December 15, 2023 • 34 mins
Joany got her start working for the documentary production company Florentine Films. Joany has optioned/sold over a dozen screenplays and has had nine movies made.
"The Christmas Card" broke all time ratings records for the Hallmark Channel when it aired in 2006.
She works to help Native American causes and organizations. She shares a cottage on a lake with the love of her life "Logger Honey."
Find out more about Joany at Happy Ever Movie After
"The Christmas Card" broke all time ratings records for the Hallmark Channel when it aired in 2006.
She works to help Native American causes and organizations. She shares a cottage on a lake with the love of her life "Logger Honey."
Find out more about Joany at Happy Ever Movie After
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Hello everyone, and welcome to theLady's Tale Podcast. It is so good
to say Ladies Tail podcast. Ohwait, I'm sorry I did say ladies
at the front. So let meuse the voice of a lady, because
you know what I found out infinishing school, A lady's voice never exceeds
a whisper. Every time they wouldsay that, I was like, but
what about arguments because I know whoargued? And what about passion and excitement
(00:26):
and thrills and yeays and woo oos. We're all about that, right.
Doesn't that sound like a lady?Though? It is lovely fun Yay.
I have not lived to that,but we are still on the Ladies Tail
Podcast. Wow. Yeah, thatwas real loud compared to that whisper.
(00:52):
Well, no, no, mygoodness. High five to me because I
oh wait, hold on, holdon, Hi five to me, which
it looks like a clap, Solet's do that because I remember I had
to introduce myself. I'm so excited. I just want to say to my
interviewee, thank you for this,thank you for completing the high vibe.
I do not feel nearly as sillyawesome and occasionally I am serious. Okay,
(01:15):
no, not really just on thepage, on the written page.
Hence I write books. So wewrote books. There's normally a jade on
this side or on that side.Oh no, not on that side.
There's not a space today on thisside. So it's normally a jd on
that side. And that's why Isaid we and those books are And I
thought divorce was bad, and Ithought being grown up with CZ if only
our mem Memoir and Verse, ForeignCoffee, Widdows Web and Widow's Debt.
(01:37):
Those are the six audio books,and you can get those audiobooks wherever audiobooks
are sold. But guess what,y'all, we wrote more books than that.
And yeah, just in case youwere thinking, well I don't want
to read any of them, wellthere's eighteen more you don't have to read.
I'm joking. Buy them all youcan. You can find out the
rest of the eighteen books at www. Dot And I thought ladies dot com.
And although there's a jade not here, I feel like the visible force
(02:00):
of pressure of jade being like,don't forget to say so here we go.
I shall not forget to say thatthat our books are literary life guides.
They explain life, food, poetry. I feel like Jade is already
doing this right. I feel goodabout myself. But since my narcissism has
already shown with all the eyes andhow I feel, I feel like that
(02:23):
it's time to go ahead and saythat you're not here to hear about me,
which is a horrible loss for you, because I'm a narcissist. I
have to say that. But you'rehere to hear about our wonderful guests.
Wonderful guys. Would you like tointroduce yourselves? Hi, everyone and Bologna.
Thank you so much for having meon here. This is so awesome.
I am Joni Kane, and Iwrite Christmas movies and I've done some
(02:45):
other kind of movies and things likethat, and I'm excited to be here.
Okay, So I love how she'sjust like I write Christmas movies and
other This lady invented a genre.Actually, let me ask it as a
question because you don't need I needto say it. So, I mean,
when did you start writing Christmas moviesand how many and what Christmas movies
(03:06):
were your influence at the time.Okay, very good question. So let's
rock and roll. Let's get rightinto it. So the movie that I'm
most known for is called The ChristmasCard and it premiered on the Hallmark Channel
in two thousand and six, andwhen it premiered on the Hallmark Channel,
it shattered writings records. It receivedan Emmy nomination for the actor Ed Asner
(03:30):
who was in it, and it'scredited as being one of the instigators for
launching the current holiday romance movie Crisethat's happening now and still going. But
there's a great story involved with TheChristmas Card is because I actually the idea
for it came up around nineteen ninetythree after I saw a Vince Gill video
(03:53):
It's a Christmas video, I'll beHome for Christmas. And in the video,
Vin Skill was playing the serviceman who'swriting home to you know, the
love of his life. And Ithought, that's kind of a great sort
of setup for a story or movie, a Christmas movie. But you know,
back in the nineties, there weren'treally hard lady Christmas movies at all
as you went to the movie theaters. And you know, I with my
(04:15):
mom at the time when we sawthe video, we were watching TV together
and I you know, thought,you know, how can I do use
that story and you know, maybemake a movie somehow, especially to honor
my mom, who used to sendout hundreds of Christmas cards every year to
everybody we knew, relative, aneighbor, church members, you know,
every single relative, every family Frenchgot a Christmas card from my mom.
(04:40):
And my dad had served in WorldWar two. He was a medic in
the European Campaign of World War two. So I'm like, well, yeah,
I could. I could honor themwith sort of the general idea of
a Christmas card, which was,you know, a woman sends a card
to a serviceman who gets in andit really touches him. So when he's
on leave, he goes to hertown and he meets her and fall in
love and happy ever after. Yeah, which is now the standard you know,
(05:01):
holiday romance story. So I kindof percolated on it for a few
years. And back in the ninetiesone, there was hardly any cable,
you know that cable was just gettingstarted. There was no streamers, no
Internet, no Facebook, none ofthat. There was no Hallmark Channel,
and you know, so you know, I knew I was kind of wanted
to write a movie, but Iwas thinking more of a feature film because
(05:23):
there was nothing on TV really forthe for Christmas at that time. And
then in you know, so Iwas perl percolated on it. Nothing was
coming. I had written a coupleof other screenplays. I wrote a comedy
that Bette Midler actually read. Igot some really fun notes from her on
that, but you know, Ididn't sell it to her. And then
(05:43):
in nineteen ninety eight Christmas week,I took a job working part time in
the office of a lumber mill becauseI needed to support my habit, writing
habit, because I was listening tomaking any money on writing yet. And
the very first Friday of January ofnineteen ninety nine, and one of the
(06:04):
mills, the lumber Mills loggers walkedinto the office and it was love at
first sight. The minute I sawhim, he just stole my heart.
I just I was totally taken withhim, totally in love, totally love
at first sight. And that weekend, I just that entire movie of the
Christmas Card came to me. It'slike, I'm setting it at the mill,
(06:25):
this is what the story is goingto be. So I cranked out
the script in three months and inMarch March twenty third of nineteen ninety nine,
I printed out two copies, onefor my mom. She got the
first copy, and then I broughthand delivered the second copy up to the
logger to thank him for his help. And I pretty much never left.
(06:49):
And we have been together for twentyfive years. Isn't that like the greatest
love story. He's like in theother room. He is the inspiration.
There would be no Christmas card ifit wasn't for him. I probably wouldn't
have him in my life, ifI wasn't writing the Christmas Scryptum. And
so it's, uh, I've livedthat story every day my life and blessedly
(07:09):
so. And you're still you're likeshiny and like you just met and you're
telling me about him, like likelast week you just got man, You're
like, oh my god, that'swonderful. Almost well, twenty five years
is coming by the year. Andstill in nineteen ninety nine there was still
no Hallmark Channel. So you know, I did not write that for a
Hallmark because there was no Hallmark channel. And finally Hallmark Channel came about I
(07:33):
think two thousand and one, twothousand and two, and they bought the
script in two thousand and three.It took a couple of years to get
made, and then they broadcast itin two thousand and six and my life
has been Christmas ever since. Sobut you know, that was just such
a blessing. So you know thatwhole story, And I'm loving my own
(07:54):
Hallmark movie every day with my logerHoney. I think it's always wonderful to
the like real love, Like twentyfive years is real love. Yeah,
yeah, that is. I thinkeveryone here knows that I am divorced,
so they're good bad days and tosee someone else for twenty five years and
(08:16):
smiling, Oh my god, Wellhe was divorced. You know, he
had two kids, they're adults.Now we have from you know, his
family, five grandkids total. Soso for anybody who is you know,
has divorced, there there is loveout there and there are somebody special and
that. And I think that's thebeauty of these movies is because it really
does give us hope that not onlyabout Christmas, which is really all about
(08:39):
magic and hope and family and nostalgia, but also about love and uh and
that uh. I think it's aspecial special time and a special love exactly.
So I do have to ask.I'm going to ask more technical questions
than I apologize because I should beasking about writing, because you know,
(09:00):
we write, I'm going to askabout development. They're not so great part
of having a movie. So howdid you reach out to like producers,
to production companies. You came upwith this idea, you wrote it,
and then you have to get itproduced. How did you go about doing
that? Well, back then,since that was like twenty years ago,
(09:22):
what was known in the Hollywood.They had this thing called the Hollywood Creative
Directory, which is basically the YellowPages for Hollywood. So back then,
because there was really still no Internet, there's no social media, I just
had my little Trustee Guide and Iflipped through it and I looked at,
you know, the producers, andI actually had to print out letters and
send the letters to people. That'show it worked back then, because you
(09:45):
know, I'm so ancient. Butnowadays, you know, because it's such
an industry and there's so many writerswho want to do it, and all
of us can do it. Itdoesn't matter where you live, what your
age is, you know, whatyour background is. You can write,
you can get it out there,and you can make the connections and you
can make movie dreams come true.It's it's it's it's a great time to
(10:05):
be living for for writers right now. And there's various websites. There's a
website called Stage thirty two that's agreat community. There inc tip I n
K T I P that you canpost your your completed screenplay up there.
(10:26):
Producers can see it. They sendyou out a newsletter every week that has
listing which producers are looking for content, so you can pitch directly. There's
Virtual pitch Fest, another website.You know, you have to pay a
small fee. I think it's likefive dollars a pitch, but you're guaranteed
a response from the producers listed.There's is a which is the I think
(10:48):
it's the International Screenwriters Association. Youcan post scripts there, you can meet
producers there. So there's a lotof opportunity online if you're uh, definitely
focused on Christmas screenplays. There's acouple of books that have been written about
how to write screenplays that if youknow, you go to Amazon or Barnes
(11:11):
and Noble, you know, youyou know, just type in you know
Christmas, you know, movie writing, and the the bok books will come
up stories some on it which iswhere you know, I've taught some classes
and participating in some of their holidayevents, you know, is another organization.
So so yeah, I mean Googleis your your your bff. You
(11:33):
just you know, type in whateveryou want and uh, you know,
tons of options come up that willhelp you guide you through not only writing
a screenplay but also how to marketit and AI that's like the new sort
of elephant in the room, butyou know it is it is, you
know, while you know there definitelyneeds to be guard rails because you know,
(11:56):
it is kind of amazing and Fridayin all what it can do.
If you go on to chat GPTand type in, I want to write
a holidays you know, Christmas,you know, screenplay, How do I
do it? And where do Isend it? In two seconds, it
will come out with a complete toollessfor you on what to do. Or
(12:18):
if you're writing a scription, it'slike, oh, I'm stuck on this
scene, how can I get theguy to do this in this scene?
It will it will be like yourwriting partner and offer you suggestions. So
so there's a lot of opportunity outthere, you know, for people,
and you know, I'm all forgo for it because you know, you
can't make your your holiday movie dreamscome true. I'm just going to say
(12:39):
it's it's hard enough to try tomake a living as a writer because I
write novels. Actually I write poetry, so like, yeah, sorry,
y'all. You know they're always likepoets don't make money. I mean,
look at for edgarrel and Poe waslike, you know, he was poverty
stricken his entire life, and lookat the look at the immense you know,
(13:03):
creativity he came up with, Yeah, that's not my problem. Like
getting out there and getting your nameout there and getting your brand and just
getting started. It's very hard.But like with the resources that you said
that, it means that these thingsare possible. Now these are It's how
hard are you willing to work tomake your dream come true? Well that's
(13:24):
it. It does take a lotof time, and you got to kind
of have thick skin because you know, even today with it, you know,
I've had I think about seventeen Christmasmovies made, and you know a
number of other projects. But youknow, I still get rejected, I
still get ghosted, I still getyou know, just you know, I
probably have way more rejections and youknow, way more sort of you know,
(13:48):
bad responses to stuff that I've hadgood. And there's some days that
you just want to like kind ofcrawl up into bed and snuggle with your
teddy, watch horror movies not youknow, Hallmark. But then the next
day you get up the Sunday shineis like, I'm going to go for
I'm going to do it, anduh, and you can, you can.
You just got to weather whether someof the you know, the tough
(14:09):
spots. But I remember one ofmy friends said, and I know they
if you've been here with us along time, you've heard this. My
friends said that, you know whatprepared her for all the rejection and acting
was the fact that she became awriter first, because they so they say
no faster and meaner. An actor, they'll be like no, because as
a writer is like no. Soyou have to be ready for that rejection.
(14:37):
So actually it brings me to thethis conversation just goes to like how
did you get over the rejection?That is the obvious question, But I
don't want to ask that because Iwant to ask something else. But then
there, and this is a conversationalinterview, how did you manage your rejection?
You know, you just uh,perseverance. So all Christmas, have
(14:58):
you seen Ruda No, not Rudolphwith the one put one foot in front
of the other and soon you'll bewalking out the door. One of those
Christmas on classics that came out.I'm blanking on what the name of it
is, but it's about the historyof how Santa Claus came to be.
(15:18):
And he meets the Winter Warlock,you know, when he's trying to get
the toys to the town, andat first it's all scary and everything,
but then he breaks through because hegives a toy to the Winter Warlock and
the Winter Waller. It's like,I don't really kind of know how to,
you know, not be a warlock. And he sings in the song
put one foot in front of theother. So that's sort of my mantra
(15:39):
when I'm feeling blue. It's oryou know, the rejections are to scare
just girgeon. And also the bigthing in Hollywood too is you can get
ghosted a lot. So even withpeople I work with, if I send
out an email or something, Idon't hear back and it's like, oh
God, what's wrong with me?What did I do wrong? But it's
just it's the nature of the beast, and you just, you know,
figure out how to weather the theyou know, kind of the hurt feelings
(16:03):
and the insecurity feelings and say no, I'm going to go for it,
and I'm going to keep doing itbecause you know, I have the story
I want to tell and I knowthere's a home for it somewhere, and
I'm going to meet, you know, the right person who's going to help
bring that to fruition. So sojust you know, the whole manifest,
you know, get the good zen. But one foot in front of the
other, like the old Winter Warlock, and keep going. I'm telling you,
(16:26):
you're making me believe, and youcan. We can all do it.
Not in Santa Claus and not inChristmas, but you yourself, believe
in yourself, Believe in myself,in your magic, because we all have
magic in us. I'm starting todo a lot more sort of witch content
because what I'm finding is like thewhole history of witches is more like,
(16:48):
you know, we have our ownpower and we all have magic, and
we need to tap into that andshare it with the world. I agree
we do, and one of theone of the ways you do that is
by writing, because like we allhave a story, because we are currently
living a story exactly, I'll beable to write it down as well.
But we have something to live inwith the world, and writing is a
(17:08):
great way to do it. Itis it is. Unfortunately for you,
your writing got seen. Yeah,but it took you a lot one time,
and it took a lot of rejections. So of course I need to
be asking about your writing process.And now that's got knocked down the road
again, just kicking the can downthe road. Down the road we go.
What did it feel like when youfinally saw your television, your movie
(17:33):
on screens? Oh and did youhave a premiere and if you did what
you wear? Oh? Yeah,no, no, no premiere. I
haven't done any premiere. So thebiggest, most fanciest thing I've done so
far was I got to go toa movie premiere at cons for Passion Flex
when we did Alexandra Torre's movie HollywoodDirt, And that was exciting and fun.
(17:55):
That was a great treat. Butyeah, there's not really you know.
I think the Hallmark does some premierefor some of their movies, but
they make so many, and there'sso many that Christmas ones. It's most
now, it's more like an industry. They just crank them out and get
them up there. But I waswatching. I didn't actually did not watch
the premiere with Logger Honey. Infact, I don't even know if he's
he has actually hasn't seen any ofthe movies because that's not his thing,
(18:17):
which is completely okay with me.But I got to spend it with my
mom. You know, I lostmy dad in ninety two, and so
my mom was my treasure, mybest friend, and you know, just
you know, the Logger Honey's loveof my life, but my mom was
the love of my life too,and so you know, we had a
little sort of kind of hangout partyand we watched it together in the living
(18:38):
room with the home I grew upwith, and my nephew, my godson,
Paul Henry was with us too,and so we all start kind of
camped out in the living room andwe watched it and it was really,
it was really wonderful. And itwas great because they could find things because
I wrote church scenes into the movie, because the reverend of my church,
Peter ives was just such a nearand dear friend to us, and it's
(19:00):
such a good soul. So Iwanted to sort of honor him. So
I wrote in church scenes so Icould have the minister, you know,
be named after him, and theykept his name and stuff, so and
they you know, they referred tohim as Reverend I. So that was
yeah, So that was really funto see that. That has got to
be a blast. Is It's oneof my dreams to to see something I've
written, like on television. I'mwell, you're young, huns, so
(19:23):
you got you got plenty of time. I'm gonna I'm gonna have a narcissist
moment. So like, I writtena script and I've heard it as a
table read, and I'm just likeone day, one day. But honestly,
I feel like the taper read wasgood enough. So I have to
ask how your family reacted to thiswith everyone like, yes, did you
(19:47):
get the characters right? Well,yeah, there wasn't really anybody in the
movie. I did actually write ina logger and that got cut, so
there was no longer It was thata lumber company, but there was no
logger, but there was a UncleRichard and was actually fashioned after somebody I
worked with at the lumber company whereI met Dave. You know my logger,
(20:11):
which he's affectuately known as logger Honey, So anybody who follows me on
Facebook knows him as logger honey.And and yeah, Peter Jason, who's
the actor, just nailed the characterand he was very much like like the
the you know, older man whoI worked with at the lumber mill.
Oh my goodness, that's that's wouldbe amazing. Okay, now I have
arrived the can Can Stop movie?Can you tell her a bit about your
(20:36):
writing process? Did you sit downand like bang it out all at once?
I know that you told us beforethat it was taking you a little
time, and then you met yourlogger honey, and then you know it
was easier to write. Was scriptformatting a problem? Did you do it
as as like a real story first? All of these questions? If you
feel like about when I was younger, you know, when I was like
(20:57):
not close to six like I amnow, I could like crank out a
first draft in a weekend, anda lot of people in Hollywood will say,
I don't do that, that's toofast. But when I go back
and read the first draft, it'slike, oh, yeah, that needs
a lot of work. But Ifind that when I get a story in
my head, I just have tostick with it. Like when I get
(21:18):
the characters talking, I have tostick with it. Like if I'm walking
around town, some people will say, wow, what was going on?
What we were doing? It's like, oh, because I was probably like
shaking and mumbling. It's like,oh, the characters were talking, you
know, or like, yeah,honey, will tell me I wanted to
say something, It's like, no, not yet, but the characters are
talking. You know, I'll talkwith you as soon as I'm done with
this conversation. So sometimes I can't. I have to just keep going and
(21:41):
plug through, like you know,twenty four to seven while I have the
story, but now because I've beendoing it so much, and sometimes I'm
I'm hired to write and it's notjust all my own personal stories, you
know, I get you know,it varies depending on projects. Sometimes I'll
just like just keep going and keepgoing, and I can crank it out
in a couple of weeks. Othertimes it's you know, sometimes I'll work
(22:03):
a little bit on it, putit aside for a few months, come
back to it. You know,it depends on the story, and it
really depends on what the characters inthe story want me to do. I
sort of let them tell me whatto do with them, you know,
I understand, like you know,people plan out entire stories and plots.
I'm wanted the like if I canget the beginning and I can get the
end and then they start having aconversation, that did that's the story,
(22:26):
and then you just sit down andwrite it. Oh yeah. I mean
the best moment is like when theparts where you don't know what's happening and
you're you get in the groove andall of a sudden, this idea comes
to your head. That's like,oh my gosh, that's like the greatest
thing ever. That's like the bestfeeling ever. And there's there's you know,
there's so many scripts I've written thatwill never see the light today and
(22:48):
never get made, but I don'tcare. I just had such a blast
writing them, and then when Igo back and revisit them, it's like,
oh my god, I remember thatmoment when I wrote that, because
I was like the best moment ever. So there's some people out there who
like go golfing or go ball,like to know, those things. I
just love to write, you know, and that's you know, that's such
a such a joy. It is. It is just a joy. Do
(23:08):
you ever think you do a novel? You know? Okay, So that
this is where I came up withpassion flips, because you know, back
in you know, around twenty thirteen, I you know, I had a
bunch of screenplays that were I wrotethat I loved. There were romances,
and you know, they didn't sell, and I'm like, I want to
(23:30):
do something with them. They're greatstories. I'm like, I'll turn them
into novels. So I immersed myselfin the romance novel community on social media.
Yeah, I went to conventions.I went to this one in Las
Vegas, and you know, Itry to turn the scripts into novels.
And I'm like, oh no,I'm a screenwriter. I just like the
format of screenwriting. But I gotto meet so many amazing writers. I'm
(23:53):
like, there needs to be somemore of a cinematic out you know,
you know, option for these writers. You know, So I wanted to
so back then in twenty thirteen,I committed myself to trying to help authors
get their content on screens, andI came up with the idea for Passion
Flicks. I coined the name,I purchased a domain, and back then
(24:14):
in twenty thirteen, the only streameron was Netflix, and they weren't really
doing original programming yet. The onlyprogramming they had at the time was Orange
Is the New Black. They hadthat show and some political one with Robin
Wright and I'm blank on the nameof it, but they weren't. That
was also at the same time fiftyShades was exploding, and fifty Shades was
(24:37):
started as fan fiction on Twilight.So my thought was, there needs to
be a Netflix for the romance novelindustry and just have it twenty four to
seven content based on novels. SoI came up with it that idea,
and you know, I kind oftook break from doing all the Christmas movies
and that stuff, and I just, you know, for you know,
(25:00):
several years pounded on Hollywood doors.I you know, finally you know,
connected with a couple of female producersin twenty sixteen and it launched in twenty
seventeen. Amazing. I have beenfascinated by Passion Flicks for a while now.
Yeah, it's very interesting. I'vealways thought that when I saw it,
and I went, this is anamazingly good idea, because romance is
(25:23):
a billion dollar business a year,yeah, a year, exactly like everyone
else, like all the rest ofthe of the of the literary worlds like
oh I'm hurting. I'm hurting,and I'm like, you never hear romance
go oh God, we're hurting.No, and people and people underestimate it.
I mean, you have every singlesubgenre in romance. You have fantasy,
(25:45):
you have rom com you have mystery, you have action. I've read
action romances written by by women thatare better than the Jason Straight the movies.
You see fine, Honestly, oneof the things that one of the
narcissist, selfish things I wanted todo today was introduced you to the work
(26:07):
of this author that like in myhead when I started writing when I was
twelve years old, I was like, this is what I want to write.
And then I read her book andI'm like, for the love of
goodness, this book is just insanelyamazing. And I read like I read
the Jason Bourne novels, I readLove Loom, I read I've read almost
all the clancies I read like becauseI write noir mystery as my genre,
(26:33):
so I have to read and yo, she's just see that's great, and
those are the stories, those arethe undiscovered gems. So any anything I
can do to help writers, I'mcompletely on board for that. You recognize
it wasn't even for me, LikeI'm not even saying to my narcissist form,
you go girl. But that's thegreat thing about us writers is,
(26:56):
you know, rising tides. Weall tried to, you know, do
what we can to to help others, and I've I just wanted to congratulate
you face to face on like likerecognizing like the amazingness that the romance community
has to offer. Like I wasjust like, this is ingenius because people,
I don't think I've ever been toa roman's convention where someone goes,
I don't want to see that bookas a movie. They all want to
(27:18):
see that book of a movie.I want one in that one. And
yeah, there's not enough time inthe day to bring them all the screen
because there's just so many good ones. Exactly, a lot of these writers
just there, you know, theirmoms and they have other jobs and they're
doing other things and they're still crankingthem out, and they're still you know,
just living bringing just joy and loveto the world. Yeah, like
(27:40):
you know, like sort of likethe holiday movies, but just not really
much kind of broader, wider scale. So I was about to wind this
down and then I thought of thequestion that I've been dying to ask you.
So if I may take one moremoment of your time before down blastly,
okay, what did you learn fromeach perspective? Because you started off
as a writer, you became afilmmaker, then you became like kind of
(28:03):
the executive side, and now you'reswitching over to horror. What have you
learned from all of these things toenjoy every moment and to no matter what
you do for a living, whatmatters most is who's with you in your
life and and and love and familyand and that kind of support. And
(28:25):
I think that's uh because no matterwhether I'm writing or or producing or doing
other things, you know that Iknow that logger honeys in the other room
is what matters most. Or youknow, before Mom passed a couple of
years ago, that she was there, and I think was what I think
of what I meant to ask wasIs there a different set of mindset that
(28:48):
you have to be in in orderto go from being creative to being a
producer. Yeah, creative is justso much funner are fun. Yeah,
all the other stuff, there's justso many details from like logistics, insurance,
you know, payroll, you knowall the business stuff. And that's
why, and that's why if yousurround yourself with people that our joy to
(29:11):
work with and our team players,it just it makes the journey so much
better. And you know, like, starting in twenty twenty four, I'm
going to be making my directorial debuton a haunted House Christmas movie called A
Merry Scary Christmas Tale. So it'sboth kind of scary, but it's also
very merry at the same time,and there's a really great love story in
(29:32):
it. So yeah, at theend of the movie, after you've been
scared and had this festive fun thelove story, I think people are going
to be like, oh my god, that's just so amazing. That's such
a great love story and it's kindof like buried in this really fun,
festive, scary story, haunted housestory. And it has the female well
they has some witch characters and it'ssort of a coming of age story of
(29:53):
you know, you know, witha good theme about finding our magic because
we all have that magic inside ofus. So that just rolled me right
nicely into that question to start uson the ends the finale, the climax
of this interview here, which iswhat were you going to be doing next
after your first directorial debut? Areyou going to do some more directing or
(30:15):
are you going to put that?Yeah, it depends on how well that
one does, you know, becauseif it does really well, I'd love
to do Mary Scaries for the restof my life because I'd be fun.
But I'm launching what I did.I've launched. I created this organization called
Coven Cons, which is all aboutthe Witch, and we're going to be
have I'm gonna I'm plotting a conventionfor sort of witches and pop culture and
(30:41):
witchy content and I'm just sort oflike embracing the whole world of witch and
I'm very excited about that. AndI came just very quickly. I came
up with it because a good palavine, Liliana Klingman. She created Christmas Con,
which was a convention for Christmas movielovers and it was huge huge success,
(31:03):
and she came up with the ideaher and her friends when they were
watching my movie Matchmaker Santas. Sothat was really fun. So I got
to participate in the very first CharristmasGun, which is twenty nineteen. And
then they had a con called theNineties Con, which was huge and it's
covered by People magazine and Entertainment Weekly, and you know, it's huge.
But you know, part of theelements of it that were huge, you
(31:25):
know, extra huge were they hadthe panels for like the TV show Charmed,
Hoax Pocus, the Craft, andthose were you know, you know,
so when I went online to dosome research on that, I mean,
that's just such a huge fan basefor all these kind of shows and
movies that sort of have witches,you know, Discovery of Witches, practical
(31:48):
magic and look at The Wizard ofOz that was my mom's favorite movie.
So so I'm sort of kind ofalso, you know, branching off into
the world of which so I'm veryexcited about that. You seem very happy
to be doing that, adding somescary to life exactly, like there was
more than enough scary to my life. I added any more scary, I
might die now. So a funthing on that is the Christmas actually kind
(32:14):
of started because of scary A ChristmasCarol was written by Charles Dickens. He
wrote that back in the eighteen hundreds. Back in the eighteen hundreds, Christmas
was not a thing in America.We did not care about Christmas at all.
Big thing in England though, Andwhat the Victorians did in Victorian England
was when they got together for Christmas, they all sit around the fire,
(32:35):
they drink their hot toddies and theywould tell ghost stories. That was their
hallmark. They loved to scare themselvessillies. And that's why Charles Dickens wrote
A Christmas Carol is for that tradition. So this and that when that went
viral in America and President Grant sawhow big the Christmas Carol and Charles Dickens
(32:55):
was in America, and he thought, hey, you know, let's make
Christmas a holiday. And he's theone that proclaimed Christmas is an official holiday.
So it all started with a ghoststory. So my whole goal in
twenty twenty four is to bring backthat tradition of telling scary stories. Are
Christmas time? Wow? Well thesing was hard. You single handedly started
(33:17):
one tradition you might be able tobring back another. So it's open.
Where can we find out more informationabout you and see your upcoming movies and
your backlog of movies as well.You know, that's a very good question
because I really don't have much socialmedia, but I need to do that.
I do. You know, myFacebook page, Joni Kane is my
(33:39):
personal page, but it's open foreverybody to see on you know, social
media, and I usually post stuffthere. I actually do have a YouTube
channel because I've been experimenting with makingfun little shorts and it's called Wicked Conjurings.
So and there's some fun little shortit's up there now. But so
(34:01):
yeah, so sure we are stayingon theme, something that like my people
over here wish I would do.I want to thank you so much for
being with being here with us today, miss Kane, and I keep saying
us because I am truly missing myj like like j that's okay. You
can find out everything that your ladiesare doing at www dot and I thought
(34:24):
ladies dot com. And while you'rethere, take a moment go down to
the middle of the page, notthe bottom of the page, but the
middle of the page. And seethe three charities that we probably support be
asked that you give them a littletime and energy, not necessarily money,
but if you have money, pleasegive them that too. Oh, because
you know it's the end of theyear. We all need a little giving
(34:44):
our life right now, and wethank you in advance for that. Remember
that wisdom is all around you ifyou're open to finding it and accepting it.
So peace in love you guys fromWill Noona and the Missing j Oh.
Yeah, thanks for listening.
Hello everyone, and welcome to theLady's Tale Podcast. It is so good
to say Ladies Tail podcast. Ohwait, I'm sorry I did say ladies
at the front. So let meuse the voice of a lady, because
you know what I found out infinishing school, A lady's voice never exceeds
a whisper. Every time they wouldsay that, I was like, but
what about arguments because I know whoargued? And what about passion and excitement
(00:26):
and thrills and yeays and woo oos. We're all about that, right.
Doesn't that sound like a lady?Though? It is lovely fun Yay.
I have not lived to that,but we are still on the Ladies Tail
Podcast. Wow. Yeah, thatwas real loud compared to that whisper.
(00:52):
Well, no, no, mygoodness. High five to me because I
oh wait, hold on, holdon, Hi five to me, which
it looks like a clap, Solet's do that because I remember I had
to introduce myself. I'm so excited. I just want to say to my
interviewee, thank you for this,thank you for completing the high vibe.
I do not feel nearly as sillyawesome and occasionally I am serious. Okay,
(01:15):
no, not really just on thepage, on the written page.
Hence I write books. So wewrote books. There's normally a jade on
this side or on that side.Oh no, not on that side.
There's not a space today on thisside. So it's normally a jd on
that side. And that's why Isaid we and those books are And I
thought divorce was bad, and Ithought being grown up with CZ if only
our mem Memoir and Verse, ForeignCoffee, Widdows Web and Widow's Debt.
(01:37):
Those are the six audio books,and you can get those audiobooks wherever audiobooks
are sold. But guess what,y'all, we wrote more books than that.
And yeah, just in case youwere thinking, well I don't want
to read any of them, wellthere's eighteen more you don't have to read.
I'm joking. Buy them all youcan. You can find out the
rest of the eighteen books at www. Dot And I thought ladies dot com.
And although there's a jade not here, I feel like the visible force
(02:00):
of pressure of jade being like,don't forget to say so here we go.
I shall not forget to say thatthat our books are literary life guides.
They explain life, food, poetry. I feel like Jade is already
doing this right. I feel goodabout myself. But since my narcissism has
already shown with all the eyes andhow I feel, I feel like that
(02:23):
it's time to go ahead and saythat you're not here to hear about me,
which is a horrible loss for you, because I'm a narcissist. I
have to say that. But you'rehere to hear about our wonderful guests.
Wonderful guys. Would you like tointroduce yourselves? Hi, everyone and Bologna.
Thank you so much for having meon here. This is so awesome.
I am Joni Kane, and Iwrite Christmas movies and I've done some
(02:45):
other kind of movies and things likethat, and I'm excited to be here.
Okay, So I love how she'sjust like I write Christmas movies and
other This lady invented a genre.Actually, let me ask it as a
question because you don't need I needto say it. So, I mean,
when did you start writing Christmas moviesand how many and what Christmas movies
(03:06):
were your influence at the time.Okay, very good question. So let's
rock and roll. Let's get rightinto it. So the movie that I'm
most known for is called The ChristmasCard and it premiered on the Hallmark Channel
in two thousand and six, andwhen it premiered on the Hallmark Channel,
it shattered writings records. It receivedan Emmy nomination for the actor Ed Asner
(03:30):
who was in it, and it'scredited as being one of the instigators for
launching the current holiday romance movie Crisethat's happening now and still going. But
there's a great story involved with TheChristmas Card is because I actually the idea
for it came up around nineteen ninetythree after I saw a Vince Gill video
(03:53):
It's a Christmas video, I'll beHome for Christmas. And in the video,
Vin Skill was playing the serviceman who'swriting home to you know, the
love of his life. And Ithought, that's kind of a great sort
of setup for a story or movie, a Christmas movie. But you know,
back in the nineties, there weren'treally hard lady Christmas movies at all
as you went to the movie theaters. And you know, I with my
(04:15):
mom at the time when we sawthe video, we were watching TV together
and I you know, thought,you know, how can I do use
that story and you know, maybemake a movie somehow, especially to honor
my mom, who used to sendout hundreds of Christmas cards every year to
everybody we knew, relative, aneighbor, church members, you know,
every single relative, every family Frenchgot a Christmas card from my mom.
(04:40):
And my dad had served in WorldWar two. He was a medic in
the European Campaign of World War two. So I'm like, well, yeah,
I could. I could honor themwith sort of the general idea of
a Christmas card, which was,you know, a woman sends a card
to a serviceman who gets in andit really touches him. So when he's
on leave, he goes to hertown and he meets her and fall in
love and happy ever after. Yeah, which is now the standard you know,
(05:01):
holiday romance story. So I kindof percolated on it for a few
years. And back in the ninetiesone, there was hardly any cable,
you know that cable was just gettingstarted. There was no streamers, no
Internet, no Facebook, none ofthat. There was no Hallmark Channel,
and you know, so you know, I knew I was kind of wanted
to write a movie, but Iwas thinking more of a feature film because
(05:23):
there was nothing on TV really forthe for Christmas at that time. And
then in you know, so Iwas perl percolated on it. Nothing was
coming. I had written a coupleof other screenplays. I wrote a comedy
that Bette Midler actually read. Igot some really fun notes from her on
that, but you know, Ididn't sell it to her. And then
(05:43):
in nineteen ninety eight Christmas week,I took a job working part time in
the office of a lumber mill becauseI needed to support my habit, writing
habit, because I was listening tomaking any money on writing yet. And
the very first Friday of January ofnineteen ninety nine, and one of the
(06:04):
mills, the lumber Mills loggers walkedinto the office and it was love at
first sight. The minute I sawhim, he just stole my heart.
I just I was totally taken withhim, totally in love, totally love
at first sight. And that weekend, I just that entire movie of the
Christmas Card came to me. It'slike, I'm setting it at the mill,
(06:25):
this is what the story is goingto be. So I cranked out
the script in three months and inMarch March twenty third of nineteen ninety nine,
I printed out two copies, onefor my mom. She got the
first copy, and then I broughthand delivered the second copy up to the
logger to thank him for his help. And I pretty much never left.
(06:49):
And we have been together for twentyfive years. Isn't that like the greatest
love story. He's like in theother room. He is the inspiration.
There would be no Christmas card ifit wasn't for him. I probably wouldn't
have him in my life, ifI wasn't writing the Christmas Scryptum. And
so it's, uh, I've livedthat story every day my life and blessedly
(07:09):
so. And you're still you're likeshiny and like you just met and you're
telling me about him, like likelast week you just got man, You're
like, oh my god, that'swonderful. Almost well, twenty five years
is coming by the year. Andstill in nineteen ninety nine there was still
no Hallmark Channel. So you know, I did not write that for a
Hallmark because there was no Hallmark channel. And finally Hallmark Channel came about I
(07:33):
think two thousand and one, twothousand and two, and they bought the
script in two thousand and three.It took a couple of years to get
made, and then they broadcast itin two thousand and six and my life
has been Christmas ever since. Sobut you know, that was just such
a blessing. So you know thatwhole story, And I'm loving my own
(07:54):
Hallmark movie every day with my logerHoney. I think it's always wonderful to
the like real love, Like twentyfive years is real love. Yeah,
yeah, that is. I thinkeveryone here knows that I am divorced,
so they're good bad days and tosee someone else for twenty five years and
(08:16):
smiling, Oh my god, Wellhe was divorced. You know, he
had two kids, they're adults.Now we have from you know, his
family, five grandkids total. Soso for anybody who is you know,
has divorced, there there is loveout there and there are somebody special and
that. And I think that's thebeauty of these movies is because it really
does give us hope that not onlyabout Christmas, which is really all about
(08:39):
magic and hope and family and nostalgia, but also about love and uh and
that uh. I think it's aspecial special time and a special love exactly.
So I do have to ask.I'm going to ask more technical questions
than I apologize because I should beasking about writing, because you know,
(09:00):
we write, I'm going to askabout development. They're not so great part
of having a movie. So howdid you reach out to like producers,
to production companies. You came upwith this idea, you wrote it,
and then you have to get itproduced. How did you go about doing
that? Well, back then,since that was like twenty years ago,
(09:22):
what was known in the Hollywood.They had this thing called the Hollywood Creative
Directory, which is basically the YellowPages for Hollywood. So back then,
because there was really still no Internet, there's no social media, I just
had my little Trustee Guide and Iflipped through it and I looked at,
you know, the producers, andI actually had to print out letters and
send the letters to people. That'show it worked back then, because you
(09:45):
know, I'm so ancient. Butnowadays, you know, because it's such
an industry and there's so many writerswho want to do it, and all
of us can do it. Itdoesn't matter where you live, what your
age is, you know, whatyour background is. You can write,
you can get it out there,and you can make the connections and you
can make movie dreams come true.It's it's it's it's a great time to
(10:05):
be living for for writers right now. And there's various websites. There's a
website called Stage thirty two that's agreat community. There inc tip I n
K T I P that you canpost your your completed screenplay up there.
(10:26):
Producers can see it. They sendyou out a newsletter every week that has
listing which producers are looking for content, so you can pitch directly. There's
Virtual pitch Fest, another website.You know, you have to pay a
small fee. I think it's likefive dollars a pitch, but you're guaranteed
a response from the producers listed.There's is a which is the I think
(10:48):
it's the International Screenwriters Association. Youcan post scripts there, you can meet
producers there. So there's a lotof opportunity online if you're uh, definitely
focused on Christmas screenplays. There's acouple of books that have been written about
how to write screenplays that if youknow, you go to Amazon or Barnes
(11:11):
and Noble, you know, youyou know, just type in you know
Christmas, you know, movie writing, and the the bok books will come
up stories some on it which iswhere you know, I've taught some classes
and participating in some of their holidayevents, you know, is another organization.
So so yeah, I mean Googleis your your your bff. You
(11:33):
just you know, type in whateveryou want and uh, you know,
tons of options come up that willhelp you guide you through not only writing
a screenplay but also how to marketit and AI that's like the new sort
of elephant in the room, butyou know it is it is, you
know, while you know there definitelyneeds to be guard rails because you know,
(11:56):
it is kind of amazing and Fridayin all what it can do.
If you go on to chat GPTand type in, I want to write
a holidays you know, Christmas,you know, screenplay, How do I
do it? And where do Isend it? In two seconds, it
will come out with a complete toollessfor you on what to do. Or
(12:18):
if you're writing a scription, it'slike, oh, I'm stuck on this
scene, how can I get theguy to do this in this scene?
It will it will be like yourwriting partner and offer you suggestions. So
so there's a lot of opportunity outthere, you know, for people,
and you know, I'm all forgo for it because you know, you
can't make your your holiday movie dreamscome true. I'm just going to say
(12:39):
it's it's hard enough to try tomake a living as a writer because I
write novels. Actually I write poetry, so like, yeah, sorry,
y'all. You know they're always likepoets don't make money. I mean,
look at for edgarrel and Poe waslike, you know, he was poverty
stricken his entire life, and lookat the look at the immense you know,
(13:03):
creativity he came up with, Yeah, that's not my problem. Like
getting out there and getting your nameout there and getting your brand and just
getting started. It's very hard.But like with the resources that you said
that, it means that these thingsare possible. Now these are It's how
hard are you willing to work tomake your dream come true? Well that's
(13:24):
it. It does take a lotof time, and you got to kind
of have thick skin because you know, even today with it, you know,
I've had I think about seventeen Christmasmovies made, and you know a
number of other projects. But youknow, I still get rejected, I
still get ghosted, I still getyou know, just you know, I
probably have way more rejections and youknow, way more sort of you know,
(13:48):
bad responses to stuff that I've hadgood. And there's some days that
you just want to like kind ofcrawl up into bed and snuggle with your
teddy, watch horror movies not youknow, Hallmark. But then the next
day you get up the Sunday shineis like, I'm going to go for
I'm going to do it, anduh, and you can, you can.
You just got to weather whether someof the you know, the tough
(14:09):
spots. But I remember one ofmy friends said, and I know they
if you've been here with us along time, you've heard this. My
friends said that, you know whatprepared her for all the rejection and acting
was the fact that she became awriter first, because they so they say
no faster and meaner. An actor, they'll be like no, because as
a writer is like no. Soyou have to be ready for that rejection.
(14:37):
So actually it brings me to thethis conversation just goes to like how
did you get over the rejection?That is the obvious question, But I
don't want to ask that because Iwant to ask something else. But then
there, and this is a conversationalinterview, how did you manage your rejection?
You know, you just uh,perseverance. So all Christmas, have
(14:58):
you seen Ruda No, not Rudolphwith the one put one foot in front
of the other and soon you'll bewalking out the door. One of those
Christmas on classics that came out.I'm blanking on what the name of it
is, but it's about the historyof how Santa Claus came to be.
(15:18):
And he meets the Winter Warlock,you know, when he's trying to get
the toys to the town, andat first it's all scary and everything,
but then he breaks through because hegives a toy to the Winter Warlock and
the Winter Waller. It's like,I don't really kind of know how to,
you know, not be a warlock. And he sings in the song
put one foot in front of theother. So that's sort of my mantra
(15:39):
when I'm feeling blue. It's oryou know, the rejections are to scare
just girgeon. And also the bigthing in Hollywood too is you can get
ghosted a lot. So even withpeople I work with, if I send
out an email or something, Idon't hear back and it's like, oh
God, what's wrong with me?What did I do wrong? But it's
just it's the nature of the beast, and you just, you know,
figure out how to weather the theyou know, kind of the hurt feelings
(16:03):
and the insecurity feelings and say no, I'm going to go for it,
and I'm going to keep doing itbecause you know, I have the story
I want to tell and I knowthere's a home for it somewhere, and
I'm going to meet, you know, the right person who's going to help
bring that to fruition. So sojust you know, the whole manifest,
you know, get the good zen. But one foot in front of the
other, like the old Winter Warlock, and keep going. I'm telling you,
(16:26):
you're making me believe, and youcan. We can all do it.
Not in Santa Claus and not inChristmas, but you yourself, believe
in yourself, Believe in myself,in your magic, because we all have
magic in us. I'm starting todo a lot more sort of witch content
because what I'm finding is like thewhole history of witches is more like,
(16:48):
you know, we have our ownpower and we all have magic, and
we need to tap into that andshare it with the world. I agree
we do, and one of theone of the ways you do that is
by writing, because like we allhave a story, because we are currently
living a story exactly, I'll beable to write it down as well.
But we have something to live inwith the world, and writing is a
(17:08):
great way to do it. Itis it is. Unfortunately for you,
your writing got seen. Yeah,but it took you a lot one time,
and it took a lot of rejections. So of course I need to
be asking about your writing process.And now that's got knocked down the road
again, just kicking the can downthe road. Down the road we go.
What did it feel like when youfinally saw your television, your movie
(17:33):
on screens? Oh and did youhave a premiere and if you did what
you wear? Oh? Yeah,no, no, no premiere. I
haven't done any premiere. So thebiggest, most fanciest thing I've done so
far was I got to go toa movie premiere at cons for Passion Flex
when we did Alexandra Torre's movie HollywoodDirt, And that was exciting and fun.
(17:55):
That was a great treat. Butyeah, there's not really you know.
I think the Hallmark does some premierefor some of their movies, but
they make so many, and there'sso many that Christmas ones. It's most
now, it's more like an industry. They just crank them out and get
them up there. But I waswatching. I didn't actually did not watch
the premiere with Logger Honey. Infact, I don't even know if he's
he has actually hasn't seen any ofthe movies because that's not his thing,
(18:17):
which is completely okay with me.But I got to spend it with my
mom. You know, I lostmy dad in ninety two, and so
my mom was my treasure, mybest friend, and you know, just
you know, the Logger Honey's loveof my life, but my mom was
the love of my life too,and so you know, we had a
little sort of kind of hangout partyand we watched it together in the living
(18:38):
room with the home I grew upwith, and my nephew, my godson,
Paul Henry was with us too,and so we all start kind of
camped out in the living room andwe watched it and it was really,
it was really wonderful. And itwas great because they could find things because
I wrote church scenes into the movie, because the reverend of my church,
Peter ives was just such a nearand dear friend to us, and it's
(19:00):
such a good soul. So Iwanted to sort of honor him. So
I wrote in church scenes so Icould have the minister, you know,
be named after him, and theykept his name and stuff, so and
they you know, they referred tohim as Reverend I. So that was
yeah, So that was really funto see that. That has got to
be a blast. Is It's oneof my dreams to to see something I've
written, like on television. I'mwell, you're young, huns, so
(19:23):
you got you got plenty of time. I'm gonna I'm gonna have a narcissist
moment. So like, I writtena script and I've heard it as a
table read, and I'm just likeone day, one day. But honestly,
I feel like the taper read wasgood enough. So I have to
ask how your family reacted to thiswith everyone like, yes, did you
(19:47):
get the characters right? Well,yeah, there wasn't really anybody in the
movie. I did actually write ina logger and that got cut, so
there was no longer It was thata lumber company, but there was no
logger, but there was a UncleRichard and was actually fashioned after somebody I
worked with at the lumber company whereI met Dave. You know my logger,
(20:11):
which he's affectuately known as logger Honey, So anybody who follows me on
Facebook knows him as logger honey.And and yeah, Peter Jason, who's
the actor, just nailed the characterand he was very much like like the
the you know, older man whoI worked with at the lumber mill.
Oh my goodness, that's that's wouldbe amazing. Okay, now I have
arrived the can Can Stop movie?Can you tell her a bit about your
(20:36):
writing process? Did you sit downand like bang it out all at once?
I know that you told us beforethat it was taking you a little
time, and then you met yourlogger honey, and then you know it
was easier to write. Was scriptformatting a problem? Did you do it
as as like a real story first? All of these questions? If you
feel like about when I was younger, you know, when I was like
(20:57):
not close to six like I amnow, I could like crank out a
first draft in a weekend, anda lot of people in Hollywood will say,
I don't do that, that's toofast. But when I go back
and read the first draft, it'slike, oh, yeah, that needs
a lot of work. But Ifind that when I get a story in
my head, I just have tostick with it. Like when I get
(21:18):
the characters talking, I have tostick with it. Like if I'm walking
around town, some people will say, wow, what was going on?
What we were doing? It's like, oh, because I was probably like
shaking and mumbling. It's like,oh, the characters were talking, you
know, or like, yeah,honey, will tell me I wanted to
say something, It's like, no, not yet, but the characters are
talking. You know, I'll talkwith you as soon as I'm done with
this conversation. So sometimes I can't. I have to just keep going and
(21:41):
plug through, like you know,twenty four to seven while I have the
story, but now because I've beendoing it so much, and sometimes I'm
I'm hired to write and it's notjust all my own personal stories, you
know, I get you know,it varies depending on projects. Sometimes I'll
just like just keep going and keepgoing, and I can crank it out
in a couple of weeks. Othertimes it's you know, sometimes I'll work
(22:03):
a little bit on it, putit aside for a few months, come
back to it. You know,it depends on the story, and it
really depends on what the characters inthe story want me to do. I
sort of let them tell me whatto do with them, you know,
I understand, like you know,people plan out entire stories and plots.
I'm wanted the like if I canget the beginning and I can get the
end and then they start having aconversation, that did that's the story,
(22:26):
and then you just sit down andwrite it. Oh yeah. I mean
the best moment is like when theparts where you don't know what's happening and
you're you get in the groove andall of a sudden, this idea comes
to your head. That's like,oh my gosh, that's like the greatest
thing ever. That's like the bestfeeling ever. And there's there's you know,
there's so many scripts I've written thatwill never see the light today and
(22:48):
never get made, but I don'tcare. I just had such a blast
writing them, and then when Igo back and revisit them, it's like,
oh my god, I remember thatmoment when I wrote that, because
I was like the best moment ever. So there's some people out there who
like go golfing or go ball,like to know, those things. I
just love to write, you know, and that's you know, that's such
a such a joy. It is. It is just a joy. Do
(23:08):
you ever think you do a novel? You know? Okay, So that
this is where I came up withpassion flips, because you know, back
in you know, around twenty thirteen, I you know, I had a
bunch of screenplays that were I wrotethat I loved. There were romances,
and you know, they didn't sell, and I'm like, I want to
(23:30):
do something with them. They're greatstories. I'm like, I'll turn them
into novels. So I immersed myselfin the romance novel community on social media.
Yeah, I went to conventions.I went to this one in Las
Vegas, and you know, Itry to turn the scripts into novels.
And I'm like, oh no,I'm a screenwriter. I just like the
format of screenwriting. But I gotto meet so many amazing writers. I'm
(23:53):
like, there needs to be somemore of a cinematic out you know,
you know, option for these writers. You know, So I wanted to
so back then in twenty thirteen,I committed myself to trying to help authors
get their content on screens, andI came up with the idea for Passion
Flicks. I coined the name,I purchased a domain, and back then
(24:14):
in twenty thirteen, the only streameron was Netflix, and they weren't really
doing original programming yet. The onlyprogramming they had at the time was Orange
Is the New Black. They hadthat show and some political one with Robin
Wright and I'm blank on the nameof it, but they weren't. That
was also at the same time fiftyShades was exploding, and fifty Shades was
(24:37):
started as fan fiction on Twilight.So my thought was, there needs to
be a Netflix for the romance novelindustry and just have it twenty four to
seven content based on novels. SoI came up with it that idea,
and you know, I kind oftook break from doing all the Christmas movies
and that stuff, and I just, you know, for you know,
(25:00):
several years pounded on Hollywood doors.I you know, finally you know,
connected with a couple of female producersin twenty sixteen and it launched in twenty
seventeen. Amazing. I have beenfascinated by Passion Flicks for a while now.
Yeah, it's very interesting. I'vealways thought that when I saw it,
and I went, this is anamazingly good idea, because romance is
(25:23):
a billion dollar business a year,yeah, a year, exactly like everyone
else, like all the rest ofthe of the of the literary worlds like
oh I'm hurting. I'm hurting,and I'm like, you never hear romance
go oh God, we're hurting.No, and people and people underestimate it.
I mean, you have every singlesubgenre in romance. You have fantasy,
(25:45):
you have rom com you have mystery, you have action. I've read
action romances written by by women thatare better than the Jason Straight the movies.
You see fine, Honestly, oneof the things that one of the
narcissist, selfish things I wanted todo today was introduced you to the work
(26:07):
of this author that like in myhead when I started writing when I was
twelve years old, I was like, this is what I want to write.
And then I read her book andI'm like, for the love of
goodness, this book is just insanelyamazing. And I read like I read
the Jason Bourne novels, I readLove Loom, I read I've read almost
all the clancies I read like becauseI write noir mystery as my genre,
(26:33):
so I have to read and yo, she's just see that's great, and
those are the stories, those arethe undiscovered gems. So any anything I
can do to help writers, I'mcompletely on board for that. You recognize
it wasn't even for me, LikeI'm not even saying to my narcissist form,
you go girl. But that's thegreat thing about us writers is,
(26:56):
you know, rising tides. Weall tried to, you know, do
what we can to to help others, and I've I just wanted to congratulate
you face to face on like likerecognizing like the amazingness that the romance community
has to offer. Like I wasjust like, this is ingenius because people,
I don't think I've ever been toa roman's convention where someone goes,
I don't want to see that bookas a movie. They all want to
(27:18):
see that book of a movie.I want one in that one. And
yeah, there's not enough time inthe day to bring them all the screen
because there's just so many good ones. Exactly, a lot of these writers
just there, you know, theirmoms and they have other jobs and they're
doing other things and they're still crankingthem out, and they're still you know,
just living bringing just joy and loveto the world. Yeah, like
(27:40):
you know, like sort of likethe holiday movies, but just not really
much kind of broader, wider scale. So I was about to wind this
down and then I thought of thequestion that I've been dying to ask you.
So if I may take one moremoment of your time before down blastly,
okay, what did you learn fromeach perspective? Because you started off
as a writer, you became afilmmaker, then you became like kind of
(28:03):
the executive side, and now you'reswitching over to horror. What have you
learned from all of these things toenjoy every moment and to no matter what
you do for a living, whatmatters most is who's with you in your
life and and and love and familyand and that kind of support. And
(28:25):
I think that's uh because no matterwhether I'm writing or or producing or doing
other things, you know that Iknow that logger honeys in the other room
is what matters most. Or youknow, before Mom passed a couple of
years ago, that she was there, and I think was what I think
of what I meant to ask wasIs there a different set of mindset that
(28:48):
you have to be in in orderto go from being creative to being a
producer. Yeah, creative is justso much funner are fun. Yeah,
all the other stuff, there's justso many details from like logistics, insurance,
you know, payroll, you knowall the business stuff. And that's
why, and that's why if yousurround yourself with people that our joy to
(29:11):
work with and our team players,it just it makes the journey so much
better. And you know, like, starting in twenty twenty four, I'm
going to be making my directorial debuton a haunted House Christmas movie called A
Merry Scary Christmas Tale. So it'sboth kind of scary, but it's also
very merry at the same time,and there's a really great love story in
(29:32):
it. So yeah, at theend of the movie, after you've been
scared and had this festive fun thelove story, I think people are going
to be like, oh my god, that's just so amazing. That's such
a great love story and it's kindof like buried in this really fun,
festive, scary story, haunted housestory. And it has the female well
they has some witch characters and it'ssort of a coming of age story of
(29:53):
you know, you know, witha good theme about finding our magic because
we all have that magic inside ofus. So that just rolled me right
nicely into that question to start uson the ends the finale, the climax
of this interview here, which iswhat were you going to be doing next
after your first directorial debut? Areyou going to do some more directing or
(30:15):
are you going to put that?Yeah, it depends on how well that
one does, you know, becauseif it does really well, I'd love
to do Mary Scaries for the restof my life because I'd be fun.
But I'm launching what I did.I've launched. I created this organization called
Coven Cons, which is all aboutthe Witch, and we're going to be
have I'm gonna I'm plotting a conventionfor sort of witches and pop culture and
(30:41):
witchy content and I'm just sort oflike embracing the whole world of witch and
I'm very excited about that. AndI came just very quickly. I came
up with it because a good palavine, Liliana Klingman. She created Christmas Con,
which was a convention for Christmas movielovers and it was huge huge success,
(31:03):
and she came up with the ideaher and her friends when they were
watching my movie Matchmaker Santas. Sothat was really fun. So I got
to participate in the very first CharristmasGun, which is twenty nineteen. And
then they had a con called theNineties Con, which was huge and it's
covered by People magazine and Entertainment Weekly, and you know, it's huge.
But you know, part of theelements of it that were huge, you
(31:25):
know, extra huge were they hadthe panels for like the TV show Charmed,
Hoax Pocus, the Craft, andthose were you know, you know,
so when I went online to dosome research on that, I mean,
that's just such a huge fan basefor all these kind of shows and
movies that sort of have witches,you know, Discovery of Witches, practical
(31:48):
magic and look at The Wizard ofOz that was my mom's favorite movie.
So so I'm sort of kind ofalso, you know, branching off into
the world of which so I'm veryexcited about that. You seem very happy
to be doing that, adding somescary to life exactly, like there was
more than enough scary to my life. I added any more scary, I
might die now. So a funthing on that is the Christmas actually kind
(32:14):
of started because of scary A ChristmasCarol was written by Charles Dickens. He
wrote that back in the eighteen hundreds. Back in the eighteen hundreds, Christmas
was not a thing in America.We did not care about Christmas at all.
Big thing in England though, Andwhat the Victorians did in Victorian England
was when they got together for Christmas, they all sit around the fire,
(32:35):
they drink their hot toddies and theywould tell ghost stories. That was their
hallmark. They loved to scare themselvessillies. And that's why Charles Dickens wrote
A Christmas Carol is for that tradition. So this and that when that went
viral in America and President Grant sawhow big the Christmas Carol and Charles Dickens
(32:55):
was in America, and he thought, hey, you know, let's make
Christmas a holiday. And he's theone that proclaimed Christmas is an official holiday.
So it all started with a ghoststory. So my whole goal in
twenty twenty four is to bring backthat tradition of telling scary stories. Are
Christmas time? Wow? Well thesing was hard. You single handedly started
(33:17):
one tradition you might be able tobring back another. So it's open.
Where can we find out more informationabout you and see your upcoming movies and
your backlog of movies as well.You know, that's a very good question
because I really don't have much socialmedia, but I need to do that.
I do. You know, myFacebook page, Joni Kane is my
(33:39):
personal page, but it's open foreverybody to see on you know, social
media, and I usually post stuffthere. I actually do have a YouTube
channel because I've been experimenting with makingfun little shorts and it's called Wicked Conjurings.
So and there's some fun little shortit's up there now. But so
(34:01):
yeah, so sure we are stayingon theme, something that like my people
over here wish I would do.I want to thank you so much for
being with being here with us today, miss Kane, and I keep saying
us because I am truly missing myj like like j that's okay. You
can find out everything that your ladiesare doing at www dot and I thought
(34:24):
ladies dot com. And while you'rethere, take a moment go down to
the middle of the page, notthe bottom of the page, but the
middle of the page. And seethe three charities that we probably support be
asked that you give them a littletime and energy, not necessarily money,
but if you have money, pleasegive them that too. Oh, because
you know it's the end of theyear. We all need a little giving
(34:44):
our life right now, and wethank you in advance for that. Remember
that wisdom is all around you ifyou're open to finding it and accepting it.
So peace in love you guys fromWill Noona and the Missing j Oh.
Yeah, thanks for listening.
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