I wanted to talk a little bit about the inspiration behind Unplaced since it’s something I’d touched on before (especially in regards to mental health - I was in a super rough spot when I had the idea, as referenced below, and basically spent three months dissociating without knowing that’s what I was doing, which was a big part of the inspiration), but haven’t talked about fully.
When I had the idea for Unplaced, I was originally thinking of the possibility of it being some sort of audio, location-based game. I wanted the form factor to involve people walking around with headphones in - that’s why I turned to podcasts when I realized that the game idea was wayyy out of my reach for the foreseeable future.
I had just made a huge move across the country, into a not-great situation that had been really misrepresented to me before the move, but was in such a spot that I couldn’t get out and go back home logistically/financially. I was isolated in a way that I have never been before in my life, and I spent hours walking around this neighborhood I was staying in feeling trapped and suffocating and just bone-achingly lonely.
On top of that, I’d just come out after Pulse, about three weeks before the move. So I was finally able to talk about being bisexual and what that meant for me (in certain, extremely limited contexts, of course). But I was also in a relationship with a guy, so this huge weight that had been lifted off my shoulders and this part of myself that I’d been actively repressing for more of my life than not and could now finally talk about (again, in very specific contexts)…was still 100% invisible to everyone else.
And then, after coming out as bi and still coming to terms with what being able to come out meant for me and the way I am in the world, I started to experience what I have termed the Gender Angst™ and over the course the next few months started to begrudgingly accept I’m somewhere in camp nonbinary/genderqueer. Speaking of feeling invisible, that was something I only talked about in exactly one Slack channel with a very specific subset of people and still have a hard time articulating to people because they inevitably want proof and some things are just not visibly provable (and shouldn’t have to be!).
This is part of why it was so important to me to make the narrator clearly queer, right out the gate. Struggling with my own queer identity was a huge part of what led to me feeling so isolated. In fact, my original idea/goal was to make the narrator nonbinary, but I couldn’t figure out a way to make that text in the script that wouldn’t be clunky (and didn’t want to do the “word of God” schtick because I have Lots of Feels about creators pulling that shit). Now that I know there will be a season two, I know I could have done it, but I wasn’t sure if there would be a season two at first, or if it would be a one-and-done story.
Anyways, I don’t have a super concrete ending here but wanted to talk about some of the feelings behind Unplaced, which, as much as I can make it, is meant to be a story about people living on the margins of society. It’s super important to me to work with a crew that accurately matches that theme (and I’m really excited about getting to bring in more actors in season two and do that even more!), and to pay them because (IMO, etc.) if we keep asking marginalized people to work for free in the name of diversity it’s a self-perpetuating cycle that’s just gonna keep indie media for a certain subset of people. So, uh, if you agree maybe check out and share the Indiegogo? And/or give season one a listen, if you haven’t yet - I’m also going to be investigating ads for this next season, so downloads/listens help too (and we’re also in the RadioPublic paid listens program, so listening on RadioPublic sends money our way, too!).
