Film Talk | Interviews with the brightest minds in the film industry.

John Trigonis is the author of “Crowdfunding for Filmmakers”. He has mentored thousands of filmmakers, storytellers, and other content creators worldwide to help them craft compelling crowdfunding experiences that not only reach, but also exceed their financial goals. After spending a few years as a private crowdfunding consultant for a number of creative projects, John was brought on board Indiegogo’s film team as its Film Campaign Strategist and now works behind-the-scenes on some the most successful film and video campaigns, including “Con Man”, “VGHS Season 3”, “Iron Sky: The Coming Race”, and countless other top-dollar projects, all while continuing to nurture his own creative multimedia endeavors. In addition to this John recently spoke at TEDx.

Richard Botto is a screenwriter, producer, actor and filmmaker, and the creator and CEO of social network Stage 32. Since the launch of Stage 32 in September 2011 this filmmaking community has grown to more than 500,000 members from all across the globe. Forbes has described Stage 32 as "Lynda.com Meets LinkedIn For Film, Television And Theater Creatives." Richard’s screenplays have been semi-finalists and finalists at a variety of competitions including The Page, Nicholl, and Creative World Awards. He was an associate producer on Sam Levinson's “Another Happy Day”, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011 and featured Golden Globe nominated Ellen Barkin, Golden Globe nominated Demi Moore, Oscar nominated Thomas Hayden Church, Kate Bosworth, and Oscar winner Ellen Burnstyn.

Cyrus Nowrasteh is a writer, producer, and director. Starting out as a television writer, Cyrus received the Pen USA West Literary Award for Best Teleplay twice, and is the only writer in the history of the Pen awards to win two years in a row in the same category. He wrote the pilot for the USA Network show “La Femme Nikita”, as well as numerous episodes of “Falcon Crest”. He also wrote and produced the Emmy award winning ABC miniseries “The Path to 9/11”, which starred Oscar winner Harvey Keitel. Cyrus’ film work has been equally illustrious. He wrote and directed “The Day Reagan was Shot”, which starred Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss and was executive produced by Oscar winner Oliver Stone. He then went on to co-write and direct the film “The Stoning of Soraya M.”, which starred Jim Caviezel and won runner-up for the Audience Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, amongst numerous other award wins. “The Stoning of Soraya M.” was condemned and banned by the Iranian government but thousands of copies were bootlegged into the country and it became an underground hit in Iran - forcing the government to put a temporary suspension on stoning as a punishment. Cyrus’ latest release “The Young Messiah”, which he directed and co-wrote, is based on an Anne Rice novel, and stars Sean Bean. It will be released in theaters nationwide on March 11.

Howard Klausner is a writer, director and producer of films such as “Space Cowboys”, starring Oscar winner Clint Eastwood, “The Identical” starring Golden Globe nominated Ray Liotta, “Hoovey” starring Alyson Stoner, “The Last Ride”, “The Secret Handshake” and “The Grace Card”.

Roque Baños has scored over fifty films and television series, including “The Machinist”, Oscar nominated Spike Lee’s “Oldboy”, Oscar winner Ron Howard’s “In The Heart of The Sea” and Oscar nominated “Sexy Beast”. To date, Roque boasts an impressive fourteen award wins and twenty nine award nominations, recently earning a 2015 Gaudi Award – the Spanish equivalent of the Oscar – for "Best Original Score" to “El Nino”. His latest movie, “Risen”, starring Joseph Fiennes, will open in theaters nationwide on February 19th.

Cody Longo has starred in movies such as “Fame”, “Bring It On: Fight to the Finish”, “Piranha 3D”, “Not Today”, “High School”, “The Silent Thief” and “For the Love of Money”. His television work includes “CSI: NY”, “Hollywood Heights”, “Brothers and Sisters”, “Make It or Break It”, “Three Rivers”, “Medium” and “Nashville”. Cody is also a musician and in 2013 he broke into the Billboard top 100 with his song "She Said" which also charted #3 on the iTunes top 100, along with his debut album.

Rickey Boyd is a world-class puppeteer. Rickey’s long and distinguished career includes performing Grandma Cookie Monster for Sesame Workshop's “Sesame Beginnings”, Scooter and Crazy Harry in “Muppet's Wizard of Oz”, and Waffle in “Animal Jam”. Other projects include “Muppets From Space”, “Dinosaurs The Series”, “Muppetvision 3D”, “Muppets at Disney World”, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Song of the Cloud Forest”, as well as numerous videos and commercial projects. Rickey continues to perform for The Jim Henson Company, as well as working as an animator and director for the multiple Emmy award winning Magnetic Dreams Studio. There, he designs and directs animations for clients such as Sesame Street, amongst others.

Katie Garfield has starred in movies such “Project Almanac” and “The Perfect Summer”. Her television work includes “The Vampire Diaries”, “Under The Dome”, “One Tree Hill”, “Army Wives” and “Nashville”. Katie co-stars with Armie Hammer and Nate Parker in “The Birth of a Nation”, which recently garnered the largest Sundance deal in history.

Mike Halsey is the President of the multiple Emmy award-winning VFX house Magnetic Dreams. Magnetic Dreams past projects include “Yellow Day”, “After”, “SpongeBob Moves In”, “Let The Lion Roar”, “Elmo The Musical”, “Thor and Loki – Blood Brothers”, “Iron Man Extremis”, and “V.I. Princess”, as well as projects for Taylor Swift, Roy Orbison, EA Games, and Sesame Street.

Reinhard Denke is the writer of “Captive” starring Emmy nominated Kate Mara and Golden Globe nominated David Oyelowo. Prior to this his spec script “Sex, Greed, Money, Murder and Chicken Fried Steak” was optioned by Oscar nominated Johnny Depp, and made the 2009 Hollywood Blacklist. A graduate of USC Film School, Reinhard has completed writing assignments for BN Films, Echolight Studios, Rock Island Films, and One Good Man Productions, amongst others.