Scoring Clint Eastwood, Virginia Distillery Company, and TikTok Star Brett Boles

0:00 All right, everybody today's episode is sponsored by blind barrels. A company that offers an exclusive blind, whiskey tasting experience, Bob and I tried their product in season 6 and it led directly to the sad because we are such huge fans of what they are doing. If you are interested in sampling, the very best in American craft whiskey, then use our code film 10 at their checkout for 10% off a yearly, or quarterly subscription or even office. Single box to try it out. And remember if you're hunting for rare Whiskey's, you can always buy. By the whiskey you've tried on their website often at prices cheaper than MSRP. Check them out, at blind. Barrels.com and use code film ten for ten percent off on your order as we get into today's episode. I just want to take a second and remind you that there is a ton of extra content available to the members of film and whiskey Nation who support us through our patreon. Check us out on patreon.com film whiskey. On today's filmin, whiskey, we are going to be scoring Out. Director, Clint Eastwood on, five, metrics to determine just, what kind of director he is, while we're doing that. We're going to step on for whiskies from Virginia, Distillery company.

1:09 And then we're going to go over to an interview with Brett Bowles who you might know, from Tick-Tock or Instagram, reels, as the Mt. He's a fantastic music teacher who's going to help us break down the music in some of our favorite movies. This is the film and whiskey podcast. Well, hey, there everybody welcomed into the film and whiskey podcast. I'm Bob book, I'm Brad G, and we're coming at you with the first bonus episode of this season.

1:55 Ian bum, bonus episode, man. We have gotten through three weeks. Three weeks of Clint Eastwood. Some of the heaviest and saddest movies, we've ever watched for this podcast, back-to-back-to-back, Brad. Yeah. Very, very interesting movies. I like my perspective on Clinton has changed a lot in the last few years. I got to say man putting him under scrutiny as a director. Not just as an actor not just as like a movie star or a figure but At how he directs films, I got to say, I really, really have a ton of respect for him as an auteur in a way that I probably didn't before this series. Well, the, the thing for me that's hard to judge about Clint is that he is.

2:42 So prolific in his direct like he, I mean, he probably has 30 movies to his no. Yeah. At least, I mean, probably more than that, it's probably closer to 50 that he's directed. Oh yeah. On top of 50 or 60 that he'd only acted in, right. I'm gonna look it up. You go ahead and vamp a little bit. Okay. Well the reason I bring that up is to say I went through a lot of his movies on IMDb and a lot of them have anywhere from like a five to a 7 out of 10 which you know is not exactly a high score on IMDb not so much and so it's it's interesting to me at to when I think about most what we would call out.

3:25 Hers, I think about people who only make a small amount of movies, you know what I mean? Like, you think about somebody like Quentin Tarantino like he's like, I'm going to make 10 movies and that's it. And I've are or Terrence Malick who comes out with a movie, every like 37 years. Yeah. You see what has 45 directing credits to his name on IMDb God? Yeah, yeah. And so that's the hard part for me is Is I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of him by watching, you know, at this point we watched 3 now and we're only going to judge him based on those three movies. But we have watched four of his film. Yes.

4:10 And I feel like I've barely even gotten to know cleanse. We have watched less than 10% of his directorial output and yet. Yeah, here we are making a definitive statement on how good he is, as a director. Yes, so let me let me set the scene here last season, we did a bonus. Sewed, called what makes a good director and we basically decided, hey, let's find a fun way to do. What all artists hate and score out how good a director is based on some metrics and then we put them through a metric. We can tell how good they are. And so we went back and forth determining like what are the categories that you would judge just any director on their abilities? And we came up with a really interesting list, it's not what I necessarily would have thought would have been the five categories. But we Look out to actually Brad. Why don't you?

4:58 Why don't you give us? Are five categories, I don't have it pulled up here in front of me. Yeah. So the categories that we have and remember all of these are nuanced by how the director influenced these areas. So performances, what kind of performances did the director draw out of his actors cinematography? You know, when I look at the screen what do I see on screen and how did the directors choice? Ace affect all of that editing this includes Visual and audio. So the score for the movie, the sound effects, the things like that, and then you throw in there, all of the visual things, the transitions from scene to scene. Then we talked about cohesion, how well do do his movies work together within themselves.

5:47 Do they have glaring holes, are there issues that we had with maybe the plot or with the style of the movie, The, you know, Like, I'm thinking about Goodfellas how the last few minutes of the movie feel stylistically. So much different because, you know, Henry is on cocaine. And then finally, we're talking about uniqueness within this directors era, how unique our his films. How much do they Stand Out Among the crowd? Yeah. So those are our five categories performances cinematography editing code. Asian and uniqueness last season, what we started doing was, we took each director that we did a mini-series on and we put them through that metric. We release those episodes as bonus episodes exclusively to the patrons on our patreon page.

6:40 So if you'd like to hear those, you can go right on over to patreon.com/scishow. Um, whiskey and sign up at one of our three support tears. However, this season, we're bringing them to the public. We're going to start with Eastwood and we're going to put him through this metric, based only on the three. Movies that we watched for him. So we're talking about Unforgiven Mystic River and Gran Torino. Brad, I don't think we really need to beat around the bush here anymore. Let's Jump Right In And I think unfortunately the category that we're going to start with might be the one that he gets the weakest score in because it's performances. And this is really weighed down by the performances in Gran Torino where the actual professional actors are given such bad dialogue. That they are not doing a good job. Job.

7:26 And then everyone else in the movie who isn't named. Clint Eastwood is not a professional actor. And so they're not good because they're not actors. And like, I hate to say it this way, but Mystic River had really great performances Unforgiven really great performances. But when it comes to Gran Torino, I think it really does kind of way down this score. I'm only going to give him a 7 out of 10 here on performances. Yeah, I'm actually right below you at a 6.5. I think that the Schofield kid and Unforgiven was the roughest acting performance of that film. I think Mystic River was all around like, really solid and, but outside of Sean Penn and Tim Robbins.

8:09 I don't know if anybody really stood out to me in that film. And so I you know, so I think that's easily his best film from a acting performance standpoint and then you get to Gran Torino which kind of just tanks his score here. So unfortunately I think we're off to a little bit of a rough start. But yeah, I mean, I don't know man. Well hold on, let me, let me say this, I feel weird giving him a 7 or a six and a half because it should be noted that in the three movies. We watched there are three oscar-winning performances. Yeah, that's true. So it says something that three of the highest lauded performances of his directing career, are balanced out by how bad we thought the performances were in Gran Torino. Yeah.

8:57 Well also, if I'm being really Blunt, The Legend of Clint is that he doesn't give his actors any direction and so I guess maybe it's hard for me to give him credit for Oscar wins. As in those categories is that fair? Yeah I mean he's still did direct them technically but yeah. You know I got to say to I think we got to really really great Eastwood performances in these three movies. Yeah, I know between Unforgiven and Gran Torino and then, you know, you and I have recently, we re-watched million-dollar baby as well and I know that we're not considering that here, but just to see the level of nuance between those three characters and how he's doing variations on Clint, but they're not the same.

9:43 I think really does speak to how good of an actor he is too. But again, our scores are our scores and it's time for us to move into cinematography. Now again, this is not just the shot composition but how does Eastwood use the camera? How does he move the camera? How does he and his cinematographer use light and darkness and Shadow and mood? And I think that this is really where Eastwood shines because, you know, Unforgiven he's working with the language of the western, the visual language of movies like The Searchers. Which he's constantly calling back to and then in a movie like Mystic River and grants Reno, he's in his like Million Dollar Baby phase where everything is almost black and white tea, saturated super strong shadows and mood lighting and it really works. I think all three of these movies, the visual cues and the visual language of the movies work, really, really well for the subject matter.

10:37 I'm going to give him a 9 out of 10 here. I'm with you, I'm at a 9 out of 10. I think that there's certain places in Unforgiven where it almost feels too bright. And, and it's almost like the cameras were too high quality to film a western like, like, when I think about westerns, I don't think about high-quality cameras. And so there's a little bit of a struggle there for me. But overall, I think that Clint does a really great job with the camera. And knowing how quickly he shoots his movies, it makes it almost more impressive to me that he's able to capture these images in such a way that he wants so quickly.

11:22 Okay, that takes us to editing. Now again, we understand the Clint Eastwood is not the editor of these movies, but the director is ultimately responsible for how his or her movies, hold together. We're going to get into cohesion as well here in a minute. But with editing, it's like what we see on screen from the shots. To the flow of the movie and we're also factoring in things like sound. I think a lot of directors really rely on their ability to create soundscapes like a Christopher Nolan. You want to go watch a Nolan movie in theaters, not just because it's loud but it's because the guy knows what he's doing when he's building soundscapes. He may not know how to make Bane sound intelligible, but the guy knows how to use the soundtrack. So with Clint Eastwood, it's a little scatter shot because I think Unforgiven is probably The strongest of the three when I think about how tightly constructed it is Mystic River was a little bit Shaggy and Gran Torino had a whole subplots that could have been removed.

12:20 But what I will say is that I think he's very underrated in his use of sound. I thought that the sound in all three of these movies was surprisingly great and I remembered he's being like really small dramas, but they all had very good sound design and you got a credit Clint with that a little bit. So I don't know, man, where are you coming out on? This one, I met an 8 out of 10. I think he does a pretty solid job the way he moves movies along with his editing and I'm with you. I think his sound design overall is really solid. You also though have to take into account that he composes a lot of music for his movies and I think it works really, really well and Unforgiven and not so well, but not terrible in Mystic River and then he sings at the end.

13:09 Gran Torino. So that, that definitely bumped my score down a little bit. I might have been at eight and a half, but, but I'm sitting at an eight, I'm gonna give him an 8 as well. I think everything, you said, I agree with Brad and that is a perfect segue into talking about the cohesion of his movies. How do these things hold together? Do you know? It's kind of like when we give Whiskey's a score and we talked about the overall balance. Did anything stand out in a positive or negative way? Or did it seem like a consistent experience across Unforgiven. Absolutely. A consistent experience Mystic River a couple little bumps in the road, but overall very good Gran Torino, you know, I imagine that the potholed streets of Detroit are a good metaphor for for the ride. I went on in that movie and so yeah, man. This once again it's really hard because it's like me give you a 10 for Unforgiven.

14:02 I'm going to give you like an eight and a half or mr. Griffin, I'm going to give you like a 64 Gran Torino I guess I'll shake out. To a seven and a half here. This is really boring. Episode over here, we it is a fine. I'm in the exact same spot, seven-and-a-half it like not, not as good as his as his editing Gran Torino. Just oh, man, I feel bad for saying it, but it's really dragging down his ratings here, I think. All right, and now it comes to uniqueness and this is, I think a place where a lot of people on the surface wouldn't say like, oh Clint Eastwood is a super unique director because he's pretty like no-nonsense No-Frills is. I wouldn't call him the most artistic director. I wouldn't say that his shot compositions are always the best especially like in Gran Torino.

14:52 Like, it just kind of seems like there's a camera kind of floating around, but it's not always in the best place. However, You can't divorce. The fact that Clint Eastwood is a movie star from who Clint Eastwood is as a director because we've been saying it for weeks and weeks. Now almost every movie that we reviewed this season for him and even taking million-dollar baby into account from years ago, on this podcast, Is a commentary on Clint Eastwood's own stardom, and the kinds of movies. He used to make and the kinds of themes that he feels like he needs to correct or amend or give new thoughts on. And I think because of that he makes these dark brooding movies and he's not the only person to make dark brooding movies, but he's the only person that can make a movie like that where it has an automatic second layer built into it, just because he made it.

15:45 I think because of that, he's an incredibly unique filmmaker. I'm gonna give him a 10 out of 10 here. I'll give him a nine and a half out of ten. I think that I'm with you in all those ways. And I think that what makes Clint such a unique director is, is kind of twofold a. He just doesn't give a rip what anybody says about him. Like I can't imagine that his poorly rated movies. Have any effect on him any more so than his highly. Rate of boobies does but secondly, I think what really makes him unique is his ability to take stories and kind of turn them on their head.

16:25 And the story that he continually turns on its head and Bob, you're the one who pointed this out. So, I'll give you the credit here. He continually questions, why we are obsessed with violence and forces his movie Watchers to reckon with what violence brings about in the world. And I think that Three of these movies do that in their own unique ways. And I just haven't seen many directors, sit on that subject for a large part of their career. So I think he's a fantastically unique director. All right, Brad. So that is bringing me out to a 41.5 out of 50 on Clint Eastwood, as a director, what are you coming out to just a point lower 40.5.

17:08 All right, so, that's taking us to an average of a 40 out of 50. It does feel really weird to like numerically score a direct Ha be like he is exactly this good because again, like we're only dealing with three of his movies right now. But I think you know, even considering the the rocky relationship we have with Gran Torino, it says a lot about the guy that he's still coming out to a 40 out of 50 here. Yeah, I think that Clint is truly one of the most fascinating directors I've watched in a long, long time. And I think it's a comes back to what you said, Bob, when you've lived The movie world for this long, it only makes sense that you start to question all of the roles you portrayed earlier in life. And so I yeah, I love Clint, I'm a little sad to see a score come out to slow Bob.

17:59 Yeah, well it is what it is man. The metric does not lie Brad hits it sure. Does it man. All right Brad, it is time for us to sip a couple of Whiskey's before we get over into this interview, with Brett bowls. So let's crack open, some Virginia Distillery company. What do you say? Let's get to it. All right everybody. Today we are going to be taking a look at the Virginia Distilling Company specifically their lineup of four Whiskey's under the courage and conviction. I wouldn't even call a brand like it's just their lineup that's called courage and conviction. That's right.

18:39 Brad entering the Canon of famous pairs here, you know, Pride and Prejudice Sense and Sensibility. Yeah, courage and conviction. So yeah. Junior. Distillery company is a Distillery that we have not had on the show ever before, but I've seen their product all over the place and I guess if you could say that, they have two main lines of whiskey one is this courage and conviction which is carried. I think a little bit further distribution wise and then the other one is a kind of specialty Cask finished series that they call the vhw series. We have two samples of those whiskies from The Distillery that we will get to on a later. Bonus episode, but we figured, hey, we're drinking.

19:21 Four Whiskey's for you guys. Like could cut us some slack here, you know? Yeah. I will say, in the past, we have been sent, you know, five six, seven samples from companies before and we've drank them all in one sitting and nope, no worry. I thought, yeah, I think it gets to be a little too much for you guys to hear more than three or four Whiskey's in a row. It also gets to be a little too much for us. Yeah. That's that's a lot of whiskey to drink and I go to bed dude. Like this. I think exactly. So Virginia Distillery company specialty is American single malt whiskey which is a category that is rapidly growing. But there are still only a few really big players in that vein. And I think our favorite to this point, Brad has been McCarthy's out of Oregon, which was just food, Dowler Stellar stuff. I'm supposed to say.

20:12 Yeah. And I think old line out of Maryland, was a really good option that I enjoyed quite a bit like the old line a lot too. So yeah we've got four Whiskey's here to Drink. It's their Baseline courage and conviction single malt whisky. And then we've got the courage and conviction finished in Bourbon casks, Sherry casks and Cuvee casks. So we will get to all three of those but Brad, we're going to start with this, you know. Just their standard courage and conviction and let's Dive Right In man. This is a 92 proof American single malt. Whiskey, what are you picking up on the nose? Yeah. This is a very pleasant nose for me. It's a strong. Malted barley. Lee opening. And the more, I let it open up some. I get some butterscotch.

20:58 There's some dark roast, coffee notes and then almost like almost like some Furs fresh, like Evergreen Firs sprigs. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? This has the brightness to it that Irish whiskey and most blended Scotch has that we drink have. And again like Brad you know aside from bourbon I think Scotch is probably our most Most drunk expression of whiskey. And yet, I still feel like we don't you and I don't have the language down quite well enough yet when it comes to Scotch whisky to describe. So forgive me, if I'm comparing this, this is a single malt whiskey. I don't mean to compare it, negatively to a blended whiskey, that's not at all, what I mean. But when I think about something like The McCarthys that we had that lives in that sort of and that one was, I think peated as well that lives in that sort of like, really high tier single malt scotch.

21:49 This one is much more approachable. Bowl. And I think it's probably intended to be that to it's got the sort of floral and the melon that you get on some Highland scotch has but it's being made in America. I'm really, really excited to try this because those are like my if I'm going to drink a scotch and it's not one that I intend to knock my, you know, like blow me back in my seat with its Pete. This is the kind that I like. So I'm really excited to see one made here in America. Let's give this a sip man. Yeah as I got into the palette here. Here The Barley really comes across strong that that malted barley flavor for me though. There was some fresh herbs that went along with it and the longer I sat with it, it got some really nice vanilla notes. Overall, I don't think it was quite as complex as I was hoping it to be though.

22:40 I actually was pleasantly surprised. I think I'm in a different spot than you on this one. This one had a level of sweetness that those you know blended Scotch has an Irish Don't usually have and it's not honey. It was vanilla and caramel that had a very wreck robust American whiskey palette to it with that like really big bold maltiness underneath. I will say that like the Char on this the sort of smokiness you get is much closer to like cigarette Ash than it is Pete. So if you're not ready for like a really strong wood fire, like burnt sensation then like you just need to be prepared for that on the Honest here. But overall, I'm really impressed with this honestly, Brad, and I'm excited to get into this bourbon finished one, which is the first of the three finishes were doing. Yeah, I think that the bourbon Cask for me, it had a very similar nose to the first one but with like a caramel twist to it is that fair?

23:44 Like I don't want to be reductionistic, but it is extraordinarily similar. And then I'm like, oh there's yeah, there's a little bit of brown sugar. There's kind of a caramely feel to it more than an actual nose. Yeah, honestly it's so similar that I'm not really picking up a lot of difference here but I'm wondering if part of that is the sound stupid. But you know we talked about in wine, the idea of like terroir and how the land that you're getting the grapes from and where you're making the wine, really affects the wine and people have started talking about that in whiskey and I kind of wonder if there's just something about making it in America that Art's that bourbon Enos to it even though it's being made out of barley, I have no idea man. I think it's going to present itself more on the taste, if anywhere, but the nose is extraordinarily similar. Yeah, I think for me the palette is where this one changed, it became a lot more creamy.

24:40 You know, the The Barley came through strong, but there was caramel there is vanilla and then it almost turned cheesecake richness to me that I this one definitely was Step up from their first expression. This is definitely. I think the word, the two words you used creamy and Rich are perfect for this. However I think that it made the sweet note, stand out a little bit. But I lost the melon and I lost that like cigarette kind of a, she burn to it as well. So it like it rounded off the rough edges. But I think it's more a matter of like personal preference. Like do you like something that has three or four really bold flavors back to back to back.

25:21 Or do you like something that's like a little bit more well-rounded? I think I actually prefer the original to the bourbon Cask, but I could see where your liking that one better. Yeah, I think it just came across, especially the creaminess came across to me as something. I would just enjoy more, but that brings us over to our third expression, which is the courage and conviction finished in Sherry casks. Now, I don't know if we said this Bob, but all of these are clocking in at 46% ABV or 92 proof once again on the nose here for me. It was more of the same. Maybe some cherry notes going on.

26:03 But man, I like all three of these at a. I don't I don't know. I don't want to sound mean but they all smell kind of like the same whiskey to me. Yeah, I feel that I think that this one is just a tad closer, you know, like our Very first-ever Sherry finished whiskey. Was Glenmorangie back in season one. Yeah. Like this is a step even closer to a Highland scotch and in particular, I think it's that Glenmorangie will Santa from season one. It's like there's not a lot of gray penis on it, but it has a very classic Sherry finished Scotch whisky nose to it and it's like, you know, if if the first two courage and convictions were like, 80% of the way to beat to smelling exactly like those, this is 90% of the way to smelling like that.

26:51 And again, I don't want to give the impression that it has to taste like or it has to smell like Scotch whiskey, to be something on its own merits. Like I don't want this to be exactly like Scotch whiskey or else like white. Why should it exist? You know what I mean like what are we doing here right so I do like that. It is a little bit more in that wheelhouse though because I'm picking up some pretty subtle changes here. Yeah and when I got into the palette it became much more tart for me, there is definitely. Mm, Cherry almost like a cherry cordial going on with a little bit of like dark chocolate. There were some fig notes in there. Once again, The Barley comes through very strongly here and so those are, that's kind of where I was sitting at on the palate. Bob, what about you?

27:38 Yeah, I think the, the, the influence of the Sherry is way stronger on this one than the bourbon was on the bourbon finished one. Like there is that sort of really, really dark grape note on this Like it's almost like to me, it's almost more like a Pinot Noir than it is a Sherry on this. There's it's not super tannic but the the sweetness has almost been completely absorbed by that. Sort of I think fig is a good word for it, Brad. But for me, it was almost more pruney than anything else. I actually really like this. But it is for sure the most different one of the three that we've had so far. Yeah, yeah.

28:18 And then the fourth one is a cuvette. A a cask, which I'll be honest with you, Bob I don't know. Keep a is I think that's the The Shopping Network that all of our grandparents. There's a QQ they see is literally going to make that jump on film. It was nailed it. All right. So as we get into nosing, this Kube a finish Brad, like, for you, is it closer to the Sherry fetishes of closer to the bourbon finish, or is it its own thing? I think it's much closer to the Sherry Cask for me. I got like grapes red berries. Like I like all of all of those fruity notes for me mixed with the malted barley.

29:04 I will say the when I sat with this one, this one gave me the most unique note. It was almost like you know the little tin of Hershey's cocoa. That like kids think is hot chocolate and it 100% is 90s. Yeah, that like I got a note of that. At on this knows, I like very interesting. You know what this this I think does the best job of balancing everything that came before it. Like there is a super strong caramel note on this. Like it's vanilla but it's definitely caramely but it also has the most fruitiness to it and the fruit is really bright. Like you mentioned berries I do think like raspberry is something that I'm really getting pretty strongly on this. So it's it's almost like a more tart grape or raspberry kind of note to go along with that super bourbon e Karma.

29:50 Note, I like this a lot. I think this is the most complex nodes of the. For what did you think of the taste bread? I really liked it. This for me was my favorites of the four Expressions. There was some raspberry, the vanilla turned stronger into the almost like a vanilla bean flavor to mix with the malted barley. This was the first one I got that almost had a little bit of oakiness going on that. I I thought brought out some nice flavors overall. Overall, I think this one, it's not Head and Shoulders Above the Rest, but for me, it's the clear winner. You know why? I love you Brad, gee. It's cuz that Robert, but it's because you and I are so wildly different as people because this is, this is, I mean, I'm drinking all four of these live. You drank them before you press record. I'm trying them as we talk about them. This one did not work for me at all and like I think those like cigarette a she notes came up pretty strongly towards the end. Like a very bitter grape note.

30:53 However, this is the cool thing about experimental finishes, right? And like, you know, I have no idea. Virginia, Distillery is going to be listening to this or not, but like, I don't think anyone, there would be offended by me saying, this is my least favorite of the for doesn't mean. I think it's bad bad. It doesn't mean that I don't think anyone should drink it. And you've clearly said, you'd think it's your favorite of the for. So, like, this is what's cool about finishing whiskies in different casks about experimentation. I think. If I was going to rank mine out, Brad, I would go Sherry, finish original Bourbon and Cuba. What would you do? Um, I think I would honestly go Kube a bourbon regular Sherry. Of course, I think we're like complete opposite and that's a fantastic endorsement of this, Distillery. Like I'm really looking forward to these two other samples that they sent us, that will do, like I said on a future bonus episode, but for now, I think what you need to know is that if you are in America, I don't know their distribution outside the Looks like if you see courage and conviction on the Shelf, it is like for me, the the number one thing I can say about it is that I respect so much that they're embracing the experimentation from expression to expression. I think that your best bet.

32:17 Like if you're going to go right down the middle is to just buy the original version. But honestly Brad, this makes me kind of nostalgic because it reminds me of that. Glenmorangie. Sampler, we did in season one like this is so similar to that. In that the different finishes, they're adding to their original, kind of, you know, Baseline off ring, really do add so many complex layers to it, and it's like, wow. We find America gets one of these. Now, we have a single malt distiller that's doing this kind of thing. Yeah, I was going to say, Virginia, Distillery company, the Glenmorangie of America. I'm sure they'll love getting sued by putting that slogan on things.

33:00 All right. Brad, it is time for us. Us to get over to our interview with the world-famous tick talker. Do I sound old enough? When I say tick tock? ER, yes, yes, that's officially old and let's get over to our interview with our friend Brett Bulls. What do you say? Let's get to it. All right, everybody. We are joined by our new friend and we're kind of Fanboys of him. Little bit Bob. Yeah, Brett Bulls. Who's known as the Mt on Tick-Tock, Inn on your Instagram reels. I'm sure you've seen him. If you're a follower of our podcast. Brett, how are you this evening? I am terrific. How are you guys?

33:40 We're doing great. It is, it's so nice to be able to, like, have a conversation with you and know that you have not like, busted out the Patented Brett bull singing voice yet. I don't, I don't think I've ever interacted with any bit of you for more than 30 seconds without hearing that baritone. You've got. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. So, if you're not, if you're not familiar with Brett, he is a voice coach, a music teacher and he's blowing up on our phones recently. He has, like I said, it's called the Mt where he breaks down music theory from some of your favorite shows movies, generally. I think Disney is kind of like, where I've seen you camping out the most. I'm sure that gets you a lot of views, but I get a wave of nostalgia.

34:27 Every time I see you, dive deep, into the music, theory behind, some of our favorite songs. I don't think you're alone in that. Well, the reasons I do the, a lot of Disney. Yeah, I was going to say, for me, one of the first ones, I remember seeing from you Brett was The Prince of Egypt, discussing the plagues song and that Hey, it's one of the greatest Musical songs ever written for an animated feature, in my opinion. It's so good. It's strange, though. I when I started covering that, I think I started, I did that 12 years ago and I started it around Passover week obviously, and, you know, I've always loved that particular song, but it wasn't. That's not the one that I take away from the film. So I was surprised with so many people gravitate toward that song.

35:19 I didn't realize how much of like I told following like just that song has, but it was pretty fascinating for me. Which one which one sticks out for you? I love through Heavens eyes. That's yes my favorite. Yes bread. I was going to say we listen to that song with our daughters on repeat and she just absolutely loves it. And I'm with you if you are into the whole Christianity thing and religion, the theology in that song, it's one of the best written songs. I think I've ever heard, but then on top of that, it's just absolutely beautiful. It's gorgeous. And Brian Stokes Mitchell singing on, it doesn't hurt it either. So yeah.

36:01 Yeah. So followers of our podcast will know that Brad was stumping for us to get the Prince of Egypt on the show for years and years because it's one of his favorite movies and me being a stickler. I was like no it needs to be classic films that were reviewing and then we did a season a couple years ago where we each just kind of picked 15 of our favorite movies, whether they were good or bad movies, that had some really deep memories for us. And so we watched The Prince of Egypt. And the thing I love about The Prince of Egypt, it kind of correlates with the movie that I picked for that season which was the Hunchback of Notre Dame. And after The Lion King and through to the end of the decade in the 1990s, it seemed like Studios went all in on not just you know animated musicals but in making them as intricate and maximalist stick as possible.

36:51 You know I've heard you talk a little bit about the DAC Ray in Hunchback of Notre Dame. Kind of the same thing for me with Prince of Egypt, like the orchestrations, the incredibly layered choral Arrangements. It's like if they reached their Pinnacle with those two movies and then after a couple of them didn't perform Super well at the box office, it feels like the early 2000s are just kind of a wasteland for musicals for my child, right? Yeah, yeah, that's a good point, actually. It's interesting, though. So Brett. Let's go back a little bit. Let's talk about your history and how you got to this point. So, I know that you you went to school for music theory, right?

37:32 Yeah, I went to school for composition, okay? Up for music composition at Ithaca, with an emphasis in musical theater. Some musical theater writers. So that's really what I wanted to do and I still do it. And I met the focus of my four years at school was to write a musical that would be produced by the, by the theater Department as a main A musical because no student has ever done that before. So I was like, I'm gonna do this and so I did, and we did an adaptation. I did an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo before. Frank wildhorn wrote his and was performed my senior year and those of you who are musical theater people, if you know who Jeremy, Jordan is big name in musical theater. He was, we went to school together.

38:13 We're same year and he actually started in that show in college when we were in college together, you can actually find it on YouTube. If you look up my name or his name in The Count of Monte Cristo, you'll see some clips of us as baby. He's doing that show during college Brad. I'm going to look that up. The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite classic novels so good. It was my dad's favorite book and yeah, he got me into it. I started actually started writing it in high school and continued, it all throughout college. So I did everything. I did book music, lyrics, orchestrations and develop, and, wow, that's pretty incredible. And I wished that, you know, in the wave-like post lame is that we had gotten more of those kind of classic literature adaptations for. For musical theater, because I'm like, like Brad said, I mean, that book is just it's perfect for what we were going for in that era. Like, I wish that I wish that we'd gotten more like that. I know they're so expensive to produce. You know y'all.

39:07 That's true too. So you get out of school and for years and years and years. You are a vocal coach and a choir teacher. And I'm really interested to hear, you know, the transition from like the day-to-day teaching teenagers to then living on the app that they are on constantly. Like what's that transition like for you as an educator, is it awkward for you? Is it awkward? For them. So, okay. So this is my fifth year teaching in public school. So before I started teaching in high school, I was doing private voice lessons and I would music directed shows locally and around whatever but right around when the pandemic hit the kids have been talking about Tick-Tock a lot. I'm notoriously terrible at anything. Social media related, but not anymore. But I used to be.

40:01 And so I sort of we were home and I was teaching my Teaching my half hour classes from my house and I had a summer that summer. It was nothing going on. I usually direct to show over the summer and obviously, none of that was happening. So right around winter, break of that following year, I decided to give this a shot and I thought, you know what, I'll let me go and try to meet people where they are in terms of how songs are written and how songwriters think. And it turns out that Die. I think I was uniquely positioned as a writer and as an educator and as a performer to kind of tackle this in a way that nobody else really had. And I thought if I can just educate, maybe 300 new people. I thought that would be great.

40:49 You know, I never never thinking in a million years that it would blow up the way that it did. But I, if you look at the very beginning of my video feed, like the very beginning of it. The first like, you know, weeks week or two Worth of videos. I had it set up so that like my ring light and my camera was in front of me. Looking at me and I was sort of sitting at the keyboard, but you can really see the piano and ultimately I decided this was the teacher in me that like, maybe it would be better to place the camera to the side. So you could sort of see the piano and I could turn and it would almost be like you're just sitting next to me. And I was just talking to you. Like you were one of my students and that's when things started to catch on and I think it had a lot. I think I had a lot to do with the with the positioning of the camera.

41:34 And the style which I was starting to do things so that was but that's my experience as a teacher. So I think it all sort of came together in this nice serendipitous way and the thing took off no, it certainly did that Brad. I don't mean to step on you but I mean it's grown to I think you're at like three hundred and seventy-five thousand followers on Tik-Tok now. I mean, did you ever did you ever? Did you ever imagine it getting to this point? And I'm Do you think it's more people responding to finding out new things about their favorite songs? Or is it in some ways? People have been confirmed for them. Like why they love these songs in the first place? Like the feedback that you get from people? What do you think it is?

42:19 That has made it catch on so much. I think that the comments that I get to most of our I'm listening to music in a new way, okay? It's like almost like I liken it to a sense that you never knew you were always had and you just sort of Need somebody to break it down to you and language that you can understand and my my goal from the very beginning was to be able to reach anyone regardless of their level of knowledge or experience. So I try not to use too much musical jargon because a lot of people don't understand that and I try to break it down in ways that are really accessible. So I think people are hearing songs in ways, they never knew that they could, and that's exciting. And I think once you start to listen to songs that way, it's hard to stop and you want to, and I think you appreciate the craft more, When you know what's going on, it's not like a magic trick where it spoils the trick, if, you know how it's done.

43:09 It's one of those things. It gives you a deeper appreciation for for the songs that, you know, and love. So I think that's what people are reacting to. I remember being really, really young and, you know, watching movies and stuff and at a certain point, you know, I was probably like seven eight, nine years old. I realized that the music and movies wasn't just like A part of the movie. It was something that people played on instruments. Do you like do you guys remember having that realization at some point in your childhood? Yeah. Like learning that a movie is all pretend and directed and that there's people that cameras. Yeah. The music's totally. Exactly.

43:50 Yeah. And I have a specific memory of realizing like, oh, the music. Like I probably saw something on TV on, like PBS or something of an orchestra playing a movie score and being like, oh, wow. This is a different Part of it and it feels like ever since then I've slowly like do deeper and deeper into, like it's not just like not a part of it. It's like a whole thing and Brett, I feel like you're your pocket of the internet speaks to that process in such a way where people can move from. Okay, I know that the music in the movie is made by people. Let's figure out more and more, and more, and it's that educational side of it, that makes people go. Oh, man, like I already love this music and now I get to learn more about it.

44:43 Like, that's awesome. Yeah. Well, you don't, you don't know what you don't know, sometimes. And so when when people realize that composers who write to film or for film are are making conscious decisions about where they're placing notes, how they're Acting Melodies and harmonic motion. And what instruments are playing. What? And if there's a reason for all of those choices to, you know, for lack of a better word to manipulate your emotions, I mean, that's a cool thing to realize, if you never really knew that or understood it, or maybe you knew that, but didn't really understand how it all worked. And so, it's just a really cool thing for people to learn, I think, absolutely. So, I imagine that at this point, you've had this question asked of you hundreds and hundreds of times, but people see you talking.

45:32 Talking about specific pieces of music specific songs on, you know, Instagram, reels, Tick-Tock, whatever, what would you suggest as? Like, the, the Baseline general rules for. Okay, I've been watching Brett bowls at one applied this this kind of, thinking to all of the music that I take in my life, whether it's accompanying a movie or a TV show or whatever. If it's just something on the radio, what are your kind of General guidelines for people who are starting to develop that ear for interesting? Theory or kind of compositional observations. So I think it all comes down to prosody, right? And that's the thing that I talk about more than anything else is, is prosody and that is how all the elements of a particular song or a piece of music work together to tell the same story.

46:20 So, in a musical, for example, you have lyrics and you have music, right? That those are the, the primary, the primary pieces that come together to tell a story. And so as a writer, as a A songwriter. If you're constructing a song, you want to make sure that your music is helping the lyric. Tell whatever story The Lyric is telling. So you know, on a very basic level. It can be something as simple as if the character is singing about looking up at the sky or something, that the music would probably be moving in some kind of upward trajectories to, to mirror that it can be as simple as that. It can also be a now in the case of something like film. For example, I did a whole thing about the beginning of the movie up the Pixar Disney Pixar film up. Yeah, and now that gets more into into harmonic structure and Michael giacchino who does the same thing inside out as he does in up and he uses he bases everything on a major 7 chord so that's a minor chord stacked on top of a major chord. So essentially it's a major chord and a minor chord together which creates a sense of melancholy because on a very Basic basic basic, basic level, major chords are the quote-unquote, Happy chords and minor chords of the quote-unquote sad chords even though it's a very, very, very basic explanation of it.

47:42 But when you put those two things together, it creates this sense of melancholy. And so a lot of times when, when the ear is hearing something that's different from what the eye is seeing, it creates it trips this wire and our brain, and it makes us feel something. So, as you know, mr. Fredricksen is going back into his house. After Ellie dies, we hear this alternate, this All these alternate chords playing, it's an F major 7, and then an F major and F major 7 and an F major. And you're wondering like, where is it going to land, right? We have this really Melancholy chord followed by what we normally would think of as a happy chord, but something really sad is just happened and when he closes the door and goes back into the house, the very last thing we hear as it settles on an F major chord and it just does something to you inside it like makes you well up with tears in it, tugs at your heartstrings because what you're seeing and what you're hearing are not the same things. You have this cognitive dissonance going on and it's a really We powerful thing to use in film music. I love it.

48:35 I can sit here and listen to this all day. I think. Maybe it may be the best application of it. Is if we talk about a specific movie and Brett as you and I were kind of going back and forth through email we settled on talking about what is. I mean, still a couple years after its release, definitely the most popular, current Disney musical. And that is in canto, a movie that has just infected my home with unending music for two and a half years. Now tonight we're like you know, I'm putting my kids to bed and we're listening to Encanto lullabies. It's not any other kind of lullaby is specifically in canto and I have a very interesting relationship with this movie because when Disney released the filmed version of Hamilton in 2020, it hit me in such a way that with Hamilton, it was one of those things where I recognized it almost immediately as the kind of work of art, that only comes around every like 10, 15 years, that is like, so intricate and so dense and just a text that you can return to time and time and time again and find new meanings in and levels of Music Theory and everything else. And then when I saw him listening to that, you're going to encounter what I'm saying.

49:47 So then you know, lin-manuel Miranda does in canto. And I remember walking out of Encanto and being like a little bit let down and I couldn't Don't Place why I felt so, let down, by, in canto. And the more I watched it because I have been forced to watch it. I realized I, I think the movie would have been much better served, Brad, if lin-manuel Miranda had been given free rein to do the entire thing in that sort of Opera style that he did Hamilton. I like I wish there was no dialogue in that movie. I wish there were no breaks from the music because even if you just listen to the Encanto soundtrack, every single thing that the actual, you know, in on Broadway, they're called the book. Everything that the book The libretto would tell you lin-manuel, Miranda has already done either in the lyrics or in the musical, themes of the music itself.

50:35 It just I think the redundancy of it is. What got to me. That's interesting. Brad. You've seen in canto, right? I have seen in canto. Yeah. What are your general thoughts on Encanto? I thought that it was a solid like be - animated musical guide. I think that the music Overall was really fun and engaging. I think the animation style was very bright and and I feel like that's been missing. The story was a lot better than a lot of other Disney stuff lately. So overall I enjoyed it. Yeah, that was pretty good. So, Brett went in canto.

51:15 First came across your radar. I mean, like what, how do you tackle something like a lin-manuel Miranda production? Well, soul in is Is extremely knowledgeable about his craft and very deliberate in a lot of ways more deliberate than, than many other writers even are about his choices in the choices that he makes. And so, when it comes to him, I like to focus on little moments as opposed to, and to supposed to taking a macroscopic view at first, and just kind of like Delight in the little things that he does. This actually Encanto my one of my Encanto videos as well.

51:56 Got Lynn to follow me on Instagram and it was that song. What else can I do that? Isabel sings and Isabella, Isabella Isabella. Yeah, Isabel, yeah. And it there's a the opening phrase one of the opening phrases of that song. There's a there's a four measure phrase followed by a five measure phrase and it happens right around the words. It's not symmetrical or perfect but it's Full and it's mine and it's a very deliberate choice that he made to do that four measure phrase, followed by the five major phase because again, that's prosody that's the music and the structure of the music supporting the story of the lyric, right? And that's the video that he shared on his story and said, you know, quit giving away my secret spread so which was very cool.

52:47 But that it's just those kinds of choices that he makes are so fun to Delight in and share with people because you not going to hear that. You know, most people aren't going to hear that on first listen and and admittedly, I don't hear a lot of that stuff on first lesson. It takes me looking at the score and going into it to learn all this stuff. So one of the other reasons I love doing all these videos is because I'm learning at the same time everybody else is. I don't always pick up on this stuff on first. Listen, I sometimes have to look at it and and only through looking at it, do I realize. Oh my God, that's so cool. I want to talk real quick about like one of my favorite moments because I went back and listened again to the Encanto. Soundtrack just to prepare for this. And one of my very favorite moments and It's something that like rats going to be like, yeah, of course, but I love in the first song in the movie, The Family module where Mary Belle is introducing the whole family and it follows a very particular rhythm of very particular pattern and a very particular Melody until they get to abuela.

53:43 And then the melody that she's sayings is, you know, we swear to always help those around us and it's The Melody of a song that comes later on, you know, it's a foreshadowing of a song that comes later on in the movie called, do sword. Geeta's and we've already gotten a hint of it in the movie because the opening scene, we see her husband, get slaughtered. And the kind of birth of the miracle that is protecting this family. But what I love that they do in that song, by allowing her to kind of give a little bit of that foreshadowing through that Melody is it's such an early window into her psychology and what's driving her and it's not just that she's hard on the family, it's not just that she's forcing them to live up to a standard. It's that when Revisit that Melody later on in the movie in that scene, dose order.

54:29 Gita's, it is, I mean it's heart-wrenching because you're finally seeing it from her perspective and you're seeing what she had to go through and they'll the grief and loss that she still processing. And then to go back to the family Madrigal where she's talking about work and dedication. Will keep the miracle burning, you know, and each new generation must keep the miracle burning. It's it's so like Brad. I don't know. We've talked about, you know, the the The therapy elements of that movie before and everybody needs to be in it in that movie. But to get all of what becomes explicit kind of folded in in that lovely, little way early on in the movie. I just it really softens the character of abuela for me and I think it's just like it's a nice little trail of breadcrumbs that you get from the beginning of the movie into that emotional climax later on.

55:17 It's it's also really cool that in that moment. It shows an illustration It's how far apart abuela and Mirabelle are from each other, right? And it's also that same song that brings them then together at the end. So it serves it. Serves the purpose of illustrating their the, the two extreme ends of their relationship to, which is really cool. Absolutely. I was going to say, part of the beauty of learning is not just the initial learning. It's the teaching it to other people because like, I know people have said this before, but you don't truly learn something until Till you have taught it to someone else and that like, really helps it sink in and I think we can see that in your videos over the years Brett because, you know, at the start you are teaching it at a high level, but it feels like as we've moved on and you've done thousands of videos. Now it's like your knowledge of all these has deepened just because you've been teaching it so much and that's just been really cool to watch.

56:21 Yeah yeah if that's it as a teacher I love. Learning just as much as I love teaching and they both go hand in hand. And this has been not only a teacher teaching experience for Better Learning Experience for me. So yeah, it's been awesome. All right. Brett before we let you go. I mean, we brought you onto the film and whiskey podcast. We can't not talk about movies for like a majority of the time. We're here. So, stepping out of the world of Encanto, I know you've hinted at some other movie related series that you've done on your channel, but is there any movie score or song from a movie that You really hope to dive into like, is there anything that you'd like to do? Like a really deep dive on over an extended series of movies or just things that you're like man I hope someday I get a chance to do that score. Yeah it's a really good question you know, I I've done so I've done a few Lord of the Rings things and I've done a few Star Wars things.

57:18 I would I would really love to just to dig into both of those things even more than I have. Have just because there's so there's so much there. Yeah I mean Howard Shore and John Williams were both just absolute masters of The Craft but people have also been asking for some of the older like Enrico more Recon. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm a, I'm a like Cinema Paradiso and those kinds of things. I may, it may be really cool to kind of go back and look at some of those two because I haven't done a whole lot of that. Yeah, so that my things I need, sometimes I go back and just listen to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. And it's it might just be the best soundtrack, ever written. Like it is such an incredible piece of composition from start to finish.

58:06 So yeah. That I'm there all day for that Brett. Yeah, I think that maybe some of the next film of things, although it may go back. Although, if you dedicated like a month of your your show, if you will to Lord of the Rings, I don't think anybody would come Plane probably not probably not. Those films are just Exquisite. Oh my God, the music in those films. So good. So one of the things we like to do before we let a guest go we put them on the hot seat and we run them through a questionnaire. I'll tell you what Brett we're going to let you off a little bit easy but I do have a one burning question and you have to answer immediately as soon as I asked it, no thinking about this. What is the best John Williams score? Star Wars.

58:56 Who whole there you go? Brad, let's go. I was really hungry. We get an ET plug here. Bob go home. All right, it's got main theme for me. T is great. I was going to say, John Williams, is the only good thing for me tea. Oh, I didn't think we'd, I didn't think we devolve into this. All right, everybody. This has been Brett Bullseye. I cannot tell you Brett. First of all, how thankful we are that you sat down with us for a little bit so that we could tell you. I mean it's been a long time since I was in choir and I look for those kind of musical outlets and those chances to converse with people about really getting intricate with what the musics about and I feel like I get to have that conversation with you every time I'm watching your videos. So first of all thank you for that but we want to give you we want to give you an opportunity to plug anything that you have coming up.

59:50 Anything that you know you can tantalize us with a little bit because you're very busy guy and you're doing big things now starting to. Yeah, I've got some things planned. I do have a have a few courses that are going to be coming. I have seen. I'm starting with a lyric writing course so that's going to be available starting next month and after that shortly after that I'll be going into a music writing course all sort of tying into song writing in general. So you can be on the lookout for that. And then I also have, I can't announce officially the place where I'm doing this yet, but I'll be doing a live version of what I do on Instagram and Tick Tock in New York in September, so I have that coming up. Up as well.

1:00:34 Well, that's exciting. All right, Brett, where can people find you? I am on Tick-Tock at Brett bowls and then Instagram at the bread. Bowls. Those are my two things. Then YouTube also at bread bowls. I'm also on YouTube. Well, Brett, we wish you the very best as the school year. Winds down and in all of your future endeavors. I'm already excited for September. I don't even know what it's about yet, but I've got it marked on my calendar. Now, September September is Brett Bulls month. Shut up. All right. Brett, thank you so much for joining us today. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. It's been a blessed. Alright so that was Brett Bulls a fantastic interview guests Brad. I wouldn't guy super impressed with how chill he was as we interviewed him.

1:01:20 Because if you've seen his reels or his tick-tocks like he's a very high-energy music teacher but we were interviewed him at 8:00 p.m. and like most teachers Not only was his energy like gone for the day but I've realized that most of the teachers in my life are introverts, I have no idea. Brett's an introvert. But like it was so cool to just see him be like, yeah, man. Like whatever you guys want to do? Like, we'll do that. Yeah, that's really, really cool. I can't wait to have him back on the show again. Yeah, really. An incredible guest and and somebody that I feel like he would just be a lot of fun to just chill with like, yeah. And there's there's not a lot of people that you get to do that with.

1:02:05 So Brett, thank you for coming on the show. Man is great to have you. All right, we will be back on Tuesday with another regularly scheduled episode but until then I'm Bob book, I'm Reggie and we'll see you next time.