1048. Ellen Jovin set up a folding table on the street in all 50 U.S. states to talk with people about grammar, which led to the book "Rebel with a Clause." Now, her story, and the story of people who talked with her, is a movie by the same name. Mignon talked with Ellen and her documentarian husband, Brandt Johnson, about what they learned about both filmmaking and humanity.
1048. Ellen Jovin set up a folding table on the street in all 50 U.S. states to talk with people about grammar, which led to the book "Rebel with a Clause." Now, her story, and the story of people who talked with her, is a movie by the same name. Mignon talked with Ellen and her documentarian husband, Brandt Johnson, about what they learned about both filmmaking and humanity.
Find them at RebelWithAClause.com.
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MIGNON: Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Fogarty, and today I'm here with Grammar Table celebrity Ellen Jovin and her documentarian husband, Brant Johnson. You may remember Ellen from her book that came out a couple of years ago, but they actually have made a movie, and so we're going to talk more about their experiences.
And Ellen and Brandt, welcome to the Grammar Girl podcast.
ELLEN: Thank you for having us here, Mignon.
BRANDT: Great to be here.
MIGNON: Yeah. So Ellen, I've always wondered, I think we've talked about this before, but what possessed you to go out on the street and sit behind a table and invite people to come talk to you about grammar?
ELLEN: Well, I feel like I need some psychoanalysis to understand the motivations fully. But I do know, and I still feel this way, actually, I'm on the computer too much. My life is too much technology. And my whole professional life has always been dedicated to words. I think the Grammar Table was primarily, like significantly, when I first did it, an opportunity for me to do what I was doing online and chat groups, like grammar, nerd groups on Facebook and stuff to take it to the street, and have at least some, have more public interaction and use language for the thing that's meant to be used for primarily, which is communication.
MIGNON: Yeah. Are you, are, do you consider yourself an extrovert? Because I'm an introvert, and I feel like I, I would probably like to have done what you do like to sit out there and after I talked to the people, I'd be so excited that I had done it, but it would never even occur to me to go do it, to initiate the action.
I find myself wondering if you're an extrovert, and you're just like, “I'm going to go talk to people.”
ELLEN: I feel as though I should ask Brandt, I don't think I'm an extrovert, but I'm not an introvert. Can I be somewhere in the middle? I know that the definitions are more complicated than the simple, you're outgoing or you're not outgoing. That's not what it's about so much.
I do Brandt. Do I not like to be alone a lot?
BRANDT: You do, but I can say that you really love people, and Ellen is really curious, genuinely curious about all kinds of people and all kinds of stuff. So that really makes it a natural fit for her.
ELLEN: That is really true. And Brandt, you just reminded me that when I was in junior high, I remember feeling self conscious because I would look at everyone in the class, in my classes. I would look at them during class and study them and think about them and notice things. And I remember feeling like that was weird, but I think I am just very curious, but it was enjoyable.
Like it was interesting to me, like what they wore or how they said things. And I just think that I am curious about people.
MIGNON: Did you ever think of becoming a psychologist or a journalist?
ELLEN: I have done some freelance journalism. That wasn't what I set out to do, but I have incidentally done that. Never anything in the realm of psychology. I don't really see, I can't even explain myself. So I apparently don't have a burning drive to explain the inner workings of my brain or the brains of others.
MIGNON: So, even though you say you don't have anything in the area of psychology, watching the movie — and thank you for letting me have a preview of it. It's a great movie — It does feel like there's an element of psychology going on when you're talking to all these people about grammar. Didn't you feel that?
ELLEN: I do actually feel that. I agree with that. There's a kind of grammar therapy happening, but I just want to make clear to everyone that I know that I'm unlicensed.
MIGNON: I still think you're doing a lot of good for people's psyche. What are some of the things that you learned about people when you were out talking to them for the Grammar Table?
ELLEN: I feel as though I already knew a lot of them because I've spent so much of my life doing this kind of thing. So I don't remember being totally shocked by things that I encountered, but maybe one thing is just the degree of loneliness that some people feel, that makes them willing, if they encounter someone who is genuinely friendly and who will listen to them, that will allow them to just start telling stories about themselves.Â
So I was sometimes surprised by what people shared with me, but just not that surprised because I've experienced that in social situations before, going out with six people and having one of the people start telling me very personal stories. And then the person who invited me is like, “Why did they tell you that? They never told me that. And I've been friends with them for 15 years.” I think I must have that kind of face.
MIGNON: You’re friendly and approachable. Brandt, were you surprised when she said I'm going to go sit on the street with a table and talk to people about grammar? Was this something that you, was this something you always planned together that it would be a joint project? Or was it just something she did, and then grew into more.
BRANDT: I was not at all surprised as, or planned as a joint endeavor. And Ellen is spontaneous and silly and fun in all sorts of ways. So, it was in keeping with who she is that she would say, “Hey, I have an idea, I'm going to do this.” Which was a silly, fun idea.Â
ELLEN: I beg your pardon.
BRANDT: But I wasn't part of it in any way at all from the start, but I would go with her and sit in the periphery and watch.
I'd sit on a nearby bench and just take it all in. I would do that a lot, in fact. And so from what I was observing was just so much fun. It was funny. It was connecting. It was moving. And I started to feel as though I would really like to share this with as many people as possible to be able to experience what the people who are arriving at the table are experiencing.
So that was when I thought, “Okay, this should be a film." And I didn't want to interrupt what great stuff was happening with cameras and microphones and so forth.” But we thought, “Okay, it's probably worth the risk.” And I think it didn't actually get in the way. Interestingly, people were able to just accept that stuff was there, the technology and just and be present.
MIGNON: I was surprised by that too, when I was watching the movie, people seemed so comfortable. You could forget that there was a camera there. It seemed like they'd forgotten, so it felt very natural. Are you a filmmaker? Have you made other films before?
BRANDT: This is my first feature film. I made a short, I directed and wrote a comedy web series, and have written and produced several plays. But feature length film was something very different for sure. So I learned a lot. I started shooting six years ago. And so it's been a learning path for sure.
MIGNON: Yeah. What were some of the challenges? At first, was it hard to find a way to make people comfortable? Or what kind of challenges did you face?
ELLEN: Me.
BRANDT: Luckily, yeah, I faced the challenge named Ellen. So she can be what's known in the industry as “difficult talent.”
ELLEN: I hate having things attached to me and I get very impatient and I really do give Brant massive credit for, you're seeing me smiling and laughing right now, but there were moments. Okay. And most of them did not make it into the movie, thankfully.
BRANDT: It's important to manage the talent. So that was part of it.Â
MIGNON: That absolutely does not come through. She seemed delightful and charming and happy in every shot. That's so funny.
ELLEN: It's amazing what editing can do.
BRANDT: That's right. But for the technical kind of stuff, one of the hugest challenges and the thing that I probably paid most attention to was the sound because we're going to be, in public on street corners, on beaches, mountaintops, everywhere with all sorts of challenges sound-wise. So I paid a lot of attention to that, and I actually have been working with a post-production sound mixer and that is really working on that as well.Â
So there were a number of things to pay attention to with the camera, the sound, and the logistical stuff that I think I figured out along the way, but sometimes things as simple as, “Oh, I need to press the record button. Or it won't record.”
MIGNON: Every podcaster knows that pain.
BRANDT: That happened. I was like “Wait no!”
ELLEN: Brandt, one thing that's occurring to me that I don't think we've really discussed before about this is, usually in our past lives, I've gone to see Brandt perform. I've been to his plays many times, and he was in this web series. So I'm used to watching him in something. And I think for me, just recalling some of these technical challenges also, it's like a change for me to be a focus and that, although I'm happy to talk to people, that is not all that comfortable for me a lot of the time.
So that's also, I think what Brandt was grappling with just having me be comfortable enough that I could sit there, not just with the Grammar Table, which is, I was got used to, but also with cameras behind me, stuff attached to me like that just adds to my personal stress because that's not how I'm used to operating or really feel inclined to operate.
But fortunately, he's good at that kind of, that kind of, there's a kind of therapy involved with that too, just making me comfortable so that I can be comfortable with people.
BRANDT: As a person who's just comfortable with people to start with that really wasn't a huge challenge and that's just sort of extraneous stuff, and you're I can say I'm speaking to Ellen at this moment, or I speak to you, Mignon. Ellen is really connected and engaged with people when they come up to the table.
So any of the other stuff that's going on is not, that's really not the focus. And for her also, as with people who show up because they're connecting with each other, that stuff just goes away. And they're really in that moment of sharing and discovering and just being there.
MIGNON: Yeah. And this was a traveling show, right? Did you make it to every state?
BRANDT: We did. Yes.
MIGNON: That’s amazing.
BRANDT: We had planned 50 states, and we got to 47 States when COVID hit. And we had not yet visited Alaska, Hawaii, or Connecticut. And yeah, that was, you would think it's so close by, but we finished it. Yeah.
ELLEN: I was going to say though, that wasn't actually what I pitched originally when I pitched the book, part of the book proposal was that Brandt would be coming along and filming it. But I said, I was planning for a bunch of states. I wasn't planning for 50. It's just that once we got going, and I could see the rhythm, it took two days per place usually.
A day to get there, and then the next, then set up the next day, and then we could leave and go to the next place. Like it's very efficient. I realized, “Oh, we can actually get through states pretty quickly.” So it got upgraded from some states to all of the states in 2019 while we were already underway.
BRANDT: Upgraded from some footage to hundreds of hours of footage.
ELLEN: Yeah, and we were actually also going to go to Puerto Rico before COVID hit. That was another plan that got that, that wasn't possible once COVID hit, but we're going to, we're actually, I feel very happy because we're going to go there in February to screen the film for a private group.
And I think that's just going to be great.
MIGNON: Oh, that is great. One more. And also, what is there, Guam? That’s another place you could go.
ELLEN: I would, I would love to go to Guam. That doesn't seem quite as easy to get to, but if someone from Guam wants to invite us, we would be thoroughly happy to go screen the film there.
MIGNON: And so this is one thing I was wondering too, because you were out on all these adventures. Is this your job? Is this your, or do you have day jobs? Like, how do you get away to be able to do this, to go to every state and do these, do the Grammar Table and film your film?
ELLEN: We have a company together that we've, had it since, we like to say since the last century. We founded it in 1990…
BRANDT: I'd like to say the last millennium.
ELLEN: Yes, that's true. I'm not sure that's to our advantage when we market to people, but anyway, we have a communication skills training firm together, and we've had it for 25 years.
So we do classes for mostly corporate clients, but also government organizations and nonprofits in oral and written communication skills. So when we were doing the touring for the Grammar Table movie and for the book, we would do maybe, like a week or two here where we'd be working. And then we'd go out for some for a week and a half or two weeks.
And then we come back, like we had a balance and technically now, we can actually do the training since a lot of it is remote post COVID. We could do a lot of it on the road. In 2019, that wasn't really a thing so much. Most of our work was in person at that point, but now, I can imagine more easily that we could just, we could be in whatever state and still do the training sessions that have been our anchor income.
That the thing that we've had constantly through all the creative projects over the years.
MIGNON: Oh, that makes sense. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think I heard that people can hire you to bring the Grammar Table to their events? Are you doing weddings now? What are you doing?
ELLEN: Okay. I almost did a wedding. It was very close, but I do see a wedding in my future. I think weddings will probably work better if it's like a garden wedding at someone's house. So I don't have to deal with the insurance requirements of the hotel because it gets a little complicated. Not sure though, if someone wants to deal with that.
That just makes it more complicated and bureaucratic and expensive. But I have done a birthday party. No, I've done two birthday parties. I was at an 80th birthday party. I was at a 60th birthday party. I love that kind of stuff. And it actually, it sounds a little weird, but at the first birthday party, they just set me up at the end, and I had little quiz questions on the table for intrepid grammar quiz takers that were some of which were thematically related to the birthday.
And so on top of people just being able to chat with me, tell me language stories, talk to me if they don't feel like talking to someone else, they can take little quiz questions. So it's great fun. I actually really want to hit the bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah scene, but no one has invited me yet.
MIGNON: So did this come about, was this like a marketing effort on your part or did someone just come to you and say, “I want you at my birthday party or my mom's birthday party” or something like that?
ELLEN: I think the first incident, I have popped up at lots of different types of events around the city and stuff like that. But I think the first kind of personal, like important moment event, the person wrote to me and asked about it. And then I thought, “Okay, this could be something.” So I would love to do more of that. I think it is … so I love things that are super goofy and that really does max out on the nerdiness because you're like, “Why is there a grammar table at my friend's birthday party?” That just people don't know what to make of it. And I like things like that.
Yeah, it just makes it, it's a very, it's a happy thing for me. And I also feel like social situations can be stressful for people. I feel like in some ways, like Julie, on "The Love Boat," the social director, like the crew. Yeah. What was, I forget her exact title, but that's what I feel my role is at these things.
MIGNON: How fun. And the goofy, for people who are just listening and not watching, let's talk about your shirt because I'm used to seeing you wear an I heart grammar shirt, but now you have a shirt that says Grammar Hedonist. Do you have other shirts?
ELLEN: Oh, I have, so I have a problem now actually, because since I've been doing this since 2018, and I have acquired so many grammar shirts that I don't have room for them on top of which, COVID wasn't really good for my wardrobe maintenance, like the number, like things just clothing went by the wayside.
So not only do I, and because I do a lot of remote training now, I don't need as many real clothes. So I realized a couple of months ago that I had a situation, and I needed to do something about it because I can't go around at my age, just wearing grammar T-shirts every day, seven days a week. It gets ridiculous.
So I've recently made a little effort to re-diversify my wardrobe, but I do probably have about, I don't even, I'm embarrassed to say this, but I'm going to guess I have 40 to 50 grammar shirts. Some of them are the same, like in different sizes or different states of newness. This one that I have on right now is starting to enter the rocker grammar-shirt range because it's getting a little bit worn, so it looks like I might've had it for a while, like a touring T-shirt or something like that. I don't know. But I take my grammar wardrobe extremely seriously.
MIGNON: What are some of your favorite moments from the movie?
ELLEN: Brandt and I both love the guys in Decatur, Alabama who were boisterous, and I would say they're not typical of the visitors. They were a little hyperactive and smoking. One of the guys had on a leather jacket and, there was something though, there's something for me about them.
So I've had, I've actually had people also, I wrote about them in the book, and I've had a few people wrote to me and said, “Why did you have so much of those guys? They were rude?” But I don't feel, I don't really feel that way. There was something in the moment about the way … there was one of them was really into grammar, and I felt like he had no outlet for it in his work or his daily life.
So even though, okay, maybe he, what, he shouldn't have taken the apple off my table and eaten it. Actually that might've been the other one, but anyway. He was…
BRANDT: That was the other one. They both shared in bites.
ELLEN: Okay. Yeah. I had an apple on the table, like that was my lunch and it got eaten by other people who were not me. So anyway — and I'm not going to say "I" there — who were not me, but I found something very beautiful in his love of the English language and also of his … he had real knowledge.
And his friend was such a sweetie. So I just love the fact that these two guys — you wouldn't expect them to be visitors — they were among my favorites. Like I just had a really good time with them. And we probably talked to them for an hour outside a barbecue place in Alabama.
BRANDT: And what you just said, Ellen, about what you would have expected, that was one of the things I loved about them so much is that they just exploded what your preconceived ideas would be about them and their relationship with grammar as they came, coming up to the table that wouldn't have been what you had thought would happen, that they would be there for an hour.
So that was fantastic.
MIGNON: Yeah. Brandt, have you been in touch with the people who are in the movie? Do they know they're going to be on screen?
BRANDT: Some of them, yes. Because we have what they sign releases to say we can be in it, and we've been in touch with some of them, and they know, and some don't, and some we would like to know before it happens. So that's an interesting sort of relationship continuation kind of thing.
And some of the people, to follow up on your earlier question about favorite moments, that Ellen in the film in Waikiki, there was a young woman who felt some insecurity about her English language. It wasn't her first language, and she felt that she's not fluent, and she wasn't so confident in it.
And Ellen, reasonably not just pumping her up for no good reason, but identified that actually, yes, you are fluent and gave her such a, she said that she had been having a bad day, and that is a great day ,and just that, sort of how Ellen makes people feel beyond the grammar stuff, it's just, which, I believe in general life is just such a, such an important thing, how we make people feel.
And we're gonna remember some of the details, some of it we won't, most of it we won't. But what lasts is how people make us feel, how we make them feel. And that's one of the things that is just most beautiful about what Ellen does at the table.
ELLEN: May I say one thing about the people? So the people in the movie and also in the book, they are so close to us now. In the sense that we have seen them 5 billion times, Brandt especially because he's looked at the footage so much. So a lot of this was shot several years ago, and is that right, Brandt?
BRANDT: Six years, it started in 2018.
ELLEN: The majority, yeah, but most, okay, so most of it is two, 2019 to 2022. But we have seen their faces and heard their voices so many times. There's a bizarre intimacy from that. And I had to remind myself when we did have exchanges with a couple of them. It was just a one time encounter for them.
We were there and gone, but they've stayed in our lives. I have seen transcripts of the talks. I've seen the video, they ended up in the book and I have a one-sided relationship now with lots of them. And I really hope they like the movie and like seeing it because they've been like, I really feel something for a lot of them now. They've become part of our lives in a very intimate way over recent years.
MIGNON: Yeah, I don't think we've said what the title of the movie is. What should people look for if they're wanting to go out and watch it?
BRANDT: "Rebel with a Clause."
MIGNON: It's the same as the book, right?
BRANDT: It is. And the book has a subtitle to it. But the film does not, but the main title is the same. Yes.
ELLEN: We discussed that at some length and decided to go with the thing that people would recognize as Grammar Table-y.
So where can people see this movie if they want to? This is coming out in January, so where can people see it?
BRANDT: At rebelwithaclaus.com there's information about screenings coming up and how you can host a screening for your organization. We're taking it to universities, to museums, other organizations that are bringing the film to their community. There will also be a broadcast, a television broadcast, which I can't say about just yet, but that's coming down the pike as well.
MIGNON: And the world debut?
BRANDT: The world debut. Thank you. Yes, the world premiere January 10th at Planet Word, which is a language museum in D.C.
MIGNON: Wonderful. That's the end of our regular show. If you are a Grammarpaloozian, the people who support the show generously, we have a bonus segment. I think I want to talk about what it takes to distribute a movie, like, you just say, I'm gonna make a movie though. What do you have to do then?
And then, Ellen and Brandt are going to share their book recommendations. So Ellen and Brandt, again, "Rebel with a Clause," thank you so much for being here.
ELLEN: Thank you, Mignon.
BRANDT: Thank you, Mignon.