Join John, Cam, and Jesse as the Open Pike Night crew welcomes Star Trek Strange New Worlds director Jordan Canning to the stage for an in-depth interview about her career, the history of Newfoundland cinema, Fraggle Rock, and of course, CHARADES!!!
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Jordan Canning: This is Jordan canning and you're listening to
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open pipe night. All right, now listen a little more intently.
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All right now now try it like how a Vulcan would listen
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John T Bolds: Is this thing on?
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Hello, hello welcome to open mic night the
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strange new world podcast where your personal logs are the prime
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directive. I'm your host John T bolds. here tonight with a
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wonderful guest and callers waiting in the wings to ensure
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that remediation has been completed properly. Joining me
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tonight are my co hosts first up the man who embraces both his
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dual selves the hardcore Star Trek fan and the doubtful
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enterprise naysayer, Jesse Bailey. Look, it's just that now
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that I've seen how a prequel can look, it's hard to really wrap
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my mind around how that prequel does look. And the man who
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wouldn't hesitate to launch himself into another dimension
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to make sure his co hosts will be there for recording, host of
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green shirt newbies trek through next generation, Cameron,
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Cameron: that just gave me the idea. Star Trek and 3d putting
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that down for a genre of strange new worlds is tackling. Oh,
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Paramount, sitting at the red and blue glasses to everyone.
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And
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John T Bolds: as if that weren't enough, we'd like to welcome
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returning guests to the open bike night stage. You may
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remember her from our coverage of the season two charades
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episode, but we are merely a blip on the screen of her
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directing credits, from Star Trek to shits Creek from Fraggle
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Rock to family law. Welcome to director, writer and producer
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Jordan canning. Hello.
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Jordan Canning: Welcome back for joining as you thanks for having
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me.
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John T Bolds: Yeah, it's, we got to spend 10 minutes on a press
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junket with you last time. And now that we've had a chance to
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talk more behind the scenes with Laura, Michael Dana, so many
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people involved with this episode where we are so happy to
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have you back. Joining us on the open pipeline stage.
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Jordan Canning: Yeah, that first time was like a speed date. Now
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we can really deep dive.
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Exactly.
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John T Bolds: Exactly. Which I mean, you know, we got to get to
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know somebody's history. So let's start at the beginning of
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your career.
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Jordan Canning: Sure, you bought the whole thing?
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Cameron: So how did a young Jordan get into filmmaking and
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storytelling?
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Jordan Canning: Ah, um, well, let me think so I grew up around
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film a little bit. My mom was a production designer. And so when
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I was a kid, I hung out on some film sets caught the bug a bit
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that way, I think, but didn't really think about it, as you
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know, a viable career path until after college, I went to
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university for creative writing and sociology and anthropology.
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And when I moved back home after I graduated, I sort of thought,
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okay, you know, what am I going to do? Maybe I'm going to be, I
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was really into photography at the time. And I thought, okay,
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maybe I'll go do journalism or media or something. Then I did
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this thing called the the first time filmmakers program, which
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was at our Film Co Op in Newfoundland, which is where I'm
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from, which was, it's an amazing program, the co op is an amazing
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place in general, but they had a great program that essentially,
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you could apply with like a 10 minute or less script, and they
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would connect you with, you know, a mentor and a volunteer
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crew, and you could shoot your first film on Super 16 film.
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Yeah, I'm dating myself a little bit there. But But yeah, and I
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just fell in love with it. I adapted like a short story that
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I'd written in college. It's very first film, you know, a
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couple having a fight about something, but the fights really
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about something else. So it's shot in black and white. And
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yeah, it just, it was a real one of those moments. It sounds kind
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of cheesy, but it was one of those moments where in the in
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the middle of making it. I mean, I didn't know. There was lots of
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things, obviously, I didn't know. But all the pieces that
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had to come together to make a film, you know, writing it,
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preparing it, figuring out where you were going to shoot who
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you're going to cast, you know, all of the details that really
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hooked me, I really loved that kind of multitasking, creative
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challenge. And, yeah, I got bit by the bug on that short film
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that was like 2006, I think, and then that's all I really wanted
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to do. So I just I kept making short films. And I started
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simultaneously I started working in the film industry in in St.
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John's. I worked on this really kind of cheesy ghost stories
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show it was called Legend and lore of the North Atlantic. So
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go, there was fairies there was lighthouses
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Cameron: sounds like something me and my wife would stay up
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late watching, you know
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Jordan Canning: if you could find it online, I bet it
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actually would be very fun to watch. It was cheesy, but it was
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very fun and very creative. And I started, you know, writing
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some of the narrator vo was the original job I had. And then I
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got to start shooting some of the interviews with like, the
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ghost expert. So cool. Yeah. And then I got to then I started
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directing some of the reenactments, which was where
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the real magic happens. Yeah, some real goodies there. And
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then yeah, the basically the next sort of three years was
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just me trying to figure out how to make more work. And you know,
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making a short film for no money, getting a little grant
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making it for a little bit more money, working as a script
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supervisor. So getting to watch a lot of other directors work
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and working with DPS and actors, and just getting a bit more of a
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lay of the land of, you know, film and TV in general. And then
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eventually, yeah, in 2009, I moved to Toronto to do this
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program here called the Canadian film center, which is sort of
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like our AFI directors lab here.
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And then I stuck around in Toronto, made a web series made
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it fun web series, you guys might like actually was called
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Space writers division Earth.
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And it was like a kind of Power Rangers spoof with like, really
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incredible comedians here in Toronto. very silly, but very
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fun. And yeah, made a couple of features, made a couple more
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short films. And then yeah, got into TV 2016, and sort of have
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been mostly just doing TV ever since not, only by choice, I'm
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still dying to make another film. But TV has been great and
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wonderful and fruitful. So I'm happy to be working and getting
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to make, you know, make as much work as I do. And working with
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such awesome people and working on such incredible shows, like
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strange new worlds
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Cameron: amazing shows. But let's let me go back a bit back
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back to the very first thing you talked about what what sort of
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sets were you on? What sort of movies did your mom work on?
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Jordan Canning: Do you guys know where Newfoundland is?
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Basically, essentially, okay.
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Yeah, East. Yeah, it's the easternmost province of Canada
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is an island in the Atlantic Ocean. And my, you know, the,
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it's the film industry there comparatively, is relatively
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young, sort of started in the 80s, maybe the late 70s, I
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think, the early 80s. And my mom was kind of in that first wave
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of like, you know, the first crew, she was like, one of the
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first production designers working with her buds, who were
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producing and directing and making films. So she worked on a
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couple of independent films there, there was one called
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Finding Mary March. And then the one that I kind of remember
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hanging out on because they shot some of it in our house, or
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maybe the green room was in our house was called Secret nation,
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which was a kind of cool, sort of conspiracy esque drama about
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Newfoundland. This is real inside baseball, Newfoundland,
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Canadian history here. But the you know, Newfoundland, joined
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Canada in 1949. And the vote was 49 to 51. And there is like,
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ongoing sort of, you know, conspiracy that it was not
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necessarily above board. And so this film was a great film,
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written by Mike Jones and starring all sorts of amazing
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Newfoundland actors. About that, and about like, discovering the
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conspiracy behind it, and whatnot. So I was like, a
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little, I don't know, maybe eight year old, kicking around
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hanging out in the green room eating craft, like talking to
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all the actors being like, this is great. What, what's going on?
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I like this,
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Cameron: did any of it? Was it surreal at all to you? Or did
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you kind of feel like you understood movies more than your
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friends? Like, you're like, No, this is how it's that's not real
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blood. It's just ketchup.
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Jordan Canning: I don't know.
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Uh, you know, it's hard to remember if, like, how that
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translated, I think I just really loved how many people
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were around. And I liked the community aspect of filmmaking,
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I still do I love a crew I love I'm an only child. So I think I
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was just always sort of seeking out, you know, standing siblings
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or something. But I, I loved how many people needed to all work
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together to make this one thing happen, you know, and how all
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the departments had all of these very specific tasks, and they
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all had to be in unison and on the same page, and, and, and,
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you know, working towards this central vision to Yeah, to make
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this one piece of art that then would like live on forever, you
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know, so I still love that I still am always, you know, when
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I'm, there's obviously there's stressful stuff about shooting
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and all sorts of crazy stuff.
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But when I'm there when we, you know, pulled it together, and
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I'm watching the monitor, and we're shooting a scene that
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we've all worked so hard together, like I always just
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have a big grin on my face. Like I just, I love seeing it all
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come together. their
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Cameron: sounds a lot like the crew of a starship. Yeah,
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Jordan Canning: it will it is what it feels like. It feels
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like a ship. Yeah.
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Jesse: And you were absolutely right. I would really like to
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check out space writers. I'm gonna see if I can find that and
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Jordan Canning: oh, it's it's there. You can find it on my
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Vimeo. I've got the whole thing.
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Oh, sweet. Oh, yeah, it's very funny. Yeah, evening sorted.
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Yeah, definitely met you get some chips watch Space riders.
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The villain is this amazing villain named Orson is played by
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an amazing actress named Kayla Lorette. There's a there's an
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evil person called the vicious mist. That's just a fog. And
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then there's the moon monster who's like Kyle Dooley in this
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like, ridiculous. Like, kind of Chewbacca ask cheap Dollarama
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type suit. You're gonna love it.
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It's fairly simple.
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John T Bolds: We are now I can tell ya interview today. Watch
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along let's.
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Cameron: So did you have any favorite directors growing up?
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Or after starting to make short films that? Yeah,
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Jordan Canning: I someone kind of asked me. I mean, if someone
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always asked you like, oh, what's your favorite movie? Or
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like, what's the movie that sort of inspired you? And weirdly, I
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just rewatched it a couple of weeks ago, because this came up.
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And I said, the movie that I think really inspired me at this
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seminal time where, you know, I was I was sort of thinking about
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film in a different way. Now, I watched so much so many movies
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when I was a kid, but not in a way that I was sort of thinking,
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oh, I want to do this. I was just I loved movies. And but I
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remember watching Magnolia by PT Anderson and being very, sort of
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blown away by it. And I rewatching it a couple of weeks
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ago, I was like, Oh, this I think this is because it was at
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this time where I'd never really seen a movie with so much kind
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of visual style. It was like we got a Steadicam, we got big long
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shots, we got you know, they're all singing now. And like so
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much energy and kind of like such a dynamic film. And it's,
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you know, it's a bit over the top. In some ways, when you
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watch it, you're like this three more than three hours. But it
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just felt so kind of indulgent and creative. And I think it
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just caught me at the right time where I I sort of saw film in a
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different way. It wasn't just the kind of the story that I was
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drawn into in the characters, which I was, but it was the
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technical wizardry of this film that really, I think I
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recognized it for the first time of like, oh, there's a real
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there's a technicality to this film that stands out and is
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exciting to me.
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Cameron: Yeah, it came out when I was in film school. And I just
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remember like, it's definitely one of those films that appeals
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to people who are learning about film and like really getting
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into it for like, maybe the first time like, that came out
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Fight Club Being John Malkovich.
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Like the turn of the century was just like, amazing.
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Jordan Canning: Daughter. Yeah, yes. Yeah. And I didn't go to
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film school. So I think I was just sort of like catching up a
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little bit and being like, wow, what?
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Marcy: What is this? What
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Jordan Canning: are they doing?
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How do you do this? I want to try this. Yeah, really
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Cameron: makes you think past like just watching as a viewer
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and going like, oh, there's something here. There's artistry
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here. Yeah, yeah, they're
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Jordan Canning: going for something. They're really like,
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trying out some stuff. They're throwing a lot of stuff at the
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wall. And like, some of it sticks. Some of it's wacky, but
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you know, you got to admire the the swings they're taking Yeah.
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Cameron: Was your mom really supportive of your decision to
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go into filmmaking? Or was she like, no, don't
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Unknown: do it. Now,
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Jordan Canning: both my parents, both very have always been very
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supportive, very fortunate that way, both. My mom worked as she
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was an artist. She's still an artist. She's an artist again
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now. But she worked as an artist. And then she kind of got
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into film and was a professor.
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And so really had like, kind of this very creative, piecemeal
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career that I always saw is like, Oh, well, that's how you
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can have a career. It's not it doesn't look one way. It's not a
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nine to five job. It's, it's being self employed. My dad was
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self employed as well is self employed still. So that kind of,
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you know, make your own schedule, find your own gigs was
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always kind of how I saw work.
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So yeah, they've both they both been always very supportive. And
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my mom was the production designer on a couple of my short
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films. My dad invested in my first feature film. Good. Thank
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you very much, dad. And so yeah, they're, they love it. They're
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great.
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Cameron: And then how did you go from those short films and those
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those indie films into TV? Was that something you you sought
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after you got an opportunity?
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Um,
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Jordan Canning: you know, back that I remember a very specific
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time, I think, I guess I'd finished the CFC. I was still in
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Toronto I had, and there was this middle time where I was
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like, What am I doing? I gotta go back to school and do
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something I gotta be like, I think I went as far as like
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applying to do environmental architectures I would I did, I
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can't even remember something where I was like, I gotta work
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in a real job and change the world. Because I was just like,
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What am I going to do? I'm just gonna like, Direct TV. Like,
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that's not a thing. Because at the time, it didn't feel this is
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before, again, dating myself.
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This is before the golden age of television, like it was sort of
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2000. And, I don't know, 10 or something like kind of before,
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like before, Netflix before, that really became a thing where
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it was really exciting. Besides like, HBO and stuff, it didn't.
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And we weren't I was in Canada.
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So it wasn't like, Oh, I'm going to direct an HBO show. It's
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like, what am I going to direct here? And how am I even going to
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get into it in the first place?
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So no, I didn't back then. Think about, it took me a while to
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think about directing as a job, I say, still something new to me
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to think about it, it was, you know, direct making movies was
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what I wanted to spend my time doing. And I that's what I spent
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all my time doing. Or I would work a job so I can make some
00:16:10
money. So I could go make another film. And, you know, I
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wasn't getting paid to be a director, I was getting paid to
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be a script supervisor or to write something or to get a
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grant. And so really the only way to make money as a director,
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at least, I mean, it's not the only way. But it is a viable way
00:16:31
to do it in Canada, especially is to work in TV. And once I
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kind of did break into TV, and I realized, like, oh, I learned so
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much on my first TV episode. And I also got to direct I didn't
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have to wait three and a half years and get a grant and like
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convince a bunch of people to do something with make a film with
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me, it's like, I can actually be paid to direct which is what I
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love to do most in the world.
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And I get to do it on all sorts of different types of projects.
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And it doesn't have to take three years of my life, I can go
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do one episode of a show and be done in three weeks and meet all
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these great people and try a bunch of new stuff. And then,
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you know, hand over the episode and move on to the next thing
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and and it was a shift when I started to recognize like, oh,
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there's there's something really wonderful about working in TV,
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both film and TV give you different things. But
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ultimately, they're feeding into the same set of skills and if
00:17:32
you love directing and love being on set, the way to do it
00:17:35
regularly is to work in TV you know films takes so long to get
00:17:39
off the ground. But TV you know, you can work on four or five,
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six shows a year and really keep honing your your skill set. And
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yeah, just getting to do what you love. So yeah,
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Cameron: well yeah, we want to talk about your TV career. And
00:17:54
let's kick that off with platys question.
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Platty: Hello, Jordan. This is Matt aka platinum three big fan
00:18:01
of open mic night and a big fan of your episode you did for
00:18:05
stranger worlds absolutely love charades. I'm a huge sitcom fan.
00:18:09
So to have a sitcom Star Trek episode is just awesome. So
00:18:14
usually when I call in I'm talking about an episode and I
00:18:17
talked about my hits shifts and misses from the episode.
00:18:20
Although I know that sounds negative I usually turn it all
00:18:22
positive but I got three questions for you hits Star Trek
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excluded what's in production you worked on that you knew was
00:18:28
going to be an amazing one just from your time behind the camera
00:18:32
on set and then it turned out to be So shifts have you ever been
00:18:35
part of any production where you just knew it was? Maybe not so
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amazing pay it was paying the bills got to do it. And Mrs.
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What is a show that you love and wish you could have directed
00:18:47
episodes of but it just never worked out due to scheduling
00:18:50
conflicts or you never even calling or trying or it being
00:18:54
anything that you'd normally do or maybe it just ended and was
00:18:57
cancelled than the show passed on and into an insert any other
00:19:01
reason? Was there something you missed that you really wish you
00:19:04
could have directed? Thanks a lot for all your work on Star
00:19:07
Trek platinum three out
00:19:10
Jordan Canning: hits shits and misses. I love it. Yeah, I want
00:19:13
that on T shirt. Great question.
00:19:13
Okay, so hits other than stranger worlds, which, you
00:19:19
know, working on that.
00:19:23
Obviously, you were just like this is the most special show in
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the world, I would say Fraggle Rock Fraggle Rock I got I worked
00:19:31
on season one. And then I came back on season two as the
00:19:35
producing director that's coming out in a couple of weeks the new
00:19:38
season, but it's not out yet.
00:19:38
But it was yeah, a really special magical experience. I
00:19:43
think anyone who's worked who worked on that show would would
00:19:47
agree but it was, you know, so creative and so amazing to go
00:19:52
into that world. Seeing all those sets, the sets are
00:19:56
gigantic and then you know you go into the creek You're
00:19:59
shopping you're working with like, just people at the top of
00:20:01
their field, the most amazing puppet builders and designers.
00:20:05
And, you know, the production team was incredible. And so it
00:20:09
really as we were making that I was like, This is really good. I
00:20:14
can't wait for everybody to see this and just, you know, the
00:20:19
writing was so great. The songs are amazing, the puppeteers are
00:20:22
amazing. Henson, you know, is just the best and so yeah, that
00:20:25
that's a big hit. I knew that going in because it just had so
00:20:30
much joy. We had so much fun making it and I knew that it was
00:20:33
translating to the to the show every every day was like, you
00:20:38
know, magic. Did you have a character? I mean, God, I love
00:20:41
them all red, obviously, I adore red. And Karen, who is the
00:20:46
puppeteer behind red is like a genius. I love Wembley, Wembley,
00:20:50
so silly. Uber, you know, his anxiety really, it speaks to me.
00:20:57
And, you know, I love them all mochi and Gobo they're also
00:21:02
dreams but yeah, probably read in a tie for read and, and, and
00:21:05
Wembley misses No shit, sorry, it shifts, um, you know, I have
00:21:13
been very fortunate to never work have worked on a show where
00:21:18
I was like, this is just to pay the bills, I don't, I don't like
00:21:22
this, you know, I, I've always kind of been very fortunate to
00:21:28
really, you know, whether it's like a show I would watch or
00:21:32
not, it's something that I am able to find my way into it, and
00:21:35
find something I love about it, or an ad, there's an actor and
00:21:39
and I love or the crew is great.
00:21:43
I did work on a show that I loved so deeply, it was a
00:21:47
wonderful show. And it unfortunately only go one
00:21:51
season. And it was just it was a it was a hard it was just a hard
00:21:55
shoot, it was a it was under resourced. And it was like gun
00:22:00
to your head every day, like trying to just make it work. And
00:22:05
that was a bummer. Because, you know, the material was so good.
00:22:08
The people involved like the the actors, the the to show runners,
00:22:12
the, the DP and they were all amazing. But sometimes you just
00:22:17
like, there's only so much you can do with your hands tied
00:22:20
behind your back. And it's that's just a bummer. If you get
00:22:22
kind of angry and because a you're tired, and you're
00:22:25
stressed out, but you're also just like, why are we doing
00:22:27
this, like, why we everybody worked so hard to get here. And
00:22:32
now you're not giving us enough time for any of us to do our
00:22:35
jobs properly. So that that's stressful. And I do try I mean,
00:22:40
sometimes you can't avoid it or you don't know that that's where
00:22:43
the show's gonna go. But I have learned to try to suss out shows
00:22:49
that may be challenging in that way and try to avoid them a bit.
00:22:52
Because it's just, it's heartbreaking really. It's like
00:22:55
when you care about something, and then it's not given the kind
00:22:58
of resources it needs to do it properly as a bummer. And then
00:23:03
misses. I mean, God, there's a zillion shows I would have
00:23:07
killed to work on the most recent one that comes to mind, I
00:23:09
think is our flag means death, like I loved our flag means that
00:23:14
I got deeply, you know, deeply obsessed with it over, you know,
00:23:19
the two seasons. And I was, you know, I was like pushing my
00:23:23
managers, I was like, You got it. Like, I was trying to think
00:23:26
like, how am I going to get on season three, like there's got
00:23:28
to be some way that then you know, got canceled. So, because
00:23:34
I always come back, I know there is like a big movement to try to
00:23:37
get it to come back. And maybe it will, which would be
00:23:40
incredible. But that is a show I would have loved to have worked
00:23:43
on I love the writing and the world of that. And also, I just
00:23:46
love a comedy that exists in a sort of elevated reality a bit
00:23:50
you know, something with with a lot of you know, great
00:23:53
production design and, and also just an amazing ensemble cast.
00:23:58
And yeah, I would have loved to have worked on that show.
00:24:00
Jesse: I was really surprised when that got cancelled because
00:24:03
every time an episode would come out, like all of the social
00:24:07
media for just the next week was like tons of people happy and
00:24:11
loving it and I'm like, What is going on at Warner Brothers?
00:24:15
Jordan Canning: i Great question. Yeah.
00:24:18
Cameron: Well, what about going forward any shows that are still
00:24:21
on or on the horizon that you'd love to work on? What's your
00:24:24
bucket list?
00:24:26
Jordan Canning: Bucket List shows what am I watching right
00:24:28
now? I mean go God guys I'm watching a lot of love is blind
00:24:36
six right now so I don't want to work on that. I don't know I
00:24:42
mean, it'd be fun to work on something like I haven't seen it
00:24:46
yet. But you know like, Tiger what TT is making a new time
00:24:49
bandits, where it's like that. I mean that working on something
00:24:52
of that level would be amazing.
00:24:52
Like Star Trek. Stranger worlds really does kind of spoil you a
00:24:56
little bit It died. Like I finished my episode a month and
00:25:01
a half ago. And I was like, well, it's all downhill from
00:25:04
here. Not gonna top that one that was great. So a show that
00:25:09
has that kind of world building.
00:25:15
It really excites me where you're really like, Okay, how
00:25:17
are we going to pull this out?
00:25:17
That's why I loved Fraggles so much. That's why I love strange
00:25:19
worlds because you're, you know, the props and the sets and the
00:25:21
costumes. Like, it's like a new.
00:25:26
It's a new, you're inventing new things every time. It's not just
00:25:30
like, what shirt from Old Navy should they wear? Yeah, I would
00:25:34
love to work on a show that has a really kind of rich world to
00:25:37
dig into.
00:25:39
Cameron: I love that. I can see that. Let's let's jump into
00:25:41
Jim's question. Yeah, we
00:25:43
John T Bolds: had lots of calls tonight. So we'll go through a
00:25:44
few of them here. Here he is Jen OpenPilot.
00:25:48
Unknown: This is Jen season girl. I have two questions from
00:25:52
the scanning. I'm sorry to say that I only know you via Star
00:25:55
Trek strange new worlds.
00:25:55
However, these open pipe interviews have been leading me
00:25:58
to go digging and viewing what's new to me movies and shows so
00:26:04
that I have a place to start of your previous work. Which are
00:26:08
you most proud of? And why? Of course, I'll have to check out
00:26:12
Fraggle Rock too. I love that show when I was a kid. My other
00:26:14
question, I've asked this a couple times. And it's received
00:26:18
interesting responses. What's a question you've always wanted to
00:26:22
be asked, but never have? And what's the answer? Thanks for
00:26:27
joining the Star Trek family and hopefully we get to see more of
00:26:32
you. Yeah, that's it. Oh,
00:26:37
Jordan Canning: my God. That's such a good but hard question.
00:26:40
Second question. Yeah. I'm dying to know what other people have
00:26:44
answered to that. I'll start with the easier one. Okay, so a
00:26:48
show that or previous work that I'm really proud of. I made a
00:26:58
short film. I mean, look, I there's something I love about
00:27:01
everything that I've ever made.
00:27:01
But I made a short film many years ago, called not over easy,
00:27:04
which is like a five minute mostly stop motion animation
00:27:10
film about these two eggs going through a breakup. And it's
00:27:15
completely wacky as you can imagine it. Me and I and my
00:27:20
partner at the time, Jodi wrote this script. And then it's the
00:27:26
first film I made in Toronto, I moved to Toronto for the CFC.
00:27:30
And then my roommate and collaborator, Sam price
00:27:35
Phillips, who was my one of my dearest friends, and also was my
00:27:38
DP on many shoots that I did. We were roommates. We lived in this
00:27:43
loft together. And basically like the two of us, and Mike,
00:27:47
the animator, we shot it in this, this our apartment we
00:27:51
built, we had all the sets in this apartment, and we spent
00:27:55
like, a month, you know, photographing these egg puppets,
00:27:58
doing all sorts of crazy stuff.
00:28:02
And I I am still so proud of that film. It's really funny.
00:28:06
There's no dialogue in it.
00:28:06
There's a real, the ending is great. And it's still something
00:28:08
I watch where I'm like, you know, sometimes where you read
00:28:12
something you wrote a long time ago or something you made,
00:28:15
you're just like, I can't even remember being that person.
00:28:18
Like, I love that my brain did that. I don't, I can't really
00:28:23
transport myself back to remembering how to like come up
00:28:26
with something like that. But I'm glad that I did a past
00:28:29
version of me did do that. You can also watch that online. It's
00:28:34
it's very silly as well. So a question I've always wanted to
00:28:40
be asked. Hmm, this is a hard question. It's like really
00:28:46
having to dig deep. This is not a question I've always wanted to
00:28:50
be asked but you talk about something like talking about
00:28:53
things that I've become weirdly obsessed with in my older age
00:28:57
like our flag means death is one of them. But two years ago
00:29:01
actually when I was shooting Fragale I got really into these
00:29:04
this series of books that carry on trilogy Simon snow. These
00:29:13
three books by this amazing author named rainbow Raul, and I
00:29:18
have never and I wouldn't have just like, I don't know 39 or
00:29:23
something. When I read these, they're ya they're they're
00:29:27
essentially ya although I think they're for everybody. And I
00:29:31
have never gotten so into a set of stories like that before, to
00:29:39
a degree where I was rereading them right away. And it again,
00:29:43
it opened up this world. It's like essentially, it's kind of
00:29:48
like amazing. It's like kind of like queer Harry Potter sort of
00:29:51
if like, Draco was a vampire and and Tim and Harry fell in love
00:29:56
but It's so good. And I want to talk about it more. I want to be
00:30:03
like, I tried to bring it up and you know, not that many people
00:30:08
want to talk about it. But I, you know if anyone wants to talk
00:30:11
about Simon's No, I'm here for it. I'll I've read them. Many,
00:30:14
many times.
00:30:18
Jesse: There was an adaptation of that. Would that be something
00:30:20
you immediately told your manager go get? Or would you
00:30:23
want to, like maintain a careful distance? No,
00:30:26
Jordan Canning: I will. I don't want to maintain any care. I'm
00:30:29
not kidding. If rainbow REL is listening to this. Please. I, I
00:30:36
would do anything to work on an adaptation of that. Yeah, that
00:30:39
is my truly my dream project.
00:30:39
Yeah,
00:30:42
Cameron: we'll see what we can do.
00:30:43
Jordan Canning: I mean, she just she built it. You want to talk
00:30:45
about amazing world building like, it's, it's just a world I
00:30:48
want to spend so much time in.
00:30:48
So whether it ever gets adapted to anything. It exists and will
00:30:52
always exist. And I'm thankful for that. But yes, I would do
00:30:57
anything to work on that. I
00:31:02
Cameron: think that's a great answer that question. Yeah.
00:31:05
Well, let's just jump into Mercy's Colvin. Hey,
00:31:07
Marcy: guys, it's Marcy again.
00:31:07
From idle right podcast. I heard that you have Jordan canning on
00:31:11
today. And I know that this is a strange new worlds podcast. And
00:31:15
it's all about charades today.
00:31:18
But I was hoping to ask a couple of other kinds of questions. I
00:31:22
have been extremely happy in recent years that I've seen a
00:31:25
lot more women directors, women editors, just women in the
00:31:31
behind the scenes kind of setting in Hollywood and in TV
00:31:35
shows, because I've been a longtime media consumer. So I'm
00:31:39
just wondering if she does anything distinctly different
00:31:43
from her male counterparts in the role of director, I don't
00:31:46
really know all the ins and outs of being a director, but maybe
00:31:50
she could talk about how she does things and how she might do
00:31:53
things a little bit differently.
00:31:53
And then also, I'd like to ask a question about shits Creek. I
00:31:58
know she did some directing for that show. And I can't even
00:32:02
imagine how amazing that must have been to work with all those
00:32:07
improv actors. And well, one of my favorite actors of all time
00:32:11
is Catherine O'Hara. So what was it like kind of navigating
00:32:15
working with people who do a lot of improv? And how do you know
00:32:19
when to stop the improv? Anyway, thank you so much for answering
00:32:25
my questions.
00:32:28
Jordan Canning: Great questions.
00:32:28
Yes, I mean, I'm very happy to have so many women working in
00:32:31
film too, because I get to work with them. You had Dana on the
00:32:34
show, Dana's you know, one of my favorite editors have ever
00:32:37
worked with being a director, you don't really get to work
00:32:40
with other directors. So it is one of those things where you
00:32:43
don't get to often watch how somebody else does it. I got to
00:32:48
when I was a script supervisor, before I was working as a
00:32:51
director, I got to work with a lot of directors coming up in
00:32:54
that department. So I worked on a show where I think there was
00:33:00
like, you know, nine, nine different directors different,
00:33:04
you know, different episodes, and all of them. Were men and a
00:33:07
wide variety. Well, no, not a wide but not a wide variety of
00:33:16
men. They were all white guys, but a variety of ways of how
00:33:19
they behaved on on set and how they ran their cruise. And and I
00:33:24
did really get a sense of like, I mean, we all did on the
00:33:32
cruise, like which ones you really wanted to work with and
00:33:35
who you really liked their their working style. And which ones
00:33:38
you were like, Why is this? How does this guy have this job?
00:33:44
This is not he's not doing a good job. He's lost the faith of
00:33:47
the crew. He's, you know, not great with actors. We're not
00:33:51
making our days why does this guy have this job? How did he
00:33:55
get this job? And I remember, I mean, this was in like, 2009. So
00:34:00
I had just made some short films. I hadn't even made a
00:34:05
feature yet. But I do remember sort of watching and being like,
00:34:08
I really think I could do this.
00:34:12
I think I wouldn't do that. And I would not do that. Okay, cool.
00:34:20
So, but once you start working as a director, it's not like,
00:34:24
you get to see how other people do it. You hear stories, and
00:34:27
people will be like, Oh, I love I love working with you about
00:34:30
this, or they tell you a horror story or whatever. So, but but
00:34:33
in terms of what I do differently than men, I mean, I
00:34:38
who knows but the way I like to work on set is just, you know,
00:34:43
I'm very communicative. I approach everything with a sense
00:34:48
of humor, and I don't like to, I don't ever kind of like yell or
00:34:54
you know, let the stress kind of really weigh us down on the day.
00:34:58
I just want to feel I'm empowered and supported when I'm
00:35:02
working, you know, I want to believe like, I want to feel
00:35:04
trusted to do my best work, I want the actors to be able to
00:35:09
trust me, I want the crew to trust me, I want them to believe
00:35:13
like, I know what I'm doing, I'm steering the ship, I'm going to
00:35:17
need all of your help. But I got this, you know, and I mean, it
00:35:21
makes me feel very good, just as Jordan on set when things are,
00:35:26
whether they're running smoothly or not, to feel that trust to
00:35:30
feel an actor kind of like listen to a direction I give,
00:35:33
and, you know, take it in and say, Okay, I got it and then go
00:35:37
do it. Like, that makes me a better director. And I think
00:35:45
that that goes both ways, I think they can feel that I am
00:35:49
giving myself and opening myself up and listening to them and
00:35:54
trying to make you know, make an environment for all of us to
00:35:58
just feel kind of supported and and trusted to do our work. So
00:36:06
that that's kind of all I can do and and I just try to keep
00:36:09
things fun. Like I'm I'm kind of a silly dork on set, too. Like I
00:36:12
you know, I like making people laugh. I like keeping the energy
00:36:16
up. I like keeping the pace up.
00:36:16
And everybody's working so hard.
00:36:21
You know, you don't want the kind of dark cloud to come over
00:36:24
where we start to feel like this isn't fun anymore. No, it's fun.
00:36:28
We got aliens. We got, you know, all sorts of crazy stuff going
00:36:32
on. Like we should be just having fun, even though it's
00:36:35
really hard. You're playing pretend for a living. Exactly.
00:36:38
Yeah. So that's, that's how I try to approach it. And I just I
00:36:43
love being on set and directing.
00:36:43
I really do feel most like myself when I am doing that job.
00:36:47
So it feels good. And I want to keep sort of chasing it. So
00:36:52
yeah, sounds
00:36:56
Jesse: like you're making a genuine and successful if I may
00:36:59
say effort to avoid the people on your productions, having that
00:37:03
feeling you mentioned where you're like, why are we doing
00:37:06
this? Like? Yes, because then they lose track of what they're
00:37:09
doing. Yeah,
00:37:10
Jordan Canning: you work together and then you make a
00:37:11
decision. And then you run with the decision.
00:37:13
Cameron: Just like a good Starfleet captain. Yeah, damn
00:37:16
right. What about shits Creek?
00:37:16
Oh, right.
00:37:20
Jordan Canning: She's Creek.
00:37:20
Yes. So Catherine O'Hara is the best. She's the absolute best.
00:37:23
The She's a queen. She is the most lovely down to earth,
00:37:28
incredibly talented, Whiz, genius woman that I have. I have
00:37:33
nothing but admiration and awe and love for her and working
00:37:37
with her is for sure. highlight of my career. You know, she's,
00:37:41
you know, what's funny, though, is like that show actually
00:37:44
didn't have a lot of improv at all. It was a kind of rigorously
00:37:47
written show. And you know, everybody, not everybody would
00:37:55
take a pass. But like Katherine and Eugene, like the writers
00:37:58
were incredible already. The scripts were so great that that
00:38:01
you know, it's a testament to them to how natural and loose it
00:38:03
can feel. But then, you know, Katherine would kind of do a
00:38:07
pass for her character. And they would really work the script
00:38:09
before we ever got to set once in a while, we'd be shooting a
00:38:13
scene and something was a little clunky, and we'd have to sort of
00:38:16
pause and work it out a bit. But hardly any of it was improvised.
00:38:20
Maybe there'd be like, a button at the end of the scene or
00:38:23
something. But most of it was was as written.
00:38:27
Cameron: Was there any patriotic pride in working with such
00:38:30
Canadian icons as Katherine and Eugene?
00:38:33
Jordan Canning: I mean, yeah, it just felt like, you know, you
00:38:36
just sort of like, sit there and like, because they're such good
00:38:38
friends, you know, and they would just like, shoot the shit
00:38:41
and talk and tell stories and you're just like, listening.
00:38:46
Like, and what what else happened on Best in Show? Oh,
00:38:50
man. Yeah, there. There's and Eugene is like this. Honestly,
00:38:55
Catherine Agena that two of the sweetest most like, down to
00:38:59
earth loving people like Eugene wrote handwritten thank you
00:39:02
notes to every person on the crew at the end of the shoot.
00:39:05
Like, he's just a genuinely kind and thoughtful man. And
00:39:10
Catherine is like, you could any of you could have just a chat
00:39:13
with her. She's so down and she's like, Hey, how's it going?
00:39:15
I'm Katherine. What do you guys do? You know, she's, she's so
00:39:18
chill and so talented. And yeah, that was a dream working with
00:39:22
them. Yeah, I'd love to get to work with them again. So
00:39:25
Cameron: what uh, speaking of that kind of what what do you
00:39:27
think draws you to comedy? It seems like that is kind of a
00:39:30
common denominator and much of your work. Not all of it. But
00:39:33
uh, yeah,
00:39:34
Jordan Canning: I think I'm kind of a silly person. Like I think
00:39:37
I I just enjoy laughing I enjoy making people laugh and I like
00:39:42
being around comedians, like I love comedians. I love riffing.
00:39:47
I love sort of figuring out you know, what's the funniest thing
00:39:50
we could do? Let's try. I think what I like about comedy too is
00:39:53
you do you get to try different stuff. You know in drama, you
00:39:57
can try it you can you agree refining performance. says, of
00:40:00
course all the time, but sometimes with comedy, it's
00:40:02
like, okay, well, we're going to try five very different things.
00:40:06
Who knows what's going to be funny? You know, one of them is
00:40:08
going to be like, really off the wall. One of them's gonna have a
00:40:11
prop one of them's gonna have, you know, why don't you tip out
00:40:14
of your chair. And this was like a perfect example. Just to bring
00:40:17
it back to charades for a sec is like, that scene, the great
00:40:20
scene where like, Spock laughs for the first time where he's
00:40:24
sitting around the table with, with, you know, the gals.
00:40:30
Ortegas tells a joke, and now he's human Spock. And he
00:40:35
actually gets it and it his laughter gets more and more
00:40:38
uproarious to the point where it's uncomfortable to tone it
00:40:42
down. You know, it's like, okay, and so I think as it was
00:40:47
scripted originally was like, Spock laughs so far, so hard, he
00:40:50
falls out of his chair, like, that was the idea was like, it
00:40:53
has to get that big. And, you know, at a certain point, we
00:40:58
never actually did one where he fell out of the chair, but
00:41:01
because it was just, it was too wonky. It was then it was like a
00:41:04
stunt and it was a bit too, too slapstick, but we knew we wanted
00:41:08
it to get had to get big and so that, you know, it's like we I
00:41:13
was like, okay, so you're gonna slap the tail. And then I was
00:41:16
like, oh, maybe like whack, you know, give owners shoulder
00:41:18
whack. You know, like, try that stuff. And then Ethan was the
00:41:23
one who at one point, I think literally cuz he was so thirsty.
00:41:27
chugged the drink. Like he had this thing. He'd been laughing
00:41:30
so hard, and was like, out of breath. And then he was just
00:41:32
like, so Thursday. chugged it.
00:41:32
And it was so funny. I was like, Well, now you have to chug it
00:41:35
every time because that is definitely I definitely want
00:41:38
that. I need that in the coverage now. So that was never
00:41:40
scripted. That was like a sort of spur of the moment instinct
00:41:44
he had. But then you see, and you're like, Okay, that's a,
00:41:47
that's a perfect way to end this. Like, it's so. So outside
00:41:50
of how Spock would ever be a Spock has like, you know, like a
00:41:55
tiki drink. And he's chugging it. And then he's just sort of
00:42:00
like a teenage boy me like, sorry, I just got thirsty.
00:42:02
You're like, so far, from what, you know, Vulcans Bach would be
00:42:07
like, so I just I think I like the spontaneity of continuity of
00:42:12
comedy. And, and when and when a comedian is, you know, when
00:42:17
you're working with like skilled comedians, it's kind of magic to
00:42:20
watch them, you know, improvise and throw things out there and
00:42:24
just kind of really be quite, quite vulnerable in this way
00:42:28
where you're like, well, this might be funny, this might not
00:42:31
be funny, but they're going to try it. And I just, yeah, I love
00:42:34
creating a kind of environment for them to be able to try these
00:42:40
big swings, whether they make it into the cut or not.
00:42:46
Jesse: We'll definitely ask about that later as well.
00:42:50
Cameron: Yeah, we're about to get into Star Trek. But one
00:42:52
final question is you kind of mentioned how, you know, when
00:42:55
you got started, you were put together with a mentor. And then
00:42:59
I read that later, you got a chance to be a mentor to high
00:43:03
schoolers as well. So what was that like making that switch?
00:43:07
Jordan Canning: Yeah, I've done a few. I mean, there's, there's
00:43:11
a great film festival in St.
00:43:11
John's, where I'm from called the St. John's International
00:43:14
Women's Film Festival. And I've worked with them. For years by
00:43:18
my shorts have played there.
00:43:23
I've done workshops with them.
00:43:23
And I've done a kind of a few different sort of like, high
00:43:26
school like working with high school students doing like
00:43:29
making like a 48 hour film, or right now I'm sort of mentoring
00:43:34
a young female filmmaker who's making her first short through
00:43:38
them. I mean, it's great. I love it, I love to talk about film, I
00:43:42
love to talk about it with people who are excited and, you
00:43:46
know, try to impart I always feel like a little bit, you
00:43:51
know, like, man, I've got the Wisdom for you just sit down,
00:43:53
and I'll tell you how it really is. So, you know, you walk that
00:43:57
line of like, wanting to encourage them and tell them,
00:44:02
you know, be like, this is a dream and do it but also, I do
00:44:06
always try to kind of impart a little bit of like realism about
00:44:10
the industry too, because it's, it's hard and I have gone
00:44:14
through many ups and downs in terms of just like, is this
00:44:18
going to work out? Is it always going to be this hard? Like,
00:44:21
when is it going to catch like I felt ready to work in TV like
00:44:24
four years before I ever got my first gig and so when I like
00:44:27
when like a young kind of up and coming directors like I want to
00:44:32
get into TV, how do I get into TV and I'm like, Just keep doing
00:44:35
what you're doing like keep working keep making stuff, but
00:44:39
like yeah, it may still take many years after when you feel
00:44:44
like you are ready to do it. So I don't know I try not to be
00:44:48
like a buzzkill. But I there's a line to walk where it's like
00:44:52
this is I hope good advice. That also doesn't scare you away from
00:44:57
the industry. But making them
00:45:01
Cameron: aware of the challenges is a big part of them interpret
00:45:03
Sure. Yeah,
00:45:05
John T Bolds: absolutely. And we'll never will we will move
00:45:07
into Star Trek in general here.
00:45:07
But first our open fight nine listeners will be happy to know
00:45:11
that Jordans cat has joined joined the chat. So,
00:45:17
Cameron: yes, the cat's name boots on classic nice
00:45:21
John T Bolds: classic. Yeah.
00:45:21
Fantastic. So, trek in general, how'd you get the job? Were you
00:45:28
like actively seeking Star Trek?
00:45:32
Or how did this opportunity
00:45:35
Jordan Canning: presented itself? I wasn't actively
00:45:39
seeking it. Though I now I will always be actively seeking it.
00:45:45
You know, I, I'm not entirely sure how I think that they
00:45:52
because what's so special, I'm sure you know this. But what's
00:45:56
so special about strange new worlds is unlike kind of almost
00:46:00
any show that I can think of.
00:46:00
They really every single episode is like its own standalone movie
00:46:04
of the week. And they really, you know, they do an amazing
00:46:07
work. The both the creators and also the cast of being kind of
00:46:12
flexibly moving through these different genres and tones every
00:46:16
week, you know, where you can do them, you know, the musical
00:46:20
episode of the horror episode of the comedy episode. And they
00:46:22
work really hard to pair the right director with the right
00:46:28
script. So that you know, if you like, obviously, the director of
00:46:31
the musical episode is like this incredible, incredible musical
00:46:34
director. And, you know, you wouldn't just kind of throw
00:46:37
anybody into that. And so I think my understanding is, you
00:46:39
know, they, they had a comedy episode that they wanted a
00:46:42
comedy director for. And so they reached out to my agents. And I
00:46:47
had a great interview with Chris Fisher, who I don't know if you
00:46:52
guys have ever had Fisher on but
00:46:55
Jesse: this close and then there was like a strike. So I heard
00:46:59
Jordan Canning: about that.
00:46:59
Yeah. Well, I'm sure you'll have him on at some point he is
00:47:02
you'll love him. He's a dream.
00:47:04
He's again, one of like, really, like, when I talk about be
00:47:10
feeling supported and trusted and having someone having your
00:47:13
back like, Chris Fisher is one of the kind of embodies like,
00:47:19
everything a producing director and producers should be he just
00:47:22
like, he sees what the director needs. He helps you get there.
00:47:26
He's so calm. He's so supportive. And so I had this
00:47:30
great interview with him. But it was more of a chat like I
00:47:34
thought it was sometimes you do an interview and it's more like
00:47:37
an interview and you're like, Okay, I'm trying to pitch myself
00:47:40
and here, but this was more just kind of a great chat, where I
00:47:44
kind of, at the end, he was like, Well, great. We'll, we'll
00:47:48
see you soon. And I was like, Hey, did I get that job? Did
00:47:52
that did I do it? Okay. So it was it was just like one of
00:47:57
those lucky, you know, you know, the most amazing show cake is
00:48:03
what happened with Fraggle two.
00:48:03
It's like, these incredible shows that somehow I get in the
00:48:05
mix of, and then I actually nail it. And then you're like, Well,
00:48:09
I'm in i It's like I won the lottery. So I hadn't been
00:48:12
seeking it out. And I didn't really know what I was walking
00:48:16
into. I'd watched some of it.
00:48:21
But then of course, I watched all of it. I actually got to
00:48:24
watch. It wasn't out. It wasn't released, but but I got sent the
00:48:30
sort of pre released episodes.
00:48:30
So some of the VFX was like, still green screen and stuff.
00:48:35
But you know, watching it, I was like, Oh, I watched Season Two
00:48:39
of discovery just to kind of be like, Oh, this is who the
00:48:42
characters are. And you know, getting to know, you know, Spock
00:48:44
and pi, Kaduna. And get a taste of that. But when I watched the
00:48:48
first season, even with like, the rough effects, I just Yeah,
00:48:52
I was so excited. I I was like, Oh, this is a really good show.
00:48:58
This is cool. This is gonna be this is gonna be amazing, then
00:49:02
it was even better than I thought. So
00:49:06
John T Bolds: that's great. So on the show is as cinematic as
00:49:09
strange new worlds is. And like you mentioned them being their
00:49:11
own individual mini movies almost. Does it feel like a
00:49:15
movie set? Or how are the conventions of television work
00:49:21
ever present? Like how does it How does it feel?
00:49:24
Jordan Canning: They really do an amazing job of like, giving
00:49:27
the episode what it needs.
00:49:27
Within I mean, you know, it's still a TV episode. So it's not
00:49:31
like we get 30 days to shoot one but you do get 12 days which is
00:49:36
a lot of time for a one hour and you you use every second of it,
00:49:42
you need it but it does. It gives you the opportunity to try
00:49:46
things and to not feel rushed all the time and to do some
00:49:52
specialty shots and to really like dig in with the actors. So
00:49:55
there is there is definitely more or it feels like there's
00:49:59
more time and resources? Well, there is literally both of those
00:50:04
things than on kind of a typical one hour TV set where you can.
00:50:09
They care about the show, they care about the world, they care
00:50:13
about the quality of every episode and every piece of every
00:50:16
episode. And so they, you know, they allot the resources where
00:50:22
it needs to be, which is time, you know, that's what is missing
00:50:26
on those shows where you're just like, Well, how am I supposed to
00:50:29
do this in six days? Like, I can't do this. And so they they
00:50:33
know what the show needs? And they, they follow through on it?
00:50:39
Cameron: Can you tell him about the difference between directing
00:50:42
for television and directing a film as a film director, and you
00:50:46
kind of mentioned before, how there's aspects of both that you
00:50:48
enjoy? And so maybe, yeah,
00:50:51
Jordan Canning: I mean, I've the only films I've made have been
00:50:53
real indie films. So there's obviously like a big difference
00:50:57
between just, you know, the amount of people and resources
00:51:01
and money on a on a film set versus on an indie film set
00:51:05
versus on a TV film set. You know, usually on a TV set,
00:51:09
you're shooting a lot more in one day, you know, you're
00:51:11
shooting a much larger page count, you've got multiple
00:51:14
cameras going, you've got you know, you're digging into more
00:51:20
stuff, often than you would on a film ideally on a on a film set.
00:51:26
Where maybe you have a bit more time or you're not, you know, my
00:51:31
last film was you know, is like mostly a two hander, two women
00:51:36
in one location handheld, you know, so there's, it's a totally
00:51:40
different kind of, set of, you know, equipment you need in
00:51:45
terms of your coverage, your you know, you're doing kind of like
00:51:48
a two shot and two singles. It's not like, Okay, we gotta get the
00:51:51
crane balanced. And then we're gonna push through the window
00:51:54
and you know, into the AR wall and all sorts of stuff. So,
00:51:58
yeah, I've never I would love to direct on a big movie, I'd love
00:52:03
to do kind of something like a star a Star Trek movie would be
00:52:07
amazing, or, you know, something with that kind of higher level
00:52:11
of budget and resources, but mostly in TV. Yeah, you're
00:52:15
you're trying to make your day is kind of like, you got to make
00:52:18
your day. Often on a movie, you got to make your day too, but
00:52:21
sometimes there's a bit more flexibility because you're
00:52:23
usually like, if it's your own movie, you're like, Okay, well,
00:52:27
we'll get that tomorrow. I'll figure out how to get it
00:52:29
tomorrow. If this you don't get a scene it's like oh, well now
00:52:32
200 people are mad at me so
00:52:37
John T Bolds: well, you did you got the shots and you actually
00:52:39
got some behind the scenes shots to you and a lot of us were we
00:52:42
love following along on your
00:52:44
Jordan Canning: way. Do you see my snow for season three? I got
00:52:46
so much stuff. I can't wait to post it in a year or whatever.
00:52:50
Right?
00:52:51
John T Bolds: So out of curiosity, What's the process
00:52:54
like for sharing stuff? Like like you have to get it? Like
00:52:57
approved by Paramount or the showrunners? Or who says yes or
00:53:01
no to what you can put up?
00:53:03
Jordan Canning: Man I've been on shows that have been so you
00:53:07
can't post anything even when the show is out there very
00:53:10
selective about what you can post stranger world is way more
00:53:15
chill like Fischer. Chris. When I was shooting it, I took a
00:53:19
picture of you know, like the back of the chair with my name
00:53:21
on it. And I was like, Can I post this? He was like, Yeah,
00:53:23
sure. Everybody knows for shooting it's fine. I think as
00:53:26
long as you're not giving anything away, you don't want to
00:53:28
can't give away obviously any spoilers, any cast any set
00:53:32
pieces, but, you know, taking pictures of like, here's Spock
00:53:37
at Chapel in the sickbay.
00:53:37
Everybody knows what they look like. And so they're pretty
00:53:39
chill about it. Knock on wood, so I didn't have any trouble
00:53:44
with it. Yeah. Excellent. And
00:53:49
John T Bolds: you worked with a couple of our previous guests on
00:53:52
open bike. Now you mentioned in a gas briefing, but also Glenn
00:53:55
Keenan, what were the collaborations with those two,
00:53:57
like? Well, I
00:53:59
Jordan Canning: loved working with Glenn. We had a real hoot.
00:54:02
It was weird. I was because of COVID. My DP I was originally
00:54:07
supposed to be I think with Ian.
00:54:07
And then He then got COVID and then Glenn. got swamped. So I
00:54:11
ended up working with Glenn. And yeah, we had a great time we, we
00:54:15
got along. It's so nice to be able to prep with your DP. They
00:54:20
have multiple TPS on the show.
00:54:24
So you can actually you know, spend your two weeks of prep
00:54:27
with the DP shortlisting going through the stats figuring all
00:54:30
that out. Which you need. You need it on a show like this with
00:54:33
so much kind of technical stuff.
00:54:33
But yeah, Glen rocks. He's so he's so chill. We had a great
00:54:38
time. And then Dana is a dream.
00:54:42
I mean, you met Dana. She's like, not only like the sweetest
00:54:46
human she's an amazing editor.
00:54:46
She's so smart and so fast and like such a great problem
00:54:51
solver. Great Taste just the best. I'd work with her on
00:54:55
anything. Yeah. Fantastic.
00:54:59
John T Bolds: Well, we got another call. from regular
00:55:01
contributor Abby,
00:55:03
Abby from First Flight: Hey, open pike in Jordan, this is
00:55:05
Abby summer from the first flight podcast. Jordan, I wanted
00:55:08
to say, I absolutely love charades and your direction was
00:55:11
part of it. I was hoping that you could talk a little bit
00:55:14
about if there was any shad in particular that you really loved
00:55:18
in that episode that you want to call out for us to notice and
00:55:22
really make sure that you pay attention for and is there a
00:55:25
shot or multiple shots that you've done in other projects
00:55:28
that you wanted to call out for just being really happy that
00:55:32
they came out the way they did?
00:55:32
Whether it was really difficult, or really inspired or really
00:55:35
unique? I would just like to know, some of the things that
00:55:37
you find that you are the most proud of all of you do amazing
00:55:41
work. And I hope this finds you well.
00:55:47
Jordan Canning: Great question.
00:55:47
I love that I was just like, I'm just going to pull up my, my
00:55:49
Star Trek because I keep a kind of folder on Google Photos every
00:55:53
for like any references I have, and then also kind of screen
00:55:58
grabs from from the show itself.
00:56:05
Just to see what I like so Okay, well, one thing for charades
00:56:09
that I. I mean, there's so many shots I loved. And there's some
00:56:13
really funny ones. But there's this one thing we did that I'm
00:56:16
not sure, maybe anyone would notice. But I kind of thought it
00:56:21
was kind of cool. It's just more sort of like thematic than
00:56:25
anything else. But so there's these two scenes, these two
00:56:29
different interview scenes that chapel has with the mean Vulcan
00:56:33
guy from the Academy. And, you know, the first scene is shot in
00:56:39
the ready room. And he's, it's when he like really tears her a
00:56:43
new one, and she feels like shit afterwards. And then the second
00:56:47
scene later is when she's feeling very empowered, she's
00:56:49
just going to enter dimensional space. And she's like, You know
00:56:51
what, I don't need your stinking Vulcan Academy. And the way that
00:56:55
we shot that, you know, in the ready room, he's big, he's big
00:57:00
up on the screen, he's very imposing, and I shot it in a way
00:57:03
I want to shoot in a way to make her feel very small, diminutive,
00:57:06
so we filmed you know, we shot down on her shot up on him, you
00:57:10
know, there's a big wide of her where she's just tiny in the
00:57:13
frame. And you can see his big head, kind of like, bearing down
00:57:17
on her. And she's just kind of made to feel very sort of small
00:57:20
and sad. And then kind of the mirror scene of that later, when
00:57:25
she's like, empowered and doesn't give a crap about this
00:57:29
guy. We shot in the sickbay or bangas room, where now he's
00:57:35
small on the monitor, she's big, we shot down on him up on her to
00:57:39
give her this kind of power. And it's just like, again, it's
00:57:43
there's nothing like mind blowing. But I was very The
00:57:48
great thing about this show is like when you have 14 days to
00:57:52
prep something which you never get, usually you get half of
00:57:55
that you can actually like, plan out these visual things in a way
00:58:00
that like yeah, maybe no one will really pick up on it, maybe
00:58:03
they'll sort of feel it. But those are just the things where
00:58:07
it's like icing on the cake where you can actually make
00:58:10
these sort of visual motifs or you know, through lines or
00:58:14
mirror there's there's shots there's a lot of mirrored shots
00:58:17
between Spock and Chapel because it's a kind of a truly like,
00:58:21
sort of, you know, to it's following both of them. So
00:58:25
there's there's some repeated shots in there. And I mean, I
00:58:31
love my I love the shot, the kiss shot. I mean, I I love that
00:58:35
whole final scene. I was really proud of how that turned out in
00:58:38
the 360 smooth shot. Emeril romantic for crap like that.
00:58:44
Classic. It's classic. Yeah, and epic smooch. So yeah, I was I
00:58:50
loved how everything turned out.
00:58:50
In that episode, the Yeah, it was it was great to have that
00:58:56
much time to plan and to really like execute it properly. And
00:58:59
then in other stuff, things that I've done, what's something that
00:59:04
I I mean, there's some great stuff in Fraggles Season Two
00:59:07
coming up in a couple of weeks, the PI the season premiere of,
00:59:11
of Fraggles Season One, there's some pretty special, wild things
00:59:16
we did with puppets and I'm really excited for people to see
00:59:21
we really Yeah, we we took some big swings there and I think
00:59:24
they turned out great. So yeah, I'm excited for that to be out
00:59:27
in the world. And
00:59:30
John T Bolds: also you posted a series of shots from charades on
00:59:34
Instagram and also the films and TVs that inspired them.
00:59:38
Jordan Canning: Yes. And I had four of those Yeah, no, I'm
00:59:41
gonna do that again for for season three. I love that too.
00:59:45
There was one I meant to post to have actually have a Laura from
00:59:48
The Devil Wears Prada doors. Oh, but that was actually Yeah, her
00:59:53
and Miranda Priestly was kind of the inspiration for that.
00:59:56
John T Bolds: That's cool. What do you how do you go about the
00:59:58
process of building out the shot list. How do you when do you,
01:00:02
when you see those shots? Do you capture them? And hope to use
01:00:06
them in the future? Or do you go back hunting through once? You
01:00:08
know, the script is
01:00:11
Jordan Canning: I read the script a lot. And then I kind of
01:00:13
start to Yeah, pull images, like, it depends, like sometimes
01:00:18
there's something very specific, like I know, okay, so when Spock
01:00:22
wakes up from, you know, when he's lying on the table, I knew
01:00:27
in my head, I was like, Okay, I want a POV shot, I want like the
01:00:29
kind of looking down the three of them looking down the barrel.
01:00:32
So then I start with that, and then I go, pull a bunch of
01:00:35
references of that I pull, I go on shot deck, or I pull them for
01:00:39
that, or for like the kiss, I know, I wanted it to be bad or
01:00:44
not, not the kiss, but when they're in the bathroom, where
01:00:46
she zaps him with the, you know, she turns him back into a
01:00:49
Vulcan, I really wanted that to be reminiscent of this show that
01:00:55
there's a show that I love called sex education. Or
01:00:57
there's, there's a great scene where the two, they finally kiss
01:01:01
and it's backlit. And it's kind of just two beautiful
01:01:04
silhouettes. So I start kind of pulling references. And then I
01:01:07
also pulled just a ton of like, great. I was like looking up
01:01:10
different science fiction films.
01:01:10
And so I would just be pulling kind of the images that spoke to
01:01:13
me. Yeah, love
01:01:17
John T Bolds: seeing the sunshine reference there for
01:01:18
Spock with Yeah, Murphy, some of
01:01:21
Jordan Canning: it gets us like, you know, you guys, you guys at
01:01:24
home can't see it. But you know, I pulled you know, there's tons
01:01:27
of stuff from a rifle for Wake when she's talking to the
01:01:29
aliens. And I was sort of thinking like, oh, an
01:01:33
intervention dimensional space, maybe that maybe we use like
01:01:35
wider lenses. So I pulled a bunch of stuff of like, okay,
01:01:39
here's like, kind of close ups, you know, and I really wanted, I
01:01:42
really wanted, like the aliens to be very big compared to them,
01:01:46
like, I wanted it to be this feeling of like, and we didn't
01:01:49
even quite make them as big as I would have imagined them in my
01:01:53
head. So yeah, I do this for every project, I'll pull
01:01:58
anywhere from, you know, 40 to 100 images, and then they're
01:02:03
just sort of there. So I can pull them up and show them to
01:02:07
Glen or show them to the operator and be like, Okay,
01:02:09
this, you know, here's like three cool overhead shots that I
01:02:14
like, Can we do something like this, or, you know, and
01:02:17
sometimes they work sometimes they don't like I had this, this
01:02:21
didn't work out at all, I had this kind of image in my head
01:02:24
were before we shot the scene, like long before, you know where
01:02:28
where Spock hugs chapel in the hall, which is very weird. You
01:02:33
know, him being physically close, I had that, you know,
01:02:35
this great shot for Minority Report, where I was kind of
01:02:38
like, I kind of wanted to see both of their faces at the same
01:02:42
time. It's actually a very hard shot to like, you couldn't just
01:02:46
kind of go into the hug, it had to be very sort of weird and
01:02:48
voice and that's too heavy. And it was it turned out to be such
01:02:52
a kind of sweet, more more comedic scene, it didn't want
01:02:58
to, I didn't need to have something kind of as like
01:03:00
austere is that so you know, you have all these things. And then
01:03:03
some of them you use and some of them you never do. But they're
01:03:06
fun to have for later. Because then yeah, doing that side by
01:03:10
side stuff is very satisfying.
01:03:10
Oh, that's
01:03:12
Jesse: a great process. When you were talking specifically about
01:03:16
that shot composition between chapel and the Vulcan and the
01:03:19
mirroring of that, that's some of my favorite stuff where like,
01:03:23
you're kind of being delivered this extra layer of story, even
01:03:26
if you don't realize it, and like you said, you just feel it
01:03:29
and you stand in the same space with them. So we are going to
01:03:33
jump directly into charades proper here. And some of these
01:03:39
questions. I will warn you are very specific because we very
01:03:44
specifically love this episode.
01:03:44
So we know that Spock swore when he was turned into a human and
01:03:49
he realized it. Is there a full cut with Spock's actual F bomb?
01:03:57
Jordan Canning: I don't think he ever completed the F bomb. I
01:04:00
always went out because I knew we had to cut it. So I think I
01:04:04
was like Ethan, you need to extend the F a little bit so
01:04:08
that I can cut out of it without right. Don't think we there
01:04:16
might be one take there were certain was certainly never a
01:04:18
cut of it where we kept it in.
01:04:18
It's
01:04:20
Cameron: our holy grail that there's a tape of that out there
01:04:22
somewhere.
01:04:23
Jordan Canning: There might be at least the UK would know.
01:04:26
Yeah.
01:04:27
Cameron: i Yeah, we forgot to ask Dana but we might have to
01:04:29
email her directly specifically about that.
01:04:32
Jesse: So our very good friend Patrick from the it's got Star
01:04:36
Trek podcast astutely asks, thank you so much for helping
01:04:40
craft such a brilliant episode of Star Trek. What are some key
01:04:44
challenges or maybe advantages to doing humor in the context of
01:04:49
modern Star Trek.
01:04:50
Jordan Canning: One of the many things that's so great about the
01:04:52
show is like the actors, they're so flexible. They're they're all
01:04:58
they can do obviously They can do incredible drama. And they
01:05:01
can, you know, give all these this crazy space exposition and
01:05:06
make it sound like, oh yeah, that's a real word. But then
01:05:10
they're also good at comedy. And I loved doing that episode and
01:05:14
letting everybody have like a little moment. You know, it's
01:05:17
like when guna and her and Ortegas and lon are standing
01:05:22
there trying to teach Spock how to speak Vulcan and be Vulcan.
01:05:26
Like we had there isn't there's an extended kind of that they
01:05:30
were there was improv there.
01:05:30
They were trying stuff, we had all sorts of stuff, silly things
01:05:33
in there. And I was just, you know, I was like, This is so
01:05:37
fun. It's kind of a weird thing to say, but like, you know, what
01:05:41
I always loved about Foo Fighters was like, you know,
01:05:44
they're an amazing band, but then they would make these
01:05:49
amazing comedy videos, where you'd be like, Oh, they don't
01:05:52
take themselves. So seriously. I like the more for this. I think
01:05:54
when you see someone being funny, being a little bit silly
01:05:59
playing around, you just love them more. And I think that's
01:06:03
what's so great about the show is like, it's not all serious
01:06:06
and earnest all the time.
01:06:10
Because there's a divide, then they don't feel necessarily like
01:06:14
you can kind of get past the wall. And but then you see, you
01:06:19
know, you see them being silly or cracking jokes or like, I
01:06:21
liked them. They seem fun. I want to hang out with them. You
01:06:24
know, I think there's Yeah, earnestness can only take you so
01:06:28
far. So I think that it helps in a show where there does have to
01:06:32
be obviously like, big dramatic stuff and sci fi seven that, you
01:06:35
know, all of that is so important. But it's nice to kind
01:06:39
of catch your breath sometimes and like, laugh and feel kind of
01:06:44
a bit more at ease in the world.
01:06:46
Cameron: I remember you saying last time you were here that the
01:06:48
voyage home was one of your favorite Star Trek installments.
01:06:51
And that checks out like,
01:06:52
Jordan Canning: yeah, I loved it. I watched it so many times.
01:06:55
And I've watched now all of the movies. I hadn't watched all the
01:06:58
movies up until I got that job.
01:06:58
I'd seen a couple of them. But I'd seen The Voyage Home easily
01:07:01
a dozen times. Like I still. I love it so much.
01:07:06
Cameron: Real quick. I think I read somewhere that you said you
01:07:08
had a crush on cue watching tng growing up had
01:07:14
Unknown: still looks great.
01:07:16
Jordan Canning: Like a fine line. He looks great. You know?
01:07:20
Yeah. Someday I Oh. Yeah. I was always drawn. Yeah. Like drawn
01:07:26
to the kind of comedic comedic trickster character. Of course,
01:07:30
I loved Q You know, because like, he just changed up the
01:07:33
energy, you're suddenly like, Oh, now kind of Picard is being
01:07:37
kind of funny, too. And it? It's just yeah, there's something I
01:07:41
always loved the funny episodes of exe files to like, I liked
01:07:45
seeing Mulder being a little silly sometimes.
01:07:50
Jesse: So, as a, an episode, Director, I just I have no idea.
01:07:56
So I'm gonna ask to find out. Do you get to be involved at all
01:08:00
with the casting of like a guest star like outside of the
01:08:03
principal cast? And if so, what made Laura and Michael stand out
01:08:08
as great parents? Oh,
01:08:10
Jordan Canning: my God, they were so good. Yes. Sometimes
01:08:14
depends. Usually, the answer is yes, for for a guest star, you
01:08:19
would be involved you'd see.
01:08:19
You'd see auditions and you would either do a like a
01:08:23
callback with them or just kind of decide with the, with the
01:08:28
showrunner and the producers and writers together, you would kind
01:08:33
of come to a decision to be like, we love them. Sometimes
01:08:35
the guest star has been cast before you got there because
01:08:39
they're in a longer, you know, storyline that needs to play
01:08:43
out. And they had to do chemistry reasons stuff. But
01:08:45
yes, so a lot. Yeah, they, they just stood out there. I mean,
01:08:50
there were some other great actors in the bunch, but I feel
01:08:53
like both both of them just immediately when we we saw them.
01:08:56
Everyone was like, they're their that's their perfect. She was
01:09:00
terrifying. I mean, you met you met her? She's like the sweetest
01:09:05
opposite Yeah, her and on the like, scary. You know, monster
01:09:10
in law mother in law, vibes and.
01:09:17
And then, you know, her sort of sweet henpecked husband who's
01:09:21
just like, kind of just like, you know, doesn't have a
01:09:26
backbone left after years and years, but it's kind of just
01:09:29
okay with it. You know, that was a great, the energy was great
01:09:32
between the two of them fully
01:09:34
Jesse: agree. So we have a couple of questions here from
01:09:38
our wonderful callers, John, if you don't mind. Let's start with
01:09:41
Julian. Here we go.
01:09:44
Unknown: Hello, Jordan. This is Julian from strange new pod. I
01:09:48
just want to say that it was a pleasure to get to talk to you a
01:09:51
few months ago. It was just a great conversation. I'll always
01:09:55
remember our little chat about the bacon and Spock And I think
01:10:01
you mentioning something a bout a spit bucket. So, a great story
01:10:06
a great episode. Congratulations on being on open pike. They are
01:10:10
a wonderful crew over there. And hopefully we'll get to talk to
01:10:13
you for season three. Have a great time. A
01:10:17
Jesse: bacon spit bucket?
01:10:19
Jordan Canning: Well, usually when X when there's like eating
01:10:23
on set, there's actors are offered, there's a spit bucket
01:10:27
nearby because if they got to do 10 takes of something, you know,
01:10:30
they they don't always want to eat it all. And Ethan did have
01:10:34
to eat a lot of bacon for that.
01:10:34
We also we God bless them the the props department and they're
01:10:40
great food stylists made, tried to make like turkey bacon, like
01:10:46
they made sort of turkey bacon and sort of painted it almost
01:10:50
like with edible stuff to make it look like real bacon because
01:10:53
they were like, well, maybe he'll want to eat. You won't
01:10:56
want to eat this much real bacon, but it just didn't look
01:10:59
real enough. And Ethan and it didn't you know it flops around.
01:11:03
And Ethan God, God bless him was like, I'll just do the real
01:11:06
bacon. And yeah, he definitely ate a lot of it. He spit out
01:11:11
some of it, but it wasn't there wasn't a consistent spitting. He
01:11:15
ate a lot of bacon.
01:11:18
Unknown: What a tough job. Yeah, tough
01:11:20
Jordan Canning: rough. Rough day on set. Yeah, exactly.
01:11:25
Cameron: Yeah, I want to go back to the casting real quick before
01:11:27
our next call. Because I have to know what casting the
01:11:29
interdimensional customer service alien was low. Well,
01:11:33
that's
01:11:33
Jordan Canning: actually an interesting story a little bit.
01:11:36
So when we shot the scenes, there was an actor there, this
01:11:42
great actor who's a friend of mine, Jameson Kramer, he was
01:11:45
actually on set with a mic and he was reading the off camera
01:11:48
lines. And he did and he was fabulous. He was just the right
01:11:53
level of passive aggressive and sort of like, he was so good.
01:11:57
And then when they then they ended up changing it. I don't
01:12:02
actually know the story because I remember after we edited it,
01:12:06
someone from the show reached out to me and they were like,
01:12:09
who was the actor who did that?
01:12:09
We heard that you're friends with him and I gave them
01:12:12
Jamison's name. And so I thought, Oh, my God, that's
01:12:14
great. They're gonna actually use Jamison's voice because I,
01:12:16
you know, you get used to something in the cut. And I was
01:12:19
like, Oh, I don't want to hear anything between those. But then
01:12:21
they ended up changing it to a to a female actress. I actually
01:12:25
I don't know where I don't know how that changed. She was great
01:12:30
to just not quite as bitchy as Davison was a bit more of a kind
01:12:34
of tone. Yeah, that I just really liked. But yeah, there's
01:12:40
an actor, any, they're so great.
01:12:45
I mean, often you just have like the script supervisor reading
01:12:47
it, but they always they bring in an actor so that, you know,
01:12:50
they can really do a great performance and stuff.
01:12:53
Jesse: And now we got to champion the Jameson cut.
01:12:56
That's, that's amazing. Yeah.
01:12:58
Jordan Canning: I mean, that's in the Jamison's, for sure. In
01:13:00
my directory, Scott. Yeah. You guys, we
01:13:02
Jesse: got to send a lot of emails today.
01:13:05
Jordan Canning: Bombard her with emails tonight. Yeah.
01:13:08
Cameron: Oh, they just got done talking to Jordan. I can tell.
01:13:11
Yes. Gonna say
01:13:12
Jesse: she would she would know.
01:13:12
All right, we've got one more call. And one more right in this
01:13:15
one comes from our very good friend, Grayson.
01:13:22
Grayson: Hi, Jordan, what a cool opportunity to get to talk to
01:13:24
you. I'm such a behind the scenes TV nerd. I love knowing
01:13:29
how the sausage gets made. And I have a little bit of television
01:13:33
production experience, probably just enough to be dangerous. So
01:13:38
I'm just super curious about how this particular episode of
01:13:45
strange new worlds got made. And I know that there's a couple of
01:13:48
different ways to shoot a TV show. There's a multicam TV
01:13:51
show, and there's a single cam TV show, and I'm pretty sure
01:13:54
that strange new worlds is a single cam TV show. And that
01:13:58
means that all of Ansan mounts, brilliant, hysterical, and
01:14:04
awesome reaction shots. Were not in the moment, you had to go
01:14:10
either go back and get those or shoot them ahead of time. Or, I
01:14:16
don't know, how do you manage to make sure that those incredibly
01:14:21
hysterical and seemingly spontaneous moments feel
01:14:27
spontaneous, even though they have to be planned? They have to
01:14:32
be scheduled somehow or or are they not? Do you realize in the
01:14:38
moment Hey, Wouldn't it be funny if Anson comes up with a tray of
01:14:43
hors d'oeuvres and then realizes Oh, no, I don't want to be on
01:14:46
that conversation in terms of I'm just super curious. How do
01:14:50
you decide those things? Does it happen in the moment or is that
01:14:54
in the storyboard?
01:14:55
Jordan Canning: Thanks. Yes, it is single camp, but it's a kind
01:14:58
of a misnomer because it's We shoot with multiple cameras. But
01:15:01
it's not like a It's not like a sitcom where there's, you know,
01:15:05
five cameras shooting everything at once you know you, you shoot
01:15:08
coverage. So yes, Pike's great reaction to that moment. I think
01:15:17
we shot I'm trying to remember that was our biggest day, that
01:15:20
was a really long day in Pike's quarters. And I have a feeling
01:15:26
that was the day we were trying to actually shoot Anson out,
01:15:29
because he really, you know, he's mostly just sort of sitting
01:15:34
over in the kitchen for a lot of it. So you know, there's just at
01:15:37
a certain point you like, we have to shoot all of this stuff
01:15:40
with, with the Vulcans in the living room and you're like,
01:15:43
let's just let let's shoot ants and stuff. So he can go home,
01:15:46
you know, so he's not sitting there for hours and hours
01:15:48
waiting for us to do everybody else. But yeah, we would have
01:15:53
I'm sure. I can't quite remember exactly how but but that was not
01:15:58
scripted. It was something that kind of Yeah, kind of came out
01:16:04
in the blocking. That was really funny. And that, yeah, we just
01:16:07
wanted to make sure was covered.
01:16:07
Because I mean, Pike is in a couple of those scenes like he's
01:16:10
there when, you know, in the ceremony, where she's tearing
01:16:14
Spock a new one, and he's just sort of off in the corner, like
01:16:18
and he takes like a little like, awkward sip of of brandy, you
01:16:21
know. So it's great in a comedy to have those little cutaways,
01:16:26
obviously, and Anson gives you so much. He's so funny. He's
01:16:29
He's so funny on camera and gives you lots of great reaction
01:16:33
stuff. So, yeah, it would have been planned, I imagined, I
01:16:39
think we actually probably would have blocked it shot out
01:16:42
everything in the direction towards the kitchen, and then be
01:16:45
like, Okay, let's get amston Scrape reaction. And we just
01:16:48
would have rolled the camera and been like, ants and just kind of
01:16:50
walk through it and try it a couple of different ways. And
01:16:54
yeah, then that was it.
01:17:00
Jesse: All comes out in the edit, man.
01:17:02
Jordan Canning: It's all in the edit. Yeah.
01:17:03
Jesse: That's so cool. All right. Yeah, that was one of
01:17:06
those things. I think when we cover that episode, 90% of our
01:17:09
callers were like, answer Brad's face. And it's a man's face.
01:17:12
Like, yeah, I know. Right? It's I mean, it's
01:17:15
Cameron: everyone. This episode is all about the reactions. I
01:17:17
mean, comedies about reacting but it is like, some great
01:17:21
Jordan Canning: looks. Yeah, great little looks between, you
01:17:24
know, the scene where Ethan when, when Amanda first shows
01:17:27
up, and Ethan shows up with that hat on and like the looks
01:17:30
between pike. And, you know, Anson did improvise that line on
01:17:35
when it's like, it's regulation, right, Captain goes plan one
01:17:39
just like it. That was that was improvised.
01:17:43
Cameron: I love it. Yeah. So
01:17:45
Jesse: you had mentioned your kind of shot inspiration list.
01:17:49
And you you mentioned it as a tool that you use on a lot of
01:17:52
your jobs whenever you have the time to prepare. This is spoiler
01:17:57
adjacent, but we're not asking for specifics. Is there anything
01:18:01
that you might recommend we watch in visual preparation for
01:18:04
your season three episode? Oh.
01:18:15
Jordan Canning: Yeah, that's too obscure. I don't think so. No, I
01:18:19
mean, you could watch all of season two of Stranger world
01:18:25
preparation.
01:18:26
Jesse: Absolutely. Our goal is never to get anybody's NDA
01:18:29
broken, of course. Yes. So our last right in here comes from
01:18:36
our friend David Jones, who has background on under the cloak of
01:18:40
war in season two. David says, I just want to say thank you to
01:18:44
Jordan canning for giving us fans one of the best episodes of
01:18:47
strange new worlds. And we can't wait to see what more you have
01:18:51
in store for us live long and prosper. And that will bring me
01:18:56
to my final question. Which is, was there any actual charades
01:19:03
playing that ended up on film?
01:19:06
Jordan Canning: I, I wish I will say I feel like there was a
01:19:11
there was a version of the script that actually lost the
01:19:18
charades entirely. And then we brought it back like even that
01:19:22
little those couple little lines. I wish that there was
01:19:27
some of that no, there was never any charades actually played,
01:19:30
unfortunately. A very fun blooper reel for the credits or
01:19:34
something. But yeah, yeah. The line. Yeah, Michael's little
01:19:39
bonus line was great. I'm so glad we got that in there.
01:19:42
Jesse: He recommends that any Star Trek convention putting
01:19:46
together an event should probably do charades with the
01:19:50
actors from charades.
01:19:52
Jordan Canning: Oh my god. Yes.
01:19:52
That would be incredible. That would be great.
01:19:56
Cameron: Oh, going back to David's comment though. How did
01:20:00
it feel having charades named is like one of the Top 10 Top 25
01:20:04
films and so many lists are yes,
01:20:07
Jordan Canning: it was amazing it was. So it was like a gift as
01:20:12
such a surprise and such a wonderful. Yeah, such a kind of
01:20:18
wonderful culmination of that episode and how special it was
01:20:23
to shoot that show. And I really did. And I will say like,
01:20:27
somehow I didn't think it was possible. But somehow my episode
01:20:31
of season three, I had an even more kind of special time on it.
01:20:34
So maybe it'll just keep keep going. But you know, that it
01:20:40
really was such a highlight to make sure aids and so it was
01:20:44
great to see that it found its audience and found, like some
01:20:47
critical love and that it was showing up on all these lists
01:20:51
with like, you know, obviously, you know, the big, obvious,
01:20:53
amazing episodes like the successions, and The Last of Us
01:20:57
is in, you know, all of those episodes that everyone talked
01:21:01
about. So I, I'm very hopeful that it kind of found some new
01:21:06
viewership that people maybe who wouldn't be like normal Star
01:21:09
Trek fans or sci fi fans who would be like, Oh, maybe I
01:21:13
should check out strange new worlds. This sounds kind of
01:21:15
cool. Yeah, and I'm glad I'm so glad that it was a comedy
01:21:19
episode like that. That to me, just like kind of proves the
01:21:22
point of like, yes, comedy, and space is great. People. People
01:21:25
want it. People want more comedy. Yeah.
01:21:27
Cameron: Yeah. The pirate sees and comedy and space. Yes. Yeah.
01:21:31
I
01:21:31
Jesse: think a huge accomplishment of the episode is
01:21:34
that you could show it to somebody who like, for example,
01:21:38
my wife always described Star Trek growing up. She's like, I
01:21:41
just remember it was always people talking. And I wasn't
01:21:44
interested in it. And it's like, I know that she enjoys this
01:21:48
episode, because every time I've had it on, she goes, Oh, is it
01:21:51
the funny one? And I'm like, Yes. Check it out. Like yeah, so
01:21:54
it's, it's, I mean, like you said, to be able to do comedy in
01:21:58
Star Trek is got to feel like a gift. And it absolutely felt
01:22:02
like a gift for us, the audience. It
01:22:04
Jordan Canning: is a gift. And and it's Yeah, I mean, I think
01:22:08
what this show does so good, too, is just like the the
01:22:11
relationship. I mean, you know, there's lots of people talking,
01:22:13
and they're dealing with big space, you know, phenomenon and
01:22:17
stuff. But the characters and the relationships really are at
01:22:20
the forefront of this show. And they've done such a beautiful
01:22:23
job with, with all of the cast and the and the relationships
01:22:27
between them. So yeah, I think that anybody can really get into
01:22:31
this show. Because it's, you know, it's about humans.
01:22:35
Cameron: I just have a question.
01:22:35
That's not really a good Capra question, because it's a very
01:22:37
meaty question, but it's kind of what we're talking about. And
01:22:39
that I think one of the reasons comedy works I think a lot of
01:22:42
your comedy is based in drama, from what I've seen your short
01:22:46
film or your feature films and, and a lot of the work you've
01:22:49
done, you know, for, for me, I was watching this episode, and I
01:22:53
was like, oh, it's, it's a puberty parable. That's what's
01:22:55
happening in your discussions with Ethan like finding that
01:22:59
balance of Vulcan human Spock?
01:23:03
Like, what what did you guys talk about? How did you discuss
01:23:06
that?
01:23:06
Jordan Canning: We talked about it a lot. We had actually like
01:23:10
a, I mean, we didn't end up using it that much. But when we
01:23:13
were first in prep, we actually sort of taught we had like a
01:23:16
numerical system, we were like, kind of zero to five of being
01:23:20
like, zero is like him at his most repressed Vulcan, where
01:23:24
he's like, pushing all the human out. One, one to two is kind of
01:23:29
like, regular Spock as he would be where he can has a bit more
01:23:33
balance. And then as you got three to five, it would be sort
01:23:36
of like, okay, that humans taking over. And so it was a way
01:23:39
for us to kind of map it out a bit where you find the scenes
01:23:43
like, where he's going to be as human as he's ever been, and,
01:23:47
you know, kind of an unhinged human as opposed to just a sort
01:23:51
of calm human. But yeah, we talked about it a lot. And then
01:23:55
we played around a lot on set, you know, there would be he
01:23:58
would try something and I'd be like, I think you could be a bit
01:24:01
more human here. Try like, you know, actually feeling like the
01:24:04
scene. It's one of those scenes like where you read it, and
01:24:07
you're like, Okay, this could maybe this might not work we'll
01:24:11
see. But the scene when he's kind of first talking to him
01:24:15
Banga and pike, where they're like, how do you feel? And he's
01:24:19
like, Well, I feel sad and scared and angry and hungry,
01:24:26
like, and we kind of got it. So he's sort of every emotion he
01:24:31
describes. He's sort of feeling it a little like, he's That's
01:24:34
how quick he's, he's like, flipping between feelings. And I
01:24:40
think Ethan just kind of nailed, nailed it. Because it could be
01:24:43
really, you know, there's a world where this could have gone
01:24:46
like, too wacky or whatever. It always had to still be grounded
01:24:49
in like a real Spock experience.
01:24:49
And so yeah, we would try different stuff we'd find too,
01:24:55
and I'd be like, That's too human too. too big, too small.
01:24:57
and just kind of got, you know, after the first few days, I feel
01:25:01
like we just kind of got in a rhythm of it and knew how to
01:25:04
dial it up and dial it down.
01:25:10
John T Bolds: And apparently Sam Kirk can dial him up to a five,
01:25:13
no problem.
01:25:16
Cameron: Did you talk much about like, what I like the
01:25:19
allegorical aspect of it, like whether it was puberty, whether
01:25:22
it's, you know, multicultural relationships or the
01:25:26
Jordan Canning: puberty NISS of it was more about how he was
01:25:30
behaving, we didn't sort of talk about it in an allegorical way.
01:25:33
It was more about like, how does that affect your behavior? How
01:25:36
are you? You know, how are you reacting? In this moment? How
01:25:40
are you sort of taking in lawn and this through this different
01:25:44
lens in this moment, you know, and, you know, throwing a
01:25:49
tantrum in front of your mom and those those kinds of moments
01:25:53
where he could really kind of, yeah, be like a little bratty
01:25:57
teen.
01:25:59
John T Bolds: So blue when she does so well.
01:26:03
Jesse: He sold it. Well,
01:26:04
Cameron: we'll try one more time. To get a tease out of you.
01:26:08
We do like to ask for a one word tease for the next season. For
01:26:12
instance, last year, Dr. Aaron gave us the word colors, which
01:26:16
were pretty sure related to your episode charade. So it's a one
01:26:21
word that doesn't spoil anything. But when we watch
01:26:26
season three, we'll go
01:26:35
Jordan Canning: eat terrarium.
01:26:37
Cameron: Okay, that's good. I like that. Yeah,
01:26:42
Jordan Canning: if you win, when you see when that word comes up,
01:26:45
you'll maybe remember but I
01:26:48
Jesse: remember. We make a whole big like conspiracy board.
01:26:56
That's, that's one of our most specific, like, every outside of
01:27:02
I think Sheng di was pretty stringent gave us and we kept
01:27:06
like, trying to figure out what it meant in English. And then we
01:27:09
get to the finale of season two, and we're like, he gave us a
01:27:12
planet name. Oh, my God.
01:27:17
John T Bolds: Did not expect that. Thank you so much, Jordan.
01:27:20
Thank you. All right, Jordan camp. Yeah. Bike night is an
01:27:24
open mic night theme podcast.
01:27:24
And so we have asked you to repair joke for us this evening.
01:27:27
Do you have one ready? Okay,
01:27:31
Jordan Canning: well, here's the thing, because you can I'll tell
01:27:33
both of them. I think you can cut out the one if you think
01:27:37
it's I have one job. I feel like I have one joke when you said
01:27:40
you have to tell a joke. I was like, well, I could tell my one
01:27:42
joke. Maybe it's not maybe it's too. I don't know. It's not like
01:27:46
it's particularly crass. But I was I don't know that. Whatever.
01:27:50
What do you call a masturbating cow?
01:27:55
John T Bolds: I'm dying to call him masturbating.
01:27:58
Jordan Canning: Beef stroganoff.
01:27:59
Jesse: Oh my gosh. I feel like I should have gotten that. That is
01:28:04
gonna become my joke. Now. I'm stealing honestly. Yeah. Wow.
01:28:12
Okay, guys, well, I
01:28:12
Cameron: think we're gonna use I'm gonna go tell my wife right
01:28:15
now.
01:28:16
Jordan Canning: I'm happy to spread the word
01:28:23
Cameron: wow, I didn't think I could enjoy this conversation
01:28:25
more but
01:28:26
Jesse: I seriously you learn so much. And then you just like
01:28:30
Mike Trout. They have their comedy director picked well.
01:28:36
Cameron: Well, thank you for reliving 12 days two years ago
01:28:40
with us, Jordan. We appreciate you taking the the mental trip
01:28:43
back.
01:28:44
Jordan Canning: It was great to talk about it again. I love to
01:28:46
talk about it. And
01:28:47
Jesse: you will absolutely be hearing from us after season
01:28:51
three. Great.
01:28:52
Jordan Canning: Yeah. Season three is going to be epic. I'll
01:28:56
see you guys I don't know in a year I guess.
01:28:58
Cameron: We'll see.
01:29:01
Jordan Canning: And cut. We got it.
01:29:06
John T Bolds: Thank you listeners for joining us for our
01:29:08
interview with Jordan canning to close out our charades
01:29:12
spectacular parade. Game Three, three interviews three words of
01:29:18
power. And man, these have been fantastic interviews. I almost
01:29:24
wish we could like plan far enough ahead to do like a series
01:29:28
per episode, but I mean, getting so many schedules lined up was
01:29:32
really just kind of fortuitous for us. But you guys best show
01:29:38
joke we've had from a guest
01:29:41
Unknown: Yeah, I agree.
01:29:45
Jesse: It was pretty fantastic joke that she was really on the
01:29:47
fence about into there for a while. She delivered it so
01:29:50
deadpan like yeah, I was like, Is this gonna be dirty? And then
01:29:54
she started it and I was like, Oh, okay. Well, yeah, Jesse, we
01:30:02
are excited about our next interviews. Who can folks look
01:30:05
forward to? Well, up next we have our very good friend from
01:30:08
Twitter, Mr. David Jones, who has background in under the
01:30:12
cloak of war and he has a very unique perspective on what it's
01:30:16
like to be a lifelong Star Trek fan. Who ended up on Star Trek.
01:30:20
Yes, get jealous now because you will stay jealous. And we are
01:30:24
working on Mr. Martin Quinn, the brand new first ever is
01:30:29
Scottish. Scotty can't