The Weekly Planet - TWP Presents - Just Make The Thing

Episode Date: June 21, 2018

Hello everyone including you Jason. Yes we know who you are Jason.  This week our Planet Broadcasting podcast we're getting out there is Just Make The Thing. A terrific insight into getting a creative/business/idea off the ground and how to keep on making it. Find all of Just Make The Thing here:https://www.planetbroadcasting.com/https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/just-make-the-thing/id1244409453?mt=2https://omny.fm/shows/justmakethething Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret, the other a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. It's Thursday already. You might be thinking, where did the time go? Where did my podcast go? I need more podcasts. Why is there only one Weekly Planet podcast every week?

Because we're old and tired, that's why. That's right. But have no fear, there's another podcast shooting right up your butthole. That's right. It's called Just Make the Thing. And you might be thinking, but James, isn't that the podcast that your wife does with her friend Chanel?

Yes. So basically, the idea is that Chanel or Claire interview somebody who does a wonderful creative project. It might be a comedian or some person in the arts or somebody who's built a business or a passion of theirs. And then other weeks, they also just kind of chat about a particular topic. It might be getting out of creative rut or how to get something off the ground, how to maneuver the world of business.

How to just get through your working day, you know? Yeah, exactly. That's, you know, it's the stuff that makes up life. I know I would have liked this before I started doing this podcast because when I was a nine to five man and when I was before that, I did my business degree. I feel like I needed something like this to kind of push me towards doing something that I didn't hate. And look at me now, Mason, introing a podcast that my wife made. That's the dream.

This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. So, Jess Perkins. Hello. Hello. Hello. Thank you for coming on Just Make the Thing. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited. Oh, goodness. Okay, no pressure.

Yeah. It's going to be good. I never appear on anyone else's podcasts, so no. I was going to say. This is a huge honor for you. This is amazing. I know. I've been like preparing the house like the queen is coming.

We haven't just like thrown our little cushions on the floor for our soundproofing and our dog hasn't attacked you yeah it's fine it's totally it's amazing the service and if you can hear something in the background that is the podcast dog trying to get in to bully jess but hopefully james will take her soon and it'll all be fine um so i wanted to start i've been wanting to talk to you for ages actually, because you do lots of cool stuff, lots of creative stuff, because each show is all about how to start a thing and keep on making it. So I wanted to ask you first, when you realized you were funny? Oh, wow.

I think as a kid, I was aware that was something that was that was in me and I only realized recently that my parents particularly my mum really like praised that or put an emphasis on that I remember in in primary school a couple of times when there'd be events on or something and your parents had to write you a letter or whether it was like we were out on school camp or, or coming up to milestones in our lives and they'd get our parents to write us letters. And I remember I've got them and a couple of them, mum would sort of write that,

you know, you've got this sense of humor that's beyond your years and, and you can light up a room like all those beautiful mum things. But it's cause they kind of praised that in me that I was like, Oh yeah, well I'm funny. You know, like that was just something I was like, I was like part of your personality yeah which I think is a great thing to instill in a

kid oh I'll be really disappointed and I'm sorry if my son's is introduced in the future I'll be so disappointed if it's not funny right oh my god my boyfriend and I were talking about that recently we're like what if we had a kid and they were like a real nerd yeah oh our kid will be a real nerd yeah i reckon but but what but a funny one funny one have a sense of humor i don't know what if they're like a real straight-laced accountant type yeah and i know you hate accountants i know i do accountants but yeah that would be um that would be the only way my children could disappoint me is to not have a sense of humor doesn't matter what they do in their career they never have a job but if they're not funny yeah get out of the perkins household i can't

judge their career choices like look what i've been doing with my degree like nothing so whatever they want to do is fine but just have a sense of humor well you've got a journalism degree i do yeah yeah what made you choose why did laugh? Because it's so silly. Well, you're working on radio now. I know, it's true. That's pretty official. I have always joked that I never did anything with my degree, but I kind of do now. I work for the ABC now.

Yeah, that's a real grown-up job. Yeah, I had to do some editorial policies training, and I was going through it, and I was like, yeah, this is all, I know this, why am I doing this training? And then I was like, oh, you know this because you've done the degree. You're using your degree. That thing that you've got a lot of head step for, which is like James has a business degree and a teacher degree

and uses neither now. When he did business, it was like make a flyer and turns it around. Very different. Really good. Yeah. So, yeah, why journalism? What did you decide that well um when i finished year 12 this is uh this is like a big um a big moment in my life when i did year 12 i did drama and i got a perfect score in my drama solo um top it's like top one percent in the state kind

of thing that's why i did a big yeah it was it was a big deal and it was something that I wanted and worked so hard on and so then I got um I'll I promise this is getting to the point then I got um invited to audition for top class which um is the best drama solos in the state they pick a handful handful of them. You audition, they pick a handful and you perform at a showcase. And that's all I wanted. When I was in year 12, all I wanted was to be drama captain, to win the Performing Arts Award and to get to do top class. And so I was drama captain, I'd won the Performing Arts Award

and I was like, I really want top class. And I fucked the audition. I didn't complete, like the performance was fine, but I started too early. I wasn't focused enough and I didn't do my best. So I didn't get it and I also didn't get into the performing arts course that I wanted to do because my ATAR, my enter score wasn't high enough because you needed to be like really good at maths and biology

to get into performing arts, which made a lot of sense. Necessary. Yeah. So that kind of – it was sort of the first time I'd really, really tried at something and failed. And instead of getting back up, I stayed down. My dad always says – and it's not something that he's thought of, but he always reminds me, like, fall down seven times, get up eight.

And it was – I stayed down. And I still credit that. times get up eight and it was i stayed down and i i still credit that i'm like yeah i just stayed down i gave up and i didn't try things again and so then my backup option was um i got into creative arts and culture at acu which is just an arts degree but you had to major in something creative okay so i was a drama and literature major um and in my drama classes we would read plays we wouldn't perform anything there was no performance element we would just sit and read plays yeah and I was sort of like this course is going to get me nowhere I wasn't enjoying it so I stuck it out for a year and then I looked at a few different things I actually looked at doing paramedicine wow I wanted to be a paramedic I looked at a few different things and then I ended up transferring over to Deakin Uni and doing media

and communications um so I did all sorts of things like PR and general media and stuff like that and then kind of fell into majoring in journalism and I had a minor in literature and film studies as well so it was kind of a fairly rounded education, but, yeah, I ended up with a major in journalism and did work experience at like Channel 10 and a newspaper and stuff like that. But, yeah, I think even doing those internships, I was like, this isn't quite for me. Did you love the writing element of it? Yeah.

Is that why you chose it in the end? Yeah, absolutely. And I remember feeling like I think I finished uni kind of going, I've learnt nothing, but I realized much later that what it actually taught me was, which is funny, because you don't see it a lot in journalism, but I can't jump to conclusions. I actually need to have all sides of information stories to, to make up my mind. And I only noticed that years later when I told mum about a story I'd read in the newspaper and she was just like, oh, what a monster, he should be in prison. And I was like, well, hang on, you've only heard one tiny part of it and you've jumped to a conclusion. And that's when I was like, oh, my degree taught me something. So that's kind of nice. That's a huge thing, especially now in the climate we're living in to be able to have that,

to know that there's two sides to everything. There multiple sides yeah there's at least two at least upside and downside as well like yeah you can look at it from so many different so many and and intention and context and so many different things perception can can make it so different from so many different angles it's really interesting oh completely and the way that you were raised shapes your world and your world experience. Yeah, 100% agree with that. So what changed? You did your journalism degree and you were down.

You said you were like, nah, performing arts, meh. What made you go, okay, got to do something? I think it was, I don't even remember how it came about, but I knew that there was a a or I found out there was a training course at SIN student youth network radio and my friend and I decided to go along to that it was like one night a week for you know a period of time whatever it was and um we went and did that and then from there you could sort of have your own show so we were doing like this late night show and we were doing the graveyard shifts and just sort of having a go at it and I realized that I really liked radio and I did more

and more at sin and there was one show that was called in joke and it was just after a big breakup for me like um I was 24 and it was like a six-year relationship ended and I saw this thing on the Sin Facebook page that was like we're looking for hosts for InJoke you know apply if you want to give it a go and I sort of went oh I'd kind of like to do that and my usual default would be to go I kind of want to do that and check with him not check with him for permission but be like what do you reckon yeah yeah and wait for that validation yeah but now I only had myself to back me so I went yeah I'll give it a go and that turned out I think I did that for six months or close to a year or something um and we would just go see comedy shows and interview comedians and it got me back into that world of comedy that I had loved as a teenager um like I introduced my parents to the comedy festival,

who've lived in Melbourne. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret, the other a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. They're pretty much their whole lives. And they just had never... Never really seen much or done much. But this teenager was like, I've got to go see all these shows and I need a guardian.

So that's that's what they did which was great um so yeah it kind of got me back into comedy and then I just signed up for Raw and I was like I'm gonna give this a go that is ballsy it's stupid yeah it's a big difference though from being like I'm doing community radio like where you don't see the audience to going I'm gonna get up in front of hundreds of people and try and make them laugh. Yeah. What was that first gig like? Amazing.

It was really good. Yeah. And because I was a drama nerd at school and was always, always lent more towards the comedy for sure. Like my solo and everything was always comedic. So I knew that I loved being on a stage and I knew I could make people laugh. But it was a different type. Like, you know, we'd done sketches and stuff like that at school, characters. Now I was just telling stories as me. But I think Raw is a perfect place for someone to

start because you've got a pretty big audience and they're really eager and they're really up for it and they're very supportive so we went my parents were there a few friends were there and I think that was good too that I told people I was doing it because then it meant I had to yeah because the day before I was like you know what maybe I won't maybe I just won't do it maybe I just won't turn up yeah I just won't do it and I had to because other people were coming um and it was a great gig I went on like third and did really well and got through to the next round. And it just kind of went from there. So the second, the second gig must've been like a, um, a, an, a preliminary final or something like that. Um, or next heat, whatever it was. And then

after that, I got a message on Facebook from Pete Jones, who's a comedy person, he's a comedian. And he just asked me to come down and do a gig at a room he was running. And that's sort of how I started to meet other comedians. And then it just made it less daunting because the thing that scared me so much about stand-up was like, I didn't know the logistics. Like if you're going to go and sign up for a room, where do you sign up? Who do you talk to? Where do you stand? Little things like that, stupid little details.

But then I started to meet people and that made it a lot less scary. Wow. And so you sort of felt like you'd found your thing? Yeah, definitely. I felt like I found my people or a place that I belonged. Because, I mean, I had a pretty good time at high school. I wasn't – I wasn't – Drama captain.

Everybody loved the dress pictures. Oh, yeah, everybody loves the drama captain. Yeah, yeah. No, but I was kind of – I was friends with everyone, I guess. But it felt more like I did feel like I was a bit different and then meeting comedy people, I was like, oh, okay, these people don't think I'm weird or like a bit out there they're just my people yeah which is cool so cool yeah it's interesting that it was a breakup that kind of pushed you into doing something again

because I often hear that from people that maybe not necessarily breakup but it often is it's some kind of cataclysmic life altering thing that happens to you that pushes you in a new direction. Do you, have you always had, James and I talk about this a little bit, like a creative itch, like a thing that you have to make stuff. And if you're not making stuff, you're sort of miserable. Yeah. And I didn't, I think I didn't realize I had that until I started making stuff and now I can't really stop like I can't I get overwhelmed if I'm too busy but if I stop for a little while I also just get really anxious and kind of bored I'm like oh I gotta do something

I'm not doing anything I'm not being productive yeah um so yeah but I still haven't – I feel like I haven't quite nailed exactly what it is that I'm good at. Like I think there's something more. I think there's – but I don't know what it is. But I'll find it. That's exciting. Yeah. Maybe that's actually something that you'll always feel.

Probably. Because I spoke to Will Anderson and he said that too, that he had like 100 things that he wished he hadn't got to yet and he was like, I probably won't have time to do. Yeah. So maybe when you're a creative person, you always want to have that. Like what's the next thing? Yeah, I think so.

I'll get there. What's the next thing I could do? Yeah. What's the next thing? It's almost like it's never enough or you always want something more. I think that's definitely true because you'll tick something off a list or you'll achieve something you wanted to. And then it's like, okay, but you can't be happy with that for very long. So I was like, what's next? Yeah. How do you feel when you come off the stage

immediately after a gig? Yeah. Good. Really good. Well, if the gig's gone well, if it's gone badly, it's like, well, where's the nearest bridge? How do you go with that if you because i know you said you've had that failure early on and that really put you down how do you cope with it now when it doesn't go well like that i think you learn pretty quickly especially with something like stand-up that there are going to be rough gigs and it's not always in your control um sometimes you can turn a gig around sometimes you absolutely can't. But you see really good acts have rough gigs sometimes and you're like it's just the nature of the beast. And one bad gig doesn't define you just like one good gig

doesn't define you. And I think it also, when it's early, because I had early success, like I was doing really well with raw comedy and stuff like that, that I ended up going to the – I got through the national final. Wow. And the national final was my seventh ever gig. Oh, my God. Like I was really green.

Wow. But other people didn't know how new I was. So I always felt like – early on I felt like I had to be really good every gig because they expected more of me. But I think it comes down to like you don't judge a comedian based on one performance you see of theirs. Because I've seen people, like the first time I saw them, they bombed and then I've had it in my head that that person sucks.

Then you might see them again later and they're absolutely destroying and you're like, oh, no, I was wrong. I saw them on an off night. And so now I'm a bit more confident in the fact that people in the comedy community know me and know that I'm a capable comedian. So if I have a bad gig, it was a bad gig. I'm not a bad comedian. So I think that helps with rough gigs now because you go,

I'm not a bad comedian, that was a bad gig, and that's it. That's like life advice yeah no hey like your mistakes don't define who you are yeah they're just things that happen things that happen and same with good things they don't necessarily define who you are yeah well i guess they hopefully they do more so than the bad things but like yeah you you you can't do one good deed and be like well i'm a good person now like it's yeah wear a medal around your neck and just be like i'm excellent everybody did the dishes yeah exactly yeah wanting winning at life yeah winning yeah exactly and i i often struggled with that too i think and doing this podcast has been really good in that way that you start to learn that there's always another thing

and there's always something else to try or something else to experiment with. And if you just give up at the very first hurdle, you're never going to make anything. Yeah. You know. You're just going to, yeah, you're denying yourself all these amazing opportunities. Yeah.

Yeah. And to really be good at something you have to keep building on it absolutely lots of little steps yeah yeah and you often don't quite realize that you've become good at something like somebody was asking me recently um uh my friend Naomi she was going to be doing a like a demo with a radio station and she asked for some tips about radio and I kind of thought like fuck divine I don't know what I'm doing but then I gave her all this advice and I was like oh maybe I do kind of have an idea of what I'm doing with something I've been doing for about five years yeah you probably

you probably have some idea and I'm still learning there's still heaps that I can learn from it but like I do know something yeah after five after five years, you know a lot. You kind of know what you're doing in a way. Yeah, absolutely. So I think it sneaks up on you and then you're like, oh, shit, I know what I'm doing. Yeah, I'm great. It's really nice.

Yeah, and then I think life also can teach you once you get to that moment then you realize, actually, no, I don't know that too. Yeah, I don't know everything. Yeah, it's a continual learning process. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me about Dugong. How did that eventuate?

My favorite thing. The boys have told me that they recorded a couple of episodes. I think it was originally Dave's idea is what I heard. That's what Dave was saying on the show. Dave's idea and he did it with Matt because Matt also had sort of a bit of a trivia background and they just sort of found that it was a bit hard with two voices because you sort of got one person doing the report and one other person going, yeah, that's interesting.

It's really hard to riff. Yeah. And I remember being at a gig in Footscray and Matt was on and we were just sort of chatting afterwards and he was just very casually leaning against a table and he just said, oh, like Dave and I have been doing this podcast and wondered if you'd wanted to come in and join us for it. And I was like, yeah, okay, I guess.

I didn't really know much about podcasts. I just liked both of those guys because I'd met them through the community radio I'd been doing and they both came on my web series. Oh which is great by the way yeah I guess that was that was me just wanting to make something it's just a passion project I was like I just want to make something this is an idea I've had and one of my friends was just like then we're doing it we're making it and we did and it was really cool um but it also meant I got to hey it's the end of it's the end of this for now,

but you can actually check out Just Make the Thing. It's linked below. You can also find it at planetbroadcasting.com, iTunes, Spotify, other places that you love podcasts. There's other episodes. There's many. Many episodes. I was going to say there's none.

No, there's many. There's quite a few, yeah. Claire talks and Chanel talk to super interesting people. That's right. And also you. Come on, mate. I've also you. Come on, mate. I've done it. Come on, mate.

And that's all I have to say. Is that all you have to say? Look, see you in hell. Yeah. All of you. See you all in hell. See you all in hell. As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors,

like high blood pressure developed during pregnancy, which can put us two times more at risk of heart disease or stroke. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret, the other a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+.