welcome to the program we're pleased to welcome to day jeff harmonies an old friend of mine and he's a filmmaker independent document terry maker over the longer haul and he's also now in the middle of having put together an extremely interesting movie which is a little bit different from we're going to talk about it he's the writer director producer and the creative force in a very real sense behind a very interesting film which seems to me to be one destined to become a plastic called classic in a country called the  now so i've had a transition in my career so i might as well have a transition on your show yes i you've given him up or you just put them aside you going to do bowl no no no i'm by making feature films now ok let's talk a little bit want to share a little bit your own background your own background what you know where you were you're from originally and what you were doing the work you do for the b b c and that sort of ground is that will get talking and most of the film is going to be this program is going to be about your film but maybe to talk about your own background where you're from how you got involved in documentary making talk o ground if we only have fifty eight men and i know but talk about it anyway if you can in a summary way clips you know i'm a little little you want to you want to pretend that one that works very good who are oh yeah ok i'm an old vaudevillian in children's programming so i was fortunate enough to meet to many many people like stan laurel and grab so marilla in the bob hope and many many famous people and met those people in a personal sense on a personal sense old what a pleasure i like this show shows but with the cameras that all did you got it mr caesar anyway so as i was saying ok i study philosophy for one year in rome right ok so if some academic background but i was i was self taught i always read a great deal i was someone who always the hell they call it hanging on the ceiling i would write musical comedies about the great scientists art and i think that's good you know and parodies and you know i well i think actually i think self education is the only real education in a certain sense that is real important you know i mean there's so much information in the world that if you're going to try and force a rote like somebody wrote or something you know i mean to be educated and you're learning something on your own which you've done is the best way to  now in this world where you know you access to information on an individual basis is becoming so open so you got to a rigid education of following your own we also know learning you need self motivation yes if you don't need a professor to teach you how to read write to understand i was reading the thing in in afghanistan under the most trying certain say you've gone smuggled yourself into the country the gun ships fire at you and so talk a little bit about the documentary career that you did and were troubled the difference between filmmaking you told me years ago and you want festival and it was one of the st films commissioned by channel four in britain and also made for p b s let me say one thing and that's that in hollywood they think that documentaries don't count  they're tremendously impressed if you did a three minute pop video in australia how for some reason you can segue into feature films by doing that but they completely discount documentaries and i will tell her that to make a film in a zone is the most the most difficult situation to be able to make sense out of chaos room which is what it's like to make a documentary in a war zone is the most incredible training for making feature films because you when you do make feature films you go into a kind of combat mode and all the problems that happen and you have to keep together so many people you know it's sixty five people you know were during the much commotion and i had many many emergency rise sorts of things and it really to a certain degree was like being back in afghanistan or in el salvador and the only the the only major difference was that now i have control the elements and i have to do i could do five takes or seven takes whatever whatever it took you know and it was exactly to my specifications but the stress level was about the say it was set on the level we will say if anything it perhaps was a bit more because once you get into that going and you can make take i know you said to me it was and when we met we met in libya some years back and so were the st and we've talked over the years and been in touch with one of the you said you know you were you were you were interested in making future films then because you get into a studio it's not you know idea why don't we show oh you know as we were talking before that in one thousand nine hundred and seven i came up with the idea for i'm a lesbian for the number was just in my head why don't you show that clip to see what it ended up being from my head onto the screen well if that's what you want ok from the all to run away from the only getting married to making her think and then she'd go on and supposedly broner brains and she is gone and landed in this other dimensional land they aisle of and this is setting it up with some of the themes of that and she need to be a talent coordinator what's the process by which you actually put the film to a well st thing that happened as in about two and a half years ago i decided i wanted to do a play yeah ok i was writing screenplays i thought no i want to until my crocus out of the writing you know it's that to drive one day and the next day i'd write and i finished it was like something of it as a play stage as like originally it was like a divine inspiration i mean it came out literally came out it was like diary you know well that came out getting back to getting back this guy who had so i think if you count the bombs on c even at the film was a hit yeah make any money really theaters tone that's why that's why so few people control broadway the control of what you have because got an equal opportunity offender yeah contacts starts from there and we start searching for talent that right do you do talent right before the war sat and although for actors you got to find the production designer the choreographer the director photographer music director the director i want to anthony let's run that program that clip now the place well this is where she is writing back to her mother and she's read it and she's coming out and she's coming out as a lesbian and i was writing a letter to her mother and father and they appear in the scene they're back in are ok here it is run it now so good the songs are very well conceived very well done the lyrics and that sort of thing and the music arrangement is really good the talent is good it's st class stuff jeff it's really a good program i mean a really good effort you put together was it hard getting old do you do many takes on a comedy show in brazil some years ago which one and it was a comedy variety show and one brazilian emmy two years in a row i wrote and produced that show where i usually place and i wrote that in portuguese and i used to you know i would play all sorts of different crazy comedy roles and everything else and this the st time i've done it since that would you like to see the doctor tell him that it yeah that's what we going to want to do said i set up the other two but it's only fair it's your film right and i mean i you should be setting up someone and i say jeff why don't you set on with any actor you can see it there so you do another take you don't have to wait until you see the rushes this is a ask you see i don't have experience in the new one how many of the takes that you were able to edit into the final product as well as the film how many times you have to shoot a me but it's a film which of the characters a rural characters means people in the heartland america will be able to identify with the characters look at a scene like you're pretty ruthless on some of those people you know the farmers and the people down and they're you know you use you yes that will get a crossover audience around it will not it will for sure play very well in the big urban centers san francisco los angeles new york chicago he london told london berlin paris sydney but it will also play well in heartland america that  i believe because people want something different they want something all riginal they want something outrageous they're tired of all the sort of predictable bland kind of product that's out there can you see this going on television much or just a television figure right right right now it's come up but the thing about this film yeah like rocky horror picture show it we have the sustaining power you know rocky horror picture show let me play an institution as an institution play over twenty years rocky horror picture show has grossed over one hundred and fifty million and then the people who make the big accessible films and people often the creative community no big scene on usual theme people make creative funny films that are on the cutting edge and that sort of thing oblongata whatever you want to call it often have to just gear down in order to try and meet the demands of the you know of the of the marketplace where you are you have to use you know a new age term you have to have the right synergy so if you can make a film that is outrageous that is different and that's original but also can make a lot of money that's the best kind of intimate and it is independent film they're wanting to do a channel and independent film channel they want to do that because the stifling nature of use it earlier for broadway in a certain sense it translates over into big hollywood production way you know it goes and that kind of thing and i question as a surgeon where they're going to have what are the vet what is that what is the world from the standpoint of a creative funny you know and you are in a certain sense as you say you don't say you spoofing but in a certain sense you're an equal you know you know opportune equal attacking thing here of the gay and lesbian good but you're not in any kind of way putting them down why do i want anyone as an alternative force in a world that and you say in the theme of funny comes out in the film that the world itself needs to have major think differently that was important you know and i think that you know my film my documentaries have a certain effect on people and i think also represent a certain body of knowledge of afghanistan you know i hope that i will post in a way  homophobic you know and i think just to let you know how it relates at least the response i've gotten so far like at the end of the to feature film market the projectionist came down from the booth yeah and congratulated that's really good because now i'm pretty jaded on the run more in our films and so the thing is it's a matter of luck you could you just it's really a matter of luck you have auditions and we have about a week a week full of additions and you know most of the actors i knew the nd they walked in the room that they were right for the you did right i knew that you already had that i had do do it i have many many people a wonderful people tremendous talent working both in front of the camera the behind the camera yeah and it was collaborative two in that sense it was a good time how do you work it out i mean you got that all worked out so that everybody has like some sort of  robert de niro find great to really but i would rather i mean i would rather create a star and i think i think some of the at least two or three of the actors in i'll bust those are going to become a big huge because of this film so you don't you don't say that  and everything like that but these are ok you know there's a lot of things and i you know that are involved in terms of understanding how a film is put together and all that sort of thing and you've done it what are you going to do next you know you know what i'm going to catch a plane yeah i know  he's paid scale and so we're going to be where i have going to be held and we're going to go out in this program who run the credits on this crew that is fantastic crew and they all work they're really great i want to say we have great fun here never but it's been your pleasure in the cable ois jeff harmon let's