Today on the show we have Oscar® nominee Jeff Cronenweth A.S.C. Cronenweth worked as a loader and 2nd assistant before graduating high school, and then enrolled in film school at USC where he studied cinematography. Among his classmates were John Schwartzman and Robert Brinkmann, as well as [director] Philip Joanou.After graduation, Cronenweth resumed working with his father, joining a core camera team that included operators John Toll and Dan Lerner, and 1st assistants Bing Sokolsky and Art Schwab.

Jeff worked with father Jordan Cronenweth (cinematographer most notable for Blade Runner) as a camera loader and second assistant camera during high school, working his way up to first assistant camera and then camera operator until the mid-1990s.Moving up to first assistant, Cronenweth began working with Toll, who was just beginning his work as a cameraman, and veteran Sven Nykvist.

"I couldn't have learned from better people than John, Sven and my father,"

Cronenweth relates."They were all soft-spoken, but very tenacious in achieving their goals. It was a great experience to watch them, learn set etiquette and see how they delegated responsibilities and dealt with producers and crews. I did six pictures with my father and eight pictures with Sven." [From American Cinematographer Magazine.]The first major motion picture where he acted as a DP was on David Fincher's masterpiece Fight Club. Other notable feature films on which he worked as a DP are One Hour Photo, K-19: The Widowmaker, Down With Love, The Social Network, Hitchcock, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Gone Girl.

Enjoy my conversation with Jeff Cronenweth A.S.C.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

David Klein, A.S.C. (born December 1972) is an American cinematographer known for working with director Kevin Smith on the films Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Clerks II, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Cop Out, Red State.

Klein, a member of the American Society of Cinematographers, was the director of photography for True Blood on HBO and for Homeland on Showtime. Klein was hired for the latter position beginning with Homeland's third season, taking over cinematographer duties from Nelson Cragg who had served as the series' director of photography for two seasons.In 2020, Klein served as the cinematographer on Season 2, Episode 6 of The Mandalorian, titled "Chapter 14: The Tragedy" which was directed by Robert Rodriguez. He will also serve as cinematographer on multiple episodes of The Book of Boba Fett.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Award-winning director of photography Erik Messerschmidt, ASC has a natural eye for arresting and spellbinding images, thriving in a role that allows him to combine his love of art, craft and science. Recently, he lensed Devotion for director J.D. Dillard, based on the real-life story of a Black naval officer who befriends a white naval officer during the Korean War, with both becoming heroes for their selfless acts of bravery.He also is currently shooting Michael Mann’s biographical film Ferrari, starring Adam Driver, Shailene Woodley, and Penélope Cruz, and recently completed shooting David Fincher’s The Killer, starring Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton.

Previously, Messerschmidt shot Fincher’s passion project Mank, chronicling the screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz’s turbulent journey to write Citizen Kane alongside Orson Welles. Messerschmidt’s meticulous and striking black and white recreation of the period’s aesthetic earned him the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, an ASC Award for Outstanding Cinematography in a Feature Film, a BSC Award for Best Cinematography in a Theatrical Feature Release, a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Cinematography, as well as Best Cinematography award nominations from the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle, the Broadcast Film Critics Association Critics Choice, and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists.In addition, Messerschmidt co-lensed several episodes of the HBO Max original series Raised by Wolves from producer Ridley Scott. He also shot the first and second seasons of Fincher’s hit thriller series Mindhunter for Netflix, earning a 2020 Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series (one-hour) for episode 206.

With a background in the fine arts world, Messerschmidt honed his skills while working with such renowned cinematographers such as Dariusz Wolski, ASC, Jeff Cronenweth, ASC, Phedon Papamichael, ASC, Claudio Miranda, ASC, and Greig Fraser, ASC. Messerschmidt now lives in Los Angeles and is a member of IATSE Local 600. He is represented by DDA.

Enjoy my conversation with Erik Messerschmidt.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Today on the show we have writer, producer, and director Josef Kubota Wladyka.Josef Kubota Wladyka’s debut feature film, Manos Sucias, won Best New Narrative Director at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival and was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards, Best First Feature and Best Editing.

Josef has also directed episodes of the acclaimed television shows, Narcos, Fear the Walking Dead, and The Terror. Residing in Brooklyn, New York, Josef holds an MFA from New York University's Graduate Film Program and was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. He remains committed to making socially conscious genre films.

Enjoy my conversation with Josef Kubota Wladyka.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

I am a huge fan of today’s guest. Since seeing one of her first documentaries, I was transfixed by her power of storytelling. Our guest is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning documentary filmmaker, Lynn Novick---a formidable and respected PBS documentary filmmaker with thirty-plus years of experience in the business.Her archival mini and docu-series documentaries bring historically true events to the big screen alongside her filmmaking partner, Ken Burns. You’ve most likely seen some of her landmark documentary films. The likes of Vietnam (2017), TV Mini-Series documentary The Civil War (1990), College Behind Bars (2019), eighteen hours mini-series, Baseball (2010), and many more.

All are available on PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel.Just this year, the pair premiered their latest co-produced and co-directed three parts documentary on PBD---recapitulating the life, loves, and labors of Ernest Hemingway. The series explores the painstaking process through which Hemingway created some of the most important works of fiction in American letters. Novick is an experienced-learned documentary filmmaker. In the mid-1980s, she applied to film school but did not pursue that lane when she couldn’t find a documentary filmmaking-specific program. Instead, she sought out apprenticeships. Starting at the PBS station in New York City WNET, for six months.

And then worked for Bill Moyers as an assistant producer on a series of projects, including her debut production in 1994 with Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, followed by A World of Ideas with Bill Moyers, etc. The Civil War is a comprehensive survey of the American Civil War.Novick’s decades-long collaboration with Ken Burns emerged in 1989 and has led to the co-production of a number of renowned docu-series. 

First, there was the highly acclaimed ‘The Civil War’ which traced the course of the U.S. Civil War from the abolitionist movement through all the major battles to the death of President Lincoln and the beginnings of Reconstruction. Her vast experience as a researcher comes in handy on these kinds of projects, she explains during our convo. She won an Emmy Award in 1994 for producing the Baseball documentary and won a Peabody Award in 1998 for her co-directing and co-producing of Frank Lloyd Wright's documentary. Baseball covers the history of the sport with major topics including Afro-American players, player/team owner relations, and the resilience of the game.Other must mention include multi-Emmy nominations documentary ‘Prohibition’, The Vietnam War, Jazz, and Novick’s first solo directing, College Behind Bars (2019). College Behind Bars explores urgent questions like What is the essence of prisons? Who in America has access to educational opportunities? Six years in the making, the series immerses viewers in the inspiring and transformational journey of a small group of incarcerated men and women serving time for serious crimes, as they try to earn college degrees in one of the most rigorous prison education programs in America – the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI).Novick is one of those filmmakers who have combed through an obscene amount of knowledge and understanding of documentary films. I have a feeling you will enjoy this chat as much as I did.

Enjoy my conversation with Lynn Novick.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Movie piracy has hurt the pockets of every filmmaker. But indie filmmakers are often affected worse. Today on the show we have Evan Zeisel and he has been systematically tracking down piracy sites for years. Ten years ago, Evan made his first feature film and landed a distributor. Within a week of being on its first VOD site, his film was already popping up on numerous piracy sites.  He quickly learned through rigorous research to combat piracy and copyright infringement through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, of 1998.

Basically, the DMCA instrument protects copyright holders from piracy or infringement and it protects the First Amendment of users who, unknowing of the illegality, uses copyrighted contents online for commercial purposes. How do you counter online piracy and what is the DMCA?The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a U.S. law enacted in 1998 in an effort to combat piracy while also protecting freedom of speech. The pitfall of the DMCA is that in order to “protect” free speech, it notes that any content put online is considered not to be copyright infringement unless the copyright holder, or representative thereof, directly informs the site or the individual who posted the content that the content is indeed copyrighted.After being informed, the site has “a reasonable amount of time” (deemed 48-72 hours, by de facto enforcement by the courts) to remove the content before it is considered to be an illegal act. What this means is that a content creator needs to find every occurrence of infringement on the Internet and then find the site’s contact information, or Web Host/ISP’s contact information, and send a very specifically formatted letter (as defined by the DMCA) to that contact, before it will ever be considered needed to be taken down.Once received, if the content is not removed, then the content creator can use the Violation Notice sent, and a screenshot of the piracy, as a basis for legal action.

The issue is, attorneys cost money and there is an endless number of sites pirating content, so for the standard copyright holder taking legal action would be a Sisyphean act, costing them endless time and money, only to run up against pirates that hide behind fake email addresses and false contact information. A lot has changed in the computer and Internet world in the last 20+ years since the DMCA was enacted.Evan dissects in this interview the technicalities in reclaiming copyright, contacting violators, the language, or must-mentions required by the act. Evan tackles the mechanical challenges of tracking down his contents on piracy sites through an automated system, Copyright Slap, curated with help from a friend of his with a coding background, to efficiently contact these sites and have contents taken down in seconds. To date, they have identified the 1946 sites and taken down 6212.Every filmmaker, big and small deals with online piracy. Hopefully, this episode can help.

Enjoy my conversation with Evan Zeisel.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Today, my guest is a prolific cinematographer, accomplished photographer, and member of the American Society of Cinematographers, Dean Cundey A.S.C.Dean rose to fame for extraordinary cinematography in the 1980s and 1990s. His early start was working on the set of Halloween.  Dean is credited as director of photography on five Back To The Future films and Jurassic Park.The Halloween slasher franchise consisted of eleven films and was initially released in 1978. The films primarily focus on Michael Myers, who was committed to a sanitarium as a child for the murder of his sister, Judith Myers. Fifteen years later, he escapes to stalk and kill the people of the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois. Michael's killings occur on the holiday of Halloween, on which all of the films primarily take place.

The second film, one of which Cundey served as director of photography, was based on Marty McFly, who had only just gotten back from the past when he is once again picked up by Dr. Emmett Brown and sent through time to the future. Marty's job in the future is to pose as his son to prevent him from being thrown in prison. Unfortunately, things get worse when the future changes the present.The three Back To The Future films Dean worked on grossed $388.8, $336, and $243 million globally, becoming all-time hits on budgets of $19, $40, and $40 million.Cundey is cited as being amongst some of the best directors of photography. In addition to his lighting skills, particularly in the famous hallway scene where the hidden face of Michael Myers, played by writer/director Nick Castle, is slowly revealed by way of a blue light next to the mask, he was among the first cinematographers to make use of a recent invention called the Steadicam, or paraglide.

Some other shows and movies he's worked on include, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Tales of the Unexpected, Romancing the Stone, Invitation To Hell, Big Trouble in Little China, etc.Who Framed Roger Rabbit; A toon-hating detective is a cartoon rabbit’s only hoping to prove his innocence when he is accused of murder. Basically, 'Toon star Roger is worried that his wife Jessica is playing pattycake with someone else, so the studio hires detective Eddie Valiant to snoop on her. But the stakes are quickly raised when Marvin Acme is found dead, and Roger is the prime suspect. Groundbreaking interaction between the live and animated characters, and lots of references to classic animation.Dean grew up an avid reader of the American Cinematographer magazines he would buy after school from a local camera shop close by. That was how his inspiration to pursue filmmaking came about. He shifted his focus to theater history while still taking some architectural design classes at California State University before he ultimately enrolled at the University of California Los Angeles film school.In 1993 Jurassic Park, Dean made a minor appearance as a boat crew member (Mate) while also staffed as director of photography. The film follows a pragmatic paleontologist visiting an almost complete theme park tasked with protecting a couple of kids after a power failure causes the park's cloned dinosaurs to run loose. Huge advancements in scientific technology have enabled a mogul to create an island full of living dinosaurs.

A park employee attempts to steal dinosaur embryos, critical security systems are shut down, and it now becomes a race for survival with dinosaurs roaming freely over the island.Cundey holds over one hundred and fifty cinematography & photography credits for movies, television, and short films. That is no small feat in this business. The man has stayed busy and booked since graduation from film school. That kind of consistency in Hollywood is only doable by having extreme persistence and excellence. One of the many things he did to stay prepared and on top of his craft was investing into building himself a ‘super van’ or one couple call it a cinematographer’s heaven that contained every equipment (cameras, editing's tools, etc.) required to help him get work get and do work easily.We talk more about Dean joining The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian crew as well. Check it all out in our chat.

Enjoy my conversation with Dean Cundey.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Today on the show we have writer/director Daedalus Howell. Daedalus' film Pill Head is the definition of being a Filmtrepreneur. So much, in fact, I used his film as a case study in my book Rise of the Filmtrepreneur®: How to Turn Your Indie Film into a Moneymaking Business. The method he used was the "regional cinema model." This model is based around developing, producing and distributing a film project targeted to the niche audience of a geographic area. He essentially made an Art House film for his hometown.Pill Head was entirely a hometown affair — from discounted permits to merchant buy-in and a recent theatrical release through a consortium of local exhibitors (no four-walling!) accompanied by tons of local press.

After an overdose, art student Theda becomes an unwitting specimen in her university’s experimental psych program. There’s a side effect, however — she sees the branching possibilities of reality in an alternate universe. Moreover, an alternate self wards her off the program’s enigmatic researcher Dr. Ashe. Determined to escape, Theda’s salvation lays through the looking glass of quantum quandaries, romance revisited, and the jagged little pill of her own nature.In this interview, we go deep into the regional cinema model, how he creates multiple revenue streams and how he got that group of local theater owners to four wall his film for free.

Enjoy my inspirational conversation with Daedalus Howell.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Today on the show we have writer, producer and director Brad Silberling. I had the pleasure of meeting Brad back in 2005 at my first Sundance Film Festival. He was very kind with his time and gave me some great advice.His feature films include City of Angels starring Meg Ryan and Nicholas Cage, Moonlight Mile, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon; Lemony Snickett’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, starring Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep; 10 Items of Less starring Morgan Freeman, Land of The Lost starring Will Ferrell, as well as his debut film, the family classic Casper, produced by Steven Spielberg.

In television, his growing stable of hit series include the critically acclaimed comedy Jane The Virgin as well as the period drama Reign, contemporary reboots Dynasty and Charmed, and the new Disney Plus series Diary of A Future President. He is a graduate of the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television where he earned his masters degree in production, following his bachelor’s degree in English from UC Santa Barbara.

Brad and I had an amazing talk about the business, warts and all, what it was like having Steven Spielberg as a mentor and how he built his directing career.




Enjoy my conversation with Brad Silberling.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

NFTs are all the rage today but how can indie filmmakers use them to generate revenue? I did an entire episode dedicated to NFT and Indie Films last year and it is, by far, one of the most downloaded episodes ever.Today on the show we have a filmmaker and creator that was able to raise $2 million for a brand new IP using NFTs. His name is Arel Avellino. His brother and him launched an NFT collection called Strange Clan and raised $2 million dollars in sales of the NFTs which has basically helped kickstart the launch of the Strange Clan IP. 
Arel told me:
 
As someone who is in the film space, I know you know how challenging launching a new IP is which is why so many of our movies today are recycled IPs, spin offs, sequels, and relaunches of old IPs that were successful. I'm not sure if I've heard you talk about this yet on your show, but crypto is an incredibly powerful tool for funding new IPs because it is transparent, gives your audience huge exposure to the success of the project, and allows for a deeper level of community engagement.
He wants to see more filmmakers coming to space and taking advantage of the innovations of crypto without getting sunk by the hype.
 
Enjoy my enlightening conversation with Arel Avellino.


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.