Dave Quantic from the Fruitbowl Podcast
Dave Quantic
In this profile series, Revry is highlighting authentic contributors to the LGBTQ media and entertainment community. We ask questions to find out who they are and where they are going in the future. The questions remain the same but the answers tell their unique story. It’s time to explore and celebrate true representation beyond the limits of Hollywood.
Dave Quantic grew up in Kansas and lived in Texas and New York City before moving to LA in 1999 to attend UCLA’s MFA film school. Since graduating in 2004, he has created over 20 short films and has screened in festivals around the world including Frameline, NewFest and in nine different Outfest festivals. In 2016 he moved to Seattle where he currently edits video for KCTS, Seattle’s PBS affiliate. He is currently working on his podcast, FRUITBOWL, and preparing to edit his first feature documentary about queer coming of age. You can find out more about the project at www.fruitbowlpodcast.com
What are you best known for?
I’m the creator of the FRUITBOWL podcast which is an oral history of queer sex. Each episode features one queer person talking about their queer coming of age as they reflect on their family background and where they’re from as well as the different ways they learned about sex and how they discovered their sexual identity and preferences. There are a lot of podcasts out there about sex and queer sex but I think mine is unique in that the episodes are less of a conversation and more like a confessional because I cut out all the parts where I ask the questions. Listeners only hear the interviewees as they describe their lives and the different subjects and themes are separated by brief music interludes and sound design, similar to NPR’s StoryCorps series or This American Life. The result is intensely intimate because it’s like the interviewee is telling their story directly to the listener.
What is the first thing you made?
The first film I ever made was called AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL. I made it in 2000 during my first year of graduate film school at UCLA. It’s about a closeted high school student, Benjamin, who is friends with his neighbor, Alex, a butch soccer classmate who is also questioning her sexuality. One afternoon they have an awkward hookup that is not unlike many of the stories in FRUITBOWL. I guess I’ve always had a fascination with how queer people discover themselves. Not all of us have it all figured out at an early age and the path to our adult selves often moves forward and backward with different diversions and false starts. It’s messy and complicated and I like to explore all of that because that’s what life is like.
What are you working on that no one knows about yet?
For the next season of the podcast, I’m going to start editing together episodes that feature multiple interviewees talking about different themes like “first times” and “worst times.” The goal is to show the similarities between different people whom you thought had nothing in common. I filmed all the interviews for FRUITBOWL in preparation for a feature documentary, but now I’m thinking it would make a better docu-series and the different episodes could be similar to the thematic episodes of the podcast. Making the pod has been such a great way to feature individual stories, but I think the time is coming when I start to weave everyone’s stories together and try to give listeners and viewers a comprehensive view of queer coming of age. It’s a difficult thing to try to do, but it’s also endlessly fascinating.