Fred&Dan Productions Blog

The journey of two professional filmmakers building their business in the creative world. Welcome!

Giovana Frediani 11/9/23 Giovana Frediani 11/9/23

Hibernation Mode: Activated

Welcome to another edition of the Fred & Dan Blog! Our mission with Fred&Dan Productions and this blog has always been to make people think in ways they’ve never done before - to spark creativity and facilitate conversation in unconventional ways. A place where you can open up your email and have a bit of creativity to take with you into your day!

First things first, the SAG-AFTRA strike is over! For the first time since May, there are no active strikes in Hollywood! Just in time for the whole industry to do its yearly disappearing act. It’s that time of year where every email or correspondence is met with, “Let’s follow up after the holidays!”

There will be more information about the contract between SAG and AMPTP after we’ve sent this so keep your eyes on the news for details about what agreement they ended up reaching. We’re so excited for our fellow actors and we can’t wait to see what Hollywood looks like with these new, fairer contracts in place. We also can’t wait to watch Stranger Things Season 5 in 10 years…

As for us here at Fred&Dan, we will also be wintering in the coming months. It will be mostly quiet here, but if you listen really closely you’ll hear the tapping of our keyboards as we spend this time working on our three scripts in the pipeline. And we’ll also probably be popping into Instagram, so make sure you follow us there.

We feel so lucky to have found a community that believes in taking what you see and turning it on its head to answer the bigger questions of the human experience. From Denise & Angel, the first Zine Subversive, going through the writers strike together, an interview series, producing Big Oops, and finally, releasing Subliminal, this has been a year for the books at Fred&Dan. We can’t thank you enough for making Fred&Dan what it is.

Jk, you can’t get rid of us that easily.

Giovana Frediani 10/30/23 Giovana Frediani 10/30/23

Fred&Dan Are Proud To Present...

SUBLIMINAL - ZINE TWO - 10.31.23

(you gotta click on the above link to view the digital copy.)

order your physical copy now!

Giovana Frediani 10/26/23 Giovana Frediani 10/26/23

Meet Our Artists!

It’s almost here… the second edition of the Fred&Dan Zine SUBLIMINAL comes out THIS TUESDAY! October 31st, Halloween we will have a fun visual, and intellectual, treat on our website.

Pre-Order Now

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has placed an order so far! We just sent the proof to the printers and we are so excited for you to see this Zine in the way it was supposed to - in a physical form.

Not only that, but each order went towards our donation to the non-profit Access RJ. People having access to reproductive health services throughout the country is so incredibly important right now since the appeal of Roe V. Wade. Abortions in “safe” states are on the rise, and that doesn’t include the ones that are happening under the table, at home, in unsafe facilities. So thank you for helping us raise money and awareness for this organization.

Prior to our Tuesday launch, we wanted to introduce you all to our amazing artists who have contributed their art for this Zine. They also gave us their time and effort for the sake of supporting reproductive rights and justice, and their pieces are absolutely beautiful and capture the essence of SUBLIMINAL perfectly.

Rachel Rios is a writer/actor whose latest work, LIZ ESTRADA: A Comedy For Reproductive Rights, has just enjoyed three runs across the LA area. She is thrilled to be included in this zine. Rachel MFA in Playwriting from The Catholic University of America and a BA in English and Theatre from Loyola Marymount University. Rachelrios.com

Slade Gottlieb grew up in Milton, Georgia, but he lives and writes in Oakland, California. He studied Creative Writing at Oberlin College, and earned his MFA in Fiction at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

Jade Hyunh “Practicing Origami professionally was not something that was anticipated for my future. I attended Culinary School, and cooked as a pastry chef for over a decade. There was a great passion I carried for being able to create delicate items during intense work conditions, and I thought Patisserie was what I would do forever. Then I decided to continue a hobby I practiced as a child, Origami. The last two years of my pastry career was when I realized there was greater love for the art of paper folding. All I ever did was listen to my heart and it has never led me astray. Hard work, persistence, patience, support, and the courage to explore a new path with Origami has brought something irreplaceable to my life. Cheers to following your heart.”

Chris La Tray is a Métis storyteller, a descendent of the Pembina Band of the mighty Red River of the North and an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. For several years he has taught poetry to elementary students on the Flathead Reservation on behalf of the Missoula Writing Collaborative, and teaches a storytelling class at the University of Montana for the Creative Writing department. La Tray's third book, Becoming Little Shell, will be published by Milkweed Editions in Niibin, Summer, 2024. His first book, One-Sentence Journal: Short Poems and Essays from the World at Large won the 2018 Montana Book Award and a 2019 High Plains Book Award. His book of haiku and haibun poetry, Descended from a Travel-worn Satchel, was published in 2021 by Foothills Publishing. Chris writes the weekly newsletter "An Irritable Métis" and lives near Frenchtown, Montana. He is the Montana Poet Laureate for 2023–2025. https://chrislatray.substack.com

Here’s a sneak peek at the cover of SUBLIMINAL!

Pre-Order Subliminal

Giovana Frediani 10/19/23 Giovana Frediani 10/19/23

Witches And Wombs

Who doesn’t like to believe that a little magic lives in all of us?

The leaves are changing, the foggy crisp air is rolling in, and the sun is setting sooner. It’s that time of the year that feels a little extra magical. That time when we all brew our favorite fall tea, light up our pumpkin scented candles, and watch a 90’s Halloween Disney channel movie for nostalgia…oh no? That’s just a Fred&Dan thing? Well anyways, ‘tis the season friends.

We’re so excited to be dropping our second edition Zine SUBLIMINAL on Halloween this year. Not only are we some spooky bitches over here at Fred&Dan, but we feel like the subliminal messaging all around us is the real spooky business. More than that, we’re beyond stoked to be partnered with a non-profit that is fighting for women’s reproductive health - Access Reproductive Justice. This amazing organization brings access and education to women all over the United States, a fight that has been going on for centuries.

That’s something not a lot of people know. Some of the first women’s healthcare providers went by another name - Witches.

In the 1400s as the medical field transformed into a more bureaucratic system starting at universities, a campaign aimed at systematically discrediting the healing arts, primarily practiced by women, led to one of the first waves of the witch hunts. Specifically targeting peasant women, these healers who’s knowledge was passed down from generation to generation, were snuffed out.

As Caitlin Wiesner wrote in a piece titled, Warts and All: Learn The Fascinating History of Witchcraft and Reproductive Health,

“Lacking formal medical training, they learned from their mothers, sisters, and female neighbors the medicinal properties of herbs. Relying upon trial-and-error experimentation, they learned how to apply freely growing plants such as belladonna, ergot, pennyroyal, tansy, rue, and cotton-root to treat diseases, ease the pain of labor, and control women’s fertility. As Ehrenreich and English said of the “witch-healer’s methods,” “her magic was the science of her time.” Through their “magic,” “wise women” served their communities as midwives, nurses, pharmacists, and abortionists. Their essential knowledge and skills granted them stature at a time when women held very little formal power.”

Those who stood up and claimed their power publicly were put on trial and murdered.

Standing up for what you believe in is never easy, the subliminal messaging and propaganda that bombards us on a regular basis can make it even harder to know what is true and right.

A witch hunt that started 700 years ago still plagues our world today. Women still have to fight to feel like they belong in the medical field, and women still have to fight to have access to safe reproductive health care.

Try as they might to villainize a healer – a witch – as evil, we know we can agree with one thing: there is nothing scarier than a woman on a mission. So let them fear the Witch, she surely is a fearsome thing, a force to be reckoned with, the most powerful sorceress.

We can’t wait for you to see the incredible artwork from our amazing collection of artists. In various different forms, they each explore the effect and presence of subliminal messaging. All of the proceeds will be going to benefit Access RJ and all the women they help. We really want to be able to donate $500 and need to sell about five more zines to make that happen. So spread the word far and wide, because there’s a little witch in all of us.

Pre-Order Subliminal

Giovana Frediani 10/12/23 Giovana Frediani 10/12/23

Don't Worry Darling, You Didn't Burn The Beer!

During a women in film class in college, my professor asked after we watched the movie Thelma & Louise, “why is it that female friendships aren't featured heavily in the media?” I answered, “Because when women are friends, we build each other up, and that messes with their advertising dollars and ability to manipulate us.” Companies and products have spent millions of dollars making women hate each other and themselves all in the effort of us buying things. And what makes women not hate each other and themselves? Other women. The girls in line at the bathroom at the bar who are going to give you a hair tie and compliment your outfit.

It was a bit simplistic of an answer. Female friendships aren’t going to necessarily reclaim decades of damage from gross and sexist advertisements, but this year of “reclaimed girlhood” spurred by the record breaking Barbie movie and Taylor Swift Era’s Tour feels like some sort of healing. Although, of course, these are both still ways to sell us things. At least these things are marketed from us to us.

While preparing for our Zine Subliminal, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the effects of advertisements and media on our culture and on my own girlhood. I didn’t grow up in the age of these pop art advertisements where men console their wives because at least they “didn’t burn the beer!” As seen the the collage above. But I did grow up in an age where America’s Next Top Model made me believe a size 6 was considered overweight. Or that Britney Spears at the 2009 VMAs, who had two children and still had a VISIBLE SIX PACK, had let herself go.

I’m not saying anything new here by pointing out the way the media and society’s obsession with thinness has skewed the minds of many girls, now women, who grew up from the 90s to the early/mid-2000s. But Subliminal has helped me to closely examine even more these seemingly innocuous pop culture stories that permeated my childhood.

These are just one type of subliminal messaging that we receive every day in our lives. It’s transformed from being not subtle at all, i.e. “Is it always illegal to kill a woman?” (see above) to being dug deeper into the subconscious with hidden messages. Because we keep getting smarter, they keep trying to hide it better.

They are still selling us ways that we need to change ourselves, but it has been repackaged in the shiny words of “self care” to make us believe that now we aren’t doing it for men, but for ourselves! And largely, it is men telling us this.

It’s hard to fight back, but collectively I think we can do it. This wasn’t just the year of reclaimed girlhood, but of women saving the world by fully embracing what they love proudly, without the fear of being “basic.” Women turned out in droves this summer to movies and concerts and it literally turned around the U.S. economy. Look at what “girls supporting girls” means - when our girlfriend Taylor Swift went to her boyfriend’s football game, his jersey sales went up by 400%. It means we, women from the age of 18-34 who all like the same things, have power—purchasing or otherwise. It means the reclamation of the name basic bitch. Because as we like to say here at Fred&Dan, “basic bitch, but say it with your chest.”

As you go through your next week think about the current, every day subliminal messaging advertisers are trying to tell us in 2023. How are similar ideals and values from 70 years ago still being pushed on us today in a new form? How can we identify this and push back against it? What subliminal messaging might we bring to the table to confirm our humanity?

And stay tuned for how we cover the topic of subliminal in the next issue of our zine, out October 31st and available to pre-order right now!

Giovana Frediani 10/5/23 Giovana Frediani 10/5/23

Writers Are Just Misfits & Goonies

This is another installment of our interview series, where we chat with entrepreneurs and creatives to learn how “they done did it.” We want to find the secret sauce that makes them successful in their field to inspire you and give you the crazy notion that you can do it too.

This is part two of our conversation with Rose McAleese, a fellow writer and creative who is just getting out of the strike. You can listen to part one HERE. Now the strike for the WGA is over, but the strike for SAG, the actors, is still currently going. In this conversation you'll hear about what it's like to be on the picket lines and what it's like to find creativity during the strike.

We really enjoyed this conversation and we hope you do too, so buckle up bitches.

Rose: Now, compared to the last strike in 2007, this is the first time where we're like, “No, you need us more than we need you.”

There is a lot of hope behind that, but it is sometimes really hard to be like, “Man, the bad guys always win”, and you're like, “Yeah, but hey, we're writers. We can write a better ending than that.”

The picket lines, I will say it ebbs and flows. I feel like there are some times where I will go to the picket line almost every single day, and then by day six, I'm tired. I'm exhausted. It's really hard to be optimistic. You get really frustrated because you're just kind of like, fuck, I got to do this again.

But then once you get there, there is this morale to it. It's really cool because you see parents with their kids. There's Superhero Day, there was West Wing Day, there's trivia nights, and there's karaoke, and we're really trying to make it an interactive sport because right now it's just so daunting and so exhausting and it's hard to get people to come.

I will say though, one of the biggest like surges of, “fuck yeah, we can do this” is when SAG stood with us on the picket line. When SAG went on the lines, the lines were massive, the pickets… like it was just so overpopulated and it felt like the beginning all over again.

So it was really nice to have that kind of pendulum swing and it couldn't have been timed better because we were days away from being a hundred days and we were just like, how are we going to get through this? And so when the actors came, it really reminded us… these are the two people they try to pretend don't matter the most when really you can’t have a movie, if it wasn't for the story and the characters to tell the story.

Dan: I work in non scripted daytime and I work on the Netflix lot. We just got off of a hiatus. So I wasn't driving into work for about six weeks, but when we came back, I was like, “Oh my gosh, the lines are even bigger.” They're even more enthusiastic now than they were when all of this first started. And the other day it was, I don't know if it was a horror theme or just Halloween themed, but people were dressed up like in costumes, like as iconic characters or a whole group of women dressed as witches.

And it was really fun to see.

Rose: If you give us a reason to be creative, we will. There's this camaraderie behind it which is just so magical and so beautiful and so great and it's amazing. Ii really hope that we can carry that feeling forward but I do understand burnout like I do understand the caution and frustration that this even has to be a thing but there is something really -

Writers are just misfits and goonies.

You know what I mean? And we're kind of like fuck the man the whole time. That's literally like what a writer is, is fuck the system and fuck the establishment. We pick, we prod, we ask questions. So this is kind of our lane and we know what we're doing and it's just so nice that the actors are also like, yeah, we're all, this is a band of misfits and a band of goonies.

You can't hurt us.

Fred: It's nice how strong these unions are and that they're not backing down. My dad grew up being part of the butcher's union and he was telling me how they went on this big strike when Safeway kind of became what it is now and Safeway took them on and was like trying to cut their wages or whatever.

And he said Safeway ended up winning and it just crushed their union and the union has never, never really bounced back the same way. I mean, hearing that I was a little worried about our unions but then after I think it was like last week or the week before when, the producers tried to say all the things that we weren't coming to the table about as writers, and thinking that would disband us or that would turn writers against the guild and how instead it just made us all rally more and even stronger.

I was really glad to hear that and it makes you feel even more proud to be part of that union.

Rose: And also just proves to you how corny these studios are. They're not creative. That's how you thought you were going to get us.

Dan: It's so lovely to like, have more info about the strike and... to hear about it in such a detailed manner. So I really appreciate it.

Rose: No, I'm just like a garbling rant because I'm just so frustrated and pissed off about it.

Dan: How do you spark your creativity as a writer? And how do you find your creativity in times like this during the strike?

Rose: You know, what's weird is this is the most inspired and creative I've felt in a very long time.

During the pandemic, you couldn't have paid me to write, and that's the thing is I was getting paid to write. I was not creative during the pandemic. There's just something about like I have more important things to worry about.

But right now, I think in a weird way, it's to that point that I was explaining earlier, which is like, uh, “Oh, you don't think I'm good?” You don't think I'm talented. You don't think you need me studios?” Like I've felt so inspired to write. After the last strike, the golden age of television kind of happened.

So to anyone who's like stressing about the strike is just have a project ready for when the strike ends because this is like when they're going to be like, you know what? Let like, let the floodgates open, like, let's start telling really amazing stories.

I've been watching a lot of movies recently, things that make me happy and that inspire me. Feel good movies, you know, that movie you just put on the background and are just kind of like, I'm doing laundry. So that's another way I stay really inspired.

I also love museums. I think museums are just basically the best way to tap into any creative side is just seeing someone else's art. And being like, how did they get here? We always see the finished process, which is such the fucked up part about being an artist is because you always see someone's finished product, but you never see the sleepless nights that happened before they got to this point. Ro see a finished product, I think is really inspiring.

I think also going to a bookstore. I'm in Seattle right now so I'm going to my favorite bookstore in the entire world, which is Elliot Bay Books in Capitol Hill. Being around my family is really great. My sister, my mom, my dad, and I were all in the same house, which doesn't happen enough.

My sister lives in New Mexico. I live in California. And so having us all be there and having those conversations of, do you remember this? And talking about the stories of childhood and everything has just been really inspiring. And just like the storytelling that happens within a family has really been a great form of inspiration.

And then also of course, reading. I just love books. And then of course, always music. I can just put an entire album on and there's just something about music that I listened to and I can hear like a lyric and it becomes like an earworm. And I'm like, wow, that would be a really interesting line of dialogue. Let me plug and play it, let me see if I could put this line of dialogue in something and just play around with it.

Fred: That’s super cool. It's nice to have such a diverse range of where you get your inspiration.

I feel like sometimes people feel like it's just one place or the other, or they wait for their inspiration, they don't have an active relationship with their inspiration or creativity. And I've said this before, and I don't know how you feel about it, Rose, but I don't personally believe in creative block. I think it's just you getting in your own way.

And a lot of times it's your indecision or your procrastination. And I think going to a museum and seeing an artist, then you're able to say, you know what, how did they do it? And you kind of start to step out of your own way. You go to a bookstore, you see that book and it sparks something or a lyric.

Rose: You got to turn the faucet on and half the time you got to let the water run cold before it gets hot. You know what I mean? Let's be honest. Anytime you sit down in front of a computer or in front of your notebook, the first 20 minutes of whatever you're writing is going to suck.

It's just facts. It's going to be corny. It's going to be bad. But then you just got to get over that and just kind of get it. I do think the more forms of inspiration you have the more opportunities inspiration will visit you or hit you.

I do agree with you that writer's block, I think is kind of something that we've manmade and created, but also I really do like self pity sometimes. I like to blame writer's block. I don't want to form a sentence today.

I also will say you should never force yourself either because sometimes it’s when you force yourself that you pay a bigger price. I'll just be like, you know what? I'm just going to journal for 20 minutes. And if anything comes out of this, then I'm great. But I'm not going to force myself to sit down in front of a script and write a scene out. I'm just going to write a poem or write a song, or I'm going to doodle. And then kind of coax it into being like, “Ooh, this is really, this is nice, you know?”

Fred: Do you have any advice for people who want to get into being a professional writer?

Rose: Well, for one, my biggest thing is if you write, you're a writer, right? Like it's one of those things where it's just kind of like when someone's like, I'm a writer, and then that asinine stupid question, “have I read anything you’ve written?”

You look them dead in the eye and you go, “probably not, but would you like to?” Just immediately give them something to read of yours then. Make a fan. If you're a writer, you're a writer. The same way that if you paint, you're a painter. If you're a mechanic, you're a mechanic. Like, your art is what you say your art is.

And one of the best things about being an artist is that whether or not you're getting paid to do that art, you are that art.

Again, like I was saying, if there are like three to four people's careers you admire, watch how they got to where they are and pick and choose what you liked about how they got to their career and see how you can implicate that and apply that to yourself.

Obviously it's just write. It's so stupid that every time I've heard someone like, what's the best advice you can give to a writer? And they're like, write. It's so true though. Just write the thing, you know? Cause it's so daunting just to sit and be like, I got to write 98 pages, like it's such a physically hard thing to do, but once you do it, it’s the most satisfying feeling in the entire world too.

I always say, carry a notebook. I carry a notebook everywhere I go and also just ask questions. I just had a friend of mine who's a very well known rapper, who's like now an actor, he's been in a couple of TV shows and he was like, “I want to write a pilot, but I was too embarrassed and too scared to ask you for help.” And I was just like, “that's your fault.”

Like, just ask. You know what I mean? If I say no, I'll give someone as an example and be like, here's someone else that you should probably reach out to. But questions are actually really simple, small, and I hate to say it. A lot of people really enjoy answering questions. 'Cause it means that they're important enough to give you an answer and then they're like, “hmm. I might be someone.” It really helps everyone involved.

I think also the idea of like advice, is not all advice that is given is actual good advice.

You just have to admit that someone can give you advice and you just, you know, everyone thinks that it's gospel it's like, if it works, it works and if it doesn't, you don't have to believe in it. And that's completely okay. 99 percent of Hollywood is full of bullshit and the other 1 percent is just asking… well… most of it's bullshit, but then a lot of it is just great intuition that just is looking for someone else to help out.

Thanks again for tuning into this week's Fred&Dan interview series. We'll see you next time, unless we get lost in our own fantasy world and never make it back. Bye!

Giovana Frediani 9/28/23 Giovana Frediani 9/28/23

The strike is over

One week short of this becoming the longest writers strike in history, it’s finally over! It’s done! Whew. Just last week we were thinking about what we would do if the strike continued in 2024 and now it’s finally done. Definitely feeling like Frodo after throwing the one ring into Mount Doom!

Here are the key bullet points of what was reached in the strike agreement on Sunday night!

One of the main contentions between the writers and the AMPTP was the use of AI in tv shows and movies going forward in the industry. In the new contract AI generated material cannot be considered source material and it also cannot write or re-write any literary material. And a production company cannot require a writer to use AI! This is such a big win for writers and ensures that writers will not be replaced by technology, but hopefully we can use it as a tool in the industry in a conscious way.

Another major point that the writers were fighting for were residual payments on popular tv shows on streaming services. Under the new contract, writers will get bonuses if they are a part of highly streamed popular shows. In the past, Netflix has been cagey about releasing data on their shows but this will require them to be more transparent with their writers (and hopefully with the actors when they negotiate with them next week)!

The third major point was staffing requirements on shows. Under the new contract any show that is intended to run at least 13 episodes will have a requirement of 6 writers in the room, and staff on shows in initial development will be required to employ their writers for a minimum of 10 weeks!

These were the major issues that writers were fighting for on the picket lines for 148 days, and we’ve come out on top! This is truly such a big win for the writers. The contract is good for three years but with these great gains, hopefully we won’t be facing another strike anytime in the near future.

In celebration of the strike ending and this amazing contract, go back and listen to part one of our amazing interview with writer Rose McAleese! Part two will be out soon!

Listen Here

This has been a really tough past five months for so many people. Personally, we’ve felt like our career has been really stalled. Right before the strike we felt that we were in an amazing groove and while it’s been tough to stay optimistic, now that the strike is over, we’re ready to grind and have an amazing upcoming year and future. One that includes better pay and liveable wages and overall a greater quality of life as a writer.

Thank you so much to everyone who has reached out to us during the strike and these past few days since the strike has ended!

Giovana Frediani 9/22/23 Giovana Frediani 9/22/23

When Art & Social Change Collide

First an update on the writer’s strike! Things are looking cautiously optimistic as the negotiators for the WGA and the AMPTP meet for the third day in a row today. They also released a joint statement, which makes it seem like things are moving in a direction to end the strike. If the strike continues for another 11 days it will become the longest writing strike in history. While this may be a good step in negotiations, by the time there are actual contracts written and ratified by voting members we could be well into December or January.

On a more exciting note we’re still on set of Big Oops! We are just finishing up our first week of shooting!! Last week we were in our longest location - an office space next LAX- it was such a funny place to film. We swear that building had an entire brain of its own, but we all had a great time laughing at its quirks. This week we’re all over town! Fred&Dan directed the first part of our episode yesterday at a local pet store. It was so much fun (and smelly) and we got to work with a live vulture on set, which was insanely cool.

Even though we are so busy on set making a whole show, we didn’t want you to forget that our Zine Subliminal is coming out next month on Halloween! We have some amazing contributing artists and are so excited. Thank you to everyone who has pre-ordered a copy of the zine already, and if you haven’t - go do it now HERE!

Here is Dan’s sentiments about the zine and what it means to her:

Sometimes when you work in entertainment, it can feel like your contribution to society is very little. On a day to day basis, I’m not fighting for social change, lobbying politicians, or providing services that are necessary for human survival. At my day job (working in court TV) we frequently say to each other, “it’s not brain surgery” to try to stress to each other that in the grand scheme of things what we are doing…. It’s not that important.

This has always been hard for me and feels counterintuitive to what I was taught and practiced growing up. I always knew I was going to end up in the arts somehow, and I always knew that I felt incredibly passionate about social change. But as I grew up and got more into the entertainment business I saw these two interests diverge away from each other.

That’s why our mission at Fred&Dan, the art we put out and our values, is so important to us. Entertainment and art can co-exist and make a change. Some of the greatest art in the world was created in response to social issues of the day, and social change arrived in response to that art. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair or the movie Get Out are immediate examples that come to mind.

This zine collaboration with Access Reproductive Justice finally feels like the marriage of what I care about most in the world coming together. Reproductive justice is about more than women having access to safe abortions, but about the human right to bodily autonomy and the right to raise our children in safe and sustainable communities. The messaging we see in the media mainly focuses on just one aspect of reproductive justice, abortion, but doesn’t zoom out to look at the whole picture. While the content of this zine won’t necessarily seem directly related to this cause, the subliminal messaging we receive every day directly relates to how we feel about reproductive justice.

I hope with the pieces our artists and myself contribute to the zine, we can literally and figuratively pull back the images and messaging we receive constantly to reveal the truth of this issue.

Giovana Frediani 9/14/23 Giovana Frediani 9/14/23

The Suite Life of Set Life

Things are BUSY here in Los Angeles this week as we officially start shooting Big Oops! today! We’ve spent the past three days in prep mode - doing our first in person table read with our cast, creating a complete office space from what was essentially an empty room, and organizing all the crew who will be helping us out on set this week.

We told we’d take you behind the scenes so enjoy some photos from the past three days! Also, if you have any questions or want to know anything about what it’s like on set, drop us a line! Shoot us an email or slide into our DMs. And be sure to follow us on Instagram where we’ll be posting frequent updates on our story while we’re on set this weekend.

To end this blog, we really hope that these missives from set inspires anyone out there reading this to pursue your dreams! I know it sounds cheesy and cliche, but we started as two 22-year-olds with the crazy idea that we could produce our own short film and now here we are with our own production company, producing and directing this insanely funny webseries with an amazing cast and crew. If we can do it, you can do it.

Thank you all for the support of this show and of Fred&Dan! We’re so stoked we can share this journey with you.

Giovana Frediani 9/7/23 Giovana Frediani 9/7/23

It's really cool to be part of history, but it's also really exhausting and boring

This is another edition of our interview series, where we chat with entrepreneurs and creatives to learn how “they done did it.” We want to find the secret sauce that makes them successful in their field to inspire you and give you the crazy notion that you can do it too.

Today we're talking to Rose McAleese, a fellow writer and creative who is currently on strike. This was such a great conversation that we decided to put it into two parts. You can listen to the full version of part one or read an edited version below. We're pretty excited about this one. Buckle up, bitches.

F&D: Thanks again for doing this and for hopping on with us this morning. Welcome.

Rose: Thank you so much.

F&D: To get things started, we'll just have you introduce yourself. Tell us who you are, what you do and all that fun stuff.

Rose: Tight. Hi. My name is Rose. I'm a Scorpio. I am a Cancer Rising. Just kidding. That's the most LA way to start anything. My name is Rose McAleese. I am originally from Seattle, Washington. I am currently living in Los Angeles as well as Seattle and sometimes in Atlanta. I am a writer, and I am hella useful. That's what it says on my business cards.

F&D: Love that. So do you want to just start with kind of telling us about your background, what you do specifically, maybe what you've worked on, and then how you got into writing professionally?

Rose: Yeah. Okay. So it all started, I was born on Halloween, which pretty much set the tone for my existence. I was raised in an Irish bar and tourist trap Pike Place market in Seattle. So I was raised by an Irish man and a feminist. writer. So I was kind of forced to be a writer. Like, even if I wanted to avoid it, it was just naturally in my DNA.

I started my writing journey doing poetry. I was really into spoken word poetry. I did that for 10 years. I competed, I traveled, I taught. I started when I was 13 and then by the time I was like 24, I was kind of like in a weird way burnt out. So I kind of stepped away from poetry for a while. And then I was a journalist for a short amount of time, where I was working for a magazine in Seattle, Washington called City Arts magazine. So I did that for a really long time and then I fell into screenwriting, but in between all three forms of writing, I did not have an original form of education.

I barely graduated high school.I graduated with like a 2.3 or 2.5. Could not get into a college to save my life. In that college time, I found what I like to call alternate forms of education, where there was writing circles I applied for, writing programs that I attended, just anything I could get my hands on and make my own alumni system or own networking system, even though I didn't have the means of a college education.

And then on a whim, I got into this program called Hedgebrook, which I highly recommend everyone to look into. It's an all women's focus, writing retreat. There's an amazing group of humans that have gone there, Janet Mock to Felicia D. Henderson to Gloria Steinem. So many people have gone there - Amy Tan.

You just basically are Virginia Woolfin’ it. There's a cabin in the woods and you just live in the cabin. There's little to no internet and you just, you just by yourself going crazy and writing. And it's like pretty magical.

At one of those programs, I met my then future boss, Felicia D. Henderson, and she told me to apply to a program at Universal Pictures called the Universal Pictures Emerging Fellowship Program. I applied for it on a complete whim, did not think I was going to get it, somehow scammed my way successfully into that program and that was basically the closest form of education that I have ever experienced.

I learned everything I could about screenwriting, the business side, the creative side, the bullshit side, the beautiful side, just kind of all in this jam packed year intensive. And then after that, it kind of like leaning on to that networking system that I kind of cultivated before the program.

Using that, I turned those people into mentors as well as job opportunities. I became a WGA trainee, which is the Writer's Guild of America trainee, for a TV show on BET called The Quad. I did that for a season and a half, and then after that there was a bunch of other, like smaller shows that I worked on that I got paid to write those shows, but those shows never saw the light of day.

Then I worked on some smaller stuff. I worked on a show called Sneakerheads for Netflix. And then currently I worked on season two, three, and once the strikes over season four of, STARS TV show, BMF.

F&D: That's so cool. We love hearing people's different paths of how they got into the industry. Cause it's like there's never no one right way, one right answer. And so it's great hearing something like completely different of how you could just kind of take your fate and your destiny into your own hands.

Rose: I'll be honest, though. Did I know I was doing that? Absolutely not. Like, it wasn't until, like, you know what I mean?

It's like, you're like, “oh fuck, I did put that shit in my own destiny.” But I think that's like the unfortunate thing when someone is in the beginning of their career is like, I could tell you, these are the things you should do, but you won't realize that that's actually what you did until you step back and you're like, “Oh, my life has become evidence.

So look at someone's career you really admire and then look at someone else's career you really admire. And then just kind of from those two sources, create your own original path.

F&D: Each week on our blog, we do a little blurb about the strike. We try to keep people updated, especially because a lot of our readers aren't people that are necessarily as involved in the industry as we are. We'd love to get your perspective as someone who is working on a show, as a writer in a writer's room. How does that affect you personally?

Rose: Yeah, I will say, I will speak for my own personal experience for sure. But one of the great examples of how to describe the strike to someone who's like, “I have no idea what's going on,” is a podcast by the name of Talk Easy by Sam Fragoso. And the guest is Alex O'Keefe. And Alex is currently running to be a member of the WGA.

For me personally, the strike is very strangely timed because my job on BMF Season 3 ended April 24th. So I knew that no matter what from April 24th until about mid August, I wasn't going to have a job.

Well. As we are recording today it is September 4th. I still do not have a job. So I'm allowing myself to be a little freaked out, but I have a little different experience than some people. Because I have a friend, her first writing job ever, her first show that she was ever going to be on, the first day of work was supposed to be May 3rd.

I feel like a lot of Millennials and Gen Zs who are probably reading this will understand when I say this, it's really cool to be part of history, but it's also really exhausting and boring.

My main thing that people need to realize about the strike is, this isn't rich people complaining about being rich. This is everyday people complaining about not being paid enough to take care of their family and have a livable wage in a city like Los Angeles. Not only was Hollywood affected by the pandemic, all industries were affected, we were affected by it in a very different way because the writers were the first to get cut out of a lot of the things.

There's so many people that are working in these labor unions that just do not get the respect or the financial compensation that they deserve. I think it's really great that we're also talking about this on Labor Day weekend.

Also, fun fact that I like to point out to people, we are on day, I think it's like 100 and we're almost at 120, I believe.

F&D: No, we're past that, I'm pretty sure. It's like one, it's like 126...

Rose: Okay, then this is going to be worse… the amount of money we've asked for them to pay they have lost 20 times over. The amount of money that we're asking is what Disney makes in a day at their theme parks. So it's all these things where it's just like, they look like idiots. And one of the things that I also think is upsetting is that they're blaming the consumer.

Oh, like we have to charge you guys more to do streaming because you guys are sharing passwords. And it's like, no, Netflix, you're the only studio that doesn't have another form of income. Disney has theme parks. Apple has Apple products. Amazon has Amazon storefront. Uh, Netflix, what do you have? You just do streaming.

You don't have another form of revenue. How are you going to blame the consumer when you yourself just have a bad business model? Buy a product that helps you make money, but do not blame the consumer.

So that's a long winded way of answering your question about the strike, but I'm doing fine.

I think that mentally, I'm pissed off. It's exhausting and daunting having to have this conversation every 10 to 15 years, right? Like the fact that these negotiations happen with the unions all the time and that we have to continuously have this conversation.

There are a lot of elements that go into making a movie or a TV show. The one element that starts it all is the story. Is the writer. The greatest magic trick Hollywood ever played on us is making it feel as though the writer does not matter. The writer is the true fucking, the heart of it, the blood of it, it's the thing.

And then everyone gathers around. It's this beautiful thing when you make a movie or when you make a TV show you see all these people that just come together to rally behind the writer, behind the story. And now you have these people being like, yeah, we don't need you.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's Fred and Dan Productions interview series. We'll see you back here for part two. Same time, same place. Okay, bye.

Giovana Frediani 8/31/23 Giovana Frediani 8/31/23

Are You Bored Yet?

We don’t have much news regarding the writers strike (as it hits its 123rd day!), but we did love this article from the LA Times that discusses how the AMPTP is losing what they thought was going to be an easy fight. Suck it nerds.

Today we are here to talk about boredom.

Not our usual fare, but this was actually fun to talk about and research. And we did actually do some research on this and discovered that there are “Boring Conferences” around the world where people get together and talk about boring things. Amazing.

Despite popular opinion, boredom is actually a good thing! When I was in the 4th or 5th grade I was absolutely distraught one weekend with boredom. Like laying on the floor in our hallway close to tears because I was so bored. My parents were unmoved and told me to entertain myself. Luckily my older sister’s best friend came over right at that moment and I recruited her to help me rearrange my room.

It only took five minutes of wallowing on the carpet to envision how I could properly feng shui my room for optimal Harry Potter reading.

From our research, which spanned from the Mayo Clinic to Goodreads (yes we are well read thank you), a little boredom is a universally agreed upon good thing. The Italians even have a phrase for it “il dolce far niente”— the sweetness of doing nothing. As we are both Italian, we take this very seriously.

Albert Einstein even said, “The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.” And that guy knew a lot of things!!

This brings us to our creative inspirational prompt for the week:

Take out a piece of paper, write down the last time you were bored, what was it like, how did it make you feel? Whether or not you remember the last time you were bored, take a look at your schedule and schedule some boredom time.

Actually set an alarm and try it out for even 10 minutes. No phone, no talking, no TV, no activity. If anything, look out the window or find some nature to sit in.

After, journal about it for 10 minutes and see what big ideas your brain came up with during your boring time. Maybe you just allowed yourself to process some thoughts, that’s amazing too!

Check in later that day and see if you find you’re more inspired or even just calmer. Come back to this exercise anytime you need…and maybe even let us know how it went!

Excited for you to be bored.

Giovana Frediani 8/24/23 Giovana Frediani 8/24/23

Baby's First Collab!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to another edition of the Fred&Dan Blog! Our mission with Fred&Dan Productions and this blog has always been to make people think in ways they’ve never done before - to spark creativity and facilitate conversation in unconventional ways. A place where you can open up your email and have a bit of creativity to take with you into your day or week!

Today we want to jump right in with a project that we are SO EXCITED to announce.

We wrote before on the blog that we are putting together and publishing a new zine called SUBLIMINAL. Today we are beyond pumped to announce that we are partnering with the amazing non-profit organization Access RJ for this zine!

ACCESS Reproductive Justice is a non-profit dedicated to removing barriers to sexual and reproductive health care and building the power of Californians to demand health, justice, and dignity.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, zines have been a way for people to subvert mainstream media narratives by publishing independently and focusing on accessibility for all.

The Fred&Dan zine is an extension of our mission to bring creatives together and allow space for fellow artists while subverting and pushing readers to "think differently."

Partnering with Access RJ amplifies the Fred&Dan mission to empower and give a voice to women; because when you educate and empower women, you educate and empower societies.

For the first time, we are printing physical copies of the zine and selling them on our site! All proceeds will be donated directly to Access RJ to help in their fight to secure access to reproductive health!!

The zine is available for pre-order on our site and will be officially released on October 31st! Because, as you know, witches and women’s rights just go together.

We’re excited to accept submission from any and all artists for the zine!! Email us here.

Now for a quick note on the strike: The AMPTP strikes again. While it seemed like things were headed in the right direction with the talks that occurred last week, the AMPTP then decided to leak their proposals to the press. Many members of the WGA saw this not as a move of transparency, but as a ploy to get members to turn on each other. It’s still completely unclear when this strike will end, but the writers are still going strong. This week while driving into work I saw some of the largest numbers of strikers I’ve seen all summer.

As always, make sure you follow us on Instagram for more updates on the plethora of projects we’re working on! Byeeeee.

PRE ORDER SUBLIMINAL HERE: https://fredanddan.com/store/pre-order-freddan-zine-2-subliminal

Giovana Frediani 8/17/23 Giovana Frediani 8/17/23

We Have Ourselves A Show Babyyyyy!

Let’s start off this week with an update on the never-ending writer’s strike.

Last week, August 9th, marked the 100th day of the strike. This strike has now surpassed the 2007 strike in length and if it makes it past 153 days it will be the longest writers strike in history. But, we’re feeling cautiously hopeful. As we mentioned last time we talked about the strike, the AMPTP and the WGA were planning to meet and they did! The meeting was described as having “mixed results” but the two groups met three times this week for negotiations and might be meeting again today. At least this is way more progress than 100 days of silence (on the AMPTP part, the writers have been very loud on socials and on the picket).

Now for some very exciting news! Big Oops is 100% funded!!!!!! Wooo!!! Pop the champagne and call out of work, we have ourselves a show babyyy. We not only reached our IndieGoGo goal of $20,000 but surpassed it!! We are in awe and so incredibly grateful.

We truly could not have done this without the amazing support of our community. Thank you, thank you, thank you every single one of you who reads this blog and donated to our campaign. It means the world that during this time of uncertainty in the industry, we know we have the support of our community and you want to see the stuff we make. *cue the happy tears*

Stay tuned for the next steps of the project! We are wrapping up on summer but entering a very busy fall. We start shooting in less than a month (!) and we are co-directing a full episode! So stick around for set photos and stories that are sure to make you laugh and maybe even inspire you to go make some art. We will share here and on our instagram.

Next week, we have such an exciting announcement for a project that we have truly been working on all summer we CANNOT WAIT to share it with you!

Until then, stay cool and enjoy the smiling faces of 6 very happy producers whose series is fully funded!

Giovana Frediani 8/11/23 Giovana Frediani 8/11/23

Naïveté: The Key Ingredient To The Birth Of An Artist

This is our series where we interview fellow entrepreneurs and creatives to discover their secret sauce on being a success in their field! Today we are so excited to bring you an interview with Meg Kelly, an actress, writer, and creator of the award winning webseries Jennifer & Chicken. Meg is a fellow executive producer on the upcoming series Big Oops, which we are still raising funds for! We are almost 80% funded but need bout $4,500 by next week to reach our goal. You can donate here!

Enjoy this great convo we had with our long time friend Meg in podcast form which we highly recommend or you can read a condensed version of the interview below.

MEG: If I had known what it was gonna do to my life and like my bank account, I maybe would've chosen a different path. I think maybe naivete is a key ingredient in the birth of an artist because you have to have some reason to jump out of the plane and probably just not knowing is fine I think.

MEG KELLY: My name's Meg Kelly. I'm an actor, writer, filmmaker, and I'm living in LA and producing my own films.

For context for our blog readers; Janette and Gio are two of my best friends. And we've been on this creative journey together for a long time. I think 11 years. We started school at LMU 11 years ago.

FRED&DAN: Ew. Yikes. Yikes.

MEG: It's been quite the journey. I think being a creative in your twenties, it's not easy but I feel like we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel a little bit.

We've all been working on our own stuff for years, and then this past year we decided to produce a web series. So that was the beginning of my journey as an entrepreneur and really bringing a story to life and creating something out of nothing. It was a great experience. Very, very challenging, very hard, but super rewarding and I feel like a great stepping stone.

I feel like it has served the purpose, like it was meant to when I set out to make something.

F&D: Okay. Let's go all the way to the beginning and talk about the inception of Jennifer & Chicken, the web series and how this all came to be.

MEG: It was a very windy road, a long and winding road to get to the web series

The story started with the characters. In 2020, I was living with Janette and there was not a lot going on because of the pandemic. So we started creating comedy TikTok sketches, and we created a sketch called Toxic Roommate because I had this idea of wanting to play just like the worst roommate ever.

Someone really loud and obnoxious and hard to live with and just crazy. And then we had the opposite of the toxic roommate who I called Chicken.

And then I wanted to write something a little more long form. I was on the phone with Giovana, I think it was like that summer 2021, and I was like, oh, I wanna make a web series. I'm interested in writing about our lifestyles as creatives in their twenties. And Gio was like, you should write about Jennifer and Chicken.

And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, that's a good idea. And then I started and a week later I had the first draft. It was just kind of like a brain blast moment inspired by Gio. Janette helped with the TikTok, and then Gio inspired the web series. So you guys were integral roles in the creation of this project too.

F&D: It was fun hearing you go on that journey and the inception to doing it. I mean, watching from TikTok, 'cause I was up here in the Bay Area, it was always just so fun to see how that progressed. So one of the questions we wanted to ask you is what gave you the courage or the inspiration to pursue this and create an entire web series?

MEG: I'd had enough independent production experience that I knew it was possible to make. I wrote all of the scenes in locations I knew we had access to.

I don't know if there was a lot of courage involved. I think it was more naivete and I was just like, of course we can make it. I'll just fly out a couple weekends to LA and we'll shoot some stuff and it won't be that intricate. Then after we produced the first episode and we were in crowdfunding and I was working on pre-production, that's when I realized what I had gotten myself into. I truly did not realize how much work it was gonna be.

I didn't know what it was gonna turn into. And I think that definitely overwhelmed me and freaked me out a little bit. But we had already raised money, so there was no going back. People had already given us money, so we have to make it. People are donating hundreds of dollars to help us do this.

I think what it was, it was like once the train had left the station, it was like well, you're on the ride now. Like you just have to see it through. But I was very scared.

F&D: I love that though. We talk a lot about the naivete kind of aspect. I was talking to somebody recently and I was like, I look back and I'm like, did we really produce our first film when we were like 23? Like, I didn't even know which way was up when I was 23. And it is such naivete to think, yeah, I'm just gonna produce an entire movie with a set of 40 people barely out of college. Like you gotta love that naivete though.

MEG: I think it’s so important. If I had known what it was gonna do to my life and like my bank account, I maybe would've chosen a different path.I think maybe naivete is a key ingredient in the birth of an artist because you have to have some reason to jump out of the plane and probably like just not knowing is fine I think.

F&D: It's a form of courage, right?

MEG: Yeah. But I also think it's like once you do it the first time, it's not as hard the second time 'cause you know what you're in for. And so you can get it in your head a little bit easier. You're like, oh, I know how long this is gonna take, and I know how much money we're gonna need for that, and it’s still quite a lot of work, but it can be done and you have more faith in the process after you do it a first time.

F&D: How does creativity factor into what you do as an actor, a producer, a writer, all the things?

MEG: I think, especially with filmmaking, because it is such an expensive art form and like a business as well as an art, it's difficult because so much of producing is work. It's emails and tasks and location scouting and like, that's like 90% of what happens to put a film on its feet, which can be creative too.

But I think the major moments for me as a creative are the writing process and the performing and the editing. Editing is very creative for me too. Sometimes you get sucked into the production aspect and it's a little bit frustrating because all you wanna do is the creative part, but you have to do a lot of work to become a “creator.”

For me, creativity has a lot to do with trust and just trying stuff and not being afraid to fail.

F&D: I think something that made Jennifer and Chicken so successful is the fact that the team that you built around it were people that we've all known for years and years and years, like since college or, in terms of Max, our other producer, who I met right outside of college. We all knew each other so well. There was so much trust in that creative world and on the set that I think it really shows in the web series in the chemistry of everyone and how everyone was willing to try new things and improvise. And now we have the band back together!

We're doing another web series called Big Oops, which readers of the blog will know. We've, we've talked about it a lot. And this is from one of the producers and director of photography from Jennifer & Chicken Tyler. So Meg, we'd love to know what your role is in this new series.

MEG: Yeah. It's exciting, it's cool. I'm so grateful that Tyler has stepped up to show run. Because I know I do not have it in me to do that for another year or two. So I'm excited to be a supporting player this time. I'm executive producing and directing one episode.

I don't know what other creative teams look like, but ours, since we have this like rapport and we've worked together for years now in our writing group… We just hop on Zoom meetings and Tyler will delegate tasks and, we're kind of just like a support for Tyler.

I think another key thing to highlight is Tyler left his full-time job to create this series. So he's taking six months off to create Big Oops. And I did the same thing for Jennifer & Chicken. I took six months off.

I had saved up. I was living at home with my parents. I had saved up a bunch of money. And then in that time that I made this series, I spent all the money I had saved– all my savings on rent and living so I could create this. And so like huge props to Tyler for taking a risk to create his own thing.

And I know from my experience, it's been rewarding. Like we've made some great connections and I do feel like it was a huge learning experience. I think that's important to know that like, it's not just like, “oh, it's so fun they're making a film together.” It's a full-time job and a huge investment and I give major kudos to Tyler for stepping up and leading us through our next project.

F&D: What lessons are you gonna take from Jennifer and Chicken and bring into your role as executive producer for Big Oops?

MEG: I think it's a lot of little lessons that build together, just in our experience. Having done it once, I think we know a little bit more of what to expect and things like, you need to set money aside for this or it would be wise to just find a location that's already dressed. We don't have time to dress all these things. We don't have the money to buy all the stuff to dress it. So I think it's, a lot of it is just like little things that we'll bring with us.

F&D: Do you have any advice for people who are trying to do something outside of their comfort zone? Like how you went from being an actress to being a producer?

MEG: Having fun with it is key. I think the material is really important. Don't write something, don't produce something that you're not interested in. Don't produce something because you think it's a good idea and other people are gonna wanna buy it. It's so much work to create a film, so you better be interested in what you're making.

More than that, it should be personal to the creator. It is good to just try stuff and throw it at the wall, but if you're going to commit to making a film and you're going to commit to raising money and spending other people's money on a piece of art, like make it meaningful to you and a subject that you're excited to explore. I think that would be my main piece of advice.

Giovana Frediani 8/3/23 Giovana Frediani 8/3/23

America - Land of the Free and Home of the '90s Teen Comedy

Welcome to another edition of the Fred&Dan Blog! Our mission with Fred&Dan Productions and this blog has always been to make people think in ways they’ve never done before - to spark creativity and facilitate conversation in unconventional ways. A place where you can open up your email and have a bit of creativity to take with you into your day or week!

First up, a strike update! This is actually exciting - the AMPTP (the studios) have requested to meet with the WGA (the writers) to resume negotiation talks! I was honestly not expecting the AMPTP to approach the writers first, so this is kind of huge. The strike is nearing 100 days, which if it surpasses, will mean this strike is longer than the 2007 writer’s strike. Fingers are tightly crossed that these talks (happening today!) actually go somewhere and we see an end to the strike sooner than later.

We are keeping ourselves plenty busy in the meantime. We are still fundraising and in pre-production for the webseries Big Oops*, we are gearing up for the second edition of our zine (expect a big announcement on that coming soon), and prepping for a website makeover. And of course, still writing! Because all of this started with writing.

We’ve delved into the origins of our scripts Mean Streak and The Fox and The Moon. As of late, we have resurrected an old comedy script, Star Spangled Banner, and wanted to bring you along on the same journey as we did the other scripts. Welcome to our next installment in the BTS of our writing process! Weeeee!

Star Spangled Banner (or SSB as we say to each other) is actually the second script we wrote together, and it has taken many forms in the 5+ years that we have been working on it. Recently we turned it into a TV pilot reminiscent of Never Have I Ever, and now we are trying to work it again into a feature by shaping it into a fun, campy and satirical teen romp! Our goal with this story was always to harken back to the teen movies that we grew up watching in a modern way.

Movies like 10 Things I Hate About You, which I watched every single time I would go over to my grandparent’s house growing up (I had little limits on what I was allowed to watch, which might explain the way that I am). Or American Pie, which I didn’t discover until I was older because I always thought it was a gross boy movie. To be fair, it is kind of a gross boy movie but it’s hilarious and does speak to the teenage experience in a very exacting way. Even Superbad, which I watched the first time with my cousins when I had zero idea about the concept of “losing your virginity,” I laughed until tears were running down my cheeks.

These are the stories we looked to and the, dare I say, vibes we wanted to emulate.

But of course, there've been countless movies about teenagers in high school trying to figure out how to simply be teenagers, so we needed to figure out how to make ours stand out and from the others.

We started by sharing our own stories with each other. We would go back and forth, laughing at the insane and silly escapades we found ourselves in during high school. Just like with Mean Streak, so many of our own experiences and relationships are translated right into the script.

We also asked friends about their own experiences in high school, or things that were stereotypical to their high school at the time. For example, we heard a story of a school in the midwest (where SSB takes place) where all the guys who drove trucks parked in the back row of the parking lot, and one day when a regular sedan parked in one of those spots, they got the guy with the biggest truck to pull it out. It’s in the script.

What was your high school “known” for? Was there one incident or experience that was just quintessential to your high school? My high school was known for the “Save Our Sports” rally my freshman year that quickly devolved into a full on mob that destroyed a local mall. Or the milk throwing incident my senior year that turned into a riot. Lots of weird shit was going down at College Park High, okay? If you have any funny stories you’d be willing to share we’d love to hear them. Who knows, maybe they’ll even end up in a script….

*Remember our campaign for Big Oops is still going strong! We’re 66% of the way funded with two weeks left! You can donate here and help all of our dreams come true <3

Giovana Frediani 7/27/23 Giovana Frediani 7/27/23

Right in the thick of it

Welcome to another edition of the Fred&Dan Blog! Our mission with Fred&Dan Productions and this blog has always been to make people think in ways they’ve never done before - to spark creativity and facilitate conversation in unconventional ways. A place where you can open up your email and have a bit of creativity to take with you into your day or week!

Over at Fred&Dan we’re in the middle of writing scripts, producing (strike approved) projects, dealing with a double strike, and oh yeah, life!

Not much to update on the strike fronts. Both actors and writers have been getting the silent treatment from AMPTP but the unions are holding strong and the members are rallying. We love to see big names like Dwayne Johnson donating to the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Relief Fund to help struggling actors during this time of lockout.

At Fred&Dan, we both tend to find the middle to be arduous. Dare I say, the hardest part of our various projects. This can even be the moment where you abandon all your work because the magical dust of “starting” has settled.

This week we wanted to slide into your inbox with a prompt. This prompt is not just for those of you who are working on a creative project, but this is for anyone who wants to take a moment to think differently. You may want to write about it, draw it out, or even create a multimedia collage to sort through your thoughts (we hope you send us any and all thoughts or prompt answers).

There is comfort in the middle if you allow it. A place where you settle into the rhythm and flow of your own personal system. That too has a darkside, boredom.

Where in your life have you gotten so comfortable that you’ve hit boredom? What got you to this point? Why had you started in the first place? Taking the “why” from your previous answer, allow that to be your guiding force as you answer this next question. What is a small repeatable goal to get you back on the saddle and back on track to where you want to be?

To ward off boredom, to find that rhythm and flow, it helps to keep two things in mind, your why, and incremental goals. Small wins, so that you keep going. When you use incremental goals, fueled by your “why,” you will surprise yourself with how much you can accomplish.

Speaking of being in the thick of it… Fred&Dan and our amazing co-producers are in the middle of fundraising for our indie production project, Big Oops. This indie web series is special because it is one of the few routes that filmmakers and actors can work in Hollywood right now during the double strike. Big Oops is a dark and satirical comedy that follows two office lackeys as they blunder their way into making a second pandemic in the hopes of taking a nap.

Today is the creator, and our dear friend, Tyler's birthday!!!! If you’re interested in learning more or getting involved, every donation, no matter the size, is a huge help. Click here!

Giovana Frediani 7/20/23 Giovana Frediani 7/20/23

From Pivots Come Great Returns

This is our first in what we hope to be a frequent interview series with fellow entrepreneurs and creatives! This week we talked to Bianca Turner, the CEO of UPBasketball, a basketball training facility located in the Bay Area. You can read a slightly condensed version of the interview below or you can go ahead and listen to it (we recommend the listen👂)!!

We are so excited for this series and are looking forward to bringing more interviews to you in the future.

“I was 38 weeks pregnant, a week away from giving birth, and our landlord called me and said, “we're selling the gym and you're gonna have to find a new spot.” And I was like, I'm going on maternity leave. I have no clue how I'm even gonna handle this.”

BIANCA: My name's Bianca Turner and I'm the CEO and Co-Founder of UPBasketball, a basketball training business in Burlingame, California. Our business is basketball skills training, and working with kids starting as young as three years old, all the way up through professional athletes.

Everything off court I'm responsible for. And then organizing programs on court, I'm responsible for overseeing as well. So those are no longer my day-to-day job, but I do oversee the people that are responsible for those daily responsibilities.

FRED&DAN: Excellent. We'd love to know how this business started.

BIANCA: So the way this business started was my husband and I left our jobs and we started another business and we moved up to Northern California to run that business. I was working multiple jobs to have steady income while we tried to grow that business. Packie’s side jobs were coaching, and doing some private training. He had played basketball in college, so it was pretty easy for him.

He had grown up working kids clinics throughout his childhood, so he had a lot of experience working with kids.

Then when we moved back to the Bay Area, we were still trying to make our other business work. Packie started working with Steph Curry and was helping out with some of his training sessions in the Bay Area. That training took off and more people wanted to work with him, young kids specifically.

So I stepped in just trying to help him so we could make ends meet, and then it took off from there. He started working with Aaron Gordon and training young athletes.

I was taking on everything from customer service to marketing to the financial side - as far as bookkeeping and figuring out payroll and taxes and hiring. I had no clue what I was doing but we had to pay rent and we had to make sure we were sustaining this business.

Packie was on court six, seven days a week, 12 hours a day. They were really long days, but it was extremely fulfilling because we were working with kids that were happy to be here. They were getting better, they were seeing a difference.

F&D: And how does it feel now that you guys have, are a little bit more established?

BIANCA: We moved gyms, which it's always frightening when we come across these challenges. For example, I was 38 weeks pregnant, a week away from giving birth, and our landlord called me and said, we're selling the gym and you're gonna have to find a new spot. And I was like, I'm going on maternity leave, I have no clue how I'm even gonna handle this.

And of course, that was in the fall of 2021. So we had just shut our business down for almost two years. We were not running half of our business. The majority of our business [before covid] was comprised of group training, half group training and half private training. And for almost two years we had no group training and that was actually the majority of our business before Covid hit.

So covid hitting forced us to pivot. We had to increase private training, something that brought in maybe 5% of revenue the year before was suddenly 100% of our revenue and sustaining our rent, our staff, and everything.

They say that you have to make the best out of a bad situation, and I think if it weren't for Covid, maybe we wouldn't have pushed that side of our business. And now that we're at full capacity, we still have that and we know how to work that.

Moving was another big challenge, but it forced us to pivot again. We found a great spot that we had to build out. We got a loan from the SBA, which I never wanted to do, because we always bootstrapped things. We just made it happen with the money that we had. But luckily we had this loan from covid and we were able to build out a brand new facility.

It was a great learning moment for me and a great challenge for me to come through and see that, “okay, this is a big scary number that we're gonna have to put into this business, but, we can make it through it.”

Business is doing better than ever, even though we've had two of the most challenging obstacles come in the last three years. In Covid we shut down to zero. We were making zero for a couple months and now we are in the six digit range as far as revenue goes.

F&D: It's so inspiring because a lot of the times people get scared to be an entrepreneur because there's these dark days and dark days are gonna happen. But it's so great for people to hear that after those dark days, the clouds do shift.

BIANCA: Yeah, the way the energy moves is you get challenged to see how far you can go. And if you don't give up and you meet the challenge and you get creative and you try things and you listen and you pay attention, that's where the leveling up happens and you can't level up without that apparently.

And it's really frustrating that is not easier, but that's just kind of what I have seen so far.

F&D: I just wanna circle back because I do think it's like a really interesting topic about being a woman CEO at a basketball gym. What is your experience with that?

BIANCA: I think that being a CEO in a male dominated industry is really interesting. I think that I am very lucky, I have a business partner who believes in me, and doesn't care that I'm a woman and actually thinks it's best that there is female leadership in our business.

We recently became an LLC and he happily agreed to a deal where I am the majority owner of the LLC because he sees the value in that. And I think without that support, I wouldn't be here. Being someone who's in charge of all these people in an industry that does not look this way, there's a lot of imposter syndrome that I encounter. But to my husband, to Packie, he doesn't even understand that for me because he sees the value that I bring as a leader.

I have seen the difference between people that respect that and that don't. There's an agent that we work with who's super respectful and understands more than most others how much I do bring to this business.

And every time he brings that up to Packie, it's very validating. And then you see there are some younger people out here that just don't get it and, and that's okay.

We're here to set an example and to give other young women something to look up to.

I did have an interesting experience when we were building out the gym. I set up a meeting with a contractor to look at one of our hoops and install it, and I was the one who set up the meeting. Packie went into the meeting before I did, and so I walked in and he's already talking to Packie. I asked a question and the guy looked directly at Packie and answered the question. I was really taken aback thinking, did he ignore me?

In our culture here in our business, I think that people make it very clear it doesn't matter if you're a woman or not, you can be in charge. We focus a lot on female training here or training young women in basketball. Most of our classes are 90% little boys that come into our youth classes, and I don't think anyone else would've noticed as much as I did when I was setting up all those classes, checking all those kids in. I noticed because that's my perspective. So we've established all girls clinics and all girls free clinics as well, and really pushed that as one of our goals to get more women in the gym.

I know it's important to Packie as well, but I don't think it would've been as big of a priority if I wasn't in this role.

F&D: Pivoting a little bit because, our blog is all about, along with being an entrepreneur, it's all about creativity, especially us as writers and filmmakers. So we'd love to know how creativity factors into your role as a CEO at a gym?

BIANCA: I never thought of myself as a creative person. I'm really a financial data driven person. But as I was thinking about this question, there is a lot of creativity that goes on - coming up with new programs is probably the main area.

Being able to listen to customers, watch what's going on in the gym, watch everyone's interactions from the trainers to the kids, look at the feedback and decide what is best and how to make adjustments based on that feedback and coming up with new ideas. And giving our team the space to come up with new ideas as well, and work on things that they're passionate about that could potentially snowball into something even bigger. I think it has been where I have been the most creative, and it's one of my favorite parts of my job.

What I'm always looking at is how can we provide people with value? I think that really goes back to understanding your why - why you got into business in the first place and for us, for me, really it was about helping young athletes build confidence. That's what worked for me and that's what I try to give space for. Every decision that I make, I have to think about, how is this going back to giving people a space to build confidence?

So that's where I have to get creative and figure out new ideas. And some of them work, some of them don't. And I have to look at it from a business perspective as well and make tweaks. But that's probably my favorite part of running this business.

F&D: Where do you look for creativity? Where do you get inspiration?

BIANCA: I love reading books, listening to podcasts - I listen to “How Built This.” My favorite book right now is Atomic Habits. I love Simon Sinek and listening to his TED Talk, and I've got a couple of his books on audible.

So definitely listening to those types of business leaders help spark ideas. And I try to think, okay, how can I incorporate that into my business? Whether it's sitting down with my staff and everybody coming up with some huge stretch goal, and then looking at it and saying, okay, how do we make that happen? And when?

F&D: Love that. Do you have any advice you wish you had before becoming an entrepreneur?

BIANCA: So I left my job in 2015. And the advice I think I would've benefited from the most…I think part of it is that these big challenges that are thrown your way, you just have to learn how to pivot and from those pivots come great returns. That would be one.

And then also I think hiring employees has been a huge journey for me. And I wish I would've understood better at a younger age, or when I first started that looking for people who are hungry, humble and smart is extremely important.

Also would've been good to be reminded that you have to make decisions that are best for the business. I get a little emotional sometimes, and I have to take a step back every time that happens and remember, I need to make decisions that are best for the business, otherwise there will be no business.

And sure, it requires a little bit of emotion so I make a well thought out decision. Things aren't black and white, just yes and no. You gotta navigate the gray, but I think that in the beginning, I did a really poor job of making decisions based on what's best for the business and that held us back for sure.

Bianca Turner CEO and Co-Founder of UPBasketball

Giovana Frediani 7/18/23 Giovana Frediani 7/18/23

Big Oops! Coming Soon!

Welcome to a special edition newsletter of the Fred&Dan Productions Blog! We have an exciting announcement today and couldn’t wait until Friday to tell you.

We often talk about our journey as screenwriters but fun fact, Fred&Dan is also a production house! Along with getting our writing out there, we love to support other artists creating their own work. With that we are excited to announce that we are teaming up with our good friend Tyler Peterson, AKA Big Cookie Productions, to produce the webseries Big Oops! We made a short announcement of this a few weeks ago, but the name of the project has changed and we have even more info to share now!

This project falls under something called a micro budget film which is just fancy talk for truly indie, i.e. this type of project is allowed during the strike. We’re off the grid! It’s metal! Since corporate greed has shut down the rest of the industry, we are taking matters into our own hands! Because the show must go on, and just like Tinkerbell, if artists don’t receive attention they will die.

Last summer, a cohort of our good friends and writing group got together to produce and film the webseries Jennifer & Chicken, which is currently showing in festivals all over the world and even winning awards! Now the same group is back at it again to bring Big Oops to life.

As Giovana and Janette we are joining this project as Executive Producers, which will be in association with Fred&Dan Productions. For those who are new to the world of making movies, producers are the people who bring the team together. Along with the 4 other producers on the project we all have been in the throws of casting, location scouting, permitting, and script revisions. This phase is called pre-production and we are now entering our (drum roll please!) fundraising phase!!!

In response to what’s going on with AMPTP, we’re truly making this a grassroots effort and reaching out to our community to make art during a time where it feels nearly impossible to do so. We are fundraising through indiegogo to make Big Oops happen. We want to invite our friends, family, community, and supporters to be part of this fun project by donating! No contribution is too small and we have some really fun perks to convince you! Obviously, not everyone can donate but we wanted to extend this to our community who has been so supportive of us. Even a share on social media or sending the project to someone else goes such a long way in helping Big Oops come to life!

HERE IS THE LINK to indiegogo! And here is the link to the Big Oops Instagram and Facebook page.

Expect further updates on the project here on our blog and also on our socials as we produce and film Big Oops this fall. We’ll be working on this along with publishing our zine, finishing a few scripts in the works, bringing you our weekly newsletter, and of course we always have a few other things cooking.

Thanks again and we love you!

Giovana Frediani 7/13/23 Giovana Frediani 7/13/23

Actors, Welcome To The Resistance

Hope your crocs are in sports mode.

As you are used to by now, we have been giving weekly updates on the writer’s strike, and developments have happened over the past couple days so we wanted to dedicate a whole blog to it. The first big update is that yesterday, SAG-AFTRA (the actor’s union) joined the WGA on strike. Fran Drescher (yes, that Fran from The Nanny) is the president of SAG and gave an impassioned speech about why they are going on strike that you can watch here. This essentially means that all scripted productions or productions with SAG actors are suspended. This might work in the favor of writers, encouraging the AMPTP to come to the table quicker so productions can start again, but most likely, SAG will reach a deal sooner rather than later, and the writers will remain strong on the picket line.

Second, this headline.

The lack of self awareness of the AMPTP is so astounding it’s maybe impressive? Like, imagine working in movies and TV shows and saying that people losing their homes is a “cruel but necessary evil” and not recognize that you are in fact the villain in this whole situation? I am half expecting the scooby gang to roll up and reveal that it was a spooky skeleton doing this the whole time under the mask.

We’ve been giving the play-by-play of the strike on a wide scale, but to bring it home, this is how it’s affected us - writing projects that were gaining a lot of momentum have come to a grinding halt, and now, with SAG on strike, even our indie production projects are hanging in the balance. It’s hard to plan for the future and figure out our place in the industry when the majority of people aren’t working, and won’t be for the foreseeable future.

We just did an interview with CEO Bianca Turner from UPBasketball that we are releasing next week, and one of the things she talked about was the moments in your life or in your business when you’re faced with a challenge and you have to pivot. Being able to pivot is what makes a good business owner/entrepreneur. We’ve been using this seemingly “downtime” to focus more on how we want to grow our business, putting more intention behind this blog and our zine, and also polishing old scripts and coming up with new ones. Last weekend, we rewrote an entire script in less than 24 hours, totalling our third script since the strike started on May 2nd.

We say this because it seems like the dark times keep coming -- two years in covid, a recession, nation-wide job layoffs, and now not one but TWO strikes -- and it’s easy to question everything you’re doing and want to give up. What if instead you saw this moment as an opportunity to think differently and get creative with your situation? These are the moments you will look back on and think, “I'm so happy I kept going” or “I’m so happy I pivoted and found my calling or my new passion.” Because like we said in our previous blog, our new selves lay waiting for us in the shadows, you just need to use your creativity to find it.

(btw - this is the studio lot where Dan usually works when her show isn’t on hiatus. Can’t beat the view of Henry Cavill on a billboard… c’mon guys this is serious!!! Stop looking at Henry Cavill!!)

Giovana Frediani 7/6/23 Giovana Frediani 7/6/23

The Shadow Self

STRIKE UPDATE

The WGA strike is entering day 60! Not too much to report until we hear more about what is going to happen to the SAG contract on July 12th. The LA City Council did pass a resolution to urge the AMPTP to come back to the table with the WGA. No idea what that means or if that will actually do anything, but hey! It is something that definitely happened.

Weekly Creative Inspiration Prompt:

Throughout the month of July and August we are going to keep delving into subjects that relate to the term “subliminal” - the theme for our second zine. Today, Gio and I talked about Carl Jung’s idea of the “shadow self” (these are truly the things that we talk about during our meetings because we are insufferable) and we thought it’s great inspiration for a creative prompt.

What is the shadow self?

“The shadow is the seat of creativity.”

The shadow self, according to Jung, is the dark unconscious side of our personality that we try to repress or hide.

We often shy away from the parts of ourselves we fear or feel shame around, but it is in walking through those “shadow selves” that we can become anew. In those shadows we have nothing but our creativity to rethink or reshape our image of ourselves to marry the light and dark, and become better for it.

“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.”

Creativity is a powerful tool that can move mountains and reimagine the world as we know it. What if you met your shadow, made amends with it, and integrated it so see from a new lens? How might it shift the world as you know it?

“You can express your shadow self through art.”

Fred&Dan Productions Blog

The journey of two professional filmmakers building their business in the creative world. Welcome!

MEG: If I had known what it was gonna do to my life and like my bank account, I maybe would've chosen a different path. I think maybe naivete is a key ingredient in the birth of an artist because you have to have some reason to jump out of the plane and probably just not knowing is fine I think.

“I was 38 weeks pregnant, a week away from giving birth, and our landlord called me and said, “we're selling the gym and you're gonna have to find a new spot.” And I was like, I'm going on maternity leave. I have no clue how I'm even gonna handle this.”

SUBSCRIBE TO THE FRED&DAN NEWSLETTER