After some time away, I update you a huge creative shift that will change the trajectory of Mother of the Ride.

Hello.

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Welcome to unsolicited.

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I have been gone for a while.

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A couple of years, in fact,

And so as fate would have it.

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Something really significant

happened last week.

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Kind of like a creative.

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Um, paradigm shift.

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I guess, and the way

that I'm thinking about.

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The story that I need to tell

that was inspired by my mom.

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I launched my podcast.

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In 2021 on mother's day.

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Um, and.

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With the intention of following

all of the steps that I was going

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to have to take from writing.

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A feature film too.

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Getting it produced and

directing it myself.

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And.

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Uh, since then, so many

things have happened.

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I started that podcast.

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I had moved in the pandemic kind

of the second half of the pandemic.

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Uh, out of Chicago.

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Where I had spent.

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18 years.

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Uh, building my career.

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Um, left my job and the pandemic

happened right after I did that.

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Somehow made it through the

pandemic, sold our house.

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Moved on and started making our way to LA.

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Decided we'd stop by do a little

pit stop in Arizona for two

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months, turned into two years.

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It's there that I started my podcast.

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My sister, one of my sisters lives there.

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She has a couple of kids

and my mom lives there.

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So.

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It was just a great time to be with family

and then after two years there, I figured.

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I have to leave or I just never will.

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It was very hard to leave for sure.

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A lot harder leaving Arizona than

it was leaving Chicago, actually.

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Um, And Eric and I moved to LA.

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Finally.

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And.

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I've done so many things on so

many things have happened, but I

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want to focus on one thing in this.

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Kind of relaunch episode.

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Um, Because I think it is phenomenal.

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How.

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This thing that I.

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Did has led to where I am today

and I could not see it coming.

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I thought.

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Oh, my God.

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I've basically taken a complete.

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Turn, if not 180.

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It just hit me like.

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A freight train.

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But.

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In a good way in the best way.

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Okay.

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So where do I want to start?

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When I moved here.

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Um, one of the things that I did within

a couple of months as I started, um, up

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with Gary M Hoff in his professional.

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Uh, artist's workshop.

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So this is scene study class.

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It's typically.

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Um, meant for actors to, um,

direct themselves and seen work.

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And then refeed receive

feedback from Gary.

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As the director of the class.

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Um, but he's more recently

opened up his class.

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Two directors with an I.

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To helping directors

become better directors.

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Um, by casting scenes, either

original or, you know, whatever

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other, uh, previously produced work.

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They liked to explore casting those

in the class and then receiving

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feedback on their directorial.

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Abilities.

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Um, and actually I had taken a

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I ever even knew I wanted

to move to LA for sure.

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It was kind of.

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When I was figuring out whether

or not I wanted to shift my career

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back into film and television,

uh, I had originally spent.

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Some time in documentary commercial

network, documentary television.

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And.

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Um, The kind of like the winter

spring that changed the entire

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direction of my career in 2018.

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Aye.

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Took this same class with Gary.

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I don't know how I found him.

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I think I just Googled him more or less.

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And I said, I want to take.

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Uh, I want to study with you so

that I can become a better director.

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And I didn't even think that I'd

be able to direct in the class.

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I wanted to act to be a better director.

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I wanted to have more empathy

for the role of the actor.

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I wanted to understand what it was, and

it was something that I thought was big

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and scary, but that would definitely.

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Help me understand, uh, Different

aspects of the creative process.

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So.

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Did that for a few weeks.

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Uh, then had good or bad, had to

go back to Chicago and, and then

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all these years later now it's.

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The 2023 moving.

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Back to LA I started up classes again.

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Okay.

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So now with the different

intention, because now I have.

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A.

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Mature screenplay that I've written

mother of the ride inspired by my mom.

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And Eric's mom.

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And.

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Um, my intention in the class is to take

scenes from that script and direct them

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and receive feedback about the writing,

about the directing about all of it.

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So the first thing that I

did, I just jumped right in.

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I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

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I focused on, uh, about five or

six pages in the inciting incident.

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And that is a scene with Linda, our main

protagonist and her daughter, Angela.

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Um, And because.

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This mother-daughter

relationship is inspired by.

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My relationship with my mom.

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Uh, you can understand Angela

to be like a proxy for me.

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So.

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We have a scene where the mother and

the daughter have a disagreement and I

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directed the scene went phenomenally well.

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I was so lucky.

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So lucky that I was able to cast

two amazing actors in the scene who

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just fit the description perfectly.

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Um, that made it a huge success.

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It was really my first.

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Opportunity to direct anything

from this piece of work.

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So I kept on going.

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I took another scene.

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And this time it was a scene with

Angela and her friend, Chrissy.

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And this time I played Angela.

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I learned a lot from that, that

one wasn't as much of a home run.

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There were, um, some things I

needed to adjust in that scene

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and I started learning a lot.

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More about trying to do too much in a

scene and being really careful about.

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Not trying to overpack a

scene with too many shifts.

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And too many turns because.

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It kind of muddies the water.

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Um, in any event, I put it up.

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And then.

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Tweaked it a bit with some feedback,

put it up again and got better.

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And then decided to move on from that one.

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To what I thought was going to be.

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Overly difficult.

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Seen in my script, which is

the break into act three.

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Where.

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Lynda.

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Uh, and her Roadtrip companion,

Joan are having a crisis moment.

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And it's the moment that instigates

Linda's internal transformation.

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And just, I knew.

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Intuitively.

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That something was wrong with it.

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I knew it was overwritten.

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But then there were so many

things that I wanted to say.

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And again, You know, doing too much in a

scene is definitely one of the problems.

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With it.

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Um, so I cast it from the class

again, the same actor playing Linda,

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a new actor coming in is Joan.

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I told Gary I was needing some

feedback about whether or not I

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was over writing whether or not.

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You know, the scene was doing what

I needed it to do and his feedback.

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For being was.

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Uh, A bit out of the blue.

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I wasn't expecting it.

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He basically said you don't have

enough conflict in the scene actually.

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And it was hard for me because.

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You know, I had actually, there's so much

conflict in this script because they're on

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a disastrous road trip and it's conflict.

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And.

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After conflict.

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It's a lot like planes,

trains, and automobiles.

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Mismatched.

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A buddy.

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Road trip comedy.

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So.

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I really was trying to not actually

have a lot of direct conflict.

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Uh, in that scene, it's more of an

ideological conflict because I felt

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like I needed a tone shift or not a

tone shift, but like a rhythmic shift.

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Um, And.

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Gary insisted now, no, you need to

put the conflict in here or else.

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It's just two women who are kind

of, you know, playing their small

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violins and it just gets boring.

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And somebody else in the class,

who's a great director, said

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something to me that really stuck.

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And she said, Don't think

of conflict as argument.

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So I went back and I rewrote it.

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The spirit of the scene

was still the same.

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I was still trying to

accomplish the same things.

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I was trying to.

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You know, break.

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Linda's character open so she can finally

see what she needs to do that will carry

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us through to the end of the movie.

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And I put it back up

every cast at this time.

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The actors weren't available,

who are in it before.

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It's all was a good.

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For me to recast it anyway, because.

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Uh, I wanted to see what some other.

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Actors could bring to these roles.

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And so.

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I did it this time.

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Less as a fully imagined scene

where everybody was off book.

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I.

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I kept them on book.

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The scripts were on the table and I

also extracted it from the actual,

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from the, from the time and play

well, not from the time, but maybe

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from the location it was in before.

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And I just put them at

an edit table instead of.

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Where they were before.

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Just so I could focus on the relationship.

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And I made it a directors working

sessions, so they ran the scene and then I

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gave them feedback and they ran it again.

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And so I was getting this time.

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Not only Gary's take on.

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The rape scene, but also his take on

my process of directing in the moment,

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which is also really important to me.

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And so, um, I did some experimental

things with the actors to connect them

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and get their energy flow together

after they read it the first time.

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And it was amazing to see how

just asking them to hold hands.

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For example.

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Uh, for a few minutes

and to tell each other.

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How they feel about each other,

what their best and worst qualities

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were to talk at each other.

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While holding their hands totally changed.

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The second rating of the same.

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Dramatically.

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And then we started

playing with some improv.

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Yada, yada, the scene's over.

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We get feedback.

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And this time.

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Gary tells me.

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I still think you have.

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A writing problem.

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And.

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Something for him, wasn't working.

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The hard part for me.

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Um, Receiving feedback is that.

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The people giving me the feedback.

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Um, might be right about the

scene, but they don't have the

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full context for the entire story.

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They haven't read the entire script.

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They're just seeing the

scenes that I've put in class.

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Right.

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And this is the first

one with Lyndon Jones.

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They don't, I try to preface the

scene with some back story, so

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they know how we got where we are.

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. They still haven't read it.

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And I still don't know.

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All of it.

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Um, and that is both.

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A strength.

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And a weakness.

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I mean, it's, it's a

liability in the sense that.

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They can't fully understand it, but it's

a strengthened in the sense that they can

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focus on what they do see, and it's not

being muddied by too much information.

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And so Gary was saying.

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Again, it's the medically

I was doing too much.

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Now, not just in the scene, but maybe.

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In the script overall.

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It started to feel like two

different movies to him.

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What I was showing him in the third

act was this road trip gone wrong?

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Finally, getting on the right foot.

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And what I had set up in the first scene

that went, so, so, so, so well, Was.

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Uh, mother and daughter and

their tender relationship.

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And he said.

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I just don't understand why.

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Linda can't learn from Angela.

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Because I kept on insisting, but

Joan is Linda's perfect teacher.

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She's the only one who

can crack her out of her.

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Way of thinking and make

her see things differently.

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And then Gary.

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Asked me a question.

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Well, I guess may actually two questions.

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He said.

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Alicia.

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Have you learned from your mother?

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And I said, yes.

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Without hesitation.

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And then he said, do you think

your mother has learned from you.

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And that question kind of hit like a

ton of bricks because it's not something

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that I had ever consciously considered.

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And it was a very.

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Poignant question that.

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Really got me thinking.

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And basically what he told me is I think

you're focusing on the wrong relationship.

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Why can't you make Angela?

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Linda's.

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Best teacher.

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And why actually isn't she

and why am I not seeing that?

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And why am I trying to

make it this other woman?

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It wasn't adding up to him.

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I was too close to it to be able to see.

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That I had protected myself from exploring

the relationship between the mother and

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the daughter, probably because it was so.

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Emotionally personal to me.

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The seed for the idea of this.

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Story was really.

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What would it be like

if w if the real life.

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When my mom and the real life, Joan

Eric's mom were stuck together and

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they could not escape each other.

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And what is really the only

practical time that would happen.

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It would be if they were on a road trip.

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And now, and then I

worked back from there.

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I'm like, okay.

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So what would force them

to be on a road trip?

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And I pulled from my own

experience, and then I started.

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You know, building this

architecture around.

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Why things need to be.

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Be this way.

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But what I was missing was

that as I built that world,

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The most.

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Interesting part of it.

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Indeed.

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In the first 15 pages.

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And that.

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Um,

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Yeah, I was focusing on the wrong story

I say this pretty matter of factly right

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now, but in the moment, like it really.

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Triggered me emotionally and to some

tears and, um, Because, you know, what

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more tender relationship do any of

us have then that with our mothers?

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If you are a writer or interested in

listening to podcasts from professional

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writers, there are two that I think you

can't miss script notes is one of them.

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The other one is the screen writing life.

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Bye.

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Um, Meg.

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LOFO and, um, Laurie and McKenna.

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And they are just so great.

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And one of the things

they talk about a lot is.

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That writers have to access

the lava inside of them.

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To write from a deeply.

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Um, a place of deep emotional truth.

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When Gary asked me, has your mother.

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I learned from you.

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It was like, he took.

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An ax.

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And just.

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Shopped open, like this portal

into this hot flowing lava.

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And this like, Soulful emotional.

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Experience that I had as a

reaction to that question told me.

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That that's what I needed

to be writing about.

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Because that's where all

of the lava is for me.

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I just had so much of an emotional

roller coaster coming out of

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that feedback session, figuring

out, okay, what do I want to do?

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And then I woke up the

next morning and realized.

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I had this deep sigh.

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And Eric is like, what's wrong.

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And I said, well, yesterday I had a

finished script and today I have nothing.

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And he said, well, you've had

nothing before you can do it.

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I do have, I have

something I have so much.

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And in fact, I have like the key.

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To everything I need.

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Which is.

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The relationship I need to follow.

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And I never thought in a million

years that I'd be telling you,

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I'm going to rewrite this story.

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And.

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One of the main characters

is going to change.

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I never would have thought

that that was going to happen.

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In fact, if someone told me, okay,

Elisia, we want to produce this script.

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You got to kill one of the storylines.

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I for sure would've killed

the Angela storyline.

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Screw it.

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Like, this is about the

women on the road trip.

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And now.

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You know, I see it totally differently.

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. And I want to take you into more process.

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Driven insight into what I'm doing and

how I'm going to tackle this rewrite.

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How am I going to build

this story back up?

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Actually, you know, what was awesome.

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I shared this creative

revolution with my sister.

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And she, and I was talking to her

about, okay, I'm trying to figure

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out how I'm going to open it.

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And here's what I wanted to think.

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I could keep from what I did

before, but I don't really know

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how to make that resonant now.

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And she had such a great idea.

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And.

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That really infused a

lot of energy for me.

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So I'm just going to start

writing from the first page.

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You know, when I tackled the

first script, I actually started

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writing in the middle because that

was the same, that excited me.

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I really believe you should

chase the energy you have

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to keep the engine running.

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And if that's the jumpstart, you need

to get into it, then follow that.

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I wasn't sure exactly where it was going

to be for me in this new page one rewrite.

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But I think it's page one.

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To start with, and then

maybe I'll jump around.

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I could end up writing some.

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A bunch of scenes, like maybe a dozen

different scenes and seen where I

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think that they can fit in the puzzle.

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And there's so many

different processes that.

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Writers go through to

try to figure it out.

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And I'm not sure exactly

where I'll land on this one.

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I really want to operate

more from an intuitive place.

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Rather than like, A beat sheet.

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So I'm going to try that.

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Anyway.

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Thank you for listening.

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Hey, would you do me a favor?

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Would you mind.

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Rating this podcast.

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And of course leave a glowing review,

but it does help me as I'm kick-starting.

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This thing up again.

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To kind of jolt B algorithm that I exist.

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I'd really appreciate that.

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Thanks.