Getting the Message Across

[Jaunty Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome, everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction, brought to you by Westwords Consulting and the Kenosha County Substance Abuse Coalition. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: Getting the message across. That's the objective for those who want to increase awareness of relevant and important topics. Heck, that's the objective of these podcasts.

Mike: My guest today helps to do that in an incredibly effective and powerful way. Glen Muse is an accomplished professional filmmaker and video producer director with over 30 years of experience creating visual media for corporate and industrial markets. Glen's broadcast related experience includes contributions to productions for PBS, The Discovery Channel, ABC News, and the History Channel.

Mike: He has shot video all over the world, from the depth of minefields of Kuwait to more than 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Well, today we're going to talk about his work with Texas Pictures and the powerful social issues documentaries that they have produced. Welcome, Glen.

Glen: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Mike: Well, I'm so glad you could join us. Glen, give us a short rundown of the social documentaries Texas Pictures has produced.

Glen: Well, we've done quite a few. There's, there's the fentanyl stories that are, that are really the big draw on our YouTube channel. But we've been, we've been doing topics like this for quite a while.

Glen: Eleven years ago we did a documentary about the impact of DWI. And we've done some, some other content that relates to DWI, some relating to distracted driving now on our channel, in addition to the fentanyl series, we have a series on addiction recovery, we have a series on human trafficking, and we have a series on American peace officers and cops like telling stories and so.

Mike: (laugh) Well, and those of you who listen to this podcast know that we're going to put links to those works on the end of this podcast so that you can access any of them. They all sound great. Are the social media vignettes that I've seen on the fentanyl kind of a preview of the overall documentary?

Glen: Yeah, that's the long term goal is as we gather these stories, we're accumulating resources that we can draw on for the full documentary, which we're still working on developing funding for.

Mike: How do you find the people? I mean, they're so honest and raw, and it's so good. How do you find them?

Glen: They really find us. Now that with the first 14 or so stories in the series, they were shot at an event put on by the DEA here in Houston, where they brought together a bunch of families that have lost someone to fentanyl poisoning. And we shot each of their stories. And, and they really took off.

Glen: And so, so we kept doing it. We started getting requests from people in other parts of the state and other parts of the country. So, now the way that we do it is we'll, we'll have a location and we have someone at the location who lives there and is usually someone who's lost a family member to fentanyl, and they sort of coordinate everything.

Glen: And once we have a date set we post the information about when and where and how to register and people sign up.

Mike: Wow. And sadly there's enough of them, huh?

Glen: Yeah. . We haven't made a dent.

Mike: Yeah.

Glen: The small percentage of people that we've talked to, which is over a hundred, that's, it's a tiny percentage of the people that have lost someone to fentanyl.

Mike: You know, I'm experiencing the same thing on these podcasts.

Mike: You know, when we air one, I, I get contacted by folks who have lost family members, especially in the last couple years to Fentanyl. Well, do you get, do you get hired to do a topic or do you pitch topics to agencies?

Glen: Yeah. Some of this, some of that really with the fentanyl series, we were hired to do that first series by the DEA to, to shoot those stories.

Glen: Since then, we haven't charged anyone anything. YouTube generates a little bit of income. It's not a lot. It's nowhere near what we would make for this volume of work. Maybe about 25 percent of what we would normally make. But it's such an important topic. And YouTube, you know, it's enough that it's sustainable.

Glen: So we'll keep doing it. We're in Kansas a couple of weeks ago and we'll be in Florida a couple of weeks from now, and we're also supposed to go to Maryland sometime this year. Kentucky, Louisiana, maybe California, and I feel like I'm forgetting one, but it keeps changing. We hear from people. I get three or four emails a week from people looking to tell their story who are in different parts of the United States, and then we also have a private Facebook group that's made up of people who want to share their story and people who have already shared their story.

Glen: So that group has about 200 people in it, and it's a very cool group, and we kind of use that as a way to, to keep things organized. That's the hub, anytime we have, I mean, we call them storytelling events, where we go to whatever location and for a couple of days, shoot stories. And whenever we have one of those scheduled, we'll post it in that group first.

Glen: And then the people who have already contacted us, who joined the group, get that notice right away. But like, when we did this thing in Kansas, holy cow, that was cold. Like minus seven at one point. So, anyway we were there for three days, and we shot 21 stories.

Mike: Wow!

Glen: In three days. So, we have a lot of editing to do.

Mike: Well, how long does that take? How long does it take from initiation to production end?

Glen: We started planning the Kansas event probably six weeks ago, and it all came together very fast. Once everything's shot, that's sort of the bottleneck. We try to give a lot of attention to every story. We try to include pictures that are relevant to the story, pictures of the loved one, or loved one and their family, or things that help illustrate the story.

Glen: Sometimes we have evidence. Sometimes we have 911 calls. It just depends on the story and and what the the storyteller is able to provide us. We don't typically do a lot of, of like contacting law enforcement agencies about the stories and things like that. There's been a few that we have, because in those cases, the storyteller comes down kind of hard on law enforcement, and so we give them a chance to respond, and they don't, and we let them see the clip that's relevant to their agency when we contact them, and ask them, would you like to respond to what this person is saying, and so far, they haven't replied at all. And so, in the story, being able to say, we contacted this police department for for comment and they didn't respond that's kind of a cool thing to be able to say too.

Mike: You know, recently in my home state of Wisconsin, we had a gentleman who was arrested for his fifth OWI, DUI. Unfortunately, this time he hit a car and killed four people which is sometimes what it takes to get him off the street. You produced an award winning documentary, Ten Thousand Lies, I think it was called, right?

Mike: You referenced it earlier. How did that come about?

Glen: Now, that was something that the Houston Police Department came to us for, and the way it really started is that 10 years earlier, we made a similar documentary called Chronicles of a Teen Killer, and that was a big hit within the community that it was designed for but it was getting so old that it was time to have an updated version. But what's really special about both of those documentaries is how we made them, and in both of those cases we had teams of volunteer high school students working as the crew, and they're all volunteers.

Glen: They're all kids who have some sort of career interest in journalism or law enforcement or filmmaking or something like that. The girl on the team who was a high school junior. for Chronicles of a Teen Killer went on to get a scholarship to Ithaca College in New York for filmmaking, and when she graduated, she went to work at Showtime.

Glen: Another one of the teens on the team is she works in Los Angeles as a producer for the Hallmark channel now, and three of the team members are in law enforcement, one of them is a state trooper. There's these really cool success stories to a lot of the kids that were involved in those teams.

Mike: Wow. Well, maybe the one in Los Angeles can get together with State Trooper and do a State Trooper for Christmas Hallmark movie, huh? (laugh)

Glen: Yeah. They probably already have that script.

Mike: (chuckle) I'm sure they do. Well, I want to ask you a question about those. Well, let me, let me go back. Do you think that those stories because some of us have been feel like we're banging our head against the wall.

Mike: Do you think that the stories affect policy? Do you get contacted by either individual people who can affect policy or large organizations?

Glen: Yeah, sometimes. It's kind of cool that last April, the Texas governor's office used a bunch of our content for an opioid awareness summit that they had in Austin.

Glen: It was a half day, and it was a kind of an awesome event when we got to the venue. There's a lot of media there and an audience of about 200 people and these five big screens behind the governor's table playing our content. When I walked in, it was, it was a little bit surreal. So yeah. And the governor's office has contacted us for contact information for some of storytellers, how to reach them to do more stuff or to get pictures for billboards or things like that. So there's that. We've been on a segment from one of our stories was used on Fox and Friends nationally. And we've been featured in different news stories in whatever city we're, we're shooting in I don't know, five or six times. So it's all, it's all working to bring awareness for people to be more aware of how things aren't the way they seem, how these counterfeit pills are, are, even though they've got a brand name on them, you feel like you can trust, you can't.

Mike: Right.

Mike: You know, every time I, especially your social media stuff, it gets, man, it gets, well, right to the point. There's no time to swipe away. I mean, it catches you right off the bat.

Mike: But I always think when I see that there's somebody else filming that, how does, how did these stories. Do you find affect your production

Mike: staff?

Glen: This is, this has kind of been a full time job. This has been our number one thing. With other projects we have a couple of staff members who, who help with those and I just kind of oversee.

Glen: But the, the fentanyl stories, the recovery stories, these series on YouTube that we have, have sort of become a full time job for us.

Mike: But do you get together at the end of the day and decompress because it's not exactly uplifting content?

Glen: Yeah, I don't, I don't know that there is an end of the day.

Glen: Hmm. It just kind of keeps going and but it's not as hard as you might think. When we shoot these stories I do the interviews and we have this, I call it a magic box that makes it so the person who's telling the story is looking at me, but kind of the way a teleprompter works. And the lens is behind the glass, so in the finished result, it looks like the person is addressing the camera.

Glen: And while we're doing that, I'm, I'm all about, you know, listening to the story, paying attention to hitting the important points, and then all the technical stuff. And so it's, it's not that, it's not that difficult emotionally. But then when it comes time to do the editing, and I'm sitting in the office alone and just hearing this stuff (chuckle), it's ridiculous. I, I, I wind up crying a little bit with every, with every story. At some point I get all choked up. Then I get annoyed at myself with being in a room and pushing on truth.

Glen: Well, because there's, in the, in the end, it's such important stuff. We get so many comments on YouTube that last....

Glen: Over the last year, we've had over 48,000 comments on the fentanyl poisoning series and I've read them all respond to some by writing something. The typical response is to give it a heart we get some, there's some comments that are from morons to, and it would just delete those typically, or just, or just kind of.

Glen: Just let them go. Don't interact with them in any way. You get a whole lot of comments like, It's all Biden's fault.

Mike: Yeah.

Glen: Or, it's all Trump's fault. Or, it's because of the border. Or, it's the, it's the Mexicans. Or, it's the Chinese. Stuff like that. But, but for the most part, the comments, the comments are awesome.

Glen: And so there's this great reward to reaching such a big audience. That really outweighs the, the emotional impact that hearing the stories, you know, because somewhere there's got to be at least one person who's alive because they saw something you did.

Mike: Well, and when I read the comments, there's many where the people take that opportunity to share their story.

Glen: Yes. There's a lot of that.

Mike: There is, and it's heartbreaking.

Glen: A lot of of people have this Me Too story.

Mike: Yeah.

Glen: I saw one this morning that said I lost my nephew yesterday.

Mike: Oh my.

Glen: Yesterday.

Glen: Yeah.

Mike: So, so you have, you know that they're, they lost their nephew. They know why they Google it, right? They come across your stuff and, oh, wow. That's just, that's, that's just incredible.

Glen: Yeah, it is. I sit back and look at the volume of views. We're over 97, 000 subscribers now, and we're averaging over a million views a month.

Glen: YouTube says we've had I think 7 million unique viewers. So, like, in a million views a month one viewer might count as five views if they watch five different videos, but unique viewers to the channel over, over like 7 million.

Mike: You know, I, I get asked this, Glen, with my podcasts. When you said you do the interviews, how do you know what to ask?

Glen: Very open-ended questions like I know you know how that works. I'll start with we always start the interview with, we wanna have your name at the beginning of the recording, so your name is, and they'll say their name and I'll ask them their, their loved one's name. And I'll say that. And then I ask them, so why are you here?

Glen: And, and sometimes that's it. And they just go.

Mike: They're off.

Glen: Yeah. And then other times they'll answer my question and then typically the flow goes what was your loved one like growing up? Assuming it's a, it's a parent talking about a child. What was your loved one like growing up?

Glen: And they'll answer that and then ask them if they saw any kind of change, if they didn't mention drugs coming into the picture. I'll ask them, was there any kind of change, was there something that made you think maybe there's an interest in drugs, or maybe there's some sort of emotional problem with childhood, and they'll explain that, and then, and then the, the real hard question is, is what happened.

Mike: Mm hmm.

Glen: And a lot of times that is yeah, so it's choking me up now. But a lot of times a lot of times I'm the person I'm talking to is the person who found the loved one dead and I wouldn't, I wouldn't say they're happy to go down that road and share that experience with me, but it's so important to them to to share it. And there's this, there's this, this awesome kind of, when the interview's over and, and they, they get up from the chair and we walk away they're, they're a little bit better.

Glen: I, I just listen. But it's, it's, it's, it's very cool. So, so that is a huge kind of reward that makes it enduring their story, enduring the, the pain associated with their not so tough.

Mike: I saw on your website, I think, that you're also in production now with a film about human and child trafficking?

Glen: That's right. We have, we have a series that we're doing about, about human trafficking, and for the most part it's really sex trafficking, but it's better, YouTube likes it better if you say human trafficking. And it's kind of, It's a, it's a broader range and so far most of the stories that we've told are really about, about sex trafficking and trafficking to prostitution.

Glen: One of those stories is a 50 year old woman who, whose parents put her in child porn when she was like three years old. And from three to eight, they used her as a moneymaker.

Glen: She was an awesome woman. Holy cow. She's a kick to talk to. That's brutal.

Mike: Well, do you, what, well, first of all, what's the name of the series? I found it haunting.

Glen: Trafficking in America?

Mike: Yeah, so, yeah, it was really just right to the point.

Glen: It is. It's, it's a good, solid, powerful visual, that's been a slower developing topic. We get inquiries but, but, a lot, a lot fewer people want to talk about that.

Mike: You mentioned her. I, I think you probably find this a lot. There's a strength in these people. That comes across on the video big time.

Glen: Absolutely. There is this, this strength, this confidence, this determination that it's, it's very cool. And, and the same thing happens with them as with as with the fentanyl stories, and the recovery stories too, but, but with the trafficking survivors they're, they're survivors.

Glen: They're like genuine survivors. And, and then, them too, afterwards, they're wonderfully grateful for having, having gotten to share the story. And, and by doing these series alongside the human, or alongside the fentanyl stories They kind of, they kind of share each other's views, the fentanyl stuff, people watch that, and then they, oh, well, look, there's this, or with the, with the fentanyl stories, a lot of the comments we get are, are, I'm in my addiction now, I'm trying to stop taking these, or I'm newly in recovery, and so with those comments, we can point them to our recovery series and encourage them to go watch some of those and maybe find some inspiration in those stories.

Mike: Amazing. One of the quotes you have on one of your documentary blurbs is by Edward Norton, the actor filmmaker. He said "The best films of any kind provoke questions." I'll give you, I'll give you a walk off here. What do you want people to come away with when they watch your films?

Glen: Wow, that's broad. There's to think more, to really challenge anything that could be a threat, to really, to think about the source, think about the danger you could be exposed to, to think about, and to think about the good that's out there. These, these people that share their stories, they're, they're, they're all good.

Glen: They're, they're opening up their hearts to help other people. They get something out of it. They get some, some release to it or something. But they're doing it to help others, and they've already been through whatever torment this topic's about.

Mike: Great point.

Mike: Glen, I want to thank you so much for sharing your expertise.

Mike: I would invite all the listeners to go to the links attached at the bottom of the podcast and pick out any of them and just watch them. You won't be able to stop, by the way, so give yourself a little bit of time.

Mike: For those of you who are listening, you know the routine. We would encourage you to listen in next time when we'll talk about more relevant things to mental health, substance abuse, and people who make a difference.

Mike: Until then, stay safe, stay informed, and think.