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[open with music]

Hilarie Burton: Hey everyone! This is Hilarie Burton and you have tuned in to the Southern Gothic Productions podcast, a week look into the inner workings of a production company. So sit back and enjoy a peak into our journey.

Nicholas Gray: Hey guys! This is the 4th installment of the Southern Gothic Productions podcast. This is Nick Gray and I'm here with Hilarie, Kelly, and our lovely podcaster, Denise.

Denise Gideon: Thanks Nick, welcoming us in. As you said, we are on our 4th podcast. That makes it... What? A month?

HB: A whole month!

DG: We've been doing this a month, so let's do our one month celebration, and talk a little bit about that before we get into all the fun stuff going to be talking about in this segment. And, the first thing we talk about is that I think you guys have been a little blown away by the response.

HB: God, the response is crazy! I had no idea! Nick and Kelly told me, and, yeah, we hit some numbers pretty fast. I was flattered that people were interested in what we're up to.

DG: It's been crazy. Yeah, I think Kelly's been hearing the numbers every... well, he gets a lot of texts from me... every so often. [everyone laughs]

Kelly Tenney: I actually text you to say 'Here's my numbers!'

HB: Well Kelly, you're a sports guy, so you like the numbers.

KT: I do. I like numbers. I text Denise all the time about 'How we looking? How we looking?'

DG: Does iTunes still love us?

KT: Does iTunes still love us. Yes I do.

NG: I think the thing ideally is, you know, for me, I didn't really know what a podcast was. The three of us, we didn't neccessarily know either, and so, we weren't really sure what is the audience for a podcast. So, you know, when we find out that people are in deep and listening to the podcast, i mean, we're obviously very happy about that.

HB: So this is very different. This is, you know, more of a round table forum and it's definitely not scripted. It's a discussion and, you know, we are getting input from our audience. It's great, and hopefully we can answer all the questions everybody has.

DG: Well, in the past week we did our round table in Wilmington, as alot of people had alot of response to that, and a very positive response talking about how they love the round table setting, so that's really cool that we're able to do that.

HB: Yeah, you should see the awesome costumes we're wearing as we are sitting around the round table. [laughs] Kelly's dressed as King Arthur and Nick's a knight. It's great! [all laugh]

DG: I just... the one thing I want to talk about before we leave the shock of the podcast is the fact that to be able to continue doing this every week, we are going to be shortening it a bit. The first three were kind of... I would say... maybe some people wouldn't say they were long, but we are going to be shortening them to around 15 minutes so that we can, you know, provide new content each week, and Hilarie that was your idea and decision to do that.

HB: Well, yeah, it's something that comes from my MTV training. Sometimes, you know, the shorter interviews are the better interviews.

KT: Less is better.

HB: If you could just... cut to the answers that people want know, so we will go ahead and cut to the chase each week and get you up to date on what we are doing. I mean, we've got so much going on and it changes so drastically from week to week, so yeah, we will just get you what you want to know.

DG: Well that's a great segway, because we are going to start off with Nick. Nick recently did a vlog about the music for your webseries, Friendship Union Community Theatre, so Nick, why don't you... in a little bit more detail, tell us how's it going, and the status of that, because that's a question that you probably get everyday, so how's that going?

NG: Well, Kelly is sure not to ask me any questions. [all start laughing] For the people that follow our site, they will know that the webisode Friendship Union Community Theatre has been completed. We announced it on our site a few days ago. We are moving towards a launch.

HB: Hooray!

NG: Yes, hooray! It's been a really interesting process. I wasn't, perhaps, the best person to be in the editing suite every day with my awesome, awesome editor, but I learned alot from being in there. I'm really really glad to have had that oppourtunity. But, it is done.

DG: I asked Hilarie and Kelly when we were in Wilmington filming the first webisode what you learned after the completion of the filming, so I'm going to ask you this question, with you being in the editing chair and doing the music as well, what was maybe one or two things you learned from doing this?

NG: Well, i mean, you just learn from all the byumbs in the road that, you know, it happens with every single project that anybody every works on. There's always one unanticipated bump somewhere, and then you know for the future that you are never going to make that mistake again. [Hilarie and Kelly laugh]

KT: That's true.

HB: Nick and I have a list on the refridgerator of thing not to ever do again.

NG: Yeah, and all joking aside, i mean, that's something that's really important. And then also, it was really kind of fun when I decided I was going to score the webisode myself, you know, we had somebody locked in and he just got really swept up with his job and he wasn't able to do it, and I kind of revealed the secret to Hilarie and Kelly that I had a little bit of musicality in my history. [all laugh]

KT: My god.

HB: [laughing] This is what he says to me. I was sitting there in the house and he's like 'I took piano lessons for 11 years and I used to win all these songwriting awards in college, so I guess I can do it.' And i'm like 'What?!'

KT: What?!

HB: For years you've been holding this out the whole time? What else is in your bag of tricks, Nick? [Kelly laughs]

NG: I'll tell you later...

HB: Uh oh. Can you breathe underwater too? [Hilarie and Kelly laugh]

NG: I wish! Telekenisis!

HB: Awesome!

NG: So, even though I do have a history with music, it still was a little bit... you know, I had never done anything like this before, but once I finally was able to get a main melody, and then kind of riff off of that... I'm really happy with it! And once we set it to the music, it looks great, Denise. It just looks great!

DG: Talking about the webseries, and things like that. Recently, they had the Emmy nominations and one of them that got the Emmy nod was 'Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog.' That's a Josh Wheaton production. And so, what's it mean to you guys to know that a webseries like that that went viral on the web gaining recognition on the mainstream.

HB: I mean, it's crazy for me! I've had an agent, you know, I was in 8th grade, so to me, agents and the industry was always about TV and movies, and in the course of my career there’s been… an entirely new genre has popped up, and at first it’s underground, and it’s kind of, you know, a cult following thing, with internet entertainment, and now it’s just this widely accepted thing, where my age… and see I was with Endeavor, that’s who represents me, and they recently merged with Willam Morris, which is another huge agency, and so now there’s an entire, you know, web department.

DG: Right.

HB: And so, there are specific agents, there are specific sales people… Now it’s being nominated for awards and stuff like that. It’s really a cutting edge form of entertainment, and it kind of feels like we’re witnessing a change-over very much like when it went from when everybody had a radio in their home to everybody had a television set, you know. Everybody has a television set, and now people are starting to watch content that is being created specifically for the web, and we’re really excited to be at the forefront of that.

NG: Well, I think that just in doing, like, the research for this I have certainly learned a lot of what’s available on the web. I mean, Hulu provides a great deal of web series. ‘Dorm Life’ is really hilarious, if you haven’t watched it. Check it out. Hilarie and I were watching Lisa Kudrow’s web series, ‘Web Therapy,’ the other day, which seemed really funny. Milo Ventimiglia is coming out with a web series, which has gotten so much hype and they haven’t even started shooting yet, I don’t think. So, you know, I’m right on board with all of us that it kind of feels good that we’re doing it now.

HB: Yeah! It used to be just porn, and now you can get anything! [everyone laughs] 

DG: And Hilarie how do you know about that? [laughs]

HB: I mean, I have 3 brothers. It’s… you know. [laughs]

NG: And both of us. [everyone laughs]

HB: [laughing] God. Yeah, it’s a good online community to be a part of, you know. It had seedy beginnings, you know, but it blossomed into something beautiful! [laughs]

KT: It certainly has.

NG: That’s how history progresses, naturally, so… [everyone laughs]

DG: Well, kind of staying in that stream… recently the world’s eyes were on San Diego and Comic Con, so you guys being a brand new production company, and know that this used to be a genre-based explosion, now it, you know, has so many fingers and so many things. What’s your thoughts on that? Would you guys like to be involved in that at some point?

KT: Yeah, actually, I just had a great meeting last night with Dave Dorman, who Denise introduced us to, and he opened my eyes to at least that genre, that world. I had never… growing up, I really didn’t pay attention to comics, and yeah now, Nick, I think we’re about to get involved in something like this, aren’t we?

NG: Yeah, for people that are on the website, they’ve been able to see… We made a little announcement a couple days ago. Along… we have big things going on all at once, Denise. We finished the webisode, and we just, you know, also announced on the blog, Sogopro.com, that we are…

DG: Nice plug.

NG:… going to be putting together a graphic novel!

DG: Interesting. That’s a great thing. I’ve been involved in that a little bit. So that’s a lot of fun to see that start from the ground floor. And Kelly, I have to talk a little about this, because I think it’s really cool. You jumped on board with that, and since we’re in that’s vein, talking a little about that, we’re going to be introducing ourselves, yourselves, or whomever, to kind of that genre, that world. I’m the closet geek and if you go down to dragon-con, that’s a big convention in Atlanta, you’re going to make your presence known. You’re going to have some swag to hang out with people, give to people…

HB: I love dragons! [everyone laughs]

DG: [referencing the last vlog] It’s not the same thing!

HB: I’m kidding! I mean, I do! But I just… I love dragons! I just want to put it out there. [laughs]

DG: You know Kelly’s going to get us some swag together, and going to be in charge of spreading the word, and…

KT: I look forward to that.

HB: Yeah, I can’t wait to see our immersion into that. I’ve been collecting graphic novels for a while. I got into them initially because Peyton Sawyer was really into them season one of ‘One Tree Hill.’ And they just had as set dressing all these graphic novels in my characters bedroom, and so I would pick them up and steal them from set and take them home, and I’m like ‘These things are awesome!’ Yeah, I got really into it, and so it’s cool when we can have a project that we have created the concept for it. We’ve outlined, you know, an ongoing story arc for it, that will go on for a number of books, and then Nick has gifted us with… fleshing out the first story as the first book.

NG: And now I get to figure out how to write a graphic novel!

HB: There’s no one trick ponies here, man! Everybody’s pulling triple duty! [everyone laughs]

NG: Hat trick!

HB: Hat trick! Yeah, yeah, plus Nick and I went to the comic book store and just had the best damn time! It was cool.

NG: We picked up a lot… I mean, we were, you know, we had to go and, you know… I was kind of familiar, but not as familiar as I need to be if I’m going to be writing one.

HB: Well you found that article the day right before we went, right? What was that article you tore out of the magazine that had a list of the best…

NG: Oh, yeah! I had an article that I… You know, we had kind of been talking about it for a while now, and I had an article that I put away. It was, like, the 20 best graphic novels you need to read after ‘Watchmen’ and so… went up to the store, picked up a few of those and a few others. They kind of caught our fancy either in the writing style or in how the story is told or in just the art, because those are basically… you know, all three of those things are going to be really important and we want to know the best way to communicate with the people we’re going to be working with.

DG: Just to put your list together, I can fund you a few first editions when I go to Dragon-Con. [laughs]

HB: You’re going to be our dealer, Denise. [everyone laughs] Putting in phone calls: ‘I got a bid on this one! Southern Gothic wants this one!’

DG: Well, we’re going to start a new segment this week, and I think we talked a little about it last week, and I want… Our new segment is taking fan questions, and I have 3 fan questions of people who have sent emails to us about what they want to know about Southern Gothic Productions and all of you guys, and I’m just going to go down the list. I will read the name of the person who sent it and the question, and let you guys go at it, if that’s alright?

HB: Killer.

DG: Alright. Our first question comes form Alexia, and she’s from France…

HB: ‘We come from France.’ [laughs]

DG: [laughing] I knew that was coming.

HB: That’s a ‘Coneheads’ reference. Did anybody get that? [Kelly laughs]

DG: Yes. [laughs] She says, ‘In regards to your web series, do you have communications and promotion strategy for it?’

HB: Yeah, we’re about to take over the world! Nick’s created a militia that’s gonna go put up posters all over town. [laughs] No, we… one of the things that we’re doing in… we’re over-nighting our web series to all of my representation. You know, I have a manager, and an agent, and a publicist, and all these people…

NG: And a unicorn!

HB: And a unicorn! [laughs] All these people that have been helping me out, and so they help out Southern Gothic as well, they are taking our web series to product placements, representatives, and stuff like that, and so they’re gonna help guide us a little bit, but we’re also, you know, looking to our fans to help us out. They’ve been wonderful thus far, you know, supporting everything that we’ve done, and also, I think, once we put it out there the product’s just going to speak for itself. It’s… you know, it’s really good! It’s funny!

NG: Yeah, and this is the best thing, you know, about having our own website is that we can distribute whatever we want on it. And, you know, we’ve done a lot of talking, the 3 of us, trying to decide, you know, well what is it that we want to do. What do we want to do? And what we came up with at the end is that, we just want to put it on our website. And the other things that we’re doing beyond that, you know, they’re all kind of relative to the fact that it already exists on Sogopro.

DG: Our next question, question number 2, comes from Adrienne Henry, ‘What advice would you give to someone who aspires to do the things you guys are doing, to create their own production company one day? Film school, getting involved with local theatre, or how do you get to where you are today?’

HB: Kelly, you’ve been doing this the longest, [Kelly laughs] why don’t you give it the what for?

KT: Oh, someone’s lung and tooth, gotcha! [Hilarie laughs] I have to tell you, my mentor actually made me stay in school, because I wanted to quit college, jump into the film industry, and, you know, become a star. But, you know, it didn’t happen like that. I did stay in school. I don’t know that film school is the answer. Just, you know, you spend a lot of money going to that. I think, you get your college education and then decide what you really want to do, because the film industry is not… what is it, Hilarie? What did they say to us? It’s…

HB: It’s experience.

KT: Yeah, it’s experience. So, that would be my advice, to really, really think about it before you jump in.

DG: Okay.

KT: You might want to do something else. Do an internship. Go work, you know, on a low budget film, and see what it takes.

HB: Yeah, before you spend all the money make sure you want to be on a set for 14 hours a day.

KT: Yeah. Because you’ve got to passionate about it, there’s no doubt about it.

DG: Alright. Our last question comes from Michelle, and she says, ‘What keeps you guys motivated or driven when obstacles lie time or money seem to get in the way of moving forward with your dreams?’

NG: Well, I think one of the things that’s been really good for us, and not everybody does this, but it just kind of worked out that we did, but it’s that we created these smaller projects like our webisode and our short film and I think those, you know, have kind of kept us moving along, given us, you know, fodder to be talking about to our fans. The 3 of us, every time we get together we know how much we want all of this to happen, so we keep on pushing each other.

KT: Absolutely.

HB: Kelly’s been pushing me for years. [Kelly laughs] I love it! That’s why we’re so close.

KT: We all get along, and I mean, I feed off of Hilarie and Nick’s creative energy all the time. It keeps me going!

HB: Well, and Kelly’s the task master, too. I mean, you can’t have any creative energy without somebody to make sure you’re not bouncing off the walls, and I’m a bit of a spaz so it takes, you know, my disciplinarian, Kelly, and Nick, our little creative genius, to make all the pieces come together.

DG: If you want your question answered on the Southern Gothic Productions Podcast, all you have to do is email it to sogopropodcast@gmail.com. That’s sogopropodcast@gmail.com, and maybe you will get your question answered by Hilarie Burton, Kelly Tenney, and Nicholas Gray.

[music plays]

HB: Thank you guys so much for listening to the Southern Gothic Productions Podcast. Make sure you come and check us out every Wednesday.

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