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Where is there alignment there your sensibilities and an audience's sensibilities. I think if you want to be a filmmaker, it all starts with understanding what you love and what audiences love, and how you can connect these things, these truths. I am Bob Pittman.
Welcome to this episode of Math and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers and Marketing. Today, we're going to explore storytelling and the business of movie and TV production with a focus on creativity and audience engagement, and we're going to learn from one of the greatest directors of our generation,
Ron Howard. Ron was born in Oklahoma, grew up in LA was an amazingly successful child actor, starting with his character on the long running Andy Griffith's Show, but continued that momentum with his roles in American Graffiti and Happy Days. He then did what few actors do. He made the jump to director, and he did it at a super young age.
With a body of work that has geen.
Re versatility and huge box office success as well as critical acclaim. He's won Academy Awards, Emmy's Golden globes and more, and he's got a lot to tell us about connecting with audiences, effective storytelling, and collaboration the most important. He's one of the most thoughtful and nicest.
Power players in Hollywood. Ron welcome, well, thank you. Thanks for that. Intro don't know if I can live up to all that, but we'll see what we can.
Do before we dig into the meaty stuff. I want to do you in sixty seconds, Ready to go?
All right? Try me? Cats are dogs? Oh you see, I'm not such a black and white guy. If I really had to choose, I'll go with dog. But I've got a lot of affections for cats.
I won't tell any of the cats you decided against them Early Riser Er, night Out, early.
Riser, City or country. I love people, and there's more of them there in the city, East Coast or West Coast. I prefer the East Coast for you. An introvert or extrovert, introvert happy to talk to people, just a little socially reluctant. Fiction or documentary. I love the docs. America graffiti or the studio. Well, American graffiti holds a very special place in my heart. Directing a comedy or drama. Drama. I just love the simple truth of it. What's your favorite
all time movie? I keep going back to one floor over the Cuckoo's Nest. Biggest lesson from fifty years of marriage talk, even when you do not want to know, you can solve the problem if you are willing to face the conversation. You just saved everybody a lot of money on marriage counseling. Thank you.
So before we jump into the real meaty stuff. After watching your episode on the studio, one question, is it really that hard for studio executives to give notes to the big directors?
Well, not me, unfortunately, and I don't talk to people that way, nor have I ever thrown my hat all. I will own up to the fact that that was my improvised moment that Seth Rogan agreed to. And then between the rehearsals and the shooting I must have thrown my hat in his face a dozen times. But he laughed every time. That great Seth Rogan laughed. So that
was a fun day. You know. It does depend that was a loaded situation that they created where a director has a deep emotional connection to an aspect of the movie that they feel needs to be edited or even xcize. That's a challenge. And then when you're taking on a director who has final cut, who could basically say screw it and walk away and enforce it, it's tricky territory.
So now let's jump into the real stuff. You and I are about the same age. I grew up in rural Mississippi in the fifties and sixties. The Andy griff of the show was the first show I can remember that connected with me. I could see myself in the town and with the characters, including yours. And in those days we only had three TV networks, and actually in my town we can only pick up two of them. I'm not sure exactly what the impact your show had on us from disenfranchised to America, but I know it
was powerful. Did the people on the creative side doing that show have any idea of that real impact and any deliberate focus on the heartland? I think it was really interesting that that show seemed to have such respect for rural America.
Well, you know, you're very perceptive. I more than once remember Andy Griffith after a read through, always cutting out jokes that he thought were sort of farcical or vaudevillian, and I remember him killing a joke that the writers loved. He said, look, the South is plenty funny without stooping to that sort of character assassination to try to get a joke and try to get a laugh. And so he understood where the humor was and he built his
career on it. And yes, Bob, that tone that you're talking about is something that he helped define to begin with, and protected and built throughout the eight years. And the remarkable thing about Andy Griffiths show is even as times changed and the show shifted with it. The show went from black and white to color. Even some of the themes and the lessons that were taught and shared, they even shifted with the tumult of the sixties because our show started in sixty and we went off the air
in sixty eight. But interestingly, in nineteen sixty eight, three years after Don Knots had left, after the show had been on for eight years, we actually were the number one show in the entire country for the entire season, and that was the year that Andy retired the show. But I just will never forget him sort of defending the characters yet loving them when they were funny, loving them when they were silly, as long as they remained honest.
As a director and a creative I think everyone would point out that you have this incredible sense of what we'll call real America. Do you think that it's rooted in the show that you did early on or was it something else that gave you that sort of insight which you carry with you today.
Well, I think it definitely was rooted in this show. Everybody took it very seriously. There was a lot of laughter, and in fact, I learned that the environment could be playful, people could be having a good time, but there were also moments to buckle down and make sure that we were delivering for the audience and that we were maximizing
the entertainment value and the ideas behind each story. And so as gentle and easy going as all those episodes seem, there was a lot of effort that went into it. So I got to witness that balance, and I try to carry that attitude and that approach with me as a filmmaker, and even that collaboration, that spirit of collaboration, because while there was a director and there were producers, and the buck stopped somewhere, it wasn't in the actors' hands.
Actors were allowed to contribute, encouraged to contribute. I try to keep that environment going in my work as well, and I really, in fact, I think it's one of the things that keeps me going is the array of collaborators from all walks of life in every corner of the planet that I get to engage with. It just keeps it really fresh and exciting, and I keep learning.
But my parents were very earthy. With my dad, my brother Clint, and I would often refer in later years to his sort of approach to life as kind of Midwestern zen. There's a go with the flow, sort of a recognition of what you can and can't control, and what are the limits of your strength, and yet a willingness to assert kind of everything you have as long as you can control something. And I think he just learned that as a farm boy growing up. He also
really learned how to work. I don't think he was allergic to the idea of Clint and I working at a very early age, because he was doing real chores at age five, with a real responsibility, like don't break the eggs and make sure the cow gets milked. So I think both Clinton and I just grew up around that kind of mentality and also that post World War two optimism that everyone is so nostalgic about.
You know, it's interesting I think you mentioned and it just comes to mind. I was living in a very small town in Mississippi and in the fifth grade I was hired by a men's clothing store to sweep out and clean up the store every day after it closed. I think, I mean, that's be thrown in jail for child labor, but to me it didn't seem so weird, and I got spending money. But that was obviously another time, and that was really rural America with a different set of values.
And I think that kind of sense of responsibility. I mean, it's sort of difficult to impart in this day and age, and it's not like we want ten year olds cleaning out the store. But it's also one of the reasons that I believe, when well supervised, that being a child performer can be a healthy experience. It's challenging. I didn't let my kids act as kids, even though several of them clearly had the talent, and my oldest daughter, Bryce Bryce Dallas Howard, you know, it's been her career and
now she's also directing. But you know, I'm very grateful for the fact that at an early age I learned how to be a part of something that was productive and creative and exciting. You know, I've built my whole adult life around that feeling. Can you talk a.
Little bit collaboration. You've mentioned that's a word that's often used with you. Seems to be a very powerful weapon in your arsenal. I mean, you've had some great partnerships over time. Can you tell us a little bit about how you think about collaboration and what spokes not understand about how to make collaboration work. What's that common mistake that needs to be avoided?
Well, I mean it was a mistake that I think I was making early on as a director because I was so young. You know, I began directing my first professional film the day after my twenty third birthday, and for that and the next couple of films, as sort of generally the youngest person on the set yet in charge, I think I felt like I had to have all the answers and make them be decisive and make them
quick and stick to them. And I slowly but truly began to realize that I was short changing myself, and as I began to listen a bit more, my work got so much better. The other thing that I learned at a certain point is that if as a leader and look, everybody sees the director as the needed authority. It's not a democracy. Films and television shows they need to be led. It's very dynamic. Decisions are made quickly. A lot of money is being spent very quickly, so
they look to the director. They want the director to be right. But I found that when I invited input more the way it was invited on The Andy Griffith Show during the rehearsals, that not only was I getting a lot of great ideas that I could use that was exciting, but two things happened. One, the ideas that were arrived at, the decisions that were arrived at that were born of somebody else's suggestion, there was a little X factor there. They understood it in some intrinsic way
when they owned the idea. There was something a little magical, some intangible something that I really witnessed over and over again. And the other thing is that when they know that you're excited, not only willing, but actually excited to say yes and include them in the process. It's so much easier to say no. They recognize that there's an editorial process underway.
Is that the way you keep collaboration from becoming consensus and watering down your vision.
Yes. Often there are suggestions that at first glance they feel right or there's a consensus. Yet when you really put it under the microscope, you recognize that that's actually sacrificing a value, a deeper value, a theme, you know, an aspect of a character that needs to evolve and pay off in a particular way. And so people may wish for a specific moment at a specific time, and they might all agree that they really wish this moment you liked the character instead of dislike the character, or
it was funny instead of sad, for example. But you may need to go against that in order to protect a more important moment down the road. And so that becomes this process of evaluating input, and that's a little exhausted. There are times when I think to myself, man, there are a lot of voices we're weighing options. I just need to cut through the clutter here and make a call and you know, I do that, and it's fine.
You mentioned that it's easier to say no once you've said yes and bit inclusive in the process. How is that part of or how do you handle dissent in this creative collaboration when somebody fundamentally disagrees, Well.
It depends who they are with actors, and I value actors and their contributions to the absolute max. I will often take the time for them to be able to try a shot or scene or choice their way, and then also ask them to give the version that I'm looking for as well. And the caliber of actors that I work with that I'm lucky enough to work with,
they never sandbag that. I tell them very honestly. I will take both to the editing room and really seriously consider it, and I'd say it's about fifty to fifty as to which choice I take in the final cut, and as long as it achieves the objective. You know what I do in these situations where it's kind of in either or if it achieves the narrative goal or the entertainment value that we're looking for in a moment
or a scene. If it's funny, if it's sad, if it's scary if it's surprising and the actor's choice is different than mine in terms of how to get there, but what they achieve is the same. The function is there. I always go with their idea. I always go with their idea. Again, back to that notion that well, they own that one. They understand that right to their core. It almost always benefits the scene. But there are times when's not a consensus and I say, no, I just
I really feel this way about it. Hope you understand, And they really always do. I can't really think of a situation where I haven't gotten the takes that I thought I needed to tell the story in the way that I believed was most likely to work. But I also can't begin to count the number of times I've benefited from saying, yeah, let's try it that way. Moral Mathemagic.
Right after this quick break, welcome back to mathem Magic. Hear more from my conversation with Ron Howard. This podcast is rooted in marketing, and one of the essential skills for marketers is being able to tell the story of the product or brand. You are an extraordinary storyteller. What advice would you give them on how to construct the most compelling story to connect to the audiences.
Wow, Bob, you know, I wish Brian Grazier was on this podcast with us because our partnership, which is coming on to forty years formally just since we formed Imagine, is kind of brilliant and exactly what you're talking about. And I think it's one of the reasons we've had a lot of successes with Imagine is he's able to understand that kind of the artistic value of an idea, the entertainment value of an idea, but also innately just have a sense of how it might reach an audience
and what it might mean to an audience. To try to answer your question, I think you always want to get down to the essence of what the story is, what the narrative is. And by the way, in recent years, we've started working with brands a lot. We have a division to Imagine that Mark Gilbar runs it that works
closely with brands. But one of the things that Brian found first and I'm on board with and agree with completely is often the brands do offer a set of themes, values, a history that suggests certain narratives that are pretty entertaining, and so we don't do TV commercials, but we've been able to find ways to sort of build on those narratives in fun ways and do a lot of work with brands that I really enjoy. But I think when you get at that essence, you understand what the relationship is,
what the proposition is for your customer. In our case, it's an audience. So what is the utility and what is your promise? And how do you deliver? And why is it special? You want to be able to answer those questions about a movie project or a television show. You want to understand what the possibility is to live up to that. Why can you be special? Why will you mean something to an audience member who takes the time and spends the money to watch the story you're telling.
And by the way, with Brian, it is one of the things I didn't mention here but should is that you also built a business structure around what you do. You and Brian would imagine and for people who are not my age, who are very early I can remember when You Guys first came out.
It was maybe one of the hottest IPOs.
You couldn't buy stock, everybody who was clamoring for it, and you really set a standard that I think a lot of folks tried to copy after that, but you guys.
Were really the innovators there. I always wanted to be a producer as well. I was always interested in having as much control and autonomy, and I think a lot of that came from the fact that growing up in my father was an actor and a writer, but always freelance and always waiting for that phone during and I wanted to be involved in a company, in a partnership that would help generate that workflow with as much control
as possible. So when Brian and I came together, we'd each had small companies of our own, so it was in a way it was kind of a little merger and began to build. Imagine you know, it was an exciting time. We've had a long journey, eventful in a lot of ways, plenty of ops, some challenges too, and yet this is such an exciting moment for a company. It's hell if you're a platform or a studio or a network trying to figure out what to invest in.
But if you're a creator, just believing in ideas, aggregating talent, finding great collaborators and getting stuff made, it's pretty thrilling. That's what we're finding out. The hard work still sure hasn't gotten any easier. In fact, it seems like we keep having to reinvent ourselves every few years. But maybe that's what keeps it fresh and fun for us.
You made this improbable jump. I mentioned it in the opening from actor to director. How did you make that jump?
It was very unlikely in those days. People stayed in their lane. There were a few examples before me on the Andy Griffith Show. Most of our directors had been actors, so I did recognize that that was a possibility, and at a very early age, some of those people who I respected said to me, starting around age nine or ten, I bet you're going to be a director. I just see the way you're watching and the way you work, and I just have a feeling of someday you're going
to want to be the director. And I just fell in love with the idea of being a director, and by the time I was in my mid teens, it was really all I thought about. And the only real example just before me, Alan Alda was directing some of the Mash episodes and also starting to direct features. Woodie Allen was an actor who'd become a director, Michael Landon, who did Little House on the Prairie. He directed not only that show, but often a television movie almost every year.
And so there were these examples, and I was just determined to follow it. But everyone was very patronizing about it. I mean they'd sort of say, well, cute kid, hang in there, and maybe in your thirties or forties, somebody'll let you direct some TV or something. But that wasn't what I had in mind. Well, it certainly worked out for you. Roger Corman was the key. Roger Corman was a very interesting guy, a great, great low budget B
movie producer director. When I was struggling to get anyone to take me seriously, and I was making short films on the weekends and even beginning to make a short feature film in sixteen millimeter, one day Roger sent me this script to act in. Now Happy Days was becoming a real number one show, but I wasn't being offered a lot of great roles to act in. And it was called Eat My Dust. I read the script and didn't care for Eat My Dust. But I knew a
lot about Roger Korman. I knew that Roger Korman had given Francis Koppol his first movie. He'd given Martin Scorsese his second movie. The list went on and on. So when I met with Roger, I said, I don't really love eating my dust, but what I really wanted to do was direct. And I handed him a script that my father and I had written together and some short films that I'd done, and he said, I'll look at
him and i'll read. He called me back and he said, well, I can see that you can direct, and the writing is good. It's not the kind of movie that I make. That's a slice of life character movie. I would want you to do an action film or a genre picture of some sort. But if you'll act and eat my dust, and if it's successful, I'll let you develop a project with me, and if I do it, you'll direct it, so long as you're willing to be in it. If I choose not to do it, here's the guarantee, I'll
let you direct the car crash unit on an action movie. Well, it wasn't exactly everything I was dreaming of in the way of a guarantee. It wasn't going to be Citizen Gain or some other remarkable first film, But it was the first serious opportunity that had ever been offered me, and I grabbed it and Eat My Dusk was successful enough that Roger wanted to make another car crash comedy. We cooked up a storyline that we could call Grand Theft Auto, which was a title that he thought would
be commercial. It was the fastest green light I ever got, and a few months later I was directing my first film.
Well it's a great story. You've directed a variety of genres, including true stories. You've never been to space, but you directed Apollo thirteen a mathematician. But you made a beautiful Mind. How do you make sense of these worlds?
You know? I was not much of an academic. I did, okay, you know, better in history in English than certainly in math and science. I think I managed to scrape out a B in tenth grade algebra and maybe an AS in eleventh grade geometry, and that was the end of my education. There. Now I had a chance to direct a beautiful Mind. This was about mathematicians. Russell Crowe was cast to play the brilliant John Natsh. You know this
theoretical mathematician. Now again, I know nothing about it. I was meeting with mathematicians and trying to understand what they thought when they were creating and when they were trying to problem solve and trying to come up with ways to cinematically evoke that. But I got Russell to come with me one day to visit this doctoral advisor who i'd met, who was working with a couple of his
PhD candidates. They've got the chalk flying and they're erasing, and I mean, it's utter Greek, of course to me, but you know, I'm fascinated. I'm taking notes, I'm leaning in and I noticed Russell's sitting on the other side of the room, not near me, but he's getting kind of fidgety. Now we stop, we take a little break, we're outside, and Russell comes up to me and he
kind of looks a little panicked. He says, I have no fucking idea what they're saying, do you, because if you do and I don't, I'm not sure I can even do this movie. I said, Russell, believe me, I don't. I don't. But look at the way they're holding the chalk. And I said, and look, here's what I'm beginning to understand. Notation is a language Russell's also a musician. I said, do you read music? He said yeah. I said I don't, but you do. That's their music, those are their words,
this is their language. They're communicating, they're creating. And he went back in and slowly but surely he began to understand what it was I was looking for and what we could fake, recreate and fool people with. Because at the end of the day, it's all an illusion, it's all a magic act. That's as close as I ever came to even vaguely understanding anything about math.
But what I love about that is this whole podcast is about math and magic. It's about the intersection of the creative, the magicians, and the mathematicians the data, and that's what makes great marketing today.
It's what makes amazing business.
And obviously for you, it made a spectacular movie. Let's jump to today and the future AI everyone's talking about. It's definitely not going away, only it's more powerful. How do you harness it? How does it change what you do?
So far? It's a really interesting tool. The most important thing is to protect copyright and to protect jobs to some extent, but I really feel that at this moment it's offering a lot of expediency. I don't think it's
threatening to replace creators in any significant meaningful way. It is showing some promise, particularly an animation, a kind of expediency and cost cutting to a massive degree that while it will still need key creative people, the process may be simplified and sped up to the point where people can make animated films for a lot less even what might look like a live action movie. It's not going to be generated by a series of prompts. It just
isn't working out that way. But through a series of prompts, ideas may emerge and feed human imagination in a compelling way. But even those films I think will just become the hyper realistic version of animated production. I think people will kind of sense that's not really a live action project, but that'll be okay if it's great, if it's a great story, that'll be fun. But I think there's still going to be plenty of room for projects where you're
seeing a performance. It's just like going to the theater or live concerts. But it's definitely undeniably going to be a game changer and have an impact on the film, movie, and television economy.
I want to end with you giving some advice. One you really do have a special sense about real America, what's really going on, not a victim of being one of the coastal elites. Any advice for advertisers trying to stay that tuned into America.
How do you do it? Oh man? I think again it gets back to sort of what is the story you're trying to tell, because I think there are two stories that are valid. One is the simple one for certain individuals, a very simple set, basic set of aspects of our culture are very very important, and I think you need to know who you're speaking to. But I also think surprise, the surprise is how broadly sophisticated the
population can actually be. And if you step away from sort of politicizing a point of view or diminishing something else in favor of an approach to life, I think we're a lot more blended than we even realize. And I think that stories that suggest that I'm just going to catch our eye a little bit more, they're just going to feel a little fresher. So there's kind of like, let's be really familiar in nostalgic, or let's recognize what the future holds, what the cutting edge is all about.
And I think it's a good idea to recognize which one of those lanes you want to be in.
Second piece of advice, there are people who obviously would love to have a career like yours who wouldn't. What advice do you have for directors, even creative they're at the beginning of their career.
Well, I have a grandson who was just accepted to a usc film school and as a budding filmmaker, so we're kind of having these conversations, thank you, thank you. He's a talented young guy. It's story. It's story. And the other thing is is that technology is definitely going to be a game changer in a lot of ways. I'm not sure that the big giant production with one hundred technicians and associates, I'm not sure that's going to
be the main stay. I think it's going to be about small groups of collaborators who know really how to work together. Something tells me that the future holds kind of an environment with almost like a lot of little feuter productions who are independent, independent production companies who are in the business of building ideas and getting them finance. And so I feel like that while big streamers, big
studios and so were the they're not going away. But in terms of making a career, I think the first thing is really understand story your relationship to audiences through narrative, where is there alignment. They're your sensibilities and an audience's sensibilities. Understand that, even if it's a small audience but a passionate one, connect with that. Whereas YouTubers and the TikTokers
they sort of do it through their personality. I think if you want to be a filmmaker a storyteller, you need to think about narrative, not just personality, and go beyond that and try to look around and find your group and rally together and make stuff. And if the studios and the platforms find you and want you, then you have leverage. But I think you can find a
way to make a living. You may have to hustle, you may have to scramble, but I think small groups can figure out how to make a living together or will be able to in the near future. So that's my advice. But it also are so with understanding what you love and what audiences love, and how you can connect these things. These truths.
Final piece of advice, you could go back in time and give some advice to your twenty one year old self.
What would that advice be. I wish I was a little more fearless about collaboration. I did spend a few years being afraid I'd look bad, people would think I was stupid or green. And I slowly but surely kind of earned this credibility. And that's fine. I love where landed, but I feel like I spent some years fearing criticism instead of trusting my creative instincts and who I was to actually seek out collaborators who I knew were more experienced than I was, or smarter and more dynamic and
more effective. I think I steered away from some opportunities to work with some pretty interesting actors early on because I was afraid I couldn't control them, and so I wouldn't call it a regret, but that would be the advice I would give young Ron.
Ron, you have an amazing gift to find the heart in every story. You have had such diverse experiences and successes. Thanks so much for sharing the wisdom and insights that come from that with us today.
Oh, thank you, thank you. Fun to talk about this stuff.
Here are a few things I picked up from my conversation with Ron. One, A great leader welcomes input from their team. As a director, Ron gets final say on what goes into his films, but when he accepts a collaborator's idea, they understand and execute it an authentic way That can lead to magic. When you're excited to give your team ownership an idea, it creates a unified vision and makes the final product even stronger.
Two.
Great marketing needs to have a y. Ron is a master storyteller, and what makes those stories successful is the connection he creates with his audience. If you can identify the core values and themes of your message.
You can also figure out what makes it special.
Even in a creative industry, you need a great pitch to sell something meaningful to your customers. Three seese the big opportunity, even if it's not exactly what you hope for. When Ron got an offer to act and Eat My Dust, he wasn't eager about the role, but he saw a chance for leverage to direct. Ron didn't have many guarantees going in, but he was soon directing his first film.
A green light doesn't come around. Often, if a door to your dream cracks open, you have to grab it and then work to make it something special.
I'm Bob Pipman. Thanks for listening. That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening.
To Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts, is created and hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sidney Rosenbloom for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is no small feat. The Math and Magic team is Jessica Crimechich and Baheed Fraser. Our executive producers are Ali Perry and Nikki Etoor.
Until next time