Hey guys, before we get started with today's show, I just want to congratulate my boss,

Bill Simmons, who you may know is the host of the Bill Simmons podcast, which just won the 2017

People's Voice and Webby Awards and the Best Sports Podcast category. So thanks to everyone who

voted, supported us, and shout out to Bill Simmons. Okay, and here's my interview with JD Dillard.

Hello and welcome to a channel 33 podcast. My name is Sean Finnesy and I'm the editor

and chief of the ringer. Today I'm joined by JD Dillard. You may not have heard of him.

Three years ago, JD was a receptionist for JJ Abrams Bad Robot, but today he is the writer

director of his first film, which combines street magic, hip-hop, crime, and a little superhero

mythology. Are you interested yet? The movie is called Slight, as in Slight of Hand. JD,

thanks for being here today. Thanks so much, man. JD, not a lot of people know who you are, so I want

people to understand who you are because your movie is very interesting and you are, seems like

at the precipice of an exciting young career. So why don't you tell people where you're from

originally and how you got into filmmaking? So I'm from Gropenfilly and had the great benefit

of having a teacher who was from that world a little bit, not necessarily in the professional

sense, but just a really important person in my creative growth, a guy named Mr. Granger,

who actually has a namesake in Slight. Funny enough, was also my dad's film teacher. We went

to the same high school like 30 years apart. I also grew up in a military family and I was thinking,

okay, maybe military or maybe film, which are very different, turns out. So the decision kind of came

down to going to West Point or going to Syracuse, but wound up going to Syracuse to study film in

their visual performing art school, which is the sort of like more avant-garde side because they

also have a new house, which is a little bit more like public communications and maybe even a

little more Hollywood oriented. But I think what was really cool about those two years at Syracuse was

...