Sage Advice: Episode 4 │Diana Nolan
Presented by: Crum Consulting
Host: Maria Johnson, Junior Consultant in Marketing
Guest: Diana Nolan, Co-Founder of Bombshell Media
Full Interview: https://youtu.be/-RGn1P2alts?si=kUPd14b1NndMCWaD
Maria: Hi everyone and welcome to the Sage Advice series. Today we'll be talking with Diana from Bombshell Media, an Emmy-winning production company behind major projects with Netflix, HBO, and Amazon.
Diana: Bombshell is comprised of me and my husband Chase. I started the company in 2011, and then we met in 2015. We both worked in the same industry, he came up as an editor and I came up as a director and field producer, and we just discovered that we worked really well together, so we combined our talents into Bombshell.
Bombshell Media is a company that works in the unscripted television space. Unscripted is anything that doesn't come from a script and doesn't have actors, so it includes docuseries, reality shows, docu-follows, true crime, anything like that. What I do is develop new show ideas, pitch those show ideas, and oftentimes I'm hired to run the show from development to completion, where it comes and airs on your TV or streaming device.
Maria: What first drew you into the world of true crime and documentary storytelling?
Diana: I always really loved Nancy Drew books and mystery novels. In college, I decided I would study abnormal psychology and criminal justice, so I was the girl on campus holding a big book with serial murder on it, which probably wasn't great for my dating life, but it was interesting to study.
In terms of television, I was fortunate enough to go to a school that had a communication arts magnet, and we had the largest student-run television station on the East Coast. I grew up in Maryland, and at 15 years old I was producing shows for the local cable channel. I really liked doing that, I really liked telling stories, and I decided that's kind of what I wanted to do with my life.
My first job out of college was at America's Most Wanted, which was definitely a great place to learn. It was also eye-opening, because going from Nancy Drew novels to pictures of sawed-up torsos was definitely a leap. But it did help me learn how to tell a good story, how to identify the right voices to tell the story. And I enjoyed it because it did a lot of good. It continues to do a lot of good, it's still on. It went off for a while, came back on, but it helps people. If you're going to have people talk about the worst thing that ever happened to them and their family members, the best thing you could do is take that pain and turn it into something good, which in this case was justice for them.
Maria: Could you tell us a little more about your process in identifying a story within cases?
Diana: Any time you have a story, you think of it in terms of, who are my characters, what is my story, what are my arcs, things like that. And with true crime, it's never just about the case. The case, of course, needs to be interesting, but it's about the people involved in the case, and not necessarily just what happened to those people.
So with true crime, how to identify a story is, of course, you look for a case that has interesting twists and turns, but you need to identify the people who can bring it to life. Whether that's family members or loved ones of the victims, law enforcement officers who worked really hard to solve the case, people who represented the town, journalists who covered it, it can be a number of different people. So it's finding who your characters are. I know that may sound callous, but I'm just saying this from a storytelling perspective. Who your characters are, whose voices need to tell the story, and then how to tell it in a way that really impacts the people watching it, so that they're feeling what the victim's family felt, so they're feeling what the cops felt in any given moment. You want to be able to use storytelling to build bridges and connections between the people on screen and the people who are watching.
Maria: Could you tell me about an instance where you realized that you could make a really big impact within your industry?
Diana: For me there were two, and they're both a little bit different. The first is at America's Most Wanted. Obviously, with America's Most Wanted, you're working on open cases, and you're also talking to people and having them bring up the worst thing that's ever happened to them, and that's hard. So you need to honor that. I think one of the best things for me is, you work with family, you work with the investigators, and then you finally catch that person. And that's the best feeling ever, to be able to call up that family member and say, look, all that hard work you did, all that emotional hard work you did, paid off, now you've got justice. That doesn't mean closure, of course they're still going to be hurting, of course they're still going to miss their family member, but at least they know that this person won't be able to hurt anyone else. And at least it gives, you know, justice can maybe help a little bit with healing.
The second thing is building bridges. I worked on this one show called The Coroner, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The cops told us, and the DAs told us, that they started getting more tips from the community. It turned out that by watching the show, the community got to see behind the curtain. They didn't just see the badges, they saw the people behind the badges. They got to see how invested emotionally these detectives were in solving these cases, how invested the DAs were in prosecuting these cases and bringing about justice. And so that established a level of trust. Putting a face behind it really helped, and so the community started giving more tips, started being more open with the police to help them solve cases. And that was really cool to see that bridge being built.
Maria: Since you have to work with a full production team, I'm curious as to how you identify people that are able to handle such sensitive stories with integrity.
Diana: I think the first thing I talk about with potential employees or collaborators is to make sure that they have a high emotional EQ, understand emotions, have a sensitivity to the people we're working with, and also understand that yes, we may be working on a project for nine months. That seems like a long time, but people are going to watch it in 45 minutes. They might think about it for a little bit, if they do, that's great. But for us, nine months is a drop in the bucket. The people who are involved in these cases, that's their lives, they're going to be living the rest of their life with this. This is a big moment for them, this was the worst thing that ever happened to them or their loved ones. So remembering and honoring that this is their life, this is your job but this is their life, is really important.
I always make sure that for the field producers and directors who go into the field to do these interviews, which used to be me, who interview subjects, they always need to leave the chair feeling better than they did when they sat down. This should be a cathartic experience. We're not therapists, obviously we're there to get an interview done for a show, but you can still do that in a way that is healing and cathartic to the person who's being interviewed. And also, just when we're telling the story, telling it with sensitivity, telling it with integrity, and making sure we are telling a good story, of course that's the goal, but doing it in a way that honors the victims. And when I say victims, because of course if it's a murder investigation, the person who was killed is a victim, but there's never just one, everyone who loved that individual is also a victim. So these shows should be honoring them as well, and the investigators who spent a lot of time working on getting them justice.
Maria: I'd imagine being in this industry can be emotionally difficult sometimes. Could you tell me about how you, as a leader, foster a culture of well-being behind the scenes for your team and yourself?
Diana: I think setting expectations, everyone who works in this industry knows that it's going to be emotionally taxing. So recognizing that, in meetings saying, is there anything that anyone wants to talk about, is there anything that anyone needs to share. And then also doing personal check-ins. If someone is working on a really tough case or just came back from an interview on a really tough case, I make sure to call them and check in and say, how are you doing, do you need to talk about anything, do you need to take a minute for yourself. That's important. I think that as a leader, it's important to make sure that your employees, your partners, your collaborators feel cared for, because if you're not going to do it, who's going to do it? You need to model that, and you need to give them permission and space to do that for themselves.
And then for myself, I also try to find outlets where I can get rid of that. And that's something I didn't do for a long time. It is so easy to just go, go, go and work, work, work, but it always catches up to you. So I think taking the moment, even if that doesn't happen until the end of the day because you need to get what you need to do done, and you have to be able to compartmentalize your emotions until then. But then when you're ready, opening that little box of feelings and being like, oh, that was a lot, let me just sit with that, validate it, that was a lot, that was hard, and then just kind of work through it and let it go. Whether that's taking five minutes to go on a walk around the block, whether it's listening to a song I really like and feeling in my feels, or whether it's petting my cat, finding something that's an outlet for you, working out, going for a jog, whatever it is, finding out what that is and letting yourself do it. And also giving your team permission, so that they don't think that self-care is slacking off, because it's not. A happy team and a cared-for team is a productive team. And if you burn people into the ground physically or emotionally, that's not healthy for anyone, and it's not sustainable.
Maria: When you're dealing with a story that needs extra care, what's your team's process for approaching it with sensitivity?
Diana: So if we have a case that requires a lot of care and sensitivity, and of course we try to give all of our cases care and sensitivity, but for example, I did a show that was about rescuing victims of domestic violence and sex trafficking. I'm using that as an example because if we have a case that requires sensitivity, we try to plan in advance for what that looks like. In this example, the survivors felt most comfortable being around women, they didn't feel comfortable with men, or at least non-female-identifying people. So we needed to make sure we had an entirely female team, and in that we needed to make sure that not only were our survivors feeling supported, but also the team needed to feel supported.
Everyone has backgrounds, everyone has things that they come to the table with, that's really not our business unless they choose to share, but we need to assume that people are going to have triggers, that people are going to have past experience that might make this hard, and honor that, and find ways to support that. So in this instance, what we chose to do is take a very trauma-informed approach and bring on a trauma counselor and specialist, to make sure the team was able to do a seminar with them ahead of time before going into the field, so they knew what trauma looked like. They could take a trauma-informed approach to production, and know how to identify specific triggers, and also how to identify if someone was having PTSD, and to bring them back into their body and make them feel safe in case that happened.
And then also ways to support them when they returned from the field, if they were having a triggering event, or they witnessed something that was triggering, or they themselves needed some extra support, we made sure that that trauma specialist was there to support them as well, so that they could show up every day doing their best and feeling emotionally supported. I think it often gets overlooked, the fact that there are teams behind the scenes putting this much care and sensitivity into the environment, truly empowering and helping these people feel heard when they need to be.
Maria: Yeah, I thank you for saying that.
Diana: And also, it's important, too, if storytelling, like I said before, is highlighting characters, highlighting voices, the people that need to tell the story, you can't expect to get someone to drop the veil and show their humanity without supporting your team's humanity. You can't expect someone to go into the field and let someone come to life, while then expecting them to be an automaton. You have to respect everyone's humanity and personhood. We had one of our directors who is a mother, and she had to work on a case where children were killed, and she would call me afterward, and I gave her the space to cry sometimes. That's not a weakness, that's a release. And so she was able to go back and feel like, no one's judging me for this, and I'm allowed to have my feelings too, and I'm allowed to be who I am and be a human.
Maria: And while those human stories are the core of the genre, the landscape for telling them has been transforming rapidly over the years, with the rise of streaming and social media. How have you seen the genre, the industry change from a production standpoint, and how have you adapted with Bombshell?
Diana: I think that back when the streamers rose, when Netflix and HBO Max and everything went online, they needed 24/7 content. It used to be you watched your cable, you chose what shows you were going to watch, and there we were. When it became on-demand, suddenly they needed tons of content, they needed to stock their shelves with all of the shows for their audiences to watch. And that meant lots of shows, lots of options, to keep people engaged. And I think finding ways to tell stories in a different way, to find new ideas for ways to talk about true crime, and really any type of show, has been a fun challenge.
And now we're in the middle of another kind of revolution, with things going with the rise of TikTok and Instagram and vertical platforms. So now we're trying to figure out what that looks like, and how do we tell stories that way. So I think that the challenge has been adapting with these evolutions in terms of storytelling, while also figuring out how do we keep the quality intact, and how do we keep the integrity of the stories and the shows intact.
Maria: What's some advice that you would give to your younger self, looking back on what you know now in your career?
Diana: It's okay to have boundaries, and it's okay to have boundaries between your life and your work. That's so hard to do, especially for high achievers who want to do well, who want to prove themselves. And that's something that I was always very, very bad at. I will work myself to death if given the chance, and people are going to let me, because people need a machine. So it's up to me to determine my limit, for how much I will give and when I need to stop. And that's a hard lesson, and I'm still working on it, but I think that's a good lesson that I wish that I'd been given permission to draw boundaries.
I think another one is to always be open to adapting and growing. So much of our world is changing, so much of the creative industry is changing, and instead of saying it was better in the old days, those days aren't coming back. So how do we find a way to adapt and evolve with that, while still keeping our integrity and our personal value system intact? Because at the end of the day, strip away everything that you've done, you need to be proud of how you handled yourself every day, and how you showed up, because your integrity is really all you have left at the end of the day. So making sure to honor that.
And then the last thing is, there’s no mistakes, there's only lessons, and to just know, what is the win in everything you do? If you fail abjectly, or you do something, you make a mistake, it's just thinking, all right, honoring those feelings, like, well, that feels shitty, shouldn't have done that, or I wish I hadn't done that. And then thinking, all right, this is how I feel, I'm validated in how I feel now, what's the win, what's the lesson? Because there's always a win and or a lesson in everything, and identifying what that is, and then figuring out how you can improve the next time, is what keeps you going.
Maria: Thank you so much for taking the time today, Diana. Could you tell the audience where to find you online?
Diana: Sure, our website is bombshell.media, and there's a little bit more about us and our projects on there. And you can also reach me at diana@bombshellmedia.com, if you have any questions or things you want to talk about.
Maria: All right, thank you so much for talking, Diana. It was so nice meeting you.
Diana: Thank you. Thanks so much, Maria.
