Welcome And Fall Weather

George Blitch 0:00

Ben Masters, welcome back to the Son of a Bleach podcast. How you doing today, sir?

SPEAKER_00 0:05

You know, it's a absolutely beautiful day. Um, I think it's our first cold weather for the fall, so life's great. That's um, I'm I'm pretty glad uh it's not me sweating and feeling like I'm in a sauna all summer anymore.

George Blitch 0:20

I know, right? Now there's benefits to that, but that first time I put on a long-sleeve shirt to step outside, it's like, oh, here. And I guess like with Texas, it's kind of like we got like two seasons, hot and not so hot. So I'll take the second. The latter is good. Yep, sign me up. Yes,

A New Film About Texas Rivers

George Blitch 0:36

indeed. Well, man, sign me up for your new film, Deep in the Heart 2, Texas Rivers. Man, this is phenomenal. Congratulations on that coming out and putting that together, man. I am blown away. It is just cinematic beauty, great story, important message. Uh, you've hit one out of the park again, Ben.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Well, thanks, George. You got a we had a great team behind it, and you know, it's kind of hard to mess up a movie about Texas Rivers. We have so many wonderful ones.

George Blitch 1:04

Well, absolutely. And now, this kind of, you know, the first one, deep in the heart one, kind of the wildlife of Texas, uh, and there's a lot about conservation and different things that are kind of educational entertainment as well. And again, just top-of-the-line film work. But when did you decide, okay, man, I I want to go ahead and have kind of a second iteration focusing on the Texas Rivers? Was this something always in your mind that you had to kind of build out? And maybe there's other films in that realm. Like, when did this kind of hit you that you wanted to first start on this project?

Choosing Rivers For The Sequel

SPEAKER_00 1:36

So, deep in the heart, a Texas Wildlife story came out in 2022, and um it really exceeded a lot of our expectations. And uh, you know, we were expecting like 10,000 people to see it in theaters, and there was like 50,000 people that showed up, and it uh just like people just loved it. Texans, Texans love Texas a lot, and we made it, and it was kind of a case study of you know, does this make sense to do? Like, will people actually watch it? And the answer was a resounding yes. So we kind of as a team got together and began thinking, all right, this was a great case study. Obviously, there's a ton of demand for Texans that want um Texas wildlife films. Let's do it again. And we just started thinking, what is the best way to tell a sequel? And we thought about doing Texas Migrations, uh, we thought about doing like uh like a born in Texas, a Texas babies. We thought about doing a Texas hunting story, the role that hunting and hunters have played in Texas conservation. And then we also we thought about Texas rivers. And, you know, we ended up doing a film on rivers because I believe that river conservation is one of the most important things that we can do in Texas and need to do quickly. It's it's very urgent. Um, and there's so many species and and habitats that are special that are linked to rivers, that it was a great way to really explore not just how special our rivers are, but how special the habitats that that they sustain are, as well as these uh you know amazing animals that that we live with here in Texas and kind of what they do. So our idea was Deep in the Heart 2, Texas Rivers, a snapshot of the rivers in Texas, how they function, how water functions here in Texas, and some of the most amazing wildlife spectacles that occur on our rivers.

How The Wild Footage Happens

George Blitch 3:55

Well, and you know, I'll kind of we'll come back into some other things too. But one of the things you just mentioned, some of the wildlife spectacles, there is some footage that was just incredible. And I'm I I have to ask, you know, from having some you know film background myself too, I want to know how you got some of the imagery that you had. Specifically, there's one where you guys have mountain lions that are stalking feral hogs, and you got this thermal image, but it I I can I would think in my brain, if you have like drones going on, there's sounds that are happening that may uh interrupt that exchange. And if if not, and you're setting up different cams at different sites to be able to film this as they're moving around, you must have had quite a lie in wait kind of thing, uh, and being able to plan that because obviously it's not a it's not something you can kind of just you know pencil in, okay, they're gonna move here. But the the filming of that, and then another one we'll get into the alligator snapping turtle here in a minute, just absolutely blew me away. And I was like, how was this footage obtained? So if you wouldn't mind if there's no trade secrets, how did you guys get that incredible footage?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Man, we spent years in the field trying to get some of these shots, and and that's that's the fun part of my job. I mean, I let's be honest, I have a probably one of the coolest jobs in the whole world. I make wildlife movies with my friends and get to visit some of the coolest ranches and and coolest countries. Um, and you know, what I love about Texas is there's so many untold stories. You know, the BBC goes to Africa and they've told the story of the Impala getting eaten by the lion for decades. But you know, here in Texas, we have just as dramatic stories, just as dramatic landscapes, just as amazing rivers, just as you know, rich of a culture as anywhere in the world. And you know, somebody could make wildlife movies in Texas for the rest of their life and and barely even scratch the surface of the amazing behaviors and landscapes and stories that we have. So identifying which stories to tell was a challenge because you know there's a plethora. And what we wanted to do was showcase stories and behaviors that were bigger than just a beautiful animal doing something cool, but to have it be um a beautiful animal doing something cool that talked to something greater related to rivers, river health, and river conservation. Um, so we identified um, you know, turkey strut with um, you know, a cottonwood story, which is all about the riparian habitat that that rivers nourish. Um, a hilarious scene on Texas Fat Muckets, which is a river mussel here in central Texas. Uh, we did an otter story out in East Texas. Uh, we did a mountain lion story on the Pecas River, uh, because you know they cruise up and down the river bottoms there on the Pecos, the Devils, the Rio Grande. I mean, they they're just they travel rivers in riparian corridors. Um, we did a whooping crane story on you know how rivers nourish our our bays and estuaries and a whole lot more. I mean, there's rock art in it, there's just this cool snapshot of of Texas rivers. Um, but uh how we got the footage of each animal and each behavior really just depended on the species. I mean, for mountain lions, it required hundreds of days and spending all nights uh chugging monster energy drinks and cruising around canyons with a thermal, trying to find them and keep up with them. Because once you're when you're filming lions, you can't ever lose the lions because you might not find them again for for days or sometimes weeks. So you just uh you just stay with them for as long as you possibly can and wait for something cool to happen. And and sometimes it does. Um like you know, they kill Awedad and and feral hogs. Um that that's what we were able to to witness. Um, but that was that was rad, man. I we we probably got 20 or so hunts on camera, almost all of them unsuccessful. Um, but that was that was a lot of fun getting to live with mountain lions. They're they're pretty fascinating creatures.

The Strange Life Of River Mussels

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Um and then other stuff like the Texas Fat Mucket, you know, that's a little river muscle the length of your thumb. And they have this amazing behavior of sticking out their muscle uh out of the shell and doing the lures for fish to come over and bite them. You know, they mimic uh a minnow so the fish will come and bite it. Whenever the fish bites the muscle, they squirt all of its all their offspring into the fish's mouth, and then they clamp onto the gills of the fish, and then you know, they'll feast on the fish's gills for you know a couple weeks. And if the fish moves, then the muscles will move with the fish, and that's how muscles move, that's how they disperse, how that's how they go to new tributaries and uh you know, colonize new rapids and that kind of stuff. So truly fascinating behavior. Um, but yeah, each story requires a different cinematography style, different equipment, and you know, it's all about putting in that time in the pre-production of trying to figure out what is the best location to try to do this, what's the best team to try to do it, what's the best kind of gear. And then a lot of us, you know, relying on landowners that are giving us insights, uh, different ranchers that we know across the states that that are out there in the field and looking at all this stuff, different biologists, research institutes, and just random folks that are calling us and be like, Hey, I've got this whooping crane underneath my deer feeder. You want to come film it? I'm like, hell yeah, I want to come film it. I'm on my way.

Telling Urgency Without Losing Hope

George Blitch 10:09

Well, I mean, it's so many incredible things that that you've got to experience over the years, and then you know, preparing and and culminating for for this, filming it, and not only am I always amazed at what you guys produce and you know the the incredible just wildlife that is exposed through, you know, and captured through through camera there, uh the the stories that kind of resonate, and it's something that is of vital importance here in Texas and a lot of other areas as well. And that's just kind of you know, a lot of times with the health of our water ecosystems. And you kind of drive, I think, you know, both lanes very well of being able to show and feature that, but also show what can happen if we're not taking care of it, what it where our perilous things may lead us, and by showing some examples of you know, some of these decaying rivers and streams and and how that's kind of sprawled all across Texas, and then also the hope of what we can do, and maybe like you kind of mentioned in the river there in East Texas, what can happen if we kind of restore some of these areas uh and how that can be able to benefit wildlife and just life in general all around. I'd love for you to kind of talk to me about that, you know, that that pathway of being able to tell that story, but also of the perilous nature and kind of that warning and and why it's important and what you kind of can drive these viewers uh to kind of take that next step and maybe being able to leave the lands better for those next generations beyond.

The Full System Behind A River

SPEAKER_00 11:50

So you know, we I take a lot of pride in in spending a lot of time in the research and in the peer review process to show some of the challenges that we have with conservation as well as with you know landscape fragmentation, river health, aquifer health. And telling the story of Texas rivers is really telling the story of Texas water and how rivers function. You know, rivers in Texas primarily begin as springs or seeps, and then they flow into creeks, and the creeks have tributaries that grow and get bigger, and they flow into main channels, and the main channels get bigger and bigger, bigger as they flow southeast and then dump into our bays and estuaries, which are incredibly special habitats that are protected by our barrier islands, which were formed largely by river sediment that that came out and formed the islands. So, you know, rivers shape literally the the figure of Texas, that there are borders, but they also flow through all of our cities, all of our towns. I mean, everybody depends on rivers in Texas. And each of those components, you know, the seeps, the springs, the aquifers, the wetlands, the bays and estuaries is all part of the river. That's how that's how rivers function. And they've been functioning that way for you know thousands and thousands of years. And they've developed um these amazing habitats of marshes and river bottoms and sloughs and cypress trees that can grow, you know, thousands of years old, and springs that you know come from groundwater that were was landed up in the uplands that have flowed for thousands and thousands of years. And um, you know, nobody set out to break the functionality of of those rivers. And I think that's something that I took a lot of time in the writing of this script is it's not like you know, a hundred years ago there was some evil person that was like, my job is to go out and drain the aquifers so all the rivers dry up. Like that's not how it happened. The way our rivers have gotten to the point where many of them or most of them don't function as a natural river does anymore, is really these little deaths by a thousand cuts, plus big dams that were built with water management and values that were conceived over a century ago. Like nobody who made these systems is even alive today anymore.

George Blitch 14:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

And, you know, they were doing the best they could with information that they had. And a lot of these engineers and a lot of the policy makers and the public that devised our dams and reservoir systems, you know, they had just lived through the Great Depression, through the Dust Bowl, and you know, two world wars, and they experienced hardship that I hope I never experienced and that I hope that my kids never experience. And they knew true scarcity and they knew what it was like to go without water.

How Dams Rewrite River Habitat

SPEAKER_00 15:34

So they developed these big infrastructure projects to dam our rivers. And a lot of what they didn't know is what we've discovered over the last few decades, where many of these dams and many of these reservoirs cause a tremendous amount of harm to the river. Um, you know, one, they they drown the the river behind the dams. And you know, our river bottom habitat is some of the most game-riched, fish-rich, a most amazing habitat that we have here in Texas. But also below dams, you know, whenever you you block the sediment and whenever you block the river's natural flow and you control it to where that sediment load doesn't spill out across the floodplain anymore, that um, you know, sterile, overly clean water that comes out of dams, it tends to cut into river channels and erode it away. And sometimes you'll see incision into the land that's dozens of feet deep. And that makes it to where the river can't ever crest out of its banks and and and fill into the floodplain and you know, flood all of our oaks and pecans and sycamore and cypress and these amazing trees that we that we love and cherish, the river stays in the channel and it's unable to nourish the floodplain that that depends on it, and that creates this negative feedback loop where without a healthy floodplain, the river doesn't have any resilience. It floods more violently whenever there's a downpour. And at the same time, it doesn't have a whole floodplain full of saturated soil that slowly oozes back into the river channel during droughts. So the state of our rivers in Texas, uh, for many of our rivers is really dire. It's as bad as some of the rivers in the American Southwest.

Aquifer Depletion And Dry Springs

SPEAKER_00 17:45

I mean, we have thousands of miles of rivers that don't flow anymore. Uh, we have hundreds, if not thousands, of springs that no longer reliably flow. And the reason why they don't flow isn't because of drought, it's not because of climate change, it's because our aquifer depletion um amount is greater than the natural recharge, and our aquifers are lowering and lowering and lowering. And when the top of that aquifer, the water table lowers below the spring heads, then the springs stop flowing. And that's a management decision, you know, by groundwater conservation districts, by our water policy, uh, that we can change. Like we can manage four springs to flow. That's a management decision that we can make. And that's that's wonderful. That's not a a fate that we have, that's a choice that we can make. So, you know, we have 7,000 dams in Texas. Um, many of them are very useful and help out a lot of folks. Many of them aren't and could be decommissioned, and you know, we could save that evaporative loss and the negative effects that they have. And that's really what the the movie dives into is how does a river naturally function? How have we changed that natural function? Why have we changed that natural function? And then how can we work with the nature of rivers and utilize those those natural services they that they provide to us uh rather than work against the rivers?

Teaching The Public And Policymakers

George Blitch 19:29

Have you felt there's been a driver to any discussions since the film has come out? Has that been something that you've had kind of some feedback on people going, oh yeah, maybe we do need to look at this a different way. Maybe we need to take this into account and realize some of these systems a hundred years ago are not the systems that are at play today.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

You know, people have talked about Texas been of having a water problem for several decades. And I don't think that the water management or conservation community has done a very good job of explaining how water works and why functioning rivers is important and how they're connected to aquifers. And I think Texans, by and large, all agree we should have water in the rivers. You know, our springs should flow, our our bays should be healthy. Like everybody wants that. But there's uh uh a challenge that we have where just folks don't understand how it works because they haven't been taught very well, myself included. You know, it's taken me years to be able to understand and explain how rivers function in Texas and and how they work. So I think that um ignorance is is a big problem, especially with our with our policymakers. You know, many of the folks there in the legislature, it's not like they grew up studying river function and then went to college and have a good grasp of how um aquifers work, and then you know, they're they're getting pulled in every which way by literally everybody, and they're all addicted to their phones and their social media and have the attention span of a ground squirrel. Um, so you know getting policymakers to understand this type of stuff is a challenge. Getting getting the public to understand how this stuff works, getting myself to understand how it worked was a big challenge. But it's so important. And you know, the thing that gives me hope again with our with our rivers and with our aquifers is one, there's still time. To get ahead of a lot of the problems. Another benefit is our rivers originate in Texas and they end in Texas for the most part. So we own that process. So, you know, our management decisions are contained, and that makes it a lot easier than if you have to negotiate with a neighboring state or a neighboring country. Now, obviously, there's exceptions to that. The Rio Grande, uh, the Canadian and the Sabine, uh, we all share with neighboring states. But for the most part, most of our large rivers are self-contained. And then the big thing that gives me hope, uh, George, is you know, across the political spectrum, I think the one thing that unites everybody here in Texas is a love for Texas. And, you know, people want rivers to be healthy, they want fish, they want wild places. Uh, and that's, you know, a really good common thing for people to gather around. Regarding whether or not Deep in the Heart 2, Texas Rivers has made an impact.

Turning The Film Into Real Action

SPEAKER_00 23:07

It's a little bit too early to tell. Um, you know, we released it a couple of weeks ago, and then it's gonna go on Apple TV and Amazon Prime and be available widespread digitally uh here in one week. So it's hard to really tell if it's been able to make a difference. Um we did work with a bunch of our conservation partners to put together a call to action that will go out to people's representatives as well as to Texas Water Development Board, TCEQ, uh Lieutenant Governor that encourages them to, you know, take on river conservation opportunities and and efforts and to support natural river functions in our in our water management planning. And for the most part, that's fallen on very um accepting ears. You know, we invited uh the head folks at TCEQ and Texas Water Development Board to some of our screenings. They came. We're hosting a screening for them at the Capitol uh during the legislative session. Uh, we're hosting a screening at the Bullock and inviting all of that agency staff. They are very well aware of the challenges that we have uh because they they know it, they understand it uh better than anybody. They have the very unfortunate job of trying to figure out how in the world do we get water to 34 million Texans using dams and infrastructure that was schemed up over a century ago, using water laws that were written before calculators were invented. Uh I mean, they have a really tough task ahead of them, and it's not their fault why we're in this pickle, but we're all in this pickle of how do we get our aquifers recharged, how do we get our rivers healthy again, how do we um conserve our remaining wild rivers, uh restore our our damaged rivers, and and and protect the rivers that you know are still really wild and and and wonderful that we have here, and we have a lot of those.

George Blitch 25:14

Yes, we do. Um great great points, man. I appreciate you kind of taking us through that journey on on that that in your reason in that answer there.

Why Ethan Hawke Narrates

George Blitch 25:23

Um when when you put this together and you're kind of narrating it, and you you know, you brought in Ethan Hawk to be the narrator for this. What was there, was there a personal connection that he had and that you had to wanting to tell this story? How did he get involved? I know Matthew McConaughey uh narrated the the you know the first deep in the heart, but I was just kind of curious about because he seems like he he very much cares uh to keep you know Texas wild and keep the rivers flowing. And he, you know, there was an authentic nature to that too, which I think is important. Sometimes you don't always connect with some narrators in the story, but it seemed like he was uh very much uh involved in that emotionally as well. So I was curious how that came about and uh you know how he ended up narrating this.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

So I wrote the script. Um, you know, my connection on the river is I grew up on the Canadian, uh, went to AM, which is right there on the Brazos, live on the Colorado now. Um favorite section to float is lower canyons of the Rio Grande. Um love getting lost on the Devils and the Pecas. Um, but I tell you the Natus is up there for me too now. I mean, the Natchez is an awesome, awesome river to float. Yeah. So, you know, I've always loved rivers. Ethan, he grew up on the Colorado, he's from Austin, uh, but spent a lot of time up on the Trinity where his folks live there in the DFW area. So he had a you know a natural connection to Rivers. And whenever we were dreaming up the ideal narrator, he was kind of at the top of our list. I mean, he's such an excellent uh you know human being, number one, but also he's just a phenomenal artist and performer. And I got to spend two days with him, uh, with our editor Sam Clatt and our producer Josh, and we did um the narration with him. And it was just so cool to see somebody who's this Academy Award-winning giant of an actor take two days out of his super busy schedule, probably you know, against the wishes of his agent, to make this beautiful love letter to to Texas Rivers. And I'm extremely grateful uh for him and the and the narration performance that he delivered. It's that's phenomenal, man. He just crushed it.

George Blitch 27:35

Yeah, no, he's great what he does, and I I just I loved hearing his voice. And you know, there's something about the you know, having two powerhouse Texans that have been narrators, but of course, behind that all, the script that you put together, what you've written down, the you know, the myriad of projects that you've done and and your love letters to Texas, Texas Wildlife, Texas Rivers now, uh has just been incredible and outstanding. And I just appreciate what you've brought to the table and the things that you're bringing forth for you know the viewers, the listeners about all this. Um, you know, I know the the last time you had you had there was a book that accompanied uh that the deep in the heart. I was curious also, is there going to be a book that you're putting out about this? Is you feel like that's something that uh would work in this uh connection there.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

We wanted to make a book but it's hard. And we decided to just funnel our resources into the film rather than overstretch our stuff, uh overstretch ourselves.

George Blitch 28:37

Yeah. That makes

Live Symphony Premiere And Film Scoring

George Blitch 28:39

sense. Well um I know that when you guys had the premiere, one of the things that the music that that comes uh around through this throughout this, the Dallas Chamber Symphony ended up performing the entirety of the music to the premiere. And I thought, you know, obviously being a musical guy myself, how awesome was that to have that be put together for the people who are watching it for that for the first time, and what an amazing premiere. Walk me through how that came together in that process and how was that? How was that received? What was that like for you personally to be able to sit back and kind of see that the the the kind of whatever you said, maybe six years plus of filming that you guys have done to have that all kind of culminate in one night in that special way?

SPEAKER_00 29:27

I mean, when they when there was a live symphony playing to our movie, I I just was set in the back and just melted and was a puddle. It was so beautiful. I mean, it these these movies, you know, they take years to make. And there's entire like by the time we started until we premiered, I had a four-year-old child that wasn't born, and now he could like talk to me and hang out and watch the movie. So like they're they're huge chapters of your life. So getting it across the finish line is is always a huge relief and and very emotional. But for this one, uh with the Dallas like a live symphony playing, I was just an absolute puddle. But uh kind of how that came to be, you know, film scores uh are often made by uh musicians in Eastern Europe. That's kind of the cheapest way to do it and get a really good quality product. Um and that's what we've done in the past, just because for budgeting reasons, we we needed to. Uh, and for this one, we also needed to you know keep things scrappy. Uh, but I was at a screening for a different film in Dallas, and there was this kind lady named Barb Seipelt that came up to me afterwards, and she was like, You need to get your next movie composed by the Dallas Chamber Symphony. And I was like, sign me up. Like, let's do it. That's a great idea. Can you take on that responsibility? Because I don't know how to do that. And she was like, Yeah, I'll I'll figure it out. You know how it is. Sometimes people say stuff like that, and you don't really think anything of it. Well, sure enough, a few weeks later, I've got a Zoom meeting with the head conductor, and uh, we hopped on the phone, figured out all the finances, got some help to cover some expenses, and uh it was new for them as well. You know, they've done previous uh scores, but never composed a new score to picture and then played one live. So it was a really, really neat experience, and kind of how that works is you know, whenever we go out and shoot everything, uh, we shoot it to a script, um, and then it always is different than what we imagine it. And then we'll bring it back into the edit room and we'll adapt the script and we'll use temp music uh in the edit to just get a vibe and a feel. And then whenever we're done messing with it, that gets to a stage called picture lock uh where we're not tweaking stuff anymore. And then that's whenever we send it to a composer, they'll write the music. Um, and that's always fun because you you ask them, like, all right, here's the emotion I'm going for. I want the mountain lions to be uh like a bunch of kids playing Call of Duty special apps and they're in some night mission taking out the enemy. And you know, or I want this to be nostalgic beauty, or uh our composer Noah Sorota, he takes inspiration from a lot of uh previously recorded Texas classics. So he um looked up the notes and the melodies for Deep in the Stars at Night are Big and Bright. Deep in the heart of Texas. And if you listen, you can hear that melody playing inside of the conservation themes of the cues that he wrote. Um, so Noah, our composer, he'll write the music to the whole the whole movie. Um and then he puts it all on paper, prints it out, and then the Dallas Chamber Symphony took two days. Um, they got all their microphones and audio engineers and had about 45 people that played that music and then recorded it, and then we put it into the film. And those same people a few months later at the premiere played it live to the audience, and they nailed it on the timing. I mean, they hit everything perfectly. I I honestly don't know the ins and outs because I'm not a musician and I'm not a conductor on how they did it, but uh it was it was so cool to get to experience something like that.

George Blitch 33:56

I I I can't imagine when I first heard about that and I was talking to a mutual friend of ours, Romy, um, just about how exciting that would be to kind of be there and be able to see that. And you know, just as in in the audience, but yet alone someone like you who's brought this, you know, from idea to fruition and being able to sit back there. I couldn't I I was just curious what that felt like. So thank you for kind of walking us through that. That's what an incredible moment that must have been. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

It is, man. And I mean, that's one of the beautiful things about films is you know, people people talk about directors like they're some mad scientists and full of great ideas, but really what we do is just manage chaos. And it's trying to get everybody who has all of this talent and these wonderful skill sets onto the same track to fulfill a common vision. And that's what I love most is you start making a movie and you have an idea of what it's like, but you don't know what it's gonna be like. And then everybody sprinkles in all of their talent and all of their skill sets, and it becomes something that is truly an art form that is composed of hundreds of individuals. And it's always satisfying getting to the end and looking at the credits and being like, oh, that person was a key person, that person was a key person, oh that that houndsman told me where to find the lions, and oh, that random dude that I met on the highway, he told me where the hooping cranes are, and you know, that guy played the flute, and that person lined up the narration recording. You know, there's all these different components that that make the whole, and and it's really really exciting to see it come together.

Where To Watch And How To Help

George Blitch 35:44

Man, well, I I can't wait for people to check it out. You said by next week it will be, and I'll I'll be releasing this. We're recording here on the 20th. I'll be releasing it tomorrow, the next day. So by next week, this will all be available where for everyone to uh view it.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Uh so the film's gonna come out digitally on Apple TV and on Amazon Prime. It'll later be on PBS, most likely. It'll be on YouTube, it'll be out and about and widespread.

George Blitch 36:14

Nice. And for now, for people who want to learn more, why don't you go ahead and give them the website, URLs for you know, there's other films you're doing as well, too. Why don't you just go ahead and share some of these socials and the ways that people can learn more about uh this film and other films you've done and how they can kind of take a proactive stance to uh, like you said, kind of a call to action as well, please.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Yeah, so deepintheheartwildlife.com is the uh website for our Deep in the Heart One and Deep in the Heart Two film. You can see there's a whole bunch of theaters that are playing the movie right now, uh, and then it'll be out digitally. And then there's a little tab there uh called Learn that we develop some K through 12 curriculum, and then there's some some little short sections of the film uh for educators to use to show kids how our rivers function and kind of get connected to their home river. And then also uh there's a call to action there uh that's uh collaboration with some of the different conservation organizations that we worked with that encourages some of our policymakers and and water managers to prioritize river and aquifer health more than we're currently doing.

George Blitch 37:24

Good deal, man. And uh, you know, I definitely encourage everyone to go check out those. I'll have them in the show notes below. And Ben, do you have any parting words for your supporters, some of your partners, uh Texans who are, you know, about to be checking this film out for the first time? And you know, just kind of wanted to see if you had anything else you'd like to share today with us.

Go Float Your Home River

SPEAKER_00 37:42

Man, I tell you, I I feel like I've been a little bit robbed of some experiences because I've spent so much time going up to New Mexico or Colorado to go like float some of those rivers and go fishing up there. But man, we have some of the coolest stretches of river, I think, in North America. And I I just you know, I would rival floating down the niches to be as cool as you know, floating down some river in aspen or something like that. Like, yeah, we may not have trout, but I mean, trout are an invasive species any or rainbow trout are an invasive species, anyways. So, you know, we have really, really, really amazing rivers and really good fishing, and uh just go out there and you know, just do it. That's our great public lands adventure. The rivers are ours, like anybody can go on them, anybody can float on them. There's nobody out there that tells you that you can't, and uh just camp below the high water mark so that you're not on private property. And I mean, you can float thousands and thousands of miles of rivers and see the very best parts of Texas.

George Blitch 38:58

Well, I encourage everyone to do that as well. Uh, we have so many things to offer here in our state, and I again appreciate all that you've brought to us as far as awareness, um, you know, entertainment, education, the films you put together are absolutely uh very impactful and and meaningful, and they they touch a core of I think every text in here. Is there anything that you are working on next you would like to share? Or uh should we just go ahead and keep that as the next chapter when you uh come back on another time?

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Well, Deep in the Heart 3. Yes, of course, 2029. Why not? Let's do it. All right, all right, ride that wave, ride that wave.

George Blitch 39:38

Absolutely, as you should, man. Well, again, thank you so much. Congratulations on the all success. Everyone I know who's watched this has just been very touched and enjoyed it, and I can't wait for more people to check it out. So, everyone, check out those show notes below. Follow Ben, follow his pages, and uh all the links there below. And uh, Ben, once again, it it's an honor and a privilege to have you on. I really, really appreciate you being on here and all the things that you're doing. George, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Good luck this season.

George Blitch 40:06

Thank you, man. Use well.