Latest / FILM&TVREVIEW.COM / F&TV Interview with Producer Sarada Duvvuri-(Disney+, Netflix, HBO, Hulu, A+E Networks, Paramount+...)

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F&TV Interview with Producer Sarada Duvvuri-(Disney+, Netflix, HBO, Hulu, A+E Networks, Paramount+...) · FILM&TVREVIEW.COM

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1:01
[SPEAKER_01]: For full-times in Condition See Film and TV review.com Hello there and welcome to our special film team review interview with those who work
1:28
[SPEAKER_01]: in the industry.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Today, to be joined by Zerida DeVori, she is an accomplished film and to be an producer, nearly like two decades of experience in pretty much high profile projects for Netflix, Disney, HBO and countless more on the Chicago
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[SPEAKER_01]: crime documentary, as you're stomping ground, I guess, for a large part of your career.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She's an executive in trial of productions and a line producer who's managed multimillion dollar budgets, close to about 300 hours of programming and guessing and founder of SD productions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But beyond that, you're also a storyteller, I'm guessing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: dedicated to come now a mission driven creator host of a podcast yourself the fine side and band of the rise project come on on profit focus on elevating survival stories well start up welcome to the show um your your journey is initially anything but a linear one you I mean you're I'm guessing you started in broadcast
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[SPEAKER_01]: Gradually in English, and I guess you had a lot of classical writing, you know, in general Asian descent, and so I'm guessing you've grown up in America, quite a lot of spheres of influence.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Did you always like really want creative writing or journalism as you're kind of like direction you want you to go initially?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, first off, thanks for having me really appreciate it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Great to be here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, I actually have always been very fascinated with the truth of humanity in general and where people come from and why things are the way they are.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm generally just a very curious person.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So my wish of wanting to go into broadcast journalism really had to be about, you know,
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[SPEAKER_00]: telling stories and helping get the word out to people about what's happening in the world and where it's coming from.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had the pleasure when I was in college of doing some on-camera work.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was working for a Fox affiliate in my hometown and also doing some work for the college station.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I learned really quickly that I was actually pretty camera shy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's when I was like, maybe I should stick to working behind the camera.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I'm gonna always been a writer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've always been, um, into creative storytelling in general since I was a child.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and...
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[SPEAKER_00]: So when I pivoted in college to getting that English degree, it was because I loved writing and reading so much.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And talking about early influences, the sound and the fury by William Falkner was actually one of my favorite books, because it's four chapters told from the, not only the perspective of the four main characters, but the stream of consciousness, there's stream of consciousness.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So
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[SPEAKER_00]: it's so interesting because one of the main characters Benji is autistic and so it really helped me understand that to understand people you really have to understand the way that they think and to do that there's almost
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[SPEAKER_00]: impossible unless you jump into their own brain.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But it does help you see that, you know, we really do all have different perspectives of the same situation that's going on, different understandings from that based on our capabilities.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so that reminds you that there's really a million different ways to tell any story.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think they teach you an English that there's like seven major story lines in the world and that's it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But a million different ways to do that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so that kind of got me more fascinated
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[SPEAKER_00]: in documentary storytelling specifically, you know, wanting to go from news to then documentary is because it's real-life people living real-life circumstances and getting the opportunity to understand how we can shape that story to also help provide new perspectives.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Me, you're interested in production.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's, I mean, initially, I'm guessing you armed not with, you know, a resume, huge resume, but you got your first PA
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[SPEAKER_01]: in the history channel, I think it's a pivot to first step, but anyone trying to enter that business.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And there's no thing is lucky in these situations.
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[SPEAKER_01]: How did you kind of navigate that?
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually one of my favorite stories because I knew I wanted to get in to working behind the camera.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I just started,
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[SPEAKER_00]: telling my entire network of friends and family that that's what I wanted to pivot into.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I also wanted to write.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I started just applying to random companies to see if I could write for them, public newspapers, magazines.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And one day, one of my best friends who lived in Chicago at the time, she was one of my best friends at the time, lived in Chicago.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, you know, the family that I nanny for, their neighbor actually works at a documentary production company.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Here in Chicago, you should come up and meet him.
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[SPEAKER_00]: we're having a block party, would you want to come?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I said, sure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I drove up the next weekend, went to this block party on her block, met this gentleman, and asked him if there's any way I could sit down with him for a meeting and talk to him about my interests of getting into television, especially in documentaries.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So he said, sure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I go to his house a couple days later.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm dressed up in full corporate attire with a portfolio in my hand.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And he's wearing shorts in a t-shirt with his kids running around.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, so tell me why you want to get into documentary television.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I say, you know, I might feel about my interest in, you know, real life people, real life stories.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And how I've always wanted to do that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And he's looking at my resume, and he's like, there is nothing on here that shows the work to anywhere in production.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I worked at this Fox affiliate, but I was the receptionist, and I did a little bit on camera work, just for fun.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's like fast food restaurants, there's like an insurance company, just like the kind of college jobs you would expect, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, yeah, you won't really find anything on there that can tell you that I can do this job.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I promise you one thing, that if you open this door for me, you'll never regret it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's the only thing I can promise you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think that would such an amazing line like that that it would have hired me on the spot, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was talking to him because gangland on the history channel was what they were staffing for and it was season one.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And there was six positions available for a production assistant job.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the rate was like 600 bucks a week.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's it for like a three month contract.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I was applying for.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So you would think with that line, he would have just brought me in right away.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, he was like, I'll be in touch.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, sounds great.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So a week later, thanked him for the sit down conversation and said, how's it looking?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, well, we hired one of the positions, but there's five more spots left.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We'll let you know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So then I emailed him the next week.
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[SPEAKER_00]: four spots left.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The next week, three spots left.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The next week, two spots left.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Not exaggerating when I say, I kept pleading and telling him and assuring him, this is where I meant to be.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I got the very last production assistant job on gangland with absolutely no guarantee of work passed three months.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that was 20 years ago.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, obviously, it took to it well, but
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[SPEAKER_01]: What does it mean to you and some of us is what does a producer do?
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're wrangling cats and dogs.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's truly the joke we all have.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It really is just being the hub of every single department and understanding what the needs are of every single person, not just that's working on the production, but who's paying for the production, and who's producing it, like the production company, the network, all your staff and crew, and understanding what everyone's needs are.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and exactly how to accomplish them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's probably the best way to describe a producer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it is logistical, but it's also creative, and it's also a lot of hand-holding.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's also HR, you know, it's also motivational speaking.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's also, you know, playing therapist at times.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So you just have to really like be comfortable, you know, not just managing all the people and elements that are combined to make this thing happen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: but also providing a path for everyone to collaborate effectively.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you worked in obviously as you've grown in big productions and projects like Netflix is starting five or seven.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Can you pay a picture?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what a typical, I mean, you're wearing lots of hats.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Typically how would you kind of like,
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[SPEAKER_01]: start digesting that and because the stress that you must be under because you've got looks like as a hundred one different problems, you've got to solve them basically and you're the go to, how do you, is that any kind of process or kind of like, what's your secret over us, but how won't you best advise you approach your current, a multi-point problem like that, see,
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, that's a great question and I'll tell you the answer that my mentor told me early on an industry before I even stepped into management and that's to always have
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[SPEAKER_00]: A plan B, C, and D, because anything and everything will fall through the cracks and saying whole common collected is the best way to approach it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the only way you can stay cool common collected is to know that it could happen and that you have a backup plan if it does.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of us, like,
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[SPEAKER_00]: Experience, of course, is the number one thing that helps me with this and also having had the privilege of moving through the industry from the bottom up, you know, like from the production assistant position, not only in one genre, but in multiple genres, I think that really helps and of course with my specific trajectory, I've done that in multiple cities.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I went from built my career in Chicago, went to New York and established myself in New York came to LA, established myself here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: salvage myself in Atlanta.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And all the shows I've done have been international as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I've just been around enough and seen how things work in different genres to understand what could go wrong when and where.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So when I'm building my budgets and I'm building my staffing plans and I'm building my schedules, I'm building in contingencies.
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[SPEAKER_00]: that will support a plan B, C or D if anything happens.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So in terms of specifically what the process looks like, it really is sitting down and
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[SPEAKER_00]: making sure that you know where your variables are in your creative.
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[SPEAKER_00]: For example, a director might come in and say, hey, I know that this is maybe just a regular true crime show, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's got B-roll, it's got interviews, and we've got reenactments, and we've got archive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the four elements that make up a documentary for the most part, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So,
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, maybe it's a true crime show that is for Netflix.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So you can already tell by your budget, or you can already tell by your creative, your treatment when you look at it, that okay, this can be done with just a regular Canon whatever camera.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But the director might
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[SPEAKER_00]: want to introduce a red for some stylistic recreations where they might want to introduce.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So just in case, let me pad my budget and my resources to be able to support a camera of this caliber in the event or equipment or drones or whatever it is, or maybe an art department.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we just have to almost know by looking at the creative, if there's a possibility you could go in that direction.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And if so, you've kind of pad your budget, pad your schedule, pad your staffing plan,
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[SPEAKER_00]: so that it can support that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you have room to move within the limitations of the that the network is paying for.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, you've worked on some intention challenging true crime projects.
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[SPEAKER_00]: famously it's like find our missing and crime simple TV one as like the juicer mean yeah find our missing specifically was finding black and missing stories that were underrepresented
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[SPEAKER_00]: And for that show, I actually booked the entire second season myself, meaning I found all the stories cast all the interviews for each episode, got each episode, wrote up episode descriptions, got them approved by the network, which was TV one at the time, and then went into production managed the second season.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so it was really helpful to
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[SPEAKER_00]: you know, not only be able to cast that for a season and find the stories myself, but then go in and manage logistics of it because as I'm casting it and booking it, I'm keeping that budget and schedule in mind of what we're capable of doing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, the purpose of the show was to just bring more awareness to these stories that had not gotten enough attention.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it was incredibly difficult because I'm talking to
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[SPEAKER_00]: parents, mothers, specifically who have told this story so many times to friends and families told their grievances so many times and after a while, people don't have the capacity to listen anymore.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So with me, it was like hours and hours of just wanting to get support, get another ear to listen, you know?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's like you have to manage that relationship with kid gloves pretty much, you know, as much sensitivity as you
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we're also trying to make a show to help create a platform to give them more exposure, but we also need to make sure that we're being very sensitive of their emotions.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, they're story at the same time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I mean, I mean, I haven't been to that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I do navigate that safe feeling.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I guess it takes a lot of them to even share that story because I'm guessing some of these
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[SPEAKER_01]: So to relive that, I mean, how do you find that kind of, almost ethical balance where you have story to tell, but that almost that pain is central to that narrative.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then does it take a time to kind of get coax something to share the story or, and also when you're making the program, as a producer, are you able to tailor it because maybe a director has a bit more aggressive, it's not on it and you wanna very back,
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[SPEAKER_01]: How do you navigate something since?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have any control?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I guess it depends on the position, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So in Finder and Missing and also with Crimestine,
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[SPEAKER_00]: In fine art missing I booked the show, but then handed it off to producers to actually design the creative look of the show.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then excuse me, I would give them notes if there was anything that was sensitive creatively, that they shouldn't touch, that could potentially be a moral or ethical crossing of this of a boundary, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: But then for crime scene also, like I was working logistics mostly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't have much creative input, which I don't feel that I need because I know the people that are working that who I collaborate with on a regular basis are very sensitive to the topics in general.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that any of us would say that it's difficult to find people to participate.
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[SPEAKER_00]: either in missing shows or crime shows per se because a lot of times, depending on who you're looking to cast, they want the exposure, they want the story out there so that helps.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think the way to
18:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Establish trust though, is to remember that we're human first, and I think that that authenticity and honesty is what makes people want to say yes to doing the show.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we lead with our humanity.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's one thing that I always do is relate to them in some way, shape or form.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Based off of not just the stories I've been exposed to, but maybe experience as I've had in my own life as well that I can relate to them with.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I mean, yeah, of course, trust can open up.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But do you have, how do you actually seek these stories?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because you said a lot of these are kind of like, what overlook stories, which may mean minorities.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And you actually said, I mean, you saw out these stories of social diseases too.
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[SPEAKER_01]: How did you start digging around?
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[SPEAKER_01]: When did you look, or who did you?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because I'm guessing all of this will just be very,
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's just some degree.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we're following network guidelines.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of times, so sometimes those guidelines might say something like within the last 10 years, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Or in last like seven years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that kind of helps.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I would Google stories, maybe in the news,
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[SPEAKER_00]: And even if they didn't get much exposure, they would have gotten at least one or two.
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[SPEAKER_00]: For that specific series, we're also working with a foundation called the Black and Missing Foundation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So they helped us feed a lot of our stories, which really helped.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But in general, on the end shows like this, it's a regular Google search.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We also call law enforcement officials in different cities and just say, do you have any
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[SPEAKER_00]: cases that have not been solved of this criteria, you know, within this time frame, within this city limit blah, blah, blah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we just kind of do that too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that's probably the most.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I guess a good particular example of it was, uh,
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, challenges as you say in that kind of genre or kind of like topic is murdered in Montana, which is, was a crime scene in Texas, I suppose, but you, so you became a supervising producer there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It seems, again, a lot of, you know, statistical puzzles, we're very, I guess these are going to be quite co-cases because this is sort of approaching those missing in the native American community
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[SPEAKER_01]: and getting them to participate in maybe very, very, very, very cold cases.
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[SPEAKER_01]: How did your team approach that?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because that is something that you really do.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I assume I have to dig in a bit more deep and coax a bit more.
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[SPEAKER_01]: How did that to, how did your team approach that?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so we were profiling three stories of missing girls that had been missing and found murder.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I believe they were all found murder.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Can't tell you, remember at the moment.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, they were all missing and murdered.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But it was a part of a larger problem in general and the Native American community.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that one in Montana specifically and just the number of people that go missing and are never found or that are found murdered.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So those cases were already approved by time I came on a show.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I can't really speak to how they found various sports stories in particular.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I will say that booking interviews, and which is one of the things I helped with within the Native American community, wasn't the easiest at all.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was a lot of establishing trust as much as we could with local law enforcement officials and stuff, which we didn't end up getting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The families, of course, one of the exposures, so that was great.
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[SPEAKER_00]: One of my jobs was to outside of booking local loan enforcement, was to
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[SPEAKER_00]: was to arrange the examination of a 14-year-old girl who had been buried at that point for two years and find a network approved forensic pathologist, which there aren't that many by the way forensic pathologists in the nation let alone a network approved one that would perform a second autopsy on her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So
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[SPEAKER_00]: we were able to make that happen successfully.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We found Dr. Sarah Weck to actually had done Jean Bonay Ramsey and JFK and she was network approved and we got her I mean we had to get special permissions because she was buried on tribal land so to get her exhumed and filament and get her body
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[SPEAKER_00]: sent to him for a second autopsy, be able to film that and then get her in the ground safely, which we did with all the proper permissions and safely.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And
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[SPEAKER_00]: that was done on, you know, in the show and we were so grateful, you know, that we were able to establish the trust that we did with the community to be able to get that done, but that's what it was.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was a lot of like talking to them for hours and just continuously persisting and establishing trust and letting them know our true mission behind the entire documentary in the purpose of it.
23:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I mean, he can't have what get absorbed
23:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Stress and processing of these stories when you kind of just almost discovering it with yourself again and best to get to kind of capacity.
23:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you do you absorbing that stress or you someone who maybe does absorb it or do you have a support network when you Because you do cover some quite, you know, the crime be of quite a lot of your career.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, how do you process it or do you not face it or what's
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[SPEAKER_00]: What is stress?
23:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Question.
23:50
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm just joking.
23:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Dirty Martinez for sure.
23:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They help a lot.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, I have a great network of friends and family that I can talk to.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Specifically friends in the true crime space.
24:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, we very often call each other and say, I don't think I can do this anymore.
24:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Or, man, this is getting very difficult because, you know, no matter how much you've done it or even lived it yourself, um, you know, it does.
24:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's taxing to hear the pain and suffering that people go through or to see it with your own eyes.
24:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I remember my first time ever, I was on gangland at the time, um, my first time seeing a photo that wasn't blurred out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: because everybody else that watches a documentary sees the blurred photos.
24:33
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't.
24:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was the woman that was shot at close range with a rifle.
24:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll never forget what that image looked like.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I couldn't stop staring at it because it's so not normal.
24:47
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not what you ever would see or want to see.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, there's some images
25:00
[SPEAKER_00]: that won't ever go away, that you just accept as not just part of the job, but also part of life, and that ultimately you remember what you're here for, you know, which is
25:13
[SPEAKER_00]: to tell a story of what really happened in whatever circumstances, whether it's true crime, whether it's food, lifestyle, you know, your presenting real life stories to the public and saying here's what this is, and here's all the information we found about it for your information.
25:32
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a show I did, um, I'd love to talk about called, uh, inside 9-11.
25:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's interesting is that it was actually, uh, I was in between shows, uh, at the production company in Chicago, and I had two weeks in between.
25:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So I asked the production companies, or any other show you want me to help out on these two weeks.
25:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I can take a two-way vacation, um, before my next show starts, or you can throw me on to another show that I can help out on.
26:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Since I was only going to be on it for two weeks, the producers wanted to give me something to do that would be easy for me to jump in and out.
26:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they asked me to transcribe the thousands of phone calls that were made to 911 that day.
26:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Geez.
26:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And if there's one part of my career, I genuinely never talk about with anyone ever.
26:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that.
26:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I've only set it out loud maybe once.
26:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I will never get those voices out of my head.
26:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you can only imagine the terror or disbelief or denial or just
26:45
[SPEAKER_00]: the painful emotions people were going through in that moment.
26:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And I will say that that was probably a moment where I was like, I think I need to step away from true crime for a while.
26:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't, but I did eventually get to, you know, what's this next show that I'd already even signed on to was done, but that was a tough one.
27:05
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a tough one.
27:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to.
27:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think there is anything you can do to truly cope with that.
27:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You just have to know it, accept it, and consider you to move forward and be grateful for the time that you have here.
27:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
27:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I mean, you're trying to kind of like, obviously these,
27:22
[SPEAKER_01]: passion of these type of stories and to now it can't you know platform or you have for a while.
27:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're you're putting us crazy the firing inside and things like a more of a personal mission statement or direction with your professional career.
27:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what prompted you to set from like on camera or to the microphone, I guess in an interior
27:51
[SPEAKER_01]: reason you can push you there.
27:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
27:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So
27:56
[SPEAKER_00]: As I said earlier, I've always been interested in storytelling in general.
27:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always been interested in going into the creative.
28:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I entered into the industry, it was on a documentary as a production assistant, and then I quickly moved up to an associate producer.
28:10
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, in documentary specifically, your next trajectory is typically to go into logistics and go into production coordinating, managing, line producing, you know, head of production.
28:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Or, from an associate producer position, you can go into,
28:24
[SPEAKER_00]: feel producing, producer, writer, story producer, share one art, right?
28:28
[SPEAKER_00]: There's kind of this trajectory you can take.
28:30
[SPEAKER_00]: That's sort of the documentary way.
28:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, after around that time, I had thought I was going to go into a creative direction, but I had witnessed sort of a lot of people being disgruntled with the production process.
28:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And I needed to know if the industry that I just stepped into was
28:49
[SPEAKER_00]: that kind of industry, or if it was really just a management thing.
28:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I decided to go into the logistics side of the industry to find out.
28:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why my trajectory went in the direction I did.
28:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I did go that direction, I found out it really is about leadership.
29:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And it really is about, you know, great management, right?
29:05
[SPEAKER_00]: They always say, shit rolls downhill.
29:07
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of true, you know?
29:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So with great management, you can have everything that you can meet all your goals at the end of a production.
29:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had done that.
29:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd gotten to work as a line producer for many years and executive in charge.
29:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And when that happened, I kept thinking, okay, what's next in my career?
29:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, should I keep working as an EIC of VP ahead of production or...
29:31
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, could I exercise this creative side of me that I've had in me this whole time as well and maybe open up something towards that?
29:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I did both because I love my career.
29:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I absolutely love managing productions.
29:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm really good at it, you know?
29:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love making budgets and schedules and hiring people and collaborating with creative.
29:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it so much.
29:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So I didn't I don't want to let that go.
29:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But
29:56
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I pick up the creative side of my life?
29:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Where do I even start?
30:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of what I thought.
30:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I thought, well, why not start with something that's passionate to me?
30:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And one thing that's always been passionate to me was understanding how people move, like how do they get through life, right?
30:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Very similar to how you're asking me right now.
30:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm like, you know, when I was growing up, this isn't much different from most people out there.
30:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I needed guides in various areas to understand how to get from point A to point B.
30:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I do have a story of trauma in my past and to understand like, what's not, how do I put one foot and find the other, right?
30:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But even somebody who's having a stressful time in life, just knowing how to get out of bed.
30:48
[SPEAKER_00]: um sometimes they need to know like where do I get the motivation from so it's really anything.
30:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I would hear stories of people through different platforms whether it was magazines or radio or TV like offering that advice and that perspective of well here's what I did to get through this and I thought, how cool would it be if I could create a platform?
31:09
[SPEAKER_00]: where I bring people on to talk about how they got through their challenges, not just how did it happen, but where did it come from?
31:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Why did you choose that path?
31:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I was 10, I had sort of a life altering circumstance come into my life.
31:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And at that time, I don't know where or how it happened, but these three words popped into my head, persevere, overcome rise.
31:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And I
31:38
[SPEAKER_00]: it just happened.
31:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And I kept saying that to myself over the decades.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when it came time to start the podcast, I used that as sort of the theme of the podcast.
31:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So I defined perseverance as the act of enduring.
31:52
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you endure?
31:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I defined overcoming as the act of accepting your circumstances for what they are because if we don't accept our circumstances, we can't really move forward, right?
32:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to accept that this is what happened.
32:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, or like, when you're grieving, right?
32:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, okay, I've lost this person.
32:07
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where I am today.
32:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what it meant to me.
32:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is where I'm going, right?
32:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have to kind of go to that acceptance period, which a lot of people don't.
32:16
[SPEAKER_00]: But once you reach that point, there's another thing that happens in some people's lives, where they have a rise, which I define as, you turn your pain into purpose.
32:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And to me, this is like such a harrowing journey in a person's life.
32:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's such a heroic tale, you know, to be able to say not only did I survive it.
32:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only did I learn to accept that this is my new life, but now I want to go and help other people who might be going through this, so that their trajectory could be easier than mine was.
32:49
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a ton of selfishness right there.
32:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to find out, where does that come from?
32:56
[SPEAKER_00]: From inside of your soul, inside of your being, because it's very different that answer.
33:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd be surprised.
33:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, any particular stories that you've found might totally quite inspiring, I mean, even show me every one of them, every one of them.
33:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, one of our episodes that got the most number of listeners to date is, um, uh, gentlemen who escaped his life in a cult, um, and not only did he escape, but he was so interesting.
33:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Um,
33:29
[SPEAKER_00]: the cold leader's daughter was missing.
33:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was news reports about it.
33:34
[SPEAKER_00]: People were trying to find her.
33:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody knew.
33:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I somehow got lucky.
33:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I was researching the story, found a private investigator and contacted him.
33:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I even had somebody had caught wind that I was researching the story.
33:48
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the journalists and contacted me to say, hey,
33:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm, I've written about this story for a long time.
33:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm actually looking for the daughter too.
33:56
[SPEAKER_00]: If you find her, can you let me know?
33:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, sure, whatever.
34:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I find this private investigator somehow.
34:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, so he looks me up.
34:05
[SPEAKER_00]: We form a relationship over the phone, like two, three conversations.
34:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says, okay, I'll tell you what.
34:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just gonna give you one name.
34:13
[SPEAKER_00]: You call this person and you'll get everything you need.
34:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, OK, good.
34:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, don't tell anyone you talked to me.
34:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, fine.
34:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So I need to say, I never shared that information with anyone.
34:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But I went and called that one person.
34:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And that person was the person that I interviewed for my podcast.
34:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that person not only was he dating the cult leader's daughter, so I knew exactly where she was.
34:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I found her.
34:36
[SPEAKER_00]: But then on top of that, he gave me so many other people and all this information about
34:41
[SPEAKER_00]: the crazy things that go on there.
34:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, that was definitely a great one.
34:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I would love to mention, Josh was his name by the way.
34:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'd love to mention Belinda.
34:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So Belinda is a great friend of mine.
35:00
[SPEAKER_00]: She is the reason why I officially decided it was time to start the podcast.
35:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was working on a show called Court Cam as an executive in charge.
35:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And Court Cam was a clip show for A&E about outrageous courtroom moments caught on camera.
35:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So Belinda's daughter had been kidnapped, raped, murdered, and dismembered.
35:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was a long search for her and they eventually found her that she was, you know, just a couple miles away from their house.
35:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So the trials were going on and when they were there's this clip that went viral of, um, you know, her daughter's father.
35:46
[SPEAKER_00]: He asks the judge if he can address his daughter's killer, Michael Madsen, in court.
35:52
[SPEAKER_00]: The judge says, yes, so he turns around.
35:54
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a very large man in a blue shirt.
35:57
[SPEAKER_00]: He turns around, he's looking at his daughter's killer and the guy smurks at him.
36:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And he gets so mad that he jumps across the bench to try to deco him in the face and he misses him by like an inch, but the clip goes viral.
36:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So we find the clip and we decide to do a story on it for the series.
36:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So at the time, I wanted to find him.
36:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was helping out the producers to find him to do an interview with him.
36:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And I found this Facebook page, so I emailed and just said, hey, I'm looking for this gentleman, blah, blah, blah,
36:34
[SPEAKER_00]: was Belinda.
36:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And we jump on the phone and I say, oh, you're her mother.
36:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And instantly, whatever I was working out at the time went out the window in my brain.
36:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just went into human mode and let her know, I'm so sorry, and who are you?
36:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And we just met, and we just talked, and that was it.
36:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And she had said no to interview us with everyone.
36:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Like she said no, she said to even Nancy Grace.
36:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And um,
37:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But she didn't interview with our show and she said in the reason why is because you're the first person to talk to me like a human and not for the sake of the story, you know, and we ended up becoming great friends and through that I said, you know what she mentioned something to me about forgiveness and she says, you know, because she forgave her daughter's killer and open court.
37:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, how did you do that?
37:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what does that even come from?
37:26
[SPEAKER_00]: She talked about her faith, talked about all this other stuff.
37:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, okay, that makes sense, but also like, why, you know?
37:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And she says, and how did you know?
37:35
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I said, how did you know you even forgave?
37:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And she says, well, you know you really forgave someone based on how you feel when you're around them.
37:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was such a great advice for me because I had thought that I had forgiven certain people in my life.
37:51
[SPEAKER_00]: But I realized that when I was around them, I was different.
37:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I was either overcompensating or trying to bring some good energy or acting differently just to make sure that energy was nice and light.
38:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And I found that to be so profound.
38:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, you need to say that on a platform.
38:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to start this now and so I took her and a few other people that I had had the pleasure of meeting through various documentaries and that's when I started the first season of the podcast and she was my first episode.
38:37
[SPEAKER_01]: elevating, but survivor stories, advancing, I guess, systematic change of all it.
38:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what's the, I guess, what was the catalyst of creating that story about, and guessing, creating that, that organization, I guess it's, because you've been listening to these stories, but what's the aim of, or goal of the rice proof for those who haven't, not familiar with the rice project?
38:59
[SPEAKER_00]: for sure.
39:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
39:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've actually always wanted to have a non-profit.
39:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually a lifetime humanitarian goal for me.
39:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I think just being an avid traveler but also growing up in both India and America.
39:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen a lot of social and economic differences.
39:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And
39:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So one of the things I've always wanted to do is sort of give back to humanity.
39:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So opening, starting the rise project, it's mission really is uniting communities through trauma healing initiatives.
39:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So our first initiative is the fire inside in the sense that, you know,
39:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody like me who grew up completely differently, then Belinda, we're different races, we were born in different countries, we have completely different upbringings, right?
39:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Can still build community together and consider each other at close friends because we can bond on experiences that we had that are completely different.
40:04
[SPEAKER_00]: but what we take from that and how we grow from that is the same.
40:10
[SPEAKER_00]: In terms of being able to go, hey, here's what I got from this experience, and now I can give it to you so that you can grow in your own experience, right?
40:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that builds community.
40:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And the more and more we do that, we really get to see that we really are
40:22
[SPEAKER_00]: the same when it comes to emotions and experiences that we have in life, regardless of whether it's colored differently.
40:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So wanting to expand that into profiling stories of,
40:38
[SPEAKER_00]: harrowing journeys in documentaries as well.
40:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'd like to also have an initiative where I have documentaries where we profile these stories and then also community events that we can do to help raise money for communities in domestically and also internationally.
40:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'd love to take it kind of as big as I can to be able to unite communities across the globe.
41:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So now you can't, you can bring us up to speed.
41:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You've found it in SD productions, which is, I guess I focus on building and keeping relationships.
41:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So what's the amount of that company?
41:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're a leader.
41:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you've got a huge experience in building teams, the counteners shows, what's the, what was the purpose of that company, what you personally,
41:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
41:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, SD Productions really is a full service production company that can provide anything from development to execution and services primarily in television and film and in the unscripted genre.
41:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was really built to be just that, you know, to be able to take in projects, develop them under the production company banner and offer all these services in departments that I've worked in for a long time.
41:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and really choosing projects that are mission-based, along with sort of things that I've worked on across the industry, but also that I'm interested in, which is, you know, chilling real life stories of people that are
42:14
[SPEAKER_00]: and these incredibly, incredible journey journeys.
42:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, what kind of stories are you yearning?
42:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Any particular projects you've got, that you're yearning to tell we have under SD productions or any kind of life.
42:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You can just tell us a bit that you'd want to aim to do stories that we have in mind that you want to do.
42:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, yeah, I know.
42:34
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot actually.
42:35
[SPEAKER_00]: There's, um,
42:37
[SPEAKER_00]: They're just, uh, I guess to sum it up since I can't get into any of them individually because of these NDAs we have signed, but um, they're all stories of personal journeys of people that have, um, in one way or another, whether it was by the system or by, um, you know, their own.
43:00
[SPEAKER_00]: the environment which they grew up in had to fight through challenges that have kept them from moving forward.
43:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a few different things we're working on that are really just like a human breakthrough stories.
43:18
[SPEAKER_01]: In the end, so I suppose a few seconds, two seconds, someone that came
43:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Looking for a job, they have a smooly tiny resume, maybe not that experience, they're coming to you.
43:28
[SPEAKER_01]: What kind of qualities are you looking for, you think, that might get them through the door?
43:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just from, it's kind of flip side now, you're on the other side, so, what do you tend to look for in someone who's, what's the game production?
43:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Pass it in positivity.
43:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll say that.
43:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Passion and positivity and resilience.
43:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I do think that obviously skill is part of it, right?
43:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Depends on what part of the industry they want to get into, where they're interest lies, all that is technical for the most part, right?
43:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, um, do you know what you want to do?
43:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you not?
43:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you kind of want to get in and go into producing or camera department or art department?
44:04
[SPEAKER_00]: A general idea of that is great, obviously.
44:07
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think, um,
44:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Outside of that, in terms of what you would need within your own person, it really is just a lot of passion and positivity, resilience.
44:16
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not an easy industry to get into, but once you're in it, it's definitely not an easy one to stay in.
44:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we're seeing that a lot right now, even.
44:24
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been in a low for a couple of years, and I can't tell you how many people have called my phone, that have been in the industry for...
44:32
[SPEAKER_00]: a year and some that have been in the industry for 30 years longer than me and they're just like I don't know what to do next.
44:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't keep my bills paid.
44:40
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like where are the jobs going to come from?
44:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's being able to pivot you know quickly and being resilience and having faith in yourself and a lot of positivity will take you a long a long way.
44:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Another thing I was told when I first
44:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my very first show ever, and my manager on that show said, you have a lot of positive energy.
45:02
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, please, whatever you do keep that, because it's going to take you a long way.
45:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's right, it did.
45:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think we'll draw to close it.
45:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for that very in quite insider look at the industry and your career.
45:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, hope that fire is still burning inside of you and in your stories that you bring to us in the future.
45:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Be using the home?
45:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
45:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
45:29
[SPEAKER_02]: We hope you enjoyed this film and TV review.com episode.
45:34
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45:42
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