Malcom Spellman spent seven years writing before he broke into the industry. Even then, he struggled for another five years, lost his representation and had to start all over. Then he sold the script for ‘Our Family Wedding.’ Today, Spellman is best known for ‘Empire,’ ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ and two upcoming features, ‘Muscle’ starring Vin Diesel and then Captain America 4, which will be a follow-up from the Disney Plus series. On the Disney series, the plot is listed as: Following ...
Jul 05, 2021•21 min
Australian actor-writer-director Josh Lawson always wanted to be involved in filmmaking. While in drama school and then college, he always kept up his writing as he moved into sitcoms and movies, like TV Burp, Kinne, The Little Death, and most recently, Long Story Short. You’ve also seen him in the new Mortal Kombat as Kano, along with roles in The Eleven O’Clock and Anchorman 2. Lawson is the writer-director of the romantic comedy, Long Story Short. The movie stars Rafe Spall and Zahra Newman. ...
Jun 30, 2021•32 min
Josh Bycel got his start writing for The Onion in college, before he moved to television, writing for Veronica’s Closet, American Dad!, Psych, Scrubs, and now, Solar Opposites. Mike McMahan wrote for Axe Cop and Star Trek: Short Treks before writing for Rick and Morty. Since writing for the iconic series, he’s also worked on Star Trek: Lower Decks and is the Co-Creator of Solar Opposites alongside Justin Roiland. The Hulu series Solar Opposites is about a family of aliens who moved to middle Ame...
Jun 28, 2021•34 min
David Weil grew up amongst storytellers. His grandparents, his parents, his siblings. He loved the idea of being able to transport listeners - or viewers - to new, untold worlds. Weil carried this passion for years, acting and writing with people like Darren Aronofsky and J.J. Abrams, until he finally got his first projects made, Hunters and Solos, both for Amazon. Hunters: In 1977, in New York City, a troubled young Jewish man bent on revenge is taken in by a secret group of Nazi hunters fighti...
Jun 23, 2021•30 min
Crystal Moselle got her start making documentary films like ‘The Wolfpack’ and ‘Our Dream of Water.’ Soon after, she took this visual following style with her to make fictional works like ‘Skate Kitchen’ and now, HBO’s ‘Betty.’ In ‘Betty,’ the series stars Dede Lovelace, Kabrina Adams, and Nina Moran. The description reads, " A diverse group of young women navigating their lives through the predominantly male oriented world of skateboarding.” In this interview, Crystal talks about researching th...
Jun 22, 2021•21 min
Influenced by Madonna, Tina Turner and Prince, Bonnie McKee always knew she wanted to be a pop singer. Bonnie is known for songs like “American Girl” and “Sleepwalkers.” She also co-wrote “California Gurls,” “Roar,” and “Teenage Dream” with Katy Perry. She has additional credits for Kesha, Cher, Christina Aguilera, Adam Lambert, and Kelly Clarkson. Most recently, Bonnie has created the short film, April Kills the Vibe, where she’s the writer, director, editor, producer, star, and score creator. ...
Jun 22, 2021•24 min
The biographical musical drama Clouds is based on the memoir Fly a Little Higher: How God Answered a Mom’s Small Prayer in a Big Way by Laura Sobiech. In the film, a young musician named Zach Sobiech (Fin Argus) discovers his cancer has spread and he only has a limited time to make his dream come true of becoming a musician. “It started out seeing Zach’s video,” said Casey La Scale. “My wife had seen the video online. I was blown away, then randomly, a month later my manager said he found an int...
Jun 21, 2021•33 min
Brad Lewis produced the Oscar nominated “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” the critically acclaimed conclusion of the trilogy. He also produced Storks, The Lego Batman Movie, and worked at Pixar on films like Ratatouille, Cars 2, among many other successful movies. P.J. Gunsagar is an entrepreneur at heart. After starting his career in finance, working as an investment banker at UBS Warburg and early-stage investor at Intel Capital, he focused his career on building companies at the i...
Jun 15, 2021•33 min
After college, Chris Brancato realized he had “no marketable skills whatsoever.” He joked that his “lack of options” led him down the path of becoming a screenwriter. “That helped demystify the process,” he said. The next step in uncovering the path to Hollywood came from a friend who landed a job on The Equalizer. “He showed me the script and I thought, ‘I just figured out what I want to do.’” Brancato first landed writing jobs on Beverly Hills, 90120 and The X-Files. These days, he’s best know...
Jun 10, 2021•38 min
Originally, Neil Cross wanted to be a novelist. Describing his path as “wandering” and even as an “accident,” Cross has published several books, but is best known for his work on the small screen, where he’s got credits for MI-5, Doctor Who, Crossbones, Luther, and now, The Mosquito Coast. Cross said he grew up an admirer of Han Solo, but more specifically, the anti-hero. “It’s a taste where the origin of which is a mystery to me,” he said about this preference, “but I’m thematically chained to ...
Jun 08, 2021•32 min
R.J. Cutler loves the “narratives of the real world,” but spent the first few years of his career as a theater director. These days, he’s best known for his documentary work, such as The War Room, A Perfect Candidate, and The World According to Dick Cheney. Most recently, he’s tackled a documentary on comedian John Belushi, a documentary on musician Billie Eilish, and the new Apple series Dear… which chronicles the “biographies of iconic figures in society by using letters written by those whose...
Jun 03, 2021•31 min
Jim Demonakos, founder of Seattle’s annual Emerald City Comicon, met Kevin Konrad Hanna, an artist and film director, at the annual event. Two lifelong comic book fans, the duo tried a handful of projects together until something hit, a documentary about Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. In ‘Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters,’ Jim and Kevin uncover the story behind Mignola, as told from icons like Neil Gaiman, Doug Jones, Victor LaValle, Adam Savage, Patton Oswalt, and Guillermo del Toro, among others....
Jun 01, 2021•35 min
Richard Melville Hall, better known as Moby, is a musician, songwriter, singer, producer, and animal rights activist. His music has been featured in over 200 movies and shows, like The Saint, The Beach, and The Bourne Identity. In his latest project, Moby Doc, the musician teamed up with former music video editor Rob Gordon Bralver to create a “surrealist biographical documentary” about Moby’s life being an animal rights activist and a trailblazing electronic musician. In this interview, Moby ta...
May 25, 2021•31 min
Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and #1 New York Times bestselling author. He’s known for ‘The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels,’ ‘American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House,’ ‘Franklin and Winston,’ ‘His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope,’ and a book co-written with country star Tim McGraw called ‘Songs of America.’ His newest project is a podcast called ‘Fate of Fact’ and the premise is meant to explore how fear conquered truth, the ...
May 21, 2021•28 min
Originally, to honor his immigrant parents, Bao Nguyen thought he was going to become a lawyer. As a small child, he worked in his father’s shop behind the register, where he spent his time between customers sketching and drawing what he now sees as storyboards. Working as a Director and Cinematographer since 2009, Nguyen worked on projects like ‘We Gon’ Be Alright’ and ‘Live from New York!’ before tackling his largest project to date, a documentary about the personal life of icon Bruce Lee. The...
May 19, 2021•30 min
Indonesian actor Joe Taslim fell in love with Judo, where he won his first National Championship in 1997. About 15 years later, he took his MMA repertoire to the big screen, eventually landing roles in major Hollywood films. Taslim is best known for roles in The Raid: Redemption, Fast & Furious 6, Star Trek Beyond, Warrior, and now, Mortal Kombat, where he stars as the iconic character Sub-Zero. In this interview, Taslim talks about his transition from judo to acting, how action stars can be...
May 18, 2021•40 min
Australian Director Simon McQuoid got his start in the commercial world, making spots for all sorts of companies and games, including Star Wars, Call of Duty, and Halo 3. Eventually, he was asked to make the jump to film, with his debut film being Mortal Kombat. The description for the reboot reads, “MMA fighter Cole Young seeks out Earth's greatest champions in order to stand against the enemies of Outworld in a high stakes battle for the universe.” In this interview, McQuoid talks about drawin...
May 11, 2021•32 min
Former Entertainment Weekly editor Mark Harris was an editor and journalist for publications like The New York Times, Fortune, The Guardian, and Slate, until he dared himself to submit a book proposal on his 40th birthday. These days, he’s best known for his entertainment-based books, such as Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War, and his latest book, Mike Nichols: A Life. In this interview, Harris ...
May 07, 2021•20 min
Emma Needell grew up on a solar-powered cattle ranch in Colorado. While they didn’t have television, they did have movies. “They had everything from Tora! Tora! Tora! to Do the Right Thing,” said Needell about her parents’ movie collection. “Rural Colorado is cowboy country and I’m a nerdy Jewish girl who is allergic to horses,” she joked. “I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, but movies were proof that there was an outside world full of different people and different ideas.” Needell event...
May 06, 2021•22 min
Thanks to an early interest in film from his father, Nick Stagliano, went down a road of being a fan, then a creator of cinema. Focused on character-driven drama, Stagliano is known for The Florentine, Good Day for It, and most recently, The Virtuoso. The latest film stars Anthony Hopkins, Anson Mount, and Abbie Cornish. In this story, “Danger, deception and murder descend upon a sleepy town when a professional assassin accepts a new assignment from his enigmatic boss.” In this interview, the Di...
Apr 27, 2021•17 min
George Gallo sold his first screenplay at age 19, despite not knowing anyone in the business. “The movie never got made,” he said about the lucky break, “but I had a possible vocation as a screenwriter. So then I just started writing a lot of scripts.” Eventually, one of Gallo’s scripts did get made. The comedy-crime movie Wise Guys, starring Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo revolved around two errand boys from the mob. This was the beginning of a string of action-comedies from the screenwriter/dire...
Apr 26, 2021•30 min
Craig Zobel got started by making shorts and videos for people like Iggy Pop. Now, he’s best known for films like Compliance, Z for Zachariah, and The Hunt. Currently, he’s the Director for HBO’s new series, Mare of Easttown. Mare of Easttown stars Kate Winslet and Guy Pearce. In the naturalistic series, “A detective in a small Pennsylvania town investigates a local murder while trying to keep her life from falling apart.” In this interview, Zobel talks about how television is similar to Indie f...
Apr 22, 2021•25 min
While his Central Saint Martins classmates were learning InDesign, Price James wanted to learn to shoot on 16mm Bolex and explore more tangible film effects. Soon, he was working on dark comedy shorts like 'Action Man: Battlefield Casualties,' which stars Matt Berry, and music videos for bands like Incubus. In his latest movie, ‘You Cannot Kill David Arquette,’ the Writer-Director partnered with David Darg (Body Team 12, Fear Us Women) for an unusual idea about the rocky return of actor David Ar...
Apr 09, 2021•39 min
Michael Jacobs and Joshua Z. Weinstein met on the festival circuit in 2008 where both were presenting original documentaries. Most recently, they teamed up for Marvel’s documentary, Behind the Mask. The premise? Meet the writers and artists behind characters like Black Panther, Miles Morales, Ms. Marvel, Luke Cage, the X-Men, Captain Marvel, and many other characters in the Marvel Universe, highlighting their impact on pop culture and media. In this interview, the duo talks about moving from fil...
Apr 08, 2021•38 min
Originally, Aaron Schneider wanted to work for ILM, or Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects company founded by George Lucas in 1975. While taking a special effects class, his peers told him everything was going to computers, so he shifted his focus to cinematography. Soon, he was working on music videos for Cypress Hill, then movies like Kiss the Girls and Simon Birch. In an effort to shift his career, his put his life savings into a short called Two Soldiers in 2003. The short won a...
Apr 07, 2021•26 min
Early in his studies, Drew Dernavich was bewildered by the many paths to become an artist, and the many interpretations of what makes art good or bad. This led him to a more simple path: creating humorous art such as a one-panel cartoon. Recently, Drew’s work was featured in Seth Godin’s book, The Practice, which showcased his ability to be prolific, eventually becoming one of the most published cartoonists in The New Yorker in recent years, even though the majority of his submissions are often ...
Apr 06, 2021•29 min
A few years ago, when there were 12 Blockbusters still open, Director Taylor Morden (Here’s to Life: The Story of The Refreshments, Pick It Up! - Ska in the ‘90s) approached his friend Zeke Kamm (Dexter’s Laboratory, The Weird Al Show) about making a documentary on the dying Blockbuster franchise. Coincidentally, the true last Blockbuster was in Morden and Kamm’s town of Bend, Oregon. In this interview, the duo talk about their four year journey to make the film, how their documentary outline ac...
Apr 05, 2021•30 min
“I was very lucky to enter publishing in the 90s when there was a black books boom,” said novelist Tananarive Due (My Soul to Keep, The Good House). “Genre had an easier road for me than if I had tried to enter publishing as a horror writer, as a black woman, previously.” “Comparatively, I was a Johnny-come-lately because I didn’t know I wanted to be a writer until I was about eight,” joked author Steven Barnes (Tennyson Hardwick mystery series). “I started publishing in the 1980s—published 30 n...
Mar 30, 2021•29 min
Tiller Russell grew up spending time in courthouses, at the request from his lawyer father, which led him to a career in crime-related journalism. Thanks to a few chance encounters with Errol Morris (The Fog of War, The Thin Blue Line), Russell decided to quit his job at the newspaper and get into filmmaking. In this interview, we hop back and fourth between Russell’s most recent projects, the mini-series documentary Night Stalker, for Netflix, and the fictional retelling of Silk Road, which sta...
Mar 15, 2021•27 min
Mike P. Nelson has always loved old horror movies. As a kid, he spent his summers making horror movies and the winters practicing stop motion. But, at the time, he was only allowed to see pre-70s horror movies, so when he reached the R-rating age of 18, his world opened up dramatically. In Nelson’s latest film, he tackles the latest installment of Wrong Turn (2021), which comes from the original writer Alan B. McElroy. In this film, “Friends hiking the Appalachian Trail are confronted by 'The Fo...
Mar 08, 2021•25 min
