Rick Kosick: So how did you get this gig to direct Dumb: The Story of Big Brother Magazine?
Patrick O’Dell: Hulu called Jeff [Tremaine], and I don’t know if Jeff thought of it, you know, “let’s make a documentary about my magazine,” but I think Hulu thought, “let’s make one about the magazine and how it became jackass.” You know, it’s an interesting story, but Jeff was self–conscious about making a documentary about himself. So I think he thought, “I still kind of want to do it, but throw in a third party.” I’d barely even met these dudes at all, but I do a show on Vice, a skateboard documentary series called Epicly Later’d, and I’ve been making them for ten years. So Jeff thought of asking me to help. It was still third party, but he did hire me. So I think it was Hulu’s idea, they threw it to Jeff, Jeff threw it to me, and then we started shooting.
How did you first discover Big Brother magazine?
The very first issue at Dodge skate park where I skated. The guy who worked there had a copy. When I got it, the cover had fallen off and somebody had done their homework on the cover. It was weird; I don’t think the guy even wanted it. He was just like, “It’s some weird World Industries catalog,” so I grabbed it and treasured it. I don’t hang onto much anymore, or even at the time, but I have it still. I loved it and thought it was cool and great. It surprised me later hearing people say the first issue sucked, because I was already a fan. So that was my introduction to Big Brother—a ripped-up copy of issue one.
What were some of the challenges you faced making this documentary?
Well, one challenge, because Sean Cliver was a big part of helping with the documentary, but he was also part of the magazine. And doing my show and sort of being familiar with the documentary process, I knew we had to streamline the story. It sucks to say, but there would be times where there are things for the people involved that were really important, but I’m constantly listening for places to make things tighter. You want to have each topic segue from one to the next. I can tell a lot of people involved, it’s their life, and certain things happened that were very important to them, but I didn’t think it would be important to other people. Sort of like, these dudes getting drunk for the first time. I don’t think it would be interesting to an outsider, but to them it’s interesting—this is my first tour and it’s the first time I got drunk. I don’t know how to explain it, but I knew when we got into editing we needed to tighten this up. So I don’t know if it was a challenge, but it’s hard to tell someone, “Okay, that story of your life is not important.” Streamlining something into an hour-and-a-half timeline can be tough. It’s a big story with a lot of people and a lot of different side people need to get their shine. Plus, it’s also for people that are very interested in skateboarding, like there’s things they want to hear, but then there’s also the general audience stuff needs to be explained to people that don’t skate. So it was hard juggling the minutia… the behind-the-scenes footnotes that a fan would want. For instance, we turned a rough cut in to Hulu and they watched it and were like, “We don’t understand who Steve Rocco is, or we don’t understand what a zine is, or we don’t understand this Natas guy?” So we did have to resolve things for a general audience, but also balance it with something a diehard skater would be interested in. It’s hard to juggle those two sometimes.
So how long have you been a fan of the Bomfunk MCs?
That was a song that drove me insane. Now I like it, I’ve got to be honest, I’ve come around, but the theme song is something Jeff had been trying to use. He had this song and was like, “Check this out,” and I was like, “I hate it. I don’t like this at all.” It sounded like Prodigy or something to me. And Sean was like, “Oh yeah, he tried using this for the Wildboyz theme.” Jeff has been trying to use this song on a project after project and it never works out. Now there’s been a couple of revelations that where something I didn’t like, I learned to realize this is cool because we’re in Jeff’s world, like his creation, and putting things in like that it becomes like Big Brother—this weird song becomes like part of the story. Plus everyone else liked it and I was the only holdout that didn’t. Now I’ve got to admit that I’m happy the theme song is the Bomfunk MCs' “Freestyler.” I like it now.
Big Brother has been around for ten plus years, do you feel like you covered the whole span of the magazine existence in 90 minute documentary?
No. I really wish Clyde Singleton was in it. I hear Pat Canale was interesting. Rosa, she wasn’t Big Brother, she was Shorty’s, but still a big part of Big Brother. There are a few people missing and it sucks, you know, but my theory is that there are always more outlets for people to learn more about those things. Like this interview, we can talk about Clyde, or Jenkem can do a thing about Rosa or the “Washed-Up Skaters” article. There’s all kinds of stuff that people can talk about elsewhere and it doesn’t have to all fit in one documentary.
At any point did you feel like you crossed into the Twilight Zone and became a part of the Big Brother staff?
Yeah, there were definitely a couple times. And of course I was a fan of the magazine, I read it from cover to cover every issue, so when [Chris] Nieratko sent in an angry email about something, at first I was bummed and then I was like, “Oh, this is sick, I’m in Nieratko’s world.” Their various little arguing and in fighting. I would be sitting there and Jeff would throw footballs at me, like almost at my head, but it was cool to time warp into a thing I was a fan of.
If there were to be a DVD version of this documentary, what would be your top three deleted scenes?
For sure the thing about the “Washed-Up Skaters.” It’s so funny, it’s like [Mike] Valley being still salty that he was on this washed-up skaters list. Ed Templeton talks about it, Tony Hawk talks about it, and it’s really funny. Vallely was still mad about it, but then he looks at the issue for the first time and he was like, “It wasn’t that bad.” If there was a DVD, I would probably demand Jeff buy me a plane ticket to North Carolina so I can interview Clyde Singleton, because he was hilarious and a big part of the magazine. The geographics and the budget kept us from really having him in the movie. It was regrettable, so I would add him to the bonus section. I’d like to give Clyde his own mini doc. And always more with Earl. I watched the video you made about Earl and I loved the dude. It’s hard to explain even why I’m a fan of Earl, but when I see him I get stoked. He’s just interesting. He’s a character from that time and he hasn’t changed. He still even dresses the same, I feel like he has blue-tinted glasses or something. He could use his own documentary. And Marc McKee is tough, because he’s really quiet on camera, soft spoken and a little odd, but he was such a big part of changing the way skateboarding is and was one of the owners of Big Brother. He did all those graphics, he changed everything, and he’s a little underplayed in the doc only because of how he talks on camera. Some of these big personalities make a bigger presence in the doc. Marc gets a lot of credit but he should get more because if he never existed could you imagine how skating would be? Especially on the art side. So I would include more on Marc. And Rosa. I’m interested in Rosa, because she was skateboarding first and probably only sex symbol ever. It’s interesting, people said some funny stuff about how much they liked her.
A short featuring Earl Parker directed and produced by Rick Kosick.
How did it feel getting invited to Robert De Niro’s house and having the TriBeCa film festival premiere the movie?
I was stoked. Jeff had mentioned at one point that we were going to try and submit this to some film festivals and I was like, “Oh my god, you’re so insane that you would think this movie would be in festivals.” Plus it was early on and I was still nervous how this was even coming out. It was kind of rough and wasn’t very far a long and he’s like, “Yeah, I’m going to submit to TriBeCa,” and I thought he was high. Like they wouldn’t have it. The fact they did, I couldn’t believe it. The only odd thing, and this is me personally, I wasn’t too shocked by the documentary. You know, I was pretty used to all of the poop and the Poocano, Johnny Knoxville shooting himself, and like satanic stuff, I’m kind of used to it. But because it got into TriBeCa, my wife’s mom was like, “Oh, I want to go.” So we invited my wife’s mom and then she told my parents. So my parents are like, “Hey, we’re coming to your documentary at TriBeCa.” And then my nephew came and my sister came and she brought her nephew. I didn’t think much of it, and I was like, “Oh, cool.” They wanted to see this doc, because it was in TriBeCa and it was on their radar. And then watching the documentary in front of a crowd… in front of my wife’s mom and my parents… and my nephew… it kind of made me realize how gnarly the documentary was. The whole time I’m thinking like, “Oh, my parents are seeing this,” and it was a definitely a new spin watching it through their eyes. It made me nervous the whole time. And that was a huge crowd at TriBeCa. It made it a way bigger event that I wasn’t expecting when we were working on it. That was trippy.
Patrick interviews cutting room floor casualty Giovanni Reda.
So you interviewed a lot of different people for this documentary, how did you decide who stayed in the picture and who hit the cutting room floor?
Seth Casriel, our editor who’s awesome, he made a lot of calls like that. I feel like he would get in there and edit everything and then I would watch it. A lot of the editing is sort of up the discretion of the editor in a way, because there was so much footage. I would interview each person for 45 minutes—and I’m not talking about Jeff and you and Sean—I’m talking about dudes who were in it only a little bit. It would get boiled down to like two quotes and there were a few people who were cut altogether—it sucks. But yeah, we interviewed so many people for like 45 minutes to an hour each, and when we got into the editing room obviously things had to go and it was tough.
Can you explain why this movie is only on Hulu, so everyone will stop asking why it’s not on Netflix?
Hulu paid for it. Companies like Hulu do that so people will subscribe to their platform and that’s how pretty much how any bit of media ever gets released. Like HBO pays for it and it’s on HBO. Or ABC pays for it and it’s on ABC. Well this one was Hulu. Hulu paid for it and it lives on Hulu. I feel like most people have Hulu. I already had Hulu, because I’m a cord cutter myself and I don’t have cable. I just have Hulu, Netflix, and HBO.
When Andy Roy’s video surfaced demanding to be in the movie, were you a little bit nervous that he was going to Google your whereabouts?
Actually, I was scared. You know, it’s weird, I knew he was joking, but there was a little part of me that still wasn’t sure. Like is he joking, or this serious? I was a little nervous. I was 80-percent confident it was a joke and 20-percent a little shaky.
Setting up the shot to talk getting shot with Johnny Knoxville.
So what are some of your favorite parts of the movie?
One thing that was tough… I love Johnny Knoxville and I’m a huge fan. He’s gnarly and a great guy and has a good presence with his voice. To listen to him tell the story about how he got his start and he had a baby and the baby motivated him to shoot himself for a stunt—it was interesting. But one of the problems with the doc is once Johnny Knoxville shoots himself in the chest with a gun and a bulletproof vest, it was hard to then show anything after. It was basically like if it was a skate video and he filmed the last part, the after black hammer. I remember Dave Carnie and Chris Nieratko wanted more stuff in the movie from their years of Big Brother, and I had to be like, once Johnny Knoxville shoots himself I don’t know how we’re going to show anything that gnarly. It was tough because everything is going to look lame after this dude does that. One of my favorite parts of the documentary is Johnny Knoxville narrating that stunt, and it gave it so much more intensity, so that’s one of my favorite parts. And we have Nieratko fucking with Ronnie James Dio right before that—that was so intense to watch that footage for the first time. Just being in the editing room and getting the tape and sitting through and watching it. That was my favorite zone of the documentary.
Looking back at everything, what would you have done differently?
I’m pretty happy with it. There were things I was nervous about and now that it’s released I’m not nervous anymore. It just makes me want to interview Clyde for something else or do something else with Clyde… it’s the one thing I regret. Other than that, I’m stoked on it. We all did our best. I also feel like if there’s anything missing, there’s the Big Brother book, there’s The Chrome Ball Incident with so much of Big Brother scanned in that you can find out more, or you can buy some of the issues on eBay. I don’t know, I’m pretty stoked on it.
(Photos by Sean Cliver; 2016)
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