5. Emily McGregor
Creator's Cafe Episode 5. Emily McGregor: Don't Not Film the Joke with host Jessica Payne of Kika Labs
In this fun conversation, Emily McGregor confesses what she's afraid of (truly scary), why she doesn't get writer's block, and and how she's learning a new style of leadership. Come along for a snappy and fun ride!
Show Notes:
Content warning: Lots of joyful swearing
Follow Emily
IG: @emcgree
Director's Reel on Vimeo
IMDB
Website
PenguinCat Creative
Quotes
"Don't Not Film the Joke"
"Funny = Good"
Creator's Challenge: Film the Joke.
Write a joke and film it. Don't not film the joke!
Bio & Intro
My guest, Emily McGregor, is a writer, director and CEO. She runs Penguin Cat Creative, where she writes incredible marketing copy. Before that, she co-founded Cosmo Diva, where they used female driven comedy to develop branded campaigns, sketches and web series that garnered over 12 million views. Emily's work has been featured all over, including CNN, Wired, Jezebel, Adweek, BuzzFeed, just to name a few.
Emily has developed branded content for Pepsi, Google, Netflix and other huge companies, and she has sold a script to Amazon. And her work writing and directing is featured on Amazon Prime in the anthology "Edge of Her Mind". Emily is winning award after award most recently for her script, "The Tabby" she co-wrote with her husband Sam Weller. And they have a feature film that she is slated to direct that is already financed.
Creator's Cafe with Jessica Payne of Kika Labs
Host Jessica Payne of Kika Labs breaks down the subtle and the sublime of the creative process with inspiring artists at the Creator's Cafe.
Find out more info on the show and host Jessica Payne.
Offering digital courses, performance coaching, and more! www.kikalabs.com
Jessica's Featured Course:
If you or someone you know is on the job search, check out her digital course "Level Up Your Video Interviews."
More info and resources at | www.kikalabs.com
Watch the video podcast on YouTube | YouTube Creator's Cafe Podcast Playlist
Follow the Show | @creatorscafebykikalabs
Facebook Group | Creator's Cafe by Kika Labs
Transcripts and YouTube Links at | www.kikalabs.com/creators-cafe-shownotes
Theme Music
Our theme music is composed and performed by Kyle deTarnowsky.
Transcript:
Jessica
Welcome to Creators Cafe. I'm your host, Jessica Payne. I'm a performer, performance coach and Multihyphenate creator. I'm going to be bringing you conversations with some of my favorite creators where we talk about the sublime and the specifics of the creative journey. So grab a drink, get cozy. Let's go.
My guest, Emily McGregor, is a writer, director and CEO.
She runs Penguin Cat Creative, where she writes incredible marketing copy. Before that, she co-founded Comedy Diva, where they used female driven comedy to develop branded campaigns, sketches and web series that garnered over 12 million views. Emily's work has been featured all over, including CNN, Wired, Jezebel, Adweek, BuzzFeed, just to name a few. Emily has developed branded content for Pepsi, Google, Netflix and other huge companies, and she has sold a script to Amazon.
And her work writing and directing is featured on Amazon Prime in the anthology Edge of Her Mind. Emily is winning award after award most recently for her script, The Tabby. She co-wrote with her husband Sam Weller. And they have a feature film that she is slated to direct that is already financed. And we are waiting for the strike to be over so she can push that forward.
I am so excited for you to meet Emily. And one important note, she is brilliant, she is funny and she loves to cuss. So if you don't love swearing or you've got little ones in the room, this might not be the episode you're looking for. Look up Emily's work online, but look it up in a different context, perhaps because it's not even worth bleeping. But if you do listen, enjoy a delightful conversation with the Incredible Emily McGregor.
Welcome. Emily McGregor Thank you.
Emily
Cheers.
Jessica
Welcome to the Creators Cafe.
Emily
Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Nice.
Jessica
And what are you drinking today from.
Emily
Drinking a ice.
Emily
Latte?
Jessica
Nice. Me too.
Emily
This is.
Jessica
Okay. So how do you think of yourself as a creator? So in the creative world, I know you do tons of things. Which ones do you think of yourself? Primarily. And then when you think about all your slashes.
Emily
What do you.
Jessica
How do you think of yourself?
Emily
Yeah. I mean, I guess primarily primarily a writer. I think that's like most of what I do, both for money and both for aspirations and all the things. And then probably director. That's one of the main two I also produce. But I don't like advertising because I don't.
Emily
Really like doing it, so.
Jessica
So you do it more as a necessity to make your own work if you have to.
Emily
Yes. Like I can do it. I have done it. I end up doing it. If you're doing low budget stuff like you're just going to do it. So I'm good at it. But like, don't tell anyone.
Jessica
Yeah, exactly. I think there's a lot of us in that boat, so I'm always so grateful when someone is good at producing and wants to produce. Yes.
Emily
So amazing sight.
Emily
And it's like it's a different you've like a you've built different if you love it. Yeah. You're actually good at it. And like, that's your thing. I think you're built before and that's magical.
Emily
That's great.
Jessica
Well, I think you're built different and you are a magical writer. So have you always felt like a writer, or is that something that's kind of developed over the years? Where did that come from for you?
Emily
I mean, I've always written, I guess, like, even as, like, as like a first grader, I won a poetry contest talking about, like, the magic of the Sedona mountains or something. So yeah. And then I wrote I wrote, like, a novel in middle school. Like a terrible novel in middle.
Emily
School was the title and the synopsis. I don't even.
Emily
Remember. It was so surreal. I was really into surrealism at that time.
Jessica
Of course you were.
Emily
So it's like very surreal, like two girls that get, like, sucked into like a magic world in space and they meet like kind of Alice in Wonderland, I guess, sort of kind of satirical, but like middle school satire. So, like, I don't know, it's like on a floppy disk. I should take it.
Emily
I want to see that. Yeah. Yeah.
Jessica
You could definitely bring that back as a short or work it in somewhere.
Emily
Yeah. Or not. Or not. Oh, man.
Jessica
And as a writer, what have been the helpful things to kind of develop your own tone of voice? I think that's what I admire so much about you, is you're brilliant, you're smart, you're funny, and you get that all out in your work so well. Whereas I think a lot of people get have the ideas, and when I talk to them, they are good at expressing them, but they don't always reach the page with the same authenticity and ease that your final drafts end up feeling like they have.
Emily
Y y yeah, not even how y know that. Thank you. Very kind. Yeah. I don't know. I think I've.
Emily
Always I've been. I was rewarded for that early on. I think that's really why it's like, yeah, I guess we're talking about child. I didn't expect to do that anyway.
Emily
Yeah. Going back got.
Emily
So in like middle school and high school, there was like a thing at that time in education where it's like every student needs to write essays for like every frickin class. Okay, so, like, even in math, you had to write an essay to describe how you got to a math problem. I decided to write short stories with, like, weird, like, characters to describe the math problem, to make it more fun for myself and, B, to hide the fact that I don't know what the fuck I was talking about.
Emily
Math. So like, let's just cover that up with, like, some creative D and like, the teachers would think, I'm really smart, right? Because I'm like being creative, but really I'm just kind of masking that. I'm like surface leveling all of this and it works quite well. And so I think, yeah, I was just in an early on. I was I had a lot of teachers that were just like, Oh, wow, yeah, that's you're a weirdo.
Emily
That's great. Like, I had a lot of that early on. So I think I just never even.
Jessica
You didn't question I didn't question it.
Emily
Yeah.
Jessica
Yeah. I love that because there's so many people that had the opposite and now have to find it as adults. And so it's cool to see if allowed to flourish and be nourished in the world. It really is better.
Emily
Yeah. If you're like getting compliments.
Emily
And A's, you're like, Cool, You like me? Okay, dopamine hit. Okay, That's great.
Jessica
That's perfect. I think a lot of actors have that with the, like, finally getting some kind of positive attention or that the eyes on them or whatever that it or the applause or making somebody laugh or is some you know, comedians have that as well. So that's cool to hear it, you know, as part of your origin story.
Jessica
Yeah. So I would just like to say I'm so jealous of your writing because I think I'm a good writer, but I really have to work at it in a way that I don't have to work for most things. And I wonder if there's any, like books that you've read or techniques that you use or even just like quick shortcuts of how you organize your thoughts or go from 0 to 1, but very specifically just with writing creative material.
Jessica
So like scripts or writing copy, but it's with a creative bent, how do you get there in a way that feels authentic but still does the things you need it to do? Because a lot of people struggle with that.
Emily
It's hard to answer because it is different per project. Like, you know, some projects take a lot of outlining, some projects take a lot of research. I also write with a lot of writing partners too. Yeah, and that dynamic changes every time, like the creative process kind of shifts a little every time because we're bringing different strengths and impulses and instincts and everything to the project.
Emily
So I think that's why I don't know if there's like a, like I do this first every time I'm trying to think like.
Jessica
Okay, great, truly, honestly, just like you have that skill set that's that you've kind of built over a long time and you just come to whatever the project is, see what the project needs are. See if you have a writing partner. Right.
Emily
Go for and go from there. Yeah. And I think I think also, you know, I have I've worked creatively, professionally for so long that like being creative on the spot and just like having to put something out is like a muscle that I've built really well as well. And that's taken years. Yeah, but I can kind of just like generate stuff is never been my that's never been my part of many other problems has not been my problem.
Jessica
Okay So, so you don't really get writer's block just because you've trained yourself to make something good happen. Yeah.
Emily
And I think the advice I got early on, forget I forget whose advice this is, but something along the lines of like, you know, you can't always write well, but you can always get something on the page kind of advice, like you can just sit down and do it. And if it sucks, whatever, like no one's going to see, it's doesn't matter.
Emily
Like, yeah, get out.
Emily
Yeah.
Emily
And like, that counts as productivity never sees the light of day. Yeah, right, right.
Jessica
I think it's and Lamont that has a shitty first draft of just get it out because then you can make it better or you can move on with your life.
Emily
And I'm very much a shitty first draft writer like I'm up with vomit on the page. Just get it out. Yeah.
Jessica
I would like to go on the record and say your shitty is better than mine. I worked on this for a week.
Emily
You can see my shitty. I don't want to share one of mine.
Jessica
One of my kind of most shocking experiences. I don't think of myself primarily as a writer, but I've worked on it over the years. I'm a lot better was. We sat down to work on a short together and I had like five different drafts of things I had worked on for a long time. And you sat down in a cafe.
Emily
And came up with a perfect.
Jessica
Short from out.
Emily
Of nowhere, and it was so much better than my anything I had worked on for a long.
Jessica
Time. And I just I've been in awe of you since forever because of that thing. Okay, so as a writer, what are some projects that you have done that you're particularly proud of or excited by whether they got the success or not?
Emily
MM Okay.
Emily
So I saw this on your question. She was like, Oh God, I hate this question.
Emily
About hating this question. Okay, tell me why. Why? No, that's.
Emily
Right. Bring it on. So I always hate the like, Oh, are you proud of this project? Because that's like, that's actually that's what that's one of my problems is like being proud of the things that I make, especially the things I direct, is pride. And work is something I struggle with because especially immediately after I create something all I can see is the flaws, the missed opportunities, the mistakes, the how.
Emily
It didn't quite translate how I wanted it to and all of that stuff. And that's like all I can kind of focus on in the moment. And so it's hard for me to be proud. And that's that is held me back because, you know, you go, yeah, you get a break, you get your stuff out in the world.
Emily
Yeah, and, and I do, but I forced myself to put myself out in the world. But it's more of a forcing rather than like, I genuinely feel proud about this.
Jessica
Okay, so you need to outsource your pride to kind of friends and collaborators a little bit sometimes.
Emily
Yeah. Yeah. See what sticks? I am working. Something I'm working on in my personal life is like kind of just embracing like, what is like embracing like what the reality is in front of me. Instead of trying to change it or resist it or push it. Like obviously still pushing forward in life and moving and having an eye on the prize, but like also embracing what is in front of me and like leaning into that.
Emily
And I think that can translate into creative space because if you create something, it's like, okay, well let's like embrace what this actually is not what it could have been now what it should have been like, what it actually is. And I think if I start doing that, maybe I can transfer that into pride. So that's that's what I'm working on, right?
Jessica
Yeah. So as a writer, something that I really love in your work is your ability to have characters talk very naturally, but also in such a sharp, smart way. And I know one of the ways that you practice that was working at comedy, and I wondered if you could just talk about what that experience was and kind of explain to the audience what comedy was, how you.
Emily
Approached.
Jessica
That business and what you got out of it as both as a writer and a director. Yeah, and just someone kind of who has been in charge of your own creative process in a way that not a lot of people have been able to achieve professionally over such a amount, such a long amount of time. I think that was one of the formative experiences for you.
Jessica
So how did that all come together?
Emily
Yeah, yeah. So comedy was basically a media media company. We created branded content and commercials and sketches, all female comedy, Fierce, fierce and funny comedy I think was part of our tagline. I was inspired by my friend Erica Navarro. And so, yeah, we we worked for about five years making sketches and all these things like every month, cranking things out, working 16 hour days like it was it was a marathon on a mountain.
Emily
Like that's like the best way to describe training for a marathon around creatively, creatively. So yeah, it did really help build that muscle of like, you just have to think of ideas like you're feeding the internet machine, like there's needs to be more sketches. It was cool though, because we got to like, write something, film it, like the next week, get it out the week after that and get like a response immediately from the audience.
Emily
So that was good training, anxiety inducing. Yeah, it's a lot is a lot of work It yeah. It was like at the time it, it got very exhausting, but it was like such a good experience of having to just consistently turn out creative stuff and not wait for inspiration or wait for the muse like you just had a fucking right.
Emily
Just go, Yeah.
Jessica
I know Bam's club was part of that. Can you explain what that idea was?
Emily
Because it was just such a fun.
Jessica
Concept and.
Emily
This.
Emily
Was that was like our parody of the Bad Girls Club. But it was if all the characters Katniss, Bella, her mini Buffy, Lisbeth from Girl The Dragon Tattoo, Michonne from Walking Dead, probably some others. I don't know. There was a lot of girls, but anyway, they were all living in the same house together. So they were the the Bamboo Club that a smaller fucker.
Emily
If you don't know what that means. And so just like their inner conflicts and just a little mockumentary show really hit with the geek audience. So that one did well.
Jessica
Yeah. Yeah. Was there anything else from comedy that you really enjoyed working on or just stands out for you of the project itself, for who you got to work with? I know you also worked with Brand, so I don't know if that's the more interesting way to go.
Emily
No, those are all kind of, Oh, what is Claire did work with Pepsi.
Emily
Yeah.
Emily
It was fun.
Jessica
Right? So you're like, you know, you have that like stamp. Yes.
Emily
On the that they get these fancy things. Yeah.
Emily
Yeah. Branded gets like so it's such a weird world because they have like sort of the commercials cost so much because brands are so picky but digital has no budget but they're still as picky. But you know the budget to fulfill the pickiness. So it creates a bit of a nightmare.
Jessica
I didn't even consider that Right, because they're their regular network budgets are so enormous. Yeah.
Emily
It's so you can like like we were working with Pepsi and NFL on a thing and like we had to get a certain branded kind of football. But football is getting thrown like in a wide shot, Like no one's getting a closeup of this football and we got the right kind of football except slightly not. It was like I remember it was like one little stamp that was wrong in the black that made it the wrong football to be in any of the commercials.
Emily
Like we don't have the people that go find the fucking football with that little black line like, Yeah, and no one's going to see whatever anyway. So like, that's fine. On a real commercial advantage.
Emily
You just don't have.
Emily
The budget or people to do that.
Jessica
Right? I have a friend who's currently his production company is currently shutting down downtown L.A. to film a commercial. Yeah, and it's.
Emily
A.
Jessica
Producer who is doing that on one day and then it's working digital the next day. I can see why they would have different expectations. But the budget is so astronomically different.
Emily
Right? Yes, Yes. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, we did. We did one. We did a couple very silly web series that didn't get like as many viewers as I would have liked, But there was one called Guy time. Okay. Which was just like a bunch of grown ass men having like a sleepover. And it was five episodes.
Emily
Oh, wow. And it was just really fun.
Emily
I was like such a lovely group of guys and like, so silly, like they're giving each other back massages and it's very silly, but.
Emily
That's really sweet. It's very, very funny. Like, I've seen that nothing feels like a little dated now, but it is dated. Yeah. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Jessica
All right. And then after comedy, where you moved in to the copyrighting space and you got to kind of blend your talent and love of writing with having an opportunity to create copy and digital resources and ads and all of these resources for a lot of female creators and empower them and give them a voice. What has that experience been like?
Jessica
And then can you talk about Penguin Kat as kind of the natural and exciting evolution of where that's gone?
Emily
Yeah, Yeah, it's, it's cool. Yeah. Like the whole I don't know exactly where to start, but yeah, comedy really taught me some of that leadership and sort of, you know, it develops on set leadership, but I hadn't developed necessarily in office leadership. I call it wartime and peacetime leadership. Like they're just so different. Yeah. Like I was so used to that on set, like immediate think fast, everything's urgent.
Emily
Like rally the troops kind of leadership, not long term sustained marathon. Keep morale up over a long sustained amount of time. Leadership. It's just like different. So I I'm grateful that I was able to get some of that experience at comedy even before starting my own company, because a lot of the questions I get asked there is like, Oh, how are you comfortable like hiring people so quickly in that development?
Emily
Like, well, I've done it already and it's used to working with friends and used to hiring people on set. And so like had that experience locked and loaded and yeah, it's, it's, it's been cool to see the copywriting isn't something like I ever thought I would do or like it's ever really officially.
Emily
Trained in the sense.
Emily
Of like a marketing background. Yeah. When people are like, Oh, I can't, I can't, I can't do that. I don't agree. And I was like, literally anything I've made money in, like I don't have a degree or any formal training and.
Emily
It's fine.
Jessica
And you do have a fancy degree.
Emily
But the thing, the thing that's making me money, right?
Jessica
But the thing is right And I think that's true for so many of us. The thing that, you know, winds up being the day to day thing is not necessarily where you're trained or focused, but you're nailing.
Emily
It and nailing it.
Emily
You're very yeah, you're very good at it.
Jessica
In from a cool need.
Emily
Yeah. But it's been interesting to see how it's helped my screenwriting because with copy and marketing, being so aware of the audience and being aware of the audience like every moment and like their experience every moment, reading a page or reading email or reading an ad thinking about like, Oh, is this a cold audience? Like, what is their preconceived notions of this, whatever coming into it?
Emily
Or is it a warm audience? They have some context like where, where we medium where they're at, which is good for writing pitches, it's good for writing scripts and just really tracking that audience experience. I just never really taught much to think about. Like when I learned screenwriting in school, like they don't really talk about like sort of or think about the audience experiences.
Emily
This, you know what I like, Yeah, maybe it seems obvious, but it, it takes a different kind of you got to think about it a little bit.
Jessica
Well in turning that perspective on while you're writing and while you're editing is very different than knowing, that's something you could consider, right?
Emily
And creating something for a specific audience, which is something that I learned in comedy as well. Like we're you know, finding our audience online. And it did mean pivoting to a lot of great content. It was the early 20 tens that was pretty hard at the time. That's where we were getting a lot of our reviews. I'm not into a lot of that stuff, naturally.
Emily
I mean, I watched it and researched it deeply because, you know, you got to be really authentic with that audience. And so I got very good at creating jokes, making sure you're tailoring like jokes and tone and all of that for a very specific audience. That's not necessarily, you. So yeah, that's and then that obviously translates to marketing as well.
Emily
So, okay.
Emily
In setting minds.
Jessica
I think I think you're very empathetic and you are good at walking into a space, reading the room and having a sense of tone and what's going to land as a joke and what people are looking for. So I think you're just able to turn that into your work here too. Yeah. Okay.
Emily
So that's good. Yeah, that's great.
Jessica
Okay, So Penguin Penguin Cat Creative is your company. Just talk about that for someone who doesn't know what a penguin cat is.
Emily
You know.
Jessica
I think a lot of people don't actually know what writing copy is. Yeah, they kind of know. But if you a lot of people, if you say copywriting, they'll think like, Oh, you trademark.
Emily
Thing, right? Yes, I get that.
Jessica
It's a very specific, amazing skill that you have and great company. So can you just break it down for people? Yeah.
Emily
Yeah. So I mean, coffee in general is just any kind of advertising, writing, any of those annoying emails. You get the words on a commercial like all of that is copy. Our company focuses on kind of mid mid-level online brands, mostly in like the coaching and education space, writing sales pages, writing websites, writing email campaigns, Facebook ads to get their brand out out into the world.
Emily
We also do a little ecommerce as well, so.
Emily
That's some fun things there.
Jessica
And I know your website does a really good job of advertising yourself.
Emily
As.
Jessica
Having this really fun, smart, edgy, like very current.
Emily
Feel like what do you do.
Jessica
When you sit down to write copy that helps differentiate you from something that's maybe more, let's say, traditional business professional.
Emily
Air quotes? Sure.
Jessica
Writing not that yours isn't professional, but I think it hits people where they are really well and that's what differentiates it. So how do you.
Emily
Is it more.
Jessica
Word choice or is it thinking about where the audience is or how do you get that perspective?
Emily
I think part of it is like repelling the like, I want to be self-selected in any of my writing because I only want to write work with clients that I'm going to like them personally. Like I say that I'm unapologetically not niched down and like because we work with so many different kinds of companies, but I do want a certain kind of personality.
Emily
And so like I caused my copy because like, I don't know if somebody would be offended by that. Yes, that'd be so annoying. Yeah. Like they may not want cussing in their copy and most clients don't like 99% don't. Yeah, but they're like, Oh, it's cool that you did that. I don't want that, but I'm not offended. Great.
Emily
You're probably a.
Emily
Step to being a friend, and that's good.
Emily
Or like you enjoy my humor. Maybe your copy isn't that kind of humor, but you can see that I can do something very specific and fun and a little out.
Emily
There.
Emily
Still within like, a brand friendly way. So they yeah, like, I want to attract that kind of client. So that's sort of more why I write that way. Like I don't attract. Yeah, attract mostly like pretty chill women that like, want to build businesses but aren't frickin maniacs like you felt grounded and cool.
Emily
Like, yeah.
Jessica
A lot of times I think we do hear we hear edge cases. And so those are the ones that kind of stick in our brain. So it's nice that you have a business full of clients that are great. Yeah, that are challenging.
Emily
Well, yeah, I'm pretty, pretty lucky. But I think you know, that's become self-selecting if you're if the more specific you are, the more self-selecting. Yeah. I don't need a billion clients, so I don't need to attract everyone.
Jessica
Yeah. And you're very intentional with how you position yourself. And I think that's worked really well over time too. Yeah.
Emily
Yeah. Listen.
Jessica
When I think of you as a creative, I think of you as talented, badass, super smart, super funny writer director. Let's talk about some of the projects where you got to show that side of you. So one of the things that's happening right now is you just won a huge contest with your husband and co-writer, so can you talk about that?
Emily
Yeah, yeah.
Emily
We won the screen craft comedy screenplay competition. I don't know the official name, but something like that was for a script called The Tabby, which is kind of a reverse John Wick story where a cat goes on a revenge spree to avenge his owner's or her owners death. So, yeah, it's a it's a rejig and it's just the cat.
Emily
It's not like a talking cat. It's not like a kung fu cat. It's just a frickin house cat killing motherfuckers.
Emily
And this script.
Jessica
The.
Emily
Tabby just won.
Jessica
The screen craft competition for best comedy. Yes. Which is fantastic, because I went up against 2300 ish.
Emily
Yeah, fully.
Jessica
Complete. This is worth putting money into.
Emily
Going to a contest.
Jessica
Yes. Level comedies.
Emily
Yeah. That's incredible.
Emily
Killer Cat.
Jessica
Killer Cat on the show. So I'm really excited for you. Yeah. Yeah, that was fun. So excited in that you wrote with Sam Rosen, my husband.
Emily
We write. You write a lot of scripts together.
Jessica
Sam Weller.
Emily
Sam Weller? Yes, that's right. I'm just like, I know his name. God, did I know my husband's name? Like, you don't need to remind me.
Jessica
Oh, okay, cool. So you've got the tabby. You also did really well with a script a few years ago, a sci fi script. Tell us about that one.
Emily
And it's called Fucking Robots. That we got into, like Austin and a few other contests. And so, yeah, that one's about a disgruntled female engineer in the future that falls in love with a sentient male sex robot because, you know, there's a lot of female sex robots there and a lot of male sex robots and movies. In fact, I think there's only like I, I think has one that's it.
Emily
Oh, yeah.
Emily
Yeah.
Jessica
It's so crazy that all you have to do is flip gender on its head and the the story's available. It's a wide open space.
Emily
Wide open space. Yeah. Yeah. So that was fun. That was mostly fun for women because we went to the festival and they put the name of your script on your badge. So we get to walk around with fucking robots on our badge all weekend. And that was delightful.
Emily
That was.
Jessica
Austin.
Emily
Comedy is also the Austin Film Festival.
Jessica
It was Austin Film Festival. And you won for comedy.
Emily
Got into the final.
Jessica
Finalist for the company. Okay, awesome. Yeah, that's so cool. And then another project that I got to work with you on was amazing with Halfway There.
Emily
Which is this delightful script.
Jessica
So those.
Emily
Are thing you had like access to a house and it was like, Let's film.
Emily
Something.
Jessica
Yeah, exactly. I wish my, my costar had access to a house that he was house sitting and it was this gorgeous place up on Mulholland Drive. And so we had access for that weekend, only for a day. So you wrote a script. We filmed it.
Emily
We it was like a.
Emily
Poor looking house, though. I really I think I wrote another script that was like a little.
Emily
More adventurous to honor this really ridiculous location, you know? Oh, that's right.
Jessica
This halfway there was the third script.
Emily
That one required.
Jessica
Some more actors and less clothing. Yes. So.
Emily
So it's still in the works. So the works on DVD. So all we need is.
Jessica
You know, that access to that kind of house so.
Emily
Well, do would hills and his house. Yes. Yes. The fur rugs. Yes, yes. So good.
Jessica
So what I what I really enjoyed about the process on that one was the fact that we were able to take you just took a situation kind of like the morning after being drunk and gave us just this moment of what did we do? What happened? I think you're so good at bringing character and situation out through the details of making coffee the morning after, of.
Emily
Seeing a.
Jessica
Wine bottle roll into the pool, little things like that and that symbolism. Do you have anything that you like to go to? Either is symbols or as ways that you think about getting a lot of meaning into a small detail for that project or any other project?
Emily
Maybe probably is to ask more specific questions? It was a great question. Just don't think about my project too much. That's totally fine. It's good.
Emily
It's good for me. I probably should think about my process more.
Emily
Well, and I think this is this.
Jessica
Is so interesting for me. And part of why I like talking about the creative process is I think a lot of times we see these and other people's work, right? And you don't see it in ours. And so I'm forcing you to sit in my chair and think about what you're done and why it's good.
Emily
Okay.
Emily
Yeah, it's like. It's like. Like, like, like high school or college and you're, like, analyzing stories and books. It's like, how do you really think you go through all these things? Like, probably not me, probably not. But I feel.
Jessica
Okay. So for you, symbolism is a means to an end for the storytelling, right?
Emily
Yeah, I guess so. Like, I guess. I don't know. Well, it's funny because, like, you mention those things, I'm like, Oh God, I don't even think of those as symbolic. I was just like, Oh, that's a cool intro to the scene. Roll a bottle into the pool. That's a thing that would be there visually. Interesting. Like that's I think that's about as far as it goes.
Emily
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Making a French press that's like, more interesting than turning on the coffee maker. So we'll do that. Yeah, we have one. Yeah, right. Sometimes it's just we have literally.
Jessica
Yeah, literally practical. Yeah.
Emily
Yeah. So yeah, it's like it's not and, and yeah. I've been given that compliment before which I appreciate of like oh you find like lots of little details to throw in that make things more like real or grounded or like funny in the details. I don't only because it's observant, I don't.
Emily
Know what I think this is.
Jessica
Cool is when you're thinking about creative process wise, it seems like your goal is to tell a great story and make people laugh and everything else kind of serves that and is a tool for that. And tucks under that. Would you agree?
Emily
I would agree, yeah. Something Leo, who we both know, a cinematographer, a friend that we've worked with multiple times she's she's the observed that I, I equate funny with good and that I like interchange those words.
Emily
That's deep like cool that's like good that and yeah I.
Emily
Think oh yeah that's funny like as good. So yeah I don't know. I guess that's just, that's where my mind goes.
Jessica
Okay, cool. Yeah. So that's your marker of quality.
Emily
Well, it's funny.
Jessica
Funny then.
Emily
It's good and it's good.
Jessica
And the wine bottle is funny in the French press is funny. And so it's good.
Emily
So it's good. And they were funny. Check. Done, funny, funny. We have them. So it's perfect.
Emily
Yes.
Jessica
That's so great. Yes.
Emily
I do also like that I like having a sandbox like I do like it's like, okay, these are the things that we have. How can we use them as much as possible? Not like Dogma 95, but like, you know, like to some extent, just like, what do I have, how can I play off of it?
Jessica
Right? You don't feel your work never feels limited by resources to me, which is great because it is everything. I was just going to say, everything that you've been doing up until this point has been either self-financed or is indie very indie or digital. And so it is always going to demand creative use of resources. And I love that you're not you take that as a challenge as opposed to a limitation.
Emily
Yeah, I'm a maximizer.
Emily
Yes.
Emily
Yes. I like maximize especially like because when you've done low budget for so long, it's like, oh I got a cool location. I want to like, milk the shit out of it.
Emily
Do this. Let's go. Don't waste it. Right? Exactly. Yeah.
Jessica
Yeah, absolutely. And even in our you know, even in a short you found a way to get that amazing view and the amazing interior and, you know, get a chance to show off the resources that you did have. Really? Well.
Emily
Your milk is great.
Jessica
Also, your tagline on your website is don't not film the joke.
Emily
Yes. So I guess.
Jessica
Leo really nailed that.
Emily
One.
Emily
Well, that was like that was a lesson I learned at comedy is like, it's easy to not film the joke. It's like easier than you think to not to actually not film the joke.
Jessica
Well, and that's something that if you're just just from a technical point of view, when you're a director, you're creating a short list and you're making sure that you hit the coverage, which if the audience doesn't know, is just like making sure that you.
Emily
Film.
Jessica
Everything and everything that you actually need to have to have the story there is included in the visuals. But when you're doing indie project, it's so easy to just miss something.
Emily
Yeah. Or like, Oh, actually the funny bit was in their hands, but we're in a close like, you see back the camera. Well, yeah, like complicated, but like, it's so, yeah, it's easy to get caught up in the moment and, like, kind of miss you cut up on some of their focus or some other detail and not like, film the damn joke.
Emily
So other than.
Jessica
I guess you talked about being a good wartime leader, and I've seen you in action so many times as a director. I think you're fantastic on set. And you've talked about like things are going to go wrong. You can't hope that nothing's going to go wrong. You prepare as best that you can and then you just deal with it well in the moment and get creative.
Jessica
Are there other things that you do other than preparing well and trying to be cool and creative under pressure as a director to kind of make sure you film the joke? Or is that just something you learn over time, or is there something that you think of as a director to help you film the funny?
Emily
Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I, I mean, I'm just an over like overplaying the shit out of it. Like I do shot lists and they're so detailed and I like drawing a little diagram and, like moving the characters around and just, Yeah, over overplaying the hell out of it and then get to the set and throw it all away almost immediately.
Emily
But you can do that if you overplay and then you can throw it away. You know what's important and you know the priorities. And that's so much of it as well as just knowing the priorities. Like, okay, I can kind of like cut corners in this scene, but like, this is important. We need to spend time on this.
Emily
Like, this will move faster. This will move slower like just knowing that flow as well and prioritizing the day and reprioritizing the day constantly.
Jessica
I think that you're really good at, which is I think that's hard. A lot of people are good at the prep work.
Emily
Yeah. Or in the moment.
Jessica
The moment and not necessarily good at marrying the two of reprioritizing in the day and something has to get cut. What has to bump up?
Emily
It's like what can get what can't get cut. Yeah. Okay. Like what, What can you zoom through and yeah, just having that plasticity of like, Oh, nope, we got to do this now. So what's the plan?
Jessica
It's anything if somebody wants to get into directing but isn't going to go back to film school, or maybe they're an actor, a writer who'd like to make their first short. Are there resources that are books or online or anything that you would recommend or techniques or people to look at for a director specifically?
Emily
Um, I don't know. I did. I did the it was a little more like working with actors and not so much like short list kind of stuff. I did one of the Sundance Institute Institute, like just classes that you don't feel like apply to it or anything. I just like classes that they had. Yeah, I took one. It was more like directing actors because I just wanted to refresh that.
Emily
I hadn't worked with actors for a while, so I was like, Oh, let me probably develop some bad habits or forgotten some tools and like, let me just kind of have a refresh as well, because I think working on like such fast digital things, like I kind of want to go back to that like slower, more artistic space rather than like, let's just get this done.
Emily
Yeah, but I thought that class was great. So I don't they probably have some good ones for like prep and short list. Okay, those skills are needed. Yeah.
Jessica
Okay, great. Yeah, I know. When we've done a couple of projects together and there was a lot of resources that I like figured out through working with you and other people like you. But I also just for my audience, I also like no film school and they just have a lot of resources online as well.
Emily
There's so many YouTubers now that like, yeah.
Jessica
That talk about.
Emily
It.
Emily
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would probably start there. Yeah, I was in school. I'd be watching all of those.
Emily
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jessica
Talk to me about you have a big project that is financed and in the works and so please, everybody cross all your fingers all over for Emily all the time because this is one of those really cool. Could change a lot of things. Should change a lot of things. Projects. So talk to us about that one.
Emily
Yes, as much as you can say. Yeah.
Emily
See, I have an indie project called Inconceivable that I wrote again with Sam Weller, my husband. I'm learning this interviewing also.
Jessica
I know Sam and I have good friends.
Emily
Yeah. So it's weird. Sam. Well, Samuel. Samuel Weller, my husband and her husband from.
Emily
St Louis, Missouri. So we wrote a script together originally. It was going to be our, like, fuck it project. Like, we'll fund this ourselves. I had wanted to be part of for years and I was like, I'll just like, hold off on paying for this meeting. We will fund a movie for like the cost of a miata or it's like super simple that we've access to all the things.
Emily
So we wrote this project, started showing it to people and they're like, This is like, Actually good, you should do this, right? Oh, So we're like, okay. And took it to some producer friends and mainly just like get advice and kind of like, okay, how can we get this going? How can we get some money for this? And she she really liked it.
Emily
She fell in love with it, took her to her financier and they really loved it. And they were like, we will fund it If you can get a certain level of star attached to act in it, which was very exciting, which is also kind of rare for comedies to like. So a little harder to get financing that way.
Emily
It's high concept enough that I guess it has like an in there, but so yeah, so we're in the process of like reaching out. I mean, we were pretty straight in the process of reaching out to actors and then working that process, which is just kind of a like a very, very Hollywood process.
Jessica
Right? Because the process itself is if someone is going to do this, they're going to have to be at a high enough level that it would be offer only. So they only are going to read the script if they're guaranteed that they could take that, they would take it if they say yes.
Emily
Exactly. Exactly.
Jessica
So the money is there, but it's kind of attached to X level of star. Yeah. Saying yes.
Emily
Yep, yep. It's yeah. So it's like the whole bankable thing, which is weird to think about. People think what? Anyway.
Jessica
There's a little Hunger Games.
Emily
A little Hunger Games. Yeah.
Jessica
Yet here we are.
Emily
Here we are.
Emily
It's capitalism we've got to work with. And this is not going to change with this project.
Emily
So let's go.
Jessica
In. That project is going and you have the Miata. So life is.
Emily
Going to be on that. Yes. And it's beautiful.
Emily
And I love it.
Jessica
Nice.
Emily
Yes.
Jessica
One project that I thought was really cool and original that you got to work on was beauty school. Can you talk about that process?
Emily
Yeah.
Emily
Yeah. So that one I was hired to create a project for a company called me to it. You, not me, to make the movement movement difference. Yeah. And yeah, so that was like their first narrative pilot. It was like a pitch pilot to try and sell it to a bigger show. And yeah, it was like this crazy. It was like their first time doing it.
Emily
So everything was nuts. It was like technically a really, like, terrible project. Like it was like kind of terribly run and everything was kind of nuts. I had the best time in the world, okay? I loved every minute of it. It was great. The producers that you were working with, we bonded. We're Still good friends. I'm writing a project with one of them now, like lovely people.
Emily
We like trauma bonded. It was great. It was just like a it was like just a you know, it was just a small company trying to do a bigger thing. Problems that naturally happen all the time. So, yeah, it was, it was technically a shit show, but I loved it because like, I didn't have to produce. All I had to do was direct just to do my one freakin job.
Emily
Yeah, I ended up helping her write the script too, but just doing my one job. And that was it. I got to show up on set and just roll and it was great.
Emily
Actually, it was great.
Jessica
Nice. If you could wave a magic wand and talk about the kind of projects or the kind of positions that you would have, would it be writing? You're writing a bunch of features or is would it be showrunning a TV show that you wrote? Would it be writing, directing? What would be kind of, well, like Chef's Kiss of the Perfect Storm for you creatively?
Emily
Yeah.
Emily
Yeah. I think so. I think I have a fantasy of showrunning. I have some friends that are showrunners and like hearing about their exhaustion and burnout has made me maybe a little less excited. But I think I do have a lot of skills that have built over the last few years that would naturally incline me to that, and I think that would be fun.
Jessica
I definitely think you'd be great at it.
Emily
Would be great if I could build.
Emily
This. Yeah, I think I could learn that. So you just.
Jessica
You just need the humanity side to be taken care of from the production angle. Yes. And then you could flourish.
Emily
Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I think I would really, I think I would enjoy that. I think I would enjoy the stress. I work long hours and actually work long hours. Like I have a lot of energy. That's that's not a concern. I think I would really enjoy that as like a dream, getting this into like, I don't know, I haven't had that experience of doing something so long form.
Emily
I'm excited to see what that is. I'm excited to work more and long form. I've done so much short form. Mm hmm. Feeling a little stagnant in that like, I would love to do something where it's like we can take some do a longer journey. So that sounds really exciting. But yeah, I think, I think like ideal world showrunning writing, directing features, like doing that every few years.
Emily
I mean, that sounds cool. Yeah, you could set that up for yourself.
Jessica
If you could reimagine Hollywood and our industry, What would you like to see more of?
Emily
Yeah, I think the main the main thing would be more access for new creators to get developmental support. That seems like something that did happen back in the day. I mean, for a certain population and that's it. But it'd be nice if there was that for everyone. Just have a little more money and time and willingness develop new talent, it seems.
Emily
It just seems like unless you're like perfect, polished immediately or like you don't have an exact in do nepotism, like it's just so hard to get in.
Emily
So yeah, yeah. The main thing.
Jessica
Great. I love that. Okay, I'm going to ask you a couple of Rapidfire questions.
Emily
Feel free to.
Jessica
Answer or pass or just tell me now.
Emily
If you want to answer anyway. Great. Okay, so.
Jessica
Do you have a quote that you like to think of as a creator?
Emily
No, I love that. Also, to be fair, we did.
Jessica
Talk about like on your website, you say, don't not film the joke.
Emily
Yeah.
Jessica
And so I think that's a good one.
Emily
Yeah. But that's why that's why I was just going to say I think.
Emily
I should quote myself.
Emily
I'm Sarah. So I was going to say I will quote you. Okay.
Jessica
I'll take I will be inspired by you.
Emily
And, quote.
Jessica
Unquote, not film the joke at funny equals. Good.
Emily
Great. Do you have.
Jessica
Anybody that you're inspired by as a creator?
Emily
Hey, yeah. I was like, hesitant.
Emily
To like, list anyone because they're probably like a terrible per. I don't know. I hate answering that question.
Jessica
And part of the reason I like asking this is some people have this like one or two people or maybe five that have just steered their career and they've just modeled themselves after this person and they're so passionate. And I think it's actually important for people to hear that some great creator, it's like the answer is nothing or like I'm inspired by a lot of people, but I'm.
Emily
Yeah, I don't want to I don't want to.
Jessica
Hang my hat on. I don't want to like, put any one person up on a pedestal because who knows what's going on here.
Emily
All of that is.
Emily
Helping like pedestal but then also, like I watch a lot of TV, I watch their movies are like, inspired and impressed by so many different things. Okay, I'm not one of those. Like, I don't watch TV. Like, not much. A lot of TV, a lot of things, but I love a lot of things.
Emily
Okay.
Emily
But yeah, I don't have like, oh, this is the career. Like, I know you can't replicate any of that.
Emily
Yeah, this is very healthy. Oh, good.
Jessica
Cause that's what you're getting.
Emily
Yeah.
Jessica
What scares you on a regular basis, creatively.
Emily
This is all just a waste of.
Emily
Time. Oh, she. Yeah, Yeah. Okay. That's the main one. Yeah.
Emily
We just am. I just wasted a lot of time doing some they can some shit in my bedroom like. Yeah.
Emily
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Jessica
And then on the flip side, how do you like, I guess, find the courage, Keep making it like.
Emily
Yeah, yeah. You.
Emily
Another thing that I've been working on this year is like trying to get over the like, what if I'm just wasting my time? Like, it's sort of like a pointless like, you could say that about literally anything you do. And technically we are just like, just waiting to die.
Jessica
Like, unless something major changes, I think we're all going to go right.
Emily
So some real scientific advancement. Yeah, probably not good for humanity. Yeah. So I guess I guess just like trying to think of, like, the process, like enjoying the process, just enjoying the act of doing it because, like, there is no, there is no result. You have zero control of the result. You've zero control over how people react. No, you don't even have control over being good or not like that can just sort of happen or not.
Emily
You can try your best, but you can control that and just yeah, it is embracing the process and that's it. That's all you can do is try and enjoy it as much as possible.
Jessica
One of the projects that I got to work with you on for just the tiniest little.
Emily
Bit is.
Jessica
A fun, short called predatory and with predatory and some of your other projects. What you're so good at is finding a cultural trend and then kind of putting a screwdriver in and just kind of twisting a little bit and calling out when people are maybe aiming for something good but not doing it well with the execution. Can you talk about your project Predatory, what it is and what you called out?
Emily
Yeah. So in in in the copywriting job, I've worked with a number of MLM coaches, network marketing, you know, like Lululemon, that kind of thing, Tupperware. And yeah, I think, you know, there's something inherently wrong with a lot of these companies, but they, they are a little predatory. They especially the like beyond like the money and like some of that the economics there and the pyramid scheme there is, there's also like an uncomfortable like hooking of like self esteem and self development and like self-worth and like the amount of money that you make that makes me a little squishy.
Jessica
So you call them.
Emily
Out on that so common. So I made a short that's like a comedy horror short that's essentially making fun of, of MLM and like sort of the predatory nature of roping somebody into that that scheme. And so yeah, that's, that's what that project is. And just the Saraf thing at the end of it, you know, in credits she does a comedy rep and it is amazing.
Jessica
I don't want to brag, but that might be my genre.
Emily
Comedy rep comedy right?
Jessica
Will happen again.
Emily
I loved it so much. Thank you.
Jessica
Yes So funny, so uncomfortable, so close to the truth. And you have another project that was like that.
Emily
Where you.
Jessica
Called out a cultural trend here in L.A. and the short was Cafe Abundance. So tell us about that one.
Emily
Yes. And that one I'm making fun of here in L.A., this fiscal cafe, gratitude. If you're in L.A., everyone, everyone knows it's actually quite a lovely restaurant. I think.
Emily
The food's quite.
Emily
Good, but they like it's also very it's so L.A. like they name all the the entrees. Like, I am grateful. I am magnificent, I am sparkly. And they make you, like, answer questions, topics in the beginning of your meal. And it's it's very woo woo and ridiculous, which is all well and good and fine and well-intentioned. But I do think, like, especially as women, we just get sold this sort of like self-development stuff as a way of shaming us for not doing it.
Emily
Yeah, just like so many things start out as like, good and lately good, but then get twisted in sort of like a negative shame spiral for for women. And so this the story is like a woman at a restaurant that sort of has like a sort of breakdown or a breakthrough. Do you realize this kind of the the what's really going on and stripped off all her clothes and goes running down the street naked?
Emily
She's great fun.
Jessica
And during the filming of that one, I know you had a specific challenge because this was at a restaurant which you had done all of your prep work at, and it was on the Sunset Strip and they had all of these trees.
Emily
But then you show.
Jessica
Up and the trees were trimmed, the.
Emily
Trees were gone, The trees we were just had like bare window out to the Sunset Strip and like, look, we were just rolling down a little bit, like you had to kind of look in. But still, luckily the actresses were cool. Everyone felt safe. But yeah, it was just like, Oh, we had worked really hard to make sure this wasn't an issue.
Emily
And then I mean Yeah.
Emily
Yeah.
Jessica
It and then for the second part, you filmed that out in the streets, right?
Emily
Yeah. So we had both actresses butt naked running gorilla. We didn't pay for permits on this running gorilla down the street.
Jessica
It was also 3 seconds. It was.
Emily
3 seconds. Yeah, it was five. But we were still like, you know, do you get arrested or like on some list? So we we had it up where we had the camera across the street, and then we had one car on one side of the shot and one car on the other side of the shot. And so they would run basically from car to the other, like within the shot.
Emily
And then we would all just like.
Emily
Run away. One thing that's funny. Nice. Yeah.
Emily
And then we filmed the scene in front of a friend's house and they were still naked. And I had I had not told the friends that they were going to be naked. I had just told them that we were filming. So that was a ask ask for given us, kind.
Emily
Of would surprise us. All right.
Emily
I'd say you got a lot of one out of it.
Emily
Yeah. Perfect.
Jessica
Okay, big swing. Just from a very technical point of view, what kind of programs do you find yourself using as a filmmaker and in your kind of regular business life, what do you go to that maybe you think of as your industry standard?
Emily
Yeah, I mean, I guess final draft, I think most people use that.
Jessica
Through script trading. If somebody doesn't.
Emily
Know yes or no.
Emily
Script and there.
Jessica
Are there are a lot of free programs or pay at a certain point programs, but you if somebody has a dedicated.
Emily
Series, I think if.
Emily
You're fiddling around or you're just going to write something for yourself, like just use one of the free ones, it's fine. If you're going to make this a profession, just invest in final draft. I'll also you probably find somebody with a code like this. Just get final draft. Worth it. It's worth it. Okay. It's like not actually better, but it is.
Emily
It is sort of the industry standard.
Jessica
And it does a lot of the formatting for you that you could technically do in other programs, but.
Emily
Don't you.
Jessica
Necessarily automatically.
Emily
Go in writing ones? Those are all those. I'll we'll do it again. Those are totally fine if you're just like kind of writing stuff like you feeling it out or the first few years. But if you're going to start like selling something, it's going to be expected that you have final draft. It's more of that. Like it's actually a better program.
Emily
Like it's I mean, they're all just like frickin word programs. Like none of them are actually worth the cost, but it will be expected that you have it.
Emily
All right. Yeah.
Jessica
And then you edit in premiere.
Emily
Yeah, I'll edit and premiere mainly just because I know it and it's easy. It's sort of industry standard.
Jessica
It's like one of semiprofessional.
Emily
Yes. And affordable. Easy to learn one. Yeah, I think it's good.
Emily
Yeah. Nice.
Jessica
And then you really are good with calendars. You use calendar, right?
Emily
Yeah. So more for my business, but I think we should use it. We're in the film industry of just like a calendar app. I use Cloudflare. There's a bunch of them out there just like schedule it. We just go back and forth with the fricken like 2 p.m., 1 p.m., like not just pick it up time and not hard.
Emily
Here's my calendar.
Emily
Here's my counter. It's one link, except one conversation.
Jessica
That's when I'm free for your creative challenge. As a comedy writer and director, what challenge would you give my audience to go from 0 to 1 with doing something funny?
Emily
Yeah, I.
Emily
Would say just write a joke and film it.
Emily
Film the joke, film the joke, film the joke.
Jessica
Don't not film.
Emily
The joke, Not film the joke, film the joke. Write a joke and film it.
Emily
Fuck, that means you.
Jessica
I think that's perfect because it's open. But you also have to make it funny and you have to get it on film.
Emily
Got to fill it.
Jessica
And then you've done that and you've practiced it, done it.
Emily
Tada! Beautiful. Yeah. Emily, thank you so much. I adore you. Cheers. You're the best.
Emily
As it were. Cheers. Because I was.
Jessica
Like, No, I want to go. Wait, no, I want.
Emily
To go to the. Yeah, Yeah. Cheers. We were good. Good, good.
Jessica
Join the community and share your creative challenges on Instagram and Facebook at Creators Cafe by Kiko Labs. And also check out my website at www.kikalabs.com. To sign up for the mailing list. So you always know when a new podcast is released and to check out my coaching and digital courses to help you be a more confident and joyful creator.
