I'm Having Way Too Much Fun (And I'm Inviting You to Join Me)

A note from our founder Babette! Join her in some new shenanigans! 

If you asked me what I've been up to this year, I couldn't answer without sounding like I've lost my mind. I brought a frontier doctor back from 1894 for a documentary. I let a curious fox loose in the Museum of Confident Mistakes. I showcased the complexities of marriage with a couple on a space station who fight exactly like we do here on earth. I made The Office of the Undead, a parody of The Office set in Albania, where vampires show up to fires, floods and disasters to collect the bodies, and still have to sit through the weekly staff meeting. I'm building a trailer for a war film where I had to capture the emotional toll of going into battle to save your family, and in between all of that I've been writing vertical dramas and haven't stopped smiling. You can see some of my AI work on pepajmedia.com.

I'm playing again, and I haven't played like this since I was a kid with a darkroom in my bathroom. I'm not about to stop now.

Fifteen years in TV, and I never had this much fun

Don't get me wrong, TV was a blast. I spent fifteen years producing unscripted television, and the shoots took me to some of my favorite places on earth, including Alaska, Montana and Miami, where I fell in love with a sandwich. I told a lot of stories about teens stepping outside their comfort zone, and I got a front row seat to their growth, which was a privilege I still think about. I lived on craft services and adrenaline, and I wouldn't give any of it up.

What I would give up is everything in between. I could fall asleep on a plane in five minutes, not out of talent, but because I had to be in the office soon after we landed, driving straight there to drop off tapes before heading back to work to write the first cut. Those days are over. Back then every idea needed a network, a budget, a location and a permit before it could happen, and now it just needs a good story.

In 2006 I took my creativity online and launched BakeSpace, a community for home cooks, and that's where I fell in love with the audience. There were no gatekeepers, just people sharing what they loved and cheering each other on, and twenty years and 130,000 recipes later, I still love this community. If you have not explored BakeSpace, please do! If you love recipes and community, you'll fit in just fine. 

But I missed making shows. I missed it so much that in 2019, when an idea for a cooking series came to me in the shower, I wrote it down and emailed an agent I once knew. I had the community and I had the audience, so could I sell the show? Within a few months I was pitching, and that's when I realized I was a natural at development, and that I could actually pitch. I pushed boundaries, tried interactive ideas, and packaged show concepts with talent and hosts. I got two deals on two shows with two difference companies, and then I waited, and waited, and those deals expired. But by then I was sitting on a mountain of more ideas so I'd be ready to sell again.

Then somebody handed me the toy box

AI filmmaking didn't sneak into my life, it kicked the door open and asked what we were making for dinner. Suddenly the ideas I'd been carrying around in folders for years could get made by me, this week, without waiting on anybody. I joined an AI filmmakers group run by my friend Tim Street, and twice a week I get to hang out with working professionals, real credits and real scars, all of us squealing over a camera move like kids on Christmas morning.

The best part of making things this way is that you get to be bad at it first. You get to try the weird idea just because it makes you laugh.

So I'm starting a new chapter, and it's called Vote the Plot

Vote the Plot is the most ambitious version of all of this. It's where I put the future of the stories I make in the hands of the community, and it's where my two careers finally sit down at the same table, with the TV producer in me building the world and the community builder in me handing you the remote.

Currently Vote the Plot is on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube. Pick your poison and join me on your favorite platform. Content is light at the moment, but I have big plans.

Here's how it works. I make world intros for vertical series, the kind you watch on your phone, made with AI filmmaking tools and led by strong women. A world intro is a taste of the show, just enough for you to decide whether you like the concept and whether you feel anything for the characters. You vote by interacting with the post, so like it, comment on it, and tell me what works, what doesn't, and what you want to see next. If the audience is into it, the story keeps going, and if not, we move on to the next one with no hard feelings. (Okay, maybe a few hard feelings. I'm a producer. I'll get over it by lunch.)

You're the network now. Congratulations. The hours are flexible and you can work in your pajamas.

Our first show: Better Days Bakery

Of course it's a bakery. I've been in the kitchen of the internet since 2006, so where else was I going to start?

If you've scrolled through vertical dramas lately, you already know the tropes. Somebody always gets slapped across the face, and there's always a billionaire abusing a desperate woman who apparently had nowhere else to go. Better Days Bakery isn't that, and neither is anything else I'm making. There's a small-town bakery, a woman named Maya, and not a single slap or billionaire in sight. I'm not going to tell you more than that, because that's what the world intro is for.

The world intro is about three minutes long, and whether Maya's story keeps going is up to you. Not all videos will be 3 minutes long.

Your first assignment as a network executive

Voting takes about three seconds. Find @votetheplot on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or Youtube, watch the world intro, and then like it, comment, and tell me what you think. The more you interact, the louder your vote.

Come play with me

Better Days Bakery is the first world intro, not the last, and I'm open to everything, whether it's a genre you're missing, a character you've never seen on screen, or the story you've been telling your friends for years that nobody ever made. Send it my way. Maybe it becomes the next world intro, and maybe we make it together.

I don't know exactly where this goes, and honestly, that's the best part. For fifteen years I waited for someone else to say yes, and now I get to make the thing, put it out into the world, and find out what happens next with all of you. So grab your phone, watch Maya, and cast your vote. Let's see what we make.

Thanks for reading! I know this isn't BakeSpace related... but I thought you might be interested in checking out our new concept. oxo