Oh gee, folks, it's showtime.
People say good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater. They want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters.
In the Protection Booth, everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Let it off, turn it off.
You know what, guys, it's funny. I think this is the first time I just want to sit back, take a little breeze throughout.
This whole thing is.
I just love that's a focus. I'm just getting my dog burned back. It's curious.
I like it.
I like just get a kid all.
My time with bold.
I like having a purpose.
Sorry, I'm kind of rambling a little bit. I just feel really ahaze right now.
I know.
Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of The Projection Booth. I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, I'm talking with some of the creators behind AJ Goes to the Dog Park. I'm talking with Aj Thompson, who is also the star, executive producer, and of course the titular AJ of the movie. Also talking with producer Ben Hanson and writer director Toby Jones. If you get a chance to see AJ Goes to the Dog Park, it is a wonderfully quirky film kind of up there with Lightning Salad
moving Picture from two thousand and eight. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you enjoyed the interview. Who else do we have here today? I recognize AJ, of course, Can you other gentlemen announce yourselves?
Sure, Yeah, it's AJ, and then I'm Toby the writer director.
I'm Ben Hanson. Gentlemen, I loved AJ Goes to the Dog Park. I'm so curious though, as far as what your background is and is this a whole series that you have going here. I've read about at least two other AJ titles.
Our background by filmmaking is just stuff we've made growing up as kids. And we have the local access show we did in high school. I'm in an early AJ feature in high school. And then I, after graduating college, went off and worked in the animation industry for about twelve years, working on a few different shows for Kirch Network and stuff. And then this is a project where I'm bringing back all these people and those in AJ short for Cristch Network that we also did with a
version of the character. And this is the thing of bringing back all the team of the people from when we grew up and took film classes and made films on the on the on the weekend to do a project together.
Were the other ones? They were all animated, and this is your first live action a j oh no.
The other ones have been mostly live action, with okay of the animated short AJ.
How do you feel being the star of these films?
I think it's great. I've always told Toby that the character that he writes for me is mostly just an exaggerated version of myself, so it works out well. I wouldn't say before this film, I wouldn't call my self an actor, but now I guess since I have a feature life belt, I'm an actor now.
So how did you come up with the idea for this one?
I had the idea first, Well, I've always wanted to do more AJ stuff. I joked that AJ is like my like Jean Pierre Leo. I liked, it's almost like we're doing Antwine Twinel movies where we like check in at different stages in our lives and do whatever comes to our mind at that time. And I had the general concept, Oh, wouldn't it be fun to with all of our adult experience come back together and far ago and do like a micro budget movie in that old style.
And the idea just came out of nowhere. It was just like, what's something we can do that wouldn't be too terribly expensive, it would be fun to make. And I think I was on a road trip actually, and I drove by a dog park and then the run of the concept of the mayor and the silly, dumb joke of the name change, and then the fighting, fishing, scrapping, scraping,
sapping all came to my head at that time. And so when we have this concept that agent needs to fight, fish, scrap, scrape, and sap, we have a movie there almost because if you look at a lot of great comedies, they're very episodic and also, working in animation, you're working in an eleven minute format, and so oh, I can treat each of these segments as a self contained little section and come up with just like a nice little arc for
each one of those. And that was the starting point where I was like, Okay, I can this is like at least a skeleton I can build a movie out of.
Oh that's fantastic. Yeah, And I love how very self referential everyone is, especially when oh, this will take us into the second act.
Yeah, and it's a classic thing. We're seeing their writing and you're analyzing yourself as you go. And this was written in a very kind of free wheeling, almost exquisite corpse type way, where I'd like, I look at the stuff I wrote yesterday and be like, okay, whatever that was, and just try and focus on whatever's entertaining me in that moment, and so you end up having those little lines as part of it.
Specifically, we arrived on set of the hospital scene and I read this over the script which I had already read before, and said, Toby, what the hell is lying Love and Loaves? Why is every budget read by him? Which Toby said, I said, I don't understand my own joke, to which I was by going on buying war bread because I didn't think we had enough of the scene.
Yeah, there are a few jokes in there where it's I wrote it in a moment, and there was a choice that was being made to do something very creatively free where I don't even necessarily remember the meaning of this joke, and we're going to commit to it and just see what happens.
I love that. I think That's what makes it such a success, is just that commitment to the jokes and the absurdity. I think it's wonderful. What were some of the biggest challenges of making this film other than trying to remember your own jokes?
I think the three of us would probably all agree that there wasn't any single part of producing this movie that wasn't a tremendous challenge, because the fact is we were making this movie out of pocket, with no resources and no external support, and that meant that every single thing on screen is something that someone had to get and prepare. Every place they go is a place they had to get. You had to make a phone call
and plan it. And there's a lot of locations and a lot of weird props and strange things that happened in this movie, and every single one there's a story kind of behind that. What would you guys say the in the ferest part of mat.
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. Just reading through the script, I thought to myself, Man, we're going to be going to so many places and there's very few that we go back to, so it's hard to imagine in order to film everything when we first did the beginning part. We tried it all in order to have the first fifteen minutes to show off like a demo basically what the movie could be like.
But after that we were like, there's no way we're going to finish this in a reasonable amount of to night do it in order, so we had we had to do a whole We've changed the way we filmed it yep, to be able to actually shoot the scenes shoot out at a whole location and all that.
Yeah, And a funny example of that is the location of the Mayor's office. We went there and we shot there that first year. It was an abandoned room in an old office building, and we returned there a year later to shoot the rest of the scenes that are in the Mayor's office, and they had turned it into a exercise room with a giant treadmill in the middle of it. So we had to rebuild the entire location to look like and we shot it from a year ago, and then we had to shoot and of course everybody's
schedules are tired. We're shooting nights and weekends. Everybody has day jobs, and so we're shooting all the rest of the mayors scenes I believe we shot all the rest of the mayor scenes after the fifteen minute mark in one day, that's correct, which was million possible.
That was a twelve hour now. We did several scenes, I know, with a lot of people sitting and stand by,
being very patient for us. I would say the biggest challenge for me and I think others two was because everyone these aren't professional actors or they're not acting full time, they're not writing full so when there's a crowd scene, those are people Our friends and family from ron Fargo, North Dakota were generous enough to come that day, and if it's an outdoor scene and it rains, it's the worst feeling in the world.
You have thirty people there who are donating their time to be extras, and you got to send everybody home because the way they're going to be in the rain.
The climactic scene takes place at the dog park that we're filming at, and that particular day in North Dakota.
Was forty below Zeroh.
We all had to huddle in our cars between shots and then ran out and shoot them. And we actually had hot chocolate that we poured out for the people. That was like basically refrigerate or cold within two minutes.
Yeah, exactly, And then you mentioned all the locations. I intended to write this as something that could be fun, that we could shoot pretty quick, pretty easy, but it was so much. The fact is I say that, and then I write a scene in a church that takes it's a ten second scene. It takes place in a church, where it's one joke that takes ten seconds. But I mean, we have to get a church, we have to go there, we have to get all that stuff clear. And then I'm like, yeah, what if we do a big scene
that takes place in an airport. How do you get an airport we gave so every single one of those locations was its own self contained challenge. And then one location, the coffee Kiosk, We shot the first scene in the first year at a different location, and then they wouldn't let us come back to shoot the other coffee Kisque scenes, and so we had to reshoot the first stuff to match the new location and all that.
If they were not thanked in the ending credits.
It No, were you guys disruptive? Why would they not let you come back?
Genuinely?
No idea?
Sorry, no, It's true. We could not have I swear to God, we could not have been nicer. And we were probably there for maximum forty minutes, So I have no idea what happened. So I think they just didn't want to deal with it. And look, and the thing is shooting at Fargo. Nine times out of ten you find somebody who's so willing to find a way to help you. And you were able to get an airport, we were able to get a church, we were able
to get something that looks like a hospital. And so weirdly that the coffee Kiosk is the one that we ended up having trouble with.
Though we did want to shoot one of the fight scenes between the coach and aj at an actual MMA Jim and the MMA. Jim said absolutely, come on buy and we came and they said, oh, we're very sorry. We did sell the actual MMA ring two days ago. Did you watch film in that? So then we had to go rent a wrestling ring though that we then had set up in our friend's backyard and for two days straight, very generous out them.
Yeah, which also doubled as your new bedroom exactly right.
Yeah, Now, we had written all that stuff to take place in the wrestling ring, but we were going to switch to a different location for the actual fight that occurs, and then we had to think on the fly and be like, Okay, I guess we're gonna have to add the entire fight scene to the same location and shoot all that in a day or two. A lot of people very generously excited to help out and make these impossible things happen.
Ajing you mentioned shooting in order and giving that fifteen minute demo reel going is that when the moneymen came in and they were just like, yes, AJ goes to the dog park, let me right out of check right now, right.
Now, we're still waiting to have the money man the money ferry. No, we were really hoping that. We just wanted to get feelers out there and say, hey, we can make this funny thing. We don't have a lot of money to put into it, and we're gonna make it and do what we can, and pretty much everyone's that's funny, and then yeah, I got nothing sodden. We were like, we're going to just do it.
We do ourselves, and this is the crucial choice that gets made where it's I wrote that script. The script was complete. It was ready. I worked in animation for many years, and I had thought the hyphal thought in my head, it's maybe I could leverage my experience in
the industry and make something like this happen. And I called a couple of people and tried a little bit, and you had the moment where it's like, oh, do I want to spend the next three years trying to sell this thing or do I want to spend the
next three years producing this thing? And so we made the call the producer, and after we shot that first fifty minutes, it was another version of that conversation where it's do we keep sending this Vimeo link of the first fifteen minutes around or do we just go make it? And so that was it was a kind of a hurtle be jumped twice to make the choice to make the movie the way we did.
How long did it actually take to shoot this?
That would be three years?
Mite, wow, three years.
Night nights and weekends. I'd come to visit Fargo for two months at a time, sleep in my parents' basement. And that's how it worked. Now, not three.
Years constantly, but again we all have full time jobs. So it was three years as we could in about three months purst. But those three months were very planned out, where basically every weekend was working on the film weekend, lots of week nights. We filmed all of the boat scenes on the lake at someone's lake cabin who we knew in western Minnesota in one weekend, which was very challenging, and.
We knocked out the first fifteen minutes that first year, and it just as an example of how much better we got at it in the movie.
Two years and AJ, what do you do other than act in starring movies? Because obviously your schedule has to be the most flexible of everybody's.
I work computer programming, so I work at home and they're super generous with me able to work my schedule however, and they're actually really supportive of my other stuff that I do too. They all my coworkers have seen the movie and everything too.
And the character of AJ because he's based on you and those are your dogs. And the job title is the job title you've had at the time, which was technical consulting.
Yeah, I was a technical consultant when we first started filming that.
So did your pulse go up too much while you were working.
On actually, I would say acting in this made my pulse go down compared to my DAGEB so I expect that.
I mean, with the number of effects and everything that you guys haven't heard, posts must have taken forever too.
Yes, it did, and it didn't. I think, less time than you might expect considering how much there is at our kind of budget scale. But a lot of posts was I've locked the picture, which was hard. But really what it came down to is color correction, which we worked with someone who was very good with that, and it was very fast and a super good process. A lot of the digital VFX and came from my friend Owen Dennis, who I worked with an animation I went
to college with. He did a show called Infinity Train, and he just took it on as a personal project to knock out all those digital v efects that are in the movie, just because he loves VFX and so he was just like so excited to do them. He
was adding stuff that we didn't even ask for. And then he is also responsible for something we can't spoil, but the last section of the movie where there's a certain shift that happens, he personally was responsible for all those effects that happen and all that crazy stuff that comes out to the very end as well.
Also did want to give a shout out. We can't spoil because this is far the ending, but the theater feature there is a real theater and fargown or it's a coda and indefendily owned one that if you don't know too much about it, you should see because I hope it spreads the word for everybody about Oh with some of the things we happened.
Far very nice and who did all the model work? Because it took me a little bit to realize that I was even looking at a model.
It was so good see that that was owhen Dennis, Wow. He took it upon himself. For example, there's this doesn't spoil the ending, but there's a model of the dog park itself. And that was something that I didn't even ask for. He was just like, you know, what I think we should have is a model of the park
in both the summer and the winter. And he sent me these shots and it was just like, this is the kind of thing, just like an amazing collaboration where you find these people and just like Bandon AJ and Tucker a cinematographer, people who are just like, oh, you're doing something cool. I want to take part and do something cool as well and jump in and help out
however I can. And that was the case with my friend Rebecca Sugar, who was an early champion of the movie up in the script phase and was just like, I would love to do a song for the end credits, and I was just like, I have, There's nothing I would love more. So it's all this thing where you just get these cool people who want to collaborate and just tick part in something like this because it doesn't
happen all the time. It was very interesting when Owen called me up and said, can you go to the fire with theater with the tape measure and measure how long.
The sidewalk is and see how tall it is. I'm trying to do something. And I was like, all right, I'll go do it.
I'll work break.
And he didn't tell us until we saw the footage.
Where did you find your other actors?
They were all over the place. So it's really a combination of things where it's people like aj who you've acted a bunch of our projects before, and then there are several local theater actors who have a tremendous amount of experience, the Mayor and Captain c Stab and the suit Age and all people who do a lot of local performing. And then there are several people who have little to no acting experience who we just really liked
them and we wanted to bring them in. The actor release Thomas as someone who just do someone you know from the world. Then political he is the head of.
The North Cota of Building Trades, and previous acting experience was appearing in the US said for Heidi Hikamp's reelection campaign in twenty eighteen, and we.
Brought him in. He was just like, sure, I'll try it. And he was such a mentch to work with. He was so much fun and he's he has so many great gags in the movie. He's so hilarious. And then and also to get an example these choices we make about what type of performer do you want to bring in for a scene. Both of my parents are in the movie and they each have a spoken line, and both of them after they did the scene, they were like, oh no, I was terrible. I ruined it. Oh no,
what did I do? And I was like, Mom, Dad, if I thought a pro actor would have been the better funnier option for this scene. I would have called the pro actor. I called because I think this is the better funnier option for this scene.
When did you actually lock the picture?
The picture happened, I want to say end of twenty twenty three. And then so from there was the mad dash to get the color correction, sound design, music score, and the digital The effects were all done in parallel with process where I would have a kind of version of a scene, I would send it to Owen and he would send me some cuts back and I would cut them in and lock around them.
Is fantastic Fest your premiere? Yeah?
This is the world premiere of Ajor. Goest to the dog park, really excited to share it with an audience and hopefully people love it. And then after this we're moving on to Beyond Fest in Los Angeles.
And have your friends seen this? Have you shown this to your cast and crew?
And we had a special screening in preview screening in North Dakota and everybody worked on it and all of our friends and family got to see it. Ben, how would you say that was? It was a really proud moment for me. We were doing a Q and A afterwards, and it's a big, silly movie. And I was trying really not to cry before I went out there because it worked not three years and I almost succeeded. Yeah, So that was part of the Fargo Film Festival, and
they were really excited too. They had this local film going on. They're like, yeah, let's get the opportunity to show a preview of this thing. And at the time we didn't know what was going to happen with the movie wasn't even finished yet. They they excited to see it at its current state and share with everybody.
I was, yeah, I'm so exciting as we get to go to Los Angeles next and we'll be in a Chicago area film festival in November and hoping to keep going.
When you ended this one with a bit of a cliffhangers are going to be another AJ film in their future.
I made the comparison to Antwine Twinel earlier, and so perhaps in another ten years we'll get back together and do something with the Aja character. But in the meantime, it ends in a certain way, and if anyone wants to, let's say, get together and help produce a syndicated fantasy action TV series in the style of you know, Warrior Princess starring AJ going on adventures every week. I think that'll be a logical.
Next step that. Yeah, I would definitely be down for that. I would watch that one religiously. What about you, guys, What else are you working on these days?
I can't say I'm doing anything too much creatively really, and myself, I'm just trying to market this and get this out.
And then for me, I'm back work in the animation industry. So my day gig there as a supervising director on a cartoon at Warner Brothers. And while I'm working on that, making plans to shoot another micro budget feature, hopefully next year.
The only thing I guess is that I don't do that. The filmmaking is the full time job. Is my first time producing a movie was. I was trying to do some writing for Toby's podcast, Toby's Tall Tales, which you should check out.
If you have listened to.
I hope to actually complete that because I had a couple of my thought pretty good ideas where you could do a second season when.
And then yeah, if we get to do to do the next thing, we'll probably all be the same team coming back to do another project, hopefully sooner revenue later.
Is there a good place for people to keep up with AJ Goes to the Dog Park.
I suppose that you just follow my social media Toby Toby Jones, and that's where I'm posting all the updates so far, and so far, we've got this festival run. Then we'll see how that goes, and then hopefully the world at large gets a chance to see.
It after that, guys have a great time. Watching AJ Goes to the Dog Park really tickled my funny bone so much so that I'm already starting to spread the word just with my friends, and I hope that everybody that listens to this podcast gets a chance to check it out, because I thought it was more wonderful.
Thank you, and as someone who's listened to your podcast for ten years, that means a lot to me.
Oh wow, thank you so much, and you live to tell about it. I love it.
I looked up the movie Possession after I saw Possession, and you had a three hour episode on it and it was all uphill from there.
Oh wonderful. Thank you so much, guys. I really appreciate this, and good luck in your adventures because I cannot tell you how much I like this movie.
Oh that means a lot, thanks a lot.
And she have to talk ship. She's coming back. I guess we just have to see it.
Get off my cloud. And you don't know me, and you don't know my.
You can go over through it, my girl.
She crashed my whipper.
Never gotta beat up, putting on the book till she get get off part time. You don't know. Maybe you don't know my shot, shake.
Shame.
That's the show. That's the show. Best to show.
That's the show.
That's to show.
That's the shove.
That's the show.
That's the show.
Get your get your pedigree, get your pedigree, get your pedigree, get your pedigree, get your pedigree, Get your pedigree. The surety saddled up with the puzzle name of puddle.
Sorry do the kicks, Yeah yeah, labor puddle.
This was a brindle and this was a retinal.
What's up in this bendle might give you a retinody like a rock star, so delirious, a party like a dog star, so serious.
Continue with the block, fly Fly and the game's too cold.
Period.
She thinks you're cute.
She thinks I'm cute when she goes to scoop, That's when I'm gonna swoop. I'm gonna hesitate taking ruff on the playdate for taking fixed mister child is so great treat saying toys and sweater, saying, blankets and pillows in the new bed off for you. I wouldn't change your bumicel fox terrier. I wouldn't change your forest finish water dog.
I said, say.
So said.
Sure, she said shure, she's coming.
So I guess just after see.
Because she said shot she's coming, So I guess just after see.
I never knew you as the child.
Get your lee, get your leash, Get your leash.
The part will be closing in five minutes.
Yup,