IFH 793: Comedy, Confidence, and the Art of Reinvention with Rhonda Shear

Brooks Elms is a screenwriter and independent filmmaker. His specialty is grounded personal characters and writing story tension so thick it knots up your stomach.He's written 25+ screenplays, a dozen of them on assignment, and sold several scripts, including one this year with Brad Peyton as Executive Producer. Brooks was recently hired to rewrite a screenplay started by an Oscar-winning writer. Brooks began his career writing, directing, and producing two indie features (personal dramas) that he screened all over the world.And Brooks also loves coaching fellow writers who have a burning ambition to deeply serve their audiences.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.

10 Sep 20241h 20min

If you were a kid of the late 80s or early 90s then today's guest definitely had an impact on your life. Larry Wilson is the co-creator of the cult classic Beetlejuice (directed by Tim Burton), writer of Addams Family and worked on the legendary television show Tales from the Crypt.Larry wasn't always a screenwriter, he worked on the studio side of things as well as an executive. In this interview, he tells the story of how he championed a young and pre-Terminator James Cameron to be the writer/director of Aliens. Great story! Check out some of his work below:Larry Wilson was also a screenwriting teacher at UCLA, arguably one of the best screenwriting programs in the world. He has continued to teach through his very popular workshops. His latest workshop Larry Wilson's Method to Madness-A Fantasy and Horror Workshop is filling up quick so sign up. Here's a bit about the workshop.As your teacher, my goal is to inspire leaps of imagination by creating an environment that resembles an awesome story conference—the kind myself and my partners experienced while creating Beetlejuice. First, that means we’re allowed to be strange—I’ll encourage your creative quirks and far-out ideas, as long as they’re entertaining and help to tell your story. I’ll be your guide for workshop writing assignments, role playing games, and group journeys through the dark realms that will keep you engaged and entertained while you’re creating your best story—ever! We’ll jump off the creative cliffs together. What I won’t be doing is lecturing for hours, hoping you’re staying awake. And, even if we’re talking about the darkest story in the world, I’ll make sure we're having fun (if we’re not laughing, it’s not happening). There’s a method to my madness, I promise, and I also promise that you’ll enjoy the ride.Below you'll find the episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents that both Larry Wilson and Tim Burton worked on together and started their Beetlejuice adventures. The episode was called "The Jar.Enjoy my spooky and funny conversation with Larry Wilson.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.

6 Sep 20241h 17min

Jocelyn Jones was raised in an artist's community on the Hudson River just 30 minutes north of Manhattan. This idyllic hamlet is home to some of the most influential artists of our time and it was here that her interest in art, artists and their process began.She is the daughter of Henry Jones, a character actor whose credits include some 40 films and over 300 televisions shows. Mr. Jones started out as a Broadway actor, most known for "The Bad Seed", "Advise And Consent" and his Tony Award-winning performance in "Sunrise at Campobello". Ms. Jones began her career at the age of 12, appearing alongside her father and E.G. Marshall in an episode of "The Defenders."Her work in motion pictures includes Clint Eastwood, "The Enforcer" "The Other Side of the Mountain" with Beau Bridges, Al Pacino's "Serpico" as well as starring in the cult classics "Tourist Trap" and "The Great Texas Dynamite Chase."Ms. Jones has appeared on stage in both New York and Los Angeles, most notably at The Mark Taper Forum, playing Greta Garbo in the world premiere of Christopher Hampton's "Tales From Hollywood." She has also appeared with Joe Stern's Matrix Theatre Company, where she played the delightfully insane Violet in George M. Cohan's farce "The Tavern" and as Constance Wicksteed, a spinster with a passion for large breasts, in Alan Bennett's farce "Habeas Corpus". She received critical acclaim for her role as Lucy Brown in Ron Sossi's groundbreaking production of "The Three Penny Opera", which famously utilized all three theaters of The Odyssey Theatre Complex for that same production.An in demand acting teacher for over 25 year, Ms. Jones has shepherded hundreds of actors from novice to starring careers and currently works with over a hundred hand picked actors, directors and writers at The Jocelyn Jones Acting Studio.Known as a "secret weapon" to some of the biggest stars in the industry, she has served as a confidential Creative Consultant, working on some of the highest-grossing pictures of all time. From advising artists on which projects to choose, to working with writing teams, to develop current and future projects, Ms. Jones' consultant work has been considered an invaluable asset to many.As a script doctor, she has served in every capacity, from page-one rewrites to final polishes- confidentially contributing to blockbuster films and television series alike. Her production company, Mind's Eye Pictures, is dedicated to producing her own original content.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.

3 Sep 20241h 23min

Niceole grew up under the bright stars of the Mojave Desert before swapping them for bright lights of Los Angeles. Studying acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts yielded the epiphany that she preferred writing. She worked as a police dispatcher to pay her way through undergraduate USC, and then completed the Master of Professional Writing program, also at USC. An alum of the CBS Writers Mentoring Program, NBC’s Writers on the Verge, and the WGAw Showrunner Training Program, Niceole has written on Ironside, Allegiance, The Mysteries of Laura, Shades of Blue, Cloak & Dagger, Fate: the Winx Saga, and S.W.A.T.She also co-wrote a feature, The Banker, with former Allegiance showrunner and director George Nolfi, available on AppleTV+. Niceole is currently a co-executive producer on Graymail, which will air on Netflix, and has several TV and feature projects in development. The Writers’ Room Survival Guide is her first book.Writers’ rooms can be a heaven or hell, depending on a few things. The best rooms foster inclusive and productive creative flow. The worst create a toxic stew of bad feelings and doubt. Both kinds and everything in between require basic knowledge of how the room works. These fundamentals are best learned before you go in. The mystery box of the writers’ room need not stay sealed shut forever. Consider this book your crowbar.Please enjoy my conversation with Niceole R. Levy.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.

27 Aug 20241h 32min

Today on the show we have Oscar® and two-time Emmy® Nominee Simon Kinberg.He has established himself as one of Hollywood’s most prolific filmmakers, having written and produced projects for some of the most successful franchises in the modern era. His films have earned more than seven billion dollars worldwide. Kinberg graduated from Brown University and received his MFA from Columbia University Film School, where his thesis project was the original script, “Mr and Mrs Smith.” The film was released in 2005, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.Upcoming, Kinberg will premiere his action spy film “The 355”, which will be released theatrically by Universal on January 7, 2022. Directed, co-written and produced by Kinberg, the film was one of the biggest deals out of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and stars an ensemble of A-list actresses including Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger and Fan Bingbing.A dream team of formidable female stars come together in a hard-driving original approach to the globe-trotting espionage genre in The 355.When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, wild card CIA agent Mason “Mace” Brown (Oscar®-nominated actress Jessica Chastain) will need to join forces with rival badass German agent Marie (Diane Kruger, In the Fade), former MI6 ally and cutting-edge computer specialist Khadijah (Oscar® winner Lupita Nyong’o), and skilled Colombian psychologist Graciela (Oscar® winner Penélope Cruz) on a lethal, breakneck mission to retrieve it, while also staying one-step ahead of a mysterious woman, Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan, X-Men: Days of Future Past), who is tracking their every move.As the action rockets around the globe from the cafes of Paris to the markets of Morocco to the opulent auction houses of Shanghai, the quartet of women will forge a tenuous loyalty that could protect the world—or get them killed. The film also stars Édgar Ramirez (The Girl on the Train) and Sebastian Stan (Avengers: Endgame).The 355 is directed by genre-defying filmmaker Simon Kinberg (writer-director-producer of Dark Phoenix, producer of Deadpool and The Martian and writer-producer of the X-Men films). The screenplay is by Theresa Rebeck (NBC’s Smash, Trouble) and Kinberg, from a story by Rebeck. The 355, presented by Universal Pictures in association with FilmNation Entertainment, is produced by Chastain and Kelly Carmichael for Chastain’s Freckle Films and by Kinberg for his Kinberg Genre Films. The film is executive produced by Richard Hewitt (Bohemian Rhapsody), Esmond Ren (Chinese Zodiac) and Wang Rui Huan.His original series “Invasion” premiered on Apple TV+ on October 22nd. He co-created the show with David Weil, serves as Executive Producer, and wrote or co-wrote 9 of its first 10 episodes. It is considered one of Apple’s most ambitious series to date as it was filmed on 4 different continents. The show has already been renewed for a second season, which Kinberg is show running and Executive Producing again. He is also the Executive Producer of the upcoming show “Moonfall” for Amazon. Also upcoming, Kinberg produced the sequel to "Murder on the Orient Express,” “Death on The Nile,” directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Annette Bening and another all-star cast. Needless to say this is one heck of an episode. Enjoy my conversation with Simon Kinberg.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.

26 Aug 202433min

Robert McKee, A Fulbright Scholar, is the most sought after screenwriting lecturer around the globe. He has dedicated the last 30 years to educating and mentoring screenwriters, novelists, playwrights, poets, documentary makers, producers, and directors internationally. Those who have learned from McKee have called him "the Aristotle of our time" because of his insight into the substance, structure, style, and principles of the grand art of story.Peter Jackson (writer/director of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Hobbit) has lauded him as "The Guru of Gurus." For the writers of Pixar (creators of Toy Story 1, 2, & 3, Finding Nemo), McKee's Story Seminar is a rite of passage. Emmy Award-Winner Brian Cox also portrayed McKee in the Oscar-nominated film Adaptation.McKee's former students include over 60 Academy Award Winners, 200 Academy Award Nominees, 200 Emmy Award Winners, 1000 Emmy Award Nominees, 100 WGA (Writers Guild of America) Award Winners, 250 WGA Award Nominees, and 50 DGA (Directors Guild of America) Award Winners, 100 DGA Award Nominees.A winner and nominee of BAFTA for his popular Channel Four series Reel Secrets, McKee also wrote and hosted 12 episodes of BBC's Filmworks series. He was profiled by Bob Simon of 60 Minutes for CBS news.McKee's articles on Story have also appeared in hundreds of newspapers and magazines around the world including Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker Magazine, Swiss Business Magazine, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, CBS Morning News, BBC, Channel 4 in UK, RAI (Italy), CBN Weekly News & Morning Glory (China), MBC TV, KBS & Arirang TV, Korea Times (South Korea), Kiev Weekly, Kultura Moscow, all major TV, Radio and/or newspapers of Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Germany, France, India, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, and Switzerland and given seminars in all of the above countries.Since 1984, more than 100,000 students have taken McKee's courses at various cities around the world: Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Sydney, Toronto, Boston, San Francisco, Helsinki, Oslo, Munich, Tel Aviv, Auckland, Singapore, Madrid, Beijing, Shanghai, Barcelona, Lisbon, Malaga, Hamburg, Berlin, Johannesburg, Rome, Stockholm, São Paulo, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Beijing, Brussels, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, Seoul, Istanbul, Hyderabad, Mexico City and many cities regularly.McKee continues to be a project consultant to major film and television production companies such as 20th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, & MTV. In addition, Pixar, ABC, BBC, Disney, Miramax, PBS, Nickelodeon, Paramount, GLOBOSAT, MNET and other international TV and Film companies regularly send their entire creative and writing staffs to his lectures.His new book is Action: The Art of Excitement for Screen, Page, and Game.ACTION explores the ways that a modern-day writer can successfully tell an action story that not only stands apart, but wins the war on clichés. Teaming up with the former co-host of The Story Toolkit, Bassim El-Wakil, legendary story lecturer Robert McKee guides writers to award-winning originality by deconstructing the action genre, illuminating the challenges, and, more importantly, demonstrating how to master the demands of plot with surprising beats of innovation and ingenuity.Topics include:Understanding the Four Core Elements of ActionCreating the Action CastHook, Hold, Pay Off: Design in ActionThe Action McGuffinAction Set PiecesThe Sixteen Action SubgenresA must-add to the McKee storytelling library, ACTION illustrates the principles of narrative drive with precision and clarity by referencing the most popular action movies of our time including: Die Hard, The Star Wars Saga, Dark Knight, The Matrix, and Avengers: Endgame.Enjoy my conversation with Robert McKee.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.

20 Aug 20241h 26min

Naomi Beaty is a screenwriting teacher, screenplay consultant, and former development exec with 10+ years in the entertainment industry.Naomi is based in Los Angeles, CA. She has worked on American productions and on projects in Taiwan and Australia, including the feature film "Ghost Boy", based on the novel by award winning Australian author Felicity Pulman, produced by Morning Starr Productions.Earlier, Naomi worked on the other side of the desk at Madonna and Guy Oseary's Maverick Films, where she helped develop projects including "Twilight" and "Percy Jackson".She just released her new book "The Screenplay Outline Workbook".The Screenplay Outline Workbook is designed to give you a clear and manageable set of tools, steps, and exercises so you can turn your ideas and inspiration into an outline and write your best screenplay – whether it’s your first or your tenth.With this workbook as your guide, you can start with just an inkling of an idea – or nothing at all, even! – and end up with a solid story premise, compelling characters, and an outline that provides a blueprint for writing an emotionally satisfying screenplay.Inside you’ll find enough instruction and theory so that you know what you need to know, but not so much that it overwhelms you before you even get started. Room to work through your story ideas and collect your notes and flashes of brilliance. A place to organize what you discover about your story as you develop it so that you can easily reference it when needed.Use the workbook to design a new story from scratch, or jump straight to the topic you need to get your work-in-progress unstuck. With 30+ tools, exercises, and prompts honed through years of teaching workshops and working one-on-one with writers, this workbook will help you:Generate new story ideasChoose a strong idea as the first step in writing a great screenplayBuild a sturdy foundation for your screenplay by finding the essential elements of the storyDiscover the organic three act structure and major plot points that create the framework for the story and screenplayDesign compelling characters that help push the protagonist along a meaningful character arcTry one or more suggested outlining methods for mapping out your story…and so much more!The workbook lays out a process that’s flexible enough that you can use it for every screenplay you write, yet designed to specifically address the issues readers commonly find in aspiring screenwriters’ screenplays.With each exercise, you’ll explore ideas and make choices to build your story, piece by piece. You’ll craft an outline that does all the heavy lifting, and be confident in the story you’re telling – which frees you to get creative with characters and dialogue, and discovering the kind of magical, cinematic moments that made us all fall in love with movies in the first place.If you’ve tried to write a screenplay before but found yourself stuck somewhere in Act 2, having an outline that serves as a map of your screenplay can make all the difference. Consider this workbook the wise but gentle guide that will meet you where you are and lead you to your destination so you can finally make real progress turning the movie in your head into a fully developed story that you’re ready to set down onto the screenplay page.When you’re done you’ll have more than an outline — you’ll have a rock-solid foundation for your screenplay.Please enjoy my conversation with Naomi Beaty.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.

13 Aug 20241h 2min

This successful American screenwriter of comedies, many of which are remakes or adaptations of novels (i.e., "Brewster's Millions" 1985, "Pure Luck" 1991), had worked in collaboration with Timothy Harris. The Wisconsin-born Herschel A. Weingrod and his British-born partner have generally met with commercial approval for their efforts like "Twins" (1988) and "Kindergarten Cop" (1990), both of which benefited from headliner Arnold Schwarzenegger."Falling Down" (1993), which they co-produced, also became a box-office success, but their only real critical success to date has been "Trading Places" (1983), which paired Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy.He has written and co-written a number of Hollywood blockbusters including Space Jam with fellow writer Timothy Harris.Enjoy my conversation with Herschel Weingrod.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.

6 Aug 20241h 12min