Artful Career Journeys: Keith Mehlinger on Storytelling & Creativity

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The Truth In This Art Podcast
Only a couple months down. I think I recognize it.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Welcome to the truth in this art. I am your host, Rob Lee, and you'll have to bear with me. It'll make sense soon. I am super excited to welcome my next guest. They are the director of the screenwriting and Animation Swan Program at Morgan State University. He has an impressive track record of success in the field of marketing, communication and corporate film and video production in Los Angeles, as well as serving as an in-house producer for several Fortune 250 companies.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So without much further ado, please welcome my guest, Keith Mellinger to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Thank you very much, Rob. Thank you for having me.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Thank you for coming on. Thank you for for making the time. I mean, this is this is months in the making, you know, happy that we're here now. And I'm able to kind of chat a little bit. I feel like the the real podcast is the conversation we had before getting to the official podcast. So before we get too deep into these questions and all of that, could you share your your story and what was your sort of like first experience with like creativity, with the cinematic arts, whether it was there was a movie that you really dug, you're like, I'm going to do something in that field one day.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Or Was there a piece of art that you were like, That's really great. Well, something that sticks out for you and you're a young person.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I'm a child of the fifties and sixties, so my parents went to movies and my father had been in World War Two and Europe for an extended period of time. But he liked both American film and he liked foreign films or international films. So my parents would take me to the movies and I'd had a great impact on me.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And sometimes my father would go to see a film like Three Coins in the Fountain of my Mother or three coins in the Fountain, or, let's say the Nuremberg trials, you know. And on the other hand, he would go see Fellini films, you know, and so I had this contrast in at home and on TV. We had the $100 million movie.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
It was a it was a regular kind of, you know, place to go see Hollywood films, of course, broken up by commercials. But and then I lived in then Pasadena, Altadena, California. So there was always filmmaking going on, production trucks everywhere all the time. And some of my family friend, our family friends were actually in the industry. So it was it was it was all around us.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
But I fell in love with storytelling, probably from cartoons as much as I did from actual movies. And I used to go to the movies, take the bus to the movies by myself or with my friends. And, you know, I've always had this love of self. Yeah.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I think about when you talk about going to the movies with your friends and things of that nature. In cartoons are just near and dear to my heart. I remember there were opportunities where I was like, Hey, be a part of this like program. It's like, is it for the hours of 6 to 11 on a Saturday? Because I won't be a part of that.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Excellent is on that note you know and even the movie thing you know because you know I guess I'll get in troubles in some movie court with this but I remember fondly back in high school that I would go to like maybe East Point or something, and I'll go to one of my friends. We pay for a movie, but we would sneak in like two other movies afterwards.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So we're just that was like my period of absorbing movies and I look back, I watch a lot of horror movies, and I look back at going there and seen Jason X and it was.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Terrible.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And I was like.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
This is not.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Good. But that's I'm going to remember that from that time. You know what I mean? Like, that sticks out. Like I've seen a lot of movies of varying degrees in terms of like quality was like, that's going to stick out because I saw that movie in theaters. It wasn't good, but I stayed for it. And it's something that just kind of hops of maybe I could do this or maybe kind of developing taste.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I guess I kind of feel that it was like developing taste as opposed to just so you know, in terms of going to like sort of the industry. What was like your first job and talk about that a little bit like that start off point.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I grew up in a very science based community, and aerospace was one of the main industries at the time I was growing up and I've always loved aircraft and space craft and science. And actually some of my first jobs were with Bell and how research labs as a lab assistant and later on the Propulsion Laboratory and nothing to do with film yet but that fell in hell because I was working for them.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I was able to purchase eight millimeter equipment at a discount because they made the movie. Cameras are parts, and that was a really incentive for me to work for Bell and Hill. And it was just, you know, these are basically summer positions, you know, But yeah, I, you know, I, I went to I, I was shooting still photography in junior high and high school like we all were at that time and, and everything was was basically, you know, required real filming.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
But you stock, you develop it in a dark room and that was part of our basic education. It was just like music. Yeah, we the first time I got my hands on a camera actually was when I bought my eight millimeter camera from working at Bell and how I started shooting with that. I bought a low ed and all that kind of thing.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I didn't go far with that. It wasn't like I was shooting my movies. Like still Fieldwork was, you know, recreate eating these, you know, basically staged and scripted, you know, for, you know, small cinematic experiences, short films that later and longer films. But I did shoot some short films and you know, that I didn't really get into film as a hands on sort of practice until I went to journalism school at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And a funny thing is, I didn't get in to the practice through journal, the journalism program. I got into it through architecture because the architecture program had taken advantage of these new technologies, and we're talking about very primitive video as compared to now and the video camera. Video editing was used as a way to survey communities and to tell stories about the people in those communities.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
As you were doing urban planning. And those early cameras were so sensitive that if you pointed them at a hot light too long or the sun, your your camera would actually get a burn in it. And to burn it off, you had to fully expose your camera. It's like you're burning layers of.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Oh, well, of of.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Of this sensitive, you know, light sensitive covering that that's part of the the the way the camera works. You're burning it off to even see the way it large. But but that's where I really got my hands on you know video for the first time they weren't using film so much and using video and that was a great experience.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And I guess a lot of people don't know this, but early on when these early stages of video, you actually cut video like you did film, you know, and you kind of pieces it together. And so once I was at Berkeley and I got to the the journalism program, I knew I didn't want to be a reporter. So I was totally like, you know, going to be moving towards film at that point.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And I had involved myself with various groups in Oakland, Berkeley, who were making these little films. And this is what I really like doing. Yeah.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So in thank you, because there's a, there's a bullet point that goes under there. I think that definitely dovetails very well to that. Yeah. When I was talking with your with some of the students in the program earlier, which is really cool. Cool. I really get to talk to the grand Tour guys and I mentioned that, you know, I've been doing this for a while before getting to this point in.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I think I have a sense of what my voice is creatively, but also kind of further refining than the policy that, you know, I always joke about in Knee jerk what a microphone makes for a podcaster. So I think it's about finding one's voice, whether it be through storytelling or how they go about it. What was that point where you felt your voice in this industry?

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Like, you know, from from that coin hearing architecture within the background here in journalism, within the background, and those not quite being for you or you're in your things, but it's still baked in from an experience standpoint. So how did you find your voice and what was it like finding that voice as a as a person within the film industry.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Was interesting because I am I was accepted into the UCLA film program and to the MFA screenwriting program, and I am out of that L.A. Rebellion era. So, you know, I was there were people like children actually dash, you know, and so on and so forth who were just, you know, groundbreaking filmmakers from that period. And L.A. rebellion isn't necessarily a name that way that really describes what was going on.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
It was just people trying to tell stories and to be, how should I say, to recharacterize the way that stories were told in dominant Hollywood films that featured African-Americans. You know, And it was you know, some people refer to one of the periods, which was kind of fair when I was in school was blaxploitation. And I don't necessarily like that name because a lot of people were working and they were getting work and able to work on your craft.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Right. So, you know, I mean, yeah. And and I got to tell you, I used to those films were coming out in 69 and 72, first Breaking Through. And I love those those films because it was the first time we saw people resisting in ways that were violent with funky ass music in the background. And we loved it.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
We loved it. I remember piling into a car to go see Shaft. You know, more than a few times to go see anything with Pam Grier, you know, I mean, so and we had a black theater in Pasadena. So I'm going back and forth because I would be in Berkeley and obviously I'd come home for the summer. I can't stay up there.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
But we had a black movie theater in passing called Cinema 21, and they just ran, you know, chain ran these films that we all like and threw in some kung fu for Spice as well.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
We loved.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
On it. Yeah, Yeah. In fact, so if I Fingers of Death was a real 5000 yeah. Integrated with all the what the so called blaxploitation. But the fact of the matter is, is that after I returned to L.A. from Berkeley and I was in film school, I was working for the UCLA Film Center, I got married for the first time at 21 and for the first and the UCLA Film Center had some Academy Award winning documentarians who were part of the staff.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So I was working as an assistant to these guys and we were just shooting film 16 millimeter, 35 millimeter. And I was taking various jobs on different films that I could get hired off as a P.A. or anything I could do. I was even driving. I was delivering film stuff to the lab, you know what I mean? That kind of thing.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So what happened was, once I was going through that, of course I needed more income than those jobs that job could produce. At the UCLA Media Center, for instance. And a friend of mine said, there's this big company called Northrop. You should apply for this writing job over there. And I said, okay, I'll check out. It was as a a proposal engineer.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And the reason why I applied for the job is because I'd gotten word on the street that nurses had more film equipment than some studios had had.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Name affixed.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And yeah, and I said, Well, that's not the department I'm interviewing for. So I went through this ridiculous interview process. I'll never forget it. They put me in a room, a magnet, a room, and this magnetized the whole room and they set up this scenario with a general was coming in. They completely messed up, put this, took everything that was presented to him and messed it up.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So it was out of order and I had to go in there and put things in order and write a brief presentation. And then I had to do another writing test. But there were seven people reviewing it and I got the job after I performed these various, you know, writing vets. And so once I got the job, they told me, okay, we know you're at UCLA film school, you can use tuition reimbursements.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
We will pay you. We'll take care of that. You just pay taxes on it. And I said, Oh, man. And this is what I didn't realize at the time. It wasn't important to me, but I got stuck to, you know, stock options, you know. So anyway, in the job, by the way, are you ready for this thousand dollars a month?

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
That was that was that was.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Enough to at that time. That's 78 I think something like that, you know. But anyway, so so once I got in there, I was about to leave after a year and they really liked my work, you know, being a proposal engineer, working in SAN proposal. So you get a book of a proposal, you're working with a graphics department to integrate the photos and everything else.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
You're rushing to the airport with a team to get the the proposals which weigh about £1,000 on to the planes to get it to Washington in time to compete. Those are those days. Everything now is, of course, you know, you do everything on a computer, but you still have deadlines. So I was when I was getting ready to leave, one of the they say, you know, bosses said, hey, we want you.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And I met the guys in the film department they really like and they knew I was at film school. Of course, they didn't have any African-Americans in the department that was only African-American, pretty much in the proposal department as well. So anyway, they offered me a gig as a producer, writer, director, and I said yes. And I went over there and I work with guys who were World War Two vets who had actually been cameraman in the war.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I worked with some cats who'd gone to USC and UCLA. USC dominantly them, but it was obvious that many of these guys didn't think I paid my dues to be there. Some guys had been in Vietnam, you know, as camera people, but I made a lot of friends over time. There were some experiences that I got through and that I handle.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
You know, there's one should.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
There's one should. And and some of those guys to this day are my friends, you know, longtime friends. But I was at Northrop. I started with training films and I had to do the corporate overview. In those days, you brought people into the theater to see it all, to see the corporate overview at the time and it was all side based.

00;17;06;20 - 00;17;40;07
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
You had these excellent, beautiful, you know, photography. We had an impression of staffers who were just sits on top of your day and everything had to be programed in slides with music and narration. And I did that show and eventually and I was doing training films, you know, I mean, like you wouldn't believe I started with the TI 38 into the F five, and eventually, of course, I moved into marketing more of a marketing world with the F-18 and the F 20 was a plane that was flying off with lights and planes to see what would be the next generation fighter.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So I got into a world where I was around the stuff I liked and mostly just I love working on aircraft and war of all that. And my best product was when I worked films dealing with the F-18, which was flown by the Marines and oriented in a very different kind of fly over the shoulder, you know, And so I also did a film which I show my students and I work with the Mr. Northrup, the original, the actual John K Northrop.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So anyway, there's a film that's about the restoration of the entry fee. It was the first aircraft it ever made, and then it was recovered in Reykjavik, Iceland, and it was rebuilt. So that film is online. And I said my students and they can't believe it. It's like I came out of set error of, you know, the the voice of God films, you know, with the the, the, the documentary that's obviously shot on film is let's say it to them now.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
But it was just I had a blast working around aircraft and eventually the F-18 B-2 of that stuff. And of course, you know, you're constantly going to these classes and everything. And so my friends used to joke with me, can you can you let me know when the FBI is coming around this question about.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
S.S. So, so, so.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
But I didn't expect to work in that world. But at UCLA and also just from my family upbringing, when you have an opportunity, you go for it. Because at the time I was in film school, the shows that black writers could, for instance, submit work for, you know, spec scripts like Shadow Webster, The Jeffersons, Good Times, a handful of.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And when you compare to what's going on today is just really is sun set, you know and of course you could spec out feature films but there wasn't a lot of that going on. Now, I used to hang out in the same spots that the guys did who were making blaxploitation girls. So I'd be hanging out and, you know, Kim Brown and Fred Williamson would be at the top.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Would they be at the upper deck wherever you are? You know they are. And then there's there's a bunch of cats who were working on films that you're familiar with, whether it's Papandreou or this film or whatever. So it's a lot of fun, but you have to eat. And what I was able to do is put gas in my to pay my rent, you know, and move forward in my life that way because I refused to continue submitting scripts to wait for somebody to tell me that I could work.

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Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I wanted to work because I wasn't trying to be famous. I wasn't interested in Hollywood as much as I was interested in craft. I really like this filmmaking. I like storytelling. And so my objective was not to be famous or in the bright lights. It was to work, get paid and live a decent life. And like what I did, I did.

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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And I think, you know, when we're pursuing something that's creative and there's an industry that we're really interested in, like I remember just different groups by virtue of putting myself out there is the opportunity that present themselves. And I'm like, Hey, I'm a podcast nerd. I just like recording conversations and having good conversations and directing the conversation. I don't know of what I do per se is storytelling.

00;21;28;26 - 00;21;50;17
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I think what I do is facilitate storytelling. I think I try to provide a framework or what have you, and what we get is what we get. And that that's that's the thing of it. And I also use like doing these sort of interviews as a minus, listening. You should learn more about this person. This is just a sample of it and go through what I may find interesting, what have you.

00;21;51;00 - 00;22;09;06
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
But yeah, if someone was like, you know, what? If you were making this or what if you were doing that, making this much money, are you going to be super famous from this and so on? Not really interested in it because I think there are parts of it that would that could look like that would make me not like the actual creativity part of it now.

00;22;09;19 - 00;22;27;25
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And that's the thing. It's like a tradeoff. I think that's always what it is. We're making deals, you know, It's like, do you want to be this low? Kind of just want to sit here on record? Like when I when I started off, I just used as an excuse to talk with my friends about movies and about pop culture.

00;22;28;04 - 00;22;55;25
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And it's not that anymore, but I'm still equipped to do and I still do a movie review podcast which satiate that sort of desire. And it sticks with the whole reason I got into it, like this is a piece of it. And being able to have interesting conversations. And as I said earlier, I'm a gentleman thief. I'm stealing from people and doing these interviews with, but being able to still be tapped in and like, you know, satiate the sort of curiosity and the sort of passion.

00;22;56;04 - 00;23;15;24
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
That's what's interesting to me. So someone approaches me because my background is in marketing, someone approaches me, Hey, you can scale it this way. I don't want to scale. I'm good. I'm good with doing things the way that I want and doing it in a way that someone might call scale. And this is like, I think the conversation should be inclusive of this as well.

00;23;16;07 - 00;23;21;21
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
That's what my version of scaling is, I guess, but still rooted in is very similar. It's like I just want to do this.

00;23;21;27 - 00;23;47;02
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And eventually I, you know, I produce Northrop's News Show for years it was called In touch with an author and so that was a monthly use case. I had this to something but you got to do so much and you had to shoot, you had to cut. And it was it was a great place just to learn craft.

00;23;47;02 - 00;24;12;23
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And I had some really good filmmakers around me and and being in L.A. when you needed to contract out or DP or people to assist and whatever you were working on, these guys were more, you know, union guys working on or to come and work on your film, maybe working on a major feature one weekend because they had to pay their bills, you know, So you were working with top talent, you know, a lot of time.

00;24;13;02 - 00;24;24;08
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And I'll never forget I made a film with a narrative film with Dennis Haysbert that a lot of people won't recognize in the same world is the Allstate guy.

00;24;24;18 - 00;24;30;21
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Yeah, I was going to say in what is the Major League? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Baltimore movies. Let's go.

00;24;30;21 - 00;25;08;14
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Yeah. I made a film with Dennis Haysbert and I'll never forget it. It was on ethics and and work with a guy with some of the team, including a guy named Chuck Rouse on our team. And North and I wrote the script. It was approved at the highest levels and shot it and rented a Ferrari for the first part of the scenario and so and we tell you guys, really, Mazda was we did a film on ethics and we featured the I guess the antagonist was driving a Ferrari.

00;25;08;14 - 00;25;27;22
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And at the time we didn't know that wanted to see drive for us. So no, I mean the top brass in. And so, you know, that's kind of like those are the kind of the lessons you learn about client driven media. You know, that's what corporate is. You're always working in conjunction with a public relations component of a corporation.

00;25;28;00 - 00;25;57;07
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
In this case, these are fortunes the or you're working with the outside company that's handling the broadcast commercials. You know, that part of it that involves television and and all that. But eventually TRW, Space and Defense recruited me from there. And that's why I got into this animation early on, because you can put cameras on spacecraft to everything that.

00;25;57;07 - 00;25;57;17
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Makes no.

00;25;57;18 - 00;26;27;16
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Sense. And so, you know, a lot of the animation that we love today and see ideas trickle down from D.O.T., Department of Defense, the environment is so huge compared to how say it, you know, that technology comes from somewhere. It doesn't all come from university labs or from somebody in Hollywood. It's it's a trickle down thing. You know, it's just like JPL, you know, jet propulsion Laboratory is just wonderful visualizations of what, you know, where a spacecraft is and how it looks.

00;26;27;16 - 00;26;58;16
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And we have more data now so they're able to construct those those presentations as with more accuracy as time goes on. But it's amazing the technology that are involved and and doing that kind of work. And that's what TRW was, automotive, it was space. It was a different part of what was California to California as what we call aerospace and science and technology.

00;26;59;01 - 00;27;05;29
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So it's just a wonderful time to have those opportunities eventually north of 40 that, you know.

00;27;06;20 - 00;27;39;11
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
It's great to see sort of this, I guess like some of these cells, film storytelling, screenwriting, animation, that sort of background and hearing like so slight northern like these companies that laid sort of the foundations of how so That is great to hear that it's in it. And I think it shifts me into thinking about this and being in this sort of stage where you're still doing work, but also you're in this spot where you're helping sort of this next generation.

00;27;39;11 - 00;27;47;00
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So let's talk about a swan and a bit about mission. And I got a litany of bullet points and there, but at least want to start off there.

00;27;47;10 - 00;28;26;05
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So on the screenwriting and animation program was Morgan State University's first interdisciplinary program really the first one? Yes. Approved by the Maryland Higher Education Commission. And the reason why Swan was formed in this matter and I'm the founding director is formed, but part of it came from my discussions with the faculty who came on board and my own experience of how do we create sustainable careers from what is contractually driven.

00;28;26;16 - 00;28;58;18
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
This. And so, you know, from my experience, you know, in the various industries, and I eventually I went into syndicated TV after doing the corporate stuff, but from my experiences, I knew that a lot of what we teach in film is transferable to It's stuff that all industries value. And especially today, we're so much of visual. And visual storytelling is the dominant storytelling form in 21st century.

00;28;58;18 - 00;29;30;08
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So so but even data entry, coding, all that stuff, you know, we, we, we brush up against that or do it in film. So it was kind of a no brainer to me that we would integrate, you know, gateway computer science courses that other people didn't have to take unless they were computer science majors and two, into the swan program and Google engineers were beginning to teach those classes at that time here at Morgan.

00;29;30;26 - 00;30;00;14
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And the students didn't like it. Many of them didn't because first it was C++ in a different and then it became Python and later. But the value at it was that it made people less afraid of dealing with problem solving as it relates to technology. And and there's nothing wrong with having on your resume that you have some skill sets that include Python coding, you know, or these other skills doesn't hurt.

00;30;00;19 - 00;30;24;13
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
It doesn't hurt. It does not hurt. And the main thing is you can't be afraid. And as things become more open source and film, people are playing around with different things. It's good for you to have a background like that. I mean, we use proprietary programs now, but if you want to go outside that paradigm and you want to do some other things, yeah, it's nice not to be afraid to play around with it, you know?

00;30;24;24 - 00;30;47;18
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Yeah, I think like there are times where people ask me why. So we have a background in data and data analysis and all that core data and you did a podcast there as long as you have. And it's like, so where those two things me, you're, you're using different parts of your brain. I was like, I think they work together and I've been in both fields like almost concurrently.

00;30;47;27 - 00;31;06;24
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So there's the sort of anecdotal side, you know, doing the storytelling on the podcast, on the interviews. And then there's the analytical side that I can maybe flesh out some of the stuff when it comes to, hey, you know, write this narrative based on this data pool. On the other side of it, if I'm talking to a funder and it's like, so we go analytics.

00;31;06;24 - 00;31;36;19
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Well, just so happens I ran the sequel script that does it every week and here's my numbers. And I think those things run together. But also the key thing that comes out of it is the changing how I see you. I think in going through this process of doing so many interviews and having a system in place, thinking systematically, that's what I've gotten out of it and it's allowed me to be, you know, successful as opposed in doing this like amount of work and being in a battle with these different things.

00;31;37;01 - 00;32;39;05
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
That's right. That's right. That's so true. Versatility is really important to the sustainability of our career. I think we do a good job here in the Swan program of exposing our students to the notion that you may have a job that's different from your your creative aspirations, but neither although I think the two shall meet maybe you both must move forward, particularly your creative aspirations, because basically a lot of our students are holding down jobs so that they can just live a life pay for stuff, including equipment, including computers, so that they can become more practice that what they most desire to do.

00;32;39;19 - 00;33;06;22
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And so what we were determined, particularly this is a historically black college and university and and one of the things that I think we were determined to do was to look out for the futures of these students as it relates to dreaming and practice. And, you know, dreaming is one thing, practice is another. But to dream and practice together is the best way forward.

00;33;06;22 - 00;33;23;28
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
You know, you have to put the time. You also need to be able to sustain life and not everybody's going to want to live at home, you know, or can't live at home. So I always kind of joked around here, How can you play a little bit in living at home.

00;33;24;20 - 00;33;24;28
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
With.

00;33;25;07 - 00;33;52;21
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
That, that that that's just a joke. But anyways but but but you know I mean and we know that these days it's very difficult. I have a great deal of empathy for my students. They dealt with a lot of things that I didn't have to deal with and I feel like it's my responsibility to keep that in mind in the way that we think our pedagogy and our curriculum for them to be competitive.

00;33;53;10 - 00;34;32;02
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And yet, you know, there's this humanistic side of that side of things. So we always have to keep in mind, you know, and, and the pressures that students face, you know, and social media, too. So God knows, you know, the cost of things. And we create an environment where we address those things, as does Morgan State University. I think overall, you know, and I feel like our our faculty and our staff, we are all kind of like very much aware of that.

00;34;32;09 - 00;35;08;16
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And and we've had great success with the growth of the program. And our alumni have started to, you know, move forward in careers in ways that we didn't anticipate to come. Even so, you know, we have three concentrations in for screenwriting and animation. We have film and TV writing, and that's where a lot of our our filmmakers are because we have the same production building blocks curriculum that any film school does.

00;35;08;16 - 00;35;37;08
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
You know, you have to make films here, you have to cut even have to do animation. We introduce all that, but we're called film and TV. Writing is a most popular concentration. We also have computer animation, which is growing. It's becoming equal in popularity to film and TV, right? May overtake it because it includes the game design component as well as, you know, filmmaking, etc. And we have a third component and it's we call it screenwriting and animation.

00;35;37;20 - 00;36;17;20
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
But when you put these things into, how should I say, the academic approval cycle for people who don't understand film, things will slip back out, right? So that third concentrations called integrated media writing and and animation, we got screenwriting in animation, keep it short, you know, but that brings in the graphic comics as well as graphic novels and and require students in addition to taking the eight credits of computer science that all of our students must take, which are some of the same recourses that computer science teachers have to take your question.

00;36;17;20 - 00;36;44;04
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
They take drawing classes in the art department, Fine Arts. So we give up in that measure. We're giving up 14 credits so that they can experience those fundamentals in those other areas, because that's what an interdisciplinary nature does. You know, we're not trying to recreate all the skill sets, the basic skill sets in our, but we we know what we do, what we're here to do.

00;36;44;14 - 00;36;54;23
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And if we can find it somewhere else, we're going to talk to that program. And that's what collaboration and and interdisciplinary efforts are all about.

00;36;55;00 - 00;37;23;19
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Makes for a more well-rounded, professional, creative, whatever the terminology would be. It goes to that sort of next level. And going back to one of the things you said, and we got probably two more real questions here. You know, I just remember like, you know, having that desire, I want to say maybe two years into the real career, it's like, all right, I need this job, you know, to to to do this and all of that different stuff to pay for my lifestyle and living.

00;37;23;22 - 00;37;47;03
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I enjoy my bagels or whatever the thing might be. Right? And I just remember being like 24 and this is around that time, as it says, write down for mine being 24. It was on my birthday and I was talking with some friends and I said, I feeling creatively like I feel like trying to find different opportunities. I was a marketing analyst.

00;37;47;08 - 00;38;16;17
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I like marketing or marketing and wasn't all right. I still and I was just reaching for opportunities to do something sexy, to do something that was fun, whether it be training videos and make them interesting, whether it be filming like our holiday party and doing some of these creative, did you sort of create these sort of structured things in there that were sales incentive sales boosting just different programing ultimately that I could flex sort of that creative muscle.

00;38;17;01 - 00;38;35;14
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And podcasting was not a part of it at all at the time. And, you know, just trying to figure it out, trying to figure out like, this is what I really want to do. This is was paying me and finding now that both of those things over the years have come closer and closer together. And, you know, I just take something from it.

00;38;35;18 - 00;38;55;14
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I just take something from it that makes it work better. Like there's always this conversation when it comes to like artists and like people who are in business that they don't have those sort of complementary skills, like artists don't know how to do their taxes or have their, their stuff together in that regard. And obviously it's not all, but that's kind of the idea that floats around.

00;38;55;23 - 00;39;37;22
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And I think having this sort of that foundation and starting off as a person who I want to be a writer. Yes, I wanted I was drawing comics, all that and we'll talk about that later. And and returning to sort of like this creative thing, like trying to put my own interests, trying writing, writing poetry, writing short stories, things of that nature, and then maybe write a few treatments here and there and trying to figure out, like, what is the lane that this colony, while having this sort of creative means to sort of professional backdrop, you know, being here, writing like rap and like short stories while in the business program and just having that

00;39;37;22 - 00;39;53;14
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
sort of here's the creative thing that you want to do, but here's a professional thing that you're going to do. You can either fall back on. So almost being in a spot where I could be my own agent or I am able to be more knowledgeable in the conversation, to be able to speak for both sides as opposed to.

00;39;54;02 - 00;40;29;11
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Yeah, I mean, that's you're absolutely right. I was going to say one of the things that we've had success with here as well, we have a lot of partners. We have a lot of people. We collaborate with. We have a let's call it a salon visiting artist program. And we just had David Talbot in, for instance, did a screening of Single Single is $100 Million Evergreen Christmas film for Netflix, which is a landmark film, in fact, I think was featured in Seen in 50 Greatest Christmas movies.

00;40;29;11 - 00;40;52;14
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
You know, and to people like Nina Noble and David Simon, who have actually wrapped post-production on Show Me a Hero, because it's very, very, you know, facility and lived with us for three weeks with the writers and producers and allowed my students to see a process deadlines review process in real time. I mean this.

00;40;52;17 - 00;40;53;27
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Deadline of yeah.

00;40;54;02 - 00;41;22;08
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
You have no deadlines and but that's what this is immersion you know what I mean? And we work with Johns Hopkins, Baltimore Youth Film Arts, Lucy Personality. Krissy Pritchett We work with the sales innovation from Annette Porter. We work with a lot. We have a lot of different partners. Baltimore office of Promotion, the Arts. We're the co-founder of the Baltimore screenwriting.

00;41;22;16 - 00;42;15;06
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Well and so Debbie Dorsey is, is as a regular partner to what we do then that contest is I think it's reaching 20 years now. But anyway, partnerships are absolutely essential. Here was one of the most extraordinary things that happened to us within the past. I'd say four years or three years. Is that Timothy where Hill wrote spoken voice tribute to our Ahmet Aubrey, who was killed in Georgia, tragically killed in Georgia, and Arnon Manor, a VP at Sony Animation, sold the piece and he has his own company, Critical Films, and they decided to mix media, animation piece with that with Timothy, where Hill's a spoken word piece as the backdrop.

00;42;15;06 - 00;42;45;14
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And sure enough, it was just so just out of the blue, I get a call and they're calling us to see if we want to join, you know, 15 other animators, some of whom were at the top of the game, including some in a school in Canada, to work on this project. And it was going to be in animation called Cops and Robbers.

00;42;46;03 - 00;43;20;03
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And we jumped in there. My students got to work on that. And these guys, it was a regular process, development process. It was so cool. But anyway, long story short, the piece went on to win. The Peabody for Social Justice Works on Netflix is called Coursera, I would say, in this nation. So so so then on a matter and decides to work something where it decides to donate $20,000 to to create a training heart scholarship.

00;43;20;03 - 00;43;51;24
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So we have this rotating scholarship as of 22 or 2021, I think, or 2222 that students create social justice piece, whether it's written or introduced or whether it's animation, whatever, and they compete to get one of these thousand dollar scholarships. Okay? But just having people like at that level involve with your students who are regularly zooming in the to them is just it energizes you and it shows them the possibilities and pathways.

00;43;52;09 - 00;44;29;05
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
The same thing we have with Netflix animation studios there. Now they come on the ground and it was us and now Sony Animation. And we you know, we have students now working at Disney in Los Angeles. We have DreamWorks in Los Angeles. We have students who are independently kind of coming up as artists, animators and artists like Kyle Yearwood, who just worked on a real cool piece that's on the Smithsonian channel called Afrofuturism.

00;44;29;05 - 00;44;53;27
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
The reason all of that animation and that conceptualization comes from Kyle Yearwood and it's just so satisfying to see people breaking through like that. Tourist Thomas won the top funding from the South Fund to make his film senior, which we turn into an immersive experience for him by working with him in Baltimore over that 13 day period on the film.

00;44;54;13 - 00;45;25;04
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And he is part of our team here too. And so we just have had the fortune of people who want to give back, who are moving forward and whenever we can through internships, through these immersive experiences, as we call them, we involve our students. And I'm sure those people I'm not mentioning who I should forgive me for that, but or companies.

00;45;25;04 - 00;45;54;27
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
But this is very important to to, you know, any type of film program or expressive arts program. We need to have successful practitioners kind of, you know, be involved in helping show your students the way we're now doing a short film on our student. We have a beachhead in Los Angeles now, so we're doing a short film about all of our guys who've come from Florida who have popped up in L.A. working here.

00;45;54;27 - 00;46;30;15
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Now we have people in New York and just the alumni, you know, desire to give back to the program has been really incredible. We we look forward to the fellows, to the further development of our program and hopefully to the development of facilities that we have the fortune to even already own to be part of this this effort.

00;46;31;15 - 00;46;53;08
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
That that is just I'm in the air and I just see hearing collaboration and hearing that it's just the hamster wheel is going right now. So yeah, but I think that we have everything as far as the main questions. So I want to hit you with three rapid fire questions because everybody is there at five. Okay? Okay. All right.

00;46;53;09 - 00;46;56;13
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So that everything can occur next. Yes.

00;46;56;28 - 00;47;13;16
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
You see, that's a question for me. Yes. So here's here's the first one. So when you're getting work done, whatever the work might be, what when do you get your best work done? This morning as an evening. When are you getting your best? When are you most optimal in terms of your working style?

00;47;15;10 - 00;47;31;26
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
That's very, very interesting question. I have had to learn to be effective and whatever time frame that.

00;47;32;07 - 00;47;32;29
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Is the nature of business.

00;47;33;04 - 00;48;07;01
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I find myself able to focus in on those things that require the most attention, particularly conceptualization of pedagogy and curriculum, studying where our program should be headed in the way of preparing people for the future. And my own creative suffers the most. But I've even learned to make space for that in the bits and pieces that I throw at that time.

00;48;07;03 - 00;48;19;25
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
But I'm fully dedicated to whatever effort that I have for whatever time frame I'm given. And a lot of the time I won't even like. Caffeine plays a big role.

00;48;20;02 - 00;48;45;20
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
As a rock and doing coffee, right? Like, yeah, you know, I talk with my partner on occasion about like, you know, she, she's a writer and she's like, is going to have time to write in a time that's like, you know, I, I still, I juggle juggle time it, you know, my stack things and being fortunate enough to do kind of a double dip here of this is a studio visit, a space visit and an interview.

00;48;45;25 - 00;49;12;23
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So it's kind of knocked out to two different things. There's fellowship and there's collaboration in there, and it's also the sort of content component there. So being able to figure it out because I try to has know time locked out in this way is like maximizing that sort of effort. These are the thinking that I have there. But yeah, I think I agree where, you know, especially coming back from a place that had a different time zone, you know, like I'm thrown off a little bit.

00;49;13;00 - 00;49;15;07
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So it's like, let me just time to say, you know.

00;49;15;26 - 00;50;05;29
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Well, you know, the other plus I was I had this real quick and I have wonderful colleagues here who are dealing with the same thing. David Warfield is one of my colleagues here on faculty, produced a micro-budget film, rolls a few years back, and it was shot over 5 minutes and the whole thing, it's on Apple Entertainment. And so and I've got people like they'll grant and coordinator animations kind of thing working on stuff and and you're moving that And then I have M.K. Asante as a colleague and I've actually watched him develop whole books and storyboard simultaneously, looking forward to what if this becomes a movie and to do that, integrating it.

00;50;06;01 - 00;50;26;22
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Yeah, he's so he's got time in a room alone and all that. But you have time where you're not in a room alone, where you're still moving at. He understand And so, you know, I have people around me. I have David Roberts, who's a faculty member of one of my former students who runs a company, is, you know, brings a lot of opportunities for students.

00;50;26;22 - 00;50;39;21
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And he makes a kind of immediate, very successful in it. But he's making an independent film, micro-budget film simultaneously, you know, And so there's no and raising a family, my kids are grown.

00;50;40;29 - 00;50;53;24
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I don't have any. So, yeah, you know, it's it's sort of that makes a lot of sense. So I have to say this this next one definitely relates I mean, obviously do you get on average.

00;50;54;21 - 00;51;28;02
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
My doctor wants me to get seven at least and I've had to pay more attention to my, you know, the suggestions that my my, my Hopkins medical team gives me and then ever. But throughout, you know, it's not unusual for me to get up at 4 a.m. after four or 5 hours of sleep. And I try to exercise in the morning, but I'm trying to get 7 hours of sleep, but I don't go to bed early, so and then I have to get up early.

00;51;28;02 - 00;51;53;21
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So for me to get seven, I've got to sacrifice something, you know what I mean? And rather than and the ideas of forcing you to sacrifice something in that way so that you don't sacrifice yourself, but the energy from me in this career, over this period of time, you know, it's like we've always had these rule out or says that works well.

00;51;53;21 - 00;52;09;27
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I was in 12 hours for 10 hours yesterday now, and I don't I'm not proud of that. But you do. Sometimes that happens, you know. But I think we develop those habits from early on because of the nature of our enterprise.

00;52;09;29 - 00;52;26;23
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
That you're I spoke with someone. I must tell you a little bit of our early just different jobs and, you know, just saying like, well, if I get hooked on something, you know, like, let's say solving an issue in a data problem, there have been times where I just forget to say, Oh, it was layoffs. I know.

00;52;26;23 - 00;52;27;27
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
It's the struggle.

00;52;28;05 - 00;52;45;00
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Is mid-day, why am I still in the office? And it's just I'm in it. And, you know, I find like sometimes, you know, a point, this heavy point when I was 18 interviews a week. Yeah. And it's like it's a lot because it's not just in. It's like the menu thing, right? Yeah. You see those on the menu?

00;52;45;00 - 00;53;04;12
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
You see the dish, but you're not seeing what goes into it. So that thing goes up because oil goes up, you know, like when I'm putting in two or 3 hours of press before an interview, you know, to get it kind of ready is like I'm putting in 54 hours if I'm doing 18 interviews, one for the interview and two or so for the prep work.

00;53;04;27 - 00;53;14;11
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And luckily I have an editor that I'm not putting in another 2 hours. But that's not what you're saying. You said it's a well, that you're kind of like, give it up something yourself.

00;53;14;20 - 00;53;42;03
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
You give it. Yeah, you give me something. And I'm fortunate at this point in the development of sort because for so many years I didn't have to have too much of a staff. And now I've got a wonderful young right to full time staff members, which is a big deal. I've got part time players for the lab and and once again I've got an alumni who's my lab manager who has another total job in that field as a Cynthia engineer who is giving back to us.

00;53;42;07 - 00;53;59;06
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I mean, he's paid, but these are the quality of people that that are now part of the team. And it it makes it better for me. But, you know, you face the same challenge. I mean, when are you going to re when are you going to watch the movies We want to watch, you know what I mean? So and when are you going to live your life?

00;53;59;06 - 00;54;08;16
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So you're integrating your life. And that's something we talk about a lot in our program is about managing your life and this expressive arts lane, you know?

00;54;08;23 - 00;54;30;23
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Yeah, it's I finally, you know, for me, one of the things I'm able to do is get very creative and how I consume. I'm not a person that is going to like this very rare patients that when to dive into a lot of books. But do I have 200 plus audio books on my phone? Yes. And that that's that's how I consume it.

00;54;30;23 - 00;54;47;25
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And but, you know, certain things, like I watch movies a lot differently now because of the movie podcast that I do, and I'm thinking about it critically. We have this this is an aside and I have the one last question for you. But there's a thing I don't know if you follow like soccer or what have you, but you have the stoppage play.

00;54;47;25 - 00;54;53;05
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Yeah, we do that with movies. So for a two hour movie, it might take us 3 hours to watch. It was like, you know, that just happened.

00;54;53;05 - 00;54;56;17
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
I do the same thing. I do the same thing. I do the same thing.

00;54;56;17 - 00;54;58;03
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
We did that a lot with recently.

00;54;58;12 - 00;55;01;17
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Okay. Okay. I yeah, I understand.

00;55;02;12 - 00;55;15;28
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So. So this is the last one, and I think you're going to enjoy this question a lot. What Is your favorite four letter word that starts with an S? You take it one or two ways. It might be a tribal setting. Who knows?

00;55;18;20 - 00;55;30;14
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
You think about this for okay, Yeah, well, you know the word.

00;55;31;00 - 00;55;31;16
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Film.

00;55;33;10 - 00;55;38;03
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Fill. Exactly So exactly so that although.

00;55;38;21 - 00;55;39;08
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
There's another one.

00;55;39;24 - 00;55;47;06
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
There is another one that's used frequently in the making of film. Yeah. Yeah.

00;55;47;29 - 00;56;10;12
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Find it. So I want to I want to thank you for coming on to this podcast. This has been truly a treat and truly a great opportunity. And for those not here, keep us at me, check out the space, speak with students, and just really afforded me that space and opportunity and really a welcome return to the campus and a very great conversation to have.

00;56;10;12 - 00;56;21;27
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
So thank you so much. And I'm inviting encourage you to tell folks listening where they can learn more about Swann, learn more about you, the flow, whatever you want to say. The floor resources.

00;56;22;28 - 00;57;07;13
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Of Swann has an Instagram presence, screenwriting and animation at Morgan State University. We're on the Morgan website. Swann or screenwriting in animation under the Gilliam College of Liberal Arts. That's our home. And we also have a presence on Facebook. And we welcome you to join our growing number of followers and look for us also on YouTube in the future and on Vimeo as well.

00;57;08;12 - 00;57;10;00
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
But there you have it, folks. I want to.

00;57;10;00 - 00;57;10;22
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Again thank.

00;57;10;27 - 00;57;13;21
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Keith Mellinger for coming on to the podcast and choppin it.

00;57;13;21 - 00;57;14;09
Keith Mehlinger - The Truth In This Art Podcast
Out with me.

00;57;14;09 - 00;57;28;29
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art Podcast
And I'm Rob Lees and there's art culture, filmmakers, storytellers in and around your neck of the woods. You've just got to look for.