On this episode we talk to writer/director Eunice Levis about building worlds in horror and sci-fi, getting shorts onto Netflix, and the best music to listen to while writing.

Listen to “The White Meat Podcast” on Spreaker.

Here’s the transcript:

David Dylan Thomas: Hey, everybody, welcome to the White Meat Podcast. I’m your host, David Dylan Thomas, writer, director of White Meat a movie with the following premise. Underneath Washington Square Park, and this is true, are buried the bodies of hundreds of enslaved people. What if one night they come back from the dead as zombies, but they only eat white people?

So, we made a short film called White Meat: Appetizer last year. It’s starting to get into festivals. I may have announced this last time, but we are in the Pan-African Film Festival. We are premiering there in Los Angeles in February. We actually have a date now. We are, the showing is at 4:50 PM and, on February 19th. So that will be the official, the official premiere. So if you’re in Los Angeles please, please go see it. I will be in Los Angeles for a while. I’m gonna be from basically February 13th all the way to February 22nd. So if you are in LA and you would like to meet up, please let me know.

info@whitemeatmovie.com.

I’d love to love to chat or if there’s someone you think I should meet and talk about White Meat with let me know.

So we are also tomorrow, today is the 4th of February, I believe. Yes. The fourth and tomorrow is the fifth. And on the fifth we are going to be doing a sneak preview of White Meat: Appetizer at a bar called Strangelove’s.

I’ve been down there. It’s really, really cool. They apparently have the best wings in Philadelphia, so, so go see it for that, too.

But we are going to have my friend Harp has put together this great program we’re gonna have Quizzo. We’re gonna have a, a signature drink called the Zombatini, which we invented like two days ago.

It should be a lot of fun. Anyway come out to that. If you go to our, our Instagram whitemeatmovie I believe there’s also a link on our website, whitemeatmovie.com. You can go get tickets for that. It’s pretty, pretty cheap. So we hope to see you there. Yeah, I think that’s it for now, but we got a whole lot of stuff going on.

Make sure to sign up for our newsletter to keep in touch. Again, you can do that at whitemeatmovie.com or follow us on Instagram at WhiteMeatMovie. ‘Cause we’ve got a lot going on now. It’s getting really exciting.

Anyway, this episode we are gonna talk to Eunice Levis. I met Eunice. Why it’s Eunice, why do I feel like putting the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable?

Eunice Levis, Eunice, I met last year at a IPMF event. IPMF is one of our people who gave us a really generous grant to help finish White Meat: Appetizer. And one of the really cool things about them is they don’t just give you the money, they put you in touch with other filmmakers and you sort of have a cohort and you sort of get to know each other.

So one of the people I got to meet is Eunice. She’s amazing, and she’s been doing this for a while now. She’s a, a writer, director. Horror and sci-fi, and she’s gotten her stuff onto like Netflix. We talk about that and her influences. It’s a really, really fun conversation. So without any further ado, here is Eunice Levis.

[musical interlude]

David Dylan Thomas: Hey everybody. Our guest today is Eunice Levis Eunice, tell the good people here what it is you get up to.

Eunice Levis: Yeah. What have I been up to?

Okay, so I am. I’m a, I’m a writer director and I’m also a professor. So this semester I’ve taken off of teaching so that I can focus on my work, and so we have recently wrapped post-production on a short, campy horror short, called Affordable Housing. And that film is due to premier at Winter Film Festival in New York City in February of 2026.

I’m very proud of that and we’re very excited.

David Dylan Thomas: Congratulations.

Eunice Levis: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that one was written by Wi-Moto Nyoka and produced by Okema Moore. And we’re having a blast with that. In terms of work that I’ve that I’ve been writing, I’ve been working on steadily working on my feature Humanos, which is a dark sci-fi that is AI in the workplace themed.

David Dylan Thomas: Nice.

Eunice Levis: And in accompanying that and in, in kind of the world of that, I’m also working on an installation. It’s an extended reality installation headset free. And it is set in the world of Humanos. So it’s, I’m trying to make world building and take it out of only film and make it more experiential. So this piece is going up June of 2026 at the Cherry Street Pier.

We’ll be at it for eight weeks and yeah, it’s a, it’s an immersive installation. It will be, it’s called Colmado del Futuro, which roughly translates to store of the future. And it basically is a corner store in the Caribbean. And what I’d like people to do is not only suspend obviously reality and feel like they’re in the Caribbean in a, in a, in a store, but also I’ll open up the conversation about what we lose when we invite technology or when we adapt to technological advancements. What community spaces are being affected and how. So that is part of the world of the feature film. But also part of the, the actual scene in the, in the store is a com is an actual replica of what is gonna be in the, in the film.

David Dylan Thomas: That’s fantastic. Just outta curiosity, are you literally going to use that set when you shoot the film? Or is it gonna be like, replicated later when you shoot?

Eunice Levis: So the installation is actually based off of a actual store.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, cool.

Eunice Levis: In the Caribbean.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, that’s awesome.

Eunice Levis: So I’ve filmed the store, the parameters every, everything around the store. So there will be actual footage running in the space. And then in the film we’re gonna film at the store as well.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, that’s fantastic. Yeah. That’s so exciting. It’s interesting. I have over the past six months been getting to know this fabulous community of horror and sci-fi writers and directors, mostly women of color here in Philadelphia, and a commonality I’ve found is that a lot of these creators aren’t simply interested in film. They are very interested in how far can we take this? And, and immersive environments and immersive projects seems to be hand in hand a lot. I find that really interesting.

Eunice Levis: Yeah. I love it. I, I love the potential of, of extending reality. I also love the idea, especially with this installation, that I can bring it to people who are, who have a barrier to that entry. Right. Like VR goggles are expensive.

David Dylan Thomas: Sure.

Eunice Levis: So introducing them to the concepts and kind of giving them the vernacular that they may need to, to, to express what, you know, what the experience is, that’s, that’s really exciting to me. This, this is also going to be bilingual. Eventually I’d love to also include Haitian Creole, but right now it’ll be in English and Spanish. And I think that with just virtual reality in general there is, this is, it’s a, it’s a landscape that is like so ripe for the picking. And so and, and, and has a different, we have a different ability of making people literally walk in your shoes.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Eunice Levis: By, you know stimulating their perspective by stimulating the environment and by kind of literally dropping them in. So that fly on the wall perspective is really just heavy.

And imagine it in sci-fi and in horror. You know, in, in that whole, right now the gaming industry really has that on lock. And to expand it into film will be amazing.

David Dylan Thomas: Well, it’s interesting ’cause as you discuss it, I go back to like going to Disney World and going to like the Star Wars World. And how they’re taking this thing you’re familiar with and just 3D three dimensionalizing it and letting you live in that world and almost as if you’re on the set.

Eunice Levis: Right.

David Dylan Thomas: And I, it immediately makes me think of like, well, Disney owns that. Why haven’t they done Wakanda yet? You know, sort of like, but that, that as meaningful as it is for a Star Wars fan to walk around that, like, imagine how meaningful it would be as a Black person or as a member of the diaspora to walk around Wakanda. You know what I mean? Or as you say, taking these experiences, these Caribbean experiences, these, these, these things that we can only imagine or read about and say, no, here, let me just walk you through a slice of this.

Eunice Levis: Yes.

David Dylan Thomas: And how transformative that can be. I think that’s incredible.

Eunice Levis: Yeah. Yeah. I’m, I’m really excited. I’m really proud of, of this and I, I’m really hoping that it’ll spark you know, spark interest in, in, in people going outside and just looking at what we can do with new media.

I know there’s obviously a lot of talk and AI and everyone is, is, is kind of putting all their eggs in that basket but when you really look at the tools that we have, this immersive world is just so ready for our stories, you know, and our involvement.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. And there’s a degree of like environmental storytelling. Like, so I have seen three of your films. I’ve seen, I’m gonna get the names wrong, but I can tell you what they’re about.

So there’s the one with the legend of the woman in the woods.

Eunice Levis: Yes.

David Dylan Thomas: There is the Affordable Housing. Then there’s one that’s sort of like Afrofuturist, a woman’s getting into a rocket and going somewhere.

Eunice Levis: Ro & the Stardust

David Dylan Thomas: Yes. Yes. As I try to find a commonality there as just, that’s what I do. What I am noticing is you’re doing a lot of world building. Like environmental storytelling seems to be something you’re really interested in. Is that true?

Eunice Levis: Very much so. Very much so. So in, in all of my heart, there’s always a little bit of, of human behavior and the manipulation of human behavior, but also how it affects in the environment. And that is probably in everything that I do. So, for example, another project that I’m working on in the very early stages is I had a, I have another short film called Invade. And that film was about an undocumented scientist and his 8-year-old son trying to stop an environmental disaster in Philadelphia.

And so what I wanted to do with that is I obviously kind of skew the idea of who can be a hero, an undocumented scientist, but also it’s about fracking. And it’s about Pennsylvania’s stance back then it was like 2020, stance on fracking and, and, and how, what it’s doing to our environment. And of course I, being a sci-fi horror person made it horrible.

So I have now working on a vertical series that is set in the world of that film because I wanna explore it a little bit more. I want to expand on it. And I really think that it has a lot of legs for a series. So I’ll be working on the 10 episodes, which already written. We just gotta shoot it. 10 episodes, or it might be 12 episodes, honestly, of it’s called Exit Interview.

And yeah, I’m really excited about it. It’s, it’ll be a lot of fun once it’s done. I can’t say much more about it.

David Dylan Thomas: Sure, sure. So, and again, to the degree to which you can say, so when you know you or I are making like a short film, we can be like, okay, we’re gonna get the financing and like, make this film.

We won’t necessarily have a distributor, quote unquote, ’cause it’s a short film. That’s not necessarily how we think of those things. When you’re making a series though, like, do you have, do you already have like a network that has already bought that and said, if you shoot it, we will show it or we will finance you shooting it, and then we’ll show like, how does that work?

Eunice Levis: Yeah, there’s a lot of different ways of going into it. Selling a series is hard, a lot harder honestly, than making a film, making a feature. So this vertical, what I’ve done is I already have the IP and I have my, my, my cast and my producers. And basically what we’re doing is kind of pulling together all of our resources to make this happen and see what, you know, what, what we can make happen in that space.

So that’s just vertical. It gives us a lot more power because it’s a lot more concentrated. It’s only like 90 seconds an episode.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, okay.

Eunice Levis: We can shoot it, you know, we can shoot as in like three or four days. And see if it picks up. That’s, that’s the first thing. The second thing is like when you have a more traditional running time series in order to do that, I’ve done it two ways.

I’ve done it where I just have the concept pitch and I create a treatment page and kind of try to see if that pitch picks up. I’ve done it where I’ve, I’ve written the pilot script and have my whole season drawn out. And then I also have two other projects where I’ve written out the entire season end to end, I have 10 to 12 episodes packaged.

It just really depends on, number one, what you’re applying for, who you’re submitting to, and who you’re pitching to. Oftentimes you don’t get in the room to pitch these things. It, it, it really is just like either your manager or someone is getting you in the room to pitch or you’re getting in a lab or some type of fellowship where you’re able to develop those things.

But I haven’t had the opportunity to sell anything yet. But I definitely have had a lot of experience trying to package it and trying to see what people are interested in. One of the things that is kind of really stressful about genre in general is that particularly sci-fi is really expensive to make.

And so when you go with a sci-fi, they’re already seeing that it’s a lot of money. Comedy, very cheap to make right. And not that it’s the cheapest, but it’s cheap to make. Horror can be cheap, especially if you have it in one location and it’s contained and all that good stuff. So sci-fi in general, when you’re a sci-fi lover it’s difficult because you know right now there’s a lot of post-production tools and obviously AI and stuff that can help mitigate the costs, but that’s still specialty and you still have to pay someone to do that. You’re not replacing the human being, you know, there’s still you know, hours and hours and hours of prompting and editing and so yes, it’s doable, but it’s not going to necessarily get you in Disney’s world, you know what I’m saying? Like you really do have to invest in it and really do have to think it through and think of, of cost containment when you’re thinking of your sci-fi. So that’s why I tend to like grounded sci-fi and intense lean there.

You know, not because, I mean, it is kind of my preference, but

David Dylan Thomas: Sure.

Eunice Levis: If I were able to do something that was just a completely fantastical, I would love it.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Eunice Levis: But I also think that there’s something really special about having something grounded and just like one element that’s completely out of the norm, and you’re like, whoa, what was that?

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, I, I think about that a lot because, you know. So, for example, the what was the name of it again? With the rocket?

Eunice Levis: Ro and the Stardust

David Dylan Thomas: Ro and the Stardust. So, yeah. That one felt like we’re gonna keep Philadelphia, we’re gonna keep like certain elements, but we’re going to make this an alternate earth so we can have this story about a woman who’s an astronaut and like,

Eunice Levis: yes.

David Dylan Thomas: So, and, and from, so I’ll give you an example. So there’s a movie called Looper, I’m sure you’re, you know, familiar with and, and Rian Johnson was warned, don’t do time travel and telekinesis. And I think he pulls it off. But I think it’s that, that, that critique is coming from a sincere place of like, it is conceptually easier and storytelling streamlined by just saying, okay, it’s the world just like our world, but

Eunice Levis: Right.

David Dylan Thomas: People can read minds or, but we use water for fuel or whatever. Like, we have this one little twist. And that can be the way you tell that story. And that tends to be the way I work too.

It’s like, it’s a zombie movie, but it’s black versus white. So, but, but yeah. Tell me about, tell me about that. I guess my question is like, tell me a little more about how your tastes as both a consumer of sci-fi and as a maker of sci-fi kind of have, have evolved.

Eunice Levis: I think that’s a good question.

I think that initially I went into just heavy on the genre. Because genre allows you to be very intentional about your internal feelings. Right? So whereas like drama and, you know, we work to it and we, and there’s, there’s like a development of the story with. Sci-fi and horror, you are scared and then you also have to develop your character. Like there’s a lot more stake. The the stakes are so in your face that the stake of you evolving and arcing as a character have to be. It’s so heightened, you know? And it’s so much fun to just throw things at people. And I think that, you know, initially watching these types of films, I used to, I used to always be like, this is so ridiculous.

I love it. I just love the ridiculousness of it. And then as I’ve matured into you know, as I matured into in my art, I realized that what I really, really love about it is that the impossibility of breaking the human spirit. And no matter what, even the mo, the worst horror film you could think of, let’s say The Exorcist, you know, it is worst meaning like the worst outcome.

David Dylan Thomas: Sure.

Eunice Levis: There is still, even when the devil is in your body, there’s this glimmer of hope. So I love the idea that the human spirit, no matter what, is always gonna have this little hand up, you know? Or you know, that. That we can survive anything. And I love that about it. I also love the idea of people just putting you through the ringer.

You know, you feel like you’ve had an impossible day, and then you like turn off, turn on. Like, I was wa I’ve been rewatching Fallout and I’m like, listen, they can survive this.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Eunice Levis: We, we got this. So it’s, it’s a yeah, it’s, it’s inspirational. It’s. It’s fun, and it’s also a way to articulate fears that could be rational or articulate fears that you just don’t know how else to express it but visually.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s funny what you say about like the indomitability of the human spirit. ’cause I find so often the protagonist of a horror film is someone who has just recently gone through some kind of terrible trauma. Like that’s supposed to be the thing that broke them.

Eunice Levis: Right.

David Dylan Thomas: And then the horror element comes in and it’s like. Oh, thank you for the therapy.

Eunice Levis: Right.

David Dylan Thomas: By, by fighting these underground creatures I can now deal with, with the death of my, my husband and son. Thank you for the therapy, blind creatures, you know.

Eunice Levis: Exactly.

David Dylan Thomas: So I wanna get back to you talking about like with, with with TV. So I, our, our first conversation was at a IPMF Scribe event. And we were just chatting and I, I love those, like, shout out to the convening that they do.

Eunice Levis: I love them. Yes.

David Dylan Thomas: But I remember in our conversation, like every other thing you mentioned, I was like, wait, what? And one of the things you mentioned was that one of your shows had been on, or one of your, your shorts has been on Netflix.

I’m like, wait, what?

Eunice Levis: Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: So I’d love, and I’m sure like our listeners will also be very curious, as curious as I am. It’s like, how did that happen?

Eunice Levis: So Ro & the Stardust, this is still, is still on there. So how did it happen? Through a lab as well. I am very much a advocate for organizations and labs and fellowships.

I think that, you know, I’m very much a proponent of like education. And I very much think that a lot of my development came from their postgraduate. Definitely. So I am a member of this organization called NALIP. I’m a member of a lot of organizations, but this particular organization NALIP had a one year their first time doing the initiative, they joined for forces with Netflix and it was then called the Women of Color Short Film Incubator. And the goal was that they were going to choose five filmmakers of color that were going to be given $25,000 to make a short film. So I submitted my film Ro & the Stardust and Ro & the Stardust is actually a concept short for a much larger piece, a feature film called To the Moon.

So Ro & the Stardust got selected and Netflix was quite honestly super supportive of like the things I wanted to throw in there. The bilingualness that like, they were very like, yeah, this is your piece, this, you know, like it was just really like. It was a really nice experience with, with a bigger, within a bigger studio system.

And so that’s how it happened. I went in through a lab. I was selected as one of five, and then our team was able to get a distribution for five years on Netflix.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, that’s great. And so you’re saying that Ro & the

Eunice Levis: Stardust

David Dylan Thomas: Ro & the Stardust was made for $25,000?

Eunice Levis: Yes.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh my God. That, just so you know, that thing looks like it cost at least a hundred thousand.

Eunice Levis: Thank you. We tried.

David Dylan Thomas: Y’all made it work. Damn.

Eunice Levis: We did. So we were like, so the, the, the rocket ship obviously wasn’t to scale. It was only like six and a half feet. But we built it in Philly. The tech component was built in Camden. Then my producer, Rachel, Rachel Frazier, she got a van and he paid someone from Philadelphia to drive it to Brooklyn.

Like it was, it was a extreme effort.

David Dylan Thomas: No, that is amazing. Congratulations on that. So another thing, another detail I want you to include, ’cause this was important for me to hear and correct me if I’m wrong. So that deal with Netflix for their distribution, that was a non-exclusive deal. Like if you wanted to show that movie at a theater somewhere, you didn’t have, you wouldn’t have to get their approval or anything.

Eunice Levis: Right. It was, that was part of their whole thing was that they wanted us to use this as like our calling card, but also use it as a landing. So the distribution. Everyone, everyone. Right now the program is like five or six years in. Everyone doesn’t get distribution. It, they select who they want. Right now I think it’s like 12 of us that are on there total, so. The, yeah, it was a non-exclusive distro deal. We’re also on Dust on YouTube for those that don’t have Netflix. So Dust also is, is a distributor. And yeah, so that, that was part of the entire process of going through the lab.

So I don’t know if Netflix was to to re to request a short from someone else outside of this lab, I don’t know what the, you know, parameters would be, but for us, yeah, it was non-exclusive.

David Dylan Thomas: And what is Dust?

Eunice Levis: Dust is a a sci-fi channel on YouTube.

David Dylan Thomas: And there’s another one.

Eunice Levis: And then they have a, they have a horror version called Alter.

David Dylan Thomas: Okay, cool. No, and that’s because I think it’s important for people to know. I mean, I, I, this is an education for me too, like what the opportunities are once you have a short.

Eunice Levis: Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: Or when you’re thinking about making a short, it’s like, it’s not just festivals. Right.

Eunice Levis: Right. Exactly.

David Dylan Thomas: So tell me are there other like avenues for shorts that you know of that people can consider?

Eunice Levis: Yeah. Oh. So, you know, in terms of distribution like I said, Dust for sci-fi. Alter for horror. It’s the same company. They’re amazing people. By the way. I’ve had really good experience with them as well. I know that Vimeo has a, a an outlet as well. Distribution is a little bit harder to get on there because they have to find you. It’s not like you’re submitting so like that, that kind of stuff. But I’m sure that if you upload onto their their site and you get a cer certain amount of traction, you’ll, you know, you’ll get their attention. There’s also, as you, as you noted festivals, there’s also, things that people don’t normally look into, which is like grouping your shorts together.

Sometimes organizations do that where they kind of look for something that’s thematically the same and, and, and say, let’s say IPMF presents, you know horror, whatever, whatever. And then they put all their horror block together that they’ve supported. But you can also do that with fellow filmmakers and make it the length of a feature because sometimes what you need is just like to get together with, with your folks and, or you can also rent out theaters and do the same thing like, you know, do a screening with a whole bunch of people. Get your people together and start to kind of build, build that following.

But also you’re building ticket sales which is a really good indicator that you’re doing well with your, you know, with your art.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. That latter option is something I’ve seen a lot of recently. Wi-Moto, our mutual friend has done that twice now. I was in one recently with some other horror filmmakers, and then she collaborated with Reelblack and a couple other folks to do a The Black Girl Lives event at a theater in Philly. And again, there was collected these, these sort of like Black women filmmakers doing horror and it’s sort of like. It’s this new option I hadn’t even considered. But I really, what I love about it is the collegiate spirit of the collective kind of approach, rather than every one of us out for ourselves, which is kind of more the vibe you get sometimes at film festivals.

Eunice Levis: Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: It’s, hey, what can we do together? Wi-Moto refers to it as the Wu-Tang approach too.

Eunice Levis: Yes, that’s exactly it. Yeah, I was there that night. It was a lot of fun. And that was the first time that we actually got to see Affordable Housing in a big screen. So that was really exciting. And it was also exciting too, because one of the things that happens when you do those kind of things is that you get to not only meet other creatives in your space also kind of cross contaminate each other’s of, of followers and really get, you know get a, get a bigger audience ’cause you’re cultivating your own audience. One of the things that was, I, I hope this Destiny.

David Dylan Thomas: Destiny Cox?

Eunice Levis: Yes. Thank you.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, she’s great

Eunice Levis: Yes, and Milo. Like I really enjoyed screening with them and then like a month later, I was randomly, or maybe two months later, I was randomly in LA at a Micheaux Film Festival and like “Philly!”. What is happening? And I was like “Oh, Philly!” and it was amazing.

And so that’s part of building your, you know, your, your people. It’s just like anywhere you are, they’re going to be there. So like across the, it was literally a packed house and I see them waving at me, I’m like, hey guys. And it was amazing. And I think that that’s part of it, right? It’s, it’s, it’s creating your community so that you can continue to create.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, and I love, I mean, I feel like, I don’t know what I’ve seen again, just in the past, like six months or so as we’ve been trying to get, you know, my movie out there and meeting all these people. Is that like Philly a horror town though, right? Philly a Black horror town, though. Like I feel like different, you know, you think about like, you know, New York in the sixties or seventies in this particular scene that rises up around like Cassavetes and all these folks.

Like I feel like there’s no reason Philly wouldn’t have that. Wouldn’t have its own little like Black horror, like collective, kind of like scene

Eunice Levis: Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: Right. That we’re known for. I, I, I really, I really wanna want to cultivate that.

Eunice Levis: Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: So going back to basics, like how did you get into filmmaking?

Eunice Levis: Yeah, so I actually started, I knew that I, I love to write, right? So I started as a journalist and I used to write for, I used to work for, and write for an a New York City daily newspaper, Spanish language, daily newspaper called El Diario La Prensa. And then I wrote for New York Post and the Daily News. And then I got a corporate job, but in, in working at the newspaper, one of my assignments was to cover the Puerto Rican Day parade one year, and the guy that was supposed to be my collaborating with me and my photographer wasn’t able to make it, and so I had to take pictures. And doing that changed my whole life. Like I was just like, yep, this is it, camera.

I love it. And that was it. Yeah. So that’s how I got started. And then it took me a while to transition over from doing more photojournalistic pieces to actual film. And then I ended up going to NYU mainly because I wanted to study under certain people and you know, and, and really get that experience and that I did.

It was an amazing experience going to NYU and I, I really learned what I didn’t want to do, which I think is more important.

David Dylan Thomas: Sure.

Eunice Levis: At that point, and now since then, it’s been a few years since, you know, since grad school and I. I’ve learned what I like and what I gravitate to and what I do well and where I, where what I, where I fail, or where I need to kind of upskill.

And I think that that journey just takes so long. You know, we often wanna just know and do.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Eunice Levis: But it just really takes a long time. I, you know, you know how when you see a movie or you see a watch an episode and you realize that there’s a master writing this. You know from the moment you, you know, meet the character and you know what they want and towards the end, by the end, what they wanted was never what they needed.

And now what they wanted doesn’t even matter ’cause they want something so much better. That is so satisfying.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Eunice Levis: The journey is so complete. And I never really thought about that. I always, I think I was like really plot focused early on, and now I’m just like, without a character that I care about.

Doesn’t even matter.

David Dylan Thomas: I, I, it’s funny, I, I’m going on a similar journey, so I, I’ve always known that I am an idea driven creator, right? I start with the idea, the concept, Black slaves come back from the dead, eat white people. I’ve got the concept, and later on it’s like, oh, right. Characters, blah, blah, blah.

Right? But I found that like the biggest difference between the first draft of White Meat and the second draft of white meat was how well the characters were developed.

And, and you know, that’s my weakness. That’s the thing where I need to put in extra effort ’cause it’s not what I naturally gravitate toward.

But at the same time, a, it’s so fun.

Eunice Levis: Yeah,

David Dylan Thomas: Right. Like once you, like some people will have a character and then put them in a world, I have a world and then I’ll put characters in it. Either way though, it’s like, okay, now that I’m getting to know you as a character. Like you get to that point, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, you get to that point where it’s like, okay, I know what’s gonna happen in this.

But I’m writing this now and this main character is saying, no, I’m gonna do this. And I’m like, you are? Yeah. I’m gonna do this. I’m like, okay, I guess I’m writing this. You know, like they are surprising you.

Eunice Levis: Yes.

David Dylan Thomas: And it’s like, oh, they’re alive now ’cause they’re an actual character. It’s, it’s a, it’s a wonderful moment.

Eunice Levis: Yeah, I, you know, it’s so funny, I, I used to back in, in, even in my undergrad, my, one of my professors used to say my Paul Thayer. He used to say what did your character have for breakfast this morning? I’m like, what the hell do I now? I’m like, well, he’s gassy. He had like, yeah, huevos rancheros that, you know, it was too much and now he’s like burping.

But he also has to like, you know, defuse this bomb. So it’s just like, it makes it so much more fun. Like, oh, he has, he has the runs, but he also has to, like, this bomb is gonna detonate. And he, and you hear his stomach and you, so the tension is rising. Tension is rising. And I love those moments of like, why’d you eat that dude?

Like, why’d you do that? But he’s throwing, you know, you’re throwing rocks at your, your characters like, oh, it’s not gonna be that easy. You know? And, and that’s what’s fun about it. It really is.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. I I don’t know how far you are into Fallout, but Fallout is very good at doing that.

Eunice Levis: Yes, I love it so much.

David Dylan Thomas: But but yeah, I, I, oh, the other thing about that though, I think that is really valuable is when it comes time then to work with your actor, to work with your wardrobe and your costume designer and to work with your cinematographer.

Like, all of these things get to come into play. Like, I remember having a conversation with, Azalea, my costume designer about our main character in Appetizer, and it’s sort of like, yeah, I think. Okay. I think he works in West Philly, like the nice part of West Philly. But he actually lives in the less nice part..

Like we’re just coming down to all these serve little minutiae about his life. And his accents and what, you know, like everything. And it’s so fun to just invent.

Eunice Levis: Yes.

David Dylan Thomas: You know, it’s play time. It really is. Play time.

Eunice Levis: It is, it is. You know, it’s funny, I have a, in Exit Interview, I have a character that’s like, okay, what will he eat?

Will he go to Wawa’s or will he go to Jersey Mike’s? And it’s just like. You, you want, you want problems now? Like this is, we’re doing, we’re doing too much here. So it was like, if you don’t say Wawa, so you know, it’s just. It’s a thing and it’s an inside kind of joke as well, but it makes it so nuanced and, you know, and so much fun.

You know, the cheesesteak argument, same thing. I mean, this is, is cliche now, cheese steak argument, but the idea of like, or even like just having like real world experiences. Like for example well I don’t know if you take the el but

David Dylan Thomas: I have. Yeah.

Eunice Levis: The el. Now skip stops due to the the strike. So like if you’re going to a certain place, you are walking 15 blocks back or forward, you know, so it’s just like, okay, what if you like, gotta get somewhere?

I don’t know. You gotta get this. Not, you know, this backpack to somebody and you’re like, oh my God. Skipping stops. And then, you know, you’re sitting with the backpack, the stop passes. Like, so you know, you again, throwing, throwing stones at your characters is the best.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Before you were talking about like world building and saying, hey, these characters, this is gonna exist in the same world as this short. When you are think, ’cause I’m thinking about the same thing with, with White Meat. I am doing it more from a character perspective ’cause I’m like thinking of all these movie ideas and the protagonists from them and thinking, oh, it would be so great if they could meet.

And, and I’m curious for you, are you thinking it from a, oh hey, this is a really cool world I wanna tell more stories in. Or is it more, hey, I have these other characters and I want them to meet? Or is it some, like, how are you thinking about what, what are you kind of like starting with when you’re thinking about world building?

Eunice Levis: So for for Invade, what I would like is for people to really see what happened, the aftermath, because that’s kind of what kind builds the, the series. So I wanna show the engine of what that story would be.

And I also wanna be able to spend a little bit more time with my characters developing them. So that when we see what the actual what we’re dealing with, it’s a lot more impactful.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Eunice Levis: So I am starting with the characters in this one because I want you to be on board for what they have to do moving forward. So the, these are the same characters as my short. With Humanos the feature. And what I wanna do there is to get people to really, so one of the things that I, that I have to get people to buy into that we don’t normally see, the style that I wanna film this in is cyberpunk style and it’s set in the Caribbean so people don’t really think of the Caribbean as like a sleek cyber punk.

And I want the cyberpunk to be repurposed. Almost like the Jetsons, like, you know, like repurposing of like a Cadillac car and it’s like, has no tires. It’s hovering, whatever. I’m, I’m being facetious, but the, the idea is that people repurpose things in the Caribbean all the time, and I wanna really lean into that.

So I want people to come into this world and understand my POV.

Yeah, so, so it, it really is kind of inviting people to to see this, this potential for this story outside of, you know, of, of a big city.

So, you know, you don’t think of cyberpunk and beaches, but you will.

David Dylan Thomas: What I love about that is something I’m seeing, you know, more of or hope to see more of in genre, is this idea of upsetting colonial narratives ’cause there is that notion of what is modern is city is right angles is steel.

And I love upsetting that and saying, no, it’s nature. A tree is the most futuristic thing you can think of. It’s exactly operating on this level that we haven’t even comprehended yet.

Eunice Levis: Exactly.

David Dylan Thomas: And looking to very old things to tell very news stories. Like I find that a really rich, a very fertile like ground for some groundbreaking genre breaking storytelling.

Eunice Levis: Yes. Yeah, I, I just, I, there’s a well, my old opening scene was, you know, somebody was horseback riding, and then when you pass, you hear a whirr passing by and it’s an, you know what do you call those?

Of course, I’m losing my train of thought.

David Dylan Thomas: Drone?

Eunice Levis: Thank you. A surveillance drone. That’s what I was looking for. It’s a surveillance drone and you would never think that a man carrying like, you know, plantains on a donkey will also have in that same frame, you know, something so high tech. So I, I really wanna play around with those two textures. I wanna bring the face of someone who lives rural, who is a farmer into the future as well. Because we’re still gonna need those people and they exist.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I, yeah, that’s a whole other topic. Like what we think we need in the future versus what we actually need in the future.

I’ll, I’ll table that for now. I wanna ask you a little bit about some of your influences, right? Or some of the, like, what are the, what are what, what. I’ll leave it as vague as this. What kind of artists and works do you find inspiring when you’re thinking about, you know, your own work?

Eunice Levis: So, funny enough, I tend to like, this is gonna be really weird. I listen to a lot of movie soundtracks.

Just the soundtracks. I listen to it all the time. And I also listen to show tunes.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, nice.

Eunice Levis: A lot. A lot. So I am, I’m in those two worlds always. I’m in like this giddy, whimsical world where I’m just singing and, and then I’m all, I’m in like this like instrumental, you know, heavy, heavy with the emotion music. And those are my two, like, happy places. And so I actually have a certain playlist to get me in certain moods. So I use music a lot to get me there.

I also like to visit museums. I, I visit a lot of museums and I tend to get hyper fixated on certain pieces that like stir up an emotion that I either don’t know what to call or it reminds me of something. Right now at the Barnes Museum, well not right now, in October, the Barnes Museum there was on the lower level, there was this piece and it looked like it could be from a classical period. And another thing is like I, I love to like look at it and just like envision what the person would’ve done if it was expanded, if it was in film.

Like what was the emotion there? And you know. And, and to be honest, like what is that person, who is that person in that painting? Like those types of things I like to ask only because it helps me when I am informing my own art, like what an audience member may wanna know as well. So paintings and music are my go-to.

David Dylan Thomas: That’s great. Can you gimme a few examples of soundtracks and show tunes that

Eunice Levis: Oh my god. Okay. I was listening to Hamilton.

David Dylan Thomas: Nice.

Eunice Levis: Anything, Dan Pemberton. What else? What was I listening to this morning, Dan? I was listening to? Okay, so, so there’s a what is the name of this movie?

It’s a, the canary movie? What is the actual title? Anyway? The soundtrack for that. The soundtrack for 28 Days Later is in incredible. The soundtrack for A Quiet Place is also really good. I actually work with this, with two composers. One, his name is Andre DJ Dummy Smith. And the other is Rolando Gori, and Rolando did the soundtrack for Ro & the Stardust.

And he also did the soundtrack actually for Affordable Housing.

And, he’s actually really amazing. Like if you go and search him on Apple you get all of his work. And I love, I actually listen to him a lot.

And okay, so that’s, that’s music. Told you, I listen to Hamilton, I listen to Chicago, I listen to Wicked.

Those are all new stuff. I also listen to, like I said, a lot of classical music, a lot of like people that are undiscovered that I find like online and I’m just like, oh, they have one, one song. Let me just give them a listen. So I do that. And so that, those are, that’s what’s inspiring me right now.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Eunice Levis: Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: No, I found that like I especially in college when I had to write like historical essays I would listen to the JFK soundtrack because it made, it made it heightened everything. It made it so much more interesting. But no, it’s funny when you talk about show tunes. So my son, when he is doing homework, sometimes he has all sorts of playlists, but sometimes he’ll just put on, at first it was Hamilton, these days it’s Hadestown.

Eunice Levis: Oh.

David Dylan Thomas: We went to go see Hadestown at the Forrest Theater a few weeks ago. And since then, like I, I’ll walk by and it’s like Hadestown Hadestown. It’s awesome.

So thank you so much for being on the podcast, Eunice. What, how can people find out about you, about your work?

Eunice Levis: Yeah, so I have a website. I think. It’s called Eunice. It’s eunice levis.com. So it’s E-U-N-I-C-E L EVI s.com and you can find me on all social media’s, same name. I, except TikTok, I, I don’t have time for TikTok. I really don’t. I’m trying, I’m trying. Maybe, maybe, maybe next, maybe summer.

David Dylan Thomas: Nobody, nobody has time for TikTok.

Awesome. And I can tell you dear listener, I have seen Affordable Housing. So if it is coming to your town, absolutely make your way to see it. It’s fantastic. And you can also find Ro & the stardust on Netflix. Are, are there other places folks can find your, your stuff streaming?

Eunice Levis: Yeah, so Netflix, Dust I have well, I can’t say Tubi yet ’cause that’s not done yet. You can find me online and you can find me where else? And on actually on Vimeo/  

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, nice. Nice. Awesome. Well, once again, thank you so much.

Eunice Levis: Thank you.

David Dylan Thomas: And for the White Meat Podcast this is David Dylan Thomas, and we will see you next time.