← Going Big! with Kevin Gentry
Going Big! with Kevin Gentry
Bringing D-Day Veterans Back to Normandy with Drake Springer and Meredith Danluck (Why We Dream)
01:03:19
Loading summary
Transcript313 lines
- [00:00]
Drake Springer
At the end of the day, you can admire the men and women in this film.
- [00:04]
You could admire everyone in the military community and change nothing about your life. You could not have conversations.
- [00:11]
You can shut people out. You can be divisive. I think what the film is asking is that we all try a little bit harder, that we have this obligation
- [00:21]
to understand each other, have conversations, reach out to your fellow man and seek
- [00:28]
to understand that we're all not that different at the end of the day. I think that's the hope.
- [00:35]
Kevin Gentry
Welcome to the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry, and this is the place where we celebrate bold moves and big ideas. Each week I sit down with inspiring leaders, entrepreneurs, and change makers who are making a significant impact in their careers and and in their communities. Whether you're looking to level up your leadership, pursue your passion, or just get inspired to take your next big leap, this is where those stories come to life. Now, if you're listening on iTunes, YouTube, or anywhere else you tune into podcasts, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you'll never miss an episode. Now let's dive in to what it means to truly go big.
- [01:19]
Well, welcome back to another episode of the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry. Memorial Day celebrations are often a time of remembrance, but also distraction. Amidst the ceremonies and the flags and the cookouts and the sales we can drift into missing the meaning for the occasion. Well, my two guests today have spent the last couple of years trying to figure a way to bring that meaning back and have done so through a remarkable documentary called why We Dream, which will be coming out soon on CNN Films. It debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival. Drake Springer is the producer. Meredith Danluck is the director. And you're going to love this conversation. It's very timely, obviously, as we're celebrating Memorial Day, but I think, as you'll see, there's so much more to this occasion as history moves on. This conversation today is not just about a documentary. It's about memory and sacrifice and storytelling and how to preserve living memories while we can. This is the story about following D Day veterans 80 years later, returning to the scene of the D Day invasion. And some of them certainly this will be was for the last time. And this is a remarkable story and I'm so honored to have you here with us today. Drake and Meredith, thanks so much for joining me on the Going Big podcast.
- [02:56]
Drake Springer
Thank you.
- [02:56]
Meredith Danluck
Happy to be here.
- [02:58]
Kevin Gentry
Well, Drake, I'm going to start off with you on this question. So why this Story now, and why is it so important in your judgment?
- [03:13]
Drake Springer
It's a great question. I think why now? Is because the window is literally closing for these stories to be told. The men and women that we had the honor of going back to Normandy with are all over 100 years old.
- [03:31]
The youngest World War II veteran right now would be in their late 90s.
- [03:35]
And within a few years, there's really going to be no one left who can say, I was there on that
- [03:40]
beach or I fought in that war,
- [03:44]
and everything after that is secondhand.
- [03:46]
Right.
- [03:46]
And I think we made this film at this moment because we realized that we had an opportunity to help preserve this legacy of story that these men and women had, some of which they'd never shared before. I think that was one of the really poignant things that we saw when we started having these conversations, is sometimes they would say things that their family
- [04:11]
had never heard them say before because
- [04:13]
they felt like they could open up to Meredith, and because they felt like this was a time where they were. They were finally able to share some of what they went through during this war. So it's. It's. It's not just about their age. You know, I think we found an opportunity with Delta doing these Normandy legacy flights to bring veterans back to Normandy
- [04:34]
in partnership with the Best Defense Foundation.
- [04:36]
We just. We had this opportunity in front of us. We saw that the 80th anniversary of D Day was approaching, and it was one of those timely decisions where we said, this feels like the moment to kind of bet big and say that this is really the story that needs to be told. We don't want that whole layer of lived American memory to just disappear. And I think we had this responsibility to do something about it, and that's
- [05:07]
really what led us down this path.
- [05:09]
Kevin Gentry
Well, we got a lot to cover in this conversation because you've got all that you're doing with respect to Delta and obviously the power of storytelling. This is so much about telling stories of our history, but obviously, this is not just another documentary. Meredith, if I could ask you what was at stake if these stories, these memories, were not captured? Because, again, you have fleeting time to do this while these veterans of the Greatest Generation were still alive. What would have been lost if you hadn't done this?
- [05:47]
Meredith Danluck
Well, I think that Drake really just encapsulated that we kind of were coming in at the 11th hour to get a firsthand telling of not just their experiences during the war, but really their experiences after the war, the lives that they lived and what perspective they have Earned over this time. And going into this project really thinking about what stories we were going to talk about and share to tell stories about the 20th century History of America and how these people had a very unique perspective coming from the Depression, through the rise of fascism and the war, to coming back to one of the most prosperous times in American history, living until now. And so what is the perspective there? And what do they have to share now that they're into their. You know, the youngest one was 99, the oldest 104. You know, these are stories, not just stories, but perspectives that were really, really important to take away and preserve in the most subjective, truthful way that we could.
- [07:16]
Kevin Gentry
So the greatest generation, The World War II veterans, as you say, they were those that 99 and 104. You know, we love the greatest Generation. We love this memory. But it does seem like a bit of a theory, certainly given now the passage of time. Was that an intention of what you were trying to do was to sort of close that gap with the. The American public, to bring it to life through the eyes and ears and voices of these veterans?
- [07:47]
Meredith Danluck
I think that, you know, like you said, there's this idea of the greatest generation in the abstract, in the symbol. And when you really take a closer look, these are individual lives. And they all had a very, very important contribution. Even, you know, like, however, however big or however small, what they did when they came back to build America and bring home this sense of pride and accomplishment, community service, humanity value. Those ideas can be in the abstract, but when you break it down into the individual perspective and the individual stories, that was really important for us to create something that was really emotional. And I think that the art of cinema can help put that into an emotional place rather than in the abstract.
- [08:53]
Kevin Gentry
Okay, so before we even dig into all those aspects of the filmmaking, did you all have this deeper intention, this goal? I mean, what. When we get to see it, what do you hope will happen as a result?
- [09:13]
Drake Springer
It's a loaded question. I think. I hope a lot of things happen as a result. I think that the biggest thing that I really want to see is I would love to see this bring conversation to the forefront. I would love to see somebody, maybe a veteran's family, who, whether it's a grandkid or a child of that veteran, have a conversation with their.
- [09:36]
Their family member and say, what did
- [09:38]
this mean to you? You know, what did you experience over there? Are there, you know, where do you feel like we've. How far we've come in as a
- [09:48]
society where do you feel like there's
- [09:50]
opportunities for us to look back at history and maybe make different decisions or what can we do going forward? I think it's a dialogue starter. At the end of the day, that's. That's the biggest hope that I think I have. And I won't put words in Meredith's mouth, but this is something that we've talked about on all of the shoots that we went on for this film was we found ourselves having these conversations with our family.
- [10:12]
You know, my dad is.
- [10:13]
Is an Air Force veteran. My grandfather was in the Navy during World War II, and unfortunately, he passed away. And I didn't have a chance to
- [10:22]
really talk to him about some of these things. And it was.
- [10:26]
It kind of stirred the pot with all of us who are making the film and having these conversations of, like, wow, this is. This is a really rich way to learn more about your heritage, your family, the America that came before you. And I think that's the biggest hope
- [10:42]
that I have for this is driving the conversation.
- [10:46]
Kevin Gentry
You know, as I was getting ready for this, I was thinking back. My dad was just shy of serving. He was trained and was ready for service, and then the war was over. But we never recorded a conversation with him. But he did write about the training experience and what it was like with all these young men and just so many aspects of it. And now I'm just kicking myself we didn't dig into it more. So great for you. All right, so, Drake, you and I have known each other for a good long time. We used to work together. I was so happy that we could be reconnected when I saw that you were doing this. Why is storytelling so important? I mean, we know it's important, right? But tell us why you think it's so important. Because to me, that's your passion. That's what drives you in this.
- [11:33]
Drake Springer
Yeah, I think it is. It is a big part of what I believe in, and Meredith and I
- [11:39]
have that in common.
- [11:40]
I think the power of story has the ability to change the way we see things. It has the ability to shape conversations.
- [11:49]
It has the ability to potentially change hearts and minds.
- [11:53]
And I think that is so much more powerful than just using facts. I think at the core of our
- [12:00]
DNA as humans, I think we're storytellers.
- [12:03]
I think we used to sit around fires and tell stories. I think we used to. You know, people just thrive when you
- [12:10]
hear about experiences and you hear about a perspective.
- [12:14]
And so, for me, I think it's changing the way that. Changing what someone's willing to pay attention to.
- [12:21]
So maybe it's reframing it into a different way that hasn't been heard before.
- [12:25]
And I think the power of story is really where we found the root of this. This thing. And I would love Meredith to speak
- [12:33]
to this, but, I mean, she's the
- [12:34]
one who really unlocked the unique take on this story. Because for. For us, when we originally kind of
- [12:42]
said we want to do a film,
- [12:44]
we didn't know what that meant. We didn't know what angle we would take. We know there's been hundreds of World
- [12:47]
War II films made out there and have covered the. The period extensively.
- [12:52]
What we didn't want to do was
- [12:53]
remake one of those.
- [12:54]
We wanted to find a new story that hadn't been told yet, which is incredibly hard to do when this happened a long time ago.
- [13:02]
And there's been a lot of coverage about it.
- [13:05]
And all credit to Meredith and Casey, who's one of our other amazing producers on this film, for really unlocking this idea of how we can tell this
- [13:14]
story in a unique way.
- [13:15]
Because really, this is doing something that facts and statistics can't do, is speaking
- [13:22]
truth to power through the idea of story.
- [13:25]
Kevin Gentry
All right, well, Meredith, obviously, I'm going to follow up with you on this. I think I share with you all. I'm going to be interviewing John Irwin soon, and he has Young Washington coming out, which is that whole period of George Washington and the French and Indian War, which none of us know about. But it brings it to life through storytelling, obviously, and he's a great storyteller. But, Meredith, in particular, from the standpoint of documentary, tell us about how you approached this. Why in this way, did you come into it totally intentionally, or did you make discoveries along the way that informed how you decided to take this?
- [13:59]
Meredith Danluck
Well, of course, a little bit of both. Because the process of filmmaking, you have to be open to discoveries along the way. But going into it, I always feel strongly about having a very focused direction. And that was part of when I was first approached with the project and turning a pitch around for Delta. This is before I met Drake. I had the same kind of conundrum with, like, okay, well, how do you tell a World War II story that hasn't been told, and what does that look like? And I really started to think about. About the Greatest Generation. You know, I listened to Tom Brokaw's book the Greatest Generation and thought a lot about those pillars of that. That the Greatest Generation represents community and service and the different kind of moral values that. That they really encompass, and then started to think about what all they've lived through. And that was really. Those two things really unlocked what the film ultimately became, which was this story of 20th century American history through the subjective lens of these individual veterans. Of course, when I put the pitch together, my first thought was, well, they'll never go for this, but whatever, here goes nothing. And luckily, Drake was able to see the possibilities. But, yes, that was really the intention was to create something that was different and that had that. That ability to go between the overview and the subjective and the emotional and the academic, and to be able to weave that together, that was really the goal from the beginning.
- [16:12]
Kevin Gentry
Well, I can't wait. You know, Band of Brothers, as I think it's Hacksaw Ridge, you know, has these interviews after the. After the dramatic elements, head them with the veterans. But what you all are doing, it's just so different. I can't wait to get into this. But before we do that. All right, Meredith talked about you. Drake, with respect to Delta, tell us a little bit about your vision for this storytelling thing that you're doing at Delta. When, you know, of course, my first reaction was, okay, you're doing those funny safety videos. Delta has that nailed and that brand spot in terms of how it does. But. But this is something much bigger. You. You believe in storytelling. What are you trying to do at Delta? And then we get even further into why we dream.
- [17:04]
Drake Springer
It's a great question, because I think we've been on a journey as a brand to figure out where we can really make a major impact. Obviously, we've gotten very good at flying the plane.
- [17:18]
Kevin Gentry
We.
- [17:20]
Drake Springer
We have that part down pat. And as a brand, I think you can either talk about yourself or you can talk about something that can contribute to culture and talk about people or
- [17:31]
things that inspire you.
- [17:32]
And I think that was an area that we maybe hadn't explored in depth as much in years past, which is completely understandable. But that was part of what my job was when I came in and they said, how can we really elevate
- [17:47]
the way that we. We showcase things?
- [17:49]
You know, besides the fact that people are. I hate the word captive, but captive. When you're on a plane for however long, how can we create content that can inspire them, that can transform how they think about something, that can inspire them to go travel or to reconnect with different cultures? And that's the lens through which we
- [18:10]
look at a lot of different things on my team at Delta.
- [18:14]
So, yes, we make the safety video, which is a lot of fun. We have a lot of. A lot of fun ways to make
- [18:20]
sure that people pay attention to the important parts of flying and what we need to say.
- [18:25]
But really, our bet is that we have the ability as a brand to make content that earns its place on its merits, that we can, not just because an airline paid for it or
- [18:36]
because there's marketing behind it, but because
- [18:38]
we can actually create something that resonates in culture. And I think we saw that opportunity
- [18:44]
with the legacy flights.
- [18:46]
So credit to a woman named Virginie Durr, who is a member of our
- [18:50]
global sales team at Delta.
- [18:52]
She's a French native. She was born and raised in Normandy, but she works for Delta, and she
- [19:00]
fought to start this program that we
- [19:02]
call the Normandy Legacy Flights, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's the first of its kind. Charter from Atlanta back to Normandy, where we fly 40 to 50 veterans back, and they spend a week in the region, you know, and all of them, nearly all of them, had not been
- [19:21]
back for 80 years before they went back on these charter flights.
- [19:26]
So we saw this opportunity sitting inside, literally inside our plane, but inside those
- [19:33]
of the greatest generation to. To be able to say, hey, what's
- [19:37]
this going to be like when you
- [19:38]
set foot on that beach again and
- [19:41]
you haven't been there since you were 19? And so it stopped becoming just creating content for content's sake. And it kind of became this brand
- [19:51]
storytelling obligation where we had almost the
- [19:55]
obligation to say, we're the ones flying you back and we're the ones who
- [19:59]
should help tell this story because we're sitting alongside history. And that's something that not a lot of people always get the opportunity to
- [20:07]
do, and we didn't want to squander that.
- [20:09]
Kevin Gentry
Yeah, well, fascinating, because obviously you have the platform of the passengers who can watch the content. And there is something about when you're flying, watching a particularly an inspiring movie, it's just different. I was like, whenever Top Gun Maverick came out, I just happened to walk through the aisles of some plane. You have tons of options. But three quarters of the people were watching that movie at that time, and it was fascinating and. But then, of course, you're taking this to the broader public in many other different ways, which obviously I want to get into as well. But for this particular idea to document these flight or a flight back to the time of the 80th commemoration of D Day, how did this idea spark? Was there a particular conversation or a moment? Was it Virginia? What was it?
- [21:00]
Drake Springer
I think it's a combination of all those things. And then something that Betty, who's kind of the narrator in our film, said
- [21:08]
at one point, and she said it
- [21:10]
in a conversation with Meredith where she said, I really wonder what everyone that
- [21:17]
I served with, what happened to them after the war?
- [21:22]
And Betty had been flying back to
- [21:25]
Normandy since the original charter flight on Delta.
- [21:28]
And so our teams have gotten to
- [21:30]
know her a little bit and know some of the other veterans that are featured in this film.
- [21:34]
And to hear that statement, to hear words like that, I think is really what made us realize there's something so much deeper here to explore. And while we had big ambitions for, I mean, I'll be the first to
- [21:48]
admit I'd never made a feature film before. Meredith is the pro at this, like.
- [21:52]
And I said, this is something that Delta's never done as a brand. I've never done this individually, but let's go out and let's make a feature film. Why not? How hard can it be? Turns out it's pretty hard. But when you have the right people
- [22:04]
and you have the right subject matter,
- [22:06]
I think it becomes infinitely easier, which we had in this case. And I think at the end of the day, we didn't imagine, at least
- [22:17]
I didn't imagine that it would be
- [22:18]
as big as it probably is ending up being. I think I thought we would make a film, we'd be able to show
- [22:24]
it to our internal audiences. I think we'd be able to put
- [22:26]
it on our in flight entertainment system, and everybody who flew Delta would be able to watch it. I don't know that I really envisioned it ever resonating at audiences like a
- [22:36]
Tribeca festival at the Deauville American Film Festival in Normandy, France.
- [22:41]
For CNN to end up licensing acquiring it. Yeah, I mean, this is. And it's all credit to the work that and the vision that Meredith put
- [22:50]
in and our veterans who just opened up to us in a way that I don't think anybody had ever gotten them to do before.
- [22:59]
I mean, Meredith, what, like, does that feel right to you? I mean, it's. I don't know where it started, honestly.
- [23:07]
Meredith Danluck
I mean, you're absolutely right. It did. The, The. The spark for this film definitely started with Betty. And her words, like. Like Drake was saying were, I often wonder about the people that I served with. What did they go on to do with their lives? I still get chills when I think about it. And we wound up recording her saying that, and it's in the film. But that was really the spark that unraveled everything else into what did they go on to build with their lives? How did the war forge the individuals that they became? And what did that mean as they carried forward into their lives in terms of did we think it was going to be as the film it turned into? I think at some point during the edit we did. At some point during the edit, I saw what we had, and I thought, this is. This is a big movie. This is not the original intention of a kind of branded in flight documentary. This feels like something that needs to be in the world in a big, broad way. And that at some point it just had its own DNA and it knew what it wanted to be. And at every step along the way, it garnered more momentum.
- [24:41]
Kevin Gentry
Well, let me tease that out a little bit, Meredith. So, I mean, when did it go from crazy ambitious idea to, we've got to get this thing out? This is big. This is important?
- [24:52]
Meredith Danluck
I think at some point during the edit, this is before Drake had seen a cut. That's when I had that feeling like, this is real. This is a movie. We need to make that first impression as buttoned up as possible. And so, I mean, I was working with two editors waking up at 5am to work with the east coast editor, then shifting gears to my west coast editor and just trying to get what they called the director's cut. That first cut that a producer or studio sees, getting that in as, like, as good a shape as possible, because I just really wanted to have Drake feel the same way. And so I teed that up. We got it out the door on time, and I got a phone call from Drake. And I mean, do you remember that?
- [25:55]
Drake Springer
I'm kind of getting emotional, which is. I know. Yeah, keep going.
- [25:59]
Meredith Danluck
No, I remember, to sum it up, he had a very intense emotional experience with the film. And he was on the same page. He said, I think we have something really important here. And that was, I think, when we both aligned and knew that we needed to make this, you know, shift gears a little bit and make this as big of a film as we could possibly make it.
- [26:29]
Kevin Gentry
Well, you see, this is why I wanted to have you on the Going Big podcast. The more I dug into this story, it's like, I mean, you cast a big, bold vision. It was a dream, and then it just. It just went. This is. This is the whole theme and objective. All right, well, what was at risk or what were the risks? Was it financial? Was it institutional? Was it. What. What. What were some of the things that you had to do to get it over the finish line?
- [26:57]
Meredith Danluck
That's A Drake question, because I understand it wasn't easy.
- [27:02]
Kevin Gentry
It wasn't like, okay, we got a good film. Let's go, let's go.
- [27:05]
Drake Springer
It was. No, it was. It was. We had to. We had to fight for this thing. We really did.
- [27:15]
Kevin Gentry
I mean, it sounds like an obvious thing. Why was it a question?
- [27:19]
Drake Springer
It's different. It's unique. Right. I think we'd never again.
- [27:24]
Our brand, at least Delta had never done anything like this before.
- [27:28]
And there is inherent. We're risk adverse. Our safety is our number one thing that translates to even things like making a video. And I think that's not a bad thing. But when you pioneer something, maybe unknowingly, there's just a little bit of risk involved. There's risk in understanding what the money is being spent towards. What's the return gonna be? You know, we wanna understand how our customers are gonna react to it.
- [27:55]
What does our C suite think about it?
- [27:58]
Is this the best representation of the brand? I mean, the answer is yes, of
- [28:03]
course, to those things.
- [28:03]
But you have this hesitancy when you're
- [28:05]
doing something for the first time.
- [28:08]
I think at the end of the day, one of the biggest risks was that we made this film too much about us. And this became a film about how
- [28:19]
Delta is taking veterans back to Normandy,
- [28:22]
that Delta is supporting this moment in their life, that we started the charter flight, that we did this. And from the beginning, I was wildly opposed to taking that viewpoint. And I said that this. This cannot be something that we beat our chest over. This is not a story about Delta. This is not a story about this program. This is an opportunity for us to put these veterans on a pedestal and say, share your experience with us and with everyone. And the biggest failing, I think, for this film would have been for us to allow it to not be about them and to become about the brand. And we face challenges like that. I think in the review stage, towards the end, those inevitable questions started popping up of, I'm not seeing a lot of Delta in this film. We see the plane, but should we. Should we have someone on the executive team be interviewed to put their interview in part of the film? And that's hard when you're standing up there Talking to senior VPs and chief
- [29:30]
marketing officers that you respect and saying,
- [29:32]
like, respectfully, no, like, it should not,
- [29:35]
Kevin Gentry
particularly when you work for Delta.
- [29:37]
Drake Springer
Yeah, it's. I'll be honest, I don't know that the risk really hit me until after the fact, but it was. It was one of those moments where I felt very strongly about it. I know the team was very aligned with it and we went in and
- [29:50]
we pushed and we said, hey, this
- [29:52]
is the answer is no to those things. Respectfully, because the consumer is smart. They're going to feel the inauthenticity. This isn't about us, this is about them. Like we're on the one yard line at least, maybe the five yard line. Don't let the brand ambitions water down
- [30:08]
what is otherwise an incredibly powerful story.
- [30:12]
And not to say that the brand would take it down a notch, but again, it wasn't about us and that
- [30:16]
was the biggest risk was letting it become about us.
- [30:21]
And so for that part, I think we faced all the hurdles. I mean that was one of the biggest ones. Another one was we had this very
- [30:28]
ambitious air to air shoot that we
- [30:30]
shot in France with one of our veterans who was a former P51 pilot in the war. We found a P51 in England and we flew it over to France. We ended up putting him in an aircraft and flying it alongside the P51 over monster. Michel, that all came down. I don't know, Meredith.
- [30:52]
That came together in what felt like two weeks.
- [30:54]
Like that was a risk of financial roi. It was a risk of, I mean you're flying planes in formation together. Could have gone wrong. Something could have gone wrong with 101 year old guy on there. Like there was, there were risks throughout the whole project but I think everyone really held hands and said like these
- [31:13]
are the things that will make this stand apart.
- [31:16]
And again we're giving them an experience
- [31:19]
to live again as well.
- [31:21]
And so it's not even just for the shot. It's to create an experience for these
- [31:26]
men and women when they're back there that they'll never forget.
- [31:31]
Kevin Gentry
Well, good for you, Drake. That's the Drake Springer I used to know. That's excellent. That's a team effort.
- [31:37]
Drake Springer
That's a team.
- [31:38]
Kevin Gentry
Well, did you have the vision and do you take it to Meredith? I mean Meredith, when you first heard about this, how did you react to it the first time?
- [31:46]
Meredith Danluck
Well, it came to me through Casey from Pulse Films, who I've worked with for a long time and adore Casey Engelhardt. And he sent me, it was some kind of article about the legacy flight. And he said, I think we could put together a movie here. And there wasn't really much to go on. It was just kind of think about what you would do to make a feature documentary around this legacy flight. And my first instinct was, well, it's not about the flight. So I'm probably not going to get this job. But, yeah, I started doing some research. I read some articles, I watched some interviews, and that's when I found. I think it was Betty Roseveare's Smithsonian interview, where she said, I often wonder about the people I served with. What did they go on to do with their lives? And that was the spark. It wasn't really until then that I had a window on what the angle would be, but once I heard that, that's when it started to unfold, that it was this. This. This bigger story about. About who we are as a country. So. Yeah, but. But I. I was. I was shocked and surprised when Drake was into it.
- [33:21]
Drake Springer
No shock.
- [33:21]
That was. It was the best. And I think some color that's. That's helpful here, too, is that, you know, we. Again, not knowing what we didn't know, we kind of bid this out as
- [33:31]
a project like we would for. For a TV spot or something.
- [33:34]
And so Casey and I had worked
- [33:36]
together on past projects, and I'd said,
- [33:39]
hey, we want to make a film. I know you have a nonfiction department. What if we made a film about this? That was kind of all I said. And he's like, I've got some directors in mind. Let's explore. And we got three, four, maybe five different perspectives from different directors, none of which landed anywhere close to what we were thinking.
- [33:59]
Thinking, even though we didn't really know what we wanted until we read Meredith's.
- [34:03]
And I remember telling Kasey, like, I want to talk to her before, like, we go down this road. I want to, like, have an actual conversation on the phone with her, because
- [34:13]
we're kind of picking the team that we're.
- [34:15]
You know, if we're going to do this, we're going to be together for
- [34:16]
a couple years doing this.
- [34:19]
And I. I think I spent three minutes on the phone with Meredith before
- [34:22]
I was like, yeah, this is. This is it. Like, she's. She's the one.
- [34:27]
Kevin Gentry
So the legacy flights, are they about all of World War II?
- [34:32]
Drake Springer
This one in particular is about Normandy.
- [34:34]
This one in particular is about Normandy.
- [34:36]
Kevin Gentry
Why did you all think that D Day 80th anniversary was so key?
- [34:43]
Drake Springer
I think it's a major milestone, and it's one. It's a logistical thing. The flights were already going direct to Normandy.
- [34:53]
It was the only charter that we
- [34:54]
really flew veterans on, and so we were going to that location. The second part is, obviously, a massive
- [35:02]
amount of history unfolded on June 6th there.
- [35:06]
And that is not to say that D Day was, like, the most important
- [35:12]
battle or turning point of the entire war.
- [35:14]
There's so many major moments in the Pacific.
- [35:17]
There's so many major moments in other
- [35:18]
theaters that were probably just as pivotal. It's one of the ones where people
- [35:26]
relate the most to it, have heard a lot about it, and where a
- [35:29]
lot of the veterans that we had
- [35:31]
access to, that we were traveling with had served.
- [35:35]
And so for us, it was. It was an ability to say, the
- [35:38]
80th anniversary of D Day is probably
- [35:40]
the first major milestone in the war that's coming up. We already have the flights going back with the veterans going back. And there felt like this ability to
- [35:51]
craft that story there.
- [35:54]
That said, Betty is a nurse who served in the Pacific. She was the only woman and the only nurse in her unit in the Pacific theater. And the stories that she shares are incredibly harrowing and unreal, I think is
- [36:15]
probably a good way to put it.
- [36:17]
And so it's not just about Normandy per se. The fact that they end up traveling to Normandy is.
- [36:24]
Is the. The red thread.
- [36:26]
But the stories are really about them, and the stories are about their moments
- [36:31]
and their lives and what happened to them after the war.
- [36:35]
We just kind of catch up with them as they're marking the occasion, coming
- [36:40]
back for the 80th anniversary of Normandy or of D Day.
- [36:44]
Kevin Gentry
Okay, so tell us a little bit more about those people. I think I've heard you say that sometimes it wasn't even what they said it was. The moments of silence or the reaction bring that to life for us to the extent you can here in a podcast discussion before we're able to actually watch your documentary.
- [37:05]
Meredith Danluck
Yeah, you know, there were a couple of times where during the interviews, you could see that there was something simmering under the surface that was some kind of trauma or memory. And one particular moment with Betty where we had actually stopped the interview, and we were about to turn the camera off, when you can see she's having this deep emotional experience on screen. And her daughter comes over to ask if she's okay. And she says so little in that moment, but it's the emotion on her face, it's the flood of memories coming back that is more powerful than words. It's her raw emotional state. Another situation like that happened with George Mullins, who had a really tremendous experience at Carentan, where I think 43 out of 45 men were killed during that battle of the 101st Airborne. Like a very. One of the bloodiest battles of the war. And he survived and had this. This really profound experience there. And I Wanted. I would. I wanted to, you know, hear him talk about that. And I asked him and. To. To talk about it, and he says, no, I'd rather not. And just in the way he says, I'd rather not like it, you. You feel there's so much weight behind that. And in the film, his caregiver winds up reading a passage from his book where he. He does go in to. To talk about that experience, and then later on, he does reflect on it in the film. But it's the moments sometimes where people are holding back that are the most. The most full and the most profound.
- [39:20]
Kevin Gentry
Well, good for you for. For eliciting this, for capturing this for the benefit of those people, sharing these stories, for the benefit of all of us. But what about for their children and their grandchildren? Were they present in some of this,
- [39:37]
Meredith Danluck
for some of the interviews? Yes. And that was a really incredible thing to hear some of the kids talk about how their parents never shared any of these stories with them or only started sharing the stories very recently. And I think for a lot of that generation, it was something that they got home from the war and kind of compartmentalized. In order to survive or in order to really start building the life that. That they wanted, they had to just put one foot in front of the other and maybe got to a point where they woke up one morning and realized they were probably in their 90s and had still not talked about it. It was interesting to have some of their kids. It's funny because the kids are in their 70s, but you're like, oh, the kids are here. But yeah, it was interesting to have some of the kids around just either listening in the other room or. Yeah, it was. I think they were quite moved by the experience as well.
- [40:55]
Kevin Gentry
What about the people of Normandy? Do you talk with them?
- [41:00]
Meredith Danluck
That is one of the veterans, Andy Negra. His biggest, most profound memory was really about the people of France during the liberation. He says that he saw a lot of terrible things during the war, but that you have to hold on to the good things. And the good thing that he saw and the thing that always comes back to him is the gratitude of the French people for the liberation. You know, they had been living under Nazi occupation for what, five years when the. When the Americans came to liberate Americans and Canadians and British. But, you know, that. That was a. That was something that he really thought about the most. And, and we, you know, and we. And we show that in the. In the film, there's. There's still this level of gratitude and enthusiasm. And respect for these veterans. I mean, we visit a school with the veterans and you have everyone from probably first graders through high school students jumping up and down and screaming and waving flags and they're so excited. I can't imagine for an American school, a similar situation to welcome these veterans. And that was really illuminating.
- [42:28]
Kevin Gentry
Wow. Okay. The project almost fell apart, right? It wasn't a straight line to the completion. Drake, you want to comment on that?
- [42:41]
Meredith Danluck
Oh, wow.
- [42:42]
Drake Springer
Ptsd, it's. The project did almost fall apart. There was, there was a moment where we were, oh man, I've blocked this out a little bit. How far along were we? We were in rough cut. So a lot of, a lot of the. No, we weren't, we hadn't shot in France yet. So leading up to the, the charter, there were, as you could imagine, there were a lot of folks who wanted
- [43:14]
to go for the 80th anniversary.
- [43:16]
We had limited seats, the plane's only so big and frankly, we are secondary to the caregivers, the veterans themselves, and
- [43:26]
anybody that's essential to getting them over there.
- [43:29]
We didn't have enough seats for the
- [43:33]
team to go shoot.
- [43:34]
And we had a little bit of a disconnect between our leadership, who didn't fully understand what this project was, nor why we were doing it, or why it needed to be done, and the logistical elements of trying to coordinate getting
- [43:50]
this charter to France for D Day.
- [43:54]
And so about three or four weeks before the trip, the project, the plug
- [44:01]
was pulled on the project and they
- [44:03]
said, nope, we can't continue to support this. We don't have the seats. We, this isn't where we need to
- [44:09]
make the investment right now.
- [44:12]
Kevin Gentry
And would you scale it back or was it. Or would you have walked away?
- [44:17]
Drake Springer
We were probably going to have to walk away because there wasn't really much we could do to scale it back. It was such a big concept that we just kind of had to put everything into and say, you know, doing this half heartedly is not doing this justice. And if we're going to do it, we want to do it. We want to go all in. And we spent, myself and Virginie spent
- [44:41]
probably three or four weeks on a
- [44:45]
mission, a goodwill mission around the company trying to get every SVP who would listen, every chief C suite executive who would listen to understand what we were doing, why we were doing it, why it was so important, why this isn't something we could do next year, that it had to be this year, that it had to be right now, and ultimately what our goal was for it and why this would be a story
- [45:13]
that people would be proud if they
- [45:15]
were Delta employee to say, our company told that story. And we eventually got to the right people, we got the right ears on it, we corrected some of the misconceptions around the project. And about a week before we traveled, they turned.
- [45:34]
They turned the light back on for the project.
- [45:36]
So that was. That was a scary moment for about a month leading up to shooting in France for the anniversary, where I didn't think we were going to have a project. And I was very optimistic for a couple of weeks until I wasn't optimistic. And I know Meredith was on the
- [45:53]
receiving end of a lot of those
- [45:54]
calls where I think I was positive and happy. Go lucky. And then I got real negative for a little while. But ultimately, we didn't let up the
- [46:04]
gas and we got it through.
- [46:06]
But, yes, it's hard. And from a brand perspective, I understand.
- [46:11]
I mean, we're 110,000 employees worldwide, massive
- [46:15]
operation, number one airline for a reason. And we have to be very surgical
- [46:20]
and strategic about what we do and how we do it and why we do it.
- [46:24]
And this was a good lesson for us in communication. Make sure we over communicate everything and
- [46:30]
explain the rationale and make sure it's really buttoned up.
- [46:32]
And so we walked away with a lesson, and we walked away with a
- [46:37]
green light for the project, ultimately, which was great.
- [46:40]
Kevin Gentry
And then Hans Zimmer came on board. How did that happen? And how did you unlock the whole creativity of. Of his genius?
- [46:51]
Meredith Danluck
Well, one missing part of Drake's story about how the film fell apart is that on the day that the film fell apart, we also got an email from Hans's studio manager saying, yes, we'd love to do this project. So it was really, you know, same day when. The very same day, within hours of each other. And I think that that is what gave me, like, the kind of, like, eternal optimism. There was not one. One cell of my body that ever thought that this was gonna fall apart. I just. I was like. I had so much faith in Drake to get it back on the tracks that I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna not think about that because this is happening. Um, but, yeah, the Hans Zimmer of it all came. Came through Drake really. You know, Drake was like, as. When we realized that this was a big film and needed a big score. And Drake was like, well, we should get Hans Zimmer. And, you know, which was met. This was met with both Casey and I saying, laughing. Okay. You know, Drake, I think he's a little busy with Dune, too. And, you know, I don't know if this is in his budget or so, but we'll make the ask. And we put together a little sizzle. A sizzle reel of our footage and story, and we sent it to his studio manager. And it. I think it may have been the next day. I mean, the turnaround, they were. They were so enthusiastic about it and so on board. And that creative process was really like a whole new way of working with musicians. Because of the level of musicians, they have access to the kinds of instruments, the understanding of history. Having done so many World War II movies, the. The cache of instruments that they have. From the Victory Vertical Piano that was featured on our score. This is a Victory Vertical piano is one of maybe 200 pianos that were dropped for troop entertainment during the war. And so they have a restored Victory vertical. Yeah, I mean, it was just. It was really another layer of. Of creativity to. To tap into that, that. I mean, the score adds so much. It's completely in lockstep with. With the emotional journey of the film.
- [49:42]
Drake Springer
The score is its own story. I mean, I think that's. Yeah, it's. It's. It could be a standalone thing. It's. It's incredible. And I think. And Meredith has done an amazing job explaining how that process worked and how we got him. And they thought I was nuts.
- [49:58]
I thought I was nuts even suggesting him.
- [50:00]
So I agree, and I still pinch
- [50:04]
myself that we actually ended up with this collaboration.
- [50:07]
But the small moments that happened across the musical part of this also gave
- [50:12]
me eternal hope once we got there, because, like, Meredith mentioned the Victory Vertical
- [50:16]
Piano, there's like, nine left in existence because, as you can imagine, most of them were destroyed when they fell out
- [50:23]
of an airplane with a parachute.
- [50:25]
And they have one of the nine,
- [50:27]
and it's been completely restored, and they sampled it for use in this track.
- [50:33]
And we ended up orchestrating the score in Vienna, Austria, at the Synchron Stage, which was a former. It was built during the war for the express purpose of Joseph Goebbels creating Nazi propaganda movies. And after the war, they basically completely changed its purpose to become a live music recording studio. And so there's so many moments like that with the music that just felt right, that it felt like it tied into the subject. It felt like it spoke volumes without actually speaking volumes, that we thought, yeah,
- [51:15]
we just can't go wrong with this
- [51:17]
because it feels like the stars are
- [51:19]
aligning across so many different parts.
- [51:21]
Kevin Gentry
I want to talk about, I think, a very Important point. And it certainly ties into Memorial Day. And that is the whole concept of sacrifice. I think one thing that we know about the Greatest Generation is that this sense of they were doing things because it was just. It was greater than themselves. There was that sense of duty and obligation. You just see just this extraordinary manifestation of wonderful character and integrity, and you're just. You know, you're just in awe. Tell us about. I mean, how important is that in what you uncovered through the conversations that you had or the observations that you made?
- [52:04]
Meredith Danluck
I think that's a through line for every single veteran in this film and the ones that are not featured in this film. It was a time where there was a sense of being part of something bigger than themselves. And I think that that is really manifested most eloquently by Betty Roseveare's story, who. She had lost her husband. He was a fighter pilot, and he was shot down over Denmark. And her first instinct was to enlist as a nurse. It wasn't to disappear into her grief. It was to contribute and be involved. Because when you are participating in something for the greater good, it allows you to transcend those feelings of personal trauma and. And grief. And I think that that is something that was really evident for all the people that we spoke to.
- [53:21]
Drake Springer
Adding onto what Meredith said, I think they just. They don't think they did anything remarkable. And I think that's what makes it
- [53:28]
so remarkable that they did what they did.
- [53:32]
There's no performance of heroism. There's no, you know, doing it for the likes. There's. They thought there was a job that
- [53:40]
had to be done, and they believed in what they needed to do, and
- [53:43]
they did it, and they came home and they went on with their life. And I think in some ways, that's the opposite of what we have now. And it's the quiet part that is rarely seen.
- [53:58]
And I think that's what really gets me, is, like, you talk about sacrifice.
- [54:04]
The sacrifice is. Is doing the hard thing and not
- [54:09]
saying anything about it and doing that and doing it because it's the right thing to do and because you feel a duty and an obligation to do it.
- [54:16]
And.
- [54:17]
And that's just really, really remarkable.
- [54:20]
Kevin Gentry
Is that really what you hope to come out of this?
- [54:24]
Drake Springer
Yeah. I think at the end of the day, you can admire the men and women in this film.
- [54:32]
You could admire everyone in the. In the military community and change nothing about your life. You could not have conversations.
- [54:39]
You can shut people out. You can be divisive. I think what we're asking or not Even we. But I think what the film is asking is that you. That we all try a little bit harder, that we have this obligation to. Unless. Understand each other, to have conversations, to
- [55:01]
reach out to your fellow man and
- [55:04]
seek to understand that we're all not that different at the end of the day, I think that's the hope here.
- [55:12]
I think people sacrificed for it. They made the ultimate sacrifice for it. And I think that's what Memorial Day is really about. Yes, we do barbecues, yes, we do
- [55:21]
all these other things, celebrations. It's the start of summer. But at the end of the day, we're marking this moment where people in
- [55:28]
all the wars have stood up and
- [55:29]
have stood the line so that we can have the opportunities to connect with
- [55:36]
each other and to still live in
- [55:38]
the society we live in and have
- [55:41]
the freedoms we have.
- [55:42]
And I think we take that for granted sometimes.
- [55:44]
And this is a great opportunity to remember what they did and why they
- [55:47]
did it and to change something about how we act in the meantime.
- [55:55]
Kevin Gentry
Do you think Americans are hungry today for greater meaning or sense of duty? You talked about the sort of performance nature and the likes, but do you think deep down they're looking for something like this?
- [56:10]
Meredith Danluck
I do. I think that people are very hungry for meaning, for authenticity, for something real and connection. I think that there are so many things in the last 15 years that have siloed us and isolated us from each other, divided us, and we are collectively feeling the consequences of all of those things, whether, you know, and that's not even maybe their politics. Maybe it's social media technology. Covid It's a conflagration of so many things. It's not just one thing. And we are at an inflection point where I think that we all are craving connection, authenticity, meaning. And I hope that in some small way or in some big way, this film can move the needle on that.
- [57:15]
Kevin Gentry
Well, we're recording this just in the days leading up to Memorial Day 2026. My plan is to release this episode on May 25, Memorial Day. Later in that evening will be the premiere airing of this on cnn, and then it will be available subsequently. What do you hope happens as a result of maybe a family sitting down to watch this or a conversation that ensues or conversations that ensue more broadly because somebody watched it and tells somebody else about it? What do you hope happens as a result?
- [57:53]
Meredith Danluck
You know, there's something that Arlister Brown, one of the veterans, he's a black veteran who came home and was a teacher and Then at some point joined the ministry, and he is reflecting upon our current state of the world, and he says, our problem is that we don't have enough love. We don't have enough love for humanity. And I think that in that statement, if that statement alone could resonate a little bit with people, if we could take a step outside of hateful rhetoric or outrage or any of these emotions that do get kind of promoted by our social media algorithms, if we could just step a little bit closer towards love, that would be an amazing outcome from this film.
- [58:59]
Drake Springer
I would agree with that.
- [59:00]
Kevin Gentry
Well, I hope this gets a really wide reach. Drake, I want you to add to this, and I want you both to close this out. I'll let you go first and then, Meredith, for anyone listening to this conversation, whenever they may be listening to it, what would you hope they take away from the vision you cast, the risk you took, the setbacks you face, and the sense now of what you feel like you're able to connect these stories, these people with generations now and perhaps even into the future? What would you hope people will take away from this? Drake, you go first.
- [59:39]
Drake Springer
I think we talked a lot about the risks that it takes to do something like this, but I would say that the idea of going big, taking risks, they don't usually look big from
- [59:53]
the inside when you're in it.
- [59:56]
This one was a film that almost didn't happen, that was made on a
- [60:01]
tight deadline, on a tight budget, and had the added pressure of being able
- [60:05]
to tell stories about men and women who we never knew how much time they had left. And that was really what drove us, was this idea of, we're not going
- [60:17]
to let this thing not happen for them.
- [60:21]
Like, I think that is really what let us go. We just got stubborn. Like, at the end of the day, the stubborn refusal to not let it go by the wayside is what got us there.
- [60:32]
And say, stop looking for any.
- [60:33]
Stop looking for what the big risk is. Find the thing that you're passionate about that won't exist if you don't do it. And I think that is what drove me for this.
- [60:47]
And I think that is what kind
- [60:49]
of changes the idea of, you know,
- [60:52]
finding purpose in something. Right?
- [60:54]
Just no one is going to do it for you. And you can talk yourself, you can have a thousand reasons why you shouldn't do something. Find the reason why it wouldn't happen
- [61:04]
without you, and go do it and find the right team that can make it happen with you.
- [61:09]
Kevin Gentry
Meredith, you get the closing word. Oh, whoa.
- [61:13]
Meredith Danluck
Well, I love everything that Drake just said to kind of piggyback on that. For me, this project was really about something that the world needed and that was very different from other projects I have worked on. And this felt very important. And to see anything through the lens of what does the world need? What, how is this important? How am I going to contribute to humanity, to society in a positive way? And that's, you know, the deeper that we got on this film, the more clarity I got on that. And that's something that I think I'm going to take forward in all the work that I do.
- [62:11]
Kevin Gentry
Well, I hope this turns out to be a big encouragement to a lot of others, including those listening to this conversation. Meredith Danlock, Drake Springer, thank you for this significant contribution to today and to the future. And thank you for Going big. And it's been great to have you here on the podcast today.
- [62:29]
Meredith Danluck
Thank you so much, Kevin.
- [62:31]
Drake Springer
Yeah, thank you, Kevin. Thanks for having us.
- [62:34]
Kevin Gentry
All right. Can't wait to watch.
- [62:36]
Thanks for tuning in to the Going Big podcast. I hope today's conversation left you feeling energized and ready to tackle your biggest goals. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes, YouTube or wherever
- [62:49]
you listen to podcasts.
- [62:50]
It really helps spread the word and it gets these inspiring stories out to more people. You can also find more content, resources and updates at our website, goingbigpodcast. Com. Remember, the only limits are the ones you don't challenge, the limits that you impose on yourself. Keep pushing, keep growing, and above all, keep going big. See you next time on the Going Big podcast.