September 22, 2025 • 33 mins
🎙️ Episode Intro
What happens when comedy collides with life’s most challenging topics? In this episode, host Damien Swaby sits down with Nicole Magerko — a Chicago-based comedy screenwriter, producer, and founder of Pine Grove Productions. Nicole’s work thrives at the intersection of humor and humanity, shining a light on aging, caregiving, and the often-overlooked everyday struggles that bind us together.
From the personal turning point that inspired her company, to her evolving voice as a creator in the film and TV world, Nicole shares the realities of building a career that is both creatively fulfilling and socially resonant.
📒 Show NotesIn this episode, you’ll hear about:
What happens when comedy collides with life’s most challenging topics? In this episode, host Damien Swaby sits down with Nicole Magerko — a Chicago-based comedy screenwriter, producer, and founder of Pine Grove Productions. Nicole’s work thrives at the intersection of humor and humanity, shining a light on aging, caregiving, and the often-overlooked everyday struggles that bind us together.
From the personal turning point that inspired her company, to her evolving voice as a creator in the film and TV world, Nicole shares the realities of building a career that is both creatively fulfilling and socially resonant.
📒 Show NotesIn this episode, you’ll hear about:
- 🎬 The beginnings of Pine Grove Productions
Nicole opens up about how a quarter-life crisis led her to start a company dedicated to telling heartfelt, comedic stories about the human condition. - 💡 Why humor matters in heavy conversations
How laughter can be a tool for connection when exploring subjects like aging, family caregiving, and identity. - 🛠️ The process behind the craft
Nicole shares her writing and producing approach — blending lived experience with creative storytelling to make work that feels both authentic and entertaining. - 🚀 Challenges and opportunities for emerging filmmakers
What it takes to stand out in the crowded film and TV landscape, and how she’s navigating an evolving industry as a fresh voice. - ❤️ Life lessons from comedy
Why Nicole believes comedy is more than entertainment — it’s a way to confront fear, embrace imperfection, and build empathy.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are listening to the IFH podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to
IFH podcastnetwork dot com. Hi Nicole, how are you today?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Thanks for coming on. Really appreciate it. An emerging young
talent like yourself, I'm lucky to have you on the podcast,
I can assure you.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Oh, I'm the lucky one, not at all.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Seeing your work border sponts on my face and learning
about Pine Grove Productions was very, very enlightening for me,
and so it's good to find new people with different
ideas and different perspectives on the world of film, TV,
cinema and all of that stuff. So before we get
into it all, please you tell us a bit about
yourself and how Pine Grove Production started.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Yeah. So, I'm Nicole mcgerko.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Obviously, I'm a comedy screenwriter and producer based in Chicago
here in the US, and my production company focuses on communic,
heartfelt stories about aging and caregiving. And it really got
started after I turned twenty five years old and felt
like my life was completely over, which I know sounds
ridiculous now that I'm a couple of years out from it,
(01:11):
but it really got me thinking about how we view
aging in the West, and how there's this hyper fixation
with preventing any signs of aging, or you know, with
the rise of baby botoks and ten year olds, with
these skincare routines and all of that. I just thought
it was so interesting that we're all kind of going
through that, and nobody really seemed to be making any
sort of movies or films that I could see about it.
(01:34):
So I really wanted to create a production company that
spotlighted everything and anything about aging. I firmly believe that
even when we're feeling really bad about something, that's the
most important time to start thinking about making something funny.
So for me, after I turned twenty five and was
having those big feelings, I was like, Okay, there's a
(01:54):
story here.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
So that really kind of.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Launched my entire career by just saying I'm feeling old
and let's make something funny about that.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I see. That's very interesting. So, in a sense, your
production company was born out of comedic chaos, and from
a technical standpoint, how do you distill that chaos into
a unifying creative vision for the company.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
So I think my biggest thing is I always think
about what's going on around me. So for the example,
for the short film that I'm working on right now,
it was really born out of a call that I
got from my dad when he said, your mother's in
the hospital and she shattered her pelvis, which is.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Not a funny Prentice.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
By any means, right, But anytime, like I said that,
I'm feeling those big emotions, I think there's a story here.
So I was thinking, as we're going through these calls,
I'm like, Okay, my brother and I are talking about
who's going to go help mom? Are we going to
give up everything, like give up our lives, our jobs
and everything and go take care of her? Or are
we going to stay kind of where we're at and
(02:57):
keep moving along with our lives. And I've learned that's
a very American question. I was talking to a guy
who's from Latin America and he was like, what are
you talking about? Just go help your mother? And I
was like, okay, that's.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
You know something culturally.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
But so as I was having that conversation with my family,
I was thinking about what would it actually look like
if I were to give up my life and everything
like that, and eventually I ended up deciding to stay
where I was at. My family decided they had it
taken care of and everything. But I started in envisioning
what would that look like if I was there. And
my mother is a very crazy character. She is a
(03:34):
handful and a half. My father is a very crazy character.
He's a very strong personality. I am a very strong personality.
So I just started seeing this vision of a family
that was trying to figure out caregiving and navigate all
of these tensions as they were going through this entire
journey of that transition from being the person that's being
(03:55):
taken care of to the person that's doing the caretaking
of the parents. So that's really kind of the heart
of how I came up with my current project, and
then kind of all of the projects that are in
my slate right now is what's going on in my
life and what do I find funny about that?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
How do your parents' big personalities influence you as a creative?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Oh my gosh, they inspire me so much, Like I'm
constantly having conversations with them that I'm just like, that
is the craziest thing I've ever heard, And I have
to write it down to put it into one of
my projects. You know.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I think there's a book that I that I read
that was also very formative and that has helped me
kind of contextualize who they are in my universe, in
my story, and it was called The Eight Characters of
Comedy by Scott Sadita, and it kind of breaks down
the eight archetypes that are always in every kind of comedy.
And so my mom is I think she's kind of
(04:49):
the like in her own universe kind of character where
she's like Phoebe from Friends, Like she's very earthy, touchy
feely kind of thing. And my dad is very like
the smart neurotic one where he's very anxious and very
like needs to have certain things happen a certain way.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
And so growing up around that.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Kind of character models and also that kind of tension
as they butt heads against each other, I think has
really informed the kinds of comedy that I like to write,
because I really gravitate towards like thirty Rock or Arrested Development,
like the kind of thing where everybody is doing their
own thing and they all have their strong personalities and
everything's chaos, and there's one person in the center of
(05:28):
it who's just desperately trying to hold everything together. So
I think that's definitely been pretty formative in my upbringing
and in my writing style.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
And what comedy type are you?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
But that's a good question. That's almost like asking my
therapist a question, you know. I feel like I'm somewhere
between the logical, smart one and like the neurotic kind
of anxious one. Like I feel like I have a
lot of different parts of me, but those are definitely
the ones that I think I find in myself much more.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And collaborating with others with these ideas and visions that
you have, how has that played out for you? Considering
your emerging and you have a comedy a comedy type
that you do have.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So I think what was really helpful for me in
the early stages of my career I still am early stages,
but early early on is my training at Second City
and in the Groundlings.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
So I come from an improv background.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
And being able to create stories and scenes with other
people as we're just goofing around and messing around has
been really informative about how I work.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
So I like to kind of work.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
I write probably first dropped completely by myself, and I
kind of just let myself put it all out on
the page, and then I'll send it to other people
and be like, what do you think? And I think
one thing that's been really helpful for me when I'm
getting notes back is finding out where do people lose interest.
So I sent one of my scripts to a friend
who she was like, I'm really sorry, Nicole, like I
lost interest halfway through. I was like, no, don't be sorry.
(06:53):
That's that's so important to know because if I'm losing
you halfway through, that means something is not working. So
I really like to collaborate with other people in isolation,
but also through improv and other things like that. So
if I'm doing reading with some other actors or whatever,
I'm like, can we just let go of what's in
the script and maybe just kind of like improvise through
(07:14):
this and see what comes out of it. Or if
like another joke happens, then I'm like, oh my god,
I'm going to take that and incorporate that in. So
I feel like a very nice mixture of improvising and
also being very scripted and.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Talking of your writing. Take Care Hinges on the tension
between care and comedy. What structural techniques do you enjoy
and employ to ensure the jokes never trivialize the tenderness
at the heart of a story.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Totally. Yeah. I think one of the big inspirations that
I've been looking at in order to strike that balance,
like you're saying, has actually been the movie Cheaper by
the Dozen, the like early two thousands version of that,
because that movie has a really strong heart at the
middle of it that doesn't get sucked away by the
chaos of these people. So I think the thing that
(08:01):
I've been approaching it with is that everybody loves each
other at the end of the day.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
That's the thing that I think is really the beating
heart of this.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
And there's one character that I wrote into there, which
is the child. There's a child named Kitty, and she's
about six or seven years old, and she's the one
at the end of the day who's helping people. Remember Grandma, Grandpa,
even though you're fighting each other, you're trying to steal
each other's walker or whatever. Remember, like, I want to
go to the park, So you guys have to figure
(08:28):
it out. So we go to the park, or Mom,
I know you're really stressed with your work from home job,
but remember like I love you or that all that
kind of stuff, like these really tender moments of having
bedtime stories or it's the from the mouth of the
babes kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Really, So anytime.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
That there's this moment of heightened tension, there's always going
to be a reminder at the end of the day,
everybody loves each other and we're all family.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
And Dad's on the Dark Web is a brilliant collision
of analog nostalgia and digital paranoia. How do you technically
stage that contrast in script form, pacing, dialogue, or sound cues?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Totally So for Dad's on the Dark Web, I was
really inspired by Get Smart, the movie from Steve Carell
early on, and I think for that one, the tension
is just already there, you know. So the story, I
guess to give context, is a government agent who is
the daughter of a man who is very anti tech himself.
(09:29):
He's like very technophobic, and through a series of events,
it turns out that he gets onto the dark Web
and discovers this plot to essentially use the technological version
of the atomic bomb through the dark web, And so
really just leaning into the characters, the character types, and
having you know, again the kind of neurotic guy who's
(09:50):
the dad versus the logical smart one of the daughter.
That tension really just kind of writes itself right Like
something that was really helpful.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
I trained at the groundling out in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Something that was really helpful during my time for that
is that everybody has a point of view that they're
looking through, and so once I can kind of narrow
down what a character's point of view is, I can
figure out how they're going to react in any situation
as well as how they can annoy or cause problems
for the other person. So if the dad's point of
view is all technology is bad, I know that I
need to put in as much technology as possible whenever
(10:23):
he's in a scene to cause comedy brilliant.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I love that. I really love that. I mean, we're
just ten minutes in, and I love your attitude and
passion for writing and storytelling. Where do you think that
comes from? And what training or books have you read
to get you to this position.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I think my passion for this honestly comes from just
having been through more difficult things in life that I've
always had to find the positive in I've always had
to find optimism in dark times. So like, I personally
think that the best way for us to get through
kind of all of the bad things that come our
(11:02):
way is going to be to transform it into something
greater than ourselves. Right, So, like, for example, I had
I got trolled online for the first time.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
A couple of years ago.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
So yeah, no, it was actually such a gift because
it was what led me to create my first short film.
So what had happened was I was making these sketches
on uh YouTube.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
And I was just learning how to do it.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
This was while I was training at Second City in
the Groundlings, and I had posted a short on YouTube,
thinking nothing of it. I had just filmed it with
one of my classmates, and I was like, I'll go
to bed and nothing will happen. I wake up and
it has like six or seven hundred views, and I'm like, WHOA,
what's happening. You know, It's still small in the grand
scheme of things, But I had expted maybe three and
(11:49):
I look in the comments and I realized that people
are saying, you know, kind of mean things, and I'm like,
I don't know, what this is about, but like whatever,
And I eventually figured out that somebody had seen it
and posted it on some stub reddit where it blew
up and people were mocking me whatever and A'll be
honest like that definitely like took me down for probably
about like a month or so, and I felt really
(12:10):
really questioning everything, really sad, really confused. But like I
said earlier, I think whenever I'm feeling a strong emotion,
I know there's a strong uh, there's a story there.
So I sat back and I thought, Okay, I'm feeling
old because this was around my quarter life crisis, I'm
feeling depressed, I'm feeling disconnected, and I'm feeling fearful basically,
(12:36):
and I started thinking about, like what kind of story,
like who comes from that kind of story? And it
started to come to me of these two seniors who
fall in love over a dating app and they talk
and they get to know each other online, but they
never meet in person, and then one of them is
(12:57):
having memory loss, so they forget their password and have
to find a way back to each other in the
real world. And all of this came because I was
just feeling so disconnected from the world around me, and
I felt like I was too old to do anything
and that I was kind of just like washed up
in whatever, and all of my interactions at this point
had really kind of been online. And the saving grace
for me was that I had had my husband who
(13:18):
was like pulling me out of like the darkest parts
of things and was like, I love you and I'm
here for you. And so without being trolled online and
without having that negative moment, I never would have had
that short film, which I then turned into the next
thing and into the next thing and into the next thing.
So I think that's where a lot of my passion
comes from for writing, is that it's just been the
(13:40):
way that I've been able to contain chaos in so
many different ways in my life.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
What happened to the people or the person that trolled you,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
They were completely online. I didn't know who they were.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I think I ended up just deleting the comment off
of the video, and then I just made the video
private because I was like, it was this really interesting
thing where I was like, do I keep it up
and say like all press is good press, or like
anybody you know watching it, even if they're hate watching
it is a good watch, or do I kind of
protect my mental health and say, like, I'm not going
to allow people to come in here and like hate
(14:15):
watch it and tell me how much they dislike it
or whatever. So that was a really interesting crossroads that
I was at, and eventually I decided to private the
video just until things blew over. But I don't know
what happened to them, but I wish them all the
best because they probably were dealing with some of their
own issues internally, and they gave me a gift at
the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
So can you tell us what some of those comments were.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
I can.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
A lot of them were like you'll never be famous,
how embarrassing? This is so cringe Like it was like
stuff that I was like, even in the back of
my head as I was reading them, I was like,
this is projection, you know, Like I had a degree
in psychology.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I was like, you're dealing with your own stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
But the thing that I can say now that I
have a couple of years from it is that on
that subreddit, I also saw.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Comments where people were like, why is this posted here?
Speaker 1 (15:05):
This is funny, this is not cringe, Like people thought
that I had posted it there myself to give myself
self promotion, and they were like, why would you post this?
And of course, like in the moment, I was focused
mostly on the negative. But now that I'm looking back
and I'm like, hey, like some people actually liked it,
you know, so.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Good, and you're those type of people taking the time
to be that negative what is going on in their
life and in their mind? I'd be kind calling them
weirdose that's the way I think. So, But do you
see Pine Grove's comedic voice as more aligned with you know,
some of the comedy I would know from an English
(15:43):
perspective or with a broader American tradition of brashness and excess.
And I mean that in a polite way, if if
you get.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
What I mean. Yeah, yeah, I would definitely say it
much more aligns with kind of the American type of comedy.
It's grounded a lot in I would say, like mel
Brooks style comedy where there's a lot of kind of
pratfalls and physical comedy and humor, because that's something that
I find very funny, is like just absolute absurdity and
(16:14):
then being able to kind of bring it back down.
But I would say mel Brooks is a big inspiration
as well as Judd Apatow, because I think he does
a really incredible job of making losers the hero of
their own stories. And that's something that I really really like.
Is you know, I was just watching step Brothers the
other day and to see two man children who end
(16:38):
up overcoming the absolute like loserly whatever they are, to
get their family back together and save the day. I
was like, that is one hundred percent what I want
to be doing all of that.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
What type of female influences do you have?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
So I grew up in the era of Tina Fey,
so she is definitely one of my guys ighting stars, her,
Amy Poehler, Kristen Wigg, all of the people that were
on SNL I would say from the mid to the
mid two thousands to the early twenty tens are absolutely
some of my influences. I also really admire Isa Ray,
(17:15):
who made Insecure on HBO. I think she's just so
incredible and scrappy and really build something from the ground.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Up for herself that I find she's just like.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
The blueprint for me, Like I just want to emulate
every step of the way what she has done.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Amazed by that. I remember watching Awkward Black Girl on
YouTube and literally been on the floor crying of laughter.
And like you say, it was scrappy. I think I
can't remember what the term was. There was a term
called for making comedy like that. I really give her
a lot of credit. She was, she is brilliant, but
that Awkward Black Girl was so scrappy and you know,
(17:56):
just like someone who had grabbed a dslar.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
And to what she's actually built out of that has
been incredible.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, she's you know, gone on to have a great
career and a real I would say, in the kind
of legend with the way her career has moved, which
is great in yourself. When you are directing actors, do
you insist upon a position of the written line.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I think I do a bit of both. I prefer
to have people do it as written first, just to
make sure that we have everything, but I do love
to leave room for having fun and say like, okay, yeah,
and now we'll do a fun one, you know, because
I don't know if you've seen that that scene in
Parks and Recreation where they did a fun one and
Chris Chris Pratt came up with the line Leslie it
(18:41):
says that.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
You have internet connectivity issues?
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Have you Do you know which one I'm talking about?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, I dig my account.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah, so apparently that one was entirely improvised. So like,
there's obviously always going to be especially if you're working
with comedic geniuses like that, they can probably come up
with stuff that is way funnier than anything I could
have written.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
So I do like to leave room, but I.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Do want to always have like a plan going into
things before we start, because I don't ever want to
leave things and then realize, oh, shoot, we have to
go do more.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
You know what I mean that there have been any
stand up moments for you when you've seen improvisation on
screen and thought, wow, I really really am glad that's happened.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
No, I don't know, because I don't always know when
things are improvised in other people's projects. But I think
one of the biggest ones that you know, I always
come back to is that Chris Pratt moment whereas she
because you know, everybody on the set is just laughing,
and if you go when you watch the bloopers from
Parks and Recreation, you can just see, you know, he
(19:42):
throws a briefcase across the room and like accidentally breaks
the set and then like looks into the camera just
like I just I love again having come from Second City.
I love leaving room for people to just be crazy
and psychotic Like.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
That understandable And on your own projects, can you tell
us about the development, pre production, production and post production
to delivery set up? What's involved in those situations for
you in each step and how do you go about
sorting everything out?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, so I kind of don't really have a great
pipeline right now, I'll be honest, But right now, for
the short film that I'm on, I've finished the writing
of the script and I'm looking to crew up for
that right now. And I've been doing a lot of
networking events, going and seeing other people's work and seeing
where things are fitting. And I've met some really awesome
(20:34):
people through that that I'm really excited to work with.
And we're hopefully going to be shooting sometime in November
and then we'll be releasing early next year. And yeah,
it's going to be a proof of concepts slash trailer
type of film, So the goal with that is to
be able to turn it into a feature length film.
With support from a larger production company after that.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And am I right by saying your networking in Chicago
absolutely brilliant? And have you worked in cities such as
maybe New York or Los Angeles?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
I have. Yeah, I actually know a lot of people
who have left Chicago for LA. So I'm very lucky
to know people out there already who are very well
connected and have helped me meet just some of the
coolest people ever. So yeah, it's been really I've been
very blessed with the people that I know.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And how would you compare network in Chicago to New
York or LA.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I think networking in LA it's a bit more.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
I think people are a bit more guarded.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Because there are so many people who want to be
working on things right, and a lot of people are
very talented and don't always have a lot of time,
and so I think having a warm introduction in LA
goes a lot a lot further versus, I feel like
here in Chicago, people are much more open and willing
to collaborate and like just kind of goof around, and
(21:56):
so it's a lot easier, I think, to approach people
in Chicago, though we have a very supportive, really connected
community that has been just everybody that I've talked to
and worked with, even if I haven't ended up working
with them in the future, has been really just some
of the nicest people that I've ever met, so very
I'm such a Chicago girl.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And the other film workshops in Chicago or certain classes
or anything like that you can tell us about that
you've been involved in or ones that you would recommend
to the listeners.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, so I definitely recommend the Cafe Focus over at
Facets over here in Chicago that's in Lincoln Park. We
have really great feedback sessions there and I'm completely blanking
on the one I can see the location. Oh, it's
a synescape here in Chicago that does really great showcases
(22:49):
and networking events and just has really amazing people who
are working both on more professional sets, so like in
Chicago Fire Chicago PD for more independent filmmakers who I've again,
there was one guy that I met a couple of
weeks ago, and I was blown away by the visuals
that he had and it unfortunately wasn't a fit for
(23:10):
the project that I was working on, but I told
him I was like, I would watch anything that you
made for just hours, so beeeriful.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Okay, I do love Chicago med I've I haven't seen
the last few seasons it's been done on quite a while,
I think, but the first few seasons I thought were
very impressive, especially visually for a television shows. But what
does onboard in a new creative look like for Pine
Growth and do you run a writer's room at all?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I don't currently run a writer's room.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I pretty much write everything by myself, And like I said,
I have collaborators that I'll go to and say I'd
love to get a read on this and hear your feedback.
But typically writing is pretty individual on my end. And
then adding on new creatives, I really like to just
have informal conversations at the start, so just see if
there's a creative fit, and then from there.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Talk about scheduling, talk about what everybody's up to.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah, it just really I like to be very flexible
in my approach when I'm working with people, because I
know that I don't know everything, and I like to
view other people as kind of the experts in their fields.
So a lot of it is talking about kind of
what their vision is for things and what my vision
is for things. And seeing where we fit together.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
I like that, I really do, because I'm pretty much
the same as you know. I don't know everything, and
I want to work with people who are experts in
their field. The best they bring to the table, the
better I can look, and the better the project will be.
So that's always a boldness, I think. And the medium
of film and television and write in for screen is
(24:44):
one that many enjoy, many love I do, you do
and the listeners do. But if you were not to
be involved with such mediums, what creative avenue do you
think you would go through?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Hmm? If we're talking specifically about film, I would definitely
be an act I actually started out as an actor,
and like I said, I trained at Second City in
the Brownlings, and I still love performing live theater. And
there is just something so special about when you have
a really good scene partner with working with you and
(25:17):
you just lock in and just it's this indescribable feeling
that I don't know that I've necessarily been able to
replicate with writing or behind the camera stuff as of
right now, But yeah, there is just something so magical
about acting and being able to tell stories that way.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
And as a writer, and an actor, what do you
look for in a script that informed you to build
a character appropriately rather than something else.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, I would say first and foremost is a theme,
Like I definitely want all the scripts and all of
the projects that I work on to have something that
they want to say about the world. And once you
have an idea of kind of what your thesis is,
if you will, you can start building characters around that. Right,
So I view characters as more of an interrogation on
(26:08):
the theme. So if I'm, for example, writing about caregiving
in my short film, my thesis is that even at
the end of the day, when chaos is abound, what
really brings you together at the end of the day
is family and love and supporting each other. So then
each of the characters then needs to be questioning if
(26:29):
that's true or not. So the dad character is going
to be very hyper focused on his specific things, so
for this film, he's very focused on appearances and very
focused on wealth, and the mother is very focused on
being all natural and being hyper focused on family to
the point where it becomes toxic and all of that.
So as I'm thinking about what kind of things I
(26:51):
want to say about the world and the theme. That's
how I'm building characters out from that direction.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Has there been a play you've been in that you
can tell us about that script really stood out?
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Hmm, Yeah, yeah. I think there was a student film
that I was working on as an actress a couple
of years ago, and he had written this project that
was very COVID inspired, and it was about It was
a post apocalyptic project where the main character became like
(27:25):
a hunter of other people and he was kind of
playing with, you know, some of the larger themes that
were happening in the world at the time as well
of the other ring of other people. And my character
ended up recognizing one of the people that she was
hunting as somebody she grew up with, and then had
to make that decision of am I going to honor
(27:47):
this relationship that we have or am I going to
be selfish and basically hunt you right, And in the
end she ended up making the wrong choice and hunting
her friend. But I just remember being so struck by
how powerful that question was and how impressed I was
with how he was handling it, especially for a student
(28:07):
film like he was. He had such a clear vision
on how he was working on it, and I He
was also so open to talking to me about my
interpretation of things, like he was like, well, I see
that you're emphasizing this word, or you're making this kind
of reaction here, can you tell me about why you're
motivated to do that? And we ended up making some
(28:28):
changes within the script actually based on some of the
ideas that I came to him about the character with.
So I really loved that process.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
That sounds like a dream director in that sense.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
He was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Have you worked to him since I've not, No.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
He's graduated and gone back to I think he was
from Taiwan a bit far.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, fair enough. And one thing that I see on
screen that I think sometimes must be difficult for directors
and for the actor or actress on stage or screen
is comedy timing. So have you ever been in a
situation where you're active with someone and their comedic timing
isn't quite where it needs to be. How do you
deal with that as an actress or have you had
(29:10):
to ever deal with that as a director?
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah? You know, when I was doing improv way back
in college, I remember there was someone who had just
joined our improv team who was definitely a little off
timing with his comedy, and I remember the biggest thing
that I could think was I need to figure out
how to make him look good. So I needed to
figure out not how to keep the timing that I
(29:33):
wanted there to be, or how I wanted the scene
to go myself. I was just like watching what he
was doing and seeing the ideas he was coming up with,
and I was like, how can I alter the scene
or how can I alter the pacing of what we're
doing so that his jokes are landing? And it totally worked,
and he ended up making the team because of that.
(29:53):
I think this was in his audition. I was already
on the team and he was trying out to be
with us, and I just remember thinking, he's got ideas.
He's just not white at the right cadence, and if
I can change my cadence to match his, then I
think he's got it.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
And he made it. He made the team based on that.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Did he understand you were doing that?
Speaker 1 (30:15):
You know? I don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
I didn't ask him.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I think the people that I was working with already
on the team did understand that, because they came up
to me afterwards and they were like, we saw what
you were doing, but I don't know that he knew
at the time.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Now based on the summ of the team, knowing that
was the case, What type of feedback did they give you,
if any?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, I think they mostly were like, you gotta let
people fail sometimes. I'm very big on trying to uplift everybody,
you know, no matter skill level or whatever. If there's
some way that I can make somebody else look good,
I'm going to do everything that I can.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
But they were, you know.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
They were like, it's kind of hard to judge if
he's actually funny or not if you were constantly just
saving him from these situations. You know, they were like,
we needed to also see how he would have done
if he had failed on his own. But you know, unfortunately,
I just am committed to the scene.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
And who are part of this team that gave it
a feedback? Was a federal producer or an executive producer?
Who were the people?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
No, so those were just other college students. This was
my college team. Uh sorry, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, And any of those people, what are they doing now?
Are you in contact with them? Ma told?
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Or yeah? They're all in different industries. One of my
friends who was on that team. She works at the EPA,
but her sister is actually a production designer on an
Amazon show right now. I think so that was really
cool to be able to see. How you know, even
though it's somebody, isn't necessarily always a one to one
fit for what you're looking for. It's the seven degrees
(31:50):
of separation, So anybody and everybody could possibly help you.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
For sure, you intend to be based in Chicago for
your career, family and friends, imagine am in Chicago with you,
or you happy to maybe branch out a bit more
internationally or even domestically to New York and LA as
we mentioned.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Earlier, Yeah, I'd totally be down to relocate if an
opportunity arose. I visited New York a couple months ago
and absolutely loved it, So you know, I'm open to
whatever may come my way. The universe will send me
what's meant for me and success overall.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
What will that look like for you?
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Short term?
Speaker 1 (32:30):
I think success will look like getting the short film
produced as a future film. And then long term, you know,
I'm looking to go straight to the top. I'm looking
for the oscar. I'm looking for widespread distribution. I just
basically want to be the next Tina Fey or Issa
Ray for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Oh okay, sitting HI standards for yourself. I like that. Yeah,
because they you know, they are great, as we've spoken
about before. Well, thanks so much for coming on. I
really appreciate you taking the time to speak to me.
I can't wait to see more from you, and I
hope I can get to see your short film what's made,
and look forward to keeping in touch.
You are listening to the IFH podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to
IFH podcastnetwork dot com. Hi Nicole, how are you today?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Thanks for coming on. Really appreciate it. An emerging young
talent like yourself, I'm lucky to have you on the podcast,
I can assure you.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Oh, I'm the lucky one, not at all.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Seeing your work border sponts on my face and learning
about Pine Grove Productions was very, very enlightening for me,
and so it's good to find new people with different
ideas and different perspectives on the world of film, TV,
cinema and all of that stuff. So before we get
into it all, please you tell us a bit about
yourself and how Pine Grove Production started.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Yeah. So, I'm Nicole mcgerko.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Obviously, I'm a comedy screenwriter and producer based in Chicago
here in the US, and my production company focuses on communic,
heartfelt stories about aging and caregiving. And it really got
started after I turned twenty five years old and felt
like my life was completely over, which I know sounds
ridiculous now that I'm a couple of years out from it,
(01:11):
but it really got me thinking about how we view
aging in the West, and how there's this hyper fixation
with preventing any signs of aging, or you know, with
the rise of baby botoks and ten year olds, with
these skincare routines and all of that. I just thought
it was so interesting that we're all kind of going
through that, and nobody really seemed to be making any
sort of movies or films that I could see about it.
(01:34):
So I really wanted to create a production company that
spotlighted everything and anything about aging. I firmly believe that
even when we're feeling really bad about something, that's the
most important time to start thinking about making something funny.
So for me, after I turned twenty five and was
having those big feelings, I was like, Okay, there's a
(01:54):
story here.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
So that really kind of.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Launched my entire career by just saying I'm feeling old
and let's make something funny about that.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I see. That's very interesting. So, in a sense, your
production company was born out of comedic chaos, and from
a technical standpoint, how do you distill that chaos into
a unifying creative vision for the company.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
So I think my biggest thing is I always think
about what's going on around me. So for the example,
for the short film that I'm working on right now,
it was really born out of a call that I
got from my dad when he said, your mother's in
the hospital and she shattered her pelvis, which is.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Not a funny Prentice.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
By any means, right, But anytime, like I said that,
I'm feeling those big emotions, I think there's a story here.
So I was thinking, as we're going through these calls,
I'm like, Okay, my brother and I are talking about
who's going to go help mom? Are we going to
give up everything, like give up our lives, our jobs
and everything and go take care of her? Or are
we going to stay kind of where we're at and
(02:57):
keep moving along with our lives. And I've learned that's
a very American question. I was talking to a guy
who's from Latin America and he was like, what are
you talking about? Just go help your mother? And I
was like, okay, that's.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
You know something culturally.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
But so as I was having that conversation with my family,
I was thinking about what would it actually look like
if I were to give up my life and everything
like that, and eventually I ended up deciding to stay
where I was at. My family decided they had it
taken care of and everything. But I started in envisioning
what would that look like if I was there. And
my mother is a very crazy character. She is a
(03:34):
handful and a half. My father is a very crazy character.
He's a very strong personality. I am a very strong personality.
So I just started seeing this vision of a family
that was trying to figure out caregiving and navigate all
of these tensions as they were going through this entire
journey of that transition from being the person that's being
(03:55):
taken care of to the person that's doing the caretaking
of the parents. So that's really kind of the heart
of how I came up with my current project, and
then kind of all of the projects that are in
my slate right now is what's going on in my
life and what do I find funny about that?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
How do your parents' big personalities influence you as a creative?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Oh my gosh, they inspire me so much, Like I'm
constantly having conversations with them that I'm just like, that
is the craziest thing I've ever heard, And I have
to write it down to put it into one of
my projects. You know.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I think there's a book that I that I read
that was also very formative and that has helped me
kind of contextualize who they are in my universe, in
my story, and it was called The Eight Characters of
Comedy by Scott Sadita, and it kind of breaks down
the eight archetypes that are always in every kind of comedy.
And so my mom is I think she's kind of
(04:49):
the like in her own universe kind of character where
she's like Phoebe from Friends, Like she's very earthy, touchy
feely kind of thing. And my dad is very like
the smart neurotic one where he's very anxious and very
like needs to have certain things happen a certain way.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
And so growing up around that.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Kind of character models and also that kind of tension
as they butt heads against each other, I think has
really informed the kinds of comedy that I like to write,
because I really gravitate towards like thirty Rock or Arrested Development,
like the kind of thing where everybody is doing their
own thing and they all have their strong personalities and
everything's chaos, and there's one person in the center of
(05:28):
it who's just desperately trying to hold everything together. So
I think that's definitely been pretty formative in my upbringing
and in my writing style.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
And what comedy type are you?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
But that's a good question. That's almost like asking my
therapist a question, you know. I feel like I'm somewhere
between the logical, smart one and like the neurotic kind
of anxious one. Like I feel like I have a
lot of different parts of me, but those are definitely
the ones that I think I find in myself much more.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And collaborating with others with these ideas and visions that
you have, how has that played out for you? Considering
your emerging and you have a comedy a comedy type
that you do have.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So I think what was really helpful for me in
the early stages of my career I still am early stages,
but early early on is my training at Second City
and in the Groundlings.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
So I come from an improv background.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
And being able to create stories and scenes with other
people as we're just goofing around and messing around has
been really informative about how I work.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
So I like to kind of work.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
I write probably first dropped completely by myself, and I
kind of just let myself put it all out on
the page, and then I'll send it to other people
and be like, what do you think? And I think
one thing that's been really helpful for me when I'm
getting notes back is finding out where do people lose interest.
So I sent one of my scripts to a friend
who she was like, I'm really sorry, Nicole, like I
lost interest halfway through. I was like, no, don't be sorry.
(06:53):
That's that's so important to know because if I'm losing
you halfway through, that means something is not working. So
I really like to collaborate with other people in isolation,
but also through improv and other things like that. So
if I'm doing reading with some other actors or whatever,
I'm like, can we just let go of what's in
the script and maybe just kind of like improvise through
(07:14):
this and see what comes out of it. Or if
like another joke happens, then I'm like, oh my god,
I'm going to take that and incorporate that in. So
I feel like a very nice mixture of improvising and
also being very scripted and.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Talking of your writing. Take Care Hinges on the tension
between care and comedy. What structural techniques do you enjoy
and employ to ensure the jokes never trivialize the tenderness
at the heart of a story.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Totally. Yeah. I think one of the big inspirations that
I've been looking at in order to strike that balance,
like you're saying, has actually been the movie Cheaper by
the Dozen, the like early two thousands version of that,
because that movie has a really strong heart at the
middle of it that doesn't get sucked away by the
chaos of these people. So I think the thing that
(08:01):
I've been approaching it with is that everybody loves each
other at the end of the day.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
That's the thing that I think is really the beating
heart of this.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
And there's one character that I wrote into there, which
is the child. There's a child named Kitty, and she's
about six or seven years old, and she's the one
at the end of the day who's helping people. Remember Grandma, Grandpa,
even though you're fighting each other, you're trying to steal
each other's walker or whatever. Remember, like, I want to
go to the park, So you guys have to figure
(08:28):
it out. So we go to the park, or Mom,
I know you're really stressed with your work from home job,
but remember like I love you or that all that
kind of stuff, like these really tender moments of having
bedtime stories or it's the from the mouth of the
babes kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Really, So anytime.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
That there's this moment of heightened tension, there's always going
to be a reminder at the end of the day,
everybody loves each other and we're all family.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
And Dad's on the Dark Web is a brilliant collision
of analog nostalgia and digital paranoia. How do you technically
stage that contrast in script form, pacing, dialogue, or sound cues?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Totally So for Dad's on the Dark Web, I was
really inspired by Get Smart, the movie from Steve Carell
early on, and I think for that one, the tension
is just already there, you know. So the story, I
guess to give context, is a government agent who is
the daughter of a man who is very anti tech himself.
(09:29):
He's like very technophobic, and through a series of events,
it turns out that he gets onto the dark Web
and discovers this plot to essentially use the technological version
of the atomic bomb through the dark web, And so
really just leaning into the characters, the character types, and
having you know, again the kind of neurotic guy who's
(09:50):
the dad versus the logical smart one of the daughter.
That tension really just kind of writes itself right Like
something that was really helpful.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
I trained at the groundling out in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Something that was really helpful during my time for that
is that everybody has a point of view that they're
looking through, and so once I can kind of narrow
down what a character's point of view is, I can
figure out how they're going to react in any situation
as well as how they can annoy or cause problems
for the other person. So if the dad's point of
view is all technology is bad, I know that I
need to put in as much technology as possible whenever
(10:23):
he's in a scene to cause comedy brilliant.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I love that. I really love that. I mean, we're
just ten minutes in, and I love your attitude and
passion for writing and storytelling. Where do you think that
comes from? And what training or books have you read
to get you to this position.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I think my passion for this honestly comes from just
having been through more difficult things in life that I've
always had to find the positive in I've always had
to find optimism in dark times. So like, I personally
think that the best way for us to get through
kind of all of the bad things that come our
(11:02):
way is going to be to transform it into something
greater than ourselves. Right, So, like, for example, I had
I got trolled online for the first time.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
A couple of years ago.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
So yeah, no, it was actually such a gift because
it was what led me to create my first short film.
So what had happened was I was making these sketches
on uh YouTube.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
And I was just learning how to do it.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
This was while I was training at Second City in
the Groundlings, and I had posted a short on YouTube,
thinking nothing of it. I had just filmed it with
one of my classmates, and I was like, I'll go
to bed and nothing will happen. I wake up and
it has like six or seven hundred views, and I'm like, WHOA,
what's happening. You know, It's still small in the grand
scheme of things, But I had expted maybe three and
(11:49):
I look in the comments and I realized that people
are saying, you know, kind of mean things, and I'm like,
I don't know, what this is about, but like whatever,
And I eventually figured out that somebody had seen it
and posted it on some stub reddit where it blew
up and people were mocking me whatever and A'll be
honest like that definitely like took me down for probably
about like a month or so, and I felt really
(12:10):
really questioning everything, really sad, really confused. But like I
said earlier, I think whenever I'm feeling a strong emotion,
I know there's a strong uh, there's a story there.
So I sat back and I thought, Okay, I'm feeling
old because this was around my quarter life crisis, I'm
feeling depressed, I'm feeling disconnected, and I'm feeling fearful basically,
(12:36):
and I started thinking about, like what kind of story,
like who comes from that kind of story? And it
started to come to me of these two seniors who
fall in love over a dating app and they talk
and they get to know each other online, but they
never meet in person, and then one of them is
(12:57):
having memory loss, so they forget their password and have
to find a way back to each other in the
real world. And all of this came because I was
just feeling so disconnected from the world around me, and
I felt like I was too old to do anything
and that I was kind of just like washed up
in whatever, and all of my interactions at this point
had really kind of been online. And the saving grace
for me was that I had had my husband who
(13:18):
was like pulling me out of like the darkest parts
of things and was like, I love you and I'm
here for you. And so without being trolled online and
without having that negative moment, I never would have had
that short film, which I then turned into the next
thing and into the next thing and into the next thing.
So I think that's where a lot of my passion
comes from for writing, is that it's just been the
(13:40):
way that I've been able to contain chaos in so
many different ways in my life.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
What happened to the people or the person that trolled you,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
They were completely online. I didn't know who they were.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I think I ended up just deleting the comment off
of the video, and then I just made the video
private because I was like, it was this really interesting
thing where I was like, do I keep it up
and say like all press is good press, or like
anybody you know watching it, even if they're hate watching
it is a good watch, or do I kind of
protect my mental health and say, like, I'm not going
to allow people to come in here and like hate
(14:15):
watch it and tell me how much they dislike it
or whatever. So that was a really interesting crossroads that
I was at, and eventually I decided to private the
video just until things blew over. But I don't know
what happened to them, but I wish them all the
best because they probably were dealing with some of their
own issues internally, and they gave me a gift at
the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
So can you tell us what some of those comments were.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
I can.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
A lot of them were like you'll never be famous,
how embarrassing? This is so cringe Like it was like
stuff that I was like, even in the back of
my head as I was reading them, I was like,
this is projection, you know, Like I had a degree
in psychology.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I was like, you're dealing with your own stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
But the thing that I can say now that I
have a couple of years from it is that on
that subreddit, I also saw.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Comments where people were like, why is this posted here?
Speaker 1 (15:05):
This is funny, this is not cringe, Like people thought
that I had posted it there myself to give myself
self promotion, and they were like, why would you post this?
And of course, like in the moment, I was focused
mostly on the negative. But now that I'm looking back
and I'm like, hey, like some people actually liked it,
you know, so.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Good, and you're those type of people taking the time
to be that negative what is going on in their
life and in their mind? I'd be kind calling them
weirdose that's the way I think. So, But do you
see Pine Grove's comedic voice as more aligned with you know,
some of the comedy I would know from an English
(15:43):
perspective or with a broader American tradition of brashness and excess.
And I mean that in a polite way, if if
you get.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
What I mean. Yeah, yeah, I would definitely say it
much more aligns with kind of the American type of comedy.
It's grounded a lot in I would say, like mel
Brooks style comedy where there's a lot of kind of
pratfalls and physical comedy and humor, because that's something that
I find very funny, is like just absolute absurdity and
(16:14):
then being able to kind of bring it back down.
But I would say mel Brooks is a big inspiration
as well as Judd Apatow, because I think he does
a really incredible job of making losers the hero of
their own stories. And that's something that I really really like.
Is you know, I was just watching step Brothers the
other day and to see two man children who end
(16:38):
up overcoming the absolute like loserly whatever they are, to
get their family back together and save the day. I
was like, that is one hundred percent what I want
to be doing all of that.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
What type of female influences do you have?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
So I grew up in the era of Tina Fey,
so she is definitely one of my guys ighting stars, her,
Amy Poehler, Kristen Wigg, all of the people that were
on SNL I would say from the mid to the
mid two thousands to the early twenty tens are absolutely
some of my influences. I also really admire Isa Ray,
(17:15):
who made Insecure on HBO. I think she's just so
incredible and scrappy and really build something from the ground.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Up for herself that I find she's just like.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
The blueprint for me, Like I just want to emulate
every step of the way what she has done.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Amazed by that. I remember watching Awkward Black Girl on
YouTube and literally been on the floor crying of laughter.
And like you say, it was scrappy. I think I
can't remember what the term was. There was a term
called for making comedy like that. I really give her
a lot of credit. She was, she is brilliant, but
that Awkward Black Girl was so scrappy and you know,
(17:56):
just like someone who had grabbed a dslar.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
And to what she's actually built out of that has
been incredible.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, she's you know, gone on to have a great
career and a real I would say, in the kind
of legend with the way her career has moved, which
is great in yourself. When you are directing actors, do
you insist upon a position of the written line.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I think I do a bit of both. I prefer
to have people do it as written first, just to
make sure that we have everything, but I do love
to leave room for having fun and say like, okay, yeah,
and now we'll do a fun one, you know, because
I don't know if you've seen that that scene in
Parks and Recreation where they did a fun one and
Chris Chris Pratt came up with the line Leslie it
(18:41):
says that.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
You have internet connectivity issues?
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Have you Do you know which one I'm talking about?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, I dig my account.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah, so apparently that one was entirely improvised. So like,
there's obviously always going to be especially if you're working
with comedic geniuses like that, they can probably come up
with stuff that is way funnier than anything I could
have written.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
So I do like to leave room, but I.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Do want to always have like a plan going into
things before we start, because I don't ever want to
leave things and then realize, oh, shoot, we have to
go do more.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
You know what I mean that there have been any
stand up moments for you when you've seen improvisation on
screen and thought, wow, I really really am glad that's happened.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
No, I don't know, because I don't always know when
things are improvised in other people's projects. But I think
one of the biggest ones that you know, I always
come back to is that Chris Pratt moment whereas she
because you know, everybody on the set is just laughing,
and if you go when you watch the bloopers from
Parks and Recreation, you can just see, you know, he
(19:42):
throws a briefcase across the room and like accidentally breaks
the set and then like looks into the camera just
like I just I love again having come from Second City.
I love leaving room for people to just be crazy
and psychotic Like.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
That understandable And on your own projects, can you tell
us about the development, pre production, production and post production
to delivery set up? What's involved in those situations for
you in each step and how do you go about
sorting everything out?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, so I kind of don't really have a great
pipeline right now, I'll be honest, But right now, for
the short film that I'm on, I've finished the writing
of the script and I'm looking to crew up for
that right now. And I've been doing a lot of
networking events, going and seeing other people's work and seeing
where things are fitting. And I've met some really awesome
(20:34):
people through that that I'm really excited to work with.
And we're hopefully going to be shooting sometime in November
and then we'll be releasing early next year. And yeah,
it's going to be a proof of concepts slash trailer
type of film, So the goal with that is to
be able to turn it into a feature length film.
With support from a larger production company after that.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And am I right by saying your networking in Chicago
absolutely brilliant? And have you worked in cities such as
maybe New York or Los Angeles?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
I have. Yeah, I actually know a lot of people
who have left Chicago for LA. So I'm very lucky
to know people out there already who are very well
connected and have helped me meet just some of the
coolest people ever. So yeah, it's been really I've been
very blessed with the people that I know.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And how would you compare network in Chicago to New
York or LA.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I think networking in LA it's a bit more.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
I think people are a bit more guarded.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Because there are so many people who want to be
working on things right, and a lot of people are
very talented and don't always have a lot of time,
and so I think having a warm introduction in LA
goes a lot a lot further versus, I feel like
here in Chicago, people are much more open and willing
to collaborate and like just kind of goof around, and
(21:56):
so it's a lot easier, I think, to approach people
in Chicago, though we have a very supportive, really connected
community that has been just everybody that I've talked to
and worked with, even if I haven't ended up working
with them in the future, has been really just some
of the nicest people that I've ever met, so very
I'm such a Chicago girl.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And the other film workshops in Chicago or certain classes
or anything like that you can tell us about that
you've been involved in or ones that you would recommend
to the listeners.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, so I definitely recommend the Cafe Focus over at
Facets over here in Chicago that's in Lincoln Park. We
have really great feedback sessions there and I'm completely blanking
on the one I can see the location. Oh, it's
a synescape here in Chicago that does really great showcases
(22:49):
and networking events and just has really amazing people who
are working both on more professional sets, so like in
Chicago Fire Chicago PD for more independent filmmakers who I've again,
there was one guy that I met a couple of
weeks ago, and I was blown away by the visuals
that he had and it unfortunately wasn't a fit for
(23:10):
the project that I was working on, but I told
him I was like, I would watch anything that you
made for just hours, so beeeriful.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Okay, I do love Chicago med I've I haven't seen
the last few seasons it's been done on quite a while,
I think, but the first few seasons I thought were
very impressive, especially visually for a television shows. But what
does onboard in a new creative look like for Pine
Growth and do you run a writer's room at all?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I don't currently run a writer's room.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I pretty much write everything by myself, And like I said,
I have collaborators that I'll go to and say I'd
love to get a read on this and hear your feedback.
But typically writing is pretty individual on my end. And
then adding on new creatives, I really like to just
have informal conversations at the start, so just see if
there's a creative fit, and then from there.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Talk about scheduling, talk about what everybody's up to.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah, it just really I like to be very flexible
in my approach when I'm working with people, because I
know that I don't know everything, and I like to
view other people as kind of the experts in their fields.
So a lot of it is talking about kind of
what their vision is for things and what my vision
is for things. And seeing where we fit together.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
I like that, I really do, because I'm pretty much
the same as you know. I don't know everything, and
I want to work with people who are experts in
their field. The best they bring to the table, the
better I can look, and the better the project will be.
So that's always a boldness, I think. And the medium
of film and television and write in for screen is
(24:44):
one that many enjoy, many love I do, you do
and the listeners do. But if you were not to
be involved with such mediums, what creative avenue do you
think you would go through?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Hmm? If we're talking specifically about film, I would definitely
be an act I actually started out as an actor,
and like I said, I trained at Second City in
the Brownlings, and I still love performing live theater. And
there is just something so special about when you have
a really good scene partner with working with you and
(25:17):
you just lock in and just it's this indescribable feeling
that I don't know that I've necessarily been able to
replicate with writing or behind the camera stuff as of
right now, But yeah, there is just something so magical
about acting and being able to tell stories that way.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
And as a writer, and an actor, what do you
look for in a script that informed you to build
a character appropriately rather than something else.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, I would say first and foremost is a theme,
Like I definitely want all the scripts and all of
the projects that I work on to have something that
they want to say about the world. And once you
have an idea of kind of what your thesis is,
if you will, you can start building characters around that. Right,
So I view characters as more of an interrogation on
(26:08):
the theme. So if I'm, for example, writing about caregiving
in my short film, my thesis is that even at
the end of the day, when chaos is abound, what
really brings you together at the end of the day
is family and love and supporting each other. So then
each of the characters then needs to be questioning if
(26:29):
that's true or not. So the dad character is going
to be very hyper focused on his specific things, so
for this film, he's very focused on appearances and very
focused on wealth, and the mother is very focused on
being all natural and being hyper focused on family to
the point where it becomes toxic and all of that.
So as I'm thinking about what kind of things I
(26:51):
want to say about the world and the theme. That's
how I'm building characters out from that direction.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Has there been a play you've been in that you
can tell us about that script really stood out?
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Hmm, Yeah, yeah. I think there was a student film
that I was working on as an actress a couple
of years ago, and he had written this project that
was very COVID inspired, and it was about It was
a post apocalyptic project where the main character became like
(27:25):
a hunter of other people and he was kind of
playing with, you know, some of the larger themes that
were happening in the world at the time as well
of the other ring of other people. And my character
ended up recognizing one of the people that she was
hunting as somebody she grew up with, and then had
to make that decision of am I going to honor
(27:47):
this relationship that we have or am I going to
be selfish and basically hunt you right, And in the
end she ended up making the wrong choice and hunting
her friend. But I just remember being so struck by
how powerful that question was and how impressed I was
with how he was handling it, especially for a student
(28:07):
film like he was. He had such a clear vision
on how he was working on it, and I He
was also so open to talking to me about my
interpretation of things, like he was like, well, I see
that you're emphasizing this word, or you're making this kind
of reaction here, can you tell me about why you're
motivated to do that? And we ended up making some
(28:28):
changes within the script actually based on some of the
ideas that I came to him about the character with.
So I really loved that process.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
That sounds like a dream director in that sense.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
He was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Have you worked to him since I've not, No.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
He's graduated and gone back to I think he was
from Taiwan a bit far.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, fair enough. And one thing that I see on
screen that I think sometimes must be difficult for directors
and for the actor or actress on stage or screen
is comedy timing. So have you ever been in a
situation where you're active with someone and their comedic timing
isn't quite where it needs to be. How do you
deal with that as an actress or have you had
(29:10):
to ever deal with that as a director?
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah? You know, when I was doing improv way back
in college, I remember there was someone who had just
joined our improv team who was definitely a little off
timing with his comedy, and I remember the biggest thing
that I could think was I need to figure out
how to make him look good. So I needed to
figure out not how to keep the timing that I
(29:33):
wanted there to be, or how I wanted the scene
to go myself. I was just like watching what he
was doing and seeing the ideas he was coming up with,
and I was like, how can I alter the scene
or how can I alter the pacing of what we're
doing so that his jokes are landing? And it totally worked,
and he ended up making the team because of that.
(29:53):
I think this was in his audition. I was already
on the team and he was trying out to be
with us, and I just remember thinking, he's got ideas.
He's just not white at the right cadence, and if
I can change my cadence to match his, then I
think he's got it.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
And he made it. He made the team based on that.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Did he understand you were doing that?
Speaker 1 (30:15):
You know? I don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
I didn't ask him.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I think the people that I was working with already
on the team did understand that, because they came up
to me afterwards and they were like, we saw what
you were doing, but I don't know that he knew
at the time.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Now based on the summ of the team, knowing that
was the case, What type of feedback did they give you,
if any?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, I think they mostly were like, you gotta let
people fail sometimes. I'm very big on trying to uplift everybody,
you know, no matter skill level or whatever. If there's
some way that I can make somebody else look good,
I'm going to do everything that I can.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
But they were, you know.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
They were like, it's kind of hard to judge if
he's actually funny or not if you were constantly just
saving him from these situations. You know, they were like,
we needed to also see how he would have done
if he had failed on his own. But you know, unfortunately,
I just am committed to the scene.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
And who are part of this team that gave it
a feedback? Was a federal producer or an executive producer?
Who were the people?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
No, so those were just other college students. This was
my college team. Uh sorry, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, And any of those people, what are they doing now?
Are you in contact with them? Ma told?
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Or yeah? They're all in different industries. One of my
friends who was on that team. She works at the EPA,
but her sister is actually a production designer on an
Amazon show right now. I think so that was really
cool to be able to see. How you know, even
though it's somebody, isn't necessarily always a one to one
fit for what you're looking for. It's the seven degrees
(31:50):
of separation, So anybody and everybody could possibly help you.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
For sure, you intend to be based in Chicago for
your career, family and friends, imagine am in Chicago with you,
or you happy to maybe branch out a bit more
internationally or even domestically to New York and LA as
we mentioned.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Earlier, Yeah, I'd totally be down to relocate if an
opportunity arose. I visited New York a couple months ago
and absolutely loved it, So you know, I'm open to
whatever may come my way. The universe will send me
what's meant for me and success overall.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
What will that look like for you?
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Short term?
Speaker 1 (32:30):
I think success will look like getting the short film
produced as a future film. And then long term, you know,
I'm looking to go straight to the top. I'm looking
for the oscar. I'm looking for widespread distribution. I just
basically want to be the next Tina Fey or Issa
Ray for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Oh okay, sitting HI standards for yourself. I like that. Yeah,
because they you know, they are great, as we've spoken
about before. Well, thanks so much for coming on. I
really appreciate you taking the time to speak to me.
I can't wait to see more from you, and I
hope I can get to see your short film what's made,
and look forward to keeping in touch.
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