Latest / The Daytime Emmys Specials / Emmy Winner/Nominee Gregori J Martin (The Bay)
Transcript
- 0:02Everyone. When you think of the word Emmy or even look at one,
- 0:07this person's name is next to it multiple times. Trust and believe he is
- 0:13one of the ogs in the daytime digital drama space. I'm I'm rooted for
- 0:19a brillion years. But to be more important thought this. He is the
- 0:23creator behind, a mastermind behind The Bay, a show that many of you
- 0:29know in love and has gotten Emmy love again this year has gotten Emmy Love
- 0:35for Drama, writing, directing, and two supporting acting nods. We're very
- 0:38happy about that. So if I could just talk to him on camera,
- 0:42though he throws a great party, it's my friend Greg gre jbar Hell James.
- 0:48Thank you so much for an awesome inter introduction. I appreciate you so
- 0:52much. And yes, my dear friend who I've known for I don't even
- 0:55know how long now, it's at least a decay. While I was looking
- 0:59back at the Bay is around, says twenty ten. That's like, I'm
- 1:04like, I feel like that's another lifetime. That's like fourteen years. Fourteen
- 1:08years. We've had many transformations. Oh yes, you have some then,
- 1:14but no, I want to say public on camera. Greg's always been supportive
- 1:17of my career. He's been supportive of my stuff. We always cheer each
- 1:21other on when things happen. I want to make sure I say that on
- 1:23camera. I want to say say so, thank you for your support.
- 1:26Thank you. Yes, well, of course you're doing awesome stuff, and
- 1:30of course I'm always going to support you. I appreciate you very much.
- 1:34Thank you, thank you, congratulations once again. But I mean, but
- 1:38I want so. I want to start actually kind of in a general space
- 1:42and that is now the base around for a long time, lots of seasons,
- 1:48lots of wins, everything. And I've interviewed many of your people from
- 1:52your shows. I'm friends with many other folks from the shows, and I'd
- 1:57like that. And I really appreciated the concept that you when you first started,
- 2:01you went to daytime actors and used them on your shot. That I
- 2:07was very smart at the time, of course. But when someone says,
- 2:10Greg Green, what is the bae? What do you say? Now?
- 2:15What do you say? What is the bae? I mean, if somebody
- 2:17asked me, I say, it's a crime romance, it's a drama series
- 2:23in the daytime drama because which is odd because we're technically not a daytime drama
- 2:28because we're anytime. We do have our like pop Star release, which is
- 2:34like as a daily drama book. For the most part, you know,
- 2:37our show is anytime, but it's a it's a drama series, has a
- 2:43lot of soap opera elements, and I describe it as kind of a crime
- 2:46romance. So that's true, actually that folks, it is, And that's
- 2:50a great way of putting it. You know. But obviously I said you
- 2:53did. You were one of the You're one of the first ones to go
- 2:55Okay, you could have went and said, I'm get a whole new just
- 2:58unknown cast. I mean it there was someone knows you first start obviously at
- 3:01crystals and stuff, but you actually did go into the pool of actors and
- 3:05you have all these years from the soap world. Was that always an idea
- 3:09that you had, like maybe there's all these great people sitting around here,
- 3:12let's grab them. Oh yeah, totally. I mean even with my before
- 3:15I was doing The Bay. Before I did The Bay, I was doing
- 3:19a bunch of kind of like b horror films, and I would often cast
- 3:23soap actors because I worked on soaps. I did you know a show in
- 3:28New York and then I did another year in LA and so I had a
- 3:31lot of friends in that space and so and I also grew up watching soaps,
- 3:37so I know, you know, it's funny because whenever I'm talking to
- 3:40my senior producer, Nadine Aronson, who worked on soaps many years. She
- 3:46worked on Loving and then she did The City, and she did all my
- 3:52children for a very long time, or anyone on the show, like pretty
- 3:55much a lot of the people behind the scenes have worked in daytime. So
- 4:00we speak the same language because I grew up, not because I worked like
- 4:05that extensively behind the scenes on the soap opera, but because I grew up
- 4:09watching them, and so you know, we can mention, you know,
- 4:12a random actor in daytime, one of my favorites, Lisa Beluso, for
- 4:15instance, and we all know who we're talking about, you know. So
- 4:18it's it's, uh, I forgot the question. I kind of I think
- 4:24I went off on something, but but but you did I answer it?
- 4:30Okay, good answer. That's that's that's the things like going to the fool
- 4:33of people because you grew up with them, you worked on them, and
- 4:36you said, and you you're people you're working behind the scene them we're talking,
- 4:40you know, we're talking Ron Moss, We're talking. I mean,
- 4:43it's like very bad that we're talking about people who I mean, Tristan Rogers,
- 4:46you know, Lily mil I mean, these are all my friends,
- 4:48like I know all of them. These are these are my friends and sobs
- 4:50and for a billion years also as press. So I mean these are people
- 4:56you right, we know them. I thought, that's a great attraction,
- 4:59is that if you're that's that's that's a great marketing thing, I thought,
- 5:03compared to some of the other digital dramas as like going. But let's actors,
- 5:08right, they're good actors, right, They're good well yeah, and
- 5:11they're also some of the most beautiful people on planet Earth, so it helps,
- 5:15you know. So that's but also because you guys are not you don't
- 5:23work the same way as a soap opera though. These guys, you film
- 5:27a certain way. They know how to take direction. They know how we
- 5:30actors are good at taking you know, quick, fast and hurry, right,
- 5:32they know that, they know the pay. So I'm sure working with
- 5:34them has been wonderful. Yeah, well, you know the interesting enough,
- 5:39we started very different, like the way we used to shoot the show was
- 5:43very different from a daytime so because I took my experience as an independent filmmaker
- 5:46and I kind of shot it that way. But as time went on,
- 5:50we did start to shoot more like a soap opera. We do three cameras
- 5:54and we shoot a lot in the studio, and it's still very in the
- 6:00aspects of like I try to make it look a little more cinematic, but
- 6:03I do, but it is very similar to a soap. Like we do
- 6:06shoot like an episode a day. So where originally we would shoot six pages
- 6:15in a day, now we shoot twenty pages in a day, which is
- 6:18for soaps. It's kind of it would be more like forty pages because we
- 6:23the spacing of the way we format our script is more like the way of
- 6:28forty page. It would be forty pages in daytime than twenty pages in prime
- 6:32time. So because of the way the formatting is, so we do shoot
- 6:34about twenty pages a day. So, and we do multi camera and we
- 6:40try to do I know that in daytime now they're only doing you know,
- 6:44one or two takes max. Well, I try to do four just so
- 6:47that I have that, but sometimes we get stuck with two, you know,
- 6:51So we are moving a lot faster, you know, with the three
- 6:55cameras going at all times, like a daytime soap, and we do a
- 6:59lot a lot in the studio, but we but we also you know,
- 7:02I take the show on location and we you know, just to kind of
- 7:06keep it feeling you know, hip and young and stuff. You know.
- 7:10Oh yeah, Well, then, like I said, if you go back
- 7:12to the beginning, because they were called birthday shows, are called webs webisodes
- 7:16and website all those names, and and then I mean the digital thing came
- 7:20later. I mean that's a little fancier, but you read back in the
- 7:24day, it was just like these are called webisodes or web sites, YouTube
- 7:28series or what. I was like, they were like, you know,
- 7:30they were they weren't as fair, they weren't taking as fancy. But I
- 7:32think between you guys and a few others, we started seeing these are really
- 7:36well produced, you know, well acted, great story drama. Yeah yeah,
- 7:44it's great, so great. And then now with the liberties of like
- 7:48streaming, where we can kind of self distribute in so many ways, it
- 7:51just it's helped, it's helped so many creatives and filmmakers out there just kind
- 7:57of you know, create their own content. And it's like I you know,
- 8:00I said this recently in another interview, but you know, I come
- 8:03from the school of John Carpenter, which is just do it, you know,
- 8:05and that's kind of what he did with Halloween. You know, Halloween
- 8:09became a cult classic and turned into this massive franchise, but it was an
- 8:13independent film, and he just kind of that's his mentality. That's that was
- 8:18That's what I understand to be his mentality is just do it, get it
- 8:20done. And now there's so many ways. There's almost like no excuse for
- 8:26anyone because you could even use your cell phone like we're doing right now,
- 8:28like I'm doing right now to do an interview, but you can you can
- 8:31use your cell phone to create to create a movie because it's four K,
- 8:35you know, so there's so many or six K, you know. So
- 8:37there's so many, so many benefits now that we have that we didn't have,
- 8:43you know, five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. You
- 8:46know, I know, we've seen it. We really have seen it.
- 8:50We'll grow and change because i'd like to be back in the day it was
- 8:54a little different. Well, I always wanted to ask you this though,
- 8:58How does one go from horror films to a dayti drama. I like,
- 9:03like, as you were doing independent. You know, I love B movie
- 9:07and C movie or I love horror films. I love them. How did
- 9:13you do it? What do you have to do at well? I loved
- 9:16both growing up, like I you know, I was a big soap opera
- 9:20fan. I grew up on Santa Barbara and Another World, and you know,
- 9:24General Hospital and and so they're the and Dynasty for prime time Melro's Place
- 9:31I loved, you know, there was you know, I grew up watching
- 9:33prime time and daytime soaps, and and I also grew up on Stephen King
- 9:39and Wes Craven and all the horrors. So when I created The Bay,
- 9:43I kind of merged the two. But you know, I've always had the
- 9:46interest of the horror, and so that's kind of the direction I went into
- 9:50when I became a filmmaker. I was like, Oh, let's shoot horror
- 9:52movies. We know that they sell, and then that was just kind of
- 9:56my arena. But I would cast soap actors in those. You know,
- 10:00I've worked with so many Tyler Christopher, I know what a loss, yes,
- 10:05but so many, so many actors from daytime, Tristan Rodgers did lots
- 10:09of them. Greg Vaughn, Yeah, now you Buraalin, Matt Burlangey.
- 10:16You know, so many people in the daytime are Sean Canaan. And then
- 10:22I just but because I I did work on soaps and I loved the genre.
- 10:26That's when I created The Bay and I was like, you know what,
- 10:30maybe somehow merge these two. If I'm going to do a web series,
- 10:33it's got to have like supernatural or dark elements, which I do have
- 10:35on the Bay. Sometimes I'm like, you know, binging the Bay myself
- 10:39and I'm looking at an old see I'm like, oh, that was pretty
- 10:41creepy. Like Greg, here's a couple of seasons it got really dark,
- 10:46remember, And I was like, Okay, I gotta pull back up.
- 10:50Maybe I'm going too far into my horror, you know interest. You know,
- 10:54there was the whole the supernatural twin thing. I was like, there's
- 10:58a lot, there's some that you there's the horror influence. It's right,
- 11:03yes, yes, it's right. I mean you're not but you're doing an
- 11:07actual horror series. That's that's something I guess could be done. I mean,
- 11:11their Life, I just did a movie The Raven. It's gar posed
- 11:16The Raven with Cristo's and my part producing partner Precious and and Mike Manning and
- 11:24several other folks. But it's basically all posed The Raven that could easily turn
- 11:30into an an apology series. So I have the thoughts of potentially doing like
- 11:33an anthology horror series. But so we'll see what happens. We'll see how
- 11:37well The Raven does seem. I thinking, I'm like, yeah, I'm
- 11:41the ideas, man, I think I think of I'm like, you can
- 11:45always see that too, That's right, that's very cool. But no,
- 11:46you're a couple of folks are coming. They're like they went a little dark,
- 11:50but then they came out, you guys, they do come out,
- 11:52man. I mean there's some stuff. There is a crime element, so
- 11:54there's that's the whole. Yes, I do also try to keep it rooted
- 11:58and like truth or your things that can actually really happen. Obviously, we
- 12:03have lots of ghosts, but I know I believe in ghosts, but you
- 12:05know, I try not to go too far where it's like, you know,
- 12:11it's not somebody like you know, raising from the bed possessed, you
- 12:15know, but but I do. I try to keep it, you know,
- 12:18a little rooted in like things that could actually really happen when I when
- 12:22I go down my horror route. But but it's uh, you know,
- 12:28I do love it, so I it's s implemented throughout. So I said,
- 12:33now we're at the point where and folks, you see them behind and
- 12:35right behind them folks. Uh Hi, I means hi, guys, I
- 12:41guess keep them right there. No, but my thing, we have seen
- 12:43it changed much and now and this year especially they've added Neighbors, which is
- 12:48now first time and international Suffer is involved. You guys are and you guys
- 12:54are now you guys, like I said to acting noms, you know a
- 12:58Martinez A s will say, emy winner, A Martinez you the bomb.
- 13:01And Mike Manning I mean well, I mean winter Mike Manning, Well they
- 13:05both went. Actually now up against the four soaks and one now and Neighbors
- 13:11too have an am an action nomination. How do you feel about that?
- 13:13And now that we're starting to expand the horizons of yeah, you know,
- 13:18I thought it was going to be a very hard thing to break into.
- 13:20I mean last year we submitted our talent and we didn't get any nominations,
- 13:24which was a shock because we you know, we obviously did in in in
- 13:28the digital categories, right, so, you know, I thought it was
- 13:33going to be a you know, it was going to be a little more
- 13:35difficult. Not that it wasn't, obviously it was. I mean, the
- 13:37judges decided, but it was. It was very kind of relieving to see
- 13:43that we broke that barrier because I feel sincerely, I know how hard my
- 13:48actors work, and I believe, you know, everyone we submitted deserved the
- 13:52nomination and so we were very fortunate to have those nominations for A and Mike,
- 14:01who definitely deserved it, you know. So it was, it was,
- 14:05it was. I feel very good about it, and I'm very grateful
- 14:07for for the judges to you know, who selected them. And I'm excited.
- 14:13I'm excited for what's to come and keep keep doing it and see that
- 14:16recognition. Yeah, I want to shout out to a marteam so I know,
- 14:20and he's a very soulful guy. And I tell people when you talk
- 14:24to him, he talks right to you and and he's such a and I
- 14:26was a Santa Barber fan, so when I finally met I meant him years
- 14:30ago for the first time, and I remember going, it's Cruise. I
- 14:33mean he's been other things obviously there, but that was a huge a Barber
- 14:37person. So I just, you know, I thought, he's like he's
- 14:41an actor of caliber, like you know what I mean, Like he's an
- 14:43actor, and he carries himself that way. Also, yeah, and zero
- 14:48ego and so much class and such a pro And you know, I was
- 14:54a massive fan too, obviously, I was, so I love Cruise and
- 15:00and uh, I remember like when we first got him on the show,
- 15:03it was kind of like, oh my god, Curze Castillo, this is
- 15:05crazy, you know. And uh, and now he's a series regular on
- 15:09the show. And I've been, you know, very fortunate to be working
- 15:11with him all these years. And I think he's just you know, he
- 15:16just brings so much to the show. You know. I'm I love working
- 15:20with him. I love him, and I can't wait to see We're about
- 15:24to go shoot some more episodes and he's got some great content coming up.
- 15:28I'm always excited to see him in his role. So well. The thing
- 15:31also, I'm going to mention for you, and I think it's very important
- 15:33for many of us you have a very diverse cast, uh and your cat
- 15:39and not just for diversity's sake, they actually have storylines. I mentioning mentioning
- 15:46A Martinez the first and only folks Latino American male that has one lead actor
- 15:52in a drama series on daytime every Well, he's only one. Really,
- 15:56I didn't realize that. That's amazing. Yeah, there's only there's only there's
- 15:58only four guys. You're like of one of color, of one the lead
- 16:02actor anyway, and he's he's the only Latino for Steel. So it's Maurice
- 16:08Maurice Bernard right, Oh, yes, okay, Marie the second one that
- 16:11you have that you have James Reynolds and Darnelle Williams, and I feel like
- 16:17five of you fifty years of this or fifty five years of this. So
- 16:21he's so A Martinez was the first. Here's the first. Oh wow,
- 16:25that's amazing. Yeah, can Maurice want it later? The free one is
- 16:27first one later, that's right. It's because he can say first. Yeah,
- 16:32So that's that's great. That's great to know. Yes, But the
- 16:36thing is why I'm bringing that up is that you actually have it seems like
- 16:38it seems like It's just a part of your show. You you find people,
- 16:42you put them on your show, and you give them storyline. There's
- 16:47been a lot of Christism, even by myself, by me, the other
- 16:49subs don't integrate as much as you do. Was that always just? I
- 16:52mean, I know, I know you're a person of color too, like
- 16:56I am. We're both like color. I just want to know how was
- 16:59that always a thought? Was just always like actor, first storyline, next
- 17:03the house? It was I was for you? Yeah, I mean I
- 17:06remember working. I remember this was an interesting thing because I this was back
- 17:12when I was doing my films. You know who Cherry Johnson is? That
- 17:15think it sounds very familiar. Johnson was. She was on Family Matters,
- 17:19she was in Yes, you know Pinky Brewster. But she's she's a dear
- 17:25friend of mine. And I put her in a bunch of my movies.
- 17:26And I remember one day I was like casting and she was helping me produce
- 17:30something and she's like, I love that you don't see color. And I
- 17:34was like, what she's like when you're casting, you have all these interracial
- 17:40relationships everywhere, and I was like, and at that moment it hit me.
- 17:44I was like Oh my god, I guess I do. You know.
- 17:47So it was, but it was never a thought. It's it's it's
- 17:49what life is. So it wouldn't make sense that, you know, you
- 17:55would have all white town or all you know, it doesn't just doesn't make
- 17:59sense, you know. So for me, it's about the casting. It's
- 18:02like it makes I think every one of my get my Garretts are my main
- 18:06Irish American family, but they're all married to you know, yes, different
- 18:11races, and and it was an accident. It was just kind of the
- 18:15way I saw it. I I just went for what I found to be
- 18:18a good combination, you know. So, and I think, uh,
- 18:23I think it's uh that's the way the world should be. You know.
- 18:26I'm very proud of being Latino. You know. There was part of me
- 18:30that felt like, fuck, I'm excuse my language, but hopefully this is
- 18:33not centered. But but it was. I don't have enough Puerto Ricans on
- 18:40my show, you know, yes, hello, but I do. Uh
- 18:47yeah, I think it's important. So I'm glad that I can do that.
- 18:49Uh, you know, I get to work with some of the best,
- 18:52so I appreciate it. I'm just saying I know that many of us
- 18:56appreciate that because it's you know, Hollywood, I mean, you know how
- 18:59it is. I mean, I'm just that that for you. It was
- 19:02just and that's how it should be. It's like this is how life would
- 19:04look. So you want to reflected on your show. Yeah, it works
- 19:07great. That's great. Now because because you've seen all all these changes and
- 19:15stuff, what are some of your thoughts about the future. Where do you
- 19:18think where do you think we're going with this? Because and I said,
- 19:19now you're on we have streaming, when you're also on Basic cable too,
- 19:23I guess you're a Basic cable So now in days are our lives? Now
- 19:26it's on streaming and we were new sub coming to the Gates and the Boulevards
- 19:30kind of like these things coming. So what are just some of your as
- 19:33we as we wrap this up, what are some of your thoughts about the
- 19:34future of our genre. It's not going anywhere. In fact, it's going
- 19:38to keep developing and it's going to keep it It's it's it's kind of rejuvenating
- 19:42itself, which I'm very excited. I'm so excited about the Gates. You
- 19:45know, the Gates is like that when I saw that news. It was
- 19:48like, oh my goodness, this is like it was so it was I
- 19:52felt so good about it. And who better than Michelle Belgean, who's a
- 19:56dear friend of mine, you know. So yeah, and you know with
- 20:00neighbors joining joining in the mix, and uh, there's so many other things
- 20:03in development that I know about, and I feel like there's going to be
- 20:07more. You know. It's great, and we plan to do so much
- 20:11more with the Bay. So I think I think it's just the beginning like
- 20:17that, That's what I feel. I feel like, you know, everybody
- 20:19loves a good soap, and in fact, everything that you watch as a
- 20:22soap. Game of Thrones is a soap, you know, So it's about
- 20:26I think it's just about to kind of there's something big that's going to happen
- 20:30with this industry, with this you know, daytime thing, you know.
- 20:33I mean, I love the folks at the Talk, don't get me wrong.
- 20:37Obviously, Kim Whitley was one of our hosts and she's out of the
- 20:38Bay. So it was sad that that we lost the talk, but so
- 20:45rejuvenating. They're so exciting to hear that you know, we're going to have
- 20:51a new uh, our daytime drama on network television. You know, I
- 20:59do feel like the work television thing and the whole like streaming is also going
- 21:03to shift where it's going to be. You know, everything's going to be
- 21:04more on the streaming. I mean we've been saying that for me for a
- 21:07long time, but but now, you know, you know, I remember
- 21:11there was a time where when I used to be a soap fan and I
- 21:15would watch you know, Another World or and I'd have to you know,
- 21:18program my BCRU to watch, you know, then it would switch and you
- 21:22have the program where you could switch. Okay, you got to go to
- 21:25the hospital now, Yeah, And so we had the programmed and I had
- 21:29to watch my soaps and then wait to uh get home at night to go
- 21:33watch it at night, and chest you know, Another World took me away
- 21:36to another world. You know, it was wonderful. But but and then
- 21:41now it's like ABC, you know, General Hospitals on Hulu, and Young
- 21:47and Arrests is on Paramount Plus, and you know, Data Ourlies is strictly
- 21:51on Peacock. You know. So I think and I'm assuming that I don't
- 21:56know where the gates will be as Procter and Gamble. I'm assuming that it
- 22:00will also be on Para Plus or something, you know, some streaming platform
- 22:06too. So yeah, it's just great. It's really great. Yeah,
- 22:10I agree, I totally. I think it's I think we had some good
- 22:12news this year and I was like, okay, this is something I Substar
- 22:17Americana. They're not you know what, but as you and as you and
- 22:18I both know around the world tell novellas, the matos countries subs and you
- 22:23can't. I mean, they're all this. It's just it's a part of
- 22:26life. It's I mean, generations are raised by sobs. I mean it's
- 22:30like this. Yeah, they can't. I agree, I love it.
- 22:33They can't go anywhere. So are going to them this year? You think,
- 22:37try to go? I'm going yes. Well then I will see you
- 22:41there on the red carpet. Come see me out there. I wish you
- 22:45guys all the best success one forward period. And also you and I have
- 22:52birthdays coming up next week. Yours is first and as mine. It's happy
- 22:56birthday to you. Early birthday. When's your birthday? Hey tenth, Thanks
- 23:00Friday from the six. I'm the tenth, so I'm right after you and
- 23:06I got the invite to my party, right, Yes, I gott talking
- 23:08an answer. I got now, I got you got me, don't let
- 23:11an app and I got an app on here. Now I'm like, okay,
- 23:14all kind of stuff. Tell me all the little stuff that's going on
- 23:15there. I'm like, I did get invited, so yes, But I
- 23:18want to say on camera, happy birthday to you, fellow Tori. And
- 23:22I know why you work hard because I work hard to you. We're to
- 23:23say, we're to say work hard. Yeah, we love to we love
- 23:27to work. But thank you so much for for having me on the show.
- 23:33It's great, Yeah, very good, very happy. Watch the Bay,
- 23:37folks, Watch the Bay. It's coming back. They said they filming
- 23:38some more episodes. We can check out all the other previous episodes. So
- 23:42they're not are they more than just on pop Start there on Peacock two or
- 23:45something or for the moment, it's uh, they just air daily on pop
- 23:49Star. They're on it airs four pm Eastern time one pm Pacific on pop
- 23:56Star TV and they just kind of repeat it so wherever. I don't know
- 24:00where we are right now because I don't know is the daily, but they
- 24:03just you know, once they get through the hundred and I think we have
- 24:06one hundred and fourteen episodes or something. Once they go then it just repeats
- 24:11itself all over again, and it just it's every day Monday through Friday and
- 24:15then and then you could also stream it on two B which is the Fox
- 24:21streaming service, and Amazon Prime and then several seasons are on I think they're
- 24:26up to season six on Peacock, and we're also on the Roku channel and
- 24:30then some places overseas. So folks check if you're like, I don't heard
- 24:34reform, but actually there are other things other than the Big the Big Four,
- 24:37there are other digital dramas out there that are giving you soapy content.
- 24:41Check them out. I'll do a little s fe shot out to my show
- 24:44Studio City on that while with Sean came in. That's also the city.
- 24:48We love it. We all support each other. So I say just go
- 24:51out there and check out. There's other shows out there. Check them out,
- 24:53but check out the Bay and I'm sure you will get hooked. Trust
- 24:56them. Believe this is the daytime any specialized Aames Lott Junior. You can
- 25:00follow me everywhere. You know, I'm a whole place and I'll be there
- 25:03and Jetstarrow. I'll be at the Emmy's at the red carpet, wearing some
- 25:06kind of outfit, talking to all the stars. So thanks for tuning to
- 25:10us and we'll see you next time. Thank you, thanks so