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You Got your Mask in My Space Opera · Large Nerdron Collider

0:07
Speaker 1: The Large Nerdron Collider Podcast is a production of My
0:10
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey everybody, welcome to the Large Nerdron Collider Podcast,
0:23
Speaker 1: the podcast that's all about the kiki things happening in
0:25
Speaker 1: the world around us and how very excited we are
0:28
Speaker 1: about them. I'm Ariel casting and with me, as always
0:32
Speaker 1: is podcast brilliant person Jonathan Strickland. Hey, Ariel, I've got
0:38
Speaker 1: a question for you. My question to you is you
0:47
Speaker 1: have the power to cast your beloved co host in
0:51
Speaker 1: any role in any musical. What role do you cast
0:56
Speaker 1: me in? In? Which show the dude from chess? Because
1:00
Speaker 1: you like chess. When you say the dude from Chess,
1:03
Speaker 1: there are I will have you know, multiple dudes in chess.
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Speaker 1: Do you mean the one night in Bangkok dude? Do
1:10
Speaker 1: you mean the Okay? All right, you mean I got you?
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Speaker 1: You mean the American got it bankok? Oriental in they
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Speaker 1: don't know what? That is an acceptable answer, and I
1:20
Speaker 1: happily accept the role. I will start training now and
1:24
Speaker 1: start singing Abba or the lead dude in music man,
1:29
Speaker 1: never mind pumping any water to your parents. Are caught
1:31
Speaker 1: with a sister and empty on a Saturday night, and
1:33
Speaker 1: that's trouble yes, you got lots and lots of trouble. Okay,
1:37
Speaker 1: that's also excellent. I mean I I do like to
1:40
Speaker 1: tell people that they've got trouble right here in River
1:43
Speaker 1: City with a capital T that runs with P and
1:45
Speaker 1: that stands for pool. Yes, and that's kind of what
1:48
Speaker 1: what what what we're talking about today? Yeah? Would you
1:51
Speaker 1: would you like to know what I would cast you in?
1:54
Speaker 1: I do. I would cast you as Audrey from Little
1:58
Speaker 1: Shop Horrors. Oh, I love that. It's as good. It
2:10
Speaker 1: is a good role. I want. That's on my bucket list.
2:13
Speaker 1: I was baiting when you asked me giving you a
2:16
Speaker 1: silly answer, but then it would have given away, uh
2:21
Speaker 1: something coming up later in the episode. Yeah, well that's
2:24
Speaker 1: that's kind of why I chose this question, is that
2:26
Speaker 1: it is foreshadowing, but you'll have to stick to the
2:29
Speaker 1: end to find out what the heck I shadowed for.
2:32
Speaker 1: So we are entering into our our first official first
2:36
Speaker 1: segment where we're going to talk about news now however,
2:41
Speaker 1: transparency for you guys out there in listener land. We're
2:44
Speaker 1: recording this well before the show goes up, So rather
2:48
Speaker 1: than pick news that will be stale, we thought we
2:51
Speaker 1: would talk a little bit about trends that have happened,
2:55
Speaker 1: particularly over the pandemic, and and you know, stuff that
2:58
Speaker 1: we would have talked about, wanted to talk about prior
3:01
Speaker 1: to the launch of ellen C version two. Yes, So
3:06
Speaker 1: the first part is, I mean, these are all the bummers, right, like,
3:10
Speaker 1: the pandemic has hit everyone super hard, and that does
3:14
Speaker 1: not exclude the entertainment industry. The first thing I was
3:18
Speaker 1: going to bring up, and in fact it does lead
3:21
Speaker 1: right back from the musicals thing, is that live theater
3:25
Speaker 1: is essentially on hold right now. Apart from some creative
3:29
Speaker 1: uses of like streaming media and some very limited performances,
3:34
Speaker 1: but by and large, live theater has been put on hold.
3:39
Speaker 1: Broadway is on hiatus at least until May of t one,
3:45
Speaker 1: but even more than that, the Met Opera isn't even
3:47
Speaker 1: starting back till September. I would actually be shocked if
3:52
Speaker 1: we see Broadway open in the spring. Right now, most
3:56
Speaker 1: of the projections I see when it comes to vaccine
4:00
Speaker 1: nations and herd immunity are pointing to this time next year.
4:05
Speaker 1: But you know what, it's okay because during this time,
4:07
Speaker 1: we've just got so much good TV out there that
4:10
Speaker 1: we can watch. How a bunch of new shows happening,
4:14
Speaker 1: not not that many new ones, not that many, not
4:17
Speaker 1: that many returning ones either. Yeah. So this leads into
4:20
Speaker 1: our other part of talking about the bummers of COVID,
4:25
Speaker 1: and that would be that a lot of television series
4:28
Speaker 1: were affected by this, either going into a kind of
4:33
Speaker 1: limbo or postponing a season because obviously the the risks
4:41
Speaker 1: of production were very high, especially early on when we
4:45
Speaker 1: still were learning about the transmission. Arguably we're still learning
4:50
Speaker 1: about the transmission of of COVID nineteen, but back in
4:53
Speaker 1: the beginning, no one was really sure under what situations
4:58
Speaker 1: it was particularly, yeah, exactly, so, so everyone was shutting
5:02
Speaker 1: down so yeah so um, and a lot of the
5:06
Speaker 1: shows that shut down were in production um when they started.
5:13
Speaker 1: Yeah so, so we we saw things like shows like
5:17
Speaker 1: Stranger Things season four had just started production when the
5:21
Speaker 1: pandemic hit. I think they were in production for two
5:23
Speaker 1: weeks and then the pandemic shut them down. They had
5:27
Speaker 1: planned on being finished with their production by late August,
5:33
Speaker 1: and they didn't even get started again until late fall
5:37
Speaker 1: of this year. They are back in production, um, but
5:40
Speaker 1: obviously it's a much more controlled approach than what they
5:44
Speaker 1: were looking at when they were first starting in the
5:47
Speaker 1: early part of the year. Yeah, the film industry has
5:49
Speaker 1: some pretty stringent COVID regulations going on right now. Um,
5:54
Speaker 1: you know, they were lucky and and so were some
5:57
Speaker 1: other shows. Uh, Atlanta and Fargo were postponed to the
6:01
Speaker 1: pandemic that are planned to come back. Some are not
6:05
Speaker 1: coming back. Glow and Drunk History, we're both filming when
6:09
Speaker 1: the pandemic hit and then got canceled. And it was
6:13
Speaker 1: sad for Glow, a dramedy about the old show Glow
6:17
Speaker 1: about female wrestlers, because it was their final season. Yeah,
6:21
Speaker 1: the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling will not get their final
6:25
Speaker 1: season because the budget just wasn't there to keep things
6:30
Speaker 1: kind of treading water indefinitely, and so the decision was
6:35
Speaker 1: made to pull the plug, which is a bummer, especially
6:38
Speaker 1: since that's a Netflix series. And you see some of
6:42
Speaker 1: the stuff that Netflix green lights and you start to wonder.
6:46
Speaker 1: Because Glow was one of those that got critical acclaim,
6:48
Speaker 1: it was popular and it had good, good critical response.
6:53
Speaker 1: There are some things that Netflix funds that you start
6:57
Speaker 1: to question, like who is who's actually paying stuff out.
7:02
Speaker 1: I mean, granted, a lot of those are probably much
7:04
Speaker 1: lower budget productions so they don't cost as much. But yeah,
7:09
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't just it wasn't just filming. Um,
7:13
Speaker 1: it wasn't just budgeting. It was also scheduling. So like
7:16
Speaker 1: Society was another Netflix show that did really well and
7:20
Speaker 1: I haven't watched it, but the trailer looked funny. Um,
7:25
Speaker 1: but they were doing really well. But when it came
7:28
Speaker 1: to trying to keep that show going through the pandemic
7:33
Speaker 1: juggling exceptionally large casts, not just because of COVID, but
7:38
Speaker 1: with scheduling, with postponing, the production just took that one
7:42
Speaker 1: out of the water too. Yeah, And some of these
7:45
Speaker 1: shows were already on the way to winding down, and
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Speaker 1: now the question is for some of them, when will
7:51
Speaker 1: we get to see their final seasons? And for others
7:55
Speaker 1: there's still the the scary question of will we see
7:58
Speaker 1: them because there's always a chance that they'll come to
8:02
Speaker 1: a similar conclusion that we saw with Glow. So like
8:05
Speaker 1: super Girl, for example, was already heading into its final season. Yeah, yeah,
8:11
Speaker 1: which in theory we're still getting black Lightning got renewed,
8:15
Speaker 1: but now it's been said that this next season will
8:18
Speaker 1: be its final season as well. I don't know if
8:20
Speaker 1: that's COVID related though, right. But but my point being
8:23
Speaker 1: that because because of these production issues, although we are
8:26
Speaker 1: seeing a lot more shows going back to production, but
8:29
Speaker 1: because of these production issues, it's it worries me because
8:34
Speaker 1: that uncertainty can play out by affecting the shows and
8:38
Speaker 1: making them conclude earlier than it was originally planned. Yeah. Although,
8:44
Speaker 1: although you've got a note here about the Stranger Things
8:47
Speaker 1: seasons before going back to that, because there was a
8:50
Speaker 1: little added benefit to postponing the filming of the show,
8:55
Speaker 1: which was that they were able to revise their scripture. Yeah,
8:58
Speaker 1: so this was something that made me laugh. Apparently in
9:01
Speaker 1: every other season of Stranger Things, the creators of the show,
9:06
Speaker 1: we're still working on scripts when the early scripts for
9:09
Speaker 1: the season went into production. So episode one might be
9:14
Speaker 1: in production and they might still be working on episode four,
9:17
Speaker 1: which means they don't really know where everything is going
9:19
Speaker 1: to lead, and they might come up with a great
9:21
Speaker 1: idea for episode four, but they didn't really set it
9:25
Speaker 1: up in episode one because they hadn't thought of it yet.
9:28
Speaker 1: So the benefit of this was that because things got postponed,
9:33
Speaker 1: the Brothers could end up working on the scripts for
9:37
Speaker 1: the entire season. They completed this season, then they were
9:40
Speaker 1: able to go back through and revise the earlier scripts
9:43
Speaker 1: and have them be more cohesive. So in a way,
9:48
Speaker 1: Calamity forced them to practice better writing approaches to their work,
9:53
Speaker 1: and that, to me is interesting. I mean, there's some
9:56
Speaker 1: movies that I watched and as I was watching them,
10:00
Speaker 1: I felt like I was watching a film that was
10:02
Speaker 1: probably still being written while they were shooting the film,
10:06
Speaker 1: and I later found out that was the case, the
10:08
Speaker 1: big one being uh, Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of
10:11
Speaker 1: the Black Pearl, the very first one. As I was
10:13
Speaker 1: watching it, I was like, there's no way this was
10:15
Speaker 1: a full script before this, and I love that movie,
10:18
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, But I tell yeah, I was right.
10:21
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, no, this this, this story is
10:25
Speaker 1: meandering all over the place. It's clear that they didn't
10:29
Speaker 1: really know where they were going when they started shooting
10:31
Speaker 1: because the story wasn't finished yet. Um. And the same
10:34
Speaker 1: thing was true with Stranger Things. But now we're going
10:36
Speaker 1: to get a season four that arguably is much stronger,
10:41
Speaker 1: which which is good because at the end of season three,
10:43
Speaker 1: I was like, how, what where are they going to
10:46
Speaker 1: do with this? Yeah, that's a that is a correct
10:49
Speaker 1: sentence in my mind. Um yeah, it hit so many
10:54
Speaker 1: of I mean, it hit essentially every production, right, So yeah,
10:59
Speaker 1: I remember I remember at the beginning going which okay,
11:03
Speaker 1: I'm waiting on these four shows for their new season.
11:05
Speaker 1: How many of them are far enough in their production
11:08
Speaker 1: schedule to still come out despite the fact that everything
11:11
Speaker 1: is shut down, like Umbrella Academy. For me, it was
11:14
Speaker 1: Doom Patrol. Doom Patrol. That is a series I did
11:18
Speaker 1: not expect to enjoy, and it made me fall in
11:21
Speaker 1: love with A Street. I was about to say, Street
11:26
Speaker 1: a Talking Street is so such a weird show, and
11:31
Speaker 1: you know one of those where it's so weird that
11:35
Speaker 1: you feel like it's the kind of thing that if
11:37
Speaker 1: you breathe on it wrong, it's gonna go away. I mean, Ariel,
11:41
Speaker 1: you and I we've been fans of shows that were
11:45
Speaker 1: truly weird kind of genre shows that never stood a chance,
11:50
Speaker 1: and it's amazing they done. As far as Gallivant being
11:53
Speaker 1: a more recent example, right, great show, Great show, felt
12:00
Speaker 1: like it could have gone one more season. The another
12:04
Speaker 1: one that I think of all the time, and this
12:06
Speaker 1: one really is a throwback, is The Adventures of Briscoe
12:09
Speaker 1: County Jr. Which was so much fun. Uh. It suffered
12:15
Speaker 1: a little bit with the orb storyline, which I felt
12:18
Speaker 1: was too weird even for me. But again, one of
12:22
Speaker 1: those shows where you're like, these are people who are
12:24
Speaker 1: taking chances to bring very unusual stuff to TV, and uh,
12:31
Speaker 1: they get like a passionate fan base. It may not
12:34
Speaker 1: be big enough to justify continuing it, but that's the
12:37
Speaker 1: kind of thing like that. I think of it with
12:39
Speaker 1: Doom Patrol, right, It's that kind of category of show.
12:42
Speaker 1: And then you get something like a pandemic, which is
12:46
Speaker 1: obviously above and beyond the normal challenges these shows face,
12:50
Speaker 1: and you worry about whether what are its chances to survive? Yeah,
12:54
Speaker 1: I mean right now, it's still slated to come back. Um,
12:58
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that some of the shows that I'm
13:00
Speaker 1: very excited about, things like wand Division, Falcon and The
13:02
Speaker 1: Winter Soldier, are still slated to happen. Um. Yeah, they
13:08
Speaker 1: might be delayed a little bit, but they are like
13:11
Speaker 1: like Falcon and the Winter Soldier, that was one of
13:13
Speaker 1: the stories we had where they have gone back into
13:16
Speaker 1: production and according to uh, the Falcon, it's a miserable
13:21
Speaker 1: experience because he said he was in Prague and that
13:25
Speaker 1: all the all the food was delivered in zip block
13:28
Speaker 1: bags because it had to all be you know, sanitary
13:32
Speaker 1: and and safely handled. And he says, it's just terrible,
13:35
Speaker 1: and like it just sounds like a very unpleasant experience.
13:39
Speaker 1: There are a lot more hoops as a film actor
13:41
Speaker 1: you got to jump through to make a show right now. Well,
13:45
Speaker 1: and I want to talk to you about that when
13:47
Speaker 1: we when we come back from our break, because as
13:50
Speaker 1: someone who has been dipping her toe in that industry
13:56
Speaker 1: and has started to see how that works firsthand, I
13:58
Speaker 1: am curious to hear more about it. But we will
14:02
Speaker 1: save that after this quick break. Hey, we're back yet
14:21
Speaker 1: for us, For us, we were here the whole time.
14:23
Speaker 1: Were But Ariel, I do want to ask you, so,
14:26
Speaker 1: as you mentioned in our episode zero, you are an actress. Uh.
14:31
Speaker 1: You you audition for things and you are pursuing that
14:37
Speaker 1: while we have this new reality going on. So can
14:41
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about things that you have
14:44
Speaker 1: observed or that you have learned of, uh, when it
14:48
Speaker 1: comes to productions in this in this pandemic world. Yeah,
14:53
Speaker 1: so really what it comes down to is most productions
14:57
Speaker 1: and I'll say this even on an indie level, because
14:59
Speaker 1: I've done some indie stuff. I haven't been on a
15:02
Speaker 1: big set um during the pandemic. But are really taking
15:07
Speaker 1: this seriously because much like Broadway, much like all this,
15:11
Speaker 1: if you're an actor, if you're a person who works
15:13
Speaker 1: on a film set, this is your livelihood and you're
15:16
Speaker 1: basically how you've basically spent months not really making any art,
15:21
Speaker 1: not really making any money. You know. And sure, if
15:25
Speaker 1: you're like an upper echelon actor, you're you're probably pretty
15:30
Speaker 1: pretty comfy to to weather it through. But you know
15:33
Speaker 1: a lot of all actors, yeah, that's that's not many.
15:38
Speaker 1: You know, most people live on a regular paycheck like
15:42
Speaker 1: every like the as of us UM. But so they
15:45
Speaker 1: all want to be really careful. They don't want productions
15:47
Speaker 1: to shut down. So it's stuff like testing every three
15:51
Speaker 1: days if you're a series, regular um temperature checks before
15:55
Speaker 1: you get on set, working, and and all of these
15:58
Speaker 1: RNA get back to work guide that I actually was
16:01
Speaker 1: released with some of the unions, and there's an article
16:03
Speaker 1: about it on Washington Posts, So if you have more
16:06
Speaker 1: interest in all of that, you can look it up there.
16:09
Speaker 1: But um temperature checks, like you said, with craft services,
16:13
Speaker 1: making sure that food is individually packaged and given to everybody. UH,
16:19
Speaker 1: making sure that people are socially distancing whenever possible. Working
16:22
Speaker 1: in different zones, so you'll have like different work groups
16:26
Speaker 1: of people. People who are on set every day of
16:29
Speaker 1: the week, people who are only on set for a
16:31
Speaker 1: couple of days, people who can work more regularly social
16:35
Speaker 1: distance as opposed to actors who have to take their
16:37
Speaker 1: masks off had to have to get closer together. And
16:40
Speaker 1: each of these different work groups have different regulations based
16:44
Speaker 1: on their their risk level that they have to go through. So, um,
16:49
Speaker 1: if you're if you're not an actor, you have to
16:51
Speaker 1: wear a mask whenever you're within six ft of somebody.
16:56
Speaker 1: Actors when they don't have to be acting, have to
16:58
Speaker 1: do the same. Um, you know, making sure that if
17:02
Speaker 1: you have to do skin on skin contact that you're
17:03
Speaker 1: wearing gloves. I'm sure in certain scenes of a show
17:06
Speaker 1: that that may not happen. I've even heard even though
17:10
Speaker 1: I don't because I do more film acting, I don't
17:14
Speaker 1: really do extra work anymore. Um, extras are being pulled
17:17
Speaker 1: on for longer periods of time than maybe just an afternoon,
17:20
Speaker 1: because if you have to get tested. If you have
17:22
Speaker 1: to you know, kind of self quarantine and all this
17:24
Speaker 1: stuff and go through all the hoops to be on set,
17:26
Speaker 1: then they might want to use you for a couple
17:28
Speaker 1: more days to get a big chunk of filming out right,
17:32
Speaker 1: rather than have to keep repeating that whole process with
17:35
Speaker 1: a new batch of people over and over again. But
17:40
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a lot and it's a lot
17:42
Speaker 1: of testing, so it's not perfect. You know, there are
17:44
Speaker 1: certainly some instances where there's still COVID on sets, but
17:49
Speaker 1: not not much. I think I read an article where
17:53
Speaker 1: on a on Tyler Perry his COVID rates are well
17:57
Speaker 1: below Georgia's regular COVID rates because of all of the
18:00
Speaker 1: precautions they're taking. So it's safer than going to the
18:03
Speaker 1: grocery store. To me, it feels like and it kind
18:06
Speaker 1: of seems like to well and and as you were saying, like,
18:10
Speaker 1: this is livelihood, right, So people are treating it very
18:12
Speaker 1: seriously because if they don't, then their their work is
18:18
Speaker 1: is gone. In fact, if COVID does pop up on
18:21
Speaker 1: a set, depending on on the person, I mean, you
18:25
Speaker 1: might be contact tracing to say, all right, well, who
18:27
Speaker 1: is this person near all the time. Is this something
18:30
Speaker 1: that is concerning enough where we need to shut down
18:33
Speaker 1: production for a couple of weeks and quarantine to make
18:36
Speaker 1: certain that no one else is sick? Like that's a
18:39
Speaker 1: big deal. And time really is money when it comes
18:43
Speaker 1: to producing TV and film and all that. So you've
18:46
Speaker 1: got to make sure that everyone is safe or else
18:50
Speaker 1: you're costing a studio potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars
18:55
Speaker 1: in downtime and uh and nobody wants to be responsible
18:58
Speaker 1: for that. So, I mean, it's it's encouraging to hear
19:03
Speaker 1: that there are all these these protections in place. It
19:06
Speaker 1: is interesting because you know, I feel very conflicted as
19:11
Speaker 1: a consumer because I want to see this stuff, right,
19:16
Speaker 1: I want the content. I'm a fan of things, but
19:19
Speaker 1: I don't want anyone to get hurt or sick because
19:23
Speaker 1: of that. And meanwhile, people want to work. They have
19:28
Speaker 1: that desire to both be creative and to make a
19:32
Speaker 1: living off of it. Studios want to work because they
19:35
Speaker 1: want money. Uh. So everyone has these different motivations, some
19:40
Speaker 1: of which might feel less pure than others. Like if
19:43
Speaker 1: you look at it from the studio perspective, the typical approaches, Oh,
19:46
Speaker 1: those greedy producers, by the way, my official title as
19:49
Speaker 1: executive producer. Then you start to you know, you can
19:53
Speaker 1: feel like weird about wanting to see stuff come back.
19:57
Speaker 1: But knowing that there are these protective measure is in place,
20:01
Speaker 1: and that these are things that the various guilds have
20:04
Speaker 1: worked towards to make certain that the people they represent
20:07
Speaker 1: are protected makes me feel better about it. Knowing that
20:10
Speaker 1: people are going to these lengths to try and protect
20:14
Speaker 1: each other and the art itself, and and those lengths
20:17
Speaker 1: I'm sure will change as we learn more about what's
20:20
Speaker 1: going on with the virus. I have been on a
20:22
Speaker 1: couple indie sets since the beginning of the pandemic well
20:25
Speaker 1: spaced out, you know, making sure that myself and everybody
20:29
Speaker 1: else on very very small cruise. Uh it's me and
20:33
Speaker 1: one other actor and then a couple of crew people,
20:35
Speaker 1: is what it's been. And we've all quarantined prior done
20:38
Speaker 1: it and then as well yeah um again, Like, even
20:44
Speaker 1: even at the indie level, it seems like everybody's everybody
20:48
Speaker 1: has taken it as safe as humanly possible, because you want,
20:52
Speaker 1: you want everybody to be safe first of all, and
20:54
Speaker 1: then you don't want that hanging over your product either.
20:58
Speaker 1: So yeah, um, you know, it's everybody's just trying to
21:06
Speaker 1: do the best they can. I suppose, well, and like
21:09
Speaker 1: I said to me, it's actually kind of inspiring. It's uh,
21:12
Speaker 1: because we're really looking otherwise at a pretty bleak future
21:19
Speaker 1: in the short term anyway for entertainment, because if we
21:23
Speaker 1: can't create those safe spaces and safe environments for creation,
21:28
Speaker 1: then we're going to have a really long dry spell.
21:32
Speaker 1: Although I will say, like after Umbrella Academy came out,
21:36
Speaker 1: prior to new seasons of things starting to come out now,
21:39
Speaker 1: I did use that time to catch up on a
21:41
Speaker 1: whole bunch of television that I have been like, I
21:43
Speaker 1: want to watch this show, but I don't have time.
21:46
Speaker 1: It was kind of nice not to have that pressure
21:48
Speaker 1: of how am I going to fit all these TV
21:49
Speaker 1: shows in? Because I love I love washing media. Um yeah,
21:55
Speaker 1: so finally having all that and and of course we've
21:58
Speaker 1: seen people really gravitate towards various streaming services, and you know,
22:03
Speaker 1: we even had some new stuff come out. Either it
22:06
Speaker 1: was already produced after the pandemic, you know, before the
22:10
Speaker 1: pandemic hit rather, or it was something that finished up
22:14
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. There were some really creative approaches to that.
22:17
Speaker 1: Um One that I meant to mention, which is really odd,
22:23
Speaker 1: is that Blacklist did a really cool thing. But there's
22:29
Speaker 1: where Blacklist was in season seven, which they were renewed first,
22:34
Speaker 1: even season eight, but they were still in production for
22:38
Speaker 1: their twenty twenty season when the pandemic hit, which to
22:41
Speaker 1: me was already unusual. A lot of television productions will
22:44
Speaker 1: be finished by then because they have to be so
22:46
Speaker 1: far ahead of the actual release schedule. But Blacklist was
22:51
Speaker 1: still filming when the pandemic hit and shut down production.
22:55
Speaker 1: But they needed to get their season finale done, and
22:58
Speaker 1: so what they ended up doing was they had the
23:00
Speaker 1: actors record lines out of their own homes and then
23:04
Speaker 1: they hired an animation studio to animate the season finale. Uh,
23:11
Speaker 1: which to me is just like, that's putting a lot
23:13
Speaker 1: of faith in your audience, right to to completely switch
23:17
Speaker 1: to a different form of of storytelling and hope that
23:21
Speaker 1: they come along with you on that journey. That's a
23:24
Speaker 1: big deal, it is, you know, but people have been
23:27
Speaker 1: it seems really supportive of the way that not just
23:31
Speaker 1: television but live events have had to pivot as well.
23:34
Speaker 1: For instance, Dragon Con yes. So for those who do
23:37
Speaker 1: not know, dragon Con is a science fiction, fantasy, horror
23:41
Speaker 1: fan convention and it's the largest one in the Southeast,
23:45
Speaker 1: and it's it's out of here in Atlanta, Georgia, and
23:48
Speaker 1: it typically happens over Labor Day weekend and it's huge.
23:55
Speaker 1: Right there's you get. One of the running jokes about
24:00
Speaker 1: dragon Con is that you never really know how many
24:02
Speaker 1: people attend on a weekend because the estimates will range
24:06
Speaker 1: on the low end from around thirty thousand to more
24:09
Speaker 1: than one hundred thousand from people who are crazy, because
24:12
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any way there's that many. I
24:14
Speaker 1: mean it if you count the people who stop on
24:18
Speaker 1: the side of the road as they're going to pick
24:19
Speaker 1: up their Duncan donuts to watch the parade maybe yeah,
24:23
Speaker 1: and on on a parade day shore so yeah. And
24:25
Speaker 1: dragon Con is particularly known for things like the cosplay community.
24:30
Speaker 1: Like Comic Con is a is a much larger convention
24:33
Speaker 1: by number of people. However, comic Con takes place in
24:37
Speaker 1: a convention center that closes at the end of the day.
24:41
Speaker 1: And uh, maybe, like i'd say, like one in maybe
24:45
Speaker 1: one in five people at comic Con or in costume
24:48
Speaker 1: maybe a dragon Con, it feels like it's one hour
24:51
Speaker 1: every two Like half of the people are there in costume,
24:54
Speaker 1: and it all takes place in hotels, so it never
24:56
Speaker 1: shuts down. It's there twenty four hours a day a
25:00
Speaker 1: for like now it feels like a week and a
25:03
Speaker 1: half because it technically starts on a Friday, four days. Yeah,
25:08
Speaker 1: it's technically Friday through Monday, but it's now now. For
25:13
Speaker 1: a while, Thursday was the new Friday, and now Wednesday
25:15
Speaker 1: is the new Thursday. However, obviously this year that was
25:19
Speaker 1: all just not viable, right that you could not have
25:23
Speaker 1: a big convention in person, So they switched to an
25:28
Speaker 1: online streaming event version, and they put in so much
25:32
Speaker 1: work to get guests and to have panels and to
25:36
Speaker 1: and to still have an interactive experience online uh as
25:41
Speaker 1: best they could, and it was really exciting. It was
25:44
Speaker 1: It was interesting to me because we saw a Comic Con,
25:46
Speaker 1: we saw some other conventions also do these online programs,
25:50
Speaker 1: but Dragon Con kind of took it the extra step.
25:53
Speaker 1: They even did the parade. They even figured out a
25:55
Speaker 1: way to do parades and costume contests as a part.
25:59
Speaker 1: As we said, caused play and that social aspect it's
26:01
Speaker 1: such a huge part of that convention. They they really
26:04
Speaker 1: figure out how to make that possible for the fans.
26:08
Speaker 1: Um And I've seen artists, you know, Dragon Constant Convention,
26:12
Speaker 1: but I've seen artists and other events do the same
26:15
Speaker 1: and the interest of full disclosure. Aerial has in the
26:19
Speaker 1: past worked at the con in various departments, and I
26:24
Speaker 1: am the son of the first Toastmaster of Dragon con
26:28
Speaker 1: so we both have a long history with that convention,
26:32
Speaker 1: but neither of us, I think we're involved. This year,
26:35
Speaker 1: we were just uh, more like attendees than than participants. Yeah,
26:40
Speaker 1: so it is good that we're still seeing that sense
26:44
Speaker 1: of community online even through the pandemic. And it's interesting
26:50
Speaker 1: because it's it's like seeing a weird cycle for me
26:55
Speaker 1: because for the longest time when I was growing up,
26:57
Speaker 1: science fiction conventions that was like the one time you
27:01
Speaker 1: could gather with other people who happened to like the
27:04
Speaker 1: same weird stuff you liked, and you could talk to
27:07
Speaker 1: them and you could share your crazy fan theory about
27:12
Speaker 1: you know, whatever it was, and you could talk about that,
27:15
Speaker 1: you listen to other people's crazy theories and then mash
27:18
Speaker 1: up your crazy theories and you would have these endless
27:21
Speaker 1: discussions about all sorts of fantasy and sci fi and
27:25
Speaker 1: horror stuff. But that was the only place you could
27:28
Speaker 1: really go and do that because there wasn't an Internet
27:30
Speaker 1: for the general public at that point. Now we have
27:33
Speaker 1: the Internet where we have the all these different spaces
27:36
Speaker 1: and so you hear my dog barking in the background.
27:38
Speaker 1: We have all these different spaces where we've got things
27:41
Speaker 1: like you know, Reddit, or for the longest time we
27:45
Speaker 1: had tumbled her hold of us kind of died down.
27:46
Speaker 1: Now Instagram, all these just not as crazy as it
27:51
Speaker 1: used to be. Dash Con really took the window of
27:53
Speaker 1: their sales, but uh, yeah, we're we're We've got these
27:57
Speaker 1: spaces online that really help out quite a bit. And
28:01
Speaker 1: uh it's interesting to see now that the place that
28:05
Speaker 1: used to be the central gathering point for geekdom has
28:11
Speaker 1: leaned so heavily on the Internet, which in a large
28:14
Speaker 1: part has has kind of democratized that experience so that
28:18
Speaker 1: you could you could have something similar. You can find
28:21
Speaker 1: your people more easily online than in the real world.
28:26
Speaker 1: That is that is true. So you know, I've really
28:29
Speaker 1: enjoyed talking about this, and normally we try to stay
28:32
Speaker 1: more on one topic during our conversation, but we kind
28:35
Speaker 1: of went over just to to how how much the
28:39
Speaker 1: pandemic has has made people pivot and how they're they're
28:42
Speaker 1: trying to adapt to that. But um, it's time for
28:46
Speaker 1: another break, and then it's time for my favorite part
28:49
Speaker 1: of the show, where we mashed two things up and
28:52
Speaker 1: let me tell let me tell you, folks, she's she's
28:55
Speaker 1: picked a doozy of appearing. Listen, listen. I think it's
28:59
Speaker 1: it's pertinent because we're talking about the pandemic and this
29:02
Speaker 1: mashup has both properties have stuff to do with masks, right,
29:06
Speaker 1: but let's not spoil it. We'll have everyone join us
29:09
Speaker 1: after the break and then you'll find out what the
29:11
Speaker 1: heck she's talking about. All right, everybody, So, like I said,
29:30
Speaker 1: we are going to do our mashup now. So we
29:31
Speaker 1: kind of brought you down talking about all pandemic stuff,
29:35
Speaker 1: which everybody knows about, but we we wanted to talk
29:38
Speaker 1: about it. So now we're going to bring you back up.
29:41
Speaker 1: So this week we're taking two properties that have to
29:45
Speaker 1: do with masks and we are mashing them together. One
29:50
Speaker 1: of those is The Mandalorian, which is a show that
29:52
Speaker 1: made it through production craziness with the Pandemic because we
29:56
Speaker 1: just got the second season that is currently airing, and
29:59
Speaker 1: the other because we talked about Broadway being shut down
30:02
Speaker 1: and about the opera being shut down. Is the Phantom
30:06
Speaker 1: of the Opera? Yeah, so, um, I don't feel like
30:10
Speaker 1: we even need to talk about what these things are
30:13
Speaker 1: because I'm pretty sure everyone out there listening has heard
30:15
Speaker 1: of them. But just in case you haven't, The Mandalorian
30:18
Speaker 1: is a Star Wars property running on Disney Plus and
30:22
Speaker 1: follows a bounty hunter a Mandalorian similar to Boba Fett,
30:27
Speaker 1: but is this takes place after the events of the
30:31
Speaker 1: original trilogy. And then Phantom of the Opera is a ridiculous,
30:37
Speaker 1: bombastic musical. The specific version we're talking about, I imagine,
30:41
Speaker 1: is the musical version. That's what you in mind, right, Yes,
30:44
Speaker 1: the musical version, as opposed to like the original book
30:48
Speaker 1: or the you know, lawn Cheney type movies with yeah,
30:52
Speaker 1: where we're disfigured. Guy wears the masks and hides under
30:55
Speaker 1: the opera and falls in love with an opera star
30:58
Speaker 1: and then she she has stock Holmes syndrome. Yeah, it's
31:02
Speaker 1: it brings up a whole Another conversation of able is
31:04
Speaker 1: um and things like that, but we'll get into that
31:06
Speaker 1: in a future episode regardless. So it starts when I
31:12
Speaker 1: hero Mando, and that's not his real name, but I'm
31:15
Speaker 1: not going to spoil it for Jonathan because I don't
31:17
Speaker 1: know if he's watched the episode that far yet. Has
31:20
Speaker 1: his helmet broken and in half in a bounty hunting duel.
31:25
Speaker 1: Disgraced per the code of his Mandalorian ways, Mando takes
31:29
Speaker 1: residence under the last place anyone would look for our
31:31
Speaker 1: stoic protagonist and accidentally catch a glimpse of his face,
31:35
Speaker 1: the local space opera house. He hides underneath it, but
31:39
Speaker 1: to his surprise, he loves the music in the drama
31:43
Speaker 1: of the space Opera and he starts watching the shows. However,
31:46
Speaker 1: from his little Heidi Hoe hole where he's watching the
31:48
Speaker 1: shows because he can't just sit in the audience, he
31:50
Speaker 1: people would see half his face. That cannot happen, uh.
31:54
Speaker 1: He sees that Strange things keep happening during the performances.
31:57
Speaker 1: Props will float off the stage one to performers aren't looking.
32:00
Speaker 1: Trap doors will open up under the singers. It's it's
32:04
Speaker 1: ruining the shows and it's making everybody in them really worried, Uh,
32:08
Speaker 1: not wanting this art to be ruined, which has touched
32:11
Speaker 1: his damaged soul and his damaged helmet. He explores the
32:15
Speaker 1: opera Space Opera one night, and that's when he sees it.
32:18
Speaker 1: The child ransacking the leftover refreshment table, levitating the food
32:23
Speaker 1: to its mouth, the child too cute to kill but
32:27
Speaker 1: too dangerous to let room around the Space Opera. Uh
32:30
Speaker 1: is lured by Mando into the wings of the opera
32:33
Speaker 1: with him, where he stuffs the child in his pouch
32:36
Speaker 1: to become the tear caretaker of the child and by extension,
32:39
Speaker 1: the caretaker of the opera. The performers never know why
32:43
Speaker 1: the strange occurrence has stopped, but there are whispers of
32:45
Speaker 1: a half masked man hiding and lurking in the dark
32:48
Speaker 1: crevices just out of sight of the Space Opera. And
32:52
Speaker 1: if you listen carefully when the curtain is closed, you
32:55
Speaker 1: can sometimes hear the soft refrains and the curtains rustling.
33:00
Speaker 1: The child of the forces here inside this path. Well done,
33:09
Speaker 1: well done. Yeah, the music that I will have to
33:12
Speaker 1: have Shout out to my friend Sarah who came up
33:16
Speaker 1: with that. Okay, so um so it's my turn to pitch.
33:21
Speaker 1: M Okay, the curtain rises and we see an auction
33:27
Speaker 1: going on. There's a current item that is being auctioned off,
33:32
Speaker 1: is a broken water evaporator, and as soon as that
33:37
Speaker 1: auction has cleared, they talk about the magnificent chandelier made
33:42
Speaker 1: from real I G eleven. Yes, it's a chandelier made
33:46
Speaker 1: out of a broken robot that then rises up majestically
33:50
Speaker 1: to the ceiling of the theater house that you are in,
33:52
Speaker 1: because this is a stage show I'm talking about here,
33:55
Speaker 1: and it all lights up and everything's brilliant, and so
33:58
Speaker 1: we essentially see the story of the Fantom of the
34:02
Speaker 1: Opera playing out, but with very particular lyrics. So so
34:06
Speaker 1: here's my my pitch for just two of the songs. Okay,
34:10
Speaker 1: So one of them starts off this way on desert sands.
34:15
Speaker 1: He came to fix the broken Koweel was his name.
34:22
Speaker 1: I have spoken see you got it, so that it's
34:27
Speaker 1: gonna be all about him because ug Knots do not
34:30
Speaker 1: get enough love. So there's gonna be just a whole
34:32
Speaker 1: number about ug nuts. But later later we get the
34:35
Speaker 1: real heart wrenching number. Ready Yes, I'm ready, tiny yo
34:42
Speaker 1: pop culture since ay stiontion, merch and dice cross all
34:49
Speaker 1: of creation. Now, I'm not going to sing the sex
34:52
Speaker 1: part because I cannot even hit the high notes, but
34:56
Speaker 1: the frog lady of him would beg, please do not
34:59
Speaker 1: eat my egg, but the child still gobbled up one
35:03
Speaker 1: in a bite and cancel culture hit Yoda that night.
35:09
Speaker 1: Spoiler spoiler, you haven't even watched that episode, have you? No?
35:14
Speaker 1: I haven't gotten that far, but everyone talked about Yoda
35:16
Speaker 1: eating an egg, so I knew about that part. Well, yeah,
35:22
Speaker 1: I got a note about that. I'm told that I
35:25
Speaker 1: have a restraining order now for musicals, which is fair.
35:28
Speaker 1: I didn't warm up, didn't have music accompaniment, that's those
35:31
Speaker 1: are my my It was also and I'm a character
35:34
Speaker 1: of voice actor, so it was like, stop making excuses.
35:38
Speaker 1: It was beautiful. I would option that musical in a heartbeat. Now.
35:41
Speaker 1: I like to go meta with my musicals, which is
35:44
Speaker 1: why I had to comment on the merchandizing, which, honestly,
35:47
Speaker 1: like the two things I've seen the most about this
35:50
Speaker 1: coming season or this this current season are the stories
35:54
Speaker 1: about merchandise and all the baby Yoda merchandise that you
35:57
Speaker 1: can get, including like the little animated animated be Yoda
36:00
Speaker 1: robotic figure UH and then the storyline within the show
36:05
Speaker 1: about Yoda eating an egg from a UH, a near
36:10
Speaker 1: extinct species, and that there was a big reaction to that,
36:15
Speaker 1: and I just haven't sat down to watch the full
36:20
Speaker 1: season like I started it. I started season one with
36:23
Speaker 1: my wife and we loved it. We thought it was
36:27
Speaker 1: such a cool take on the Star Wars mythology to
36:31
Speaker 1: make it kind of a Western, But we just it
36:34
Speaker 1: was one of those things where we didn't carve out
36:37
Speaker 1: enough time to watch all of season one, and then
36:40
Speaker 1: other stuff started piling up, so we need to and
36:44
Speaker 1: we're as we're recording this, we're actually about to go
36:46
Speaker 1: into a holiday. So I'm hoping that I can have
36:49
Speaker 1: some time to catch up on stuff because that's the
36:53
Speaker 1: because then we can have a huge conversation about that
36:55
Speaker 1: egg thing, because I tell you, I went back and
36:57
Speaker 1: forth in my brain about it a few times. Yeah,
37:00
Speaker 1: the stuff I've I've seen has been um interesting as well,
37:06
Speaker 1: because I even read up a little bit about it.
37:09
Speaker 1: Because at that point I'm like, well, it's already been
37:11
Speaker 1: spoiled for me. I can't I can't know that, so
37:15
Speaker 1: I do want to know the context, but it's gonna
37:17
Speaker 1: take me a while to get there, so I'll go
37:18
Speaker 1: ahead and read up on it. Um. But yeah, it's
37:22
Speaker 1: like to me. To me, the Mandalorian is one of
37:24
Speaker 1: those Star Wars properties that just felt thanks Tim Bolt,
37:31
Speaker 1: felt really really good like it just it was it
37:34
Speaker 1: was it was. It felt like Star Wars, but in
37:37
Speaker 1: a new way. And I'm one of those grouchy old
37:40
Speaker 1: guys who's like, I didn't like the prequels. I don't
37:45
Speaker 1: fault people who do. And I'm not crazy about the
37:47
Speaker 1: sequels either. And in fact, if I'm being totally honest,
37:51
Speaker 1: I've still never seen I haven't seen the last film
37:53
Speaker 1: in the I haven't seen the Rise of Skywalker. I
37:55
Speaker 1: just haven't seen it. But that's okay. You like Mandaloria
38:00
Speaker 1: and a lot of people who have issues with some
38:02
Speaker 1: of those other properties due to so uh, catch up
38:06
Speaker 1: and then we'll talk about it on large new drunk ladder.
38:08
Speaker 1: That sounds good. So, yeah, that was a fun one.
38:12
Speaker 1: We promised that they won't all be musicals. We do
38:15
Speaker 1: love musicals. Yeah, well we can't promise that they won't
38:19
Speaker 1: be all musicals. We're not planning for them all to
38:21
Speaker 1: be musicals right now, but you know, we we we
38:24
Speaker 1: care about you too much, dear listener, But we do
38:28
Speaker 1: welcome you guys to reach out to us. Well I'm
38:31
Speaker 1: talking about my voice, not yours area, but we welcome
38:36
Speaker 1: you to reach out to us and to share with
38:39
Speaker 1: us your thoughts on what a Mandalorian Phantom of the
38:42
Speaker 1: Opera mashup would be like, or suggest other properties we
38:46
Speaker 1: should mash together. Yeah, and and as well as you know,
38:50
Speaker 1: any other kind of geek topics that you think we
38:53
Speaker 1: should really research and talk about, you know, stuff that
38:57
Speaker 1: matters to the geek sphere. Yeah, you can reach out
39:00
Speaker 1: to us currently on social media at on Twitter at
39:03
Speaker 1: Ellen c Underscore podcast, or on the facebooks or on Instagram.
39:08
Speaker 1: You can send us a message, you can send us
39:11
Speaker 1: a d M and we'll check that and if we
39:13
Speaker 1: like your suggestions, are your stories or your mashups, we
39:16
Speaker 1: might even read them online. So yeah, all right on
39:19
Speaker 1: the show not just ane, Yeah, thank you, No, it's fine,
39:25
Speaker 1: Like listen, we're both recording this after a very long day,
39:29
Speaker 1: so it's both online right now. Technically we'll be reading
39:33
Speaker 1: them online, but yes, we'll read them on the show. Field. Yeah,
39:35
Speaker 1: that's that's that's very fair so yeah, welcome to our madness.
39:42
Speaker 1: We look forward to covering lots more geeky things, and
39:46
Speaker 1: we'll be covering you know, current news very soon. By
39:51
Speaker 1: the time you listen to the episodes that will start
39:53
Speaker 1: to publish starting next week, you will hear more current headlines.
39:58
Speaker 1: And until then, I yes, I am still Jonathan Strickland,
40:05
Speaker 1: and I am and always will be aerial casting Bye,
40:11
Speaker 1: I have spoken. M m m m m. The Large
40:35
Speaker 1: New Drunk Collider is production of I Heart Radio and
40:38
Speaker 1: was created by Ariel cast In. Jonathan Strickland is the
40:41
Speaker 1: executive producer. This show is produced, edited and published by
40:44
Speaker 1: Tory Harrison. For more podcasts on my heart Radio, visit
40:48
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
40:51
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.