[2:57]Hello, everybody! Oh, what's going on, everybody? You guys enjoying your con thus far? Yeah? All right. Happy to be here on Nerd HQ? I like hearing it. Oh, hi, guys. How are you? Uh, you excited to watch uh, a little trailer for Into the Storm? All right, fantastic. We're going to cue that up first. We're going to show that to you. Then we're gonna, then I'm going to come out here, and I'm going to vamp while they set us some chairs and some side tables. And we're going to bring out the awesome cast for you. So, why don't we get into the trailer? We ready to go with that, guys? All right. We got a thumbs up there. So, one, everybody sit backs, relax, and enjoy.
[3:39]I leave you with Henry David Thoreau's words. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. We shouldn't lose hope. Please move inside in an orderly fashion. Here we go. Here we go. All the way to the windows. Get out.
[4:07]Get down! Face the wall. Cover your heads! Get down!
[4:15]Take cover!
[4:21]Oh my head!
[4:30]It's regenerating. Did you hear that?
[4:37]That! Help us! The building fell out! There's water pouring in! I got to get my son. Can you take this? Let's move. What the hell is that?
[4:49]Is this what you guys do for a living? Stay safe. I study. Look out!
[4:57]That was close. Dude, my arm hair. All the warning sirens are down. Tornado's coming your way. You're not going to know it. Hey guys, it's splitting. There's another one. There's three. Four. They're everywhere. Hang on! Oh my god! I study storms all my life. And this one is bigger than any storm that has ever been.
[5:30]We need help. Give me your hand.
[6:01]Yeah! And nobody dies! Nobody dies in the whole movie. It's amazing. How kick-ass is that look, right? I can't tell you how aggravated I was the last time I got a tricycle stuck in the side of my minivan. It was like the worst thing ever. So, this is vamp time. I'm going to vamp with you. Hey, uh, is there flash photography allowed at this panel? No, there is not. Is there video allowed at this panel? No, there is not. So, please, please from the bottom of my heart, I'm begging you, please don't do any of those things. You can still take photos. It's okay, Wonder Woman. It's fine. You're welcome. Um, so, uh, what else can I tell you? Oh, I can tell you that you guys help raise thousands of dollars for Operation Smile by sitting in this audience today. I can tell you that. Uh, Operation Smile is an incredible organization. If you get a chance, check them out operationsmile.org. Uh, you can go to thenerdmachine.com. We have links to them as well. Uh, we have incredible representatives that are working here at Nerd HQ that can tell you all about it. Uh, they're incredible organization. You guys are doing so much good just by being here. Um, am I still vamping? Am I still Some people needed to use the restroom. Uh, oh, wow. And we're all set up. Uh, what, what can I, um, uh, can I, can I Let me just, uh, uh, still vamping? Still vamping. Still vamping. What does anybody want to know? I'll ask some questions. Yes. Oh, hi, Blondie. I see you got a frying pan and a Pascal there. Well done. Where's Maximus? Couldn't fit him in the panel room, I see. Oh, and you got my satchel. Can I have my satchel back? So mean. Oh, oh, and we're good to go. Hey, who wants to meet the cast from Into the Storm? Well, without further ado, please welcome to the stage in this particular order. Sarah Wayne Callies, Matt Walsh, Matt Dickens, Nathan Kress, Jon Reep, Kyle Davis, and Stephen Quale.
[8:05]Keep it going for them, people. Thank you. Hello. Hello.
[8:14]So, as I've told you guys, and as you guys know, this is all your time. So, who's got the first mic and who's got the first question? Oh, this gentleman right over here. Go ahead, sir. Um, I have a question for Nathan. Okay. Um, your character films a lot during the movie, so, are you kind of used to that since that's kind of what you did during iCarly? Yeah, that actually... That's a great question. No, it actually ate off in spades because there was part of making a realistic looking found footage movie is being able to operate the camera, at least look like you can operate a camera, realistically because when the actual camera guys come in and they do what they're supposed to do, it has to look about the same.
[8:53]Otherwise it doesn't look believable, it doesn't match. So, having that practice for five years prior to that of of being used to holding a camera and still doing lines and and most importantly matching what the real camera guys were doing is something that actually became second nature to me and so I just kind of carried that on in this. The only difference, though, is that because iCarly was a multi-camera sitcom, I had to hold it in a very different way. I had to, I tried at the beginning of the show, I would hold it, you know, up where I normally would to to do camera work and they kept saying, no, you have to hold it lower, it's blocking your face, it doesn't work for the, for the staging of the, of the set. But with this, I kept holding it too low and just how I was reflexively doing it, and they kept having to tell me to be real and and do it how I normally would. So, that was the only thing that was a little bit difficult. It was kind of a habit I had to break. But besides that, it actually ended up being very helpful. Well, the great thing about it is every actor got to get at least one shot in the movie that ended up on camera. And they worked really closely with all the camera team, so it was this nice synergy between them trying to learn how to do camera stuff, because it's not just people who aren't professionals, but we have professional storm chasers who are camera documentarians in our script. And so they know how to operate the camera, so I wanted the realism, and it worked well. You guys did a great job. Thank you, Steve. Except these two idiots here. Thank you, Steve. You were great. They cut us out. Who's got the who's got the next microphone? Nobody. Nobody does. All right, that's it. Thank you, guys. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Who has a question? Oh, right here. Right here. Right here. Okay. Nice shirt. Thank you. Um, for about two hours last night after the movie, I had a debate going on with my little friends over here. I need to know what happened to Pete. Because what happened to Pete and that y'all said, it did not happen. Pete's okay, right? I like to believe just so we can make a sequel. See, he, he made it. But Pete is superhuman and he can survive. Exactly.
[10:54]And the sequel is where you make the money. Let's be honest, so. Isn't the sequel you in the clouds. Yeah. In an alternate world, floating around yelling at angels.
[11:06]Rainbows in the background. I don't know. I guess that's a question for the director. What happened to Pete? Well, I think, uh, it's pretty obvious that, uh, just have to see the movie. Uh-huh. Good answer. Uh, who's next? Oh, right there. Yeah, in the back. Well, hello there. Hello. Hi. Hello there. Hi. As a meteorologist, I... Oh, no. We're out. As a meteorologist who works with Doppler weather radar. Whoa. All right. All right. Quit name dropping. Fancy terms. Quit name dropping. Do you deal with mesocyclones as well? No, I do not. Uh, I'm actually very curious, uh, what science went into the whole process from the very beginning with the script and then being on the set and the actors, uh, especially somebody who's playing a PhD, how much background did you have to get, uh, in order to play that part? Oh, well, I mean, I only got a masters in meteorology for the filming. Um... Not a PhD. Because there just wasn't time. Um, first of all, did we do okay? No. Okay. Wow. Why did you have to ask that? I can tell. She's going to hit you. Because we really tried. I mean, we really did try. So...
[12:19]Sorry, I'm an actress. The physics.
[12:24]Right. So, here, here was my, my giving it the old college try. Uh, I bought a meteorology textbook and made it about 15 pages. And went, actresses needs help. So, I cold called, um, the emeritus dean of the, uh, University of Michigan, Meteorology and Climatology Department, who was an incredibly patient and generous man and drove out to meet me halfway between Ann Arbor and Detroit. And we spent a couple of hours drawing on napkins and trying to figure things out. And Steve and I would start unpacking words like vorticity, which is a word that I hadn't heard before. Your favorite word. Yeah, you and me in vor...what, anyway. So, we, we really did try because I think a movie like this, the more authentic you can make it and the more honest you can make it, the better it goes because our job is to get you into the middle of it, so that it's a visceral experience. Um, all I can say is we needed you. Sarah, what was the dean's name? What? What was the dean's name? I'll be honest, I don't remember. Well, it's your fault.
[13:32]No, no, no. He was a lovely, lovely, lovely man. Who's next? Is there anyone else we can disappoint or let down? Uh, from a production standpoint, I'd love to hear how you filmed the hail scene. Well, that was really interesting. We had just a bunch of burly men standing on a hotel whipping chunks of ice at your head. Literally. So, that's our producer over there, Todd Gardner. Woohoo. Yeah, Todd. Thank you. Well, to to answer your question about the hail, trying to get authenticity, I remember the movie Twister had a hail sequence and the hail falling was broken ice. It wasn't spherical, you know, hail that I'm used to seeing when you see a hail storm. So I talked to the special effects guys and said, can we get spherical ice that actually falls as opposed to the crushed ice, which I thought didn't look very realistic. And he found a special company that molds that makes molded ice for high-end bars for for, you know, drinks and it's a dollar an ice cube, but it's perfectly spherical, so it looks like an actual hail storm. So we bought thousands and thousands of dollars worth of that ice and shot them up in things to project down and then we augmented that with digital, um, hail falling as well. And these guys were really troopers because they just ran right in the middle of it all to to get that. They may hurt. They hurt. It was a long continuous take that I thought worked really well and uh, everything, um, you know, worked out. But you didn't lob them. You threw them. They were whipping them. Because they wanted it to look faster. And so, this guy over here, like, gets out his baseball mitt and starts throwing these, I mean, and they were huge. And they really, they hurt. They hurt. I sound like such a pansy when I say it. Matt actually still has a lot of hail damage on his back side to this day. It's actually prickly heat. Show, show the people, man. Oh, you want to see my backside? Whoo!
[15:27]Uh, where where is all this thousands of dollars of fake ice now? Is it all sitting in the fake ice storage? It melts, but I remember working with my AD. Yeah. Spoilers. It's real. Oh, it's real ice. Spoiler alert. Well, it all went back to God. It's all back into the earth now. Yes. Right. Uh, who's next? Oh, right over there. Yes, Wonder Woman. Hey. Big fan, big fan. Hello. Woo. So, first of all, great job on the movies, guys. I saw the premiere yesterday. Gracias. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, how many, how many people actually went to see the show, the movie? Yeah, fantastic. Sweet. Thank you. Thank you. So, sorry, continue, Wonder Woman. So, more specifically toward Max and um, Nathan, but I want input from all of you guys. As young actors, what advice could you give to people like starting to want to go that path? Don't do drugs. Okay. Stay in school. Okay. Yeah, that Well, technically, yeah. Um, it I it depends on what stage you're starting in.
[16:31]Let's say this is it's something that came into your head and and you've decided that you want to give it a shot. Honestly, the the first thing that I could think of was if you are still in school to get involved in your school theater. That's for the younger kids, junior high and and high school. Um, and I think that's a a good, safe and very inexpensive way to to see if that's really something that that you want to do. And and from there, that can expand to community theater or something in your city, not just inside your school. And then if it if it really takes off from there and you really feel like that's something that you have a passion for, then you can move on to potentially, you know, doing it professionally and seeking out auditions and everything. The the hard thing is it's a a really big gamble because often times to really give it the old college try, it does take a good bit of financial investment with getting headshots and having them printed and and driving from from place to place. And especially if you're from out of state moving to either Chicago or LA or New York or wherever else. I think we all agree it's a stupid thing to do. Yes, it's a really, technically, it's a really bad choice, unless it pays off. So, it's, it's, it's a huge gamble. And so, the, I think the best thing to do in the very beginning is to start small, because that's something that can give you a an idea of whether or not you really want to do it in a safe environment where you don't invest a lot into it. Yeah, and just believe in yourself and uh, and hope to find people that believe in you as well. Yeah, that's not, that's good. No, it doesn't work. Doesn't work. Go work at an agency, be an intern, then you can meet all the casting directors. Uh-huh. That's what I did. And it all paid off. What I would say having gone to USC Cinema School is find any student films and act in them, because it's a great learning experience and you get a lot of talented people and you're doing it and every, you know, they are looking for good actors and, you know, hopefully you can find the right creative team and that's a good way as well to try to work your way up.
[18:17]I love how Stephen just dropped, having gone to USC Cinema School. Uh. Yeah. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Yeah.
[18:27]Be to dummy. What a jerk. I know. Such an ass. Well, hey, you know, it's like going to USC, which is, you know, George Lucas went there. So, it was all this, oh my god. And then years later, I was an intern at, uh, ILM. And so they have this July 4th Skywalker Ranch, um, you know, party or whatever it is. And I'm walking and there's George Lucas. I'm like, oh my god, this is the guy why I became in movies. I have to say hi to him. And I'm like walking up and he's like there and walks right past me.
[18:57]That was my brush with George Lucas. Uh, who's next? Anybody, oh, right over there. Hello. Hello. Hello. So, I was wondering, you know, big, massive disaster movie, and you're talking about some of your really rough experiences. But, uh, is it something you would seek out to do again? Would you be like, I want to do another disaster movie? Yeah.
[19:59]Absolutely. It's really fun to do stunts and it was a good group and, uh, Michigan was very kind to us. Had some good pool nights, barbecues. Uh, but yeah, I think it's really fun because it relieves a lot of pressure when you're literally, Steve will say you want to run from here past the explosion, past the fire, through the wind and the rain, and you're seeking shelter. Anybody could do that. Because you're literally, your adrenaline's going and you're just hustling to get out of that weather.
[20:27]Yeah, I think we will, we'll complain and tell funny stories, but it's one of, as soon as you get out of that storm drain or pit or wherever you are or off the quad bike, although I don't think that was really, um, it's fun. It's just you, you, it's kind of it's kind of awesome as soon as it stops sucking as much as it did, you know? I will say what I've noticed, I mean, there was, there was a day on set where I realized that I need to start reading scripts differently. I need to start counting the number of pages where I'm soaked to the skin, because that's relevant information. And I realized at a certain point I turned to Richard. I said, can you name a single actor that's ever done two weather movies? And we couldn't come up with one. So I think it's possible that at a certain point, at least, you know, for certain levels of famous people that maybe aren't represented by us. But there are certain kinds of actors, you know, who kind of go, oh, I did that. But, you know, Philip Hoffman, to my knowledge, did not do another disaster movie after Twister. I don't think Helen Hunt did another one.
[21:09]I think John Cusack might have called it a day after The Day After Tomorrow. The Day after after tomorrow after...
[21:29]Close enough.
[21:32]After I, yeah. Kyle, you want to rate that one? Because I don't think that was so good. No, no, I'm, I'm walking out. I'm leaving. Can't deal with you, sir. For me, it's just a great experience dealing with the people. And we had wonderful people regardless of what you're doing, that doesn't always happen. And on a film, to have such an incredible cast, crew and everybody else and locals, it just it's a fun experience because, you know, it's hard work, everybody is sitting there grinding away and hopefully we make something that the audience will enjoy. Yeah, as corny as it may sound, the the people in the story were sort of banding together against this extreme weather, in the same way the actors were sort of banding together against these extreme weather elements, so I just like to publicly apologize for all the torture that I put you guys through, because, uh, you guys were were, were great. Too late. You're late. No. Yeah. Oh, my god.
[22:58]Thanks for supporting Operation Smile. Thank you, guys. Thanks.
