#5 - Joe Swanberg (writer-director-producer) from Chicago

Tamako Akiyama (Rikkyo University) and Markus Nornes (University of Michigan) speak about the history and state of current independent film in China. 

We Talk About:

• Navigating government censorship oversees
• Foreign distribution practices and circulation
• A new film festival in Inner Mongolia
• The Bejiing International Film Festival shutdown
• Comparing independent filmmaking in China to the U.S.

Quotes from the Show:

"This one festival got shutdown. They just cut off the electricity, so they couldn't show films. The next festival, the designer of the poster was actually Wong Wo, the guy who directed the film (A Filmless Festival) on the 2014 festival, and his poster was the picture of an electric generator. They bought a bunch of these things just in case... the thing is, that year, they also got shut down."

"Writing about, discussing and programming the work of those filmmakers who are dealing with sensitive subjects, I think it's important."

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Peter Horton (Thirtysomething, Grey's Anatomy) talks about his journey from musician to actor to a director and writer/producer of film and television.

We Talk About

• Finally agreeing to act in "Thirtysomething"
• Writing and producing "American Odyssey" for Netflix
• Directing the pilot for "Grey's Anatomy" and producing the first three seasons
• The best kind of actors out there
• A new project for Cinemax set in the future

Quotes from the Show

“(As a director,) you can never ask for an effect because you’re just sabotaging your actor. You have to be able to say, “It feels like the stakes aren’t as high as they need to be here. Can you find a way to make the stakes higher?” So, then you’re giving it back to them, and they can give you what you need.”

“I find the best actors have a real ego about what they’re doing. The they have a real take on it, too. They come in having really done their homework, having really embodied this character, so that they know them better than I do... they go deep with their work.”

“There are so many great shows out there that don’t necessarily immediately suggest story. I think with the advent of serialized shows, it’s a little harder to identify that as something that obviously has legs. You can always make anything have legs if you’re a good enough writer these days.”

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jim Burnstein (Love and Honor, D3: The Mighty Ducks, Renaissance Man ) discusses his screenwriting career and shaping the next generation of young writers at UofM

We Talk About:

• Working in Hollywood while living in Michigan
• The journey to the first feature film production
• Teaching Shakespeare to soldiers and Renaissance Man
• The importance of re-writing your screenplay
• The value of talent versus the value of discipline
• Taking notes on your writing and giving notes to others
• Collaborating with a writing partner

Quotes from the Show:

"The best thing about being a writer is you can write on the moon. You don't have to wait for somebody to give you a job. It only takes one great script to get you in the game."

"I do not believe that you can teach talent any more than you can teach speed. A good track coach can make you faster, but he can't make you fast."

"I look at the first draft like a dream. You don't know what it means. You don't know why you wrote it. That's what the process of discovery is. Why did you tell this story? What is it about it that you emotionally connected to?"

"If you're playing defense as a writer, you're going to lose."

"Teaching is the job that keeps me sane. Writing is a little bit of a lonely job. It's you and your imagination, and that's great, but you want to be with people. You are more fundamentally sound when you're teaching others because it makes you more aware of what you need to do."

"Human beings, if nothing else, are natural storytellers and consumers."

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ben Jacobson (United Talent Agency) discusses representing drama and comedy television writers, directors and producers and the nature of today's industry  

We Talk About:

• Staffing season and the selling cycle
• Developing and branding for a network vs. cable
• Different kinds of working writers today
• Breaking in with a new voice
• What a pitch meeting is really like
• Current trends in comedy and drama
• Navigating and structuring deals
• Curating digital content and its future

Quotes from the Show:

"It really comes from an idea, a book or a format or an original idea, and it's about where can it live in the purest form for that idea instead of trying to jam everything into one box or the other."

"Young people grow up and they want to create something... those creative juices are now naturally gravitating towards television."

"Word of mouth has become so much more important and the ability for people to watch all the episodes of a show in one day, and say, 'I watched this thing. It was great,' and if enough people say that in your Facebook newsfeed, you think to yourself, 'Okay maybe there's something to it.'"

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Emily Maya Mills (Upright Citizens Brigade, Orange is the New Black, Parks and Recreation) talks about writing and performing comedy for the stage and on television

We talk about:

• Creating and writing her one-woman shows
• All about Upright Citzens Brigade and the process
• Her debut stand-up album, By a Thread
• Improvisation verus acting and memorization
• The evolution of comedy and gender relationships
• Strategy for stand-up material and telling jokes

Quotes from the show: 

"I have a love for performance and acting where you can't see the threads."

"I think there's a very transcendent thing that's happening when you're free of those wires... there's a zone of sorts that feels a bit like flying."

"UCB teaches students, 'Here's how you find funny...'"

"When things are unusual... when they tend to have a juxtaposition, they tend to have a reaction within you."

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alexander Mirecki (All Together Now) & Morgan Krantz (Babysitter) talk about making indie features and creating a webseries, Neurotica, currently in its second season

We talk about:

• The fundamentals of making a webseries
• The importance of episode length
• Deriving stories from real life
• Translating ninety seconds into half an hour
• Shifting storytelling from season to season

Quotes from the show: 

"We're building out a world where we want threads, but they can't be relationships. It's about lonliness, ultimately, the show."

"We like to say (Neurotica) is like Seinfeld on acid."

"Right now, you're getting a sense that the character is on the verge of psychotic, but not there, he's definitely still in the realm of neurotic."

"We want (our main character) to be Mr. Bean for millenials."

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bec Smith (United Talent Agency) discusses her work as both a literary agent and an independent film agent.

We talk about:

• Growing up in Australia with movie maddness
• A background in journalism, film criticism and development at Working Title
• Producing and selling Animal Kingdom at Sundance
• What it takes for a film to break through the noise, these days
• How independent films get valued and how projects get made
• American vs. foreign filmmaking and financing
• Signing clients ( David Michod, James Ponsoldt, Garth Davis ) from the start

Quotes from the show:

“I think it’s an exciting and interesting time for feature filmmakers, but I also think it’s more challenging than it’s ever been.”

“You’ve got to have a reason for being, either in subject or in terms of the filmmaking.”

“I’m a firm believer that cream rises to the top, and I find my way to the things I’m meant to find my way to.”

"[A DIY filmmaker] can survive, and plenty of people do, you just have to change your lifestyle. It depends on what you're willing to get by on."

"Be tough on yourself. Good isn't good enough. It has to be excellent... If you're gonna do it, just go for broke." 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stephen Nathan (Bones, Joan of Arcadia, Family Law) discusses career in executive producing sit-coms and one-hour drama series and offers a detailed look into a ten-year run on the hit comedy-procedural Bones.

We talk about:

• The future of consuming visual content
• Writing and executive producing Bones for a decade 
• The special 200th "Hitchcock" episode of Bones in Technicolor
• The evolution of two central characters 
• Balancing plot and character within episodes
• Social media fan support -- the positive and the negative
• Transitioning from New York and the stage to LA and a role in Bonanza 
• The demanding schedule of a showrunner
• Cross-training with playwriting

Quotes from the show:

"Ten years on one show... I could have become a doctor."

"There are two characters; we pick them up at one part of their lives, and then, when the series ends, you leave them in another part of their lives."

"The more controversial something is-- or the more upset the audience was-- the more they talked about it, and the more people wanted to see what they were talking about."

"I have felt so lucky and so fortunate to be able to do what I love, and eat because of it. I don't take that lightly."

"There has to be an element of truth. That holds true for any genre, any literature... What's the ticker? What's that little piece of humanity that's the reason we watch the show?"

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rick Rosenthal (Transparent, Bad Boys, Halloween II) discusses wearing multiple hats in both film and television, and the efforts of his production company, White Water Films.

We talk about:

• Selling vs. Not Selling Scripts
• Bonding in Television vs. Film
• Producing vs. Directing in Television
• Working on ‘Transparent’
• Script Notes and Editing for the Long Haul in Television
• Improvisation and Mapping Out Seasons in Television
• “Is this Story a Movie or a Series?”
• Today’s Movies and Budgets
• Producing vs. Directing in Film
• Investing in Productions and Setting Expectations
• Balancing Film and TV Projects
• Casting Big Names
• Building and Maintaining Relationships

Quotes from the show:

"You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make a duck wear a saddle. I thought that sort of summed up Hollywood well for me."

“Television needs… to sort of look at the way novels are structured and layered, and [how] things are set up and developed over time. Most television hasn’t been like that.”

“Your role as a producer… is to make sure that the ship doesn’t hit the rocks, or at the very least, doesn’t hit the rocks under full steam. Yet, at the same time, you have to give a certain amount of creative freedom to get dangerously close to the rocks.”

“Investing in the movie business is this strange combination of buying a painting and going to Las Vegas.”

“If you do good work, that’s what it’s all about. It is about good work, but it’s also about understanding the advantage of having really strong personal relationships with people.”

“…If you really care bout the process, then the outcome will take care of itself. Even if it doesn’t appear to be the outcome you want, you don’t know that outcome, that loss as it were, isn’t pushing you to a greater level of process.”

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies, Happy Christmas) discusses his new 8-episode series Easy for Netflix using the same improvisational style he developed to make his numerous indie features.

We talk about:

• Writing, directing and producing Easy
• Casting over Skype
• Improvising vs. sticking to a script
• Scheduling in movies vs. TV
• Shooting in Chicago (as much as possible)
• A typical day on a Swanberg set
• Pitching an idea to Netflix
• Post-production strategies

Quotes from the show:

“There was no rule book for how to do a show like this.”

“The characters are all coming from autobiographical places in terms of my connection to them.”

“When you put out a movie, you are buying advertising, sort of like throwing rocks hoping to hit the people who might like it, and because Netflix already has that data, it puts the show at such an advantage already to find its perfect audience.”

“It’s really wild to think that I made this thing with my small crew in Chicago… but the instant global audience is going to be akin to a big holiday film release.”

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.