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
Episode 25: PassionCon, 7 Minutes, Tosca Talks & more!
In this episode of PassionPod, Lauren, Ali & Tosca discuss various updates and exciting news for Passionflix! They reminisce about early (and sometime hilarious) customer service experiences and give an update on PassionCon, including their memorable trip to Puerto Rico. The team mentions the upcoming PassionCon featuring authors like Laurelin Paige and Kristen Proby, and actors like Giulio Berruti. They talk about recent events such as the Gabriel’s Redemption premiere in London and a brand-new show called Seven Minutes. They also announce upcoming projects including a new talk show, Tosca Talks! Additionally, they focus on the importance of subscriptions, emphasizing the negative impact of pirated content on their production capabilities and introduce various ways for fans to watch content for free or through subscription.
Lauren: Hi everyone. Welcome back to PassionPod!
Ali: Hi.
Lauren: Excited to see you guys here and we can give everybody an update. Um, but before we start, I'm Lauren from Passionflix. Obviously, I'm the Director of Development,
Ali: a little rusty there. I'm Ali. I'm the Director of Marketing and PR,
Tosca: and I'm Tosca and I'm the Founder and CEO. Hi.
Lauren: Hi. So I said, I said Lauren from Passionflix 'cause I answer our customer service phone calls and when I answer I say hello Lauren from Passionflix like, help. That's, I like that. My brain's too wired.
Tosca: I remember getting some of those customer service calls early on.
Lauren: It just went to your cell phone, which blew my mind
Tosca: to my cell phone.
And I remember speaking to, sometimes I'm like, hi, can you help me with my password? Reset what? I was like, oh sure. I'm just directing a movie right now, but let me help you. It was great though. I love.
Lauren: Yeah, it's anytime and it's super cute whenever I get someone who just is not as tech savvy and just would love to watch on their TV and needs a step by step.
So I'll take that 40 minutes to walk them through it, but it's, it's just adorable that fans are so dedicated to watch that they'll go through all that hassle. Um. Yeah. So we're here. We're back at PassionPod. Super exciting. Uh, can we each give an update on what we've been up to recently? Ali, do you wanna start us off on some marketing stuff?
Ali: Yeah. Um, well, we've been up to a lot. I think we'll cover a lot of that in this episode. Most recently. Um. I've been working on PassionCon a lot.
Tosca: So much fun.
Ali: It is. I cannot wait. Um, it, I, this is gonna, I mean, last year was amazing, but I think this one, we're just gonna blow it out of the water. Yeah. Yeah.
Tosca. Maybe we can talk a little bit about our experience when we went to Puerto Rico.
Tosca: Oh my God. Amazing.
Lauren: I was hear more you guys have to share. Yeah.
Tosca: Firstly, the hotel that we're staying in is literally Paradise. Ali and I did not wanna leave. We're like, how can we just, we'll just, can we just keep working here?
We'll just keep staying. We're like, we literally were checking in on how we could change our flights, how we could get our families down there. Like, how can we just stay here just a little bit longer? It was, it's so beautiful. The people are so nice. Um, yeah, and, and all the, the activities and the places that we're gonna be throughout the entire resort for PassionCon is, I mean, each one is fantastic.
We had a hard time choosing, well, I guess we should go to this one, but this one's so great. Oh. But we should, we don't wanna go to this one twice, so we, we should go to this one. So we, like, we're bouncing around all these incredible spaces, um, so that we can
Lauren: That's awesome.
Tosca: Touch on all of them.
Ali: It's incredible.
I mean, I'm, I'm really excited and we do, we still have some tickets for sale. They're going fast. They're going fast. They're actually going expected.
Tosca: Yeah. We sold, I, I think we've sold as many tickets now as we did last year.
Ali: Yes.
Tosca: We just opened it up. So we have a little bit more space this year. So yes, we've already in what?
Less than a month. Has it, it's been like a couple of weeks or something. Yeah. Yeah. We've sold as many tickets as we have last year, so jump on in there and get your, you know, claim your space. It's super fun.
Ali: Yes. And we will be making more announcements soon about, um, authors and actors coming as well, so we've got a lot of exciting things in the works.
I'm, I'm pumped. This is gonna be good.
Tosca: I have, I have one actor. or actress..., I'm not gonna tell you who it is, who sent me a message and said, um, Hey, PassionCon looks super, super fun. Um, if I'm invited, um, I think it'd be a great time to catch up. I was like, if you're invited, you better be there. Well, they, I'm not gonna tell you they're are totally coming.
Lauren: That's amazing. Who, who are you that we've announced so far, just in case some people don't follow us on social?
Ali: Sure the, so we've only announced in terms of authors, we have, uh, Laurelin Paige. Oh, we have Georgia Cates, Amy Daws, Brittainy Cherry, and Kristen Proby.
Lauren: Awesome.
Ali: And we are talking to other authors as well.
It's a little early on, so some people are still kind of working on their schedules and it falls near spring break time, so people have to work some things out. Um, and as terms of actors, we have announced Giulio Berruti is coming and there are many other actors coming. But we're just working with them just to confirm everything is good with the schedules, but everyone is very excited.
I think the location helped with that. Yeah,
Lauren: location is definitely a plus, but I think so many people, including the actors and authors that we had at PassionCon last year, just enjoyed it so much. Yeah. That they wanna repeat the experience, which is cool.
Tosca: It was quite, quite honestly the most fun party I have ever been to in my life.
It was so much fun. Um, uh, I, yeah, I couldn't believe the whole time. I think I was just walking around with a big grin on my face going, oh my God, this is so much fun. There. It's gonna be work, or something like that. But it was so much fun the whole time.
Ali: Oh, another thing that's exciting about this next one is that we did add a day, so that was some of the feedback.
Oh yeah. We got from last year. Um, so this year we're starting off on a Thursday rather than a Friday, and we'll have a big welcome party on Thursday. Um, and then Friday we're gonna start off right in the morning and the whole weekend is gonna be jam packed with exciting activities. Really cool stuff.
Tosca: Yeah.
Ali: So extra time this year. I think that's good.
Tosca: It's good, but you can still show up on the Friday if you can't make it on the Thursday. Right? Right.
Ali: Oh, of course. Yeah. Any, if you can't make it on time, you can show up. I mean, we'll, we'll always have the registration team there to help get you all situated so you don't have to make it that Thursday.
Um, whenever you can, whenever we can join us.
Lauren: Awesome. So exciting people are gonna lose their minds.
Tosca: I'm excited to see, um, what everybody's pajamas are this year.
Lauren: Are we doing another pajama premiere?
Ali: Oh yes, we are.
Tosca: Jamma premiere party. It's our thing.
Lauren: It's our thing. It's cool.
Tosca: So I'm like, I'm just wondering, you know, if Olivia and Melanie come, um, um, what their pajamas are gonna be like this year?
Ali: I Oh yeah.
Lauren: I think it depends on the movie we release. If it's a movie that they're not in, then I think they'll totally dress a little more in pajamas than the the gala. What is it? The MET Gala Pajamas? I don't think so. That Olivia said hers were,
Tosca: yeah, if the Met was pajama. The Met team was pajama. Pajama.
Lauren: Well, didn't she send you a picture after the fact of her sleeping in that outfit just to prove at Melanie did. Yes.
Tosca: Yes they did. Melanie holding a bottle of wine, Passionflix wine and um, Olivia Flowers, they look like Disney princesses.
Lauren: Oh my gosh. I love
Tosca: princesses.
Ali: So fun. That's cool. Yeah, I've gotta think about my pajamas. I gotta get out.
Lauren: Gotta do something different this year.
Ali: Yeah,
Lauren: that that'd be awesome. Oh boy. Um, and, and Tosca went last year. Just for people who don't know what your mom walked the carpet with you, um, what was she wearing? Do you remember?
Tosca: So, my mother was wearing my grandmother's. Pajamas for her wedding night that had never ever been worn because on her wedding night when she was about to put them on her husband, my grandfather said, oh, no, no, no.
We're married now, no pajamas.
Lauren: And if that's not perfect for a Passionflix event, I don't know what is. She was so iconic and it looked fabulous,
Tosca: I guess, you know.
Ali: They were beautiful. They were beautiful. I couldn't believe.
Lauren: Yeah, me too. I was like, that's real nice. That's very cool.
Ali: Yeah, it was beautiful.
Lauren: That's just my, one of my favorite fun, pa fun facts from the pajama premiere, so I wanted to emphasize it.
Tosca: Yeah, thanks. Yeah, that was a great time. Pajamas
Ali: and James was dressed as the cow.
Lauren: Oh my God. James is the cow.
Ali: James Paul from Gabriel's Inferno came and his, did you see him?
Tosca: So we just had the Gabriel's redemption premiere in London. Super fun time. Oh yeah. And did you see, um, James had this little gold rabbit?
Yes. Which I don't know where he got it, but it was like really? Wow. Beautiful. Yeah, and, and I think James looked awesome at the premier.
Lauren: He did look great. He looked great. Everybody really pulled out all the stops for the, for the London Premier, which it was like,
Tosca: I'm not just Paul. Yeah,
Lauren: Paul.
Ali: I mean, yeah, we should just go right into talking about that.
That was an incredible night and it was so fun to go and get to celebrate with the fans in the uk and people came in from different parts of Europe and we even had some of our, um, our people from the US fly in. It was, that was, that was amazing night.
Tosca: Another amazing night. Yeah. Thanks, Ali. Lauren, everybody at Passionflix for putting that together.
It was. That whole weekend in London where it was the actors and us. The first night we actually had dinner together in the oldest pub in London. Oh yeah. Um, and it was delicious and fabulous and just, you know, caught up. We walked around with the London streets, with all the actors and it was really like, you know, that dream that I had, you know, years and years ago, like how we would be this Passionflix family, how we would all just hang out and.
You know, share things and, and, and, and have great times together. Um, so even though all these actors are in different movies, completely different movies and would never have worked together, they're all friends now. Like Andrew, Michael and Jeremy Batiste. They're like besties.
Lauren: Oh my goodness. And Tosca. I have something to, to share about that.
Um. Andrew desperately wants to do a Western and he'd be happy to do a Western romance so long as he gets to be a cowboy. And he wants Michael Rourke and Jeremy to be in it with him. Oh. Like they had this whole idea that it has to be a series or something. Yeah. Like they were just like, we need to be, will you guys be cowboys with me?
And I think, I think Michael has been in a. Like a country music almost rodeo.
Tosca: Yeah, he has.
Lauren: He was and it was great. I watched it so they, they would all fit the, the bill perfectly.
Ali: It just, I think Andrew wanted Michael to play his dad. We had to keep reminding him there was not that much of an age difference!
Lauren: I love Andrew so much, but it's so funny that he like, it's actually very cute 'cause Andrew's Andrew, um.
Kind of looked to Michael as like a mentor almost when we had a couple of our dinners together and stuff. And so they got to talking about acting and like how he got his jobs or like, you know, stick to it, that kind of stuff. And so Andrew just like kept the bit going and he is like, dad, like, are you, I love it.
Ali: A number of times he asked Michael to adopt him over the weekend.
Lauren: He did. Yeah, he did. He's awesome. I, I actually genuinely love our actors and actresses so much. And it's cute. It's adorable for me whenever I see them all getting along, just like for you, T, it's like the passive family. They, they, they might not have interacted before, but now they get to and it's great.
Tosca: Yeah.
Ali: Yeah.
Tosca: Which was great. 'cause then also while we were there, we were, we shot. Our new show called Seven Minutes. Yeah. And the first one is out now. Mm-hmm. Um, with Giulio and Melanie. So let us know what you guys think. Um, but I mean, I watched it and firstly I knew about the show, obviously, and, um, and just when, um, Erin, who created the show was pitching it, I was like, this is.
Hilarious. I mean, I see this, yeah. These, these people. I know them. And so seeing them interact in the way that she had it planned was like, okay, that's gonna be fun. Um, and it was even more fun. It was so fun. Like, you just cute. Yeah. Can't stop laughing. Especially because it's them. Right? It's Melanie and Giulio.
Like exactly who they are is. As people. Yeah. As opposed to the characters, which of course we know and love. But, um, so them in seven minutes is hilarious. And then we have some, yeah, some upcoming ones. Can we say who's, yeah, yeah. Oh, so we have, um, so we have, uh, the, I think it's the next one is, um, Maddie and.
Andrew? Yes. Um, you're not, you're not.
Lauren: And can you just, just for any fans who don't know their actual names, can you explain what characters they are in? The Passionflix Universe?
Tosca: Yeah. Maddie from The Secret Life of Amy Benson plays Amy Benson and Andrew, who plays Miles From Wait with me and the two of them did a seven minutes episode.
Um, it. It is hilarious. It is. Really. But
Ali: You see Andrew in a whole new light.
Tosca: Totally do. And it's so great to see them like how they normally are. Like that's, that's how we know them. And so, um, it's, it's just really great. Uh, and so that one's really fun. And then we did another one with, um, Michael and Olivia.
Mm-hmm. And, um, we're gonna love that. I haven't seen that cut yet. Just from the clips that I saw when they were recording. It's pretty funny.
Lauren: And for anyone who's brand new, hasn't heard of Passionflix, of like Michael and Olivia Star and Driven as Rylee and Colton. Yeah. Which is very cool. Yep. Awesome.
Tosca: So yeah, so that's new stuff that's coming out.
And then, um, and then we're gonna be doing a new, another show, a talk show with me and, um, we're going to be in, uh, you know, speaking with. A whole bunch of authors and really getting to know what inspired them. And um, for me that's really awesome. 'cause I feel like, you know that fan girl that's like, oh yeah, yeah, no, no, I'm totally just doing a show, but I'm gonna come over to your house and hang out with you.
I wanna know.
Ali: That's awesome. That's exciting. And I think, yeah, we're gonna start shooting that this summer. We have a couple authors on board already and yeah. Getting that going. It's gonna be good
Tosca: fun. Yeah. Fans will very much enjoy that. Yeah. And so we have a whole bunch of new, um, more sort of unscripted, um, I, it's not reality, but it's like that unscripted stuff because it's, I just, we just started to realize how much we know so much about these actors and the authors.
'cause we get to spend so much time with them that we thought it would be amazing to share it with everybody else. And so that's what we're gonna do. And, uh. Um, yeah, I'm excited. That's gonna be a lot of fun. That's awesome.
Lauren: Yeah. People are really gonna love it. Yeah. Um, and
Tosca: hey, um, speaking of authors, Lauren, you just went to Canada, right?
Lauren: I did, yes. Um, I recently went to, um. Romance invades the Canadian Rockies. I always just, I always got it wrong 'cause I thought it was romance readers, but I think it's just romance invades the Canadian Rockies, which is a great name for an event. Um, but Author Casey Lynn, uh, put it on and we had it in the town.
It was in the town of Banff, um, in Alberta. Yeah. Beautiful. So gorgeous. Yeah. And there were wildfires at the time. Like as I landed at the airport in Calgary, there were, there was lots of smoke, so we weren't sure if we could even see the mountains, but then it cleared up the next day, so everybody got to see the amazing views, which was cool.
Okay. Um, but no, it was a great, it was a quick one day event and it was on the smaller side, but it was actually me and the other authors kind of vibed about it. We were like, this is actually really nice. We feel like we can see more people and talk to more people because it's on. On the smaller side of things, um, there were still like 500 or 600 some people that came through to see everybody, but because there were a little bit less authors, the, we just got to see more people.
It was cool. Um, and I got to catch up with Kristen Proby 'cause she was there and had her own table and that was fun. And she's excited for, you know, her books to come to life hopefully soon. Yeah. Um, and then I also got to chat a little bit with Monica Murphy and Megan Quinn again, and Kandi Steiner and Natasha Madison.
And it was just, there were a bunch of authors there, but that's just a few that I interacted with and they were really cool. And, and, um, we hope to have a few book options that we can announce soon. We're in negotiations with a couple, I can't say yet. Mm-hmm. But just to keep fans encouraged that we're still optioning, we're still, you know, trying to get the huge library of all the amazing romance that's out there.
We're working on it. Um, yeah. But that was a cool event to get to go to. Um, also just to meet more Canadian, uh. Potential subscribers or people who already subscribed. I did meet a few who already knew about us, but I met quite a few who hadn't heard of us yet. And that was exciting because I love that.
Like, well here, learn about us. We're great. Um, so that was a good trip.
Tosca: Yeah, I know, I know we talk about this all the time about subscribers. You know, obviously you all know as you watch that the more subscribers we have, the more movies we can make and the faster we can make them. And so, you know, one of the.
Biggest hits to us, I guess, really is when people subscribe and cancel, subscribe and cancel because I know that it can be, um, you know, it feels like a long time for us to release a movie every two months, but it's actually not. Um, but every time you cancel, um, it delays. Another release. That's, that's really what it comes down to.
And it's, you know, so of course, um, everybody's finances are their own finances. But it is one of those things that the more, um, support we have for Passionflix, the more we can make and then the the, and then we're able to release. I mean, our goal is to release a movie a month. I mean, that, that's always been the goal.
And, um, and so as we climb that subscriber. And, and people stay on or buy more signature memberships, which is great 'cause then you guys get to come visit and, um, and, you know, see us at premieres or on set. Um, but signature memberships and um, and even yearly memberships. That really, really helps us, um, in putting together more movies.
Ali: And, and the yearly membership is at a discount as well?
Tosca: It's, it's at a big discount. It's, I think six, just
Ali: 64. 64 99. For the entire year? Yes. Yeah.
Tosca: 64.99 for an entire year and um, you know, hopefully, you know, we try and release. Five to eight movies a year. So when you think about that, that's actually pretty good.
And if we get more of those yearly memberships, then we can release up to 12 a year, which would be awesome. Yes. That'll be awesome. That's the goal. We're still hoping to shoot three more movies before the end of this year. I'm not gonna tell you which ones because Ali gets mad at me. I, so, you know, but we are pretty close.
I'm gonna shoot more movies in six months, which is.
Lauren: By the way, no pressure. No pressure.
Ali: But yeah, we're starting, we're looking at getting a couple of those started soon and then, yeah, very soon.
Tosca: Yeah, we are, you know, we're, we're looking at shooting, um, one in late August, another one in September, and then another one in October.
So it's like really back to back. Um, and, um, if you sign up, sign memory overall, just waiting out to see what the, what the unions do, which we're gonna find out, you know, we can't shoot anything if the actor's union goes on strike, but hopefully they don't. And hopefully, um, there's a, a fair, uh, negotiation and things just all settle and it's all great and we can all work, move forward and, and start working again.
Um, but, uh, yes, that's the goal. And I, you know, Ali and I just came back actually from scouting. One those movies that we hope to make, um, uh, we scouted, um, in Spain in.
Lauren: Oh, I wonder what movie we have, what book we have that takes place.
The fans figured that out so fast. Honestly, we didn't even tag anything, I think, and they automatically were like, is this for this? Is this for this book?
Tosca: Yeah, it's for Wallbanger. You can say it.
Lauren: Yeah.
Tosca: Yeah. Um, but yeah, so, um, so yeah, so that's the hope that we are, um, that's the plan and the hope to three more movies before the end of the year.
So, you know, stick with us. But besides that, our, you know, we're releasing so much this year as well, so we still have, um, we just released Gabriel's Redemption part one, which is awesome. People are loving it and, and really, um, and watching and, and it's exciting. And then, um, in, uh, August. August, so next month we are releasing, um, uh.
We're releasing the Secret Life of Amy Bensen. I was like, oh my God, what, what? We're on right now talking about a lot of stuff. Secret Life of Amy Bensen, season two, and we're gonna drop all episodes at the same time. So, you know, the series is done, so we're able to do that. Last time we had to wait, we were literally making them and then dropping them per week.
Um, but this time they're all finished or they will be finished. Lauren was just working on it. Yesterday, I think,
Lauren: yeah, we, we just finished the sound mix yesterday for all, all six episodes. So those are now getting pushed further along in post and then it's next on delivery and it's very exciting. Do you know which day we
Tosca: have to do subtitles in all in nine languages, which is great.
And then, um, and so then we'll release that August 10th is our drop date for that, which is super exciting. So stick with us. Don't, don't cancel that subscription. Stick with us for that extra month. Mm-hmm. Um, and then we're gonna release Gabriel's Redemption part two. Then we have Gabriel's Redemption part three.
So we have a lot to release this year. Very excited. And, um. And yeah, so stick with us 'cause it's gonna be a fun year besides all of our seven minutes and Right. Our other talk shows that are coming up. So a lot to offer,
Lauren: lots to offer. It's exciting. And I think if any, if anyone who wanted to be a signature member talk to any current signature members, they would immediately understand how well worth it it is.
'cause you come to set and you have so much fun and you just talked about how we have three sets coming up, so that's That'll exciting. So people should sign up as a signature member not to miss out on those.
Tosca: Three opportunities to come visit us and, um. And they, they shoot in different places, so they're not, they're not all shooting in Atlanta.
We'll have them in different places, um, in the us. So, uh, some of it will be shot in Atlanta, but some of it will be, you know, again in Spain or in San Francisco. And so we wanna just, um, we'll let you guys know, um, awesome Signature members know, and they, and the founding members, of course, to come to set.
And you know what's really amazing for me, I, I love it when I'm on set and I get to meet all of these. Passionflix fans that come on and they love the book and they love the whole experience. And then I get to meet them and then I'm like, we're directing the scene, and I'm like, I don't know. What'd you guys think?
Do you like it?
Let's, you know. Cut.
Lauren: I also love it 'cause they, so they sometimes get to sit at with you at lunch too, and get to chat with you more. Like, it's just a full, like, if you want the Tosca experience or even just the setting experience in general, you'll get that FaceTime, you know? Yeah. It's, it's awesome.
Tosca: It's fun. It's fun for me.
Ali: So the actors love it too. It's so encouraging. They do, yeah. They get that immediate feedback from the fans and they, I think it really, um, especially for actors that haven't been with us, as long as people like Giulio & Melanie, they get to, they're getting introduced to the fandom and the Passionflix community, and it's so different than anything they've ever done.
Tosca: Yeah. And they sign books and take pictures and, yeah.
Lauren: I remember when, um, Andrew and Madison were doing it, they were just so grateful and it was, it was a cool experience for them to meet people, um, who were already in love with the book and excited for the movie when it was still in production. And usually you have to wait for like a press tour for that kind of excitement.
Yeah. Or like the announcement of it releasing for that excitement, but they got it in the moment. It's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, T, what shirt are you wearing?
Tosca: Oh. I'm wearing my pizza shirt from Wait with me.
Lauren: And can people get that anywhere?
Tosca: You can get this from the Passionflix store. There you go. This is really fun.
I, I, I put it on, um, BKI this morning. We were like, oh yeah, all right. We kind of forgot that it was PassionPod and so we're all rushing together on, because my daughter loves this shirt, and so, uh, so she's like, Hey, can I have that shirt? And I was like, oh, put this on. Here we go. Pizza.
Ali: Yeah, I have one. I had to give one to my daughter too because she sleeps in it. It's, it's the best shirt.
Tosca: It's a great shirt.
Ali: It's a good shirt.
Lauren: It's also so soft. Like our, our, I love the shirts we find. 'cause they're not, they're a comfortable material too on top of being like merch for the books and movies we love. It's very cool.
Tosca: And we have, for some reason I feel cool wearing a shirt that says pizza. I don't why It's cool. I.
Ali: You need to put on some ripped jeans and Exactly. I was laughing. Amy Daws wore her ripped jeans recently. She's, what did she call them? Her midlife crisis jeans That made me laugh. They perfect, but they're perfect. Um, yeah, and we, for those of you, we haven't really. Announced it yet, but we have a new, uh, shop manager Anna, who's taken over the Passionflix shop.
And so she is reading comments actively and trying to stock up our shop with all the different things you're asking for. So feel free to leave us comments, um, send us messages on social media. We see everything. You can send an email to the shop, which is, uh, shop@passionclick.com. But we're excited to stock up the store.
We brought her in there to work on this full-time and get you all the merch you want. So.
Let us know.
Tosca: She's awesome. Really good.
Lauren: And if anybody has, um, any comments or uh, concerns or questions, you can also email info@passionflix.com or comment on any, on any of our socials. We're always looking, we're always checking 'cause we wanna be able to hear your feedback or help you with a problem.
So we're, we're definitely always here.
Tosca: Great. Actually speaking about social media, you know, we just released Gabriel's Inferno part one. For free on Twitter.
Lauren: Um, oh my gosh, yes.
Tosca: Yeah. Well, so everyone kept telling me that, um, that not everyone, but a lot of people have told me that they found Passionflix by watching a pirated version of Gabriel's Inferno on YouTube, which pains me deeply.
And it was so, but I'm also really excited that that's how people found us. And then they, they wanted to find out what happened in the sequel. I,
Lauren: I think report goes on YouTube daily.
Tosca: Yeah, I know. But so then, but, so they wanted to find out what happened after part one. And so they had searched for it and they found us on Passionflix and they became subscribers.
And some of those people are actually signature members now and which is great. And I, that's how I know, 'cause they told me, um. And so I was like, you know what, Gabriel's Inferno, part one is a really beautiful introduction to Passionflix and certainly to the nine movie saga ofs in front of the Gabriel Series.
Never intended to be nine movies now nine movies. Um, and, uh, you know, we just can't cut any of it. It's just so beautiful. So we just kept making it longer. Um, but. I'm excited for people to find out about Passionflix and, um, by watching Gabriel's Inferno, part one for free. Again, it's on Twitter for free.
And then we actually just started our, um, Twitter subscriptions as well. So if people are on Twitter all over the world, they can watch, they can subscribe. I think it's $3, and they can watch Gabriel's of part two on that if it's easier for them than going onto the um, Passionflix. Site And then, um, and then we're gonna have some other bonus content and things like that for people that just like to watch it on Twitter, which are surprisingly quite a few.
Um, and then we're gonna try and add more things to our YouTube channel as well. Um, but it's just so many things that can help spread awareness and, um, it's really helpful to us. So helpful when you guys spread the word about Passionflix or share your experience about Passionflix. And I think we have a referral program now.
Ali: We do, yes. Yeah. So
Tosca: you have this, it's like give a dollar, get it dollar. So let's imagine that you are, you have five friends that wanna, uh, subscribe. You can refer five friends. You, you know, next thing your subscription is 99 cents. That's pretty good.
Ali: Um, yeah, there's no limit, so it can cover your subscription completely.
And the, you can find that in the link in our Instagram bio right now. If you wanna go sign up for the referral program.
Tosca: Yeah. Um, so hopefully, and if you need any help signing up for that, just send us an email and we can help you out. But it is just, it's super helpful to us and, um, you know, share the love.
Ali: Can we talk a little bit about pirated content? Because I know, you know, some fans, I know there's some people that don't realize how much it hurts us, but let's talk about how much it hurts us. And you know, I forget, I think with Hollywood Dirt, at one point there was over a million views and you think about.
The number of subscribers that could have brought us and helped us make more money.
Tosca: Yeah. And, and those pirates make money off of our content. So it's not like those pirates are showing it to you out of the goodwill of their hearts. They're, they're taking all of the money. They steal our shows, and then they put them up on YouTube or wherever it is.
They, they rename it, they do something strange so that the algorithm doesn't quite find it. And then, um, and then for every view that they get, they YouTube pays them money. And so those are, you know, we really appreciate it when people report it. They come to, they send, send messages to info@passionflix.com and, and report those pirated ones on, on YouTube.
But it really does hurt us and so people are taking it their, they're basically, you know, they're somehow managing to film the content and download it. And then they're putting it, even putting it up on Telegram, which is a big one for us. And Facebook. And Facebook there. People have private Facebook groups now to.
Release our content and they are making money off of it. And every single person that takes our content and shows it for free to you, it's not free actually. Um. They make money from you, we lose a lot of money, then it prevents us from being able to make more. So please don't watch pirated content. Um, if you, you know, if you really need to watch it for free, I don't know, send us a message.
But, um, you know, it's, it hurts us a lot when you watch pirated content and when you support the pirates. So I know that people have heard this before, but it, it literally prevents us from making other movies because we are not, um. You know, Netflix, we're not the biggest company in the world. We don't have unlimited funds, and so, you know, we rely on our, um, subscribers and the people that buy merchandise and support Passionflix, um, to pay for upcoming movies.
So please. Please don't watch pirated content. It's really bad for us.
Ali: Yeah. Yeah. And just adding a note. The same goes with books. I know. It's a big problem right now on, um, with authors having people just read pirated books of theirs and it's, it really hurts them. It, it really hurts. So. Maybe you don't realize how hurtful it is, but it, it hurts everybody.
Tosca: So, yeah. You know, not do that anymore. Yeah.
Lauren: On that fun note.
Tosca: Yeah. But on that note, again, we are putting out some content for free. So you have some options to watch some things for free. You know, go to, um, you know, even on Passionflix, if you go to Passionflix, you can watch the first episode of Amy Bensen for free.
You can watch Gabriel's Inferno, the first one for free, and you can watch the first episode of Driven for Free. So, you know, go ahead and if you are like, well, I can't afford the subscription, well, we also have the opportunity for you to purchase per episode. So you can just like, you know, you can watch Amy Bensen for free, the first one, and then you can just purchase the second episode and it's, it's a smaller fee.
So we we're trying to provide all the options for you so that it's not, um, you know, difficult, right? But again, please support, um, the, our authors. Please support Passionflix. Um, share it with your friends. And, uh, yeah, that's it.
Refer. Referrals.
Lauren: Referrals. Yeah, exactly.
I, I love that we have the referral program 'cause I think that'll be a really big hit.
Um, and also just thank you, a huge thank you to our current subscribers and our current, um, founding and signature members who really keep us going. You guys are awesome. So thank you for that. Keep spreading the word. I, I, I hear quite a few times like, oh, my friend told me about you, or my friend told me about this.
Like, it is amazing how far we've gotten word of mouth. So just keep sharing, keep spreading the word and it should help. Yes.
Tosca: Awesome.
Lauren: I think we, we touched on just about everything. This was good. A, a kind of a quicker, um, update PassionPod since we haven't chatted in a while, but this is so fun. I'm glad we could do this
Ali: and we're gonna do more soon.
I know we, it's been a little crazy on our end, but. I know a lot of you have asked for them, but yes, we are gonna be doing more and we're working on a new little setup for PassionPod. Thought it's gonna be cool.
Lauren: I know. Super exciting. I know 'cause we're, well, I'm sitting in my office in our new Passionflix offices, but we've finally, this Patch Mar past March moved into our new location in Georgia, so that's very exciting.
We can now all work as a family again.
Tosca: I know, I know. Because we're all back to the office. Back to the office, remote work over. I mean from our homes
Lauren: sometimes, which is helpful 'cause it's quiet in my house and I can read there really fast. I know that's helpful. But yeah, it's awesome to see you guys again.
Um, if any, anybody, people can comment on the YouTube video of this, um, PassionPod. Um, leave comments on our social, uh, if you have any questions or concerns. And thanks for tuning in.
Tosca: Thanks for tuning in. Bye.