Ali: Hi, welcome to another episode of PassionPod! I'm Ali Whitaker. I'm the Head of Marketing and Publicity.
Tosca: And I'm Tosca Musk. I'm the founder and CEO of Passionflix.
Ali: And occasionally,
Tosca: and occasionally I direct.
Ali: What have you been up to?
Tosca: Um, I actually went on vacation, if you can believe it. It has been a long time. I went on vacation. I was in, uh, France. Mm-hmm. With my kids.
Ali: And how was that?
Tosca: It was pretty fantastic. I did work a good portion of it, of course, but um, but I walk a bit. It's different. It, it's different when you wake up, have a cup of coffee and then sit outside with the, you know, the spring of the south of France and work
Ali: Yeah.
Tosca: Than when you sit in an office.
Ali: What were you working on?
Tosca: Um, I was working on the Black Dagger Brotherhood 'cause we had to approve some, uh, visual effects and, um, and music some score, which is really great. We're gonna touch base a little bit more on that later. And then, um, and then I, I started to read, uh, some scripts.
Ali: Ah, what scripts are you working on?
Tosca: Well, I started reading, uh, again, Royally Screwed. Yeah. And um, and then uh, also we have the first two episodes of season two of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Yay. So I'm reading those two. They're only the first drafts and they're good and they're gonna be fantastic. And it's just every time you see the first draft of something in my mind, 'cause I have such incredible visions of what, you know, how the show opens and, and so when a writer comes in and they make it just slightly different than mine, I have to, like, I have to.
Step away, twist my brain around, come back and go, okay, yes, this is, this could, this could work, this could work. But then I, I end up, um, rewriting the whole beginning.
Ali: Well, you're probably looking at it differently now too, that you filmed season one.
Tosca: Yes.
Ali: And you've worked with all the actors, so I have to imagine that's very different.
Tosca: Yes, I absolutely, and they have. And, and so now when I hear that, when we see the, the dialogue written, I can actually hearwho Butch is. And I can hear. So I can hear Michael. I can hear Sia. I can hear Alex. Um, 'cause you know, the whole opening of, of, uh, the Lover Eternal. The second season is, um, it's a scene inside the pit with Vicious, Butch and Rhage.
Yes. And so before they go out to a club. So I just, I see the whole thing in my mind. I see how we introduce Mary. I see how we introduce John Matthew. I see how we introduce Bella. So it's just, I, I just wanna see that on the page. So. You know, Alys, who's our writer, done a phenomenal job. It's just a matter of me taking it and putting my vision onto that page as well.
Ali: I love it. By the way, we've had, um, internal dialogue about how to pronounce her name 'cause Lauren always says Ali. I thought it was Alice. Yes. Yes. So Lauren texted her while we were at ApollyCon, and it's Alys.
Tosca: Oh my god.
Ali: We were all wrong.
Tosca: I'm sorry, Alys.
Ali: No, we didn't know. She thought it was very funny, but we, none of us knew.
And so Lauren texted her while we were sitting at dinner with Andrew Biernat and asked, 'cause we're like, how do you, how do you say it? We've been talking about it. Alys. Alys, yeah.
Tosca: Oh gosh. That's embarrassing. Now we know it's been years.
Ali: Oh, i, I know. Yeah.
Tosca: Um, um, alright. She can call me Tosca for a while.
Ali: Yeah. And we had ApollyCon.
Tosca: Yes. Tell me about that. It was, it looked amazing.
Ali: It was amazing. Yeah. And it was so fun because we kind of knew with our Passionistas we did a poll, um, of our founding members and we asked how many people had actually read Dark Lover Any of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. And it was really split 50 50.
Tosca: Oh.
Ali: And so. Um, a lot of people are reading it now, but we also found that at ApollyCon there were so many readers that had not read the series yet. And then of course, JR Ward became the bell of the ball and she's gone viral on book talk because she's incredible. Yeah. And she just really took the lead on these panels and people fell in love with her.
So she even said, um. She's excited because she feels like there's a whole new generation of readers coming in. And then so many of them were coming to our table too and getting excited about watching it come to life and learning about PassionCon. So I feel like we met a very different group of readers than we had previously.
Tosca: Oh, that's great.
Ali: And as people are really excited now about it. Yeah. But I had to keep telling people, don't say spoilers because we were talking, I mean, obviously the first book came out in 2005, but at the panels we were calling out, you know, certain characters that died. And I'm like, no, there's so many people here that haven't read it yet. But yeah. Yeah.
Tosca: No one dies. No one dies. No one dies. No one dies.
Ali: But it was good. A happy movie. Happy movie was so happy. Everyone was Nothing dark. No, no, no big explosions. Nothing like that. No, nothing. No, nobody dies. So yeah, it was fun. People were really excited. Um. And we had Andrew Biernat with us.
Tosca: I know, I saw that. Yeah. And he, I mean he seemed to be so happy he posted so he so much about it. Yeah.
Ali: And we had a poster of Wicked at our, our booth because it's Jennifer Armentrout's event, and we wanted to let all of her fans know that we had Wicked on Passionflix. But so many people thought at a quick glance that he was Liam.
So, and then he started joking around saying, no, no, no, I'm just a stunt double. And some people believe that. But it was, it was funny.
Tosca: Oh, that's cute.
Ali: Yeah.
Tosca: That's great. Sounds like a really awesome event.
Ali: It was really fun.
Tosca: Yeah. Love seeing all the pictures.
Ali: Yeah.
Tosca: Yeah.
Ali: And today we have a special guest that many of you know already and you've been working closely with on Black Dagger Brotherhood, but we're bringing Margie Goodspeed our.
Uh, Head of Creative post-production on
Tosca: Yes, she's amazing. She's the head of creative post-production here at Passionflix, so she oversees all of the post-production on all of our shows. Um, and that includes, and we'll get into more details, but that includes not only helping us find the editor and overseeing the edit, but also the music, the visual effects, the, you know, how the story can tie together.
She has a lot to do, uh, with, with the final product. Yeah. Um. It's a very special skill, and she's very talented, so very, very lucky to have her at Passionflix.
Yeah, we
Ali: love margie. Let's welcome her on.
Tosca: All right.
Ali: Hello, Margie.
Margie: Hello.
Ali: Thank you for being here.
Margie: It's my pleasure.
Ali: I know you have to be, but thank you.
Tosca: Well, she was just here in the office. Me just grabbed it. I know exactly.
Ali: I asked her last night, I'm like, Hey, could you be on today? But yes, thank you for doing this.
Margie: My pleasure.
Tosca: Yeah, Margie's been like busy, busy, busy, busy.
The last. Six months. Yeah.
Margie: Dancing as fast as I can.
Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you tell us a little bit, um, how Black Dagger Brotherhood's been different versus everything else you've worked on for us? And, and was it different timing wise? 'cause you started pretty early too, right? At the beginning?
Tosca: Yes. No, well, in a way she was also, she was finalizing Lick.
That's right. So she was finalizing Lick and, and then just overseeing Passionflix, uh, overseeing Black Dagger Brotherhood as well. And then, you know, had to jump right in. Jump right in.
Margie: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, how it was different. Well, that part wasn't different. I often am doing multiple things at once, but, um, uh, we had a second editor come on, Mel, uh, Annan.
So that was helpful. But this was different because. Uh, I think in, in terms of the scope, it's the biggest, longest thing we've done. Mm-hmm. So it ended up being, um, can I say how many episodes we have and all that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it ended up being six episodes that are, I, I mean, it's about six hours of content total.
Mm-hmm. Maybe a little less.
Tosca: I think it's a little more actually.
Margie: Is it?
Tosca: I think just like Yeah. A fraction. Yeah. Yeah.
Margie: It's really right around there. Which is a lot. It's a lot. It's like three movies that we've done in a very short amount of time. That's how I think of it in terms of two hour movies. So that alone, um, is, is a lot.
'cause you're just, you feel like, uh, um, you are just kind of, you know, climbing a mountain and climbing a mountain and climbing a mountain at a certain point. Just getting it all done. 'cause it's just a lot. But it's also really fun. Um. Although sometimes confusing 'cause Tosca and are like, wait, which episode does that happen?
I'm like, wait, I like, I just like yesterday something came up and I was like, I don't, I don't know where that happens. I feel like my brain is kind of jello right now. 'cause I just need to, you know, 'cause when I'm editing and especially the first cut, the first cut of a scene is, is not the most fun. But it's um.
I and I, I love all of it, but it's just 'cause there's so many details and I'm watching all the takes and I, you don't quite know what it is. Mm-hmm. Yet, you know, in terms of, I mean, you know what, it's based on the script, but it, it has to come alive in its own way. Right. So I just am holding all this stuff in my head and I'm holding alternates in case it's like, oh, maybe it's better to go that way instead of this way, but I just have to make a first choice on everything.
Yeah. Um, and then it gets super fun. The next pass, you know when it really starts to come alive and you put music in and sound effects and all that stuff. So just temporary ones. But, um. Anyway, did I answer that question?
Tosca: Yeah, you did. You did. And also I think that what's a little bit different from the Black Dagger Brotherhood than our others is that there's a lot, I mean, we've had some action sequences in Wicked and things like that.
Mm-hmm. And some visual effects in Wicked, but this is far more like, far more action sequences and far more visual effects than we have had in other shows. Um, and I think that's been something that, that both of us have to track. Well, Margie and her team track this and I go. Yeah, sounds good. Yeah.
Yeah. Um, but the, so the tracking of that is, is, um, is very important.
And, um, and so I think that that's been an added element on this one because as we start to, um, to get into an episode, you, you, we are looking at it together going, well, do we need to send this to visual effects? How can we make this better? And, and we have a really great visual effects team, so. You know, sometimes in the past we might go, well, no, we can probably cut around that.
But in this situation we're like, no, let's send it over to visual effects. Let's see if we can enhance it. And so that sort of thing's been really great on this one. Yeah,
Ali: yeah. When you're preparing to film something like Black Dagger Brotherhood, do you sit down beforehand and kind of map out what visual effects you think are gonna be needed?
How does that work? And, and what kinds of things for people that don't know, what kinds of things, uh, would you maybe add on a visual effect at the end, if that makes sense afterwards, like you're talking about?
Tosca: Sure. Um, so yeah, for the most part we do. Plan ahead of time as to what's gonna be a visual effect.
So when we're actually shooting it, the script supervisor will put a V on the slate before we shoot a specific scene so that Margie and her team know this one is slated to be a visual effect. And so what we planned on doing, um, for example, was, you know, obviously the characters materialize and dematerialize, and so that would be considered a visual effect.
And so we mark that as a visual effects and then we hand it over to Margie and then Margie's like, actually I can do this. Sort of magic thing that I do. And so she was able to make it work so that it wasn't a visual effect, but it was something that editorial could do and that, wow. So that was very cool.
Yeah. And then we go to another situation, and you'll see this in um, episode to this is what we had to try and figure out yesterday and um, and it has to do with vampire teeth. And so, um, I might be giving something away here, but, um. We, we wanted to really accentuate that the vampires have the ability to, to control their teeth, you know, that they extend and they can retract.
And so what wasn't planned was for a visual effect for, you know, Wrath opens as mouth to show. Beth that he's a vampire. And initially we filmed it and he had vampire teeth in. And so, okay. And we thought, okay, well that works. But what if he opened his mouth and his teeth grew? Ooh. Yeah. And so we added that as a visual effect because that is kind of cool that that's more like, you know, we definitely know they're not fake because your teeth are elongating.
And so that was a very, that's very cool. And is very cool. And that we added.
Margie: Yeah. That was the very last thing we added. It was like if, if we could have a couple points where we actually see it just helps with the magic of Yeah. Their world. So,
Ali: yeah. Yeah. That's cool. And you talked, you mentioned there's six episodes and originally it was written as five.
So when you got in the editing suite, did you, was that when you started talking about it? Is it something you kind of knew right away when you were cutting that first episode together?
Tosca: I, I knew when we were filming that we had too much footage for five episodes. We had over six hours of footage, and so, you know, we would end up, we would've had to have each episode be an hour and 15, 20 minutes.
And it doesn't really, it doesn't, it, it. It would, it's not great. Yeah. It's better to make 'em six episodes because it can get kind of tiring to watch our and 20 minute episodes all the time.
Margie: Can I speak to that for one hot second? Yeah. So what happened was, so we shot, uh, before Christmas and had it all.
Yeah. We first edit the scenes, it's just called an assembly 'cause it's just a. The scenes were all put together and they were put together in the five episodes. And I said to Tosca, it's like six hours long. This is six hours long. And we were talking about whether or not we could break it into six or not, but we first just needed to watch it.
Mm-hmm. So, um, coming back in January, we had here in Georgia, uh, an alert that we were gonna have a snow day and we were gonna be snowed in. And so I was like, oh gosh, I'm not, I'm not really ready to show it to her yet, but that's a really good, we weren't gonna be able to come into the office and work and.
You know, we're on a pretty tight schedule, so I was like, it would be great if we could just watch the whole thing. And so we just hunkered down in, in Tosca's home screening room and we just, it was a marathon where we just watched the whole thing and it was kind of, it was so great. It was great. It's like, there's parts that were really great and then it's kind of in my mind it's, you know, it's kind of, it's.
It's a mess as a whole in one way because it's not shaped yet. But it was like surprisingly good. I was like, oh my God, this is actually really good because sometimes it can be painful to watch it at that stage, but it was just this marathon, um, of watching it and we felt really good about it. 'cause you know, you can sometimes be like, oh crap, we got a lot of things to fix.
But it was just more, how can we make it better? And then it took a little while. We started, uh, when we got in the cutting room, we started. Thinking about where we might break it and where the timings would be. Mm-hmm. And we did a little tiny bit of restructuring, um, on this one, which we explored some restructuring on this one a little more than we've done on other ones, um, because we just wanted to make sure we got it right and we were introducing the characters in the right way.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Margie: Mm-hmm. And, uh, so we took a, we, we took a little more time with that, especially with episode one, just like. Or reorganizing the scenes and just screening the first 20 minutes and seeing how it felt. But um, but then it just felt like when we kind of realized we wanted to be six and we picked break, we actually picked good breaking spots right from the beginning.
Ali: They feel like they were just written that way already.
Margie: Yeah. And we just. We didn't really mess around with that too much. Yeah, I think one episode we were, we were fooling around with which one students should start with, but yeah.
Tosca: Anyway, I think we ended up taking episodes one, two, and three are now 1, 2, 3, and four.
Right. And so five and six are, were always four and five and yeah. And they all, so those are those, the
Margie: integrity of those were the same. Yeah. So's very confusing. It's like, oh, it's, it's script for five, but it's actually episode six, so yeah. Uh,
Ali: the brotherhood has really distinct personalities among the brothers and different characters.
How do you approach editing to highlight each of their unique character vibes? Oh, yeah.
Margie: See, that's what I was saying earlier about sometimes when I've, um, I'm looking at all the footage and I'm trying to. You know, I, I'm holding all this stuff in my head 'cause I'm not sure. So at the beginning, I don't really know, like, like for instance, Zadist doesn't have a lot of lines at the beginning, but his presence needs to be there.
Do you know? Mm-hmm. So it's like, okay, I'm gonna throw in a shot of Zadist here, even though he doesn't have a line. 'cause I wanna, you know, you wanna introduce him as a presence there in a certain way, or, you know, um, with Rhage it's like, you know, he's got this kind of sassy thing. So you wanna, you just want to.
Uh, go to him at the right times and at the right ways early on so that later when he has more to do mm-hmm. It lands, you know. Yeah. Um, so that's just, those are basic editing techniques in general. Like, you kind of have to set people up so people aren't, when they have their moment, uh, getting to know them in that moment that they're sort of already know them a little bit.
Yeah. And then they can really run with. Whatever their it is that they're doing, you know? Um, I think that's the, that's the biggest thing in terms of, and you just get the, you know, especially when they're in scenes together. Um, again, this is true of any kind of editing, but particularly when you've got an ensemble like that, how they interact with each other and when they're throwing each other's looks and when they're talking over each other or they're, um, you know, listening intently or showing respect to wrath or whatever it is that they're doing.
Um. You know, you just, all those behaviors are, are about their characters, so you wanna just try to get 'em in and create a world where that everybody wants to be in and enjoy them in, you know?
Ali: Yeah. That's it. How was it for you directing? I mean, you've directed ensemble cast before. Mm-hmm. This is a pretty heavy cast, a lot of people on set.
How was it for you? Obviously making sure, helping them make sure all the character traits are coming out as they should. How was it for you?
Tosca: Uh, it was stressful. Yeah.
It's very stressful because you're there, you have a lot of, um, uh, a lot of people on set. You're, you have very little time and you have to try and film, um, each one of these characters in a way that's going to, um, represent who they are in the book.
And you're like, okay, we got one shot. It's on you. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's, uh, you know, the very fortunate part of it is that our cast, our brothers were so aware of their characters and they had read the book and books. Many of them had read many, many of the books. And, um, and so they knew exactly, you know, what they should be doing.
And so that was very helpful. Um, but yeah, at the end of the day, it's a, it's a matter of just trying to capture. That performance in the very limited time that we have. And then, and I do do it, I go, okay. Yep. Got it. Okay. Margie's gonna figure that one out. Okay. Go to the next one. Go to the next one. Go to the next one.
She's got it. She's got it. Let's move on. Just move on. But Margie and I have worked together for. 10 years. Many, many, many years. Many, many years. And, um, and so, you know, whenever I'm shooting, 'cause Margie also edits everything that I do. She doesn't edit everything that Passionflix does. She oversees everybody else.
But when I direct, then she, uh. Um, uh, does that edit and, and oversees that edit because we have, again, that shorthand. So it's a matter of she'll see the stuff and she'll be like, oh, I see what she was trying to get. She'll run outta time. That's okay. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna figure that one out.
So, uh,
Ali: the number of times I say, say, Margie's gonna kill me.
Tosca: Yeah, you say that or I say that.
Ali: You say it. Oh. Oh, that's so funny. It's always so and funny you say to Carlos, there's somebody, Margie's gonna kill me.
Margie: Oh my God. Well, it is true. I did notice, I kind of swear a lot. Not you personally, but while I'm editing sometimes like, oh, oops, it's okay.
It's, it's not, it's just because it's like, um, editing's when it's editing, it's literally you have to look at everything. So you have to look at the things that aren't gonna end ever end up in the movie as well as the things that do. Yeah. So, um, you know, sometimes I'm like, I think that's working. Yeah.
And then I have to step away and come back.
Tosca: Yeah.
Margie: But, um, it's always there.
Tosca: That's so funny. I didn't even know that I said Margie's gonna kill me. I, I can imagine that I do. Funny. Like, it's always funny. Probably just one of those things that I just know that I'm on set and I'm like, oh, yeah. Gonna kill me.
Alright, here we go. And action.
Margie: Well, I think actually on this one, there might've been a couple of times when you only shot one take and I was like, that I, that I'm not crazy a fan of. Yeah. But um, yeah, you don't, you do. You barely, I And when you do that, I'm like, she's just sprinting for the, for the race.
And I'm like, okay. And I call her up and say, Hey, you know, you only got one take on that. Yeah, no, I wouldn't do that.
Tosca: Every time we get a, every time we do a good take, I'm like, man, that's the good one. All right. We have to do another,
Margie: you always need a second take. I was, because, uh, it's amazing how much, um, it's not necessarily one just for safety in case there was something technical wrong that nobody noticed, but also.
The sound, people kind of forget about how important the sound is. Mm-hmm. And so sometimes if there was, you know, a noise on one of the words or something, I can steal it from the other take. And we don't have to have the actor go back and rerecord the line later, which is something that we do, which is always, no actor really likes to do that because yeah, it's harder to get the moment.
And it can always, it, it can sound a little artificial, but, um, we have a great mixer and a great sound team. So yeah, we have, um. It, it, it usually lies in there. But anyway, it's, that's one of the reasons I was like a psychotic is the sound. It's that people don't think about it. But yeah,
Tosca: it'll be as a sound, the sound is very important.
Si sound is one thing that people will not forgive. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So people can see a blurry picture, but if they can't hear it. Yeah, they, yeah, I know. It's just, there's no forgiveness at all. So we, we are, we very fortunately do have great sound. Yeah. Which is important. And so the second take does help.
It's actually quite a miracle every time. Um, so Margie will see a performance of someone. And um, and she'll go, yes, the facial movements are exactly like this is the, how they're looking is exactly how we want them to look. But how they said the line isn't exactly how we want them to say the line. So she'll take the words from another take and put it into their mouths, which is really quite amazing.
Yeah. Um, 'cause it, you know. People speak with similar rhythms and so, um, but it's just like maybe an inflection or something like that, or they pronounce the word a little bit better and so she can just pull it from some, some another from the next take and put it into their mouth.
Ali: So when it comes to Wrath, obviously he's wearing his sunglasses the whole time.
How do you as a director, um, I know we've talked about it a little bit before, but how do you work. With him to make sure that he's emoting the way he needs to and, and really bringing rats to life. And how is it for you editing that? Well,
Tosca: again, very fortunately, um, Robert did his research and he was very well prepared and, and we talked about different ways and he, he talked about it too, how he had to learn how to show emotion.
Not using the eyes. And so he would clench his jaw or do a head movement or lower his head or look up and things like that, that all helped. And his body movements would make the, it would make a difference as well. And so that's the sort of thing that we worked on. Um. But you know, for the most part, the scenes would require whoever he's acting opposite to react to his emotion as well.
So I think that's again, where the editing comes in. So when you have someone like Olivia Applegate, who's exceptionally talented, um, and she, we can cut to her to get the emotional reaction that we need from his performance. Yeah. If that makes sense.
Margie: Right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. 'cause it's, um, it's a trick of the trade or something if, you know, it's like if there's somebody's a little bit of a blank slate, whatever the other actor's doing is, is the way that the audience has in to responding to that person.
Does that make sense? So it's like we identify with. Beth, when she's reacting to Wrath. Um, also it works for his character 'cause he's, he's supposed to be so kind of remote and stoic at the beginning.
Yeah.
And then it was, um. You know, it's just such a wonderful, uh, reveal when he does take off his glasses and you can see his face.
Yeah. And it's, it happens at the time when his heart is opening and all those things are, he's more vulnerable. Yeah. And, and all those things that, uh, we women love. Yeah. Um, so, um, but yeah, it is, it's a little tricky 'cause. Um, I, it's funny, I, I cut this one movie where there was a whole scene in Hungarian, and I don't speak Hungarian, so I was like, oh my gosh.
I'm just like, kind of going at it blind. But I realized how much I edit from, um, all those other cues that are not the dialogue and those are the things that Tosca was talking about, that Robert was working with. You know, I mean, any tiny little thing of his jaw. Mm-hmm. Or, you know, any, you know, ge any gesture that's non-verbal is language.
Too. So, um, I feel like we got a really nice balance of him being stoic and yet still, you know, revealing it. And also his voice. He uses his voice. Yeah. Yes, he does. Um, which is very important and, and sexy too. There you go.
Tosca: Yeah. He did a really good job. Yeah. I mean, that's a very, very hard thing to pull off and actually do it well.
Margie: Yeah.
Tosca: Um, and he didn't hide behind it at all. He really found ways to show us his emotion. Yeah. Yeah.
Ali: Can you talk to us, talk us through your process for, um, when you're editing a high stake scene, like a fight or, um, a really romantic moment even.
Margie: Okay. Very, very different. Two very different. Yeah. The, that's insight.
Um, so, um, well fight, oh gosh, you know, there's a certain level of mechanics to every, there's kind of an architectural I'll say like that. Um, so the fight scenes have been choreographed. Mm-hmm. So those are just a matter of like, you know, which is the best angle to show that mm-hmm. Punch if that's what it is, you know?
Um. And then it's just a matter of trying to make it feel exciting. Yeah. I dunno what else to say.
Tosca: It's like, but I can give you a very good example. So we are, you know, we, we basically locked picture on everything, but we had a look again yesterday at visual effects because when our Lessers die, they.
There's a pop and a light and explosion, and then a little bit of dust that goes off, and then that dust disappears. So we're looking at the visual effect yesterday of Wrath killing a Lesser. And um, and he does this really cool move, boom. And then he stabs in the heart and, and the light pup and the dust trickles off, and Margie looked at it and goes.
I think that the dust isn't trickling or fast enough and there's not enough time. Also, why is he waiting so long? So something that we wouldn't normally do is she just this far down the process, she, she looked at the fight sequence again and realized, oh wait, hang on a second. We shouldn't be waiting that long for wrath.
To stab him, and she just slid the cut over a little bit so that wrath moves a little bit faster, and we have a little bit more time with the dust. Huh. And so there, it's a lot to do with timing and, um, and how, uh, you know, when, when the stab happens and, and how, how it works. And, and so Mark's very good at, um, making sure that the, the action, the momentum.
You know, is, is right. Feels right. And that then of course when we were matching it to visual effects that the dust appears and then the dust dissipates.
Margie: Yeah. Yeah. It's always a bit of a trick. 'cause in editing, um, you know, the movie's not done. Mm-hmm. So you're, you're working with pieces that are, uh, you know, you can see the wires, you can see the things.
So you have to, you have to
Tosca: What wires? These guys actually did all their stunts without any kind of support whatsoever.
Margie: I'm sorry. They punch so hard that they go flying.
Um. You have to forget those things. Mm-hmm. And be able to focus your attention. But like Tosca was saying, it's like you're imagining what the visual effect is gonna do.
And I, you know, if it was a longer schedule, we'd have more time to go back and forth and change the cut if we needed to. But we've already turned over to composing and we've already turned over to sound. And so you don't wanna change the length of anything.
Yeah. 'cause it, I mean, you could, and people do it all the time, but you know, I, when early on when I was talking to toss about how we can do these movies and these budgets, like we have to lock picture and that's it.
Like, that's how we should do it. Um, so that's what we do. And, um, so there's. There's a few little adjustments like Tosca was saying, that we can do, but um, yeah, they just, you know, it's like first you're just kind of muscling through it and then you put some music on it, you put some sound effects for the fight scenes.
It's amazing like you do once you put the sound effects on mm-hmm. And all those things, it just really starts to come to life alive. Yeah. But, um, the more subtle scenes like a, a. It's a, can I, can I reveal? It's not my most fun to cut the sex scenes. I dunno what to say. I mean, they turn out great. It's like, I mean, I guess it would sound weird if I said I love cutting those sex scenes.
Yeah. Um, um, well, it's just because it's also, you know, you want it to be so good and it's. Um, believe it or not, they're not actually having sex.
Tosca: Not even close. Not even close.
Margie: So, uh, you just wanna walk that line between having it feel real and just remembering what every story point is. Yeah. At every point along the way.
Um, so yeah, it's, it's, it's sort of just trying to keep it, it's like anything, you're just like, oh, that's beautiful. Let's, let's use that bit. That's a pretty bit, yeah, that's a nice bit. That's sexy. That's fun. Um, I. You know, and just remembering that it's always about the connection between the people.
Yeah. Yeah. 'cause that's what it's about. Yeah. That's what is the priority. Yeah. Yeah.
Ali: Without giving away a spoiler, have you had a favorite scene out of this series to cut?
Margie: Oh, hmm. I think, uh, I think the scene, there's always a point at which I feel like. Um, it starts to come alive, like, and it usually happens when I put a piece of music on it, um, which I try to wait to do 'cause I just don't know.
Like I, I kind of have an idea of what, 'cause before the, you know, composer works, we, we. Use temporary, um, score. So we take music from other movies and we lay them on just to give an idea and you never quite know what the feel is gonna be, but have kind of an instinct. So he, you know, I work with Mike and I say, can you grab me some scores?
These are the ones I'm thinking about. And then, um, so in this one it was the scene again, don't wanna give anything away, but, uh, it was after the first intimate scene with, with Beth and Wrath. Oh yes. Beautiful. So they wake up. You bed. They don't wake up, but they're, yeah, because they didn't actually, I don't think they slept, but it's actually the first real conversation between the two of them.
And, um, it's just in best apartment and it's. It's, you know, it's, I don't know, maybe a six minute scene. Yeah. Something like that. And I, and Tosca is shooting away, right? So, and I, I try to just communicate with her like, and show her things like, Hey, here, I put this together. I just wanna make sure you got all the pieces you want, and all that sort of thing.
So I try to not bug her too much, but then. This one. I was like, I put a piece of music on it and I thought, oh, this is pretty cool. I'm gonna send it to her. 'cause I, you know, it'll be fun for her to see that. You know, it's like kind of, you know, you're doing a good job. Keep going. Yeah. It was nice. And so that was the one where I kind of, it started to come alive and it just was, they just did both, did a beautiful job and it was beautifully shot and directed and all those, uh, things. So
Tosca: it's, that's a beautiful scene. It's really nice actually. It is. It's a really beautiful scene. Um. You can feel the connection between the two of them really well. Yeah, it was great. So sometime just, just when it comes to the shooting schedule, you know, it's, it's not always great when you're shooting a series to shoot the very beginning of the series at the very, very end of the entire season of shooting.
But in this particular case, I'm glad I did because, um. The, the connection, the, the closeness that Robert and Olivia had as, as people, um, I think really translated on the screen and certainly helped with those, those scenes that the conversation, the intimacy of the conversation that they have after the intimacy, um, they, they trusted each other.
Yeah. And so it really comes off beautifully.
Ali: So you've, you've both been in touch with JR Ward throughout the editing process. Yes. What's it been like hearing all of her positive feedback? 'cause she's clearly very happy.
Tosca: Well, the wonderful thing is that after she's watched an episode, she actually sends a, a video and, um, you know, laughs, cries, just tells us how fabulous it is.
And so that has been great. I mean, like getting that sort of feedback has been really, really positive.
Margie: Yeah. I think she was, uh, when she was watching episode one, she was texting you, like she was like partway through and she was texting you. I'm always like, Tosca has much more contact with the authors than I I ever do, but I'm always like.
What's going on? How are they like it? I I have to know. 'cause Yeah, we want them to be happy. Yeah. I mean, I am, as a storyteller, that's, as an editor, that's like key thing. It's like, I, we wanna deliver on and have them love it, but all her notes were very positive. Yeah. That's all I can say. Very positive.
Very positive. Yeah. Yeah. It was a joy. It was Makes it, yeah, it's a relief and a joy.
Tosca: Exactly. Yeah. Because you just don't know. You're like, oh gosh, did, did we leave something out? Did we? Show a character in a way that you don't like. Um, and that never happened, so that's great.
Margie: Yeah. That's always good. Yeah.
Tosca: Yeah. You know, one of the things that is the most impressive, and we, we touched briefly about the, uh, briefly on this, when it comes to music and, you know, um, but Margie is exceptionally talented when it comes to selecting music and school for. All of our movies and, and series and, and of course we work with Mike Carpenter, who, uh, heads up music at, at Passionflix, but Margie just knows what music is gonna go on a scene and what fits to help us because music is so important.
Mm-hmm. And, and people may or may not know this, but the composers in there and they, they, they have this, just this score that, that goes underneath the scene that. Encourages the emotion that the filmmaker is trying to convey to the audience.
Ali: Yeah.
Tosca: And so when you have to put on temp music. Uh, it's, it's not always how it's gonna be, but Margie just knows how to do it.
So, so you can sit there and, and she'll put the music on and it'll just take you through the scene. You don't even know that that's happening because it's all subconscious. So, and if you wanna speak more to, um, to selecting music,
Margie: I'm so brilliant at it. I dunno what else I could say.
Ali: No, uh, well, well, do you have a conversation before?
Like, did you have a conversation before you were starting with Black Dagger Brotherhood on,
Margie: I'm trying to think. Think, how do you, I said
Tosca: I, I like the music from the Matrix and I like this more industrial feel. Oh yeah. Um, uh, but that doesn't always work for, um, you know, for conveying emotional scenes.
Sure, yeah. It'll work for a lot of our fight sequences or,
Margie: yeah, it was funny. It's like, um, 'cause sometimes you have an idea about what the music is. Mm-hmm. And then it's not right. You know? Yeah. I'm not, I mean, we used, I think we used something for, yeah. For, for some of the more obviously action scenes.
Yeah. But you're right. It's like, I like, and I, what I like to try to do is find a, a one or two scores, or even composers, uh, that I can use for the whole series. Mm-hmm. Because then the theme, it's thematic. Yeah. Yeah. You know, then you have, here's this theme. In this that's played a little quieter and more gentle.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And here's the theme, developed a little bit, um, bigger and broader. Yeah. And so I can kind of try to construct, uh, what the composer's gonna do in the end, which is, you know, there's themes that are introduced and then they're developed. Um, so, and each character has a certain kind of tone or theme, and so you wouldn't use the same music on rage that you would use on best, you know?
Yeah. And so, um. I, I honestly, I feel like sometimes there's just an angel on my shoulder when it comes to music. 'cause I'll listen to a bunch of scores and it's sort of in my head. That's what I mean, why stuff is in my head. Yeah. I don't know how I'm gonna use it. And I sometimes I'll make little notes about, oh, this could be good for that.
Or if Tosca happens to be in the room, like we'll just listen to a few things. And she goes, oh, I think that could be good for Beth, or This is good for that. And so I'll remember that. And when it comes time and a scene comes up and I go, oh, this is a good match, lemme try it here. And it's amazing.
Sometimes you just lay a piece of music in and it's. Semi-random. I was like, oh, it should start here. And then you play it and you're like, wow, that works so great.
Tosca: But that's also a lot to do with the rhythm of editing, right? Yeah. So there is a rhythm and there is a, there is a, a beauty to it, right?
Because it this's how you look at and when you cut to this and how you have an emotional moment in a scene, things like that. So oftentimes when a scene's cut and then we're like, well, let's place music on, and, and she does, she places it starting here and she goes, let's see what happens. And, and. The music, when it does work with that scene, almost immediately, it's because the scene is cut as well, to a rhythm, to a musical, to a rhythm that that sort of also works with the music.
So, you know, if that makes sense. It's like, no, it does. There's a rhythm to the edit. Yeah. And so when you put the music on, it sort of validates that rhythm, I guess, in many ways. Yeah. Our composer, Angela Little, who's also, she did the will for us. She did Secret Life of Amy Bensen. She also did Wallbanger.
She's composing this one and she really was able to create something of her own that, that really had the same, um, impact. Yeah. She knocked it outta the park on that way. It's really knocked it outta the park. Yeah. And it's beautiful. And when you listen to it, you'll hear how it's just, if you, if you spend time listening to the music, you'll uh, the listening to the score, you'll, you'll, you'll feel the off kilter, the, the slight.
Yeah. Change these like hinge sounds and stuff like that, and then curl and all sorts of stuff. Yeah. And it's really great.
Margie: One thing that's really helpful as an edit, in the edit is 'cause I'm, I like know what's in the, in the sausage, you know, like I know what I've been doing. And so it's a little harder for me to be objective in the moment.
Yeah. And so if Tosca as the director can just hasn't been, didn't see me do it, didn't know. So she's just watching the movie and then that comes in, which is great. 'cause it's like, and she just loved it and I was like, oh, thank God, you know, because you just never know. She could have been like, what the hell?
Yeah. Yeah. I loved it. It was so great. But it was so good and I felt, um, I thought, okay, great. We are a hundred percent on the same page on this thing then.
Tosca: Yeah, so the very first movie that Margie and I worked on for Passionflix, not when we first started working together, she was editing Hollywood Dirt.
And so that was our first together on On Passionflix Hollywood Dirt, of course is like still our first baby. And yeah, so fabulous. Loved that one. And, um. And so what, uh, how do you think things have changed or have they since we made Hollywood Dirt,
Margie: oh my gosh. All the way. 30 movies and series ago, guess we're not, we're not split a can of tuna fish for lunch.
Tosca: I guess. I That's true.
Margie: I don't know. I was like remembering, pulling outta there. Um, wow. How have things changed? Well. Uh, if I can say it from just my very specific point of view. Yeah. Movies have a certain kind of structure and there's kind of, you just as an editor, you get kind of instinctive like, oh, that's, this seems too long.
This has to go like this, like that. So with Hollywood Dirt, I remember I am like. Well, that scene's, we gotta get rid of that scene. It's too long, it's this or that. There was like, and it was like, I was sort of, uh, in that mode of it, it has to conform. Our movie has to conform. And Tosca said, we can't cut that scene out.
The fans love that scene. We have to, because I was like, okay, well then I gotta figure out how to make it. I, I guess I sort of. Surrendered over to this world of romance and it was kind of, that was the beginning. And then Afterburn aftershock when we had a screening of a work in progress with some other people, and Lauren was there and it's like basically talking back at the screen and loving it and, and I'm like, I, I started to get understand what these movies are doing and who the audience is and what it is.
And then with Driven. That again, was much longer. It was two hours and 40 minutes. I think that first one I, I realized that it's like, it's more like reading a book. Mm-hmm. In the sense of when you open up a book, you just wanna be in that world of that book. Mm-hmm. You want to, um. You know, we call, you know, luxurious.
You say luxurious in the moment you're luxuriating in it, you know, you're not like on an agenda like, ah, this has to happen and that has to happen. Which, you know, movies tend to have, uh, I'm gonna say it's a little more male, you know, conflict resolve, conflict resolve. Mm-hmm. Whereas women wanna have a long conversation, and we've talked about this before, it's like in Driven, there's an eight minute scene of a conversation on the beach when they're getting to know each other.
Um, and I'd never cut an eight minute scene before. I was like, oh my God, where's this thing? And then I play it back and I went, oh, it's fabulous. Yeah, it's really fabulous. Yeah. And so I, my, you know, my training in some degree to think things have to be a certain way has just gone out the window and it's just, are you enjoying it?
Yeah. And do you wanna be here? And so with Hollywood Dirt, um, you know, we try to make it a tight movie and make it play and all those things. Like it's, it's moving along, but it's just. Uh, understanding that the fans love it and they wanna be in that world. So just tee it up and give them the opportunity to enjoy it.
Tosca: Yeah. So we have a very, you know, uh, you know, and it's not, we are approaching our eighth year, just shocking to me. We're still alive. It's alive and, uh, and 30. Movies and series. Yeah. Which is a lot I know for a very, very short period of time. I know it doesn't seem like a lot to other people, but it's a lot.
It's a lot. 30 movies and series made by the few people. And um, and the, the thing that makes us different from everyone else is that there is no time mandate. There is no, uh, you know, yes, of course we wanna have a delivery date, we wanna do those things. But when we are working on a movie and we're watching something and I look at it and I go.
Uh, it does, it's not, we need to work on that a little longer. The, the flexibility of Passionflix is that we can push our release stage. Mm-hmm. We're not doing it to, to network. And also when it comes to time, it doesn't have to be 95 minutes with the, with the end credits. You know, it doesn't have to be this, this.
Pigeonhole, you know, we're gonna slot it into this little thing here. Yeah. It can be as long or as short as it needs to be to be the best movie.
Margie: Yeah.
Tosca: Yeah. And so that's what we constantly are reminding ourselves because we have this pressure, I. As everyone does, we must release something. We must get it out, you know?
And people want it. People want it. But we wanna try and do the best that we can. And we are small and we are limited in resources, but what we do have is talent and determination to make something great. Yeah. And so if it means that we are taking a little bit longer. To make sure that the movie is that much better or the series is that much better, then that's what we have agreed to do.
Mm-hmm. At Passionflix. Yeah. And so, yeah, we, we try not to conform, but it is hard because we've been trained, right? Yes. We've been trained for years and years and years to go, oh, no, episodes must be this long. Movies must be this long. This is how it goes, and it must be here and here's the point and here's the point and blah, blah, blah.
But. W we have been retrained ourselves.
Margie: I gotta tell you, it's what I love about working with Passionflix. There's a couple moments, especially I, I mean we, um, it's pretty rare that we don't hit a hit our deadline. Yeah. But, you know, sometimes, um, they have to step in and give it a little love. And I love that.
That's why this one needs a little more love. Yeah. So we just take a little more time to do it, but, um. There was a moment in Hollywood Dirt bringing it back to Hollywood Dirt. I, I mean, we're sitting there, uh, and in the editing room and we'd been working for a while. We took a little more time with that one.
Mm-hmm. It was the first one we did. We had a little more time, um, just because that's how it happened. Um, I. And we just had screened the movie just in the editing room and Tosca turned to me and she goes, I like it. Do you? And I go, yeah, I like it. And she goes, okay, we're done. Oh my God. I mean, we're done with the edit.
Yeah. Obviously there's still a lot of work to do, but that is just, 'cause there's usually a whole process of getting approvals and because Tosca is, you know, a full package deal of CEO and director, it's like, okay, as long as she's happy, it's good. And um, that is just really a pleasure. Yeah. Yeah, thanks.
Especially when she agrees with me.
Tosca: Yeah, no, exactly. Which is most of the time it is, fortunately.
Margie: Fortunately, that's why it works.
Tosca: I'm gonna touch on one other thing before I know that we're gonna have to wrap up. But, um, there was another difference with, with Hollywood Dirt. So Hollywood Dirt was the first movie that we filmed for Passionflix.
Thank you. Alessandra Torre. It was amazing. Yes. Love that. Super fun. Love that, love that whole story. And, um. But we were still pitching Passionflix at the time, and we hadn't finished raising all of our money. The platform hadn't been built yet. It was still in the process of being built, and we were going over to, so we finished shooting it in April of 2017 and in May we were going to RT to.
Basically do a panel with Alessandra and do a Passionflix cocktail party and introduce Passionflix to the fans. And so Margie's like cutting away and, and before, you know, before she's even done a pass on the. You had entire movie. Yeah. I didn't, had no pass on, no cut on the movie.
Margie: I didn't have all the, I didn't Had you shot everything yet? Yeah. You had shot it. Yeah. I just hadn't had a chance to cut it all yet.
Tosca: So we, we, she hadn't had a chance to, to do a fi, an edit, even a, a first pass of the movie. And I was like, okay, mark, what I need is, I need a three minute trailer. I need a trailer, needs to look great, and needs to be like perfect. And we, you have to color the time it, and we have to do all this music and all these things.
She's like. Right. Okay. Well that's, you know, and, and she did, because this was really important to us. We needed to be able to show the fans what. We were going to create. And so Margate created one of the best trailers that I think that Passionflix has. It's a really great introduction to what, you know, what Passionflix can do by ta, you know, taking a book to screen.
Um, and so without even, I. Yeah, without even having an edit, a cut of the movie, she put together the, the promotional trailer that we shared at um, rt, which really helped us to launch our founding memberships, which helped us to prove to our investors that people were interested in this. And then that helped us to close our round, which allowed us to launch on September one in 2017.
So there's so many things that go into it, and we work so closely together to try and make sure that yeah, we're able to deliver.
Ali: Yeah.
Tosca: I feel like we should watch that today just for fun. I know it's really, I haven't watched it for a while. Yeah, it's really good. It is really good. Yeah. You know what we used to do?
We used to do wine Wednesdays here at I Wednesdays. We'd do wine Wednesdays and we would sit down with a fantastic charcuterie board and a bottle of our Passionflix wine, and we would watch a Passionflix movie.
Ali: Yeah, we should do it again. We should bring it back.
Tosca: All right. It's coming back next week.
Ali: Yeah. Good. Thank you so much, Margie, for coming on today, last minute.
Margie: My pleasure. My pleasure.
Ali: We loved it. And um, thank you for listening in. If you want to call us and even text us, ask us a question, leave a comment. You can call 7 7 0 6 4 8. 3, 6, 7, 7. Also, feel free to comment on YouTube or Instagram, wherever you're watching, and we'll check out your questions and maybe answer them on an upcoming episode.
Maybe answer them. Maybe I like them. Maybe, maybe,
Margie: maybe answer them. She's so coy. Maybe
Ali: it depends on what it's, here's that, you know, they want, they want all the spoilers. Oh, yeah, you can, we can't get the spoil.
Margie: You can't do that. You don't really want spoilers. You think you do, but you don't. You don't. You don't.
No. Tosca does. You don't.
Tosca: I, I really miss spoiling everything. Like I remember how back in the day, I would spoil everything and then Ali came along.
Ali: I'll give you something to spoil soon.
Tosca: Okay. Spoiler moment.
Ali: Thank you.
Bye bye.
