Morbid
Episode 644: A Sit Down With Chapman & Maclain Way, Directors of "The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Saga"
Mon, 10 Feb 2025
Today we are joined by Emmy award winning film directors, Chapman & Maclain Way to discuss the wild story behind their Netflix Documentary "The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Saga". This documentary was expertly crafted and features the often unbelievable folklore surrounding the 2013 Presidential Ricin Attacks. Haven't watched it yet? Check it out by visiting https://www.netflix.com/title/81903247See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What do the Way brothers discuss about their documentary?
I was going to say, it was the way you guys shot this that you get that town. While you watch it, you feel that town. You get that. It's over the top in the best way. Everyone is shot so dynamically and in such...
dynamic environments for who they are like you just got that's really cool it was so good it's always awesome to hear i mean like we're we're less maybe like investigative documentary filmmakers and more tried like storytelling i think is as what and the town of tupelo is a character in the story so it was important for us that it'd be heightened we always said it kind of felt like a tim burton movie or something a little bit of an upside down world and
It was important for us to capture that had a little bit of a Twilight Zone feel.
Yes, definitely.
Very much. And so it's always really cool to hear that that stuff resonates and comes through. Yeah, it was interesting because even like, yeah, when we went to like Kevin's camper, that was like we knew this is like a really like authentic, interesting place that like this that Kevin lives in, you know.
And it was not easy because we we like to shoot with three cameras for talking at interviews, which is like, you know, you at least need to. But three is just to get you like an extra angle if you want it. But but literally, like it could only like thank God, Chad, my brother knows how to do sound because like I kind of would ask the questions. Chad would do sound and run one camera.
And then our cinematographer, David Bullen, who just like shot three. So much amazing stuff in this series. It just looks so good. He was like operating two cameras at the same time. It was a tight spot. We couldn't get like everyone in there. But but no, Tupelo is kind of like a little bit like one of the last documentary series we made while all country.
There was a town called Antelope and like it very culturally different places. But. Whenever you're a filmmaker and you get into a town and you're like, oh, my God, anywhere I point the camera, it looks great. It's cool because it's real. It's authentic. And you really get those in Disley, these small historic towns. And then Tupelo is cool, too, just because Elvis is just pervasive everywhere.
Every street corner has an Elvis statue or an Elvis mural. And he looks at you everywhere you go in that town.
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Chapter 2: What crazy events led to the making of 'The Kings of Tupelo'?
Chapter 3: How did the Way brothers get into filmmaking?
Like, yes, people in Eastern Oregon certainly remember the Roshnishis if they were around and cognizant in the 80s. But for most people where I come from in Southern California, my age obviously had no recognition.
And it's interesting because I think that those stories that have the familiarity, that have a name, that have just a little bit more name recognition, usually do tend to do a little bit better on these platforms. So I think that's the way that the industry is going. But
For Chap and I, that's always like a big question mark is like, do we want to make a story that people think that they know and figure out how to make it interesting from there? Or do we want to make a story that you're going to not zero familiarity with? And hopefully you're just along for the ride for all these twists and turns, you know?
That's the thing, because I remember hearing, of course, about the 2013 presidential attempted assassination, but that was the very tip of the iceberg in this story. Every time I thought I knew where this story was going, it was like, nope, we're going this way now.
Yeah, that's part of the fun, I think, or at least when I'm an audience member, that's what I enjoy. I like being on the edge of my seat. I like thinking that, okay, I know who this character is, and then boom, they end up turning out to be something totally different or unexpected. And We're trying to, I mean, it can sound crude, but we are trying to make entertainment. People have busy lives.
There's a lot of things you can spend your time doing. I think we take the responsibility seriously that if someone's going to sit down and press play, we feel responsible. We owe it to people to really give them an experience. And sometimes we do better at that than others, but that's always the goal, at least. Every time you press play, we want to make sure you know you're going on a ride.
I think you guys are in the right mindset, though, with the way you do it, with taking a story that most people will not be familiar with. Because, I mean, personally, I love those much more because I love being able to be like... I just heard this story and none of you are going to know about it, but I need to tell you everything. And now you need to watch this.
And I think it's also, I think people are starting to have an appetite for more like original and unique content to like slowly. I think we're going to get there because I think people are getting sick of even like, you know, the fictionalized like narrative movies that are just kind of like being redone and it's the same thing. And, People are looking for original stories and original content.
So I think like slowly people are going to come around to realizing that like you want to learn something new, like you want to go into something totally blind.
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