Business of Film

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode #71. Today we’re talking all about story in THE STORY ROOM. Special guests are our very own Jeff Glickman, Alexis Grieve and Ira Wells. On this episode we will: – deconstruct the myths of story structure, – what makes a good pitch, – why one-pagers matter, – just what is Umami anyway, – and of course, why Ironic Tourque in your screenplay is key! Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode #70. This episode Marc Swenker takes us on location in Laos to the set of his latest feature and talks about what it takes to bring a show on the road to a country with no infrastructure.  Marc recently had a film premier at the 2015 Cannes International Film Festival Sleeping Giant. He works in Toronto, is also a member of the Producers Guild of America, and we look forward to sharing with you this episode. We hope you enjoy this edition. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode #69. This episode Justin McConnell jumps into what it takes to produce your first monetizeable feature film and taking the leap to go to Cannes for the first time. We cover a ton of ground on this episode. Justin has a lot of distribution knowledge to share and he dives deep wit us today. Here’s a slice of what we get into: – the best advise he ever got about structuring a deal. – minimum guarantee vs. revenue share models – sales agents vs. distribution advances We hope you enjoy this edition. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode #68. Michael May joins us to talk about Fun Size Horror. About Fun Size Horror a new website with original productions and user submitted content is going live wednesday the 27th! On this episde we talk about Gravitas Ventures, digital distribution and much more. We get into some very practical tips on how to think about your films and monetization strategies. Tons of fun on this episode with lots of great information from Michael to share. We hope you enjoy this edition. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode #67. This week we are joined by Robert Milazzo from Creative Live Film Channel. This marks the start of our collaboration with Creative Live and we’re exciting to have Robert on the show to share his passion for film and film education. Robert started in the trenches as an assitant for David Mamet and Sydney Pollack so he knows what he’s talking about. And, as promised on the podcast, Rob has allowed us to share three pretty cool videos from their education courses here with you now: * Pick the Perfect Camera for Your Movie * Making Movies with Illeana Douglas: The Roulette Wheel of Insanity * Film Production: Who is a Producer and What Do They Do? Also, here are some of the cool upcoming free classes you can check out: Modern Film Composing with The Blair Brothers: This class airs on May 20 from 9:00am – 4:00pm PT. During the class, the Blair Brothers will be live-scoring a CreativeLive student film – to give a true insider’s view to the film scoring process. Crowdfunding Your Film with Emily Best: Hosted by Emily Best, CEO of the crowdfunding platform, Seed&Spark. This class will air on May 27 from 9:00am – 12:15pm PT and will teach you how to create a successful social fundraising strategy, as well as how to crowdsource gear and supplies on a tight budget. We interviewed Emily Best, and you can check out her podcast here as well. She’s got a lot of cool stuff to say about audience engagement so I definitely encourage you to check out her free class on Creative Live. We hope you enjoy this edition. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode #66. This is a very special podcast for us here at Business of Film. This week we are on location in South Africa with Producer Greig Buckle and talk all about working in this magical country. Greig Buckle recently worked on Mad Max and Chronical and is one of the top producers in the country. We get into the incentives that South Africa has to offer. How to structure a deal and work in the country. The crews and location specific information. And we talk about Mad Max for a bit… just for fun. We hope you enjoy this edition. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode #65. This week we do a platform walk-through of Variety Insight & Variety Vscore. Both of these platforms are incredibly powerful. They differ from IMDB primarily in the fact that they are curated by a staff at Vareity. Also, they provide a much broader base of industry information. Vscore provides a casting tool with the kind of data and information that is critical when casting a project. Here’s what the above the fold looks like: These tools are paid platforms available to both organziations large and small, and also to individual produers and filmmakers. note: this is not an affiliate. If you are interested in this platform, you can speak with Andrea Adams at andrea.adams@variety.com We hope you enjoy this episode. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode #64. This episode features one of the best showrunners in the business, Naren Shankar (CSI, The Expanse). Naren started his career on Star Trek: TNG where he worked for 52 episodes. Since then, he worked on the Outer Limits, 182 episodes of CSI, Alost Human, and more recently Grimm and the currently in production SyFy series The Expanse. This was an inspring conversation. But the true gold is in the subtetly with which Naren speaks about his craft. I truly hope you get as much out of this episode as I did speaking with Naren. We hope you enjoy this episode. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode #63. Ross Katz takes us on an inspring journey from working his first job on Reservoir Dogs to directing Adult Beginners. Ross Katz started his career as a grip on Reservoir Dogs. He went on to working as a runner for Sydney Pollack. From there, he worked with a company called Good Machine which spring boarded him into a producing relationship with Sofia Coppola where he produced both Lost in Translation & Marie Antoinette. But, this is really a story about following ones passions because Ross was chasing a dream of becoming a director. His newest film Adult Beginners starring Nick Kroll and Rose Byrne is about to hit the big screen. He’s a guy with a lot of stories and tons to share. I’m so happy to be able to this conversation with you and big thanks to Ross. We hope you enjoy this episode. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode 62. We chat with entertainment attorney Danny Webber on this episode and have an in-depth discussion about negotiating talent contracts. There’s a lot to cover. We waste no time getting into the many aspects of talent agreements. We discuss such things as union issues, working talent accross jurisdictions, back-end, profit negotiations and much more. We hope you enjoy this episode. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode 61. We chat with author, consultant, and media strategist, Jon Reiss on this episode. This was a really fun conversation. Jon has some really outside of the box thinking for a digital age. He’s a true strategy guy and thinks about how to get your film out there in the right way. There’s some great advice on this episode which I’m excited to share with you. – We talk about how much you should be allocating to marketing? – What a Producer of Marketing and Distribution (PMD) does and how to find one? – How you should go about developing audience? And a whole lot more… Also, featured on this episode, we got this Twitter question and we tackle it in depth at the end of the podcast: Read the full article here: What’s Behind a Europe Plan that would “Destroy” Independent Film? @jesseikeman Something to tackle on the Business of Film podcast: http://t.co/59J00SR5XC — Bob Woolsey (@bob_woolsey) March 30, 2015 We hope you enjoy this episode. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode 60. On this episode we talk agency & government and what it takes to develop a strong relationship with these kinds of funding bodies. Dan Lyon, one of Telefilm Canada’s regional directors, takes us through multiple examples of what makes a good pitch. There’s a lot of topics that we explore on this episodes. We talk about the economics of government fundings, what it takes to develop a good relationship, and certain things that you definitely want to avoid. Dan is a great ambassador for the agency at large. He speaks very clearly about what works and what doesn’t. And whether you are local to Canada, or based anywhwere else in the world, I can guarantee that there are take aways… especially for investor presentations. We hope you enjoy this episode. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode 59. This week we’ve got producer Jared Goldman (“Adult Beginners”, “Kill Your Darlings”). Jared is a passionate filmmakers and attacts the job for all the right reasons. A tremendous background in the film industry with tons to share… and a special free give away!. Jared has produced or been involved in a producing capacity with film like Adult Beginners, Kill Your Darlings, The Skeleton Twins, And So It Goes, Solitary Man, Manda Bala and many others. Jared started at Miramax in Delivery and Business Affairs and then moved to GreeneStreet Films where he was Manager of Production Deptartment. He is also, as a special bonus, sharing with our audience his personalized Deliveries Template. This tempalate includes a 54 item checklist that you need to go through on every film that you make. Deliveries are extremely specific and if you aren’t on top of them from the very beginning, it will prove to be a major issue when it comes time to deliver you film to your distributor. This is such an important an in-depth document. Just fill out your email address below and you’ll get a direct dowload link to the template. Get Jared’s Delivery Template!   We hope you enjoy this episode. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode 58. We welcome Jeff Willis, Vice President Business Affairs & Production at the Weinstein Company to the show. We dive into some pretty cool topics on this episode including film distribution, talent deals, and copyright. Want some insight into how to make talent deals that stick? This episode is for. Curious about some distribution contract language that’s important to look out for? Jeff Willis masterfully crafts his answers to a variety of questions about the business. We don’t nearly have enough time to get into everything I that wanted to. We’ll certainly have him back on the show. In this episode we cover as many interesting topics as we can and leave the door open for many more. If you have any questions, please hit us up at Twitter. I also encourage you to follow Jeff on Twitter. As we get into the show, he has some pretty amazing threads on Twitter talking about the business side of film. You surely won’t want to miss these. We hope you enjoy this episode. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.

Welcome back to Business of Film, episode 57. We welcome VFX Supervisor Bob Munroe to the show. Bob is one of the best in the business and he shares his knowledge on how to get the most out of your VFX work. I’ve known Bob for a while now and had the pleasure of working with him on All is Lost. He is a truly amazing person with an exceptional amount of knowledge and skills to share. We dive deep on this episode. And here’s a link to Bob on screen that we talk about on the show. This was during Bob’s “acting” days and when VFX was at its nascent stages. You can see Bob first at 44:00 (in the green hood), then again at 49:05 (on the left), as well as a couple of other places. The VFX are ridiculously horrible, mainly because of the ultra-low budget and bad practical FX. We hope you enjoy this episode. Please leave us a review on iTunes, it really helps, and we appreciate it. We’ll even send you a digital muffin. Also, if you have any comments or questions, just write’em below or find us on Twitter.