Just Screen It

Today I’m speaking with Michael Epstein, a Los Angeles filmmaker with several low-budget and self-described “weird” features to his and his partner’s name. Our conversation covers the beginning of his career, his varied stories and experiences distributing each of his feature films, and his current plans for his latest feature, The Once and Future Smash, and its companion throwback horror film, End Zone 2. Michael’s experience with these films amounts to an overview of the state of low-budget indie film distribution over the past decade, with some hard lessons learned along the way. Michael is wonderfully transparent in this interview, giving us insight into budget and revenue numbers.

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Today I’m speaking with Angelo Thomas, a filmmaker from Columbus with two features under his belt as well a number of shorts. Angelo made his first feature while in film school, The Incredible Jake Parker, about a male pop star struggling with anorexia, and followed that up with DeRosa: Love, Life, & Art in Transition, a documentary chronicling the life and struggles of a transgender artist and her wife. Angelo talks openly and insightfully about his experiences distributing both of these films, sharing lessons learned along the way. In our conversation we touch on a number of themes, not least of which is a frank discussion of filmmakers walking that delicate line between finding their creative voice and deriving income from their films. Angelo’s openness, passion, and humility really shine through in this interview.

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Today I’m chatting with Victoria Vertuga, talking about her mockumentary found footage horror film, Lexi, about a social media influencer who seems to get stalked by some possibly supernatural forces, and the fallout that results. It’s a really cool, creepy, sometimes cringe-inducing movie made on a very very low budget during the pandemic lockdown. Victoria talks openly about her experiences getting Lexi out there to streaming platforms, divulges some real numbers, and has some great words of wisdom for filmmakers out there -- a great episode to close out the year!

Victoria Vertuga

Lexi

Disgraced

Cold Blows the Wind

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Today I chat with Jason Charnick, the filmmaker behind “Getting Over”, a very personal documentary about Jason’s troubled relationship with his father, who led a life of crime fueled by drug addiction. This is a heartbreaking but ultimately heartwarming story about drug addiction and its impact on family, told with amazing openness and honesty. Jason brings the same kind of openness to our talk here, giving us some real numbers, some honest opinions about distributors and the state of the industry, and some valuable advice for filmmakers along the way. I love conversations like this, it’s really what this podcast is all about.

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Getting Over

The Absence Is Always Present

In this episode, I talk with Shawn Dawes, one of the founders of Indie Scene, a platform for independent filmmakers aiming for theatrical distribution. Indie Scene provides valuable, accurate box office data, and looks to connect independent filmmakers with theaters worldwide. In our conversation, Shawn and I talk about his early efforts getting films made both independently and within the industry, and then moving on to found Indie Scene to empower filmmakers to overcome some of the kinds of challenges he experienced in his career.

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Today I’m talking with Marcus Markou about his experiences distributing his two feature films, Papadopoulos and Sons, put out in 2012, and his latest feature, The Wife and her House Husband, which is just starting its theatrical release. Marcus, Greek by descent and hailing from Great Britain, has a fantastic story to tell, starting in theatre and then shifting to film as a better way to slice up the sausage — give this interview a listen to see what I mean by that. We touch on a ton of good stuff in this conversation, but the main theme seemed to be centered upon the importance of theatrical distribution for independent filmmakers, as a way to get reviews and generate interest in your film — a notion that I think sometimes gets lost in this day and age of streaming platforms.

Papadopoulos and Sons

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In this episode I talk with Antoine Dillard, filmmaker and founder of Indie Nation Network, a streaming site dedicated to independent film. Antoine founded INN after some frustration with an earlier distributor of one of his films. Antoine clearly has that independent spirit, and truly recognizes the difficult position that indie filmmakers find themselves in as they pour their heart and soul into their films, only to see a paltry share of the revenue their films gain in the marketplace. Antoine has set himself the task of trying to right that wrong by treating filmmakers who post their films on his site with fairness, transparency, and an equitable revenue sharing arrangement. We really touch on some important topics here that should be considered by filmmakers, distributors, and filmmaker/distributors as we try to envision a better future for independent filmmaking.

Indie Nation Network

Quantum Visual FX

Today on the program I bring you my one-of-a-kind conversation with Baraka Noel, an L.A. based filmmaker and standup comedian. Baraka and I really had a fun conversation here, certainly not one of my more structured interviews but that's just fine. We simply had a fun, stream of consciousness back and forth about a whole of things film related, distribution related sometimes, maybe sometimes not so much … but again, it’s all related, and it’s all about what it’s like to be an independent filmmaker today, just trying to get your movies out there, seen by people, and connecting with others. The conversation kind of speaks for itself here, but if you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you’ll definitely want to tune into this one because we cover some really cool stuff here.

Baraka Noel

The Thieves Code

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Chance Shirley and his team at Crewless Productions have put out three genre features, but we spent most of this conversation talking about Chance's first feature, called Hide and Creep. The synopsis, straight from Tubi, is: “When an army of the undead attacks a small town, the residents must contend with bloodthirsty zombies, flying saucers, and bad television reception”. It’s a cool movie, one of those low-budget comedy horror flicks that exemplifies what can be done on a shoestring, with a small crew, small cast, and a lot of perseverance. This is a really insightful conversation sort of covering the history of indie movie distribution from the golden era of the nineties, through early brick and mortar DVD distribution, the rise of streaming, and looking a little bit at where we are today, for better or for worse.

Crewless Productions

Hide and Creep

Chance on Twitter

I'm back after an unplanned hiatus, bringing you a very interesting interview with Ankit Mishra, all the way from India. Ankit talks about the experience of making and distributing his feature, Ghost of Wuhan, a very personal story about a virologist who, after returning from the lab in Wuhan where Covid was (depending on who you talk to) discovered or created, contracts the virus and embarks on his own journey to figure the disease out - all while suffering its symptoms and maintaining his own sanity, locked up in his home, away from loved ones and friends. As Ankit says in the interview, this is a one-actor film, and in my view a prime example of DIY filmmaking: what filmmakers can do with limited resources and a drive to simply tell a compelling story. Coming to you in October, this interview was recorded in early July.