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Behind the Scenes of a Steamy Rom-Com with Noel Stark
Novelist Noel Stark takes Papamutes behind the scenes of her debut rom-com "Love, Camera, Action". Drawing from her extensive career working in nearly every position in film and television, Noel crafted an authentic, steamy story about a female director and cinematographer who constantly jostle for control—both on set and in the bedroom.
Noel discusses the power dynamics in her novel and how they reflect real industry experiences. Her explanation of how she approaches writing intimate scenes—focusing on what would surprise the characters rather than what might please readers—demonstrates her character-driven approach to storytelling.
Whether you're an aspiring writer, film industry professional, or romance reader, this conversation offers a fascinating glimpse into the creative process and the realities of bringing stories from imagination to page.
“THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED OR VIEWS EXPRESSED BY GUESTS DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT OR REPRESENT THOSE OF THE HOST;
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What is your mindset when you're writing a sex scene? I mean, are you like thinking about how you would like it? I mean, you know? Or how the audience would approach it. I mean, I always wondered, not just your book but other books. I'm like, what are they approaching that.
Speaker 2:I mean that's interesting. I'm happy to say that no one has asked me this question yet, so I'm very impressed You're listening to Unmuted with Papa.
Speaker 1:Mutes. Welcome to Papa Mutes everybody. Today my guest is Noelle Stark. Noelle is an author. Her debut novel, love Camera Action is on sale now. Noelle also has a television and film background. Has worked in almost every position in the film and TV industry, both in front of and behind the camera. I'm thrilled to have her on Noelle. Welcome to Poppin' Mutes.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:My pleasure. So before we get to the book which I've read, loved it, Awesome. I mean, I'm not saying that just because you're coming on, I just sucked in. Well, I mean the book you know, you got to, you want to read, you put it down, you want to read, you put it down, you want to know what's going on. I mean the whole. It worked for me anyway.
Speaker 2:I'm glad to hear it yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1:Uh, so, before we get to the book, what is your background in the film and tv industry? Now, how deep were you, or are you?
Speaker 2:um, pretty deep. Uh, I started out as an actress. Before then I was a singer, and then I was an actress and I got into TV behind the camera, because, you know, someone told me that I should, I should write and direct a short film and put myself in it as a kind of business card, and, for whatever reason, I didn't like that idea. But I like the idea of making a short film, and so I did this short film that was based on a Strindberg short play and it just exploded. It went to Sundance, it went to TIFF and it launched me into this career that I wasn't really expecting. So I've worked. I mean, I'm Canadian, so it's a much different industry than LA, which is where I'm now.
Speaker 1:Now let me interrupt you for a second. Can I interrupt you for? A second Because I'm a huge hockey fan, so who's your team?
Speaker 2:Well, okay, so this is a funny story. I was never brought up with hockey, so I don't actually have a team, I know. But what's funny about that is my dad found out he was adopted when he was around 50. And it turns out that my grandfather was in the original six as a goalie and his name is on the Stanley Cup no way Joe. Stark, joe Stark. He played with the, he played for the Leafs and he played for the Blackhawks.
Speaker 1:Wow. So, but I mean, you were born. Where, though? Which part of?
Speaker 2:Canada. So I was born in a small town north of Toronto. So I don't know, for whatever reason, my dad watched football. We didn't watch hockey. But when I started kind of looking into my own ancestral background, I started watching hockey myself. So I don't actually have a team. I kind of fluctuate between who I think is interesting at the moment.
Speaker 1:But who's your team? Are you Flyers? No, I'm from Pittsburgh, so I'm from Pittsburgh. Right. Yeah, I'm a Penguins fan, but I live in Flyer territory.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, you have one of our big Canadians, right, the Penguins have.
Speaker 1:Crosby, crosby, yep, sidney Crosby, yeah, absolutely Anyway.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Good to know, joe Stark, so go ahead. Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt. Oh, yeah, no problem.
Speaker 2:So working in TV in Canada is a much different beast than in the States, and the reason for that is because the pie is a lot smaller, the industry is a lot smaller and so you have to do a bunch of different jobs just to kind of get by. So I've been a writer for scripted, I've been a writer for reality, I've been a director, I've been a producer, I've worked in post, I've worked on kids shows. I've worked on. I had a lot, a lot of reality experience on ghost shows or renovation shows or true crime. So I've worked across the board in almost every capacity casting, pa, story, producer, all all the things.
Speaker 2:So when I wanted to, when I decided to write this book, I wanted to put it in the film and TV industry, because I knew it quite well from a number of different angles, because I didn't want to. I didn't want to worry too much about world building, I wanted to focus on the characters and the love story without having to worry too much about the environment. So that's why I love camera action is set on a TV set.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, but you have never written a novel before.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:That had to be a challenge.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, it was such a challenge.
Speaker 1:I mean writing TV, writing scripts. I mean it's a whole different animal right.
Speaker 2:Really different, really different. The reason why I wanted to start writing a novel is because when you're working on your own projects in TV and film, it takes an enormous amount of effort from other people. You have to convince other people that your project is worthy. You have to get a huge amount of money to make anything, work and time and effort from tons of people, and so I kind of wanted to do something that was just me. I could work on my own deadlines and work on my own voice, and I found it actually really relaxing. Now, it was very tough, because it is a different animal and I had to learn how to write in a much different way, but because I didn't have to do it for anybody else other than myself, it was. It was a pleasant experience, as pleasant as writing can be, cause, honestly, it's always terrible.
Speaker 1:How long from the time you started to write it to the completion approximately?
Speaker 2:to the completion of the manuscript, or, to like, till it's on the shelf till it's on the shelf okay, seven years, seven years.
Speaker 2:so I'm a single mom and I work in tv, so I stole time, uh, to write this thing whenever I could. When I first moved to la, I was writing on the bus because I didn't have a car. I was writing um in the seats while I was watching my kid in his taekwondo class. I was waking up at 530 in the morning just to get a half an hour in, like I was stealing time from everywhere and so it took me a long time, and plus I was learning a whole new format. So it took me about three, three and a half years to get it to a place where I could submit it. And then the finding the agent, finding the publisher, then the publisher actually publishing it took another chunk of time as well.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's like a movie. You know, a whole movie process takes a long time too.
Speaker 2:Yeah oh yeah, for sure a long time, um so all right.
Speaker 1:So love camera action. I read it. I know what it's about, but for the listeners, what is it about? Okay?
Speaker 2:okay it's about, but for the listeners, what is it about, okay? Okay, it's about a female director who's been hired to shoot this a couple of episodes on this TV show called the Demon. And she's been hired at the last minute because the director that was originally on the show got fired because he said some unfortunate things about the Me Too movement. So the producers had to find a woman for PR reasons, someone who is available and someone who knows how to direct sex scenes, which are not the easiest things to direct. So they find this woman, callie.
Speaker 2:She's Canadian, they fly her in, she walks straight on set for the first day, she has no time to prepare and she smashes right into the director of photography who she has kind of an industry crush on because he's a genius. He's considered a tyrant, but he's also considered an artist and she's so excited to work with him and he doesn't really want to have anything to do with her because he doesn't want to be working with a newbie. He doesn't want to work with anybody who has ideas or like excitement. He just wants to get through his day. So as a result, you know chemistry happens, but also conflict happens and you know hijinks ensues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been coming all back to me now. Yeah, it's been coming all back to me now. How much is based on, you know, fiction and or I should say reality that you've come across storylines and stuff? I mean it's not based on true people, but I'm sure some of the storylines or stuff you have seen maybe yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean some of the scenes for sure have happened to me or have happened to friends of mine or I've heard about. There's a scene in the book where the showrunner comes in and decides to switch the entire scene. They're about to shoot a scene in hell and he wants to switch all the lighting from red to blue and nobody thinks this is a good idea. But you have to do what the showrunner says, and he discusses this without Callie being present, and I've personally, like a producer, going above the director and just going straight to the director of photography. I've experienced that when they just kind of cut you out of the decision-making because there used to be a little bit of an old boys club I mean I could argue that it's still there, but it's certainly less and so that has happened to me in the past. But the idea of the showrunner changing everything from red to blue on a whim happens every day in a bunch of different ways and in a bunch of different examples.
Speaker 2:Working in TV, you always have to deal with people that are above you who just have these ideas, where they say you know, wouldn't it be great if actually everybody was dressed in medieval wear and you're like, yeah, yeah, even though this is a sci-fi shoot we're doing you know and you have to you have to change everything you know so that stuff happens all the time now.
Speaker 1:Have you thought about it as a movie? I mean, as I'm reading it I'm like this could be a movie, or yeah I mean, I would love it to be a movie.
Speaker 2:Do you want to make it?
Speaker 1:You got to raise that money, right yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, of course it's everybody's, every novelist's dream to turn it into a movie. I would love that for sure.
Speaker 1:So would this fall under the? What genre? Like romantic? I mean it's got a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:How would you categorize it? I categorize it as a rom-com, as a steamy on the steamy side rom-com. How would you categorize it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, now that you say that, yes, I agree. Yeah, I mean speaking of steamy.
Speaker 2:Well, for me, yeah, it's stuff that I would like to read. It's stuff that I would like to. I mean, it's weird because when you get to that point in the book and in this book it happens about I don't know 65% of the way through, these characters are already so alive, they're having their own dynamics. So I'm not sure if I consciously think of it as me in that situation, but of course you know that plays into it about what you find interesting or what you find funny or sexy or whatever. But I think what I, when I think about sex scenes and writing them, I think about what is surprising to the characters. Like how can they surprise each other so that they are really like it, like they really find it exciting and titillating and all those kinds of things. So that's very character based for me in terms of like the context.
Speaker 2:Like in the first time, you know, callie and Jory get together.
Speaker 2:Callie's had enough, she's exhausted, she's she's had so many hard times on the, on the set and she just wants to turn her mind off.
Speaker 2:And Jory feels badly because he knows he's sort of the author of some of those bad times, but he wants to make her feel better and himself along the way, obviously, and so that makes for a certain kind of scene and she gives over all kind of control. The idea between these two is that they're always jostling for control on the set off the set in the bedroom outside, all the time. They're always jostling for control on the set off the set in the bedroom outside, all the time they're jostling for control. And so in this particular situation she, she hands it over to him and says this is your show, you're running this. And in, even as they go along, she, she kind of instinctually keeps trying to pull it back because you can't help it, and he's like no, no, no, no. You said like this is my show, so we're running it, and so that makes a particular kind of scene, you know yeah no it's great.
Speaker 1:I mean a lot of tension, a lot of like, yeah, nice, yeah, um. So the character of howard is he semi or loosely based on howard or um harvey weinstein?
Speaker 2:I mean there's aspects of harvey weinstein some of it are are showrunners that I've personally worked with like I've never. I've never worked with someone who's that blatantly predatory, um, but I know a lot of people that have, and I've certainly been in very uncomfortable situations with my superiors, from again, the lowest to the highest, and I think that's what you know part of the Me Too movement was about was calling these, these guys and their bad behavior and bringing it into the light. And this is part of the conflict in the book too, because Jory is very cognizant of that. He does not want to get into trouble. He, he's a good guy and I think it's he's worried how a good guy can sometimes be easily misconstrued as a bad guy. And so he, he wants to make sure that he's kind of covered covered his butt in a way, but at the same time it's hard because he's really attracted to Callie.
Speaker 1:So that's what, that's what makes some of the conflict between the two of them as well. Yeah nice, yeah, well done, um, thank you what I mean if you had to narrow it down for young writers or anybody that's approaching writing. What was the most challenging part of writing this novel? I mean? For for me besides the story, you know you got to, like you said, you mentioned all those other things. What would a younger writer not be aware of?
Speaker 2:I mean for younger writers. I think that this idea that inspiration is going to carry you through is is baloney, like it's, it's not going to you. Inspiration might give you the kernel of the idea, it might give you a few scenes here and there, but it is not going to carry you through and you cannot wait for it. So you have to be consistent, you have to find time to sit down and, even if it's terrible, you have to find time to write a hundred words or 200 words, and you have to do it every day, or five times a week, or whatever you can imagine, whatever you can manage, because you know, lots of people say you know, if I only had three weeks, I would write the great American novel.
Speaker 2:Or if I only had time, or like when my kids are older, I'll have time, had time. Or like when my kids are older, I'll have time. And it's like it's wrong, like it won't, like I can tell you right now I was, I'm, a single mom. I'll say it again and I only say it because there's a, there's a lack of time when you're a single mom and also when you're working in TV, cause it's a very intense gig, like there were months when I couldn't write at all, but the consistency is what carried me through and you have to just keep at it. No matter how bad it is, how uninspired you are, you just have to keep at it.
Speaker 1:Do you have the story intact not intact, but you know they like to say the beginning, middle end or or do you come up with the characters and say you know, I'm going to write a story about what I know in the business, and as it goes along you start to create other scenes.
Speaker 2:I mean because it's, it's not easy no, it's not easy, and there's different types of writers. There's people who plot like everything to the teeth before they start writing. And then there's this other you. You know, in the romance world we call them pantsers, so you're writing by the seat of your pants, and so this book I was very much a pantser. I had my two characters and I knew the setting and I went, and when I started my second novel I was like I can't do that again. That was, it took a long time, it was too stressful. So with my second novel I was a little bit more of a plotter, like I knew where I was going, I knew where I was headed, I knew what themes I wanted to explore, and so that helped me. But but I also left the door open for changes, if, if they occurred.
Speaker 1:Now, is this a follow-up to Love Camera Action, or that was my next question. Do you have another?
Speaker 2:Well, I do have a follow up to Love Camera Action, but this, this other one. Someone actually gave me some really good advice that said you know, while your first book is out on submission, start a completely different series, because if the first one doesn't go, there's no point in wasting time on the second. Now that that may not be as true anymore because of indie publishing and and you can just publish it yourself, um, but I chose to write something completely different, that's more in the speculative fiction world, um and uh, which was a whole new thing, because there was a lot of science involved and I'm not a big science person, I'm a terrible science person actually.
Speaker 2:But that said, I have started the second book in the series of Love Camera Action, and this one is based on the actors, on the two lead actors.
Speaker 1:Cool.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Now, who is your publisher?
Speaker 2:Alcove Press, who is connected with Penguin.
Speaker 1:Cool, Cool. You prefer reading or writing. This is my preference section, by the way. I just give you a couple of choices of stuff to get the. Let the reader or listeners get to know you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I, yeah, I mean I, they're so, they're so different. I love reading. I love reading so much I read all you have to love writing. To really write, I mean you gotta love it right I don't, I don't know, I like I don't love, I don't love writing like it's painful, wow painful.
Speaker 1:Wow, really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm compelled to write. I'm compelled to write.
Speaker 2:Okay, I mean it seems like I'm compelled to make things. I've made movies, I've made songs, I've, you know, acted. I'm compelled to create things. So I'm compelled to write things because I have an idea in my head and I really want to see it out in the world. Do I enjoy the process? Not particularly Like. I think it's hard, and it's it's. It's hard on your heart, it's hard on your brain. You feel like an idiot. Most of the time it's a. When it's out there in the world, you're scared that no one will like it. It's not easy.
Speaker 2:Sure so, yeah, it's more of a compulsion okay, um coffee or tea oh, that's unfair, that's an unfair question come on?
Speaker 1:come on coffee or tea?
Speaker 2:it depends on. Oh, okay, if I'm on a desert island, tea, because there's a whole bunch of different types of tea you can have, okay, but I don't think in regular life I would be able to give up coffee.
Speaker 1:Addiction is tough. It's really tough what?
Speaker 2:would you pick?
Speaker 1:I'd go coffee.
Speaker 2:You'd go coffee.
Speaker 1:I'd go coffee, yeah. Movies or TV. I'm talking about watching.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, that's also really tough because I grew up with movies and I have. I'm a huge cinephile. I've watched so many different types of movies, but in the last 10 years movies have really taken a header because of the way that they're kind of made Like they don't make money anymore, so there's it's hard to so that there's it's hard to find independent movies, it's hard to find good movies. It's just not the same. Like you, you know, like what it used to be such a culture of watching movies, from you know, john Wayne to Godard. You know like it was. You had so much to choose from. And now it's the same with TV. Like you have so much to choose from.
Speaker 2:Uh, with TV, there's so much going on. And it's the same with TV. Like you have so much to choose from, uh, with TV, there's so much going on, and it's such a different narrative structure. Like you can stay with these people for a really long time. Um, what I find interesting is my son. He's 11. He doesn't like watching movies because he finds them too intense. Um, yeah, like he, he wants to be in a TV show that carries on for a long time, so that he can, he can, enjoy that world for a long time. But but movies. I almost have to force him to watch movies because he finds them too stressful, it's not interesting.
Speaker 1:The big screen is just. That's the ultimate way to watch it, obviously.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, my God. It's such an amazing, an amazing space and and because we don't go to the big screen anymore, we're just watching them on our tv and and I find that the you know, often the uh cinematography isn't as interesting as it used to be. I mean, of course, there's examples where there's tons, there's movies that are amazing, like I really enjoyed conclave. That that was really fun. I thought Enora was great. It's a great indie movie, but they're just so few and far between now.
Speaker 2:Sunrise or sunset. I will say I will. You know, I like the sunrise because usually I'm the only one looking at it, but sunsets are more beautiful. They tend to be more beautiful.
Speaker 1:I like the sunrise because they're also quiet.
Speaker 2:They're quiet. Living in LA, I've been able to go to the beach and watch the sun actually set on the ocean a couple of times, which is an unbelievable experience.
Speaker 1:I highly recommend it to anyone who can do it um, yeah, yeah, I mean, I've seen that in florida a number of times. You know, sunset and all that stuff, uh, uh, pizza or pasta, pasta definitely, or pasta. Pasta Definitely. Yes, there you go. I like it, love it. I mean, I like pizza too, but you got to go pasta.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's so many things you can do with it and, honestly, you know, having a kid around, you're eating pizza all the time, all the time, because it's all they eat.
Speaker 1:Or grandkids.
Speaker 2:Or grandkids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, beach or swimming pool Beach, yeah me too. I like both Dinner date or lunch date.
Speaker 2:Dinner date. There's more you can do at dinner. Lunch dates are for friends, dinner dates are for possibilities.
Speaker 1:There you go. Sounds like a movie. Sounds like a book, high heels or flats.
Speaker 2:Oh God, flats. I have spent so much time in high heels in pain that I never want to go back. I have to go to a bar mitzvah in a couple weeks and I have to wear high heels. I'm dreading it.
Speaker 1:Oh well, acting or directing.
Speaker 2:Direct directing. I I loved acting when I was doing it, um, but it's it's a hard place for women because they uh, there's not as many roles for women. You have to be a specific kind of woman often to get acting roles and I just found I couldn't handle that mold to be stuffed in. So I rather have the control, and I think that's probably why I chose a director to write my first book about because she has control over what's going on. And it's certainly why I became a director is because I could get more control over what's going on. And it's certainly why I became a director is because I could get more control over the stories I was telling and the way I was telling them.
Speaker 1:So in the business I'm assuming that you've come across some famous people I have who's your, who I mean just who would stick out as a really good person to percent, because sometimes reality is not the truth, you know.
Speaker 2:But I mean in general, I mean I've met a lot of people on film festival um circuits. Uh, there's a lot of really good people and I don't think I've met anyone who's horrible. I mean, I met Robert Redford when I went to Sundance and he was very gracious and very interesting. Like he actually pulled me aside and I had a conversation with him, which you know I had to get other people to take pictures of so that my mom would be so excited. She was like a big.
Speaker 2:Robert Redford fan, sure. And yeah, I've met like I've met Sidney Pollack, I've met Paul Haggis a lot of really great directors, a lot of great actresses who became directors, like Sarah Polly. I don't know if you know Sarah Polly. She's like an amazing, amazing person. I think on the whole, people are nicer than we think, but they're protective, because they need to be protective of themselves, their time.
Speaker 1:Right. The perception of the outside is oh, they're egotistical, spoiled, blah, blah blah. But it's not an easy business. It's not, I'm sure there are some dicks. I mean I'm not going to. Oh yes, I'm sure there are some.
Speaker 2:Yes, there are some people that are truly awful, truly awful Howard.
Speaker 1:Howard is truly awful.
Speaker 2:And I don't necessarily think that's just from the film industry, Like there's there's truly awful people in the pharmaceutical industry. There's truly awful people, you know, in NASCAR. So I, but I think, I think people.
Speaker 1:Overall, you would say more are nicer than they outweigh the bad.
Speaker 2:I found that. I found that yeah. More open and giving than you would. You would like that you would think.
Speaker 1:Right, right, awesome, anything in the future, this summer, that you're doing, or I mean, I know you're writing, but anything coming up.
Speaker 2:I'm going well. I'm working on a true crime series right now. We're writing scripts for them, so I'll be doing that over the summer and also, once my son is done school, we'll go back to. We have a cabin just outside of Toronto, so we'll be going to our cabin for the summer, which will be really nice. And then I'm actually I'm super excited. I'm going to Sweden for a week for a reunion, because I went to school in Sweden and so I'm going back for a reunion, which is pretty exciting yeah that's great Wow.
Speaker 2:It'll be a good summer, I think.
Speaker 1:Great, so this has been fun. I really appreciate you taking time coming on and I wish you the best in the future.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate you having me. This has been a lot of fun and I like all your random questions.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you and I'll keep you updated on the children.
Speaker 2:Oh, god, please do.
Speaker 1:This has been an unmuted podcast with Pond Mutes.
