool organization in general how they have the theater there year round and do amazing film screenings and we're just really excited to actually have our film screen there at such a cool venue oh yeah sidewalk there they curate amazing films so we're honored to be actually part of the lineup for this film festival so i'd recommend anyone definitely check out sidewalk because it's going to be a it's going to be a fun event for sure all the different bonkers down there um what is going on for sure it's it's usually that whole area is hard to get in and out of because it's it's not quite san diego comic-con of course but it's for for birmingham it's huge i'm excited it's gonna be it's gonna be a fun event for sure and it's the movies they pick are just i've looked at some of them that are screening there i'm like i want to see the like huge list of like i want to see them all which is hard to do it's impossible to see all of them but there's going to be a lot of great movies so it's gonna it's gonna be a fun time for sure Another place you could visit, you need to visit Sloss Furnace, historic old iron. Yes. So far as actual just imagery, that place is depending on, I would totally love to talk to you after you go to Sloss Furnace and see what your first reaction was when you saw it, because it's some people I've talked to said, this is overwhelming and just how big it is. And I feel like I'm going to get tetanus just by looking at it. And then some people are like, this is spooky because it's, it's, I mean, they, they, they did, you know, a sloth fright furnace and they do, they do a lot of like spooky Halloween's related things there. And they've had a paranormal investigations out there too for ghosts and stuff too. Yeah. It's got a haunted history. Downtown Birmingham area, you're going to have a great time. Lots of great things to see. Lots of good places to eat. He's going to be near the Bizitz. The Bizitz has got tons of places in it. the movie theater associated with sidewalk is, is in the pizitz food hall. So yeah, he's got, he's got where you saw, they put that new sign up, man. You saw that that's, that's the pizitz. Yeah. It's actually that, that building. So, um, Definitely tons. They have some standards there, but they usually rotate a lot of the restaurants in and out. There's no telling what's there. I haven't been there in a bit. The food there is always good. I think the standard is still there, isn't it? Yeah, it is. If you like the good greasy spoon type burgers, hot dogs, things like that, they're fantastic. Awesome. One thing about Birmingham, you're definitely going to find some great food here. That's awesome. That sounds great. We're not number two in heart disease. That's a ringing endorsement. It just means we get the best food. Great food, great film festival. You can't go wrong with that. That's right. Great food, great films. Like I said earlier, with you being at the Lyric Sorry about that. Uh, being at the lyric, um, the sister theater to the Alabama theater. Uh, if, if you get a chance to meet Gary Jones, uh, have him take you through the Alabama. Yeah. He'll do it. Yeah. We might be, it is a busy time for him though with the festival, but I will definitely try my best to, to see everything for sure. i just just told gary that we that we had name dropped and we're responsible for the that we sent you yeah tell gary we sent you we'll do it for sure yes he's very much a recurring guest on here that's awesome um but yeah uh as he was as kevin mentioned that uh the alabama theater is a a paramount theater was built by paramount studios to showcase you know the silent movies and the vaudeville acts and things of that nature and uh it turns one hundred years old next year wow that's amazing big celebrations going on there as well that's so cool that Birmingham has these historic theaters and that sidewalks partnered with them and they can do all these cool screenings at these amazing venues that's that's really unique for film festivals a lot of them yeah will be just at a multiplex somewhere or something like that and this is just really cool to be in a historic town and be able to see all these cool venues and all that it's gonna it's gonna be a fun time for sure that's like the lyric theater itself it's set empty for what years years yeah like decades maybe like and they finally had a big community project where they came together and restored it and I haven't been in it but just the pictures from it it's beautiful that's awesome I'm excited to screen there for sure So you mentioned early on that you're kind of now getting into the Saber Legion and all. So what fandoms are you a part of? I'm a fan of Star Wars. I really enjoy Star Wars stuff. I read the books. I get the comics, watch the shows. I'm really... Star Wars is probably one of the big ones I watch. But then... As far as fandoms go, I think that's the big one. But then I also just watch a little bit of everything as far as on any platform for sure. But Star Wars is my North Star, I guess, for fandoms as far as that goes. But I'm not an expert. There are some people that know a whole lot more than I do about Star Wars lore and all that stuff. But yeah, definitely that's sort of my go-to. I don't... people ask like, are you into Marvel? I was like, I like, I like watching it and do that, but I think I just get, I don't want to get too bogged down by Canon and lore and what everything means because people get really into it. So I sort of, I'm, I'm a star Wars and then, then I enjoy everything else for sure. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's almost as hard to keep up with Marvel stuff than it is with Star Wars. And honestly, Matt, you're a person after my own heart. I'm the same way. I've got to the point where I can't keep up with it. I used to be like the person that you could talk about anything Star Wars with. And it's gotten to the point now where it's like everything is just... When we started with Disney, everything kind of started getting rewritten. And I was like, okay, fine. I'll just go watch it and just be a normal person experiencing it, you know? And I had, I had this talk with Alec once about, I was like, Hey, what'd you think of this episode of that? And he was like, what I'm grateful for is that there's stuff coming out. Cause for a while, like, as you guys know, we, you grew up with the, you had the original trilogy on VHS and it would be on TV every now and then, and then nothing. Yeah. And so we have a live action grand Admiral Thrawn now. Yeah. It's like, it's amazing. It's like, yeah. And I'm not the type of person that's going to be like criticizing like, oh, this blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I'm just happy it's out there and it's entertaining and it's fun. So that's sort of where I've taken it. And I do get a little bit into the weeds with it, but I'm not going to be the one to be like, in that episode, they should have had that person do this. That was in comic book number three forty seven. And that wasn't that. And I'm not that type of person, but I do just enjoy that. that it's out there and they're just so much good and they're doing a great job of getting all this different type of different voices and content to just try different things, which is really cool. Like the the visions. I don't know if you guys have watched any of those animated Star Wars cartoons. I'm like, these are really good and they have they're not connected to anything. They're just star Wars and interesting. So it's just a, it's a great time to be a star Wars fan for sure. I think. Oh yeah, definitely. And much with this, much with the same with the ghostbusters, you know, we, for a while we just had the first and second movie and then, and then it was like, yeah, we're going to get a number three at some point, you know? So it was kind of like when it reached that point with our, with, with our fandom and our community, you know, with the new stuff coming out and they're going to, you know, It's like, hey, we didn't get nothing for years. For a long time. The thing with Ghostbusters is building on that, we did get a three, but it was really controversial. It came out and it was controversial. I love the movie, The Answer to the Call. It was great. It was popular enough that it spurred more. Right. So, you know, and then we've got, you know, the Netflix thing coming out with, you know, with another. So it's like it's these fandoms. I like to think it's our generation that's powering these fandoms coming back because they're like, all right, those folks that made us popular are old enough now. They're either really old or they're old enough now and they need to educate their kids so that we can keep the gravy train running with merchandising. you know let's see it's like you know our parents generation they would do something like like this old guys they we do cars well now we you know we we buy models and build our proton packs or lightsabers or you know it was around that time when nerds became cool yes instead of it being like the jocks are like you know like the old nerd movies you know where they were like beating on the nerds and now it's like the nerds are cool you know yeah and being in the nerd fandom is cool so yeah I don't know when that happened, but all of a sudden it was there. And I was like, why could this have happened when I was in high school? For sure. Yes. Yes. Oh, well, the one thing I did, I did want to bring up before. uh before i can't remember anything else um i really liked uh when you're in in the documentary when you're explaining this the the combat uh and being you switched over to a nice video game animation yes showing how that yes wonderful how that worked um how how did you decide to go that route to show I that was I I just I it just came to me I guess it was just one of those things where it's like I really throughout the movie I wanted to show different weird nerdom things that were in my life so we're like in the scoring with one of them it's the moral I themed it off of like the Mortal Kombat look so there's just little easter eggs throughout the film yeah I was just like what would be a fun way to show how the rules work other than just showing in it. And I was like, eight bit, I grew up with NES. Like that's, that's the way to do it. So, and, and we have with our company, we have an animator on staff that does stuff. So we, I worked with him and we were able to, and eight bit animation is a lot easier than any other type. So it was a, from a budgetary standpoint, it was an easier way to do it. And it was just a fun way to, to get that, um, to show, illustrate how, how the rules, how the scoring works in the, in the competition. So it was just a fun way to do it. And it just, I don't know. I was really trying to show different, like even the backgrounds for the, uh, sit down interviews for some of the people you can see the old laser. I, we made that background from like when we were in elementary school. Yeah. Spring picture, photo, backdrop. There's little things like that throughout the film. I just wanted to show sort of my personality throughout the film. So there's all types of little weird, fun, nerdom call-outs or things out there. It was noticed. Thank you. And appreciated, too. So with the sidewalk potentially being the last film festival for Sabre, and as you work your way to securing distribution, now what? What's going to happen as far as projects you guys might be working on? Yeah. Our next film is, we've already started production on it. It is totally different than anything we've done before. Our first movie was a film about women in aviation. Motivational film showing women and all the amazing things they've done in the aviation world. Second one, Sabre, which is about the community around competitive lightsaber dueling. And our next film is actually a historic true crime film. documentary it's uh based off the pulitzer prize winning novels by gilbert king uh devil in the grove and beneath the ruthless sun uh we obtained the rights to those and we'll be uh doing it's about an evil sheriff in florida that did a bunch of bad things and a journalist that uh um sort of exposed it and uh battled him in the media so that's the our next documentary it's a historic true crime is uh what we're doing next very different than what we've been doing so yeah That's great. Yeah, we'll definitely be on the lookout for that. Yes. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, is there anything that that we'd like to touch on that? Maybe we haven't yet or I think we're good. I mean, I just hope anyone in the Birmingham area just comes and says, hi, if you come to the screening, it'd be great to talk to you. And thank you guys for having me on. It's been a fun time and you can check us out at saber doc.com and all of our socials and everything are on the website. You can find us there and feel free. And if you want to find out more about the saber Legion, just Google that. And there'll be plenty of information. If you're interested in lightsaber dueling or anything like that, there'll be a, there's a community out there. That's a rate. Yeah. hit you hit you with glow sticks if you want absolutely again like matt said sabredoc.com that's where you can see the trailer and and find out more information about it and again it will be screening one week from right now uh as we're live on saturday night that's that's saturday august twenty ninth at the sidewalk film festival at the lyric theater at seven thirty Central Time. You can grab tickets at sidewalkfest.com. A lot of things going on with the film festival this week, but definitely hone in on Saturday, August twenty ninth, seven thirty p.m. at the Lyric Theater. Yes. For Sabre and Matt and his wife will be there. And man, I wish we could make it. I really wish. But we really appreciate you letting us view it early. And no problem. It's a wonderful, wonderful film. All four of us, we're in our in our chat throughout the week have been just singing its praises. Thank you very much. I know I said it earlier. I believe it was before we started, but I want to thank you for distracting me from work or just a little while to watch that. Anytime. That was phenomenal. And that actually... I started off the workday kind of eh, and then my workday ended. Well, I actually had a coworker notice. They were like, you seem like you're a lot peppier than you were. And I was like. Kind of felt a little uplifted, didn't you? That film did actually uplift me a little bit. And then actually, because just the direction, and again, no spoilers, but the direction and just kind of how you feel and you get toward the end of it and you're cheering for the folks. It's definitely worth a watch. So if anything, this is an endorsement. If you happen to be at Sidewalk and you're watching films and you're like, man, that was a good film, but it was kind of depressing. I really don't feel bad. Go and watch Matt's film. I promise you, you're going to walk out of that and you're going to feel great about yourself. You're going to want to go and join something. It may not be Saber Legion. You may want to come join some other group or something. You're going to want to go and hug somebody because there's a lot of us. Yeah, there's a lot of us. For people that like to beat each other with lightsabers, there's a lot of hugs. It's like, give me a hug, then whack. But, of course, if you've enjoyed our interview with Matt and you want to check out some more things from us, just head over to BamaGeeks.com. That's where you can find out all about our podcast. and everywhere as well as on social media at Bama Geeks where you can follow us. If you're on Facebook, you can look up the Bama Geeks front porch there. That's our private community. Just ask to join. We'll let you in there and you can chat with us and post all kinds of fun things. And then one of the guys that said hi earlier, Darnay, He's one of our top Patreon supporters, has been for the better part of five years. So we thank him and Jamie and Mike and Jack. They're our longtime supporters. We certainly appreciate them. And speaking of Darnay. Darnay's back? Yeah. He super chatted us here. Thanks, Darnay. Thank you very much. Yes, we appreciate you, Darnay. Yeah, thank you so much. My friends do cool things. Matt, I hope if you ever get a chance to meet Darnay, I hope it is not what he does. I'll keep that in mind. I tell you, Matt, if you ever want to do a documentary on the Double Dare fandom, Darnay's your guy. Don't tempt me with a good time. That sounds amazing. Sorry, I was about to drive home. Hey, that's fine. You be safe. Just rewind it and watch it when you're home. We're talking you up here, you know. Double Dare guy, you know. Like we said, Darnay's not far from you. He's got some of the original uniforms that were used on Double Dare. It's got an interesting story. I think the world needs more Double Dare, honestly. We need Double Dare back in all of its nineties glory. it is depressing going to universal and seeing the nickelodeon building not the nickelodeon building anymore yeah no kidding well you just gotta you know we'll hear what where what is it fifty years was the time capsule that's something like that oh yeah they're opening it soon i guess yeah we're old we're not fifty or four probably forty or fifty i can't remember the other fifty i think if it doesn't open up and immediately slime everybody I didn't realize that was getting kind of close. Yeah. Matt, one thing about this podcast is we revel in like reminding ourselves of how old we're getting. Yeah. For sure. Absolutely. But Matt, we'd love to have you back on anytime you want to come on and talk fandom, talk filming, whatever you like. I definitely want to come back. That'd be fun. Yeah. Yeah, I'll keep you guys updated on our next steps for this or if we're doing any other fun projects that fit into your worldview for sure. Absolutely. Well, we have thoroughly enjoyed this. And again, we encourage everybody Saturday, August twenty ninth at the Lyric Theater in Birmingham, seven thirty. Matt and his wife will be there filming Sabre screening. You've already filmed it. Screening Sabre, the documentary about the Sabre Legion and just finding the family within fandom for sure. Yes. Yeah. Well, Matt, thank you so much for your time. And we'll be sure and share things on our social media projects and everything you've got coming up and be sure to keep in touch with us. For sure. Thank you so much for having me on the show. It's been a great time for sure. Thank you. We've enjoyed it. And we just a programming note. We normally stream every two weeks. As we mentioned within these next two weeks, we'll be Dragon Con and the majority of us will be there. So we're going to see you again on September. That's when our next stream will be. So you guys take care. Thank you again, Matt, for joining us. For Bo and Kevin and Jess, I'm Brock. We're the Bama Geeks. Have a wonderful, wonderful Sidewalk Film Festival, Matt. Have a wonderful time, everybody else. And we'll see a lot of you guys at DragonCon. Take care. Bye.