Episode 20 - Taryn O'Neill

The 20th episode of PassionPod features an in-depth discussion with the Passionflix team—Lauren (Director of Development), Ali (Director of Marketing and PR), and Tosca Musk (Founder and CEO)—alongside Taryn O'Neill, the director of their upcoming film 'Wicked.' They reflect on their journey during the pandemic, discuss the development process, address fan questions, and share updates on current projects. The episode highlights the challenges faced during production, including hurricanes and COVID-19 restrictions. Taryn shares her experience of adapting Jennifer L. Armentrout's book to film, casting decisions, and working with the cast on stunts and action scenes. Fans are teased with exciting details about the movie, and are assured of the high-quality visual effects and compelling performances. The episode wraps up with an anticipation-building note about the impending premiere announcement.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to PassionPod
• 0:45 Reflecting on a Year of Passionflix
• 1:51 Development Updates and Fan Engagement
• 3:25 Production Plans and Challenges
• 4:49 Exciting Announcements and PassionCon
• 6:49 Tosca's Italian Adventures
• 12:10 Introducing Taryn O'Neill
• 13:42 Taryn's Journey and Directorial Debut
• 24:45 Challenges of Filming ‘Wicked’
• 28:03 Impact of COVID-19 on Production
• 30:11 Navigating Uncertainty and VFX Challenges
• 31:15 Restarting Production Amidst Risks
• 33:22 On-Set Dynamics and Directorial Approach
• 35:51 Casting Insights and Character Development
• 42:10 Stunt Coordination and Actor Preparation
• 52:41 Post-Production and Visual Effects
• 55:39 Final Thoughts and Fan Appreciation

Transcript

Lauren: Hi ladies!

Tosca: Hi. Hello. 

Lauren: So welcome back to PassionPod. For those of you who don't know, I'm Lauren. I'm the Director of Development here at Passionflix. 

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

Tosca: and I'm Tosca. I'm the founder and CEO of Passionflix. 

Lauren: Woo hoo. So this is our 20th episode of PassionPod, which 

Tosca: no way!

Lauren: And I, we, Ali and I were chatting about it a little bit and I was like, it's insane that it's been 20 already and we're also in a new year. And we're about to, we're very close to hitting the year anniversary of Covid, shutting the entire world down. So it's right. Weird and bitter. I can't believe it.

Craziness. But it was, I thought we could reflect for a moment that we're 20 episodes in Still going strong and passion books is still going strong and, everything's gonna be okay. 

Tosca: Yeah. And thank you to all of the everybody who's still watching Passionflix and supporting us. Yeah.All of our fans. 

Lauren: You keep us going and you keep us. Excited to keep doing what we're doing. So yeah, we really owe it all to you. 

Tosca: Reflecting back on the year, I'm just so grateful that I got to spend the year, um, spending time really, really on, on the projects that we made last year.

'cause I got to live in that world. It was, I know it's different for every single person and it was a very bizarre way of living it. 'cause I was, separated from everyone. But, I really got to spend a lot of time with all of my projects, which was great. 

Lauren: Yeah. It gave you a chance to slow down for some of it and instead of jumping from right to the next, it gave you a little time, like what we're doing now. That craziness, but, safety. 

So yeah, I, I thought we could go around and do quick little updates for each of us, and then we'll invite the, and I'll introduce her. Okay. So for me, development wise, I've been getting through more of my TBR list and funny enough, I, this past Saturday, I joined the Ladies from All Things SR podcast.

They invited me to chat in the morning with them. And we had a little interview and during it, they have people listen. Wow. They they stream the podcast and then they post it later. But a bunch of the fans who were watching were like typing them a bunch of recommendations. So Leslie's gonna send me.

Those books to add to my list. And then Ali, love her. She tweeted and was like, what book does, what book should Lauren Olson be right now? And a bunch of people responded with recommendations. So I do wanna remind everyone that we pay attention to what you guys recommended. I'm trying to get through them all.

Ali: We do. I love it. I texted Lauren and I go, ha. Look what I just did. But really I do it too because I love getting the recommendations. 'cause I go through and read them. It's so fun. And there's so many that I haven't heard of that. I can't believe And they're great. 

Lauren: Yeah, they're super. And I've reached out to a couple of authors recently that I'm excited about and I'll update.

Yeah, things are going well development wise. We're trucking along and working on some script notes for a few other ones because we've gotta get our scripts going before we can get production going. It's all a process. Yeah, that's what I, 

Ali: That actually that I've seen a couple questions come in and maybe task on Lauren. This is something you can talk to, but some of the fans wanna know, we have quite a few movies to make. Why do we continue to option if we have so many to make? Yeah, I'll let No YouTube. 

Tosca: No, everything is planned many years ahead, right? Yes. So we want to make sure that we're able to get a book and then it takes a while to negotiate that.

And then we get the book, and then we have to find the right writer. And then the writer has to write the script, and then it goes back and forth with the author a few times. And then we have to find it in our schedule as to how when we can shoot it, because sometimes it can be. East coast, west coast, different country different weather, all these different things.

So we have to see how we can fit it into a slot. And then, as we grow, we wanna make more and more films. And it's not just me directing the movie. There are more directors that we are hiring to to make Passionflix movies in order for us to make more. And so we're not just trying to make one, one book at a time.

Our goal this year is to try and make. As many as eight. Again, it's still pandemic pending, but we're hoping to make as many as eight. 

Ali: Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be a good year. Yeah. Great answer. 

Lauren: That's, yeah, that's perfect answer. That's why. Yeah. 

Ali: Yeah. Thanks for addressing that. Yeah. On my end as everybody saw, we put the pre-order up for the Gabriel's Inferno DVDs and wow, you guys were excited about those.

Lauren: We've sold. I wanna say, if I can say the number, can I say the number of how many we sold, or not really? 

Tosca: We sold out? 

Ali: No. I would say we've come close to selling up, but we've just added more to the order, so we won't sell out. Don't worry, we won't.

Yeah, we're doing great. So we're really excited about that. It does have the bonus features. It has the music video, the bloopers behind the scenes, so I know a few of you asked about that. We can ship internationally. No problem. Just go to shop Passionflix.com and the DVDs are there. 

Tosca: Yeah, and the DVDs are open to all territories as well.

There's some DVDs that are locked for just us, but these DVDs are open to worldwide territories. 

Ali: Yes. 

Tosca: Yep. 

Ali: And the same subtitles are included that we have on the streaming platform. So there's seven subtitles, I believe. Yeah. Great. Seven different languages. Yep. And then I am getting ready to start looking into other merch for Driven and for Wicked.

So yes, it's coming. I've seen the questions coming in. Of course, we're gonna have you covered, so.

Tosca: Not to mention all the stuff that you're still doing for Passion Con and the people that you're speaking to in order to make the event even more exciting. 'cause I get those emails. Yes. So don't forget, that's also on your plate. 

Ali: Passion Con. Yes. I have not forgotten Passion Con. Yeah.

really exciting. I actually have a call today about some exciting things for PassionCon and we are gonna be announcing a few more authors that are coming now. So be on the lookout for that. But there's I think three other authors that have. Recently joined us that you'll be very excited about.

Lauren: Awesome. I love it. Yeah. 

Tosca: I'm in Italy, so I have my wine. It's evening for me. It's morning for you guys. Summer. I'm jealous. I have my wine and my cheese and so much cheese. I've never eaten so much cheese before in my life. I actually, never thought I could say that I'm like. I'm Italian, food it out, but I have eaten so much Italian food that I'm just, I'm looking for something not Italian, just for a day.

Yeah. But but the food is incredible. The, we're here in Florence, we're in this, what's called the orange zone. So they have, they've, they have these different zones for how how the pandemic is going on here the risk of covid here. And so it goes yellow, orange, red.

And so we're in orange right now in Florence, and we are just like. Teetering just waiting for them to like, go to yellow, go to red, go to yellow, go to red, and they change them. They change their minds. They make the decision every two weeks. So fingers crossed we stay in orange or go to yellow. Yeah.

Um, that's my daily oh God. I have to say that I have had the most incredible time. So while. Obviously it's covid and it's very sad to see that there's no one on the streets or no one in any of these incredible historical museums and buildings. I have had the opportunity to go in there completely alone.

And I don't know very many people that have been able to go interview Zi Gallery completely alone. I was standing right next to Botticelli's, both a Venus, and I'm like, huh, this is me. Yeah, I'm right here. I can take a selfie. And it was like no one else is in the room, just me. And Dennis was, in, in Leonardo da Vinci's room it's just, it's pretty incredible to be that close to that art. And then in the Basilica and Assisi. Same thing. NormAli it's filled with pilgrims and missionaries and and people who are just simply attending church mass. And it's, it was empty.

A couple of people were there and they still performed prayer while we were there, which was quite amazing. 'cause we're just walking through the the basilica and the Franciscan. Priest Minister, I'm sorry. Um, is singing a prayer and and we're just walking around just listening to it as echoes through the halls and no one else is there.

And then I got to go down into St. Francis's tomb. Again, completely alone. The room is completely empty and normAli it's quite full. So the, this is definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity and we had to carry around these pieces of paper that said that we'd been tested and that we had special permission by the government in order to let us into this area because Assisi itself is co empty, the streets are empty because no one's allowed to go into Umbria.

Because of it's in the red zone. Yeah. And so it was just, it was incredible. So for that for that opportunity, I'm incredibly grateful. But for the people here, I'm incredibly sad that they don't get to have that same joyous, um, life that the Italians have. So hopefully that returns very soon.

Yeah, but Florence is beautiful. Italy is amazing. I'm looking forward to making Rapture. This is my long intro, but I'm looking forward to making Rapture. We, we have such incredible locations here and and on top of all that because we're finishing at Fueled at the same time but I have to be here to prepare for rapture just 'cause of the time of year and how we wanna release things.

So Margie. Our editors, you guys all know Margie is with me and she's in the other room right now editing Fueled, and so I'm like location scouting looking. Oh yeah, that looks great. We're Rapture, Rapture meeting with Giulio and Melanie. Ah, this is great. Great. And go over to Margie. Okay, let's cut.

So we're doing that. It works. Yeah, it's great. So yeah, so we're still working on Fueled, we're also shooting Rapture in a week or two weeks. And and then, finishing up Wicked as we are gonna discuss soon and prepping some other movies, discussing locations about this man. We're still planning on treating that there's, going back and forth all day.

So while I'm scouting for Rapture and editing Fueled, I'm. Sending location suggestions to Jody for this man. So much to do. So much fun. Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. Speaking of Wicked, Ali, would you like to introduce our guest for today? 

Ali: Oh, sure. Yeah. We are so excited today to have our Wicked director, Taryn O'Neill join us.

For those of you that don't know, wicked is Taryn's directorial future debut, but she's no stranger to the industry. She is also an actress and a screenwriter, and fun fact, she's a former competitive figure skater. I didn't know that until recently. Yeah, we have a lot to cover with her today though, so let's bring her in.

Taryn: Hi. Hello. Hi. Hi. How are you doing?

Tosca: It's quite late for me. Yes. 

Taryn: I'm like, where's my next coffee?

How. I'm good. I'm good. I apologize in advance. I have a diva cat who refuses to be kept out of the room, so she may jump on my lap and be like, hi, I'm here. She needs a cat. 

Lauren: We've had on a few other ones, we had Jordan's dog join once and a few other pets make appearances. They're fun. 

Taryn: Okay. Okay, good. Yeah. 

Lauren: So thank you for joining us today. It's exciting to be able to talk to you about your experience. Filming Wicked, and I thought we could start out by having you talk about how you first became attached to the project. 

Taryn: Yeah, sure. I I did a sci-fi short film that I wrote and directed and let me preface that.

I've actually known Tosca for quite a long time. We've worked together professionAli before we've been personal friends and I. When I made this film, I showed it to her once once it was done and about to be released, and she was really enthusiastic about it. And I have been a huge fan of this, the wicked genre, something that sort of combines action, romance, and paranormal.

Like I love action movies, but then I also love, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer was one of my favorite shows ever. And so it just seems like a perfect opportunity and I'm so grateful that she asked me to direct the movie, and so I present, had to present to her and my vision of it, and a vision board and we seem to speak the same language about it.

So here I'm, thank you, Tosca. Yeah, 

Tosca: My pleasure. I remember, so Taryn and I have known each other for, it must be 20 odd years now. And. We met while working together at the same studio. But we bonded over the fact that we were recording Buffy the Vampire Slayer and we had to we were like exchanging VHS cassettes or something like that, just like I got the last episode, because we worked these extreme hours and they're like, when can you watch the next Buffy?

But we also loved Buffy the Vampire so much that we just would always, chat about it. And that's how we bonded. And so when Wicked came up for us to like next in line for us to to make, I was like who do I know that can really live in this world? Who understands that sort of paranormal, normal, Buffy-esque type world?

Can also do action, also knows how to do you know, choreography but also knows acting. And then and then has a bit of a visual effects idea as well. 'cause there's so many visual effects and who can handle that? And then somebody who will drink the Passionflix Kool-Aid. And then I watched then we're just like out of the blue Taryn's Hey, this is my short.

And I was like, oh, let me watch it. And I was like, holy crap, that's really good. And I sent it to Margie and I was like, this is really good. It's not just me. It's not just because she's my friend, right? This is really good. And Margie was like, yeah, that's really good. I was like, okay. Hey Taryn, you wanna direct a movie?

Taryn: And I, I had no intention of initially directing my shorts. I had a bunch of other, I wanted to be the writer, actor, producer in it, no interest in directing. And just the directors I connected with didn't have the same vision that I had for it. And I had a good friend say, why aren't you directing this?

And I'm like, oh no, I can't. I can't do it all. And he's yeah, you can. And I was like, okay, fine. And then just going through the whole process and I didn't know what I didn't know. And I had visual effects in that as well. And I had some stunt scenes that I had to do as well. And I realized that sort of doing that soup to nuts.

Full, story creation from putting it on the page to like final color delivery. I was like, this is amazing. And I'm like, damnit, I don't wanna be a director too. But it seems to check a lot of boxes in my brain, my creative brain. 

Lauren: That's awesome. I love that. 

Ali: And Taryn, can you share a little bit of your background with us and some other roles you've had in the entertainment industry and how you got to where you are now?

Taryn: Yeah. I have a weird backstory. Not really weird, but it's very varied. My origin story came here to la I went to, I'm from Canada, from Vancouver originAli. Tosca and I spent some time together in in Vancouver when we both moved back for a period time. When we have Tuesday night Buffy and Angel Nights, we would hang out.

Tosca: It was fun. 

Yeah. Taryn. Actually, here's a fun fact. Sorry to interrupt, but also, anytime I had a boyfriend breakup, Taryn's had the same boyfriend forever, and who's now married to, she's married to him. But but when I would have a B boyfriend break up, Taryn would just bring over a season of Buffy and be like, here you go, Jessica.

And I would just sit there watch Puffy all week long thank you Taryn, and that I. 

Taryn: There are some. So yeah, I grew up in Canada. I was a figure skater went to school back east at Duke in North Carolina, and I studied economics. I thought I was gonna be an investment banker but had a passion for performing and acting.

And ended up doing a semester out at USC. And worked in the, and interned in the film business and I'm like, Ooh, film. That's interesting. It's a combination of art and commerce. Maybe I can be an agent, so interned at a bunch of places and ended up moving out, working at the William Morris Agency.

But my sort of passion for, I. Performing because I was a skater, kept coming back. And so after William Morris, and then I actually worked at Alliance Alanis, which is where I met Tosca and worked as a junior manager and then got into acting. But acting was never enough for me. And I also.

Didn't like not having any control over my career. So I started producing and I started producing thanks in part to Tosca's lead in the digital space, in web series. And so I met somebody who I ended up through her that I Tosca, you're big influence in my life. Let's just say this. Thank you.

I forget about all those, but Oh yeah. Those people, yeah.

So Tosca was a pioneer in the web space, and you know her, an early show of hers was even featured on a, on an Apple keynote, if I remember correctly. 

Tosca: Yeah. Steve Jobs used it in a keynote speech in 2005, which made it the number one show in the world. I. Yep. Cool. 

Taryn: So I co-produced a scripted web, a sci-fi web series.

I worked in the web space a lot while I was acting. I made a living as a commercial actor for a long time. I worked with incredible directors. Like my first big commercial shoot was with Michael Bay. Wow. And wow. I've worked with like Barry Levinson and the Cohen Brothers, and just really was grateful to be able to experience those really huge sets where, their craft service budget is like.

Our Passionflix like budget. Yeah, it's nuts. It's nuts. But then I also was working in the digital space where we're working on super micro budgets. You have to and when I started writing and creating, I would think of I'm a sci-fi person. I'm a big idea person, but how do you create these big ideas until these stories in small locations and limited locations with limited funds?

So I think it was a really great training ground for me to be able to transition into sort of filmmaking and writing, directing. Yeah, and then I writing sci-fi, I'm really heavy, heavily involved, or I have been in the science communication world here in la I have, I formed a group called Sirens and we promote science and education and entertainment.

So we really try to promote. Through all of our friends who are actually science journalists and science communicators women in STEM and legitimate science in TV and film. And, I got to be on like Neil deGrasse Tyson show and Bill Nye Show to talk about that. Which is really cool.

And like I gave notes to Sean Carroll, who's a theoretical physicist for his book, and he thanked me in his like notes. And I'm like, I physicist notes. Yeah, I, I really try to merge my love of science, just of discovery and awe and inspiration. It really brings so much joy to my life. Understanding, or trying to understand how the world works.

And it's all merged with me now as a writer director. I haven't acted since my short film, but, ultimately performer two. 

Tosca: That's awesome.

Lauren: I took a class in college part of, I went to Emerson College, which was a film school. And one of the classes I took for my science credit was it was about DNA, but my professor was very much into teaching us how to communicate science in a way that the masses would understand. 'cause that's a big, and so exactly what you're talking about is very important because science is huge and it's something that a lot of people. Need to understand to function in life. And it's so hard with all the big words that are used for people to really understand what's going on. So using entertainment or different ways of communication is important to bring it across.

So that's cool that you say that. Yeah. Awesome. 

Taryn: Alan Alda, the actor, he started about 10 years ago, a company that trained scientists on how to communicate science better. 

Lauren: Wow. 

Taryn: He was just, yeah, he was just honored by the World Science Festival about it. 

Lauren: That's fantastic. That's so cool. Yeah. I love it. And so thank you for more of that background.

It's very interesting. Yeah. But I was wondering if you could now also talk about how you prepared for Wicked, because it was your first directorial feature debut, so I imagine it was slightly different than how your short went and all that stuff. 

Taryn: Yeah, it was like training as an athlete. I love it.

The short, basically the short, I was like, okay, I guess I'll just do it. And I threw myself into this. I'm like I can't just do this. This has to be like, there's a lot of work that went into it. And I ended up having a little bit more prep time than I expected. So it was just, I think it was both a creative exercise and sort of a technical, practical exercise.

'cause I wanted to make sure. I knew as much of what I didn't know, so it was just a lot of okay, film school 2 0 1, making sure that I'm not gonna drop the ball anywhere that I know. Everything technical I need to know, especially with VFX, knowing that I was gonna be shooting on a tight schedule with VFX, with stunts, with intimacy scenes.

And then it was really the creative just throwing myself in creatively and making sure I could answer any question that was asked of me, that I had a full 360 vision of. Of how I saw this movie, of what I wanted the audience to feel, and what I wanted them to think about the characters.

And so it was really about sort breaking down every scene and figuring out, what that looked like, what that felt like. So that once we were on location and I was location scouting, I knew would work what would not, how we could pivot finding movies that I could dig into and, have references as there were some movies that really helped where I'm like, yes, I love the color scheme of that, or the feel of that and or how they frame the actor and they light the actor. So just having all those reference pieces, because as a director, I felt that my most important thing was to be able to clearly articulate and relay my vision to the crew.

'cause if I could have it in my head perfectly, but if I can't relay it to my crew and my cast, then I'm dead in the water. So that was really, really important to me. 

Lauren: That's awesome. I love that. 

Taryn: And then I got in shape because I knew I get outta sleep 

Tosca: and then you had a hurricane come in and shut you down for two days and then you lost all power in New Orleans.

And yeah, those were the great days and working. I'm just gonna throw out some of the curve balls that were thrown Taryn's way besides the two hurricanes that came in that shuttered down, lost all power and the windows were rattling and and they weren't able to shoot because it was a, basicAli, I don't think it was a state of emergency, but close to it.

Taryn: The second one. The second one was, yeah. Because and then half of Louisiana lost power for a week. New Orleans. 

Tosca: So good times. And then, but we weren't able to extend the shooting time either because of Covid. Liam is from Australia, and so in order to get back to Australia, they only let in a thousand people a day into Australia.

And so you have to book out. Months in advance, sometimes in order to get a flight back into Australia. So if he missed his flight back to Australia, he wouldn't be able to get back in time for Christmas. And, keeping in mind that we were, we wrapped shooting mid October or something like that, right?

Taryn: Yeah. Mid, mid, we, yeah, we wrapped on the 12th of November. 

Tosca: Of November. Yes. Yeah, so we started mid-October. Finished November. So if he didn't finish, if he didn't fly out, he would not be able to get home for Christmas because we would have to push his flight to the next available. And then he has to quarantine for two weeks in a hotel in Sydney.

And all these things that you're calculating, going okay. Great, fine. And he's he was super good about it and very supportive. And he's you know what to do for me. But at the same time we're like, oh my God, how do we get you home? We can't get you back into your country because you know of the situation that we're in.

So instead, Taryn was basically instead of, I think she lost two days of shooting. So instead of adding two days of shooting, they just had this extremely long days. To try and make up for the time lost. And just keeping in mind that they're like. TotAli exhausted having just come out of a hurricane dealing with covid compliance and, trying to hit their deadline of finishing by November 12th.

It was. Yeah. And I was just saying, you can do it. 

Taryn: We wrapped it, I think we wrapped at six in the morning six or seven in the morning on that whatever was the day he was flying at where he then had to leave for the airport at 10. Yeah. And so he, at least he had those four hours to to pack up, but it was kind like, bye bye.

Lauren: Yeah. That's so surreal that you got it right by then. Wow. 

Taryn: It was, yeah. It, in, in retrospect, I. I I still pinch myself that we got everything just because of, and it's not like we were shooting in LA and, oh, we can pick up this shot and Oh, our actors are local. No, we are in New, new Orleans.

No, Liam is in Australia. Yeah, there's no virtual studio that we really could have shot anything else in. 

Ali: No. And on top of that our listeners may or may not know, but you were actually in New Orleans to film back in March when everything got shut down for Covid. So how did that. Affect your, how was that experience and was it hard to jump back in when?

You were able to jump back in? 

Taryn: Yeah. I will always remember that day because I had just, we had just had our first sort of big production meeting where we had done a full, scheduled breakdown. At the same time I was getting texts from Anna who had just dyed her hair red. Showing me pictures of this red hair and we're like, oh, I don't know, maybe we need to change it a little bit.

And so I was like dealing with business stuff, but then actor stuff. And then suddenly both producer Ty and I got this text from Tosca ‘Call me now’, but let me, but let me preface this by like I was. I especially because, I follow a lot of nerdy smart people on Twitter and epidemiologists or some of them.

I was very aware that this was coming and every morning I would wake up at, whatever, six when we were prepping. And I would first look at my science news and be like, so where are we at today? And I remember I was in an Uber and hearing that the NBA had just shut down. I'm like. Can we eat this out?

Can we eat this out? No. No. But at least we weren't in the middle of shooting. We had, we just started, locking in some locations. There was a lot of stuff still to do, it all happened very, it was like surreal. It was suddenly like I was in crazy prep land and then Tosca was on the phone and she's come home now.

And I was like, okay. Because we didn't know what was gonna happen right now. We had no idea what was gonna happen. So I was literAli on a plane with our VFX supervisor the next day, and we were, in the lounge and like the bar were having a cocktail and the bartender was like, oh, this is not, oh.

Don't worry sweetheart. Wants to shoot, shake my hand running to the bathroom, like cleaning my hands, going no, you don't understand. Yeah. So it was that was a surreal, very surreal experience. And then we just, there was so much uncertainty. I had no idea when we were gonna pick back up again.

I'd hear dates here and there from a producer. Just like the world. We didn't know what was happening. So I just continued to work, continued to prep. It gave us way more time on the VFX end, which was really, really helpful. I. Full because we have now like 200 VFX shots that we're overseeing.

And so to really get that fast immersion like meeting with, meeting, zooming with vendors and learning what I don't know, which is great. They ask me a question, and I have that uhhuh. Like franticAli get back to you on that one. Yeah. Hold one sec. So yeah, the acting comes in really handy because I can just pretend I know exactly what they're talking about.

There you go. And then figure out really fast. Yeah. And would always just tweak the script a little bit to knowing New Orleans and trying to, make sure that we were, make it, having the best script that we could shoot and then suddenly it was like, and we're going.

And so it was like just off to the races again after the races. 

Tosca: Yeah. We would have these conversations like all through the summer. And then like I think around, in September I get a call from Taryn and Ty, the producer, and they're like, okay, we think we can go ahead now. And I'm like. Yeah, this seems very risky to me. I'm feeling second wave coming. I'm not really sure if this is going to be a good idea to send you out to New Orleans right now, but but at that point, the producer had already made another movie in Atlanta, though, not three in oh, three movies. Yeah. Yeah. In in Atlanta, not in New Orleans.

And and he, and and everyone felt pretty confident about moving forward, and so I was like, okay. Let's get these covid protocols figured out. Let's really understand what this means because I have to be prepared to shut it down at any minute. But then, we got it going and it all seemed to be pretty well organized when it comes to the Covid protocols.

And everyone was on board doing it. And we could get Liam out of Australia, which is no, not easy. Yeah. And then and then we, uh. And then we, yeah, and then we just shot. And then at the same time, we then started prep on fuel and crashed at the same time. Sorry, people are calling me, I don't know why they're calling me.

No worries. Okay. Crazy. 

Taryn: Yeah, when my schedule would, I would look at my, my day schedule of all my shot, my scenes and, I would just have this like lump of fear in my stomach and then Tosca's like:. Oh, I'm shooting a 300 page script in three weeks or something, and I'd be like, I'm good. Thanks.

Tosca: Massive car crash on a. Have fun. Lemme know if you have a serious question, right? I was there for you. No, but it was amazing. I went there, I flew out to New Orleans on the first couple of days of shooting. And I walked in and everything was going smoothly and Taryn had the set under control and she had a good relationship with Anna and Liam, and you could see that things were going smoothly.

And my job as somebody who as the executive producer and. And the, executive at Passionflix. I don't want to trample on a director's, direction. I am a director. I want them to have their say, that's why they're hired. So as long as everything is going smoothly and we're paying attention to the story and we're making sure that we're focused on the connection and and we're focused on the love relationship between these two people, I'm happy to leave it in the hands. And so we, I came in and and one of the first things we were shooting, or Taryn was shooting was Ivy's apartment. Yeah. And so there are a lot of really great scenes that happen in Ivy's apartment. And I just happened to be there for some really beautiful emotional scenes.

And I was like, wow, I'm just gonna sit here, not say a word. Looks great. Now I'm gonna go and have dinner. See you later. Bye-bye. 

Taryn: I remember her saying that. She's I'm going for dinner. I was like, oh, okay. Wow. Hi. You got this? See you later. You were there too, Ali. 

Ali: Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty magical watching Anna.

I remember I got the chills watching her, the apartment scene when she was opening up to rent about things in her life. And that was a really cool moment. It was beautiful. 

Tosca: Yeah. Yeah. really beautifully done. Taryn. You should be, I know you, I've said this before, but you should be super proud.

This movie is so great and I think people are gonna love it. It's just, it's so good. It's good, it's fun. It's different from anything that we've done a passion before. The relationship between Ivy and Ren is fantastic and Jennifer loves it, so that's great. Tink is hilarious. So good. 

Ali: And Lauren, for all the Passionflix fans, everyone knows that Lauren has very strong reactions to movies and we can confirm that she was dying throughout. Yeah, throughout. 

Taryn: It was, yeah. It was making my day when I every time I was here. 

Lauren: You gotta witness me reacting to movies. 

Taryn: Yes. As a filmmaker, rent's her new. Yeah. 

Lauren: Not, he's adorable. And I think fans are really gonna love him. And Tink is hilarious. I couldn't stop. 

Tosca: Yeah. 

Lauren: And I, but I wanted to ask you real quickly about what it was like doing a book adaptation.

Because like you said before, when you first directed, you did your own words, your own work. And that can be very different from taking an author's novel into the script adaptation. Bringing that to life on screen. So I guess I just wanted ask your process with that, what that was like in terms of.

Approaching it in a journey. 

Taryn: Yeah, it was twofold there where, one, I knew how important it was to stay absolutely truthful to the book. This was, this is a narrative Tosca. Even when we were just, when she first told me about Passionflix, when she first started it, it was about honoring the author and the fans that was so important.

So that was already like, subconsciously ingrained. It wasn't like, oh, let me make this my own, let me turn this into something, no. This is Jennifer Armentrout's book.. Fuck, this is Ivy Ren and Tank. And so my job almost in a way of being a writer director on a TV series that has an established framework, an established aesthetic I. A, a vibe to it. So I basicAli try to translate the feeling that book gave me with all that sort of information given to me, the specifics of whether it's wardrobe or locations or moments between characters, how can I translate that into the story world I have visually in front of me, in front of this camera.

So it was really about laying out that framework that I had to stay true to and then play within that framework. Obviously the, the joy in filmmaking is when you can capture a moment that you didn't quite expect. I'm not gonna tell an actor exactly how to deliver a line or how to feel, because then it becomes inauthentic like we've cast and just Tosca cast me as a director and trusted me, I trusted my actors to bring their own, sensibility and discovery to the moment. So it was really about honoring the book, creating a framework based in the world of the book, and then finding the artistry and the creativity within that.

Lauren: That's awesome. 

Ali: And you, we have an incredible cast for Wicked Awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about, I love them, how the casting process worked and what you were looking for in each chapter.

Taryn: I love them all so much. They're so fantastic. What I looking for casting, is such a collaborative process.

It's. It starts with lists and then your casting directors send, Lindsay was fantastic and so collaborative sends you interesting ideas that you wouldn't have thought of. 'cause know, initially you have the conception in your mind of what the character looks like and if there's a very specific description of the character, you have to lean towards that.

But there's something about an essence in a spirit that. I think you gravitate to most because someone can look exactly what, how the person described. If they don't evoke that feeling that character gives you then it's not gonna work. Liam does not look like Ren in the book, like Ren has described, with sort of reddish hair and he is a little bit stockier and they, both have different color eyes.

But in the casting process it was really about. Can they create these elevated kind of almost magical characters because they're a little bit larger than life yet can they ground it? So it was like, are they believable? Will they have chemistry? It is really, casting is, it's so interesting.

Now being on the other side, it really is just a. A feeling like you definitely want people with experience. One of the things that benefited me the most was that I felt like they were really they brought their a game every day. There was no I don't know my lines. I haven't made choices in this scene yet.

Can we just play with this for a little bit? No. They came in and they're like, this is what I've worked on all summer, like. There was not a, there was not a moment that they hadn't each worked on so much. So it gave me so much freedom to be able to be like, great, I don't have to warm you guys up with two or three takes, which we don't have.

You come right off the bat and sometimes I'm using their first takes because they're fresh and they know their work and. But going back to the casting process, it was really a collaborative process between Lindsay Tosca, author Jennifer and myself. And I'm not precious when it comes to casting, actually.

It's like I, I will, if two people really feel strongly about it, an actor, and I'm like, yeah, I think they're good. I will trust that they see something that I haven't seen yet and that it just will take me a while to see that. But I have to say every single person that, that we cast that Lindsay cast just as amazing everybody who plays, from Merl to Trent to, the local actors.

They were great. Great. 

Lauren: That's awesome. 

Tosca: Yeah. I love Merl. She's awesome. Amazing. She's so amazing. 

Taryn: And we and she wasn't, she was actually, there was, she was a replacement for another actress and she was cast the day that we shut down as well. And she, and almost every single actor except for one actor actress was still able to do the movie after, the date changes 'cause of Covid.

Lauren: Yeah. Because that's always a worry when you shut down. When you shut down for force majeure reasons or like things out of your control, it's then always a worry of who can come back when you. Whose schedules allow and all that stuff. So that's nice that you were able to get everybody back again —

Tosca: And also who's comfortable with it.

We were dealing with a lot of situations where some people, rightly were just not feeling comfortable getting on a plane and flying to New Orleans during Covid to go and shoot a movie. It just wasn't that important and that I absolutely respect their decisions. Those are all things that we have to take in consideration every single time We. Make a movie now during this pandemic. Yep. 

Taryn: And I found a lot of actors were very, A lot of our actors, maybe 'cause they were younger or very keen, they're like, get me on set. I'm like, get you on a safe set. That's what's important, set. Yeah. Yeah. 

Lauren: And can you talk a little bit more about what your experience was like on set, working with Anna and Liam and Andrew and all of them, and especially once stunts had to start being involved, what that was like.

Taryn: Yeah. Working with them was just super easy. I, right off the bat we connected and I think that we connected very quickly, which was wonderful because we were shooting some pretty intense scenes, within. Three days of shooting. But the second that they both stepped in front of lens and people at the monitor went, oh there was like a, oh, it was really good.

That Lauren? Yeah. So yeah, working with them was simple. It was easy. There was, honestly, there was I couldn't have asked for a better first cast as a director. I am now forever. We'll be jaded because I had such a great cast working and tank too. Andrew was so great.

He was in for a couple days to do off camera lines for Anna. And was just present and hilarious and gave her, such amazing sort of energy in the room. Tink energy, which was great. And then of course, Anna was on green screen stage for him when we were shooting his, his stuff.

And the stunts. Big budget movies. Usually actors have weeks or even a month, to rehearse stunts beforehand. But, we didn't. But luckily we, that was one of the things taking into account when we were casting is that Liam has a lot of, oh, Liam has a lot of where 

Tosca: Ali went. I'm sure she'll send Hi. 

Lauren: Yeah. I think her wife might cut out for a second. 

Taryn: Like suddenly Tosca is the host I know. Hi. I feel very special. Yeah. Just out to you. Okay. Would you like me to wait for Ali, or should I continue? 

Tosca: Let me invite her. Hang on. Okay. From my default email, yes.

Ali: I dunno what happened. I 

Lauren: was about to text you that I thought you froze and then you disappeared and I was like, oh no. Yeah, 

Tosca: I dunno what happened. I felt very special. I was suddenly the host. I was like, wow. How? That feels really good. I can do all sorts of things that Ali wouldn't normAli let me do.

Taryn: Oh God. Better not. 

Tosca: I can share everything. All those things that I used to do before Ali came along and just prevented me. 

Taryn: Yes. That was the thing on set of someone would be like, can I share this picture? I'd be like, text Ali.

Tosca: Not ask me. So beforehand I'd be like, sorry.

In the early days I'd just be posting, posting. And now I'm like, Ali, can I post that? Yeah. 

Lauren: She's good at raining you in, 

Tosca: Which is great. Yeah. Oh, hang on a second. Pause. Breathe. Breathe.

Lauren: So by the way, 

Tosca: it's pretty amazing to go location scouting out in Umbria. Pretty amazing Taryn. And they serve you re they serve you wine at lunch. With your pasta and all of it. 

Ali: Do we have any scouting to do next week when I get there?

Tosca: Jealous. Very jealous. 

Taryn: No, I think we need to bring the Italian home, the Italian ways. 

I think that's a great, the French are the same way, like French hours and, oh yeah. 

Tosca: Yeah. I guess we'll just have to go to France next then. How's that turn right? Good. 

Lauren: My French is pretty good. Yeah, 

Tosca: my tea. 

Lauren: Sorry, Taryn, you were talking about the cast being on set and and getting them in front of getting them in front of and stunts.

Yes, exactly. 

Taryn: Yeah. Just with the stunts that was part of the casting process is making sure that they were, they had the physical capabilities to ultimately. Do the kind of scenes that we need them to do. Liam had a lot of, Marsha has a lot of martial arts training, which was great. And Anna is a professional ballet dancer and so I knew she was really athletic and that she would pick up choreography really quickly 'cause you have to as a dancer.

Liam and I had a number of discussions about I would send him the stunt scenes. He was like, oh yeah, I can do that. I'm like, no, we're gonna have a stunt guy for you just to be careful, to be safe. He did all of his own stunts. Like he, he would. Wow. Okay.

Thanks for letting me know now. Thank you. Almost. But there, there aren't huge stunts that he's being like thrown or anything, but just like the mocking. There's like fight stuff and he did them all with stunt performers. So stunt performers would be on the other side, making sure that things were safe.

And then for Anna the stunt coordinator and I would send her videos to try to get her body into a fighter's body. So they would be like training videos and I would FaceTime with her and do exercises. 'cause I have a martial arts background. I started studying martial arts because I loved.

Tosca: We, thank you, Buffy.

Taryn: Yeah. So it was fast and furious when it came to stunts. Very safe. We had some great, we had two great coordinators. One that was more versed, with the bigger stunt scenes. 'cause we had we had rigs where, fly 'cause Anna some or stunt Anna would go flying.

The prince lifting her up. So there's a lot, with throat up. So there was a lot of those kind of things that we had to take our time doing safely. But they would come in the stunt coordinator and work with Anna and Liam to be able to learn the moves that morning, and then we'd shoot it in the afternoon and we would have the stunt doubles do it a few times and then we'd have Anna and Liam do it, usually not as fast.

But so that we could, cut it together to make it look like, especially with Anna, that she was doing all of her own stunts. And she did, and she, I can't tell you enough, she owned it. I remember the first time she did, there was like the first, I won't say which scene it is, it took me a while to get her there.

But once she had Ivy as a fighter, as a hunter, it was like on like her scenes. Her scene with the prince, like when she's fighting him. Oh, it's amazing. She's so good's badass. Like I was so proud of her. Like I used some stuff that she did as opposed to the stunt double because she just sold it and I was like, girl, you got a future as a stunt, as, an action hero if you want.

Yeah. She was very good. Awesome. And Andrew was amazing. Yes. Everyone was blown away. Of how well he could. He's never been in a flying rig before and they're like, oh, it's I, all I heard was, you're gonna have horrible days because the actor's gonna start complaining within five minutes. It's painful.

It's like, all I heard was that, and he was up there. He's this is great. He was better than the stunt double, like his form was better than his stunt double. Wow. I was like, why do we have this stunt double? 

Tosca: That's amazing. 

Taryn: But yeah, 

Tosca: that's actually funny. And he looks great in the movie. 

Ali: There. There are so many amazing scenes in the movie, and you've obviously seen it quite a few times now at this point, but is there any scene in particular that you're excited for fans to see, or do you have a favorite?

Taryn: I. I love all of Ivy and Ren scenes. They're just like, just the arc of them. I just, I love how their relationship develops. Lauren I love the Ivy Prince scene at the end. I think it's really awesome, really intense. I'm really proud of it. And I love the scene when Tink and Red meet.

In the kitchen. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's, I just I had, it was one of those days shooting where it was like I was behind the monitor just being like, yes.

Yeah, I think that the, I think the fans will be pleasantly surprised and, there's, I just, especially from the actor's perspective, there's just not a weak link. Like every actor portraying each of those characters, they just, they're they're all so unique and engaging. Like they're just really all compelling on screen.

Ali: Yeah, I know we've mentioned it on our podcast a couple of times, but I the Prince's entrance is still just yeah. Oh good. So good. So good. And the end of course, which I can't give away, but that's a, the end. 

Tosca: That's what I was gonna say. My, the moment that I was like, that always sticks with me. Every single time I think about this movie is the end moment. Yeah. And so everybody's gotta watch it to the end. It's also gonna have. It's and just Anna, in that end moment, I was like, oh my God, she's oh my God. Amazing. It's wonderful. 

Lauren: Which means that everybody's gonna then de immediately demand the sequel.

Tosca: Done. 

Lauren: Yeah. We gotta get working on that. 

Tosca: Everybody started talking to Jennifer about what our planners I hope you're free.

Taryn: Oh, people will be so excited. You'll. Yeah, that end was crazy that we shot that end scene on that final in 30 seconds, day in. Yeah, it we, I had this whole idea for it of, I won't say what it is, 'cause then it would give away what it's not. But yeah, it was one of those days where we had 10 scenes to shoot that day.

We were closing out Ivy's apartment, including the big love scene. And and Anna was, she was not feeling it initially and so we, I was just like, oh, Taryn, put on your actor hat right now. Get in there with her and make her feel what she needs to feel. And of course she did. 'cause she's yeah, seriously such a pro.

It's, she's such a pro. But yeah, it ended up working out really well. I love it. 

Tosca: Awesome. You did an amazing job. I'm really impressed everyone's gonna. 

Taryn: Thank you. Thank you. 

Ali: Can you talk about where we are in the process right now with the film? 

Taryn: Can I talk about it? I think that would be 

Ali: either of you, Tosca or Taryn? Can you let us know where —

Tosca: We're in post-production, so everything, the picture is locked and so everything's been sent over to the visual effects house. A great team of people that Taryn has worked very closely with to develop the look and feel of all the visual effects and visual effects of things like, Tink has to fly.

He is little when I saw that little, but he's little. In the room and he is got wings. And there are all obviously all these different visual effects that happen. It's the first time that we're doing big visual effects for Passionflix and and so they have the visual effects for the next two months at the same time.

Taryn is working with the composer, and our composer is Ben Collier on this one. He's done a lot of movies for Passionflix before. So wonderful. He's lovely of Passionflix movies and he's just so committed. So it's wonderful. And and and while we saw some songs and and so he'll do a temp version of this because as we get into visual effects, we have to do sound and music, art, visual effects because.

When you get into visual effects, you notice that some shots might need to be a little bit longer or a little bit shorter, and we, when we talk about a little longer, a little shorter, and we're talking about frames like, and there are 24 frames in a second in, in, in films. So it could be adding five frames or three frames or 10 frames or cutting free frame because it'll affect the visual effect.

Music can only really be locked in afterwards and sound effects afterwards because we wanna make sure that the picture is really locked. 'cause everything's done to time code. And so once we've finished visual effects, we send it off to the sound house, the same sound and color people that that have done all of our movies.

Great team of people and they will. Work to create all the sound effects of the big fight and all the different things that happen and tin sound along with Taryn. And then we will sound mix and then release. So that's where we are. 

Ali: So I think it, it's safe to say that we might be able to tell everybody when the big premiere is in the next couple weeks.

Tosca: Yeah. I believe that is very safe to say. Yes. 

Lauren: It's exciting. Awesome. Stay tuned everybody. Yeah. 

Tosca: Yay. Yeah. If it's not too far off, it's not too far 

in my world. My world. I'm like, hang on, where am I gonna be? There's so many things that are happening in between 

Ali: And I think it's gonna premiere a little sooner than people expected.

Lauren: Which is great. The sooner the better because Taryn's looking what is it? 

Tosca: Go Taryn, marathon starts. No, 

Lauren: exactly. Good finisher, Taryn, thank you for joining us today because it was so nice to be able to chat with you about your process and all of this and introduce you to the fans more than they had gotten to know you before.

And I wanted to ask you any last thing you wanted to say to people watching and people who are gonna watch Wicked. 

Taryn: Oh first of all, the fan support has been overwhelming and just lovely. You have the most beautiful community that are so supportive and they love you all so much, and they're so supportive of the actors and, it's they respect the actors, but love the characters.

And so it's just, it's lovely to watch. So I feel just really honored to be part of this ecosystem and, my goal, I made this movie for the fans. I know what being a fan to me meant. And so I know, obviously people have always huge expectations and it's never exactly how you imagine it, but hopefully it makes you feel the same way that the book did.

That's my goal as a filmmaker is to have those moments that you keep wanting to come back to, to watch. 'cause that's why I love this genre of movie. Sure. I love. Edgy, sci-fi, all that kind of stuff. But it's these relationship romance movies that I'll always remember of oh, that moment in summer in time, or Out of Africa, or, just those are those moments that always stick with me and I feel like this is a new iteration of it.

And, hey, Passionflix is way ahead of the curve when it comes to books to movies, so people better get on the bandwagon. 

Lauren: There you go. 

Taryn: You guys have done such a good job. Thank you. 

Tosca: Thanks. 

Lauren: Having fun. Awesome. Thank you Taryn. Thank you for joining us. It was so awesome talking to you. 

Taryn: Thanks for having me.

Ali: Good. We'll see you soon.

Lauren: Bye. Bye. Bye. 

Tosca: Oh, I love her. Yeah. Great. I'm so glad. I'm so glad it, it all worked out and with. Covid and coming back and life and comfort levels and all that sort of thing. It was, the first film that we came back to after the shutdowns and so yeah.

Yeah. That's crazy. There we go. Wonderful. Good. 

Ali: Yes. Yeah. In a couple weeks. We'll, yeah, we'll be back again with another episode soon and. Wonderful. Yeah. Thank you. 

Lauren: Yeah, and and everybody listening and watching, if you have any questions or thoughts please put them in the comments below or send us a message on social and we will get back to you soon. But thanks for tuning in. 

Tosca: Thank you. Bye. Bye guys.