Living Forward
Living Forward
Dad Jokes and Dystopian Dreams
Join Barbara and Teja as the roast in the Boston heatwave with their broken air conditioner? Why not add some podcast recording to our sweaty saga.
The big story today is Teja's new project—a dramatic podcast series titled Caucus: After the Fall. He'll talk about the unique way the story was scripted - or unscripted, if you will. From the origin of the story to the music and foley effects. Teja and Barbara take you backstage for this dystopian, speculative fiction story.
Follow us on Instagram @wearelivingforward
Barbara:
we're chilling here in living forward land
Teja:
chill axing
Barbara: well actually not chilling as the case
Teja: if you're really cold and you are and you're carrying an axe and you're about is that chill axing if you're a dad and you make jokes was this a dad joke
Barbara: that I think qualifies. Although, honestly, I don't know what the full definition of a dad joke is. I don't understand.
Teja: It's just a bad dad joke.
Barbara: I know, but why is it a dad joke?
Teja: Because they're so old and it's like predictable and they're not actually really all that funny.
Barbara: But that wasn't old or, I mean, it was something you just, you know, made up out of your head.
Teja: Well, yeah, but it sounds like a dad joke.
Barbara: Oh, okay.
Teja: Let me do dad jokes.
Barbara: It's an artificial dad joke.
Teja: It's like an uncle joke.
Barbara: Manufactured dad joke.
Teja: It's not AI. AI could probably do a much better job at bad dad jokes.
Barbara: But it wouldn't understand them.
Teja: It doesn't matter. A bad dad joke doesn't need to be understood. It just has to be bad.
Barbara: I was really just talking about our air conditioner that's all like and then it took this turn
Teja: when were you talking about the air conditioner
Barbara: well i said not chilling which is really kind of what's been happening with our air conditioner
Teja: i didn't know that's where you were going
Barbara: why
Teja: i don't know
Barbara: you should know me by now
Teja: i well sometimes
Barbara: it's been a while it We've been hanging out for a little while. A little while. Teja: A bunch of years. A bunch of turns around the sun. The old side of the house, the AC unit broke in the middle of our 101-degree week.
Barbara: It did not get up to be 100 .1.
Teja: 110. 152. 163.
Barbara: It did not no.
Teja: 287 degrees.
Barbara: Okay. Are we talking Kelvin now? What's going on?
Teja: It could be ultraviolet.
Barbara: I see.
Teja: It was like 93. Yeah. It was very, very hot and humid.
Barbara: So Boston has been very, very humid this year.
Teja: Now, fortunately, our daughter wanted to buy a mobile air conditioning unit for the new apartment she's moving into in a week.
Barbara: Yes.
Teja: We bought this several months ago at Costco.
Barbara: Yes. And so we've been trying to use it in that part of the house that is too hot to sleep in.
Teja: It's in the upstairs.
Barbara: Yeah, near the bedrooms.
Teja: So all the bedroom doors are open and it's facing kind of sort of toward the bedrooms.
Barbara: And it's sort of into each room. Just a little like, paaah it's trying. It's trying really hard.
Teja: And the first floor below that is not getting AC except for a little bit of paaah from the new side of the house.
Barbara: Right. Exactly. Exactly. So it's been interesting and it will be even more interesting once she takes that air conditioner.
Teja: Which is in a week.
Barbara: Yeah, because we don't yet have a plan
Teja: yeah well we still have to get the service the unit serviced yeah but that may be a couple of weeks if not more
Barbara: yeah because apparently it's kind of complex broke not just plain broke it's complex broke
Teja: yeah so that's but but but but the side of the house where where my office is.
Barbara: Yes, thankfully,
Teja: has AC, and it's the furthest from all the rest. And when I close my office doors,
Barbara: you get all the AC.
Teja: Nice AC. It is so nice, and I spend a lot of time in there.
Barbara: Well, that's true. That is true.
Teja: Now, you have AC in your office, too, which is in the backyard office. It's a converted garage, which is your office. You've got AC there.
Barbara: But it's much, like it's much smaller so it's less to worry about it's just one of those single units the little wall unit and yeah and it's fine it's fine because it's like a 12 by 12 room
Teja: right so i've been spending more time in my office because i'm also uh recording this new dramatic podcast series with my actors in there.
So every episode with a different actor.
Barbara: So this is very exciting.
Teja: Yeah, it's very exciting.
Barbara: Are you dropping the name here? Are we holding off on the name for a minute because we haven't put out the...
Teja: I think it's pretty... Anybody who knows will know already. It's out there. So the podcast is called Caucus: After the Fall. Caucus, colon, not colon. Colon is not one.
Barbara: No, no, no, no. We're talking about the punctuation.
Teja: Like small colon, large colon. There is no small colon, large colon. Small intestines.
Barbara/Teja: Large intestines. The intestines. The large intestine is the colon. There is no small colon. No, there's no semicolon either.
Barbara: Not in your body. No. But see, now you're deflecting. This is a very exciting project. It is. And if you want to really know more about it, we're going to start dropping teasers and trailers, which is going to give you more information. But what's particularly interesting about this is that it's a dramatic podcast and, you know, of a story that you've been working on for a long time and has taken different forms but you know you had discovered that it was very difficult to find dramatic podcasts that you really could get into to could dig your teeth into it from a story and an acting perspective
Teja: absolutely
Barbara: and so then that like combined with your thoughts for this particular story led you to limited series podcast How many episodes is it again?
Teja: Nine episodes. It was eight. Now it's nine. So, yeah. Yeah, so this story I had started to write about 20 years ago.
Barbara: Mm -hmm.
Teja: And originally it was going, this was before podcasts and YouTube videos and all that. So this was going to be a book, rather a series of books. At that time, it was supposed to be three books. And it was based on experiences I had, things that I was seeing coming, and my projection as to what might be the worst-case scenario in the future for certain aspects of our culture, our country.
Barbara: It's dystopian.
Teja: It is dystopian. And it is also me it's futuristic but there are elements that bring it back to today it's kind of interesting yeah and the heroes of the story the original story uh is a brother and sister and at that time when it was supposed to be a book i then started working with a very good friend of mine to see if we see if we could finish the first novel quickly and then we decided to go into a different direction. I then converted what we had written into a screenplay. I started to shop that around about 10 years ago. And I noticed a couple of things. One was that some of the responses I was getting was, we're not ready for that.
Barbara: Yeah yeah.
Teja: America is not ready for that story yet. And of course, I think that's so untrue. I think, in fact, it was at the time and was even 20 years ago, and certainly it's today, perfect timing. And the other thing is that from a production standpoint,
in the past 20 or so years, it's very, a real hurdle is budget. And the larger epic it gets, the larger and more epic it gets, the more expensive it gets, even with special effects and 3D animation. So this story takes place all over, all over the United States, all over the United States. Well, because it's, The story is that it's not actually at that time called the United States.
Barbar: Yes, I know, I know. But, okay, no, no spoilers. Okay. No spoilers. We were just, wait, because this is talking about process.
Teja: Right, okay, right. So, because it's so expensive to produce, I pulled back from pitching it as a screenplay. I needed to make sure that I had control over the story because not only is it my story, meaning that I wrote it, but it is very unique and it is very nuanced to support culture and identity in a way that has never really been done before in this genre. So I decided a while ago to convert it to a podcast. And this is partly because you and I had been working. I learned a lot about the podcast process and method, production methods and all that. And then I wrote it as a podcast with actors in mind, people I work with, some of them are well known, as a dramatic podcast. So I wrote it as a script. It didn't work.
Barbara: Well, no, I know, yeah, it, it was hard.
Teja: It was really difficult.
Barbara: But also because as we talked about it we were sort of making decisions to slim down, necessarily, the story that was being presented and you know so which elements create the intrigue and will draw all of you and also more people in to the story and the world and such like that. So you then had this idea that with the actors that you're using to do something truly unique.
Teja: Right. And actually, I should preface that with as to supporting reason as to why and this podcast that this dramatic podcast that I'm creating Caucus: After the Fall takes place after the original story that I wrote
Barbara: right yeah
Teja: because I needed of I needed to figure out a way to attract people to the characters the world that I created and the conditions in which the main characters in the book and the screenplay live without actually giving it all away. Barbara: Right. So it is, you're essentially getting the epilogue.
Teja: Correct.
Barbara: To get you interested in the story itself. And it's coming out really interesting, but the, the, The really key factor here, I think that's different, is the decision to essentially ditch the script and instead create a world book and character profiles and information for each of the actors.
Teja: Right. And we were sitting in a restaurant, let's see, probably around April, and I was almost giving up on figuring out how to make this work.
And you were going through the notes with me. And I started to get a little frustrated because I was thinking, well, I just, I don't have it in me to rewrite the whole thing. And I remember sitting there and I was about to close my laptop like, all right, let's just finish lunch as is the way I felt at the time. Let's finish lunch and I'll think about it over the next couple of weeks. And then I asked you the question, hey. I didn't quite say hey because I would,
Barbara: hey, hey,
Teja: hey, hey, hey, hey girl. What do you think if instead of scripted, it's interview format, where the characters that would be interviewed would be some of the main characters that you would see ultimately in the full story, which is the book and the screenplay. And that they would represent elements of the story in such a way that it, the way the stories would be, the way the episodes would be driven forward was that each person you meet makes a suggestion that you have to go to the next place and then the next place and the next place.
Barbara: So it's all, the intriguing part from a sort of storytelling perspective is knowing that each episode has to have still its points. Like it needs to the reveal or whatever you might call it that leads into the next episode has to be there. It has to be consistent with the world you've created, which is in the world book.
Teja: Right.
Barbara: But just as these characters in real life would not have the advantage of hearing what each other is saying. In this podcast, the characters don't know what each other is saying. They each only have their own character's character guide.
Teja: Right.
Barbara: And so everyone got the world book.
Teja: Right.
Barbara: But then each actor only got their own character guide. And the interviews are improvised from the world book and the character guide.
Teja: Right. So in order to do this, I had to hire actor friends of mine who are exceptionally good at developing character, maintaining character, embodying character, but also able to improvise and bring some of their own lived experiences into the character. So I could have hired actors who are just great actors, which of course they all are. But I needed the actors to portray characters who represented the kind of people that they are. So I had to modify each character after we cast all the eight actors.
Barbara: It's this interesting interplay, whereas so many things are really that top -down production. The script is all set. The characters are all set. The scenes are all set usually in the course of events, you know, and then the actor comes in and basically has to figure out how to embody that.
Teja: Right.
Barbara: And in this sense, it's this back and forth where we know who the world is supposed to be. We know who the character is supposed to be, except now that we know who the actor is, well, let's kind of bring some of that in.
Teja: Right.
Barbara: And it's, it's been a fascinating thing to be a part of.
Teja: the the uh
Barbara: i'm not in it he didn't put me he didn't give me a part
Teja: it's not too late i could
Barbara: he didn't give me a part
Teja: have you ever play a janitor
Barbara: oh oh
Teja: just just in background
Barbara: oh just oh in the background yeah just in a podcast all you'll hear is swish swish swish
Teja: casting agency is looking for background actors background actor I love background acting for a podcast
Barbara: hand acting for a podcast thanks a lot
Teja: Thanks a lot yeah uncredited hand acting
Barbara: oh even better so I can't even put it on my IMDB
Teja: that is great wow yeah that's the way to minimize one's
Barbara: So basically it's all about him
Teja: well actually speaking of me
Barbara: yeah speaking of you
Teja: so we're sitting there at lunch uh -huh and you said to me well who's going to interview them and i said something like i guess it's going to to have to be me.
Barbara: Yeah. Well, but I mean, this makes sense because also part of what we were pulling in is your history as a documentary filmmaker. And so it actually kind of makes sense that you would be building a story in this way because you're actually building it like a documentary except it's fiction.
Teja: Right, exactly. And I am most comfortable with two things making documentaries and acting right those are the two things that I love the most and that I really put a lot of energy into
Barbara: so it's not all just an act then
Teja: no it's acting oh got it got yeah and I've done you You know, well, we've done mock documentaries before mock docs.
Barbara: Yes, we have.
Teja: But mock docs are, they're comedy. But in this case,
it is pure drama.
Barbara: Where I don't have a part.
Teja: Again, janitor. Yeah. And occasionally squeezing of the mop.
Barbara: Oh, really? Really? Yeah. Okay. So if you ever hear that, which you won't, then you'll know.
Teja: Say this. Say this way from like, you know, with all kinds of reverb and echo.
Good night, Mr. Arboleda. It's just, you know, just good night, Mr. Arboleda.
Barbara: But your name isn't Mr. Arbilletta in the podcast.
Teja: Well, when I emerged from the recording room. Oh, you want to be in the actual podcast. Not, not this podcast. Oh!
Barbara: Wow! How many times did that circle the airport before it landed?
Well, because of... It was running low on fuel.
Teja: Oh no, because of the Microsoft thing.
Barbara: The flaps were trying to do their thing.
Teja: Can't even land. When we decided that, all right, I would play the person interviewing these characters all over the country at first I thought well shouldn't I be one of the main characters meaning one of the main people who's
Barbara: Of course he thought that
Teja: Well that was it's a vehicle Right it's just like you and you're singing Like it's you You wouldn't hire singers to sing for you
Barbara: Yeah that is true right
Teja: So we decided to create a new character who would carry all the episodes and move the story forward. And you were the one who helped me figure out how to move each episode forward, how to push the story forward.
Barbara: So it's really all about me.
Teja: It is. Yeah. You know, who says a janitor cannot also be an amazing writer.
Barbara: Oh, thanks. Okay.
Teja: So then that process we agreed on, and that evening I remember sitting down and writing some notes, some basic notes, how do you put together a podcast that is documentary format, dramatic, with actors who can portray characters that you need, start casting for it, People who can do improv, people who know the backstory from lived experiences, all these types of things. And how to make it sound real and did some experimentations. And so that was the beginning of the process of creating this dramatic documentary.
Barbara: And then there's the music.
Teja: Oh, yes.
Barbara: The Foley.
Teja: Correct. So, you know, you'd think that documentaries, some people believe that documentaries need to be pure in that they can't be supported or driven by,
you know, traditional story arc or even things like music or film scoring, right? I remember in the 60s, in the 70s, documentaries had some music in it, but it was not what drove it, right?
Barbara: Yeah, basically, it was just a guy and a tweed jacket and glasses sitting in front of a shelf full of books.
Teja: Indubitably, today we're going to introduce to you the invention of cardboard. Cardboard is dry and made of paper.
Barbara: That is not what this limited series podcast is going to be about. Thankfully. I vetoed that. It was on the table, but I was just a hard no on that.
Teja: Hard no on that. Ixnay on the R -Bord K.
Barbara: Yeah. Cardboard isn't particularly dystopian, which is one reason why I said no.
Teja: Well, it can be if all the trees are gone.
Barbara: Well, you know, but that would be an extreme example. But then again, dystopian futures are an extreme example.
Teja: Exactly, right?
Barbara: Yeah, some are more extreme than others.
Teja: This one is pretty extreme.
Barbara: Yeah, it's pretty extreme.
Teja: And it's actually a little bit of a departure because I don't typically write this genre. I...
Barbara: Yeah, I'm the one who's supposed to write depressing stuff.
Teja: I primarily prefer to write comedy.
Barbara: And instead, this story just got stuck in your head.
Teja: It got stuck in my head many, many years ago. It was a reaction to things that were going on in the world. And some of the things that I wrote came true.
Barbara: Yeah, so now, yeah, so the thing is, that that makes it even more challenging, right? Because, like, coming out now, people might say, oh, well, you're just taking a look at some things that occurred, but except little Nostradamus over here was actually talking about it 20 years ago. So...
Teja: Not just talking about it.
Barbara: But it's writing.
Teja: Copyrighted. Yeah, exactly. You know, and all that kind of stuff. So there's a lot of evidence of having written a lot of the details.
Barbara: I've got evidence, dang it.
Teja: Evidence.
Barbara: I've got evidence. And... I am not derivative.
Teja: If you, if you enter a foreign country and they ask you, you know, which country are you from or may I see your passport, and you say, I am not derivative, does it get you in?
Barbara: Only in Prague.
Teja: Back to that story. Never forget that story. Anyway, in a podcast a long long time ago that we did, we did talk about that incident of my passport entering Prague. Right.
Barbara: Janky passport.
Teja: I had hair back then. That's a lot of hair.
Barbara: Yeah, yeah
Teja: The process of developing this included getting support and buy-in from the actors that we thought would be best for this. I solicited the support of my very good friend and co-producer Michael Tow to help me cast for this. He's an incredible actor. You've probably see him in many things on television,
but he's also really good with casting. He's good with matching actors to portray characters and all the opposites and the dichotomies that come with this kind of conflict. And we chose the actors wisely, and then I put together the world book, as you stated the world book is about 28 pages long and it's very detailed it has so much detail in it several of my actors said
Barbara: eight point type
Teja: 7.5 no several of my actors said something to the effect of do i have to memorize all this no
Barbara: no you have to immerse yourself and it roll around in the pages and just Teja: like make the ink come sweat so that your ink comes off yeah and then you bodies yes exactly never take a shower again
Barbara: until after the recording
Teja: yes and then as you also stated the book that each actor gets per character where they learn their own backstory and also suggestions about how they can bring them themselves into the character just to make it feel and sound more real.
There's no characterization so much as it is. I know who you are. You will play this character well. You be you in this character. Bring some of yourself into it. And I think they love the idea. It's a great challenge for an actor.
Barbara: It is such a challenge, yeah.
Teja: And not having to memorize a lot of lines.
Barbara: Bonus.
Teja: But what I also did for these individual books for them was a step by step.
We're going to cover this first. This comes next. This comes next. Here's the inside.
Barbara: It's an outline.
Teja: This is act one. This is act two.
Barbara: to guide the conversation.
Teja: Yeah, but they're more like question and answer. And then some suggestions as to what they can say. Yeah. And they had almost two months to go through it. Yeah.
Barbara: So it's going to be exciting and it is, so when is the trailer dropping again? I don't remember.
Teja: I think it's this Friday It might be this Friday
Barbara: Well there's a teaser coming out this Friday There's a teaser coming out this Friday But we'll be doing And then a week later comes the trailer And there's going to be stuff That is being posted About some components of the story Little drip drip drip of information Without any spoilers really
Teja: Oh I didn't go to the details about the music I started.
Barbara: Oh, you started, but then you turned left and just kept going.
Teja: Like I always do. Why is I always left?
Barbara: Because left is the best. Because left is the best. As a left, yeah, I can say that.
Teja: The film score, the soundscaper, as we're going to call this person, they are a soundscaper. And so a soundscaper is a person who is able to create the audio story that supports the podcast. So it's not like sound effects so much as it is what's happening in this moment from a music standpoint. I mean, there might be a few things like the sound of wind or rain. You know, that's easy. But it's the way the music will drive the podcast, but not in a cinematic way because it's not supporting visuals. It's actually in a sense creating visuals.
Barbara: Yeah. And that's where it like combines with natural sounds plus music. Teja: Right. So, yeah, and that's what Arshan does. Arshund Galas, he's well known for his work in theater. He's also done some music for Michael Tow and I in our social action films that we created, including Christmas Forward, which won three Telly Awards. Yeah. Just amazing, amazing artists I get to work with and you'll get to meet them week by week as we release things and you may have seen some of them already and you may be seen them today on television.
Barbara: You never know, but it's top secret for now.
Teja: That's right. But I did want to also say that you started saying it earlier that we are recording the episodes out of order. It's not uncommon to do a movie, let's say, out of order, but scenes are generally not done out of order. If you act by act maybe or like components of the film, but a scene that takes place in one place is usually, right? So in this case, it's a little bit of a challenge for me because I play the character who goes from place to place over the course of about six months. The first episode we recorded two weeks ago is actually the last episode that will be presented. So I came into it.
Barbara: That's kind of good, though, because now you know where you're ending up.
Teja: Yes, but we may have to re-record that episode only because and this I got from from from from the actor like you know maybe we could try it we could try it again because here's why and he's a producer as well I just thought that's actually a really good idea if that's okay
Barbara: so you'll be getting drip drip drip of information as we put the socials out on your personal stuff we should drop them here too on living forward so that everyone gets a chance to get the info as it comes along because we hope that you will want to listen to the dramatic podcast
Teja: dramatic podcast
Barbara: dystopian future so yeah exactly and climb inside tea's brain for a minute Teja: that's that's a tall Uh -huh. There's a lot going on. Yeah, a lot going on.
Barbara: Well, as one might say...
Teja: You sounded exhausted when you said that.
Yeah.
Barbara: You could live forever, but since you can't, at least live forward.
Barbara/Teja: Just live forward. Bye.