Mick Unplugged - Leif Bristow | Crafting Stories that Resonate - Mick Unplugged [EP 13]

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

Mick Hunt explores Leif Bristow’s creative world, delving into his journey from performing to becoming a renowned filmmaker. Leif shares his philosophy on storytelling, his commitment to producing content that uplifts and educates, and his experiences working on international projects. The episode provides a deep dive into the motivations and aspirations that drive Leif's work, offering valuable insights for aspiring filmmakers and storytellers.Leif Bristow’s Background: Transition from a child performer to a leading figure in the film industry, with a focus on family-friendly content and powerful female role models.Defining Moments: Leif's decision to shift from acting to directing and producing, prioritizing family and a desire to influence positively through cinema.Discussion Topics:Leif's unique filmmaking approach emphasizes authenticity and draws inspiration from real-life experiences.He has insights into creating popular Hallmark movies and the importance of understanding the audience.Discussion on "Dancing Through the Shadow," a film based on a true story highlighting the challenges faced during China's Cultural Revolution.Key Quotes:"Capital and finance are not always the hindrance to creativity. Creativity will help you source the financing.""Don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. Amazing things happen outside of it."Next Step:Discover: Watch Leif Bristrow’s influential works, including "Dancing Through the Shadow," to experience his storytelling prowess.Reflect: Consider how you can use your creativity to positively impact others, whether in film or your chosen field.Engage: Share your thoughts on the episode using #MickUnplugged and explore how storytelling can shape perspectives and foster understanding. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are you ready to change your habits, sculpt your destiny, and light up your path to greatness? Welcome to the epicenter of transformation. This is Mic Unplugged. We'll help you identify your because, so you can create a routine that's not just productive, but powerful. You'll embrace the art of evolution, adapt strategies to stay ahead of the game, and take a step toward the extraordinary. So let's unleash your potential. Now, here's Mick. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Mick Unplugged, where we dive deep into the stories behind the stories, going deeper into our because, challenging our why.

And today, we're exploring the journey of a visionary who shaped the landscape of film and television, creating narratives that touch our hearts across the globe, a master storyteller whose work with Hallmark has captured our imagination and whose dedication to cinematic excellence has garnered international acclaim. Stay tuned as we unveil the life, the creativity, and the unparalleled dedication of the incredible Leif Bistro. Leif, welcome to Make Unplugged, sir. Oh, thank you, Nick. I mean, that's a pretty tough opening to live up to.

But only you can do that. Only you can do that. We can all try and we can all strive to achieve excellence every chance we get. So. Absolutely. Absolutely. So Leif, your career spans over 50 movies and television series with significant achievements along the way. What ignited your passion for filmmaking? I started as a child performer. I was a singer and I had the good opportunity to perform a lot. And then I went to university in opera and then had a chance to sing throughout Europe with Up With People and get to know a lot of people and meet people from so many incredible

backgrounds. And then because I traveled a lot growing up as well, I was born in Toronto, but by the time I was three, we moved to Alaska. then we moved to Denver, then we moved to Dallas, then we moved back, then we moved to Chicago, then we moved back to Denver. I went to Europe and sang and then went to Pasadena and lived for six years and got my degree in theater. And I think, you know, the combination of all of that, while in the beginning, when I was at university, I thought maybe I'd be an adolescent child psychiatrist. Somewhere along the way, I realized that if you could tell stories, and whether it's in the theater, live theater, or in the movie theater, and bring a level of catharsis and life journey and touch people at their core and uplift them, especially with aspirational stories, then I might be providing a far greater service than counseling. After theater school, I came back to Canada and I worked for a number of years as a performer, did a lot of musical theater, a lot of comedy, which I loved. But then

when our youngest daughter was born in particular, I didn't want my family to be stage widows. You know, at a certain point in, and I think every actor has to find that for themselves. You have to determine is my life about me and everybody should cater to what I need or is my life about other people and how do I make sure that they're part of my life? So I knew that the latter was the more important for me. So I moved over in about 1993 to exclusively directing and producing. Every once in a while I'll perform, but very seldom anymore. I don't have the drive or, well, it's not the drive. I don't have the need. Let's put it that way. I don't have to be in front of the camera. So the joy for me is when I'm directing, executive producing,

and really trying to bring just wherever possible positive joy to an audience. I love it. And speaking of that, you know, you've been instrumental in creating some of Hallmark's most popular and instrumental films, right? Love on Safari. One of my favorites, and I know I don't look like a Hallmark person, but every time I go visit my mom, it's only on the Hallmark channel and that's all I can watch. So one of my favorites, Love, Romance, and Chocolate, which I thought was going to be about me. When I saw it, I was like, Love, Romance, and Chocolate, that's me. But when I watched it, it wasn't me. I'm not upset, but we'll talk about that later. Can you give some insights into your creative process?

Like what goes into making that happen, right? Because you see something on paper and then you have to make it something that people are going to enjoy visually. What's your creative process? I think for most of the films that my wife and I produce, because Aggie and I produce together, we're certainly probably one of only a small handful of very blessed filmmakers that we produce everything together. We have for quite a number of years now. So when we go on location, we're able to spend time together and do it together.

And because we see things from kind of a singular vision, doesn't matter which one of us you talk to on set, you're going to get the same basic response. Or sometimes it'll be go ask Leif or it'll be go ask Aggie. My process, first of all, it's about understanding who your target audience is in your market. And then what I always try to do is I try to find elements of truth in the creation of each concept. Because I would say probably 95% of all the movies we've made, we were the ones that originated the concept. And I look to things that have inspired me in life and most often look to the truth because almost anything you want to research or anything you can think of in today's world, you can research that subject and find some element of truth in society. One movie I still want to make that I'm

kind of working on is about a blind ballerina. Well, one of the greatest ballerinas in history turns out happens to have been blind. Her name was Alicia Alonso and she was the prima ballerina in Cuba. And in 85, I believe in 85, she was still the choreographer of the Cuban National Ballet. And she lost, principally lost most of her eyesight when she was 12 years old. She suffered from retinitis at a time when there was no eye surgery that they could do. And she was in Cuba. So she laid on her back for a year. And by the time she finished, she could see halo light or dark around the periphery, but couldn't see anything through the center.

And she learned Swan Lake by Braille when she was laying in hospital. And she was the first non-Russian, I believe, to dance with the Bolshoi Ballet. I mean, what an incredible life. So if I do a modern story about a blind ballerina for Hallmark or for Amazon or for MGM, well, I can draw on reality. And I think when you can draw on truth to infuse these stories, even like a love romance in chocolate, when you do that, it elevates the experience and then it gives your writers that much more to lean into as they begin to write the characters. Like in Love, Romance and Chocolate, which again, yeah, I mean, it's one of

my favorite movies that we've done in the Hallmark world. And yes, and Love, Romance and Chocolate, Love on Safari are two of the most ever watched Hallmark movies. And they just play, you know, I mean, they play literally all of the time. In that one, because of a lot of work and singing that I had done in Belgium years before, there were people that I knew. And by the way, a funny note about that is it was the first ever English language romance movie about the chocolate industry. Because you can't say Chocolat was a romance movie, but that was an art movie. It's not a Hallmark movie in that regard. So there'd never been one done. So after I did Love Blossoms the year before, which was about the perfume industry. So then when I went to

Hallmark and I said, look, nobody's ever made a movie about the chocolate industry. What if I go make it in Bruges where the greatest chocolates in the world come from. Let's go there. And I also happen to know the palace chocolatier, so I can have use of all of his chocolates and his chocolate factory because he delivers every day to the palace. And I'm like, you can do that? He said, yep. So that's what we used, which, you know, it made it really joyful. And the same thing, like when we did Love on Safari, pretty much every character in Love on Safari was based on somebody that we knew in real life because we also do a nature series where we go in search of baby animals that Brittany's the host of. And so all

of the characters that we put into Love on Safari were people that we had met in our journeys doing a nature series. That's awesome. So did I just hear when Love, Romance, and Chocolate 2 come out, I've got to roll? Absolutely. Now, I've still got to convince somebody we're doing Love, Romance, and Chocolate 2. I am getting ready to do another movie that does have chocolate inspiration, but I need to make sure that it's like completely the opposite to love romance and chocolate. But there we go. We're looking at doing a Christmas movie about the chalk with the chocolate industry this year. And that'll be a based in Vienna. Very nice. So leaf, let's go deep dancing through the shadow. I'm ready for this

one. Dancing through the shadow is such an incredible and remarkable story. And we were just so fortunate to have it premiere at Sedona this past weekend. That premiered in Bangladesh a couple of weeks before that. Dancing Through the Shadow is the true story of a woman, Tia Zhang, who came of age during the Cultural Revolution under Mao. She danced at the very first dance academy, Western style ballet in Beijing. Her father was a very high official with the Kuomintang when Mao came to power and was part of the group that surrendered Beijing to Mao. It wasn't much of a surrender because they didn't have a choice, but their family tried to get out when all of the former Kuomintang government was given

basically a day to get out of China. And so that's what became the current government of Taiwan. That's the former Kuomintang government of China. And Tia's family got to the ship or to where the ship was to leave from. But when they went to leave, soldiers started randomly shooting machine gun fire into the air in a bullet hit her brother's leg or little brother. So they ran back to shore. And so unfortunately they got stranded in China and they went from a very privileged life to the same life of everybody else. And her statue is currently

is still at Worker Stadium. She and her husband met. He was with the athletic team. They met and they had to pose for a statue as for the most beautiful faces of the new China. They were told they couldn't speak. They just had to pose. They stood next to each other for eight hours and she fell in love with him. Her mother said she couldn't marry him because he was too tall and didn't have a proper education. So that put a lot of strain on the family because there was no way Tia was going to not continue to see him.

And they went through a period where they were just at total odds. So Tia went back to the ballet school and didn't return home. And finally, mother said, okay, bring Jason with you. And she said, okay, I'll accept him on the condition that he goes to university. Well, he had already enrolled at the university to take traditional Chinese medicine because he was injured. And while he was there, he asked a question on behalf of the soldiers he represented in his group that was deemed inappropriate. So when he graduated, he was immediately sent to a labor camp near the Russian border that very few people ever made it back from. Because he was trained as a doctor, he got a little bit better privileges being up there, but he still worked the rock quarry like everybody else and then attended to injuries and medical things as required. Tia was given permission to go see him.

It was an 18-hour train ride. So she went there and when she came home, she discovered she was pregnant at a time when Madame Mao, who was the head of culture, determined that she was going to shut down all the dance schools and that ballerinas, you know, because there was no dance school, well, they needed to work like everybody else. So she was to go to a labor camp. So when her son was 56 days old, she had to give him over to her mother and her nani, her grandmother, to take care of. And she saw him, I think, once in three years. Eventually, she defected. She was given an opportunity to go to London on a cultural exchange when they opened travel. Someone from Louise Turner from the UK set up for a cultural

tour to come back to the UK. And when she got there, being raised in China, she believed that, and what she was taught was that as a Chinese person, if she ever left China, she would be killed. And so she got to London and they were driving her through Chinatown and she saw women wearing beautiful dresses and walking on the street and nobody was killing anybody. And she realized that her whole life was a lie. When she got back, she convinced Jason that they should get out. And eventually they defected. They went to New York and to Houston for a brief period of time where an aunt was and then ended up coming to Toronto. And she taught at Canada's National Ballet until her retirement.

We got to know her because in her final year, she was one of our daughter's ballet instructors because our daughter, Brittany, who stars in a lot of Hallmark movies, graduated from Canada's National Ballet School. So with that, Aggie wrote the book on her life, which is on Amazon. And we're just getting ready to launch a massive book campaign for that for 12 months. Yeah. And then Aggie wrote the screenplay and then we filmed it through COVID. We got shut down in the middle of production and then had to resume four months later. And generally when a production shuts down, they never come back. We were fortunate. We were able to get it finished. So it's a wonderful film.

A lot of people that saw it in Sedona said, we really need to see this. And every American needs to see it because we just don't know anything about China. We learned so much just watching the movie, just in an appreciation for the culture. And this is part of what Aggie and I really do in our films. Because we really believe the only way you create acceptance, by the way, I don't like the word tolerance. I think it's a very ill-advised term when you're asking people to accept each other. You tolerate somebody you didn't really want to spend time with. Acceptance is very different. each other, for our cultural differences, for religious differences, we have to at least

attempt where possible to step inside and try to gain some knowledge. So if all we know of Chinese culture in North America is Chinese food, sitcoms, and the comic relief, not dissimilar to what so many black actors were relegated to since the beginning of cinema. Just by stepping in and getting a glimpse, it can open a dialogue. It's a reason to be able to say to somebody we know or a friend that's Chinese and say, wow, you know, what about this? I never knew that. I didn't understand that. I didn't know that about China. And of course, to China, the cultural revolution didn't exist. That was a great time of enlightenment where Mao unified a nation. He also allowed 35 to 70 million people to starve to death in the Western provinces in peacetime.

That period, things were fine at first, and then he had to deal with the Russians to supply food in exchange for him providing iron ore. So during the Great Leap Forward, every person was required, you had to send your walk, any metal that you had, had to go to community furnaces to be burned down to try to create iron ore. Kids would have to come to school every day with something that they found on the road or something. It was insanity. And they never really produced anything. So they had nothing delivered to Russia. So Russia refused to deliver food. And then the rains came and all the farmers, all the men were in the factories. So all that was left in the Western provinces after all these massive rainstorms were the elderly and children and the tractors stuck in the mud. So starvation was massive.

That's crazy. Yeah. That is absolutely crazy. So that's a story we've told and, you know, it may not be, it's not an easy story to get made. And even within the Chinese community, like somebody will say, well, you're, you know, you're a white guy. What are you doing making a movie about Chinese? When we went to the film festival, Russell Yuen, who plays the father in the movie, came and he said, you know, he said, you have to understand in our culture, the Chinese filmmakers

that would have made this movie all have family in China. And so they're afraid to make it. We were specifically asked by the Chinese community, you know, they came to me very specifically and said, would you make this movie? Because we need this story to be told. So I'm a director, you know, directing human emotion and family interaction. That's what I do. So what we did is a collaboration is I have an entire cast of some of the most phenomenal Chinese talent you could ever hope to see on a screen. You know, and they were from Norway and from England and a whole bunch of other places.

What I did is I asked them to let me know what was correct. When we would do a scene about a family dinner where Tia is being told by her mother that she has to end the relationship with Jason, that she will choose a man for him. And if she elects to choose Jason, she'll be dead to the family and no longer be your daughter. And every one of my actors in that scene, besides bawling because it was so emotional, every actor at the table said, I have sat through this exact dinner conversation in my own home growing up. They brought the power of their culture to the screen. I just helped them make sure the performances were honest. That's amazing. Leif, I know you're busy, so I'm going to get you out of here with two quick questions. Challenges and triumphs.

So producing critically acclaimed films, TV shows is no small feat, right? Yeah. What's one of the most significant challenges that you had to overcome and how did you do that? I specialize in family-friendly content primarily. I've done a couple of suspense movies, but I mostly do a lot of, with Blizzard and Virginia's run of movies, I did like that. Blizzard, which was featured at the 75th Oscars, and had Christopher Plummer and Whoopi Goldberg and Brenda Bleth and Kevin Pollack. My daughter was the mean kid. Part of it is when you specialize in anything in life, it takes a lot longer for the world

to recognize you. It's easy to be a generalist, but I think the challenge was because I was so dedicated, I've always made it very clear to anybody that wants to work with me in print, in articles, wherever. I do films primarily about women rising above adversity. My goal is to create positive and powerful female role models for young women in film and television. Because when I watched programming on behalf with my daughters, I didn't feel they were there. And they need to be honest

and real. Everybody can't look like a Barbie doll. So that's always been at the core of what we do and doing films that will help unite families. You know, sure, you know, doing a movie about Tia is a true story. And we have to ask tough societal questions if we're going to be honest with ourselves. And sometimes that's really important. So I would say the big challenge was, I guess, in some ways, being recognized as someone who knows how to repeat the process with creative integrity, because we're so hands-on that finally, then the homework comes to you and goes, well, how come you haven't made any movies for us? Well, you didn't ask me. They said, okay, well, would you? Well, sure. But you have to understand, you know, my goal is to make the Audrey Hepburn, Gina Lola Bridges, Sophia Loren movie for the 2024 audience.

And every movie must be part, have a location that becomes a huge character and gives the audience that extra incredible joy when they watch the movie. And that's my formula. So, you know, if, if we're all on the same page, then yeah, I'm happy to do it. And we'd enjoy doing it. And we did the first one. And ever since, we've just never stopped. And now we're doing a new series called Beyond Black Beauty for Amazon as well. We just delivered the whole first season. It's a completely, basically, it's a complete Black family and primarily targeted to a Black and Hispanic audience. And it's about the original Black beauty.

So it's very exciting. It'll be coming out on freebie in september starts in canada in about a few weeks you know i didn't get a call to to be in that one either so we have love romance and chocolate hey hey there's gonna be season two i feel like season two okay season two season two i'm gonna call i'm gonna call all right so last question leaf for aspiring. For aspiring filmmakers, what's two pieces of advice you'd give them today? The greatest flaw that most filmmakers I find, because I just actually did a seminar on this,

I think one of the big flaws that filmmakers make is when they go to ask for money, they don't understand that the person on the other side of the table that may want to give the money is looking for a reason to give them the money because a dollar bill without a purpose is just a dollar bill. It's been the same since the beginning of time. People with capital look for a reason to invest it. What you need to understand is what is it the person on the other side of the desk needs in order to give you that money. And then that way, if you can understand that and understand how to talk to someone about how to give you money money. And then that way, if you can understand that and understand how to talk to someone about how to give you money,

then what you're doing is you're harnessing the same creativity that you would use to make the movie to bring financing to your movie that gives you far greater creative power. Capital and finance is not always the hindrance to great creativity. Creativity will help you source the financing. That's one. The other is don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. You know, we all go to

the same grocery store. We go to the same coffee shop. We go to the, you know, we frequent the neighborhood all the time based on where we live, where my world, you know, I would say of the 50 plus films, at least 45 of those films, I think, have all been filmed in international locations. I've done seven films in Malta, a bunch in South Africa, five in Belgium, four in Budapest. I've filmed in Ireland, Slovakia, a whole bunch of different countries. And the reason is, I looked at it and I went, wait a minute, how can I make what I do more universal and more exciting for the audience? And thinking, especially in the romance world, you know, the greatest movies of all time were Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren and Gina Lollabridge in the movies.

They ignited this whole industry and they did it by making those locations unique and different. So I go, well, everybody's filming in North America, in Vancouver or Toronto or Georgia. Well, what if I go to the rest of the world and ask the rest of the world to help me? There's great filmmakers all over the world. If you're a young filmmaker and you're trying to make your million, million and a half dollar movie and the story is universal, it can be told anywhere. So adjusting your script to say, okay, well, instead of me doing this one in Seattle, I'm going to make the setting in Brittany, France, on the coast of France with a lighthouse in the background, which is how I did Mariah's lighthouse.

That was supposed to be filmed in an island that you would have looked at and gone, did he film it in upstate New York? Did he film it in Michigan? Did he film it in Montana? Where did he film it? Just a bunch of trees in the lake. So I said, no, let's go film it on the coast of France and then go to Rochefort, Ontario, the most beautiful village in France that Disney used to create Beauty and the Beast. So filmmakers, I would say, if you want to expand your own knowledge, step out of your comfort zone,

call somebody in a foreign country and say, could you help me produce my movie? If I could figure out how to place it there, could I come to Malta and make my movie? Now you can access capital from foreign government rebates together with your own rebates. You can bring more resources. And guess what? Some of the greatest DOPs on the planet, most of them come from Eastern Europe. They don't come from North America. For them, that's the PhD in life, in filmmaking. With great wardrobe people, look at the films that have come out of the UK and Hungary and Czechoslovakia

and all these great filmmakers for decades and decades. So go and be willing to open that same door. And I guess that's what travel did for me. And it's the same as when I say, how do we become more accepting of each other? It's by being willing to be open enough, challenge yourself to step out of your comfort zone and go to somebody else and say, can you help me? To me,

that's how you'll create the greatest opportunities for yourself. That's amazing. And Leif, what's crazy about that is you've hit on a lot of things today, but there's two things that are really important that I also teach and coach people. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. If you're a business leader, if you're a salesperson what industry you're in. If you're a business leader, if you're a salesperson, if you're someone looking for that next step, don't be a generalist. You're going to walk down rabbit holes. You're going to get low hanging fruit. That's going to be in your way. And you're never going to get to where you're going and get out of your comfort zone. Amazing things happen outside of your comfort zone. And the last thing I'm going to

be in the next movie around chocolate, whatever it is. It's me. I don't care if I have to be the gopher on set, Leaf. I'm there. I'm there, I promise. Ladies and gentlemen, the great Leaf Bistro. Leaf, I appreciate you for being on the call with me today. And for everyone listening,

remember your because is your superpower. Go unleash it. Thanks for listening to Mic Unplugged. We hope this episode helps you take the next step toward the extraordinary and launches a revolution in your life. Don't forget to rate and review the podcast and be sure to check us out on YouTube at Mick Unplugged. Remember, stay empowered, stay inspired, and stay unplugged.