Jeff Ornstein 0:01

Hi everyone, and welcome to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein. I am Jeff, and on this show we celebrate people on the cusp of greatness. Those building on past successes in some of the curious and inventive and sometimes unexpected ways they have achieved those, and stepping into moments that could define their legacy. We'll talk about current projects, lessons learned, and the extraordinary opportunities ahead. So the best is yet to come. Today's guest is Steven Buchko, award-winning producer, director, actor, and founding member of Ferryman Collective, who is pushing the boundaries of storytelling to immersive virtual reality theater. As the co-creator of Uncanny Alley, A New Day, he is helping shape a new era performance that blends technology, live interaction, and global connection. Steven, that is really timely. So we are psyched to hear from you. Thanks for having me, Jeff. You're welcome. You've been in the art industry for 16 years. I know you've gotten a lot of credits underneath your belt here. Can you share a little bit about like what brought you to where you are today in terms of those different kinds of endeavors?

Stephen Butchko 1:10

Yeah, sure. I'm currently living in Los Angeles, California. And with my now wife, she was my girlfriend when we moved here together. And we both come from a theater background from the Northwest. And we moved to LA because we appreciate the arts, we specifically motion pictures and all of that type of stuff. And we discovered once we moved down here that pretty quickly, that unless one is born into it or has access to a trust fund or a fair amount of money, that we needed to create opportunities for ourselves if we wanted to act and perform. And so in order to become better actors, we had to learn how to produce things. So we learned how to pull movie projects together, theatrical projects together, and now we've ventured into the world of XR and specifically virtual reality.

Jeff Ornstein 2:14

So virtual reality is pretty technical. I mean, did you also have like some technical education or previous experience before?

Stephen Butchko 2:22

Not so much beyond learning photography and things like that, editing demo reels and things like that. So you know, minimum. But as far as anything related to virtual reality, we had to learn that along the way.

Jeff Ornstein 2:38

Oh, that's impressive. Considering we're 10 minutes late starting this podcast because I couldn't share a screen. Ferryman Collective. In a nutshell, this is yours and your wife's founded this.

Stephen Butchko 2:48

We are co-founders with two other artists. We're we're a small, we're a small team.

Jeff Ornstein 2:53

And their focus is VR?

Stephen Butchko 2:54

They do many things as well. They come from creative backgrounds as well, but together as Ferryman Collective, we co-founded this. Specifically, it's a VR theater company.

Jeff Ornstein 3:05

So at Ferryman, are you wearing all the different hats? Actor, director, writer. That's a lot of work.

Stephen Butchko 3:13

Yeah, we we all do, depending on what the project is.

Jeff Ornstein 3:17

Do you have a preference like for the perfect project? Would you prefer to be the director or the writer or casting agent?

Stephen Butchko 3:25

If it's if it's the right project that speaks to me, having a shot at writing and directing is lovely. And then but then performing, it just all works together. And I appreciate it doing all of it.

Jeff Ornstein 3:36

This is a question we ask a lot of our guests that are like you, very entrepreneurial and taking it on your all on your own shoulders. The funding portion, how have you found funding? I mean, it's a tenuous time right now in our industry.

Stephen Butchko 3:52

It's a tenuous time all the time if you're an artist, especially in this country. We just step out back and pluck another bill off the money tree, Jeff. That's actually what we do. No, we everything has been up until really this year, self-funded, really. That's one of the reasons why we've been able to continue making this type of theater, is because it allows us to do it cheaper than it we would if we were producing stuff in the physical realm. Earlier, I think it was just toward the end of last year. We officially became an official 501c3, and we just had our first fundraiser. So we've been able to pay for actor performances and things like that and the infrastructure with money that we receive.

Jeff Ornstein 4:40

I have a close friend I went to school with who's just in the process of trying to get his 501c all together. He runs the Bronx World Film Festival. And these are life rafts to small art entrepreneurial artists. So congratulations, because I know it's no small feat. So your background was in traditional theater, yet now you've edged into this XR storytelling. Do you feel that the content for XR storytelling is vastly different than the content for live theater? Or how are they similar or how are they different?

Stephen Butchko 5:12

Well, what we do falls into the world of XR, which is extended reality, and that's comprised of like augmented reality, mixed reality, virtual reality. So they're all tools with which to st tell stories, and those stories are told in different ways. But if the work is done properly, they're all connective with an audience.

Jeff Ornstein 5:36

And I imagine wearing so many hats that you must be a storyteller at heart.

Stephen Butchko 5:41

Yeah. Yeah, that's I'm genetically predisposed to do that. I not nothing else I can do. I'm useless at everything else at this point.

Jeff Ornstein 5:48

Is there a particular story you like to tell? We had a guy in that with focused on horror not so long ago, another one on emotional distress. And what's your bag?

Stephen Butchko 5:58

At Ferryman Collective, we our stories are human-centered and they remind us of our own humanity, and they speak of our experiences as human beings. I've always been fascinated with stories where ordinary people find themselves in extraordinary situations and what they do, how they behave.

Jeff Ornstein 6:24

Do they rise to the occasion? And you know what? I think audiences like those stories because they can see themselves in it. What would I do? Would I have the courage or the tenacity or the audacity to do what that character did? So they can be very compelling. Uncanny Alley. So this is a globally rise rec globally recognized theater experience. Share us a little bit about what that is.

Stephen Butchko 6:50

Yeah, a little bit of background about that. My wife Deirdre and I, we were at the Venice Film Festival representing another project. And the Venice Biennale, they've shown specific interest in XR storytelling and the type of work that we do. And they also show they represent examples of world building in within VR. So there's a very talented game maker and world builder named Rick Treeweek, who hails from Cape Town, South Africa. And over the course of years, he built these standalone worlds that exist in the virtual reality social VR platform, VR Chat, called Uncanny Alley. We became acquainted with each other's work through the at Venice. And then later on that year in the Raindance Film Festival, we were taking a tour of his world, Uncanny Alley. And we we fell in love with the themes of the world that he was representing in there. And I told my wife, Deirdre, I said, that if I could ever have an opportunity to bring this particular world to life in a live theatrical experience, there would be so much potential storytelling that we could do. And then Rick came through a performance of the show that we had been running through the film festival. And at the end of it, he said, Do you ever see anybody else's worlds and want to do anything with it? And I was like, Well, you beat me to it, yes. So we entered into this collaboration where we were able to bring his IP to life.

Jeff Ornstein 8:30

Is there a particular demographic for this? Or is it does it appeal to people of all ages and all ethnicities and cultures?

Stephen Butchko 8:37

Yeah, it's not made for kids, that sort of thing. But our audience base is we're still it's a unique genre of storytelling. And so we're sort of we're still trying to figure out exactly who our audiences are, but it's a lot of storytellers of all ages, filmmakers, theater makers. We like to tell people that our work it comes to life at the intersection of live theater, motion pictures, and interactive video games. We pull from all three of those modalities. So we get interest from people that play in all of those worlds.

Jeff Ornstein 9:13

Right. Excellent. So while you're doing that, then I guess you're discovering who your audience is and what your audience wants from you. And as you just discussed, you like the every man who rises to the occasion, every person, I guess. Is that difficult on a global scale because of the various cultural nuances that shift from region to region? How do you navigate those waters?

Stephen Butchko 9:39

We navigate those waters by trying to tell a human story through a compelling, grounded performance with professional actors. There are cultural differences which are very interesting depending on who's participating in a performance, but we're all carbon-based life forms here and we're different, but we're mostly wired the same and we care about the same things really. So it's pretty easy to connect on that level.

Jeff Ornstein 10:12

Okay. Do you find that you're drawn to working with the same actors for your different projects? I know relationships are the industry's also a lot about relationships. So do you find that you coming back to the same actors or they can bring to it?

Stephen Butchko 10:28

Yeah, we have to because it's a very unique way of working as an actor. We work with professional actors, and these people are very talented storytellers either on stage in the physical world in front of a camera, or also with this strange apparatus on their head navigating these menus. There's not a lot of people that can do that effectively at this point. So there's a core group of actors that really that allow themselves to be put through the hardship of what it takes to do this kind of stuff. And they're very effective at it. So of course, yeah, we just work with them. But now that we've been around for a while and we've had our work translated into three languages. So now one of the things that we talk about is anybody new that we bring on board as far as actors go, it will be helpful to know what other languages they speak. Because we are global now and it's very helpful.

Jeff Ornstein 11:32

That's exciting. You said that your creative life felt like it was building towards a moment that finally clicked. So how did that happen? Because the people that are watching this and listening to this are perhaps considering making some legacy-defining jump into a newer emerged profession. And it's not easy. People have responsibilities to their family, their finances. What was it when you decided that you were going to kind of let's say go for broke and put all your eggs in the basket of the uh virtual technology, and you and your wife are gonna say, this is what we do now. This is it, this is what we're doing.

Stephen Butchko 12:11

There's a couple of different things I think that you ask there. Working backwards, it's really for us, it's not something that we I guess we make a choice as to whether or not we want to continue doing it, but it's the opportunity that appeared for us and we jumped on it. And we very quickly, because of the way that the world was at the time, it was easy to get a lot of attention on what we were doing, which gave us this buoyancy or momentum that allowed us to continue doing it. And the opportunities just have kept coming, so we haven't stopped the answer to that part of it. But as far as the the clicking of, I was reminded of a quote that Jim Morrison of The Doors once said that his creative life was like a bowstring being pulled back slowly for 24 years and then suddenly let go. And that really is kind of what happened for Deirdre and myself. We've spent a lifetime creating things and we send it into the ether, and it's like, hello, is this thing on? Or we get lots of no's. And a door opened, and we went through it specifically with a project that we created, and it had its world premiere at Tribeca at the festival. And that that was sort of we knew then that this was a big jump for us, a big leap, and then it carried so that was kind of the door that opened.

Jeff Ornstein 13:38

So when the bow was released and you were catapulted, uh was it scary? Was it exciting? Was it anticipated? Like this is it. This is the this is the what we've been waiting for.

Stephen Butchko 13:50

All of those things. Well, I'm not sure so much for my perspective as scary, but exciting for sure. That we finally there's the there was a there was I felt like there was this sense of getting over a wall that we had been trying to get over for so long. And we kind of through some circuitous, strange alignment of the moon and the stars, it happened. I always would just be irritated at watching these documentaries of these these actors that we know, and they talk about man, it just that just kind of happened. I fell into it and I just want to kill them. But but we can say that really about what we have done. We literally just kind of it just happened. Now, it's a little more complicated than that because we've spent our entire lives studying and working very hard trying to make something happen. So when we were ready, when the opportunity right.

Jeff Ornstein 14:51

So opportunity knocked, and you are welcome them in full throttle. What would you say then to a listener that's unsure and it maybe has like you the background and the intensity and the drive to do it, but is a little bit unsteady on the courageousness scale. I mean, is there was there any at any part in time did you say, oops, I'm not sure? It doesn't sound like it.

Stephen Butchko 15:18

I'll speak for myself, but generally speaking, creative people that do this kind of work, we need to do it. So despite any fear, we will find ways to do this work, and that's what we have, but it's the courage is that's that's aside from doing this kind of work. That that requires a life, an examined life.

Jeff Ornstein 15:39

One of the topics that come up, and you touched on it a little bit, is you can run into a lot of no's, a lot of brick walls, and it takes people, you know, don't be discouraged. And for whatever reason the tips didn't land in your favor, it may have nothing to do with what you were bringing to the project. It's a of the director's choice, he's he rules the roost, whatever he's looking for is in his brain, and for whatever reason, didn't land your way. But one guest said, and if there's anything else you think you could enjoy as much as the theater and make a living, do it. Because this isn't easy. So you have to like wake up wanting to just hit the ground running and go for it because every day will be a challenge. That being said, if this medium develops itself the way you anticipate it will, or foresee it will, or hope it will, is there a particular role you would want to play in uh undertaking a certain character that would really float your boat?

Stephen Butchko 16:43

Just being able to continue what we are doing is kind of where we're at. I think that there's stories that we look forward to telling as the technology advances and allows us to create larger stories and bigger stories that we can have bigger audiences in and do more things, create more awe-inspiring worlds, that would be very cool to do.

Jeff Ornstein 17:08

Yeah, that led me to actually the next thing I was going to ask you. There seems to be a growing divide or chasm between smaller productions that reach out to people in a very personal way, and the big mega productions, the real blockbusters. And they're very different. I mean, they both are have tremendous merit, but they're very different in the how it impacts the audience and they're personalized. Do you have a preference for the grand spectacular or the small four-person production?

Stephen Butchko 17:39

If we're talking about that with regard to live performance in VR, there's the grandness does not come from the amount of audience participants in the show, because we just can't have that that many. But I personally I think a story well told is a story well told, whether it's an intimate my dinner with Andre kind of thing, where it's two characters talking the whole time, if it's compelling, or if it's Lawrence of Arabia or Star Wars on an epic level, these are all as long as we can connect with the characters in the story and it's of value that way, it's the same to me.

Jeff Ornstein 18:20

So reflecting and responding to the world's concerns is also a passion for you and your wife in your filmmaking. Is there a particular social cause right now that you feel needs to be more in the forefront of the arts? Oh man. There's a lot.

Stephen Butchko 18:36

Ah, Lordy. Saving democracy is kind of top on the list, on my list.

Jeff Ornstein 18:41

Uh I think that's a good point. It's uh reaching people.

Stephen Butchko 18:43

Reaching people. There's been, and I won't go too far off on this, but there has been a very deliberate and systemic devaluation of human labor and creativity in this in the US, at least since I would say the 70s, which has led us down a very dark path to where we are today. And this is the time for artists and creators to reflect that mirror back to society with our work. And that's how we fight.

Jeff Ornstein 19:17

Right. We never needed artists as badly as we need them right now.

Stephen Butchko 19:20

Right. Historically, that's been the the trend.

Jeff Ornstein 19:24

Many people would claim that's something that AI, there'll never be an AI artist. I mean, the creativity and the objectivity and compassion and empathy are not things that our people are attributing to the wonders of AI. So that's what we're here for. Naturally, we've gone over time, but I want to still get from you, because they did a great job of evaluating the producers and explaining to me or trying to just give me some insights into who you are and what you're all about and where you're trying to go. It says you stayed on a path without always knowing where it would lead. What kept you from walking away during uncertain terms, sorry, seasons? But I'm actually more interested in understanding what kept you from staying during uncertain seasons.

Stephen Butchko 20:10

It's us creators and storytellers and artists, one we know who we are, and there really is nothing else. Life has been for, like I said, I don't come from a uh a well-connected family with money, and there's always been uncertainty in the creative arts, and I think around the world in general, but especially in this in the United States. And if you do it long enough and you don't run away, I think you're tenured, and there's nothing else that you can do. I've had some very, very dark nights of the soul, and that the other guest that you re quoted about saying if there's anything else that you can do it, and I've searched, I've wanted to do that, but all the other things that I would do are creative. So I was like, in my next life, I'll be a singer-songwriter, and then after that, I'll be a painter, and then something else.

Jeff Ornstein 21:06

But right now, this is it'll always be an uphill battle, but that's that's the passion of the artist. That's what drives it. Steven, I've so enjoyed having you here. I'm going to tag and follow you and ferryman. And I wish you the best of luck in your new projects that you're taking on, and expect to see your mark on the world of VR.

Stephen Butchko 21:25

Thanks so much for having me, Jeff, and allowing me to bring a little bit more visibility to this type of work. We want people to join us, and it's a pleasure speaking with you and meeting you. Thank you.

Jeff Ornstein 21:35

You're very welcome. Thanks for tuning in to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein. Follow, subscribe, and stay connected to your favorite socials at www.nextpodcast.com. Keep chasing your next act. The best is yet to come.