Making TV In Quarantine

Biagio: Hey, everybody. She’s joke. He’s Biagio. We’re married. We make unscripted film and television and want to help you do the same.

Joke: Hopefully by teaming up with us someday.

Biagio: Someday when the world opens up again. Wow. The world has really changed. Look, not just in our business, at every business, everywhere. It’s a worldwide pandemic. You know, it’s a it’s a crazy time for all of us. And I’m sure for all of you, no matter what it is you’re doing.

Joke: Yeah, it’s it’s been interesting. I would say, though, just like you, obviously we have bills to pay and a family to feed, and luckily we were far enough along in the post-process on our second season of Deadly Recall that we did not have to shut down that project.

Biagio: Yeah. Fortunately. So, you know, what we had to do is learn how to work in quarantine. So today we thought we’d share, you know, how we’re delivering a TV show in the Covid world. You know what steps we took? And what’s the process been like? You know, we’re going to talk about the day to day of our business and how it’s changing because it is changing. And in some cases, it might be changing for the better, honestly. And we’re also going to tell you the three things coming out of this awful situation that we’re looking at as positives, what you have to do. Because otherwise you just go crazy.

Joke: I mean, we were crazy anyway, but yes, now we’re just going up, up the walls. But anyway, so so you know where we’re at. We’re in the middle of delivering a season two of deadly recall from quarantine. It is already airing on Investigation Discovery on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m.. Or, you know, you can watch the episodes on the ID go app. We were smack dab in the thick of editing when this Covid thing started coming on. I would say the first 2 or 3 weeks of March, you know, the news was just so dramatic. Each day. Everything was changing rapidly. And, you know, both us and the network agreed to kind of speed up the creative deadline process so that we would have as many episodes creatively locked as possible. It means that the network is done giving creative notes, and the episode is creatively as it will be aired, except that we would still need to do all the technical aspects to get it ready, including sound mix, color grading, graphics pass, you know, all of those technical things. And so, you know, once you once you have it creatively locked, you go down to a much more skeletal crew of a supervisor and lead editor. At least this isn’t editor and, you know, a couple of other editors if necessary. And so it seemed more doable to online as that part of the process is called in quarantine than it was just to go through to a regular, like getting rough cut and fine cut and lock cut notes from network. So so the good thing is they agreed to that. And also because we were up against the livery dates, we needed some more time in the post process because we knew it was going to take longer than it usually does with everyone spread out. So yeah, things are very tight, so they were already tight. And now you throw this wrench into works and we’re like, oh, this is going to be a challenge.

Biagio: Yeah. For real. You know look add to that all the schools closing. And like many of you I you know we we are now helping the kids do school work from home. Which let me tell you, when you’re in the middle of making a TV show that you have to deliver from your spare bedroom gets a little nuts.

Joke: Also, our kids are in a foreign language school.

Biagio: So it’s a French school. I speak, I can read, write and translate Bonjour and I can’t even say it. Right. So it’s, you know, it’s pretty interesting when you have to do a story problem in French. And I’m like, honey, you’re going to have to wait for mommy to get off the phone because I have no idea.

Joke: But shout out to Duolingo. You’re catching up.

Biagio: Hey, I’m catching up. I am, I’m on 138 dual they Duolingo streak. Look out French world, here I come.

Joke: Yes, yes. Well, you know, obviously the kids in their schooling require lots of attention. Also like our kids are five and seven. So this whole independent studying is is a pipe dream. You know, we we do have to kind of help them along and make sure that they are ready for their zoom in class and all of that fun stuff. But yeah, on top of that, we’re sticking to a grueling TV delivery schedule. So it really is divide and conquer. And, you know, and I have to do something. Beatriz handling family duties and vice versa.

Biagio: Yeah. And, you know, it’s interesting because according to the city of Los Angeles, technically we could have kept employees on and coming to the office because we’re considered an essential business, and social distancing in our office is possible. It wasn’t something we were comfortable doing, especially when the state of California laid down pretty strict, safer at home policy. You know, it’s like when the state shuts down, you know, the thing to do is figure out how to finish the show remotely. You don’t want to make people come to work anymore, but we really didn’t know how we were going to do that.

Joke: It’s a lot. You know, you have a bunch of editors who are sharing same media files on a local server, and now all of a sudden we’re having to move them to their homes. And then again, you have to do all the technical aspects of mix and color and then upload the show somehow because, you know, thankfully everything is now digital, which I’m fine and dandy until all of a sudden there’s a worldwide pandemic and you have people working from home and, you know, super slow upload speeds to get them, you know, to get our final product from here to the web so the East Coast could download it. So yeah, it was a, it was a gantlet. And, you know, then when you finally get it up there, then quality control has to go through it and make sure it’s ready for air. And, you know, we also had a brand new post team that had not delivered to that network before. So that, you know, was a whole other learning curve.

Biagio: Yeah. Especially when they’re learning from home, you know. And by the way, for those of you who don’t know, quality control is the process the network puts your delivered masters through to make sure they’re they’re absolutely perfect. And you often get notes. Sometimes they’re extremely obscure technical ones with words I can’t pronounce. And then when that happens, you have to deliver the episode. And that’s something that would be disastrous right now. You know, when we’re trying to make airdates. Luckily, that really only happened to us on our first two episodes, which were the first ones we ever delivered remotely, both us from our spare bedroom and a smattering of new people working from their homes. So no surprise, it didn’t go totally smooth. First time out of the gate. We had actually submitted both episodes before we learned the first one didn’t pass. So then we knew. We knew the second one wasn’t going to pass. Luckily, all of other apps so far have passed quality control or QC as it’s often called the first time through. So yay! And thank you discovery ID.

Joke: Yeah, it’s a lot of extra steps you have to take to deliver show that you know, you don’t normally deal with. Are you trying to get people footage while maintaining social distancing? So, you know, as the company owners were pretty much the only one. So kind of going into the office and, you know, Biagio is driving all over town getting drives to editors and and dropping things off at the, at the stoop.

Biagio: Of home from a distance. I’m like, it’s on your it’s ten feet away from your front steps that I’m in the car in the street. I’m wearing a mask and gloves. I think you can grab it.

Joke: Yeah. Or you have people just like, open the trunk, you open the trunk and you’re like, just drop it in.

Biagio: The trunk. Yeah, just go off. Just stick it in the trunk and I’ll drive away again.

Joke: Like, one of the biggest things obviously we learned was the internet and how it’s nowhere near as fast, obviously at people’s homes and it is at our office. But because, you know, we already knew it was going to be slower, but now also everyone else’s home and is streaming, you know, the latest, you know, Netflix and Hulu shows. So it’s plus all the kids in the neighborhood are now zooming with their teachers. So the internet is like universally running really slow. And then you have to make sure that people are working on the right versions of the cuts. I mean, that happened a few times where we’re like, wait, wait, wait, wait. This isn’t the latest version. So, you know, it’s a lot of communication. I think that that is the key is to label correctly, communicate directly. And, you know, it’s harder when people are working in their own bubble to, you know, to keep that up. But, you know, and then we also had to figure out final watch downs. You know, normally that’s 3 or 4 people in the room together looking at the mix or looking at color or just, you know, the final graphics or they’re spelling errors in the subtitles, you know, all that stuff. So you can’t do that together anymore. So, yeah, Biagio had to go into the office a few times, you know, to look at an actual color monitor, you know, can’t just watch it on our TV at home and know if it’s going to pass color. So, you know, things like that. You do what you can, and, you know, you make sure the episodes are actually done.

Biagio: Yeah. You know, so luckily we’re currently delivering our sixth and final episode this week. That episode airs three weeks from now. So we’ve gotten past that hurdle of, oh my gosh, we have to deliver when we air in a week. And I got to say, and this is I want to I want to draw attention to this. You know, it’s times like these when I go back to what we said a long time ago on our original blog at Joe and Biagio. And, you know, we wrote about something we thought was so important. We call it hands on producing. Real clever name, I know. Essentially it just comes down to this. We believe if you want to work in this business, you should be able to, in a pinch, do any job on set. Not necessarily perfectly right, but you should. But you should be able to step in and pick up a boom pole. You should be able to pick up a camera and you should be able to get you should be able to fill the gap acceptably and some of that gaps you should fill expertly, honestly. Because here’s what here’s the deal. It’s the only way you know that you can make sure you can always deliver. And if it’s your show, you have to deliver, period. It’s on you. The network will hold you responsible if you don’t make your deadlines. And you know, for a small company like ours, that’s that’s crazy. So delivering the show has meant that in many cases, we personally had to step in and fill multiple roles. And I’m grateful. I’m so grateful that we could. The point is for each of you, if you truly learn production, especially in the in guerrilla filmmaking, because let’s be honest, that’s how you’re going to fill those gaps and you can do everything yourself. You’re going to have the confidence to know you can finish things in an emergency, like when you suddenly find yourself in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.

Joke: Yeah, it’s really been kind of a wild experience. I mean, I would say early March, once it looked like this was this might happen, you know, thankfully, our post team was able to start copying all the footage from the show to multiple drives so that, you know, if and when things shut down, we’d be ready. And then when California issued a safer at home order, you know, we were able to send some of these editors home with those drives. Obviously, Biagio took one so he could edit from home and make graphics and finish a lot of that stuff up. And again, he’s like the only one going to the office right now, checking for color, listening to the mix well, and also making sure the office is still intact. Yeah. And somehow, somehow we’re now, what, week seven or going into week seven. It’s it’s worked out.

Biagio: Yeah. I mean look there’s no way around it. The Covid situation is bad. You know, it’s scary. You know. And the truth is real life is far more important than any TV show, any project.

Joke: And on the same at the same time, though, real life means we all need to figure out a way to keep our economy going and keep putting food on our tables and a roof over our head. So, you know, hopefully the powers that be are figuring out a safe way for us to get back to doing that. I’d be lying if I said that not knowing doesn’t keep me up some nights. I’ve always been a producer at heart, and I like to do, you know, I like to check things off. I like my to do list, and I like being able to plan. So in a way, I think we’ve been very lucky that season two of Deadly Recall has kept us busy solving all these, you know, remote delivery problems. But as that comes to a close and we look down the pike, it would be nice to know when we can go back and film our next show.

Biagio: Yeah. But, you know, look, it doesn’t do any good to get depressed and shut down, right? Even though sometimes that’s honestly exactly what you want to do. So, you know, we’re taking a step back and we’re really trying to stay positive. And so we’re like, all right. Can we come up with three things that have come out of this situation that we can see as a positive. And so and these are three things that we actually think, you know, our we’re, we’re happy about.

Joke: Let me just saw you being married to Biagio. He always can find something positive. So I would say, you know, number zero on this list is if you can marry Biagio, I highly recommend it. But. Okay. Number one on the list. I mean, we’re not just delivering deadly recall, but also developing a ton of projects that would normally be pitched in one way or another, like in person, which with LA traffic and easily mean two hours into car driving back and forth. And, you know, if they’re East Coast networks over the phone, which always seems less effective. And somehow over all the years, we’ve never pitched on Zoom or Google Hangouts or Microsoft Teams using video chat until now. And I mean, I’m all say, I was surprised. It’s actually been pretty great.

Biagio: Yeah. I mean, look, it’s not exactly the same as meeting in person, but it’s way better than a phone call. And executives have told us, you know, they can take a lot more meetings in a day when it’s all virtual. They can just skip from one to the next, you know, which means more producers get the pitch to them, which is great for all of us. And our day opens up when we don’t have to drive all over Los Angeles to pitch, which is great because that really that time in the car really does just drain you. So what we’re hearing from the networks, you know, it sounds like in most cases this way of pitching is going to be here to stay. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s pretty efficient, you know, and I wouldn’t mind pitching this way from now on.

Joke: Yeah. I mean, especially to our East Coast networks. And ID happens to be on the East Coast. I think it’s, it’s just so cool to like, you know what? We’re normally phone calls are now video conferences, and you can see people and you have more of a personal connection to them. So. So yeah, we’re pretty excited about that. And another thing is that while we were confident, at least we said we were confident.

Biagio: So confident we knew.

Joke: Fake it til you make it, people. So while we were confident our company could deliver a show remotely, now we have. And now the networks know that we can do it and we know we can do it. So it gives us a better shot at hopefully keeping busy during the crisis. So I’ll have to figure out how to shoot the darn thing. But we know we can post it. And you know, maybe next time we don’t have to go totally remote. But maybe there’s there’s a future here for a hybrid approach where part is at the office and part is editors working from home. And in certain scenarios that may may make sense, especially if it’s, you know, smaller projects like a two hour special or, you know, when you don’t have six editors working on the same act, obviously that that wouldn’t work. But, you know, if it’s 1 or 2 editors for a two hour special, you know, maybe, maybe this is the future. Of course, it would require editors to deck out their home systems. And, you know, maybe this is where the future internet infrastructure is going. But clearly, we need to get to a place where residential addresses can get better upload speeds.

Biagio: Yes. And so, so number two, another thing that, you know, or number three, I should say number three look at we’re already at number three. That’s great. The third thing you know, and this is on a personal note, what I’m really enjoying is having our kids around so much. I mean, look, they eventually need to go back to school. This this cannot go on forever.

Joke: Please.

Biagio: It’s no good for anybody, but but for now. Look, they’re five and seven. They actually still like the two of us. They haven’t turned into teenagers yet. It’s. It really is the perfect time to bond with them. And I honestly see that as a gift.

Joke: Yeah. Look, it’s definitely challenging at times. Yes. Mama needs her medicine at night sometimes. But you know, getting to spend so much time with them is a luxury we don’t usually get. And and we’re enjoying it. So. So yeah. There you have it. Three things. We’re looking at us. Positives, more effective pitch meetings, new methods of delivering shows and posting shows and more time with the kids. And that’s what we’re focusing on right now. So otherwise we’d just be going crazy.

Biagio: Yeah. Speaking of which, to to all of you who are dealing with the madness, which is all of you, look, we wish you the best. We know some of you have dealt with Covid. You may have even lost someone to it. It’s a serious situation. And we want you to know our hearts go out to you and we just we really wish you the best.

Joke: And we obviously also want to thank all the doctors and nurses and medical professionals who are on those front lines, risking their own lives to protect others. Your inner thoughts, and we’re grateful for you and also very grateful to the food delivery system. Good Lord. Farmers, truckers, distributors, grocery stores, restaurants. I’m just amazed at how you’ve kept us all running. I mean, seven weeks in and we haven’t hit any shortages yet, so man, things would be different if that wasn’t working. So thank you for feeding our families.

Biagio: Yeah, and I’m also pointing at you, Grubhub and Postmates. Holy cow. We’re so lucky that you guys are out there still, still doing your thing.

Joke: But trying not to screw the restaurants on their fees.

Biagio: Yeah. Oh, that’s a whole thing. If you’re trying to support small businesses in your area and you’re going to go pick the food up anyway, order it from them directly and they lose a ton of money in delivery fees. But sometimes. But but if you’re going to if you’re going to order for delivery, a lot of times that’s the only way to get it delivered. So look, that’s going to do it for today’s app. You know, as always, we want to just thank you for taking the time to listen. We’ve gotten to know many of you over the years, and mainly we just wanted to say hello to all of you and and honestly wish you well. So listen, until next time, please stay safe out there.

Joke: Talk soon.