The Animation inside Escaping Twin Flames with Amy and Alan

This podcast episode features Jessi interviewing Amy and Alan from Yukfoo Animation studios about creating animated sequences for the Netflix documentary "Escaping Twin Flames." They discuss their creative process—initially designing tarot card-style 3D animation that Netflix rejected, then pivoting to atmospheric moving paintings. The conversation covers working across time zones, depicting victims' stories respectfully, and specific animation challenges. Jesse, a former Twin Flames cult member featured in the documentary, shares firsthand experiences of coercive control, being assigned a false gender identity, and ultimately escaping. The episode explores cult awareness, documentary ethics, and collaborative storytelling.

Music By: AJ Music Group

Lyrics By: Jessi Hersey

Artwork By: Zummi

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Listening to voices, stories can be strange. It's good to open up to new stories and finding backstories of how people came to be. Only to free the mind of what blinds us with only a glance gives us a chance to see people be who they truly are. From silent voices to shining light. Stories that inspire awareness and change. I welcome you to Jesse Stories, Unheard Voices. Thanks so much for being here. But today we have Amy and Alan from I'm probably gonna pronounce it wrong, Yuck Fu animation. Thanks so much for being here, guys. If you'd both introduce yourselves.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Hi, I'm Alan. I'm an animator. I work with Amy. We worked both on this project to bring animation into the documentary. So we're gonna talk about that today. And hopefully it's an interesting thing to listen to. Over to you, Amy.

SPEAKER_05 1:27

I'm a producer here at Yakfu and yeah, I worked on creating some animation to help tell parts of the story. Yeah, and that's what we're gonna talk about today.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

All right. Thank you guys for being here.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

And if someone in your life randomly appears, they seem to be a twin flame possibility.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

We had this big thing around the table. Everyone was there in the Airbnb, and we all called in Marley's twin flame together.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

Everyone was looking at me. I was crying and they were saying things. Are you ready for the ultimate love of your life? Don't you want what Keely and Colby have?

SPEAKER_04 2:36

I guess I'll jump into the first question. When were you first reached out to buy Sicilian and N Ball? If you reached out by them.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Yeah, I'll take that one. It would have been it would have been 2022. I had worked on a project with another documentary series which had animation in it. Actually, it's a documentary film. And it was running around the circuit doing the Emmy nominations, Oscars, that sort of thing. It never ended up getting an Oscar nomination. However, it was very close. But I remember that's one of the first things that we talked about in the first call when I when I did speak with Cecilia and Inbal. So they gave me the commiserations on that. And they said, we really love the work. We would like to talk to you about this project we're working on. So that was back in 2022. It's obviously a long time before we actually started working on it. We had to sign some waivers and some non-disclosure contracts just so that protected the project itself and the stories of everyone within it. Then it was a number of months later that we actually started getting down to the nitty-gritty of making the film. So yeah, that's it, it takes a while. There's a big lead up. And in that process, we we supplied creative ideas, some images. We sort of scoped out what where we thought we could help and what that might look like. And then eventually Cecila and Imbal contacted us a couple of months later saying that they'd like to proceed. And then we got into the onboarding type of stuff with the ITV, who made the documentary for Netflix.

SPEAKER_04 4:25

Very cool. And my next question is what made you both want to take part in this docuseries?

SPEAKER_00 4:31

You go, Amy, you're your turn.

SPEAKER_05 4:33

Well, I was just going to say something that really appealed to me was that it was an important story that was being told. And Cecilia and Bo are both very passionate about it. And it's nice to take those opportunities to work on something mean meaningful and a job that I guess, well, you would say it's a job for good, really, in in many ways, because it helps spread important messages and highlight injustices. So yeah, that was something that really appealed to me about it outside, of course, of the business side. Yeah. Very nice.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Yeah, absolutely. I agree. It's uh the these types of projects don't come around often enough in life. I think when you see something where you can really help to make a difference in just doing your normal job and it's you see it as a as a good thing. Uh Amy mentioned, it's it's uh it's a really nice feeling for us just to be able to do what we do and know that it's gonna have a positive effect out there in the world.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

That's true. And it's yeah, definitely an impactful project that has turned into still a buzz thing. I saw recently on TikTok because I'm obsessively on there. Someone wrote a comment to an influencer who was trying to be funny, but it's not really that funny because it exists. Of he blocked me, so I took a plane to get to his house. And then the comment said, that reminds me of Escaping Twin Flames on Netflix. My reply was, well, yeah, because people I joined in on it.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Yeah. Yeah, I can see the humoro side of that, but yeah, it's a touchy subject.

SPEAKER_04 6:15

Yes, it is, but it is fun to also make fun of it. I know I took part in a lot of the ha ha ha that a lot of people were doing, even comedians were making fun of Jeff.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

And all right, I haven't seen any of this stuff.

SPEAKER_04 6:28

Yeah, it's fun to also poke fun out of it and then going, you're gay, you're gay, and you're gay. I think because it's true.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Yeah, I bet there's a thousand memes about it too.

SPEAKER_04 6:40

Yes, there are some great memes. I have to say, a lot of good did come out of it, even because no matter what you're doing when it comes to justice or anything in the creative field, there's always going to be a negative and a positive review and reaction. You'll never just have a medium. It's yeah, a fact. Okay. And now a really fun one that I'm excited to see what you guys say. How did you come up with the style of animation for the series?

SPEAKER_00 7:09

I think I'll start this one and then pass it to Amy part way through. It's quite an interesting process because what we intended to do didn't actually make it onto the screen. We intended to do something completely different. And then I had that all planned out quite carefully, and we started doing tests and things. And then I guess it was about a month into the project. It is quite we've done quite a lot of work on it, which means you know, time, money had been spent, time that's eaten up into that skit, the end, the end of the schedule where you need to this thing to be ready. And I think it was Netflix that had a look at what we were doing. The ITV side of things seemed to be fine and we were working through it quite well, but they hated it, they just didn't like it at all. And I think it's a case of because it wasn't finished yet and they were looking at stuff that was kind of a little bit of a sketch of what we wanted to do. They just put the brakes on and said, no, we're not doing that. And that was that was a more of a 3D kind of world where we were gonna set the whole story in this kind of tarot card kind of look with those kind of beautiful illustrations. Everything was gonna be that, and we were gonna go into the tarot card, and that was gonna sort of expand into this kind of three-dimensional cut out world, which would have looked really cool, yeah. But it did need a bit of development, so visually for people to understand it. Unfortunately, we didn't get that far, and we were working with a few artists at this point, and then Amy had you you kind of took it from there a little bit, didn't you, Amy? With the I remember there was that one image we made with the handcuffs, I think. And that just really hit creatively a spot for everyone.

SPEAKER_05 9:02

Yeah, I think the fear was that if it ended up in a space that looked a little bit too much like a graphic novel, or I mean the word words cartoony weren't used, but I think it's a it it explains it well here. If it ended up with the wrong tone, it wouldn't feel had the reverence it needed to the story being told. So where you massage things a little bit too, I would say work with more the way it should feel. I I felt I was thinking more in feelings than in in literal storytelling. We still there's still literal imagery in there, but much of it is more, yeah, a little bit more of a feeling and a tone that suited this the storytelling, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

I really like that idea though. That's really cool, the tarot idea, because that is a lot of what we did within the community is tarot reading, and to bring people outside of the cult into the cold tarot reading.

SPEAKER_05 10:04

And of course, that tarot art was so beautiful, it's such an interesting thing visually to look at. So it was really fun exploring that. It was very exciting, yeah.

unknown 10:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:18

Tarot is still fun. I do still do that, but not publicly anymore. I just do it on my own.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

That's a fascinating, fascinating thing. Anyway, so we ended up doing this kind of more, they're kind of like moving paintings in a way that the way we'd probably describe them now. There's there's a very similar color palette right throughout, which was developed based on this one image. And what we were doing with that image was just trying to find game says the tone that kind of felt right for the story. And one particular image was made, and it was during this arrest scene, which you might remember. There's a scene with some handcuffs, and I forget the character's name today.

SPEAKER_05 11:02

I think it was Angie. No, no, no, it wasn't. It's Al.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Al was telling that part of the story, and we happened to draw hate one image of it, and everyone loved that image. It just really resonated throughout. So we ended up kind of scrapping all of the stuff we'd done. And I this is where Amy came, and she she sort of took that by the horns, as it were, and and really sort of pushed forward with her storyline. And I think you started developing the story more than myself at that time, and did a really nice job working with the artists to draw out the the sort of boards that we needed to do to explain certain parts and then having them uh visualized and drawn up and then eventually animated.

SPEAKER_05 11:47

Yeah, thanks, Al. I I really I really enjoyed that that part of the process and yeah, it was good.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Yeah, you did a really nice job of it.

SPEAKER_04 11:57

So yeah, I shares it amazing.

SPEAKER_05 12:00

Yeah, this this is probably less uh exciting than the outside, but of course we also consider the budget and the the duration of the footage we have to create, and so that came into a little bit as well. And because it was being edited at the time, some of that was still up in the air, and so we were trying to find a way to design it and create all the footage we needed that was really effective. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:25

Very cool. So it was, I think, when it was finally put up on Netflix six months ago.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

I have no concept of time, but so it was like was almost a year ago, wasn't it? I can't remember now either.

SPEAKER_04 12:37

I literally have no concept of time, so I'm gonna go with whatever you guys said.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

It might not have been a year ago, but it's a good eight months ago. I remember towards the end of the year, it had the end of last year, it spent a number of weeks in the top. I think it was the top three, or and I think it spent a few weeks in the top spot on Netflix in terms of views. So that was the December, I think.

SPEAKER_04 13:02

Yeah, it went to back up too, I know. Even when it everything went down, it went back up top seven or something at some point.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 13:11

And then it dropped, but it's still being watched right now.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah, it's amazing actually, because the word of mouth gets around. And when I had when we published some of it on our social media, people would go, my friends are going, Oh my god, did you make that? That's so awesome. I just watched that, and we're halfway through, no spoilers, that sort of thing. So so all of a sudden, people I normally wouldn't speak to about that type of thing were telling me they they were watching it and they found it really fascinating. So that that's really good. And a lot of people start talking about those sorts of shows, and they will have that kind of ride, they'll they'll resurface. In fact, something that Cecilia and Imbal worked on previously, I keep seeing hints of it, the the Nexium documentary. I don't know if you've watched that. That's another really, really interesting one. That those two certainly have a really good grasp on how to make kind of riveting documentaries. So that's suddenly shown up for me recently as I've been sort of casting my eye around the availability of stories to watch.

SPEAKER_04 14:19

And if you go further back in time, Brave Miss World was one of their first projects they ever worked on together. Then came Nexium, then came us.

SPEAKER_05 14:27

Brave Miss World was so good. I remember when it came out, I was just I was shocked. It was so good. And I wasn't shocked it was so good, I was shocked at the story. But yeah, really good.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

Yeah, but thankfully it got told and then came Nexium and then came us. Nexium made history, I know, in 2020 with Keith Rainier finally getting rusted. Yes, which hopefully, fingers crossed, that happens because with this project, then you guys might be called again.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Hopefully, I hope so. That would be a good thing. So some continuity and some resolve would be nice.

SPEAKER_04 15:03

Yeah, plus animation is a nice break from well. I am personally, I guess I'm biased because I do love animation very nice, very much so. That's what I watch a lot of. But I feel animation is a good break, even if it's adults or or children, whatever it's.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yeah, I think so. It's a good has a nice place in storytelling if you if you use it sparingly in the right places, it can have the perfect effect.

SPEAKER_04 15:31

Yeah, and it's a good educational tool too, because true within this docuseries, definitely it's used as an educational tool and a empathetic tool to really, I guess, try to have those outside of the situation have a little empathy, at least a little, and try to understand what might be happening and occurring. And I think you guys did a really good job of portraying that and kind of the motion because I re-watched some of those little scenes too, just to get a better feel. And yeah, it was really well done. And some of your other stuff too that I watched. But thank you. Yeah, just wanted to point that out.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Excellent, thanks.

SPEAKER_04 16:11

And then a really important one for every creative artist, which I count you both as. Do you have a process in deciding what kind of animation to use per project? So whether it's this or any other projects you guys have done.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah, we definitely do. Jamie mentioned before, it sounds a little bit strange to say as a creative answer, but we quite often will consider how much money needs to be spent because certain things take longer. I can't think of an analogy off the top of my head, but certain types of animation are just really expensive and others are not so bad. So we often will consider that first before we even think about what we want to do creatively. Some things might be off the table, other times you might go, well, the the world is your oyster. You can delve in and and and see what your mind comes up with. And it's often to do with the what needs to be said will will dictate the the kind of style or the the approach. What do you think, Amy?

SPEAKER_05 17:14

Yeah, I I agree with that. But one thing that's nice about animation is that you can, well, anyone who's worked in animation a lot will know that there are ways to find good solutions in nice design, for example, to to sometimes carry a lower budget and ways to cleverly cleverly approach things that have to stretch over a longer duration. So you need to create a lot more animation for the money. And so considering it up front is really, really important because you want to be able to pick a style or pick an approach that can give you the results you need at the end. It's not, yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 17:57

I've talked with uh animators, multiple different ones. And because the style takes a certain duration of time just to draw in the first place, that makes sense to me because that takes a lot of work to just get the image moving, what style you're doing. So that has to be taken in consideration first before anything.

SPEAKER_05 18:18

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because if you pick something that's going to cost just so much money to create, and you can only create 10 seconds, that's not really very useful for the project. So you want to pick something that can go can go the distance and be effective. Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

I'm just looking at some of the old, really early or I'll just show it to you on the screen. But this is this is when we were doing the this was never seen, but oh cool. This is the the tarot card kind of idea, and you can just see the beginnings of working out like okay, that character can be portrayed as a king, this one as a knight, and those sorts of types of compositions were just working out graphically, so they did look like a bit like cards. And that was based, yeah, that was based on the kind of a recommendation that Cecilia came up with actually stylistically, and we ran with that because she she mentioned that she might like to see some tarot cart because she she knew that it was used in within the cult or within the activities that were happening within the cult itself. So it thought it might be a nice way to kind of bridge that that you know realism with the the fantasy and the storytelling that wasn't there that needed to be told with animation.

SPEAKER_04 19:40

Well, that looked really good. I like seeing that. Thank you for sharing it.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Yeah, I got some more stuff. There's there's one, this one's not quite as fleshed out, but there's a different one of the this is the Keely with the bedroom scene, if you remember that. I do. I don't know why it's slid off like that, but it's we were trying to go for this creepy kind of shadow thing. Yeah, there's there's quite a few of them. This was like a really, really early one that is Oh, I really like that one. Yeah, that's Keely telling us about her job and how her boyfriend to be helped by, you know, he helped her when she was cleaning up the shop she was working in, or something like that. Do you remember part of the story? She was describing how she met what's the guy's name?

SPEAKER_04 20:30

Colby, and it would have been in a deli the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, an adeli shop is where they met. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Grocery stores which ended up ended up being a really cool scene anyway, the way Amy visualized it with the the meat grinder and the fat falling onto the ground. I thought that was all really cool.

SPEAKER_04 20:48

Yeah, I like the little details. That's my favorite part of what you showed, because those are really good little details.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Yeah, there's a lot of work that goes into finding the style of animation, you know, like it needs to have needs to sometimes it needs to have character, other times it doesn't. So you you need to sort of like work behind the scenes a little bit and sketch things out and go find something that's gonna be true to the the storytelling. So there's a lot of other things like color and you know, a lot of filmmaking technique that goes into it as well.

SPEAKER_04 21:19

Yeah. And the filmmaking technique, how do you get from page to film, like to get it to start moving?

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Oh, right. Well, these days it's simpler than ever. It's it's completely computerized. So we use tablets, drawing tablets, and just draw the frames into there. And we have software that we can bring all the art together and kind of compose it, but like playing a piano and bring all the the bits that you need in and form this composition. So you've got camera, the the parts that are, you know, the color, the actors or the subjects and all that sort of thing, the voice and music all comes together in a piece of software now, which is quite easy to use. That's very cool.

SPEAKER_04 22:04

Did you guys get consent from like Keely and Elle this process?

SPEAKER_05 22:10

I understood the consent came from Cecilia and and and Bowl and they they were checking all the time to make sure that it was that what we were doing was respectful and that people involved would be comfortable with what we were doing. So the victims would be comfortable with what we were doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah I think that was a very important thing and something that Cecilia and Bowl did extremely well. Their just their care of of this project and the people involved in it is extraordinary. And you know you can't say enough about it. It came through right from the very first meeting we had with them and it was consistent all the way through to the end how much they had invested in this and how much they actually really cared about the people they were dealing with and that their stories were told in the truest sense possible.

SPEAKER_04 23:03

Yeah very true. And then what was it like working in different time zones Australia and US? So Australia for you guys.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yeah yeah Amy's in Sydney I'm in Melbourne both Australia so we're in different states but we have the same time zone. So that part of it was easy for us and we also work with some of our team in New Zealand which is only two hours ahead I guess where it gets tricky Amy is scheduling the early morning meetings or the late night ones where you have to have quite long catch-ups after you know a week or two of us working away we'll have to show it to the documentary editors and directors and that type of thing and also any stakeholders that are involved have to look at it. So the remoteness itself isn't an issue but I think it's just for me it was just the time you know the time of day can be a little bit of an inconvenience at most but not really difficult.

SPEAKER_05 24:08

Yeah I agree. I mean we work and so many people now work online and there's much more opportunity for people to work from home. So I think in that sense people are more used to jumping on meetings and not really thinking about where in the world we are where we're talking from I don't find the time zone with America too difficult. It gets tricky when you've got people in five or six different times it's nothing more helpful than one of those meeting planners where you can put all the different cities in and it just gives you a band of where everyone's actually awake and that's where you you put your meetings really but yeah I don't I don't find it difficult at all yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

We have a lot of good tools as well like tools to share our work so that it can be viewed online really easily so that process has been developed pretty much since I mean we had it developed before COVID because we'd work internationally but the the pandemic really solidified that I think for a lot of people it become became normal to do things like we're doing now you know in front of a camera in your own home and you sitting there in Colorado and us on the other side of the world it's it's quite simple really just have to find the right time slot.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

So yeah it's also really cool because it opens us up to being able to work with these people who are making these great stories whereas before we may not have had that opportunity. So that's a really positive optimistic side of it.

SPEAKER_04 25:39

Yeah which is fun and then getting on Netflix. Yeah yeah that is fun definitely Netflix has got that kind of that kind of weight to it hasn't it so it's on Netflix it's you've you've kind of hit the peak yeah because Netflix is a good thing to be able to say yeah totally it's still a thing Netflix and chills so it's a good thing because that means there's more viewership versus like HBO I know in the past had a lot of viewership and yeah Netflix is pretty much number one in the game of I forgot what it's called but of that the streaming game. There you go the streaming yes Netflix is number one so it's a good place to fight for justice because there's people viewing that might feel the same way or not but at least it's there. At least they've seen it yeah yeah at least the information is starting to get out even if people's understanding of it definitely takes a while but at least it's there and I guess you pretty much answered that one so I'm gonna skip it.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

But let's see what was the most what are some of the most challenging animations you had to create in my Amy you can answer that one because I think there were a few that we kind of went round circles on a little bit but you you ended up nailing them all so what's your opinion?

SPEAKER_05 27:01

Yeah something I I found challenging was staying out of a place where things got too literal because yeah just worrying that that was going to end up looking a little bit too much like a graphic novel or something like that. So yeah that was tricky and then also finding enough visual storytelling that was a a tiny bit abstract had feeling to it but that allowed us to cover off all the storytelling that needed needed to be covered off really. I don't know if that makes sense but because there were there are similar themes to what the victims are experiencing you can end up with the same heaviness of visual imagery. So it was trying to make it personal enough and bespoke enough for the different stories while still coming back to the fact that you know you're you're all in this the same boat and it's not a nice boat and how it you know the the individual stories within that.

SPEAKER_04 28:06

Yeah. And what were your favorite moments well thinking escaping twin flames on Netflix or taking part in that?

SPEAKER_05 28:14

I mean for me personally I just really loved the team that I was working with. And there were a lot of females on the team which is of course something I always enjoy that you know when I started in animation there were very very few women I think there were only three people three females studying with me. And so I always enjoyed seeing more women coming up in in animation and then to work with Cecilia and Imbel was of course really special to me. Yeah I I think that was was what I enjoyed the most and and I think I enjoyed it because it just meant a lot to me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

In fact all all four of the people who we dealt with on a regular basis from that side of things were women. So you know that's always a nice thing changing that balance which is so traditionally being you know men it was it was good. I I really enjoyed the um the thought that went into the the crafting of the the piece every time we'd see an edit there was just so much thought and depth in the stories that had changed and you know in or Cecilia would explain why that happened and it it was just like they'd really invested in the story and they wanted to get it exactly right. And you could see it happening we could see it happening in front of our eyes because we get updates on the stories so we could sort of start splicing in our little pieces so they'd make sense and I really enjoyed that part of the story. It's a little bit annoying from a practical point of view because we have to kind of like change things a little bit and animators don't like doing changes because it takes longer. But yeah it was a really interesting eye opening way to do things. Yeah there were a lot of good things I've got another good thing. Okay. When we when we did get that the animation that you're going to play at the beginning which we called the opening ceremony there was there was a lot of different ways we were going to do that and we eventually ended up on this the the kind of panning up and the hands and all that sort of thing with the the kind of nice swirly mystical nature of because you're talking about like chanting or calling in this kind of ethereal thing. Once we started getting that on screen and it started working we did some really simple tests with it it just felt like that kind of glued quite a lot of things together for us and that was kind of a moment where we go yeah it's like a gotcha we've we've found how we want to do things now.

SPEAKER_04 30:53

So that's that was a really nice moment to to come across yeah and then let's see you already pretty much asked that question differently how did you well you were starting to go into that how did you both come up with the divine channeling animation?

SPEAKER_00 31:08

Yeah again I had a different version of it worked out and then Amy and I talked a lot about it and I think we started liking Amy's ideas better and she was getting a really good really good what would you call it like a handle on the storytelling and the visual kind of marrying them together. So I will let you answer that Amy you you sort of came up with the visual and and then sort of led things from there.

SPEAKER_05 31:34

Yeah so again I might I'm probably speaking of feelings a little bit too much but it felt to me a little bit like a seance really like they were conjuring something and so the idea of kind of passing these graphic layers of smoke and it's a little bit of visual prettiness and also a little bit of kind of what is that you know what are we seeing so you get a feeling of not exactly knowing what you're looking at. And so yeah I think that's where that came from for me.

SPEAKER_04 32:10

Yeah well I was one of the people that was there for the actual real life moment. So for me seeing that yeah I'm one of the people that was able to help it get into the film because they had to backcheck and I was one of the people they backchecked with.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Interesting. And what did you think of the visualization?

SPEAKER_04 32:27

I was actually there for it. Um I think it was a very creative approach since it in the real life setting yes it was like that but we were just in a house in New York City all of us sitting around in a circle on the floor and doing that. But we were all very close up. It wasn't a perfect circle by any means but that's what we were in. So the creative side of it was great but the real life side of it definitely looked different from the creative side of it. So for me personally because I am a writer as you guys know I do have a passion for animation. Well I guess I am an author I am a published author yeah that was a good creative taking some creative approach to it. Yeah and kind of got the good feel for it wasn't really a seance per se but it was for me at least it just felt like a little inner circle feeling of everyone being there and all of us taking part in this and then the next morning the reveal happening in which they have a portion of it in the docu series not the entire thing that happened off camera but they yeah we have that portion of it but it was literally that night and then we stayed up until like one in the morning and here we are life purpose class alive and then it happens so you're talking one of the people that was there and yeah and that's done to the voice of Keely's sister what's her name Marley that's right yeah and it was about it was about this new person coming into her life creepy dude yeah very interesting part of the the story actually in a not in a good way because the other challenge with something like that is you don't you don't have the luxury of a huge amount of screen duration.

SPEAKER_05 34:20

So you have to find some shorthand to to explain what needs to be explained you know and I think that a little bit of that came came from that kind of like well how can we get some visual image in there that catches the feeling quickly.

SPEAKER_04 34:34

I really like the hand motion because that to me felt like the most realist part of it and just the adding of a little bit of magic because that can be also symbolism of coercion very easily so I thought that was good visually just to have that I know not everyone will take that from that it was really well done the creativeness of it. Thank you so much. And it's nice to actually talk about it too having someone there.

SPEAKER_05 34:59

Oh no oh yeah did you learn anything about corrosion control and cults from taking part in the the doc you series yeah absolutely yeah I learned I learned a huge amount actually I found it really interesting I guess even looking more into what is being done here in Australia like we were talking about earlier around coercive control and yeah how I mean it's just so shocking that somebody can have that much of an effect on other people's lives and that that was the outtake hearing the victims talk about that and how far reaching it is into their families and you know how many people it affects. So yeah and I knew it existed before but actually work on a project and being that you know sunk that deep into the conversations about it was was really good for me yeah as a as a person living in society to to acknowledge it and be involved in a project that discusses it so much.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

That's very wordy but yeah yeah I agree I learned a lot also what really blew my mind about the project which I didn't know would exist was the the gender reassignment side of things which I struggled I struggled with that I just couldn't get my head around how someone could convince another person that that's what they needed to do. And that to me was a real eye opener and it was the most shocking part of the documentary for me. And I learned so much from that you know about all sorts of different things. It yeah it was a real eye opener and a pretty interesting part of the documentary.

SPEAKER_05 36:41

That someone can tell you who you are that was part of what they did.

SPEAKER_04 36:45

I was one of those that would have ended up being well I was reassigned um so I was that was told I was a male and a female body so divine masculine I was told that in 2020 and I also left in 2020 from Twin Flames Universe but I left only three months later so it was there's a lot you go through because it's definitely a process of this is what you are and some I've seen have fully transitioned that were in my same group yeah it definitely aren't the words that you would hear from someone who actually is trans because that is who they are the rhetoric that was being told was I'm this because of some superficial thing. It wasn't oh I play video games so I'm a male it was very superficial whatever may be or I like wearing sweatshirts like I like wearing sweatshirts so I'm a male and it seemed to be to perpetuate the the group so there were an even amount of matches that could be made that that's one of the things that I sort of took out of it as a possibility. Well there is more females like at least 90% there was rarely any the only people that were already together came in together like male female so Keely Colby there's a couple others too that just came in pretty much already together and the rest you were coupled. I was part of the coupling group the second round though there was a round after me too but part of the coupling round and it's because Jeff needed money that's everyone's theory and I fully agree with Jeff needed money and no one was getting their harmonious twin flame union.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

No so things were falling apart something to keep money flowing.

SPEAKER_05 38:37

Yeah it must have felt so confusing at the time to to be being told who you are and kind of knowing that you're contributing to the best of your ability to within this group and should you be listening and this is now you know your family that you're so close to but you know something's wrong. It must have just been a very very confusing time.

SPEAKER_04 38:57

Well it's hard because at that time you were pretty much told to cut off from friends family. I had almost fully cut off from everyone I had when I lived in Florida but I had to move back in with my mom. So thankfully because I was still with a family member she helped along the way part of my story was in there too of the role my mom played in me getting out but yeah so coercion is very strong but if you're literally with someone who can think rationally for you is very helpful. But when you're in that situation like I thought I had no choice I literally pretty much had told my mom I'm a man in a female's body and I hadn't made it to that step fully. Yeah there's a section in the documentary that covers that exactly you know I think your mom's in there and it's yeah it's did you you're saying that you had it's good to have someone from your family on your side but do you want to hear what they what their opinion is because you're also so invested in the program it was when I was told I was a man in a female's body that felt wrong to me to the point that I was already starting on my well I had already started on before that day that pushed me further away that day but I had already started thanks to Sarah Berman's first article I had already started falling away from them anyways because I had taken the time to stop watching the classes so life purpose class twin flames universe I was a coach so I had a lot of coach meetings I had classes I taught I had there was a lot I was doing within the community I was a moderator there was a lot of roles I played it takes up your entire life it is your full time job that you're not yeah another another interesting thing about that is that in the documentary there's that mention of well there's the there's the two Keeley and who's the Canadian woman that's Anne Andy that's Andy yes that's right they have that conversation about how hurtful their interactions were once because she Keely thinking she was doing the best for everyone as the story goes and you know she's obviously regrets it deeply but there's that whole section about you know how could you do that and because you're a coach even though you're maybe pulling away personally how did the coaching part feel to you of did it feel fraudulent because you were involved in that but you were sort of pulling away in your sort of personal beliefs I started pulling away only because the Sarah Bourbon article was showing the truth. So as a coach I never made it that high but I worked directly with Keeley Angie I worked with everyone in the series like as an inside the cult together we were all in and together people seemed to not always see that side of things. So yes Keely did she was one of the people but who told me was not Keely she was someone else there were multiple coaches that told others that they were the male and the female body Keely was one of them there was four other coaches that were part of the inner circle with their twin flames that went and told others so how they chose to do it was due to Jeff but we all were close in there and we all had some of the same coaches that were taking part in that so coach is second to pretty much making it into the inner circle but the only way you make it into the inner circle is if you're in harmonious twin flame union and yeah no matter what you're getting the same thing you're getting the same coercion you're getting the same treatment you're getting close one-on-one with Jeff and Shalia like Jeff would go into my personal messages Shalia would too but because I was divine masculine it eventually was just Jeff if you're a divine feminine you got a lot from Shaleyah too but yeah so it felt wrong only because I was breaking out of the coercion thanks to the first article but it's not that simple. And then I had why do people join cults on YouTube that I watched which was the second part of me starting to break free but I watched that after being told I was a man in a woman's body and I had to continue playing the part within the cults even though some of my not all of my rational side and logical thinking was starting to kick in it took a lot to get just the little ounce I had in there. And then my mom pretty much giving me that logical question was the key the next step of I'm done I just want out and I can get out and there is a way but I had to ask well I told her I don't know what to do I don't know how to get out and she said why don't you just block them and That's how I got out.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

It was that easy. Well, yeah, but you sound easy as you say it.

SPEAKER_04 44:05

Just your brain doesn't work that way. You don't have that logic at all, just like the reply that we got after the docu-series from the entire community, Jeff and Julie, and everybody saying we're a loving community, and blah blah blah. The way we were portrayed, they had opportunity to talk. They had long time to say no, no, no, to the claims we made. But because we have proof and we went through lawyers, and everything's up on my YouTube channel, too, of proof. There's proof that can't be denied. But logical thinking, Jeff and Schlick just go and say, Oh, they're playing victim, which they did say that they're blaming us for their inability of harmonious union and what they truly desire. So it went right back on us, no matter what, even after. And now they're saying the drama's boring, that it's so dramatic, escaping twin flames, the whole situation. So it's a game.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Again, it's just like mind-washing and back on us. Yeah, the the usual the the usual story, right?

SPEAKER_04 45:15

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

It's their modus operandi. So that's what they do. Treat everyone like that.

SPEAKER_05 45:22

Yeah, wow. The drama's boring.

SPEAKER_04 45:25

It is because apparently everything we're saying is a lie. Such a drama queen's. I'm okay with being a drama queen, as long as you put gay in a flag such as these next to me, I'm good with it. It is fun to make fun of how they're saying it's so boring. We're just living our best life with our twin flame that I was coupled with, or that I was forced to be with and still am with. But yeah. In my personal opinion, I forgot to add that piece, but that's okay. Just so you guys know, at the bottom of the description, it will say. So everything's covered. And even at the beginning, after the intro and the divine channeling portion, yeah. It's all covered. That's good. But the very fun and important question. If there was a season two of Escaping Twin Flames on Netflix, would you want to take part in it?

SPEAKER_05 46:15

I would love to. I'd love to have that opportunity. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Yeah, I would jump at the chance also. Yeah. It was a really fulfilling project for myself, and I know Amy really loved working on it. And it's not only just working on it was really fun. I think seeing the impact it has in even in our creative worlds and in other people's worlds who people who've seen it before and the seeing the commentary around it, it's quite fascinating and yeah, really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_05 46:48

Yeah, times too.

SPEAKER_04 46:49

Well, I'll announce it here too, even though technically my very first interview I had, she said, Morgan said, for us to get a season two, Jeff and Chilea need to be arrested. So if anyone wants a season two, you know what to do. Keep on raising awareness. Cult awareness month is every month.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

How long since it's been shot now? Like it would have been shot in 21 and and like probably finished shooting in 9 2021. I think so. 22, possibly some.

SPEAKER_04 47:24

I know my shoot day was like I think in February of 21.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

Yeah. And I'm sure there's a lot of background before that, you know, research, finding everyone, all that stuff, like takes months and months and months. So it would have gone back, you know, prior to that, but it's a long time.

SPEAKER_04 47:43

In my case, it was 2021 still, because I was the last to be found. So mine happens quickly. I was not one of the two years getting that long of opportunity. I was 2021 shooting in 2021.

SPEAKER_03 47:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:57

So not everyone, if you got later in time, I'm the only one that I'm aware of and know of that was oh, we want you.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

2021. Can I ask you a question about that, actually?

SPEAKER_04 48:08

Yeah, go for it.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

I'm very when when you're looking, you're sitting in a lounge room or whatever, and there's a documentary crew with a camera pointing at you. How do you how do you go about focusing on telling a really good story, you know, without the distractions, without thinking about what am I going to look like, you know, getting to the real depths of the story for someone who's not trained, you know, you don't know how to are you comfortable in front of a camera or how how was that experience?

SPEAKER_04 48:43

I'm comfortable in front of a camera. I do have a past of background acting, and I have a creative past, that's the best way I'll put it. So I am comfortable in front of a camera, but for me personally, with all that, I like having that, but I also need to find a focus. So if I don't have to focus on the camera, which most of the time I hope I don't have to, I just find a human. I have to have comfort humans on set. So Nadine was definitely one. Morgan was another. Having the ability to stop and text my mom if I needed to, who thought I was going into sex trafficking, it was great to have that ability. So she knew it was a real deal situation that I wasn't going to be kidnapped and that I would be able to come home later. Yeah. So for me, I was comfortable. It's just all I need is one person, one focus, and I can focus, but it's hard because for me, at least I like to go on random rants. So even if you guys end up seeing anything on my YouTube channel, I do go off topic that really has to still do with topic, but it's also off topic, if that makes sense. I like going into stories within stories, kind of Shakespearean style, and I allow myself to do that. And if I have to stay focused on that, it is very hard for me to stay on track, if I'm honest. I can go into that topic and then I will switch into another one that still has to do with it. It's just literally going off topic. But yeah, that's just who I am and how I tell things and tell them, including my own.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

Sure. Did you find the documentary makers helped you stay on that line? Did they did they help with that when just with the the way they they work with you, the questions and the the conversation they have?

SPEAKER_04 50:33

Yeah, it helped. I got to get like preliminary ideas of the questions that were gonna happen, not the exact questions, and then the day of I got the exact questions. So it was nice to have an idea of what I was going into. And then like where we did filming was unexpected for me, just because at first it seemed like a shady area of oh no, it's not gonna be a safe one because where my driver originally took me, I was scared at first, but then I noticed oh, it's fine, it's safe.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Where was it? It was just at a house, someone's okay. But I know it was like in a weird-looking neighborhood or something, very weird looking.

SPEAKER_04 51:12

Well, there was like trees and stuff, and then you have an alleyway, and you have these other houses, but you didn't know which house you were in, and we literally had to walk up the way to go to the cracked house. But where the Uber driver took me, it was like looks like a alleyway that someone could come and get you, right?

SPEAKER_00 51:31

Yeah, that's not in broad daylight.

SPEAKER_04 51:33

But regardless of that, that was the situation for my filming of my first train of thought of when I first got out of my Uber until it was a oh, we're walking, thank goodness.

SPEAKER_00 51:45

Well, things can only improve.

SPEAKER_04 51:47

Like, I get it in some filming settings, honestly, are like that, but yeah, it was the unknown. There's a lot of unknowns for me because I had to take off at the time my parajob, and I had to find days to see if I had PDO to take it off, which I didn't really fully have it, but I took it anyways, so there was a lot of things that went into it on my end, and it's a vulnerable situation for you to go and go and be interviewed about on your experience, so you know you'll you'll be vigilant from the start, I guess. Yeah, but yeah, I was nervous the whole time either way. They tried to keep me not so nervous, but my techniques are not neurotypical, so like stimming that calms me. But they did try doing like ice, which is interesting, on my wrists.

SPEAKER_05 52:36

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:36

You you apply it, you just hold like an ice cube for a short little bit until you feel calm, which did work for like five minutes, but it definitely worked. I never heard of that, heard of that technique until that day. And that's just a ref the idea is to refocus, it's to calm down the nerves since you're technically putting ice like right on the nerve area. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, it did calm me down for a little bit, but it was still there because the topic is touchy. So there wasn't too many ways around that fact in the first place, and the fact I hadn't openly talked about it since I had left. So it had been years, and the most talking I had done was Cecilia and Ball. And yeah, now I talk about it openly non-stop because I had to tell the people I worked with whether I liked it or not. Hey, I was in a cult, I'm in a docuseries, I gotta go. You're welcome for telling you. That's that's not easy. So I'm even having to be more honest with my family about it. It's not easy re-bringing that up because then you have to tell everyone. It's not really a choice at that point because it's gonna be public either way.

SPEAKER_05 53:51

It's full on, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:52

So there is a lot that's even still the aftermath of it. I like that now. I am very open about it and talking about it and writing my memoir. I know others in the group have been open about it or writing too. So it'll be good. The more stories, the better. That's why Jesse Stories is my channel. But yeah, I like where that went.

SPEAKER_00 54:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very interesting. It's always something that you know, we no nobody really knows what happens in those situations. So it's always good to get some first hand commentary about it.

SPEAKER_04 54:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

Are there any other questions you have today?

SPEAKER_04 54:30

No, I was gonna start to do the the the wrap-up. Yeah, if you guys want to take part in it too. Yeah, yeah, sure. All right. Well, first, thank you guys for being here. If you made it through the entire interview, thanks so much for being here, guys. Please like, subscribe, share with friends, family member, anyone, and embrace your truth. Tell your story. I have a story to tell, you have a story to tell. We all have a story to tell. Thanks so much for being here, guys. Yes, bye. Peace. Listening. If you're new to the podcast, thanks so much for being here. If you want to help make this a successful podcast, please leave um a review on whatever station you're listening to this on, whether it's Spotify, or uh I can't recall the names. Please help the word four five.