S1E27 - Year One

Okay, let's see if I remember how to do this because it's been a minute.

How do you intro this podcast again?

Yeah, we'll just have to put up with the fact that my dogs will be barking and, like, probably knocking crap.

Over out, and I have a cat hocking up a hairball right behind me. It's fine.

Yeah. So that the audience will just have to deal.

Sorry, folks.

So, hello and welcome to behind the Locked Doors, a conference call that is masquerading as a podcast. Like raccoons hiding in a trench coat to get into a movie theater. I am Scott Paladin. I am working on a horny werewolf noir audio drama called It Takes a Wolf.

I'm Sam Stark, and I'm here mostly because Scott is working on a horny werewolf podcast.

Yeah, I'm Jack. For the exact same reason. We want to hear about your updates. I feel like you have meaningful updates. And it has been like, almost a year, right, since we started recording.

Yeah, it's actually been a little bit over because we started, I think, in October of last year.

Oh, my God. Really?

Damn.

I don't know that we told the audience that we were. That I. And then we were going on a break, so. Yes, hello. We're back.

We're back.

But let's acknowledge that real quick. There was a break there. Yeah. But, yeah, it's been a year, so we might want to do a little bit of a State of the Union talk about where things are, and then we'll get into the more specific. Or no, I guess we'll do specific updates. I have written two episodes of my show since last we talked. I'm on Five of Nine now.

Yeah.

So that's where I'm at. Do you guys have a specific update since last we heard from you?

Whoa. So real quick, Scott, you've gone into a robot voice for me. I don't know.

Oh, no.

What's going on?

I still hear him just fine.

Okay.

Oh, you're both robot voiced to me.

Ooh, it's you.

So then it's you.

I'm the problem.

The robot voice was coming from inside the house.

Okay, hold on. Let me hang up. I'll be right back. I'm so sorry.

Just Discord being Discord.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. So for Azen West, I don't think that there are any updates since the episode that Jack and I did together, because there's just been two. Hello.

There's a cat in the background.

There's an Oz and a cat. There's just been Too many things going on. There's been. I've had too many audiobook jobs and I had some health problems and a whole bunch of things happened, and it sort of. My life sort of imploded for a couple months. So I would like to.

That is known to happen.

Yeah.

I would like to start doing something or at least maybe pass more of the reins on to Jack so Jack can start doing things. Because I have picked up another project which is maybe possibly starting an anthology business with my writer friends. Sick. So that's, you know, just one more thing to add to my plate. So, yeah, I think that what's next for me specifically is I'm going to kind of give Jack all of my thoughts. And I'm sorry, they're a lot. But maybe I could push the. Getting it sort of off the ground onto Jack and then I can sort of be a supportive person in this endeavor. Cause if it's just up to me, it's probably not gonna happen for another couple years.

Right, right, right. You just need somebody to sort of take the reins and lead you along for a second.

And if there's a structure in place, I know Jack is going in and out. Sorry. If there's a structure in place, I'll be able to jump in whenever and add stuff and like, you know, write things here and there instead of me. Like, okay, here we go. I'm gonna do all the things and then. Yeah, it'll just be easier that way.

I get. Okay. Hello.

I'm sorry. My Internet was working fine when we were just sitting here shooting the shit before we started recording. I can hear both of you fine at the moment. It seems to working right now. So if this happens again, we may have to try something else. But for the moment, we're good.

Let's get a. Yeah, let's give it a shot going from where we are and then we'll figure it out from there. Just leave your audacity going or your locals and we'll just. We'll see what it turns out to be. Maybe this will be. Maybe we'll overcome the lost episode in terms of scuffness.

Yeah, yeah. For real.

I mean, if you are talking and you have things to say, you could just talk to them. You could say them into your microphone and they will be recorded and then Scott can put them in later.

That's true. Okay. For now, you're good though. So, Sam, you were saying you're gonna give me something, something, and then my whole shit exploded.

Yes, I was just basically saying that I Might hand the reins over to you. I'm going to give you my basic idea of how I want the show to go or how I was thinking I wanted the show to go. From the beginning, you had, like, just as much influence on where things were gonna go as me anyway. So if I hand things over to you and you get it started, it's fine. Like, it's not like, I had this perfect vision. Like, I don't give a shit. Like, I want it to be funny and fun and, like, at times, sad, which you happen to be very good at. So I trust you.

That's a big skill. Yeah.

I trust you to, like, I'll hand you a bunch of this bullshit that I have, and you can make it sad. It'll be great.

Okay. Sick. Are we still thinking we want it to be, like, one tight season? Because I know last time we spoke on the phone, you were like, I have, like, two seasons worth of ideas. And I was like, that's a great concept. We should maybe consider, like, you know how much scope creep. We actually want to indulge ourselves in here.

Yeah, I've thought a lot about that, actually, and I am of the mind that even if you are only gonna do one season and you plan on one season, it's sometimes nice to have two seasons worth of ideas because you can make the world richer. You just don't wanna pack too much into each episode. And I, because I'm a Discovery writer, I usually end up having to throw away a bajillion ideas anyway. And as long as we have somebody, it doesn't have to be one of us. As long as we have somebody being like, yo, there's like, a lot of shit happening and it's getting sort of convoluted and, like, keep me in check and we should be fine. So, again, because I'm a Discovery writer, I'm shooting for one season. I would love it to just be one nice, tightly packed season and be done. But I also believe in organic storytelling. So if we get to the end of season one and we're like, dude, we never dealt with blah, blah, blah, like that, it would be fine. I'm not going to be like, no, I refuse to do more episodes. That's dumb. So I'm always open for more. But I would really like to go into this with the focus on it being one season. And I'm also not a stickler for how many episodes the season is. So if we do an eight or nine season. I'm sorry, eight or nine episode season. And we have two or three more.

Episodes worth of stuff.

That's fine. Make it a 15 episode. I don't give a shit.

Yeah, that's like totally fine. Okay, that's. Just send me like your whole pile of ideas. Cuz I am like, I am so hyped to put some words on some paper here and like start producing scripts, even if they're not the final form of whatever the episodes actually end up being. Because I feel like once something is on the paper, we can rearrange the stuff that's on the paper to our. Yes. Liking.

Get that first draft out.

Right.

Yeah. And it's always easier to build into a, like if you've got sort of a skeletal structure of stuff that's out there and you're like, okay, well then instead of, oh, I have to write a whole episode, it's. Well, no, I just have to connect these two bits and I have to like do this thing. Or you just have to kind of write this and that gives you like these more digestible chunks that you can like break things down into.

Yeah, totally.

Which may. Which may make all of that a lot easier to do.

Yeah. And I really only have like one or two things that I'm going to be sort of a stickler about. And I'm pretty sure that we already talked about them and you said they were great. So I'm not worried about it.

We were on the same page about the things that you were like, I really want this to be in here. And I was like, me too.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Cool. Totally. Well, all right. So I guess I did ostensibly say that we're going to do a sort of a check in on where we are one year later. And you guys have, I feel like you kind of laid out where you are, which is that you've got a bunch of ideas and that, but not anything structural like you don't actually have anything down.

We haven't written stuff. I mean, we had a false start. We wrote like the pilot episode. Fairly close to the beginning of this.

Yeah. Yeah.

Podcast.

I felt I was like, oh my God, I'm behind.

Well now then you slowly and steadily plugged right on past us. But that's totally cool. Yeah. I think we are in a position where writing can begin at this point.

Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah. And then for my part, I man my mental state of where I'm at. This is the first time I feel good about my progress in a year.

I love that for you.

If you would ask me in October where we would be the next I'm sorry. If you'd asked me In October of 23, when we started this, where we would be a year from then, I'd be like, oh, yeah, we'd be airing the show by now. Which is, in retrospect, fucking ridiculous. But if you ask me, like, six.

Months ago, work at that speed. But most people do not.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you ask me, like, you know, earlier this year, where would we be in October? I'd be like, well, I'll have this. I'll have the first draft done. And now it's December, and I'm like, I have five of nine episodes first drafted.

Hey, but you have five episodes drafted, which is mega.

And I've been making progress in a way that I was not able to do until quite recently. Part of that was because of the break, and part of that was breathing space finally sunsetting so that I had mental redirection. I could redirect a bunch of mental energy into it. So, yeah, now I'm starting to feel pretty good about the way things are going. I'm hoping that I'll have the first draft done early sometime next year so that I can then go in. And I'm already planning a big rewrite of bunch of stuff that I know I have. Like, I'm, like, very strictly not going back and fixing anything that I realize is wrong about previous episodes. So, like, are you coming later?

Are you keeping, like, a bulleted list, though, of things, you know, you want to go back and either seed in earlier or, like, things you want to change to match, like, specific stuff.

That's a good idea.

Because I always find that when going back to do, like, early rewrites of things, I'm like, okay, if I don't go back and change it now, I will forget that I wanted to change it or what I wanted to change or where the change needs. Right, right. So I find that jotting notes about those spots that I want to return to, and I'm thinking about it at the time, is very useful to me.

I can't even make notes. I have to immediately go back and fix it. Otherwise the next thing down the line is going to snowball into something else I have to fix.

Yeah, the problem with that approach, which. That's my instinct, too, Sam. That's like, what I want to do is that if I did that, I'd still be writing episode two and rewriting episode one at the same time. I was just like, no, I gotta do the Meet the Robinsons. Keep moving forward, like, you know, or oh, my God. Meet the Robinsons.

Wow. Meet the Robinsons. What a wonderful plug.

Sorry, sorry.

Yeah, yeah, no, no, it's good. We could divulge into a 45 minute thing about Meet the Robinson's, but I do not have that kind of time.

Wonderful feelings just came over me. Like the nostalgia of that.

Yeah, that's a good one. That was. That's like a stealth good one. Cuz, like, I didn't know anything about it before going into it. And then I was like, I am delighted by how good this movie is.

Yeah. Pleasant surprise.

Yeah. But like, I've just been like, okay, just steadily just go forward, get this thing done, and then I can go back and change every. All the things that need to change.

Change everything.

Change, change everything. But I'm feeling good about where things are at right now. And I started to. I'm even doing a little bit of the preliminary, like, back of the envelope math for, like, planning how much money it's going to cost if I want to pay people and stuff like that. Oh, sure. Which is. It's a lot of money. Which, if I want to pay people what I think is a good rate and we can talk about specific numbers. I was very much, though. What's the word? Vindicated in my decision to. I cast myself as the narrator because, like, part of. There's been a little voice in my head that's been like, hey, are you just doing this because you want to be the good. The cool guy who, like, says all the words? And I was like, I did the back of the envelope math. And I'm like, oh, no. If I had to pay someone to do that role, it doubles the budget.

Yeah, totally. Because that guy says so many words.

Yeah.

I'm like, okay, you don't have to pay yourself to say all that.

I don't think that doing that, though, is going outside of the brand of podcasting. Because if I look. Look at all the shows that I really, truly enjoy that are written fantastically and performed immaculately, like, they're all kind of like, writer is also main character. And I can totally see why that would work as like, an aesthetic choice. But also budgetarily and time.

Yeah, yeah, it's hugely a budgetary thing. All right. But also now I recognize also that there are. I'm sorry, I can't. I can't stop that. There are people outside. There's nothing to be done about it. He's like, literally at my feet, like, jumping up and down. There's people outside. There's people outside. Listen but yeah, so, like, there's also really good aesthetic reasons for. Artistic reasons for the. For that decision, which is, this is a character that is written to my voice. It's a character that is. That is. I'm not casting myself out of a. Out of character. Like, this is a character that I really can't play. It's all good and I know I can do it. It was just a matter of like, is this a little. There was a little niggly voice in my head being like, hey, is this egotistical? Right? Like, do you just want to be the star? And I'm like, no, I just don't want to spend an additional thousands of dollars.

It is literally a practical concern. And truly, you have, like, constructed that part to your specifications in such a way that probably you could perform it the best out of anyone on earth. Like, you understand that character.

It certainly does make a difference that I know what that is, what is entailed there.

Yes.

So that's cool. Yeah. So, okay, we've checked in. We know where we're at. Previously, we've sort of talked on a sort of week to week basis about what our goals, our targets were, but I think it would be okay. I'm sorry, I gotta yell, guys.

Scott's muted his microphone. That's amazing. They have so much to say. Someone's outside and they have to tell them about it. Yeah.

They're like, don't you know this is our domain? And how dare you be there and talk loudly while being on the street. Anyway, they're not even done yet. I just mollified them for a sec. Okay, so I think it would be helpful for us to sort of aim at sort of more, you know, longer term things. Goals for like, when we want to expect things to be done or sort of aim for them. Not that there's no consequences, of course, if we blow past these things. Of course.

Right.

But I think that having some of these longer things in mind might be helpful in sort of structuring how the projects move forward.

Yes.

So you said, Sam, I think it said. You said you had some goals in mind.

Yes, my. What is it called? The goal for next episode first. And that's going to be. I'm going to hand over all of my notes to Jack and basically I'm going to pass the torch, I guess. Cool. But first I have to put the notes in a coherent way because now they look. I'm not even joking. It looks like that one meme with the board and all the red string.

Sylvia.

So I don't want to give you that. So I'm going to give you a more cohesive outline of what I was thinking and all of my kind of random ideas that I haven't put anywhere. And then the two or three things that I really care about that I would like to keep and then completely just be like, all right, I can't do this right now. Have fun, Jack. And then that'll be where we will be next episode. And then the long term goal is, I would love to have. I wanna say I want all the first season at least written a year from now. But realistically, I mean, I think we could do that. I'm pretty sure that we could do that. Cause we're not doing anything intricate like you are with your Horny Wolf series. We're doing like two dudes in space trying to find another guy. So it's like not. It's not really that complicated. So I think we could.

I don't think the horn werewolf thing was complicated either.

I'm going to eat my words later. I'm sorry, future me. So I feel like we could get the whole thing written before next year. Before the end of next year, I guess. But if we have half of it written, that is also fine.

Right.

But I'm going to set this. I'm going to set this sort of lofty goal of maybe having the whole season written by next year at this.

Yeah. Like at least drafted, if not tightened yet.

Yeah, that's man.

Like, we are. We can. We can write episodes at a decent clip when we have like, deadlines to do it by. I feel like. Yes. Well, Sam, I know you have written for podcasts before too. Yes. And so have I. So, like, it's possible. We know we can do it.

Yeah.

It just has to actually be done. And I think a calendar year is like a reasonable amount of time to be like, okay, if it's 10, whatever. Ish episodes, we can draft 10 episodes over 12 months. Right.

And I'm not saying we need to have like the finished episodes and all polished by next year. I'm saying, like, maybe we have an outline for all of them. You know, like just have some encampment.

For every episode for each episode a year from now. Yes.

Okay, cool. Then we might check in after the holidays as well. I'm just gonna. I'm sort of floating this as a sort with a sort of midterm goal of like, where do we want to be by, you know, April or something like that.

Yeah.

There's also a range that is worth thinking about. But I think that I don't want. I don't want to say I don't want to set any goals because I'm about to do it for myself. But, like, I know how the idea of doing. Of like. Of being like, oh, I'm committing this stuff in December just sounds like, okay.

Doing anything at all in December is so rough. Like, there's not only holiday stuff going on in December, but also all the regular life stuff still goes on in December.

It's a fun guy.

Why doesn't time grind to a halt in December?

I don't know. Yeah, exactly. With that in mind, because I can't perceive out a full year for myself because I don't know what. What stuff's going to look like a year from now. But based on my current pace, I think I'm going to have the full season, like, drafted by February.

Hell, yeah.

And because I got. I got like a week I'm taking off in December that I can. I can kind of dedicate to its stuff. I've been making good progress lately, which is really. And it's been steady. I've. I've got, like, a really steady amount of progress over the course of, like, two months now. So I feel fairly confident that I can kind of rely on that. And I think I can have the whole thing to the first draft by February. And then hopefully that means February itself and maybe a little bit of March will be revising on that one. And then we can start. Then I'll start laying down, like, I'll make the call on whether or not this is a funded project or not, and we'll start talking about, like, when that. First, that I'll have to figure out when I'm going to do crowdfunding because how much I'm asking for and, like, I'm going to have to have. I'll pay for the pilot and then we use that as the promo for the show. Hopefully that comes through so that will all be figured out kind of sort of around that range. But finish the first draft by February. Use February and March as a revising period is kind of what I'm thinking right now.

That makes sense.

I think it's reasonable.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Well, that was a year of behind the Locked Doors, guys.

Yeah. Wow.

I can't believe it.

That's crazy. It helps that this project, this. This project, the behind the Locked Doors, it's like, deliberately low effort.

Yes.

Yes.

This is all gonna be scuffed and weird, and that's fine. That's that's just get it out there.

Three times at the beginning of the podcast.

Okay, cool. So we've already talked about our goals, we've talked about our timetables and I guess, I guess that's it for this episode. So we will be back hopefully in two weeks and we will catch y'all then.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Thank you for joining us for another episode of behind the Locked Doors. Of course, after making predictions I already some life stuff has come through and I will probably be missing those predictions now. So we'll hear more about that later. Though if you want to know more about the podcast or the projects then like look in the doobly doo of the episode. There's probably a link to like a discord or something you could go check out. Other than that this has been a library of cursed knowledge production and we'll see you in like two weeks. Bye.