Episode 4 - K. Bromberg

In this episode, Lauren, Ali & Tosca chat about their latest projects, including updates on 'Gabriel's Inferno,' casting details for 'Wicked,' and an in-depth discussion about the 'Driven' series. They share insights into their production process, reveal the challenges of remote interactions, and discuss future plans for shooting 'Fueled' and 'Crashed.' Special guest, Kristy Bromberg, author of the 'Driven' series, joins the conversation, discussing her writing journey, favorite scenes & anecdotes from the set. Fans will appreciate the behind-the-scenes stories, casting updates, and the team's enthusiasm for upcoming projects. Tune in for an engaging and informative episode with the Passionflix team and Kristy Bromberg!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Greetings
• 0:32 Weekly Updates and Projects
• 3:03 Author Collaborations and Aspirations
• 4:42 Special Guest: Kristy Bromberg
• 9:59 Driven Series Adaptation Insights
• 13:36 New Colton Casting Announcement
• 18:13 Upcoming Filming Plans
• 19:39 On-Set Experiences and Challenges
• 20:11 Favorite Scenes and Characters
• 23:09 Lessons from Previous Productions
• 26:00 Location Scouting and Set Design
• 27:29 Kristy's Cameo and Behind-the-Scenes Stories
• 37:11 Kristy's High Points and Career Reflections
• 41:27 Closing Remarks and Future Plans

Transcript

Lauren: All right. And the recording has started. Hi guys!

Tosca: Hi. Good to see you!

Lauren: And for those who don't know who are just tuning in this week, I'm Lauren and I'm the Director of Development at Passionflix.. 

Ali: I'm Ali, I'm the Director of Marketing and PR 

Tosca: And I'm Tosca. I'm the founder and CEO at Passionflix.

Lauren: Awesome. How are you ladies doing this week? It's it's fun to see you remotely. Yeah. Good to see you guys, too. It was awesome having Jodi Alamalfos join us last week. That was really great. That was amazing. I love working with her and now she's in England and so as I'm going to sleep at night, her and I are WhatsAppping and talking about, what's Different actors and all the awesome people that have been suggested so far On our searching for Jesse, and I know we're going to be doing a searching for Ava soon. So Excited to see those ones. But yeah, we get to chat about it. 

Ali: Super so many good suggestions Yeah, a lot. I've never heard of Yeah, 

Lauren: and Ali what have you been up to? 

Ali: Been working a little bit on wicked. We Are gonna try to do that cast reveal pretty soon. So I'm talking to Jennifer and talking to Taryn the director and hopefully we'll have that out very soon Exciting stuff.

Tosca: Very exciting. They're amazing casts. I look forward to Seeing everyone's reactions. 

Lauren: Awesome. Thank you. And Tosca you have you finished something with Gabriel's Inferno didn't you? in the process 

Tosca: Yeah, so we just finished color timing Gabriel's Inferno part one so that's a week long process where we adjust the color, to match everything on the in the entire movie and then We are now Finishing up sound.

I think one of the issues that we're having right now, of course, is that we have to do ADR or dialogue replacement with Giulio and he is in lockdown in Rome so we're still trying to figure that out to get him to a studio, but we will figure it out And then we'll be able to finish the movie 

Lauren: Nice. Oh, that's exciting. Just one more thing. 

Tosca: And we had And Margie's right next door to me over here, behind this wall that we, so we're not close to each other in any way. Editing part two. 

Lauren: Aw, Margie. That's awesome. Oh yeah she emailed me earlier today asking if I could Look up a part in the book where a certain song is mentioned.Yeah. I can just go search. 

Tosca: That's the other thing that I was doing this morning is finalizing a lot of our music contracts so that we can release a soundtrack and so looks like we'll have a lot of our music set by mid to end of June and so we should be able to release the soundtrack for Gabriel's Inferno.

Ali: Awesome. 

Lauren: Super exciting. I love that. And we had someone ask a question on our Emma Chase podcast, and they asked do you have a book slash series, or an author who you would love to work with? And I added on maybe who we haven't had a chance to either reach out to or haven't worked with yet.

Tosca: I personally would like to work with E. L. James. That's a good one. Yeah There's a goal. Hashtag goals. 

Lauren: Definitely goals. That's a good one. My ultimate dream is to eventually start being able to do historical romance like Tess Adair or Elodie Thomas is one that I recently got into. I have a whole list. Lisa Klepass, of course, which we already have her Sugar Daddy book. Can't wait for that. Yeah. It would be really cool. 

Ali: Yeah. There's a lot. I love Laurel and Paige. I yeah, love, love her. Also I really love A. L. Jackson. I think I've talked about her maybe on my own personal account here and there, but I love her.She's got. Really sweet books. 

Lauren: I just wrote down. I don't think I knew that 

Ali: Yeah, I she's got great books. I'm starting to see I think it was the first book of hers I read that's part of a series love her and I recently reread a book that I'd read a long time ago called collide by Gail McHugh but I Yeah, she it's a two part series, but those are some authors that I always have in mind

Tosca: I think I'm just going to let everybody know that I'm having a nice glass of white this afternoon.

Lauren: It is late afternoon for us, so that makes sense. And I believe we have lovely Kristy Bromberg joining us today. Hey! The New York Times bestselling author who is the fantastic creator of Driven. She'll be joining us today to talk all about that, the first series as well as Fueled and Crashed, which are upcoming with us.

So let me admit her into the call now. All right, she should be coming on in just a sec. Yay! Yay! 

Ali: Hi, Kristy!

Lauren: Hi! Can you hear us okay? 

Kristy: I can hear you. Can you hear me? 

Lauren: Yay! Yeah! Awesome, hi! Thanks for joining us today. 

Kristy: I'm all shy. I know! 

Tosca: You look great! I love the background. It's so colorful. 

Kristy: Yeah. Crazy colored office.Your hair is long! 

Tosca: Yeah I haven't been able to go to a hairdresser in a very long time. 

Kristy: I read somewhere something that said the first week was panic buying of toilet paper. The second week was panic buying of eggs or whatever. And now we're at the hair dye and hair clipper stage of panic buying.

Tosca: Yeah. 

Lauren: And then I bought red hair dye. I bought red hair dye, but then I told my mom and my sister that I bought it, and they were like, you are not allowed, and I'm like, you can't stop me. 

Ali: Lauren, I'm about to buy red hair dye. 

Tosca: I'm actually really liking the color that's coming out in my hair, I've just, been one of those people that's just highlighted my hair on a regular basis, and now I haven't, because I was shooting in Syracuse, and the day before my hair appointment is basically, was a shutdown, and Couldn't, it couldn't be my hair.

And now I'm like, oh, this is what that roots thing looks like. It's not so bad. I think I might just go natural. 

Kristy: You're doing self ombre. Self ombre. 

Tosca: Like brown hair to here, next, who knows. 

Lauren: And Kristy, we actually had a founding member who just wanted to comment and say, her name is Pam.

She said Your hair is always so gorgeous. I always want to run my hairdresser hands through it. And I'm so excited. Everyone is moving forward with the next books, they're awesome and you're awesome. So that was a nice message she left in the founding. 

Kristy: I don't know, everyone has this thing with my hair and I don't get it.

Tosca: You have great hair. 

Ali: Yeah, you have great hair. 

Kristy: But it's like funny because my daughter will want to braid it. She's your hair is so thin mom. I'm like, thanks, whatever. I like, I use like drugstore shampoo and conditioner. Like I'm just lucky, I don't know. 

Tosca: Yeah. Rub it in. Yeah. 

Lauren: How have you been, Kristy?Has it been like difficult for you to write or are you writing anything right now? 

Kristy: Okay, I'm all good. Homeschooling started yesterday. But like they have 30 minutes. That's all they did. Isn't this zoom supposed to be like all day so mama can work? No. I've been pretty relaxed about it I figure their life is planned and scheduled so much normally from school to soccer to homework.

I've been really kicked back, and my kids, I'm very fortunate, are tested on the upper end of their classes, so I figure, let them have a break. But, yeah, it's been really hard to write, you can't really sit down and think for more than five minutes straight without mom. Mom. Mom. Yeah, that's been difficult and I have a book due May 11th that I really haven't started yet.

The pressure's on. It's gonna be fun. But I usually do better that way, so we'll see. 

Tosca: Okay, that's good. Yeah, that's exciting. Any hints on the book? 

Kristy: It's actually gonna be called, I think, tentatively 30 with 40. I want to do an older, with 40. Flirting with 40. Oh! Flirting with 40! Yeah, I want to do someone, and it's funny because they're, it'd be younger than me anyway, but I want someone like for women our age that so yeah, maybe a younger man.

Older woman. Ooh! Sounds exciting! Yeah. I like it. Yeah. So we'll see. 

Tosca: 30 with 50 would be good too. 

Kristy: Yes, that would be. 

Lauren: And I was I was gonna start us off by also asking what, where the inspiration for the Driven series came from, because I'm sure a lot of your fans know, but in case anybody doesn't.

Kristy: How did it get in the air? Honestly. Out of college, I wrote, I had I wrote a book and I had some interest I really was like not in the right mind frame to have someone pick my stuff when I work apart. I was just like, you don't like it, whatever. And at that time we might have a story about A woman who worked like in a social, in a home, with kids, and I knew there was like a backstage meeting where they ran into each other, but that was like as far as I'd gotten.

And then I started reading, 50, and Jodie Allen, and Ray Miller, and I started reading all those books, and I had three kids under the age of five. I was desperate for brain stimulation. And so my husband traveled like 25 days out of the month for work. And so I was home a lot with kids. So one day I said, screw it, I'm just gonna write a book.

I could saw them doing it. Why couldn't I? And Colton was there. And so it all started around Colton. And then it just happened. No main like inspiration, but yeah, it's really cool here. We have Craziness.

Lauren: Yeah, because we adapted the first of the series driven back in 2018 and it was a huge hit Obviously and would you be able to talk about a little bit about what it was like getting your book adapted by us?

Kristy: Crazy . Everyone says, oh, you it's, you don't understand what it's like and you don't like, I remember when we were at the house and we did our first scene when Casey walked in his Colton in the black, it was like a warmup. Oh yeah. In the ca home. Yeah. And we finally got him to shave his hair in his beard.

So it was like. Never. We had, it took forever for us to get him to shave his hair and his beard. Yes. And he walked in the scene with Xander and it was just got tears in my eyes. It was crazy. That's, it's surreal. I think that's the biggest word to use is how surreal it is to see these images in your head be brought to life and to be brought to life in a way that like resembles so closely the book.

I think that was what was, there wasn't like a time when I was like, oh, yeah, that's not gonna work, you know It was like, holy crap. 

Tosca: Yeah, that's a really awesome compliment. Thank you. That's great 

Lauren: What was your favorite scene from the film that we.. 

Kristy: So this is a hard one because my favorite scenes have to do With things that happen behind the scenes so like a little bit of that the frogs. Forget the frogs. In, there's this, in, in the blooper reel, you have some of the frogs that we were in the house in Malibu, the frogs were so damn loud, and I remember everyone's out there with flashlights shining them on the frogs so we could get the scene filmed. Yeah, the P. A. 's had umbrellas slamming them on the walls.

Or like in Santa Monica Pier, Casey asked for an apple, and he bid an apple, and right before he had a kissing scene with Olivia, she's wait, I'm allergic to apples. Remember that? Look, those are the kind of things I remember watching it. And so it watching it for me takes away from like the movie, but it's more because I'm thinking of everything that happened in behind the scenes.

Tosca: Yeah. 

Kristy: That type of thing. So for me it's fun to watch it because I'm remembering Like, I was fortunate enough to be there a lot during filming, so to see all the stuff behind the scenes. 

Tosca: That's awesome. Yeah, it was great to have you there with us while we were filming, because just for me, every single time we'd film something, I'd look at you okay, I think we got it.

Kristy: Yeah, I think Laura and I had a bonding moment in our first sex scene take that we were in there. Okay! 

Lauren: Oh my god, there's 13 of us in this tiny room and it's getting really awkward here. It was a day where we were filming the big dance sequence on the dance floor with a bunch of extras. That was at the end of the day.

It was Mother's Day. It was the beginning of the day. We had that first hotel bedroom scene. And I was the only female AD, so I was the one requested to be in the room helping keep the shots going. ADs keep time during the day, so I was there to help with that. And then during it, because They're on the bed right there and you can't not see anything even though I can't come back into the wall any more than I am.

I was looking at the floor and Kristy was looking at me. We're both trying not to laugh and trying not to like make a noise. 

Kristy: Cemented our friendship, that was cemented our friendship forever. Yeah. 

Tosca: And there's me, I'm like, and the hand goes down the face, down the neck. 

Kristy: And when you said, and cut. And cut!

Lauren: They weren't cutting, it was great. I couldn't hear you. I got too into it, it was funny. 

Tosca: It was funny, it was good. And it turned out to be a really great scene, so that was good. 

Lauren: Yeah. I thought, with that being said, we should address the elephant in the room, which is that for those of you who don't know, Casey will not be returning for the role of Colton.

In the next two movies, and Christie and Tosca, would you be able to tell us a little bit about the new Colton, or what can you tell us, if any? 

Kristy: Tell it to me, Tosca. 

Tosca: Oh! Yes it is unfortunate and Casey, congratulations to him, got a series and he'll be off filming in Canada for the next couple of years, and and so it was a little tricky for us to get him to come back to the Driven sequels So there's more to that, but we are moving on and we have found another really awesome guy. I almost said his name. 

Ali: Don't! I will come out. 

Tosca: But a really great guy. And he he's read all the books. He is really enthusiastic about the entire series about Passionflix, about the Driven series in general the fandom around it, and is excited about being involved. And the wonderful thing was that him and Olivia have really gotten along well, and she's sitting there and she's talking him through what it's like to be in the Driven movies and part of the Driven world and each each conversation was like.

They're very enthusiastic. We will be there for them. And he's this is going to be great. Sounds great. Okay. Sounds good. And he has this incredible smile. So I think it's going to, he's going to, he's going to play it really well. He's beautiful, playful attitude. Drunk Colton's going to be really really awesome.

I'm excited about that. 

Kristy: Yeah. He's very cute. 

Tosca: He is very cute. The whole office did stop working for a while. 

Ali: I almost passed out. 

Lauren: It wasn't fair because he did, what did you guys do as a chemistry read? He came in and he did what? 

Kristy: What scene did they read for the chemistry read? 

Tosca: They actually read the entire script.

So they weren't supposed to. They were supposed to just come in and just just read, a couple of scenes. And instead we started with scene one and then I was like I had multiple meetings set that day. We were here from 10 o'clock in the morning until 3 o'clock in the afternoon, just reading through every scene, discussing it, going through the book, and and then the two of them nodding at each other and chatting about the scene and how they portray it, and, yeah, it ended up being a very long chemistry read. But it was good. 

Kristy: A lot of, we really have to have sex on a car? No. 

Tosca: No. This is the most hilarious thing. And when you get to know him, I was like, Okay, this is when you're going to have sex in the car. And he's okay, that's no problem. I've done that before.

And I was like, hang on a second. 

Rewind. Hang on. I'm sorry, what? And he goes, oh yeah, so no, I figured that out. Listen, and I can't say where he's from because you guys are gonna find him. He's like, where I'm, where I was brought up, that was just like the kind of things that you did for fun. So yes, I've had sex like that before in a car. So I'm like that's convenient. So I guess you will just 

Kristy: No lessons for that day, be able to show us how it's done. 

Ali: Then he can direct the scene 

Tosca: , and he does racing and he it's like he's like he's a Colton come to life, he is, he's actually actively involved in, besides sex in a car.

He's actively involved in some, many of the other things that are listed physically with the character. Does. 

Kristy: I'm not gonna have that image out of my head now. 

Tosca: Oh, I know! 

Lauren: Thanks for that, Tosca. And I know what he looks like, so it's just gonna be right there. 

Tosca: I have no doubt that he's probably listening to this, so I'm sorry that I gave that away.

But thank you for your help in coordinating the scene. 

Lauren: And Ali, we had a founding member, Christiania, I think if I said it asked if we were going to get a teaser reveal at all for Colton at some point. And I know that I think you and Tosca have one planned. 

Ali: Yes, Tosca came up with a really badass idea. Yeah. So yes, we will. And we'll have it out a little closer to filming, but it'll be worth the wait. Tosca's idea was just great. 

Tosca: I love it. It'll be fun. It'll be fun. It'll be geeky and fun. 

Lauren: Awesome. And then So yeah, the plan is still to shoot fueled and crash this year pending Covid-19 and how that all pans out.

Tosca: Yeah. Our start date for shooting both movies back to back was April 6th so not convenient time. We We're in our first week of prep for the movies when we shut down. As soon as we come back, again this is all everybody's availability and weather dependent and all the other things that have to be done.

But the idea is that we will try to film We'll try to pick up as we can, almost immediately, in the same order as we can when we come back. But we also have to film this man, and that one's scheduled for the only summer weather in Europe. So we would, we will either try and shoot it just before this man, or just after.

But it will be filmed this year, for sure. 

Lauren: Okay, cool. And as soon as possible. As soon as possible. No, totally. And I think everybody understands that and is, and they're being very nice about the fact that COVID has changed a lot of how the industry will work. Thank you for your patience.

Yeah, there's not a choice. It's really, it's wild. 

Tosca: Krista, are you going to be with us on set? 

Kristy: I will try to, yes. Thank you. 

Lauren: Yay, because that was really fun. There was one moment because I was, I think I was the third AD on that, or the second AD on that, and I'm in charge of wrangling a lot of the kids when they were on set and Kristy at one point looked over at me, and she was like, so are you happy I wrote a lot of kids into the book, or is that not cool?

I was like, no, Kristy, it was really great, thanks for this. Another bonding moment is All the kids that you have in the book. And Kristy, without giving spoilers away what scene from Fueled are you most looking forward to see on screen the most? Or this is a spoiler warning. You can spoil, we'll just spoil.

Kristy: Yeah. I have a soft spot for Bex. 

Tosca: Yeah, 

Kristy: so all the romance moments I'm looking forward to those and I Bryce is just such a cool guy Like I look forward to that. You know fueled that book has so many moments in it I'm like going through them in my head and it's funny enough like reading the script.

I was like, oh, I forgot that happened Oh, I forgot that happened. It's been like seven years for me because I wrote it Definitely the bromance moments the Colton's drunk moments I think it's funny and then, see, I have to get, I get a lot of books confused. I get the scenes mixed up, so I'm trying to think between Crash and Field which ones?

And the ending. 

Tosca: We have the, we have the whole Vegas bit. 

Kristy: Yeah, the ending. On the ending. That's my favorite ending I've ever written. 

Lauren: Amazing. 

Tosca: That ending, that is going to be so intense. Four words. So awesome. Yeah. I visualize it so much in my head and we have some race teams that are going to be helping us and then we have a whole visual effects team that's helping us with this one as well because it's obviously a much bigger movie with all the racing and I can just, I just see Olivia as Riley.

I just see her, the reaction that she has during this during this thing that happens at the end. I don't know if I'm allowed to say, but this is it. And and just people running by and just smoke, and you just see the person's face and you hear their words. 

Kristy: Yeah, I think one of the other scenes is, that I want to see obviously, is the scene before that, before the ending happens between the two of them, but, the scene where there's a fight in the hotel, and she Like walks out afterwards and he chases her like there's a scene there that is probably like one of my favorite scenes I wrote like in that book and so I just seen it just I'll be all of it's so hard to pick because there's so many parts of that book that I forget till I read it and For me there were like specific parts of my life Like my son was really young then and he loved spider man and that's where the whole I spider man Batman I mean because I it was on ad nauseum on my TV while I was writing the kitchen counter.

So just little parts of my life are in that book that people don't realize. So for me, it's just be cool to see the whole thing. 

Tosca: And that's such a, but that's such a beautiful element to the whole series is these these little things that, that kids can hold on to, to give them strength and give them hope and in these dire circumstances.

And I think that's just, that's a really beautiful and very original element from my side of things, not knowing too much about that world. You added. 

Kristy: Thank you. I get all shy. 

Lauren: And we have a couple of questions from founding members as well. Patty asked, what did you learn from being on the set of Driven that you will take with you onto sets of Fueled and Crashed?

So for me, something that I learned in the whole process is how you can say so much with so little. It's actually changed how I write now. Wow. Especially because those books were my first books, so I was really wordy and there's a lot of repetition. And since then I've evolved as a writer.

But for me, I remember when I first got the script for Driven, I'm like, You're missing all these stuff! And Tess was like, just trust me I don't need it written down like the actors get it. So for me, that and what did I learn? How many people it takes to make everything work. I was astounded and so grateful for everyone behind the scenes that I don't even think people realize how many people are there.

Just the grip, holding the stupid microphone for so long. I'm like, dude, you must have really good shoulder and arm muscles because I'd be like dying. Just, there were, there's so many parts to the machine that, to me, that was so fascinating to watch. I remember at one point, you're like, Will you stop Kristy because you're just gonna kick me out of the job next time because it was so It was such a learning process for me so i'm excited to get back into it just for that the behind the scenes stuff that I got to learn 

Tosca: That's awesome.

Lauren: That's awesome 

Tosca: Yeah, it is there are a lot of people that are involved in each individual day of making bringing everything together and We're so grateful to all those crew and we're very fortunate at Passionflix that so many of the crew that we work with Work with us on all of our films and and it was the first day that you arrived which is day one at the At the home.

Our first AD was there and he was new he'd never worked with us before and he was so concerned He's like We've got to get there early. We've got to make sure the crew gets to work. We've got to make sure and then we arrived and the crew had already started working before their call time. They were just like going and he's this is amazing.

How is everyone just they're working without me telling them to do their jobs? I was like, oh, they've worked with us on a number of Passionflix movies before so they're family. Yeah, it was really nice that we have that and so most of them will be returning for the peoples. Yeah. 

Lauren: We actually, we haven't filmed in L. A. since Driven. 

Tosca: I know. Oh wow. 

Lauren: We haven't filmed a feature in L. A. since then because so many other states have either different tax benefits or that's where the books take place. So we need to be in those weather climates, that'll be really exciting to get the whole gang back together. I know, right before April 6th, I was reaching out being like hair and makeup, are you guys still available?

Can you come back? And our sound guy and all that, all those people, they were like, yes, of course, we'll come back. And it's cool. Yeah. Damn COVID. I know. And Lauren, so getting back to founding member questions founding member named, I can't talk, founding member named Lauren asked did the locations used in the Driven series match a lot of what you had pictured or referenced in the book?

Kristy: Yes. Yeah. The house in Malibu. Yeah. I remember when we first went to that, what is the wooden place, the John Wayne house up above it? Yeah. The coffee house thing. And I'm like, Okay, where exactly are we? And then it was like, oh no, we're going to that house down there. And seeing it, it was like, it was perfect.

Like absolutely perfect. Yeah, the scenes were great. So for the sets were great. Even walking into the house, like walking into it and seeing all the kids stuff. It was just, yeah, I was super impressed with how real and lifelike everything came to my imagination. 

Tosca: Yeah, that, that house in Malibu, we actually are not sure if it was burnt down I think it might have been affected by the fires we're just, please, give us, cut us some slack if that happens, we're gonna do what we can to recreate it, but we'll do what we can do, oh my god, I can't prevent fires in Malibu, 

Kristy: I didn't even think about that, actually, wow, 

Tosca: Yeah so some, yeah. But anyway, we'll follow up with that and, Whatever. It'll be great. As we got it covered. It's the story that matters. 

Lauren: And we had another founding member ask what your cameo was like, if you enjoyed being in the cameo for the Santa Monica Pier scene. 

Kristy: We only had so much time on Santa Monica Pier.

Yeah, we can only have so many people on Santa Monica Pier at a time for insurance reasons And so we were like running out of time And I think we had one more we I got one take and then we had to go on the ferris wheel Then we had to get off before they got upset So I remember we ran for it one time and obviously I know the lines because I wrote them, but it's still get worried.

You're not going to have them. And I remember walking up and I said something to Casey like This is nerve wracking, and I will never forget, he said to me, next time you try it wearing a cocksock. I will never forget that. And Tosca yells, action! And I'm like, trying not to laugh. And at one point I had my hand right here during the whole thing, because I was, I had my hand I was covering my mouth laughing so hard.

There's, my daughter's like, why is your hand because I was trying not to laugh. So yeah that's what happened right before that scene, and that's why I think I talk super, super fast in that, because I'm like, oh my god, get me out of here. 

Ali: That's so funny. 

Kristy: No one knew that at the time, and I'm like, and I remember thinking, god, he's talking super slow.

I didn't realize, like, how much they practiced talking slow, versus I was like no, we're done. Actually, yeah. So yeah, so no, I don't know what it's like to wear a cocksock. Thank god. 

Lauren: Yeah, totally fair. Oh my god, Kristy. That's hilarious. And we have another founding member, Lucy, asked, what's the one book you wish you had been a part of, whether it was as a character or as an author?

Kristy: I don't know what she means by that. I'm looking, because I had, I've had that what book I had written. Or been a part of in the I would love to answer, I'm just not sure what she means.

Lauren: I almost think she means any book, which is even harder to answer. 

Kristy: Fifty Shades, like that.

Lauren: I was gonna say, we can all answer this one if we want. 

Kristy: I think I'm happy with where things are. Like, I think everything happens for a reason. And if those movie and those books and all the books before me hadn't done, I wouldn't have done this. So for me, I'm okay with where it is and where I am.

Lauren: Love it. 

Tosca: Good. 

Lauren: And we had a founding member named Karen ask, what was it like, oh wait, no, I, she was the one who asked about the cameo. Yeah. Sorry, Karen. And that was the last question I had. Oops. Amazing. That was very fast. So yeah, that's the last founding member question. Can you talk at all about any other of your experiences on set?

Um, what it was like meeting Riley for the first time or seeing Riley for the first time. 

Kristy: Oh, she's so sweet. It's ridiculous. I love Olivia. Olivia is just so sweet. It's interesting to me because When we first got the roles, I didn't know much about either actors, and I was nervous about her role because I hadn't seen her act, I hadn't seen her, and she owned that role.

I just love, and I love how she was very un social media savvy, and I talked to her and was like, look if you embrace these readers who are so passionate about these books they will love you back. And I love how much she I was totally fine with it, and sure, no problem, yeah I, she's just genuinely a really nice human being, and I really enjoyed working with her.

Tosca: Yeah, she's great. I remember when we did our first read through of Driven and and we were, I was with Casey and Olivia, and they were talking, and at one point Casey was like, I'm really nervous about saying some of these lines to her, these are like some serious lines that, that Colton says to Riley, and Olivia turns and goes, bring it.

I'll give it right back to you. Don't you worry about me. And I was like, oh, you're the perfect answer. That's just the perfect answer. It's bring it. You just try. And she did. Every single time that he, that Colton says says something that, that normally you'd be like, how could you say something like that?

And she's I don't think so. I've got this. It was, it's really beautiful to see her portray that role and I'm very happy that she's returning because I think that makes that's really gonna make the next two books just play so well for all of us. 

Kristy: I'm trying to think what, I think the garbage trucks when we were at their house Riley and I'm just gonna say Kenzie Caddy's house.

The garbage, it was like garbage truck day and we could not get a an actual scene take because the garbage trucks kept going over and like every time we'd get action it'd be like, and the garbage truck comes 

Lauren: or an airplane 

Kristy: or airplane. Yeah. Try and think what else? The beach in Malibu, how windy it was. And we couldn't get the dog to come up to them, so we had to put peanut butter on Casey's arms. 

Tosca: Yep, yeah, there are all these little things, these little behind the scenes things that I forget, because, we're used to them on every movie, and I'm like, okay all right, so we're gonna have sound issues because of the ocean, we're gonna have, the frogs was a new one for me and they didn't check about the the garbage trucks, but even the sound at the at the Santa Monica Pier.

At the Santa Monica Pier, they're playing music pop music on the radio there, and so we're not allowed to have that in the movie, because you can't listen to a Beyonce song in the middle of a movie, but also, when you're shooting a movie, you're shooting one person's face first, and then you shoot the other person's face, and different music would be playing for each person, we have to redo all of the sound for that. 

Kristy: I think that was something that fascinated me, is how many takes it takes. 

Tosca: Yeah. 

Kristy: Oh great, we did this scene. Oh wait, but hold on! We have to do a close up on each actor's face. We have to do a close up on their motions and their hands. And it's oh my god, four hours later, you're on the same damn take!

Tosca: Yeah, the same scene. It takes a while. 

Kristy: That was, that was, like, to me, was mind boggling. 

Tosca: Yeah, I think we can describe it as a, I try to explain. So if a movie is a 100 pages, we have to assume that we'll be able to film about four to six pages in one day. And so that's how long it takes to film a movie, right?

It takes four, Five, four to six pages a day, and that's roughly one minute per page, unless it's how I film, and then it's about two and a half minutes per page, because I like it to be long, 

Kristy: are we, and you may have answered this before I came on, are we doing the same kind of series, scenes, or as we could, it just depends on what happens?

Tosca: I think it it's written as a script so it's written as a script, but just like Gabriel's Inferno was written as a script, all of them and Driven was written as a script. 100 page script or something like that, or 96 page script, and it was two hours and 40 minutes. It should have been 100 minutes.

And so the, these scripts are 115 pages. It, it really depends on how the performance is. It could be released as one long movie. It could be really it, the reason why we released Driven as Six parts is because it was so long. We didn't want to trim anything and cut it back And in order to complete that in a timely fashion We have to break it up so that post production can handle the small pieces at a time in order to deliver something At all.Otherwise, we wouldn't wait so much longer to be able to deliver anything 

Kristy: So and I was asking that because I get that question asked a lot. So that's why 

Tosca: I was yeah it was never intentional to release it as those parts and 

Kristy: So I think It wasn't like they waited long. It was three episodes released, and then a week, and then three episodes released. So it's not like It was two weeks, or three weeks, yeah. It wasn't like months. 

Tosca: No. We just had, we had to go back to work. We hadn't finished the second part, the second three episodes. So as soon as we had the premiere of the first episode, I then spent the next three weeks finishing the next.

Three episodes and then we were able to release it. So it just wasn't finished yet. We literally finish a movie and it comes like hot off the presses and goes right onto the platform. We're into this the theater it just we don't wait, Yeah, so I think it just comes down to how we edit this one together and what really how it feels, I think, at the end of the day, and how much how quickly we can release it, because if it ends up being a three hour movie, or even a two and a half hour movie, If we break that up into two parts, or if it's three hours, we break it up into two parts, an hour and a half and an hour and a half only so that we can release it quicker.

Otherwise, we would release a three hour movie. Copy that with Gabriel's Inferno, it's five hours and five and a half hours. 

Lauren: A lot, 200 page script. It was something very well, but yeah, it's good. 

Tosca: Stop anyway. 

Lauren: But yes. Yeah. And I actually have one last question for you. Kristy, cause this was a fun one that we asked Jody last week.

Which was what has been the. High point in your career, I think was the question, and she had a really fun answer. 

Kristy: Okay, what was her answer? Wait a minute, tell me. 

Lauren: Hers was getting number one on New York Times, which was Getting that phone call. Yeah, she got the phone call, that was her moment. 

Kristy: Wow. I think all of it. This was not supposed to be my life. Like, for me, I released Driven, and I promised I would release a second book in three months, which was insane for me to do because I'm, like, this new author. And so we, I released Fueled, and it did really well.

I personally messed up registering my ISBN numbers with this, so my agent called me she's oh my god you sold this many copies you're gonna hit you're gonna hit and I didn't hit because I messed up so that was the point that I realized oh my god like This could really happen like I had never crossed my radar like at all So then when crashed came out and it was insane.

And there was behind the scenes there was this big struggle with should I have sold? Like I had offers from publishers to sell the series. And should I take it? Should I keep the series and I ended up keeping the series because crash was so long That I knew a publisher was going to take it chop it in half and release it as four books And that's not what I promised readers.

And so then they would have to pay twice as much for one, for the single book. And I just wasn't comfortable with it. So I kept it. And when I released that is in India, I hit number two. I remember everyone calling me saying, you should have sold it. You would have hit number one. And for me, but it was like, I think probably that was the, but I think every day is I get to do what I love.

Like I get to have. have the opportunity to be home with my kids when I need to, like right now. But for me it's Like this was not supposed to be my life. This is, so I think every day I'm just amazed that I get to do this and When people email me and say such and such a book helped them or things with watching There's a scene in Crash with Colton and it lays everything on the line with Riley about what has happened to him That scene has I get more emails about that scene like thank you so much because that's happened to me And you've helped me go get counseling like that kind of thing.

There's nothing that can top that Because you don't, words are powerful and you don't expect your words to ever affect people that you've never met, but they do. So it's hard to answer that for me just because I'm so blessed to be able to do this and to somehow have some kind of talent to do this when it never crossed my radar.

Tosca: So what was your plan? What did you have? 

Kristy: My degrees are in economics and political science. 

Tosca: Oh, okay. 

Kristy: Yeah. So I was Doing accounting and working as a purchasing agent. Nothing to do. Yeah, and so I've never taken a writing class in my life. I just read a lot and I wanted to try something. 

Tosca: Awesome, that's very inspiring. I hope people hear this and they go and do the same thing, follow that passion. 

Kristy: Let's think I was 30 Five when I did it, 36. So yeah. So I always tell my kids, see, you can always change your mind and do something different if you want to. That's really always. 

Tosca: Yeah. 

Lauren: Oh, that's awesome. 

Tosca: Yeah, this is awesome.It's been so nice to see you. 

Kristy: I know it feels like forever. 

Tosca: It has been forever. I look forward to Spending about what four weeks together and don't be picking me. Don't worry Actually, it will be like seven weeks seven weeks six to seven weeks that we'll be spending together this year. So That's gonna be an exciting time for us.

We'll get to know each other really well. Yeah. You and Lauren will, formalize that friendship for sure. 

Kristy: Yeah. In the middle of sex scenes. Great 

Tosca: . Exactly. Have somebody with me. 

Lauren: It's gonna beautiful.

It's gonna be awesome. Thank you so much for joining us, Kristy, and I hope you have a good rest of your week and we'll talk to you soon. 

Tosca: Yeah, stay safe. We'll see you soon. Take care. Bye.

Tosca: It's so nice to see these authors that I spent so much time with again. So great.

Ali: It's still just a little surreal to me, even though I've been working with Passionflix since August, that I get to talk to so many of these authors, because Driven was One of the earlier books that I read when I really started diving deep into the romance genre.

So it's still I still have pinch me moments and that was really exciting to talk to Kristy. That's awesome 

Tosca: It's pretty amazing, right? We get we have this opportunity. And this connection for me I actually can call some of these authors now friends, which is really great and a little Definitely a pinch me moment.

It's what I read your work Oh now I know you now. 

Lauren: Oh yeah, it's like a very much of a starstruck moment like a oh my god. Hi it's awesome. 

Tosca: Awesome. Thanks guys. It's been a really fun podcast again. 

Lauren: Yeah And thanks for signing on and I think we'll have some more people joining us soon We're still reaching out to more authors to chat with and I think maybe at some point we'll get some cast members in too We'll try to keep more fun things coming your way.

If you have any comments about today's episode, leave them below and we will see you guys soon. 

Tosca: See you guys soon. Thanks so much. Bye.