Speaker 1: It's in the news today, but it was actually on
Speaker 1: TV Reload, the podcast Past week Life. Welcome back TV
Speaker 1: Reload listeners. My name is Benjamin Norris and this is
Speaker 1: your podcast to get all the inside goss on the
Speaker 1: popular TV shows you may be watching from around the world. Undeniably,
Speaker 1: our TV sets are a major part of our home entertainment,
Speaker 1: and yet very little is known about how our favorite
Speaker 1: shows get made. So each episode I've been finding guests
Speaker 1: they want to dive just that little bit deeper into
Speaker 1: the shows they're currently making, so that you can hear
Speaker 1: all their exclusive stories and gain access to the biggest
Speaker 1: names in Australian television. I want to thank you for
Speaker 1: downloading or subscribing to this podcast. I love hearing your feedback,
Speaker 1: so make sure you leave a reviewer or a comment
Speaker 1: on your chosen podcast platform. On today's pod, I have
Speaker 1: executive producer Dan Edwards and here's the co founder of
Speaker 1: the production company Rough Diamond with his father John Edwards.
Speaker 1: Today we'll be talking about their latest project, Year of
Speaker 1: which is now available to stream on STAN Australia. They
Speaker 1: have produced some amazing content together, which shows like the
Speaker 1: TV series Romper Stomper and Bump and This project is
Speaker 1: an actual brainchild of Dan's which has been a long
Speaker 1: time in the making. If you think John Edwards's name
Speaker 1: sounds familiar, you would be right, as he has also
Speaker 1: had some amazing success previously over the years with Secret
Speaker 1: Life of Us and Love My Way, just to name
Speaker 1: a few. There is very similar style that they both share.
Speaker 1: In my eyes, I think Dan is a little edgier
Speaker 1: with his latest work, and I think that he has
Speaker 1: completed some really interesting work on this series, especially giving
Speaker 1: voice to young people. Year Off takes place in the
Speaker 1: same universe as the Stan original series Bump, and is
Speaker 1: set around the senior year of that same high school,
Speaker 1: exploring that limital time between childhood and adulthood and the
Speaker 1: renegotiations with adults that it brings coming up. We will
Speaker 1: find out what influences Dan has recognized from his father,
Speaker 1: John Edwards. We will also hear about how they created
Speaker 1: this series and how they managed to create authentic voices
Speaker 1: for young people. In the writer's room, we will talk
Speaker 1: about why streaming services has allowed more space for shows
Speaker 1: like Year Of and how the success of Bumped helped
Speaker 1: get this project made, and how the success of Bump
Speaker 1: helped this project get made. Plus we will get plenty
Speaker 1: of exclusives from behind the scenes, a year of which
Speaker 1: starts this week on the streaming service STAN Australia, which
Speaker 1: you can subscribe to on your smartphone or on your
Speaker 1: smart tv. Anyway, let's bring Dan Edwards into the podcast.
Speaker 1: And guys, I really hope you enjoyed this very interesting
Speaker 1: episode of TV reload. Hey Dan, how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm good and you I'm so excited to.
Speaker 1: Talk to you, Like this show is so fantastic and
Speaker 1: I have to just say before we get started, full disclosure,
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of the Edwards family.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that's so very nice. How much of you saying?
Speaker 1: Well, the thing was, I watched episode one, but I
Speaker 1: can't move forward because my partner wants to watch it
Speaker 1: with me, and that's very unusual. I can never get
Speaker 1: into watch shows that I like. But I was explaining
Speaker 1: to him what happens in episode one. He was like,
Speaker 1: you can't watch any more of that until I'm there
Speaker 1: to watch it with you.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, because it really evolves into something like very
Speaker 2: different to how it starts. So it'll be interesting once
Speaker 2: you do. Because obviously it feels that. Yeah, it gets
Speaker 2: into its swing probably by episode three, but that's because
Speaker 2: obviously we pull the rug in at once. So I'll
Speaker 2: be interested to hear how you feel again once you're
Speaker 2: a bit further in.
Speaker 1: Well, great, it'll be a part two of the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'll hit you up again.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, I.
Speaker 1: Wanted to ask you what if you borrowed from your dad?
Speaker 1: I mean, what are the similarities in your storytelling that
Speaker 1: you've been able to recognize.
Speaker 2: Funny, actually we're speaking about today, you know, industry kids,
Speaker 2: because there's now a lot of them in Australia and
Speaker 2: actually across the industry globally. But there is you know,
Speaker 2: in all kinds of facets of television and drama's designers
Speaker 2: and dops and directors and writers. And it's interesting. But
Speaker 2: I'm probably in a slightly different situation that I spent
Speaker 2: most of my career in the corporate side of television
Speaker 2: for a long time, almost twenty years and more recently
Speaker 2: we started the business rough time and six years go,
Speaker 2: and so it's probably that point here, end of being
Speaker 2: a NEPO baby in that way that I actually have
Speaker 2: a business with him. But like with a lot of
Speaker 2: kind of family situations, you sometimes become quite engrossed in
Speaker 2: the lives of all the professional lives of your parents,
Speaker 2: and in the case of John Dad, we would discuss,
Speaker 2: you know, drama and all the kind of moving parts
Speaker 2: that you know, not just producing, but I guess the
Speaker 2: creative side of fostering an idea from an embryo through
Speaker 2: to a fully formed show. So that was something that
Speaker 2: was just part of our discourse for as long as
Speaker 2: I can remember, and it probably became heavier as I
Speaker 2: became a teenager, and you know, around the time I
Speaker 2: finished school. The Secret Life of Us launched two years later,
Speaker 2: So there's probably lots and lots that I borrowed from
Speaker 2: him in terms of the way in which try and
Speaker 2: produce approach, as I said, developing an idea. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of the people who would have influenced my career too,
Speaker 2: and particularly that even goes back into the distribution days.
Speaker 2: So while he's probably been the most influential person, he's
Speaker 2: certainly not the.
Speaker 1: Only one I think with year of You know what's
Speaker 1: interesting though, is like Secret Life of Us was twenties,
Speaker 1: and Love my Way was like the thirties, and Tangle
Speaker 1: was like the forties and you've kind of jumped back,
Speaker 1: you know, with your own this is your story. Is
Speaker 1: it fitting that you've jumped back and started telling stories
Speaker 1: about the teens?
Speaker 2: Then it's more about what you can get made. And
Speaker 2: just to give you a little bit of history, because
Speaker 2: that all you know that the first thing that I
Speaker 2: made as a producer was Robber Stomper because we could
Speaker 2: get it made and it was Trump wasn't empower yet,
Speaker 2: but you know, the world, it just was palpable. You
Speaker 2: could feel the tensions and it felt like that particular
Speaker 2: film being remade as television would have been it would
Speaker 2: have always been compelling. And so we took a really
Speaker 2: unique take with how we fuelled that writer's room and
Speaker 2: off away we went and we made it. But I
Speaker 2: guess we could get that made. At the point that
Speaker 2: point of starting the business, we didn't have much of
Speaker 2: a development slate. We were still going sorry, we're very
Speaker 2: new to it. You know. John kind of wasn't making
Speaker 2: anything to Channel ten, where he made I guess the
Speaker 2: lion's share of your shows. So it was very hard
Speaker 2: to figure out if business was going to be viable
Speaker 2: at all. But we grabbed that opportunity and we made
Speaker 2: the best thing we could with it. It's similar to
Speaker 2: Year Off where Year of started. When I was on
Speaker 2: the corporate side of the business, I think it must
Speaker 2: have been seven or so years ago, there was a
Speaker 2: real lack of young adult shows. And when I say
Speaker 2: young adult I do mean back to what Heartbreak High
Speaker 2: may have been at the beginning, which was was actually
Speaker 2: a show for adult that was watched by a young
Speaker 2: adult audience and sat it at school. But you know,
Speaker 2: seven years ago and then for the probably almost a
Speaker 2: decade of preceding that, there were very few young adult
Speaker 2: shows because on old free toware television that audience just
Speaker 2: was not watching. They were very expensive to get up.
Speaker 2: But it felt like there was a real opportunity as
Speaker 2: a real lack. Since then with the streamers, and I
Speaker 2: guess a lot of rejuvenation of old brands like Heartbreak
Speaker 2: or there's been others as well. Coming out of the States.
Speaker 2: There's now a lot there's a lot of teen and
Speaker 2: young adult shows, and you know, even HBO dipping into
Speaker 2: the euphoria and Skins obviously, which was which was much earlier.
Speaker 2: There's a lot more in the market. But I had
Speaker 2: pitched this show a little bit illegally. I guess you
Speaker 2: could say to somebody at a network in Australia at
Speaker 2: one of the markets, the big kind of corporate formats
Speaker 2: and finished shows markets, and they said, listen, if you
Speaker 2: wanted to leave this job and go and make that
Speaker 2: show with your old man, I'd commission it, okay. And
Speaker 2: so that was That was the kind of the birth
Speaker 2: of Rough diamond It was there was a juncture in
Speaker 2: John's career and in mine where I would either stay
Speaker 2: on and continue down that road which I'd been doing,
Speaker 2: you know, for a long long time, and for him
Speaker 2: it was, you know something else. It was I wouldn't
Speaker 2: say winding down, but it was. It certainly wouldn't have
Speaker 2: I don't think he would have been launching a business
Speaker 2: in his own right. So we launched Rough Diamonds. We
Speaker 2: developed here of funnily enough, and the network that it
Speaker 2: was going to be at all the senior heads left
Speaker 2: within about three months of each other, like there was
Speaker 2: nobody in this network and no one could make a
Speaker 2: decision for roughly a year. When they did, they came
Speaker 2: in that the new hed of drama said, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't really like these kids, okay, fair enough, and
Speaker 2: we put the show and turn around. But so we
Speaker 2: and then we just got busy. We went and made
Speaker 2: other things. We did, you know, Australian gangster Lesnard and
Speaker 2: obviously Rompa Stomper. Then when Bump came around, Kelsey had
Speaker 2: been working with us in various writers' rooms, as I
Speaker 2: had read a specscript of hers, and she came in
Speaker 2: and pitched a whole bunch of ideas one day and
Speaker 2: Bump just stood out as this really fantastic, clear, concise
Speaker 2: concept and we went away commissioned and one point on
Speaker 2: where do we set, Like, you know, one of the
Speaker 2: main characters in every show is it setting. And so
Speaker 2: we decided to lift the Jubilee High School setting which
Speaker 2: was in year of which had been developed before Bump,
Speaker 2: and have that great melting pot which is Glebe which
Speaker 2: has got plenty of social housing but also twelve million
Speaker 2: dollar terrace houses and the melting pot that that created
Speaker 2: with their local high school, and that was in year
Speaker 2: of So we lifted it up and put it onto Bump.
Speaker 2: Bump blew Up was the right show at the right time,
Speaker 2: incredibly good spirited, warm show that was made in COVID,
Speaker 2: so there was very little else. It sold incredibly well overseas,
Speaker 2: it did very very well for stand and a few
Speaker 2: series in we were moving those our core casting Bump
Speaker 2: out of school while we're in their twenties now, and
Speaker 2: it felt like it would be great to keep a
Speaker 2: high school show going if we could, and that there
Speaker 2: was the opportunity for Year Of. So we lived back
Speaker 2: in and redeveloped with a very different team that we
Speaker 2: started four years prior, and now we have the show
Speaker 2: that we do. So for me, it's been a real journey.
Speaker 2: It's been a real journey back and forward.
Speaker 1: I mean that's television, though, is that it? You know,
Speaker 1: you get an idea, you think, oh god, this is it,
Speaker 1: and then you have to park it and then move
Speaker 1: on to something else, and you kind of have to
Speaker 1: move with it, right, you know, and find where the
Speaker 1: work is and find where you can put your creative energy.
Speaker 1: But fascinating to know that Year Of really came before Bump,
Speaker 1: because I look at Year Of now like Bump after dark.
Speaker 1: That's the way I kind of look at it, because
Speaker 1: it's it's grittier and it's darker, I would say, and
Speaker 1: I know you said at the start of our chat
Speaker 1: that you know, it goes on a journey and it'll evolve,
Speaker 1: But I do feel like this is sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: the more adults version of Bump in a weird way.
Speaker 2: Well, I think you're right, and I hope it's received
Speaker 2: by that from by the audience. But we also looked
Speaker 2: at it like Cheers was this big hit back in
Speaker 2: the I think it was the nineties, maybe it was
Speaker 2: the eighties, but the network show Cheers, and I think
Speaker 2: they spun off three different series which were all completely unique.
Speaker 2: You know, Fraser, when you say to people acknowledge it, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a spin off of Cheers, but it was
Speaker 2: its own show. And so that's the ambition with Year Of.
Speaker 2: It's not there to be bump marked too. There's Bump
Speaker 2: for that, you know, there's bump. Stump serves that audience
Speaker 2: and Year Of as a completely different and quite tonally
Speaker 2: distinct thing.
Speaker 1: The performances are incredible. What was it like in the
Speaker 1: writer's room? Did you worry that it would be hard
Speaker 1: to get young actors to give it the authenticity that
Speaker 1: these characters needed to contain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're always worry about that, and you hope that
Speaker 2: it's less of a gamble by the time you finish casting.
Speaker 2: I think on rough Diamond shows we do like to
Speaker 2: gamble with there's a you know, a strong desire to
Speaker 2: do that in the writer's room and to also do
Speaker 2: that in front of the camera. It's got to be
Speaker 2: measured and you need to have kind of some scaffolding.
Speaker 2: People call it around some of that new talent, but
Speaker 2: I think we got lucky with year of and also
Speaker 2: we had really fantastic nurturing directors. PARTI are board setting
Speaker 2: up and she is just such an actors director. And
Speaker 2: then we had a couple of other directors who had
Speaker 2: done short films and this will be their first real
Speaker 2: screen credits. And I think that that type of exuberance
Speaker 2: and kind of youth really helped propel everybody to give
Speaker 2: it their best.
Speaker 1: You know, the themes are very now, and I think
Speaker 1: that you're creating voices that are very authentic for that
Speaker 1: age bracket. Did you in the writer's room have then
Speaker 1: young people working with you to make sure that those
Speaker 1: voices sounded accurate to what kids are talking about.
Speaker 2: The writer's room was young. Jess and I were definitely
Speaker 2: the old farts, but by far the oldest people in
Speaker 2: that row.
Speaker 1: She's in the classroom.
Speaker 2: I'd like to say, yeah, yeah, and it started big
Speaker 2: and unruly and then you've got to reduce that team
Speaker 2: down to get more and more focused. But no, it
Speaker 2: was a very young room and sometimes I didn't know
Speaker 2: what they were talking talking about. And that's good.
Speaker 1: It means that you know, they're letting you know what
Speaker 1: younger people are talking about. I mean, you can't necessarily
Speaker 1: understand that unless you're talking to young people who are living.
Speaker 2: It, you know, and I guess the themes that the
Speaker 2: themes that inspired by stuff that's happened in all our lives.
Speaker 2: And it weirdly, in my age now, it doesn't feel
Speaker 2: like a similar experience that happened with me in my
Speaker 2: final year. It doesn't feel that long ago.
Speaker 1: So it's not that don't make yourself sound older than
Speaker 1: you really are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it is. It's it's you know, it's it's
Speaker 2: without completely using your own stories. I think everybody within
Speaker 2: that writer's room really did dig into personal experience. And
Speaker 2: obviously it's just a stepping off point for inspiration, but
Speaker 2: that's what we encourage people to do, to really dig
Speaker 2: into what it was like for them in those formative years.
Speaker 2: And sometimes it works out and people are honest and
Speaker 2: they give, they come with their truth, and sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker 2: But I think on this so it really did. People
Speaker 2: were very open and very giving.
Speaker 1: What did you think of Heartbreak High the reboot? Because
Speaker 1: I mean they did a really good job of I mean,
Speaker 1: the very first incarnation of Heartbreak High was I think
Speaker 1: we talked about that a little bit before. It was
Speaker 1: very raw and it was very wow you know for
Speaker 1: that particular time, made for adults, but young adults were
Speaker 1: watching it. Then brought back and they added another level
Speaker 1: to it. Is that an understanding in some way of
Speaker 1: how far we've come when it comes to what we're
Speaker 1: allowed to tell on television in scripted drama format for
Speaker 1: young people?
Speaker 2: Yeah? First party question is I think they did a
Speaker 2: great job because I was the Heartbreak High generation and
Speaker 2: where I grew up. They shot it close by, and
Speaker 2: it felt very much of my generation. And to see
Speaker 2: the way that they executed that show, not just you know,
Speaker 2: with the storytelling, which I thought Hadna did a really
Speaker 2: really good job, it felt very Netflix. Number one, which
Speaker 2: is this interesting thing to go How does a show
Speaker 2: definably feel right from a certain commissioner, But that show
Speaker 2: certainly did and it felt very of the Now, you know,
Speaker 2: it's very commercial and probably a little shinier than certainly
Speaker 2: a year of is. But I think that they nailed it,
Speaker 2: and I'm hoping that having a couple of Australian shows
Speaker 2: that are of quality for that audience might be one
Speaker 2: of the first times that some of that audience is
Speaker 2: watching an Australian thing really enjoying it, which means that
Speaker 2: they're going to be more open to watching other Australian
Speaker 2: shows because that we have had times when certain demographics
Speaker 2: are very biased against Australian shows. So I hope it's
Speaker 2: all complimentary.
Speaker 1: I think when you're making shows like this as well,
Speaker 1: are you making shows thinking this is for a global
Speaker 1: audience because of streaming services? Now you know our shows
Speaker 1: are being put on global streaming platforms side by side,
Speaker 1: you know, HBO and other bigger and bigger shows. Are
Speaker 1: you looking to tell stories that are accessible globally or
Speaker 1: are you trying to make something quintessentially Australian. What's the
Speaker 1: conversations with that.
Speaker 2: I came from that part of the business, which was
Speaker 2: selling things globally and bit in concept or be it
Speaker 2: down to abbey and finished tape. And I think that
Speaker 2: and also coming from you know, I guess a producing
Speaker 2: family or a creative producing family, what you want to
Speaker 2: do is that and try and do something good. Good
Speaker 2: will always trump any efforts to do anything else in
Speaker 2: terms of to globalize or to put a game of
Speaker 2: Throne star into a murder mystery, which is often what
Speaker 2: a lot of producers are kind of strong armed into
Speaker 2: doing to get the extraordinary amount of international money that
Speaker 2: we need to make these shows. So even on a
Speaker 2: show like Year of which isn't huge in scale, it
Speaker 2: still has a significant amount of international money. The best way,
Speaker 2: I believe, the best shot it has to make money
Speaker 2: and to work overseas is that it's genuinely good. And
Speaker 2: I think that that comes down to a show having
Speaker 2: a particular point of view. And in this case, you know,
Speaker 2: we're making these shows in Australia, it's got to be
Speaker 2: very particularly Australian, and I think that international audiences, you know,
Speaker 2: they don't they don't want to look in a mirror necessarily,
Speaker 2: they want to you know, you're looking through a window,
Speaker 2: You're looking into a world the world's got to got
Speaker 2: to grip you. I think that that's fundamentally what we're
Speaker 2: striving for all the time. And when it comes down
Speaker 2: to how they'll actually performance, what else is in the
Speaker 2: market at that time? What else is you know, is
Speaker 2: there a glood of these shows, there's a there's a
Speaker 2: little bit of chance, luck and chance, I guess with
Speaker 2: how things will go internationally, But we on a year
Speaker 2: of we're partnered with one of the bigger distribution studios
Speaker 2: I TV, and so hopefully you know it's seen far
Speaker 2: and wide.
Speaker 1: Of course, of course, and you know you've got some
Speaker 1: recognizable names in there. Danniel McCormack. You know, after watching
Speaker 1: the first episode, I didn't even recognize it was her
Speaker 1: straight away because she's such a brilliant actress. You know,
Speaker 1: the way she carries her face can different, you know,
Speaker 1: from role to role. But so fantastic to have Denniel
Speaker 1: McCormick there and Samuel Johnson and other people who haven't
Speaker 1: seen only watch episode one. But is it important to
Speaker 1: when you're telling these stories to have a few recognizable
Speaker 1: faces in the show to sort of bring the audience in.
Speaker 2: You do, But also with that, you know, the with
Speaker 2: the parents, you're dealing with great career actors, so naturally
Speaker 2: you're going to if you want the best performance, you're
Speaker 2: going to have more than likely you're going to have
Speaker 2: somebody who's got a profile that We were very, very
Speaker 2: lucky with the adult characters that we have, And I
Speaker 2: guess that's you're saying that you know you like some
Speaker 2: the history of Rough Diamond shows and before that, what
Speaker 2: they all have in common is intergenerational rub we always do.
Speaker 2: I think everything that we do has that dynamic between
Speaker 2: multiple generations. In year of those parents could have their
Speaker 2: own show. Like in episode one, you start very naturally
Speaker 2: just with the teenagers who with that, I guess it's
Speaker 2: their plot that's going to be affecting everybody else. But
Speaker 2: as you get on, those adult characters have more and
Speaker 2: more distinct stories, and we've got such a great adult cast.
Speaker 1: Dan, this is such a big tease, Like I just
Speaker 1: can't wait to keep watching more episodes, and I'm annoyed
Speaker 1: that it's you know, I have had to wait for
Speaker 1: my partner to keep watching them. But I, like a
Speaker 1: lot of people, I think are going to digest this
Speaker 1: very quickly. I think it's brilliant from what I've seen,
Speaker 1: and I can't wait to sink my teeth into it
Speaker 1: some more. What I was going to say was the
Speaker 1: last question I ask everybody who joins the podcast, is
Speaker 1: what's something from behind the scenes, something that we might
Speaker 1: not see on screen, kind of like a behind the
Speaker 1: scenes secret of you know, what it was like to
Speaker 1: make this show.
Speaker 2: Gastro was making a comeback, roughing this show, Rain was
Speaker 2: making a comeback. Everything was coming out of these severe lockdowns.
Speaker 2: But what makes you of quite different is, as you
Speaker 2: can see, it's an ensemble cast and we're in train tunnels,
Speaker 2: and we're on top of buildings because these kids are
Speaker 2: Burbex's and where in and amongst the streets of Sydney
Speaker 2: in a kind of almost docu way. But we shoot
Speaker 2: it on the same schedule as Pumps. So what was
Speaker 2: interesting is that sometimes it was so for an etique
Speaker 2: at the end that would have a crew waiting, you know,
Speaker 2: five hours to jump off museum station in Sydney and
Speaker 2: get under the tunnels. And on the first night there
Speaker 2: was an unscheduled track work so that the crew have
Speaker 2: been waiting until two am to go in and then
Speaker 2: weren't allowed and Our next opportunity was quite short notice,
Speaker 2: but Gastro had ripped through the crew and it just
Speaker 2: meant that one of our sound recorders actually was unable
Speaker 2: to get sound equipment. So we have a sequence shot
Speaker 2: in the under Hyde path where that sounds has been
Speaker 2: completely created from other days and you know, it was chaotic,
Speaker 2: but it's actually a really terrific sequence. So no one
Speaker 2: will ever know unless they've been told that story. But yeah,
Speaker 2: yes it was. It was a accumulation of of of
Speaker 2: of of COVID and stretching, stretching our resources.
Speaker 1: And all the adults on the show, and all of
Speaker 1: the young adults were wearing diapers because they all had
Speaker 1: Gastron and pretty much, Dan, I am so grateful and
Speaker 1: thank you for being so generous with your time and
Speaker 1: talking to me today. I'm I'm a huge fan, and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I will be in your audience for a
Speaker 1: very long time, so I look forward to I think
Speaker 1: this Human Error coming out. There's a few other shows
Speaker 1: that you've got ready to go, and I can't wait
Speaker 1: to watch them all.
Speaker 2: Thanks man, Bye,