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Creativity isn’t tidy—it’s risky, chaotic, and full of surprises. It’s full of breakthroughs and breakdowns, moments of flow and moments of doubt. Join Mishu Hilmy for unfiltered conversations with artists, filmmakers, musicians, and fearless makers who thrive in the unknown, embrace imperfection, and create at the edge of possibility.
This is your front row seat to the self-doubt, unexpected wins, and messy emotional work of making something real. But craft isn’t just about feeling—it’s about problem-solving, process, and the devotion behind mastery.
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Mishu Hilmy (00:03.244)
Welcome to Mischief in Mastery, where we embrace the ups, downs, and all around uncertainty of a creative life, and that steady, and sometimes not so steady journey toward expertise. Each episode we talk candidly with people I know, people I don't know, folks who produce, direct, write, act, do comedy, make art, make messes, and make meaning out of their lives. You will hear guests lay out how they work, what they're thinking about, where they get stuck, and why they snap out of their comfort zones and into big, bold, risky mo-
So, if you're hungry for honest insights, deep dives into process philosophies and practical tips, plus maybe a little mischief along the way, you're in the right place. For more, visit mischiefpod.com. Hey everyone, it's Misha and welcome to Mischief and Mastery. Today we're talking with Edwina Lokala-Burkhart. She is a Chicago-based singer, actor, and dancer with a BFA in musical theater. She's most recently performed on stage in the show Pussy Sludge as Josephina. That was with Facility Theater and
played in Medea with Bump in the Night Theatre Company. She's also expanded into filmmaking, writing, producing, and starring in the upcoming feature Roller Babies. She's also co-directed the short film Coming Over. So it was lots of fun getting to talk with Edwina. We chatted about what it's like to rebuild your creative voice, making work with friends instead of waiting to be cast and finding movement and growth and momentum on your own terms.
We also got into how stepping away from the roles she was trained to play helped her rediscover what she actually wanted to say, as well as how making work with friends turned uncertainty into motion. So if you're into that, stick around. You can follow Edwina on Instagram at EdwinaFay. And to learn more about Roller Babies, at Roller Babies. So you'll have all that in the show notes. And here we go, a delightful conversation with myself and Edwina Lokela Burkhardt. Please enjoy.
I feel like it's kind of been all around and a lot of like trying to find myself. Because I graduated college 2019 and I moved out to the city in 2020 and I came in thinking I was going to do, you know, full musical theater. I was, you know, ready to be in an opera chorus with the Detroit Opera. Like I was, I was gun ho, you know, ready to hit the ground running and then to have like kind of the floor ripped out from under you.
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (02:26.772)
In a sense with the pandemic, yeah, we kind of made me stop and assess what it was I wanted from my art, from myself creatively, because I kind of realized I was very much only trained to be a cog. In a lot of like in productions, in a show, you know, you go to musical theater school to figure out your type. Like they really drill that that type.
into you and to figure out how you can just portray anybody but yourself. And so I think coming out of that, was, especially with my singing, is where I still kind of feel the most lost, but it's just trying to figure out how I can create it like from the bottom up by myself.
because your experience up till then was mostly like, trying to fill a role. And I think that's the tough thing about like the actor's plight or even the musical singer or musical actor's plight of like, you're just, you know, praying for an audition where your type can fit in or your particular skills can fit in. then to have the whole system kind of shut down for two years. I think that's a lot of time. And I just think of like, do I just want to kind of be a piece of this machinery?
Mm-hmm, exactly. I find, and I feel like I found my footing as an actor better because it's, I don't want to say easy, but it's more intuitive to like find people to write with and create just straight stories. But what I found more difficult was to figure out how to bring like my musical aspects back into my art because.
singing. I'm not a composer by any means and I never found that I was really good with like lyrics. So it was a lot of just like filling, filling a song and I can really fill a song and I can understand a piece that's given to me. But yeah, I've been struggling with how I want to continue singing and what that means for me. Yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (04:26.242)
Like what do mean by fill a song just because I'm not super familiar with maybe is that a common vernacular or like what does that mean to you to like fill a song?
No, I think that's something not common. Definitely me just saying that. But fill a song is like, it's like a monologue, you know, it's just a monologue with music and you need to fill that character and understand why and with music a little bit more difficult because there's got to be a really strong reason I'm breaking out into song right now and not just telling you verbally what I need from you. And so what I mean by filling a song is like,
I definitely, you know, I got my money's worth in school and I figured out how to connect with that character and not only take the lyrics and figure out what they mean to the character, but also what does the music say intuitively about the emotional state in the character and et cetera, et cetera.
That's great way to put it. Putting essentially your point of view, developing that skill of what's your perspective on the character at the moment and to be able to fill it out and sink through it. And then for you, so you found, you mentioned bottom up, so deciding to empower yourself through, you know what, waiting for productions that have characters or even stories or plays or pieces that...
I'm aligned with, maybe I just need to make it on my own or with a partner. So like, what was it like at least crossing the threshold to go, maybe I want to make my own work rather than, you know, hope a production chooses me.
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (05:58.986)
It's the gift of running into friends. truly nothing I have created this far in my life would be possible without like the people that I have been lucky enough to meet and reconnect with in Chicago. Like Daisy and I actually grew up together funny enough in a little bit of ways, but we lost contact and then just happened to run into each other. Jamie and Julia, both of them are like friends of a friend that I met and then became really close with.
And if it wasn't for these connections, I don't think the ground up work would have been possible for me. And I think that's a lot with any art. Nothing is made in a vacuum. And yeah, Daisy was a huge push to be just us sitting around and being an R2 bubble and trying to figure out things. It was really the combined power of minds that like...
got us to thinking like, no, we can do this. And then seeing our other friends like actually like achieving this. And we're like, wait, no, we can just make it for ourselves. We don't we don't need another institution to validate our work and our ideas. Like we can create an institution and validate ourselves.
Yeah, I think it's like really well said, you know, if you see sort of models that you can kind of replicate or build after, especially when it's like a close friend or a friend of a friend, they're doing it at this level. Why can't we? And then to have a friend who sort of you're connected with. So when it comes to like, when it came to Daisy and yourself, I know you developed Roller Babies as a short and then into a feature, but were there other ideas before Roller Babies or was that the kind of the, you know, the first idea that came up or I'm curious what was.
You know, the genesis of the, I, know, choosing an idea to write and develop and then moving it from a short to say a feature.
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (07:54.25)
It was much more natural actually and sneaky than I think we had expected because both Daisy and I, we got to a point where we wanted hobbies again as adults. You know, remember when we went to school and you know, after school you'd have your extracurricular activities and you'd have like a schedule of things you'd go through during the week. And we both kind of missed that and
So we started skating and so every Tuesday we would go skating after work. This was our extracurricular adult activity and there was just something about the continuous schedule thing that you're just skating in circles and you're just, skating is a very solitary activity because you can skate by somebody.
but you can only do it for so long. And then you're with yourself and your brain, and then you'll come back to that person and you'll like connect with them and you'll like, you'll like talk about the things you just thought about by yourself for the last 20 minutes. And so it was a lot of that. And it was just one day the idea sparked. And I think it was over something like a very small flea bit that was as simple as like,
Glitter Blood, we thought this idea was hilarious and it spun and it spun and it spun and it got bigger. And then, yeah, as Daisy had talked to you about, you know, we had a short, we were like, whoa, we made something. Look at us. And it was a lot like virtually too, because at some point, you know, Daisy moved back to Michigan and it was just, you know, consistent writing of just like.
Well, what should we do with this now? Taking it to Jamie. Jamie's like, blow it up, make something bigger. And it was that encouragement where we're like, wait, are we funny?
Mishu Hilmy (09:53.646)
That's great. Also, like sometimes you just like need permission to kind of go further too. Like it's just like the friendly suggestion of, this is fun. This is funny. Why don't you make it longer, larger, more pieces, more set pieces, because at the worst case scenario, you can always just make it short off of it, but you're able to at least build up some momentum to go, let's make this into a full feature.
Exactly. Someone can always tell you to rein it in, but it's harder to tell somebody to like, you know, keep going crazy.
And then like, I'm I'm curious because, you know, it started out as maybe like, oh, let's write this thing up and then it's short. And then you got some feedback from friends and Jamie, et cetera, to say, oh, try and blow it up. that point, was it, you know, was there thoughts of production, thoughts of making this into a movie or was it mostly still, oh, hey, this is really cool and funny. Keep, keep, you know, poking at it, keep exploring it. Was there a certain point, I guess I'm curious of like where it went from you just writing this thing to it potentially becoming made.
Yeah, it was when Jamie blew it up where I think she also saw the opportunity to like, well, and I think for Jamie, she had done a lot of shorts at this point and she saw the opportunity to be like, let's challenge ourselves. Like we can make a feature. We have the capabilities, we have like the connections and the wherewithal. And I think this, and she took a chance on us in our.
in our script too. Like we were friends, but not very close at that point. And she saw the potential. So really is, you know, that like, just, just someone trusting in your vision. so, you know, she had put in our head at that point, like, no, we're going to make a feature. And we're like, ha ha ha. Yeah, we're going to make a feature. Of course. Cause we're, you know,
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (11:46.168)
that's manifestation, baby. You just believe and believe. And we're like, yeah, of course we're going to make a feature. But honestly, it wasn't until we were crowdfunding for said feature and trying to get funds for it where we're like, we're making a feature. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. That's so great. And then I know Daisy mentioned that like in terms of the writing process, she was usually the one who would maybe sit down because she wrote faster. But what was it like for you in being in a collaborative environment and also considering that predominantly you're doing more musical theater, what was it also like for just like writing in general? So, you know, what was the collaborative writing process like as well as for you personally, what's writing of the experience writing for you like?
I, by myself, other than just like free brain vomit writing, I kind of struggle with it. I'm not the like strongest, I'm a tiny bit dyslexic. I'm not the strongest grammatically. I have a little bit of like anxiety about like sharing, like something I wrote straight from my brain to page and send it out. So with Daisy writing, 100%.
was faster always. She is just a very quick typer. But I felt like I could dictate really easily. And I can stop her and have her retrace her train of thought in that moment, watching her type it out. And it would be a lot of like, no, no, no, hold up. Where are we going? What are our characters doing? I would see a lot of the bigger picture while she would get lost in that moment scene. And I'm like, wait.
how is this fitting in the bigger world that we're in and what these girls are doing. so weirdly enough, it worked. Which is strange because writing is, again, writing like skating is a very solitary thing too for a lot of people. It's just you and a page or a keyboard. for some reason, and this is a testament to...
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (13:49.922)
Daisy's ability to let me in as well, because a lot of people would not enjoy someone hovering over their shoulder, you know, even if it's like a via zoom. But yeah, her ability to let me in and just kind of like hover and we like live in the pages together, we like juggle off of each other extremely well. It's strange.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's like a great complimentary experience where some of your, your skill sets, maybe the bigger picture is staying, you know, track with a story or some character arcs. Well, Daisy might've been able to be more granular and it worked out. Cause I remember also like on different projects writing in a group session or even two people. it was like, Oh, I don't, I think I could do this much faster by myself. It wasn't the best, but it's great when it's you find a sort of a relationship or at least a vernacular.
where you're able to move it along without getting stuck at specific points or feeling like you're doing most of the heavy lifting.
Yeah, no, yeah, it really is. and Daisy will say, yeah, she she can absolutely write by herself faster than the two of us. But, but, you know, there's some some combined imagination that like, when we click, we it clicks.
Yeah. Like are there any, when it came to the writing, did you inject any sort of musicality for yourself? Does your character break into songs or, you know, is there a musical component of Roller Babies or no, it's more of just a straight character piece.
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (15:22.984)
It's more of a straight character piece for sure. I well, no, that's not true. There, there was, there is a little musical moment that I had devised with her. It's a emotional juxtaposition between the two characters not to give anything away, but you know, they're both feeling very different feelings in the same moment that we really thought would be hilarious initially, like in a musical, in a musical sense. But I,
And maybe it's something we'll come back to now that we're, you know, we're moving towards trying to get picture locked and moving back into like getting music. But I struggle connecting with music and lyrics. I have such intention to do it, but when I sit down and I try to, there's a disconnect for me. It's not like I can't.
articulate what I have in my mind and whether that be like, you know, I've years of in and out of music theory through college and high school and I played an instrument and all these things, but something there's, there's a block there and I'm hoping to come to come face to face with it once we start working on music for roller babies. But
Wonderful. Yeah, yeah. think it's such a fascinating thing, especially, you know, there's one argument that can say like, you know, if you're more intuitive or feeling oriented versus maybe intellectual. When I was doing like folk music in New York city, poorly on like the subway platforms and on the streets, I never was able to write lyrics, but I would be able to improvise while I was playing. And then the lyrics that I remembered seemed to just stick.
whether they're good or not, it's not enough for me to decide. I average like a dollar now with my sad songs. But yeah, I found when it struggled to like sit down and write a lyric without feeling self-conscious or being like, this is like the most overused, exhausted phrasing. But then if I was holding an instrument and kind of not thinking, a melody or random words kind of jumbled together and I'd feel more maybe connect and go, this sounds like an interesting theme. And then ideally if I had a voice recorder, I could
Mishu Hilmy (17:37.388)
record it and then remember it later on. Yeah, never felt very confident writing any kind of lyric down.
Yeah, I 100 % agree. Yeah, there's something about when you're trying to be intentional about it and do it, it's just music and lyrics are very vulnerable. yeah, the improving of it is so delightful, especially with people as well. It's so magical and like you do feel the music, but yeah.
How is the rewriting process given that you kind of went really quickly from a short to a feature and was it pretty committed that you were going to produce it? So with production in mind, like what was the timeline and how did rewriting play into that?
I can't remember the exact timeline and we definitely didn't. I was probably the one of the two that was like, need to be reasonable about our dreams when we write a dream sequence, for example, because Daisy's a big proprietor of a dream sequence and you know what, the woman is always right. But I think we had already laid such a groundwork for ourselves.
that I, well, I went about it a lot more methodically than Daisy probably would have done it on her own. She probably would have just written a whole new thing, start to finish. And I was more like, no, we have, you know, we have the roadmap here. Like, let's go in and like inject like more, more into every scene and like, let's see what that like gives to us.
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (19:20.896)
And then we started just coming up with like big bits within bits. And it became like a three hour saga and it was huge, but we needed that. We needed an epic to then come back to earth and like for other people as well to be like, all right, I see your through line. Can I offer you maybe using this character you've already created more? And we're like,
My God, that's a great idea. Yes. Thank you for suggesting that.
That's great. think that's the benefit of having an embarrassment of richness because then you can reduce it to its potency rather than maybe it being a little bit threadbare from the start. You have a little bit less to feel confident or committed to. Yeah. I imagine you were writing it with the intention that you both would be playing the characters. How was the writing knowing that you were going to be embodying a certain character?
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (20:18.606)
I think Daisy even said this when she was talking to you, but they're both these characters are personifications of our worst qualities. So we're putting ourselves on blast a little bit and we knew that. so writing them, the biggest complaint we would have would be like, that wording does not sound right. I would not say it like that. Or this character would not say it like that. But at the end of the day, we did. We, we.
We had such a strong sense of these characters that it was almost difficult for us to describe them other than like, they're kind of part of us. And so writing them was just straight out of how we talk to each other, like horrible political jokes, like attacks on our own personalities and fashion sense. They're just like the horrible ways that, and like the way we banter in the car.
personified and made even more exaggerated for them.
And then, you, so you wrote it and did you have a rehearsal process or was it pretty much, know, here are the X number of days to shoe and just hoping you had, you know, learned enough of the script or the script that was being shot for the day.
Yeah, in hindsight, maybe we should have. Maybe we should have a little bit. But no, we just, we were wearing so many different hats of like, I was costuming, Daisy was doing her makeup, so we were gathering things for that, like other props we were working on that we just didn't even think to be like, maybe we should run through these. And then two, there was like a panic I had because I had never, I had never done a piece of work.
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (22:03.968)
that wasn't from start to finish. Like you do a play, you do a musical, you need to memorize that from start to finish. Every word, every song, start to finish. You don't jump around. You don't splice around. And so my memorizing too was like start to finish. And so like, think like maybe like a week before we're supposed to start, maybe two, because I'm an over-preparer.
I was like, okay, I need to start memorizing this. And I'm like going through it and I'm like, there's so much here. And then I was like, wait, wait, wait, we're not going to do it in order though. We wouldn't do this in orders. then I like Jamie makes a shot list and I'm like, okay, okay, okay. I only have to memorize so much at a time. And so then I was really grasping on the like, I only need to memorize two seeds and they're not my monologue scenes because Daisy and I were very intentional in.
equal amount of monologues for each of us because we are both shining stars.
Yes, yes.
And so I was like, okay, all right, we'd only need to memorize this for the day. And so probably the first couple shoots, I was honestly so worried about if I was memorized, it wasn't. And then the second thought was like, yeah, I got to act. Do I remember how to do that? Do I remember how to do this in this context? And so the first couple shoots, I remember being just like overwhelmed with all the, all this stuff. And then the thought of like, okay, this is film.
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (23:38.134)
You need to be consistent. You cannot be doing different takes. You need to be consistent. Like, that's the thing about film acting, you know? That's the thing. Because as a theater performer, ooh, I'm the kind of theater performer that it is wildly different. Especially if I forget a lyric or something, we're getting wildly different. So then, yeah, going into it, was a lot of like, all right, be consistent, try to keep the same emotional level.
but let's just do it, let's just have fun. And I think a lot of the things that we, the emotion that we had writing it would just come back up to the surface and it would be kind of intuitive to our acting.
Yeah, I also, I'm curious, cause like partly, you know, having a director is there to sort of help advocate or, know, be an anchor for when things are not shot continuously. It's like, okay, well, this is scene 12 on this, though it's day two, like this is where we were last at. ideally, you know, Jamie's can also be helpful in, you know, setting, but were the expectations set like on during the production to be consistent or was that more of a internal sort of.
prescription that you gave yourself like, this is what on-camera acting should be rather than some editors love a good, a good degree of variation.
if we had this conversation, but probably, yes, a group of us had a conversation about, you know, the difference between theater and camera acting. And I think we just, kind of knew that like, we don't have the luxury of time for a million, a million different takes and a million different things. And so like, you know, the more consistent and you know, I carried this probably a little heavier for myself, but the more consistent I was.
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (25:20.194)
with my performance, unless it was a completely wrong take, which then Jamie would, she would step in and like point that out to us. Cause you can't see yourself when you're performing. I was like, you know, the more consistent it is, the easier it'll be like, you know, in post. Cause I really had no idea what post would look like. But yeah, Jamie did such a great job of keeping us grounded and reminding us what was coming before, reminding us what was coming after.
Matthew as well, our DP Matthew Freer also did a great job of also reminding Jamie, you know, to think about the bigger picture. so like the collaboration of all of us, they allowed Daisy and I to drop the rest of our hats and just act, which was, which that is, that was a gift.
Yeah, totally. Cause I think you just like focus in on it versus more on the producing mode of like, Oh, the, we have the props for tomorrow or whatever? Uh, uh, that's wonderful. So yeah, like, uh, how were the, at least the nerves around like predominantly doing so much stage acting versus now you're on set for, you know, 10, 12, 15 days.
Absolutely.
Mishu Hilmy (26:32.494)
How did you kind of deal with maybe the self-talk or the headiness of like, I'm used to doing stage acting now. There's a crew around me and I'm on camera. Like, what was that experience like?
I'm the kind of actor and performer and artist who has wanted. Ever since I was a kid, I was like, I want to do theater, but I also would love to do film and I'd love to do TV. My downfall is probably that I want to try too many things and I should hone in and get in the lane. But for one, I was really excited to get in front of a camera in a setting that I have essentially created.
with my friends. And so I'm like really comfortable. Like it's not some random people that like who have hired me to fill a position. So the curatedness of that and the opportunity to do that made me luckily probably be a little less heady than I normally would be. But at the other time, on the other hand too, we had a lot of conversations like Daisy and I about just acting in general.
And we had talked about once we had started filming and while we were like living together for a two week stretch, she was living in my living room, and we'd come home at the end of the evening after like day one, day two, and we'd like talk about the differences and really the similarity how, and I don't want to use the word easy, how much simpler it felt to act on camera that I'm not like.
shooting for the 100th row to emote all the way to the back while trying to also keep my voice very airy and lifted. Like, no, I can be right here in this moment talking to you in the same way I would. And the camera will pick that up. so realizing that in a very comfortable environment, which I don't think a lot of actors would get the gift of doing,
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (28:37.696)
It was such an amazing learning experience. I couldn't have asked for anything better.
I think also that's like really fun to also have a collaborator within close proximity after shoots. I'm curious, like if by day six, you were both like very exhausted, you're like, all right, have a good night. Or was it pretty much a consistent theme of like, you're just sort of yapping it up. Like, oh wow, yeah, that moment and that moment, like what was the balance of being excited about production and then just kind of be like, oh, you know what, that was a good shoot. Let's eat and go to sleep.
You know what life really imitates art because there hits a middle point because he wasn't just Daisy living with me. know, it was like there was two other people that are in our in our group as well. Zach and I, but they also were like living with me at this like two week stretch that we were filming it. And so we were constantly surrounded by each other, which is great. But also, yeah, they're hit a point where both of us hit.
like a low point like our characters. the whole time I'm making the joke, I'm like, ha ha, life imitates art. Well, I'm like raging because like I kinda wanna punch Daisy in the face, but I love her so much. But like we're kind of raging. Like we've just like, we've just been around each other for so long and these shoot days have been really long and like other mitigating factors of other people we're coming into contact with. And yeah, there is a point where both of us.
We both had a moment of like rage. But that was like, it was somewhere right in the middle. And then we all picked ourselves back up because it wasn't going to affect what we were doing. It was just the we were emotionally going through what we had written for ourselves. And unfortunately, we just had to take it home with us every single day too.
Mishu Hilmy (30:26.89)
Yeah. I mean, yeah, people, need space, right? Like, especially when we're tired and hungry, you know, it's like you're in that space, you're going to start to get a little bit frayed. Exactly. Like still like a very, like a great blessing and gift to have that sense of community during a production. And at the same time, it's like, you're also a person with needs. It's like, shoot, I'm pretty, I'm pretty tired and now I'm getting annoyed because it becomes almost like a sibling dynamic where you're just spending so much time intensely.
Like wouldn't trade that two weeks for the world, but would we do it exactly in that same way again? Probably not.
Yeah. And so then, uh, know, you're now into the post-production process. I, you mentioned it's nearing picture lock. think I've talked to, you know, Jamie here and there around it, you know, going through different versions. So what's been your kind of participation so far? Has it been pretty hands off and you're mostly interested in looking at certain edits? Like what's your relationship with the post-production process?
a little more than hands off, like I'm more of like a fly on the wall in the room. I'll like go and accompany Jamie and Matthew in edits and you know, just like hang out and watch what's going on and give my input. So I've been watching, I watched V1 come together. I watched V2 as well come together and just this past Tuesday, we like sat down with a group and watched a full V2.
But I can't say I've been extremely like, like post-production is definitely not my place in this world. I can give my input and I can be supportive. And when you say jump, I'll say how high, but, but I, but I've been observing and watching and learning and I just like have been wanting to see it roll along as well.
Mishu Hilmy (32:21.678)
Are there things that you learned or became like that you were never aware of, whether within your own performance or just general assembly of, you know, raw frames being put together? Like, I'm curious what at the acting writing side that you learned or at least noticed in some of those supervised sessions on the edits.
I think one of the takeaways was that we were very visual and clear in our writing, and that is now translating into the edit. Sometimes when Jamie and Matthew are unsure, they do go back to the script, and they do. We do have it clearly visually defined there. The other thing I learned that my consistency anxiety did pay off.
Both of them said some extremely consistent takes that you could just splice right on each other. Thank you. But, and then also just like how much patience post-production takes has been, I think, the largest takeaway is, it just takes time and it's worth every minute because like it is really like it's in the details and so much, so many things can be fixed, but we can't create anything that we didn't take. like.
Yeah,
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (33:38.546)
in the moment, not that there's anything like major, major I can think of that we like really missed that's like detrimental, but like I think for like future us, it's very much a like, if you want to take that B-roll shot, take it. It's worth it. If you wanted one more take of this scene, take it. It's worth it. Like it's worth the time. It's worth having that little bit of extra footage just to work off of. It's never a waste.
Yeah. And then similar to like the revising of the longer script, like have you, has this, edit been also reducing or scrapping some bits that you did shoot and you're like, this is kind of a redundant bit. Like what's been your observation around removing things that were initially written and filmed and acted within the various edits.
Luckily nothing has been fully, fully scrapped, but things have had to get tightened up. once we edited it out, the monologue or joke, just didn't read as well as we had perceived it to be. And it's just like the glory of editing is that it allows, it really does allow you to just shave off all the edges. And so it's been a lot of just shaving it down.
maybe mixing and moving the puzzle pieces a little bit to make it read more to the audience who doesn't know this work the way we all know this work. That's been really interesting because there's been bits where we were like, the whole piece at one point held off of a bit that we thought was hilarious. Now in post, it's not really registering as funny as we thought it was.
We're just, we're trimming it. We're trimming it a little.
Mishu Hilmy (35:29.236)
But it's still, that's, I guess, a certain kind of discernment and trust because it's like, is it just not as funny? Cause this is the 15th time you've seen it. You know? So that's like a hard, hard thing to tell. But I imagine, you know, if you have enough, enough people or enough distance from it where, know, you, wrote it in this time of the year, you shot it, you know, months later, and then you're seeing it for the first time. You know, go, yeah, I don't, I don't get this joke.
Like then it's like, right, we could probably, we can probably cut it. It's given that it's been, you know, even though you've seen it 20 times now that you've seen it the 21st time a year later and it's not hitting, I guess that's time really does help.
Time really, really does help. And then other jokes are still hitting and that's where we're like, all right, this is, we can leave this alone. That's doing well.
And then what was it like to at least see, you know, the early, early cut, like, you know, or the sort of early, full, full version of it where it kind of start to finish. Like, what was that experience like, you know, from going from an idea around the glitter of blood to now seeing first cut of it? Like, how was that?
first one was exciting, very exciting, but also rough because we were like, something, not something seems off, but like, we're like, okay, wait, this is not. The realization of like, okay, this still needs finessing, this still needs tweaking, this still, there's still something not coming together quite yet. But it was so exciting.
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (36:58.208)
It was actually so exciting and nerve wracking, but I didn't cringe at the sight of my own acting because I knew it was doing exactly what I needed it to
Yeah.
But then it was the second time this past week on my birthday actually, for my birthday, we watched RV2. Thank you. And that was the moment we were like, my God, once it starts rolling, we're, this is a movie. We've created something here. Like we're still, you know, we still need to tweak out the beginning. The beginning is the hardest part you can.
with anything, you know, when I was doing mass auditions, they always told me, you know, in the first five seconds, know, yes, they know if they want you or not. And I feel like that's kind of the same with, anything. The beginning, hooks you in or it does it. And so we're still trying to figure out what that like that, that hook is. The ones that starts going, like if flows, it's, it's fast, it's woody and you're sucked in. And that's really exciting.
Yeah, yeah, that's great. mean, I think that's why I love editing because it's really the magic of it coming together and being shaped and it becomes its own thing beyond the script, beyond the performance on set. starts to become the thing it's meant to be, which is like very exciting. But I do agree. There's something almost unsettling about early cuts. I just, I just cut something a few weeks ago and when I had all the footage, I was like, this is, there's no way this is going to work. There's no way this is going to work.
Mishu Hilmy (38:35.182)
And then after like, you know, 10, 12 hours with it. Oh, okay. I like it. It sort of, it sort of makes sense. And this is like a really short piece, something exciting about that. So are you finding that, you know, the focus, you know, whether it's from Jamie or Matthew is really tooling around with the first, you know, first five, 10 minutes of the piece? Yeah.
Yep, it's the first 10 minutes to really just establish what do we want to tell the audience, know, like establish where these girls are going, who these girls are. I think it's just grabbing onto that and then using the footage that we have to portray that.
And then has it just been sort of temp music on this like V2 cut for background music?
Yeah, a lot of them music and music that we absolutely cannot use. Just putting it in, which will, I'm sure, bite us in the ass later where we're like, this beautiful copywritten song we all know and love. I'm sure that will bite us in the butt later, but you know, we'll figure out and cross that bridge when we get there.
Becoming married too.
Mishu Hilmy (39:47.97)
Yeah. Yeah. cool. And then for you, like, what's your own sort of gauge of patience around like, you know, you wrote it, it was shot, was it last summer or almost two summers ago? don't remember when it was shot. So like, how's, how's the patience for you around like the waiting game of post-production?
I was two summers ago.
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (40:06.638)
First, was like, it was hard. It was very hard because you want something to show of your work. Capitalism has convinced us all that if we don't have something very tangible that makes profit that like, that we can show to people, then we have no value and our art has no value. And over the last few years, it's been a lot of just like, no, my art has value even though it does not like hold.
in these confines of capitalism and I don't need to show a monetary value to show my worth. And so the patience initially was low because I was like, I want it. I want it so badly. And everyone's and we're like, we made an Instagram and we're like getting people to talk about it and people keep asking us and we had a lot of like extras in the movie that were skaters that we would see at the rank and they're asking us and we're like.
I don't know. But now as we're like, you know, we're coming away from it and we, you know, can vaguely see the light at the end of the tunnel of post vaguely. It just, it feels like, no, the time that we have been waiting for it and the time that we've been cooking on this is, absolutely necessary. It's absolutely worth it. I don't need to just produce produce.
spit out work and spit out work to show to other people. Like I can sit on something that is like a beautiful combination of like work that I've made in my 20s and wait until I'm who knows maybe the end of my 20s to finally show this to somebody and that's totally fine and it will be absolutely worth the wait, you know.
Totally. Yeah, yeah. I think that's a great perspective. I also think the value and the worth is in the action of doing it versus in the byproduct of it existing. And I'm sure there's other people who have different opinions and that's totally fine. I think that's a healthier practice is just like, did you write today? Did you audition today? Did you do one little thing that you send an email rather than like, oh gosh, I gotta post this on my feed and let everyone know I made something.
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (42:12.926)
Yeah, exactly. No, it really is about the creation and the process of doing before it is the product. Here she is. Let me sell her to you.
And so like throughout this process, like how is your relationship with just, you know, acting for auditions or musical theater? know you were also doing or in different, maybe choral groups or music groups, like singing stuff. like what's been your other kind of creative outlets outside of waiting for status updates on post-production.
Yeah, I've allowed myself to be more picky is not the right word, but just I've allowed myself to be okay with with being intentional about what I want to perform in. You know, I there was a point where once, you know, we started like theater started opening up again and I was like, no, I need to be auditioning every day. Yeah. Sending in something and it just.
it brought me no joy and it felt like a burden. It really did. And then so once we had made Roller Babies, then I started like after that, once we had done shooting, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna pick up some extra curriculars again. Like I joined a choir. That was really lovely. I made some lifelong friends there and just like the feeling of making vocal music together is indescribable. It's so nice. And so that was really fulfilling. And then after that I like,
auditioned for like a couple smaller plays. I ended up being doing Medea, which was huge for me because that was one of the first like tragedies, Greek tragedies that I got to be a part of. And that's when I was like, wow, when I'm intentional and selective, like these things that are meant for me are falling into my lap. Like, and then like earlier this year, you know, I was, I was in Pussy Sledge at Facility Theater. And that was a piece too where
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (44:13.982)
I was able to be not just a cog. was very much, yes, I was cast to portray this character, but I'm able to have say in what the sludge is looking like and how I interact with the sludge and how my castmates interact with the sludge and what that sludge is creative. And it made me realize that I love acting and I love performing.
but I also really enjoy the collaboration and having just a shred of control. Not like being in charge. I don't feel the need to be like the sole director, but like I want to be able to contribute more than just like my take on this one character. Like I like having just collaboration in the process. And so what Roller Babies has taught me over the past few years and what then I have learned from these other
pieces is that intention and pickiness is not a bad thing. A play a year is not like not doing enough, you know? Like being intentional with my work is a gift. It's an absolute gift. It's a blessing. And I can allow myself to do that.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, think that's sort of a great evolution of perspective too, because I know there's at least I imagine for a lot of people in their acting journey, there's a discovery of like, just because I'm chosen doesn't need to, doesn't mean I need to do it. versus like, well I auditioned and they're offering me a role. guess I have to take it's like, no, I, you don't have to, you, can be selective. And I remember I think seeing like, a couple of comedians like, Rachel Dratch, Scott Atz and maybe Kevin Dorff. One of them was speaking about like having filters of.
You know, three or four criteria, like, do I know the people? Can I write my own bits? Am I getting paid? And like, do I like the people? And if like two or three out of four are met, I'll take the gig. But if it's, if it's not that, then maybe it's a no. So it's like, no, like, all right, how do I suss out at this project is a genuinely collaborative environment. Do I know the collaborators? Do I trust them? It's great if I'm getting paid, but creating your own sort of filters so you can be intentional makes it probably a much.
Mishu Hilmy (46:24.258)
better journey rather than like a bunch of shoulds or have tos like, I just have to audition. Now you're like playing a, you know, a side character for a early 20th century play you don't even care about. And now you're just kind like miserable for, you know, two months or three months.
Exactly, exactly. Like what did that do for me and my soul? Filters, I think, are an absolute gift in realizing that you can put filters, that you're worth, that your time and your energy and your creativity is worth these filters. That's the biggest learning lesson as an artist and I think as just people in general too in any facet.
kind of confidence might have come from like starting, know, devising, creating, writing a project that went into production? Like how, how did that maybe rewire your, your sort of creative perspective given that you did something, you know, 99.9 % of people will never do, which is like not only write a piece, but perform in it and also have a, you know, 80, 90, 100 minute kind of product.
It really was the realization of, I don't need to wait for that one person to say yes to me. Cause what was I told him in my childhood in high school, I was told, you know, you have to do a hundred auditions to get one callback and then 10 callbacks to get one yes. I'm sure a lot of people have heard something similar to that. And it's like, no, I don't have to like,
beat the pavement, to pound the pavement is the saying, pound the pavement, to get that one yes. I can say yes to myself, my ideas. Now, I I say this with the privilege of being able to find capital and be able to find and scheme funds for what we created, but I think it really was a matter of like...
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (48:23.982)
I don't need to wait for the institution to come to me. I don't need to wait for some mentor to see my value, to see my worth, somebody in with a position of power in a theater or one of the industries I want to be a part of. I really can, with the people not alone, not alone, but with the people who also love and care about me and I love and care about them and their art, we can create whatever we really need.
really want and everything around us is just a creation of people's minds. Mind to matter.
Yeah. That's, yeah, that's really, that's really lovely. And I do also think it's like, whether it's a sort of responsibility or a comfort of like you're, can create with the community at the scale that you can create in, know, so it's like, whether it's, you know, it doesn't need to be a 90 minute thing. could be a two minute thing with your, your neighbor who also happens to be an actor or a friend from a class. I just think, um, I lean more toward.
If you love doing any sort of action or creative experience, then it's like, how can you do this small and with someone or by yourself rather than like, well, I can't make music unless I have a studio. Yeah, but you also maybe you have a phone and you can just turn on your voice memo and record you playing guitar. So I think it's a good practice and there's confidence that does come from. I was able to make this because I wasn't asking. It was mostly out of a joyous exploration.
Absolutely.
Mishu Hilmy (50:00.942)
And then for you, given, you know, how challenging acting can be and even writing, like, how, how do you navigate motivation when it comes to like, the arts? Do you, how do you navigate that in such an uncertain industry?
You know, I answer this only like half knowing because I'm still, and I've kind of said it, I'm a little lost right now with my singing. It's like, I grew up, whenever you'd ask me, I'd say I was gonna be a singer. And so on one half of me is still a little lost right now in navigating that. But the other half of me is just now holding on to like, is holding on to the ship that I've built and like the community that I have.
been given and holding steadfast in like the work we're doing and knowing that we're going to create more together because we love creating together. I like, you know, I'm like, me as an individual, I'm still unsure. But what I am sure of is, is the people around me are created with me and, you know, we'll find something.
to do next and to do after that and after that and maybe I will get my foot in the door somewhere, but it won't be without the people who have taken me this far as well. And if we don't and we just keep creating stuff in our bubble and we grow old together making random films in our bubble, then that's what more could I ask for.
Yeah. Well, yeah. Thank you so much for sharing Edwin. And it's been a lovely, lovely time getting to chat in depth with you.
Edwina Luokkala-Burckhardt (51:44.61)
Thank you so much for having me. This was fantastic.
Mishu Hilmy (51:54.254)
Before setting you off with a little creative prompt, I just wanted to say thank you for listening to Mischief and Mastery. If you enjoyed this show, please rate it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your support does mean a lot. Until next time, keep taking care of yourself, your lightness, curiosity, and sense of play. And now for a little Mischief motivation.
Ready? Quick prompt time. Let's do the two yes rule. Instead of waiting for permission, say yes to yourself twice today. Once for creative impulse, whether it be writing, sketching, recording, and once for collaboration. Text a friend about making something small together, shoot them an email, send a letter, a postcard, just get ahold of a friend. Give them a call, send them a voice memo suggesting a collaboration. I think this practice can help with grounding, which builds agency and momentum through self-authorization.
And yeah, you don't need institutional approval. And if you're looking for something a little bit more deadliney, here is a little micro collaboration sprint in the next 24 hours. Make something that takes under an hour with someone nearby, whether it's a one minute voice memo, duets, a film gesture, a tiny scene, a little jingle, just look to complete something and not to polish it. So that's another one. If you're looking for something to do within 24 hours, there you go.
Thanks for listening this far and I hope you have a great rest of your day.