Heroes in Business - Coerte Voorhees and Spiro Frentzas, Canyon Del Muerto filmmakers, writers, director, executive producer

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

Uncovering the Anasazi. Coerte Voorhees and Spiro Frentzas, Canyon Del Muerto filmmakers, writers, director, executive producer are interviewed by David Cogan famous celebrity host of the Heroes Show and founder of Eliances entrepreneur community.  

Up in the sky, look, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Eliance's Heroes. Eliance's is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now, here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. That's right. We're back. And what again, another incredible, amazing day. We have so much going on. Make sure you stay tuned through the entire show. Later on, we got Grant Cardone coming on that I'll be interviewing and many others. You remember Marianne Ross? That's right. Old time actress here. Well, you're in for a surprise of who's going to be showing up

with her previously. So make sure again, you stand by and make sure you go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com because it is the only place where entrepreneurs line and check out our past episodes when I recently interviewed the co-founder of Pandora Music. So with that, let's get started today. We have their writers, directors, filmmakers for the movie Canyon Del Muerto. We have with us, we have with us Corte Voorhees and Sparrow Francis. Welcome to the Alliances Show, guys. Hey, David. Thank you. Happy to be here. Well, yeah, I mean, listen, so let's jump right into it. Now, this movie, how did it even come to be? Well, first tell us what it is. What's the, what's the premise of it and everything?

I mean, I know, but we need to make sure that our viewers and listeners know. Absolutely, David. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having us. We're thrilled to be here. And yes, Canyon Del Muerto is a historical drama about America's first female archaeologist who worked with the Navajo in the 1920s to uncover the earliest civilization in North America, the Anasazi basket makers. It's a true story. I'm the writer, producer, and director of the film. Spiro is one of our lead

executive producers on the movie. And it's been, you know, an over four year effort putting the project together. And last night we just premiered the film as the opening night film of the 30th anniversary of the Arizona International Film Festival. We completely sold out the Fox Theater with about 800 seats, and it was spectacular. But we shot this movie in New Mexico, Arizona, and over in the UK. It's a spectacular film, and we can't wait for everybody to see it as we unveil it through festivals and get it out with our distributors later this year. Now, nobody would believe four years, okay, four years into the making. So what's the feeling like, Sparrow, when you see it now at the Tucson Film Festival and it's being shown by others in the largest audience because it's brand new coming out? It's almost surreal because I remember when meeting Cordy from his other film, the first line films in Chicago, we brought him into the Chicago Film Festival, the Honest Film Festival in Chicago when we brought him in to the Chicago Film Festival, the Haunted Film Festival in Chicago. I knew there was something special because you look at how young he is

when he first wrote the first line and then see how well he did. And then reading his work and wanting to take part of it and then finally looking at it in the movie theater going, oh, my God, I'm actually a part of this. We actually made something that's so spectacular that's going to give young women an opportunity to look like, look what this lady did over a hundred years ago. She didn't give up her dreams and maybe I can touch my dreams. So it's almost an inspiration on it. And even for me as a guy with a young daughter at three years old, it gives

hope that there's filmmakers like Cordy out there that are going to inspire young women to do more than just follow the norm. And that's what Ann did. She didn't follow the norm. She set herself out to do more than what was expected of her. Yeah. But how did the concept even come to be of, okay, we're going to get together. We're going to make a movie.

How do you even, how does it come to be of what movie to do? So to get together, we're going to make a movie? How does it come to be of what movie to do? That's a great question, David. I first thought about doing this movie when I was 13 years old, volunteering at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History in Boulder, where I grew up. I saw the fantastic black and white photos in that museum of the Southwest and of Anne and Earl Morris. Earl Morris, her husband, was an early inspiration for George Lucas and Spielberg with Indiana Jones. They based that character a lot off of the serials of the 1930s. But Earl Morris actually was part of the inspiration, too, with like the fedora and the whole look.

So, you know, the story had been with me for a while. And then I actually came to Tucson the uh the rights to the books because last surviving era was based here in arizona and optioned uh material we have two films we're doing this is actually the first of two movies we've seen we're doing for the movie as well but yeah david and what made it incredible is you know spear and i built a collaboration together um we raised the money together you know it, it was a major, major process, putting the financing together for this movie. But what made it more, you know, just an even stronger hurdle,

because, you know, just getting a script together, getting the money together, the talent, that's all, you know, normal challenges you get with making a movie. But then, yeah, we landed right in the middle of the COVID pandemic. We were going to go into production in March of 2020 right when the entire world shut down. New Mexico reopened its film industry on September 8th. We went into pre-production

and we've jotted. But navigating the COVID pandemic through this was also equally challenging, especially with Navajo Nation, which was single-handedly the largest community, or the community most affected by COVID in the United States. I mean, we spent $1.2 million, $1.3 million on just COVID testing. Just on the COVID aspect of the film.

Right. I mean, think about trying to keep over 200 people safe on a day-to-day basis. So you've got to get them tested. Everything's got to be super, like you got to follow it. Regiment. Regiment. Everything has to be followed to the T or else we're shut down and we can't afford to be shut down. It's always a wonderful story. Right. Especially on a union production. So, and COVID affects, people talk a lot about it's the

testing and it's the crew, but, and basically a whole new department, but it really affects every aspect of the production, delays, schedule, everything. I mean, it's just something else, but yeah. How much easier it'll be the next time you make your next movie. Right, well, and this was all pre-vaccinations too. That's what we like to remind people. It's like we were shooting in fall of 2020

and spring of 2021 before we had vaccines. So it was a really tough time, but yeah, we got through it. So any stars in the movie that we'll maybe have heard of absolutely so you know we have all-star all-star cast in general but i can just take you from the top really quick so our our lead actors newcomer abigail laurie who just won a bafta for her series with amazon a tin star and then our other co-star tom felt and everyone will recognize as draco malfoy from harry potter Potter, and both of them lead the cast,

but our supporting cast, you know, we have Academy Award winner Wes Studi, Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin, Jacob Fortune Lloyd from The Queen's Gambit, Finn Jones from Game of Thrones, and the cast goes on, but yeah, we were really lucky, David, because one of the benefits of shooting during the COVID pandemic is a lot of studio films and a lot of series were actually delayed or not shooting. So we had a lot of casts that, you know, wanted to work and get out there and they liked our film because it still says true story and really relevant. And, you know, in our, in our, I guess,

benefit was everything was shot outdoors. So we were, we were shooting everything in an outdoor space versus like, you know, in a, in a building where there's, you're confined to four walls. We had the like, you know, in a building where there's, you're confined to four walls. We had the great, you know, we had the canyons of, you know, Red Rock and we're able to film in outdoor space. So social distancing for us was a little bit easier because people were actually able to

be further apart than being confined to one little area. So that worked in our benefit when we were filming. Absolutely. Absolutely. Great. All right. And the website they can go to is what? Firstlinefilmsnm.com?

Yeah. Firstlinefilmsnm.com. And also IMDb. And we just did some good press with Smithsonian and National Geographic who've been following the film. And we're just unveiling the movie now

and getting ready to do our festival tour. Awesome. Okay, website one more time here. Firstlinefilmsnm.com and then also IMDb. Great. All right. Awesome, awesome. Spiro, you look awfully familiar and stuff.

What other movies or commercials have you been in? I've done everything from Walmart commercials to playing a Navy SEAL in Transformers to, you know, Man of Steel. That's my favorite. My small cameo in Man of Steel, you know, and I've gotten actually my son involved, who's 10 months old. He's now the actual face of, you know, Baby Lotion. So he just did that commercial. So he's following in dad's footsteps a little bit but um you know i've always loved acting and you know being involved in the industry is something that's that's near and dear to my heart and being able to collaborate with someone like cordy

and bring stories to life is something that's you can't even put into words it's something that magical watching him work his brother work watching the entire team work together, putting people in the right place at the right time. So we're very fortunate. And I find myself very fortunate to be a part of this project. Yeah, that's absolutely incredible. Again, you guys are doing so much. And, you know, I think nobody realizes how much work and time and how many people it takes to put together a movie. I can never believe the credits at the end, where it's just the smallest print ever and rows after rows after rows. You know, David, we had something over 92 investors in this project. You know,

we were piecing this, you know, piecing the project together with one investor at a time. You know, it's as much as we like to say, OK, we got one person that wrote a check for the whole $12 million budget. We did. We had to piece this together, you know, which was great. Is that one of the hardest things

or where do you even start? I mean, you know, where does someone start? They come up with an idea, but then, I mean, how many, there must be a million steps. Yeah, there are. And one of the really significant parts, like Spiro was saying, is it's such a collaboration. And we've got to give you a shout out, too, David, because you helped through your show connect us with Reeve Lindbergh, the daughter of the famous couple Charles and Ann Lindbergh, who are part of our story and part of our movie.

So you also represent just being part of this dynamic process. So you also represent, you know, just being part of this dynamic process. And yeah, to Spiro's point, I mean, this is why, again, it's so important that, you know, storytelling at the end of the day, it doesn't happen without great collaboration. We were so fortunate to get the Navajo Nation involved in the National Park Service. We did 23 scouts into Canyon de Chelly over a three and a half year period, you know, to figure out how to shoot this movie. Because this is the kind of film which normally a studio would do for 40 or $50 million minimum. You know, it's a major historical drama

that we managed to pull off in a pretty indie way, which we're very proud of. But yeah, it's wild. And speaking of the scroll, you know, we have about 92 equity parties and executive producers. You'll see more executive producers in our scroll than any other movie you've seen.

But it was great. That's awesome. Awesome. All right. So again, where can our viewers, watchers go? I mean, do they go to First Line Films? Okay. Firstlinefilmsnm.com.

Firstlinefilmsnm.com. And again, those of you that are watching, you'll see the scroll below that will have the link to and stuff. When will how do they find out as far as maybe watching in the theater or that? Where is that? How does that work? Yeah. So basically, we're in the process of rolling out the film through festivals.

My previous film released with Netflix in 2016. Right now, we're in conversations with multiple distributors and we're letting the film do its festival run to really build attention and acclaim for the movie. And then we will be selling the film a little bit later this year, and then that will be publicly announced and people will be able to see it very likely in theaters and on streaming. So that's the plan for the movie right now. So now that this has taken place, I mean, do you start thinking you're working on a next movie? What's next?

Yeah. And I'll say this really quickly. We do have a sequel to this movie that we're going to be looking to get started. Without giving out too much of the details as of right now, because it's still in the early stages, there is a sequel to this movie.

There's more to Anne's story that needs to be told, and we're going to tell it. And that's the most important thing, to tell this incredible woman's story. Someone that has been silenced for, what, 100 years? Yeah, and this whole idea that a woman ahead of her time, very much a 21st century woman, stuck in the 20th century context.

But to Spiro's point, great, great story and globetrotting story that we're excited to continue to tell. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. So, Spiro, again, you mentioned about your son now getting into acting, acting movie, right? Commercials and stuff of that. What of secrets though you know can you share with others that are out there parents that want to get their very young children perhaps babies and stuff into it go you know everybody says i got the cutest baby in the world i want them to be the representative gerber what have you how do you know what what takes transpires how do you do a lot it's a lot of work you know you for, my wife takes a lot of that burden because, I mean, obviously I work all day long and so does she, but she's taking on that burden.

I mean, you've got to set up trust accounts. You've got to meet with agents and managers. You've got to make sure that this is something that you want to do. It's not for everybody. It's not an easy thing to do. You have to make sure that, one, the child wants to do it's not for everybody it's not an easy thing to do um you have to make sure that you know one the child wants to do it uh and especially my son who's got a very easy temperament it's easy for him to stay focused uh a lot of children don't have that you know and that's a hard thing you know you have to have a temperament and according to contestant as a

filmmaker you know dogs and children are the two hardest things to control on the movie set yeah absolutely so of course now that uh you know you guys have finished and and wrapped up this now you're onto the second part of of course is promoting it getting the exposure out there so what's it feel like now when you go to movies and you know now all of this amount of work that goes into it like what goes through you i'm, do you watch movies differently now that you've made a movie? Are you able to still enjoy movies? Are you looking like, okay, they had this angle, this lighting. Yeah, no, it's, it's more corny than I am. It's a really good question.

Yeah. David, you know, what's interesting about it is first of all, it felt really good to see our movie in big theater. Last night at the Fox Theater, historic theater, just spectacular screen. And it was great to be back out because, you know, a lot of people have been stuck indoors during the COVID pandemic. And it's great to just get the audience experience and just feel the film with an audience. But, yeah, it's interesting, too because um covid really accentuated the uh the movement towards streaming right most people are absorbing content at home so you don't often get that shared experience as much as as we would 10 15 years ago but it still feels great we're

really proud of the film and um and it's just spirit and i were talking about just it's so great to just sit there and and see it all and and just enjoy it because it was truly uh challenging to put this film together putting any movie together is a challenge and so it's just always very satisfying and i'll give away a little bit a little secret watching the biplane fly now i was there you know we were there in new mexico watching it take off and then coming back and watching the footage but to watch the footage in the movie with the music it gave me goosebumps because i i have a footage on my phone okay this is what it looked like there's no music to it and and i get it and also you're looking up and it's like right there yeah oh wow it's like this is gigantic practical yeah not cgi right real airplane you see you see a real 100 year old airplane flying and you're watching the vibrations and the bouncing and

you're just like i was there that day and now i see it on a movie on a big screen with music and it just builds up the excitement of like what's next what's going to be around that corner what's going to what's going to pop up are they going to hit the wall are they going to are they going to fly over something that they're not supposed to see and then see and find just like just like in the story you know they found these caves you know Lindbergh found these caves you know flying his plane doing surveys oh incredible excellent, you guys keep doing what you're doing. Corte and Spiro, you guys tell stories of history and continue to develop more projects to entertain so many. You inspire others to do the same. Those are heroes. With that, again, you've been watching, listening to me, David Kogan.

Make sure that you go to FirstLfilmsnm.com. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show. And stay tuned next as we have Grant Cardone coming on. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show. You guys got a dance to do. Yeah, yeah, right? There you go.