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ALOHA SURF HOTEL’s STEFAN SCHAEFER joins Jason Schwartz – 2-22-2021- Stefan is notable here on Maui for other local movies but/and has a history of making great movies. Conversation about ALOHA SURF HOTEL movie and also possibilities in the future of Hawaii film industry
Summary & Full Timestamped Transcript Below…
The interview centers on Stefan Schaefer, an independent filmmaker, producer, writer, director, and actor who has significantly contributed to building a local film industry in Maui, Hawaii. Stefan discusses his journey from New York to Maui, where he has been fostering a creative ecosystem that nurtures local talent and tells authentic Hawaiian stories. His latest project, Aloha Surf Hotel, is a locally produced family-friendly comedy about a washed-up surfer who becomes a surf instructor at a beachfront hotel. The film highlights the vibrant surf culture and the unique characters of the islands.
Stefan emphasizes the importance of creating opportunities for local actors, crew, and students to stay in Maui and build their careers without needing to relocate. His work with other local filmmakers, such as Brian Cohn, and involvement with Maui College’s creative media program illustrate his commitment to developing a sustainable film industry on the islands. The pandemic posed challenges for theatrical releases, but Aloha Surf Hotel has found a modest theatrical run and plans for digital release.
The conversation also explores the collaborative, family-like atmosphere on set, the joy and challenges of independent filmmaking, and the evolving nature of financing and distribution in the digital age. Stefan shares insights about his past projects, including a documentary on poet W.S. Merwin focused on environmental themes, reflecting his broader vision of storytelling as a way to inspire and connect.
Ultimately, the interview showcases Stefan’s dedication to telling local stories, supporting the Maui creative community, and encouraging others—both young and old—to pursue their creative passions despite obstacles. His optimism about the future of the Hawaiian film industry is grounded in grassroots efforts, collaboration, and innovation.
Highlights
- [03:14] Aloha Surf Hotel is a family-friendly comedy featuring 95% local Hawaiian cast and crew, showcasing authentic island stories.
- [09:00] The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted plans for a wide theatrical release of Aloha Surf Hotel, pushing the team to adapt with limited theater runs and digital strategies.
- [29:03] Stefan highlights the success of local internships leading to sustainable film production careers in Maui, demonstrating a growing industry ecosystem.
- [34:16] Independent film production in Maui fosters a family-like collaborative environment where passion drives the work more than financial rewards.
- [40:57] Stefan dreams of producing a long-running TV series shot entirely in Hawaii, which would significantly boost the local industry and economy.
- [46:06] Encouragement for creatives of all ages to flex their creative muscles, try filmmaking, and embrace failure as part of the artistic journey.
- [48:24] Stefan’s work and projects can be followed online, including the new film Aloha Surf Hotel, symbolizing the new internet age’s role in content distribution and discovery.
Key Insights
- [02:05] Local Industry Development: Stefan’s approach emphasizes building a film industry rooted in local talent and stories, which not only preserves cultural authenticity but also creates economic opportunities on Maui. By hiring primarily local crews and actors, he helps keep creative jobs on the island, reducing brain drain and fostering community pride. This model is essential for sustainable regional filmmaking.
- [05:04] “Jump Off the Cliff” Mentality: Stefan stresses the importance of action over hesitation in filmmaking. Independent projects often require taking risks without waiting for perfect conditions, budgets, or casting. This agility allows creative momentum and long-term career building, especially in small markets like Maui. It underscores a proactive mindset critical for indie filmmakers everywhere.
- [09:30] Adaptability Amid Crisis: The pandemic’s impact on theatrical distribution forced Stefan and his team to pivot strategies quickly. Their choice to continue limited theater showings alongside plans for digital release reflects resilience and the hybrid nature of modern film distribution, where flexibility is necessary for survival and audience reach.
- [23:45] ️ The Art of Editing and Storytelling: Stefan differentiates between documentary and narrative film editing, highlighting how documentaries require a discovery process of story crafting in post-production, whereas narrative films follow a more structured script-driven approach. This reveals the layered creative processes behind filmmaking and the importance of editing as a storytelling tool.
- [29:03] Investment in Local Talent: Stefan’s anecdote about a 17-year-old intern who grew into a full-time professional illustrates the long-term payoff of investing in local training and mentorship. This pipeline of talent development is a cornerstone for building a viable island-based film industry that can sustain itself financially and creatively.
- [40:57] Vision for Future Growth: Stefan’s aspiration to have a TV show film in Hawaii with a dedicated writers’ room reveals a strategic vision to elevate the local industry to a larger scale. TV productions bring stable jobs, longer production timelines, and more consistent economic impact compared to films, which are often short-term projects. This signals a move toward industry maturity.
- [46:06] Creative Empowerment: The encouragement to “flex creative muscles” and embrace failure is central to Stefan’s philosophy. In a world with democratized technology and platforms, anyone can create and find an audience. This insight champions inclusivity and persistence as keys to creative fulfillment and industry growth, especially for emerging artists in isolated regions.
Additional Context
Stefan’s work is embedded in Maui’s unique cultural and environmental landscape, blending artistic pursuits with a commitment to sustainability and community empowerment. His previous documentary on W.S. Merwin, a poet and environmentalist, ties into this ethos, reflecting how film can be both art and activism. The interview not only promotes Aloha Surf Hotel but also paints a broader picture of independent filmmaking as a collaborative, grassroots movement vital to regional identity and economy.
The conversation also touches on the importance of digital platforms and internet distribution for indie filmmakers, as well as the potential for creating a “Maui film and TV stable” of recurring actors and crew, akin to established production hubs. Stefan’s multifaceted career—acting, writing, directing, producing—demonstrates the versatility required to sustain a creative life in today’s entertainment industry, especially in non-traditional markets.
This interview serves as both inspiration and practical insight for aspiring filmmakers and creatives, emphasizing that with dedication, collaboration, and adaptability, building a vibrant local film culture is achievable even in remote areas like Maui.
Transcript
00:00
[Music] aloha welcome to the neutral zone maui neutralzone.com k-a-k-u 88.5 fm the voice of maui we’re 11 a.m on mondays and 7 a.m on saturdays but none of that matters these days because we’re also on youtube all the time and mauineutralzone.com all the time all our shows thank you for joining us yet again we have an incredible guest today when i spoke to our guest last week i had branson richmond on the show it was a really nice interview and at the end he said wow that was really fun and
00:54
you know i i know you’re looking for i have a guy that and he said your name and i said you mean that actor producer director stefan schaefer um i hope i’m pronouncing it right stephen shaffer you got it all right stefan schaefer is i want to say a man for all seasons he when i first saw his name i saw him when i was watching get a job and i saw this guy and i said he’s interesting then i saw his name in the credits then i saw that movie again i said well he’s interesting you know and
01:27
i said when you live on maui a while you hear the names some of them are our guest brian cohn who did movie and then eric gilliam and willie k and david dropping all his stuff on the street that’s really fun so i was aware of stefan schaefer and then i was aware and then i was aware that there was this next movie called kuleana which i guess renamed now for the world maui right and then when i thought well there’s this guy and then there’s sikcala film works and there you there you are
02:05
again i was like wow this is a guy that has figured out this map for how to make a local industry go he’s someone that can really help and that’s why when i heard you were working with brian cohn then i went to maui college thinking ah the source of future editors and actors and graphics people how do we keep them here on the farm we train them so they can stay here and do it from here and make a level playing field create more jobs create an industry and suddenly we have the location people coming to maui so
02:40
it’s like this stuff so when you came up that’s why i’m giving this lead in you have a new movie aloha surf hotel please um and i don’t mean to be just sort of over the top but i don’t want to say you’re my idol but let’s say you’re walking the path that um i think every independent actor and filmmaker should do especially here in these islands welcome to the show thank you so much for having me jason it’s great to be here and talk to you um so yeah i mean we do have a new movie
03:14
that’s out in theaters right now and uh it’s what you’re saying it’s it’s a it’s a local story and i would say 95 of the people in front of the camera so the actors and 95 percent of the people behind the uh camera on the production side are from hawaii and primarily from maui and it is you know if it comes in the tradition of what brian and i did with get a job and kuliana which is okay they’re great stories to tell here in the islands and there’s incredible talent here in
03:47
the islands and there should be more production here in the islands so um you know that was sort of what i did get a job the first year that we had moved to hawaii so that was 2009 i met brian he sent me a treatment an 81 page treatment single spaced and i thought this is pretty funny but it’s not an it’s not in the screenplay form yet it was unclear what exactly was going for and then we moved out here and um i started talking to more and we you know at a certain point with all projects
04:25
you have to pull the trigger and say let’s jump off the cliff together and um see what we can do and that was the case with get a job and all these you know subsequent films which is um you know you have a budget can either be more or less you have a set of parameters you have a window of time you have certain actors that are committed and um and my mantra i guess in film is just you know you got to do it to generate the connections to make a life out of it you have to be doing as opposed to talking about or thinking
05:04
or looking for the ideal constellation always i understand it’s like i’m building these shows i think of them as my library because when the sponsor comes in and says what do you got who are you what you got i got 116 shows and uh we have an audience and here we are and here’s what we’re doing that’s what you’re talking about and that cliff that cliff is is really an imaginary cliff we learned that you know we all once we as we’re waking up here in maui so how many years you’ve been here now
05:38
uh maybe a dozen yeah yeah we moved out and so my wife grew up in hawaii and uh we moved out in 2009 from from new york city oh a refugee like me from new york that’s right um and i’d i’d been part of the new york indie film scene and probably produced 10 other movies at a film production company there and then initially we just came out for a year and like so many other people i mean it’s home for my wife so we came out it was better for our family and and it turned out it wasn’t career
06:09
suicide for me to come here um and oddly it was moving here that led me to getting agents in la so i do a fair amount of screenwriting and i pitch projects in la and then i also do independent projects in the islands that are more self-generated i imagine wikipedia has a full thing so people can go and really be voraciously enjoying your past present and future you know this movie what is aloha surf hotel does it have a if i could give it without giving away too much how would you set up a clip if
06:44
we were going to be showing our audience it’s it’s a very simple premise i mean uh it’s an idea that i had um from spending time down at ho kipa which is you know there’s so many colorful people in the surf world many of them you know ex-pros or aspiring pros or you know they’re trying to live vicariously through their kids so this is a film i always thought of it as sort of low-hanging fruit and we initially pitched as a tv show but it’s basically about a washed up surfboard who
07:13
is forced to take a job at a beachfront hotel teaching obnoxious tourists how to surf so that’s that’s sort of that the you know the the kernel of it and then it’s about all these misfit characters at the locally run hotel um and uh you know we actually we so we pitched it as a tv show and we actually got some money and we shot a presentation pilot and i cast in that surf pro roll i cast a actor out of la who’s an excellent actor but i didn’t actually fully believe him in the role as someone who’d you know
07:47
grown up here served here and so when we reimagined it as a feature film i thought of auggie tea because auggie i’d worked on and get a job and also in kuleana and you know everyone knows he’s obviously hilarious but he he’s also a great drama dramatic actor i mean he really can play the emotional beats and um and so i thought he would be the perfect person to sort of anchor this story and then we brought in you know branson richmond who you know you had on last week and a ton of other amazing local actors both
08:20
from oahu and here and um it’s a comedy it’s a it’s a family-friendly local comedy um set in the in the surf world and it isn’t uncommon for a movie to become a tv series afterwards so that sounds like maybe where this covert thing how did all that affect someone like you in this world of whoa what do you mean no theaters yeah yeah well so i mean we we had a whole you know like everyone we had a plan perfect plan we we shot it in 2019 and we were going to and augie was setting up to run for city council we
09:00
knew that uh in honolulu so we thought okay it’d be great timing to open the movie in the lead up to the election where he’s getting press and you know it was like this perfect symbiotic situation and we we had a whole deal with uh with regal which you know we had had both of the other movies had been in regal theaters and so we were we were going to open in 10 regal theaters statewide and also vegas and a couple locations in california so you know we’re going into the beginning of 2020
09:30
with that plan and then you know covet hits and regal just goes belly up or they’re dormant i mean they’re closed they’ve closed 600 theaters nationwide yeah so and obviously people weren’t going to theaters so we had to um you know we had to recalibrate we thought about maybe just going straight straight to streaming um and go to digital platforms but then you know we saw there were a couple theaters that were still open and we thought let’s try it you know we don’t have much to lose there’s
10:02
there’s really only upside and so now you know we’re in um well we’ve been in five theaters running for weeks now and we did we’re expanding so it’s going to be in five consolidated theaters four on oahu and and continues here on maui at kahukumanu so you know as the numbers come down hopefully people venture out and go and watch films in socially distanced settings you know they’re going people are going to the movies they’re just not going in big numbers are there’s a digital platform version
10:33
and or door so that yeah it’s not up on digital yet but we will so we’re going to we’ll finish this theatrical window and it’s unclear you know yeah they they’re still happy to have us people are going i guess we’re you know we’re holding up in terms of you know against the other hollywood fair right now um and i would say in the in probably two to three months we’ll be up on digital platforms we’re figuring out the best strategy still um yeah okay well i’m i’m gonna link on on my thing
11:04
here to to the movie or also your company if you want whatever it be and then as things go wherever you let me know and we’ll update sounds good so let me uh take a break you guys out there in radio land this is stephen schaefer you’re the producer writer director yeah on this one i wore multiple hats i mean i had other amazing people around me i mean branskin is also a producer uh and and and i pitched so my friend john stern who produced my first movie in new york many years ago he also uh helped develop this he’s
11:45
based in la um and is very experienced and has lots of tv comedic short form tv stuff on netflix all over anyway he was part of developing this too and he’s a producer on it um and then you know we kind of brought the the local production family together on this and i was gonna say it looks like when i watch netflix after a while ago oh those are the same actors they got themselves as stable and they move them around and they’re doing a great job you’ve got the same thing that’s why i’m so thrilled
12:17
for our future here in maui you know you know and i know brian cohn who was working with you and all these films over at the college and the fact that there’s a creative media department to fuel the future of our island and the potential to put things together that will let people live here in maui not have to go anywhere and we can build we know we’re in paradise why not live here and build this industry here and so it’s just nice it’s like on a small island the exactly so he runs the program at the college oh
12:52
yeah yeah he’s down there you can see david david has a shop on on market street you can go see all of his art and he doesn’t drop them there you know i mean david sandel and virginia have been around here a long time yeah we have a really beautiful island here i’m so happy to have you now you’re sort of in the the creme de la family already and this is terrific but there is no creme we’re all cram and that’s what that’s my thing um yeah i’m so happy to have guests like
13:23
you well let me get the clip up there you guys watch for it and we’ll be back in just a couple of seconds [Music] you know i don’t know what happened to ty one day he was riding the biggest waves he was winning world championships he was on the cover of magazines and then he sort of disappeared we just hired the best instructor on the island i mean you’ve probably heard of him tai alonzo gonzo alonso that’s my van that’s where i live wait how’s your flight good good so what you
13:58
actually have a job now yeah it’s an instructor but you know it got me doing everything over here let’s warm up nice and slow what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna put yourself into a tight ball no pigs in the water come i haven’t had my shot yet i want to go pro but to do that i have to have coach your coach is right here i’ve been doing this for a long time [Music] okay here’s the deal the hotel might get foreclosed on if we don’t get shut down by the county first county
14:35
i’ve heard that before bro all the guys they are taking bribes this is not gonna be like waikiki so what are you gonna do about it five grand or one year in prison some big developers will come tear this place down and put up a big resort and you’re just gonna sit here and stuff your face you gotta fight for this place [Music] [Music] when you’re down in a surf competition did you just paddle in or throw in the towel no i never owned the towel wow you know people here in hawaii know augie tea and
15:34
all around the world they want to know augie tea and if they don’t know that they will because you know he is a funny guy you know and i can see when you say he’s an actor who can bring it in you can see his dramatic part but he has that underlying you kind of see the little devil in him and uh his beca i think i don’t know if it’s because of my past history or whatever and your clips there are so fun auggie and all the rest of your people what a great i saw eric gilliam with the camera
16:06
is that what i saw no that’s that’s actually um that’s matt corboy who’s who uh people some you know people recognize him from the descendants he plays played uh clooney’s cousin he he’s a he’s a great comedic actor he lives in la but he read the script and loved it he grew up in the islands he’s from oahu and so he he plays uh augie’s friend in in and sort of you know they go on this advent basically he you know augie ends up the augie character ends up saving this
16:37
small hotel from being shut down and they you know there’s a sort of uh a mainlander yeah the romantic interest and there’s the drama of some kind of last-minute cliffhanger that he solves the day i’m just guessing brian you know when you learn from brian and the school you really learn you know that like a formula i like i really like i say that in a respecting way when i saw the pig i knew that’d be some kind of pig fight because i remember eric gilliam from that other experience you know you
17:12
get a job and how how much fun it is for us as an audience that looks like it’s a great movie i hope everyone will see it going out to the theaters and also whenever digital but i wouldn’t wait i’d go out now what do you think there what do you think yeah i mean i think you know people the theaters are doing a great job you know you you book online and then they they basically you know they they leave space two seats around wherever your block of seats are so i mean they’re doing it in
18:16
this glimpse of normalcy again it was for me and when the lights dim and you’re sitting in a theater you know this it’s it’s almost church-like it’s not funny remember we when we were kids was like oh yeah burlesque it was on stage it was live you couldn’t duplicate it and now just the theater experience itself why our world is so changing boy yeah well i i salute you for the commitment that you’ve made to the film industry and the commitment you’ve made to hawaii and
18:50
maui specifically i hope that um anyway that we can be of help to you we want to be you know maui arts and music.org is really building and you know as we go the bigger sponsors will come and fill in like peanut butter fill in the hole right now i put up the frame but you know that’s what it is you know i have 116 shows these they’re in the frame but that filled in by the people like you and all of us everybody that sees it so the maui arts and cultural center is mauiartz.org we’re mauiartsonmusic.org
19:28
that means we are what you might be looking for is a platform that’s easy to find and directed that can show the film in some way that could create something special and i’m bringing it up as a i’m not looking for the world to see this spot we’re tied to environmental things and such i’ve learned long ago you know to satisfy my heart and i filmed this non-profit years ago and the key words were non-profit but then the world sort of shifted and now it gets what i said 30 years ago
20:00
and they’re like wow you’re right that’s great now’s the time folks yeah wake up here we are 60 can you imagine steph and i mean this when it was told to me i did an interview with a guy that saw a movie and learned that there are only 60 growing cycles left in 60 years we won’t have any soil on earth unless we put the carbon back in and find 60 years for art mankind so that’s important no one really got me um yeah i don’t did you ever did you ever see the the documentary i made about ws
20:37
merwin no i did not oh i i saw it was coming out oh yeah yeah so you know you know ws merwin was this uh amazing amazing poet poet laureate u.s poet laureate um and he lived he lived out here in haiku towards towards huelo and i i spent three and a half years making a documentary about him about his poetry but also his environmental commitment because you know one of the amazing things he did was every day he planted a tree for over 40 years and so he had his hands and and it was a reaction to what you’re
21:12
talking about which is the world is in a precarious position it’s hard as an individual to know how to deal with it and so his very sort of basic way to stay sane and also feel like he was leaving the world a better place was to plant the tree every day and uh anyway it’s it’s called uh even though the whole world is burning it’s a full-length documentary film and it was on pbs and uh on amazon etc it’s not yeah you can but well you can buy the dvd on amazon or you can rent it
21:46
on on vimeo okay um but yeah it’s uh for people who are interested in environmentalism and also poetry or really just you know the artistic journey it’s uh one more time for us if you’d be so kind then spell merwin for everyone yeah so ws merwin uh m-e-r-w-i-n marwan w-i-n um and he uh he lived here in hawaii for over four years and then the name of the movie is uh even though the whole world is burning which is a line from one of his his poems uh and to me that title just spoke to well we know the world is in this
22:28
you know precarious state and what are you going to do you’re going to throw your hands up or you’re going to try to improve it in some way and so right take a personal yeah and then when someone says it isn’t personal it’s all personal to me yeah what is the in your vision of where you’re going with movies the people that you chose for this movie any uh interesting stories you can share in production when i look at this movie part of it for me is oh there’s virginia oh look at there there’s brian oh look
23:08
at that it’s very funny as a local people your movies are so fun and the world is going to know our cast of characters because like i said i think of this maui arts and music as a network spot it’s a channel and that means to me that people are going to get to know who david sandel is when dropping his art in a movie you know get a job and how do you guys uh keep fresh you know i mean i i i’m watching it i remember when i things take time you spend a lot how much time do you think you spend on
23:45
editing uh as much as production we know much more right well yeah i mean from a just a time perspective generally it’s it’s much longer you know each film i would say has its own evolution and time you know i’ve done movies that you know you pitch the idea someone responds to it you write the script all of a sudden you get it to an actor and they have a window between tv shows or projects and you know one one of my earlier movies you know from the moment i came up with the idea with this woman to
24:20
rapping was a year and that’s that was very short typically you know it’s years of development or you know at least many months and then you shoot it and you know post-production can take a while or you wait to figure out what festival you want to premiere at or you have you know so um they all have their own sort of schedules but but yeah i mean these things take take years and um and also i mean at this point in my career i always have five or six ideas out there like lines in the water because
24:56
early in my career i would focus on one baby and i thought okay this is the film that i will make next and um you know i had my heart broken many times because you know it was fully financed and it goes out to an actor and then all of a sudden something happens at the last minute and you know it dies um and so now they’re just multiple ones and and you never know which we know what because there’s the investment side like who’s gonna who’s gonna fund your project that’s one part of the puzzle who’s going to act in
25:31
it and you know the acting part for these projects i mean we try to just cast as many great people that are right here and you know that might be a budgetary decision but primarily it’s about ability i mean there’s obviously as we know and not only in on the acting side but musically there’s just incredible talent here and um and incredible stories and i i you know it’s not like i have the great stories to tell everyone does if you know you go to one of you you sit down on one of brian’s classes
26:06
at the college and i’m looking out at these kids who you know who are in their late teens 20s 30 i mean you get a real range but they all have they all have stories to tell they all have amazing stories in their own families or their neighbors or neighborhoods so it’s really it is about um showing people that you know you can find the story and you can tell the story now there just aren’t that many barriers to to doing it you can you can i keep thinking because of digital and these online platforms
26:42
that uh financing is gonna look is very different now it’s just like a provider like netflix has a budget and they they create their own studio bingo so it’s a new world so as we’re all going we’re going to have funds of money i mean or we don’t need the money we’re you know i mean my non-profit here this whole idea is as we’re doing things put the money back in we’re going to create jobs it’ll be consistently taking the money and bringing it back in and creating this
27:14
economy led by entertainment led by learning and like you already when you talk about uh ws merwin and your project it’s like that warms my heart because that’s my whole purpose for doing all of this starting the whole thing recent show was a guy that has a machine in cooler that creates hho hydrogen and what that does is hydrogen is a healing besides being for power for healing it is the solution they used in china so they don’t need ventilators it stops the the inflammation in the lungs all kinds
27:54
of extraordinary things that’s the reason i started to show this guy 116 shows in you know one a week right whatever and we’re still not showing that but we focus only on things that are like that you’re right there already when you talk about that stuff our audiences are going yes we want to see aloha surf hotel what is everything that this stefan schaefer has done who is this guy and that i know i’m i’m a little bit uh you know hyped up about it but it’s the truth you know i don’t know how many people give
28:30
you the kind of uh praise in the area of what you’re doing for our future generations because these kids that can go to the school and write the stories and get a chance to try it they have to believe that it’s possible and it’s possible it well it really is i mean you know at a state level we know that the you know well from the governor on down the island is the islands are trying to diversify the economy and people love to shoot in hawaii and that’s something that goes back 100
29:03
years so i we always you know we always try to bring team interns on our productions and uh and kids from the college to get you know paid um production assistant jobs and you know what you see is 10 years later so we had a 17 year old on get a job who started as an intern unpaid intern and he was just really confident the kid from paella uh you know i would say two weeks in i was like brian we need to start paying this kid even if it’s 50 bucks a week just something to you know to acknowledge that he’s working
29:37
hard and he’s showing commitment and now you know flash forward 10 years basically and i called him up the other day because there’s a another movie coming and he’s like i’m sorry i’m booked i’m shooting something you know for the next month and so he you know he’s he’s doing this full-time this is how he you know and he’s in his mid 20s and he makes a decent living and he can live here in the islands and work in production so it’s really it is that’s one of the biggest joys in doing
30:06
these projects is you know showing people that they don’t have to work at the four seasons i mean if that’s their passion they should but you know there are other ways and you know if you get on one of these tv shows on oahu and you you become a member in the one of the unions that’s a that’s a great living you know you can you can work on a magnum or you can work so you can be both creative and also have a life that sustains you so on what i’m saying is also on the net because the net sort of levels the
30:39
playing field if you’ve got a doorway where you can get money on the other side you’re a viable competitor right movies there’s so many movie things so yeah well that’s the other piece i mean that’s the other piece which is you know you can just create your own content as a teen on your phone you can create something and if you find an audience and you can monetize it that’s another way of doing it and obviously we know that wow there’s local people you know on the way
31:08
to being in those productions the potential for learning at the school and staying here and doing like you’re just sharing with productions that come here and that may be on oahu also but that because we don’t if we’re already wanting to do it i want to say non-union but i’m laughing the fact is these productions around non-union whatever people are making movies i mean there wasn’t there a guy on maui or somewhere close that did something that went right up some not only it went up well doing the new marvel
31:45
movie i forgot what it is he did he’s doing captain marvel and he did something 12 uh short term 12. oh yeah yeah destin uh daniel destin yeah yeah he grew up here his daughter just did this thing it got celebrated here recently so i’m just bringing it up to the young people who are watching and knowing they want to stay they’re growing up going there what are we going to do next here i want to be creative i want to be like these guys look at these guys you guys have so much fun i can tell when you’re doing the movie
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the hardest part is to stay straight because it’s so funny what you’re doing is it getting more fun or is it always fun the whole time well i mean i think uh you know depending on the the nature of the film there’s the joy and laughter that happens when you’re shooting but but i mean to me i’m just in terms of the when i step on set for the first day and there’s 30 to 50 people and we’re all coming together to to realize some kind of collective vision i mean it’s it’s one of the most
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gratifying things that that you can experience i think and and i think you’re right i’m sorry i was just i was talking about the aloha surf hotel exchange because well i mean aloha surf you know it was it was it was we were pulling together mainly people we worked with before and let me break in what you were saying because what you’re saying is it is a moving experience you get to be a family when you’re out there yeah yeah no i mean that’s that’s the great thing about production is you
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you really become this family for you know in the case of a lower surf hotel it was a short production schedule um but even still you know you come together and you’re all working towards something and and if you know i think if you’re all respectful and also delegating to people’s strengths you have a great and and in this case no one’s making much money so you sort of take out the uh you know people are there because they want to be there they’re either come from l.a because
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they want to do a movie in hawaii or they’re here because you know because they just want to be part of this family and it’s a it’s an incredible experience and then you know then then when it comes out in theaters or it’s on netflix that’s also gratifying but really the production experience itself um is always thrilling assuming assuming you don’t have a tyrant somewhere in the mix or the weather doesn’t go south i mean we’ve gotten pretty lucky but i think part of it is building a team that’s
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trusts each other and wants to be together you know and that and that’s a huge part of it because if you’re not getting a huge paycheck it’s got to be about the experience and that’s what that’s what these films that we’ve done on on maui have been it’s um it is about the end product and the film but a lot of it’s about the family you’re talking about you know coming together and and craving together and laughing together and crying together and you know sharing food together
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and and enjoying the islands i mean it’s incredible to shoot here and people who come from outside who join this tribe as we’re making a film are always blown away of course by being here and the love that we all experience from the community that supports all these projects i mean we have vendors and people donating stuff and we have local investors and it it’s um you know it’s it’s it’s warm and fuzzy it’s uh yeah it it is often that’s a great thing and uh i know when i think about
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the local productions here sometimes when big stars come here um because i’ve been here i want to say a long time i’ve been here since 1988 and what i’ve seen over time it took time for things to develop here when adam sandler comes and those kind of productions or clint eastwood who lives here and does one you know but now things are getting so much more creative and your stories are local stories and that is such a rich fabric for a whole future industry is almost like hawaii tv you know it’s like it has
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this local flavor and it is something that the local people can create and create an additional so i don’t want to say sub industry it’s just like when hawaiian music was delegated in the same uh emmy category um something emmies no the music one um they were in the same room the grammys as polka music i thought wow very different i don’t know how that all kind of gets lumped together but hawaiian and the whole hawaiian style and the culture they all again part of what we’re doing
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we’re elevating the hawaiian culture and giving the world a look at something really beautiful and helps tourism and helps artists to help films so i mean i i’m really giving you the vision as i’m turning in my movie and my murphy movie is all of you out there in radio and tv land and also you bro uh stefan and that what i see is what you’re already doing has been such a great great influence here i i just want to you know honor you for that it’s like isn’t it nice to look back and
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say i did it you maybe it just sort of happened but has your wife really appreciated being here especially yeah i mean so she grew up on oahu her mom was living here and um and yeah i mean she you know this is home hawaii’s home and and we’ve had two kids that were when we moved out were young and now they’re teenagers so um hawaii has been um has been wonderful for the family and for our relationship i mean when i was in new york i had you know i had a film production company and i was not uh
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i we wouldn’t have been able to have done had the same type of life there just because of the demands of making a living and um and producing there it’s you know i can have i can be part of my family’s life in a different way so it’s been a gift for me and hopefully the family too um beautiful yeah and you know i’ve continued to do projects off island also and you know sold projects and i spent probably most of my time writing screenplays so um it’s a it’s i mean that’s part of what’s so
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gratifying about being in film is that you know it has a natural cycle you get really intense about one project for x amount of months and then that one’s kind of put to bed and you jump into some new terrain that’s what i was wondering when you’re doing the editing i wonder if you do your own editing because of the time sometimes like i when i record a number of things and then i’ve got to go back and you’re in a new terrain already and now you have to go back and create that
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mindset yeah but what’s your secret to doing that or is there a secret well well i so i don’t always edit sometimes i feel like i so i on documentary projects i’ve realized over numerous years that it’s best for me to edit those and then maybe at the end get someone to kind of polish it up a little bit because i’m more familiar with it having shot it and i care about it more than anyone else if i’ve invested multiple years in a project um for the for the feature films it’s a
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little different because you you shoot a finite amount of takes on a given scene and there’s the script right so and you know we have really detailed notes we have a wonderful script supervisor here on maui uh darren carrera and um anyway he you know so you have you have it all right there you know what your parameters are and you cut it together and either works or doesn’t but with the documentary it’s you know you’re finding the story and so it’s much more like the writer’s
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process where uh you know you oh we could tell this story we could highlight this point or we can just cut it out completely and tell a different story and so i found that i have to edit my the docs and so i you know i basically edited the merlin film although i had another editor towards the end who’s sort of helped me with just you know making it prettier i understand yeah um you know we’re getting closer to the end here and i’m thinking i want to give you a format to kind of um talk about things that
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might be important specifically to you whether it be about the movie or about directions you might be going or what you’d like to see of our audience how they can find you if you want that um well you know i uh i have a couple different projects that i’ve been working on i would love to i guess i would love to be on a tv show that shoots here writing right in the writers room on a tv show that shoots here i think that would be amazing for the local industry if we had a real tv show that was shooting here for
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many months and hopefully multiple seasons and uh so there are a couple couple tv shows that are in development that could end up here and that i would love to be involved with and um so let’s say four years ago i wrote a period tv show 1820s show that we that we sold to the weinstein company and as many people know harvey weinstein was you know an awful human being and the company imploded right as we were that show we you know we sold them the pilot and the and the show bible and then we were
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going out and beginning to sort of package it and then it fell apart on account of the company going under anyway there’s there’s a period show that that has evolved out of that and i would love to be working on that and i think it would be incredible to shoot here and and obviously you know there’s an incredible history that hasn’t been told about hawaii people through the website sakalafilmworks.com or whatever um i mean there’s right at this point there’s nothing out there but but there
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is stuff in the works and hopefully you know hopefully it’ll get to the point where it’s in production um i probably might my um my most up-to-date info on projects i’m doing is actually on my my personal site which is just stephen c shaffer.com that has sort of updates um you know and i i do i just want i want to continue to make films in the islands they don’t have to be stories that i wrote i want to help you know produce and you know direct other projects too um we ended up shooting a film last year
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uh in december in you know in the middle of the cohort lunacy and that was that was a project um that it was written by uh an actor from the big island um and you know he was in he’s in uh aloha surf hotel so that you know that’s a an example of like you go into the collaborative process you meet someone they have another project that you know and you you know help them realize it and that’s you know so that is sort of this hopefully this mo generative momentum that’s happening with these projects showing people that
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they can you know you can do a low budget film here you can you can either do it with no budget or you can do it a little budget or you can go out and you know raise a lot and so [Music] hopefully these films that we’ve done here just show that it’s possible and i think that is what get a job did at least for maui i mean there are other you know there are other indie films on oahu that get produced but for some reason it seems like there’s a fair amount of energy here on maui and every three four years
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we have a film coming up so hopefully we get to increase the number of those films and keep it going and branscom branscom is a big part of that actually i mean he’s he’s an incredibly hard-working actor and producer and he pulls together an amazing group of people to make this stuff happen too yeah i’ve noticed that branston is i mean after he mentioned it to you i got a couple other calls so i was very happy to see that he sees this vision and wants to bring in people like yourself
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and if i can help aloha surf hotel and everything that you’re doing um open door here with me and um yeah i mean you know you talk about television show do you have any kind my dream is also with tv shows and that’s where i’m going pitching so i’m sure we’ll speak about that stuff i learned and i hope all of our maui people learn we can’t expect all of us to do it all ourselves look at the team that helps steph and schaefer do these movies you know like you said he did it but there was
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somebody on this side and somebody on that side who played those roles in another project and he felt supported when we do things in our world if we help each other we can move not only move mountains roll them because we have power together yeah and and that’s what we’re showing here on this show by having great guests like stefan shaffer and the aloha surf hotel i hope that if you go out to the movies that’s the first thing you see and maybe the second thing you see and stay safe any things you want to say about things
45:28
to people before we jump away no i mean i just think coming out of this year of covid you know the social connection is key and film is a collaborative process and i i just would encourage you know youngsters who are thinking about what their future might be or oldsters honestly anyone who’s you know looking to work collaboratively and creatively the tools are there and we as human beings crave stories good stories that are well told so you know you can do it as a hobby you can do it as a career but
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um i would just encourage people to you know flex their creative muscles and try something and be willing to fail and let’s try it again you know let me ask you that’s great that’s great that made me think about creative muscles are you an actor before now or most of you were behind the camera when i saw you in the get a job no kuliana when you were the bad guy yeah and i i was thinking what a funny role for you when i see you now you you’re nothing like that character what a fun are you an actor mostly or
46:42
well i so i did i grew up acting and i studied acting in college and then i sort of then i got into the film industry from writing and um and screenwriting and so and then you know moved into production and directing and producing too but but acting has always been part of my life and i love it i don’t pursue it i don’t go out there you know i don’t audition for things but um you know i often people will cast me as the you know villain or the strange you know cross-dresser or pedophile
47:16
because of my good looks i think that’s be it oh yeah no i’ve been i’ve been cast as many deviants and uh along the way but but uh and i love doing it but it’s not something i would i would rather i guess my my real joy comes from writing and and the production process as opposed to hacking well i just honor all that you are and all that you’ve done i hope that aloha surf hotel is a great success for you and um i look forward to seeing you again here and and off camera this is sort of like the
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larry king show someone said to me you’re like the larry king of maui it’s like a radio show but you’re sitting on there like tv yeah okay that’s great well thank you thank you so much for having me i appreciate it and yeah i look forward to uh talking story in you know aisle four of mana or whole foods or the beach wherever it is yeah well all you out there in radio tv and media land thank you for being with us here at the neutral zone maui neutral zone dot com remember you can find this show and
48:24
everything up there you can go to the uh website and put in the name stefan s-t-e-f-a-n on and it will search for you and find the page where the where the video is or you can say aloha surf hotel then you’ll see this show because that this is a new internet age we it’s making it very interesting isn’t it stefan i mean it’s like when i think of the stefan i think maybe he was stephen at some point or maybe he made the name up but how do you get unique in a world like i’m jason
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should i add an i in there somewhere i don’t know where to put an eye something to stand out from the the crowd you stand out from what you’ve done stefan schaefer you’ve been uh a great guest here and thank you for joining us thanks so much for having me appreciate it and all you out there um in the media thank you we hope to see you again soon aloha
