2021: Staying Creative, Productive and Motivated

Announcer: Welcome to Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.

Angry Man: Is this some kind of joke?

Unidentified Voice: Biagio. Who in this episode.

Biagio: It’s episode 129 and we’re rolling into 2021 staying productive, creative and energized in this crazy time. Finding motivation while working from home. How we’ve managed to develop and produce from quarantine. The importance of finding your Feedback Tribe A four and a half year journey to our new anthology TV series and jokes requests for you regarding its companion podcast.

Joke: I’m Just a girl, standing in front of a podcast audience asking it to review. Subscribe.

Biagio: Music courtesy Dave Pelman. Music Dave Pelman.com. Hey everybody. She is joke.

Joke: She’s Biagio.

Biagio: We’re married. We make unscripted film and television. I want to help you do the same.

Joke: Hopefully by teaming up with us.

Unidentified Voice: Happy 2021. Yeah, a little, a little.

Biagio: Like towards the end of the.

Unidentified Voice: Month, but it’s still 20. It’s still it’s still new, right? It’s still fresh.

Joke: Yeah. But I think 2020 has learned has taught us a lot of things. And one of the things that I’ve learned is to, you know, wait and see before we celebrate a year. I was real excited about 2020, and that turned out to be a bit of a dumpster fire. So, you know, I’m gonna 2021 has to deliver before I’m really going to celebrate it.

Biagio: Yeah, yeah. You know, it’s all about expectations, right? So I’ve decided to have none. Yes.

Joke: We can only be happily surprise from here.

Biagio: Hey. That’s right. Right. So, you know, onward and upward or not. Either way, I’m good.

Joke: Either way, we’ll we’ll take it. It just is what it is. And we’ll take it as it comes.

Biagio: Look, we have to be. I do have to say we are very grateful for one thing, which is that we are working on a big project. It’s going to take us through the rest of 2021.

Joke: Yeah, I would say the first, say, five months of quarantine in 2020 were about developing this. And so this entire project kind of it started a while ago, but it really started taking fruition into like the shape of a of a series during quarantine. And so I feel like we birthed it into this home and now we’re having to produce it from this home. So yeah, it’s it’s it’s quite the challenge but super excited. And part one of that reveal, I guess, of that project.

Biagio: That were allowed to talk.

Joke: About, that were finally allowed to talk about is so to series is an anthology series. And what that means is every kind of episode or every story is different and stands on its own, but there’s something that connects it into a series as opposed to, you know, a regular TV series where it’s always the same kind of format or the same people and the same story. This is a true crime, true crime adjacent we anthology series that we’re doing for Investigation Discovery, Discovery Plus and podcasts. Yeah, so it’s five two hour documentaries. So that’s ten hours of content there and then five times seven our podcast series. So there’s another 35 hours there. So we’re very excited to be working on 45 hours of content.

Biagio: I’m also grateful that someone else is actually voicing the podcast. I mean, it was fun doing it with you on I’m Asking a killer, but I just don’t have it in me to do 45 episodes of another podcast.

Joke: Well, so what’s exciting about this series is it’s an anthology series built around our good friends and coworkers, Alexis Linkletter and Billy Jensen.

Biagio: Alexis, will you remember from the podcast who’s been on several times?

Joke: Yeah, she’s worked for us as a true crime producer for a long time, and she has a podcasting partner in Billy Jensen, who you guys might know in A True Crime, and he has a few podcasts out there, but their podcasts they do together with Jack is called The First Degree. And then Billy Jensen has a podcast called Merger Squad, which he does with Paul Hulls, who you might remember from our Unmasking a Killer. Anyway, long story short, we pitched this anthology series with them and our very first story that we are talking about that Alexis and Billy are investigating is the Long Island Serial Killer Investigation, which is super exciting. Alexis and I have been looking into this for four years now.

Biagio: I literally edited the first demo reel for this, the first pitch reel for this, I think four and a half years ago.

Joke: Yeah. So we’ve been at this for a long time, and we’ve literally tried to sell this everywhere. Everywhere multiple times. So, you know, when we always say like, don’t give up on a pitch. This is one of those. When we finally got ID to kind of buy into it, and then we got them to see a bigger picture with the series, because we had some other things that we were showing them. So anyway, that’s super exciting. But I don’t know when this this episode is going to drop, but Wednesday, January 27th, which is in a few days from when we’re recording this hour unraveled Long Island Serial Killer podcast drops. It will be weekly for the next seven weeks. It is awesome. It is loud, it’s explosive, it’s layered. It’s all those things that make us super proud. And yeah, please check it out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. And if we could be so bold and humble to ask you to rate, review and subscribe, because apparently those are the three things that they keep track of. So rate review and subscribe.

Biagio: Rate review and subscribe. Well the trailer, we were really excited that the trailer actually made it the spot 25 on iTunes, right?

Joke: Yeah, I don’t remember exactly, but we dropped that 1st December ninth and so that, that, that shot up the charts already. So that’s really great. That was just like a two minute trailer. So but our first full episode drops on Wednesday. It’ll be Wednesdays every Wednesday from here on out. And again, that’s just the first seven weeks will be about the Long Island serial killer. And then at the end of that, we will premiere our two hour Long Island Serial Killer special documentary on March 9th on Discovery Plus. So.

Biagio: All right, March 9th. Look at that. Yeah, it’s like a new, new streaming platform for those of you who haven’t heard of it, Discovery Plus. So kind of excited that they decided to premiere us over there. But, you know, listen, we didn’t want today’s podcast just to be us telling you to go rate, subscribe and review the unraveled podcast and check out the show in a premieres. We thought it would be good to sort of talk through, you know, what it’s like to try to do this right now. And I really didn’t want to do another Covid podcast, you know? I mean, we sort of talked about working from home earlier, but, I mean, this really has become our new reality. And producing, developing, pitching television, I don’t think is going to change very much over the next year. So we need to find a way, all of us, to stay productive, stay creative, stay energized, and we don’t always succeed. Right, honey? I mean, it’s been difficult.

Joke: Yeah. No, I mean, look, there’s there’s days you just have to give yourself a break. But I think, you know, it’s also for those who may not have a company or for those people who, you know, again, we’re all kind of limited in terms of what kind of office interaction we can get right now. But, you know, as we’ve tried to find our way through this, I feel like there’s a there’s a few things that we felt like was one really missing and that we were able to identify. That just makes it harder creatively. This is really more of like a creative type of advice rather than, you know, practical, you know, logistical stuff. It’s like, how do you keep your creative juices flowing when you’re stuck by yourself at home?

Biagio: These are the things that we’ve done that have sort of worked.

Joke: So speaking from personal experience, the thing that I am very much a structure person, I like schedules. I like knowing, you know, this is when I get up and I drop the kids off at school and I go to the office and I get my work done and obviously Covid through that all up in here. So, you know, as some days you kind of find yourself meandering and in some days you end up being super productive. I found for myself that what’s helping is, is just setting yourself daily goals. And so it’s not so much to me about like what time something gets done because, you know, the kids need you at, you know, their computer breaks down for homeschooling or, you know, the gardener shows up and you’re like, well, there goes my Zen moment. Whatever it is. I think for us it’s really like being able to set like set goals. Like today I want to, you know, put this idea down on paper in the form of an outline. And that’s just that’s my goal. Or today, you know, this idea that’s been percolating, I’m going to spend an hour or two researching it. And sometimes we’re able to get these goals accomplished during the quote unquote work day. And sometimes it’s just, you know what? I’m going to do it at 8:00 at night when the kids are in bed and, you know, no one bothers me. So I think it’s just instead of thinking of it as I’m going to work 9 to 5 or, you know, that’s what I’m going to get work done. It’s really like figuring out what things you want to get done that day, and then just committing to getting them done that day. However, whenever it doesn’t matter.

Biagio: And in addition to sort of like writing down these short like today goals, which I think is really helpful, I’ve tried every single day to learn something new that could help me be a better producer or creative person or whatever. And so far that spanned the range from learning more about 3D rendering to improving my music composition skills. Because I write for some of our shows to, you know, just learning new keyboard shortcuts for Adobe Premiere so I can edit faster. I just I feel like if I can learn one little thing every day and I can do it, like first thing, I feel like I’ve already accomplished something and I can ride that way forward for the rest of the day, getting through the perhaps more mundane things that need to get done.

Joke: Exactly.

Biagio: Yeah.

Joke: Which leads perfectly, by the way, into point number two, which is sometimes you’re just in need of inspiration. I get inspired by people. I think, you know, when you’re in an office atmosphere and there’s a water cooler talk, there’s how’s your weekend? What did you do? Blah, blah, blah. There’s just in the social interaction with other people. You get inspired or you get energized or there’s something they say that makes you go, oh, I wonder if there’s something to that idea. And so if now you’re stuck at home with no one to talk to, I think it’s very important to keep, to keep trying, to stay inspired. And so part of that, I think, is to, you know, find, find time and to engage proactively into seeking out these social interactions, talking about movies or shows and, you know, really kind of just having a social conversation that’s not negative about Covid or everything that’s wrong with the world, but just, you know, about inspirational things and that might, might start you off. But like Biagio said, where he’s trying to learn something new, you know, for me, finding inspiration oftentimes is just in in art and in beauty. And in a weird turn of events, I started, you know, kind of playing with watercolor paints, which, you know, didn’t think that was going to happen a year ago.

Biagio: I was surprised, and I was also surprised at how incredibly good you are at it.

Joke: No. Well let’s be I just followed a tutorial, but, they’re they’re super, you know, it’s super inspiring. And just for, like, you know, 30 minutes or an hour to just to kind of play with things and try to create beautiful things with, you know, colors and light and value. It’s just it’s another, you know, when you’re creative. It’s about art. And so finding a thing that for you gets you that kind of creative outlet, you know, to kind of help fill that void that you might normally get inspired by just being around other people.

Biagio: Keyword. You just use their honey that I think is so important. You play, you play around, you have to find that thing where you feel like you have a sense of play, where you feel like you’re having a sense of fun with your creativity. You can’t feel like creativity is just a job or something you have to do to make money. You have to find those moments to have that sense of wonder that we all got into this for in the first place.

Joke: Yeah, we often call it like, especially after the long project when we were like really tired. We talk about like replenishing our well, you know, and I think our like being stuck in our homes for this long. I think this kind of inspiration, well, you know, is important. You know, we’re not necessarily going to museums and we’re not going to theme parks and we’re not, you know, kind of exploring and traveling and doing all these things. So I think finding time in your day to day to still, you know, focus on where you can find those inspirations, you know, what are its watching a watercolor tutorial or whatever. It’s, you know, calling up some friends for a happy hour, chat about the latest TV shows and what you like about them and why, or whatever it is. But whatever we’re at, wherever you find your inspiration and explore many versions of what that is, make sure you build it into your weekly schedule at least.

Biagio: And even though we did a whole podcast episode about it since we mentioned TV, I can’t wait for Ted Lasso to come back. It’s my favorite show ever.

Joke: I know it’s so exciting and it got picked up for season two and three.

Biagio: So I know such a good show.

Joke: Okay. And so this brings us to our final point, which I think is very important. If you’re been an avid listener of this podcast, you know how much we believe that this this field we’re in, this creating of documentaries, of television, of of stories that it’s very often a collaborative medium and even the project we’re working on right now, we have a great team, lots of producers who are all working from home at this point, trying to help, you know, help each other out and all that stuff. And, and, you know, the thing that I’m missing the most about this office atmosphere is that, like collaborative feedback, this kind of thing where I think we make each other better. And oftentimes that happens in a hallway or, you know, popping your head into someone’s office saying like, hey, what do you think about this? And sometimes I think it’s hard when we’re working from home to just like, pick up the phone or send someone a text or be like, hey, can I pick your brain for a second? You know, it’s something that we really try to instill in this production because we are working from home and we are trying to schedule, you know, regular zooms to just be about, okay, let’s have a creative brainstorm. Let’s do that instead of just, okay, you write this and then I’ll note it. And I think a lot of great creative energy comes when you can be in a room together. And so so the thing is, is that feedback is important. And so our advice is to find that group of people that you trust that could be your tribe, that could be your peeps, your feedback peeps to just schedule some time. Like even if it’s just, you know, here’s an idea from my third grader who has virtual lunches with her friends because in class they have to be in class and listen to the teacher. So they literally will have their like, lunch around the virtual zoom and chit chat with each other while they’re eating lunch. Maybe it’s it’s a virtual lunch with some of your friends, you know, that’s just on the regular, very casual, nothing plant that you just feel comfortable like, you know, running ideas by and saying, hey, what do you think of this? Or, hey, I had this idea for, you know, a show. I’m thinking about going this way. You know, just so just so you can kind of build a group of people that you can do that, that feedback loop, that feedback group loop, whatever. I think I think it’s important and those, those moments don’t I guess what I’m saying is don’t lose those moments when you have that like, oh, I want to run this by someone, just run it by someone. Reach out. Just because they’re not in the office next door doesn’t mean that you can’t call someone or text someone or zoom someone. Say, hey, I want to pick your brain for five minutes. Really, what it just comes down to is if you have that moment where you’re like, oh man, I just, you know, I want to run this by someone. Just do it, you know, call someone up, text someone, say, hey, do you have. Do you have a few minutes where I could pick your brain? I think it’s very important for us to to keep that conversation and keep that feedback going, because a lot of times, you know, you get stuck without it. And so, so that kind of idea that keeps pushing you forward in your creative process. So anyway, I mean, those are kind of the three things that we really noticed in ourselves and our own team that, you know, the things you kind of miss from working in person with other people. And now we’re all kind of working at home. So, hope that helps. Hope it helps even if you’re, you know, if you’re out there killing it on your own. You know, I think it’s good to kind of create these, these groups of people that you can, you know, be creative with and, and have these creative conversations with because, you know, we all have that uncle things. He has a new movie idea. And really he should just focus on being a banker. But but but find your people and and go from there.

Biagio: Find your people. I’m lucky that I found you, honey. You know, not everybody has the the loving wife, you know, or the dorky husband to be able to turn to and run stuff by. But, you know, the best part of this whole quarantine thing has been spending time with you. So, you.

Joke: Know, shucks. I think we’re lucky because we have spent 24 over seven together pretty much since we met in college for the last 20 years. So for us, it’s not that different. It’s just been our home feels really small at times, but you know, just spending as much time. We pretty much spend time together anyway. We drive to kids, to school together, drop them off and then spend all day at the office.

Biagio: So I know that. Yeah. Nothing I mean, nothing has changed except that there’s, you know, there’s less less people vying for our attention during the day, I guess, because it’s just.

Joke: Us know now it’s a six and an eight year old, right?

Biagio: Right. That’s true. I will say spending all day, every day with a six year old, an eight year old can affect your productivity, surprisingly. But hey, you know what? We got a TV show on the air, and we’re making it. So, you know, you know, I’m extremely grateful for that. I’m extremely grateful for all of you for tuning back into this podcast. It’s been since October, but we’re back. We’ll be doing one every month, probably through October. We never seem to get around to doing a Thanksgiving one, and Christmas is just out that the whole month of December were just it’s a whole thing. But anyways.

Joke: But I feel like it’s a whole thing for everyone.

Biagio: That’s a whole thing for everyone. Nobody wants to listen to a podcast about making unscripted television in the middle of the holiday season.

Joke: I mean, like it’s the holidays and you’re prepping for that. And then on top of it, it was like Covid holidays. It’s like it just was even crazier. Yeah, Decembers are hard.

Biagio: Yeah, but but long story long, you know, we’ll be back for, you know, every month at least through October. For those of you who would like to pitch us a show, you know, we’ve got like, what, 130 some podcasts now explaining how to pitch unscripted television. And of course, if you would like to pitch to us, you can always sign up for our newsletter and follow the directions. If you don’t want to pitch to us, that’s fine too. We hope you take the advice and go sell as many shows as you can, and we wish you nothing but luck, especially in these crazy times. But but for those of you who like to pitch to us, that’s how you do it. Sign up for the newsletter at Producing Unscripted Calm. Follow the directions and you know, who knows, maybe we’ll team up over zoom. Make a show together.

Joke: There you go. I mean, we have the zoom meeting thing is something. Well, we talked about this in past podcast, but it is something that I think is going to stick around a while and it’s a lot easier for everybody. So yeah, that looks good. And then by the way, again unraveled Long Island serial killer Apple Podcasts Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. Stitcher. Downcast I don’t know so many and yes, rate review and subscribe. Those are three words I learned today, by the way.

Biagio: Rate, review and subscribe. Yeah, yeah.

Joke: So they told me today that’s what matters. Great review. Subscribe. So here I am. Just, you know, I’m just a girl standing in front of a podcast audience asking it to review subscribe. Anyway, thank you guys so much. Really appreciate it. And yeah, if you ever have any questions, if you have topics you want us to discuss this year, by all means send us stuff. Maybe there’s even some swag in it for you. We end up using your question as a topic.

Biagio: Yeah, you can always just to just reply to the newsletter. Or you can always hit us up on Twitter at Joke and Joke and Biagio and you know, we have you have something you want us to answer or talk about. We’ll see what we can do.

Joke: Sounds great. All right. Well, have a good night. Thank you.

Announcer: Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.