Interview: Lee Shook
Photo: Lee Shook and Sleep in Cinema Social Media
If you’ve ever driven by Saturn in Avondale on Saturday morning between 9 and 10 am and wondered what was inspiring the animated conversation happening just behind the glass in the Substrate Radio booth located to the left of the Satellite Bar, you’re not alone. As the time slot designated for Substrate’s film-centric radio program Sleep In Cinema, the weekend show has turned into something of a festive watering hole for local movie aficionados to not only share their knowledge and enthusiasm for their favorite creative medium, but to engage in community building and camaraderie within the Magic City’s small but vibrant cinema arts scene. Hosted by Craig Ceravolo and Gareth Jones, two local film buffs with a deep appreciation for the silver screen and a witty and engaging repartee, the program has hosted a wide variety of local characters to come on and talk about their favorite films, while also hosting unique events like their ongoing No Longer Silent film series where local DJs and musicians do live updated soundtracks to classic Hollywood films from the golden age before so-called “talkies”— aka, sound-synchronized movies— became the industry norm.
Recently celebrating six years on air, the pair have made a name for themselves as advocates for all things film in Birmingham, utilizing their inclusive format, fun vibe, and meaningful dialogue about moviemaking magic as a larger springboard for connecting creatives from throughout the metro area, with each bringing their own unique perspective and personality to every episode.
As the host of another one of Substrate’s longest running shows in the form of Wake Up Boo!, Ceravolo has been one of the radio station’s mainstays for nearly 12 years now, when not working as a musician in local band Waxflight and acting as a Senior Director for a real estate survey company based out of Los Angeles during the day. And as if that wasn’t enough, he also co-hosts The Hip Pocket movie podcast alongside well-known film critic and author Drew McWeeny.
Balancing out Ceravolo’s funny asides with a more learned approach— as well as his own unique sense of humor— Jones has been working in academia here in town at UAB for nearly a decade, teaching film studies courses as part of the university’s Honor College, and more recently acting as the Director of Office Service Learning and Undergraduate Research. A true scholar of the history of cinema in all of its various forms, Jones brings a level of gravitas to each show that makes the conversation between the two feel both serious yet approachable, which is no small feat. And also why people love them.
To find out more about what makes them— and the show— tick, we sat down for an interview with the gregarious co-hosts to hear what they had to say about not just the filmmaking scene here in Birmingham, but also ways we can make it better and get more people to participate in it.
This is what they had to say.
I just want to start off by asking you all about your backgrounds with film, and your interest in film, and how you all got to know each other as people?
Gareth Jones: Well, my background in film is that I’ve been teaching Film Studies now since 2007. So 18 years. I am originally from Utah. So I went to the university, I got my film degree, then I got a graduate degree from Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, which introduced me to the South. But my wife is from Birmingham, and so as I was going through the academic world, she wanted to come back here and I ended up at UAB, and we had our girls— I have twin 16-year-old girls— who were going to Alabama Waldorf, and Craig had his wonderful daughters there as well. And there’s a nice little wait area for the pickup zone, where we just started chatting about movies, and I found out some of his film background, and we just found a lot of commonality. And that’s kind of how it started, and it’s almost six years now. But Craig, I know you’ve got some good film stuff, too.
Craig Ceravolo: Well, it’s not formal or academic like yours. But I do a show on Substrate here called Wake Up Boo!, and I always tried to put as much film into the music. I’ve always liked the relationship of music and film, so I always try to incorporate that when we were doing shows and programming for Wake Up Boo!. But just like with Gareth, I started talking to people, I lived in Los Angeles for 15 years. So I was kind of surrounded by that industry a little bit. So I kind of absorbed that through osmosis and met some cool folks that were in the business, and would go see great movies that they would introduce me to, and I would just be soaking up as much as I possibly could. So, then when I got back and I met Gareth, he was like, “Oh, we should do a film show on Substrate.” And I was like, “That’s an amazing idea.” And the rest is history, I guess.
Well, you were just answering my next question as to how the show got started. What was the original idea? Has it always been the same? Has it sort of developed?
Craig: That’s a great question.
Gareth: Well, it’s evolved. I think originally it was just like, “Hey, we have such a great chemistry and conversation about films, let’s just talk about movies.” And then very quickly we figured out that if we have a guest on the show, the dynamic changes considerably, and we can also really start promoting the film community. And that’s what we really wanted to start doing. Yes, we have fun talking about movies from low-budget delights like The Rabbit or like Ravagers, but you know, we also talk about Memoria with Michele Foreman. I mean, we have the full gamut of conversations.
Craig: Yeah. And it’s great in that way. And I forgot to mention earlier that you came on Wake Up Boo! to promote some of the stuff you were doing with your students.
Gareth: That’s right.
Craig: We realized we had that kind of rapport, and I was like, yeah, this would work. So that’s why I felt like it’d be a great idea. Because we were looking at like a 101 film class in radio form.
Gareth: Yeah. And it started out that way.
Craig: Yeah. It kind of started out that way, and then we realized we kinda ran out of material a little bit. But then we did decide that bringing folks on was a good way to kind of bounce the ideas off of a third [person]. It kept me on my best behavior when we had guests.
Gareth: [Laughs] Right? Yeah. He got a little sick of my lecture approach. [laughs]
Craig: No, I always look at it like you bring us weight in an academic sense.
Gareth: Gravitas.
I was curious how you choose your guests. Is there a method to that and what is the criteria for them choosing their movies to talk about?
Gareth: Well, we both reach out to people for guests. We’re trying to refine that method in many ways. but I think we first look at just people from the community. They don’t have to be in the film community. They could be just anyone we feel would be fun to talk to about movies. The guest always selects the movie. We’ve now got our lists on Letterbox— nearly six years’ worth of films. So I think it’s getting more and more challenging for some of the guests to find a film to talk about, but we find that when they bring that passion for whatever film they’ve selected, that really makes the conversation even stronger. So yeah, I’ve reached out to a bunch of folks, and Craig’s been great. Craig’s got a lot of connections from his time in LA. As well as being from Birmingham, you have a lot of longstanding connections with just great people.
Craig: Yeah. You know, one of my favorite things about it is what you just said, is that we bring people that may not be in the film community, but they’re gonna bring in a whole different— like recently we had DJ Rahdu on the show. He’s a local DJ, and we talked about Krush Groove. That’s one of my favorite shows because it was really this kind of big conversation. Because even when we do talk about Memoria, I mean that’s very academic, but that’s really interesting. But then you’ve got something like when you talk about the history of hip hop with DJ Rahdu, like you don’t know what you’re gonna get when you listen to an episode. It’s not like,’ oh, they’re gonna talk about this again.’ You have no idea. It’s always gonna get directed by the personality of that person. That’s my favorite thing about it. Especially if it’s somebody I don’t know. I’ve made plenty of new friends just doing this show, just by, you know, realizing we have like Bradford Thomason here, you know, a local filmmaker. It’s just an amazing way to meet new people and to support the film and the whole community.
Gareth: Yeah, we love it when they can promote something, and we can really serve that community. And again, not just the film community— the art community, all sorts of different things. We have artists on the show. One of our favorite repeat guests is John Fields from AVA and always promoting those things. You know, just ’cause there are so many things happening here in Birmingham that are so exciting. We’ve got authors on the show.
Craig: Yeah. And you know, we want it to be live. So that kind of keeps us in as a community-based show. But you know, like Gareth said, we’ve had different filmmakers on before. We’ve had Craig Zobel on. We’ve had Drew McWeeny on. Just different people in the industry, and we’re more than happy to expand that out. But we do love talking to local folks in person. It’s a different connection.
Gareth: And we’ve definitely connected a lot with Sidewalk Film Festival and Cinema over the years. In this last year, we were able to interview a whole group of filmmakers who had their films there. And that was a blast.
Craig: It was a lot of fun.
Gareth: I mean, yes, it’s part of the promotion game, but it also was just incredible to meet these artists before they came to Birmingham, talk to them about their experience, and their films, and that was an amazing opportunity.
Craig: Can’t wait to maybe do that again. But yeah, one of my favorite things is to learn more about these filmmakers, and about these films, ‘cause there are so many films out there that we don’t know. And when you discover something that you had no idea about and it becomes your new favorite film, it’s the greatest feeling in the world.
And to give people different people’s perspectives.
Craig: Absolutely!
Gareth: Oh, definitely. Yeah.
Are there any other shows that stand out to you in terms of— and you touched on this a bit, but— either the film itself, maybe you learned something new, or the guest was unique in terms of what they brought to the program?
Gareth: Well, I always love our librarian shows. We have some great friends who are librarians— Holly Wesley and Katie Moellering. They come in every October and talk about usually a witch movie. And I just love that perspective. So that’s a great local one. But beyond that, you know, it’s usually someone who we both sort of know, but then we get to know them through the show.
Craig: Yeah.
Gareth: I’m trying to think of some of the better ones we’ve had that way. I mean the Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb show. That was a fantastic one to get to know them. Kristin Dober was a wonderful one. We need to get her back on.
Craig: We have a fun through-line of tormenting and insulting Jeremy Burgess, a local filmmaker. So, it’s just, we don’t want it to feel like an exclusive club at all. But we do have this cast of characters that comes through. But, come on in! Like, it’s gonna be so much fun.
Gareth: Yeah. Like, I love that we’ve had Courtney LeSueur on a couple of times. She designed our logo, which we have here, that’s on a lot of our promotional material. So again, just collaborations with artists like that are always delightful.
Craig: We do an annual Oscars show.
Gareth: Yeah.
Craig: It’s our third annual with Audrey Atkins and Flapjack, local drag queen extraordinaire. And it’s so much fun. I like that the rhythm that we’ve had now for doing this for six years it makes it fun to do. If it weren’t fun to do, we wouldn’t do it. We’re definitely not shoveling in money. But it’s fun to do, and we meet all these great friends and new people, and it’s so great. It’s one of my favorite things.
Well, I know y’all started broadcasting out of the original Substrate Radio location at Ol Elegante in Homewood.
Craig: Well, we started in Woodlawn. That’s where Substrate started.
That’s right.
Gareth: But yeah, we started our show at Ol Elegante.
Craig: Yes, Ol Elegante.
I’m just curious about the switch to Saturn and how this new facility has benefited the show or the growth of the show.
Gareth: Well, we’re literally a show now. Like people could come and look at us. I absolutely love that. And of course we loved working with Ol Elegante. I mean, Les [Nuby] is so amazing. But you know everything that Saturn does, and the coffee shop— Domestique Coffee— I mean all of that, it just, we feel like we’re even more part of the community because everyone who walks by can wave to us. We walk outside, everyone’s having coffee, and you know, we see that community. And it’s huge. I mean, I absolutely love that. ‘Cause I do think we have the same philosophy that I think Saturn has of building just the full art community in Birmingham, everything that they do with outreach. I think, again, it’s this wonderful relationship that Substrate has with Saturn. I think it’s fantastic. Anything to add?
Craig: No, I think that’s perfect. That’s exactly why we keep doing it, is because I think we’re on the same page in what we want to do and the community that it’s allowed. And again, you know, Brian Teasley has— from the Bottletree days— he’s always been one to foster a great community of either musicians or anything creative. So for us to be in this space is, it’s a great partnership. It’s the best, and we love being here.
Gareth: We’re literally with the people.
Craig: Yeah.
Gareth: I mean, that changes the whole dynamic, versus being away in a studio. That was great, but now the sun is on us.
Craig: Yeah. The only thing that’s not great is my ADHD. If there’s a dog that walks by, I lose focus.
Gareth: Bikers.
Craig: I’m working on it. I’m working on it.
Gareth: Bikers and cyclists.
Craig: Exactly. [laughs]
You touched on this a little bit, but I was gonna ask you in a broader sense, your thoughts on the film community here. Because it’s a small community, but a great community, and we’ve got a lot of people doing really cool things that not a lot of people even know about that are going on here. And I was curious if you could talk just a little bit about the good things going on and maybe some things that you’d like to see improved.
Gareth: Well, since I teach at UAB and I teach Film Studies there, I’m all about education. And I think, educating not just the Birmingham community, but the world about the incredible work that is being done here. I mean, that’s just part of my DNA at this point. So, we love any opportunity to highlight and collaborate with this amazing community.
We’ve talked about some collaborations with Sidewalk in the past. One thing that we do is called the No Longer Silent film series, which again connects us not only to the film community, but the music community, where we have silent films with live DJs or bands that are performing with that. We’ve done that in several spaces throughout Birmingham. We’ve done it at Seasick— it started there. We’ve done it at O’Neal Library. We’ve done it here at Saturn. We’ve done it at AEIVA. So again, this is kind of a traveling show, but it allows us to collaborate with so many different partners in the Birmingham community. And we find that there are so many talented, hardworking people who do wanna stay here, who want to collaborate, and build the community. And I think something to work on— that we all are trying to work on, and I think this is a big part of it— is just how do we communicate together? How do we break down those silos that we sometimes build for ourselves? Where we are doing what we’re doing, but we could have someone over here, two blocks over, who’s doing great work but doesn’t even know what we’re doing. We don’t know what they’re doing. So, finding more ways to help each other, I think. And that’s again, these Networking Nights at Sidewalk that Create Birmingham does, all the great work that you’re doing now with the Film Birmingham website to connect people. I think that, across the board, just that will help us retain talent. I see myself as part of the pipeline with what I do.
Any big plans for programming coming up?
Gareth: Well, I keep meaning to count how many shows we’ve done. But yeah, we’ll be celebrating six years. We do have a couple of No Longer Silent things on the back burner, but we don’t have dates or anything like that to promote. I think the ‘zine is one thing we could also talk about, you know, because what we do with Sleep In Cinema is all in concert with everything that Substrate Radio and Substrate Online does. So we write movie reviews, music reviews, and we promote all of the events in town. So I think if you want a physical— I know you all have a great service with Birmingham365— but if you want a hard copy of something, I think the ‘zine is something we can always promote. There’s an event calendar there. There are interviews, there are reviews— all those sorts of things.
For sure.
Gareth: Craig, can you think of anything else to promote?
Craig: Um, no! Just tune in every Saturday morning, 9 to 10 am, and I promise you, you’re gonna get somebody different. You’re gonna get a Lee Shook, you’re gonna get a DJ Rahdu, you’re gonna get a Michele Foreman. You don’t know if we’re gonna talk about something as great as Ravagers, or something as amazing as Memoria. But we love it. So we want you to join the party, please.
Gareth: I’ll make you watch Nostalghia again.
Craig: Oh my god. We’re not doing that.
Gareth: And I’ll pronounce it like that. [laughs]
Craig: We’re not doing that. Tune in for Gareth’s perfect pronunciation of every name! [laughs]
Thanks for your time!
