Under the Volcano: The Secret Birthplace of the 80s Greatest Hits

Factual America

4 Aug

Written By

In 1979 The Beatles producer Sir George Martin turned a Caribbean paradise into a 1980s hit making crucible for the likes of Paul McCartney, Elton John, and such acts as the Rolling Stones, The Police, and Dire Straits. His vision was to create a studio where artists could come and be free to express their creativity and record albums.

After a decade of hits, and at the peak of its popularity, AIR Studios Montserrat was destroyed when hurricane Hugo hit the island in 1989, followed by the eruption of the Soufrière Hills volcano in 1995.

Acclaimed filmmaker Gracie Otto wrote and directed Under the Volcano (2021), in which she documented this incredible story. She shares how she tracked down all those who were involved with AIR Studios Montserrat in the 1980s and how she obtained the rights for the amazing soundtrack for the film ("Money for Nothing", "Every Breath You Take").

Under the Volcano came out on digital platforms in the UK on July 26th and releases in the US on August 17th, and Australia and New Zealand on September 1st.

“AIR Studios Montserrat was such a representation of the time, of the music industry, of what was allowed, and how big the budgets were.” - Gracie Otto

Time Stamps:

00:00 - Under the Volcano trailer.
2:58 - Introducing our guest Gracie Otto.
4:23 - What Under the Volcano is about.
6:17 - What famous songs and albums were recorded in AIR Studios Montserrat.
9:39 - What was so special about AIR Studios.
13:20 - What made Montserrat in the Caribbean a special place for musicians.
15:22 - How Gracie tracked down all the people who were involved with AIR Studios.
20:10 - Montserrat's woes since the hurricane in 1989 and the volcanic eruption in 1995.
24:00 - How the music industry worked in the 1980s, and how it has changed since.
26:16 - A clip from the film: Sting and others talking about AIR Studios at Montserrat.
27:22 - How Gracie got involved with making this film.
33:24 - The budget for music rights for the film soundtrack.
35:35 - What other projects Gracie Otto is working on.
39:00 - The different processes of working on documentaries, feature films and TV.
41:48 - What it’s like to make a documentary about a parent or a family member.

Resources:

Under the Volcano (2021)
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures

Transcript for Factual America Episode 71 - Under the Volcano: The Secret Birthplace of the 80s Greatest Hits

Gracie Otto 00:00
My name is Gracie Otto, and I'm the director of the documentary Under the Volcano.

Speaker 1 00:09
It was a glorious dream that George Martin had.

Speaker 2 00:13
A fantastic state of the art studio in the Caribbean.

Speaker 1 00:23
It was so successful. It was a hit factory.

Speaker 3 00:27
He's recognized as the greatest record producer the industry has yet seen: George Martin.

Speaker 4 00:32
George's idea was to take people out of an environment, to put them into harmony with nature.

Sting 00:39
Going to Montserrat was like going into a dream. It was great to have an environment around us where you could escape to.

Speaker 5 00:46
The characters that worked in the studios became part of people's lives.

Speaker 6 00:50
George the cook was in the band, the housekeeper was in the band. It's like it was all one big band.

Speaker 7 00:56
There was no doubt there was a magic on Montserrat.

Speaker 8 00:59
This was sort of the rock star dream.

Speaker 9 01:01
It tied in creativity with being in a special place.

Speaker 10 01:07
At any time in the studio, it's very easy to lose perspective, especially when you're locked up and it becomes your whole world.

Speaker 11 01:13
The whole Brothers in Arms album was done in a few days.

Speaker 12 01:16
The place sort of intensified everything that you were.

Speaker 13 01:20
We weren't physically aggressive with each other, but it got pretty heated.

Speaker 14 01:24
We went there for the isolation. There we were in this paradise, which we soon turned into a living hell.

Speaker 15 01:32
When the volcano went off, that was a pinnacle point of change, a point where nothing was ever going to be quite the same again.

Speaker 19 01:39
It's like seeing something you've created falling into disrepair. Everything has a period, you bring something out of nothing. But it always goes back the other way again.

Speaker 20 01:41
The 80s was like the Renaissance, the golden era of studio recording.

Speaker 21 01:56
It's about the dream that George had, of that wonderful space in Montserrat where you had the sun, the sea, nature, and music.

Matthew 02:13
That is a trailer from the documentary, Under the Volcano. And this is Factual America. We're brought to you by Alamo Pictures, an Austin and London based production company making documentaries about America for international audiences. I'm your host Matthew Sherwood. Each week I watch a hit documentary and then talk with the filmmakers and their subjects. This week we're in for a real treat as we learn how the Beatles' producer, Sir George Martin, turned a hidden-away Caribbean paradise into a 1980s hit-making crucible, for the likes of Paul McCartney, Elton John, and such acts as the Rolling Stones, The Police, and Dire Straits just to name a few. Joining us is acclaimed filmmaker, Gracie Otto, who directed and wrote Under the Volcano, which documents this incredible story. Gracie, welcome to Factual America. How are things with you there in Australia?

Gracie Otto 03:03
Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm in Australia, and we're locked down at the moment. Otherwise, life is good.

Matthew 03:10
Are you in another lockdown? We've just had our Freedom Day here in the UK.

Gracie Otto 03:14
Yeah. Sydney's in a lockdown at the moment, so, you know, we'll see what happens.

Matthew 03:21
I hate to say but we're getting all used to this, I think.

Gracie Otto 03:24
Yeah, I know.

Matthew 03:25
But you've made the most use of your time during the last 18 months, but we'll talk more about that in a bit. The focus is Under the Volcano, which came out on digital DVD and blu ray in the UK on July 26. And it's scheduled for US release on August 17. And eventually Australia, New Zealand on the first of September. Gracie, thanks again for coming on to the podcast. Thoroughly enjoyed the film. For someone who has formative years in the late 70s and the 80s, this was an incredible waltz down memory lane, to say the very least, and an incredible story that I wasn't really aware of until seeing your film. So, thanks again, thanks for making the film. For our listeners, and those watching on YouTube, maybe you can give us a synopsis. What is Under the Volcano about?

Gracie Otto 04:27
Under the Volcano is a documentary about Sir George Martin's vision which was to create a studio in the Caribbean where artists could come and, you know, be free to express their creativity, and record albums. And it's a really interesting island. But yeah, you'll have to watch the film to see what happens.

Matthew 04:50
Well, exactly. I mean, I think - maybe you can give us an idea of the star power we're talking about. I mean, I gather that you were born in the 80s; I don't know if you're a fan of 80s music, but this is a murderer's row of like 80s bands, you know, just iconic.

Gracie Otto 05:14
Yeah, I remember the first time my producer, Cody, gave me a giant document of every band that had recorded there, and every album, and, you know, song that was made down there. And it was just overwhelming the amount of artists that went down there. And obviously, you know, there's been - yeah, there's a lot of big superstar kind of names and bands in it as well. Yeah, so it's incredible that all this music kind of came out of Montserrat in such a short time period, in a way.

Matthew 05:42
Yeah, and it was, as you say, it was AIR Studios, Montserrat. It's Sir George Martin, obviously the Beatles' producer. And, as you say, I mean, it's not just the acts themselves, the singers, people like Paul McCartney and Elton John. I mean, they also did some of their best, some of these bands did their best work down there. I say 'down there' from a, obviously, a northern hemisphere bias. But I think, I mean, we are talking about - maybe you could walk us through a little bit some of the most defining songs and albums of the decade, aren't we? I mean, we've got Ebony and Ivory with Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, we've got all these Elton John, you know - a lot of bands made their comebacks, didn't they?

Gracie Otto 06:32
Yeah, I mean, I think every band had a different kind of, you know, take on the place, like, obviously, the Rolling Stones kind of went down there, and that saved them as a band, and they decided to kind of continue on because Keith and Mick had kind of gone separate ways. The Police, you know, made two incredible albums down there, and then decided they didn't want to ever make another album together. And then I think, you know, it was a kind of an escape and a haven for people like Paul McCartney, going down there just after John Lennon passed away. And then also a great chance to have a lot of people collaborate that might not have collaborated, you know, had they not - obviously, there's a great story down there about Sting deciding to stay on the island and Dire Straits being the next band in, and then they were like, Hey, like, why don't you sing on Money for Nothing? So, there was a lot of cool stuff like that. But yeah, great stories about the time down there.

Matthew 07:27
I mean, that's right. A lot of great stories, each one of those could almost be its own sort of mini-doc. or short, couldn't it.

Gracie Otto 07:35
Yeah, it was really hard when we started because it was - yeah, as I said, overwhelming the amount of people who had been down there, and then it was kind of working out what bands, we wanted to focus on; obviously, who we had access to, as well, and how we could kind of, you know, string this narrative together, while also telling the story, you know, telling a brief history on Sir George Martin and, you know, his vision for the place, as well as then having the island as a character, and the people who worked at the studio as part of the narrative as well. So, there was a lot - and then, you know, a hurricane and a volcano at the end to top it off. There was a lot to kind of jam pack into a 90 minute film.

Matthew 08:14
Yeah, I was gonna ask you that. I mean, that must have been one of the bigger challenges of all this. Because like I said, you could you could focus on any one of the bands you could have just focused on...

Gracie Otto 08:26
I know, we say that sometimes. We say like, we should have just made a documentary about The Police, because we had all three band members, they recorded two albums down there. We had great home video footage from Stewart Copeland, great photos from Andy Summers. Yeah, and would have probably made our life a lot easier, because it was - yeah, I mean, there was a lot of challenges throughout every part of the process of, you know, from music rights to archive, to getting the celebrity interviews, and all of that, and kind of going between going, 'Oh, today we're talking about Duran Duran, and then back to the Rolling Stones', and really having to have that, you know, snapshot history into all the bands and their backstories, and where they were in their careers at the time was, yeah, a big history lesson. Yeah, feel like it could have been a university degree.

Matthew 09:18
I think they do give those out now for that subject! But, I mean, I think you skillfully interweave those different stories because like you said, it could be very, you obviously want it to be more than just a history lesson. And I think it is much more than that. I mean, what was so special about - I mean, you've alluded to it - but what was so special about AIR Studios, Montserrat. I mean, what specifically did George Martin create there that produced all this great music.

Gracie Otto 09:51
I feel like it was really special as a studio because of the remoteness and the isolation. I think when I was interviewing Mark Knopfler he was talking about how AIR London, you know, had a great energy because it was in the middle of Oxford Circus. And you'd go in there and Paul McCartney would be recording in one studio and Duran Duran; there'd be a whole bunch of activity going on. And you'd just walk outside and be in the heart of London. So, I think, you know, this place is special, because it was so remote. And I think, especially taking artists away who were so in the public and the spotlight, and, you know, they have so much other kind of external things that are thrown at them all the time, he just really wanted to create a space where people could, you know, essentially be creative, which, as we see in the film, you know, works for some people and really doesn't work for other people.

Matthew 10:08
Yeah, I think that was also, if we talk about warts and all docs, I mean, I think, yeah, it was a paradise in its way but it wasn't always a paradise for everyone involved. But I think it's, it's not a direct quote, but I think one of your talking heads talks about it being, you know, essentially, a place for where bands can get back to basics and get away from all the other stuff that takes away from being who they are originally, isn't it? I mean, making this great music.

Gracie Otto 11:14
Yeah, and then I think, you know, like, Nick Rhodes kind of admits that Duran Duran wanted that escape, and then kind of got down there and realized they needed the energy, and they wanted, you know, they kind of wanted the fans, they wanted that feeling of being in a gritty studio recording to finish the album, and they ended up with Seven and the Ragged Tiger going back to Australia to finish the album. And they were, you know, they were 21 when they were there, so they were really young. And Yvonne, one of the studio managers, said that it was - yeah, it wasn't - I guess, different parts of people's lives and careers, like whether they were on top at the time, or they were, yeah, making their comeback, or they'd been, you know, forgotten about, it was a different - it would be a different environment for all those people going down there.

Matthew 11:56
Yeah. And as much as, I mean, we don't want to geek out too much, as much as Sam our engineer here wants me too, but it was this incredible state of the art studio. And I mean, that mixing board is almost a character of the doc. in its way, isn't it?

Gracie Otto 12:14
Yeah, I mean, to be honest, like, I didn't know that much about the Neve console. And I feel like by the time we finished, it was, you know, we could have - yeah, there was more about the Neve and that kind of desk that we could have put in the film. But, yeah, it was just interesting to hear the stories about - especially how they got that Neve console in to the studio. And, you know, you see all the photos of them carrying it in, and it was such state of the art equipment, and that in itself is a crazy story. I mean, originally, George wanted to build a studio on a boat. And I think Giles, you know, says that, yeah, no one really thought about the noise that all the generators on the boat would make. But it was that thing about - yeah, wanting to take artists away to a place so that they could purely focus on being creative.

Matthew 13:01
But this isn't just about famous singers and albums in the 80s. I mean, this is also about a place called Montserrat. And, well, I mean, maybe - what was so special about Montserrat - well, probably still is - but especially back then that helped create this environment. Because it is an interesting element of the film.

Gracie Otto 13:35
Yeah, I mean, I think there's like, there's never been much crime or anything in Montserrat; it's a really friendly place. It's obviously not a hugely popular place in the Caribbean, you know, like, I don't know, it's not like Jamaica or the kind of usual places you hear about that have had a lot going on. It was obviously a different style of music. They did Soca there, you know, they're known for their big hit Hot Hot Hot, and we interviewed - Arrow has passed away - but we interviewed his brother Hero. And, yeah, they're very friendly people, and it kind of, you know, they weren't intimidated by celebrities and Rose, whose a radio host, talks about how, yeah, if you're a cricketer, people would, you know, they want all your autographs but if you're just a musician, they're like, ah, yeah, we hear on the radio all the time. So, I think, you know, having that kind of environment around as well was - yeah, I feel like people down there didn't feel like they had to, you know, be the stars they were or they could just actually live like normal people down there. And you can see with some of those photos of even Paul McCartney just driving around on a little - I can't remember those little cars... yeah.

Matthew 14:45
Yeah, those little cars are sort of ubiquitous. They're kind of - it's almost like being at Disney World or something. But yeah, it's a - and then part of this is, what I thought it was incredible, is that, you know, all these years later, you track down all these characters from AIR Montserrat's past, and they have these incredible stories. And they themselves have become sort of music experts having, you know, hobnobbed with all these amazing bands, and actually inspired some of these bands.

Gracie Otto 15:20
Yeah, it was a real funny, yeah, time to try and find these people. I mean, my producer Cody, just to backtrack a bit, her mum, Frané Lessac, is an American artist, who lived on the island in the 70s, and she was there before Sir George Martin went down there to build the studio. And Cody went there on, like, preschool holidays and everything. You know, so when she decided she wanted to make this film, she had a lot of the contacts, through her mum, of people - it was still hard to find them; they would say, like, Minetta lives at the Yellow House in Happy Valley, and we'd be driving around the island going, Okay, and then you'd see a little yellow house and be like, Oh, and then Minetta would come out and be like, Hey. And so, before we got to the island, it was quite hard to find some of the people, and especially Tappy Morgan, who was the chef, and everybody just talked about him, like every artist was like, Oh, my God, the chef, the chef, the chef, and then Cody found him in Chicago, and offered to fly him out to LA - never been in LA before - because we were there filming. And it was really beautiful. Cuz we got to spend like four days with him before doing the interview. And a lot of the people, you know, it's such an amazing part of their lives, and they're so like, humble about it. And they're not, you know, they're not star fuckers or anything like that. And Desmond... they got to, you know, record backing vocals with The Police. Danny Sweeney, the wind surfer, I mean, he went way off-track in his interview, which was quite entertaining; talked about, you know, Sting and a clairvoyant, and told this whole, wild story that I wish we could have put in the film, but it just took too much of a detour. But you know, they were people that - they became friends with the artists and, you know, they still are. And I think now actually, Jimmy Buffett's gonna meet up with the chef when he's on tour, because he just watched the film the other day, and, you know, he was like, Oh, my God, I'd love to see George. Yeah. So, it's really nice. But, yeah, they were such an integral part of the story. And they, you know, they were there the whole time. And they were such a part of the flavor of, like, yeah, what it was like to be at a home studio like that. When, yeah, everyone was kind of treated as one. And they all became really good friends. And, yeah, got to see, you know, really amazing - Yeah, be there during the time, like Elton John was there, and see an album just being recorded in such a short time.

Matthew 17:33
Well, we don't have to be so finely edited here; so, if you want to share that story that you couldn't share in the film, about Jimmy Sweeney, we'd be interested to hear it.

Gracie Otto 17:46
I think it was that Sting had somebody like a clairvoyant, and Danny had said, 'Who is that person?' And he said, 'Oh that, you know, that's my clairvoyant, and he can tell you the future, and all this kind of stuff. And Danny said, 'Oh, you know, I'd like to try that.' And Sting was like, 'Oh, well, you know, like, he's quite expensive. I can't, you know, not that, you know, you wouldn't be able to afford it. But I could do it for you. And so, Danny went - I mean, Danny's story - I didn't know if Steve... But Danny turned up at Steve's house and Sting did this, like, ceremony.

Matthew 18:27
Well, he's quite a character, this windsurfer. I mean, he's even - is it true he's the inspiration for the Walk of Life, by Dire Straits?

Gracie Otto 18:38
Yeah. Well, I mean, we - yeah, he says that, and we interviewed Mark Knopfler after that, and asked that, because it was one of the - you know, sometimes people tell stories in the documentary and you go, Well, that's great, because that's their version of it. And then there's that tearful moment when you ask someone for confirmation, and we're like, it's all, fuck that section. And you know, Mark Knopfler? Yeah, I asked him, like, what did you think about that? And, you know, he was supportive of that story. So, that was good, because that can always be, yeah, a scary moment; someone's like, that's complete bullshit, and you're like, Oh, no. I mean, the same as like, you know, obviously, Elton John's seen the film and approved it. And there's, you know, the story about the guy who stands up and says, you know, he'd smoked a bunch of weed and passed out, and Elton was upset that no one was, you know, working, and he kind of stood up and said, Well, I'm still standing. And then he said, Well, Bernie, you know, get on the keys and let's write this song. So, yeah, so there's some great stories like that, that came from the island that, yeah, we, you know, we'd heard about they're all kind of, you know, myths, and then to be able to get them confirmed by the rock stars and by the, you know, the islanders, locals. Yeah, it was awesome.

Matthew 19:50
Yeah, I think and I won't ask you to share too much more because this film is littered with these kinds of stories. I mean, it's incredible. And, you know, we are talking about the locals, I mean, can't really talk about Montserrat without actually also then, unfortunately, talking about the difficult history it's been through since 89. And Hurricane Hugo and then the volcano, which Jimmy Buffett wrote about, and saying about, actually then did finally blow. I mean, I was just gonna say, you've been there since this has all happened. I gather half the place is uninhabitable; they've lost so much of their population. I mean, what's it like to visit now?

Gracie Otto 20:39
Yeah, well, I think the population was around 10 to 12,000 back in the period we were making the film, and now the population is a few thousand. So, a lot of people lost their homes. And also then a lot of people relocated after that, because I guess two thirds of the island is, yeah, unable to live there. I mean, we went down to where the volcano - like, not the base of the volcano, but close enough to feel like you're the base of the volcano. And people haven't been back there for 20 years. And, you know, they were told, as they said, they were told one night, you know, they should probably leave and then they did hoping that they would be able to go back there. But, you know, there's a series of eruptions between 1995 and 1997. Yeah, where now, it's really interesting driving through the town, and you see all this black sand and the blue border, and it's lush and green and amazing, then you just turn a corner, and it's all, you know, there's police barricades and you can't go through, we went through with the police. And then as you start to drive in, you see, you know, there's a house still there with some grass. And then as you get further in, it's like, everything's just gone. It always reminds me of like, yeah, you know, Pompeii of the Caribbean, especially because all the archive footage you see all the monuments, like the clock tower, and that's been completely covered now. And it's, yeah, it's a terrible thing to happen. I went on a deep dive of volcanoes when we started making the film, because I didn't know that much about volcanoes. And there's a lot that go off, like, constantly everywhere, and especially around there. Yeah, a lot of, you know, even in New Zealand, like we showed the film in New Zealand a month ago. And you know, they had, yeah, they have volcanoes and eruptions. And, yeah, you kind of think why would you want to live there? Why would you want to build a studio there?

Matthew 22:32
Even makes it more poignant. Because, I mean, and so that was, well, even with Hurricane Hugo, but that was between those two, even if Hugo hadn't wiped out the studio, the volcano would have. And so this house, this home studio, is just derelict now; it's rewilding, I gather.

Gracie Otto 22:55
Yeah.

Matthew 22:56
Which is incredible. And, I know, you've got Sir George Martin's family on there, and his wife. That's kind of how they're going to leave it, aren't they?

Gracie Otto 23:08
Yeah, at the moment, I think you can't really get down there. Like, the actual studio itself lies between the exclusion zone, which constantly shifts, and, I don't know the metrics of that, but yeah, it's amazing because we went down there and you can go into parts of it, but it's - you could fall through the floorboards like it's, you know, decrepit. But, I mean, a lot of the artists left their, you know, fingerprints in cement, and sign things. And so, going down to just such a remote place in the world, and finding all that it's quite, yeah, it's just interesting. I felt like when I was there that, you know, 20 years to 30 is too late. Would have been great to be there during the heyday. Now, it's like, just, yeah, a piece of history. But, you know, as George - I mean, he sums up the film by saying that, like, yeah, everything has a time and a place. And it does. And we felt like, yeah, really honored to be able to go down there and see it. And I think, especially for Cody, it was quite emotional because, you know, she'd been there as a kid. And, yeah, going down there was kind of, yeah, an incredible experience.

Matthew 24:14
Yeah. And so, I mean, as the film points out, too, the writing was on the wall for that studio even before storms and volcanoes happened, wasn't it? I mean, I think that was also interesting that, you know, I think you had one of the guys from America even talking about how the digital age basically ushered out the age of the album.

Gracie Otto 24:36
Yeah, it's interesting with the digital age, because, you know, at first we had a lot of people be like, Well, you know, the 80s was the best time, and then a few people, you know, who'd been watching the film with us in the edit were like, you know, it was also a really positive change that happened because a lot of people who wouldn't have been able to afford to make music, like, you know, you look at someone like Billy Eilish today, she's created a whole album, you know, basically on their phone. Or like, you know, Justin Bieber singing or gaining attention through YouTube or all of that stuff. Yeah, it was quite indulgent to be able to record on a desk like that, and to be able to, you know, as Mark Knopfler says, Oh, we went down there for a month and then, you know, hung out and felt the place, and then recorded the album in three days, like it was such a representation of the time of the music industry and what was allowed, and how big the budgets were. And, you know, it's like, yeah, as they say, everything's monetized. And CDs came in, and digital and, you know, Pro Tools, and everything in it changed. And obviously, there were bad things about that happening, and there were great things about that.

Matthew 25:43
I think, actually, we're going to give our listeners a little break here and let our sponsor say a few words. So, we'll be right back with Gracie Otto, director of Under the Volcano.

Factual America midroll 25:56
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Speaker 1 26:15
So, this was sort of the rock star dream. It was like a fantastic state of the art studio in the Caribbean. I mean, this was it. This was like the Beatles or something; we'd sort of reached the pinnacle with going to those studios.

Sting 26:28
The team were wonderful. They looked after us. I would run up the hill every morning from the villa and jump in the pool, and then write lyrics or write a tune, and then make the album. I sort of developed a relationship with the island and the people who lived there.

Matthew 26:45
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with acclaimed director, Gracie Otto, the film is Under the Volcano, released digitally in the UK on July 26. It's coming out in the US on August 17. And finally making its way from where it began, basically, in Australia, New Zealand on September 1. I mean, in talking to you, Gracie, it's very obvious and it was obvious watching the film that this must have been some - I mean, I know it had its challenges, but this must have been a really fun film to make. How did this all come about? It was your producer, Cody, who had the idea for the story?

Gracie Otto 27:26
Cody's mum, Frané Lessac, she was down there as an artist in the 70s before George Martin was there, and then Cody got to go to Montserrat on school holidays. So, she actually kind of spent a lot of time as a child and teenager down there. So, she was there, you know, around, yeah, around the time, you know, the volcano had erupted and everything and before, and she would go and, you know, walk on the volcano with her dad, and everything. So, I think for her it was, yeah, something that was a story that was closely related to her family in a way, and Malcolm and Dave, two of the guys who built the studio, they were in Perth a few years ago and just talking about the great stories. And Cody was sitting there saying why hasn't anyone made a film on this? And then that's how it kind of started. And then, you know, she went through the right hoops of getting George Martin's estate to bless the film, and, you know, be on board, and then you know, raise the money. And she'd actually interviewed Sting before I came on board and cut a sizzle reel together and had this, like, 70 page document that had every single band that had recorded there, and all the stories she knew about. And so, she'd done a lot of the legwork, yeah, for the film before I came on board.

Matthew 28:37
Okay, did she line up all the big names that you have on this? Because it's incredible the people you have on camera.

Gracie Otto 28:44
Yeah. Yeah, it was - I mean, it was a challenge, but, yeah, she was very persistent, in a good way, with getting people. And I think, you know, I'd made a film a few years before that, that had a lot of celebrity interviews in it. And it's a patient process, which can be really hard and daunting, especially when you're two Australian filmmakers, and you're waiting in London for someone to email you back as a potential interview. So, that was definitely - one of the biggest challenges in the film was trying to get all the interviews and get the right people that we wanted in the film.

Matthew 29:17
And so how long did it take to make because, as you say, it's a patient process.

Gracie Otto 29:21
I mean, not that long, like, compared to - yeah, it's a patient process, but we're really impatient. We started in, I mean, we started kind of pre- and doing some workshop things and stuff in early 2019. And I was working up until the end of July. So, we left on the first of August for London. We went into post, pretty much in, like, we did about eight weeks overseas, and we went to London, and did maybe like 50 interviews in one week, which was pretty nuts, and then went to the Caribbean for eight days or something, eight or nine days, and then went over to America and went between LA and New York and San Francisco, then came back to Sydney; then we went back to London, like, three times to get Mark Knopfler, Nick Rhodes, and a few others. And then Elton's band and Gerry Beckley were kind of the last interviews in January. So we'd already done a lot of the assembly of the edit. And then, yeah, in March, just as the COVID pandemic started, we were in the last few months of the edit. Yeah, so it was perfect timing.

Matthew 30:21
Yeah, and so Cody brought you on board. And did you know about all this? I mean, it's incredible, there's all this never before seen footage, and I would dare say even never before heard footage, that's quite incredible. Was that just part of, or did you all uncover that together?

Gracie Otto 30:47
Yeah, I mean, we work - yeah, we obviously worked as a team. I bought on my team from my first film. So, we had Lisa Savage do the archive, and Karen Johnson, who edited, and sound designer Lawrence. And they had the same post production team. So, that was great. And then, yeah, I mean, there was - some of the archive, you know, Stuart Copeland gave us his home videos, or playing with Paul McCartney. Lisa found some incredible stuff. And then Cody, you know, through her family connections as well, like one of her dad's friends was, like, I think I have a recording of Stevie Wonder in my attic. You know, and that's like, that was a wild kind of find.

Matthew 31:22
I was wondering about that, because that's incredible. That's what I was alluding to that never before heard stuff.

Gracie Otto 31:30
Yeah, so there was definitely some incredible finds. And then, it's definitely challenging because the nature of the place was something where people didn't take cameras, maybe, you know, like, we had a lot of Cody's mum's photographs of The Police on the boat and stuff, which is great, quite candid. Or, you know, we tracked down, you know, one of the girlfriends of Duran Duran, who had photos of her 21st birthday, and it's definitely like a digging process. But yeah, I'm sure it's that thing when my first film came out, stuff came out after, and I'm sure now there'll be like some great photos or videos that will surface after this film, and then I'll be like, Oh, I wish it was in the film.

Matthew 32:08
Well, I mean, I will say there was even part of me that probably some of this stuff is never before seen, but I could have sworn I'd seen it just because we hadn't realized how much Montserrat at the time influenced all these bands and even the video from - The Police video - Everything She Does is Magic. I mean, that's Andy Summers dancing on the desk, on the Neve that we've been talking about. I mean, it was - I had no clue.

Gracie Otto 32:40
Yeah, Lisa called them the spoiled kids at Christmas, The Police, because we had the music video that was shot down there, Stuart Copeland's footage, Andy Summers's beautiful photographs. We had, you know, all their great songs, two amazing albums, done down there, an interview with Sting, and all three of them. So, it was kind of - yeah, so that was hard when, yeah, they were so heavily weighted with like, everything that we wanted. And then, you know, trying to find the archive to fill the other sections and try to see, you know, what we could find to, yeah, tell those stories.

Matthew 33:15
Yeah. Well, and then so, obviously, one thing we haven't really touched on, interestingly enough, I'll take the blame, but it's what an incredible soundtrack this thing has. And your budget for the rights must be enormous.

Gracie Otto 33:30
Yeah, the budget was big for the music. And yeah, Kim Green who does, like, she does all the Baz Luhrmann films, and she's an amazing music supervisor. I mean, it took her a year to clear everything. And yeah, it was definitely no mean feat. And it was really, it was really hard and interesting, because it's kind of, yeah, trying to balance out what the budget we had. And obviously, when we start editing, wanting to just put everything in, and, you know, Cody always reminds me that she'd kind of very cleverly budgeted all the best songs. And then there were obviously bands that went down there that we didn't end up using or whatever so would save money there. But then, when Cody and I wrote the film, as well, when we're in the kind of reshuffling without edit account of the, of the script, we kind of felt like we needed to show where the bands were at, at that time in their career. So, you know, we wanted Benny and the Jets. And it was like, that footage at Central Park or whatever. It's all those things, Cody was like, you know, these are just extras that you just throw in there like, Oh, why don't we put Benny and the Jets, or why don't we put this song that established, you know, rock bands, that established, like, exactly straightaway who the band was.

Matthew 34:46
Yeah. It's a great film. You've done a wonderful job, just putting what could have been just, I'm sure hours and hours, getting it down to a very digestible, what is it, hour and 35 I think, and, you know, and I think, so, definitely, it's well, well worth a watch cuz I mean, and you don't have to be an old person like me who actually lived through that era, it's an incredible time for music, and it's definitely representative of an era, isn't it? Gracie, I gather 2021 is an incredibly busy year for you. I mean, you've got a lot on besides this one documentary. Do you want to talk about...

Matthew 35:38
What is some of the other things coming out? You got some interesting stuff. You've got some great TV series. You've got this feature that's coming out, I believe.

Gracie Otto 35:41
Yeah, I do!

Gracie Otto 35:42
Yeah.

Matthew 35:53
Could you share that with us?

Gracie Otto 35:55
Yeah, you've done your research! Yeah, I was really busy because we went post last year on the film, and I did a TV show here in Australia, and then went up and did a feature film, which is a company I've got, Dollhouse Pictures feature about a Dolly Parton impersonator. So, that was really fun after just finishing Under the Volcano to go up and do kind of, you know, a comedy feature; my first fiction feature. And then...

Matthew 36:24
And you've got - if I may interrupt there - you've got Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale on that. That's amazing.

Gracie Otto 36:33
Yeah, Rose and Bobby. Yeah, yeah, they were both great to work with. We had to shoot Rose at the start of the shoot and Bobby at the end, so actually never got to hang out with each other on set, even though they're a couple. And then, yeah, Celeste Barber, Krew Boylan, who's in my company, she wrote the screenplay, and she plays the Dolly Parton impersonator. Yeah, it's a really fun, really fun film. And it was, yeah, we shot up in Byron Bay at the end of last year, so it was, like, that was when Australia was the best country in the world to live in after COVID. So, it was a really, yeah, it was a really amazing experience. And really different to documentary, obviously, a completely different mindset and different process, which was interesting. I really, you know, I love making documentary, but I really enjoyed doing that. And then I just directed on a TV series, which is a sketch comedy that comes out on Friday on Amazon worldwide, called The Moth Effect. And that's what these two creators, Nick Boshier and Jazz Twemlow - can never pronounce their names correctly - who're, yeah, Australian kind of satire style comedians. And that was really fun. And they, yeah, different sketches. There's like six sketches per episode. So, yeah, it comes out on Friday.

Matthew 37:49
Well, excellent. Now, did I read correctly that you actually did some stand up yourself?

Gracie Otto 37:57
I did. I did some when I was in LA, and then I thought I'd get back into it here. And then found out that I guess my comedy was about my point of difference - with being an Australian in LA or, you know, Australian abroad. I guess it was very self-deprecating humor, the style of comedy I was doing. But yeah, after the pandemic, I haven't really done it here. I wanted to, and then, yeah, everything closed down last year. And then I've just been so busy. I don't know, it was kind of like a void I was feeling in LA when I didn't have the work that I wanted. I just, you know, whenever I get bored, or I'm not working, I like to try new things. So, I kind of felt like it was something I really wanted to try.

Matthew 38:38
Well, you've got, I mean, you've got this incredible mix of experience, and talent. So, you've got documentary. I mean, you said, obviously, it's very different, and we've had directors on who've done both dramas, and, you know, features and docs. But are you drawn in one direction more than the other now? Or is it something you want to keep your hands in, in both pies?

Gracie Otto 39:06
I think documentaries are like something that, you know, does go on for a few years. And there's something nice about that long form project and discovery and research and kind of, you know, I always say, like, making a feature film like climbing a mountain because you know, you've got the actors, you've got the finances going to happen whereas making a documentary is like jumping out of a plane and then working out how to do the parachute. Like, you're like, I've got access to the people, but I don't know how I'm gonna ever get this. It's like a different thing. But I like, you know, I really like working in TV as well, because I find, you know, here in Australian TV, we shoot like eight to 10 pages a day. And I love the speed of that. And I also love the speed of the edit because it's something that you can't labor on too long. And then, you know, I shoot a lot of ads, a lot of fashion as well. So, I think a lot of the skill sets kind of end up overlapping in some way. And I think, you know, in Australia sometimes people can be very quick to, like, pigeonhole you into one box of being able to do one thing. So, I'm always quite determined to just keep doing new things or whatever interests me. Yeah, I can have a long attention span and a really short attention span. So, yeah, I just like to work.

Matthew 40:12
Yeah. Well, you're good at it. And also, it's not just Australia that likes to pigeonhole people. I mean, you know, in this industry, even in docs, you'll get, you know, people want to be thinking you're the music doc. person, you know, I mean, and I think it's a challenge. And we've discussed it with other directors who aren't that, you know, there are some people who do that, who do a great job specializing in true crime or whatever they do. But there are those who, you know, they do talk about it being a challenge to be able to just go from one interesting story to another not being pigeon holed as to what sort of genre it is even within documentaries. I mean, with all that in mind, what is next for you maybe a little bit further down the line?

Gracie Otto 41:04
Yeah, I'm doing a show later in the year, which isn't announced yet, but it's a Netflix show here in Australia, which I'm really excited about. So, that's just been pushed back a bit because of COVID. So, we're meant to be selling pre-production this week. So, I'm doing that. We're in post on the film, still. So, finishing that off. I aways feel like I forget something. I do a lot of fashion stuff and ads as well, so, and then I've got a documentary about my dad that I had - we've shot like 90% of it, but I just have to finish it. It feels like a six week edit. Yeah.

Matthew 41:43
I was going to ask you about that. What's that like making a doc. about your dad? And for our listeners who don't know your dad's a famous Australian actor, Barry Otto. So, what was, I mean, I'm sure and as a father myself with a daughter, I can only imagine the joys and challenges that that might entail.

Gracie Otto 42:05
Yeah, I think it's really interesting making a film about a family member. I mean, I've always loved Sarah Polley's documentary, Stories We Tell, because I lived, you know, with my dad, I lived over in LA, and I traveled all through my 20s. But like, I still lived at home. And it's amazing what you don't know about someone, even though he lived in the house for like, 30 years. But yeah, my dad's obviously an actor, big, big theater actor here. And, yeah, it's interesting. I guess it's an interesting experience, because it's, yeah, a lot more personal, in a way. And it's been a great film to make. And it's just, yeah, it's one of those things like with all good documentaries, it starts off about one thing and kind of ends up about something else. And I think for me, Dad, you know, I remember when I first tested my camera out when I was shooting Last Impresario, I was like, Oh, can you jump in front? I was testing all the focus. And I remember him being so great on camera and so engaging, and Michael White, who I'd made my film on had had seven strokes, and it was really hard for him to be, you know, present in the interviews, and give that kind of punch, whereas - so, I think with this film, it's like we did a bunch of interviews, like in the style of Under the Volcano and Last Impresario, but I really feel like this film will be just a portrait of him or from his point of view of the world. And then hopefully, people will discover the films and TV, theater that he's done. More than a kind of talking head or, yeah, just kind of observational, yeah, film.

Matthew 43:34
And do you have, I mean, or do you need, do you have anyone over your shoulder who just basically says, We know you're his daughter, but, you know, you might want to consider doing that, you know, differently. Do you get any, you know, how is that? Because I can imagine it could be difficult both for, you know, not that you're trying to lionize your father, but I mean, I think trying to get the balance, right.

Gracie Otto 43:59
Yeah, I think, I mean, I had another cinematographer for some stuff we shot in theater, and then, you know, I get a lot of different, I get a lot of different perspective when it's me shooting him; some of my favorite footage is when I'm doing an interview with him, and then I walk out of the room, but I've got the headphones on. And he's like, Oh, she's asking me that again. And then I come back in and he's, like, Hello. And he's, like, so lovely to me. Yeah. So, it's been, you know, it's a funny - but it's also been a really interesting - I think people don't ask people enough questions about their family until people have died. And so, it's kind of an interesting film to - I think a lot of people, especially me, kind of hold things without asking people questions that is too personal. until they're gone. So, yeah, we'll see how it goes.

Matthew 44:49
Alright. Well, we look forward to seeing it. Definitely. Well, I think, I hate to say it, but I think we've come to the end of our time together. Gracie, it's been a joy having you on. Thank you so much again.

Gracie Otto 45:02
Thank you.

Matthew 45:04
Really enjoyed the film. Under the Volcano came out on digital DVD and blu ray in, certainly in the UK, on July 26, and comes out in the US on August 17, and Australia, New Zealand on September 1. So, a big thank you again to Gracie Otto, director and writer of Under the Volcano. I'd also like to give a shout out to Sam and Joe at Innersound Audio in Escrick, England, just outside of York. A big thanks to Nevena Paunovic, our podcast manager at Alamo Pictures who ensures we continue getting such great guests like Gracie on to the show. Finally, a big thanks to our listeners. As always, we'd love to hear from you. So, please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas. Whether it is on YouTube, social media, or directly by email. And please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America signing off.

Factual America Outro 46:00
You've been listening to Factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo Pictures, specializing in documentaries, television, and shorts about the USA for international audiences. Head on down to the show notes for more information about today's episode, our guests, and the team behind the podcast. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @alamopictures. Be the first to hear about new productions, festivals showing our films, and to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk

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Under the Volcano: The Secret Birthplace of the 80s Greatest Hits

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