PassionPod
PassionPod is a Passionflix podcast hosted by Tosca Musk, Ali Whitaker and Lauren Olsen. Each week, they discuss Passionflix projects with special guests including authors and actors who have appeared in Passionflix films.
PassionPod
Passionflix's Year-End Roundup 2022
Welcome to our Passionflix 2022 Year-End Roundup! In this episode, Ali (Director of Marketing and PR), Lauren (Director of Development), and Tosca (Founder and CEO), discuss their recent relocation to Georgia and their long-awaited return to the PassionPod. They share their latest reads, including 'A Merry Little Meet Cute' by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone, and 'Booked On a Feeling' by Jayci Lee. The team provides updates on upcoming film projects like 'Gabriel's Redemption' and 'Wait with Me', and discuss their experience filming in historical locations in Europe. They also touch on the new series adaptation, 'The Secret Life of Amy Bensen', which will premiere in December. Thanks for listening and Happy Holiday Season! On to 2023!
Ali: Hi everybody.
Lauren: Hi.
Tosca: Hello.
Ali: We're happy to be back here with a new PassionPod. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Ali. I'm the Director of Marketing and PR,
Lauren: and I'm Lauren. I'm the Director of Development,
Tosca: and I'm Tosca, and I'm the Founder and CEO of Passionflix.
Ali: It's been a while.
Tosca: It feels weird to be gone a long time.
So much has happened. Yeah. When was the last time that we did a PassionPod? Was it must have been almost a year ago it feels like. Did we?
Ali: Yeah it's been even longer than that. I can't remember.
Tosca: Well, I guess, you know, at this point we can just tell everybody that we have now relocated to Georgia.
Lauren: Well, I think we did do a PassionPod from Georgia.
Ali: It might've been with, did we? I don't even releasing or something.
Lauren: Yeah, we might've done something like that. I, but yeah, I also can't remember the last episode.
Tosca: No, I think we started this when we were all like in Montana in 2020.
Lauren: Yeah.
Ali: Yeah. It was a Covid decision. It was good Covid decision, but yeah,
Lauren: it was a good idea to be on your part. You're like we can't make movies right now, but let's try to see what we can make in the meantime. And PassionPod came about.
Tosca: I think it was a team decision, but yes. Sure. Yes, I'll take it.
Ali: Well, we have a lot of updates to give today, but let's start with what we've been up to lately and what we've been reading.
Lauren, what have you been reading?
Lauren: I've been reading a few things. Most recently I read our Passionflix Pick for December, which is A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone. Read it in two days. I was like, this is so good. Oh, good. So I, yeah, I enjoyed reading it. It's about a a female porn star who gets selected to be in kind of like a Hallmark esque movie for this, sub subscription channel called HopeFlix. And the director picks her kind of like, just from her headshot. And then she's cast and the guy who ca is casted opposite her is an ex boy band member that she was fans of. And he also follows her, basically it's an OnlyFans account called, I can't remember what it's called.
Oh, closed door. Closed door account. And so he instantly recognizes her and slowly it's like an admission of their like mutual fan love for each other. And then they fall in love with, it's adorable. And very funny. So I had a very fun time reading that and I'm glad it's our Passionflix Pick.
Ali: Oh, love it.
Tosca: Sounds great. I look forward to people posting their comments and their thoughts on the book.
Lauren: I'm excited to see more people read it and give feedback. I've also been reading, I also read a Booked On a Feeling by Jayci Lee. It's a story about Korean Americans and it's adorable. She's a lawyer who goes to back to her hometown and helps a local bookstore kind of get back on its feets and falls in love with like her childhood best friend at the same time.
It's really cute.
Tosca: Feels very hallmark.
Lauren: Yeah, that's fair.
Tosca: It's like, I think that's every, that's the premise of most Hallmark movies.
Lauren: Yeah, no, totally. But totally got me right in the feels and it was adorable. And I'm a big sucker for bookstores, so any story with a bookstore, I'm like, yes, people do it.
And then I'm gonna start reading Faking with Benefits by Lily Gold, which is a, I believe it's a reverse Harem Romance, so I know we have a lot of fans asking for those, so that'll be exciting.
Tosca: Wow.
Ali: Yes. I am currently reading Steel King by Devney Perry, which is an mc romance that takes place in Montana that a lot of people have recommended.
It's really, I like it so far. It's good. It's good stuff. I'll report back on it. I'm just a few chapters in, but I'm really digging it and it's about a reporter and the head of, now what's the word? The mc club or motorcycle club that's not currently active. And yeah, she's trying to dig into their club a little bit more and, you know, it's gonna be an Enemies to Lovers thing and I'm loving it.
Lauren: Love it. Inner kind.
Ali: Yeah. And then I know I talked about it on social media recently, but I read Kandi Steiner's A Love Letter to Whiskey Finally. 'cause that is one that had been pointed out by a lot of people. And I mean, that is probably one of the most angst books I've ever read in my life. And I was super stressed out and I stayed up all night reading it because I was so stressed out.
I just gotta know how it ends. It was so, I had to know. I had to know, because it was one of those books where I feel like other people have gone through this, that even though in romance, I know there has to be a happy ending. Every once in a while there's a book that convinces me that it might not happen, or this might be the book that ended up in the wrong category, so I had to finish it.
I really loved it.
Tosca: I look forward to getting my book recommendations, guys. I know. Oh, we have a lot for you. We've got a bunch to send. Yeah. Right now I'm reading The Falling by Anna Todd. Ah, love. I'm Loving it. It's actually it's one of those books that for some reason I, you know, when I put it down, then I just go around the rest of the day.
You just constantly are thinking about it.
Yep. Oh, that's a good thing.
It's a really okay. I just feel like I'm really, I think she's really a lot of words of a lot of reallys here, but basically the characters are beautifully described and they're the emotions that they're experiencing is it's very real. I'm enjoying it. But most of my time is spent reading redemption. Over again.
Lauren: So how has that been going t because you're in the midst, you, well you just finished filming Italy and UK portions and in the midst of press prep for us.
Tosca: Yes. It's going, we've, we were in Oxford for a week. We were filming there. I. We filmed at Morlin College. I always thought it was Magdalene College, but it's Morlin College.
And they corrected me. They did. I also, yes. And so we shot there. We shot at St. Anne's. We shot in so many of the places actually listed in the book, and I'm. Absolutely thrilled that we were allowed to shoot in some of these places that are hundreds of years old. So it's, it was some of 'em a thousand years old.
It was pretty magical. And then right after Oxford, we went to Florence and we got to film in the Uffizi gallery again. And that was beautiful. And then I read, you know, the prints so that I could understand what happens there. It's really interesting. I hadn't realized the very strong connection at the very beginning of the books of the Prince's book.
And then and then we went to Umbria and we filmed again in the beautiful villa that Julia and Gabriel, Giulio and Melanie, Julia and Gabriel have. And that was really just. Magical again, I love that place. It's, I'm so grateful to SR for providing us with these places that we get to go to and film these beautiful stories.
So that was all done and now we're back in the US and we are building all of our sets here for a lot of the Gabriel and Julia. Location. So their home, the Clark home, because the Clark home was renovated, it's a totally different place and so is their Massachusetts home. So we can't actually use the same places because they weren't renovated.
So we are building them and
Lauren: so cool that we can do that , T.
Tosca: I know. It's cool. It's fun. We're gonna have another conversation today about how we're building these sets, and then we start shooting again in January.
Ali: Can you tell us about how many weeks we have left in the shoot?
Tosca: Yes. We have five more weeks of filming.
A lot more, A lot. It feels like it's, you know, we've already shot for four weeks, so that's a very long shoot for us. Well script. That makes sense. It's a 213 page script, I think. Yeah. Wow. Very long.
Lauren: For those people who are new to like film industry stuff, a typical movie script is 90 to a hundred pages, so.
But this is, and we're filming three movies at once. Yeah.
Ali: Oh man. And for our founding members and signature members, I know a lot of people have been asking about set visits, and we are working on the schedule right now. Of course, we're always going to get those out as soon as possible. But if you're not a signature member yet and you want to.
Come visit us on set and come to premieres. Yeah. Now's the time to sign up. Yeah.
Tosca: Yeah. We have a number of scenes that we will be filming here in Atlanta that we would, I'd be very happy to invite signature members and founding members to come and their scenes, which would include almost all of the characters, so, oh, awesome.
We have scenes where we have Paul and Christa and Gabriel and Julia, and Picton and and so, and even Ani, yes. So there are a lot of different scenes that are available that are coming up that we could invite people to.
Ali: Great. That's great. And Tosca, a lot of people have been asking about the Prince and can you just tell us how incredible was his performance?
Tosca: He was so good. He was perfect.
Lauren: Yay.
Tosca: And he's such a wonderful person in real life. That's wonderful. So yeah, it was just an absolute pleasure to work with him and I can't wait to introduce you to him. Yeah, but it's gonna be a while. It's gonna be a while. Ali will not let us tell you who it is. So, you know, really at the end of the day, it's Ali's fault.
Lauren: I wonder if we'll get a spoiler moment again.
Tosca: I will, you know, he's a great person and and he performed the. Perfectly awesome. And so I'm excited for you guys to meet him. Yeah,
Ali: Maybe we'll give a little sneak peek of him soon.
Tosca: Yes.
Ali: Might not reveal a whole lot, but maybe you'll get something
Lauren: we're good at the non revealing sneak peak
Tosca: back of his head.
Ali: Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. Sounds about right.
Lauren: That image broke the internet. They were like, we're this close to seeing who Gabriel is. Oh my God. She's not telling us.
Ali: Oh. And and we recently filmed, wait with me? Yes. Yes.
Tosca: Well, so just so you ask about what's going on at at Passionflix.
You know, we were filming we started off during this last. You know, quarter of 22. Literally it's been the last three months or so. Still in 2022 right now, I feel like. Yeah. We filmed, wait with me. Redemption and two seasons of a series. So we shot so much in this very short period of time trying to build up our momentum for next year.
So, you know, one of them obviously we shot redemption or part of redemption, and then we shot weight with me, which is an amazing romantic comedy. So I look forward to. Everyone watching that, but go ahead. Lauren and Ali, you guys were on set quite a bit. I was filming in Europe.
Lauren: Oh yes, you were gone. Were busy.
Ali: You did miss out on some fun, but you had a lot going on. It was, had a lot going on. I thought. Every set, yeah, every set is so different and I love it. I love going to every different set and having Amy Daws, there was. I mean, she is a ball of energy and joy. She's so fun. And it just I just loved, I loved it.
I loved spending every minute with her because she was so fun and so excited, and it's just a good reminder of why we do what we do. I mean, seeing her. The first day we had put out the video of her and it was the moment, the first moment she saw Andrew and Madison on screen as Miles and Kate and she got teary eyed and I was getting teary eyed 'cause it was emotional and it just favorite moment.
He was so happy and she just. Keeps talking about how happy she is and how we couldn't have done better casting. And I just having her, seeing her experience that I, it was just one of my favorite moments.
Tosca: Well, you know, we cast Andrew because of Amy. Yeah. So I sent a message to Amy and I said, Hey, was there anybody in mind that you, anybody that you had in mind for this character?
And she said, it was Andrew. And so I was like, well, let's reach out and let's see if he's available. And he immediately came back auditioned was amazing. And I'm like, alright, well. Here we go. That was one of the easiest castings I've ever done.
Lauren: It's really cool when an author is someone in mind, but it's someone we can reach out to.
'cause some, I know some of them are a little farfetched right now, but the rest of the time it's very cool when it can be someone like Andrew and 'cause he is also on the cover of a ton of romance novels.
Ali: I know.
Lauren: I think Amy just posted about that recently. She was like, she covers set of Andrew on them and a bunch of over 500.
Ali: She said, wait, yes. I knew he was on some, I didn't realize it was that. Many, yeah.
Lauren: So it, it's kismet that he, you know, has been kind of admiring the romance genre from afar and now he gets to be in one movie. Very cool.
Tosca: Yeah, he's super positive, very supportive. Yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. Oh my gosh, she was such a sweetheart.
Lauren: Yeah. No, he and Maddie were both really sweet to our fans when they came to set.
Tosca: Oh, that's great.
Lauren: He's so cute.
Ali: Yeah. They and him and Madison knew each other before, I think they had done a project together more recently, so that, I think that helped and made it more comfortable.. She's amazing. I loved watching her.
She was so natural and just so cool. And watching them together. I don't I'm really excited for this one. Excited.
Tosca: It gonna be amazing. Excited and super funny and adorable.
Lauren: Yeah. It's gonna be super sweet. And at what one part I love of and not, I don't know if everybody knows this story, but a fan actually recommended wait with me in our founding member group.
And when I read it, I read that she, she makes it so that, she's a romance novelist in the story, the lead character. And she mentions that one of her book series was picked up for option by Passionflix. And I was like, oh this girl named us by name in her book. I have to reach out. And then we discovered that her whole wait with me story had gone viral.
'cause she wrote it in a tire shop. It was kind of inspired by that story and it just ended up being such kismet that we optioned it and she was willing to work with us. And she, it was, yeah, Ali, so sweet to see her on set. I was just like, it's my favorite part. Is Seeing's reaction.
Ali: I still remember in the LA office when you had just read the book and you're like, you guys talk about us in the same book?
Yeah. And I hadn't heard of the book. I hadn't heard of Amy at that point either. It was so cool. And do you know she wrote that book in three weeks?
Lauren: I, yeah. No, she so fast. It's insane. But that was, but she said that was extra fast for her. Three weeks. Yeah. That's really fast.
It's how long it took to film it. Right? Three, three or four weeks took to film it. Or three weeks, yeah.
Ali: Did a three shoot. So crazy. Oh yeah. Excited. And then Tosca, you mentioned how we did two seasons of the Secret Life of Amy Bensen. And Lauren was on set a lot too. Lauren, can you actually talk to us?
So the first season is based on escaping reality, which is book one.
Lauren: Yeah.
Ali: Can you tell us a little bit about what happens in Book one? What's it about?
Lauren: So, yeah, book one is the introduction of course, to the characters. But Amy Bensen is basically a character who is on the run, but no one knows why.
And the book opens with her receiving this letter from her handler, telling her that it's time to run again. So she has to leave New York City and fly to Denver like leave everything behind, can't go back to her apartment, can't go anywhere. She's leaving a work event at the Metropolitan Museum and. She gets to the airport and when she gets on and she's not sure if she can get on, 'cause it's a standby flight, she gets on, she ends up being in first class and she meets Liam Stone, a billionaire architects, and they start chatting and getting to know each other on the plane and just form this instant connection.
And their story advances from there. I don't wanna give too much away, but it is a very cool suspense romance of her trying to kind of figure out what happened to her and how to take control back of her own life while also falling in love with this man.
Ali: And can she trust him?
Lauren: Exactly. Can she trust him?
Tosca: 'cause she actually has because she was put into, basically into hiding six years. Before that, see? Yeah, she's actually suppressed so much of the trauma that she went through. And so slowly but surely this trauma is leaking through. So she has these these startling memories or alerts.
She actually even has blackouts at times, but it's like, it's a very, so she's struggling to, you know, retain some normalcy. Yeah, and at the same time, she doesn't know who to trust and she doesn't know where she is, so it's kind of, it's cool, but she's trying to uncover it herself. Find out why she was sent into hiding
Ali: and Tosca. You directed the first two episodes, and this is very different than anything else we have on the platform. What was it like directing for you? I mean, do you approach it differently? Did it just tell us about it?
Tosca: Well, so this one, 'cause I'm not used to directing Suspenses it's not something that I've done a lot of.
And but I love this story and Lauren found it and I read all the books super fast. I think it was like, I. Probably in one week when we first got them back in the day. And so I've always liked it and always wanted to turn it into episodic because it makes it it's the kind of story if you have this suspense, then you wanna watch more, you wanna watch more, you wanna watch more.
So there was no need to, you know, shrink it down. But the approach, you know, it was. It's an interesting way of approaching things because you have to focus so much on you know, on the danger aspect of it. What why are we following her and what is this danger? So just constantly being on her side in that regard and always seeing seeing everything that's coming at her from her perspective.
So everything's from her in, in, you know, in her mind or about her. So, you know, I think it's. A cool show. I am excited for people to watch it. I only did the first two episodes and then Stacia Crawford came in and she did all of the others amazingly. Yeah. And and she did a phenomenal job. I'm really proud to have her as part of the Passionflix family.
Yeah. Overall, I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. I think you guys are gonna enjoy it.
Ali: I think so too. And we have six episodes in season one. And six in season two. And everyone probably saw we, we announced the release date. It's December 22nd. December 22nd. The first two episodes. First two episodes for December 22nd.
Tosca: Yeah, which is really fast. By the way, guys, we just wrapped a month ago, so yeah...
Lauren: I remember we, we were still filming season one and maybe it was like a week out of filming and you're like, okay, yeah, we have this cut of se of episode one. Lauren, do you wanna watch it? I was like, oh my God, we were still filming this.
It was just very weird. Fast turnaround.
Tosca: Yeah, we have the first two episodes in December 22nd, and then we'll release the remaining episodes in January.
Lauren: And you did a fabulous job with the first two episodes , T. They're so good.
Ali: Yeah, it's so awesome. So good. So fun.
Tosca: It is fun. Fans are gonna die also.
Great. I mean, Maddie McCormick plays our, Amy is phenomenal. She's fully committed to the show. Just, I thoroughly enjoyed working with her and I see amazing things for her in her future. She's amazing. Is she's a powerhouse and really committed to Passionflix and the whole storyline.
Lauren: So, and she's good friends with a bunch of our other leading ladies. So I kind left all of the families.
Tosca: This is actually the story was so, Maddie auditioned for the role. And and I loved her. I saw her and I was like, oh, this is it. And and then that weekend I got a message from Olivia Applegate going, Hey, my very good friend Maddie auditioned for this role and I think you'll love her.
And I was like, I do love her. The offer. And it was just, it's just, it's really wonderful that we have these connections with all these fabulous. Actresses and actors. Yeah. And that they then speak to their friends about working with Passionflix, and then they wanna be in a Passionflix movie.
It's really wonderful. So, I'm grateful to Olivia for putting in a good word for Maddie, but also to Maddie for putting yourself out out there for this role. And she knocked it out of the park. She's fantastic. She's so good. Amazing. It's so good. Yeah.
Ali: I can't wait. I think it's gonna be a nice treat for everybody and something different.
And everybody loves having a good show right around the holidays when you just wanna stay inside and watch, get to binge. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So we have that on December 22nd. Tosca, you mentioned we go back into redemption in January. Is there anything else? I know we haven't announced when Wait with me is coming out, but we'll hopefully be announcing that sometime soon.
Hopefully it's, yeah.
Tosca: We're working super fast. We'll work right through the holidays to try and see how fast we can get out to you guys. But I have a goal for it to happen as soon as possible, have a goal. I'm not gonna tell you the date unless I'm allowed to tell you the date, but they have a goal and that's the goal I'm working towards.
Yeah. Love it.
Ali: So let's keep it secret so we don't jinx ourselves.
Tosca: Yes, exactly.
Ali: Like, where can I knock on all the wood? Yes. But a very, you're expecting and hoping for a very fast turnaround. Probably the, almost the fastest turnaround we've had.
Tosca: Yeah, the story is good. The actors are solid. Yeah. Colleen who directed it, has a very strong understanding of how she wants it cut together.
We've worked with the editor before and all of us are standing by to start receiving edits and so that we can. So it's really a lot of the times it's about the turnaround process. It's how many people have to look at things and notes and that sort of stuff. So we're all standing by, we're ready to take it, and we are you know, pass it on to the next person to make it, to finish it up.
That's basically, there's so many steps to finish it. So many steps.
Ali: Yeah. That sounds good.
Lauren: Yeah, I think we definitely, some of the fastest people in the industry getting content out there.
Tosca: It's been fast. Yeah.
Ali: Yeah. And is there any other titles we can mention that we're looking at potentially? For next year?
Tosca: Well, you know, so as many of you know, I tend to get the whole gang together, the whole Passionflix group together. And we sit in a room for hours and we go, we start to write up which ones we wanna do next, what can we do next? How are we gonna do them in a specific order? Which ones am I directing?
Which I would love to do them all, but I can't. And there are some many fantastic other directors that we're starting to find. So I'm. Really happy 'cause it means that we can make more. At the same time, I trust that they will be loyal to our books and on the fans and the authors and so, and have the respect that we need them to have.
So right now we're looking at fingers crossed, lit, I have, I can't. There's two, there are two books that we should be closing in pretty soon. And as soon as we have those locked in, then we'll be able to announce them. But one of them will film next year for sure. And then I don't have the file in front of me, so I can't remember. Yeah.
Ali: You guys remember well?
Yeah. Well I know we talked about, come away with Me.
Tosca: Oh yes.
Ali: Yeah, so, and we can release the others as we get going. And we just started having these conversations at Hospice House on Friday altogether, which is really fun. Friday of last week. So I think we'll be announcing that soon.
But a lot of the titles that the fans have been asking for a long time, I think we discussed every single one of the books. We have option, but a lot of the titles that have been brought up the most were discussed in that meeting and talking about how we can get them moving as quickly as possible.
Tosca: Yeah, it's gonna be an exciting writing. We're gonna start writing some music for Lick, so love it.
Lauren: That's awesome. Oh, cool.
Ali: That's so cool.
Tosca: Step one, write the music, the for the pop stars. Yeah, that's, I guess.
Ali: So that'll be cool.
Tosca: Oh,
Ali: well. Cool. Yeah. Well, it was fun catching up on here. I would say any, anyone watching right now, if you want to comment and leave books that you want us to read, we are constantly adding to our TBR list.
And we're all reading a ton right now, so please share the books you want us to read. There's a lot of new authors and new books out there too that we haven't heard of that we're we want to read. So get them in front of us and let us know what we should be reading next. And also let us know which movies you wanna see made next, because we do pay attention.
Tosca: Yeah, we do. I'll try and make them all at the same time. Alright, thank you everyone.