Writer Jemima Victor on Black Fantasy - LA Comic-con Series
This is another amazing episode at LA Comic-con! We're interviewing writer Jemima Victor. She's a fantasy writer from Boston. We talk about what it's like to write Black sci-fi and fantasy and what that even means.
Transcript
This is Film Center, your number one show for real entertainment industry news.
Speaker:No fluff, all facts.
Speaker:Now, here are your anchors, Derrick Johnson II and Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:Hey everyone, welcome to Film Center, your number one place for studio news.
Speaker:My name's Derrick Johnson II and I am here with writer publisher Jemima Victor.
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:How are you doing today?
Speaker:I'm doing great.
Speaker:How are you?
Speaker:I'm doing great.
Speaker:As you guys know, we take LA we are here at LA Comic Con.
Speaker:We take the radio show everywhere and introduce you to very interesting people.
Speaker:Now, what's really great is that she's a fantasy writer.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:She's an African American fantasy writer.
Speaker:Yep, Haitian too, for all my zoes out there.
Speaker:And Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker:Yeah, so my name is Jemima Victor.
Speaker:I'm actually from Boston, Massachusetts So we came out just for this weekend And
Speaker:I would say that I'm a writer by trial by fire Because I never really saw myself
Speaker:writing when I went to school I went to school for a whole bunch of different
Speaker:things I switched from like psychology and I went to education and at the
Speaker:time I was like doing music and French I ended up like Oh, you speak French?
Speaker:Yeah, so my parents both came from Haiti and they immigrated here.
Speaker:Oh!
Speaker:Yeah!
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I speak Haitian Creole, English, Haitians make such great crab.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:They do.
Speaker:Legumes, oh my gosh yes yeah.
Speaker:You gotta come to Boston.
Speaker:You gotta come to Boston and get some.
Speaker:There's no Haitians out here, right?
Speaker:I don't I haven't really seen too many.
Speaker:Not really.
Speaker:When I graduated from Florida State.
Speaker:University.
Speaker:And when I was over there, it was a lot of Haitians, but not over here.
Speaker:I gotta come to Boston and check it out.
Speaker:Yeah, you gotta do, you gotta do it.
Speaker:And one of the cool things actually about being Haitian is I have a
Speaker:lot of influence in my writing and in the style of the humor too.
Speaker:So if you see like food references, like 90 percent of the food references
Speaker:in the book are from Haitian cuisine.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, interesting.
Speaker:I just repackage it and I like gatekeep a little bit.
Speaker:I don't, I'm not going to just throw the names.
Speaker:Like some, especially in pop culture, like one of the ways they make
Speaker:something like ethnic is just for example, I was reading one of I think
Speaker:it was like six crimson cranes, right?
Speaker:Or like one of the books.
Speaker:by Elizabeth Lim, and she does I think, I don't know, I want to say
Speaker:Chinese, but I think it's one of the Asian diaspora, but she just
Speaker:throws in the names of the things.
Speaker:She's oh yeah, we had these sticky buns, or we had these like They say it
Speaker:in general, like a general name for it instead of actually saying what it is?
Speaker:No, like they'll say it like like the actual dish, and just assuming
Speaker:that the audience knows what it is, so like a lot of the times they'll
Speaker:throw in Let me give a better example.
Speaker:Say I think of The only one I can think of where the audience probably knows
Speaker:what it is Princess and the Frog Yeah.
Speaker:I made gumbo.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But that's such a general term that they would know that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Compared to something like Oh, like my mom, she makes a seafood gumbo.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That she calls seaside.
Speaker:Oh, nice.
Speaker:And so where she's from in Alabama she's from Birmingham, Alabama, there
Speaker:if you say, oh, I'm making seaside.
Speaker:Some people from there, they'll understand oh, okay, I know what type
Speaker:of gumbo she's making specifically, compared to like you said, if you say
Speaker:specifics, not everyone might know.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:Being a writer, how do you make sure that your influence, or what you're talking
Speaker:about, your influences transfer over?
Speaker:Is that a technique that you use?
Speaker:You say the general term?
Speaker:No, I actually describe the dish.
Speaker:So for example, in one of the books, you'll see them say in the first book,
Speaker:you'll see them say honeycombed meat.
Speaker:So we tripe is part of the stomach of of a beef, or animal, right?
Speaker:So I don't know if it's beef intestines or beef stomach, something about that.
Speaker:Beef stomach, yeah.
Speaker:It's like the tripe.
Speaker:So I just describe it like honeycombed meat and I'll just describe like I'll look
Speaker:at a picture of it or I'll think about what it looks like when I'm eating it and
Speaker:I'll describe the sensations I'd be like you know the texture or the smell like
Speaker:the infusions of this and that versus like outright saying it because also I feel
Speaker:like there's no real good like English translation for what I'm trying to say or
Speaker:I don't know it there might be somebody might have it but like for example Cremas
Speaker:is like a Haitian drink that we have.
Speaker:It's like rum, it's coconut milk, it's very sweet, it's very
Speaker:creamy, and it's very thick.
Speaker:And you have it over ice, and that kind of, as the ice melts and you
Speaker:mix it in your drink, it becomes more of like a sipping drink, right?
Speaker:I would like the, you don't just chug it, I would akin how you experience
Speaker:it, it's like an old fashioned, you have it in a rocks glass,
Speaker:with the ice, you pour over it.
Speaker:But then on Google they say Haitian eggnog.
Speaker:Haitian eggnog?
Speaker:Haitian eggnog.
Speaker:Eggnog!
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Just because it's the same color?
Speaker:It's so different.
Speaker:I feel like I actually, I've actually never heard anyone
Speaker:say Haitian eggnog before.
Speaker:If you Google Kermas, a good amount of search hits will say Haitian eggnog.
Speaker:And I'm like, you're lying to the people.
Speaker:That is not what that is.
Speaker:It's, no.
Speaker:It just looks like it.
Speaker:Like that, so it's just, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker:It just only looks like in texture and yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But I feel like the experience is different.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So you have all of these very interesting roots and they
Speaker:branch off into your writing.
Speaker:And you said that you didn't start off wanting to be a writer.
Speaker:It's interesting because I'm a screenwriter myself.
Speaker:And I also, I started off in science.
Speaker:I was studying to be a geneticist all the way until I was in
Speaker:college and things like that.
Speaker:Before I decided, oh, maybe I want to do something else.
Speaker:What was that point for you where you were like, you know what?
Speaker:I think I'm going to go into writing.
Speaker:And not just I think this is what I'm going to do.
Speaker:Yeah that point for me was when the experience in school didn't
Speaker:match the experience at work and not even just like the environment.
Speaker:A lot of people are like, yeah.
Speaker:When you mean like college?
Speaker:College, yeah.
Speaker:So I went to university.
Speaker:I went to Boston College and we studied accounting and it's funny
Speaker:because everyone thinks it's so dry.
Speaker:But I.
Speaker:was fortunate enough to have really great professors.
Speaker:Like a lot of the professors that I had won like their department
Speaker:award of the year of being the best professor or whatever.
Speaker:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I had this one tax professor.
Speaker:And he was great.
Speaker:Ed Taylor.
Speaker:Listen, he was a Taylor.
Speaker:Shout out to Ed Taylor.
Speaker:He literally just made it make sense in real life.
Speaker:Like he would relate.
Speaker:And I don't know, I feel like he was also a tax practitioner as well.
Speaker:And he was just like, go golfing every weekend.
Speaker:The guys flew back from Miami.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But he would just So even just how, like, when you're going shopping, the reasons
Speaker:why you have better deals in certain ends of the year is because a lot of businesses
Speaker:want to meet their quotas and they'll have sales and after Christmas, it's if you
Speaker:want to go shopping, go after Christmas because everyone is calendar year.
Speaker:The details.
Speaker:The details.
Speaker:You explain.
Speaker:Explain the cycle, like a calendar year is January 1st and to December,
Speaker:that's when like at December 31st, like whatever sales, whatever money you make
Speaker:after that doesn't count for the year.
Speaker:Do you bring some of that accounting knowledge, because you're
Speaker:running your own business here.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Do you bring some of that accounting knowledge you
Speaker:think into your own business?
Speaker:Yes and no.
Speaker:Yes, in the sense I know what I need to do, but no, in the sense I don't do it.
Speaker:I just find someone to do it, or I put it off until I can hire someone to do it.
Speaker:I think with self publishing, the hardest thing is that you're always juggling.
Speaker:And it's you ever see those circus acts where they just throw another
Speaker:ball to the clown, and he keeps juggling to throw another one?
Speaker:You throw another one until he can't stop juggling?
Speaker:That's what self publishing feels like.
Speaker:On this show, we talked previously with other professionals who start off
Speaker:professional, then they go indie, or start off with the studios, and stuff like that.
Speaker:Then they might go indie, because they see something they don't like over there,
Speaker:and then they go, eventually always go back to the studio, but with their
Speaker:new indie project and stuff like that.
Speaker:Where would you say that your, I don't want to say training, because that
Speaker:might be a little too far, right?
Speaker:But where do you say, where was your writing experience come from, before you
Speaker:say, okay, this is what I'm going to do.
Speaker:For example, my writing background, I, I used to just write for myself
Speaker:a little bit, but not, it wasn't what I really cared about, right?
Speaker:And then when I actually started saying, okay, I'm gonna start doing this, it
Speaker:came with screenwriting, I was in film school, it was a whole thing, right?
Speaker:For you, when, where did your experience with novels come from?
Speaker:Was it just straight up reading, or you were like, yo did you take Any classes
Speaker:or any training where you're like, okay, this is how you start writing?
Speaker:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker:So I like to read a lot.
Speaker:Especially growing up I read devoured the whole Twilight series in like a weekend.
Speaker:I think the biggest thing for me is like a, something captivated me.
Speaker:I just want to read and read.
Speaker:And then high school I feel like also messed up reading for me because
Speaker:there was like a lot of mandatory reading and I didn't like it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Mandatory, like you like doing something until someone tells you to do it.
Speaker:And I feel like sometimes too, I feel like it's just like
Speaker:the way they like approach it.
Speaker:Cause even I feel like senior year in high school, I started liking to read again.
Speaker:Because I always felt like overwhelmed, like I had so much thrown at me.
Speaker:I would just cliff note everything.
Speaker:Cliff note everything.
Speaker:Like I just need to know the bigger picture.
Speaker:I need to know the why and where things are going.
Speaker:And I'll just finesse from there.
Speaker:So I think I feel like that part of me, having to like finesse and try
Speaker:to take little things and make it together to make sense, is what really
Speaker:fueled my writing because I ended up APing out of English, so I didn't
Speaker:have to take English in college.
Speaker:But I'm just like, oh wow!
Speaker:But I feel like it's a lot of it's, I feel like it's really bad, but having
Speaker:to do things at the last minute and just having to like, Get these essays
Speaker:done, cause the thing is though, like my learning, cause before I did accounting,
Speaker:I was in psychology, education, so it's a lot of writing, a lot of research
Speaker:papers, a lot of designing studies, and making, breaking things down
Speaker:for people, and just writing it up.
Speaker:A lot of essays.
Speaker:Since you didn't always want to be a writer per se where does that,
Speaker:where did that really start from?
Speaker:Or like looking back, cause like me now, I'm older and I am a professional
Speaker:writer and things like that.
Speaker:And I write for studios and write movies and television
Speaker:shows and all this good stuff.
Speaker:I look back, even though I was like, I didn't want to become
Speaker:a writer until I was like 24.
Speaker:I had never read a script before until I was like 24.
Speaker:I had done some plays and stuff like that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But when I look back on my history, I'm like.
Speaker:Oh, I made this newspaper comic book when I was in middle
Speaker:school, that one time, right?
Speaker:I did one too in middle school that one time, yeah.
Speaker:So is there a time back in the past, now that you're a professional
Speaker:writer, you're like, Oh, okay, I see where this kind of came from.
Speaker:Yeah, definitely Loved journaling.
Speaker:I feel like I process through writing, like I would always just like, and
Speaker:it's funny too, because I always had an idea like after I get through a
Speaker:couple of books of a hidden script, I want to do one off, like one hidden
Speaker:script book, one non genre book.
Speaker:And one of the ideas for a book that I have is like a dual perspective
Speaker:where you see the girl's journal, and then you see her experience in life.
Speaker:So that's where I always see myself processing things through
Speaker:writing or even like, When I was like, autographing a book.
Speaker:Some guy's oh, you really like to write, you put a paragraph in there.
Speaker:And I'm like, oh, I didn't realize that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I was just, I had a lot to say.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I think it's just like clues like that.
Speaker:And even in middle school I used to like to make comics and stuff.
Speaker:, I made actually a book and stuff.
Speaker:Like a little yeah, like a little like 20 page thing, like
Speaker:a little world I character.
Speaker:I used to write jokes and things and then I would force
Speaker:my artist friends to draw it.
Speaker:Oh, nice.
Speaker:I'd be like, oh look, this is true.
Speaker:We made it was called Random World.
Speaker:We made this comic book.
Speaker:We made we took, I don't want to say stole because that's not what happened.
Speaker:We took it out the printer that was in the homeroom and we folded it in half and
Speaker:stapled it and put little comics in there.
Speaker:Okay yeah.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:All those small things, they transfer over to who you are as an adult.
Speaker:However, there's not a lot of African American fantasy writers.
Speaker:Even the writers that I speak to when in my own industry, it seems like the
Speaker:only thing Hollywood is greenlighting is either black pain when it comes
Speaker:to slavery or something like that or drugs or gangsta stuff or, actually,
Speaker:that that's the, really the main thing, even when it comes to you.
Speaker:Luke Cage, I say, is a little bit different because he's a superhero,
Speaker:but he came from that era of what's going on and things like that.
Speaker:Compared to the updated Black Panther, it's not really focused on that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Being an African American female who's writing in fantasy, you don't have a lot
Speaker:of, compared to possibly other races, you don't have a lot of people that
Speaker:you're looking up to who look like you.
Speaker:Is there any writers that you were, when you were younger, you were like, I love
Speaker:this style, at least when it incorporated.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:It's funny, because my friend had just asked me like, why
Speaker:didn't you tell people this?
Speaker:So basically their eyes were watching God by Their eyes were watching God.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:I don't know why her name is Blink.
Speaker:It's always when you're on the spot, you blink.
Speaker:It's always when I'm on the spot.
Speaker:It's always when I'm on the spot.
Speaker:And she did Jonah's Gourd Vine.
Speaker:She did She writes in the prose, like the dialogue style that I'm thinking of.
Speaker:So she has phonetic.
Speaker:I can't remember That book was inspirational to you.
Speaker:That book was really inspirational.
Speaker:Okay, it turned into a movie, Halle Berry, Michael Ealy.
Speaker:Yeah, all of them It was really good, but that just it was just beautiful because
Speaker:it was just about her trying to live her life Janie she's like this young girl and
Speaker:she gets married off and stuff like that.
Speaker:But it was just it's very beautiful and it's just I love, I never really see
Speaker:phonetic language like that and it not be like, I don't know, like hood derived or
Speaker:like the gangster aesthetic of writing.
Speaker:So do you have any other influences?
Speaker:I don't know, that inspired your style?
Speaker:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker:One of my favorite books that I had read I had read it when I was younger and
Speaker:then I went back to reading it older and watched the movie and everything.
Speaker:It's Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
Speaker:Oh yeah, okay, so yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, it's really, listen, it's so beautiful and like she has so she's from
Speaker:Florida and she's based in a small town near the area that she was in and one
Speaker:of the cool things about it is that It just wasn't like, a lot of times when
Speaker:I had read other books that used like slang or African American vernacular
Speaker:or just like even phonetic spelling.
Speaker:It doesn't feel genuine, does it?
Speaker:Okay, one, it does feel genuine, but two, it's always the same perspective
Speaker:of being in this the hood or a basketball kid trying to like, I feel
Speaker:like it's love and hip hop on repeat.
Speaker:Something that you've seen a billion and a half times.
Speaker:Yeah!
Speaker:I think that's so interesting to bring up.
Speaker:And struggle love.
Speaker:Like this one was struggle love, but a different perspective.
Speaker:Like she had money.
Speaker:She was married off young when her husband was like, married May or whatever.
Speaker:But I feel like you focus more on the woman's experience, on Janie and
Speaker:her life and what she's thinking.
Speaker:And even when she fell in love with Tea Cake, it was like he was
Speaker:like, I don't need your money.
Speaker:You live off my dime.
Speaker:Whatever I go, you go.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Just the way that the story was constructed in this even
Speaker:how she had descriptions and everything was just so beautiful.
Speaker:So beautiful.
Speaker:And so I loved the movie too, it was such a, it had me crying.
Speaker:But I just loved the fact that it was, even though it didn't have a
Speaker:happy ending traditionally, like I still felt like a warm catharsis.
Speaker:You still felt satisfied.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Still felt satisfied.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There's such a lack of African American female fantasy writers.
Speaker:I myself, I'm working with a couple different projects and some of
Speaker:them, there's not black female writers because there is, Shonda
Speaker:Rhimes is a big hero of mine.
Speaker:Yeah, she's great.
Speaker:Isha Rae is really great.
Speaker:She's not a personal hero of mine like Shonda is, but like
Speaker:she's also really wonderful.
Speaker:However, they're not writing fantasy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, you think about things like Lovecraft Country.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:These are heavy fantasies that's made by Black Fantasy.
Speaker:I really think that Black, you think that Black Fantasy is being pushed away,
Speaker:not pushed away, but needs more light?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I definitely think so.
Speaker:I feel like it's a weird pull where it's if it's a hot, popular
Speaker:thing right now, we're on it.
Speaker:For example, I think it also has to deal with, like, all the
Speaker:different medias intersecting.
Speaker:Because right now, Afro beats is the hot thing.
Speaker:You'll have people who never stepped foot in Africa, people who don't know
Speaker:anything about any black people trying to have that beat in their song.
Speaker:Nigeria is popping, which you also see a lot of just Afro centric
Speaker:fantasy popping right now, too.
Speaker:Children in Blood and Bone, a lot of just Nigerian writers Stay with
Speaker:me by Adebayo Adeyemi, something.
Speaker:I might be butchering their names.
Speaker:I'm doing this on the fly, but there's like a lot of things that are, people
Speaker:are always writing these things, but they weren't getting as much attention.
Speaker:I feel it's so interesting.
Speaker:You bring up the pan Africanism.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I just heard this term yesterday here.
Speaker:They call it Afro made.
Speaker:Afro made?
Speaker:Afro made.
Speaker:African American and like anime.
Speaker:Oh!
Speaker:So Afro samurai.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The boondocks, things like that.
Speaker:Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker:Yeah, and it seems oh it only came out because now it's popular.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But it's always been there, though.
Speaker:I know, but the boondocks, they didn't like the boondocks.
Speaker:And even what is it?
Speaker:Was it samurai shampoo or something like that?
Speaker:Someone was saying like, it's like the ghetto boondocks.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Someone was like, Samurai Champloo does have a lot of hip hop in it.
Speaker:There's another one that was like Was it Afro Samurai?
Speaker:I think so.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's the one with Samuel L.
Speaker:Jackson.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They're like, that's a cheap knockoff of anime.
Speaker:I was like, whoa.
Speaker:Whoa.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Even though they're made by anime studios.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The same studios make the stuff they usually like.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:As a, as someone who writes fantasy, what are some of your
Speaker:Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker:I'm not really sure.
Speaker:I feel like the first one that comes to mind right now is
Speaker:Red Queen by Victoria Avellar.
Speaker:But just because of the fact that It's YA, so it's, I feel another
Speaker:thing that people have to realize is that Do you write only YA, or?
Speaker:I actually don't write YA.
Speaker:I write YA friendly things, as in kids can relate to it, and I also
Speaker:try to steer away from a lot of the current trends is to push heavy sexual
Speaker:content, and they call it spice.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't do that.
Speaker:I try to set people's I level people's expectations right now.
Speaker:There's no spice, there's no none of that.
Speaker:But, one of the things I really liked about it is just
Speaker:that I liked the characters.
Speaker:I liked the pacing.
Speaker:It's like one of those things where I left, I was like, Oh, I
Speaker:want to see what happens next.
Speaker:And it wasn't intimidating to approach.
Speaker:I feel like sometimes the fantasy books the way that when you open it,
Speaker:it's just Oh, wow, this is a lot.
Speaker:But it didn't really feel that way.
Speaker:And I just liked the feeling that it had throughout it.
Speaker:I don't think she has anything super graphic.
Speaker:I feel like whenever Another thing too I'm like, I think it's weird for me,
Speaker:I don't really like a lot of explicit stuff in my reading either, so I picked
Speaker:up a book and this girl's like dropping F bombs, and I was like, oh you know
Speaker:what, I'm just gonna put this down.
Speaker:Put it down real fast.
Speaker:Oh yeah, I kinda feel like that just takes me out of the story, and I know
Speaker:people are like, oh just cause you're Christian doesn't mean you can't have
Speaker:swears, and I'm like, you couldn't even make up swears of your own world you
Speaker:could've called him like, I don't know, you cockroach eating something I don't
Speaker:know, you could've made something up.
Speaker:I like that in my own writing where I try to be more creative than cursing.
Speaker:Not saying that I don't have anyone who curses at all in any of my
Speaker:writing, but it needs to be because the character is simple minded like
Speaker:that, that it wouldn't be as creative enough to come up with something else.
Speaker:I could say some of those insults on this radio show.
Speaker:I'm not going to.
Speaker:Even though there's no cuss words in them, they're a little, they're a little
Speaker:crazy, so I'm not going to say it.
Speaker:But if you find So as a fantasy writer do you find that sometimes studios don't
Speaker:really build their worlds correctly?
Speaker:Something that, so I do a lot of transmedia stuff too.
Speaker:And something that we've noticed is that, and people have heard this for
Speaker:years and years, Oh, the book is better.
Speaker:Oh, the book is better.
Speaker:The book is better.
Speaker:Only in very few instances are people like still happy with the transition over.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:One of the biggest flops when it comes to fantasy was Aragorn
Speaker:going from the book to the movie.
Speaker:And your book you want to tell us a little bit about it first,
Speaker:though, before we get into it.
Speaker:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker:My book is called The Hidden Script.
Speaker:It's about four friends who go on an adventure to be kings
Speaker:and queens in a new land.
Speaker:It's fantasy, slice of life, so it starts them at orientation, and things go wrong,
Speaker:so they're scrambling to get to the crowning ceremony, and then once they
Speaker:get there You see all of the chaos that they have to deal with and it came out in
Speaker:January, not January, February 28th this year, it came out, the e books dropped and
Speaker:then I had a little trouble with getting the publisher to, the printer to bring the
Speaker:books, so I ended up getting the hardbacks in April and then the next one is coming
Speaker:out in July, but one of the things that like is glossed upon is that the kingship
Speaker:is conditional And that they have to actually perform works and earn ranks.
Speaker:So they get a test trial, they get to have a palace.
Speaker:They get to have some of the perks.
Speaker:But if they don't comply, it gets all taken away from them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's really cool.
Speaker:You have a really rich world that you've built here.
Speaker:What do you think is part of the issue when bringing that
Speaker:richness to the world onto screen?
Speaker:Two things.
Speaker:I think it's production.
Speaker:But I feel like that's a little bit easier now with CGI.
Speaker:But then also time.
Speaker:Because I feel like It takes time for the character, because you
Speaker:have a whole, 200, 300 pages.
Speaker:So one of the things that they tell us when you're writing is
Speaker:you don't want to just info dump.
Speaker:You don't want to just have a whole paragraph where it's this is a
Speaker:guy, this is the precedent, this is the time, this is the money.
Speaker:Like you want to have them like, read through it and explore.
Speaker:So I feel like a lot of the times you get it visually, like
Speaker:you get to see different things.
Speaker:But the issue with visual is that, did you get it to match the description?
Speaker:And is what I'm imagining what you're imagining.
Speaker:Because we're going based off the creative director's imagination.
Speaker:The colors he chose.
Speaker:When I say something is a sea blue green, that's seven different shades
Speaker:you can choose from, like hex colors.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so I choose light green, you choose dark green, but then you pair
Speaker:that dark green with another color.
Speaker:So then that sets the mood differently because they tint everything to match.
Speaker:And so that's how like when the movie you have in your head is not going to match
Speaker:the movie of whoever's directing it.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:And it's also even as a writer, when someone's directing your own writing,
Speaker:That director is going to have a different vision than you possibly did.
Speaker:Yeah, the director has a different vision, even the editor has a different vision.
Speaker:So true.
Speaker:Movies are made three times, by writing, the directing,
Speaker:and then in the editing room.
Speaker:Yeah, post op.
Speaker:And and sometimes they'll have conflicting interpretations.
Speaker:I feel like with production it might be a little easier because whatever is shot.
Speaker:But like you always have Cutscenes like for example in the second
Speaker:Black Panther and Wakanda forever.
Speaker:Yeah, I can't believe they cut out the romance scene I had a feeling, I was like,
Speaker:I thought Yeah, it felt like something was missing and then I saw the cutscene
Speaker:I was like who was that test audience?
Speaker:I want to drop kick all of them.
Speaker:I know y'all said no to this It just I feel like it was actually like an editing.
Speaker:I thought it was a studio call Really?
Speaker:Because like I don't really know a lot of people who've seen that extra
Speaker:part who are Confused or they don't love it or something like that, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The scene by itself just works.
Speaker:Even if you've never seen the movie.
Speaker:It works!
Speaker:It works by itself.
Speaker:It's in isolation, that's why I'm so shocked.
Speaker:Yeah, so I really think it was some sort of studio time, where they're like,
Speaker:Oh, we want to come in by the seconds.
Speaker:Let me ask you this.
Speaker:When it comes to There's a lot of writers who say, I don't want to make I don't want
Speaker:to transfer this book into movies anymore.
Speaker:They say I want to transfer it into television because it's more
Speaker:time to stay with the characters.
Speaker:Okay, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Do you, it's not the 1950s.
Speaker:We don't make Ben Hurs anymore.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:We don't make these four hour epics.
Speaker:There was the Irishman.
Speaker:Marvel's trying to push it up to those hours.
Speaker:Yeah, Marvel's trying to push it up.
Speaker:But it still doesn't satisfy possibly 13 episodes that are an hour long.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's completely different.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:As someone who has written a book that is, I think your book's
Speaker:about 500 something pages, right?
Speaker:So it's, there's also illustrations, but it is quite thick.
Speaker:It's a little thick.
Speaker:She's a little thick, yeah.
Speaker:Would you say that something of works of this size would be best told in
Speaker:theatrical or best told in a television?
Speaker:Because a lot of times when you look at things that are, some books can't be TV.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Some things can't be TV.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because the engine isn't there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's just, oh, and a lot of escape stuff, a lot of escape,
Speaker:it just needs to be a movie.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So would you say that your, the hidden script is more of
Speaker:a television style or more?
Speaker:It's funny because when I imagined it as a TV, a movie saga, so you'd have Star
Speaker:Wars Yeah, Star Wars, but also I feel like more how you have different movies, like
Speaker:Marvel, how they have different movies for Oh, like the connection universe,
Speaker:like the new universe yeah, but instead of each movie be a different character
Speaker:and then you see them in Avengers, like each movie would be the next installation
Speaker:It's just Avengers, yeah Avengers Oh okay I think it also depends because I know
Speaker:it's hard with TV because if there's no interest, it can get cut any way through.
Speaker:So Shadow and Bone got cancelled.
Speaker:And they have a petition on change.
Speaker:com, or whatever, org.
Speaker:Oh, let's bring this show back, but what if they don't bring it back?
Speaker:So it's a tough either way, but at least with the movie You know once it's out.
Speaker:And you always have that.
Speaker:People can buy it.
Speaker:People, but then if you had a show cut halfway.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There's no resolution.
Speaker:I tell a lot of creatives this especially I can't talk about it
Speaker:right now on the show because of NDAs.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:I've worked with some writers where they've created something and now the
Speaker:studios get interested and they want to make it and they're like, What
Speaker:does your first season look like?
Speaker:Studios always they very rarely say, Oh, we want one season.
Speaker:Obviously, a lot of times they want multiple seasons.
Speaker:They want one season to test it, right?
Speaker:And then if it gets past that, they're like, Okay, let's do
Speaker:multiple seasons this and that.
Speaker:However, sometimes you get cancelled.
Speaker:Netflix is famous for cancelling shows that people like.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How do you think that some of those writers can handle Because I always
Speaker:tell them, go all out the first season.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because you don't know if you're going to get another one.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Just go all out.
Speaker:And then try to resolve it.
Speaker:That's what, yeah.
Speaker:But you're saying that, you would imagine yours as the Avengers.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How would you tackle that problem, knowing that you might not get
Speaker:a second one, but you want the first one to still be satisfying?
Speaker:Yeah, so with this one, I would actually put the first book
Speaker:and the second book together.
Speaker:So the reason why this book is the way that it is because it's just production.
Speaker:I didn't have enough money to write everything that I wanted
Speaker:to say and get everything edited and get everything printed.
Speaker:Funding is a big thing for indie creators.
Speaker:Listen, they charge per word, and I was like, I could not get a
Speaker:reasonable quote to save my life when it was like originally the original
Speaker:you're talking about line editing, you're talking about everything.
Speaker:So the original manuscript for the hidden script was supposed
Speaker:to encapsulate their whole month.
Speaker:So you see them their first week, you see all the drama that they go through, right?
Speaker:And because they were so negligent their first week, they don't realize they
Speaker:have a mission that they have to do.
Speaker:So that's what book.
Speaker:Two opens.
Speaker:They have a mission, they have 48 hours.
Speaker:They gotta snag a mission.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They gotta do the mission, complete it, come back and they end up
Speaker:picking up some last minute.
Speaker:Think it was the only thing that they had.
Speaker:. Why did they not get something earlier?
Speaker:'cause they were messing around the first week.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Not paying attention.
Speaker:And then at the end you see the consequences of all of that.
Speaker:And so that's in my head, that's movie one.
Speaker:So even though technically it's two books, that's that's
Speaker:enough to fill up three hours.
Speaker:Okay, you're talking about what the manuscript originally was, and now
Speaker:it's been edited to this version.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Obviously there's been some change in story structure a little bit, right?
Speaker:Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker:We're entering this zone now, and the consensus is Oh, not only
Speaker:movies are looking visually starting to sound, feel the same, right?
Speaker:But also in the story structure they're starting to sound the same.
Speaker:Wish that came out recently, We Wish, a lot of people watched it and
Speaker:they said, It's just a Disney movie.
Speaker:Instead of saying, oh, I love it, or this is it.
Speaker:I'm like, eh.
Speaker:The trailer was giving that too, yeah.
Speaker:It's just a standard Disney movie.
Speaker:Why do you think that people are these studios are starting to go
Speaker:into this standard storytelling mode?
Speaker:Not saying that everything, needs to be, pants.
Speaker:That there's two methods, do you buy pants on your skin and just write whatever.
Speaker:Or, you're going to do outlining.
Speaker:So you told me a lot about, your world and the book and things
Speaker:like that with screenwriting.
Speaker:Why don't you tell some of our listeners, because we have a lot of industry
Speaker:professionals, but also some people who want to get into the industry.
Speaker:Do you have any advice for people who just want to start to get writing?
Speaker:Yeah I would say, you know what's funny?
Speaker:A lot of the times when I see people ask me, they're like, Oh
Speaker:should I do self publishing or should I do traditional publishing?
Speaker:And my first thing is just get the draft done.
Speaker:I feel like for me, that has been the biggest hurdle.
Speaker:And, it's also hard for me, like, when I was first starting, I always really
Speaker:wanted to be perfect, and at first when I was thinking it was going to be
Speaker:a movie, I feel like the ideas flowed a little easier, because I was doing
Speaker:bullet points, I was like, this is going to happen, then this is going
Speaker:to happen, but then once I realized I wanted to make my novel an actual
Speaker:prose written novel, I was like, man.
Speaker:How do you describe things?
Speaker:Oh my gosh!
Speaker:You're gonna need more detail and things like that.
Speaker:Yeah, and so I like, had this weird struggle where I had like either
Speaker:passages that were like really sparse and had no explanation.
Speaker:It's like dialogue.
Speaker:But in my head I just saw them talking.
Speaker:I'm sorry, did you start off as a screenwriter?
Speaker:Yeah, the hidden script, I had imagined it to be an animated movie.
Speaker:Oh, so that's like where the origin was, on that sector, and then
Speaker:you decided to move to the next.
Speaker:Yeah, it's funny because the opening part, it's called Intruder, is because
Speaker:I in my head, I heard the song Intruder by Takeoff, the mixtape, on YouTube.
Speaker:Intruder.
Speaker:And that's I'm like, Oh, wow.
Speaker:And I just saw like the opening, like scene happening as if
Speaker:it was like the soundtrack.
Speaker:And this is how it opens.
Speaker:Some guys like raining.
Speaker:And I just saw like all the things like it's like a dark setting.
Speaker:I just like the camera panning and everything.
Speaker:So that's so cool.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So what's next for you?
Speaker:Next for me is writing book two of the hidden script.
Speaker:I have it set to publish July 9th, 2024, which is exciting.
Speaker:And then more conventions.
Speaker:And Hopefully getting the word out and just keep pushing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's fantastic.
Speaker:It's been a great talking to you with you here do you have any
Speaker:work find out what people can listen to you or find you socials?
Speaker:For sure You can find us at the hidden script.
Speaker:com and you can find us on instagram at the hidden script series on
Speaker:facebook At the Hidden Script Series, Tik Tok, At the Hidden Script, X,
Speaker:I mean I keep saying Twitter, but it's X now, the Hidden Script.
Speaker:You know it's quite interesting, it's do you usually make tweets or he makes X's?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Cause someone who makes X's, that's, that sounds like that
Speaker:might be a problematic person.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Alright, cool, thank you so much.
Speaker:Guys, this has been Film Center, my name's Derek Johnson II.
Speaker:And I'm Jemima Victor.
Speaker:And we'll see you next time.
Speaker:Bye guys.
Speaker:This has been Film Center on Comic Con Radio.
Speaker:Check out our previous episodes at FilmCenterNews.
Speaker:com Sign up for our newsletter and get the Hollywood trade straight to you.
Speaker:You can follow the show at Film Center News on all major platforms.
Speaker:Tune in next week for a fresh update.
Speaker:Until next time, this has been Film Center.
