The Creators of Final First Edition: Rich Horn & the Ninja Turtles

Hello. And today it's really my great pleasure to actually be here with a very energetic triad and they call themselves Christoph, Wes and Jeff, the filmmaking team who made Final First Edition. So I'm going to let each of you individually introduce yourselves because I want to talk about Final First Edition, but I also want to learn about this sort of team and group dynamic. It's really, I love interpersonal things, and I think you guys very much exemplify that. I can tell that from the very beginning. So why don't we start with you, Christoph, tell us a little bit about yourself. I am a filmmaker originally from Newburyport Massachusetts. I've been in Maine for 12 years and have a production company called True Life Media and a studio called Riverside Studio in Portland and have known Jeff for probably most of my time here, I'd say, and Wes for a little bit less and just have, it's a small filmmaking community here, and we all try to stick together and work together on different projects. So I think you've opened the path for Jeff to introduce himself next. Hi Lisa. My name's Jeff. Jeff Griecci. I live in Biddeford, Maine, and I've been in Maine for a little while now, and I work as a cinematographer, but my passion work is making films and being a part of independent films in any way that I can. So I've known Christoph for quite a while now, and I've also known Wes for quite a while now. And we're all kind of movie buddies and filmmaking buddies, and we've collaborated a couple of times before, but this one was the first we're all three of us worked together. So this is a fun project that I'm excited to share with you. Really love that. Yeah. How about you, Wes? We're saving the best for last apparently. I don't know about that. These guys are awesome. Well, I know who could really top them, so you've got a hard, best rot Aho here. Yeah, I'll do my best. My name is Wes Sterrs. I'm the director of Final First Edition originally from Belfast, Maine, and I live here in Portland. Yeah, I mean, I work with these guys as much as I can. I'm a freelance director and producer, and so a large amount of our work is done in the commercial sector and then also documentary nonfiction work as well as branded content. And then on the side we get to do stuff like this making films where we have a little bit more creative control and time and yeah. I'm Wes, What I love about this project is I can sense the enthusiasm, the happiness. I mean, we all do things for that we call work that feels like this is what I need to make money on, and I am sure you're going to make plenty of money off this excellent project. But really mostly what I'm getting from you is the sense of fun and collaboration and the joy that is coming from the work you've done with Final First Edition. So first I'd like to find out what is Final First Edition and why do people who are listening to or watching Radio Maine, why is there an interest that you're going to cause them to want to explore this with us? Final First Edition is a short documentary that we all made together that sort of follows the journey of a fellow named Rich Horn. And Rich is an avid teenage mutant Ninja Turtles comic book collector. He boasts that he has the largest and most organized archive of Ninja Turtles comics in the world, and he's an encyclopedic, has a huge encyclopedic knowledge of the franchise. How we came into contact with Rich is that he received, he purchased and item online that ended up being the original negatives of the first edition of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So the first comic book ever printed, which coincidentally was printed in Biddeford, Maine in the mid eighties. And so Rich wanted to pay homage to the original comics with the 40th anniversary coming up and decided that he wanted to travel to Maine with these negatives and basically go through the exact same process using the same, almost the same technology, the same printing techniques and the same printing techniques as they did in the mid eighties. : And so Rich got in touch with Christoph. Christoph got in touch with Jeff and I, and we all were like, this would be a pretty fun opportunity to do a film that honors some of the pop culture history of Maine that some people might not know about, but also just, I think the interesting part for us was seeing a character and who ended up becoming a collaborator of ours, rich, who is deeply passionate about something. And that always makes for, I think, good film, a good nonfiction film, especially because while it reads really well on screen, I also think that as filmmakers, it's a great opportunity for us to learn about something that we might not know about. And so kind of walked in with not a ton of knowledge about Ninja Turtles. I didn't have a big connection to it as a kid, but Rich is so educated and passionate that he pulls you in. : And I think we've done a fairly good job, I think, of portraying that on screen. So that's Final First Edition. We screened it first at the Granite State, and then it went on to Premier online at Film Shortage, which is a short film curation website who's been really good to us. And now it just sort of lives online as all projects tend to do these days. So we're really, really proud of the work and have done a lot of creative collaboration on it. And I don't know you guys want to say something now, I feel like, Well, I was going to say thanks for having us, Lisa. That was wonderful. Yeah, good. He finally gets out behind the director's chair or in front of the director's charity. He is like, I got the camera now, so you guys just have to wait for me. I'll do it again. Well, let me redirect a little bit. Let me redirect and ask Christoph, the last time you and I talked, it was on a fairly serious topic and not that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is not serious. Certainly it's a very serious topic in its own way, but you and I last explored a subject that was, I think one would say has a lot more gravitas. So for you, is this contrast something that allowed you to have a little bit more ability to play? I think in filmmaking, both these men would say the same thing, that we are very lucky to do what we do. And so whether it's serious or funny, it's kind of a joy equally. So it doesn't, the beauty of being able to go out, capture something and then create it in an edit, whether the topic is serious or funny, it doesn't affect my personal enjoyment of how it comes together. It certainly stylistically presents different challenges and different techniques, but it's all part and parcel of the process. Diving for Scallops, which was a New York Times Op Doc in 2015. So it was about a fisherman in Cushing, Maine who lost his arm in a snowmobiling accident ...spoiler, and was a scallop diver. And then I had a child. And making films has been a little bit more challenging. You're bringing something forward that I'm going to ask Jeff about. And that is, that is the idea of really finding joy in the creative process of pulling a story together. Because I think in talking to artists and other creative people for Love Maine Radio, Radio Maine, that's where people seem to, there's something deep within them. They're like, I've got this thing that I'm doing, and it really just makes me happy to be in the middle of it doing this. So talk to me a little bit about that, Jeff. What is it about filmmaking and pulling these stories together that really appeals to you, and is there a specific part of the process that just has you wanting to get up every day doing it? Well, first off, Lisa, it's such an incredible amount of work that goes into making film. It's one of the mediums that you can certainly make a film as a single person, as a single entity. You can certainly take a camera and go out and film something and cut it together and learn all the tech and make a piece. But for me, I get the most joy out of the collaboration that comes with that. It's always been a process for me that's been a team effort, bringing friends together and elevating the work with dedicated folks that are focused on a specific skillset. And so the collaboration process for me, working with my friends is pretty much the pinnacle of that. We get to work as freelancers, Wes and Christoph and I get to work with all different kinds of people on all different kinds of projects that pay the bills. : But the passion really for all of us started with the creative projects that are our own. And so when one of these comes up and the opportunity where all the stars aligned, where I get to work on a project that I get excited about with friends, that's the best part for me, especially when it's a team effort and we get to all share in the workload, it makes it that much more enjoyable because then it allows me to focus on a specific avenue of the project. I come from a director, kind of do it all kind of background. When I originally started making my own films. So when I get to work with somebody like Wes and Christoph where we divide the work amongst each other, it just makes it that much more enjoyable because we're coming in as a team and it opens up the project to be something unique in that it's not just a single vision, it's a vision that all of us have built together. So that's my favorite part of it all. As you're talking, I'm actually kind of picturing each of you as one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I mean, I think what I remember, I don't have a particular background with that, with the genre or with these characters, but my little brothers growing up here in Yarmouth, Maine, they would actually play the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and they would go out and have their different characters. So do any of you relate in particular to one of the characters or another as you've gone along and have you a way that you've kind of embodied this work together as a group? Well, I just want to first say that Wes and I had a passing understanding and appreciation for Ninja Turtles, but Jeff is certainly the resident expert amongst us. Jeff, Jeff should assign Christoph and Yeah, exactly Based on his... Gauntlet throne. I would like to hear this Alright, I'm just going to try from the cuff here. So let me think about this. I would say that Christoph is probably the Donatello and then I think Wes is Leonardo. Maybe I'm Mikey. And I would say maybe Cormac could be Raphael coming. That's a good, this Cormac is our composer. Yeah, Cormac Brown. The fourth leg of the tripod is our composer who just did an exceptional job of making all original music for the piece. And he's on West Coast time, so he doesn't come to these things. Well, I mean, how I Would, Sorry, Lisa, that's how I would lay us all out by the four Turtle team. And if Jeff, just for the general audience who might not know a lot about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, just what colors are those? Right. Okay, so yeah, so Christoph would be purple, Wes is blue, Cormac would be red, and I would be orange. Alright, cool. And Rich would be Splinter. Yeah, Oh, definitely. Yeah, so I love that status For sure. Oh, and Lisa's April O'Okay, I get a part. There you go. I mean, you've made my day. Really, this is what I got up for this morning because I want to be April O'Neil. Fantastic. That's great. I love it. It's all been for this moment. That's right. We've come together now there's a sense of completeness around this project. Thank you. We could just go back to the late eighties and be out in the school yard and try this again. I mean, I think that there is something that you're bringing forward that I just love this idea that together the group is stronger in some cases than the individual, that each of you are very well respected and hardworking as individuals in your own fields. But together you're coming forward and you have this teenage mutant into turtle power and you've created a documentary around an individual who understands that and you're connecting it back to Maine, which I didn't even realize that. I mean, my background, my family background is from Biddeford, so I did not even realize that there was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle background from Biddeford. I mean, that's amazing to me. So what do you make of that? We don't really think of Maine as being sort of Comic-Con central generally. Yeah, that's definitely was one of the hooks for me is that there are these, it feels very New England to me that something like this would happen and that it would either become something that is maybe a little bit lost to time, but also just kind of becomes normalized in the community that it's rooted in where people are like, yeah, the turtles were here. But as we talked to people and as we started sort of explaining the project to our friends and our other collaborators, more often than not, folks would have some sort of connection to it, but it would be so casual that it's like no wonder that it's not put on the proverbial billboards of Maine. People are really chill about it, which is kind of how we are with a lot of stuff over here. Yeah, no, that's actually a really good point that there's a lot of creative energy in Maine, but also it's kind of subtle. It's kind of surprising. You find out that you can drive up the coast and you can be like, oh, Andrew Wyeth, there he is. And that's everywhere in Maine. So I love that Biddeford because it doesn't often get called out. I mean, it's creative in so many ways, but it doesn't often get called out as far as filmmaking or comics, for example. And also, you might not know that Kevin Eastman, one of the co-creators of the Turtles grew up in Westbrook. So that's something that I kind of figured out just over time talking to Kevin. And also just from people in the area, they're like, oh, I used to know Kevin. So yeah, there is a heavy main connection. So going back to Final First Edition and the subject of Final First Edition, what do you think it was that caused such a level passion for this person to maintain this, to remain dedicated to his vision, to have this sense of purpose around the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? And I guess I'll throw this out to My hope is that with our short film, we do a good job explaining a little bit of Rich's drive, but I think Rich is uniquely a dedicated collector who learned at a young age what his thing was going to be and just took it all the way basically. I mean, the guy has collected so much content, I mean so much material of a specific type of print media, and he's focused it and just curated it really, really well. I think he's a kind of guy that learned how to take care of this kind of history, I suppose is a good way to say it. I mean, if you're going to have somebody curate something like this, you want Rich, he's taking it. He, he's extremely dedicated and focused on preserving this history, and I just think he's a great guy. And B, he's very, very driven on his passion. And that is what makes the story fun, is just watching somebody who's just so passionate about something and has so much love for it, if that helps answer the question. Yeah, I mean it does. And I also think as I'm reflecting back on work that I know each of you do work that I do, so much of it is centered around different stories. And so what you're describing with Rich is sort of this depth and this focus. I think to be someone who is the focus is the story means that your subject is continually changing. So in each of your cases, and I guess I'll start with you Christoph, is there a particular, do you find any sort of parallels with your life? Is there something about which that you've sort of gone down a path as far as Rich has with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Is there some thing that has been a focusing piece in your life? I mean, I would say that it's meta in that my career is very much my obsession. And so all of us, Jeff mentioned earlier, you might notice we all are in a film viewing club. We kind of live and breathe film. So I think we really, and I'll speak for myself, but I think these guys would agree that that is our obsession. I mean, I collected baseball cards, other little things I have never gone to the extent that Rich has gone to or that the sort of way in which rich processes all of this material and kind of dedicates himself to preserving it. I recently, I've gotten into collecting other people's super eight films and people sell them, and it's really fascinating to me to be able to watch old material like that, old films like that, but it is nothing the level of what Rich has going. So I think it is both. It was a real entry into a different world for me, but also, yeah, I can relate to this is what he's into, this is what we're into. And so in that sense, it's like we totally relate to dedicating our lives to something that we're really into, and we just happen to be lucky enough to do it both as a career and for fun. Wes, how would you answer that question? Yeah, Christoph kind of summarized, I think our dedication to film, one of the fun parts about being able to make nonfiction work, especially when we can do it in a way that feels so curated and thoughtful, how we've made this in terms of we were creating a real stylistic vision. Aside from that, just learning about how somebody does something. I don't know if I went in being like, I have an obsession or a collection that is on par with something that Rich has, because what he does is not casual. It is very pathological. It's methodical. And I don't know if I'd go as far to say compulsive, but I would leave that up to the viewer to see if he is able to, what end is he collecting? But it's certainly the psychology of it really interested me, and I wanted to know what does it mean to collect, and then maybe that unlocks some questions about myself because I certainly am collecting items and whether I know it or not, all of a sudden I started seeing patterns of things around my house and in my life and throughout the course of my time here. : And I think that just having conversations with Rich about that and observing him gave me a more holistic and well-rounded view of it, because now I'm looking at someone who does it so meticulously that it gave me an appreciation for maybe taking better care and being more intentional about the things that I collect and how I want to preserve them and who am I preserving them for. A big thing that Rich talks about is he is doing this not just for himself, but he's doing this for a community. He wants to archive and curate as someone, as a museum curator would. He says that in the film, and it's just a really inspiring thing. I think that then I'm looking at all the things around my house that I'm collecting. I'm like, am I taking as good of care of them as I should? Or where am I going to store all this stuff? How am I going to store all this stuff? You start to go down a bit of a rabbit hole like that. It's like there's a George Carlin bit about when you collect all this stuff, you need a bigger house and then you keep collecting more stuff and you just keep upgrading with, What do you think, Jeff? I think Rich is a rich, rich is a collector in the definition. I don't know if I would say that I am definitely nowhere near his style of collecting an item or an object. I am, I think I'm more in line with Wes and Christoph in the sense of I have a level of collection and collecting mentality, but it's nowhere where Rich has brought it. So I think I understand the idea of having a thing that you focus on. For example, over the years I've become interested in collecting records, dance music records, and it's been a fun process for me over the years. It's mostly just as a hobby though, although I try to be careful about how I take care of them and make sure I keep them maintained. But Rich really brings it to a different level that's just really enjoyable to watch, and it's kind of special. He really is. In another life, he would work at a museum and be the top dog in maintaining a collection for sure. And I wouldn't be surprised if in the years to come something happens with his collection and it goes into some kind of museum or something. But yeah, I'm impressed by it. I don't know if I could ever get there, but that's just the level that I'm at. I don't think I can stress enough that I don't want to speak for Jeff and Christoph, but I cannot stress enough that the biggest reward of the work that we do, that I do is being able to learn from the people, whether this is scripted narrative work or commercial work or nonfiction work. Anytime that you are observing the patterns and characteristics of a subject, again, whether it be fictional or real, you are learning from something that's outside of your own experience. And that is, we do that. We are so deeply attentive to those characters as we're filming and as we're editing that, whether Rich's passion for collecting is the thing that we take away from it, or it's just a way to think about the world is whether that's a big statement or a small statement, he might just show me a way to organize my spoons better. But still, that's a beautiful lesson to learn because somehow that clears out some clutter in my brain. That is a huge reward of our work, and one that I'm really excited about every time we sign onto a project is who are these people and what do they know? What do they represent? Because everyone has such a wonderful outlook. It's just about asking the right questions and learning from building relationships and trust so that we can create a circular experience and exchange of experiences and ethos. I have to agree with you. I mean, I think that one of the reasons people will often ask me as a doctor, why do you have a podcast? And I don't talk about medical things. I talk about creative things, and I feel the same way that you do. And I am assuming that Jeff and Christoph feel as well. That for me, the joy is in talking to people that are doing something completely different. And I'm like, wow, this is amazing that humans have such a broad range of things that interests them and kind of keep them showing up every day for their lives. And I always learn. I always learn from the conversations that I have. And at the same time, I also, having been a writer for many, many years and working with the main media collective, I also know that it's the delicate nature of amplifying someone's story because it is a responsibility that you have to take what they're showing up with and bring it out to a larger audience and trying to remain true to what, who they are, but also doing it in a way that is effective. Because sometimes people, they believe that the way that, and I want to say this really delicately because we all want to believe we know ourselves well, but sometimes other people can more accurately represent who we truly are as individuals than sometimes we ourselves are capable of doing. And that was, I guess, a very big monologue. Feel free to disagree or agree. I don't really know. But there's this level of responsibility, I guess is what it comes down to for me. Do you feel that? Yeah. I think that there's anytime that we are telling someone else's story, again, whether it's fictional or nonfiction, that there is a responsibility to authentic, to maintain authenticity as well as openness without trying to put our own stuff onto it. I can only imagine that you get a front seat. This is kind of a brilliant format. You get a front seat view to everyone's process, and then it becomes this theology that you're able to then a life philosophy that you're able to build from that. I think we're trying to do the same thing through the medium that we have, which is film. And are you a practicing medical? I just have questions for you now at this Point. Yeah, right. Sure. Let's just turn it around. Yeah, no problem. : Yeah, no, I am a family doctor. I've been a family doctor for a very long time. And so my parallel path, in addition to this type of work is also in medicine. So I spend a lot of time with patients hearing their stories and trying to help them in different ways, but also leading teams of people who care for patients because I'm in medical leadership. But it's a very different way of utilizing story. It's not a way, in fact, it's sort of the opposite. You take story in those cases, and it's a very internal process. You can't be going out telling everybody about patient stories in the same way. So for me, when I come into Radio Maine, I do love having the front seat kind of view of people's process. And I do love hearing about what each of you are doing. And I know that one of our sons really is also into films, and he went to art school and he talks about films in a way that I'm like, this is so fascinating. : He's like, did you see how that guy did this? And did you see the camera angle on this? And did you see the way that they used color over here? And the dialogue over here? And I'm like, I have never thought about that. So that's why I love having this conversation with each of you because you have an attention to craft and process on a very different topic than anything that I've had any experience with. Again, this is me monologuing, but I need to turn it back to you. Back to you, Christoph. What do you have for thoughts on this topic? And then I know that Jeff wants to chime in because I saw I'm touching his like, Hmm, I'm thinking, but we'll start with you, Yeah, I think there's a fine line between how much of ourselves we bring into this. Nothing we make is a journal entry, but there is a great piece of us in our work. And so each of us has worn various hats in the business. But I think in the case of this film, Wes conceived of a visual feel for the piece and kind of a essence to it. Jeff executed what that might look like. And I assembled that together, working with Wes, of course, that, and then Cormack came in and kind of underlayed this whole river of mood with this great soundtrack. And so there's this ecosystem that comes together. And so I think how we bring ourselves into it is it's there. Our personality is there. If anyone that knows us can look at that and say like, oh, man, I see the way that Jeff shoots there. : I see the way that Wes' visions there. I see Christoph's humor in some of these edits and things like that. And so I think that's all there. And our process in living with our subject is, like Wes said, this is a dialogue. Everything is a collaboration with the subjects with us. It's a participatory medium. And so I spent a lot of time in my career and life being like, I feel like I'm the only one that can do this the right way. And working with Caroline on projects, working with these guys, it's really opened up my mind and my heart in terms of how this is done, and it isn't done in a vacuum. And so it feels great do this with these guys. And also to, like Wes said, learn about someone like Rich, learn about anyone that we work with, have this conversation. It gives us an opportunity to sort through our thoughts on this ourselves. We don't really have collective outlet to, besides our own onset dialogues and things like that, we don't really process this. I'm not going to put any pressure on you, but there is pressure. You are the final word on the Final First Edition conversation that I've been having here with Christoph West, Jeff, Jeff, you are the final word. Any final thoughts on this topic or anything else you would like to say about the work that you've been doing with this group? Trying to get back to, I believe the initial question here about showcasing the subject carefully and accurately for the project as nonfiction filmmakers. And I think this was a particularly fun project to work on with these two, because I thought that Wests did an incredible job of steering this ship in a way that translated the subject well, with our film work, Wes focused on the fact that we're talking about comic books and we're talking about this character in Rich in collecting them. So if you open up a comic book and you know anything about comic books, it's essentially they can be pretty incredible storyboards when you think about them in the sense of film. So the goal that Wes approached me with visually and being the person involved in the cinematography was basically like, can we show what it feels like to have a comic book on screen? : Keeping in mind how to approach Rich as a subject and a character, and how to make this piece as exciting and fun as we can. And I think it was just a matter of going into the spaces that we were working in and trying our best with a style and technique and approach to get the coverage that we needed to make a piece that felt like that. Rich is such a nice guy, and he's a fun guy. He was willing to play with us, so to speak, and how we made this piece. And when you watch it, I hope that you realize that. And just his activity on screen and the way he moves around. And I don't know, to me when I see him, he's just so excited. And so that was the focus for me, was to try to make the footage work with that intent in mind. So I hope that that translates well in the piece when you view it. And my understanding is that this can be found online. Is there a particular website that people should go to in order to watch this wonderful piece? You can watch Final First Edition on YouTube or on any of our sites, true life media.com, west steers.com, Jeff reci.com, I believe. Yeah. Yep. So it's on all of our sites and on YouTube and hopefully other venues to come. Well, it's truly been a pleasure for me to spend time with you today, and thank you for being the first triad that I've had the opportunity to interview and interview remotely. Amazing. And then also, of course, it throws things off a little bit to have Cormac as the fourth leg of the triads, but we'll still bring him in. Anyway, I've been speaking with Christoph, Wes, and Jeff, and sort of by extension, Cormack and Rich, actually, who are the team behind the Final First Edition. I do encourage people to go online to watch this film. This has been an intriguing and exciting conversation for me, and I appreciate each of you for being here in the conversation. And also for those of you who are listening to are watching Radio Maine, our video podcast that explores creativity and the human spirit. And we'd love to connect you with you at the Portland Art Gallery in Portland, Maine. If you'd like to meet up in person. So actually open invitation to you, Christoph, Wes and Jeff, please come to one of our gallery openings and hang out with the rest of us creative sorts who are doing visual things in a really different way. We really look forward to seeing you in person. For having us, Lisa. Lisa, awesome. Super fun.