Behind the Camera with Kevin McGill: The Untold Stories of Outlaw Filmmaking

Every filmmaker's journey begins somewhere unexpected. For Kevin McGill, it started with an 8mm reel, a quarter entry fee, and neighborhood kids gathering to watch homemade movies. This episode uncovers the fascinating evolution of a true media maverick whose path wound through New York Film Academy, Tisch School of the Arts, and ultimately the gritty world of guerrilla filmmaking.

Kevin's storytelling takes us from childhood entrepreneurship—where he and his brother transformed their home into a neighborhood cinema complete with popcorn and red Kool-Aid—to professional film sets where authenticity reigned supreme. With raw honesty and plenty of humor, he recounts lying in freezing garbage for hours during winter shoots, pulling guns for scripted scenes that felt all too real, and creating films so compelling that locals still ask about them years later.

The conversation reveals the unique filmmaking philosophy that Kevin and host Drew developed: having actors essentially play heightened versions of themselves, bringing their real-life experiences to fictionalized scenarios. "Everybody brought their A-game of our own lives and putting it into film," Kevin explains, highlighting how this approach created an authenticity that conventional productions often lack. We also get glimpses into Kevin's connections to hip-hop history through his work with DMX's original DJ and the challenges of releasing archival footage.

Beyond the entertaining anecdotes lies a powerful message about pursuing passion over paychecks. Kevin's current ventures—from his "Off the Deep End" podcast to his thriving videography business capturing everything from parades to Sweet 16s—demonstrate his commitment to creating a career rather than holding a job. As he puts it: "Journey of the broke" versus waking up loving what you do. Visit kevstervision.com to explore Kevin's diverse portfolio and connect with this multifaceted creative whose stories behind the camera prove just as compelling as those he captures through his lens.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Kevin McGill: Film Background
• 1:23 Childhood Movie Business Ventures
• 3:29 Guerrilla Filmmaking Experiences
• 7:28 Creative Process and Raw Emotions
• 9:07 Kevin's Current Projects and Website

Transcript

Sabra: 0:21

Welcome to Outlaw Wisdom.

Drew Glick: 0:23

Let's begin shall we All righty? Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome Kevin McGill to Outlaw Wisdom. Kevin, how are you today? I'm fine, Drew. How are you? I'm tired and I'm hot.

Kevin McGill: 0:38

You know we just came back from sunny Negril, Jamaica. You know 91, 92, every day I'm back in New York, but it's pleasant out here.

Drew Glick: 0:46

So, Kevin, let's talk to the listeners, Tell them who you are, where you come from and what you do.

Kevin McGill: 0:56

My name is Kevin McGill. I have a background in film, radio and television, as you probably can hear from my wonderful voice. I graduated from New York Film Academy. I went to school at Tisch. I did, you know, a couple of semesters at Tisch, Always used to love film man, you know, I was always this shaky, insecure little kid. I always wanted to be like Superman, Batman, the Lone Ranger, Anybody with a story better than mine. You know what I mean.

Sabra: 1:14

You've been listening to Outlaw Wisdom. Outlaw Wisdom the outlaws are here to stay.

Kevin McGill: 1:23

We used to put skits together, me and my friends right, we used to have these 8mm reels and we used to put them in the drugstore. They used to cost $3 at the time, drew, and so we would all chip in a quarter piece, you know, put it in the drugstore on Wednesday, we would get it on Friday, and Friday we would go to the house, you know, set up the screen, set up the projector. You know we would have some potato chips, popcorn, you know, kool-aid, red, of course. You know, I don't know why they said that's a black thing.

Drew Glick: 1:49

You said it, not me, I know.

Kevin McGill: 1:53

So, you know, we, we were started showing these movies. So the light went off. I said you know what? I can start charging these guys to come into the house. So now it costs a quarter to get the film developed and it costs a quarter for you to get in. You know, this went on for a little while and we eventually graduated, you know, because we made enough money, me and my brother God rest his soul to buy a Super 8 movie projector, right? So now we had a movie projector and we had these movies that when you see the little X, they had a record that came with it. You see the little X and you hit the the record. And now you had synchronized sound. So now we were showing sound movies in the house. Right, we were making so much money. My grandmother thought we were selling dope, and that was my introduction to media production.

Sabra: 2:33

You've been listening to Outlaw Wisdom. Outlaw Wisdom the outlaws are here to stay.

Kevin McGill: 2:42

When I was 18, my brother was 19,. You know, a guy poisoned my brother. My brother's friends found out who poisoned my brother, my sister, my mother and I are sitting in the living room one day and the door rings and it was one of my brother's friends and these guys were crazy, sort of like you I could see you doing some crap like this, right. So he came to the door and my mother let him in and he says we have avenged our brother's death. He pulled out this bag. It had this guy's head in it.

Drew Glick: 3:07

You're saying you could see me doing some shit like that Really.

Kevin McGill: 3:11

Our listeners are going to be deathly afraid of me now, and they should be man, they should be, because listeners, I want you to know all the stuff he writes about is based on actual stuff.

Sabra: 3:22

The podcast is only the beginning. That's right. Outlaw Wisdom is coming soon to internet shelves everywhere. Join the official Outlaw Wisdom Patreon and reserve your free copy of the upcoming book, the Greater Book of Outlaw Wisdom. Visit wwwoutlawwisdomcom to learn more. Visit wwwoutlawwisdomcom to learn more.

Drew Glick: 3:49

What did Drew make you do the first time you won a camera?

Kevin McGill: 3:51

My very first time, Drew had me in a pile of stinking garbage.

Drew Glick: 3:57

Now, did we take the actual garbage out, or was this real garbage?

Kevin McGill: 4:00

Real stinking behind the Y where I worked garbage. I smelled like garbage. I went home, I tried milk baths, I tried everything. I mean it was like garbage flies buzzing all in my face.

Drew Glick: 4:11

I still remember to this day. I said oh, kevin, it's only gonna be a couple of minutes. What was it like five hours later?

Kevin McGill: 4:15

Listen, the black guy always dies in the first five minutes of the movie. I died in the first 30 seconds of the trailer. I think it was even shorter than that, kevin.

Drew Glick: 4:23

Yeah, it was like seven seconds.

Kevin McGill: 4:25

They showed our friend who was my brother in the movie he was looking up and then he looked you know, because you could tell from the suspense on how you cut it that something happened. He was looking at it for whoever did whatever they did. And then they show what they did and there I go with a bloody face on top of like this stinking garbage.

Drew Glick: 4:43

You know we got to also tell people we were in the dead of winter back then, right and behind the wine. Yeah, so not only are you laying in the garbage for five hours, but you're freezing cold right.

Kevin McGill: 4:52

And with a t-shirt on smelling like garbage, with fake blood on my face, and I think that's what was attracting the flies and I call them garbage bees, those yellow jackets. I don't know what it was made of.

Drew Glick: 5:01

I'm sorry, it could have been syrup or something.

Kevin McGill: 5:03

I didn't try smelling it, tasting it or nothing like that. But I mean it looked realistic though.

Drew Glick: 5:07

It really was. It did it sold pretty good.

Kevin McGill: 5:18

I don't know if we could talk about this. You came to California or Superior, who was DMX's original DJ. He has so much unreleased footage because he was with DMX when DMX first got his start Right. So him and Superior met and you know, superior was the number one DJ in Yonkers. Everybody used to come to Superior's house because it was called the House of Hits and he has hundreds of hours of footage and we're trying to get some stuff out but we have to wait until we can get certain releases. You know, because a lot of the music that they use behind the lyrics were copyrighted.

Drew Glick: 5:52

So, going back a little bit, when we first met and we shot the film, that show Remain Nameless. Let people find that on their own, if they still can.

Drew Glick: 5:58

I don't know yeah, they can, so, so so I got we did that as a screener, as they call it nowadays, like a proof of concept. Right, I tell this story to a lot of people you know and they they don't believe me that to this day, like what, 11 years later, people are asking when that movie's coming out correct. Absolutely, isn't it true that our mutual friend goes up there to the licks drawing yonkers and they still ask him are you in that karate movie?

Kevin McGill: 6:21

Yeah, they ask me all the time. They said when is this movie coming out? We were on a micro budget back then. Oh wait, I'm glad we went back to that, because when I was thinking about what was the first thing, you had me do you also had me pull a gun on somebody.

Drew Glick: 6:39

Oh for the film or something. You're like, let's go get some money.

Kevin McGill: 6:41

I was like you want me to do what? That's the beauty of listeners working with Drew right, Even though everything was scripted. If Drew saw us improv and he'd say, go with it, Because I think that was some of the best of the best that we did.

Drew Glick: 6:55

How long did you say it took us?

Kevin McGill: 6:56

to film that Like yeah, because we went through a couple of seasons, yeah. We never had permits, you know no it was all guerrilla, it was all guerrilla, we guerrilla the whole thing.

Drew Glick: 7:04

We did let Scorsese on. Black Swan. Went at the subway, told us Bowman just shot it and didn't give a shit.

Kevin McGill: 7:09

I mean it was some incredible stuff. I mean I learned a lot about guerrilla shooting.

Drew Glick: 7:15

Everybody brought their A-game of our own lives and putting it into film. Yeah, and we like we were fictionalizing it and then putting it on camera. So I think it made it feel more real for people.

Kevin McGill: 7:25

They were actually playing the character as themselves. It was some raw emotion, intense action and just some, just some good acting. You started with the end in mind you know Exactly.

Drew Glick: 7:37

Like well, like I told you back then like we set it up like memento you know, yeah, yeah, I love that movie.

Kevin McGill: 7:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When my autobiography comes out, man, people are going to be like in awe. Man, they're going to be like you did what you know. You inspired me to write when you sent me your book you've been listening to outlaw wisdom, outlaw wisdom.

Sabra: 7:55

The outlaws are here to stay when I first met you.

Sabra: 8:03

I like who the hell is this guy man.

Drew Glick: 8:05

You thought I was shady, right? I remember that. Yeah, I did, man.

Kevin McGill: 8:09

You had on this Fonzie jacket man, you know you had this like I don't know.

Drew Glick: 8:13

Oh yeah, I remember that was back in the day when I was wearing a bomber jacket all the time.

Kevin McGill: 8:15

I was like holy moly, yeah, this guy's my type of guy right here, bro. Oh yeah, this guy's my type of guy right here, bro.

Drew Glick: 8:20

Yeah, yeah, you could say it how you always say it. I'm your type of asshole.

Kevin McGill: 8:23

Yeah well, I didn't want to curse for the public.

Drew Glick: 8:25

You know me like, when I get passionate about something you know, the language comes out.

Kevin McGill: 8:29

It's just part of the process, you know that's right. Yeah, that keeps it real for everybody else, man.

Drew Glick: 8:34

I remember, when I't release the book, with all that profanity you got to clean, I said, well, I'm not going to change my personality because then that book isn't going to be real. Right, right, I mean exactly, and I fired her like a day later. Oh, you did, I had to, but that's a story for another day.

Sabra: 8:53

Available now in paper and hardcover editions. The Wheelhouse the true story about a boy and his dogs, Also available on Kindle and as an audiobook. Listen to the audiobook on Audible, iTunes and Amazon. Take the journey into a place beyond your wildest imagination, A continuing series by author Drew Glick.

Drew Glick: 9:17

So you know that job is an acronym, right? So what does job stand for? Do you know? Just one break, nope, journey of the broke. You got to have a career, kevin, you got to have a career.

Kevin McGill: 9:26

That's right. Journey of the broke Wow, I like that.

Drew Glick: 9:30

Anybody out there that has a job dump that shit and get a career, and get a career.

Kevin McGill: 9:34

Wow, you know what Part of me doing my doctorate, that's part of my career path.

Drew Glick: 9:39

So, Kevin, let's wrap it up. Tell everybody what you're up to nowadays.

Kevin McGill: 9:42

Right now I'm actually working on a podcast called Off the Deep End. I've been shooting parades. I've been shooting Sweet 16.

Drew Glick: 9:48

Yeah, we didn't talk about that. You're also a videographer.

Kevin McGill: 9:51

You do that as a side hustle right Ever since I had my first Honeywell Pentax 35mm camera and was stinking up the house with stop bath and all those other chemicals.

Drew Glick: 10:04

What do you do? I try to get a hold of you on the weekend. You're never available because you're shooting something you do weddings and that kind of thing.

Kevin McGill: 10:10

Any and everything I mean. You know you can go to my website, which is being revamped, but there is some stuff on there, kevstervisioncom. You can see some of my work, you know, some parades, some weddings.

Drew Glick: 10:21

As long as you can wake up loving what you're doing, kevin then it's not really a job.

Kevin McGill: 10:27

You know you sound your life. May the force be with you, bro.

Sabra: 10:30

You've been listening to Outlaw Wisdom. New episodes drop every week Until next time. No retreat, no surrender. Stay strong, spread the word. The outlaws are here to stay.