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Danielle Redford: producing online series Ina at the same time as feature film Zombucha!
48 Plays2 days ago
Today’s episode features Danielle Redford, a producer and the founder of Contra Stories whose latest project is the six-episode online series Ina, which is written and directed by Rachel Maxine Anderson and available to watch on YouTube now https://www.youtube.com/@ina.series
Throughout the episode, Danielle talks about how working in distribution has influenced her as a producer, her experience of producing Ina at the same time as upcoming feature film Zombucha!, the benefits and takeaways from releasing on a platform like YouTube, and much more.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Breaking Screen, a podcast about the Australian screen industry and the creative people within it. I'm your host, Caris Bizzaca I'm recording this podcast from the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, where I'm very grateful to be a visitor and be able to work on these lands. Always was, always will be.
Danielle Redford's Projects
00:00:22
Speaker
Today's episode features Danielle Redford, a producer and the founder of Contra Stories, whose latest projects include the six-episode online series Ina written and directed by Rachel Maxine Anderson, and which you can watch on YouTube now, and the upcoming feature Zombucha written by Emma Leonard and directed by Claudia Dzienny which premiered at MIFF in 2025 and will be distributed by Maslow Entertainment later this year.
00:00:49
Speaker
Throughout the episode, Danielle talks about how her years working in distribution influenced her as a producer, her experience of producing feature films on Zombucha and online series Ina at the same time, the benefits and takeaways from releasing on a platform like YouTube, and much more.
00:01:05
Speaker
Here's that chat.
Career Inciting Incident
00:01:09
Speaker
We always start this podcast the same way, which is talking about inciting incidents. Can you tell me what the inciting incident of your career was?
00:01:21
Speaker
I think this is such a good question. I feel like I want to know this about everyone in the industry. I can. um I am the oldest of six kids, including two step-siblings. But when I was a kid, it was four of us girls. And when I turned about eight or nine, my dad sat me down very seriously and he said, there's something we need to do together.
00:01:43
Speaker
And that night we watched Braveheart. And that was my induction into... a long line of films that dad had prepared for what he kind of saw as a coming of age, which um the youngest kid did not quite agree with. But I remember just working our way through a lot of war films, a lot of um comedy classics. We'd pull out the projector and fire it up on the weekends. And so as a family, we were moving through cinema as this like communication tool in the household. We were often quoting or making metaphors or using it to make sense, I guess, of the way that we moved through life and
00:02:21
Speaker
That also led, when I was around 11, dad started a film distribution company. So it went from this love of cinema in our home and love of story into something that suddenly, you know, we'd be at the dinner table like talking about box office releases and quite realistically living in the business of film in a way that was – Yeah, really eye-opening, I think, from a young age to know that it wasn't just this like romantic thing that ends up on a projector in your living room, but also was just made up of lots of people behind the scenes who were figuring it out together. So I would say those few years of like really diving into the deep end of cinema lore and then seeing the other side of it.
00:03:01
Speaker
is why I'm here today. So whenever I'm grumpy about my career choice, I just send out a text and tell them thanks for nothing. but Yeah, fair. And you did start out in the kind of distribution world,
Path to Independent Production
00:03:15
Speaker
is that right? Yeah.
00:03:16
Speaker
Yeah, I spent the first 10 years of my career in distribution and sales and acquisitions. And I was also at film school doing my undergrad and my master's through that time. So I was figuring out, I didn't even really know the role of a producer existed when I went to film school. I was like, I i think I want to I don't want to be a writer. I don't want to be a director, but like it's something in there. And then the magic of what producing was very quickly is something that I ran into and found home in But all through that time I was in distribution. So I finished up in that space in June of 2020 and started of working for myself as an independent producer. So probably another inciting incident there, I'd say. Some dramatic thing. Yeah.
00:03:58
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. 2020 for the um feature film distribution sector um was tough. And so you said the magic of producing there, well, was it about producing that you find so magical?
00:04:14
Speaker
um I mean, it depends on the day, right? I'm probably a little more less on the magic side of producing this Monday. but what I love about producing then and what I still love now is that that direct intersect of,
00:04:28
Speaker
you know, we often talk about what kind of producer are you? And for me, there's so much satisfaction in the creative and the pragmatic or the the vision and the actuality sitting together. And that just lights my brain up in this way of going, how incredible that I get to be a part of taking something that doesn't exist yet, that I believe, many of us believe has substance that means it should exist in the world, and then pull this impossible thing into being bit by bit. So that for me is the magic of producing. It's working with incredible storytellers across so many different fields and formats and building something that wasn't there. And I think I love that in my role I get to be across so much of that
00:05:15
Speaker
without having to fully commit into one to one form within that. It's a real joy. Yeah, because you do work across a lot of different formats. Can you talk a little bit
Pioneering Scripted Podcasts
00:05:27
Speaker
to that? What are some of the ones that you have worked within?
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah, I... was one of the first producers of scripted podcasts here in Australia and really kicked that off at the end of 2019. End of 2019, start of 2020, which was, of course, a really interesting time to be in any kind of production space. But I did a lot of work with Audible across this beautiful format that was such a gift as a developing producer because, you know, you're not often in your twenty s of producing eight hours worth of scripted content um where you get to work directly with the writers and director and cast and be a part of bringing that IP to life. And so that was quite a strategic move of looking at the time at um some of the projects that were coming out of the US that were using podcasts as a developing format. for IP generation and realising that we had so much talent here in Australia and often stories that were bigger than our screen budgets could stomach. And so I spent a lot of time in the scripted audio space and then have moved into, gosh, I've just finished, what are we, July 2026, completed two projects in the last year, one as a feature film, It will be out in cinemas with Maslow later this year and the other is an online series called Ina that released about a month ago. So I've also worked in documentary and i think that's it. I think that they're the former. Short film.
00:06:58
Speaker
um oh yeah. Yeah. Those are short films. Yeah, yeah. um And so I'm wondering first off as like ah a top-level question because we've talked about distribution a couple of times, But for people listening who are unfamiliar with what we mean by working in distribution, what do we mean by that?
00:07:21
Speaker
I mean, we all have different end days on a project, right? So if you're a part of Below the Line Crew, you have wrap, then you probably see a finished product. If you're in post, you inherit a project. At that point, you spend a lot of time in the dark room.
00:07:34
Speaker
Distribution is about what happens when a film is complete and ready to go out into the world. And i think one thing that's really exciting about the current time that we're in as consumers and creators and storytellers is feels like there used to be more walls up in this understanding of, oh, that's the distributor's job and we make the content and they find the audience. And yet this audience centered approach to storytelling, I think there's something really powerful in seeing distribution as a continuation of the original vision.
00:08:05
Speaker
So less is, you know, a part of the chain that's disconnected of, oh, we've done our work and now we hand it over and more of well, if your vision was to make something that was always meant to connect with a particular human in a particular environment, you're not finished until that's happened. So distribution is literally the the act of sharing.
00:08:24
Speaker
Where does this content get
Distribution and Audience Strategy
00:08:26
Speaker
released? At what point? What is the most effective way to find an audience? How do we work with often limited resources, just like production, to connect with that audience? How can we activate them to come together and experience this, whether it's in a cinema or online?
00:08:40
Speaker
And um yeah, it's a real privilege to now be on the other other side of that, working with distributors who carry that care and passion as well and ah really just an ongoing part of our filmmaking team.
00:08:52
Speaker
And how does your background in that world of distribution, how do you think it influences the way that you produce work?
00:09:02
Speaker
I don't think I would have ever worked in scripted audio without that background because I was really curious about The proof of concept and the proof of concept beyond a short film that showed off how fantastic a director or cinematographer was, but the proof of the IP as a valid investment vehicle to then take that into a long form space on screen. And it was such a beautiful contained way to actually have an audience experience an entire story arc in a way that you just don't get with a short.
00:09:33
Speaker
And so my distro background is what took me into the scripted audio space of being quite curious about the pathway to audience there and going, oh my gosh, we don't have to tell a 10 minute version of this four hour story. We can tell the four hour story with incredible talent and tonally capture what it is we're setting out to do. And then we own the IP at the end of that. So I don't think I would have had that background and that background has continued to serve me in the screen work that I've done since then, the scripted work. There's just so many skills and um I think experience has picked up there that directly
00:10:07
Speaker
translated through to the things we needed to navigate in these last few projects that I'm incredibly grateful for. But the distro background, it's always there from, i would say, day one of developing any project. And even more so, and I used to feel a bit more unusual in this, but I do think that this is a language that we as an industry are very much speaking now, is...
00:10:29
Speaker
who is it for? And not with a blase answer of, oh, it's for everyone or it's a four quadrant film or women over 40 will love this, but actually like where are they hanging out online? Which subreddits are they active in What Instagram posts are they sending to each other? Like who are your humans and how are you developing this to speak so directly to them? And we've just, I've had a really interesting experience in this release of our series
Online Platforms and "Inner" Release
00:10:52
Speaker
Ina We worked with the incredible Alyce Adams on our online release.
00:10:57
Speaker
And as a part of that, we had these fan edits rolling out and Alyce to translate back to our team the compliments where we're getting an internet speak. I'm like, I don't know what this means on the internet. She's like, it's a good thing saying they like it. And that's what I mean, I guess, by that specificity of audiences.
00:11:14
Speaker
In that instance, that's a short form online series. So part of our distribution there is about how we help that audience into that experience. Although it certainly made me feel a bit old to have an internet translator. Yeah, well, um don't worry. I've also asked Alyce Adams to translate the internet for me before. So it's a universal experience it seems. Yeah. yeah um But so with Ina first of all, i encourage everyone to go watch this series. It's all six episodes are on YouTube now.
00:11:47
Speaker
And a big congrats to writer-director Rachel Maxine Anderson crafting a really beautiful series. i definitely cried in the final episode. um And so you co-produced this with Rai Choi.
00:12:04
Speaker
Is that correct? Yeah. Yes. And we have um Kerrin McNeil as our EP. Yeah. Oh, fantastic. And so as a team, do you decide YouTube is the home for this story and what goes into that thought process?
00:12:22
Speaker
This was a similar reverse engineering experience to some of the earlier work actually and it's it's fascinating to look back and see that these are the kind of thought processes that were happening in the podcast space a few years ago. of Rach and I had been working on Ina as a long-form series pitch for a couple of years and just really looking at what it was that she, which story she wanted to tell, how she wanted to tell it, what the core of that was and letting that brew.
00:12:51
Speaker
And the more that that happened, the clearer it became that this really had to be Rach's story then we were pitching someone who we need a lot of trust in this industry in terms of those early credits and first time work and Rach hadn't written or directed for TV in a long form space before and we took the project to Ray and to Karen to see if they wanted to basically join our team and we were at this point of going we know this is beautiful work. It's ready for that step, but it's it's getting quite big for the two of us. And Kerrin really strategically just kept pointing out to us that if we take this into a short form space, we can protect and I guess build the capacity for Rach to be in that role of writer and director and to really be the author of this work. And so from there, it was actually a reverse engineering process of looking at the arc that we had for this six by 30 series and then bring that down into this
00:13:48
Speaker
I was about to say smaller, but it doesn't feel smaller, shorter in duration, story length. And I think that's a really interesting process of what we found through doing this is we were able to still tell such a big story within that contained space and do that quicker, finance it produce it, bring it out to the world and, yeah, see what happens with an audience when they meet it.
00:14:13
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Is there an element of, you know, because when you're trying to get those credits and things like that, that the online space, you can take risks and you're not, there are no kind of gatekeepers being like, oh, they need X amount of experience in order to give them a chance.
00:14:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, kudos to Screen Australia australia and Screen Queensland who supported this through their online production funding for knowing that we had quite a meaty vision and still taking a risk on us to pull it off on contained funding capacities.
00:14:50
Speaker
So i'm I'm grateful for, you know, their belief there in terms of we we couldn't have done this without those two funds. And so there's still an element of, I guess, gatekeeper there. But it did allow us to just like run full blast at it rather than spending a few years taking it out to market and trying to prove on paper why this was a bankable idea why there was an audience for this. So we've just seen in such a beautiful way respond to it.
00:15:17
Speaker
We just got to do it and it's, you know, we're we're really early out from the release so it's still fresh and we're all a bit overwhelmed actually with the love for it so just taking a moment to process but I'm really excited to see what this does in terms of, you know, the next time that Rach is a writer or director wants to speak to the value of her work, it's not really a conversation, it's a link.
00:15:40
Speaker
And I think that that's a really beautiful part of this online space. But one thing that has been really eye-opening for me is not treating online as a stepping stone either. Like I want to be careful not to just be like, oh, online is where you go and develop IP to take into other formats. Yeah.
00:15:56
Speaker
It's incredible the work that's going on in this space and full story experiences and rich communities who you can reach millions more rivals than you can in the cinema space in Australia every week.
00:16:08
Speaker
They're active there every day and I think that the growth of that is a democratisation of the stories that are getting told. So, yeah, ah while this has been really helpful for us for that process, it's online is its own beautiful beast that is its own end game. Mm-hmm.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah, and I know there's that saying of ah don't read the comments, but in this instance go read the comments because yeah it's really touching um to see the things that people have written in the comments section on the
"Inner" at Canneseries
00:16:39
Speaker
episodes. And this also got into Cannes series, yeah i believe. Yeah, we premiered there in April.
00:16:45
Speaker
Yeah, the only Australian series this year to get into it. Yes, only Australian series, one of six in the short form series. competition and the first ever Australian Filipino story in the CannesSeries space.
00:16:59
Speaker
Yeah, congratulations. Thank you. So you were saying you were developing this idea or Rachel was developing this idea and you were working with Rachel on it for some time before that. How did you first kind of connect on it?
00:17:13
Speaker
i This one's a really convoluted way. Rachel and I both had like a really pretty dark 2019. We both went through a lot of grief and family loss and Rachel lost her dad in I believe was September 2019 and And she and I knew each other. We were both alum from Griffith, but we didn't know each other well. And we were actually at, and we were in Brisbane at a guild Christmas party, like editors and sound. And and both of us were just so sad and like not really in a Christmassy mood. And we somehow found each other and had like a three hour conversation about what it was like to live with this grief. and
00:17:50
Speaker
it was really beautiful, but it it started something that we started exploring in a different project around that processing of loss and the beauty within that. But through that, I started to learn more about Rach as a storyteller and as a writer and a director. And she had an earlier concept that had some seeds of relationships that as we got into that, we were talking about the different shows that we'd loved. And she had this idea to move it, that earlier idea into a workplace environment.
00:18:18
Speaker
And then that just really came to the forefront and the more that we honed in on that and on the mother-daughter relationship, the show really started to take shape. We we we knew we liked walk and talk, dramas, workplace, behind the scenes, environments. You know, it's one of those childhood dreams is to make behind-the-scenes TV show where you get to go into the beauty of like the minutiae of an environment. And so it was this really fertile ground. And then Rach just kept doing this really hard work of coming back to the most courageous version of this that she could make, which was the most
"Zombucha" Overview
00:18:51
Speaker
honest version. And so she, yeah, it's been such a privilege to watch her develop this without shying away from that because it was a really big challenge, I think.
00:19:00
Speaker
o And so, yeah, you've mentioned Ina and also your feature film Zombucha. Yes. These are both very different.
00:19:10
Speaker
so to illustrate that, could you tell me what each one is about? yes Zombucha is about an aspirational millennial couple who both lose their jobs on the same day.
00:19:24
Speaker
um They're deciding whether or not they should have a baby, start a family, but now they have to figure out how they're going to be able to pay for their organic groceries and their pet nat. And they run into an artisan at the market who's selling kombucha for like 50 bucks a bottle and they decide to steal his Scoby, which is a starter for kombucha.
00:19:42
Speaker
They start a rival kombucha empire in the northern beaches of Sydney where wellness is an ongoing money pool. It goes really well until they find out that the Scobie is a sentient being who has other plans. And so we've hidden this relationship comedy within this Shaun of the Dead-esque zombie film. Our distributor calls it a rom-com-zom, which I sell sometimes. So it's ah it's a very fun film, but it's also so full of heart and it's laugh out loud and really high beats per minutes of jokes. And so I was...
00:20:16
Speaker
I had actually just wrapped production on that maybe three weeks before we got the call about Ina being funded, which at the time was like exciting and really scary because i was like, I still can't really feel my legs, but it's fine.
00:20:29
Speaker
That's fine. Yeah. And Ina is about 29-year-old Madeline who is a daytime TV producer of a failing cooking show. And she decides that the best thing to bring it back to life is to bring in some diverse guest chefs.
00:20:46
Speaker
But she loses her first guest chef the day that they need her through her own actions. She has to sprint into action to find a replacement. And with no one left, she turns to the studio's Filipino cleaner who happens to be her mother, who she's hidden from cast and crew.
00:21:03
Speaker
And then we have an estranged mother and daughter figuring out their stuff in real time over an almost real time work day as they put Gloria, her mum, in front of camera and she starts cooking beautiful Filipino food and unpacking a lot that comes with it.
00:21:20
Speaker
And so you said you got the funding three weeks before some Zombucha wrapped after three weeks after. Yeah. Okay. Three weeks
Simultaneous Production Challenges
00:21:31
Speaker
after. So can you talk about what the experience was like essentially producing these two very different formats kind of in an overlapping way?
00:21:43
Speaker
I wouldn't recommend. um And look, it was my first feature film and my first short film series. And I'm so grateful for the lesson from Zombucha that rolled into Ina There's some really practical things about producing that you just need to be equipped with to make decisions quickly. And especially on, you know, the budget of Ina It's like Zombucha a massive budget, but I was able to take those learnings across and also really look at how each part of our production team was equipped to do work they'd be proud of, even within tight time and budget constraints. That was something that on Zombucha it's a quirky, wacky film. You know, we're talking vibrant colours and there's a lot going on in that film. And it was such a joy to see the creativity of each of our departments just spring to life. partly because our director Claudia Dzienny holds this beautiful belief that the best idea wins. So we were working on a democratic set much of the time where it didn't matter where that idea came from, if that was going to make the film better, we were embracing that. And so that energy transfer across to Ina which was really a logistical, it was a heavy production in terms of we had 18 cast members who were like almost always called, which is a lot for for a feature, let alone an online series. Yeah, there were the logistical learnings that really helped. But one thing that was really interesting, I guess, was the economy of storytelling. So i we finished shooting Zombu cha in November 24, started in pre on Inna around January 25, and we're shooting by June 2025. And so as we were going through the final passes of scripts on Ina
00:23:27
Speaker
I was in the edit of Zombucha and going through the process of rough cut and fine cut and just, you know, pulling hairs out of it to make it faster, funnier, more impactful. And I think that that was a really nice experience on one end because,
00:23:41
Speaker
you're at the exact opposite end of a project. So you're mindful that everything that you can do on the page at the top is going to save you a decision that might cost you more down the track. Although Rach is a very economical writer, so there wasn't much fat to be cutting. But then also the tonal balance of both of them are walking comedy hybrids. So neither of them is a straight comedy writer.
00:24:04
Speaker
There's a lot of drama. There's moments of deep anguish in both of these projects. And that's kind of the tone that I love to play in because I don't know about you, but that's a day in my life. I'm like bawling one moment and then like laughing hysterically the next. And so that's a really natural space as storytellers to embody.
00:24:19
Speaker
But I think for me getting to go from Zombucha into Ina even though it was not at all fun on a calendar diary level, It just, I think it bolstered me into what was what's possible when you have a clear vision, when the leader of that vision in this in both of these cases, our directors are empowered to chase it.
00:24:41
Speaker
And as producers, that our responsibility is to push them into the biggest version of that vision while also really knowing what a heavy job they're doing and carrying them where we can.
00:24:52
Speaker
o And I suppose just on Zombucha so I saw that it was EP by Mark Woodridge from Maslow Entertainment who are also distributing. Can you talk through working with Mark how that came about?
00:25:11
Speaker
Gosh, I'm a big fan of Mark Woodridge. He's a fantastic champion of Australian film, film, It's going to sound like a cliche, but I'd say fierce filmmaking of he just puts his money where his mouth is. And there were so many people who when we were first pitching Zombucha were like, sounds funny, but it's execution dependent, which I'm like, is that just like an auto response in like execs emails? that Because we all know that means like maybe it'll be great and maybe it'll be terrible and I don't want to hold the bucket for that.
00:25:44
Speaker
But Mark just – I think he got it and he got us from early on and, you know, it's a film that also like tonally I wouldn't say that Zombucha is the, every film shifts as it goes but really finding that balance was an ongoing process but he,
00:26:02
Speaker
He really trusted our writing and directing team. um So Emma Leonard, who wrote the screenplay, and Claudia Dzienny incredible director. Like he just was, he once he decided to back us, he was all in.
00:26:16
Speaker
And I'm so grateful for not just his input from a distribution perspective, but the way that he has continued to be a real force for good for the film and going above and beyond in terms of what he can do to to help us with positioning um in the international market as well. So yeah, good egg.
00:26:36
Speaker
Okay, great. And, you know, on that note of releasing both a feature film and a online series, do you have any advice for producers from your learnings from that, from the actual release side of things? Yeah.
00:26:54
Speaker
We're not in release and on Zombucha just yet. We had our premiere. Oh, sorry. No, you're fine. I was thinking you had your premiere. Yeah, yeah withve with and we've there has been a lot of premiere. We were just premiered at Rain Dance um last month, which was so cool on the international side, and we premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival last year, which, oh, my gosh, Caris feeling of sitting MIFF, like this beloved festival that you've sat at so many times before.
00:27:21
Speaker
And it's the first time you're going to watch a film with an audience and just being like, should we should I stay? Should I just, like I don't know if i can do this. It was so rewarding. There were about 400 people there that night and the feeling of that room getting it and going on that ride with us was so refreshing and laughing at things we didn't even know were funny. That that was cool.
00:27:42
Speaker
And then it's interesting with Ina we did a cast and crew screening where we watched it all through without, you know, we watched it, all the episodes back to back. in person, and there were about 250 of us.
00:27:53
Speaker
And it was really fascinating to watch something that was designed for a small screen, almost solo viewing experience on a big screen where the Once again, i'm feeling the audience laugh when I hope they do, but I'm hearing all these beautiful Filipino moms laughing before those in the audience who don't speak Tagalog because they got the joke often before. And it was just so cool. So in terms of things that I've been learning from these releases,
00:28:21
Speaker
One thing that I just had like some object permanence blindness to, if I'm being really honest, is you push so hard
Audience Data and Future Plans
00:28:26
Speaker
to get to release. The feeling of waking up on the day that Ep1 was out, we'd had a clip go viral and hit like millions of views, which I was like, oh, yeah, right, the internet.
00:28:35
Speaker
But suddenly you you are connected to your work in a way, to to the audience response in a way that is so rare for any other format. So, you know, in distribution at times we'd have conversations with exhibitors about the fact that the distributor might pour all their work into a film for a year.
00:28:55
Speaker
The data they get back is a box office figure. It's a number. It's the exhibitors who have the email addresses, who understand the demographic breakdown, the location, the psychograph. Like they know how often that person opened an EDM before they went into cinema. The layers of removal from data are really challenging in this ecosystem of how do we all do it better to create more opportunity for Australian content.
00:29:17
Speaker
I can log in to the back end of YouTube and see exactly where our audience is, you know, and look at the times that they're watching and what when they're dropping off and when they're sharing. And so the immediacy of a community who we made this for responding was confronting in its beauty, I think. Like I just didn't, you kind of keep your hopes close to your chest and you just focus on what you can control.
00:29:41
Speaker
And it's been so incredible to see that response from this audience and And so then it feels almost like this step back with Zombucha where we're going out in cinemas and there will be so many layers between us as filmmakers and even between the distributors and the end audience member. And I find myself awake at night sometimes thinking about this because I'm also an audience member. I'm not just a filmmaker. Like how can we be in that conversation? There are many people in our industry discussing this, but...
00:30:07
Speaker
Sometimes it's not a hell of a lot more money we need. It's data and two-way communication. And so I'm in the midst of kind of looking at what I'm learning from this online process and figuring out how that can keep fueling a traditional long-form pathway in terms of audience engagement and making sure we're truly speaking to them from the beginning.
00:30:30
Speaker
And, you know, then speaking about the the actual um cinema release, do you have a date yet or 2026 broadly? i We do and I keep forgetting if I'm allowed to say it. So I'm going to not in case Mr. Mark calls me. um it's It's not far away. It's 2026. Okay.
00:30:52
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. um And you will hear. Yeah. If you're an Australian, please go see Zombucha Cinemas. It's a good time. Yes. And so that brings us to our final segment, which is the pay it forward segment. So that's where... You'll be asked a question from a previous guest and then if you can come up with a question for our next guest. So our previous guest was writer Ben Jenkins. And so this question is actually has more of a writing angle to it, but we can talk about it after. me. Okay. so Ben said.
00:31:34
Speaker
i think that. One of the most important things for a writer is to love the act of writing. Not always. um You don't have to just be sitting there with a manic grin on your face. But the act of creating something where there wasn't something before, if you can't find a way to enjoy that process, whether you are funded or not, like just the act of sitting at your computer and telling a story, i think if you cannot find a way to enjoy that, you are cooked more than anything else.
00:32:05
Speaker
And I've been reflecting on that lately because I'm wondering if that's something that I learned to do or if that's something that I naturally do, that I just have this predisposition to enjoy writing. And I suppose my question to your next guest would be, do you think that's innate?
00:32:22
Speaker
And if not, which I suspect it isn't, I suspect it's something that's learned or at least worked at, how do you find the joy in the act of writing?
00:32:32
Speaker
Look, I work really – I spend a lot of time in development working closely with writers and I will not take any credit where credit is due from them, but I'm i'm up close with that process. of You see the process. We think the draft is there and actually we're four drafts away.
00:32:47
Speaker
But I think that what's interesting about Ben's question is it's – I would say that for – ah the key creatives who are with projects from early inception through to completion, it's a really long journey. And so for me, I feel like he's asking questions around motivation and stamina, around what is the staying power of this love. And it's interesting that he thinks that it's, you said he thinks it's not innate. the Yeah.
00:33:14
Speaker
He suspects it isn't and it's learned. Yeah. I think I have i've seen two versions of this in the writers and directors and producers that I collaborate with, which is every project. There are some who are the most typical obsessors of the writing process itself who are just like, that's their high. I work a lot with Clare Sladden and you can pry that laptop out of her cold dead hands before she's That woman loves going back into a draft and it's so fascinating to see.
00:33:47
Speaker
And then there are other writers I work with who some of them are multidisciplinary as well and so they ah ah work in other formats and the way that that idea percolates in them is sometimes through movement or acting or and then it comes back later into the page. And so I think my understanding of this is when we strip away the version that tells us that doing this thing that we love looks like one way, there are many more ways in and many more stories that can be told when it's less of this, like, are you the anointed chosen one who is,
00:34:20
Speaker
does love a kind of traditional process or are you someone who needs
Producing: Challenges and Joys
00:34:24
Speaker
to talk their ideas out with a collaborator for two years or walk around the block with a voice note open and just that process of allowing yourself the privilege of letting that story out in whatever form it needs to.
00:34:36
Speaker
And I think the more that we can feel free to do it in different ways, the more interesting the outcome. So I don't know if I have a direct answer to that question so much as a what if we democratise the process a little bit and see what happens there first, being like, oh, I guess I'm not the one to make it because I don't want to spend 12 hours a day in final drafts.
00:34:57
Speaker
m Or an A to Z spreadsheet. I love that take on it. And I wonder if we look at, if we just do a little add-on from the producing side, do you think it's the same approach in, you know, how you find the joy in producing when not every day, you is a dream. Maybe it is. Almost every night, zero, before day one of a production for like the last decade, I have told my husband, i hate this. This is so dumb. Why did you let me do this? Why would you like encourage this? And without failing, he always says, tell me how you feel tomorrow night.
00:35:39
Speaker
And every time i am just like beside myself with joy, even if it was a bad day, even if we like, if it was a hard day, there's something about that environment that is such a privilege to get to be in. And I think for me, I'm working on this a lot right now, actually, because it's a slog. It's ah you're in the trenches if you're doing this, especially in a very moving industry.
00:36:03
Speaker
So that, that way of like, is this something innately that you feel called to or gifted for, or is this something that you learn and grow in? I think that I feel like I was always cut out for this kind of work and I can't actually imagine doing anything else, but I also am so grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow skills that allow me to feel more capable in the work that I'm doing and realize that I'm not static and this unwieldy thing can become a little bit more wieldy. Is that the, whatever. if you continue to to wrestle with it. And so I'm a big, big fan of process. And that's where I keep looking for the joy is anytime that I'm just like, shove it, this sucks.
00:36:48
Speaker
I'm like, wow, what a privileged thing to be complaining about. You get to conjure things into existence. You get to tell stories that allow more people to feel more seen and welcomed and at home within themselves. And you want to complain about that today? Like have a little complaint, but then buck up.
00:37:02
Speaker
so yeah one yeah my dog agrees i'm so sorry i yeah mine's um yeah yeah um well that was all my questions so we'll leave it there but thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today thanks for having me it's fun That was producer Danielle Redford. And remember, you can catch all six episodes of Ina on YouTube now. We've popped a link in the show notes. And keep an eye out for Zombucha in cinemas soon. This episode was produced and edited by myself with logo designed by Shara Parsons and music by Seb Sebotaj-Gavrilovic.
00:37:38
Speaker
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