This week Chris Deacy is joined in the studio by Rob Wills to discuss the films; Private Parts, Fantasia, The Greatest Showman, and The Fast and The Furious.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club. I'm Chris DC and each week I'll be joined by
00:18a guest from Kent to dive deep into the impact certain films have had on their life. Each
00:23guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years. And
00:28every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia where we quiz you at home about a film that
00:32has a connection to the county. And now, let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:38He is the host of KMFM's Getting You Home With Noomi. He also owns Loaded Production
00:44Music creating music for film, radio and TV programmes around the world. He is Rob Wills.
00:51Hello Chris, how are you? Great to have you on the programme Rob. Thank you for the invite.
00:54It was a shock invite as I said to you before we started because I'm notoriously bad for
01:00remembering film names, actors, what happens in films. So the idea of having to pick four
01:06that have had an impact on my life was a tough job but I enjoyed it.
01:10Well that's why I'm glad I'm not in your seat because I don't have the same problem. But
01:14without knowing your films in advance, now I loved Private Parts. It was Howard Stern
01:19plays himself doesn't it? Correct, yeah. So for anybody who doesn't
01:23know who Howard Stern is, huge American shock jock. So back in the day when radio personalities
01:30really were super personalities, Howard was trying to break into the radio industry and
01:36the film follows his journey through being told ultimately that he didn't have a very
01:40good radio voice. And about 80% of it I don't think we can talk about I would say. But then
01:48there are other things that from a personal perspective I could relate to as a broadcaster
01:54as well. So yeah, it is a great film. Is he the DJ you aspire to? Because this is
01:58a very American phenomenon, the shock jock. And this was made in what, in 97? And he's
02:03been going. And of course he's still going. And he has amazing guests. I saw him interviewing
02:07Sally Field, Jane Fonda recently. He's 70 years old now. Has his own little
02:12radio station called H100. Yeah, we did have a couple of shock jocks and people like Bam
02:20Bam. There's a guy called Tim Shaw who now hosts Card SOS who's a friend of mine. Some
02:26people would say Chris Evans and Chris Moyles were those type of characters here in the
02:30UK. But yeah, it's a really fascinating film. The bit for me that always stood out without
02:35kind of talking through who the boss was at the time, there's a really, and you'll remember
02:39the clip in the film where the boss is explaining to him that he's not saying the radio station
02:44name right. And it's WNBC. And it's like, what are you trying to get me to say here?
02:50There are crazy things that happen in radio stations. And this film kind of encapsulates
02:55quite a bit of that. And it's also a really clever film, simply because, as I was saying
03:01at the beginning, he plays himself. And of course, it makes no pretense that he's obviously
03:07a much older man playing a much younger man. But also, Howarthstone is such a unique personality.
03:12No one else really could have done it. And it works precisely because of the fact that he is
03:18second to none. Yeah. And there are other people in the film that play themselves as well. Robin,
03:22who's his co-host, who's my new me, if you like. And there's some of his producers in there as
03:27well. But yeah, it's one of those films, I guess, from being in the industry, I'd probably
03:33maybe watch it in a slightly different way, perhaps, to general public, in the same way
03:38that I'd enjoy Alan Partridge to a different way that the general public would. So yeah,
03:43it's a really fun film. Mad, but a huge amount of it is based on what happened in New York and all
03:50of the other radio stations that he worked at. And what really worked for me was the more tender
03:54side, because he's the shock jock. But also, he developed a really good rapport with Robin.
03:58I remember when she first appears, and I think he's used to people walking up,
04:03they don't get it. And suddenly something clicks somehow against the odds. And she suddenly thinks,
04:08you know, I don't know what I'm doing here. But somehow that chemistry lasted.
04:11It's a really interesting dynamic, isn't it? Because you kind of, the only time I talk to,
04:17I call my wife, Nicola, Mrs. Rob on air. And we joke all the time that I have two wives. You have
04:24the wife I go home to and the wife I work with, because I genuinely spend more time with Numi
04:29than I probably do with Nicola at the moment. And that's the same deal with Robin. And Howard's
04:35relationship is really stunning. And as you say, it's a pretty relationship, but it's a
04:40relationship where they both kind of understand their roles within that relationship. And it
04:44created great, extremely risque, in some case, fine-provoking radio.
04:50Yeah. And do you think that the Howard Stern way of doing things, you mentioned Alan Partridge,
04:55is the other end of the spectrum. But also not that different in a way, because the whole Alan
04:59Partridge is trying to do, you know, he'll never be Howard Stern, but he shocks for the wrong
05:04reasons. And do you kind of feel that, you know, where do you fit in here?
05:08Where do I fit in? So it's interesting because there's, gosh, I'm going to drift a bit here,
05:14so pull me back. I think all radio presenters have a little bit of imposter syndrome, I think.
05:20And you end up growing up with people. So for me, it was Moylesy on Radio 1. It was people like
05:26James Heming on Invicta FM. And you end up kind of borrowing character traits from people. And
05:33I've got nowhere near the talent that this guy has. But I think that some of the way that you
05:41make content sing, rather than maybe just delivering what you want to say, the way it's
05:45dramatised a little bit, as my wife would call it, Rob's adding some VAT to this story. That's
05:51what he's fantastic at. He understands how to create that adult pantomime. And I would like
05:56to think if I was even 1% as good as Howard at doing that, I'd be happy.
05:59Brilliant. Well, let's move on to your second chosen film. And as swerves go,
06:07from Howard Stern to Fantasia. I need time to process that.
06:11I thought you might. Joe, this is a weird one for me, because I wanted to try and pick stuff that
06:18had meaning to me, not necessarily just the film. So I could probably only talk about 10 minutes of
06:24this film. And the reason being is it's the first film I remember watching as a kid. And I know
06:30there's a lot of research around this film that says that it's actually quite psychedelic, it's
06:34quite trippy. But the reason it was the film that kind of stuck in my mind is I was really lucky as
06:40a kid and I had a VHS in my bedroom when we when we were younger, but it wasn't a very good one.
06:44And the Fantasia tape had got stuck in the VHS recorder, and we couldn't get it out. So if you
06:51wanted to watch anything on VHS, it was Fantasia. And it was really interesting because then growing
06:57up and getting into music production and appreciating the classical music behind it,
07:01I'm like kind of thinking maybe there was a reason that that tape got stuck in that machine. But
07:06the whole kind of world of dance music and DJing, which I'm a massive fan of as well,
07:11you start watching some of the things that went into Fantasia, which is a very old film now.
07:16And I just remember vividly falling asleep, must have been two, three hundred nights of my really
07:23young childhood days, watching the broomsticks split into all of the different broomsticks and
07:27marching up and down things is just a really odd film for a kid to enjoy. And I've been told that
07:34many times. But also, I've got this image on my mind now of the garbled tape. Yeah. So which,
07:40of course, is probably ingrained. So if you ever watch this film on the IMAX screen or watch it in
07:45a digital format, you're expecting it at a certain point, maybe for the picture to go all very fuzzy
07:49and for the tape to be mangled. I just don't know enough about the rest of it. I appreciate
07:55the seven segments. I appreciate it's very different to everything Disney have ever done.
07:59I think it would be fair to say, wouldn't it? From a musicality point of view, it's pretty special.
08:04And when you consider it's, I want to say, close to 100 years old now, it's just a really
08:12true and wholesome Disney classic that it was that one. And I remember my sister getting stuck
08:18in her VHS. Maybe it was just me and my sister, Fox and Hound. I just remember those two Disney
08:23films. But if you went and asked any other person what their go to Disney films when they're a kid,
08:27they'd be giving you Lion King. They might be giving you Lady and the Tramp. But for us,
08:31it was Fantasia. And so you were forced to watch it time and time again. But do you think that in
08:39a way it's done you a favour? Do you think that you would have been a bigger fan of this if it
08:44hadn't been for the fact that you had no choice but to watch it? I'm assuming it encapsulates your
08:49childhood. Yeah, it does. You know you have those things, don't you? Certainly, when you think back
08:53to your earliest memory, this is a go to radio topic all of the time, where what's the first
08:59thing you remember when you were a kid? And actually, your first memories probably don't
09:03go back that far, really, you know, separate to this. And my first memory probably is a holiday
09:09at seven years old. But I remember watching this maybe four or five years old. And the funny thing
09:15is, is it keeps rearing its head. You know how they say like, if you're looking at buying a car
09:20and you've never seen one before, then all of a sudden you start spotting the same cars, right?
09:23The same thing with this, this film just follows me everywhere. So during COVID and the radio
09:28station was we were clearing stuff out and just randomly in the marketing cupboard was a VHS on
09:33its own Fantasia. And I've seen it like we went into a really old kind of like secondhand record
09:41and DVD and film store front of the Disney stack Fantasia. It feels like it was left there. Maybe
09:47it was your past self or your future self left it there. It feels as though this is ingrained in you.
09:53It feels like you know, you I mean, I always ask that question about whether you growing up with
09:57the film or maybe the film growing up with you that that seems particularly applicable in your
10:01Yeah, it's just things for me like, you know, so you get a bit older, you know, Chris, I'm sure
10:05you'll vouch for this as well. You start kind of thinking a little bit more about where you came
10:08from, why you are who you are, and all that kind of stuff. And I just Yeah, this film just say just
10:13follows me around. I see it all of the time. Again, we know they released Disney only release
10:19you probably know more about this than me. They only released certain films, don't they? And
10:24my dream when I was a child, which nobody in their right mind would do now. My dream when I was a
10:29child was to have every single Disney film ever released. And I wanted them on a all on tape. And
10:36I wanted them stacked up on a nice bookshelf. And that's what I wanted when I got to the top of my
10:39stairs when I got home. Now you'd be insane because that's ultimately Disney pluses. But I
10:44still would like to and I have I have a copy of this this of this VHS I would like to have a
10:49couple of the others that we I kind of remember growing up and watching it. Well, I have many
10:53films that are on VHS, DVD, Blu Ray. And of course, now with a streamer, I don't know what to
10:59do with the hard copy versions. But but I have to watch how many times in the last year if you
11:03watch Fantasia? Oh, I probably I wouldn't probably have to be honest and say I've not I've not
11:07watched it front to end. But I've probably dipped into it maybe half a dozen times where I'm showing
11:11people stuff. And then there's actually some really nice when you're making like visuals for
11:15like DJ sets. It's actually not a bad place to go to look at some of this stuff because it's
11:21there's some really nice effects that are really basic. But if you brought them into 2024,
11:25they're quite cool, you know. Brilliant. Well, that is about all the time we have for this first
11:29half of the show. However, before we go to the break, we have a Kent film trivia question for
11:34you at home. Which installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise utilized part of
11:40Noel Park in Sevenoaks for a scene? Was it A. At World's End, B. On Stranger Tides, or C. The
11:48Curse of the Black Pearl? We'll reveal the answer right after this break. Don't go away.
11:55Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club. Just before the break, we asked you at home
12:11a Kent film trivia question. Which installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise utilized
12:17part of Noel Park in Sevenoaks for a scene? I asked was it A. At World's End, B. On Stranger
12:24Tides, or C. The Curse of the Black Pearl? And now I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact
12:31B. On Stranger Tides. The large inner courtyard was filled with gallows intended for Gibbs,
12:36played by Kevin R McNally. Did you get the answer right? Well, it is time now to move on to your
12:43next chosen film. And Rob, you've gone for The Greatest Showman.
12:51I've probably watched this film more, and it's not been out that long, than any other film
12:55that's ever been out. And there is a reason for it, which I'll get to in the end. But
12:59I'm pretty sure everybody's seen it. There's no real need for me to explain what happens in it.
13:04But I love everything about it. I love the music. I love the feel-good element of it. The actors in
13:09it are fantastic. The scenes in it are incredible. There was a lot that happened behind the scenes
13:15that I've found out a lot more about as I've bumped into people with my other hat on, outside
13:21of KMFM, that are just insane. Including brushing shoulders with the guy, a friend of mine brushed
13:27shoulders with a guy who made the music. And there's a reason why it sounds a little bit
13:31different on the movie than you'd maybe expect it to sound when you end up listening to it on
13:36Spotify. And yeah, it's a fantastic film. I love it to bits.
13:40I remember watching it in Herne Bay, Christmas time, end of 2017, and the reviews were not good.
13:45But this last year, I think this was still showing in the cinemas the following April.
13:49Really?
13:49And it defied all expectations. And there's something about it, because obviously it's
13:54set in the 19th century, but it's got all of anything around inclusivity, diversity. So it's
14:00got a very real, you know, it has the pulse. It sort of fitted the zeitgeist of today and it worked.
14:06Do you know, there's two things this film, for me, separate to the fantastic music in it,
14:11separate to all the choreography, separate to like Zendaya doing all of the stunts herself.
14:16There's that incredible video, I don't know if you've seen it, where they're doing the rehearsal
14:20and Hugh Jackman just had a nose operation and he's told explicitly, you're not to sing,
14:25but you've got to recover first. And they're having a rehearsal for This Is Me.
14:29And he can't help himself. And the gospel team are there. And it's honestly one of the best
14:34handicam videos of a rehearsal I've ever seen. If you've never seen it before, look it up,
14:39it's incredible. But I'm also a great believer, without getting too spiritual about things,
14:44that if you want something bad enough, you can make it happen.
14:49Now, in real life, Hugh Jackman's character, he's not particularly the nicest person.
14:56But the film follows him through as he wants to go and chase his dream and he keeps on going at
15:01it until he gets it, which I'm a massive believer of. If you want something, you're willing to put
15:05the work into it, I think you can genuinely achieve whatever you want to achieve. But the
15:10second thing is something that I got told maybe 2017 by somebody when I was having a little bit
15:17of an issue with maybe where my career was going. And this guy called Forrest questioned me on who
15:24I spent the most amount of time with. And he said, you're the sum of the five people you spend
15:29the most amount of time with. So make sure that those five people are great that you can learn
15:33from, that are going to inspire you, going to take you on that journey. And I think this film
15:37encapsulates that because the moment he drifts off and starts going to focus on the money,
15:41starts focusing on that single female vocalist, it starts to drift. He starts drifting from his
15:46wife and his children, and the dream starts to fall apart. But actually, when he was surrounded
15:51by the right people, the dream comes back to life again. So for me, personally, it's a little
15:57bit more of a spiritual thing for me. I really believe in that. Yeah, and there's something,
16:01while I was watching this, I felt at first when Rebecca Ferguson is performing, I thought I was
16:05watching something out of X Factor. And of course, it's a 19th century set, but you don't mind
16:10because the whole thing is that it's the audience who are watching that and thinking, yeah, this is
16:15how dreams can come true. And I think that's probably why it worked. And maybe that's why
16:18the critics, who may have been a bit snooty when it came out, kind of missed the point,
16:22because this was a real crowd pleaser. And it kind of fitted with the whole sense of,
16:25you know, do you want something badly enough? Then go get it. Yeah, totally. And I think,
16:30yeah, I remember seeing the critics. It took me quite a while to watch it, actually. It was a
16:34friend of mine who asked for one of the tracks as their first dance, but he didn't want it quite as
16:42showy. And I ended up making like a stripped back piano version of it. It wasn't until I bought the
16:46songbook and everything that I started to appreciate it for what it was. But yeah, it's a
16:51great film. I mean, the stage show is imminent, I believe. I think recently they've just announced
16:57that that's going to happen. And it needs to, because that needs to be on a stage. It's fantastic.
17:02Yeah. And is it something that you can watch over and over again? Because there are some films
17:07which, I mean, you sort of watch it once and you say you know where it's going. But of course,
17:12this is so visceral. You kind of feel each time. This was my sense, because I saw it twice at the
17:17cinema with very different audiences and a few months apart. There's that real sense that there's
17:21something in here. It pulsates. But it was, and you know that there's no historical accuracy.
17:2719th century set. This looks like set out of The X Factor. And yet it really worked,
17:33because there was something universal at the heart.
17:35Yeah, I think for me, I genuinely have watched it so many times. And I'll do different things,
17:40so I'll skip through and just hit the songs. I'll skip through and hit Come Alive or that
17:45moment you were just talking about with Rebecca Ferguson, where I'm a massive lover of the use
17:51of silence in work that we're using. And there's that fantastic scene where she stops singing and
17:56it's just almost completely silent. Same with Oppenheimer used it before the explosion. People
18:02don't use silence enough. And yeah, there's just so many magical moments. Yeah, I could just do it
18:07again and again and again and again. And for me, my wife has seen me on planes where I'll
18:13go and watch it. I appreciate the production of it. I appreciate the sound quality of it. I
18:17appreciate that you've got people like Hugh, who are not professional singers. I mean,
18:21I saw him on Deadpool over the weekend, you know, sounding fantastic. And there's so much passion
18:27and so much. Yeah, I love it. Absolutely love it.
18:29Brilliant. Well, it is time now, Rob, to move on to your final chosen film.
18:33And you've gone for another swerve, The Fast and the Furious.
18:37I did warn you that this was going to be a little bit rogue. Yeah, do you know, I was and still am
18:44your typical, we were talking about it before we came on, weren't we, about cars. But I've always
18:49been a fan. I'm the biggest car fan ever. I'm a nightmare for swapping them in and out. It's
18:57unfortunately, I was part of that, if anybody's kind of similar age to me remembers, you know,
19:02when I started to drive, you'd have a Citroen Saxo and you'd have to change the light clusters
19:08out on the back of your car and put them on. And then people started putting stickers on their car.
19:11I'm just a massive car fan. And this film for me happened just as I was leaving school,
19:18just as I was learning to drive. Made me think I was going to have a Nissan GTR or a Toyota Supra,
19:24when in reality, I was going to be having a Rover Metro 1.1 litre. But it made me think that I could
19:30achieve one of those cars at some point. Yeah, I loved it. I wouldn't say it's necessarily
19:37one of the best stories in the world, obviously, but it is one of the biggest franchises in the
19:42world. Although you have almost made it sound like The Greatest Showman, in the sense, if you
19:45really want it, you get it. But I saw this, what, 2001? Yeah. Now they've made, is it 13? Yeah,
19:51it's a mad number now, yeah. Did you think, when you first saw this, could you imagine that this
19:56franchise would have worked? Because I saw it, it was fine, but they made a second, then they
20:01made a third. There was a point where I thought, there's obviously something that people are
20:04tapping into that I maybe hadn't quite got. I think there's an element of whether you've
20:12got the money to have these fast cars or not. People appreciate them. And I think the second
20:18film for me, don't quote me on this, I'd have to look this up because this might be fake news,
20:22but I'm pretty sure the second film, they didn't actually use the proper cars. They were
20:28Shells or they were Lower Elite. The reason I loved this film, they were the proper cars,
20:33the V8, the muscle car that Vin Diesel had, the turbos and everything that went with Paul Walker's
20:39car. So yeah, I think it's a weird one. For me, I used to buy, do you remember Max Power
20:45magazines, their car magazines? I used to buy them. And so this was the first time where all
20:51of a sudden something really exciting was made out of a passion of mine. Because up until that
20:55point, he was looking at, yeah, Max Power was another one where I used to occasionally go to
21:00things like car meets. I'd go and see the rally cross at Lydden Hill when I was younger. I used
21:04to ride motocross bikes when I was 14, 15. For me, that kind of just brought all of this, I guess,
21:09at a time where you're developing into a young man, what you thought being a young man was,
21:14where ultimately I realised now that that's completely madness. Yeah, because when I saw this
21:19and I almost took one of my young sons with it because the most recent one was given a 12A
21:24certificate. And I saw it on my own and I thought, this is not appropriate for an eight-year-old as
21:30he then was. But I thought afterwards, and I didn't take him, but I thought, well, it's as much
21:34a fantasy because you chose Fantasia earlier. I mean, yeah, you've got those ridiculous stunts
21:38and you say, don't try this. But then again, it works in its own, I think there's even in the
21:45most recent one, they go into space. And it kind of works because it's grounded. If you like cars,
21:51you like the film. But like some of the James Bond films, like Moonraker, it takes you somewhere
21:54else completely and it works all the better for it. Yeah, I think the original one, that's why
21:59I loved one so much. Do you know when I tend to catch up on the Fast and Furious new instalment
22:04is if I'm on a plane, because it's always on the entertainment system, in-flight entertainment
22:09system. But this, the reason I love this is this was actually quite true to the cars. There's a
22:13little bit of tinkering going on. You saw a little bit more. So yeah, I enjoyed that. But yeah,
22:18you're right. Now it's maybe kind of drifted maybe a little bit away from the car thing. And
22:24it's a bit more of just an action adventure film, isn't it, ultimately?
22:28And I mean, of course, you've chosen the first one. Am I right in thinking that you chose this
22:32because, you know, it's like the origin story began here. And also you saw it at a particular
22:37time in your life. Whereas the later films, do you kind of feel they do justice to this?
22:41I think things change, don't they? People move on. And I think, for me, had that come out when
22:48I was 25, 26, I don't know whether I would have cared so much. But, you know, when obviously
22:52Paul Walker lost his life, didn't he, from the Ferrari accident in California. I remember being
22:59quite sad about that. And they started using, we started playing it on the radio at the time,
23:04the Wiz Khalifa See You Again song. And you just thought, okay, actually, that was quite an
23:08important part of my life because I cared about it. You know, I was sad about it. They used some
23:13really clever CGI on the film that they were making at the time, didn't they, to kind of put
23:18him back into some of the scenes because he'd filmed part of it, but not the rest of it. So,
23:22yeah, they're clearly a family. They clearly enjoy what they do. And for me, being a car freak,
23:29and anybody who knows me will know that, that this won't be a surprise.
23:32Brilliant. Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today. Many thanks to Rob Wills for
23:37joining us and being such a brilliant guest. And many thanks to you all for tuning in. Be
23:41sure to come back and join us again at the same time next week. Until then, that's all from us.
23:47Goodbye.