S2E12 - Surprise!

Sam.

All right, we're all in. Is everybody recording? Okay. I just started.

Yes, recording.

Lovely. Excellent. Well, I guess we'll just roll in. Hello, and welcome to a Behind the Locked Doors, a podcast thing where we sometimes have surprise guests.

Yeah.

Hello, I am Scott Paladin. I am writing a werewolf noir audio drama called It Takes a Wolf.

I'm Sam Stark. I am writing as in west, which is a spin off of Unspeakable Distance.

And I'm Mike, also known as Interiority.

Hi, I'm Jack and I'm also working on as in West.

And I'm Mel Nichols and I am gatecrashing.

Yay.

We were.

Yay.

Just waiting around for everybody to join and then like, oh, look, surprise. A new person. Well, not new person. We an old friend.

Well, it was a really good bit that you guys did because the camera came on and Mel was just sitting in Sam's usual chair, like in the physical room that Sam is usually in.

We were like, Mel is visiting Seattle, Sam.

But hi.

It's been very fun. Yes.

What a delightful surprise to la, where I was last week.

Is it nice and cool there?

Yeah, I bet. It's like officially summer now, so everybody's experiencing heat waves.

Yeah, it's like heat index.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

Where I live, I'm looking back home to that.

Yeah. Like last week up here, we had one day over 100, which is like, I moved up here to like get away from this shit. And that's got followed me now. So no thank you.

To get away from that.

Yeah. Okay. We do. We've. We've gotten sidetracked now because of changes. We're supposed to do check ins and see how people did. That's the format. I did. I did. Okay. I said that we were gonna have.

A family in time last week, so.

I was like, kind of wrote that entire week off. I was like, nah, we're, you know, nothing. Nothing's going to happen there. But I did manage to get some written. I was like, literally last night, if you were on the Discord, you saw, people saw me being like, I'm just going to cut like this 1500 word segment and throw it out. And then I worked on like that for a minute more and I was like, you know what? No, let me take it back. Let me put this back in here. So resurrected the darling. Put it back in. So I'm feeling. I'm feeling good about my progress. So episode nine, Two Thirds, Half. Two thirds, something like that. Done. So, yeah. How did Jack and Sam, how did y' all do?

Yeah, good shit. So my homework's not completed, but it is in progress. I am working on beefing up the second episode. And what I realized as I was doing that is that I don't have a clear enough memory of what happens in the west episodes. And I was like, okay, I need to go back and re. Listen to a few of those. So. So I've been doing that while I work on Beehive second episode.

What's hilarious is I was also trying to do my homework, and I got some of it done, and then I remembered that I don't remember most of the west episodes, which I recorded myself. So I have also been kind of going back and re. Listening to things. And because I was listening to mine, I was like, oh, no, I have to listen to Mike's, too. Oh, dear. Oh, it's such a chore. And then I was like, you know, I should probably just listen to Jax, too. So I'm actually also going back through and. But it's very. Yeah, but it's very helpful because it's like we're all doing a real world. We contextualized everything in my brain, and I think that I may have decided on a few casting things, which is kind of fun. And I've fleshed out a couple more character ideas, so I haven't actually. I haven't actually finished what I wanted to get done for this week, but I did a whole bunch of other things, so.

They'Re doing other things. Also. Quick shout out to quilt.

Yeah, it's great.

Quill, your last episode is so banger in unspeakable distance. I listened to it last night for the first time in a hot minute, and I was like, damn, I want so bad.

I want. This is spoilers. I want so bad to have bits and pieces of others from an unspeakable distance in as in West. I would love to somehow. I would love to somehow fit Quill's storyline into the AZ and West storyline. I just really.

I gotta. Yeah, it's gotta be in there because it's very intertwined with AZ's, like, backstory. So I think so cooler if the entity shows up somewhere.

Yeah. Yeah, we were.

Yeah, I kind of did as well. And not so well, as I said last time. Had a very busy couple of weeks. I got older, so therefore, I lost more cognitive function, so it was even more difficult to write. Now I got a couple more words down before my eyesight started to fail even more and, you know, just generally more infirm. As things went on. Yeah, like, you know, like, it's. I mean, to be honest, most of the work has been done in a. Like, just sitting down and thinking about all the stuff I've written so far and, like, going, oh, I actually want to change all of that to this and all of that to this. And I need to sharpen up the characters. This, which is all very gratifying. It kind of makes me even more excited about it. Like, the temptation to just go back and edit rather than plowing forward and getting stuff drafted is very, very real. And I've also been procrastinating by getting, like, stuff around the show sorted out. I mean, I have. I have, because I've got a production partner now. I have now engaged an artist to do the show art, even though I haven't finished writing all the scripts yet, which is probably cut before the horse. But it's very, very exciting. So yay.

Very exciting.

Yeah.

Having some of that ahead of time to, like, use it for. Like, when you put having art for the casting calls and stuff, like, that's all really good. So it's getting started on it sooner and it takes longer than you think. So you're probably not actually that far ahead.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, one of the things I'm quite excited about is the MA character for the show. It takes time to draw things like a. Like a robotic encounter suit. I have a very vague idea of what that looks like in my head, but I don't have any of the specifics. When I come to write about it, I'm always like, I can't say anything specific about this because I haven't figured it out yet. The person who is my artist, who is lovely, a fantastic kind of person who's worked in animation before, he's very, very adept and experienced at doing character design. So, like, the full animation character design sheets, where you've got, like, you figure in various different poses and var different places. One of the things I've commissioned them to do is help me design my main character. So we're going to kind of sit down, kind of go through the concept of it, and hopefully that will help me kind of solidify in my head what this person looks like, how they interact with their environment, and then that will help me with the writing. But yeah, that's. That's. That's going to be exciting to see.

Yay. Yeah, that's very cool. Well, Mel, how have you been doing since we talked last?

I think the last time I was here.

Yeah, tell us everything, Mel.

Post the casting call. Be brave and do that. So not only did I post the casting call, I got shit cast. And we are now like three quarters of the way through recording the entire season.

That's awesome.

Yeah. We have two more episodes to get done.

Yeah. Like, the season's almost done recording at.

The end of when I get back. And then seven and eight will be July, and then. And then it's Sam's turn to do a bunch of.

So basically, you're making us all.

Mel's been making us look like slackers for a long time. Mel just writes an entire podcast in, like, what the entire crazy.

It was a little more than. Also, Mel's the outlier.

Spider's Georg over here.

But we were. We were. We were talking about. So, so perfect. It all just kind of came together because today we're going to be talking about casting calls, and Mel is here in my house and she just. Just did a casting call. So, yeah.

Yay. Moments ago.

Oh, hi, dog. There's a dog.

Do you want to be on the.

Wow. Twig. Hi, twig.

He's so cute.

He wants to kiss your face.

If you behave well, you can stay. Oh, just a forest. The forest Jail, I guess. Yeah. So we wanted to talk about casting calls. In fact, I think we're probably going to have several episodes total on casting calls. Because I was like, I have. There's so many thoughts. Right. There's so much to cover. So today we're taking a more sort of higher view, philosophical approach about what a casting call does overall and what the overall structure is. And we'll get into some of the nitty gritty next time. Does anybody have. I've got thoughts. But before I launch into my thoughts, does anybody have, like, their opening statement that they have or questions about casting.

Calls or I should probably, like, preface, preface, preface, whatever. That I probably do casting calls differently than everybody else or I don't know, maybe not. I really, really like to have just actors in my head. And I like to write sometimes really specifically to people I already know. And then when I was thinking of there's a heist episode, another spoiler in Azin West. And I have a pretty distinct idea of, like, the crew that I want. Like, I want, you know, five really ridiculous. I guess they're like criminals with hearts of gold, that kind of thing. And they're all very, very silly. But I probably won't be putting out a casting call for them because as soon as I started to kind of put the characters together in my head, I was like, oh, so and so could play this. Oh, so and so could play this. Oh, wow. So and so could play this one. So, like, all five of them I won't have to put into the casting call. So I'm. As I write, I keep finding out that I'm probably not gonna need a casting call, and that's probably bad, but I just know who could do stuff. I know enough actors now.

Yeah, that's. That's just a different, like, casting call is about, like, discovery and finding new stuff. And if you. If what you're going for is to, like, look like. I want to work with my friends, therefore, the people I already know and I know, they're good. Like, why give yourself the hat? Like, I. I think it's a perfectly valid way of doing it.

Sometimes characters just start talking to you in certain actors voices. That happened to me several times for 236, and you just cast him and it's perfect.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. I think I'm also the only person. No, that's not true. I have done a podcast episode, so I have technically casted one podcast episode, and one of them was my child. One of them was Jack, and one of them was Mike, and one of them was Mel.

So one was Mel. Yeah. It was like, everybody.

Again, I did not do a casting call. I just chose. They. They spoke in my. My brain when I was writing them. I could absolutely. Okay, I don't know what this says about me, but I. Absolutely. When I was writing the demon, I heard Mike's voice. So, I mean, you know, what can I say?

I mean.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah, sometimes that works.

Yeah. But I've only casted one thing, so I don't. I don't know how much I'll be able to give to this conversation, but that's okay.

You. You have thoughts. We appreciate your thoughts, even if you're. If it's not your deal.

Thank you.

So I was thinking about. Mike brought this topic up the other day, and I was thinking about how the ultimate goal of an E Casting call is that you need the voices. Right. You need to get them out. But there's two sub tasks there within the. Trying to get people connected to you, and one is that your casting call is kind of a marketing opportunity. You are literally selling the show and specifically these characters to people. So you need to think. One of the things to be thinking about is, like, how do I present them in a way that people want to play them? And then also the idea of you also are. It's the first Opportunity. People have to learn about these characters and such that therefore you have to give them, the actors, everything they need to show you to know, to let you know that they could do the job right. Like, if you leave something out of your casting call that's really important, then people are going to go, they're not going to provide that for you. They're going to screw things. You know, they're going to give you something that you're not looking for. So it's this weird, like you need to sell characters, you need to sell the show in a certain respect just to get it in front of people's eyes. And then also you need to. You have to provide the information that people need to do in order to get cast, in order to even just fill out the form properly, but also like to get to know the characters and like give you a performance that you know that will be good and all that stuff. So there's like this, these two broad subcategories of what a casting call is supposed to do, at least in my opinion. I will be happy to be told I'm wrong, but.

I don't think you're wrong. Like the sort of. The casting call kind of goes both ways. Like they're learning things about the show and you're learning things about them and whether you all are a good fit for each other in the project.

So, like, possibly the most important thing you can do is pick what lines you're going to use for characters. That is, you can put as much description of a character as you want. You could write an entire paragraph. You know, you can give a huge world diary. Don't expect anybody to read any of that. I will. Actors, just creatives in general, we love you. We are. You like, we are the. We are. I'm complaining about myself here, but like, if you put things in a document, people will just go read the lines and then they'll just do whatever they want. So that is so like literally like what you are writing, what are or what you have chosen, what you know, you. Sometimes you're going to have to manipulate lines when you bring them into a casting call and like, you know, take a conversation that's a back and forth and turn it into a monologue or you know, do, do do some massaging in order to get to work. And when you're doing that, you are. That's the like the only thing you expect people like, I'm sorry, not expect everything. The only thing you work that people are guaranteed to read are the lines themselves. Like everything around it. Like, it's good and people will. Some of them will read it, but, like, everything else is just kind of there. It's fluff a little bit.

That's really a thing. Like, people will not read, like, the direction before they.

I am saying this because that's how I am when I do other people's casting calls.

Yeah.

That's so interesting. That's blowing my mind.

Yeah. I mean, I would. I kind of, like, say that, although I think that is the case, that there are people out there who do that, I think very much for myself and, like, from. From what I've kind of, like, seen out there. It's really interesting what information people choose to provide in terms of kind of describing the character and what they're looking for. Like, I think it's actually kind of, like, a really interesting topic to talk about. A lot of the reason why I wanted to talk about this casting now is because there is a casting call that's out there at the moment for a show called Our wars have Ended, which is from the writers of the Silkverse. It's the new show which is coming up soon. John, we. And, like, it was really interesting me to see the reaction to that because, like, the way the casting call is written and not just the lines, although, you know, I think they've. They've. They've done a really good job in picking kind of, like, you know, the sides for the actors to use in order to audition. And, you know, we can talk about a bit more about the process of making that choice in a bit. But what I wanted to mention was that what they did.

Yeah.

In describing the characters, I think kind of goes above and beyond what a lot of other casting calls tend to do, which I think is normally focused on, you know, we want this voice to sound like this. Like, the characteristics of this character at this. And usually kind of like, descriptive in terms of, like, auditory or, like, physical or something like that. And what they've done is they've basically said this casting call is spoilers for the show. And then what they've done is they've given, like, a really detailed account. Not just kind of like, you know, the outward appearance of this character, but their interiority as well. But, you know, like, what sort of person this person is. And this is the performance that they want. And so it's not necessarily kind of grounded in. This has to be a deep voice. It's a gruff voice. Like, you know, like, it's, you know, like, feminine or masculine or anything like that. It is Someone who portrays these particular characteristics in this particular setting. And if you think you can embody that, then you are welcome to cast to audition for it. And I think that's kind of quite interesting also, kind of like, because there's been a few more conversations around this specifically because of this casting call in like, the utility of like, how do you describe the voices that you're looking for? How prescriptive are you? Are you. Do you. Do you have a very clear idea of what it is you want and therefore you narrow down, like, particular kind of aspects of it, or do you leave it open and kind of like you're looking to discover and try and find people's takes on the characters and maybe be surprised by them? Like, do you specify pronouns or do you specify, you know, like, gender, or do you just not do that? And what are the problems and benefits of both? Some people say that pronouns aren't particularly great because, like, they're used in so many different ways that as well as being an enabling factor, they can also cause people to question whether they would be suitable for the role, especially in the, you know, the regards of like, you know, people are trans. Like, you know, like a lot of people who are trans. Actors coming across casting calls, whether they kind of like described by gender or pronouns or like saying kind of like this voice is. Is high or low or deep or whatever, can often find themselves in a situation where they're kind of paralyzed by kind of the insecurity as to whether like, they, they fit within that. Like, you know, like, who am I to say that I fit within it? And because there's that uncertainty, a lot of people don't feel confident enough to actually to go in while, you know, CIS actors and stuff like that. If you've got a gender or pronouns that fit, generally speaking, people tend to just go for it, regardless of the suitable, friendly of aspects of it as well. Yeah, so be interesting. Yeah, be interesting. One of those things people think, because I don't certainly don't have any answers about that. Like, it's really interesting to think about and kind of like, what the best way to put these calls together in a way that's the most inclusive and kind of like brings in the most people. But yeah, I don't know the best way to approach it.

When you're talking specifically about like, people self selecting. I'll tell you this, you will never have to look for like, white dudes. They will show up in.

They will play for everything.

They will show up. They will never select themselves out so and. And everybody else does. There is. Yeah. The way the casting call in question, you're talking about approaches things where you're just sort of like, here's the characteristics we're looking for, the personality, the performance. Not specifically. We're looking for this type of voice, this type of accent. Stuff like that is, I think, a much better approach because it's one of those things where when you're casting as a director, you can often. Or a writer, you can often think that, you know, specifically what a character sounds like in your head. You've got something like, okay, this is definitely a British actor with a deep voice. And they absolutely have some gravel, but not too much, but you can get all up in that. And then that doesn't really matter, though. Like, the performance matters. And if it turns out to be somebody with a high voice and not the accent you expected and, you know, a smooth voice instead of, like, none of that. None of that really matters for the character. If the performance is there. That's the important bit. And so the. The giving people the tools that they need to embody that performance, to, you know, bring that character life, I think, is much more important than, like, looking for something very specific demographics wise or characteristic and voice wise. Are we all generally in agreement about that or is it. Does anybody think that they really want.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Regarding, kind of, like.

So, no, definitely.

Because I was just gonna say very quickly regarding kind of like the white guys, like, going for everything. One thing that was kind of interesting that was I was in a conversation with Ella Watts a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about casting calls and talking specifically about kind of like this casting call for our wars have ended. Like, it's going for like a month and a half, which for a lot of people, like, that's. That's a long period of time for the casting call open. Like, I know a lot of people do it for like one week or two weeks, but maybe a month at most. But like a month and a half is quite a lengthy process. But Ella said that the way she understood it was like, in order to get the people auditioning from, like, you know, minority backgrounds or people. People just aren't white dudes. Essentially, you've got to have a long casting call in order for that information to kind of like filter into these spaces and catch people's attention. But also, like, a lot of people who you would want, you know, to audition for your pieces might be people who've got multiple jobs or like a very kind of like a huge rarity spare time and giving them like a, you know, a six week long casting call maximizes the amount of opportunities they've got to find the time within that to actually do the thing. While kind of like, if you're, you're, you're a white guy, you probably kind of got like leisure time out the wazoo because, you know, because of society.

Or, or specifically there are lots of white guys with, with leisure time out there doing this specifically. Yeah, yeah, it's, with, it's a very skewed demographic out on the, out on the Internet. Yeah.

Yes. And in podcasting specifically. Yeah.

And that, that's one aspect of something that I've seen before. The idea of like, well, let's do a long casting call. That is one version of if you're looking for people who aren't the default, anybody who's not a white dude, white, you know, CIS straight dude, then that amounts to extra work, for lack of a better term. Like, you are going to have to work a little bit harder. You're going to have to leave things open a little bit longer. There's going to be more involved in finding those people because they're just not the main demographic of the Internet. If you're doing an Internet casting call, of course, like, if you're in a, if you're in a neighborhood, in a, you know, if you're in a different country, for example, and you were doing it in person, you'd have very different, different demographics. But if you're on the Internet, you're going to get mostly white dudes. So if you're looking for anything beyond that, it does take just a little more time, a little more effort. You might have to do some more posting your casting call in other places. You can't just fire it off on Twitter and let it spread that way. You might have to find discord, you might have to find subreddits, you might have to like, you may have to like, go look for people. If you're looking for something specific and that can be something to pay attention to. If, if, if that is a priority in your casting call itself. Like, if you have written a character and you're like, they are something very specific. I remember. I'm not going to talk about specifics, actually. No, if you're looking for a. Well, I just don't want to. Yeah, like, but I remember there, I've seen several casting calls where they were looking for something that was like a combination of, of demographic information. Right. They're looking for somebody who is, you know, Queer and also of a particular nationality or with a particular action accent or something like that. And they would have to go back in. Right. Like you go through your, your two week, three week casting call and then say, oh no, we didn't find anybody we were looking for. And they have to go back in and start looking for somebody specific and deliberately extend those times. And it's, it's just a matter of. Yeah, it takes longer to find somebody. If you are looking for something that's not the default. And especially if you're looking for like somebody who hits kind of a checklist. And if that's important to you as a creator, then you just need to know you have to put in the extra work. And if it's important to you, then that extra work is, you know, you know, that's something you should be willing to do basically, you know, and it.

Can be really worth it. Like the, the couple of times I have not done as much casting as you have, Scott, but the few times that I've cast something totally open, like, no preconceptions about who is going to audition. I have been casting for some like, specific checklist demographic stuff. And I have been able to find those things only by like circulating that call through specific groups of people and being like, hey, you guys know more trans voice actors. Send it to them, send. Have their friends send it to them. Like, try to get it to the people who would want to see it, who would be excited to play that part. I know those people are out there. You just have to get the call in front of them somehow.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it does, just doesn't happen automatically exactly. Like you're talking about. You have to, yeah, you have to put in the legwork a little bit to find some of those people. If, if that's what you're looking for, if that's a priority, then make it a priority is kind of what we're saying, or at least what I'm saying. Like if it's something that you find important, then you're going to, then you should make it, make sure that it is something you want to do. And that means that that does mean running a longer casting call, finding some people who can recommend it, new places to post it. That's something to keep in mind and it's absolutely worth it. Those people are out there, they're excited. And people who are excited and good like, oh my God, you will, you will find gems in the rough out there. If you, yeah, if you're Willing to. If you're willing to put in a.

Little bit more substitute for enthusiasm.

Oh. Oh, my God.

Truly, truly.

Like, that is. That is so true. And it's so hard to find, like, it's so hard to, like, figure out when you've just been sent a casting, like a voice or whatever. Like, is this a person who I'm going to enjoy working with?

Yeah, you have no idea.

You don't know.

If you've not met that person, you don't know.

But, like, legitimately, the people who came in and were excited to work on a project and were, you know, showing up and like, doing extra stuff and like, just kind of present in the discord or sending, you know, like, and making jokes on the call and making things take too long because everybody's having a good time. Like, those people are so great. Like, you want to, like, grab onto them and like, like drag them with you to other projects and everything because, like, they make it better. It's why we're doing this. And this is a community theater, basically.

That's what we're doing.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's so valuable. And like, also something that, like, is very difficult to find. Just, you just kind of have. At the moment, with the traditional housing call, it's kind of a. Just, oh, well, we'll see. You know, like, maybe some of those people will show up.

Yeah, you'll see when we get there. Yeah, right.

Yeah. So the. Do you guys have a. Have a feeling about overall length of sides selection? Like, do long things, provide more for them, you know, more for people to give you, or is it just intimidating and takes to basically make it too long and scare people off? How do you guys think about that?

For me, at least, it depends greatly on the character and what I need to see from them because, you know, for example, in my casting call, I had Aubrey, who I don't have. Eventually she is going to need to be someone who can show a lot of emotional range and. But I don't have any of that in the first season. Something that comes later as you get to know her. So I. Something that was always in my head was like, I need to make sure that I hear from these people that there is the potential for that in there. So I had. What I like to do is if I'm going to do a block of text for anybody, I usually make that just one of the lines because I don't want. I know personally, when I've recorded for auditions, if you just got big chunks of text over and over Again, that can be really hard to wrap your brain around, especially when you're doing multiple takes. So I, you know, I gave. Yes, yes, it takes forever to record that title, audition, whatever, before you send the. Send your audition. But so for her, I put in, you know, a few shorter things and then just one block that was longer and showed a little bit more emotion so that I could get an idea of that. But then I have other characters who are a lot more kind of quippy and surface level for back of a lack of a better term. And for those, you know, it's single lines, couple lines, because I need to be able to hear that you can do quick banter as opposed to, like, handle a whole monologue. So, yeah, it really depends. For me.

I think it has much for me to do with rhythm. Like, if I need to get a sense of a character being able to deliver dialogue with a specific rhythm and, like, in a specific cadence, so to speak, then I will tend to provide longer sides. And, yeah, like Mel said, not every side needs to be as long, because that can be. Start to feel cumbersome for the person recording and for you listening. Oh, my God. Let me tell you something. If you have 20 people read three long, chunky sides, and then you have to listen to those three long monologues 20 times, by then you'll be like, I don't actually care who plays this part. I just want to be done doing this. Like, it's just a lot. Yeah, the bare minimum.

I don't know. Couldn't. Couldn't be me. No, I love. I love. I. I made people read freaking TS Eliot at one point and was just like, this is the best day I've ever had. I got to listen to 20 people read one of my favorite. It's like, no, this is my favorite poem. It's just a little treat for me.

Yeah, no, listen, it is like, if you're someone who enjoys the casting process, you're gonna have a good time listening to everything, because you'll be like, whoa, I wrote these words and someone's reading them with their mouth. That's crazy. Like, that part's really fun no matter how long the sides are. But it does get to be like, you have to go lie on the ground after you've listened to 20 really long model. Anyway, yeah, I like, I try to check for a length of thing that will give me a sense of the person's ability to sort of get into a rhythm if that's what I want for a character. But then, yeah, if it Is like, can you do just sort of this basic demeanor? Then you generally don't need super long sides. You can just give like a couple lines here and there. I feel like it is. You're right, Mel. It's so dependent on what type of character it is that you're casting.

I have two subtopics that I would love to cover, and I have a hard out at 11. So we're going to sort of rapid fire ourselves here. First, how do y' all feel about doing a second round of like, in person interviews or auditions for stuff?

Oh, sure, sure.

If I would.

I don't think.

I haven't had to do it anybody's like a crazy thing.

I know that I'm the one that hasn't cast in here, but, like, I feel like that that would be. That would be really important to me because if I hear your voice, like, I don't know you and I hear your voice and I love how you sound. I have to at least talk to you. Like, I have to know that you're a person that I can work with. When I auditioned for Shelterwood, you know, they liked my voice. They called me back and I think that I. I think that they cast me based on how I read with Steven, how. How we. How we worked together. And I feel like I could never do that any other way. I would have to call them in.

Yeah.

And meet them over, you know, over. Over Discord or whatever. And talk to them like, you know, get to know them as a person at least a little bit. Get like their vibe, I guess the kids are saying. And have them read with somebody else that I have already cast. I just wouldn't be able to.

Just cold.

Yeah. I like this voice. I'm just gonna choose this person that I know nothing about.

That's. Yeah. I can really, really see. I've never done it, so. Except for. I guess I've sort of interviewed with people. But the. Specifically for my leads in It Takes a Wolf. I'm like, I don't.

Yeah.

I like, can't imagine a world where I don't really.

You're gonna need chemistry tests, my guy.

Yeah, kind of like. And so I wanted to make sure that sounded like a reasonable thing to do. It sounds like.

No. Yeah, for sure.

Okay. And like.

Okay, here's the thing, right. I have really quick. I have only cast for single episodes or like maybe two episodes or whatever. If you're doing a full, full length season where you have main characters who are on screen all of the time with each other. That entire time. That's many hours that you guys have to spend together. So, yeah, you want to know if.

Those people are people you can work with.

Yeah.

I cast. I wound up a lot of the people who submitted are people that I've worked with before because that's my circle at this point. And this is a brand new project that no one has heard of. No one knows me, like, so I just got a lot of people that I already knew. But the banter between the kind of core, like six principles is really important. So I. That's something I could see myself having done if I hadn't got as many people that I knew. But these are people that I'd worked with that I knew had worked together. You know, I specifically, I have Lindsey Zanna and Kirsty Wolven, who were Amity and Dingo in Breathing Space. I know they work off of each other really well. So, you know, things like that.

I didn't ask questions.

Yeah, they're great. Yeah. Cool. Okay. And then I'm interested to hear. We already touched this a little bit. Mike brought it up earlier, the idea of spoilers in the casting call. I've seen casting calls where I'm like, I know this was written such that you're trying to obfuscate stuff about what you're writing because you don't want to spoil people, but that seems really stupid to me. Yeah. Where like you a we. There have been studies. People enjoy things more when they know more about it. And information's good and you should be giving people as much information as you think that they can ingest reasonably. Like, don't. Like, you don't want to be like writing 5,000 words descriptions of every character. But, like, you should tell people about stuff, you know, like, they need to.

Know, especially things that have happened to them. I feel like especially that casting call that Mike was talking about that has been going around has some, like, stuff in the sides before the actual sides that's like, here's what this character has gone through. Here's the stuff that is, like, plaguing them and that is so helpful in like portraying a character is like, knowing, like the weights that are on them that you can't visibly see.

Is that what you mean with spoilers? Is that what you're talking about, like, in the description that, like, nobody reads or in the actual lines?

Like, like, I mean, I've seen people where I'm like, I'm pretty sure you picked those lines specifically. Well, I've also, I mean, like, there's there's the instinct sometimes where you're like, I don't want to put this here because it's a big reveal or whatever, but I've seen other stuff where I'm like, I know that they're like, you guys are selecting lines around something or like, I've seen. I've seen casting calls where I know that they changed character names. And I saw the eventual thing that came out and they were just. They put out generic sides, basically, where they change character names, change descriptions. They really obfuscated what they were looking for and it worked well.

Why, why. Why would you do that? Like, what's the purpose thing?

I. I don't understand it as much because I'm. I'm very pro spoiler. I like, I like. I personally like to hear all of the information before I interact with the project at all. Like, media. So the idea of, like, oh, I need to hold back this thing so that people won't be spoiled. But, like, especially if the people you're working with are the ones you're gonna. Or the people you're talking about are ones you're probably gonna be working with, like, they're gonna read the script, hopefully, you know, they're gonna, like, there's no reason to hide from them. That being said, I. I have. I am toying with the idea that when I do put out the full casting call for It Takes a Wolf, I might label the changeling as a spoiler character. Like where you have to click on. Click an object or click a link before you can read the information about the character, even the name. Not because I don't want people to do it if they don't want to know, but because I think if I saw that on a casting call, there is no way I'm clicking it.

100%.

I think. 100% clicking it. Yeah. Not as a way to do ever. I think people would be really interested in that, just wanting that see that character. Then if it says, oh, this is a spoiler character, there's a reverse psychology.

It's almost free marketing be like, oh, I could see a secret if I push the button. Let's go.

Yeah, that would be hilarious. Yeah. So, okay, yeah, please do that and.

Tell us how it goes.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. It's on the list then. Of things I'm going to do. Yeah, okay. So the. Yeah. I can't imagine. I can't think of a benefit for not telling people stuff. Like, frankly, when I put my next casting call out, if you just want to read the scripts you can just DM me. I'll probably send them to you if you think that's helpful. That's fine. We're going to do a read through. We're doing a table read at the end of the month. End of next month.

So exciting.

Which is just like the show. It's just going to be everything out there. I probably won't leave that up as a vod, but like, I don't care. Like, people should know the information, right? Like, they should just be able to get an opportunity and it, if anything, that's some more general spoilers discussion. And we have, we don't have that much time yet, so we'll talk about that later. Okay, cool. So I don't know if I have anything to sum up. Does anybody have anything they want to talk about before we do our goals? That's the worst.

Just really fast, like go into it expecting to have like a. Just a blast, a fun time. It is super enjoyable to hear people say the words you've written.

Yeah. To that end, there's lots of things I was talking about. You know, you put information into the sides that give people information, like tell them who the character is. But also if there's a certain line that makes you hoot and holler, fucking put that in the line. Like put, put the best. If you, if you've got stuff that's like, oh, this is the best thing I've ever wrote. Just like put that in there. If you've got something that is just good, just put it in there. People, they'll want. The actors will enjoy reading it, you'll enjoy hearing, will make things better. And that will also help you determine who's good or not. Because if they don't get. That's the best line I've ever written.

Yeah. I guess I wanted to quickly add, we've been talking mostly about casting podcasts and audio dramas and stuff. And the majority of the things that I audition for as a actor is audiobooks. And it's so interesting hearing how different it is because with audiobooks you gotta have the spoilers. Like you'll get in the thing. Like this narrator character eventually is gonna find out that so and so is actually his father. So you need to blah, blah, blah, blah. You'll get all the spoilers and. And you read usually for five to 10 minutes. And so it was really funny listening to you guys talk about how, you know, sitting through long. People who cast their audiobooks, they're listening for hours to people read long sections of their book and it's the same long section over and over again. So it was very interesting hearing the differences in the casting stuff. Just wanted to put that some of.

That will also be in the realm of. We've. Most of us have been working in the pro in the context of hobby projects where you're not paying people.

Yeah.

And there's a certain amount of. I don't want to make a bunch of people do a bunch of work if.

Yeah, yeah.

Just so that I can do my thing. So there is a certain amount of pushing that pressure down. Whereas if I was casting a thing where I'm like, well, I may be paying you real money for this, I won't mind you asking for a little extra. You know, give me a little bit more from you. Okay, let's do goals real quick. And then I have to go jump on another conference call. So by the time we meet again, it's going to be July. I need to have. I need to have episode nine done, like next week, and I need to be working on revisions by the time we do this. So that's my goal. I think that's reasonable based on how things have been going on.

Your progress.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I need to be done with nine and be like into the first set of revisions.

Mine will be skeletal outline. Ish thing of the next episode of Asin West.

Okay.

And you need to get me the beginning of.

Oh, yeah, I've already written that. I forgot to send it to you. I'm sorry.

Oh, my God. Thank you. Okay, so you actually did more homework even than you thought. I need to finish beefing up episode three.

I need to finish writing episode three and start on episode four.

Cool. Mel, do you want to set a goal? I don't know when you'll be back.

The thing that I need to do when I get back from this trip is I have some take notes to get done and then I have a bunch of proofing to do because I have three out of the five fully recorded episodes I have vocal cuts for. So I need to, like, go through and proof those before I pass them on to Sam.

Yay. Perfect.

Cool. Excellent. Well, in that case, we will catch the audience in two weeks.

Bye.

Bye.

Okay, bye.

Yeah, this is fun.

So thanks for joining us this week and if you want to learn more about the podcasts and projects and all that stuff, then you can head on over to www.library.horse or if you want to give us a little bit of money, help us make these things, then go to patreon.com cursedknowledge. You don't get anything for it. You just, you know, put some green in our hands so that we can make some projects. Anyway, later, Sam.