0:01:10 – Speaker 2
Greetings and salutations. Thank you for joining us. My name is Jonathan Nadeau, I’m your host here at Embrace your Storm and we’ve got another exciting episode for you. As always, we have on today two guests we have on Diana and we have on Ali Kona, and today we’re speaking with Diana. She’s actually a return guest. She was on before on the episode we did with her with the shootess and man, my brain just totally had a brain fart. And Diana, I apologize. What was the title of the project? This one? Lost and Found. Lost and Found. I apologize, ali Kona, also because you wrote this, so I apologize.
0:01:45 – Speaker 3
I know I need to do this to fame.
0:01:51 – Speaker 2
You know what? I lost it, but it was then found, so there we go, there you go. So there we go.
0:01:56 – Speaker 3
You’re getting it.
0:01:57 – Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly, that was part of the plan. So, anyways, yes, lost and Found. So, diana, thank you for coming on, but Ali Kona, we’re going to start with you, because Diana’s been on before already. So, ali Kona, but before we get to Lost and Found, what I like to ask everyone first is how did you find the film industry, or film itself, as a creative outlet for yourself?
0:02:21 – Speaker 4
All right, well, buckle up it’s story. I actually started off as a dancer. I lived in Vegas for many years. I danced with a hip hop company. I was go going nightclubs before I was old enough to be in nightclubs and yeah, so I was doing that. That’s why I originally came out to LA. I was going to dance for Janet and Brittany and all the people, and I danced on Nickelodeon.
So, yeah, well, you know anyway. And so that was that I lived with a guy who was doing a lot of hosting. I love to travel, I’ve spent my life traveling and I wanted someone to pay me to travel. So I thought, oh, I’m going to make my own travel show, like I’ve always been going to make my own, yeah, content. And so my family from Hawaii. I called up my cousin and was like what are you doing this weekend? Can I come over? I think I lived next door or something. Yeah, so I went over, I have my camera, I filmed a trailer and all these things and I emailed travel channel and told them all the reasons they should hire me. And, of course, nobody ever contacted me back. So, yeah, so I started getting into hosting, taking classes, working for different companies, and then I was doing interviews on the red carpet, constantly interviewing actors. I was covering a show that was scripted but it was about dancers, so they got to dance and act and I did theater.
So I was like well, you can do both, Okay, cool. So, then I went to the Sanford Meisner Center, which is a two year program, did that, graduated, did a bunch of acting classes and the same thing. I was like well, nobody’s hiring me for anything, I’m not getting, I’m not even getting auditions.
So I’m just starting making my own stuff. So I started making my own stuff. I wrote some movies. They made it onto television and, yeah, it was crazy. And then I couldn’t audition for them. They filmed them all in 2020 in Vancouver and I couldn’t even get to Canada too. So then, when that was done, I decided to write a web series and I thought, okay, all these casting directors have said, if you tag me in something like constantly, I might see it. So I was like I’m going to write a 12 episode web series. I’m going to tag you 12 different times and eventually you’re going to see one of them and be like who is this Heifer that keeps tagging me? Well, let me just watch it and then, hopefully, you binge watch. But then I met Diana, who was lovely and creative and thought to squish them all together into a short film, and she’s in all sorts of different amazing film festivals and we’ve gotten all sorts of accolades like totally unexpected. And now here we are today.
0:04:52 – Speaker 2
Voila.
0:04:53 – Speaker 4
Sorry.
0:04:55 – Speaker 2
That’s awesome. So, diana, then, how did you come across Alicona then?
0:05:00 – Speaker 3
Oh, okay, yeah, that’s a story too, not long though. So I have a friend named Joseph Genetti and I knew him back from my USC days. He was. I don’t want to date him, but he was a professor when I was a student. But he was never my professor, though. I just knew him through another friend who had taken his class and we got along. We’ve been friends, just you know. It’s one of those people you know. Sometimes you just click.
0:05:30 – Speaker 2
Yeah.
0:05:31 – Speaker 3
So he’s one of my friends that I just clicked with. You know, I’ve seen friends like that and it’s like it’s rare, but it happens to me. You know, when it happens I kind of keep those people around. But, and so he was living in China at the time with his wife and he was like he had a friend named Amy who is also in the series. She’s one of the ensemble and I think she did some extra writing on it a little bit. She wrote her parts right out of her, yeah, yeah, and so he was speaking with Amy, she mentioned the project and he’s like, oh, you need to meet Diana. And he put us in touch and we got along, and then I met Alcona and the rest of the girls who were doing it, and I was like, yeah, I want to do this.
So, and the sad thing is, though, while we were in post, they had, he had a heart attack while in China and they gave him the wrong medication. And yeah, it’s a really sad story. What happened? Because, like he, they gave him the wrong medication. His wife was freaking out. She got him to move to another hospital, and when they went to the other hospital, they COVID tested them, and they both. She tested positive, so then they locked her up for like 10 days away in like a room with like five other women, wouldn’t tell her anything.
They didn’t even tell her that he’d passed. He passed like a day later and they didn’t even tell her. Yeah, and it was just a huge ordeal.
0:06:49 – Speaker 1
And she’s yeah, she.
0:06:50 – Speaker 3
She appears to state she’s here now, she’s fine, she’s safe, but like it was bad, like just the whole thing she went through there with the way they’d like lock them in their apartments. We don’t want to let them out certain days to go and get food and like because she had come back and she had COVID. The people there I guess aren’t very educated on it and they all thought she was like a leper and show people in her apartment wouldn’t even like help her with any like to get food, nothing Like they. They would avoid her because they thought because she had had COVID ones that she could get some.
0:07:20 – Speaker 2
Right, right, yeah, she was like yeah, exactly like tainted or whatever.
0:07:24 – Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, and I was like oh my God, like how did they not know? Like you know. But but yeah, so, anyhow. So we ended up putting the dedication at the front of the phone for for Joseph and that’s why I have for that dedication prayer, because he brought us all together. That’s cool.
0:07:42 – Speaker 2
So back to Alecona, then tell us a little bit about lost and found. Like what’s this about?
0:07:48 – Speaker 4
Okay, so it’s about four different friends who were very close as young girls. They grew up doing something called ladybug scouts, which is the equivalent of girl scouts, and unfortunately there was a falling out between the girls. They all went their separate ways, but there was one character, which was Amy’s character, who kept in touch with everybody and always try to get them to be friends again. It just never worked out. So she got sick, ended up passing away and in her passing her dying wish was to bring her friends back together again. So basically she tricks them into showing up for a will reading in the middle of absolutely nowhere and unfortunately she strands them together so that they have to work together. She has a priest confiscate their keys, their cell phones, their everything, and they have to go on her scavenger hunt to get to the end and get their belongings back. So it’s her way of forcing them to come together, work together, talk things out, which they eventually do, and becomes friends again.
0:08:44 – Speaker 2
So yeah, man, that is. I love even how you explain it. It just seems well thought out Like and, knowing that it was kind of I mean, are you saying more or less? It’s 12 episodes condensed down into this 40 minute short film. Is that okay? So that sounds really cool. Like I don’t know. I haven’t got a chance yet to see it, but shame on you.
0:09:09 – Speaker 4
Hey, I’m being.
0:09:09 – Speaker 2
I haven’t had to get more than a thousand entries to watch here but and I have to do a blindfold and that’s a whole nother discussion. But that’s crazy, I know how do you tell.
0:09:22 – Speaker 3
Like I hope our sound is good enough. Oh God, that was like our biggest struggle.
0:09:28 – Speaker 4
We filmed this out in Malibu Creek State Park and, like wind and helicopters, were our enemies.
0:09:35 – Speaker 2
So you know, we definitely have a well, I was going to say I like, after hearing, like all the, all the stuff you’ve worked on, like you know, you’re like, oh, once I figure that I’m into this, like I’m into it, like you’re like, oh, I was doing this, I was doing that, you know, oh, I couldn’t find any jobs, I made my own, Like, and so, like I, which I love that like passion and drive, it’s awesome, and so and I get that because I’m the same way so, like, is this script here kind of like one of your, but is it? Well, I mean, do you feel like this is one of your bare things that you’ve done?
0:10:12 – Speaker 4
Um, yes and no.
I mean, I’ve said every time you write something, you grow as a writer, as a story teller and then you move on to the next project and whatever mistakes you made in the last one, you’re like, okay, not doing that one again, and you know. And so it’s like I’ve since written other things that I’m like really proud of, but this was a cool collaboration because basically what happened is I took an acting class in 2020, everything obviously was via zoom, and again I had heard a casting director say that if you tag me and a bunch of stuff, you know right, right, right.
So I reached out to these girls that I’ve never met before. I just always saw them weekly on zoom and I was like hey, who wants to do a project with me? I’ll write it. And I invited the entire class. Only four people are yeah, three people responded. They were all women and Amy lives on the East coast. So I thought how can we create something where Amy can still act in it, but she can’t physically get here? So that’s why she was a girl who passed away, but she’s in the film doing all these scavenger hunt videos. You know telling the girl.
That’s cool, yeah, so that way yeah, and then we got a little section with her and her daughter. That was a flashback of when she was still alive.
0:11:21 – Speaker 2
but yeah, I really like that. That’s creative.
0:11:24 – Speaker 4
Yeah, so anyways, that’s how that all came about. And then I scouted the mistake I learned from making films in the past, as you write these extravagant things, and then you have to go find the location and you’re like well that sucks, can’t find it.
Yeah, myself and another actress, Genevieve, we actually went to Malibu Creek Park and we were like I’m going to look and see what’s around in the environment and write these challenges based on what’s in the environment. Now, we saw this massive creek that was so beautiful and full of water yeah, diane is laughing because she knows and I was like, okay, so we write this scene where one girl almost drowns and we show up and I find you, I scouted this in February, we shot it, I think, in like May. We show up and the creek is dry.
0:12:11 – Speaker 2
Like it’s all water.
0:12:13 – Speaker 4
You’re like maybe she falls on her face and like you know, we got lucky and found like a little gully of water somewhere and it was only waist deep, so the actress had to just fake it and slip and fall through the water.
0:12:31 – Speaker 3
That was fun. That was really fun. We actually ended up adding we had one shot that we shot and the creek was dry. It’s a big creek, it’s not like a little one.
It’s dry 20 feet wide, and so I had the DP put the camera in the lake. I’m like, put it right here and we were in the creek bed shooting them and I ended up adding the water in later. So I just went when the water was back and I picked up some plates and I just deposited it in. So I’m like we’re going to get the dam water in the film. We have to show it or people aren’t going to get that. They were like had to avoid water. Why did they have to pass the water? So we ended up just kind of using special effects to fix that a little later. But that was fun. Our DP didn’t want to go and get wet because, like I guess we somehow missed the memo that we needed water shoes and all the actresses knew they all had them.
0:13:23 – Speaker 4
Yeah, we all had them. Oh, my bad.
0:13:25 – Speaker 3
Myself and the DP didn’t and neither did. Uh, we all had the. Frank had it, so he didn’t want to like really go in the water, so he jumped across like rocks and got on a rock and then we passed the camera to him so he wouldn’t get wet and I just went in barefoot because I don’t care, but um, but it was kind of funny. I think he wanted to stay dry because of the equipment, but it was. It was a challenge but we went. He made it work.
0:13:48 – Speaker 2
Speaking of special effects, uh, I don’t think anything was blown up in this movie. Am I mistaken?
0:13:54 – Speaker 3
No, I know it’s not my MO, I know we added a few little things, like I have a nice mountain shot where I, um, I did a sky replacement and I put in like a data night sky and had all the stars come out and whatnot, and it’s a little bit sci-fi looking but it kind of works. And while it works, it doesn’t kind of work, it’s nice. Um, and then, like we had I don’t know if you remember the stuff I did, I don’t know. I think we just like had a lot of compositing, a lot of cleanup.
0:14:24 – Speaker 2
Wait wait what’d you call our?
0:14:25 – Speaker 4
art. Some birds added that flew in the background, yeah.
0:14:30 – Speaker 3
Oh yeah, we had to composite all the screens on the computers, like get a laptop and so like, instead of doing playback and trying to film that while we’re out shooting like 100 degree weather and making everyone like, wait till we get the shot with the person talking on the laptop. We, just like I, just threw stickers on it, just like we’re just gonna composite that. Just get the shot and that’s it I hear you. Yeah, well, yeah, we had to shoot quick. We shot like 59 pages and six five days, 45 days yeah 40s and one pickup, yeah, and and we didn’t look.
0:15:03 – Speaker 4
I hope nobody legal’s watching this. We didn’t have permit.
0:15:06 – Speaker 2
I didn’t think that out.
0:15:07 – Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, we were hustling and then at one point we did technically we didn’t need them because we had a crew under eight in LA. We don’t need them, even though, like, someone can buy and shut us down because they were doing we needed them. But she didn’t know what she was talking about. But, um, but I was gonna say what was I thinking? I’m like, oh, it was middle of COVID and their office wasn’t answering. No was there and we’re like, oh, oh, you’re shooting, you have a schedule of going, man.
0:15:38 – Speaker 4
Yeah, we uh, as I said, there was actually one point where so one of our guys, our Grib, is my friend Frank, and he’s used to working on, you know, professional sets, yeah, and at one point we were shooting and there was some teenagers like partying it up, but he was acting like he was on a real set. See, he was walking over to like can y’all keep it down over there?
0:15:59 – Speaker 3
and I’m like, but like Frank, you can’t do that, sir. You know I was like Frank.
0:16:05 – Speaker 4
You can’t just talk to people like that they’re not paid employees, that you could just tell they’re like shut up, you know.
0:16:12 – Speaker 3
That was funny.
0:16:13 – Speaker 2
Yeah, and we had to calm them down.
0:16:15 – Speaker 3
We’re like no, no, it’s cool. Is it cool if we just just give you the question like five seconds, like it’s cool, you know?
0:16:20 – Speaker 4
Yeah, we had like the whole audience watching us and that was the scene where the girl had to act like she was drowning in like three feet of water, that’s not embarrassing at all oh yeah, and we had shots left and right with, like people in the background that we could pause it out.
0:16:36 – Speaker 3
Yeah, it took people out of that frame a lot.
0:16:38 – Speaker 4
We’re like Tesla at nowhere and someone’s just like do, do, do do, do, do, walk it in the background.
0:16:47 – Speaker 3
That was fun.
0:16:48 – Speaker 2
So, diana, I sort of like the like the outside that was brought in. What was it about? Like, the script of Lost the Found that you liked about that made you want to, like you know, work with a LA Conan like. What’d you like about it?
0:17:00 – Speaker 3
Oh, it’s well written. Yeah, I’ve read a lot of scripts and, like I get people asking me to read theirs or like some people. Sometimes people randomly like email you scripts if you’ve made a movie. They like email you and want you to read their scripts and that’s fine. But like a lot of the times they’re the format is off the length, like they don’t even check their like grammar or the ideas aren’t formulated.
0:17:26 – Speaker 2
You would hate anything I send you to read. Oh no, it doesn’t have to be.
0:17:30 – Speaker 3
It’s not like people have said, like the stuff has to be formulaic but it has to make sense in the waves.
0:17:36 – Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, I mean it’s like.
0:17:38 – Speaker 3
I know, I know there’s like beginning, middle end, each character, you have an arch, blah, blah, blah. Once you get all that down, you can start breaking the rules and making something that works that maybe goes against it, like there’s a movie that’s done completely in reverse. I forgot the name of it. It’s an old film, but the movie starts at the end and goes to the beginning, and it works. It works, you know, like somehow it just works. The character or everything’s in there, it’s just in reverse. No, no, he was growing in reverse.
No, this was like what’s his face is one of it. One of what’s his face is first films.
0:18:10 – Speaker 2
It’s not a poem, fiction, I think.
0:18:12 – Speaker 3
No, no, no no, it’s an indie film. It has I can’t remember the actor’s name right now. Oh, I look it up while I was talking to some point, bring it up later, but but you know, so you can do that. But then a lot of people like don’t they’re not doing it artistically or in a good way, they just it’s like they just wrote it out and they don’t know what they’re really doing and it is not really thought out, and you know. And so there’s no, there’s just nothing. It’s just, you know it gets boring after a couple pages. So at least with her it was like well written. I was like, oh, this person actually knows how to write a real script. She might actually like be someone worth working with.
0:18:53 – Speaker 2
That’s my phrase.
0:18:55 – Speaker 3
Yeah, it’s just like wow, you know you would think you could get. I mean, I guess you get a lot of them if you’re doing film festivals. You get people who polish their stuff but, like on my end, you don’t.
0:19:06 – Speaker 4
Yeah, I’ve actually had to proofread a few scripts and, good god, like people don’t do spelling errors Like the simplest thing about the story, but I would never hand something over to somebody that, like it doesn’t take much to do. Spell check.
0:19:22 – Speaker 2
Yeah, I was going to say there’s no excuse to not use spell check this day and age. I mean, that’s a crime against humanity, essentially.
0:19:29 – Speaker 3
you know I have a buddy who started writing scripts and he was just like he sent me. He showed me his script and I was like dude, this isn’t formatted. He’s like what? I’m like do you know, you don’t? I’m like you need to format a script. He’s like, but it’s telling me this. I’m like no. So I got him. Wow, I was like get final draft.
0:19:47 – Speaker 2
Exactly, I literally was about to say that yeah.
0:19:49 – Speaker 3
Yeah well, he bought it and he calls me up. After the first time using it, he was like, oh my god, what was?
0:19:57 – Speaker 2
I thinking that’s funny, you know.
0:20:00 – Speaker 3
I’m like no one’s gonna read it. If they look at it and it’s not formatted, they’re gonna be like other people who know what they’re doing. You know you could be the best writer in the world and it’s not formatted right on page one, people are just gonna be like um, because it’s like you’re used to reading a certain way and it goes really quick if it’s formatted properly. But when it’s like a bunch of just paragraphs, you’re like what is going on here? So it’s it’s. It’s really important to format property when it comes to Jonathan.
0:20:29 – Speaker 2
Yes, yes. I’m being oh, wait, wait, what, oh, oh I remember the name of the movie. It’s called memento oh oh, yes, yes, yes, okay, okay Okay.
0:20:41 – Speaker 3
I forgot the name of the guy. The actor’s really good, he’s really good at that, his name right now. But yeah, memento, okay, okay, alicona, I’m mentally prepared.
0:20:53 – Speaker 2
I like I’m also a host, by the way, but so we wouldn’t start you to do this podcast and even, like, reach out to Diana, talk about this project because, well, at the age of 14, I lost my sight in a car accident and that day I was gonna have my first guitar lesson, and after the car accident I Learned to play guitar. After I lost my sight at the age of 15, my dad passed away and by the time I was 18 my mom passed away, and so Guitar and creativity I now learn played a big part in me kind of maneuvering through life at a younger age, and so I realized how important creativity is, and so the podcast is to promote creativity that people like yourselves are creating and people that are listening, to inspire them to be like you know what I could do that? Or I could be a camera person recording stuff, or what. Are you not just inspire some to do whatever their creative outlet is?
0:21:58 – Speaker 4
That’s awesome, that’s really cool.
0:21:59 – Speaker 3
I mean it’s cool that you were able to take such a Horrific situation and turn it into something beautiful.
0:22:06 – Speaker 2
You know, yeah, well, I’ve done a lot of other kind of creative things, like I mean, I learned how to play guitar, but I Also created a Linux operating system that was used in over 30 countries. Yeah yeah so, and I’ve and I held the well, a highly attended Open-source conference held at Harvey University for quite a few years, like four or five years.
0:22:34 – Speaker 3
So it’s like you lost your sight and then it like lit a fire under your ass to go do all kind of kind of yeah.
0:22:41 – Speaker 2
Seriously. In a sense it made me kind of want to make prove to myself. You know, I’m not gonna let this stop me. I did a lot of stuff like that when I when I first lost my sight. One thing that I did is while I was still in the hospital this is a long time ago, this is like 19, 1992 while I lost my sight and so in the hospital they had a Nintendo entertainment system hooked up to like a old school TV on this like cart they’re wheeling around, and they were letting the kids get like half an hour time to like play with the Nintendo. And I asked the nurses if I could use it. They kind of like laughed at that. I was joking.
And I said something to my mom later that day when she came to the hospital. I was like, yeah, they wouldn’t let me use the Nintendo. And she was like what? And so she went to the nurses and said, look, if my son wants to play the Nintendo, let him play. Like, if you can’t see, what does it matter to you? You know like just, let, just, just let him play. And they’re like, okay, fine.
And so when they they were gonna give let me play the next day. So I asked my mom to bring in a couple of old games that I still had at my at my house. So when she brought him in, she brought in this Mike Tyson’s punch out game and I could remember what the boxers were doing just by the sound of the game and so I beat like the first four or five guys and the nurses were like standing outside of my room watching, being like what the hell? So I would do? I would do stuff like that all the time when I first got out of the hospital, just to prove like I’m not gonna let this get in the way like it’s yeah, it’s in, it’s a hurdle, but it’s not a you know, it’s not a stopper.
0:24:17 – Speaker 4
So, right, well, I’m sure it’s been really inspiring for other people, especially like listeners, if they do know your story, that they can do anything to they’re living with any kind of story.
0:24:28 – Speaker 2
So, totally, thank you. Well, I like Conan. Now, how do I turn it back around on you? That’s a thing. But I guess what I was gonna ask you, though, is Obviously like clearly, you’re a good writer, we, you know, we have Diana’s word on that. So Do you prefer, like producing, directing, writing, acting like where? Where do you shine the most, I guess?
0:24:54 – Speaker 4
Um, I mean, I prefer acting, but I have again. I just so, my hair is orange.
0:25:02 – Speaker 2
I see that.
0:25:04 – Speaker 4
Yeah, and so wait. I’m confused.
0:25:06 – Speaker 2
How can you, I was messing with her.
0:25:11 – Speaker 4
I was like wait so I was like whoa.
0:25:21 – Speaker 2
I was like who’s this miracle?
0:25:27 – Speaker 4
So, um, you know, and maybe it’s this I do believe in energy, in the story that you tell yourself is the things that you, you Attract into your life. So maybe I did it to myself, but it’s like I am. I’ve told you before I’m half Japanese and I’m half white and Agents never really knew what to do with me or what category.
Unfortunately, we get categorized and it’s like oh, she’s Latina and I’m like but I can’t finish and I was getting sent to auditions where I, first of all, I can’t sing, but I was like sing this song in Spanish. I was like, I was like listening to this song that was playing, you know, and I was like this is ridiculous. Just, no one ever knew what to do with me, on top of the fact that I have my hair is always a different color, like that’s how I expressed myself. I was a there you go.
Yeah, many years. I love color and I’m I can change my hair for a role. You know it’s not a big deal, but I don’t think people know how to see past that and I’m gonna you know, you know, I’m not booking anything as a brunette, so I may as well go back to being colorful and still be non-working, you know, and at least as a bright person. And so, that said, I’ve created lots of things, whether it be hosting shows, like I said, my little travel show, little, not nothing.
But you know it created my travel show when I pitched to the travel network and lifetime and Didn’t sell anything and unfortunately was told that because my show involved dance, it was a feminine show and they wanted to Target a male audience. They also had told me at the time. So I showed up to this conference where different networks and production companies pitch and sell to each other and At the time I was in my 20s, so I was the youngest person there.
I showed up with a kimono on and a pleather pants and pleather corset and Floating in the wind, and I was like you know what? You’re gonna remember me. You may not buy anything that I’m selling, but you’re gonna look at me. You’re gonna remember me as that girl that had the audacity to walk in with my corset and my kimono.
You know, and, and and the travel channel did this whole presentation on what they were doing this season and I noticed that all the hosts were men, and so, after they played their little reel, they asked if anybody had questions and I stood up and raised my hand and was like, yeah, so I noticed that, like, all your hosts are men except for Samantha Brown. Is there a reason for that? And they’re like well, we’re trying to target a male audience and we feel men, but wait, not that I’m trying to be this girl, but don’t you think a guy would rather watch a girl in the bikini walking down the beach? No offense, I’m not body-shaming anybody, but like these chubby old men that are just eating bugs, like what?
0:28:11 – Speaker 2
You know, and so.
0:28:13 – Speaker 4
They’re like we just feel like, yeah, yeah, men resonate better with men. The only way we would have a woman on our network is if she had a strong, dominating personality. So after the presentation and everybody yeah everybody was exiting the conference room, I walked right up to that executive and I stuck my hand right out at him and I said Hi, my name is Ali Pona Bradford and I’m a strong, dominating female personality, you know and so I, the next day, and I pitched a female and she’s like I love your show.
I’ll take it back to the network. To get back to network two weeks later, well, your show involves a dance. It was a show about cultural dance but that’s cool, thank you. Yeah, like exploring different histories.
0:28:55 – Speaker 2
I hear you Dance. I hear you. That’s not true.
0:28:57 – Speaker 4
She was like because your show involves dance, the network feels like that’s too female-oriented and we can’t take it. And I was like OK.
0:29:06 – Speaker 3
I was like I think they were lucky for us the time.
0:29:07 – Speaker 4
Yeah, I mean now it might be different. But anyways I don’t know how I got into it. The point is is I’ve always been someone who’s like, well, no one’s hiring me, so I’m going to hire myself. And I’m still in that boat. You know, like I’m still writing stuff. I wrote a movie recently. Diana, you’re supposed to read my movie by the way, I’m pulling you out.
0:29:26 – Speaker 2
Oh, actually, actually, I just thought of a show you and Diana can do.
0:29:31 – Speaker 3
What.
0:29:33 – Speaker 2
Instead of you still do the cultural thing, you still go to travel around and visit other countries and stuff. But Diana is going to find a thing to blow up there Somehow or some way, it’s a conversation Like yeah, so my, my cousin’s like.
0:29:51 – Speaker 3
I have this one cousin who he looks like a big wrestler and I saw him like recently and he was like, oh, we go out and we blow up a bunch of stuff out in the desert and I was like I want to go with him. He’s like laughing, like no, I’m serious. He’s like, oh, you do, and I’m like, yes, you call me.
0:30:07 – Speaker 2
I want to go and watch.
0:30:08 – Speaker 3
You guys blow shit up. Exactly, yeah, because to me it’s like I want to see what it really looks like, and then, when I do it in a bag, or you find something significant wherever you are.
0:30:17 – Speaker 2
I mean, obviously you don’t actually blow it up, but I mean with special effects or whatever you can you know, be like we’re going to destroy the iPhone.
0:30:26 – Speaker 3
That’d be so fun, but you know, with the I always think of Tropic Thunder like the demolition guy.
0:30:35 – Speaker 2
Oh yeah.
0:30:37 – Speaker 3
What’s his face? Kind of forgetting everyone’s name right now is wrong, but Danny McFrikes, our Danny McFrikes character, and he’s just like about to blow stuff up and he’s like you know. I don’t want to say the word because I don’t know what the fuck Cass is like but he blows stuff up and he’s just like you know what. And I’m like yes, Totally understand what he’s feeling right now?
0:30:58 – Speaker 4
Dear freelance writers, if you would like to submit a script to Diana, make sure it has lots of exposure.
0:31:04 – Speaker 2
You got to blow stuff up. Because if you’re not, diana will make sure something blows up in it.
0:31:10 – Speaker 3
Yeah, I was telling you a story about when I was in film school that some of the female teachers didn’t really respect me because I just wanted to do strips with shit. I just wanted to blow shit up and they were working more for personal. I don’t know stories about women’s periods or something I don’t know, just stuff that I’m not really interested in.
But I don’t know, I like a complete person. It doesn’t matter if it’s national and family or whatever. I just like the complete person. Instead of just focusing on one little area and I’m not a slice of life movie I told them there’s some slice of life movies that I like that work really well, like movie Precious, but it’s like just usually. Usually that’s not something I gravitate towards. I do more sci-fi stuff like that. But as far as acting and stuff, though, I tend to do really well with drama, which is kind of ironic, but yeah.
0:32:10 – Speaker 2
They will have to write something for you. There you go, there we go.
0:32:17 – Speaker 3
Actually, we’re going to do something together. We’ve been planning stuff. Well, I was just going to ask what are you guys working on right now?
0:32:24 – Speaker 2
Both of you guys. What are you currently working on? You want to give out your websites and social media, or whatever, if you want, looking for help from people and whatnot.
0:32:33 – Speaker 4
I would like to dedicate this section of the podcast to Duane Ock Johnson. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah Ah.
0:32:42 – Speaker 3
Ah, ah, ah, ah. She told you she was funny, right.
0:32:45 – Speaker 2
You have some comedy in that script. She’s curious. She definitely has comedic value, for sure.
0:32:54 – Speaker 4
Thank you, thank you, but seriously. So I met this guy who owns a production company. He’s like oh yeah, my friend is Duane Johnson’s agent. Do you have anything for him? I’m like, no, but I can. I’m such a machine when it comes to projects, when I write stuff, so I hold myself up for five days and banged out like a 95-page script and I was like, ok, let’s go. And then he wanted me to go through this whole process of getting 100 people to read it. That I didn’t know but to give it a thumbs up and all these things, and I was like, hold on, I just wanted to give it to him.
0:33:33 – Speaker 2
And so now.
0:33:34 – Speaker 4
I’m on a mission where I’ve done my rewrites.
0:33:37 – Speaker 2
That is funny.
0:33:38 – Speaker 4
Yeah, and, by the way, I wrote it for both me and him, right, oh?
0:33:43 – Speaker 2
shh, duh, yeah, duh.
0:33:48 – Speaker 4
And so Diana has a copy. I have a new draft. By the way, Diana, I’m going to send you a new draft Anyway, so yeah, so I wrote this.
0:33:56 – Speaker 2
Make sure that’s in a safe place.
0:33:57 – Speaker 4
Yeah, so I’m giving a shout out. I just actually had an idea, you guys, today while sitting in the sauna. I’m going to share it with you. Maybe your listeners can help me out, ok.
So, I hosted this show Sorry, I’m all over the place. I hosted this show a long time ago called Hit the Floor and it was going to get a musical TV show. When I covered it as a host excuse me and it was going to get canceled. So I teamed up while I was interviewing the showrunner and I was like we’re going to get your fans to help you get this show renewed for another season. So I came up with this whole campaign called Thongs for Hit the Floor 4. And I had all these fans of this television show email the network which was BET a bunch of thongs and they wrote if thongs were hit the floor.
Like underwear, thongs or like that, and I guess they worked Like all these people sent this poor network executive boxes and boxes of thongs. And so he hit up the showrunner and was like James, why am I getting all these? And he’s like I guess you have to do season four. And the show got renewed, so this morning.
0:34:58 – Speaker 2
That is freaking hilarious, right.
0:35:01 – Speaker 4
And so how embarrassing, right Like if he has a wife and he’s like getting all, why are you getting women’s underwear? I was like you know what I got to figure out how I can start a campaign. I’m going to have people send Dwayne’s production company Lays Like the oh jeez, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it’s a movie that takes place in Hawaii. It’s called the Daddy Do Over and it’s basically about a guy who has a tumultuous relationship with his daughter as a living person Because he drinks, he’s an alcoholic, and then he passes away and comes back as a ghost, realizing he wants to rectify his relationship with his daughter. But it’s a comedy, so it’s like super funny. A lot of physical comedy because of the fact that he is a ghost and only she can see him. And so I’m like, ok, I’m just going to have as many people as possible send some Lays. I don’t want to send thongs, I’m going to speckle this time. Read the Daddy Do Over, do the Daddy Do? I’m just going to have a bunch of people send it to the production company and hope that they’re like what the F is this Daddy Do Over? Who is this Alicona girl? And maybe if we listen to her, she’ll stop sending us all this shit. So I don’t know. Anyways, that’s where I’m at right now. That’s where I go.
0:36:13 – Speaker 2
I love that you did that. That’s freaking awesome. That’s amazing. That’s amazing, so all right. So back to like websites and social media and whatnot.
0:36:25 – Speaker 3
Oh yeah.
0:36:25 – Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
0:36:27 – Speaker 4
Yeah, oh, and, by the way, yeah, diane, I’ll let you talk about the stuff, because her and I also wanted to collaborate on some stuff, but my social media is at Alicona, which is a L I K O N a dot. This is so complicated. She’s away. S H I Z U E dot B underscore official.
0:36:46 – Speaker 2
I’ll go.
0:36:46 – Speaker 4
That’s my myth you know, my personal one is so much easier. It has nothing to do with the entertainment industry, it’s just yours truly, alicona. I feel like people.
0:36:54 – Speaker 2
There you go.
0:36:55 – Speaker 4
Lot easier. There you go, that’s me.
0:37:01 – Speaker 3
I have a website that I use for acting Diana Renee dot com, and then for directing.
0:37:17 – Speaker 2
I do DK Renee at you, dk Renee dot com, dk R E N E and then my Instagram handle is just at Diana Renee, with two ends on Diana, and then I’m like, oh, here’s my Instagram handle. And then it’s like here’s my website.
0:37:31 – Speaker 4
I have one, but I just not that creative.
0:37:36 – Speaker 3
I’m a tech nerd I don’t know if it’s creativity or just like. I just really love technology, like the second. They come out with flying cars, which they already have. They’re just not available. I have cyber track on order. I’m I just I love that crap. I can’t get enough. I think it’s because my, my dad, when you’re kids, you have like TVs in the car, tvs in our rooms.
0:37:57 – Speaker 2
You let me take apart the BCRs.
0:37:59 – Speaker 3
I bet around it a lot like a lot.
0:38:01 – Speaker 2
Yeah.
0:38:03 – Speaker 3
That’s cool, but that’s that’s why I have websites. I probably have like 50 domains, I mean.
0:38:08 – Speaker 2
I used to be the same way. Yeah, oh, yeah.
0:38:11 – Speaker 3
Yeah. I’m not as techy as you Like. I’m not writing Linux code, but I do know what it is.
0:38:20 – Speaker 2
Yeah.
0:38:20 – Speaker 3
Yeah, operating system in.
0:38:22 – Speaker 2
Absolutely, absolutely.
0:38:25 – Speaker 3
I used to be really bad at that too, oh and we did use a little touch of AI for this film because the program I was using had a voice, like something, to clean up the voice and our sound guy he did that the best he could.
0:38:38 – Speaker 2
Yeah, and I ran it.
0:38:39 – Speaker 3
I ran it through their AI voice cleanup. We’re supposed to take up like take all the stuff out of the back.
0:38:44 – Speaker 2
That stuff’s pretty scary.
0:38:46 – Speaker 3
It’s it works very well. I guess it depends on what you use. Some stuff seems to work well and some stuff’s like yeah, like you know, oh, I went on a mid journey and I like put my photo and I was like, do you do this photo? But in this situation, like trying to be like, oh, can I like cheat Instagram and like not have to put on makeup.
I was like, I’m like that’s me myself is different things, and you know, and I just, and it comes to like, I just I’m like that’s maybe one kind of looks like me, you know, and I was like, and then some like account on Instagram like made some AI art of me.
I don’t know why I made this, because I went on the journey and I was like, okay, one of them looks like me, but the one like kind of looks like me. So I like I just watched the tutorial the other night on how to like do the face swap thing and I’m like, oh crap, all these things. I just do the face swap and say, put me in, you know, make me a Viking, make me an astronaut, make me a sci fi warrior, but he might Instagram without and I won’t have to do any work except like my room for a little bit. So I think that’ll be fun. But there are a couple of products that I’m trying to be right now. I have a drama that I wrote how it’s gonna has a curtain and she’s going to help me with it producing and stuff and then-.
0:40:08 – Speaker 2
Like an act in it.
0:40:09 – Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, I actually I wrote it originally. I was like, okay, what kind of films do you really well like on the festival circuit? What kind of like stories resonate with people enough to make it to the Oscars? So I looked up like who like what films had won for best actress and best picture. And I kind of looked at stories and said, no, I think I know stories that can resonate like this. And I came up with a story that is. It revolves around the meth and fentanyl abuse in Central California and I call it Tulare, so it’s kids based in Tulare County. I have relatives out there and so I’ve seen it firsthand. I’m like, okay, this is something I know, something I can write, and so the story centers around that. And, like I said, like I love to blow shit up but I’m very dramatic too Same time.
0:40:57 – Speaker 2
Yeah, you’ve seen that before.
0:40:59 – Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, this is my drama coming out on this one, but Diana, Diana, can you talk a little louder?
0:41:06 – Speaker 4
your little muffled?
0:41:07 – Speaker 3
Am I? Okay, maybe how does it sound now? A little better, A little better. Okay, I’ll just use my headphones and then I have another one that I’m doing. It’s like I don’t know if you’ve seen Spinal Tap, but it’s a mockumentary. Okay, yeah, it’s a mockumentary that Rob Reiner did back in the day, completely unscripted. It’s hysterical because at that time like it was shocking what they were doing with all the like fire and the horns.
0:41:33 – Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah so people were like oh, my God.
0:41:36 – Speaker 3
So I came up with an idea for a mockumentary. I’m not gonna say it yet, because it’s not filmed.
0:41:40 – Speaker 2
Okay, okay, okay.
0:41:42 – Speaker 3
So I can’t like the other one. I can copyright this one. I can’t yet, until it’s filmed.
0:41:45 – Speaker 2
I hear what you’re saying.
0:41:47 – Speaker 3
But it’s about a band and they do very shocking things and it’s been like modern day.
0:41:52 – Speaker 2
That’s cool, that’s exciting.
0:41:54 – Speaker 3
That’s going on now.
0:41:55 – Speaker 2
Okay, okay.
0:41:56 – Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, I have certain cast types of people I have to cast for it and I’ve been working on that and I’ve got a couple already and so, and that one should be really, really fun projects. So I’m keeping my finger crossed that I get everyone to like that something comes out of it, cause when you go into something that’s unscripted and it’s just like, okay, this is what happens in the scene and let’s just go for it, it’s really like, and you can feed people lines and stuff. So I’ll have like some certain lines that I definitely won’t say, but you still have to have it very like. They have to be good. Like you know, the actors have to be very into and be able to improv, you know, to a certain degree. And so it’s like for me, as a director, I’m going to put myself in it as, like the director is interviewing them, like Rob Reiner’s role, basically, and so basically, you have to get your actors to be comfortable enough to say I’ll rate a shit on camera.
Right or either you know, get them cool with it and like so I’m casting people who are cool with it, you don’t care, they’re just like yeah, let’s do this, you know. And so, like I said, you have to keep your fingers crossed. You can only manipulate it so much. And then, like, the magic has to happen so that one will be fine. So I’ve got one like really outrageous fun comedy project and then another one that’s the drama. And you know I have other ones that I’ve written, but those are more. They’re like I don’t, I don’t, I can’t go into production as fast on those ones, because those are the ones I’m raising. I have to raise money for.
0:43:20 – Speaker 2
You’re not doing anything like leaning a sci-fi or anything like that.
0:43:23 – Speaker 3
Well, I have a script called Homefront. I wrote it, I guess, kind of during the pandemic I have. I have a like my like historically, like you know, back in the colonial days I have American Indian in my family. Like I had a, a school, I married a first rapper and so that’s how I got my American Indian and so I’ve always been interested in it and my mom like would always like bring stuff up about it and she had like a black sister who was a black, but in the end so it’s like it’s just it’s something that’s been, you know, because, like like my elementary school, if you were American Indian you got like the American Indian education stuff like the extra little stuff like making acorn squash Like acorn mush, sorry, acorn mush Like.
And there was just this guy no-transcript, by the way, but I’ve had it. And so, like you, learned a lot. So I wanted to do something that like kind of had a little bit of my heritage mixed into it.
0:44:20 – Speaker 2
That’s cool.
0:44:21 – Speaker 3
Even though it’s a, you know, I’m so mixed like culturally, even though like I look one way that like I have like German, english, french, dutch, all this crazy stuff, and then like all of Europe and then American, india, and so, and culturally they’re all so different you know like the Germans are so different from the English.
0:44:40 – Speaker 2
Absolutely.
0:44:41 – Speaker 3
And the French and so forth is on. And so I wanted to do something where I got into American Indian history, because a lot of their myths you don’t see it like it’s not out there in the media and everything that has American Indians is from the point of view of the settler, you know or the cowboy and the person who came here.
0:45:02 – Speaker 4
So I was like.
0:45:03 – Speaker 3
I heard these two, yeah, and they’re war movies, yeah, and so, and this one’s not a war movie. But so what I wanted to do was something from the like, because I made the character, I wrote it for me and so I made her where she’s like one eighth Indian, but she’s still her tribe is her family Like, but she does, she’s a loner, you know like her because her parents were loners. She’s a loner still and the but her uncle is, you know, a tribal elder and you know she does fur trapping, like her family, like it was a passed down trade. And she has a girl that she, you know, says she found on her doorstep that she raises us her daughter and it’s a mixed child. So, like you know, everyone kind of it’s. You know, for back then it’s a little bit okay, that’s a little weird, you know people don’t believe what’s going on.
But and so what happens is she goes into town one day because her crops are. You know, it’s been a long winter and so the crops are kind of not coming in and so she has to do some extra trading. So she goes to the local school, the town store, where she sells fur, where she brings some extra fur to get some extra supplies at a time when she normally doesn’t go, and, and the daughter she has with her, there’s these outlaws that are in town and they start messing with her and of course this woman, who is, you know, a loner, rugged fur trapper, so she’s used to, you know, those have her, use weapons and all that stuff. Of course she’s not going to take shit and she like pisses them off. She like, basically, you know, injures the guy.
She’s like cause he’s trying to cut the daughter and it turns out he’s part of this gang and he goes and tells the leader of the gang and then they decide that, oh, we’re going to kill this bitch you know, because what she did to one of our guys finds out where she is, follows her back Cause she knows what’s happening and the uncle sees the whole interaction of them deciding to do it Cause he’s there, they don’t know they’re related and and so he. So she knows they’re coming, and he knows they’re coming and so she goes back to her. She’s like there’s no point in running, we’re just going to face this shit head on. And she goes and she sets a bunch of traps and her uncle goes and he calls on an Indian deity, a demon basically, to come and protect her and the daughter. And so by the time the outlaws get there, she’s got traps set for them, she’s killing them off one by one, and then, and, but then they’re also going to be killed by, by an American Indian deity, a demon, basically.
So like you’ve got they’re getting hit from both sides. So it’s a Western supernatural horror man, it’s all of it. And then I wanted to explore the whole American Indian deityism and gods and-.
0:47:42 – Speaker 2
Like skin walkers and stuff.
0:47:44 – Speaker 3
Yeah, I wanted to explore that more.
So I ended up writing a series pilot that’s a continuation of that film and it’s basically by the end of the pilot you burn. That is a very violent, very bloody, horror based pilot, which a lot of. There’s a lot of that. So I wanted something unique and something that someone gets it. But then I get it. But so it continues after because her, by the end of the script, her home, which is like a log cabin taking it’s burnt down because the fight with the guys and with the demon coming in and trying to there’s a big, huge finale thing that involves the demon, the main outlaw and her, and so that has like obliterated her place. All she has left is like maybe one by her barn with the horses and that’s it. And so they’re rebuilding. It starts off where she’s rebuilding and this stranger, this demon hunter, comes into town because her child turns out is half demon. The deity is her father.
0:48:50 – Speaker 2
Oh man.
0:48:52 – Speaker 3
Yeah. And so this demon hunter, so by the series. You know this, you know the series. And so she, this guy who’s like an ultra, like you know, I want to say like he’s not ultra religious because he kills people, but he uses religion as an excuse to kill people.
0:49:10 – Speaker 2
Okay.
0:49:10 – Speaker 3
So it’s crazy. He’s crazy but he dresses like a creature and stuff like that. And so he comes to town and he calls himself a demon hunter. You know, he’s really just been killing women and who he said were possessed. But he comes and hears about the child and he comes to get the child and so she doesn’t know when the kid, like, goes into town she’s not supposed to, and the demon hunter’s there and the whole thing happens to that.
So you find out that people find out about the demon, but at the same time this other guy’s coming to town and he’s got it. He’s basically a skinwalker and he has this issue where he starts to turn into it If, like, things get too intense and he tries to hide it and he, and by the end of the script you kind of you learn that he’s there because he felt the calling going there. And then you you know, by the end of the, by the pilot clothes, what you learn is all these people, they’re having this DNA in them, there’s this Indian DNA. So not all of them are.
0:50:04 – Speaker 2
American Indian.
0:50:06 – Speaker 3
So they just have to have American Indian DNA to be an A 60, whatever. So, you’re having ultimate character, but the guy who comes into town, he’s the black albino, because you know down the trail of tears there were people who were black.
0:50:19 – Speaker 1
And so.
0:50:19 – Speaker 3
I’m bringing in a lot of historical stuff too that people don’t may not be aware of. That I find super fricking fascinating, and so I bring all that stuff in. But and so you find out that there’s more of these people who have this stuff awakening in them and they’re becoming witches and skinwalkers and all these deities and they’re kind of having these powers, and that you realize what happened was when her uncle awoke Atasaya okay, I don’t know if I pronounced it right, but and so I have a friend who’s Indian I’m not sure I pronounced it full Indian, but and so what happens is because you woke up the idiot in the first film. Now they are angry and they’re they don’t like the way the world has gone and they’re gonna judge them right now, and so basically, they’re calling out, they’re waking up as DNA and eventually both series is gonna lead to a big war. Wow, all the American Indian deities and the people who have that awakening.
0:51:22 – Speaker 2
That’s interesting, that’s cool.
0:51:24 – Speaker 3
Yeah, so that’s that, but it’s gonna be. It’s a horror western supernap.
0:51:29 – Speaker 2
Very cool, very cool.
0:51:31 – Speaker 3
So yeah.
0:51:32 – Speaker 2
So, alicona, other than Dwayne Warock Johnson, what else do you have on your plate?
0:51:42 – Speaker 4
I actually have a podcast that I’ve been doing. Oh yeah, yeah, we haven’t released any episodes yet, because it’s in post, because the way we shot it is both as video and audio and we shot it almost talk show style. So we have three angles.
It’s called your unpaid therapist and we just talked about yeah, y’all ish did you talk about with your really close friends and one of my project yeah, he used to be a therapist, now he’s an actor and he’s actually a really successful podcaster, and so he’ll come on and he’ll give his tidbits on stuff.
0:52:15 – Speaker 2
That’s funny.
0:52:17 – Speaker 4
Yeah.
0:52:17 – Speaker 2
How many episodes have you done?
0:52:20 – Speaker 4
I wanna say 12 or 13. Nice, nice and so right now, yeah, we’re just going through fine tuning, cleaning up the audio. Like I said, I’m doing all the video editing, so I’m doing the three cuts back and forth between every D. So it’s a lot of work.
0:52:34 – Speaker 2
It is.
0:52:34 – Speaker 4
I should have done what you’re doing.
0:52:36 – Speaker 2
That’s I’ve been podcasting since 2007. And that’s exactly why I do it the way I do it, Like you’re adding on a lot. I mean, yeah, there’s people that probably watch the video, but I mean it’s a small percentage compared to the people that just are listening to the audio.
0:52:56 – Speaker 4
Yeah, why used to work for a company that Maria Munoz owned called After Best TV, and that’s how they did it. So I worked for them for eight years and I was like well, this is this is how you do it, but you know. They had a studio and they had all these engineers working and everything was happening all at once and all I had to do was show up and talk my butt off.
0:53:16 – Speaker 2
There you go.
0:53:17 – Speaker 4
And I’m like, oh, there’s so much technical stuff, so anyways, yeah, if you had an engineer, you could skip the editing. You could just use it as a guest video?
0:53:24 – Speaker 3
Yeah, do live, you need to use OBS and have a switcher board and someone could just sit there with a switcher board. If you can’t do it, but yeah. Like I did a little like thing on Twitch with a couple of friends and I just had my little which I’m gonna call it, you know, a little black magic switcher board. Oh, yeah, yeah, you know what I’m talking about. You probably you know what I’m talking about. Yeah, I do.
0:53:42 – Speaker 2
You know what I’m talking about? Black magic switch. Yeah, that’s what I was just gonna say oh, yeah, let me open my drawer here in my desk.
0:53:48 – Speaker 3
I think it’s right here. Yeah, oh, there it is. It’s like 300 bucks. Yeah, it’s like 300 bucks. It’s the cheapest one 300 bucks, not that.
0:53:55 – Speaker 4
And then we hooked that up to OBS. That’s all I needed to hear, and I went oh.
0:54:00 – Speaker 3
She’s like well, obs is free OBS is free, and as you ask and then you can do the little switching in OBS, and you can. As long as you have good mics, you can edit it as soon as you’re done. Yeah, you can do live switching. Yeah, and then I was only familiar with live switching because it was bad in high school. You know, it’s like you could do that and save yourself like a foot load of time.
0:54:22 – Speaker 4
Well, we’re done with season one, we’re done, I’m just so, yeah, but anyway, to answer your question, that’s what I’ve been working on You’re on paid therapists, right?
0:54:31 – Speaker 3
Yes, and that’s just the Oracle name.
0:54:34 – Speaker 4
Yeah, so just that and definitely trying to get that script out to Mr Johnson so we can go ahead.
0:54:42 – Speaker 3
I love the rock. I love the rock yeah.
0:54:45 – Speaker 2
All right. So, Ali Kona, what would advice would you give to someone that’s wanting to break into the film industry, like writing, directing, producing? I have a feeling I know what you’re going to say, but what would that be?
0:54:58 – Speaker 4
Oh my God, mickey, yourself you know and you learn and you make a lot of mistakes, so I didn’t. I didn’t think to. When I started doing all this stuff, youtube wasn’t super popular like it was around, but you wouldn’t think to go there to tutorialize right so. I learned a lot of stuff watched tutorials and it is unfortunately that whole thing that hey, when people say who you know, but it is who you know because you know, you’re friend and you’re like, hey, help me with this project.
So it’s like I would get involved with different communities. Like it’s so funny, because this year my goal was to just go to a bunch of film festivals. I had no intention of actually being in them. I didn’t know that Diana was going to submit to all these festivals.
0:55:39 – Speaker 3
We have Studio City coming up. Yes, we’re playing on a fourth.
0:55:43 – Speaker 4
Yeah, there you go. But yeah, so it’s like go out and meet people, join meetup groups or whatever people to have the same interests that you have. So that way you guys can work with each other and use each other as resources, cause, let me tell you, doing it all by yourself is so hard.
0:55:57 – Speaker 2
Absolutely.
0:55:58 – Speaker 4
Yeah. So it’s like meeting people in your community and just being open to and be that person. That person that’s like, hey, you want to work on something together? Hey, everything I’ve done has been me saying, hey, friend, hey person. Hey, do you know what? You’re saying, I hear you saying that, yeah, and hear it out and be okay with the fact that it may come out shitty, and that’s okay, cause the next time around it’ll be a little bit better.
0:56:22 – Speaker 2
Have you written? A lot of things as a writer.
0:56:27 – Speaker 4
Yes and no. Like I’ve written some really silly sketches that I put on my Instagram that I learned how to, or I figured out how to, with a green screen act opposite of myself Cause I was having so much trouble finding other actors to work with, so it’s like me times three honest three, you know, and I’m in a wig in this one.
0:56:47 – Speaker 2
Wow, that’s kind of scary.
0:56:48 – Speaker 4
Yeah, I’m in a leotard in this one.
0:56:51 – Speaker 3
It’s like an incident. You look like you know it’s scary already.
0:57:05 – Speaker 4
I totally miss that joke. I’m like what are you?
0:57:10 – Speaker 3
laughing at. It was a funny joke. It was a funny joke, sorry.
0:57:18 – Speaker 2
That’s okay.
0:57:19 – Speaker 4
That’s okay. I did a sketch where it was like a WWE sketch. I played the announcer and I played two wrestlers that were wrestling myself.
0:57:27 – Speaker 2
So at one point that’s hilarious.
0:57:29 – Speaker 4
I was at a green screen and I was on top of a chair horizontal like and then I had to shoot it again where I was, the person underneath me holding me up, throwing me across the room. So and those are silly and funny and I actually it’s so funny, I said I said Dwayne Johnson, because I put him in. I did a rap called Baby Got Gas.
0:57:51 – Speaker 2
Yeah.
0:57:52 – Speaker 4
Yeah, it’s a Baby Got Back.
0:57:53 – Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
0:57:55 – Speaker 4
It’s a vegan rap because I’m vegan.
0:57:57 – Speaker 2
Okay.
0:57:58 – Speaker 4
But anyway. So I’ve made rap videos, like I’ve done all sorts of stuff that at the time seemed like great ideas, and I go back and watching them like I look like a jack, but that’s okay. I don’t know how to edit a three of these.
0:58:09 – Speaker 2
Oh, I hear you, I hear you.
0:58:11 – Speaker 4
Whatever I?
0:58:12 – Speaker 2
hear what you’re saying.
0:58:12 – Speaker 4
Question one.
0:58:14 – Speaker 2
Well it was like you know, you’re saying like kind of get in there and do it, and like you’re going to learn as you go along the way.
0:58:21 – Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah, Don’t be afraid to you know, make campaigns with thongs and shit.
0:58:25 – Speaker 2
Exactly Find a way to make a point. You got your point across. You got your point across. I mean you know, yeah, but no, awesome. Thank you so much, Diana. How about yourself? Like, what would you? What would a word of advice would you give someone?
0:58:41 – Speaker 3
No, fear no fear. Don’t be afraid to do stuff, man Just go out and do it. Take that that. You know, everyone’s got imposter syndrome in the beginning. It’s fine. Everyone’s so scared because they don’t know stuff. Just wipe it off, throw it away. Ooh, make your films.
0:59:01 – Speaker 4
Find people that have the same work ethic as you do, because if you don’t, it’s impossible, it’s hard, it’s hard. But you know what it is. It’s so hard to find.
0:59:10 – Speaker 3
It’s so hard to find. You know you can go, yeah, if you can Con to it, cause it’s really hard.
0:59:18 – Speaker 4
Really really hard. Yeah, Be that person though.
0:59:22 – Speaker 2
Be that person that does work tirelessly.
0:59:24 – Speaker 3
You know, I hear you as long as you can, but you know work. I do work hard, play hard.
0:59:30 – Speaker 2
So I’m kind of in that camp. I hear you I think you’re right, though, diana like for the no fear thing, cause I think a lot of people can, you know, say even a blockbuster film and just be like, oh my gosh, I can never do something like that, why, why bother?
0:59:43 – Speaker 3
Yeah, you know exactly.
0:59:46 – Speaker 2
And then they just never start because they don’t. They just think they’re not capable of that. When, hey, the people that got that blockbuster film, or people just like you, you know, so I’m like exactly, exactly.
0:59:57 – Speaker 3
Unless there’s someone’s like yeah, it’s a relative, we got hooked up, but the whole industry can’t be related. So there’s this space there somewhere.
1:00:06 – Speaker 2
Exactly which, which comes kind of, comes background to the reason this podcast is to ignite Like. Everyone has a creative inkling in them. The point is is to figure out what that creative spark is in in each person. So that’s the key to it all.
1:00:22 – Speaker 3
What’s your motor? What keeps you moving? Yeah, in the morning, yeah.
1:00:26 – Speaker 2
Like obviously I like how I found her thing, like she wouldn’t be as active, like, okay, fine, I can’t find any acting gigs, I’m going to write my own thing. Acting like obviously you found your thing when you’re doing that, like if, if you didn’t love it, you wouldn’t be that, so gung-ho about it. Right, you know, like you wouldn’t be as on fire, like you don’t have to try to be like that, you just are it.
1:00:51 – Speaker 4
Yeah.
1:00:52 – Speaker 3
So, yeah, and she’s. You know, what I like about Alicona is like she said she’s going to do something she does it, you know. So she’s not really these people, I don’t know. It’s like you know, it’s like she said.
1:01:03 – Speaker 2
I’m going to show her a specifically, I feel you know what I found how to deal with the to the whole broam space and To the whole iterate the home sketch. Go back to her and a.
1:01:13 – Speaker 3
Find something and once the no, of course you can advisors or fix that for work, but everyone feels I feel in happy with her, so it’s like bringing everything together, you know.
1:01:29 – Speaker 2
I hear you, yeah, compliment one another.
1:01:31 – Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:01:33 – Speaker 2
Totally, totally. I get that so awesome. Well, thank you both for coming on. I appreciate it. Thank you, ali Kona, for lost and found. Without you you know you working and being creative There’d be no reason for the tornado film festival. So thank you.
1:01:49 – Speaker 4
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having us.
1:01:51 – Speaker 2
My pleasure. So, guys, thank you so much both for coming on. Do you have any final words? Any final words for the audience?
1:01:59 – Speaker 4
Send a lay to Dirac Johnson.
1:02:06 – Speaker 3
She is on a mission.
1:02:09 – Speaker 2
I think we’re gonna have to get this thing started. It’s just wrong that that script is just waiting for him.
1:02:19 – Speaker 4
You guys are going to see him one day in the theater and be like ah, I heard about that.
1:02:23 – Speaker 2
Exactly, exactly.
1:02:26 – Speaker 4
Okay, that’s it.
1:02:26 – Speaker 3
Make sure you come out and see Jonathan’s film festival.
1:02:31 – Speaker 2
Yes.
1:02:32 – Speaker 3
He was hard.
1:02:34 – Speaker 2
Thank you All right, well, everyone. Thank you for listening, thank you for downloading and don’t forget to embrace your storm, see ya.
1:02:44 – Speaker 1
Tornado with Jonathan Nadeau. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe now. See your first to hear new episodes with more stories of inspiration about the highs and lows of life and how embracing the storm is so much more fulfilling of a life than being crushed by the weight of the world. And until then, we hope you’re inspired to do something, whether it’s creating, participating or learning, whatever leads you to your personal passion.
Transcribed by https://podium.page
