Creative Principles

Michael Tennant grew up San Diego with a “disdain” for Los Angeles. “You’re taught the Dodgers are the devil,” he jokes. “LA is the worst. Don’t do this. But my brother did a play, I heard him get a laugh and that first hit of dopamine, I started chasing that. I liked the idea of performing.”

In the early days, Tennant wanted to become an actor. “Good Will Hunting was a seminal movie,” he says. “These two guys just got together and wrote something? And Gus Van Sant is directing it? How did these guys do that?”

Tennant says he somewhat lost track of that and focused on acting. “I got stuck in the linear idea of it for a while, but then I fell into producing.” While on set one day, a producer had lunch with Tennant and this somewhat led to work in development. “I saw the sausage getting made and it made me kind of sad.”

Tennant adds, “I was watching people set money on fire, never their own but other people’s money, making movies for the wrong reasons and after a few years reading thousands of scripts, I thought I wanted to give writing a crack. Let me see if can do this.”

Inspired originally by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and more recently by the Duplass Brothers (see the speech, “The Calvary Isn’t Coming”), Tennant knew he needed to take his shot. “I keep asking other people — writers, directors, casting agents — to hand me this creative life that I want and no one is doing it. Why is no one doing it? Because you have to do it yourself.”

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles. Enjoy!

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“I think it would have killed my career if I would have graduated from drama school and gotten all the lead parts and everything”, says actor Ólafur Darri Ólafsson. “I think that would have destroyed me because I really needed to just understand what we do.”

Ólafur Darri Ólafsson is an Icelandic-American actor, producer, and screenwriter who is mostly known for ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’, ‘The Meg’, and ‘Severance’.

In this interview, we talk about what made him get into acting, ‘Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss’, why he doesn’t live in Hollywood, networking and friendships with other actors, and how he sees his career.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60 seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom of your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“When Everyone Leads it’s a book about how people — wherever you are in your organization, your community, your company, your family — how you can exercise leadership to make things better,” says author Julia McBride.

Julia Fabris McBride is Chief Civic Leadership Development Officer of the Kansas Leadership Center. She is also a certified coach and co-author of two books, ‘When Everyone Leads’, and ‘Teaching Leadership: Case-in-Point, Case Teaching, and Coaching.’

In this interview, we talk about how theater helped her find her voice as a coach, the importance of soft skills in children, what true leadership is, and how we can make changes in our communities.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

Ali Siddiq got his start at an Open Mic in Houston, on Apollo night. In a fresh suit, like he had seen stand-ups on television wear, he “got boo’d” for the first time, his first time on stage. Two weeks later, in jeans and a tee shirt, he felt more relaxed and eventually started to host at this location.

For his latest special, The NY Times writes, “In his eye-opening "The Domino Effect 2: Loss," Ali Siddiq, a revelation of a performer, adopts a different approach. Instead of self-aware jokes, he leans into stories that are easy to get lost in, especially with his jaunty, magnetic delivery.”

In this interview, Siddiq talks about early influences, how he found his style as a storyteller, finding confidence and matching energy on stage, testing stories in the barbershop, how he remains prolific, the best advice he ever got from D.L. Hughley.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles. Enjoy!

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“I don’t ever set out with a theme,” says author Dana Pettrey. “I’m gonna teach these or these is the lesson. I just write the story and where the characters land is where they land faith wise.”

Dani Pettrey is the the author of ‘Coastal Guardians’ a book series that includes books like ‘The Killing Tide,’ ‘The Crushing Depths,’ ‘The Deadly Shallows,’ among others.

In this interview, we talk about how to prepare yourself as an author, tips on overcoming writer's block, how she does research for her books, what makes her a Christian author in the marketplace, her writing process and how she writes characters. 

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“I wanted to become a stuntman since I was eight years old,” Lauro “Lash” Chartrand-Del Valle told me. In this interview, Lash talks about his work behind Rumble in the Bronx, The Last Samurai, and Ninja Turtles - The Next Mutation.

We also discuss how to break in as a stuntman, his work with Jackie Chan, how there was no script for Rumble in the Bronx, getting shot on a Chuck Norris movie two years before the Brandon Lee accident, training with Fumio Demura (The Real Miyagi), and how the stunt world is small and family oriented.

In this interview, we also discuss Sharlene Royer. You can listen to her interview in Episode 413.

This is a special interview associated with my first documentary, Daredevil Society, a series about the history of stunt performers, including everyone from Buster Keaton to Jackie Chan to Zoe Bell to Keanu Reeves. Learn more or become an investor here:

www.daredevilsociety.com/docuseries

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles. Enjoy!

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

As an eight-year-old, Herbert James Winterstern would sneak downstairs to watch movies with his dad. These movies, classics like Planet of the Apes (1968), which inspired him to become a writer-director.

In his latest film, Supercell, “A teenage boy runs away to follow his fathers footsteps, legendary storm chaser Bill Brody.” The film stars Alec Baldwin, Skeet Ulrich, and Anne Heche.

In this interview, Winterstern talks about the obligation for directors to also be writers today, his partnership with Anna Elizabeth James, his experience as a storm chaser, why the profession is less dangerous than it seems, small budget blockbusters, and why he wanted to make a movie about storm chasers.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles. Enjoy!

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

Award-winning filmmaker Robert Rippberger, filmmaker Devin Keaton, and business magnate Nathan Edwards have announced the groundbreaking of Ascent Studios, the soon-to-be largest film studio in North Carolina, amid the regions production boom.

The state-of-the-art facility is located in Spring Hope, just a short drive from Raleigh, and spans on 200 acres of pristine land. The studio is being built by Nathan Edwards of Edwards, Inc., a trusted name in the region with over 35 years of experience as an industrial contractor.

With an eye towards creating a world-class production facility, Ascent Studios is being built to the highest standards, with cutting-edge technology and expertly designed spaces for every aspect of film production, big or small. The landscape occupies dozens of picturesque exteriors for fields, forests, roads, barns, lakes, and manor shots.

Ascent Studios will boast five production stages totaling 170,000 square feet, making it the largest film studio in North Carolina upon completion in late-2023. Productions that utilize Ascent Studios will receive a 25% tax rebate on qualifying expenses and purchases funded by the North Carolina Film and Entertainment Grant.

In this interview, we talk about the origin of Ascent Studios in Spring Hope North Carolina, how they plan to collaborate with the studio in Wilmington, how tax incentives bring big movies to small towns, and what’s next for Ascent Studios.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“I’ve always been very interested in people. Originally, I wanted to study philosophy, but by accident, I stumbled into a psychology seminar,” said neuroscientist Friederike Fabritius. “I wanted to see how people behaved rather than thinking about how people behaved.” This led her to the study of neuroscience.

Friederike is the author of ‘The Leading Brain’ and ‘The Brain-Friendly Workplace.’ The latter is a smart, science-based approach to retaining talent, finding better places to work, and making the world a better place.

In this interview, we talk about how the body and the brain are connected, why sleep is a washing machine for your brain, the importance of movement and sunlight for your brain, how to break up your day for laser focus, why many deep thinkers feel drained in fast-paced jobs, internal diversity in the workplace, and ways to feel better both today and for your future self.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“I’d always been a big fan of the written word, from childhood, in different mediums,” says Maurice Williams. “Whether it be youthful song writing or my undergraduate degree in journalism. There’s just beauty in the creation, the alchemy of having nothing and then you have something, about writing.”

In this case, the something from nothing is Entergalactic, an animated series about Jabari, a streetwear-clad artist on the cusp of success. The story is based on a location as much as it is a person, inspired by Kid Cudi, along with Williams, Kenya Barris, and Ian Edelman.

“If I go all the way back, Maurice and I share this, which is why we make great partners, I think growing up as a TV kid, watching movies with my brother while our parents worked, I think even beyond that, it was growing up in New York City, going to public school and writing a bus and subway at a young age, you realize the greatest characters studies are in your backyard,” says Edelman. 

Edelman packed many of these stories in his 2010 series How to Make It in America. The HBO series followed a group of 20-somethings living in New York City, and featured Bryan Greenberg, Lake Bell, Luis Guzmán, and Kid Cudi. “I wanted to tell stories about kids I knew who were leading interesting lives that were not the conventional movie, movie. We had a different way of looking at the world.”

Listen to my interview with Kenya Barris in Episode 227 of the podcast.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles. Enjoy!

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!