Our host, Allen Woody, and Bentonville-based film producer, Kristin Mann, sit down for a lively conversation about What Happens Later, a new romantic comedy starring Meg Ryan and David Duchovny shot right here in Bentonville.
In What Happens Later, two ex-lovers run into each other for the first time in years at a regional airport where they find themselves snowed in overnight.
Tune in to hear about the growing film industry in Northwest Arkansas, what it was like shooting in Bentonville, and of course—more about the film itself.
Our host, Allen Woody, and Bentonville-based film producer, Kristin Mann, sit down for a lively conversation about What Happens Later, a new romantic comedy starring Meg Ryan and David Duchovny shot right here in Bentonville.
In What Happens Later, two ex-lovers run into each other for the first time in years at a regional airport where they find themselves snowed in overnight.
Tune in to hear about the growing film industry in Northwest Arkansas, what it was like shooting in Bentonville, and of course—more about the film itself.
Welcome to Visit Bentonville's podcast in New American town. As always, we're coming to you from the Haxton Road Studios off the bustling Bentonville Square, and I'm your host, alan Woody, joining me in studio. We have Kristen Mann, producer of the film what Happens Later, starring Meg Ryan and David DeCovney, and filmed right here in Northwest Arkansas. First off, kristen, thank you for joining us. How exciting is it to have a movie about to kick off?
Speaker 2:Pretty exciting. Thank you First of all. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:I've never met a real live movie producer. This is a cool deal for me.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Yeah, well, there's not a whole lot of, I guess, producers that live in Arkansas.
Speaker 1:There are a few of us now, but it seems to becoming a more common thing, especially movies shot and filmed in Arkansas or Northwest Arkansas. How cool is that and how big a Did, like the Bentonville Film Festival and things. How big an impact did that make in you filming movies?
Speaker 2:Bring it here. Yeah, well, there's. Yeah, there are a number of films that are starting to show that that's growing. As far as the number of film shooting here and in the Little Rock area, I think it partly has to do with the incentive and people becoming more and more aware of the incentive here.
Speaker 1:What is the incentive?
Speaker 2:I don't know what it is. They're basically. Well, it's in the process of actually being changed right now, so it's a little bit to be determined. But when I've made projects here and when we made this project here it was you received 20% back on your spend and then additional 10%, so 30% for any local hires.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting. So how does there's so much about funding movies that I really don't even kind of understand? Is that state government or local government kicking back some money to you? Kickbacks are probably a bad word, but you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:It's a state, yeah, and not every state has that, but Arkansas is great because you have that. On top, of, it's just somewhat inexpensive to make a movie here compared to a lot of other places.
Speaker 1:I can see that, and I also feel like Arkansas has a really wide variety of landscapes too.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We have lots of active water big rivers, moving rivers, flat farmlands, mountainous areas we have everything but an ocean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and obviously, if you're going to shoot a big city like New York kind of skyline, that's not going to work. But yeah, there are a surprising number of projects that fit for here.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting. Tell me a little bit about. I love movies and I told you I've seen just about every kind of major art being made, from song records to what is the film process. How does that work? It seems like it takes an eternity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it feels like an eternity sometimes.
Speaker 1:I bet it does for you especially.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a big undertaking and, honestly, had I known really at the get-go, when I first started working in film, how long it would take to get a movie off of the ground and what all is involved, I may have veered the other way, but yeah, it's a lot. There's different types of producers, but the type of producer that I have been and am is all encompassing, in that I'll start with material, whether it's someone sending me a script that I like or optioning a book or a play and adapting, and then going through the process of hiring a director if that person isn't already attached, and then bringing in cast and then hiring all of the key crew members, like the cinematographer and production designer and costume designer, and raising the financing negotiating those deals closing those deals and then going into production and overseeing the actual production, the cut of the film, post-production, sound color.
Speaker 2:Eventually, when you get to release time or whether it's if it's going to a festival, you kind of oversee that whole festival run and then the marketing and the release, the whole thing, and that can take anywhere from start to finish, maybe a year if you're lucky, but it's usually more often several years of your life.
Speaker 1:Several years, because a lot of it's waiting, waiting for somebody to pick something up or do something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, raising financing and getting cast can take a while.
Speaker 1:I bet, and I bet it's maddening, especially if you've got a lot of money sitting out there yeah ready to be spent or already spent. What about this particular film? What happens later is really special and impactful to you. What made you want to do this?
Speaker 2:So this was one that came about during the pandemic because it's based on a play by a playwright in Austin Texas, steve Deets, and it's just. The play is literally just two people in one location, and so we were trying to think my partners and I were trying to think of a project, or come up with a project that you could do easily in a pandemic, thinking we were going to be shooting, hopefully pretty quickly. So the project was actually sent to my producing partner at the time by these two other producers and they had optioned the play and wanted some partners to come in and help them, and so we hopped on board and it became a project that we quickly fell in love with, just because of the material, and we, of course, got very excited and, would Meg, agreed to come on board to direct.
Speaker 1:Amazing actress, yes, phenomenal. And she's directing too. That's really cool, yeah, and David DeCovney is great, and with a two person cast, it's pretty important that you get heavy hitters right out of it, absolutely. People that can actually carry this.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah, we got really lucky there.
Speaker 1:Now can you share with us some of the locations here in Bentonville and Northwest Arkansas that you did some films?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think we've kind of like kept it under the hood, but now that the movie is being released we can talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 1:Any day now. We shot the yeah any day now, november 6th is the release date.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we shot the entire thing in Bentonville, which is pretty special. We were mostly at Crystal Bridges Museum and the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. So XNA to the locals. And then Louis Staden. We shot a couple of days there and then at the momentary tower bar.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, I bet that's spectacular shots. I bet that's pretty cool. And how did the stars kind of enjoy Northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 2:They loved it. Yeah, we got really lucky in bringing the movie here, because Meg had actually been here before and you brought up the Bentonville Film Festival and they had brought her in years ago I can't remember, I think she was just here for a panel or something, but brought her in years ago and so she got to see the town and she visited Crystal Bridges and was just blown away by the museum and it really stuck with her. So, when you know, I'm originally born and raised in Central Arkansas. So whenever we're talking about locations for a movie, I'm usually just throwing Arkansas out there just to see if anybody goes for it. And when I suggested it, you know she, her wheel started turning and she realized, oh wait, we could maybe go shoot at this museum. If we could get this museum, that would be a really magical, you know, beautiful spot to shoot this one in.
Speaker 1:That's. That's kind of amazing and I bet that is beautiful. And how long did how? How long did you guys have what's the process of renting out a museum or do you rent it out or do they sound like it was a process?
Speaker 2:I'm off script, I'm sorry and not to say they weren't great. The museum and everybody there was amazing. But you know it's a, it's an active, you know museum.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:And so we were trying to figure out how to film around not just the guests that were visiting on a daily basis. But it's this gorgeous, massive, beautiful structure in the middle of the woods. Everyone wants to have events there, so it was figuring out how do we shoot a movie around not just the guests, the everyday guests, but all these events that they already had scheduled in the window that we were filming in. So it was quite an ordeal.
Speaker 1:I bet it was. It sounds like the whole movie making experience. Sounds like it's it's something that is very skin of your teeth. Like this might happen.
Speaker 2:It might not, but we're going to run yeah, just problem solving.
Speaker 1:I kind of love that. What? How much did the film scene here in Bentonville, which is really starting to take off and you're starting to get a lot of buzz? How much does that play into not just the movie you made but the movie that are going to be made?
Speaker 2:Um, I think you know I moved to Bentonville a couple of years ago before we made this movie and so it's kind of like the same, maybe some of the same reasons that I moved here is just a really special community, um, and I a lot of Arkansas is like that. You say you're going to make a film and I've. My experience has been that everybody kind of rallies around and supports because they're so excited that something like that is being here yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, but this town is really. You know, northwest Arkansas is really special as far as just the way that I see people jump in and support their neighbor and their community but not really expect anything in return. That's really refreshing and unique.
Speaker 1:Is that unique?
Speaker 2:I think so Okay, yeah, I mean compared to yeah.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's something I've been taking for granted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe I don't know. I definitely it's something that I appreciate and it's one of the reasons that I've stuck around Um, so we experienced the same thing making the movie here. We had a lot of people jump in and, and you know, provide support.
Speaker 1:So was there anything about this movie that was like you know you? You obviously you saw the script, you were there from jump, but was there anything that, as you're getting ready to release it, that you were just like man, this is way better, way cooler than I thought it was going to be?
Speaker 2:Um, I think that I mean the museum, like, on one hand, I knew how incredible it was going to be shooting there, but then there would just be these moments that I would kind of step back while we're in the middle of a scene and I'm looking at this epic shot you know of of Meg and David and just how stunning and beautiful it is. I feel really, really lucky that we got that and, um, like I said, knew it was going to be special, but just had I have many moments of standing back from the monitor and just being like I can't believe we're making this happen.
Speaker 1:Now I've always kind of wanted to be in a movie. Have there ever been situations while filming here in Northwest Arkansas that somebody just lucked into a cool role?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there are a ton of people, you know, local folks that got involved in the project um, both behind and in front of the screen, but um one I will mention is a uh who's become a friend of mine, a local um artist by the name of Griffin loop.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of people in town.
Speaker 2:You know, know of him, but, um, it's kind of a fun story. Actually I had the, we had the production designer come into town for the first time to see the locations and we, he and I, were meeting at Blake street here in Bentonville Lake Street house and, um, I was looking through his picture book of like just inspirational stuff. You know, sometimes they'll just throw together like an inspirational, you know, photos or collage or whatever of kind of like. Here's what I'm thinking. Well, the direction will go and I'm flipping through it and I I catch a piece of Griffin's work I see, like one of his airplanes that he's kind of known for.
Speaker 2:And I made a comment to the production designer and said, oh, you looked up in local artists. That's cool that you include local artists. And he's like, what are you talking about? And he had no idea that it was a local artist that he included in his picture book. So he had, out of all the images in the world, this is one of the ones he had chosen and had no idea that Griffin's work was in it, that he was, he lived in Bentonville. So I ended up calling Griffin and connecting them and saying you should see if there's a way to collaborate and get involved. And one thing led to another, he essentially he essentially became the art director for the movie and created a ton of these beautiful sculptures that we ended up not just using in the movie but became like a focal point, you know, of the, the film.
Speaker 1:And practically in every scene.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of a cool, cool thing, really glad that he got to be involved in that way.
Speaker 1:That is cool. Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Where can I find this movie? Is it streaming? Is it in theaters?
Speaker 2:It'll be released in theaters. I don't have right now, in this moment, a list of theaters. I don't actually know all of the cities that it will play in, but it will be released across the the U? S in theaters.
Speaker 1:So it is going to be a wide release and we have every opportunity to see it at a theater near us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hope surely they will play it here. I don't, that's up to the distributor, but yeah, I hope so.
Speaker 1:I hope to see it too, and don't call me Shirley, Just teasing you. Kristen. Thank you so much for joining me today. I've really enjoyed our talk and thanks to everyone listening. And remember you can catch all of the new American town podcast episodes on streaming channels, following our social platforms or going to visit Bentonvillecom. And don't forget to follow Visit Bentonville on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Tik Tok. We have a lot of exciting events coming to Bentonville in 2023. Check out our event calendar. Playing your trip today. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time.