Mentors on the Mic: Your guide to pursuing a career in the Entertainment industry

Here is a Highlight Reel with advice from top DIRECTORS of Season 1 including Stan Brooks, Kristin Hanggi, Linda Mendoza, and Jason Ensler.

In this episode, we talk about:

•  How one future Director stood out working in the Mailroom

•  How one Director made the jump into Narrative Television

•  How to transition from Producer to Director

•  Are you waiting for permission to Create? How one director realized that she could just do it

•  Using the available resources around you to create your work

•  What you need to sacrifice for your career

•  What Quincy Jones told one Director that might help you

Episode 1 - Stan Brooks - From the Mailroom to Hollywood Producer & Director

Episode 21 - Linda Mendoza - From page to Comedy TV/Film Director of Scrubs, The Good Place, Blackish, and more

Episode 9 - Kristin Hanggi - From playing pretend to Film, TV, & Tony Nominated Director of Rock of Ages

Episode 16 - Jason Ensler - From PSAs to Executive Producer/Director of HULU's "Love Victor" and other Top TV shows

Host:

Instagram: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneMiller

Twitter: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneM

Mentors on the Mic Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mentorsonthemic

Website: www.michellesimonemiller.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/24mmichelle

People kept asking for more information on me (thanks guys!). Since I can't interview myself, I asked my good friends of the popular Voices of Misery podcast if I could use some of their interview for a Bonus Episode.

In this episode, we talk about:

•  How I started acting and my first outside school gigs on The Rosie O' Donnell show and the Off Broadway play "I Never Saw Another Butterfly"

•  Best advice for any actor

•  How I booked a Hand Modeling campaign for Samsung

•  Dealing with nerves in the audition room

•  Being cancelled from TV shows like HBOs "Crashing" and "The Night Of"

•  Being cut from Winter’s Tale

• What’s my fallback and how I look at that question

Full Episode of the Voices of Misery interview:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nerd-new-friend-actress-michelle-simone-miller-shoot/id1445643241?i=1000490639287

Host:

Instagram: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneMiller

Twitter: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneM

Mentors on the Mic Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mentorsonthemic

Website: www.michellesimonemiller.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/24mmichelle

Linda Mendoza is an Emmy nominated, Comedy Director Extraordinaire. Her credits are extensive, directing episodes of Scrubs, Gilmore Girls, The Mindy Project, The Good Place, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Ugly Betty, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Grownish, The Chris Rock Show, Girlfriends, The Bernie Mac Show, The Tick, Liv & Maddie, 30 Rock, and many, many more. She has also been the go to Director for many Comedy specials including Tiffany Haddish (Black Mitzvah and 6 episodes of They Ready), Katherine Ryan, Wanda Sykes, Jamie Fox's Laffapalooza, Caroline Rhea, and various Mark Twain Prize specials (Ellen Degeneres, David Letterman, Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Bill Cosby, Carl Reiner, and George Carlin).  She has been nominated for 2 DGA Awards, a Primetime Emmy, a NAACP Award, and an ALMA Award (which she won).

In this episode, we talk about:

•  Why she gave up $8k a month to work on SNL

•  How Bernie Mac helped her transition into Narrative

•  Her new TV Special, Yearly Departed, starring Tiffany Haddish, Sarah Silverman, Rachel Brosnahan, Natasha Leggero (Hosted by Phoebe Robinson) Comedy special features eulogies for the year 2020 with a line-up of all-women comedians discussing everything from casual sex to beige Band-Aids and everything in between that we've "lost" in 2020. - Premiering on Amazon Prime Video on December 30th, 2020

•  Her first directing experience

•  Her Comedy special 'pet peeves'

•  Often being told that she was the first female director that a show has ever had

•  Her Mentors, including Bruce Gowers (famous for Bohemian Rhapsody Music video)

•  BTS on various Mark Twain Specials and Comedy Specials

•  What makes her the best at what she does

•  How a Mexican girl from Detroit, who everyone thought was Chinese, made it as a TV director

Resources:

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Mendoza

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0579318/

Yearly Departed: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13321268/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adetroitmendoza/?hl=en

Recommendation: If you like this Episode, check out Episode 1.17 to TV Director Jason Ensler (currently directing HULU's Love, Victor).

Host:

Instagram: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneMiller

Twitter: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneM

Mentors on the Mic Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mentorsonthemic

Website: www.michellesimonemiller.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/24mmichelle

Scott Feinberg is an Awards Columnist for The Hollywood Reporter. He is also the Host of the incredibly popular podcast "Awards Chatter," where he has interviewed over 350 incredible guests including Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Oprah, and Denzel Washington. He is considered by many as an Oscar Oracle, helping many people (including myself) win their Oscar pools. Having previously created one of the first successful Oscar blogs called "And the Winner is..." he was hired to create something similar out of college for the LA Times. 

In this episode, we talk about:

•  Some tips and tactics to predicting the Oscar winners every year

•  The Jennifer Lawrence episode (one of my favorites) and how the emotionality of that interview developed

•  The evolution of Awards Chatter podcast into an expose of the body of work of the guest

• How his love for films and the Awards shows turned into a job

•  How Oscar campaigns are similar to elections

•  Why there is a human factor into picking winners

•  What's strategic about the way he starts his interviews/episodes

•  How he started his website prior to The Hollywood Reporter and had studios buy ads

•  Sneak peek of a new episode with Sophia Loren

•  How he does all of the research for a guest himself and why that's so important to him

•  How he profiles anonymous Academy members

Resources:

Feinberg Forecast: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/topic/award-predictions-feinberg-forecast

Awards Chatter podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/awards-chatter/id1039032256

Jennifer Lawrence episode: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/awards-chatter-podcast-jennifer-lawrence-mother-1059777

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scott_feinberg/?hl=en

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-feinberg-a3517012

Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottfeinberg

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8901539/

If you like this Episode, check out Episode 1.19 to listen to E! Correspondent and Host of Rotten Tomatoes Naz Perez.

Host:

Instagram: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneMiller

Twitter: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneM

Mentors on the Mic Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mentorsonthemic

Website: www.michellesimonemiller.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/24mmichelle

Naz Perez is a TV Producer, Host & Podcaster. She is a true Renaissance Woman, juggling hosting responsibilities at Rotten Tomatoes, Dodger Stadium, E! Daily/Nightly Pop, T-Mobile, and the 'I don't get it' podcast. She is currently working her dream job at Rotten Tomatoes, hosting the tri-weekly show "The Ketchup," covering Movies and Television, and the weekly show "Binge Guide" covering what to watch next. After starting out at The Ellen Show and on E! True Hollywood story, she produced 5 seasons of The Bachelor.

Forbes (Jun 15 2020) - “Essentially, you create your dream job by making the work that you’re doing valuable to you and by seeking opportunities that fall in line with who you are deep down.”

In this episode, we talk about:

•  Whether she enjoyed working at The Ellen Show

•  Being a Stadium Host for Dodger stadium (50,000 people)

•  Naz produced 5 seasons of ABC’s The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and Bachelor in Paradise and 2 Seasons of Freeform’s Happily Ever After: Ben & Lauren, & The Twins.

•  Overcoming her perfectionist tendencies and creating her own work

•  The origin story of her podcast 'I don't get it' with The Bachelor's Ashley and Lauren Iaconetti

•  How she got her Dream job interviewing celebrities at Rotten Tomatoes

•  Why she founded Heart Broken Anonymous, the support group for people that are heart broken

•  The social experiment that is the Bachelor and what she liked and disliked working there

•  Lugged around the phantom camera battery for the NBA organization

•  Living in a kids toy room while she worked at Ellen

•  Creating the Athletic fashion blog for Style

•  Leaving Ellen for a 3 month gig at E!

Resources:

Website: https://nazperez.com/

I don't Get it podcast: https://idontgetit.libsyn.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nazperez/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naz-perez-b7162b35/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nazperezz?lang=en

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6265821/

Rotten Tomatoes segment "The Ketchup": https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=GLzxDZpUh-8

Recent Forbes Interview: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebekahbastian/2020/06/15/trailblazers-naz-pereztv-host-producer-podcaster-and-founder-of-heartbroken-anonymous/?sh=72fe76092b9d

Recommendation: If you like this Episode, check out Episode 1.20 to listen to Hollywood Reporter columnist and Awards Chatter podcast Host Scott Feinberg.

Host:

Instagram: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneMiller

Twitter: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneM

Mentors on the Mic Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mentorsonthemic

Website: www.michellesimonemiller.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/24mmichelle

David Grae is a Writer and Executive Producer of Television. He's written for Joan of Arcadia, Without a Trace, Gilmore Girls, Castle, and Madam Secretary. At the latter, he moved up to Executive Producer of the 6 season show. He was second in command to Creator and Show runner, Barbara Hall. He started off writing spec scripts and directing his Off-Off-Off Broadway play 'Moose Mating' in NYC, before directing the play in LA. He invested $25k of his own money to put up the production, an investment that paid off.

In this episode, we talk about:

•   Meeting his Best Friend and Mentor in the business, Barbara Hall

•   Investing $25k of his own money of his play 'Moose Mating' in LA

•  Advice for writers on how to approach meetings for Television

•  #1 thing he wants from writers in his writer's room

•  Working on the final season of Gilmore Girls without Amy Sherman Palladino

•  Why he really came into his own as a writer on Castle

•  What are his greatest strengths as EP

•  How was it casting Madam Secretary where there are such diverse languages and ethnicities represented

•  How do you move up in the writers room (contribute more, leader in the room)

•  What does he think of casting Actors with little to no credits

• How aware did he have to be of ratings on a Network show

• How much preparation goes into a meeting for an already established show

Resources:

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1205551/

Great Interview with David Grae: https://www.writingclasses.com/toolbox/author-q-a/david-grae

Recommendation: If you like this Episode, check out Episode 1.11 with TV Writer Matt Witten (Pretty Little Liars, Medium, House, Law & Order)

Host:

Instagram: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneMiller

Twitter: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneM

Mentors on the Mic Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mentorsonthemic

Website: www.michellesimonemiller.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/24mmichelle

Jason Ensler is an Executive Producer and Director of some of your favorite TV shows. After graduating USC with an MFA in Cinema/Television production, Jason directed PSAs for a friend's marketing company and his alma mater, Brandeis University. That led to being part of a creative team at NBC 2000, promoting campaigns for NBC shows like The West Wing, Scrubs, Frasier, The Olympics and The NBA. Eventually, he started directing and producing shows such as The West Wing, The Newsroom, Scrubs, Gossip Girl, Franklin & Bash, The Passage, The Exorcist, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Red Band Society, and most recently, Love, Victor on HULU (to name a few).

In this episode, we talk about:

•   Getting to work with Aaron Sorkin on The Newsroom and getting him to sing "The Surrey with the fringe on Top" (musical theater) a cappella

•  How it is to direct Hulu’s Love, Victor in the midst of the pandemic

•   What a Tone Meeting is and why it's important before filming a TV show

•  What he likes about doing pilots vs an already established episodic

•  The difference between working on Streaming vs network show

•  A seminal meeting with Director Chuck Russell that changed his path (directed The Mask, Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3, The Blob, Eraser, The Scorpion King)

•  How difficult was it to go from directing light comedies to dramas

•  Is it important to leave the bubble of Hollywood as a filmmaker

•  What he's looking forward to in his career

Episodes mentioned:

Episode 1 - Stan Brooks https://kite.link/stan

Resources:

Website: https://jasonenslerfilm.com/

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Ensler

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0258128/

Mockumentary for NBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPP_Fpsi_LU

Twitter: @Jason_Ensler

Recommendation: If you like this episode, check out Episode 1.21 with TV Director Linda Mendoza (The Good Place, Scrubs, Black-ish, Yearly Departed).

Host:

Instagram: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneMiller

Twitter: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneM

Mentors on the Mic Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mentorsonthemic

Website: www.michellesimonemiller.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/24mmichelle

Elizabeth Van Metre is currently an Alert Desk Anchor/Reporter/Fill-In Anchor on Channel 13. Upon graduating college, she got an editorial internship at a Tabloid, researching storylines, collecting information, attending red carpets, and transcribing interviews. She was offered a full time reporting job shortly after. Subsequently, she worked at The New York Daily News and Entertainment Tonight, before getting her Master in Journalism at Columbia University. She has spent the last 3.5 years working in front of the camera in News. She produced and anchored the daily morning show "Today in Wyoming," before moving to her current role in Missouri.

In this episode, we talk about:

•  In Tabloids, who are these so called 'sources' and why Tabloids can't completely make up stories (though maybe the sources can)

•  Do the Kardashians call in the Tabloids? 

•   "The Amanda Bynes Story" or where Elizabeth draws the line

•  How she grew her >52K Tik Tok following

•  Great advice for people wanting to get into Entertainment, including if you haven’t seen the job you want listed

•  What these sources often get in return for their stories

•  What happens when a tabloid calls a PR team with a story?

•  What sort of photo do the paparazzi and tabloids hope to get

•  Why it’s important that your PR team thinks you are their number 1 priority

•  After a Tik Tok blew up, a celebrity's team contacted her directly

•  Why Paris Hilton commented on her Tik Tok story

•  Why Elizabeth gave up Entertainment reporting for a career in News outside of NYC

•  Whether she ever hopes to come back to NYC for her career

• Resources:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-vanmetre-93958327/

Tik Tok: @ElizabethVanMetre

Instagram: @Elizabethrosevm

Website: https://www.liketoknow.it/ElizabethRoseVM

Recommendation: If you like this episode, check out Episode 1.20 with Hollywood Reporter columnist Scott Feinberg (and Host of Awards Chatter podcast)

Host:

Instagram: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneMiller

Twitter: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneM

Mentors on the Mic Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mentorsonthemic

Website: www.michellesimonemiller.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/24mmichelle

Damon Lee is an Award-winning Producer and CEO of Deacon Media. Not only has he been the Executive Producer for two of the top five grossing African American themed films of the past decade, but he is responsible for the first and only cross-over from animated web series to live action feature film. His projects have included Beyonce, Idris Elba, Taraji P. Henson, Issa Rae, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, John Legend, Loretta Devine, Chris Brown, Regina King, and more. He won an NAACP award for Outstanding Television Movie, Sins of the Mother, the second most watched original film in Lifetime's history.

In this episode, we talk about:

• How he got his first job working for John Singleton, Director of Boyz in the Hood, Higher Learning, Poetic Justice, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Four Brothers

• Vice President of Production for Hollywood legend Joel Silver, Producer of The Matrix and Conspiracy Theory

• Becoming Vice President of Production at MGM after only 5 years of being in LA

• Fighting for his credit on Obsessed (starring Beyonce and Idris Elba)

• Diversity in Hollywood, pushing for people of color in front of and behind the camera

• Being Executive VP at Urban Entertainment and developing the animated web series Undercover Brother, grossing $100,000,000.

• Joel Silver and Amy Pascal fighting over him

• How he used to believe he had to 'Minimize self to Maximize opportunity'

• Getting an NAACP award for Sins of the Mother

• Executive producing 'This Christmas' starring Idris Elba, Loretta Devine, Chris Brown, Regina King, and Meki Pfiefer.

• Being an Executive Producer on Lifetime's  'Taken From Me,' garnering an Emmy nomination for lead actress performance by Taraji P. Henson

• Micro aggressions in Hollywood - defining the line that no one can cross

• Incredible story about how he was able to go to the Peter Stark Producing program

• Connection with Episode 1 Mentor, Stan Brooks - https://kite.link/stan

Resources:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/-damon-lee-/

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0497083/

Recommendation: If you like this episode, check out Episode 1.1 with Emmy winning Producer and Director Stan Brooks.

Host:

Instagram: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneMiller

Twitter: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneM

Mentors on the Mic Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mentorsonthemic

Website: www.michellesimonemiller.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/24mmichelle