BONUS! Dale Wheatley Brings Actual Filmmaking Experience to the Lively-Baldoni Conversation

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:26 Thomas: Gavalinos, and y Gavalistas, Gavilista

0:00:26 Lydia: And Gavalistas. Won't let you ignore the Gavalista's. Yeah.

0:00:32 Thomas: Erasure, yeah. I'm Thomas, that's Lydia, how you doing?

0:00:36 Lydia: Doing well. Excited for this one.

0:00:38 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, this Okay, is so here's the thing, this was gonna just be a bonus for patrons, but we felt bad, so we're gonna go ahead and give the first part of it for everybody, and then the super secret back end of it. The later half is just for patrons.

0:00:53 Lydia: Get some like that I think is going to be really fun.

0:00:58 Thomas: Here's dirt.

0:01:00 Lydia: Just from the ground.

0:01:00 Thomas: Just a pile of dirt.

0:01:02 Lydia: No, no, something unrelated to the lively V. Baldoni legal saga. But well, we're talking to Dale Wheatley, filmmaker Dale Wheатley, who has been commenting on this case and has experience, not just from the Hollywood side of all of this stuff and, you know, experience in the film industry itself and with, you parts of the machine, but also has been through a lawsuit in more specifically related to the release of a film called Don's Plum, where involves Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, things you going on there where the movie was not released and they had a legal battle battle to fight for its release. And so we get to talk to him about that as well. But only the patrons get to hear that stuff.

0:01:09 Thomas: Who are we talking to? Yeah. This is also a great one because we get to hear how misinformation is created. This is the origin story of an incorrect fact that Lydia just... uh, I, I haven't told people this Lydia is, um, AI. And so sometimes AI just hallucinates stuff and you know, it is what it is. We, the price of having a super hot AI wife. Like I have that. No, not really. But, um. Know how the other day in regular episodes that people have probably now heard, I mentioned having recently learned that.

0:02:26 Lydia: Not even just mentioned you went on about it for a while.

0:02:27 Thomas: Well, cause Oh, Oh, you're going gonna flip it back on me I'm

0:02:30 Lydia: I'm not. I'm trying to say like, I feel even worse. It wasn't like an offhand comment. Like

0:02:34 Thomas: Good I yeah I I mentioned how blown away I was that uh lively had secured an exclusive Taylor Swift song uh where did I get that I got that from one lydia smith in this very episode so I'm pre we're pre -bottling that I don't know the weird thing is you were trying to blame dale it's not dale's fault I don't think unless it was pre -show we actually can't track it down because we don't normally do spoilers like this but I want to make sure this doesn't this incorrect fact doesn't go down as uh and I would do this it was me too I'm not trying to pick on you um uh is going to make the confident declaration that this is a an exclusive taylor swift song and dale agrees but what's weird to me what we can't figure out is that you've never said that before so

0:02:43 Lydia: Mea culpa

0:03:15 Thomas: It didn't come out of nowhere there would have been and thousand opportunities for you to tell me that before. And you never did.

0:03:21 Lydia: I am fairly certain that I consumed it in research at some point but where that was where the research came from what mode I uh got it from I have no idea I have have no clue

0:03:33 Thomas: You telling me I need to rescind this suit against Dale? Uh, okay. Sorry, Dale. I guess I'm not going to sue you. I, you know, I was going to,

0:03:40 Lydia: This this is on me guys mea culpa yep the

0:03:43 Thomas: Yeah, just pre -buttling that cause killing that once and for all. It wasn't an exclusive Taylor Swift song. That all aside, this is a a fantastic and fun interview can't wait for you all to hear it and patrons will get the super bonus long extra part but we want to make sure everybody got the part where we're talking specifically about blick lively's case and a lot of dale's observations as an actual filmmaker with actual relevant experience really interesting and enlightening stuff so with that said we want to thank our patrons at patreon.com/gavelpod this was a thank you a bonus for them for making the show happen we really appreciate you so much all right we'll take a little break and then we'll get to it

0:03:55 Lydia: Juicy stuff cool so great to have you join gavel gavel I know we've been talking about this for a while and you're finally here yeah

0:04:33 Thomas: Thanks

0:04:34 Dale: Glad to be here. Thanks for having me for sure.

0:04:36 Lydia: I Thomas and I have spent a lot of time watching the dance footage that was released for this case and breaking that down.

0:04:37 Thomas: For reaching out okay not that

0:04:43 Lydia: And I it was it was quite a bit. That's how kind of our paths cross, too, is you put out a video examining the dance footage from your perspective, working in Hollywood, like as a filmmaker, evaluating it and analyzing it from, you insight and expertise. And, And that's how we stumbled upon your work. Just want to start start there. You are some things that you saw maybe that that people other people haven't seen related

0:04:44 Thomas: Much time like

0:05:08 Dale: I call that the the horny growl footage now uh really

0:05:11 Thomas: My god yeah uh that

0:05:13 Lydia: Second you hear that in that footage is it's so disturbing.

0:05:17 Thomas: Was I don't know if you heard our episode but that was literally both of us like like I I hadn't noticed it until literally we were recording and I was like did you hear that

0:05:26 Lydia: Yeah, it was like, wait a second. Listen again.

0:05:27 Thomas: I because like we to I like to to have like fresh, genuine reactions to stuff online

0:05:31 Dale: I did listen to the episode I I enjoyed uh quite a bit and uh it made me all the more excited to come on your show but um uh I thought your your reactions were definitely genuine

0:05:40 Thomas: Noticed in that moment that, noisy that makes, and it's It's like, dear God, that is, that is something.

0:05:46 Dale: First time we heard it I pretty sure we both stopped what we were doing we hit the space bar we stood up we stood and just looked at each other with our hands out like did did we just hear that got is it is so grotesque and it's so obviously and and the thing about that particular scene that used to that drove me crazy so from a filmmaker's perspective he's directing directing they're in an mos shot right so mos shot means that none of the audio is going to make it to the movie so they're an mos shop so they are not in character they are obviously going to act in character to a certain extent they know that they are there to get a few seconds of footage they know they are they are not there to anything more than just a few seconds of them and they also know the shot so obviously the director is in the shot but they know the the shot. They know that it's going to be relatively a medium shot. They kind of know a lot about, it means like they're going to shoot it from like the waist up. You're going to see the characters

0:06:23 Lydia: Gotcha

0:06:35 Thomas: What does that mean? Sorry. Gotcha.

0:06:40 Dale: From the waist up generally. And then that'll push in a little tighter and you'll get those more close -up twos where there's, you know, each of them, each of their heads taking up most of the screen. So, they have a general, you know, idea of what they're looking at doing. They knew they were going to be there for they were going to shoot this thing and what they were shooting was going to be two or three seconds or four seconds. So the fact that he shot it for 10 minutes was a big deal to me.

0:07:04 Thomas: Interesting.

0:07:05 Dale: Me. And in that 10 minutes, he spent that entire time, I felt like trying to get a kiss out of her was highly inappropriate to me. So for me, the filmmaking there was kind of garbage because it wasn't that he was making a bad film. Have you seen It Ends With Us?

0:07:20 Thomas: Yeah.

0:07:20 Dale: It's a good movie. Like it's a Good Movie. It's not like the best movie ever made.

0:07:22 Thomas: That's not, that's actually not bad. Yeah.

0:07:23 Dale: You're not going to compare it to masterpieces. If you put it into its context, which is a romance -y context, as a romance movie goes, it's as good as they come, frankly. I mean, they don't get much better than that. I you know I'm not talking like love story here but you know uh it's a good movie it's well made they knew what they were shooting and what they needed and justin more more in particular and while they're shooting an out of character going in and out talking about ryan reynolds which was inappropriate conversation in my opinion like when they started talking about when he started saying you know do you and ryan do that uh for me that reminded like me of the way people talk when they're when especially when they're trying to pick up on a married woman in my opinion like you start like you know and especially because he's in intimate and he's being intimate with her and then talking about the husband I just felt

0:07:20 Lydia: Yeah oh

0:08:06 Dale: Like it was just highly inappropriate

0:08:06 Lydia: Just like kind of like laying the seeds of like competition a little bit like like trying to get into the subconscious unconscious like uh

0:08:14 Dale: Or yeah or just

0:08:15 Thomas: I think it's to try to put her at ease in a way it could be, you know like and I don't that could be good or bad I guess yeah yeah

0:08:20 Dale: Familiar with the intimacy like like bringing Ryan into the safety of the intimacy between them you know what I mean like they're in this intimacy and it's like and then you talk about anyway you you know conjecture all the way on that but I just felt like the banter was relatively speaking inappropriate when he was talking about that stuff but for me it was all about the horny gorilla it was his constant pursuit of her lips it was her her framing him out and trying to and constantly saying no don't no no and it's like I don't know how many times that you have to be told that before you figure it out he just didn't seem like the director in that moment whatsoever which is by the way congruent with a lot of the things he said on the red carpet when When he talked about how, you know, she was, Blake Lively was his, you know, his backbone, his rock, his person to turn to when he was all up in rile and couldn't focus as much on the directing. It was really the Horned Corral dude that did it for me. I was

0:09:12 Dale: Like, wow, I can't believe that happened. I can'T believe he did that.

0:09:15 Thomas: Interesting because not being filmmakers ourselves obviously it's it's there's a lot that I think it feels like in this pr effort and in this legal effort which is also a pr effort that somebody really knew their audience because it seems like like they just say a lot of stuff that ends up not really being like right about filmmaking but it's plausible enough that I think people who don't make movies don't get it and you know tell you what I guess I don't know that for sure because I'm not a filmmaker but when it comes to the legal context I know they're doing that which is funny because the lawyers are the ones writing it but they'll write stuff about like the whole angle lately and this is jumping way ahead that you know blake lively getting getting fucking jamie heath to fork over the full um video they they've cast that as some sort of like violation of privacy in it and it's like the lawyers are writing this they know that this is just routine discovery like that it is a violating process but that's routine and like there's no way that you're going to not not fork over a video that's just to take that example a key part of the case like a key part of The Case is her claiming that he showed her this footage of his wife giving birth or for them to like know that how all this works their lawyers like the people writing this know how that works and yet to present it as though that's like some deeply deranged thing for her to try to go for really does to me show how much They know they're lying and like don't they like they know they can pull off these lies because people aren't familiar with how the legal system works. And I wonder if it seems like the same thing applies to filmmaking like they think that's right that say they a lot of things they make a lot lot of claims that people like us who aren't filmmakers might not recognize for

0:10:16 Dale: It's relative.

0:11:02 Lydia: Able

0:11:02 Thomas: Being bullshit

0:11:02 Lydia: To manipulate the audience yeah of whatever this is

0:11:04 Dale: I mean, it's definitely right out. I'll give you a couple of examples. Examples. Idea that he got cast into the basement at the premiere is just a laughable statement. They were obviously separated because Blake Lively didn't want to be at his side. And is that unusual? It's reasonably unusual. Me tell you why they were in the basement. That basement is very much a room. You know what a greenroom is, right?

0:11:25 Dale: It is where they keep the talent before they bring the talent out or to transition the talent to somewhere else. So that was a transitioning room. That's what that was. It wasn't a basement to which they were cast. It was a place that could accommodate him and all those people in the photograph that he chose to make a photo op for his publicists, because that's the only reason he took those photographs. You can see it in his face in the photographs. He has nothing but a totally devious look on his face, like, look what they did to us. Now, here's why it's ridiculous. He's an executive producer. He's the chairman of the company that owns the movie. He's a co -owner of the actual movie. He's director of the movie, and he's a star in the movie There's absolutely nobody in the entire hierarchy of people around him who could cast him anywhere He has to agree to do it. He has he's the guy who hands out the orders and if he doesn't then that probably falls more toward a narrative of somebody who lost control of a movie compared to the narrative of Somebody Who Took Over Control of a Movie. So everything that I keep seeing out of these guys is apart from their silly little twists, like they cast me into a basement where Blake Lively took over the wardrobe, right? Like

0:11:24 Lydia: Yeah right yeah yeah

0:12:40 Dale: Blake Lively took over The Wardrobe. I guarantee you Blake Lavely had no control over The wardrobe. She might've taken over some of her own wardrobe, But you see how like by framing it in that way, you get to create a certain amount of like entitlement and rage around her that doesn't actually have any veracity. In reality, she was postpartum. She wanted her house was nine minutes away or whatever it was from the from the production office. Producer in the world would want to accommodate her in that situation. But they turned it into something that people don't know otherwise. And so they're like, you know, to this day, these these fans, they scream about about silly wardrobe. The other thing they scream About is her taking over the edit. There's direct testimony about Jamie Heath letting Blake Lively into the editing bay. And by way, he did that after with Justin Baldoni about it and trying to tell Justin Baldomi, you know, I don't think you should do this. And then Justin, not taking the advice of his producing partner, Jamie Heath, allowed her to go into the Editing Room. Well, why this is super significant is because although this wasn't a Director's Guild movie, they could have very easily, as most productions do, use the Director's Guild or any other guild as guidelines for policies and how they roll out their movie. The Director's Guide provides six weeks for the director to edit the movie before anybody gets notes, before anyone gives

0:14:00 Dale: Notes.

0:13:59 Lydia: Let me jump in really fast you said this wasn't a director's guild movie because they are using that language and saying you know it is a time -honored tradition that directors get you know x amount of time but but you're saying this isn't a director -skilled movie so there is no requirement that that happen

0:14:16 Dale: There wouldn't be a requirement for it, but it was Jamie Heath's responsibility. So I'm a producer. Producer there's absolutely no way any human being is going to get to my director before their cut is done there's just no way I don't care who it is I don't care if it's Leonardo DiCaprio one of the things that got uh some of the dispute between leo and us was that we wouldn't allow any of them in the editing bay until we were done because the problem is is that so many notes start to flow very early in this very critical process and you just start breaking so you don't want people going into the editing room until the directors had an opportunity to work with the editors and put together what would be called a director's cut, right? And then you can start inviting things like notes and feedback, not just from actors, but also the studio heads and otherwise. It for Jamie Heath to say to Blake Lively, I don't think you should do this. It was proper för Jamie Heath till Justin Baldoni, I do not think you you should do this. It was improper for Jamie Heath to allow it to happen at all. He should have never had the conversation with anybody. A producer, in my view, a producer worth any weight, especially one that's supposed to be so closely associated to the director, allow somebody to do that. But the minute that they did, that can of worms is open and it's over. And it's exactly what Jamie Heath was warning Baldoni about in the first place. Because the thing about the creative process, particularly in movies, but I think it's true for anything, wherever there's a collaboration, is that when you get together and you start feeling the heat of the creativity around you and in the project itself, it's addicting. It's so damn addicting, it feels amazing. It's like going into the ether. And so when you put Blake Lively in there, suddenly it's, oh my God, I have the power to create, I Have the Power to Make Significant Decisions. So she asserted herself in that way, but only because they let her, and this is throughout the entire lawsuit, there's just multiple examples of them acquiescing and then blaming her for acquiesce to her.

0:16:14 Dale: And it's just madness. It's just utter madness. And that, by the way, is all of this sort of stuff is what I believe is evidence that they lost control. And if they lost control of the movie, Sony's going to be looking to somebody to pick it up. 100 % Sony's going to look into somebody to take it up and they didn't just rely on Blake Lively, not because they weren't willing to, but because Blake Lively said, hey, don't just rely on me. Let's bring in Todd Black. Let'S bring in Todd Black and he'll EP on it. I'll have a mentor in place and we'll pick up what these guys dropped. And it's not just the SH, it's so many other different things. Like Justin Baldoni arguing about his credit over his credit, the so -called film buy. This is a common thing in film where if the artwork clashes with that title, they'll go and say to the director or to whomever it might be that has a deal where their name is above the title and say hey the artwork doesn't work with the title can you waive this for the poster that's all that happened there and it's common it happens all the fucking time they give these people their their credits generally speaking in in early stages of contract negotiations and then as the artwork reveals itself sometimes some things are asked to be reviewed and revised and that's the situation that you have here because he got his film by credit at the end of the trailer he got His film by credit in in the film itself uh first position everything and by the way fucking a film by Credit is the most vain credit in Hollywood it's

0:17:39 Lydia: Well we were just talking about that

0:17:41 Dale: It's It's more vain than any executive producer credit to any actor you can ever give creating a film buy credit especially that kind of movie I called it a good movie but But it's not some kind of Coppola movie. It's not a signature movie. It's no Seminole, you know? It's entertaining.

0:17:54 Thomas: Forget if we already put out stuff where we said this but read I some articles about that kind of thing that predated this just to so to try to make sure it wouldn't be like biased by this very event and it really feels like a film by credit makes no fucking sense in this film but is that what What do you, does that, does that seem right to you? I mean, it just makes no sense.

0:18:13 Dale: A hundred percent doesn't matter. It only matters to him. It doesn't mater to Hollywood. Nobody cares in Hollywood about it at all. Nobody gives a shit. In fact, everybody rolls their eyes about it because it's a pain in the ass. Why do you want that? And then, of course, because the one thing that it immediately can cause is tension between the other artists who are contributing significantly. There are artists out there, there are directors who a film by makes a lot of sense, but only for marketing purposes it's a marketing thing you know people go see spielberg movies so a film by steven spielburg makes sense nobody goes to see a justin baldoni movie absolutely fucking nobody and then

0:18:44 Lydia: People didn't know who he was mostly before this unless they watched jane the virgin like that's literally the truth so yeah

0:18:50 Dale: And you're not looking at him and you know watching jane the virgin uh because he's a great director you're watching jayne the virgin because he has abs know what I mean so

0:18:59 Lydia: That that's accurate from my perspective

0:19:00 Thomas: So it can be an abs by Justin Baldoni instead

0:19:03 Dale: By justin baldoni that's what he should do so that's just another instance of where yeah and it's so funny because the narrative that they want to put out there is that Blake Lively got a vanity credit with her executive producer credit, which by the way, is one of many different, sorry, you could describe what an executive producer credit is. But executive producer credit has many different phases. One of them, only one of Them is vanity. And vanity is something it may start as, and one of things that drives me crazy about this story is that that everything that they're describing that Blake Lively did, if it was done by a man, and I feel very strongly about this. If it was not by a men, everyone would be like, good on you, man.

0:19:38 Dale: You showed up here and you showed your ambition. You rose to the occasion.

0:19:39 Thomas: A hundred percent.

0:19:42 Lydia: A leader. Right.

0:19:44 Dale: You made a difference in this movie. And I was one of those guys. I did it. I've worked my way up. Nobody got in my way. Nobody stepped in my... Nobody said, man, he's too big for his britches. Nobody was... None of that shit. You know what they did? They were like, wow, he's making valuable contributions. Blake Lively attached Taylor Swift, the biggest pop star in the world. Is such a stud, interesting, ironic word to use, producer move. It is just an absolute crazy, awesome producer move, it deserves her PGA credit alone, that one thing alone. They got 120 million views in the first 24 hours of that trailer, The book sold 6 copies at that point. If you triple it with libraries and boroughs, and you call it 18 million people on 120 million overnight, if you say 100 % of the people who came for the book showed up in that 24 -hour period, where did the rest of the 100 million come from? It wasn't Blake Lively. It wasnít.

0:20:42 Lydia: It's an exclusive Taylor Swift song.

0:20:44 Dale: It's the exclusive Taylor Swift song. So the level producing involved there is baffling it was

0:20:48 Thomas: Was the exclusive song? Oh, it wasn't just like they grabbed. Oh, wow. I missed. Oh, holy shit.

0:20:52 Lydia: Completely new song. Song yeah yeah

0:20:54 Thomas: I didn't even fucking realized that wow yeah that's that is wow okay that's bringing value bringing value to your to your project for sure blake

0:20:56 Lydia: It's crazy blake ladley's a baller

0:21:00 Dale: Super I mean the movie made 340 million dollars in large part because taylor swift put in a an exclusive tune in that in that thing and because I

0:21:10 Thomas: Lively should have the fucking movie give her the goddamn movie

0:21:14 Dale: Mean she definitely earned it I mean and here's the crazy thing about these guys is it's just a big giant fumble and it's all all egotistical. The whole thing is egotistical. Think about this as a fumble by them. They created a brand called Man Enough. They created a band all about elevating women. They talked about it ad nauseum, frankly, in terms of like, because I don't believe them. You know what I mean?

0:21:36 Dale: And so they talk about elevading women as part of their identity. And then when they're given given the opportunity to do it, they suppress her. What would have happened if they actually said, oh yeah, you want to be a producer? That's what we are. That's what we're all about. We're going to elevate you right now. This whole thing would have been them, especially by the way, when the first problems arose and be like, you know what, Blake, let's just, why don't we just bring you on as a producer and you can help us make sure that this set is running in the kind of, and all of a sudden you're going going to go from her hating him to her praising him globally, globally.

0:22:14 Lydia: They're a team now yeah yeah

0:22:16 Dale: And because he elevated her, she spoke very candidly about how difficult it is for women to break into the above the line besides acting, the above -the -line stuff if you come in through acting. If you start out like some of the filmmakers out there who just start out as filmmakers, very few do it. Penny Marshall Marshall did it, but it was a very difficult thing for women to do. And so to be in a situation where, and we know this now, but I've been saying this from the beginning, I that believed from that one of the reasons why Blake Lively took on this project wasn't just because it was bestseller, it was because she would have had some pause around working with a director with so little experience, with her kind of A -list quality. But I believe that she was getting involved because she was like, these guys are man enough. These guys are, this is the environment I want to be in. You know, it's going to take men to break down the walls for women where men are standing guard, where men aren't guiding, you know, guarding the gate. And so I really truly believe that that was why, you know, because a lot of people are like, oh, this SH, call it SH, it is not that big of a deal. It is a much bigger deal when you are talking about the brand she walked into. She walked into a place that was supposed to be battened down and safe for women and it turned into be the exact opposite in her view. And as soon as she saw that, she was like, I believe. I truly believe that as soon she saw that she was, like, she had to immediately grapple with what responsibility she was going to be willing to take here. Was she going to

0:23:39 Dale: Just walk away, make her complaints and walk away? Or was she going expose the truth? And I think that once the retaliation revealed itself, the decision became very easy for her.

0:23:50 Lydia: Yeah absolutely in

0:23:51 Thomas: Because I'm sure it became so clear to her how full of shit they were you know like I'm sure she gave benefit of the doubt for a while that and and by that I mean benefit of of the drought that they were just fucking idiots or just like you know ignorant or something in terms because like very very quickly the stuff the problems on set were like immediately you know you look at the timeline and it's funny how they had a pretty good relationship blake and justin all through the like writing stuff that they Were doing in the pre -production all that and then like the the first within what like so yeah just like right away it just it just feels like they they revealed themselves very quickly and to sure that was would be alarming for someone like blake like wouldbe unnerving too to see to your point to them go from like these champions of women to like oh my god this is the fucking opposite

0:24:05 Lydia: Over their heads and yeah two days yeah it was like a weird catfishing situation like she's like wait a second who are you you. I thought I knew you.

0:24:48 Dale: What I think exacerbated the problem them so much uh this this expectation that they set for themselves and not living up to it and you know you think about it like how freaking hard is it you

0:25:06 Thomas: Folks, we're leaving it there. The rest is on patreon.com/gavelpod. Hope there's about another, almost an hour, maybe a little less than an hour on Patreon where we get into Dale's story, the dispute over his film with Leonardo DiCaprio, and a little bit more Blake stuff that comes back around at the end. So go check that out. Patreon .com slash Cavalpod. If not, we'll see you next time. Thanks for listening.