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 28 - Carlos Velasco: AD & Producer for 'The Black Dagger Brotherhood'
In this episode of PassionPod, Tosca Musk (CEO and founder of Passionflix) and Ali Whitaker (Head of Marketing and Publicity) update us on the 'Black Dagger Brotherhood,' post-production, highlighting the progress with color timing and poster designs. Special guest Carlos Velasco (1st AD & Producer) shares his experiences managing logistics on set, coordinating scenes and maintaining calm during production. They also discuss the camaraderie among cast and crew, the importance of promoting women in the film industry, and memorable moments from various shoots, including 'Gabriel's Redemption', 'Wallbanger' & the 'Black Dagger Brotherhood'. The episode underscores the collaborative effort behind their projects and their dedication to bringing your favorite beloved book series to life on the screen!
Have a question you want answered on a future episode of PassionPod? Please leave us a message today at: (770) 648-3677.
Tosca: I want, I want you to tell me more about ASMR.
Ali: Do you really want me to?
Tosca: I don't know what this is. This is where people whisper.
Ali: Yes. I really gotta send you some videos.
Tosca: I feel like we have a new, um, it's like a whole new arm of Passionflix. We can just speak softly.
Ali: Welcome to PassionPod.
Tosca: Welcome.
Ali: I'm Ali Whitaker. I'm the Head of Marketing and Publicity.
Tosca: I'm Tosca Musk, I'm the Founder and CEO of Passionflix. And occasionally I direct movies. And now I wanna direct ASMR
Ali: I'm really excited for this. I think this, I think this could be good. I think this could work. Um, welcome back to another episode of PassionPod.
Hello, welcome. I love our setup. This is fun. It is fun. Yeah. So what have we been up to this last week?
Tosca: Wow. This week. Um, it's only been a week since our last one. I feel like, uh, we've done a lot. We locked picture on episodes five and six of Black Dagger Brotherhood. Yay. And we have finished, we've almost finished all of the music cues, um, and approved all the music cues for episode one.
We, uh, I was doing color timing, um, all week on. Episodes one and two. We should finish episodes one and two this week just for color. Right. And, uh, yeah, then we do three and four next week. Maybe
Ali: for the Passionistas that don't know, can you talk a little bit about what color timing is and what it entails?
Tosca: Sure. So when we film anything, it's filmed in this raw state.
So it has, um, all of the information, um, but it's not necessarily the. The color that we want it to actually, um, be finished in. It's close, but it's not quite. And so when you film a scene, the, you know, you, you go from one scene to the next scene or one shot to the next shot. Just the way it's lit and different things that happen, um, on set can make the color, uh, between those two shots not match.
And so we go into color timing and we add some texture to it. We match the shots. Um, for me, I like this one to be very dark and moody and super sexy. That's basically the direction that I've been giving them. Every time I see someone i's like, Ooh, ooh, that's sexy. That's sexy. I want, I want that. That's gonna be good.
And so now they're the color timing it, it's really funny to hear the color timer. And Olivia, our dp, and I'm like, I want this to be sexy. And they're both like, yes, yes. That's sexy. Mm yes, yes, yes. That's sexy. Oh, we're gonna do the sexy color time. It's really funny. But, um, it is. It's, uh, so that's what we do.
So we basically are matching color for every scene and, and making sure it enhances the mood
Ali: for me. I've been working on the poster. Oh, right after we finish recording, you're gonna see some of the concepts.
Tosca: Okay, great. Can't wait to see this poster.
Ali: It was a really fun photo shoot and we had. Yeah, I, I'm really excited about it.
I think you're gonna be happy. Um, so we've been doing that.
Tosca: Um, and then you've been working on the premier?
Ali: Premier? The premier. We've had. As I've mentioned to a lot of Passionistas, an unprecedented amount of RSVPs for this premier. I'm very excited for the Premier. Um, I think the Passionistas are gonna have a great time.
We've got some exciting things in the works, and I think it's gonna be an epic night.
Tosca: Yeah, I'm excited to be in New York.
Ali: Me too,
Tosca: especially in spring. It's so wonderful.
Ali: May in New York is the best. It's the best.
Tosca: Yeah. Um, so that's exciting. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really exciting. So you're working on the poster, you're working on the premiere.
Yeah. You're also still trying to figure out Passion con.
Ali: Passion Con. Yes. And Apollycon. And Apollycon. Yes.
Tosca: That's happening very soon.
Ali: So it is, it's happening on April 9th is the first night and we're going to Apollycon. I don't think we've mentioned that anywhere, but we will be there. So we're very excited about that.
So. Yes. Yeah, a lot going on.
Tosca: JR Ward's gonna be there as well. JR. Ward's gonna be there.
Ali: Yes. And, um, Andrew Biernat's gonna be coming with us. Yay. We're very excited. Yeah. Yeah.
Tosca: He was so good in, uh, dark Lover.
Ali: He's so good. Yeah. He's just so great and so committed. Yeah. Yeah. That was great. He's, he's all over it.
I saw he is reading the, um. Gosh, I forget which book he's on now and I know he's read all of them at this point, but he's reading again and rereading and getting prepped for the next season already.
Tosca: Excellent. He's good work.
Ali: He, he's into it.
Tosca: Yeah. I've noticed that Alex, who is our Rhage for the next one, he's keeping his blonde hair.
Ali: I love it. I love it. He looks great and I think it does look really good with it. I think it looks great.
Tosca: Yeah, he looks very Hollywood.
Ali: He, he does, he looks so Hollywood. Yeah, he's so, he's so sweet. I'm, I can't wait. I know we talked about it a little bit last week, but I'm really excited for his season.
Tosca: Yeah, it's gonna be good.
Yeah. I'm a little nervous. I mean, that beast has to do some things. So it's gonna be great. What things? Thank you. Thank you, JR. Ward for writing that stuff. I'm gonna try and figure out how to make that happen in the real world.
Ali: Can't wait. Yeah, that's gonna be behind the scenes on its own.
Tosca: My favorite is gonna be giving it to the visual effects artist. Be like, here, here's Alex in a green screen suit. Now turn him into a beast. Mm-hmm.
Ali: It's gonna be good. It's gonna be great. I love it. Well, today I'm really excited about our guest. We have a special guest, Carlos Velasco. Yes. And do you wanna tell us who Carlos is?
Tosca: Carlos is our, uh, director of physical production here at Passionflix, but he's also my right hand on everything that we make. He is, uh, both my 1st AD and. The line producer or producer on our shows, and he was the producer of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Yeah. And did such an amazing job.
Ali: He's the best.
He's the best. Yeah. I'm really excited to have him on here today. He's one of my favorite people.
Tosca: Yeah. His office is right next to you.
Ali: It is. We wanna build a window so we can see each other, because he's my favorite. We love Carlos. So let's, let's bring him on.
Tosca: Let's bring him on.
Ali: Welcome Carlos. Welcome to the show, Carlos.
Carlos: Oh my god, I'm so nervous. I was practicing my podcast voice prior to coming here and I don't know if it's working or not. You guys let me know.
Tosca: It's working just fine.
Ali: Beautiful. He was really nervous about coming on when I told him he was, 'cause I told him he was gonna be on this weekend and now yeah, he
Tosca: just told, not invited.
Carlos: Told, not invited. It's more I'm used to being behind the scenes and here I am in front of. Cameras that I'm supposed to spike or something. Yeah, I don't know.
Tosca: Yeah, you go ahead, spike that one.
Carlos: What's up?
Tosca: Um, and, and the good thing is, is that, you know, just to help you, we have stay show over here, special delivery.
And she is gonna, she's gonna give you some, um, something to help you relax.
Carlos: I, I like to call it liquid courage.
Tosca: And it's, uh oh yeah. Excellent. Oh great. Low calories. Amazing. You can hear the,
Ali: and we're doing good. It's in, in the morning.
Carlos: It's, you have to gimme something to, I don't give something to. Not sponsored. Not sponsored, yes. But soon
Tosca: you just spiked my camera. Oh no, you spiked the, the three, the the three. The three. I'm not gonna finish that word. Camera
Carlos: threesome. Is that where we're going with that?
Tosca: That's what I was, oh, I'm just gonna, it
Carlos: it is Passionflix. So I think that's, it's appropriate for us a little bit, right?
You know? Yeah. We're all about the passion.
Ali: We are.
Tosca: So, um, yeah. So we were talking about, we, what?
Carlos: I'll take it.
Tosca: Oh,
Ali: I was gonna see if I could get that.
Carlos: I got you. We'll do it here. Everybody will watch me fail. Where is the way that, there you go. Here you go. There. You got it. I got it. Thank you.
Tosca: Yeah, it is a light beer.
It's barely, barely counts.
Carlos: There's only,
Ali: it doesn't count on podcasts. How many calories are on this?
Carlos: I don't. Zero. Oh yeah. Zero. Oh, 95. Yeah, we're close. Practically zero. We close. Practically zero.
Ali: Yeah. Hey, so Carlos, um. We did a little intro for you, you, but can you tell us what does an ad do? What do you do with us with Passionflix?
Oh, when you're in ad,
Carlos: gosh, I think an easiest term, you organize chaos. I think that's probably the easiest term to say. It's you organize chaos and, and I'm not just talking about Tosca specifically. I'm talking about just general on, on, on, yes.
Ali: Shots fired.
Carlos: It's just on the day, you know, you're not even.
During pre-production, you're, you're, you're, you're talking to every department. You're scheduling what you know, what's gonna be best for our production to efficiently shoot and get this project in the can. Thank, and then on the day, it's just chaos and you're responsible for organizing. 50 creatives trying to accomplish one goal and making sure that they're aware of what we're filming, what's the next step, what props we need, what talent we need, what background we need.
Like it's just all the little nuances that people don't really think about when we're filming. Uh, that's kind of what's supposed to be in my head. And then I'm supposed to also be thinking about the next steps. Mm-hmm. What's, what's next after the scene that we're shooting. And then there's challenges every day when we're filming.
So sometimes we might have to rethink our schedule and. Pivot. That's one of my favorite words to use. That's right. And one of my favorite words to use is Pivot. We we're always pivoting, you know, we, we missed a scene this day because we lost a location, or we don't have an actor available, so we have to pivot and find when it works for our schedule.
Mm-hmm. But it's just your organizing chaos safely. 'cause safety is my number one. Oh my God. Concern. And anybody that's ever been on my set will know. Yes. Yes. Safety is my number one concern in making sure that everybody gets home safely after our, our 12 hour days. Yes. You know? Yeah. But yeah, I organize chaos.
Tosca: That is it. And, and my favorite, um, 'cause you know, it is sometimes I'll come to set and I'll be like, Carlos, I have an idea. And then he's like, okay, okay. Let's see how we can make that happen. And then he starts to rearrange the entire. Schedule.
Carlos: The amount of times that you bring out your laptop while you're in production to kind of figure out your schedule is insane.
And I think anybody could attribute to that. Just every production is different. You, you have your different challenges every production, but it's just amazing how like creatives, you have to be able to get everybody's input to see what's going to work and what makes sense and how. It's better to be the best way to be efficient.
Yeah. To get the project in account.
Tosca: And a lot of, um, so assistant directors have like a reputation of. You know, losing their temper or yelling or, 'cause it's like pe there, it's like herding cats, right? Everybody has, there are so many people on set and there's so many, um, variables and if one person is late, that just basically dominoes and, and it just makes everybody late and the whole show doesn't, you know, you don't make your day basically.
And there's me going. Carlos, where is everybody? What's going on? What's going on? I need to call action. Action, action. No one's there. And, um, and so, but that's not the case with Carlos. So one of the things that I love the most about working with Carlos is that he keeps everything calm. Every, and so I think that the in or the entire, um, like emotional wellbeing of the set stems from the ad and the ad, I mean, hopefully a little bit from the director as well.
We don't yell and scream, but if the ad can remain calm. And just speak to everybody and make sure, 'cause everything's about scheduling. And so, and he has to maintain all of the information from all of the different departments who are speaking in his ear, um, constantly, constantly speaking in his ear.
And so he'll just be like, if he'll be talking to me and we're like, you know, chat, chat cha chat,
copy that copy. And then he'll come back and it's like, it's, it's quite funny. But it is, uh, you know, it is a testament to your personality and how much we enjoy working with you and how calm you can keep things during the chaos. It's really great and everyone loves you.
Carlos: I, I appreciate that. I agree.
Because it, you know, it, it's really important for an ad to have a level head. You know, if you come in with aggression, you come in with, you know. A I, I've worked with ads myself in the past that are just, you know, they're just yelling on the walkie and they're just demanding these things and I, I need it now and X, Y, and z and people at that point, they just start shutting down and they, they're not gonna be able to perform to their best ability.
They're not gonna be, we're creative. Yeah. You know, we're, we're creative. You, you give 50 people a camera to go shoot something. You need somebody that's gonna be able to kind of. You know, rally the troops. Rally the troops, grow them. Yeah. And, and if you're doing that from a place of like anger and aggression, like you're not gonna get the best out of these people, out of our crew.
And so it's very important to just, in my eyes, to just keep a level head and be able to kind of get the best out of everybody. You know, that 'cause, 'cause all our goal and everything that we're meant to be doing is to provide what our director needs to be creative. Like. That's, that's what it is. It's, you have to be able to provide.
At this moment, what our director needs to be able to execute her creative vision. And you know, our crew does a wonderful job at that.
Ali: Yeah. They're really great. Yeah.
Carlos: Yeah.
Ali: And I agree even from, from my perspective, I was not in film prior to Passionflix and so I was intimidated when I would come onto our sets in the beginning.
Not that our ADs weren't always kind, but um. I am the annoying person that comes on set and I have to say, Hey, can I pull these actors to do a quick photo shoot? Hey, can I ruin your schedule even more?
Carlos: And she's very annoying about that. But it's needed. I try. It's needed. It's marketing. It's what we need to be able to publicize or.
Um, how do I say this to, you know, add?
Ali: Yeah. Yeah. All of our promo items, everything, you know, we do photo shoots on set, um, for the poster, for any social media promo we wanna do. And it's really important, but it is hard because it's a very busy schedule and it's high stress. But you, I, I loved you from the beginning and because you are, you are so levelheaded.
And I remember the first set. And, and now it continues on every set. You always say, are we happy? Are we happy?
Carlos: Are we happy?
Ali: And it's just sweet. You're always checking in with everybody. But you've made it easy. Even when I annoy you, yes, you're still level headed and good to me,
Tosca: but you need to get those things.
Ali: I do need to get those things,
Carlos: by the way. Cheers.
Ali: Cheers. Cheers. Yay. Can't do.
Tosca: I have this snake arm.
Carlos: Yeah, no touching on that.
Tosca: Um, ah, breakfast beer.
Ali: Ooh, it's good. It's tasty? Actually, it is. I'm not even a beer drinker and it's good.
Carlos: No, I'm a fan.
Ali: Okay.
Carlos: Are we happy?
Ali: Yeah,
Carlos: that's what I was even talking about. Yeah. Are we happy? Yeah. I found that term because, you know, you are always have to ask, are actors ready Are mm-hmm.
Camera team ready? And then once you start kind of just signaling each department. There's some sort of level of pressure that each department kind of feels. Mm-hmm. It's like it's camera ready. It's like, oh no, I'm not ready. Or Is our department ready or, no, I'm not ready. So I just kind of changed that term into are we happy?
And then that kind of just. Opened up a world of like laughter almost ish, because it was just like, are you happy? Yeah, I'm happy. And yeah. Okay, here we go. We're ready to go. So it's just, it's just a little, little twist on, are you ready?
Ali: We started keeping a list of your quotes on the set of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Yeah. Are we happy? All right, my friends. Indigo, there's so many.
Carlos: Indigo our... Our, uh, department head for makeup.
Tosca: I was like, didn't you create a Bingo card or something?
Carlos: Yes. Yeah. I was really hoping she was gonna create a physical card by the end of Black Dagger Brotherhood. I was told, I think we should do it, but we should.
But I, yeah, it was just all, all my little sayings and, uh, I don't even, I can't compute what she had on that list, but she has apparently spoke to all departments and it was like, this is what Carlos says. This is what he is, this is what he, and I'm like, cool. And you guys are watching me, and I should, I'm watching you.
Ali: Yeah, it's really interesting. It's a compliment because everyone notices how positive you are.
Tosca: That's that's what it is. And, and his job on the Black Dagger Brotherhood was, was more than just an ad 'cause he was also the producer of it. So he had to like his very hard job. So you had to, you know, also manage the money and the schedule and everybody.
So he's hiring people. Anybody that leaves, he has to replace them. He had a, he had a good team, but it, it was basically all on him. And, um, and then make it seem like there's no stress at all, because then I'd be like, Hey, is everything okay? And he is like, yeah, everything's fine. Everything's fine.
Everything's fine,
Carlos: everything's great, everything's great, everyth, everything is great. It's not like emotion of like everything's on fire behind me, but I'm sitting at a desk and I'm just like, everything's fine, everything's fine, everything's great. No, you know, you have to be able to, you know, obviously Tosca is our CEO, she's Passionflix, and then she's also our director.
So you have to be very careful with the information that you share, not that you're trying to retain anything. At all. But you know, you have to be able to give her the space to be creative. Yes. You know, at at the end of the day, she's our director. At the end of the day, her job is to be creative and and build this world out for us.
So it's not that I'm hiding anything from you in those instances. Yeah. But it's just, you have to be able to kind of. Pick and choose when to share the not so good information or the great information to make sure that she stays in her creative head because mm-hmm. Ultimately that's the, that's the biggest thing is making sure that we execute this projects to her creative vision and not only her creative vision, but our authors.
You know, that's one of the things that I really love about. Our company and what we do is we have a lot of our authors come in and sit within our projects, film, you know, watching us film this and we take their inputs nonstop. Yeah. Like for instance, like the, uh, for Black Dagger Brotherhood, my favorite thing is the White House.
Um, oh my God. I don't, I don't know if I'm able to share. Yeah.
Tosca: Darius's, you can say that. Darius's White House. So. Yes, that one was thing. Firstly, I love that you spoke about me in the third person, which was kind of funny, but I'm like, yeah, I'm here and I do appreciate that. And what were you keeping from me?
Carlos: Nothing. But you don't know about nothing.
Tosca: Oh, come on. Nothing that you dunno about. We don't keep anything from ever. Not that you're like, Hmm, okay. Breathing, breathing, it's gonna be fine. Um, okay, so yeah, Darius's White House. Oh my gosh. So. When we are looking for, we were looking for Darius's house. Yeah.
And I asked JR Ward, you know, what is, you know, what is the color of the house? And she's like, it's a White House. And I'm like, it's a White House. And then we looked through every book that we could possibly find, and I'm like, I don't see anything where it says it's a White House. We've gone through every book, everything, can't see anything saying it's a White House.
And I was like. I don't see where it says White House. I'm very confused. And she goes, it is in my mind. And I'm like, and that's all it needs to be. That's perfect.
Ali: So it's a White House because you had a different vision completely, completely of what the house looked like, right? Yeah. What did you see?
Tosca: I saw it more like a a, but more like a brick house.
Mm-hmm. A red and brick, uh, like not necessarily red brick house, but a brick house more, maybe a little bit more on the, um. Uh, not Tudor side, but, but not, not a, not a white, not a white columned. You know, Georgian. Style house. I, I just didn't picture that. Yeah. Um, I pictured it anything other than a Georgian style house actually.
Um, and it was not, it was this Georgian style, white pillared house that she had in her mind and Perfect. That's what we ended up getting. But it's very hard to find that type of house. Here, strangely enough, in Georgia, um, I was told because apparently there was a fire in every, all of the houses were burned down and so then, so we couldn't find this white, well, this White House.
White House, white House. And then a week before we started filming, I went to a small town in Noonan and I was just buying some meat at the butcher. And, um. And I was like, Hey, did you guys have any like white Georgian houses with those pillars? And they're like, oh yeah, they're like 30 down the road. I was like, oh my God, there are so many white houses.
Went and drove around there with my kids taking pictures of white houses and sending them to Carlos. I was like, white House, white House, white House. And um, and so then they all, you know, came down to noon and. And he just started walking to all of these houses.
Carlos: I think you were there for one of the days where I went and I walked up to one of the houses and I literally knocked on it trying to to see if I could,
Ali: it's my worst nightmare, by the way.
Carlos: But yeah. But yeah, going up and doing the knocking on the doors, no where Nightmare.
Ever since then, no matter if Tosca and I were in a car and we're driving by a White House, you'd just be like, white House, Carlos, white House, white House. And I'm like, it was, I'm like, oh yeah, you're right. White House.
Tosca: So what we did in this one, do, should I give away a little bit of the movie magic or No?
Carlos: I think you should.
Ali: I think, I think this is Okay,
Tosca: so our exterior of the White House Yeah. Is a white House that we found, and it's a beautiful White House, and actually the interior of the house did have a fire.
Carlos: Mm-hmm.
Tosca: And so it was completely gutted and empty on the inside of the house. And so we, we filmed the outside of this house, and then we found another house and we filmed the interior of that house.
Mm-hmm. So there are two different houses and the interior of the house that we found was a beautiful but old, um, house that, you know, was a little bit, it, it hadn't been touched in. 50 years,
Carlos: uh, I mean, it was empty. It was empty. It was completely empty.
Tosca: Completely empty. And, and the, um, and it just, it needed a, a full refresh and a and um, and, and a renovation really.
And so our art team came in and. Very fortunately, the homeowner gave us permission, um, to come in and, and basically renovate the entire house. And it was painted all of the colors that are noted in the book and, um, which was fantastic. And I would just create all these AI photos of how I wanted this each room to look, and they did it.
Um, so it was really incredible. But we had, we had the ability to, to basically recreate everything that was written in the book inside of this. Other home, which we wouldn't have had the opportunity to do at any other home. Yeah.
Carlos: I, I think it was really a, a happy coincidence Yeah. For the Black Dagger brotherhood, for, for us to be able to create their world just as we wanted it.
Mm-hmm. As opposed to being confined to finding a house and filming in that house because, you know, you, you find a house, you find a location. You can't change the wallpaper. Mm-hmm. You can't change the color of the paint on, on the, on the room. You, there's so many, you know, logistical things that you know you're confined to and just being able to have, you know, our art department come in for the black dagger brotherhood and have just an open canvas essentially to build out deep black dagger brotherhood world was amazing.
Yeah. And it was just, it was really great. It was, it was a happy coincidence that it happened that way. 'cause we were really trying to find the perfect house and when we couldn't find it, we found a blank canvas that. Or we could create the perfect house. Yeah. And I think that was beautiful.
Tosca: It was actually really funny 'cause we, we, when we talked about finding, um, Darius's house and we were like, and, and of course at in Darius's house we do have this secret passage, stone passage that goes down to these secret bedroom, these, these, you know, underground bedrooms.
Um, below the house. We had to build those because they don't exist. Mm-hmm. And if they did exist. I would be very, very concerned. Concerned about what those people are doing. Yeah. In that house. Like how do you have a stone staircase that goes underneath your house to two bedrooms down there? That's very uncomfortable.
Carlos: I don't know. We're getting tornadoes now here in Georgia, so this is true.
Tosca: Okay. True. That's true actually. Okay, now I'm gonna build it stone care. I'll build one stone staircase goes down. Safety.
Ali: Yeah. So your first project with Passionflix was this line producer on The Secret Life of Amy Benson. Yeah.
Okay. Tell us what that was like. How does that, coming into the Passionflix family for the first time, how does that compare to other projects you've worked on?
Carlos: You know, the, the Secret Life of Amy Benson was really special for me. It, it, it was. You know, coming into this company, it was refreshing. I've learned so much from that project.
But the secret life of Bensen, I had already worked with Stacia and I had already worked with Robert, and I've already worked with kind of that team on a separate feature about a couple of months prior to that. So when I was coming into the Secret Life of Amy Bensen, I already had. You know, people that I knew.
Mm-hmm. And so it was a very kind of, you know, it was very welcoming and it was people that I had already worked with. And it was just nice to see that the people that I really cared about on this pro project prior mm-hmm. Are being brought into a Passionflix family now. And so I, I, I, I really enjoyed it because it was, you know.
Normally when you start a new project, it's new people, it's a new director, it's a new production designer, it's a new, you know, X, Y, and Z. And so it felt nice and welcoming coming into this team. And, um, you know, I, I don't know if you are aware, but for Gabriel's Redemption, they kept asking me about being the first ad and I kept saying no.
Oh. And uh, there was a moment, you know, and it was just because with any project that you're working on, you've always want, you want to do better. You wanna do better. And I felt, you know, I, I felt, excuse me, on Amy Benson, that I didn't do such a great job. So for me, I was always just like, I need to, like, you know, I wanted to do better.
I wanna do better. There's, I think that's of any project. And so for Gabriel's Redemption, I was always really hesitant to, to say yes to the ad road. And I, but when I did say yes, I am, I was so grateful that I said yes. I almost felt it like it was a Carlos redemption as opposed to Gabriel's redemption because I, I got to work with Tosca and I, I was able to, you know, actually.
Understand Tosca and understand how she works. And, and, and you, you, you know, it, it it, coming into a new world like this, you, you don't, you don't know directors, you don't know mm-hmm. Producers and how they react with you or how they are as people. And, and it was just beautiful to kind of have that interaction with you kind of on Gabriel's redemption.
One of my favorite things on there, and it, it's probably not a, it's a boring story to share, but like one of my favorite moments with you on that set was when we were rehearsing with Margaux. And it was, we were, it was very late night. It was probably like towards the end of the thing. We're crunched on time.
Dennis comes out of the room, goes into the room, camera's outside Margaux, and you are outside. And then we're like, all right, we're ready to shoot. And we try to get into that room and, and we're locked out. And we're completely locked out. It's the stages that we built in and like we're locked out. And Tosca just started laughing.
It was just a moment of where she just started laughing and there was just like, there was no like frustration. There was no anger, there was no any emotion besides like, this is where we are. And we were laughing and we're having, and I have a video of it too, but it was just like, it was just one of my favorite moments because it was like, okay, we're just real people trying to accomplish something together.
And this is. The hurdle that we're in right now, where we're locked out of our room, we're locked out of our set, and uh, I have videos of people trying to opening it up and it was just, it was just so funny to me. It's probably not funny for you all, but when you're living in that world, yeah, it's just like, you know, you're delirious, you're tired, and you have to find those moments and just laugh.
Ali: Were you aware of. How big the Gabriel Series was for Passionistas when you came onto to this.
Carlos: I was, yeah. I, I, I was like, I, I I, I was very, and that, I think that's part of the other hesitation of me trying to take, taking, taking on this project. I knew how important it was for Passionflix.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Carlos: And, uh, you know, the last scene that we shot, or one of the last scenes that we shot on the last day was. One of the last scenes of the movie.
Tosca: Yeah.
Carlos: And, and that was one of the most memorable things too. It's like Melanie was just her whole day, the last day she was laying on, on the hospital bed. Exactly. She was laying in the hospital bed and uh, and calling rap on that day and just seeing Giulio and Melanie have that moment of like the culmination of everything that they've done.
Yeah. And yourself included on over five years. Was just beautiful to watch and beautiful to be a part of. Yeah, because it, it was just such a moment.
Tosca: It really was. Dennis was crying. I could, I can't, I haven't That video, you know, it's interesting and, and we talk about that. Uh, I don't know if we told anybody else, but, um, because when we started the Gabriel series, we started it with Gabriel and Julia in the orchard.
Mm-hmm. So it's like we started when they, yeah. Were kids. And we made it all the way through to the end. Yeah. It, it was, it was really quite magical. 'cause that never happens in a series. You don't start with them being, you know, the youngest and end with them being mm-hmm. Uh, you know, the last scene of the movie.
Carlos: Yeah. And then for Wallbanger. We kind of did the opposite of that, right?
Tosca: We did, yeah. We did the opposite for Wallbanger.
Carlos: We did the opposite. We ended up going to Spain first. One of our couple of days are filming. Yeah. And that's towards the end of our project. But. What was beautiful about going to Spain first was.
Being able to have the moments, because you know when you're on, you're on set. You don't have those interactions with actors outside of set. No. Mm-hmm. You don't have those moments to be able to build relationships. After that, you work for 12 hours or whatever it is that day, and then you go home and everyone sleeps.
Tosca: Yeah.
Carlos: But in Spain, like you, because we were in Spain, it was just beautiful to be able to like go out and have dinner.
Tosca: Yeah.
Carlos: And they work differently out in Spain, obviously. We know that. Yeah. They work, you know, the 10 hour days, 11 hour days. So you had a little bit more leeway even
Tosca: That's a short day, by the way.
Carlos: Yeah. Oh my. God Yes. Even though we were like a and a one hour lunch,
Tosca: Hey, we're gonna have lunch now. And everybody's sitting and hanging out the best. And these nice lunches. These so good, so good.
Carlos: Like two hours after our start, they would come out with bread and cheese.
Tosca: Yeah. These really tasty sandwiches.
Carlos: Sandwiches. We'd just be like eating these sandwiches. I'm like, oh my God, thank you. But yeah, no, but Spain was great because we were able to build. A friendship relationship. Mm-hmm. As. You know, Passionflix team with our actors that we weren't Yeah. That you're normally not used to. Yeah. And so, you know, it was great to be able to hang out with Amadeus and Keli.
Yeah. You know, outside of just work. And so it was nice that we were able to work with them even though that normally, typically you wouldn't go to destination at the beginning of project.
Tosca: It's, it's a great way for everybody to bond so the director can spend time with. The actors, but then the actors themselves, because there's nobody else for them to spend time with.
It's not, they're not going home to their families. And it was a very short period. We were only there for a week and a half or so. Yeah. And, um, and so the actors are just spending time together. They're going through their lines together. They're, they're eating food together, they're going for walks together, they're exploring together.
And it just, it really did bond them, which hopes for the rest of the show because they're supposed to have this really great relationship, which they ended up having. And I, so I think. You know, let's just schedule that. We all just go away together. Yeah.
Ali: You know, I think so. Hang out.
Carlos: I'm so down.
Ali: I do. I think it was really good, it set the tone for the rest of the, the show or the rest of the movie too, because Keli and Amadeus did such a good job when the rest of the cast came in and bringing everybody in and welcoming, welcoming them, and I felt like.
We really had created a family on that set.
Carlos: No, I think we went from Spain to San Francisco.
Tosca: We went from Spain, came back to Georgia for three days. That's, then we went to San Francisco off San Thanksgiving, went and then, and
Carlos: then from San Francisco we came to Blue Ridge.
Tosca: That's right. Right. We did, yeah.
We did San Francisco for a week-ish. A week. Yeah. And then we flew back here, and then we went to Blue Ridge and we all stayed up there for a few days. Yeah. And then we came down to Atlanta. That was. Great.
Ali: See who scheduled that?
Carlos: There was a lot of challenges to that schedule.
Ali: I totally teasing. I mean it was great. It worked out great, but I'm just saying who scheduled that?
Carlos: Yeah, it was. It was me, but I'm sure with a lot of input from Tosca, so
Tosca: Well, we also have certain things like, because it's a. You know, you have to schedule. We we're shooting a longer shoot, but you can't keep all those actors on for the entire time.
It, firstly, it cost a fortune also. They have other work to do. So a lot of these actors we had for two weeks. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So the supporting actors, if we only have for two weeks, you have to schedule it and go, okay, well they're in so many different scenes from beginning to end, so we need to make sure that we shoot all of those actors in those two weeks, which means we have to go to all those different places.
In those two weeks. Um, and fortunately, a lot of their friends were always in the same places. So we got to do that. And then, you know, someone like, um, Ryan McPartlin, he came out, he only worked one day, so he came San Francisco one day. So we have to shoot all his scenes in one day. And then, um, Roselyn Sánchez, I think she worked two days, two days or three days.
And so one day in San Francisco, one day in Atlanta. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, again, that's like, that's a scheduling. And, and it's joy.
Carlos: And it's also, you know, fun for the actors. And I say fun jokingly. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, there's a range of emotions that sometimes they have to hit on one day, you know?
Yeah. And, and it, and it's just what it is. It's, you have an actor that's available for one day, and maybe you're seeing partner for that. One day you're crying, you're happy, you're sad, you're figuring out life. And it's just, it's a lot for an actor to, I love actors. Yeah. I think it's, it's, it's amazing what they do.
And I don't think they get, you know. Everybody sees the limelight, the money, whatever it is that they get. But it's a, it's a skill. It really is a skill. It's what they're able to do is phenomenal and it, and, and they get everything they deserve because I wouldn't be able to get myself and I can't cry and then 10 minutes later be happy and then 20 minutes later be I don't, uh, whatever.
Yeah. Like it's, it's, it's, it's a lot for these guys to Yeah. To go through. So yeah, to
Tosca: definitely. Yeah. Have the ability to emote that way and then pull it back and not let it affect the rest of your day. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Which is very hard.
Carlos: And that, that comes from, you know, a director's guidance as well. It's like you have to be able to give them, you know, what, what is their motivation, right?
Tosca: What is your, what is your motivation?
Carlos: What, what, what are your feeling behind this? What are you thinking on this moment? What are you on that? So I commend you a lot for being able to. Pass that along to your actors because that's, that's not an easy thing to do, is just be able to fluctuate from, from scene to scene.
So you, you work great with these actors. You are able to kind of let them know and bring 'em that bring them back to kind of the center of their performance. And it's, it's beautiful to watch.
Tosca: Thank you.
Ali: Because that had have been a challenge. I mean, obviously for both of you with waling, like you mentioned, we filmed towards the end of the movie first, so the first day of filming.
Uh, it, they're, uh, for those of you who haven't seen it with Simon and Caroline, they're on a trip together in Spain, so they already have all of this chemistry mm-hmm. Having been built up. And Kelly also has an emotional scene that was shot within the first few days. They had to do a lot. But how was that for you as a director?
Because when she leaves, when she leaves Spain Oh, yeah. Knowing, but for you as a director, how do you. Work with your actors to prepare them to start. 'cause we don't typically start at the end with an intimacy scenes, which we didn't shoot intimacy there, but we did. Oh, we did a little bit. That's right.
Yeah. We did our first kiss was there. Yes. Yeah.
Tosca: The first kiss was there. Also, there's a, there's this particular kitchen scene. Yes.
Ali: Oh yes. How do I forget that?
Tosca: Yeah. Um, and so we don't normally start with intimacy because people dunno each other. So that was. Uh, that was, that was pretty funny actually, because their first kiss was kind of just very, almost platonic and uh, and I was like, no, we're gonna do that again.
And then it was like, okay, a little bit more platonic. I was like, a little bit, you know, a little bit, you know, sexier. And I was like, okay, great. And we'll do that again. And we're gonna do it again. And then we're gonna, we're gonna really do this. I want, and then I basically, um, I do kind of occasionally when we get at a very comfortable level mm-hmm.
With the actors, I'll be like, I kind of want you to maul their face and Nice. And I do have to say, but obviously that's only when they're very comfortable and we have a good relationship and, and that fortunately was the relationship that we had. Mm-hmm. And they're like, oh, okay. Oh, it's that kind of kiss.
And I was like, yeah.
Carlos: One of my favorite things about, uh. Wallbanger and Tosca trying to get the chemistry out of Amadeus and Kelli was, we started the day with a hug.
Ali: Yes, that's right. That's right. Started the day with a hug.
Carlos: Exactly. And it was just like, Hey, every day started the day with a hug. Mm-hmm.
And that just gave them permission to, you know, they, they each have their own partners, they each have their own things and their own personal lives, but that gave them permission to just be able to be a little bit closer to each other. Yeah. Well, and, and have that intimacy. You know, build chemistry, build.
So you start the day with the hug.
Tosca: Absolutely. Because most people, you know, we have our own personal space. Mm-hmm. And so because we have personal space. Boundaries. Um, when you are intimate with somebody, those boundaries aren't as, um, wide. Mm-hmm. I guess. And so for us starting in, in Neha where I was like, you're, you're past the personal boundaries, now you have to hold hands now.
You, you need to feel close to each other. Mm-hmm. And so, yeah. So it would be every day starting it was like, okay, we're just gonna hug each other. We're gonna hold, hold, hold, hold. Because now we no longer have those personal boundaries as characters. Um, and so, you know, as people, you can keep your boundaries and you know, you should do, you definitely should do that.
But, um, as these actors, as these characters, we need to. Feel comfortable in each other's space. Yeah.
Carlos: Not, not only that, but you know, we're Passionflix, so Yes. Our, our, our, our features are romance. It's those romantic moments. Mm-hmm. And, you know, we've worked with a lot of great intimacy coordinators mm-hmm.
That have that, that help our actors feel comfortable on set and feel mm-hmm. That they're able to perform, you know, what we need of them, but in a comfortable set setting. Mm-hmm. I think intimacy coordinators have been such crucial to what we do to be able to provide, you know, the central Caress task
Tosca: Oh, that comes from me,
Carlos: that I can't do, that's me or Tosca.
But, you know, that's, but, but, but it's beautiful to be able to, you know, combine everybody's work together to be able to kind of just make them feel comfortable to, 'cause you know, what we do is. It's, it's passion. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we do. And it's, it's, it's beautiful the way that we do it, because it is from a woman's lens.
Mm-hmm. And I love the fact that it's from a woman's lens. There was a moment in Black Dagger Brotherhood where all, when I was just standing at video village and I looked around me and it was just all females. You know, my director, director of photography mm-hmm. Was a female, my director was a female.
Mm-hmm. My script supervisor was a female. My first AC was a female. My second AC was a female. Mm-hmm. Like, it was so nice to see. The upbringing of women in our industry. 'cause you're used to just, it's, it's a male dominated world. Mm-hmm. And in passion infl, it just doesn't seem that way anymore. Like, it's just like we really encourage supporting women and bringing them up in whatever world they're working in.
Like, you know, my, our production designer was a, a woman. Like, it's just beautiful to see that and make sure that our actors and our actresses are comfortable. In our projects because we are,
Tosca: yeah, our chief lighting technician. Um, so our chief lighting, so the person that handles all of our lights, um, it's also a woman and so is her best boy.
Best girl,
Carlos: best girl, Jane. Yeah.
Tosca: Yeah. That was, that's also quite unusual. That was really great. Yeah. Great team.
Carlos: It was, it was, it, it's beautiful. I, I, I love the fact that we're always promoting and encouraging women in their roles. Mm-hmm. I, I think that's great.
Tosca: Yeah. Um, yeah. It was really great. And I think we should continue that trend.
Carlos: Yeah. I, I, same. Yeah, same.
Ali: All right. We mentioned that you came on for Gabriel's Redemption. Yeah. Um. And you obviously came on after we've shot several movies together. What was it like? You know, we had been used to working with Giulio and melanie, how was it for you? Because they were, they were pros at this point, and they knew their roles, but you were the new guy.
Carlos: How was that? You starting off It was a little intimidating. Yeah. You know, especially like the, the, the, the crew, the team, everybody knows each other. Mm-hmm. Everybody has been working with each other for many years, so, you know, coming as a new guy, it's intimidating, but, but they made it so easy.
Tosca: Yeah.
Carlos: Melanie is such a professional, she's.
Tosca: Right. Yeah.
Carlos: You know, Giulio as aloof as he is on set because we have to definitely wrangle him in. And Melanie assisted us a lot in wrangling in Giulio. Um, they were just so easy. They were just pros. Yeah. It was just like, it was, it was a beautiful experience and, and you could tell that they cared so much about.
Their characters and their, the project itself, like they wanted to see it through to their best of their ability, like mm-hmm. It was, it was great. It was great. Yeah. Definitely intimidating at the beginning, but they made it so easy.
Tosca: Yeah. I love working with them. They're great. Yeah. Yeah.
Ali: I miss them. We could just do it forever.
Tosca: Yeah. Yeah. But then I have all those other projects and I like working off of those people too, so they simply find other things for them. Yeah, sure.
Carlos: Yeah. I mean, we're finding other things, right? Yeah. We need to co We need a coven, we need a coven series, is what I'm hearing. And we need a cowboy series, is what I'm hearing.
Tosca: Yep. And uh, I don't know if julia would be, Julia would be in the, um, cowboy series. I mean, he can, oh my gosh.
Carlos: I don't know if he's gonna be a great cowboy.
Tosca: The Italian cowboy.
Ali: Someone needs to write that. Okay.
Carlos: Someone imagine that.
Tosca: Um, ciao.
Ali: Was it from the Gabriel Set that we have that wonderful photo of you and Tosca acting out a scene because what some people don't know, and luckily I have on my camera and you have some on your camera.
Yeah. Is that Tosca and Carlos will often try to act scenes out a little bit to help show the actors what kind of movements. They wanna see. Yeah.
Carlos: We, we get to know each other very well Yes. On these projects. And, uh, Gabriel's Redemption was one of my first ones, and obviously we're Passionflix, so, you know, we don't, we sometimes we have stand-ins, sometimes we don't have stand-ins, and sometimes as an ad you're like, okay, I'm willing to work as a stand-in.
So. Mm-hmm. There's times where you need to get lighting Right. For the bet sequence, and you don't, and, and, uh, you, you know, you kind of have to let, let the camera know where the position's gonna be and you don't have actors there. So yeah, Tosca and I sometimes would, uh. Lay down on bed and figure out where the camera is gonna be.
I don't, I don't know how to, how else to say that.
Tosca: I would be like, okay, okay, this is what they're gonna do. Um, Carlos, could you just lie down here? And then he would lie down. I was like, and then she's gonna come and, and then I would like get on top of him, and then someone takes a picture and I'm like, oh.
Carlos: And it's always at the worst moment too.
Tosca: It's definitely quite awkward.
Carlos: I swear there's the picture where I, I think I just might, I might punch Tosca like,
Tosca: like, I dunno.
Ali: Hopefully not that.
Carlos: Yeah. No, no. N never. Intentionally, but definitely. No, they're always funny. They're always funny.
Ali: The, yeah. We'll have to share that one.
And then I have the one of you, um, uh, for Black Dagger Brotherhood when you're trying to get Butch and Marissa ready for their. Scene where? Where something happens in a chair.
Carlos: Yeah. There's, yes.
Ali: Tosca's looking at it like she hasn't seen it. Okay.
Tosca: I haven't seen this picture.
Carlos: She has, she hasn't seen the picture.
But I was standing in for a scene. It's not bad, I promise. We're pushing Marissa on the couch and, uh.
Ali: The chair. The, oh, a different one you're talking about. I was talking about the chair. I don't know which one you're talking about. On the porch? Yes, the porch.
Carlos: We are talking about two different things. Ooh,
Ali: what's yours?
Carlos: Well, the one that I was talking about was the picture that you sent me where I had my finger in my mouth.
Ali: That was not me. That was not, Tosca was not in that, no,
Carlos: Tosca was not in that one. But I had my own finger in my mouth. Uh, maybe we'll share a picture of that. I don't know. We will, we will. But the other ones we have to, but we're talking about is, uh, it's a scene where Butch and Marissa are out on the porch or the, the, the second floor porch.
Mm-hmm. And, uh, the, the chair breaks. Mm-hmm. You know, and, uh, and so. The chair breaks, but there's no way for Butch to actually be supported on this broken chair. So you literally have me behind the chair holding Butch up for the scene. So I think that's what your reference is.
Ali: Well, what I was talking about was actually, 'cause at first, Tosca had me sit in your lap to try to figure out how they were gonna shoot it, but then.
She stepped in and showed how Marissa is supposed to lean over Butch and it's you as Butch and Tosca as Marissa and it's great.
Carlos: Yeah, maybe I need to see that picture.
Tosca: I have not seen that picture either, but I've seen the scene and it looks really good. It looks good. Good. That clearly I gave great direction that it was great.
Carlos: You did.
Ali: Black Dagger Brotherhood was a little bit different compared to some of our other sets you've worked on because we had to do night shoots, all night shoots. So how is that for you as an AD? Getting that scheduled and the logistics of it,
Carlos: it's so easy. It was literally like the easiest thing that I've ever had to do in my entire life. So, yeah, no, um,
Tosca: great. Let's do it again. Right. For like the next 11 years,
Carlos: I think I realized why Twilight, they shimmered in the sunlight. It's just to be able to get them out of night shoots. I think that's just literally what it was, just to be able to get them outta night shoots. Um, but no, I mean.
There's so many, so many challenges coming in with night shoots. Mm-hmm. You're literally calling people in at 5:00 PM and you're done at 5:00 AM in the morning. So physically it's challenging, but not only that, but during the day when you're trying to. Get everything ready for the next day, like you're asleep.
And so, yeah. If there's any challenges that happened over the day while you're trying to get ready for the next day, like you, there's not, there's, you have minimal time to be able to correct that and fix it. Mm-hmm. And get that, you know, cor, you know. Right. For what we need to execute the next day. So night shoots are a challenge.
You have to have a, a very strong team. You have to have somebody that's gonna be working during the day while you're asleep. Mm-hmm. To be able to kind of. Get everything ready for you, otherwise you're gonna fail. Mm-hmm. And so, yeah. Um, you know, uh, thankfully we had a successful night shoots, I believe.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Tosca: We had great night shoots, but it was, it was night and when we first started it was night exterior and it was very cold. So it became like we had a cold snap come in and it just. For some reason, the, those first two weeks were freezing cold. Um, and then it warmed up, but it was really, really cold and we were outside at night.
And then, uh, and, and schedules had a change because of whatever reasons, actors, crew, certain things had a change and so we would. Work from five until five 30 in the morning and then drive sometimes an hour home. It would take us that long to get home to a lot of our homes 'cause we were out in the woods or whatever it was.
Um, I would have to get home, wake my kids up and get them to school. Um, Carlos would have to get back to the production office and then make sure that everyone was set for the day to make sure that. You know, trailers were moving to the next location that the caterers knew what the next counts were and, and all that sort of stuff.
It's all these logistics that would have to be done, um, so that when we could then sleep during the day, which he didn't do very much, and then we would get back to set at like five or six o'clock that night and do it again. And make sure that everything was running smoothly. Because at 10 o'clock at night, if, you know, if you start at five o'clock in the afternoon, your di your lunch or dinner is at, um, 11 o'clock at night.
And so the, the caterer has to be there at 10 30 at night making sure that the food is there and if anything goes wrong and those, that food does not show up when you're out in the woods. There is no one else to bring you food at 11 o'clock at night. Yeah. So. Everything had to make, you know, be really well organized and, and planned in advance.
So, yeah,
Carlos: thankfully we had a, a great team supporting in the background Jack and, and Gillian. Yeah. You know, who works with, with passion Infl as well. So, um, but it, it, you know, overnights definitely have their challenges. It's more than if you're shooting during the day. Mm-hmm. It's, it's, it's just, it's, it's impossible.
To be able to kind of foresee what challenges you have on an overnight shoot compared to what you have on a day shoot because you're so limited to what you could do, and you, you know, if you need an, an additional equipment or something's not working for you, everyone's asleep.
Tosca: Everyone's asleep, everyone's asleep.
My favorite was that with the actors, with all of our, our wonderful. Brothers. Um, so they would work and as they would wrap, they would go back to their, where they were staying, and they would all meet up at the gym, but they would go and work out at like four o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning, because they had to stay on the night shoot schedule.
Yeah. So their world was like working out in the middle of the night. Yeah.
Ali: It's crazy. It was crazy. Well, and we had a lot of fans asking about the night shoots and why we didn't flip to days. Um, but, but also, oh, we tried, but, but also you're already so used to that schedule and that was the 45 days of shooting, so I can't imagine how.
Difficult that is for everybody once you're used to that schedule to No, you know,
Carlos: we, we had a week for Thanksgiving off. Mm-hmm. And we did definitely try to switch our schedule over to, to daytime shoots, but there's so many circumstances that are out of control, whether it's talent, turnaround times, and, you know, crew turnaround times that it just ended up being, we just kept getting pushed and pushed into night shoots.
Mm-hmm. So by the end of it, we were just. Officially vampires. Yeah, there was just, there was just kind of No way, no way around it. Yeah.
Tosca: So turnaround time, what that means to people is that when, when we wrap at, let's say we wrap at six o'clock in the morning, actors can only come back 12 hours later. So that means they can only start their day at six o'clock at night and actors.
Wrath would take about an hour and a half to get ready. 'cause he has a very specific look. And so that means that we can only start shooting at seven 30. And so if we are only starting to shoot at seven 30, the rest of the crew doesn't need to be there at six. They really come in at seven so that they can prepare.
And so if the crew comes in at seven, then we work until eight o'clock in the morning. Yep. And so it's very hard to pull it back to try and start earlier because if we work till eight o'clock in the morning again. Wrath and Beth have to have 12 hours of turnaround, so then they can start only at eight o'clock at night.
Carlos: Yeah. And so it just basically sort of like compounds. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yeah.
Ali: Yeah. Was there any particular scene that, uh, you had to do extra prep for due to stunts? I already know the answer, but you know, let's talk about it.
Carlos: Yes.
Ali: And what was that?
Carlos: All of it. Yeah, no. You know, the, the beautiful thing is we're, we were able to bring in, we, we scheduled our, our, our shoot.
Mm-hmm. Um, where the first week we were just, you know, in Caldwell pd, Caldwell Courier News Office. Mm-hmm. And it was just not stunt heavy. We had our actors here, you know, rehearsing with our sun coordinators. Mm-hmm. You know, all their brothers were here for like a week, two weeks prior to them actually coming on set, which I think was great.
One week. One week. Which I guess was great for them as well because we were able to film, build that, you know, friendship. Mm-hmm. That, you know, brotherhood within that week when there weren't shooting. Um. But yeah. You know, there's, there's just so many challenges coming, coming, coming with that there, but thankfully, I think our schedule ended up working
Tosca: Yeah.
Carlos: Fairly well.
Tosca: Well, also, this was the first time that we were trying something different for Passionflix. Right? We don't, we don't normally have this many stunts and this many unusual things. And so the cool thing. With working with Carlos was that I, when I started coming up with the idea of how we wanna shoot certain things, I was like, okay, and I want the, the throwing start to be like, to go really fast.
I had this sort of Japanese anime feel in my head for a lot of the action sequences and. Carlos was like, oh, well that's robotic arm. We need a robotic arm. And I was like, my gosh, what is that Very exciting thing. And so he brought in the robotic arm team to talk to me and show me different ways of how we could film things at extremely high speed.
And so we would have this arm that would stand in front of wrath, for example, at the beginning, and it would just move so fast just so that it could catch the, the throwing of the. Um, throwing star. Mm-hmm. Um, and so setting up something like that, we were out in, you know, downtown Atlanta and some very un uncomfortable places and um, and it was the middle of the night and freezing cold, and we had to spend hours setting up this robotic arm so that we could do this fight sequence, which is.
Amazing and really, really cool. It was exactly how I had it in my head. And um, so we did that. And then we also did it for, um, I don't know if I wanna say anything, but the final episode, um, the robotic arm is there as well. And it's so cool to see how things can happen. So the great thing about working with Carlos, not only as an ad, but also as a producer, is that he introduced me to all of these different crews and these different.
People in Atlanta that can do all of this very different stuff. And the same thing with our special effects team that Carlos had a great relationship with. And so everything that we, like, the daggers being made, they made these daggers and, um, and they, they would, they would come in and, and just basically create all these things.
Um, you'll see some of them. I can't give it away. But you'll see all of these different explosions and various things that happened throughout the series, and it's all done by this special effects team that Carlos introduced me to.
Carlos: I'm happy you mentioned that because Georgia, Atlanta does have strong crew.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Strong filmmakers, strong, you know, specialty. Uh, crew members like Mo uh, Mo Moko Quinn that did the robotic arm. Yeah. Like, it just like, you know, they're so, uh, Georgia has such great talent mm-hmm. That hasn't been tapped into, you know, and, and I, I think that's beautiful that we're able to kinda give them opportunities to be able to kind of bring up, you know.
Eh, their skill sets to projects like this, because it's just everything. It elevates, everything elevates on that. So
Tosca: it was really great. I, I loved it. It was super fun. And I also know now that those things, while they're lovely, take a very, very long time. They take a long, very long time. Very long time.
Yes. So we will have them in the future, but we will.
Carlos: It'll be a one day thing. It'll be, that's all we're doing just during the robotic on. Yeah.
Ali: I know we've talked about it a little bit, but for you, Carlos, and you've now seen all of the episodes, I think are most of the episodes. Yeah. But, and having been on set, is there a scene in particular that you're most excited for the fans to see?
Carlos: I think I honestly, I'm just excited for them to see all of it.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Carlos: You know, I think I, you know, I'm very proud of what we are able to accomplish with what we are able to do, and I'm very happy and proud of what you were able to accomplish and get out of these actors. Um, teamwork, I think everything is, I think, I think we've executed everything to the highest level that we can.
Mm-hmm. So I don't know if there's necessarily like a, a scene that I want everybody to see. I think I'm just really excited and proud for everybody to see the series. Yeah. I think they're gonna be really impressed with what we're able to do.
Tosca: Yeah, I think it's great. It's super fun. Yeah, it's so fun. It's so much fun. Yeah. Yeah. And JR Ward loves it, so that makes me happy.
Carlos: That was actually one of my favorite things is JR coming to set and just being able to see her reaction to the characters because we had a whole moment with them where we got them dressed up to, you know, their full character. Mm-hmm. And we introduced them to JR.
And I think it was very special for the crew to see that as well, because I saw some of the crew members just tearing up. Yeah. Watching her reaction to. The world that she created coming to life. And that's a beautiful thing.
Tosca: Yeah, that's a beautiful thing. And she had everything like with all the wigs and the colors of a fury's wig.
I mean like, I literally would take pictures. We worked on those wigs.
Carlos: Oh my God. Phury's wig. We were still working on it till the day before we shot. Yeah. You know, we were still getting notes from gr just getting GR ward's blessing. The warden's blessing on it was beautiful.
Ali: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. We love you.
You know, we love having you. So thank you for coming on today.
Carlos: I'm so grateful to you. Thank, thank you for having me. I hope I didn't ruin it.
Ali: No, you were great. Really good. Yeah. Thank you. Great. Well thank you for tuning in. If you have questions or comments, um, we have a phone number so you can call us and leave a voicemail and you can also text us.
And that phone number is seven seven zero. 6, 4, 8. Three six. Seven, seven. So call us, let us know what you think. Leave a comment, leave a question. We might answer it on the next episode. You never know. Um, and then please follow us on the app of your choice. You can stream our podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can also catch it on YouTube and on fashion, Netflix and X.
Yeah.
Ali: Cool. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks, Carlos. Thank you.
Tosca: Thank you.