The Indie Film Hustle Podcast has been blessed to have the chance to talk to many Oscar® winners and nominees. These craftsmen and ladies had superb perception into what it takes to make it to the highest of the filmmaking craft. Enjoy these exceptional conversations, and we hope to see you on the Oscar®, too, sooner or later.
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Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively generally known as DANIELS, have been writing and directing collectively for over a decade, initially with a slew of viral music movies, commercials, and quick movies, then with characteristic movies and TV directing.
They’ve developed a status for combining absurdity with heartfelt private tales. Oftentimes they incorporate a singular model of visible results and visceral sensible results into their genre-blending tasks.
They have directed music movies for Manchester Orchestra, Foster, the People, and received a VMA for his or her video for “Turn Down For What,” through which Scheinert bullied Kwan into being the lead actor. Kwan is a extremely good dancer.
They wrote and directed the characteristic movie Swiss Army Man starring Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe, which went on to win the Directing Award on the Sundance Film Festival, obtained a number of nominations, and gained a big cult following.
While they have been writing & growing their Oscar® Winning film Everything Everywhere All At Once, a kung fu sci-fi dramedy starring Michelle Yeoh, Scheinert went and directed a small redneck dramedy known as The Death of Dick Long, additionally launched by A24.
Today on the present, I carry you one of the crucial influential and iconic writers/administrators within the historical past of cinema, three-time Oscar® winner Oliver Stone. Throughout his legendary profession, Stone has served as a author, director, and producer on varied movies, documentaries, and tv motion pictures. His movies have been nominated for forty-two Oscars® and have received twelve.
We are joined by indie movie icon and Oscar® nominated author/director Richard Linklater. Richard was one of many filmmakers who helped launch the unbiased movie motion we all know in the present day together with his traditional 1991 indie movie Slacker. As a bonus, we’ll dive into not solely the extraordinary profession of Richard Linklater but in addition that of collaborator and longtime good friend author/director Katie Cokinos, the filmmaker behind the movie I Dream Too Much.
We have been on a serious roll recently on the podcast, and this episode retains that getting in a giant means. Today’s visitor on the present is Oscar® Winning author, producer, and director Edward Zwick. Edward made his huge shift from his childhood ardour for theater to filmmaking after working as a PA for Woody Allen in France on the set of Love and Death.
John Sayles is one in every of America’s best-known unbiased filmmakers, receiving crucial approval for movies together with Eight Men Out (1988), Lone Star (1996), and Men with Guns (1997). He’s additionally written screenplays for mainstream movies similar to Passion Fish (1992), Limbo (1999), and The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008) and did a draft of Jurassic Park (1993) for Steven Spielberg.
Ever since I noticed District 9 and realized of all of the legendary tales behind the quick movie changing into a characteristic, I’ve been an enormous fan of in the present day’s visitor, Neill Blomkamp. Though Neill is right here in the present day to speak about his new sci-fi horror fiction movie, Demonic, we additionally chatted up about his different movies which were profitable through the years.
Sitting down with one of many huge names on this enterprise this week was a extremely cool alternative. I’m honored to have on the present in the present day, Oscar® successful director, producer, and screenwriter, Taylor Hackford.
Taylor’s has directed movies like An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), White Nights (1985), Proof of Life (2000), Dolores Claiborne (1995), Against All Odds (1984), Parker (2013), the enduring Ray Charles biopic, Ray of 2004, and The Comedian (2016) simply to call a couple of. He additionally has served as president of the Directors Guild of America and is married to the incomparable performing legend Helen Mirren.
Sean Baker is a author, director, producer, and editor who has made seven unbiased characteristic movies over the course of the previous twenty years. His most up-to-date movie was the award-winning The Florida Project (2017) which premiered on the Cannes Film Festival and was launched by A24 within the U.S. Among the numerous accolades the movie obtained — together with an Oscar nomination for Willem Dafoe for Best Supporting Actor — Sean was named Best Director by the New York Film Critics Circle.
His earlier movie, Tangerine (2015) premiered on the Sundance Film Festival and received an Independent Spirit and two Gotham Awards. Starlet (2012) was the winner of the Robert Altman Independent Spirit Award, and his earlier two options, Take Out (2004) and Prince of Broadway (2008), have been each nominated for the John Cassavetes Independent Spirit Award.
I’ve an epic dialog in retailer for you all in the present day. Our visitor is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and filmmaker, John Lee Hancock. While working as a lawyer by day again in 1986, John moonlighted as a screenwriter, writing script after script. His spec script, A Perfect World, caught the attention of Steven Spielberg and was ultimately directed by Clint Eastwood.
Hancock’s well-known five-year hiatus comeback movie, The Blind Side, an adaptation of Micheal Lewis’s 2006 ebook, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game yield and carried out outstandingly. The movie obtained numerous main awards nominations, together with an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and a win for Best Actress for Sandra Bullock.
The Blind Side is the story of Michael Oher, a homeless and traumatized boy who grew to become an All-American soccer participant and first-round NFL draft decide with the assistance of a caring girl and her household. The Blind Side went on to make $309.2 million internationally on a $29 million finances. Not too dangerous.
Today on the present, now we have Oscar® and two-time Emmy® Nominee Simon Kinberg. He has established himself as one in every of Hollywood’s most prolific filmmakers, having written and produced tasks for a number of the most profitable franchises within the trendy period. His movies have earned greater than seven billion {dollars} worldwide.
Kinberg graduated from Brown University and obtained his MFA from Columbia University Film School, the place his thesis challenge was the unique script, “Mr and Mrs Smith.” The movie was launched in 2005, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
On the present in the present day is academy award-winning documentary and movie director and producer Kevin Macdonald. He is one in every of few administrators who seamlessly dance the road of movie and documentary. He directed documentaries like Whitney (2018), the crowdsourced documentary – Life in a Day (2011), and Marley (2012), amongst others.
He is famously recognized for his 2006 drama movie, The Last King of Scotland, starring Oscar-winning greatest actor Forest Whitaker. Kevin has made an enormous identify for himself and his work over his 27 years within the trade – dabbling in commercials, movies, and documentaries.
As a boy, his granddad, Emeric Pressburger, a legendary filmmaker within the Nineteen Forties, lit his ardour for filmmaking. When his grandfather handed, Kevin wrote a biography in 1994 about his grandad’s life journey, titled, ‘ The Life and Death of a Screenwriter’, which he later made right into a documentary, ‘The Making of an Englishman’ (1995). This was the beginning of his changing into a documentary maker.
In 1999 he directed the Box workplace hit and Oscar-winning documentary, One Day in September, which is in regards to the 1972 Munich Olympic Games bloodbath, that includes a prolonged interview with Jamal Al-Gashey, the final recognized survivor of the Munich terrorists.
This challenge catapulted his profession huge time. He then made the adventure-docudrama, Touching the Void, one other critically acclaimed movie that received Best British Film on the 2003 BAFTA. The true story of two climbers and their perilous journey up the west face of Siula Grande within the Peruvian Andes in 1985.
Reinaldo Marcus Green is a author, director, and producer. He most not too long ago directed the critically acclaimed Warner Brothers movie King Richard starring Will Smith. The movie is nominated for Best Picture on the Critics Choice Awards and was named one of many Top 10 Films of the Year by each AFI, the National Board of Review, and an Academy Award® nomination for Best Picture.
This week, I sat down with one in every of Hollywood’s most legendary and profitable screenwriters/producers, Oscar® Winner Eric Roth. Over a 50+ years profession, he’s well-known for writing or producing movies like Forrest Gump. A Star is Born, Mank, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Munich, Ali, and the listing goes on.
Get able to have your thoughts blown! I’ll be releasing a 3-Part Limited Series of conversations between the legendary screenwriter James V. Hart, the author of Hook, Contact, Bram Stroker’s Dracula, and Tomb Raider, to call a couple of, and a number of the high screenwriters within the recreation.
First up is the screenwriter that took the world by storm together with his Oscar-Winning screenplay Get Out, Jordan Peele. If you will have been residing below a rock for the previous few years, here’s what the movie is about.
This was recorded earlier than Jordan’s subsequent hit movie, Us, was launched. Listening to those two masters focus on character, plot, theme, and extra is a uncommon deal with. It’s like being a fly on the wall. When you might be completed listening to this dialog, you possibly can read some of Jordan’s screenplay here.
Academy and Emmy Award-winning author/director/producer Alan Ball is amongst our era’s most essential artistic voices. Born in Atlanta, Ball studied Theatre Arts at Florida State University. In March 2000, AMERICAN BEAUTY, Ball’s first screenplay to get produced, received 5 Academy Awards, together with Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.
Ball went on to create and govt produce the groundbreaking HBO drama SIX FEET UNDER. The sequence ran for 5 seasons and obtained two Golden Globes, six Emmys, and an Emmy and DGA Award for Ball’s route of the pilot.
At age 5, Bruce Joel Rubin had a non secular expertise taking part in in a sandbox in the course of the afternoon. The solar disappeared, and a dense night time sky appeared as a substitute. Infinite galaxies have been swirling within the vastness of his personal head, and he sensed your complete universe was contained inside him.
He knew immediately he was one with all there was. In the years that adopted, Bruce grew to become an Oscar-winning screenwriter, a non secular instructor, and, most not too long ago, a photographer. Each side of his life has been a acutely aware effort to discover and reveal what he realized in that sandbox.
Today on the present, now we have Damien Chazelle, the Oscar® Winning director and screenwriter of La La Land. He burst onto the scene together with his debut movie, Whiplash. The movie is a couple of younger musician (Teller) struggling to turn into a high jazz drummer below a ruthless band conductor (Simmons).
James and Damien focus on how he wrote and structured La La Land and rather more. Enjoy this uncommon dialog between James V. Hart and Damien Chazelle.
I’m excited to speak to a fellow low-budget unbiased filmmaker in the present day. Granted, he does low-budget movies on a totally totally different degree than I or most individuals do at this level. But if we’re going to discuss finances filmmaking, it is just becoming to have skilled horror movie and tv producer Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions.
That is a testomony to his firm’s high-quality manufacturing. Blumhouse is thought for pioneering a brand new mannequin of studio filmmaking: producing high-quality micro-budget movies and provocative tv sequence. They have produced over 150 motion pictures and tv sequence with theatrical grosses amounting to over $4.8 billion.
Every infrequently, I’ve a dialog on this present that blows my thoughts; this episode did simply that. Today on the present, now we have Oscar® Nominated producer Chris Moore. He produced movies like Good Will Hunting, American Pie, Waiting, The Adjustment Bureau, and Manchester by the Sea. Chris’ profile grew from his look because the producer on the early 2000’s filmmaker actuality present Project: Greenlight.
After graduating from faculty, Chris Moore moved to Los Angeles after working in a serious company’s mailroom; he received promoted to a literary agent. He championed tasks like The Stoned Age, PCU, Airheads, Last Action Hero, and My Girl.
When ICM acquired Chris’ company, he left and have become an indie film producer. With some pals, he raised the finances to provide the indie movie Glory Daze, which starred an unknown Matt Damon. Damon turned down the main function in favor of paid work on one other paid challenge however launched him to his good friend Ben Affleck, who in the end starred in Glory Daze.
Afterward, Affleck and Damon wrote the screenplay for what would turn into the Oscar® successful Good Will Hunting, they usually requested Chris to assist them produce the movie that Gus Van Sant directed.
Chris and I had a exceptional dialog about the way to produce movies in in the present day’s eco-system. We additionally focus on what it’s like working within the studio system, a few of his points with the system, how filmmakers are handled, and a lot extra. This an EPIC 2-hour dialog full of data and fact bombs, so put together to take some notes.
Enjoy my dialog with Chris Moore.
Today, we’re listening to from one of many cultural influencers of the 90s movie trade, and that’s non-other than Gary Goldstein, the Oscar Nominated producer of the enduring rom-com Pretty Woman, starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts.
Pretty Woman was most of your introduction to Gary’s work, however mine was Cannibal Women within the Avocado Jungle of Death. I do know. After all these years, the title nonetheless makes me chuckle. Years later, I’d reference the title to individuals. And in case you have been curious, Gary goes into the film title origin story on this interview.
Gary movies have generated effectively over one billion {dollars} – constant field workplace hits. Pretty Woman, for instance, grossed $463.4 million – greater than 30 occasions its finances. After the huge success of Pretty Woman, Gary collaborated as soon as extra together with his filmmaking accomplice, author Jonathan Lawton to provide the motion thriller, Under Seige, in 1992. Like Pretty Woman, this too carried out efficiently on the field workplace and critically – together with an Academy Award nomination. An ex-Navy Seal turned cook dinner is the one one who can cease a gaggle of terrorists once they seize management of a U.S. battleship.
In 2013 he authored Conquering Hollywood: The Screenwriter’s Blueprint for Career Success, which is a compilation of methods to assist anybody, whether or not trying to promote a spec script, choice a screenplay, land a writing task, and get employed, appeal to an agent or supervisor of your desires…or get a producer to take a gathering with you. Gary blessed us with data bombs on this interview, together with tips about entrepreneurship and movie as a enterprise. Enjoy my dialog with Gary Goldstein.
Cassian Elwes started his producing profession with 1984’s Oxford Blues, starring Rob Lowe and Ally Sheedy, and has loved persevering with success in movie. His earlier roles embrace Men at Work with Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen, The Chase with Charlie Sheen, Kristy Swanson, and Henry Rollins, and The Dark Backward with Judd Nelson, Bill Paxton, and Rob Lowe. In 1989 he produced the unbiased movie Never on Tuesday, which featured a solid of cameos together with Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Nicolas Cage, and Cary Elwes.
The Hollywood Reporter has stated that Elwes was “involved in a virtual who’s who of every great independent film of the last ten years.” with movies similar to Thank You for Smoking, Half Nelson, and Frozen River (the final two of which garnered Oscar nominations for Ryan Gosling and Melissa Leo, respectively).
The first interviewee in my Sundance Film Festival Interview Series is known producer David Permut. David has produced virtually 40 characteristic movies in the midst of his profession. From Blind Date and Dragnet to Face/Off and the Oscar® Nominated Hacksaw Ridge. His new movie, The Polka King starring Jack Black, simply received launched on Netflix.
Enjoy my interview with David Permut.
Our visitor in the present day is producer, director, and screenwriter Marshall Herskovitz. Many of his manufacturing tasks have been in partnership together with his long-time filmmaking collaborator, Edward Zwick, whose movies he’s produced and written half of. Their decades-long filmmaking partnership was launched as co-creators of the 1987 TV present, ThirtySomefactor.
Some performers influence your life with out you even figuring out it and in the present day’s visitor suits that invoice. On the present, now we have comedic genius, multi-award-winning actor, author, producer, director, and tv host, Billy Crystal. We’ve seen Billy’s versatile work throughout all areas of the leisure world, stand-up, improv, Broadway, behind and in entrance of the digital camera, characteristic movies, tv, dwell levels like SNL, and animated motion pictures.
Our visitor in the present day is 80s star, multiple-award movie and theater actor, and activist Edward James Olmos. Olmos’s roles in movies or TV reveals like Stand and Deliver, Battlestar Galactica, broadway musical and movie Zoot Suit, Blade Runner as detective Gaff, and lots of others are a number of the most memorable of all time, and he’s nonetheless dominating our screens. While I couldn’t resist discussing his iconic roles over a number of many years, we primarily mentioned Olmos’s new must-see movie, Chasing Wonders.
This week we’re joined by legendary actor Robert Forster. Robert has been a working actor for many years, showing in traditional movies like Medium Cool, the enduring John Huston’s Reflections in a Golden Eye, 80’s motion traditional Delta Force (love me a superb 80’s motion flix), and Disney’s The Black Hole (one in every of my favourite movies rising up).
He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1997 for Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, which he credit with reviving his profession. Since then, Robert has been on hearth within the second half of his profession, showing in The Descendants, Like Mike; Mulholland Drive; Me, Myself, & Irene; Lucky Number Slevin, and Firewall, to call a couple of.
Today on the present, now we have Oscar® nominee Jeff Cronenweth A.S.C.
Cronenweth labored as a loader and 2nd assistant earlier than graduating highschool after which enrolled in movie faculty at USC, the place he studied cinematography. Among his classmates have been John Schwartzman and Robert Brinkmann, in addition to director Philip Joanou.
After commencement, Cronenweth resumed working together with his father, becoming a member of a core digital camera staff that included operators John Toll and Dan Lerner and 1st assistants Bing Sokolsky and Art Schwab.
Jeff labored with their father, Jordan Cronenweth (cinematographer most notable for Blade Runner), as a digital camera loader and second assistant digital camera throughout highschool, working his means as much as the primary assistant digital camera after which digital camera operator till the mid-Nineteen Nineties.
Moving as much as the primary assistant, Cronenweth started working with Toll, who was starting his work as a cameraman, and veteran Sven Nykvist.
David Fincher’s masterpiece Fight Club was the primary main movement image the place he acted as a DP. Other notable characteristic movies on which he labored as a DP are One Hour Photo, Ok-19: The Widowmaker, Down With Love, The Social Network, Hitchcock, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Gone Girl.
Today, my visitor is Oscar® nominated prolific cinematographer, achieved photographer, and member of the American Society of Cinematographers, Dean Cundey A.S.C.
Dean rose to fame for extraordinary cinematography within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties. His early begin was engaged on the set of Halloween. Dean is credited as director of photography on 5 Back To The Future movies and Jurassic Park.
Cundey holds over 100 and fifty cinematography & images credit for motion pictures, tv, and quick movies. That is not any small feat on this enterprise. The man has stayed busy and booked since commencement from movie faculty. That sort of consistency in Hollywood is simply doable with excessive persistence and excellence.
One of the numerous issues he did to remain ready and on high of his craft was investing in constructing himself a ‘super van’ or one couple name it a cinematographer’s heaven that contained each tools (cameras, editings instruments, and many others.) required to assist him get work get and do work simply.
We additionally speak extra about Dean becoming a member of The Book of Boba and The Mandalorian crew.
I can’t inform you how excited I’m about in the present day’s visitor. I sat down with the legendary and Oscar® Winning Cinematographer Russell Carpenter A.S.C. Russell has been taking pictures blockbusters for over 40 years and has shot movies like Ant-Man, xXx: Return of Xander Cage, Charlie’s Angels, The Negotiator, True Lies, Monster-in-Law and traditional 90’s motion flicks like Hard Target, The Perfect Weapon, and Death Warrant. He simply completed Avatar 2: The Way of Water.
He received the Oscar® for his cinematography on the second highest-grossing movie of all time, Titanic. We go down the rabbit gap on taking pictures Titanic, working with James Cameron, loopy Hollywood tales, how he approaches every challenge, and rather more. This episode is a treasure chest of behind-the-scenes tales and cinematic strategies from the best ranges of Hollywood.
Award-winning director of images Erik Messerschmidt, ASC, has a pure eye for arresting and spellbinding pictures, thriving in a job that permits him to mix his love of artwork, craft, and science. Recently, he lensed Devotion for director J.D. Dillard, based mostly on the real-life story of a Black naval officer who befriends a white naval officer through the Korean War, with each changing into heroes for his or her selfless acts of bravery.
He is also presently taking pictures Michael Mann’s biographical movie Ferrari, starring Adam Driver, Shailene Woodley, and Penélope Cruz, and not too long ago accomplished taking pictures David Fincher’s The Killer, starring Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton.
Today on the present, now we have Oscar® successful costume designer Janty Yates. Janty Yates has had a collaborative relationship with Ridley Scott because the nice success of Gladiator in 2000, for which she received an Academy Award®, one of many eight Oscars® garnered by the movie.
