The History of Concrete

Brian Lehrer (0:10)

Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

So, concrete may be the world's most widely used building material, but it isn't widely considered the most stimulating or funniest topic of conversation. But despite that general consensus, the comedian and documentarian John Wilson decided to make a feature-length movie about it called The History of Concrete. You might know John Wilson from his HBO series, How To with John Wilson, where he gave you the tools you need to understand important life topics like small talk and wine tasting. And kind of similar to how that show worked. The documentary is about concrete, yes, but it's not only about concrete.

Let's just say it, he goes off in a million random tangents. There's a side plot about a guy who removes a bum from the sidewalk, hilarious. Another about a business that preserves people's tattoos post-mortem, and it even features surreptitious footage from the dinner he attended with Kim Kardashian. So for today's purposes, we're going to focus mostly on the more concrete side of things. Again, John Wilson's first feature length documentary is called The History of Concrete, comes out tomorrow. John, thanks so much for doing a kind of radio trailer with us. Welcome to WNYC, and congrats on your first feature film.

John Wilson (1:27)

Yes, thank you for having me. I can't believe I'm talking to you.

Brian Lehrer (1:31)

And back at you, you wanted to make a documentary in the style of a Hallmark movie, and your film does a very good job of educating the viewers on what the Hallmark movie formula is. Would you give our listeners the short version of that?

John Wilson (1:50)

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I condense it within the movie as well, but yeah, this writer, Sarah Montana, she gave this class and it was, there are a few rules like you can't mention Jesus or Christianity in any Hallmark Christmas movie.

And stuff like how you get bonus points for dead relatives, or if there's a big community event that needs planning, that's always good. And it was also funny that she said to not interrupt a kiss with a phone call, because audiences supposedly hate that, and they've made that very clear.

Brian Lehrer (2:35)

And so maybe I'm just dense, but intuitively that Hallmark formula doesn't easily apply to concrete. What am I missing?

John Wilson (2:44)

You're not missing anything. Yeah, I like to try to connect things that you wouldn't really think to connect.

But with the Hallmark formula, I really wanted to investigate the fact that it is one of the only cable networks that's currently growing right now. And it's kind of because of the cyclical nature of the storytelling and the comfort that gives you. So I try to both embrace but betray the Hallmark rules in equal measure throughout the film to see kind of where I stand, but also to have a set of rules to guide the film.

Brian Lehrer (3:27)

So here's a clip from near the beginning of the movie, which is of a Zoom meeting with your agent and other industry executives. You're trying to sell the idea. The agent speaks first, then John.

SPEAKER_3 (3:39)

Do you have a sense of how you want to put that together as sort of a sales tape?

John Wilson (3:45)

I have. It's about two and a half, three minutes right now.

SPEAKER_3 (3:49)

What's the working title again?

John Wilson (3:51)

The History of Concrete.

SPEAKER_3 (3:55)

Okay.

Brian Lehrer (4:00)

So the pregnant pause before he says, okay, and then the Hallmark music. Was that the general reaction when you told people the name as you were trying to sell the idea? They didn't sound wildly enthusiastic there.

John Wilson (4:13)

I know. Yeah. The pitches, yeah, it kind of went exactly like that, where, you know, the, you couldn't really, if they did laugh, it seemed almost to be out of pity that I was pursuing this idea to begin with. And yeah, it's not, you know, it's not the kind of thing that everyone wants to make, I guess.

But I just realized after, you know, the 10th or 11th pitch meeting that failed, I, that, that I just needed to go out and do it. And that I was kind of doing it already. And when you finally have something after enough time, I think that's the best proof of anything, you know? So it's just like just getting off your butt and getting out of the house is the most important thing.

Brian Lehrer (5:03)

Now, listeners, we don't have a lot of time in this segment for calls and texts, and it may be a tough ask, but we are opening the phones for your calls on Concrete or anything related like Hallmark movie plots or anything you always wanted to ask John Wilson, how to do but didn't have him over for Small Talk, or maybe you actually saw John filming around Ridgewood, Queens and are glad to finally know what he's been up to after his How To Series, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Why Concrete? What got you interested in Concrete?