Hi, you are listening to the Shipwrecked Podcast. Welcome back. Yeah, so today we have a really awesome talk with Taylor Brogan, who was our script supervisor on Poe Party. She's super cool, and she has a lot of interesting insight into the TV industry, and it was really awesome having her on set. But first, here are a few updates for you. So what's going on, Sarah? What have we got? Let's see. Well, if you guys haven't already heard, the second week in March, March 10th through the 12th, we will be in Seattle, Washington for the Seattle Web Fest. Yeah, I'm really excited. It's my first time in Seattle. Yeah, same. So that'll be fun. All four of us, plus one of our producers, Ryan, will be attending. So if you're in the...
That area. Come on by. Check it out. Also, the BTS features are nearly done. Yeah. Sean and Mary Kate have been editing those, and they look really awesome, and I think anybody who pledged at that level is going to be really excited to see some of the, you know, behind-the-scenes features, what it was like to shoot and stuff. And if you're not a Kickstarter backer, don't worry, because I think we're going to try to figure out a way to package those. Package it all up for you. Digital feature apps for you. It's a thing that's in the works. Yeah, so stay tuned for that. Also, if you haven't been to our channel in a little bit, there was a little treat-up this week, a little microwave auditions feature.
Oh, boy, was there. We just had the silly idea to have everyone audition for the role of H.G. Wells Microwave, and we did it on set. We had everybody say the lines, and, of course, being a bunch of hams that we are, made it a ten-minute-long video. So, sorry, Sean. No. All right, well, that is, I think, all the updates in Shipwrecked's world. I know. Let's start our little chat with Taylor, shall we? Let's chat with Taylor. Hey, Taylor. Hi. How's it going? It's going pretty well. Thanks for coming over here. Thank you for having me. Thanks for sitting down with us.
We love you. I love me too. That's good, because we are here to talk about you today. We sure are. People listening to this can't see this, but I'm just sitting on a couch and I have four eyes, or I guess eight eyes on me. We're all winking. Seven eyes. Normally not all four of us are here for a podcast. This is a treat. You're going to get grilled now. My social security number is. So you were a part of our Poe Party crew. I was, it was awesome. What was your role? I was the script supervisor. We were so excited to have you, because...
I love working with you, personally. Can't speak for anyone else, but I think it's positive. I do, too. You're okay. And we needed a script supervisor, and I just thought of you, and you were game to do it. Yeah, even though I had never done it and didn't know what it was. We still don't. Yeah, I still don't know. It worked out fine, so there were papers.
Yeah, and now I realize that there probably could have been a simpler project in the universe to be a first time script supervisor on than one that's full of characters and has lots of plot points that revolve around objects. How was your co-party experience? Honestly, it was one of the best experiences of my life. We did not pay her to say that. No, it was a ton of fun. Everyone clearly cared about the project and enjoyed being there. And it was just sort of one of those things that you can't, on purpose, manufacture that level of...
dedication and enjoyment. It just sort of has to happen magically, and it did. It was so fun. It was a magical happening. I'm worried we'll be chasing that feeling for the rest of our careers. It was the summer camp experience that I always watched Disney Channel behind the scenes things, and like, I want to be on Disney Channel so I can hang out with...
Hey, we'll have to hang out with Clayton Snyder. Essentially the same thing. I remember when I told you, I actually told him this because he was on Crapper Stations the other day, that you were more excited about him than Jim O'Hare. I was just like, I was just speechless. I was like, he's from Lizzie McGuire, that's important. That's culturally significant. It is very significant, yeah. So walk us through, I guess, what a script supervisor does. Or what your role was on set. So I basically stood at the monitor, which is the screen. They call it Video Village.
So I just watched everything that was being filmed as it was being filmed and had a little like neat headset so I could listen in on everyone's microphones and heard a lot of fun chatter between takes. Oh no. Nothing scandalous. But it was cool because I got to like see everything and every take I would write down basically whether the director liked that take, whether there were good bloopers in the take. Very important. And I would try to also track like if...
Like a gun was pointed in one direction in one shot, it was pointed in the same direction in the other, so basically just like continuity. And that's a very important job. It's, I think, one of the hardest jobs. I feel like I could have done a lot better, but I was just so like, I don't, uh, for most of it. Well, we knew that going in that you were new to it, and I remember when I asked you, your sort of response was like, yeah, like I want to learn as much as I can about like all the parts of being on set, which I thought was really cool. I definitely learned a lot. Yeah, that's awesome. I feel like that's a valuable thing for anybody to do, you know, learn as much as you can about all the different roles, because...
Yeah, it's just gives you more respect for everybody else you're working with. For sure. How was working with Joe? Because you were... Yeah, you and Joe are buddies. I was in the director's pocket for pretty much the entire... It was great. He's awesome. And actually, I learned a lot as script supervisor about what a director does, like, way more than I was anticipating. And just, like, bowing down to Joe because he had such a great way of, like...
Simultaneously commending respect but also treating everyone with respect and like trusting people to do their jobs Which is on a film set or like in any sort of collaborative environment You have to be able to effectively delegate and like also allow people to figure things out So it's great. Like I learned a ton. I agree. I think he's so fantastic. Yeah, there's also like I think a Magic Castle member, which is another like We would just be editing and then He would just take a break. He never did that when I was there. And I'm really, I think he did that once and it was like the first editing session. Darn it. Well, Co-Carty was his greatest work of magic. That's true. That was a magic trick. It really was. For sure. I know. Are there any like particular things from set you remember that were particularly ridiculous? Yeah, it was cool because I got to witness every single like moment on set and all of the like, I think the funniest moment for me was when we were filming everyone.
like everyone's intros so the very last thing we filmed was the part where everyone like all the authors show up and everyone had their characters down and everybody was there watching and that felt like I TMI, but like straight up peed myself a little bit. I was laughing so hard. Just trying to like silently laugh, but like, yeah. So, so tough. It was fun. We had a very, a very tight group of people, especially at that point. And that is something that's really special. And I'm glad you were part of it. Yeah. Would you ever want to script supervise anything again after this? Or are you like, no? I'm good. I would if it were with the right people or the right project. There was no expectation that I knew what I was doing. I know, that's a nice.
It really is like the hardest job. I can't even quite have my brainer. You're the only person, I mean the director is paying attention to the big picture thing, but like in a way more general way than the script supervisor is. They are like seeing everything and they have to pay attention to every aspect. They're also of everything. I've worked on sets where like they were asking the script supervisor about like eyelines and like keeping them, they were the ones keeping track of like where characters moved and like who they should be, which way they're looking, which I had never like, that was crazy to me. I thought that was something that usually the DP and the director were like on.
It's crazy. Yeah, the script supervisor, I think, is the only job on set that's its own department head, which, like, you don't really answer to anyone. I mean, you do answer to someone, but, like, there's no one telling you to do anything. It was just kind of weird. Well, I've worked on a lot of web series that haven't had script supervisors, oddly enough, I guess. It's a very important job, but it's kind of one that you lose when you have less money, I guess. But, like, I'm obviously glad we had you for many reasons, because that's when you would have. Yeah, pretty necessary. So, you yourself are a writer. Yes. And you are working on some productions currently.
Could you share about this? Yeah, I have kind of, so like my day job, I'm a showrunner's assistant on two TV shows. One is called The Shinar Chronicles on MTV, which will be coming back this summer at some point, I think. And the other is called Into the Badlands on AMC, premiering March 19th. Are you a showrunner's assistant there as well? Yeah, so the showrunners, Al and Miles, they also ran Smallville, but they have just, they happen to have two shows on at the same time. I see. So they're cool dudes, and it's a very busy...
job, but it's awesome. Like, I'm in the writers room, I get to see everything happening, I get to read all the scripts as they come out and see dailies, and it's just like, I feel very lucky to have the finger on the pulse of like, two shows that I really like and enjoy. Yeah, that's so cool. How did you get that job? It was just through, I mean, I have been in LA for like two and a half years, so I'm also super lucky to be at this point now. But sort of, I moved here because I want to write TV, and kind of hit the ground running, like trying to meet as many people as I could, and like enforging those connections. Because like the TV industry is so kind of like underground, you get jobs through friends. And it's not that it's like nepotistic and evil, but people only want to work with people that they trust, who they like, because you're with them constantly, and there's so much...
involved that goes beyond what's on your resume. It's just like, can I get along with this person? Can I trust this person? Do I think that they have good ideas? So I ended up getting a writer's PA job on Into the Batlands, which is like, you get lunch for the writers and other things, but that's the main thing. And then from there, just like fostered the relationships with my supervisors and with everybody. And there was an opening for Sean Hunter's assistant. So I was, I was there for it. I am very impressed that you have only been here that long and all the people I know you've really like.
manage to sort of get your foot in the door in. But you've been very diligent about it, and you've been very like, also you're just very smart and capable. But I really enjoyed seeing you sort of make that happen for yourself. I have a crippling fear of failure, so if I'm not moving forward, I'm not, I'm just not. I'm just not. So since there are two shows, I know every day is different, but what is a general daily day for you? I mean, the good thing is, the bulk of the job is...
maintaining my showrunner's schedules and also like just sort of being up-to-date on our shows and one has already one is in post-production and the other is just starting production so because we're two different stages on those shows it's like I mostly just answer emails all day and like field phone calls they just are about a lot of different things and it's a lot of reading like I read every script as they come out and I read just other things that are relevant so but I mean a normal day-to-day is like not it's not crazy it's a desk job so I'm like in a place and occasionally I have to go do something random, but it's fairly ordinary in terms of what I actually do.
Now, Shannara Chronicles films in, like, New Zealand. Yeah, really? Uh, we filmed in Dublin this year. Okay, cool. That's so cool. If you'll ever get to go to the Senate. Oh, I wish. Probably not. I'm sort of, like, low on the totem pole. But maybe if our shows go for, like, long time. Yeah. I don't know. The way you're going about it is kind of the, like, typical, like, way that people sort of work to break into TV writing. Yeah. Um, I kind of mentioned it before, but, like, Writer's PA is sort of, like, the entry-level most job if you want to be a TV writer. There are also, like...
bunch of other things you need to do before that like typically people will go and work at an agency or management company on a desk for a year or something um which is where like you learn basically how the industry works and you meet the people who will get you those other jobs um and then after that like people also work as office pas which is where you're on set and that's like a pretty labor-intensive job it's a lot of like really huge runs like you have to keep everything stocked and pick up, like, a crapload of lunch for people. But so those are sort of, like, stepping stones. And then writer's PA is, like, the first job in a writer's room. But I'm very much, like, trying to be on the conveyor belt toward staff writer. Which is not, there's not, like, a clear path, but it's the clearest path that exists. Yeah. I think you're doing a good job. I'm trying. Would you, like, what would you say to somebody that's wanting to do a similar thing that's a few years younger than you? If somebody, like, listening to this one-story TV, I would say...
move to LA. Step one is be here. Step two would be like know as many people as you possibly can and like I moved up here knowing a bunch of people that like Mary-Kate I had as a when I was still in college I interned on Lizzie Bennet and Squaresville because I knew that like when I eventually moved to LA I would want to know people and so that was a really good way to like super smart yeah not just knowing me but just knowing people through Lizzie Bennet and Squaresville like really helped you out it gave me a huge head start like I think the reason that I've been able to like get to where I am now in the like two and a half years that I've been here is that like I started working on it a couple years before that But yeah, I would say, um, know people. And also like, I swear, like I have a cousin that I didn't know existed who lives in LA and he got me my first big job when I was out here. And he's just like, I didn't even, again, know he existed until my mom was like, your cousin Brendan is in LA. I was like, okay, mom, whatever. And then I met with him. He's awesome. We have all the same interests. And he happened to be friends with an actor who I cannot name, but who I worked for, for like my first year in LA. Um, so it was awesome. It was just like totally random. Um, so like, don't.
If your mom's best friend says she has a hairdresser who has a cousin who lives in L.A., email them. That's exactly how my friend got a job working for an actor out here. Really? Yeah, her mom's old hairdresser worked with L.A.B. like five years before and just hooked her up. It is crazy how that happens. So the lesson is to become a hairdresser. Or befriend every hairdresser. L.A. is weird because it's a huge thing, but I also feel very... So small. There's a lot to networking, but not in a gross sense. Meeting people, knowing people, being kind of people.
doing favors for people because that sort of thing will, I think, help you out. Networking is more of like a vetting process than it is about like, what can you do for me? Just like, are you sane and considerate? Yeah. So that's my advice. And work hard. Absolutely. You have been working on a cool project for a while, but it's like your own thing. Do you want to tell us all about that? Yeah. It's tentatively called The Hamlet Files, which is very, I don't know, it's like a gender-bent noir detective version of Hamlet that takes place.
in the 90s and it's um i mean like it's kind of just me going like i want to make monica mars how can i do that um but it's also um something i'm really passionate about my friend miles who directed spore which mary kate was in um is directing this too and we got we were finalists in the sundance new voices lab but we didn't get picked so somebody at least liked us enough to say like um but Didn't make it. So we're like, yeah, it's a good step to have that happen. We have to think about like whether we want to crowdfund or whether we're going to find the money. So I don't know how people, I don't know how people like get money. It's really hard. And things like our locations, we have locations. We have a cast. We have like so many things in place. It's just like we need an amount of money. So I'm thinking, I don't know, like this is sort of a little bit more of an informal.
Talk and you guys don't have to answer this but like I'm thinking of emailing people directly asking them for money Does that sound like the stupidest idea or is that like what my kind of people? People who I know like a Kickstarter. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna email Bill Gates. Yeah. Hey Bill. It seemed like you'd want to sneeze to you. So you mean like rather than doing a Kickstarter just asking directly people who I would think would want to back it anyway and then like having it
like, a third party hold the money in a bank account, so that it's not like, I'm just taking your money. If you have enough people you think would do that, it would be enough, then I guess you could just bypass it. We don't need a ton of money. It's like a five-page, two-location thing. that would be in two days. Anyway, all these details. But, like, I thought a lot about it. So, I hope I get to make it. I'm really, really excited about it. I hope so, too. We need more Veronica Mora stuff in this world. Yeah, we sure do. Is there anything else exciting going on in your life that you're working on or excited about? I don't know, man. I'm just sort of, like, trying to exist in this world and trying to stay sane and do things that make me happy and make the world better. Whether it's, like, I don't know, I decided that I wanted to write TV after having wanted to be, um...
a journalist and like a political commentary person commentator that's the word um and was just like i think journalism and like trying to like have people have thoughts about things that are correct is just like too exhausting so instead i'll write stories and like maybe trick people into the way that i do um so i don't know that i have any other projects going on but i am like thinking a lot about i'm doing a lot of like assessing um and trying to like i don't know give what I do every day meaning beyond myself. That's really vague. No, I think that's awesome. And I do think we do that, and I think a lot of people will do that. And that's an important thing to remember and strive for. So, way to go. It's nice to acknowledge that we all have to try to make the world a little bit better in our own way. We do. What have you guys been up to? Turning tables. Doing podcasts.
We're still working on the BTS features for Bo Party Kickstarter. We're very close to the end of the Kickstarter. I'm really excited. Are they looking good so far? Yeah, we haven't. I watch them. It's a big job. Oh, you're gonna have it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Got another one. We're starting on our next thing. Whatever that's gonna be. Dun-dun-dun. Dun-dun. Dun-dun. Dun-dun. We're excited. Yeah. Things are looking pretty good. Yeah. Is there anything you've watched or been into lately that you're particularly liking? I'm really happy that The Magicians is back. Yeah, you like that. I love it.
I hated the book so much. The show is better. Yeah, I didn't like the book either. It's way too, like, being in Quentin's head is not delightful at all. I do not like him. He's a little bit of a monster. But I like the show a lot. You need to watch it. It's on Netflix, right? Oh, yeah? Girl, it's on Netflix. Season two just started.
I'm really digging Crazy Head, I just watched on Netflix. What's Crazy Head? It's the people who did Misfits, Mary-Kate. Oh, somebody mentioned that to me. Okay, okay. It's like two Demon Hunter, like, early 20s girls in London. It's awesome. It's also like super, basically anything that resembles Buffy is what I watched, but...
I'm also really into, I've been watching Cheers. It's on the day all the time. Yeah, it was my favorite show when I was 10. Really? Yeah. Wow. It says a lot about me. I would stay up until, I would like, behind my mom's back, I had a little TV in my room, and I had a waterbed, and I just like have all these memories of me as a child, like, floating on my waterbed, and like crying about Sam and Diana, and a lot of emotions about that relationship.
So, yeah, I just, like, I'm now on season five, but I've been re-watching it since before Christmas. How many seasons are there? Eleven. Wow. So many. But Diane's only the first five. I love her. She's insane. So that's been good and also, like, very inspiring because that show is, like, it's written so well. Everything that happens on that show happens offscreen. So it's also super cheap, and I'm like, what can I do like this? Because it's awesome. Like, you can do anything on that show, and as long as it happens outside the bar, it's good.
That is cool. Yeah. Some good recs. Yeah. Well, thanks, Taylor. Thank you for having me. So excited to talk to you. If people want to find you and follow you on the interwebs, where can they do that? I am at TH Brogan. The Brogan Man. On most things, Twitter is where I am the most, although I've been trying to give myself a break from Twitter. Yeah, it's a hard place to be. Yeah. Yeah.
Well art is important and jokes are important even in times where everything is really sad hard, so just keep telling your jokes. Thank you. Making your art. Thank you. Cool, man. Well, thanks for chatting.
Yay, it was so much fun talking with Taylor. We'll be back in two weeks with another podcast. Surprise, who knows who it'll be. But yeah, I hope you enjoyed this one. And keep an eye out on our Instagram and our Twitter for any updates, fun photos. And yeah, watch those microwave auditions. Keep an eye out for those BTS featurettes. Yeah, I mean, if you're listening to the podcast, you're probably subscribed. But tell your friends to subscribe and get the word out. And yeah, follow us on all the medias. We love you.