Q&A with Katrina Day from Interval Presents' Underwater

Katrina Day is a Brooklyn-based writer, performer, and producer who is passionate about spearheading scripted projects centering women and queer experiences. Her latest podcast, Underwater, is a sexy, neo-noir thriller and a first-of-its kind narrative album. Brand new, original music from Jason Derulo is woven into the story and score, creating an innovative and an immersive listening experience.

Underwater is our podcast of the week for November 5th, 2023 so we got to chatting with Katrina to ask her some questions about what went into to making the expansive podcast.

SO: Let’s set the groundwork a bit. What initially inspired the idea of Underwater? Was it a collaborative vision with Jason Derulo or did it evolve from your own ideas?

KD: Underwater was very much a collaboration. When I was invited to pitch on the project, Jason and the team had a collection of unreleased songs and a clear vision of how they wanted the pilot episode to end, along with a sense of the genres they wanted to play around with. I sat with these elements and sketched out a story, characters, and world around them—drawing from my own background writing audio fiction, romance, and music-driven narratives.

My ideas resonated with Jason and the team, and they brought me on to write the show, with support and feedback from the rest of the producing team.

SO: How was the experience of collaborating with Derulo in writing Underwater? Did his musical background influence the narrative? Did the story come together first?

KD: Jason’s music is at the heart of this project—every other creative element evolved from there. I built my story around Jason’s songs, and the world and tone of the project were very much influenced by his background and style. I was given creative freedom to take these elements and run with them when I was first fleshing out the characters and plot of Underwater, and a lot of great feedback from the team as we shaped the story—particularly with regard to the emotional journey of Jason’s character, Nico.

SO: The integration of original music into the podcast helps Underwater stand out. How did you approach this unique blend of music and drama?

KD: It took a bit of experimentation to figure out exactly how we wanted to use Jason’s music in the podcast. We tried writing the show as a traditional musical, with the songs serving as Nico’s inner monologue. We tried using the music in a purely diegetic way.

And eventually, we settled on something in-between, with Jason’s music adding texture and tone to the world of the show and also being featured through Ana’s performances throughout the story, before the credits of each episode, and on the companion album.

SO: The characters Nico and Ana have some complex dynamics between them. What inspired their creation, and how did you develop their intricate relationship?

KD: As a writer and audience member, relationship dynamics are what interest me the most in any story, so that was the first thing I focused on when getting to work on Underwater. I have a background writing romance novels, and our producer Marty Bowen is a huge fan of erotic thrillers and film noir, so we drew from those genres when establishing Nico and Ana’s cat-and-mouse dynamic. These are two people trying to outrun their pasts and rewrite their futures. At first, it seems like their success is mutually exclusive.

But as they get closer, they discover a connection that creates space for them to understand their pasts and reimagine their futures in a way that wouldn’t have been possible without the other.

This is a common trope in romance that can be pretty true to life, in my experience—how we yearn for and resist the terrifying prospect of diving in deep with someone and being changed by the love that’s there. There are a lot of moving parts to Underwater, but everything flows back to Ana and Nico’s love story.

SO: Writing for audio must present some unique challenges. Did you encounter any unforeseen hurdles? If yes, how did you overcome them?

KD: In a way, all of the creative challenges we faced were unforeseen, as we were trying to do something entirely new with audio storytelling. Writing for audio already comes with a unique set of challenges, and with Underwater, there was the added difficulty of having no exact model for the kind of narrative podcast we wanted to create. It was definitely a daunting task to start building this story without a blueprint, and required a tolerance for trying new things that ultimately didn’t work out. But we had a cohesive, supportive team that stuck with this project for years, and together we created a space where we were all safe to throw out ideas, fail, start from scratch when need be. That made all the difference.

SO: What techniques did you use in your writing to keep the audience engaged in a purely auditory medium? How is writing for a podcast different from your other writings?

KD: Every writing medium comes with its own set of tools and limitations, and it’s often those limitations that lead to the most creative use of the tools at hand. I’ve written for theater, film, new media, fiction, and audio, and I’m constantly playing with how those mediums are both interchangeable and specific. In Underwater, for example, I incorporated a voiceover element for Nico that is straight out of film noir. You wouldn’t necessarily think that would work in an audio medium, but the way we employed it as a direct address between Nico and the audience was really successful, in my opinion.

That’s also one of the main techniques I use to keep audiences engaged in a purely audio medium—using sound in as many ways as possible throughout the story. Building out environmental sounds to give listeners an immersive sense of space, tracking the dynamics of how different characters speak to each other, incorporating phone calls, recordings, music—there are all these incredible tools that are specific to audio storytelling. When you start looking at those limitations as creative opportunities, you can discover some really juicy stuff. Especially when you learn to trust the audience to bring their own imagination to bear as they listen.

SO: I’m a big fan of podcasts that take a risk and do something new and different. How do you see Underwater contributing to innovations in the podcast industry?

KD: Hopefully, we’re created a bridge between music and audio fiction that more artists will be inspired to traipse across! Since writing Underwater, I can’t stop thinking about how many other musical artists’ work would lend itself so incredibly well to audio fiction. (Someone please forward this to boygenius and tell them to call me if they want someone to write them a narrative podcast.) I also think we’ve moved the needle on what kinds of genres work in audio fiction. The vast majority of fiction podcasts live in the world of sci-fi and true crime, but there’s so much room for more romance, music, and more.

SO: As you probably know, the podcasting world can feel small at times. For instance, the Kelly & Kelly office is right down the street here in Vancouver and I often see Pat and Chris Kelly when I’m walking around the neighborhood. What was your experience like working with the broader team, including other writers, producers, and voice actors like Alexandra Shipp?

KD: Tell me about it! Entertainment already feels like such a small world, and podcasting is an even smaller, more specific little corner of that world. I made my way to Underwater through Aaron Hilliard at Clamor Media, one of the producers of the project. Aaron and I first met when he was working at Audible and I was pitching a project there—my sci-fi thriller Alethea. Aaron greenlit Alethea at Audible, then moved to Clamor, where he started developing Underwater with the rest of the team.

We’d vibed so well talking about Alethea that when he asked me to pitch on another one of his projects, I was eager to take him up on it. Funnily enough, Alex Shipp was actually already attached to one of my feature film projects before I joined the Underwater team, and Jason and I separately requested her for the role of Ana! Which makes sense, of course, because I truly can’t picture anyone else doing such a great job with that role.

SO: What has been the most surprising or rewarding feedback from listeners so far?

KD: One of the most gratifying things for me is how much people enjoyed the banter and overall steaminess. It did my romance novelist heart proud to get texts from my producers in the recording studio about how they were getting all hot and bothered listening to Jason and Alex record their love scenes.

SO: What advice would you give to aspiring writers who want to create their own innovative audio dramas?

KD: I got into writing audio fiction from a place of pure fandom. I started listening to narrative podcasts back in 2015, when shows like The Black Tapes, Limetown, and The Bright Sessions were arriving on the scene. Each of those shows worked so well, in part, because they were particularly crafted for and suited to audio. It wasn’t like listening to a TV show or movie that had simply been retrofitted for audio—each of those shows worked particularly well because of the medium, not in spite of it.

So, start there. Think about the specific tools that audio has to offer, which, like I said before, might be hiding in plain sight as limitations. That’s how I began writing Alethea, from a place of, “What these creators are doing is so cool… I want to try that”. Now, that series is out in the world as an Audible Original. That’s the other great thing about writing for audio—it’s not so oversaturated that you can’t get an original idea into the works. And even if you’re not in the place to be able to pitch it to big platforms yet, there’s still a really rich world of indie narrative pods out there. It’s a great medium for writers to let their imaginations go wild and create something truly original—without necessarily needing gigantic film and TV budgets.

SO: What’s next for you in the world of podcasting? What about your non-podcast projects?

KD: Underwater was just one of a few podcast projects I wrapped up and released last year, in addition to Alethea, the sci-fi Audible Original I mentioned earlier, and another multigenerational true crime drama that will also be released on Audible. I have a few other audio projects in development, which veer more into the YA and thriller genres. I sold my first feature film script last year, and am excited to get more established in that space, focus more on queer stories, and get my next audio drama in the works.

SO: Can we expect more Underwater in the future?

KD: We definitely left room to continue Nico and Ana’s story, so perhaps we’ll be seeing (or rather, hearing) more of them!

Katrina can be found investigating strangeness on Twitter and Instagram at @katschoftheday.

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