Daisy Jones & The Six | Contenders TV Nominees 2023
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Transcript
00:00 Hello there, I'm Dominic Patton, Senior Editor here at Deadline.
00:03 As a former music writer, it gives me great pleasure to be moderating our Daisy Jones
00:08 in the Sixth Panel today at Contender.
00:10 Based on the runaway bestseller of the same name, the Riley Kehoe and Sam Coughlin-led
00:14 limited series from Prime Video has proved a cultural touchstone that shines as bright
00:20 as the fictional blockbuster rock band it depicts.
00:23 And the proof has to be in the mix.
00:25 Not only the show, but the bestselling album based on the March 3rd debuting series and
00:30 the nine Emmy nominations that Daisy Jones in the Sixth has garnered, including Outstanding
00:36 Limited or Anthology Series.
00:38 In that, we are joined today by Executive Producer Lauren Neustadt, plus Emmy nominees
00:43 Costume Designer Denise Wingate, Music Supervisor Frankie Pine, and Production Designer Jessica
00:50 Kender.
00:51 But before we all start talking Daisy Jones in the Sixth, let's check out a clip from the show.
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02:40 Now, before we talk more about the show, we have to give a quick shout out to both Frankie and Lauren who were in that clip,
02:48 prominently cameoed, watching the show. Maybe there's another Emmy nomination as cameos for you guys down the line.
02:55 Lauren, I mentioned earlier about the novel, Taylor Jenkins reads novel that the book is based on.
03:01 What attracted you to this project? Because the transition that can occur from a novel to a show is always a difficult one, adaptation.
03:09 But we've seen time and time again, almost like with video games, when it comes to music, especially rock and roll, it can be very difficult.
03:16 What were some of the challenges that you faced in getting this from the page to the screen?
03:20 Well, I have to say the first thing that attracted me to it, other than the exceptional novel, was the fact that my husband was adapting it.
03:28 So he created the show and we had the privilege of working on it together. But when you talk about the challenges,
03:33 I mean, we knew that this kind of an undertaking was going to be massive and we were so excited to do it together,
03:40 but also to assemble an incredible team who was ready and capable of bringing this gorgeous book to life on screen.
03:48 And we also, you know, when we read the book, which was very early, was before it even published,
03:52 we knew that fans were going to go crazy for this book. And they did. And I think their expectations were really, really high.
03:59 So it was our challenge and our greatest privilege to get to actually take this book and bring it to life very thoughtfully on screen.
04:07 And I will say, Dominic, the thing that we didn't expect was that COVID would sort of happen in the middle of it.
04:12 And we were a month away from shooting when everything shut down.
04:16 And so, you know, obviously making a show about sex, drugs and rock and roll at the height of COVID was another challenge that we did not anticipate.
04:24 But I think the silver lining was that this group of actors really became a band.
04:29 They took advantage of that year and they trained with their voices and their instruments and they became a real rock band,
04:37 which is pretty amazing. And I will say when they became number one in the emerging music, the emerging artists at Billboard,
04:44 it was like this unbelievable full circle moment of, you know, just achieving all the things that we set out to achieve.
04:51 Yeah. And I mean, that's a remarkable story. And equally so is, as you just mentioned, the chart success that it had.
04:58 Frankie, you know, working on this, the music supervisor helping to put this together, it's very hard.
05:05 You know, I always think when especially when people do period pieces like this from the 70s, you know,
05:10 period pieces from the 18th and 19th century kind of white women's suit, when you do this in the 70s, there's always, in my opinion,
05:15 as a as a as a fan and as a as a viewer, two failures. One is the wigs are terrible.
05:20 You guys did not suffer from. But it also is the music just doesn't sound like the music from the time.
05:25 It's either a little overproduced or this or that. But you guys really locked into this.
05:29 Tell us a little bit about about that approach and kind of the results of literally finding yourself at the top of the charts.
05:37 I think when we first started, you know, it was about finding the right songwriter and producer.
05:43 And I think one of the greatest things about music from the 70s is that people were just writing music that they loved.
05:50 It wasn't about that. Oh, it has to be a single and there's got to be it's got to make the radio charts and such.
05:56 And when we put together our list of executive music producers, you know, it was a very small list.
06:03 It was only three people on that list. And when they met with Blake, you know,
06:08 Blake was kind of like that quintessential artist that doesn't really care if his music is on the charts.
06:17 He's he just writes music that feels right for him. So he couldn't have been the better choice for this.
06:26 And, you know, I think going into the way that we kind of structured each song, you know, based on the book and based on when we finally got scripts,
06:37 like kind of really placing all of those things, you know.
06:42 The one thing I always know when you're doing a soundtrack album is that everybody wants to relive the experience of that piece of music when they hear it.
06:51 So. I knew that the music was going to be a huge success because we're always going to want to feel and remember those moments in those scenes when Billy and Daisy were about to kiss or, you know, they got into a fight.
07:06 Those are the that's the reason why we buy soundtrack albums as because we want to relive the experience of the show.
07:14 Jessica, when you look at production design for something like this, you know, there's a there's a great history, a great wealth, especially in the past 20 years of people kicking back to the 70s.
07:24 But this had a greater intimacy. I felt watching it visually and aesthetically.
07:28 What were some of the elements that you wanted to put together? I mean, there's always the obvious kind of finding the moral canyon type mythology.
07:35 But what were you really looking for here to create the tone? Because it has a great narrative flow of its own aesthetically.
07:42 Well, I think one of the things we got into starting from the very beginning is that we wanted it to feel real.
07:49 I think we did what I sort of call it's almost like a hyper realism.
07:55 So you take like all these images you have from the 70s and you take these reference of the bands and the life and all of it has a slight patina to it just because over the past, you know, 50 years it's developed a patina.
08:11 And we wanted to stray like true to the tones of the time.
08:15 But we also want to show the audience sort of what we all think of when we think of the 70s, because what I don't want to do is show you a documentary.
08:25 We're not doing that. We want to immerse you in the world we're doing.
08:28 And to be able to do that, you need to both hit what was true, but then also hit what people see as true.
08:35 So there's a very distinct tone and color palette we chose that sort of puts you in the right tones of the 70s, but also puts you in what you think of as the 70s.
08:46 You know, when you look at the old images of, let's say, your uncle hanging out at Woodstock, you know, you want to feel that immediately when you turn into the show.
08:55 And that was our goal from the beginning. It wasn't Austin Powers. It wasn't total authenticity to the 70s.
09:01 It was this line of like, you immediately just settle into this world that you know when you feel is right.
09:08 Denise, were there similar guidelines for you in terms of looking at the costumes and finding the look?
09:15 Yeah, I think Jess really nailed it. I mean, a lot of my, most of my research was actual images.
09:22 And again, we didn't want it to be documentary, but a lot of even just old scrapbooks.
09:27 And if you look at old scrapbooks, the color from the 70s, it was this kind of Kodachrome color that when they get to LA, it kind of turns into this golden, you know, this kind of golden what you would consider California to be.
09:39 And I grew up here, so I remember it and it was really smoggy. So like in my growing up, everything had like a smog, a haze.
09:46 But the costumes, I did so much research because we had that downtime and it really gave me the time to just cover my walls and just do research on every character, which I think was helpful for them.
09:56 And, you know, my boards were all over my walls. And again, open door policy, we all worked really closely together.
10:02 I worked really closely with Jess and looking at her locations and what she had had in mind and the palette, everything.
10:08 It was just a real cohesive team for sure.
10:12 What about with, say, Riley and Sam? I mean, I know that they certainly had some ideas of their own about how they wanted to inhabit these roles.
10:20 Well, I think by me starting out, having done the research and they could see my boards and my books and look at what I had done, it gave them ideas on how they could use it as a jumping off point to discover who they thought their character was.
10:32 And every time we did a fitting, we would just become more and more involved. And at that time they were in band camp, so they were getting very comfortable with their instruments.
10:40 And I think because they became a band, they also became the characters. And then I would give them costumes to reverse in so the guys could feel like what it was like to wear hip huggers.
10:51 You know, they're used to wearing their pants really up high and they were tight, tiny T-shirts and hip huggers and tight in the thighs.
10:58 And it just made it a little more authentic for them to feel like what the character would feel like.
11:03 Lonn, based on what Jess and Frankie and Denise have all said, the show over its 10 episodes had, as I said in the intro, it had a real cultural impact on people.
11:13 Either coming out of the pandemic looking for something that was a different time, a different shade, maybe a form of comfort.
11:19 What was that like for you seeing that? I mean, all producers, of course, want their shows to be a success, but it felt like Daisy Jones and the Six tapped into something a little deeper than most do.
11:28 Thank you for saying that. I mean, it was so incredibly gratifying to feel audiences loving the show.
11:36 What we set out to do in the beginning was invite our audience on the bus with the band.
11:41 We always talked about Almost Famous and our reverence for that film.
11:45 And we loved the fact that when we watched that movie, we felt like we were on the bus and we just wanted to bring our audience with us.
11:51 We wanted them to be backstage. We wanted them to be on stage. We wanted them to be in the audience.
11:56 And I think just hearing people's reactions and understanding that we touched them meant so much to all of us and to the cast as well.
12:05 I mean, obviously, Riley and Cami and Scott and so many others that can't really in this moment talk about their tireless work and their tremendous contributions to this project.
12:16 Everyone that worked on Daisy Jones and the Six put their heart and soul into the show.
12:21 And I think it really shows up on screen and then feeling the way that audiences responded to it, I think, was just the most gratifying thing for us.
12:29 So I have to ask you, we have to wrap it up, but I have to ask you both, Frankie and Lauren, we saw you guys in that clip.
12:34 Obviously, this is as listening to all of you guys and knowing a little bit about the making of the show from talking to Riley and others in the past, it was a labor of love.
12:42 What was it like being at that, you know, being at a Daisy Jones and the Six concert?
12:48 It was rocking, man!
12:51 It was awesome.
12:53 I probably was, you know, we were all the biggest bands of this band.
12:59 And, you know, I wanted to feel like that they were a true band, like somehow, how did I miss this band in the 1970s?
13:09 And I think that that's definitely something that we accomplished is that, you know, you could go and see them at the Troubadour Friday night and, you know, they would just, you know, rock your socks off.
13:22 It was so awesome to kind of see it come alive.
13:26 Yeah, the first night that they rehearsed, I stayed there until 2 a.m. to watch them perform because it was that good.
13:35 I could have gone home, been in my bed, prep for the next day, and instead I was out there front row rocking out as well.
13:43 We were truly the band's biggest fans.
13:45 I mean, it was such a privilege to get to be a part of the band that made the show, but then watching them perform and being, I mean, we were all, the four of us, we're all in the audience, every show, rocking out with the extras.
13:58 Like, it was just this whole thing, our whole hearts are in it.
14:02 So it was pretty incredible and it was also really incredible to get to sort of experience the world loving the music and falling in love with this band beyond our wildest dreams.
14:13 Well, thank you guys so much, all of you, for joining us today.
14:16 Now, remember, everyone, you can catch all 10 episodes of Daisy Jones on the 6 on Amazon Prime.
14:22 Thank you.
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