A 23-part TikTok series about an online tarot card reader who discovers she’s a witch will be the first project under writer/director Erin Good’s new production banner Example Content.
Currently in post-production, Krystal Klairvoyant follows the titular character, a misanthropic agoraphobe with a shopping addiction, as she accidentally starts casting real spells on her customers, leading the fragile strings that kept her life together to begin falling apart.
The vertical series, which received funding from Screen Australia, was co-written and co-produced by Good and Huna Amweero, with the former also directing.
It comes more than three years after her last project, online series Jade of Death, which was developed via the Berlinale Project Lab.
Good was also selected as one of 11 creatives to travel to New York as part of Screen Australia’s Talent USA: New York delegation to attend the Australian International Screen Forum in 2020.
She told IF Example Content was born out of a desire for a new, more inclusive approach to production.
“In my experiences on my own shoots and other production, it can be trying to make sure there is a culture of respect amongst everyone,” she said.
“Even on my own productions in the past where I would think that people coming on board would always feel comfortable coming to me if anything was wrong, it’s not always the case.
“I realised it can be quite intimidating on a production when crew or cast who don’t know anyone else or are not sure if they can vocalise things they are not comfortable with, so I wanted to create a culture where people would feel they could.”
Her goal to create a code of conduct led her to get in touch with consent educator Bayley Turner from the ConsentX program.
Piloted in the UK, the provides practical consent skills to implement respectful and inclusive communication and safe content protocols throughout production.
As part of the collaboration, the Krystal Klairvoyant team undertook bespoke workshops and developed a tailored code of conduct policy to serve as a measure of excellence on set.
Good said it did not take long for the workshops to yield results, with a couple of team members going on to approach the producers with information or requests that were important to them.
“Creating a code of conduct in this way means people are more comfortable communicating their needs, and communicating when something is wrong and their needs aren’t being met,” she said.
“I know I can make improvements for next time. I’ve learnt so much working with Bayley and I intend for all Example Content projects to be ConsentX productions.”
Going forward, Good said Example Content would seek to be involved with genre-focused projects that were “quite stylised”.
“It’s something I don’t see a lot of and so I think that’s definitely the way I want to continue with projects.”
Krystal Klairvoyant is due for release later this year.