Stacey N Harding (Crime Time: Freefall - HMM 2024)

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[00:00:19] What are you waiting for? Call 1-888-Freedom or visit ConsumerCellular.com and use code RADIO15. That's gonna get us in so much trouble. He's gonna get the gate. He's gonna be mad. He's gonna be mad when he finds out that we didn't say the certain times. So this is pretty exciting. And we're excited to talk about Tastacy about Round and Around, which she directed last year in her upcoming movie, Crime Time. We're gonna talk about all of that and so much more.

[00:01:42] We love to start off any interview that we do though,

[00:01:45] finding out about what you were like as a kid to a new school in the middle of your teenage life and the drama kids are the kids that are actually interested in talking to somebody. So I went up stage managing theater. I school sat in the theater festival circuit for a while, which is basically fighting over a bag of Doritos to have a lot of fucking night

[00:03:01] because you don't make any money in you.

[00:03:03] And then I literally tripped on film hundred thousand miles and a bumper tied on with a coat hanger. That's right. Yeah. That's how we do. That's what I'm talking about. Doritos should sponsor you. I mean, should like, you should be the poster child for Doritos. Like that person eats Doritos. There's no doubt about it. It's right. Obviously. Um, so we we glossed over a lot real

[00:04:22] quick. And I want to, you are in stage managing and you love it.

[00:04:26] You love it enough to basically starve to get to do it for a living.

[00:05:28] in control of the artistic and the execution along with the production side of things. And so I found that stage managing role in the film industry.

[00:05:30] So that was the shift for me.

[00:05:32] So I ran film crews for 20 years.

[00:05:37] So in 1998, I started on a series, a Showtime series called Beggars and Chewsers, which

[00:05:44] was written about the film industry and the shot or Bob and we because we're on fire. Especially movies of the week.

[00:07:00] We got 15 days.

[00:07:02] I mean, crazy.

[00:07:04] The movies of the week are super. and handy over and over and over again. So super grateful for that amount of time. But as an AD, CBS hired me when they did the reboot of Charmed. So I did the pilot episode for Charmed and then was hired to do season one as an AD. And when they asked episode directed an episode of season two of charmed. And then just as we were coming out of post, and I was starting to prep my next episode as an ad the world shut down for COVID. So that. Yeah. And a year and a half later, I directed the final episode of mystery 101. It was an offer

[00:09:43] that hit. Yeah, I'm sorry.

[00:09:44] The IMDB. And you know, that deal. But when you get to work with Jonathan Taylor-Thomas as a trainee assistant director on Man of the House, I feel like that, when you put that on your resume,

[00:11:00] I think everyone just goes, you work with JTT.

[00:11:03] And I think that's the end of it.

[00:11:05] And that's your first credit, but you, I imagine got to work with a bunch of different directors over the years as AD. What was kind of the biggest take or the lesson that you were like, I use this now all the time, or something you learned, kind of doing that for all those years that you still utilize today in your own directing? Yeah, they read the script, which oddly enough, some directors don't really feel that they're not. It's great. It'd be like, that's super guys, but what are we going to do with these three pages of the story that no one seems to have read?

[00:13:40] But they came understanding that we're

[00:13:42] part of a collaborative team, which we are. dosing their way through the environment as the it's my way and that's how we're going to do things so So the the leading with kindness is something that is Super important to me like you can speak to the actors that work with me or you know anybody that I Especially as a director that I work with now and

[00:15:03] We're quick. We always know what we're doing and

[00:16:23] And we work together to problem solve whatever it is but if you And so my question is, is that as you've moved from TV to film, where I would, I can see that with TV especially, as you move from TV to film, do you have like an urge or inclination to go, okay, I want to do this this six months on it and carve it and craft it? Or do you like the challenge of, I've been giving all the pieces. Let me make a cake out of it. Yes. I love it. So, I mean, would I enjoy the opportunity of doing,

[00:17:40] you know, something in a way where I actually get the time

[00:17:44] and the ability to work really got to drill into. And so a lot of the time, most of that prep has spent working with the writers and working with the creative teams in order to try to distill the story down in a way that we actually know we can produce it. So there's that whole side of it that's kind of interesting and you have a little bit more control over stuff,

[00:19:01] but you're on fire, running through the street

[00:19:05] most kind of almost takes over a lot of that, where I would come in with ideas or things or places where I would like movement or motion, but that's something that would be all prediscussed essentially with the showrunner about, you know,

[00:20:23] how I see certain things and whether or not cut and We hand those over to show runners or executives and stuff and then Often you you don't really hear anything after that So you never have an indication of you know if people have loved it if people haven't loved it

[00:21:41] You know if it's it done really well for them

[00:21:43] If they're excited or what they liked or what they didn't, it wasn't the right time? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, it absolutely does. On the very first series I did, I worked with Richard J. Lewis, who is

[00:24:09] killer show, but I never seen a female director on the floor at that point in time. So it just

[00:24:17] didn't exist in the same way. Some actors who had an eye for directing studios were starting to support a little bit, but it was more like, keep them happy. So they also do all these other shows

[00:24:22] that we want them to do within the network, right, and that was something I think as a first AD I got to do a lot of because I got to help build this world that was around the actors even though I didn't get to, you know, inform the performance. I got to inform everything that was around it which was a terrific thing.

[00:25:45] Over the years as an AD, I continued to have the conversation with different executives and stuff that I was working with,

[00:25:47] right? that was going to be how ultimately my career went, and I was gonna have to be okay with that. And so the support from the production team of Charmed was critical, because being a director is an invitation. You don't, no job lineup, you can go and ask to be a director.

[00:27:03] I mean, there's lots of schools,

[00:27:05] you can go to in programs,

[00:27:06] you can come out of and all that kind of stuff, do you have become a career? I think like I'm not sure how many credits I have now, but I've been working pretty solidly as a director the last almost three years. And I every morning when my feet hit the floor, I am stupidly grateful to have the opportunity to go to work and do what the invite. Like what could possibly, like what are active steps, like or what would you have, like in your experience, look back and go, if this had been in place, it would have been beneficial for the opportunity

[00:29:41] for everyone that wants to be a director to be one.

[00:30:48] every day and working like a dog and having a solid plan and really viewing my leadership position.

[00:30:49] Like I view like this is a leadership position, right?

[00:30:52] And when I am on, when you are on one of my sets, you know you're on one of my sets,

[00:30:57] right?

[00:30:58] It's a heavily directive, very inclusive, you know, environment also the camaraderie was also amazing at that time, right? Like, I had people that were incredible friends and that culture just over the years has shifted and changed, right? So culturally, I think that, you know, the ability to have, you know,

[00:32:23] women and more diversity in the workplace when it comes to those leadership positions, And so that just drives the conversation forward. People can have, like there are opportunities that can be created for people. But, you know, I was a wonderful executive producer, Christopher McNeely, who was the exact on the mystery 101 movie and has turned into a marvelous friend of mine

[00:33:41] over the years.

[00:33:42] But I had a cold call with Christopher

[00:33:46] when I was still ad-ting. was super supportive of me jumping on phone calls and meeting with Hallmark in the middle of this, you know, episode in this world that we were, you know, on fire together in, and Christopher was the one, you know, on the other end of that call who facilitated the calls with Hallmark and did all those things. And, you know, you know, three years later, the reason why I finally got access was because

[00:35:01] I met somebody who was like, I think you're cool.

[00:35:05] I think your skillset has got something.

[00:36:06] is it? I think it I think it's a combination of a few different things. I think that Hallmark knows what as a director who directs a lot for Hallmark, I think they know what we do well, right? Each

[00:36:12] of their directors that are in their roster or people that work with them often, we all have

[00:36:17] different skills. We all bring something different to the way our storytelling is. And so I think

[00:36:22] on their side of things, they know the directors that do certain types of projects for them,

[00:37:23] shows, like they'll make the request. So, you know, they'll put me in as the director

[00:37:25] that they want to kind of come along

[00:37:26] because either they know that the production

[00:37:29] and if things is going to be challenging on a production,

[00:37:31] right?

[00:37:32] And so they want somebody that's got a higher level

[00:37:35] production knowledge when it comes to

[00:37:40] how to navigate schedule and those challenges,

[00:37:44] budgetary challenges, right?

[00:37:45] So when they know that we've worked together before

[00:37:47] and we have, in a show like Zoe's, like to your point, we have a schedule, we're trying to fit the schedule, but if we have an issue, we have money to back up the issue. In the world, the TV movie, if you have an issue, you just got figured out. Yes, and that's what I was like,

[00:39:01] you talk about like filmmaking,

[00:39:04] you're making a movie of the week,

[00:39:06] and you have, for homework, you watch the movie that airs on Saturday night, are you going, okay, they got it, or are you going, man, I wish this movie could have been 94 minutes instead of 84 minutes. That's a lot for 15 minutes. Yeah, it's a lot for 15 days.

[00:40:21] I think there's an interesting mix that happens,

[00:40:23] you know, when you watch the, you know,

[00:40:25] what is the final cut.

[00:40:27] So the editor puts it together, around and around and and I think that you know when I watched that movie there's not a lot out of we did a little bit more with the D&D dice where we hit that a little bit harder like in the director's cut and some of that stuff got a little bit trimmed you know when we when we hit what the network version was like and there's some pacing things like where you we had an

[00:41:43] opportunity for action rather than just dialogue you know in time. So you've got three takes, right? You need actors that are going to hit it. If you're doing a fourth take, something's really gone sideways. But there are movies that when I see the final cut, you have to like remove your... Because sometimes it's like very crushing,

[00:43:03] soul crushing, right? When you see that a certain take was taken out, which you have to, it's not that you don't care. It's like you have to just separate yourself from how it is. And so then when you listen to like one of your podcasts or you listen to people, movies and you're like, if you only knew. We get that a lot around here. You can buy it. I got one more round around question. Sure. There is a montage at the end of this film. And I don't want to give anything away.

[00:44:21] If you've not seen it and you're listening

[00:44:22] to the lovely Stacy and then want to go watch it,

[00:44:24] I would highly recommend it.

[00:44:25] There's a montage at the clues, you know, like so that gets hyper specific in a movie like round and the time travel kind of world like you know it's done a little bit of a different way like a lot of those scenes the poor actors because we're doing the scene over and over again right it's the same camera

[00:47:04] movement it's the same thing we're doing but it's like you know we would cut and be like okay now the uh... crime time really quickly luke mikfarlane love luke mikfarlane excited excited to see him do his thing uh... what can you tell us about that project is coming out in a few weeks that i definitely need to be directed before we started

[00:48:22] hahahaha

[00:48:23] i think it's like

[00:48:25] well first like luke and linde are just I'm excited to actually be partially responsible for the creation of what I think is going to be a really fun mystery wheel that's going to have a lot of legs. So I think that's fun. It it. That's good and hopefully this finally puts to death like Paul Husband drag your name through the mug for years down Hopefully this but really Worst he's the worst Rapid fire really quickly we each could ask you three questions are totally different they can be about anything

[00:51:02] Dan

[00:51:03] Yeah, what I heard your dog barking in the background. What? Shut your mouth. Yeah. And I hear the AD helped a lot there. The second one in particular. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's right. Yep. Tell me about a place to eat in Vancouver that I just can't eat here that you love in Vancouver to eat.

[00:52:22] Oh my god. what she's doing, what she wants, and how to tell people to get it. And you got to put her on a survivor. That's like putting me on survivor. I would just be like, I quit. No. Yeah. This is fair. I don't want to say favorite director, because I think there's a lot of you can go a lot of ways that but your dream director, if you could work with or just talk to a director for an hour about the craft of filmmaking, who would you like to do that with?

[00:53:47] Wow.

[00:54:42] the brain, you know, like get an understanding of like some of

[00:54:43] that kind of stuff.

[00:54:45] My last question. Have you seen

[00:54:46] the mighty ducks trilogy?

[00:54:50] That's not the question. It's

[00:54:52] a set up to the question, of

[00:54:53] course. Okay, okay. No. Okay,

[00:54:56] the next question. That is the

[00:54:57] question. Stacy, before I let

[00:54:59] you go, a little thing we try to

[00:55:01] do each and every week is to

[00:55:03] bring a little joy and we do

[00:55:04] that hopefully through giving

[00:55:05] and encouraging other people to

[00:55:06] give you selected a charity for Yes. Deck the Hallmark is a Bravel Jam podcast produced by Aaron Shea. What? For more information on Deck the Hallmark, you can go to deckthehallmark.com. For more information on the Deck the Hallmark family, you can go to bramblejamplus.com. Deck the Hallmark is presented by FyloTV for a free trial of Fylo go to Fylo.tv slash DTH. You're about to hear some ads that help keep the lights on here in the old studio.