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Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with

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Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm

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Speaker 1: Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My

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Speaker 1: guests are Ari Wallack and Katherine Murdoch, partners in Futurific Studios.

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Speaker 1: Wallack is a futurist and Murdoch is a producer and

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Speaker 1: philanthropist from a family with a long legacy in media.

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Speaker 1: The two together have joined forces to create content with

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Speaker 1: a very specific point of view. Futuristic's first project is

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Speaker 1: A Brief History of the Future, a six part documentary

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Speaker 1: series hosted by Wallack that premieres April third on PBS.

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Speaker 1: The Futurific Partners want to change the conversation about the future,

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Speaker 1: particularly the way Hollywood presents the future. In our conversation,

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Speaker 1: Murdoch explains why she was motivated to pursue pro toopian

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Speaker 1: project to offset the avalanche of dystopian stories about what

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Speaker 1: lies ahead for humanity. A Brief History of the Future

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Speaker 1: looks at hopeful efforts around the globe by investors, activists, entrepreneurs,

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Speaker 1: and artists to tackle various social ills. Murdoch calls the

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Speaker 1: vision behind Futurific a form of rebalancing of ideas. Wallack

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Speaker 1: explains how a person becomes a Futuri's and what the

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Speaker 1: job entails with a brief History of the future, Futurific

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Speaker 1: Studios is often running. The company also has a deal

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Speaker 1: with graphic novel publisher AWA and they have many other

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Speaker 1: media projects in the hopper. We'll hear about how they

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Speaker 1: gamely tackled a Brief History of the Future. After this

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Speaker 1: break and we're back with our conversation with Futurific Studios

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Speaker 1: partners Ari Wallack and Catherine Murdoch. Katherine Murdoch and Ari Wallack,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me today.

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Speaker 2: Thank you. We're really happy to be here. Thanks for

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Speaker 2: having us.

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Speaker 1: And you do an excellent job with this series. I

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Speaker 1: really want to commend it. It's well researched, clearly well researched.

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Speaker 3: You know what you're talking about.

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Speaker 1: So let's start by talking about let's talk about sort

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Speaker 1: of the origin story. How did you two come together,

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Speaker 1: how did this series come together? And then we'll talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about the vision that you present.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's actually a very personal story for me. It

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Speaker 4: started a few years ago when my daughter came to

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Speaker 4: me and said that she didn't think there was any

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Speaker 4: hope for the future. And this really hurt because that's

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Speaker 4: a gas moment. It's a gas moment, but particularly because

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Speaker 4: I work on climate change and democracy reform and she's

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Speaker 4: very aware of all the solutions that you know, that

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Speaker 4: we support, and so it was a little bit of

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Speaker 4: a shock. And when I asked her why, she said,

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Speaker 4: because look at all the television, all the films, all

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Speaker 4: the books, particularly hya books about the future, every single

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Speaker 4: one of them is dystopian. And I didn't think that

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Speaker 4: could be true.

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Speaker 3: And I went out.

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Speaker 4: And looked at everything I could get my hands on,

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Speaker 4: and it was absolutely true. The last time that we

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Speaker 4: had a story about a better future was Star Trek,

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Speaker 4: and that was, you know, created in nineteen sixty.

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Speaker 3: Four, literally before I was born. Very scary. That's a

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Speaker 3: long time.

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Speaker 4: And now Star Trek is a huge franchise and has

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Speaker 4: clearly done incredibly well. So there is the ability to

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Speaker 4: do that, and there's an appetite for that type of storytelling,

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Speaker 4: but for some reason, we've stopped telling that story and

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Speaker 4: we only tell the story about how awful it's all

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Speaker 4: going to be. And so when I met with Ari,

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Speaker 4: who is an actual futurist, and we started talking about

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Speaker 4: doing a show like this, it just it just felt

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Speaker 4: incredibly important at this at this moment in time.

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Speaker 2: And so so for twenty plus years, I've been a futurist,

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Speaker 2: which means I work with really large organizations, mostly helping

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Speaker 2: them think about tomorrow, the far off tomorrows that you know,

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Speaker 2: the people often think of futureist, it's always going to

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Speaker 2: predict tomorrow. Well, these are the lottery numbers, or we

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Speaker 2: have a crystal ball, And that's not the way it works,

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Speaker 2: at least in the realm of how I do it,

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Speaker 2: which is really what we do, is we look at

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Speaker 2: mega trends, which are these like larger than just like

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Speaker 2: the six month trend, right, these are things that are

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Speaker 2: tectonic that are years in the making and we'll be

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Speaker 2: playing out for years. And then we think about how

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Speaker 2: do those mega trends impact different sectors of society and

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Speaker 2: business and culture. And then when we're working with folks,

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Speaker 2: we will often ask them, well, where do you see

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Speaker 2: yourself in these different futures and how do we help

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Speaker 2: you get there? But what ended up happening over the

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Speaker 2: past couple of years as I was, you know, taking

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Speaker 2: meetings with you know, fortune ten CEOs and heads of government,

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Speaker 2: and when we would talk about the future, they would

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Speaker 2: often say, well, you know, I'm not comfortable going out

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Speaker 2: twenty years or even fifteen. I'm like, okay, we can

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Speaker 2: do ten. But then what what I started seeing, and

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Speaker 2: this has happened in a very specific meeting with an individual,

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Speaker 2: They look, I'm willing, we're bringing you, and we're ringing

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Speaker 2: in the futurests. I want to go far out. I'm

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Speaker 2: willing to go out six months. And I realized at

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Speaker 2: that point that we had a problem because the issues

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Speaker 2: that we face, you can say, their challenges, their opportunities

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Speaker 2: that are kind of part of this moment in time

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Speaker 2: that we are facing as a species on planet Earth,

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Speaker 2: are not going to be fixed in six months, nor

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Speaker 2: do they come about in the past six months. So

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Speaker 2: we really have to kind of step back and say, one,

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Speaker 2: how did we get here?

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Speaker 4: Two?

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Speaker 2: Where are we right now? What's really happening? And then

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Speaker 2: three not just what are some different scenarios or stories

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Speaker 2: of what could happen, but more importantly, in many ways,

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Speaker 2: most importantly, where do we actually want to go? And

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Speaker 2: not just an organization or as a sector or you know,

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Speaker 2: as individual business, but as a species. And then so

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Speaker 2: these conversations with Catherine, it became very clear both you know,

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Speaker 2: teenage children and their entire bookshelf is dystopian fiction. That

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Speaker 2: conversation that in that first conversation with her, which which

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Speaker 2: by the way, was study to be a half an

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Speaker 2: hour and turn into like four hours, which I think

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Speaker 2: she's still wondering why.

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Speaker 3: She's so big. Subjects to talk about, you.

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Speaker 2: Is the the stories of people who are building better

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Speaker 2: Tomorrow's the not not the dystopian stories, but how we

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Speaker 2: get there? What is there? What does that actually start

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Speaker 2: to look like? What's the mindset necessary to get there?

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Speaker 2: Just wasn't in the world, And we didn't want to

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Speaker 2: do a show that was the future of food or

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Speaker 2: the future of housing. Well, well that's interesting. What we

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Speaker 2: wanted to do was talk about almost these larger than

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Speaker 2: these larger themes that we all wrestle with as business leaders,

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Speaker 2: as creative, as parents of Well, what does it mean

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Speaker 2: to be human? What does it mean to be in community?

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Speaker 2: What are these futures that we're currently stumbling towards actually

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Speaker 2: look and feel like? In this recognition. The future isn't

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Speaker 2: a noun, it's not this thing that's out there, but

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Speaker 2: it's a verb. It's something that we actively.

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Speaker 3: Do were it's something that we shape.

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Speaker 2: That we shape in our moment to moment actions. Whether

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Speaker 2: it's something you know, it could be a very big decision.

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Speaker 2: Do we build this dam in the middle of this river,

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Speaker 2: or how do I say goodbye to my kids in

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Speaker 2: the morning. These from the micro to the macro, these

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Speaker 2: are all kind of interventions in the official timeline, if

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Speaker 2: you will, that didn't exist out there, and we want

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Speaker 2: to do it, and we want to tell it, and

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Speaker 2: we want to show it in a very cinematic, beautiful,

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Speaker 2: human centric way, not in the usual way that we

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Speaker 2: think about the future. Don't get me wrong, I love

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Speaker 2: Blade Round all these movies that I grew up on.

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Speaker 2: But we want to show that the future is more

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Speaker 2: than just technology. So that's how we met. We'd started

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Speaker 2: having these conversations and lo and behold we have six

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Speaker 2: episodes a brief As through the Future coming out very

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Speaker 2: very soon.

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Speaker 1: Again, I like the way you you. You tackle enormous subjects,

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Speaker 1: but you make them in sort of digestible, digestible bites.

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Speaker 1: They have themed episodes, and again you have found some

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Speaker 1: really interesting, really innovative people. Do you feel like in

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Speaker 1: general the sense of technology that as people look to

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Speaker 1: the future, there's this sense that tech has actually kind

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Speaker 1: of become a menace in our lives or is that

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Speaker 1: just me?

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Speaker 2: I think it's.

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Speaker 4: Really important that we think of technology as it sits

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Speaker 4: in the whole system. So technology doesn't exist in a vacuum.

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Speaker 4: It's a tool. And one of the reasons we are

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Speaker 4: a little disappointed in some of the past visions of

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Speaker 4: the future that haven't come true. For we were not

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Speaker 4: rushing around in jet packs or you know, or or

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Speaker 4: where's our flying cars?

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Speaker 1: I do take a monorail here the Jetsons has not

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Speaker 1: quite come to fruition.

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Speaker 2: But although we do have robot.

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Speaker 4: Dogs, robot dogs, we do amazing technology, But we also

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Speaker 4: know that technology alone is not the answer. We need

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Speaker 4: the social and political systems around those things in order

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Speaker 4: to make them function. And I think one of the

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Speaker 4: things we wanted to do was first to show all

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Speaker 4: of that. So it's not just about technology, it's also

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Speaker 4: about making systems work like our democracy, for example, But

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Speaker 4: to also just allow that there's not it's not a

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Speaker 4: binary of AI is going to be terrible or AI

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Speaker 4: is going to be wonderful. It's actually stepping back and

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Speaker 4: thinking what do I want out of what's the ultimate goal?

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Speaker 4: Where do we want to get to? And then how

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Speaker 4: would I use AI to do that? Or how do

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Speaker 4: we train AI to be better?

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Speaker 3: What if?

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Speaker 4: What if instead of using social media as the data

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Speaker 4: points we used something else?

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Speaker 2: What could what would that look like?

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Speaker 4: And I think you know, one of the reasons we

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Speaker 4: focused on Hollywood is because store telling is such an

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Speaker 4: important way of visualizing the things that we haven't gotten

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Speaker 4: to yet. We talk about Minority Report a lot because

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Speaker 4: it's a it was a way of showing the future.

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Speaker 4: Some of it was bad. Obviously the pre crime thing

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Speaker 4: didn't work out, but it also inspired a huge number

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Speaker 4: of patents that actually came out of people watching the movie.

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Speaker 4: And and so there's this this impact in the real

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Speaker 4: world that visualization can have. And that's what we wanted

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Speaker 4: to do is start start to get people using this

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Speaker 4: muscle again of what have we got it right? What

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Speaker 4: does that look like? And how could we then make

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Speaker 4: a pathway to get there?

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Speaker 3: I think.

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Speaker 1: Using the Star Trek example, like there's no question in

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Speaker 1: my mind that some of computers look the way they

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Speaker 1: do now because that's how they were envisioned on the

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Speaker 1: way back on the paramount lot in the you know,

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Speaker 1: in the sixties by a by television writers. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think the smartphone same thing, or smartphones are a communicator. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I am showing my cred here, but it's so true

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Speaker 1: and it's the phrase that we've heard so much. You know,

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Speaker 1: you can't be what you can't see in some sense,

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Speaker 1: and that is I think it's significant in terms of

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Speaker 1: what you bring to the to the show.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, we meet with over seventy people

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Speaker 2: you will see on this show, and it's everything from

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Speaker 2: coraal refrustration to plastic ocean clean up, to nuclear fusion,

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Speaker 2: to a death duela to a dementia care facility to

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Speaker 2: afro future after futurism. What we're doing in this show

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Speaker 2: is modeling a way of thinking about the future as

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Speaker 2: much as we are showing examples of people doing it. So,

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Speaker 2: you know, we had a screening the other night and

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Speaker 2: Son't came up to me and they said, you know,

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Speaker 2: this is all fabulous, but I can't wait to sit

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Speaker 2: down and watch this with my kids in high school

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Speaker 2: away and another said my kids in college because like

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Speaker 2: all they know of going you know, the question around

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Speaker 2: technology is, well, they either go work for a big

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Speaker 2: if they're into AI, they're either going to go work

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Speaker 2: for a big search company or a social media company

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Speaker 2: or that's it. Or they have to become some sort

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Speaker 2: of luddite and like you know, just you know, grow

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Speaker 2: grow their ownable growth out and and what we're trying

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Speaker 2: to like, you can do that, you can get any

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Speaker 2: of those. But what we are showing in a brief

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Speaker 2: History of the Future is folks who are not saying, oh,

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Speaker 2: what's going to happen is going to kind of wash

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Speaker 2: over us. We're going to go out and make that change.

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Speaker 2: Much like you found the people who are doing textile

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Speaker 2: recycling or upcycling, whether or not what they're doing scales,

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Speaker 2: so it goes from two of them to three hundred.

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Speaker 2: That that there's that scaling. Part of what this show

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Speaker 2: is also about is scaling a mindset of I see

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Speaker 2: a problem in that the direction that X is heading in,

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Speaker 2: I want to come up with a solution that that

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Speaker 2: may have technology that center or it may not, but

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Speaker 2: I'm going to move in that direction into your question

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Speaker 2: about AI. It's the same thing. We can take it

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Speaker 2: at space value of what it's doing, or we can say,

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Speaker 2: how do we look A knife can be used to

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Speaker 2: murder someone, it can also be used to operate on

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Speaker 2: someone and save them. So when the AI as AI

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Speaker 2: and agi is talked about in the show, it's more

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Speaker 2: about how do we use this to further human flourishing,

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Speaker 2: And it's no longer a question about do just that

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Speaker 2: take jobs or not take jobs because human flourishing. Part

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Speaker 2: of human flourishing is having meaning and purpose in your life.

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Speaker 2: So if we design the AI to take our jobs,

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Speaker 2: that's a choice. But if we design it to help

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Speaker 2: us be more creative, that's also a choice. And that's

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Speaker 2: in episode three on startelling that that's where we take it.

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Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back after this pause

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Speaker 1: for monetization, and we're back with Futurific Studios partners Ari

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Speaker 1: Wallach and then Murdock tell me about the nuts and

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Speaker 1: bolts of producing it. How did you how did you

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Speaker 1: you know, go about figuring out the number of episodes?

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Speaker 3: Who to who? Who you were going to interview?

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Speaker 4: First of all, it's always a team effort. Right, So

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Speaker 4: this was a number of people already knew a lot

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Speaker 4: of people. I knew a lot of people, but also

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Speaker 4: Andrew Morgan and his team, your director, our director, and

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Speaker 4: Zach Morgan, his brother and producer, did a huge amount

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Speaker 4: of work on all of this. So so it was

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Speaker 4: vetting a lot of people. But I also think what's

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Speaker 4: sort of fascinating about asking people to think about where

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Speaker 4: they want to go is some people can't do it.

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Speaker 4: And I would say there's probably an inverse relationship with

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Speaker 4: if you're the more of an activist type of person

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Speaker 4: you are, the less able you are to think about

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Speaker 4: a better future, you tend to just be very stuck

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Speaker 4: on what you don't want. I don't want this, I

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Speaker 4: don't want that, And so some people would would just

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Speaker 4: sort of repeat that. We'd say well what do you

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Speaker 4: want and they would say, well, I don't want this.

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Speaker 2: Right after we would follow up and say tell us

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Speaker 2: what the world looks like if you're successful, and they

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Speaker 2: would say, well, here's what's not happening, and they would

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Speaker 2: answer in the name ran around, and so.

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Speaker 4: We had also have people that were able to articulate

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Speaker 4: that vision of a better future, and then we help

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Speaker 4: them with the graphics and the you know, the VFX

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Speaker 4: and want not to help to help bring that to life.

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Speaker 4: But but the first qualification was really being able to

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Speaker 4: visualize that.

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Speaker 2: I've never run for more flights in my life. We would.

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Speaker 2: There was one day where we we we we've we

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Speaker 2: flew into we blew into Madrid. We shot all day

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Speaker 2: in Quarterba. The next day we shot in the storytelling

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Speaker 2: episode we're in caves three hundred people over the surface

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Speaker 2: in Spain. And so for me that would have been

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Speaker 2: the end of the day, but instead we when we

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Speaker 2: just more shooting. We flew out Amalga back to Madrid

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Speaker 2: and then we ended up in Marrakesh by the end

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Speaker 2: of the night, and then slept for four hours and

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Speaker 2: went to the Atlas Mountains in a blizzard. That's the

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Speaker 2: nuts and bolts. That's that's new to me as a

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Speaker 2: as a futurist. I usually don't have that much happened

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Speaker 2: in a twenty four hour period, but apparently that's how

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Speaker 2: you do those.

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Speaker 1: Things, and so it sounds like you shot them, you know,

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Speaker 1: you by necessity that kind of travel, you'd have to

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Speaker 1: shoot out a sequence, so you had to shoot a

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Speaker 1: bit here and a bit there that. I know that's

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Speaker 1: a challenge for actors, you know, with scripts. I can

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Speaker 1: only imagine holding all of these things in your in

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Speaker 1: your head at once.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I got a haircut every two weeks and for

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Speaker 2: six months I look the exact same, which I've never

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Speaker 2: had to actually think about. So sometimes they say, are

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Speaker 2: you I no.

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Speaker 3: Shaving that beard?

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Speaker 1: And did that?

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Speaker 2: I would show up and I'd be like, the beard

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Speaker 2: little long. They're like, you can't do anything. It just

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Speaker 2: has to look like that because this is we don't

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Speaker 2: know where, you know, they knew where it was going

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Speaker 2: to end up, but it was always had to shift.

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Speaker 2: So there was a little bit of temporal displacement for

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Speaker 2: me because I maybe in the morning and I maybe

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Speaker 2: an episode two, and in the afternoon I'm an episode five,

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Speaker 2: and so again for someone who played with time a lot,

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Speaker 2: it was fun to actually do that in the real world.

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Speaker 3: How was it?

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Speaker 1: I know you've done public speaking for many years, but

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Speaker 1: how was it being on camera and really being the

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Speaker 1: face of this show? Was that come Did that come

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Speaker 1: natural to you or did you have to Did it

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Speaker 1: take a little time to get blocking in Mark?

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Speaker 2: So, what kind of Cathy's go ahead, Kay, what are

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Speaker 2: you thinking.

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Speaker 4: I think he's a natural you know Ham, so that

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Speaker 4: that was not a problem, and we all knew he

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Speaker 4: was going to be great on camera. But I think

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Speaker 4: I actually think the tough part has been the social

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Speaker 4: media that's been that's been tough for all of us.

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Speaker 2: We're a little old.

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Speaker 1: Was there anybody that you wanted to put on camera

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Speaker 1: or interview that they said? No?

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Speaker 3: Was there anybody anybody elusive for you?

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Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure they're listening to this podcast. Everyone

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Speaker 2: said yes. Look, part of when we were we were

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Speaker 2: doing this partially and partially during the strike. So when

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Speaker 2: we were doing episode three, there were some there, a

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Speaker 2: little bit of like bumps and trying to.

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Speaker 1: Get sight right you speak to a screenwriter, yeah, And

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Speaker 1: I mean, look, anything is the exact opposite.

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Speaker 2: Once the kind of the word got out that we

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Speaker 2: were doing this, we started getting like calls and emails

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Speaker 2: from people like we're like, oh, we heard you're telling

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Speaker 2: you stories about I haven't had it. So I think,

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Speaker 2: I mean, was there any one now, I mean, like

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Speaker 2: somewhere a little you know, President Matcron, you know, getting

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Speaker 2: ahead of state of a G seven country takes a

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Speaker 2: little bit of work, you know, killing him Bope, who's uh,

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Speaker 2: you know, probably the world's greatest soccer player right now.

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Speaker 3: You got to work.

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Speaker 2: Around schedules, right, So part of it was just scheduled,

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Speaker 2: but outside of that we were very fortunate and who

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Speaker 2: was open willing and then and then and Kim was

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Speaker 2: a part of the show.

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Speaker 1: Hill I'm gonna mispronounce this Killian and Bope. He. I

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Speaker 1: thought that was really brilliant to talk to a you know,

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Speaker 1: to talk to a major athlete, you know, to ask

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Speaker 1: I thought it was very brilliant, asking a top athlete

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Speaker 1: how do you envision success?

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Speaker 3: I thought that was truly brilliant.

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Speaker 2: So I'm going to go publicly on the records say

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Speaker 2: that was Catherine like, well, kids, here's what I said.

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Speaker 2: Was what I said. Because I'm kind of like wonky.

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Speaker 2: I was like, oh, we should get like a sports

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Speaker 2: psychologist who talks about visioning and doing this work. And

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Speaker 2: Catherine's like, or we could just get a top global

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Speaker 2: athlete to actually talk about how they do it. And I

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Speaker 2: was like, oh, yeah, that's.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because you never athletes are always you know, you never,

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Speaker 1: they're never, They're rarely asked like that kind of question.

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Speaker 1: At that scale, not like how did you how did

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Speaker 1: you get that forward pass that won the game?

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Speaker 3: But like how do you envision? And I thought it

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Speaker 3: was I thought it was well.

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Speaker 4: And one of the reasons is because athletes absolutely spend

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Speaker 4: their time visualizing success. Right, That's that's a very important

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Speaker 4: part of the whole thing. And you would never have

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Speaker 4: a coach saying to a professional like, oh, you're gonna fail,

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Speaker 4: You're going to right, But that's what we do as

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Speaker 4: a society. We just tally tell ourselves, oh, you're gonna fail,

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Speaker 4: you're gonna fail. And so that was why we wanted

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Speaker 4: the athlete there in this uh and and it was

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Speaker 4: so great. He was he was so excited by the

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Speaker 4: project and the and the idea of what we were

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Speaker 4: trying to do that he wanted to come on as

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Speaker 4: an executive produsoner.

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Speaker 2: So we're often told this society, here's what failure looks like.

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Speaker 2: And I won't name memes, but it's this movie, this movie,

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Speaker 2: this movie in this book, what's happened after the collapse?

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Speaker 2: That's entertaining. I go to the I just wanted theater

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Speaker 2: and to watch one of those I love it. I

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Speaker 2: love watching it. But if you keep hitting, as Catherine says,

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Speaker 2: he can keep hitting that button over and over again.

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Speaker 2: Eventually we just become numb to it. But we lose

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Speaker 2: the muscle, the imaginatory muscle of what it is, of

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Speaker 2: what success actually looks like. And that's that's part and

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Speaker 2: parts of the show and very much the mission and

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Speaker 2: really the mandate of Futuripic Studios.

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Speaker 1: How did Brief History of the Future, How did you

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Speaker 1: come to set it up at PBS?

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Speaker 2: So and in PBS was was open to a show

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Speaker 2: that wasn't going to be hyperbolic, the clacks on alarms

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Speaker 2: going that you know, the world is falling apart, immediately

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Speaker 2: doing stay clock. Look, this is this is the This

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Speaker 2: is the channel that brought us Cosmos. It opened us

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Speaker 2: up to the universe. This is the channel and that

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Speaker 2: brought us the power of faith, Bill Moore, th and

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Speaker 2: Joseph Campbell. It opened us up to the inner dimensions.

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Speaker 2: Most watched show ever on PBS, one of the most

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Speaker 2: watched shows every America. And now I'm going to very heroisic.

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Speaker 2: We put our show in that third bucket. But this

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Speaker 2: is the show that brought us like this is what

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Speaker 2: they do, and they do it. Well, that's one. The

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Speaker 2: second thing that many things that that PBS says that

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Speaker 2: was very thrilling to us was there's a there's an

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Speaker 2: entity within PBS called PBS and Green Media, And so

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Speaker 2: what they do and what they're doing for the show

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Speaker 2: is they're actually taking the show and kind of creating

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Speaker 2: micro curriculum segments. So they'll take the thing on aquaculture

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Speaker 2: or on storytelling, and then they can and then we've

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Speaker 2: built up a number of educators who are developing curriculum

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Speaker 2: that will then make the show accessible as curriculum to

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Speaker 2: one point five million teachers in America. That's thirty million students.

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Speaker 2: Say what you will about how change happens, we know

437
00:22:29,119 --> 00:22:33,040
Speaker 2: that a primary driver of it is education. PBS will

438
00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:35,199
Speaker 2: put us and by us, I don't just need a

439
00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:37,800
Speaker 2: brief inser for the future. I mean us those who

440
00:22:37,800 --> 00:22:43,080
Speaker 2: think about better tomorrows into middle and high schools, faster

441
00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:46,280
Speaker 2: and better than our wildest dreams could have imagined.

442
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:51,520
Speaker 1: Let me let me ask you, for this series, what

443
00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:55,560
Speaker 1: does success look like for you in six months twelve

444
00:22:55,600 --> 00:22:58,000
Speaker 1: months time, after it's all aired and it's been out there.

445
00:22:58,480 --> 00:22:59,959
Speaker 4: I think what we'd really like to do is Chane

446
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:03,760
Speaker 4: in the conversation about the future. I mean, I want

447
00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:10,119
Speaker 4: to see a rebalancing of people's ideas. So I'd really

448
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:13,399
Speaker 4: love you know, it's really it's the success of the

449
00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:17,760
Speaker 4: show ties into the success of futurific studios. I'd like

450
00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:21,680
Speaker 4: to see more people coming to us with ideas about

451
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:27,639
Speaker 4: better futures, about protopias. I'd like to see Hollywood producing

452
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:29,720
Speaker 4: a more balanced diet.

453
00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:32,399
Speaker 2: About this instead.

454
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:36,920
Speaker 4: I was sort of one hundred percent dystopian twenty seven flavors, right,

455
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:41,800
Speaker 4: you know, how about some some different ideas about what

456
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:46,959
Speaker 4: could go right as well? And so seeing like having

457
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:54,680
Speaker 4: that instigate the creativity in this world, I think would

458
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:57,720
Speaker 4: be would be success for us.

459
00:23:57,400 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 2: And so you know, you predicated the question, you know,

460
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:02,280
Speaker 2: six months or twelve months, I'm gonna go out a

461
00:24:02,320 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 2: little bit further my job. So what is successive like

462
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:07,640
Speaker 2: in twelve years or what successful like in one hundred

463
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:12,080
Speaker 2: and twenty years. It may not be that people, Well,

464
00:24:12,119 --> 00:24:14,520
Speaker 2: look in twelve years, we're talking about Star Trek earlier.

465
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:16,879
Speaker 2: I would love some folks to be sitting in the

466
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:19,920
Speaker 2: you know, this office, if you have a conversation about

467
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 2: what influenced them to make that that's our content or whatever.

468
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:31,400
Speaker 2: However we're digesting stories at that point. Say, you know what,

469
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:33,400
Speaker 2: when I was younger, I saw this show it's called

470
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:35,040
Speaker 2: A Brief History of the Future, and it showed me

471
00:24:35,119 --> 00:24:38,640
Speaker 2: what was possible and how important it was to have

472
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:41,639
Speaker 2: those visions of tomorrow's that we want. And then therefore

473
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 2: I went and made this whole new universe and this

474
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 2: whole thing. And you know, Katherine and I will you know,

475
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 2: I'll be in Boca. I don't know where she'll be,

476
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:54,000
Speaker 2: you know, shuffle boarding or whatever, and I'll say, yeah,

477
00:24:54,160 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 2: that's that's what we did. That's that's far And in

478
00:24:56,560 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 2: the near term it excites people. And look, we're we're

479
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:02,520
Speaker 2: a tough spot right now, a lot of anxiety, a

480
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:05,399
Speaker 2: lot of depression about tomorrow, and to Catherine's point earlier,

481
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 2: some of that is driven by the stories that we

482
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 2: put in about tomorrow's where we failed. So in the

483
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:14,119
Speaker 2: short term to give people a sense not just of

484
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:16,480
Speaker 2: hope but of agency.

485
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 1: Do you anticipate doing more episodes?

486
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:20,359
Speaker 3: Do you think will there be another season?

487
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:23,320
Speaker 2: Or look, it's the first project at a future effic

488
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 2: Kathy will tell you about a bunch of the other

489
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:30,240
Speaker 2: stuff that we're doing, and so I think in the

490
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:34,679
Speaker 2: coming months and years and decades and centuries, we're going

491
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:42,160
Speaker 2: to be doing the work of bringing more hope inspiration

492
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:45,679
Speaker 2: about who we are and where we could take this

493
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:50,920
Speaker 2: whole human project across multiple channels and screens and stages

494
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:52,640
Speaker 2: and whatnot. So it could be through a brief inst

495
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:54,960
Speaker 2: to the future as a show, or it could be

496
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:57,159
Speaker 2: through a brief ast to the future manifested in some

497
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 2: other footprint or platform. We're open to it.

498
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's.

499
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:06,399
Speaker 4: There's no shortage of ideas and people to talk to

500
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 4: for more episodes that that is not is not a problem.

501
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 4: I think it's just a matter of if that's the

502
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:19,439
Speaker 4: best use of the limited time that we have. But

503
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 4: we are actively pursuing stories in any medium at the moment,

504
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 4: with you know, television, film, books, graphic novels, games, whatever,

505
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,960
Speaker 4: whatever it is. We're interested in telling stories about better futures.

506
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 4: So we we we're already working with a w A

507
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 4: which which does graphic novels, and we've you know, been

508
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 4: working with a number of writers there. We started that

509
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 4: through the writer's strike because it was an area that

510
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 4: we're still work in. But now we're looking forward to actually,

511
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 4: you know, bringing people together and starting to go a

512
00:26:57,200 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 4: little bit deeper on some of these ideas.

513
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:01,879
Speaker 1: Build out a build out a slight how would for

514
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 1: our industry listeners here do how how does it work?

515
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:07,639
Speaker 3: Do you both field pitches? Do you have a do

516
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 3: you have a team that works on things.

517
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 4: Or we have a development executive At the moment and

518
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 4: where you know, it's it's still in its beginning stages,

519
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 4: but we tend we both both tend to do a

520
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:19,720
Speaker 4: lot of everything.

521
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: Actually, I can you can tell that you guys are

522
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:23,359
Speaker 1: both very hands on.

523
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:29,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're yeah, very ends on. We're as I kind

524
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 2: of the word has gotten now I don't get out

525
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 2: through this amazing podcast. One of the things I love

526
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:38,880
Speaker 2: about you know, it's not it's relatively flat, right. People

527
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:41,199
Speaker 2: go to futurific dot com and there's a contact and

528
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 2: they send us stuff and sometimes the mostly comes obviously

529
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 2: through agents and whatnot. And you know, we we were

530
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 2: we had a breakfast today. I don't go to any details,

531
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 2: but what was amazing was when when when the writers

532
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 2: sat down and we're talking about kind of the story

533
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 2: that they're developing, they're like, so like, you know, they

534
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 2: said like, well, how do we make this more protopian,

535
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 2: which is right, so we know dystopia, we know utopia.

536
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 2: Protopia is about better tomorrow's it's about it's not about

537
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:12,440
Speaker 2: this fictionalized perfection. It's just it's better than it was.

538
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 2: There's there's progress in that way. And over the course

539
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 2: of this meal, watching it go from one stage of

540
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 2: a story to kind of putting in these protop like

541
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:27,159
Speaker 2: you could see every you can see the excitement rise

542
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 2: and well, you know again, we'll see where this is.

543
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 2: We'll see where this goes. But that's what we're doing.

544
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:34,879
Speaker 2: We're having the me and here's the thing. This is

545
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:37,720
Speaker 2: a very successful individual. Whether or not we work with

546
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 2: them or not TVD that's you know, we'll see how

547
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 2: the however anything unfolds. But what we do know this

548
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 2: person is not thinking very differently. Planted a seat. We

549
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 2: planted a seat, and this is a person and these

550
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 2: are We've been having these meetings for several months and

551
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 2: your your listeners will know there's like these are. This

552
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 2: is like the the the edge of culture is what's

553
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 2: coming out of this town, out of this sector. Right,

554
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 2: we have to talk about you look at the news

555
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 2: that headlines are all politics. I actually then, I think

556
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 2: politics are the trailing edge of what's actually happening. I

557
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 2: look at culture and this industry as actually the bleeding

558
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 2: edge of creating, creating realities. So we're feeling it, and

559
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 2: some happen and some don't. But either way, we're excited

560
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 2: to have these conversations with some of those brilliant creative

561
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 2: minds in the world.

562
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review

563
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 1: at Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music. We love to hear

564
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 1: from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and sign

565
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 1: up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't

566
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: forget to tune in next week for another episode of

567
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 1: Strictly Business