The NoSleep Podcast - Tales From the Void - Behind the Scenes Podcast - Episode 01

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

This Behind the Scenes Podcast is your chance to go behind the curtain to learn more about the people who have created the new horror anthology streaming series: Tales From The Void. Hosted by David Cummings from The NoSleep Podcast and one of the executive producers of Tales From The Void. He’ll be speaking with the various writers and directors who brought these sleepless tales to the screen.New episodes of Tales From The Void will be available to stream weekly on Screambox in the US & Super Channel in Canada starting on Oct 13th.On this premiere episode, we meet the two gentlemen who are at the heart of Tales From the Void. Francesco Loschiavo is the series creator, showrunner, writer and director. John Thomas Kelley is a co-showrunner, writer and executive producer.Click here to learn more about Tales From the VoidClick here to learn more about Francesco LoschiavoClick here to learn more about John Thomas KelleyFollow Tales From the Void on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and on IMDb.Tales From the Void – The Behind the Scenes Podcast is a Creative Reason Media production, in conjunction with Envoi Entertainment.Music by Alex Cuervo and Brandon Boone.Audio program ©2024 – Creative Reason Media Inc. – All Rights Reserved – No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors.

From the silence, from the darkness, from your nightmares. Tales from the Void, behind the scenes podcast. Hello friends, David Cummings here, host of the No Sleep podcast, and one of the executive producers of Tales from the Void. The new horror anthology streaming series premiering in October. Its first season features six stories from the subreddit. No Sleep. Fans of the No Sleep podcast will be familiar with four of the six stories as they were featured on the podcast. We trust you'll be fully braced to experience Tales from the Void.

New episodes of Tales from the Void will be available to stream on Screenbox in the US and Super Channel in Canada weekly, starting on October 13th. This Behind the Scenes podcast is our way of giving you a glimpse behind the curtain. To learn more about many of the talented people who made Tales from the Void possible. Joining me on this inaugural episode are the two gentlemen who are at the heart of Tales from the Void. Francesco Los Giavo is the series creator, showrunner, writer, and director. And John Thomas Kelly is a co-showrunner, writer, and executive producer. and they and their team have brought this show to life. And so, join me as we delve into the dark world of The Void.

Welcome to Tales from the Void behind the scenes podcast. It is a thrill to welcome Francesco Los Giavo and John Thomas Kelly, two guys who have a little bit to do with Tales from the Void. Francesco and John, thanks for being on the show. Thanks for having it, dude. Yeah, thank you so much, David. This is great. So let's get started by telling our listeners just a bit about yourselves. You are obviously experienced in the world of filmmaking and creating great projects like this. How did you get

started in this business and then in horror in general? I will let John speak to how he got interested in the film. I feel like I've been a film nerd since like high school. And I, yeah, I saw two films at a festival and university that like really affected me. And I was like, this is so cool. I'd really like to try to make films like this. And I produced friends short films for a long period of time. And then stumbled on this amazing writer online named John Kelly, who's here today. And I read one of his scripts and then read four of his scripts and loved all of them. And we did a very low budget horror movie together years ago and was big into kind of no sleep at the time and was reading a lot of it and had talked to John. about, you know, why is no one making this into a show or movies or anything like that? I think there was a lot of, you know, stories being optioned at the time. But I was surprised that like

all of the short stories were getting left behind. So yeah, that was kind of like how we came up with the idea for the show. And I've just always been a massive horror fan. I sort of grew up on, you know, Chuckie and Halloween and lived up Blockbuster in my teenage years. So yeah. And John, how about you? What drew you into horror? So I was a little, lucky in that my mom was like a big a fan of VHS tapes and a big genre film person. I think the second thing I ever watched when I was a kid was Star Wars

because she wanted to watch it and I was there. And then, you know, I was very lucky that if, you know, she didn't have something, like my mom was willing to bring me to blockbuster and find it and there were not limitations put on what I was allowed to watch, which was great. The thing, Alien, Clockwork Orange, all of those things were watched probably way before they should have been. So I did a lot of writing. You know, I'd always written, but I started writing for like film and TV in college.

So I thought it was kind of interesting. But I, you know, I'd gotten some traction ironically doing comedy, but I hated comedy because I didn't really watch a lot of that. I really just watched genre stuff and then was trying to like write stuff to make people laugh. eventually switched to horror and found that was a little bit more challenging to break into until Francesco reached out over the internet back in like 2014 and was like, hey, I've read some of your stuff. I dig it. I read a comedy.

I read one of your comedies. That's right. You read the comedy. And then it was like, oh, you should read this horror thing I'm doing that I actually much prefer doing horror stuff. And you were like, oh, that's pretty good too. And we ended up kind of going in that direction. Yeah, I totally forgot you to read a comedy.

mine. That was, that's a blast for the past. But yeah, the, but yeah, so it was, it was kind of nice because I think up to that point, I was getting some traction and I was doing some stuff, but like, A, wasn't getting made and B, like the experiences or not enjoyable experiences, but I think the benefit of working with Francesco was, it was like, okay, here's somebody who has a very similar brain to mine who kind of like has the same idea of quality and kind of gets the stuff in the way that a lot of the other people like I'd worked with previously maybe just kind of weren't getting it. And it's interesting how you talk about you guys connected just online. You were able to kind of see each other's work. And it's fascinating to me how the internet has facilitated that type of thing

where you get people who obviously pre-internet, it's not like you get some person in L.A. writing scripts and then somebody wants to be director. There's no way for those two people to ever connect. And now we have the internet and there's so much incredible collaboration. And you think about how long a project like Tales from the Void has taken and it's all because of like internet connections. And I know Francesco, I was looking at my emails. We first connected back in April of 2019. And you talked about how you wanted to create a web series, kind of like a horror anthology series, probably just go up on YouTube for short films. And now here we are five years later. We have this full production streaming in October. So tell us a little bit about how Tales from the Void went from being a potential YouTube short series to what it is today.

This thing died and was revitalized and died again so many times. I think I checked my email. Actually, finally say that about our first connection. John and I were talking about writing this. I think his back is 2016. I have the first draft of fixed frequency from 2016. And it really has not changed significantly. So it took a long time to find people who got what we were trying to do.

And I think when we found the right people like yourself, like the guys at Screenbox, like the guys at Paper Street pictures, Berkeley, our producer, it kind of clicked. And our kind of, the thing John and I always said was like, if they know what no sleep is and if they read the scripts, we'll get them. But getting people to read stuff when you're like, hey, I'm trying to, you know, make a, make a series or whatever is always challenging. I think what help does is, or I'm always big on like coalition building. And we brought a lot of people along the way. So obviously, you know, partnering with the NOSLE podcast, working with Paper Street pitchers, an Aaron Kuntz's team, bringing along Screenbox, Super Channel, getting the writers on board.

from the no-sleep community was a huge help. Joe Lynch played a huge part in helping getting this made. So I think it was, I will say, a multi-year process of having, I will say, thousands of conversations until we got the one yes. And I'm hoping it won't be that hard to do this again. But I'm glad we went through it. Right, right. Yeah, you want to keep that momentum going and take it in that direction. Now, Francesco, you, apart from being sort of the main show runner and kind of the passion behind this whole project, you have directed three of the episodes, fixed frequency, starlight, and whistle in the woods.

And I'm curious, what was it about those three stories in particular that got you excited about bringing them to the screen? I think there's a few things. I wanted other directors to direct my writing because I get a little too close to it. So we had John and Toby do Plastic Smile and Joe do any of the unknown. The episodes that I got to direct were some of my favorite stories from the community. I love a million-dollar question just because it's a bit of an unknown one. It's not like one of the most popular on there, but I think it really shows how good horror can come from anywhere. And John and I always felt it was not only an awesome premise, but to do it as a like a reverse Jallo film would be quite cool.

Whistle in the Woods is obviously iconic. I think everyone who I mentioned No Sleep 2 knows the 303 story. And I was really excited about the challenge of trying to bring like how do you make a whistle creepy was something that like kept me awake at night and like trying to make that not hokey was a challenge. And I think we threaded the line really well.

And then fixed frequency, John just did such a good job with the script. And I think that was something that we consistently heard. from anyone who read the scripts that they were a huge fan of that one, and I wasn't going to let that one go to anyone else. I think there's something about, you know, 90s nostalgia, kids biking, walkie-talkies. It is very stranger things, but I think it goes to a much darker place than we're, you know, able to get away with. And I think John and I saw a lot of ourselves and some of the characters in that episode. So those were three that we loved.

And then to be honest, like the process for like deciding what gets made is I think I read over maybe 2000 no sleeps. I took two years. So part of the reason like this show went back to 2016 is we wrote a bunch of them and we basically stopped. And I said to John like I don't think we've done the community good enough like a good enough service here. And I need to read more. And I literally made a list of anything with significant upvotes. anything that won an award on No Sleep, though. I read every single award winner and the runner-ups all the way back to 2011.

So I read every single one, every most upvoted, anything that was on blogs that was popular. And then just would read random ones that I thought had an interesting title. And to me, like, curation is super important. So every episode that went into the show I kind of handpicked. And it's, it was kind of based on like two or three things. Does it have a, you know, gut punch twist ending? Is it something I've never seen before? If it is something we've seen before, it doesn't have a unique take.

And then can we inject kind of character and theme into this and make it bigger on the screen? You know, so there's some really good no sleep to take place in one room with somebody peering a noise in the next room. Great story, but doesn't always translate to an interesting visual medium. So, yeah, that was a big part of it, was spending like years, curating. And we've got a good selection for future seasons, but we've also got an open forum on the website. read everything that comes in because there's lots of good stories that we get sent. So yeah. And it's interesting talking about how a lot of these stories go back to the very early days of

the subreddit. And so you're talking about picking stories that have been out there for 10 years or so. And so I'm assuming there's got to be a bit of a timelessness or evergreen nature to the horror or to the stories themselves. But then I think about a story like Starlight. And as you say, it was adapted from a story called The Million Dollar Question. John, you adapted that for the and it's interesting how it is so timely in how it looks at the influence of social media and whether that's good or bad. And so, John, as you read that original story, did you, did you kind of have an idea in your mind right away how you could bring that to the screen and, you know, what the themes were of that story that are so so poignant for what we're

living in right now? So I think with that story, I think what was really interesting was the original no sleep story was a really great setup and then punch right but what was interesting was that the main character was very much like an audience stand-in main character where it's like we want you to feel like you are that character it's the nature of the subreddit but like especially in that story it's very much an audience stand-in so we kind of had to make a decision of like do we want this character to be someone that the audience likes and it's like oh no I think something bad is going to happen to them, or do we want this character to be someone that the audience is like very much rooting for their demise in some way, shape, or form? And that's really where the

social media piece came into it, because that wasn't actually originally, that wasn't part of the original story or that was actually an addition that we made to kind of add this element of, okay, like, let's make sure that we're commenting on something that's happening today, societally, and give the audience a POV of like maybe how they should be feeling about this character. character, right? Which may or may not be how Francesco and I probably feel about that character. But yeah, I think that was really important with all of the stories. It's like Francesco's point, like, curation is huge. The other thing is like theme and just making sure that like we're not making a story. Like we won't look. Every single one of these,

the goal is for you to get your money's worth. Like you subscribe to screen box. You, you know, order this somewhere. We want to make sure you're getting your, you know, dollars and cents in terms of meeting your genre expectations. But the goal is also to make sure that we're serving you a theme as well. That's of interest. And I think Starlight was a great example of that. I would just say to you, like all the great anthologies, in my opinion, or any good art in general has commentary on societal issues or like has a message behind the art.

And, you know, John and I grew up obviously watching Twilight Zone. That's a little bit before our time, but we're both big fans of it. So that was a big part of it as well, is like, how do we infuse social commentary into this and, like, inject theme. Some of them, like Starlight and Carrie, the theme is like more overt, but other ones, you kind of have to pay attention to kind of pick it up. And I'm big on the episodes being accessible, whether you pick up the theme or not. But if you're paying attention, there's, you know, a little bit richer conversation piece there. And it's interesting to me, because I talk to writer. all the time, people who are posting their stories on No Sleep and just creating these horror stories.

And they all talk about how they get contacted regularly from so many people, people who want to narrate their story for a YouTube channel. And then, you know, there's people, obviously now, people, you know, Hollywood is scanning through No Sleep all the time. People want to create films or short films. And I'm curious, when you guys are reaching out to these writers to connect with them, how do you overcome that skepticism and say, hey, I'm, not just some fly-by-night person, you know, we have something really positive that we could bring to your story. I'm very big about getting people on the phone. So I send them a sample of stuff that I've done.

I give everyone the same promise. Like, I'm kind of a no bullshit guy. So it's like, I can't promise you you you're going to get rich on this. I can't promise you it's going to be the best adaptation in the world. But what I do make the commitment is that we make fair offers for the material, make sure the writers are compensated and credited fairly based on industry standard. And what it is is you're getting a promise for me that I'm going to spend three years trying to get your story to the screen. That's what we committed to and that's what we did for all of the writers and anyone that we were not able to get it to screen for the first season.

We will be bringing them to the second season. So I think that's kind of how John and I met, right? It's like I said to John, I can't promise it's going to be. good. I can't promise when it's going to happen, but I promise it will get made. And it took me three years, but I made one of his scripts into a feature film. And I think there's a lot of, like, people telling you your film is going to get made next week and you're going to make a million bucks. And it's just a lot of that in this industry. And I try to just be really honest with people and just be fair. We get the rights to the film. If they have a book deal, they want to keep

their book rights. We don't need the book rights. Whatever way we can carve, about a, you know, our lane to operate in that keeps the writer happy, that keeps them fairly compensated. And it's a trust thing too, right? And I, the way I look at it is we're writers too, right? Like John and I screenwrite. So I don't like people calling me and promising me the world or all that type of stuff. So yeah, I think it's just being honest. And, you know, if they're, if they dig what we're trying to do, we're happy to work with, you know, anyone and everybody. And I think that's a really cogent point Francesco made there is that, or writers too, point you made earlier.

Yeah, like when we first met Francesco was like, I can't promise you you're going to get rich and I can't promise the product's going to be good. But I promise you that, you know, if you option is to me, we will make it. And he was right. He made it. And everything I think he and I have done has gotten made, right? And I think that's a breath of fresh air in an industry where, I think, to your point, I mean, I was working definitely. Like, I'm like I've, I mean, I sold my first thing in 2011.

Like I've been a working writer for a long time. But stuff doesn't get made, right? Everyone's like, oh, you know, we'll option this or, oh, you know, et cetera. But like, it is really, really hard to get something made. So I think the fact that Francesco has made two things from the ground up is really telling. I think a big part of the why in terms of why it works is that no bullshit approach. It's like you just go to people and you say, look, this is the situation is what we're trying to do. And most people, I think, really appreciate that.

I think the other thing that helps too is like we want to put the writers front and center. I mean, Francesco, I don't know if you want to talk about the EPK, if at all, but I think that's so important. Yeah, like we put the writers in the show, right? You know, David, you interview them at the end of every episode, which we thought was important. Their original stories are on a lot of the poster and the key are. We listed in a lot of our social media, so I'm big on uplifting independent horror, and I think that's a big part of it. I also contact any of the writers whose stories we adopted. I'm sure they have.

They'll tell you what it was like working with us. So we try to, yeah, we try to be champions of the community. And when I speak with writers, whether it's people who I collaborate with on the No Sleep podcast or the people who have contributed to the series, one thing that I always find is that writers, I don't want to portray them as being cheap and easy, but when you can go to a writer and say, I love your story and I want to adapt it, whether it's to audio or video, there is, I think they're flattered and I think they're excited about somebody getting into their story, into their vision for it. I say so often when I hear other people say, I want to start a horror podcast or whatever. And I always stress that you've got to connect with a writer, you've got to not just get

their permission and consent, but, you know, tap into their enthusiasm for their story and recognize that they would love to see someone else put their vision on their story. And as you guys mentioned, you know, you created something. I remember when you first sent out the pitch deck for this series, and Francesco, I'll get you to talk about what that is, but seeing that kind of quality that you put into just what your vision for this series was, writers are going to be drawn into that passion. And so I can see why it would be relatively easy. When you respect the writers, you want to honor what they've put into their stories. And so maybe if you want to touch base with how you created this pitch deck and what that meant to the writers to see the kind of

quality you were going to bring to this project. Yeah, I think the pitch deck was funny. It was like a big part of getting Joe and a lot of the people on with the project. And We also filmed a teaser trailer that we pinned to the top of Reddit two years ago that kind of went gangbusters with the community. So I think that to me was the fuel that we had a great idea to kind of keep going. Yeah, the way we approached the pitch deck was like we basically curated, like I'm obviously a big horror fan, but watched a lot of stuff in the similar kind of genres that we wanted to do for each episode and kind of curated a collection of images that represented. what the look and feel of the episode was going to be. And I think showing a trailer that we could have just, you know,

done a trailer for the overall show, but we tried to show the thematic look of all six episodes to show that, you know, here's a lookbook that shows what we're trying to achieve, which is included in our pitchback kids. Here's a trailer that shows we can execute on it. And then we also had a lot in there about the no-sleep community. And here's the audience that we know and understand. I think that really connected with.

with people that read it, like my favorite thing was that we would have people read it and they would say like, oh, this is like goosebumps, but like for adults and like darker. And it's like that was exactly what I was going for. I also think my favorite part of the project to date has been pulling up the pitch deck and then pulling up our press kit with the photos of the shoots and about each episode and seeing how it is exactly what we said we were going to do. So I think that's a big part of it as well. And I think a lot of what brought that to life is that we focused on doing a different genre and a different look for every episode. And that was something we really had to fight for in post-production and on set. And working with our creative team, it was we had the resources

to do a show, which is normally recycled locations, recycled actors, like one set look. And what John and I quickly figured out is we're not making a show. We're making six movies. and each of those movies is very different and there was a lot of like logistical challenges with that and a big part of um i guess executing on that in like a compelling way was we had to push one episode to the next season that we've been talking with the writers about but like we didn't think we could do it at the caliber of this that the story needed and that was a that was a tough decision for us but that's a big part of it as well that episode had pyro in it fire and like a huge scene with a lot of kind of like technical special effects that would

have been a challenge for us. So yeah, we we kind of like tried to also concentrate the resources to like make the make the best thing we could. What I find interesting too is how there are, you know, these days there are so many people out there. They want to create films. They want to tell stories on video. And you've got platforms like YouTube and Vimeo and cost of even the equipment is dropping and it's becoming a lot more affordable. And yet when I talk to the writers who have seen their stories come to the screen and they've watched the previews of these, these episodes, the comment I always hear is that how amazing this looks. This is a completely professional, top-notch, you know, looking, sounding, feeling series. And this is one of those

sort of open-ended questions. But if somebody came to you and said, hey, I want to create my own kind of series, my own kind of stuff, my own short horror film. Is there advice that you would give them to how they can get started and bringing stories to their version of the screen? Yeah, I think like the model that worked for us is like, how long do we spend on the scripts, John, two and a half years? Yeah, two and a half years. And lots of feedback with multiple people too. It was the exchange. Colin Geddes, um, you know, his team like yeah, they went through a lot of rounds with a lot of So yeah, I think like if anyone sends you a script and it's the first draft, that's a problem.

Like you have to do reps. Like that's just the nature of the business. So we're big on development. So if you have killer scripts, that helps. And then I think you don't have to go film the entire thing yourself. I think you need to show a scene or a part of it or like we did a lookbook, a very clear articulation of what is the idea. that we are trying to put together. And maybe it's something we should put out as our lookbook.

But I see a lot of this stuff kind of come across my desk now that we've done this. And people that are looking for producing help on horror films. And I feel like it's not uncommon to hear a very impassioned speech about a story. And then if you find the time to read the script, maybe the script is great in it. They've done the reps on the script. But then the pitch package looks like it was slapped together in five minutes. And I think like people underestimate if I can scan through some images and hear your verbal pitch, that is often a big help to get me to read the script.

And I would just say like focus on making sure the script is killer. That's the first thing. So get your script reps in. But then make materials that will inspire people to read the script. And I think do those materials as cheaply as you can. But I think that's a big part of it. I don't know if you'd add anything else that, John, but that was, I think, what worked for us. Yeah, yeah.

I think in terms of just other small things, I think the other element that's probably helpful is, like, be willing to do the work, right? There's a lot of filmmakers I've met who, like, are incredibly talented, who, you know, have written killer scripts. But then when you're like, hey, you know, I need you to, you know, what would the budget for this look like? Or can you put together, like, some additional materials? also like, well, that's not really my job. I'm the filmmaker. It's like, no, when it's your project, you're everything. Like, there isn't a single part of this project that Francesco and I have not, or Francisco or I have not had our hands in just, you know, having to figure out. Like, there's a lot of what I would describe as learning opportunities. They're not mistakes, David. They're learning opportunities

that we've had over the course of this project. Because at the end of the day, like, we had an amazing crew. I think part of the reason it looks good is because, like, we had an awesome crew and we were not willing to sacrifice on, like, quality there where it's like, no, like, we want really good people who can produce incredible work. And that's what we got. But I think the other part of it is like we were willing to do the work in terms of like whether it was looking at budgets ourselves, Demand Francesco, to your point, literally taking an episode and figuring out we need to just push this episode and we just are not going to be able to afford to do it the way that it deserves to be done. And there wasn't a single job. I was booking flights at one point. Like, there wasn't a single job that we weren't willing to do. And we've, we've never done this before. Like, just to be clear, like, this is our first thing. We've done some lower budget feature films and stuff.

And I've done a documentary, and John's obviously been a screenwriter for a bunch of stuff. But we've both never been showrunners. So I think it was a big learning opportunity for us. And just to add to what John said, I also think it was, you know, you talked about how good it looks. We had great cinematographers with Marty and Starranted. caught and what John and I did was make sure we had the best department heads. We had the best prosthetics. We had the best cinematography. And then anything that wasn't in front of the camera that nobody wanted to do that would cost us money, we'd do it. Right. So I used to think about like,

people would ask me like, well, what does a producer do? And I used to have this long winded answer. And it's like a producer does whatever has to be done to finish the thing. That's what we do. So I think we definitely, yeah, rolled up our sleeves on a lot of this to get it across the line. But yeah, I think it was worth it. We're really happy with it. Oh, for sure. And I was lucky enough to come on to the set a few times. I was up in Sioux-St. Marie with you guys and outside of Toronto.

And seeing the crew and seeing the people who made this, I've done other interviews. And I always talk about the people who you gathered together to make. this project. No one there was just there for a paycheck. Nobody was phoning it in. Everybody you could tell they had the passion that they wanted this project, this episode, this story to come to the screen in the best possible way. And I think that's a real tribute to you two guys who got these people who are great at what they do, but also really wanted to bring the best they could bring to the project and put it on the screen. And yeah, it absolutely, it shows. It shows there's a There is a passion that takes place.

It's easy to think about just the actors on the screen or, you know, everyone knows, oh, there's a director, there's a cameraman, but there's dozens and dozens of people who are behind the camera ready and willing to act at a minute's notice to make this happen. And it was pretty awe-inspiring to see. Yeah, we had a small army for this thing. It was kind of wild. We worked with Rebecca's team at Rusty Halo Productions and Sue C-Marie. And, like, it was just crazy, I think at one point looking around,

and being like, we have 85 people, like, working today. And that wasn't even including the cast, you know, on the show. And I think we brought up some of the best crew, I think, from Toronto and had some great local crew as well that were really, really experienced. And it was actually quite shocking to see, like, how many of our crew members that I didn't know about had worked on other hit films or had directed their own movie that went on to be super successful. And we had a lot of really, like, quietly talented people.

on set. It's been an education for us that like, you know, there's a reason they call it Hollywood North. Like some of the best film crews in Canada are, you know, out of Ontario and Northern Ontario. Like Del Toro shoots all this stuff in Toronto and there's a lot of the crew that works on those films. So yeah, we're just blessed to have an amazing team. And speaking of all this work and all this passion that goes into it, the episodes are now done. And you've been able to screen them at various festivals already and there's more to come. So what's it been like to show these episodes to large groups of people and how they responded and what's that what's that vibe like at a festival? It's been fun. I think John and I are both worried about reviews when

this thing comes out because we've never had our our work critiqued in that in that regard before. But I mean, we had someone faint at a test screening of Kerry at the ending. which was shocking. And luckily they were okay. And we had thought maybe they had taken drugs or, you know, had too much to drink or something. And they had said that it was just the ending, kind of creeped them out,

which I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. But I think we will probably need a trigger warning on that episode. But the festivals have been great and the reception's been really, really good. We've got a very busy October. I think as we're talking about this, but I'm sure before this air is like we're, I think another five or six festivals before the show comes out, which we're excited about.

But yeah, I think reception has been good. I'm honestly just happy that no sleep writers liked it. I think that was the most important thing to me. But I don't know what you think, John. I'm excited about the festivals now. I think our first festival experience was at Panic Fest. And Panic Fest was awesome.

Everyone at Panic Fest is super nice. But unbeknownst to the good folks at Panic Fest, we needed to fly out the day after our screen, the night of our screening, we flew out the very next day on a red eye to literally go shoot the last episode. So that was an incredibly stressful experience. Since then, you know, it's been, you know, roses, I would say. Yeah, like the, you know, experience of Fantasia was great or excited for some of the stuff that's coming up.

And yeah, I think to Francesco's larger point, like, the main goal is to make something that the original writers really like and, you know, communicating with them, like, they've all seen their episodes at this point and they seem to be really happy with the results. And at the end of the day, like, that's, that's who we really made this for and who we want to be happy. So we're that just, you know, we're over the mood about that part of it. Obviously, the response that once the show comes out and, you know, people can go online and share their feelings, we know it's going to be all positive. Nobody goes online to complain or be critical, right? Not at all. No, I'll be commenting back. So don't worry. I'll be tracking them down. Exactly. Yeah. It's,

funny you say that. I mean, I've loved watching the episodes and yeah, I'm super excited about it. But there's a part of me that's like, I'm just going to, I'm not going to, you know, read anything online about it because after, you know, doing the No Sleep podcast for more than 13 years now, I've learned that I kind of need to separate myself from that kind of feedback because obviously people are welcome to feel however they want to feel about things. But yeah, it's, it's not the easiest thing to have somebody tear apart something you've worked hard on. But, you know, that's just the nature of the business, and I guess we're all used to it by now. Well, my favorite thing was with the test screenings, Francesco had an Excel document that people

would kind of, or like a document that people would fill in, right, with like their feedback. And then we would take the feedback, put it into an Excel, look at it and be like, how do we adjust the edit to make sure that we're like addressing people's feedback? But my favorite is like, there were comments in the feedback. And these were like mostly friends and family screenings. There were comments in the feedback that were so brutal it was like, I'm like, like, we know these people. like these are our friends.

It's better to get that feedback now than after. Exactly. Yeah. I don't know. I think though like it's nerve-wracking for sure, but I don't know. I feel like that's part of the part of the game is like I think that's the emotional part of filmmaking is like putting your putting your work out there. And I feel like sitting in the audience, it's, I don't know, for me having like directed

stuff, it's it's unusual sitting there and, you know, watching your stuff get critiqued And also like hearing words that you wrote come out of people's mouth, I think is, uh, is a little bit crazy. I remember there's one day on set where like we got there and they had given purple highlights to one of the actors in the, in her hair and like at the bottom of like the tips of her hair. And I was like, oh, yeah, I wrote that. Like that was that was a thing in the script of like two years ago that we're like, that was like what we wanted to look like. And I was like, oh, somebody read that and, you know, made note of it. But yeah, I don't know. It's, um, we're excited about it, nervous about it, but I hope people like it. Yeah. And I think too, like the other thing is

like, Francesc and I are very similar in this way. Like when we watch the episodes, all we see are the things that like we didn't quite get right or like the things where it's like, oh, if we had an extra two hours on that day, we could have done this. Like, it's all of the what it coulda should is. And I think the way that I sleep at night is knowing like, well, we know now and we'll get it right the next time. So like a lot of times, and I just remember this from the first movie we did where people would be like, you know, this element of it doesn't work. And we were like, yeah, yeah, no, you're right. We're aware.

Yeah, we know that doesn't work too. So I think sometimes, too, like, I'm a little less worried about that part of, you know, reviews because like there's stuff people will fly and it'll be like, yeah, 100% right. And like, we, if we had had an extra two hours, we would have addressed that too, but we just didn't have the time or the money or whatever, you know. But there's also like, you never get to say, well, this was our budget or like there was a thunderstorm that day or whatever. But I think the tricky thing with doing adaptations like this is like there's an expectation of what the black square looks like.

There's an expectation of what that whistle in the woods is going to sound like. And I think some of these stories are well known and you have an idea in your mind of what this world look like, at least for some of them. So we, I hope, you know, people like our take on it. You know, it was a big discussion even like with the black square of like, I like it as a dead point. pixel, which is the exact screenshot that Matt Dermerski linked in his story. He was like, this is what it looks like. And we're like, yeah, let's not make it fanatical or a portal or have clouds in it or any, let's just, it's a dead pixel.

Like, let's just keep it really simple. So there was a lot of like discussions around stuff like that of like, how much do you lean in to what's on the page or lean out to make sure we're, you know, making it interesting for cinema, but also like. doing the story justice. So that's been a big thing of ours of like we hope that people who remember the stories like the adaptation and or even if they don't know it, see the episode and go back and read the No Sleep Story because they're great. Gentlemen, you have brought some amazing stories to life and I know there's going to be a lot of positive feedback about this.

And I'm really grateful to have a chance to be a part of this project in a small way, but to be able to talk with you guys. And yeah, I'm looking forward to what the next few weeks holds as Tales from the Void comes to the screen. So thank you so much for joining us here at the Behind the Seens podcast. Thanks, David. Thanks for all your support and please have been us. Yeah, thank you so much, David. I really appreciate it. I want to thank Francesco and John for joining me, and of course for making Tales from the Void possible. Tales from the Void, the Behind the Scenes podcast is a creative reason media production

in conjunction with Envoy Entertainment. Music by Alex Cuervo and Brandon Boone. Thank you for being with us. Join us next time for a deeper plunge into the void.