I got to talk about Candid Dad today with my dad – specifically about the intent, message, and people it will help.
I got to layout the reasons it’s going to be a huge factor in how children view parenting.
We talked about the what and that the how will take care of itself. I have set target timeframes for different phases of developing the interview series. But I have to dive into some hard dates for certain elements.
The first big piece is recording and editing two interviews. These two full episodes will give me material to promote support for the show. They will also help me dial in the structure and bring in other dads to interview.
Ideally, I want to have a line-up of dads that reach out to Candid Dad to tell their stories. Part of the show is interviewing the dad at their natural habitats which means I’ll be doing some traveling. I haven’t determined yet if I’ll need a team member. Because of the traveling, most likely I’ll be seeking funding.
I think the best approach for developing the show is the seasonal tv show method. I would shoot all the episodes – planning for 15 interviews each season – over so many consecutive months. Just line em up boom boom boom. Then I have the remaining months to edit the footage and prep it for release/distribution. I don’t know these industry terms.
Most of the how I haven’t figured out yet, and I’m not sweating it too much. There are certain things like what part of the year I want to record and when in the year I’d want to release. I’m sure I’ll get more insight on that as I learn more about the process of putting together a show. I’m also optimistic about having help.
I think the best scenario is having one season completely ready to ship while I’m knocking down interviews. That scenario would make a year 2021 release for Season 1. Which isn’t really significant to the relevance of the content. Best case scenario tho is that I have a team because the first launch. That would be freakin swell. There will be no shortage of capable bodies from the “born-with-tablets” generation.
Right! My dad and I talking – well, he dropped a pretty serious bomb on me that flipped an idea I had been holding onto since childhood. I don’t think I want to share something this level of personal here. In my early years of living in Alabama, I convinced myself that this guy hated me and was out to ruin my good times. Well, one very, very significant situation that I didn’t have the behind-the-curtains view of lead me to draw a conclusion that was wrong. If fact, the conclusion that I drew because a HUGE source of angst I had towards my dad, the tyrant. In short, those feelings were not caused by the source that I believed they were, and then 25 years later the doors are open wide and the truth revealed.
It was really perfect timing to explain to Dad that those kinds of events are exactly why Candid Dad has to happen. There are just things that parents go through that they shield their children from knowing and for many reason:
1) Children generally understand things in straight lines and for most ages, seeing is believing
2) Parents want to protect children from certain ideas that might cause them to blame themselves for certain things
We can go on and on there. But I used that story and how it changed my whole perception of my teens and adulthood to support the argument that children can benefit from hearing their dads tell their stories, humanizing themselves, and most importantly educating the children their raising on parenting.
All of us, every one of us human beings like to convince ourselves that our parents are superhuman and invincible and the smartest people on the planet. And unfortunately some of us discover our parents vulnerabilities in damaging ways.
I didn’t understand until I became a parent that “Oh, mom and dad were figuring it out as they went.” My parents weren’t superheros. They were actually improvisation experts, living fire extinguishers, and master jugglers. How much better could any of us have adapted to the swings of marriage, family, work life if we had of understood things like this sooner?
The answer to that is why I have to create Candid Dad. I want to change the dynamic of what we believe children should learn or can understand.
Dad was really on board with it and gave me somethings to consider in the literature behind it. So that was really good. I also told him I’d eventually like to have him in the seat – which should test all my interviewing skills. Maybe we’ll get him for Season 2.