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You're listening to local programming produced in K, u and v studios.

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The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education

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Hey, this is Rubin with the City of Stars podcast.

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Here I'm interviewing up and coming artists in the Las Vegas music scene. Let's get into today's episode. Hello and welcome today I am joined by Kai manacles a How are you man?

Unknown Speaker 0:41
I'm good. How are you?

Unknown Speaker 0:42
Good. You got any socials or anything people can follow you on as you t promote your

Unknown Speaker 0:52
I have an Instagram but I don't post anything on it. I just have the Instagram so I can look at other people's stuff. Okay. Okay. Now I keep all my stuff on my computer.

Unknown Speaker 1:00
So Okay. Okay. Soon.

Unknown Speaker 1:02
Soon. Will soon though. Yeah. Have a Vimeo page. I post stuff.

Unknown Speaker 1:07
Okay. Well, it is I

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think it's present. What's it called? President? Eight. I think there's a number of hate after it. So President eight,

Unknown Speaker 1:19
eight. Okay. Yeah. All right. So people could check you out. Alrighty. Well, how you been?

Unknown Speaker 1:25
I've been good. It's been a long semester. A very, very interesting one. Oh, wallets

Unknown Speaker 1:31
talk about what's been going on with the semester?

Unknown Speaker 1:35
Well, for one, I'm taking a lot of classes and five classes. And I don't know if I mentioned this last time, but I'm the TA for UNLV is virtual production class, which where we use this giant LED wall that was supplied by view to create these really stunning backgrounds, which we can shoot films on. And I was I was teaching the class with my mentor, and my professor Francisco Menendez. And sadly last month, he died of a heart attack. Oh, my gosh, I'm sorry. Hear that? Yeah. So that was a that was a rough loss for the entire the entire film department and me as I was I was very close with them. Sorry, here the so but what was particularly odd was, of course, he's teaching the class and on his TA and now he's not here. So yeah. So

Unknown Speaker 2:27
what happened with the class? Well,

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a few days after he died, I spoke to someone in the faculty and said, No, I'll take over the class if need be. And while they did entertain that idea, since I'm the TA, they said, we can't really have you do that cuz you're an undergrad. And we can't have like an undergrad teaching and undergrad class. And, you know, we can't we can't pay you and can't put you on so as a full professor. So what they did was they got a grad student who was the TA for last semester, and he stepped in as the as the teacher for this semester. And I'm teaching the class with him now. Okay. Okay. So so it did get figured out. Yeah, but of course, it was a very odd time as the professor died. And for a moment, this class had no professor. And it was just, it was just me trying to keep the project we had in the works going,

Unknown Speaker 3:21
wow. Well, you know, Saturn, you know, when you're talking about him right now, he's having really very important. He was

Unknown Speaker 3:30
the founding artistic director of the film program. Wow. I mean, I don't know. I mean, he was involved with, he basically made the film while I went, I'm not gonna say just him alone, but he was in the film program for what 34 years. And with him the program expanded to what it is now. Wow. So losing him so suddenly, from a heart attack was a devastating loss. I I saw him on the last night, he was alive. He was giving a talk on the Johnny Brenden filmmaker Award, which was a grant for filmmakers, you know, I'm not really sure what it was about i i left through the seminar because I said, this doesn't really apply to me and I look back and from it, I thought of staying but I'll see him on Monday. And I left and the next day I got the email that he was gone.

Unknown Speaker 4:26
I'm sorry, hear that again? That's for you. You know, as a mentor, how did he help you with the art you know, how do you what did you learn from him?

Unknown Speaker 4:37
He was the one who really enhanced enhance my character before before I got involved with him, I wasn't I wasn't really willing to put myself out there as much as I am now. That Oh, every all these films students are so great and I don't really know how my skills compared to theirs, but working with him, watching him direct and taking his advice, I, excuse me, get a lot more, a lot more skills, made a lot more connections under him. He introduced me to people, even an actor who got me my first pa gig. And of all the professors, he was the one that just believed in me the most he was my, my biggest fan. So you need a production designer up there sky Call, call him and so yeah, there was no other professor I was as close with as him. So how

Unknown Speaker 5:30
long? Have you known him?

Unknown Speaker 5:32
I'd known him for about, I think about a year and a half.

Unknown Speaker 5:37
Wow. So, you know, I was like you did so much for you such a short amount of time, you know. But that's, I was very cool with me. And I'm very meaningful, you know, he was willing to go the extra mile to help you. Oh, you know. So, you know, how would you describe his art? And when you sit back and watch them, what did you will you kind of getting from his stuff. He

Unknown Speaker 6:03
was a director, his focus was in directing, and also writing, okay, I can't really comment on his directing, because I'm now a director. And he really been the only person I'd seen direct. And I know his directing was a bit controversial towards to some of the other film students, some people liked his manner of directing, some people didn't. But what I really enjoyed was his writing classes. I mean, we have screenwriting classes at UNLV. But to me, if you really want to become a good writer, you well should have taken a story development class. That one was the one that really made us open up and understand. Not just not just formatting screenplays and things like that, but what what really makes them good, what makes them personal, will make some connect with the audience. So in that respect, he enhance my his class enhance my writing a lot.

Unknown Speaker 6:57
And how that helped you if you focus on either with like backgrounds and stuff?

Unknown Speaker 7:05
Well, that just helped me with my writing. I don't just do production design. I also write write scripts, as well as SSH. Yeah. And so that it made it made those better. Yeah. And as far as production design, like I said before, he was the one just that just kept pushing me to pushing me to be better. And with him, I peed on my most successful project, which was this, this scene from this movie was shot using the LED wall. So that was that was my fondest memory of him.

Unknown Speaker 7:42
But what was it about that?

Unknown Speaker 7:45
The, for me, it was our most successful project, it was the one that just looked the best. I mean, I was really, I was really amazed at how, how well it came out. And I didn't improvise at the end, because I wasn't sure if we were going to be shooting the ground or not. And I don't know if anyone's been FTTH. But the ground in the FGH studio was very, very ugly. And this, the scene was taking on this taking place in the street. And at first I was going to spray paint some that flattened cardboard boxes Gray, and make it look like a sidewalk and it came out terribly. It just came out absolutely terribly. And it was the day of the shoot. I said, Oh my God, I don't know what to put on the ground. And I improvised it last second because the FDA says all this wood, let's and let's put all this let's put all this wood down. And with the lighting, we can make it look like they're on this not on the concrete boat on this sort of wooden platform. That's by the by the lake they were sitting at and came out surprisingly well. He came out he loved it. He said Great job.

Unknown Speaker 8:49
And, and that was that. So, ya know, you've been doing really good to production designing sounds like it's very and sounds very, you know, beautiful how, even you know, you could look back, I have good memories with them. I mean, and it sounds like he can be like an impact on your journey. Kinda.

Unknown Speaker 9:18
He did. He took me to Sundance. I've heard the Sundance Film Festival. I

Unknown Speaker 9:22
love Sundance,

Unknown Speaker 9:23
I didn't, I didn't want to go. There's this trip that UNLV puts on to go to Sundance and at first I didn't want to go. But he made me go. He said no, I want you to apply to go to Sundance, and it was maybe an hour before I said okay, yeah, I'm applying apply. I didn't really mean it. And it was an hour before the application closed. I said, Okay, I'll apply just for him just for him. I'll apply and I did and amazingly they accepted me. So I went with him in our our group to Utah and enjoy the enjoyed the festival.

Unknown Speaker 9:57
Any good movies. He sat down there.

Unknown Speaker 10:01
He, he dragged me to a few of them. Yeah. I remember you driving me to this documentary. I was like, Oh my God, I want to see a documentary. But he made me go with him. So we did, we drove from Park City to Salt Lake City. And the documentary was I, I'll admit, I slept through the first quarter of it. But once I woke up, the documentary got really good. It was about I forgot what it was about. I can't really talk about it. But well, I don't forget what it was about. I'm forgetting the name of the person it was about. But he was this music Recordist and the way the duck, the documentary was set up was, it used an algorithm to compile the different clips together, okay. And it would, and it was set up in such a way that every time you watch the film, it will be different because the algorithm algorithm would use different clips and compile them in different ways. So they, they had a discussion with the filmmakers afterwards. And they said, there's 52 quintillion versions of this of this documentary, you would never watch the documentary The same way twice. Wow. And that was, that was really, we were both just blown away by that. So that was, that was an experience. I'm glad I got to have him. It's because of him because he pushed me to do these things I initially didn't want to do.

Unknown Speaker 11:28
And, you know, wells, did you learn from him? As like, you know, with our, or movies, or?

Unknown Speaker 11:39
We had a lot of discussions on movies and such, we had a debate on what it meant to be original. Hmm. I, I thought I always believed that being original was being just putting out putting out something that was completely different from everyone else. And that's what I always strive to do. And he told me, no, stop doing that. That's about, like, what you mean? Well, I just just want to copy everyone else. No, no, no. Your definition of originality is wrong. originality, lies and specificity. It's not how the argument started, when I was at will the argument started, because I was complaining that there were no original IPS anymore. So we're just keep, we're just seeing the same story over and over and over. So yes, we're seeing the same story over and over the all the stories are essentially different variations of each other. I mean, I'll movies like The North man and Aquaman that story that's from Hamlet. It's, that's from Shakespeare, King Lear. You know, the guy kills his brother. So you can be king in this whole thing happens. That's been told over and over and over throughout hundreds of years. So I said, Is there anything really, such as originality, says originality is in specificity? Yes, maybe maybe the idea of somebody killing their brother has been around for 1000s of years. But the idea of the idea of the brother of a king killing him, while they're superheroes underwater and underwater kingdom with no shark people and this and that, that's something that's very specific. And we're, and that is where originality lies. Or the thing with the northmen. That's the same story as King Lear. But this time, it's about vikings, and they're in specifically there they go this slave colony, and he's trying to find the guy who killed his father, and that story has been told before, but the way that they're doing it, they're doing in such a specific way. That's where you get originality from. I know that was quite confusing, though. It's like, even he was difficult to follow sometimes. But he I get what he's saying. I do get it in that, that left an impact on me. Like,

Unknown Speaker 13:58
you know, he was talking about putting a twist on like, told stories. And, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Now, I followed you. So you know, now, how's your projects, Project spin

Unknown Speaker 14:15
on projects have been going well, and still working in Blender a lot. I'm involved in a design competition for the sphere. Wow. Congratulations do Yeah. They've they've they've chosen some students to come up with some designs for the sphere. And if your design wins, then they'll they'll put it on the sphere for Fourth of July. And you win a scholarship to so yeah, I'm mentoring and mentoring that excited. I am excited hopefully ideas I was working on before I came here. When you texted me and said I'll see you soon. Oh, I gotta put this on. Oh, yeah. Go see. Cuz I completely forgot. That's okay.

Unknown Speaker 14:57
We all forget that. I got so many notes on my I'm like, oh, yeah, interview with him today.

Unknown Speaker 15:02
Thank you for reminding me. Now.

Unknown Speaker 15:04
I got you. I got you. I know you're busy. Pa sounds exciting. So, you know, you know as much as you want to tell me how you going to approach this contest?

Unknown Speaker 15:16
I'm still brainstorming, brainstorming if I'm still coming up with ideas, drafting, drawing, trying out things in, in blender. And I'm gonna come up with some designs and just put forward the one I like.

Unknown Speaker 15:29
Yeah. So when's the deadline for?

Unknown Speaker 15:32
I think the beginning of May.

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August. He's still got

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time. Still got some time. Three weeks? Yeah. Got some time. I have all of April to do it.

Unknown Speaker 15:41
Okay, so you get the offer you really cool actually. Wow. On the on the big sphere, the big

Unknown Speaker 15:49
sphere on the strip, the big one? How much? How much the scholarship Tenzin Tanka. Wow. So

Unknown Speaker 15:57
you'll be pretty nice here. I'll buy one. Yeah. Yeah, good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I will see been working on anything else. Any other contests or projects.

Unknown Speaker 16:11
There's TAing for the virtual production class taught by my mentor, we're using the wall again and putting on another virtual production. But besides that, in the sphere, competitions, mostly just been my own little projects.

Unknown Speaker 16:28
You know, how has it been teaching the class in his party different now, without,

Unknown Speaker 16:34
there was a situation I certainly never been in before. And the, the entire film department kind of just stopped for about two weeks, all the classes with him, of course had to be put on hold, and he was so involved in everything. We kind of just came to a stop for at least a week, then we're still filling in now. But I there. after spring break. We all just reconvened and said, Listen, he would want us to just keep going, you know, he he died doing what he loved, which is teaching ah, and I want to go out the same way. Now. Just constantly doing what I what I've dedicated my life to, which is film. And I said I hope you all share the same sentiment and, and they did. So we're, we're moving on.

Unknown Speaker 17:28
That's good. But you know, it's nice, though, that his legacy won't be forgotten. But it's very, I think it's amazing socinian work. I mean, he wasn't just some guy that die. Like he was a very meaningful person to the film department. And not only did as def stopped by the same time it pushed it guys motivated you to really because you know that sometimes you make some was beautiful art when it's the hardest. No and it you know, like there's it makes sense if you stop but I think it's very beautiful. The memory of him and for you personally, like I wanna I want to be like the you know, I want to I want to legacy like that. I think that's wonderful and that's why I just want you know, hear more about me as he just sounds like a really cool person. He was he was very cool. And now you know with this classes continue Do you know how his other ones are doing?

Unknown Speaker 18:35
They have just fill them in with other professors.

Unknown Speaker 18:37
Okay, yeah, so everyone's kind of like working a little harder now. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 18:41
some professor some professors have had to step in the only other additional person I know they've brought in his his grad students to teach the virtual production class but besides that, I'm trying to think of as other classes

Unknown Speaker 18:56
looking

Unknown Speaker 19:00
Yeah, other professors have just stepped in

Unknown Speaker 19:04
so you know, you mentioned earlier that you've been working on like smaller projects we do what kind of things you're working on

Unknown Speaker 19:13
animation, 3d animations, modeling. Just doing what I like.

Unknown Speaker 19:19
Yeah, I love the damage. I I will confuse maybe clarify. A spider man verse new one, the third one that's come out and next year

Unknown Speaker 19:30
or beyond the spider verse. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 19:32
a few people are seeing all this coming out this summer. And then the like, oh noes coming out till 25

Unknown Speaker 19:41
I don't know. I hear he got pushed back but I don't know how far

Unknown Speaker 19:44
okay, then. Oh, you would like you're on top of those things. I'm like, Oh, yeah. If anyone knows it's

Unknown Speaker 19:51
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 19:54
So you know, now I'm production Designing. You know, lesson we talked A couple months ago, I would love to know how How have you grown over this past time? You know, what have you learned from production designing Have you gotten better done worse or

Unknown Speaker 20:17
it's difficult to gauge how it's difficult to gauge how I've grown. Okay, as a PE, it's, it's, it's not like taking classes, we're okay, my grades are getting better. Some I'm a bear, I'm a bear production designer

Unknown Speaker 20:30
I've taken on

Unknown Speaker 20:35
I'd say you grow as a production design by taking on more diverse projects. I was on this, I was on this. This film, for a horror, a horror short. And that was something I'd never done before. And I did that. And that that helps me grow more because it taught me the elements of trying to portray character but also mood, putting in things that are offsetting, upsetting to the audience that create new and an air of suspense. So doing, doing projects you're not used to is how you grow, and maybe doing a comedy, you'll do things that will convey that this is a comedy and doing more of a more of an action flick, maybe you'll use a different color palette, or, and really study on what the action flicks you've seen, are doing to let you know, this is an action flick. Things of that sort. All

Unknown Speaker 21:34
right. How would you, you know, encourage artists is to get out of a comfort circle. Because you know, a lot of times I know I'm guilty of it, you get very comfortable, you're like I'm really good with this. I don't want to I don't want to chase a different. I'm afraid of what's gonna happen with you. You know, you said you mentioned you did a horror thing, talking about it, but you learned a lot. And, you know, how would someone have? How would they get the courage to do something they're not comfortable with? No work that work

Unknown Speaker 22:09
herself as a PD. Okay? And when someone asks, Do you want to be on my film? Don't say no. I did that film simply because someone asked me I don't even know what the film was about. They just asked me can you do PD on this on this script? I said, Sure. And it turned out to be a horror script. So I said, well, because I'm doing horror, horror PD now.

Unknown Speaker 22:30
And you never done for a PDF of no

Unknown Speaker 22:32
Oscars. Yes, I'm doing Yeah. And I didn't want to say no. And that's how you do it.

Unknown Speaker 22:38
So and I think another thing I want to ask you because you've actually released projects and you've had you are out there before. But people, aspiring artists as they're struggling to put work out there. They're like, it's not good enough. So I want to keep onto it. You're at opposite. You're like I did this as as best as I can do on putting it out there. How did how did you personally like change your mindset? I don't know if you are like a, like a conservative artists like I'm just gonna hold on to it. And never share this with anyone. Or have you always been like, I'm just pumping out art. Everyone check this out. Bum Bum bum. Yeah, I mean, I'm curious with your mentality,

Unknown Speaker 23:23
I don't really pump out are like that. So okay. I understand their mentality of not wanting to submit it because I'm very much the same way I Okay. This isn't good enough. I look at the film after we did up, I could change that I could change that. The way I do it simply it's just we're on deadlines. And you have to get it done by a deadline. So they submit if they submitted for you, what do you want? What do you want them to or not?

Unknown Speaker 23:43
So maybe give yourself some deadlines?

Unknown Speaker 23:47
Give yourself a deadline. Okay? That that would be a big motivator to push push your work out there. Okay? Enter, enter competitions, get involved with projects, because they'll force you to submit it. And they'll force your work to be showing maybe you don't like it, but other people might like it, and they want you to work with them.

Unknown Speaker 24:06
Oh, you got any tips on networking?

Unknown Speaker 24:13
Be everywhere. Okay. If there's an event happening, be there. All right, talk to people. That's a tough one. As a sole reason I got a car, just so I can go there. Just so I could be more mobile and go these places and talk to more people. Because you know, being on the bus. You know, you can't really get to places on time and sometimes something's happening, but it's too short notice so you can't get there. And that's what motivated me to

Unknown Speaker 24:44
get mobile. I like it.

Unknown Speaker 24:47
I love love drive driving. That's much better than the bus. Yeah, car is expensive, but

Unknown Speaker 24:53
it's expensive, but it's definitely more convenient. Yes and reliable. That's nice. You're I mean, you're, you're taking a very serious, serious step into your art. You're like, I'm so serious about this. I'm getting a car even though there are things you pay for. Yes, insurance a car payment if you do that. Yes, yes, yes. You know how it is. So it's a lot, but I think it's, uh, shows your commitment, your passion, and mean like, because, you know, buses pretty cheap. I mean, and it's

Unknown Speaker 25:31
for UNLV we get for free. Yeah. Oh, my house

Unknown Speaker 25:35
literally free. Yeah, but then you know, me, but you it was limiting your networking and

Unknown Speaker 25:41
pay in time. Pay in time? Yeah, you can use time as two hours a day? Yeah. Now it's a lot of time two to four. Depending on the lifts, the buses are even on time, or even running. So

Unknown Speaker 25:53
I you know, I was very thing about during this interview. And for you. Overall, you know, the professor that passed away your your mentor? I mean, you know, I don't want to like, dive down you Dounreay. So, Paul, so it's okay,

Unknown Speaker 26:18
if I am not. Okay. I'm more than willing to talk about

Unknown Speaker 26:23
Okay. Well, then, you know, because it is very important. I don't want to like, oh, yeah, your mentor. Let's brush that off. Yeah, I can't really think about a lot more important things to talk about with the army. And, and I want to overall, you know, how was he as a person? Very cool. Sound anything?

Unknown Speaker 26:46
Anything you needed he had for you? Yeah, there's a story. I told that his celebration of life. We were we were planning on putting on this virtual production for the class. And are you familiar with Unreal five? It's a game engine. I sound terrifying. Yeah. So for the wall, we use this game engine. And we need the wall to be this bag, this island with a cliff that the actors can stand in front of and looks like they're off a cliff. And the scene involves these two cars that are in the background. So we had the islands set up and we had the sky and the sun. Now we just need the cars. To get the cars we had to buy them off the unreal store. So we go the unreal store. And we see two car packs. One is one is $20. And one is $90 or $100. These are vintage cars. And I want to go with the $20 car pack and he wants to go with the $100 one. I go Why do you want to go with the one that's so damn expensive? Yeah. And you said because it's higher resolution, it has maybe like two pixels of additional resolution. I go sir, there is no difference between these two. Well, let's get the cheap one and be done with this. And we argue about this for maybe 20 minutes going back and forth between the cheap one and the more expensive one. So finally he concedes it says okay, fine, fine, fine. We'll get you the cheap one. He was paying for it by him or him to spend all this money. So he goes okay, I'll buy the cheap boy. They'll finally great. He buys a cheap cheap one. We import into Unreal. I go to the bathroom because we've been arguing for all this time. I had to go the bathroom. I come back. There's all these cars on the freakin LED wall. I go where'd all these cars cars come from? We just bought the one pack. He said oh, I bought you both know why? He said because I want you to have everything that you need. Because this is your this is your production design. And that was the moment that that was one of our closest moments. And he always did that anything that you needed. He was there for you. Like I said, He just pushed me to be better. Trying to impress him was what made me better.

Unknown Speaker 29:12
And now I think he's you know, he'll be very impressive.

Unknown Speaker 29:18
I hope so. I hope so.

Unknown Speaker 29:27
Thanks for listening. Catch us again every Wednesday at 6pm on the rebel nya 1.5 HD two

Transcribed by https://otter.ai