I’ve been making this podcast for going on four years now. A hundred sixty plus episodes – one a week ever since they first started dropping. It’s been a joy…

A pleasure…

A challenge…

A non-stop revelation…

And a mission.  A mission that goes beyond this podcast.

It's because of this podcast that I ended up plunging completely into podcasting. Costard and Touchstone makes this podcast and three others currently available wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts - with a dozen or so more on the way!

There's THE DONOR: A DNA HORROR STORY, THE HALL CLOSET and SAGE WELLNESS WITHIIN.

In the months ahead, please look out for more Costard & Touchstone podcasts including "JUST THE PHOTOGRAPHER" (where photojournalist DAVID SWANSON puts you right beside him in war zones, 9-11 and at the Oscars), "A SECRET WAR" (journalist MANILA CHAN'S deep dive into a story she's fought to tell for 25 years about America's Secret War on Laos, "I NEED TO TELL YOU", journalist TOM LOWENSTEIN's explorations into stories like criminal mastermind JOHN HALL and "JOHN KIRIAKOU'S DEAD DROP" (a deep, under cover look at life deep under cover by a former CIA officer).

Please stay in touch via our PATREON PAGE -

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THE BLURB: Sailor, Author and Podcaster PAUL TRAMMELL talks SAILING TO THE EDGE and the ongoing ADVENTURE that is his daily life - the stuff he writes about: SURFING WITH SHARKS, CANOEING with ALLIGAOTRS, in general, craving DANGER and SAVORING SOLITUDE.

SHOW NOTES:

One of the things I love talking about in this podcast is the creative process. And what it takes to make the process process. It’s not like there’s this giant switch creative people throw to turn on their creative process.

The way I see it, each and every creative person has a kind of prism inside their heads. Life and life experience filter in through their eyes and ears and all their other senses. They pass through that prism inside the creative’s head. And whatever refracts out – that’s their art. Their craft. Their content.  

Now, for this to happen, the creative person has to be in contact with that prism in some fashion. The creative stuff isn’t going to create itself.

There is work involved.

Serious, hard work. The creative process – what it takes for a creative to create – can, in fact, be arduous, challenging as fuck and downright deadly.

On his website – Paul Trammell dot com – here’s how Paul describes himself – and I’m using it here because I can’t improve upon it:

Paul Trammell is a nomadic author who lives on a sailboat, seeking adventure, solitude, and creativity, soaking up natural beauty outside the boat, and delving into the mysterious world of words when inside.

Paul’s written or co-written twelve books and a lot of short stories and poetry. He’s a podcaster, too – which is how we first encountered each other.

And, like me, he’s a man keenly aware of the actual Life’s Journey he’s on.

As you’ll hear, it took Paul a while to find his most productive creative self.  

I can relate.

There were long roads that led to dead ends. There was alcoholism and a little too much partying. And then, Paul more or less stumbled onto the thing that ultimately brought him true happiness.

It’s not like Paul found a shortcut to something. That wasn’t the case at all.

He’s always been a creative hell bent on creating. Before it was podcasting and writing, he poured himself into music.

All the way.

But, I don’t think it brought him anything like his present happiness.

It wasn’t until adventure – a life of surfing and sailing and truly living off the grid because you’re in the middle of the ocean – took hold of Paul.

His life became the necessary component the prism inside his head needed to switch on. In a weird way, in addition to being a writer, a poet and a podcaster, Paul’s a performance artist, too.

How else would you describe a creative whose adventurous life is the source of his art? If he’s not adventuring, he’s not creating. 

Sometimes – maybe oftentimes – in a creative life, the creative has to risk literally everything to create their best art. That’s Paul Trammel.

Sailing to the edge.

Please support us via our PATREON PAGE - patreon.com/TheHowNOTToMakeAMoviePodcastFanPage

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THE BLURB: NICK MECHANIC returns to give us a LIST of his BEST V WORST - BEST FOOD in LA, best clients, WORST DEAL he ever made, best executive he worked with, WORST DAY OF HIS LIFE. If you've heard Nick in previous episodes, you know: he was both a HOLLYWOOD SUPER AGENT and a HOLLYWOOD DRUG DEALER. He spent time in prison after getting caught doing the latter. Nick really has seen the best and worst of LA, of Hollywood - maybe even of LIFE itself! Buckle in for another slice of Nick's Hollywood!

SHOW NOTES:

My longtime friend – and former agent – Nick Mechanic is back for another visit.

Nick really has seen the very best and the very worst aspects of show business. He’s made great deals and deals that weren’t so great. He’s had great clients… and clients who weren’t. He’s dealt with great studio executives. And executives who were nothing more than giant wastes of otherwise good carbon. He’s had bosses and co-workers in the agenting business who were really good and plenty who were so bad at it, you’d be complementing them by saying “they sucked”.

If you’ve already experienced Nick Mechanic on this podcast, you know: he’s been to the wars. Not only was Nick a successful Hollywood agent, he was a successful Hollywood drug dealer, too. Well, that is, until he got caught - and got sentenced to 12 years in prison (Nick being Nick, he got out after six months - a story unto itself!).

Nick really has seen the best of it and the worst of it. As you’re about to experience…

For access to AD-FREE EPISODES, BONUS MATERIAL and lots of extras - visit our PATREON PAGE -

patreon.com/TheHowNOTToMakeAMoviePodcastFanPage

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THE BLURB: MAGICIAN WES ISELI talks about the evolution of his craft - how integrating his (now) wife NATALIE ISELI into the act kicked it to new heights. How one MAGIC TRICK beat master illusionists PENN & TELLER. How does one even become a magician? More than anything else, creating illusions is a craft. And, as for happiness? Wes has that trick covered, too!

SHOW NOTES:

I met Wes Iseli via podcasting connections, but we have another connection, too. We’ve both worked with Penn & Teller. Teller co-wrote a superb episode of Tales From The Crypt with recent guest Colman DeKay called Staired In Horror.

Subsequent to that I developed a show at HBO with Penn And Teller that died in development – as most projects do.

Wes Iseli introduced himself to P&T via their show Fool Us where magicians are invited to confound these two master illusionists with tricks they can’t figure out.

Wes did that. Fooled Penn & Teller. And not only did Wes get the prize money promised, P&T paid Wes directly for the knowledge of how he’d fooled them.

As Wes will tell you, there’s no “magic” involved. There’s a ton of craft though. Which is why we’re talking about it here.

Now, Wes insists – as you’ll hear – that there’s nothing supernatural about magic. In fact, he hates the idea of supernatural magic. But there’s something about magic and creating the illusions of it that can spark a little – let’s call it “transcendent” – kind of magic.

There’s a ton of love in this story. Wes AND his wife NATHALIE sat and talked to me.

What Wes and Nathalie have created – along with their three kids – is a kind of great magic trick.

And that’s with the caveat that there’s no magic. There’s craft. Hard work and lots of repetition. But, I think you’ll find that the effect – the story itself - is magical. 

SOCIAL MEDIA:

INSTA: https://www.instagram.com/hownottomakeamoviepodcast/

PATREON: patreon.com/TheHowNOTToMakeAMoviePodcastFanPage

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THE BLURB: Canadian newscaster, Radio Host, Interviewer-par-excellence and reluctant Podcaster PETER ANTHONY HOLDER sits in. We talk about his decades of work in RADIO AND TV, BARBADOS, being an IMMIGRANT IN CANADA, MOON LANDINGS and one's Life COMING FULL CIRCLE.

SHOW NOTES:

If you ask me what I am today, I’d tell you unequivocally: I’m a podcaster, dude. I may have come out of movies and TV but these days? It’s all about podcasting for me.

I love this medium. I love its intimacy. Okay… I love the idea of being a voice in the dark.

Peter Anthony Holder also came out of TV – news and public affairs and interviews. And, in fact, he was an actual overnight broadcaster. A literal voice in the dark. And while he still thinks of his show – THE STUPH FILE – as a radio show rather than a podcast, it’s got lots of podcast dynamism to it.

That’s why I appeared on Peter’s show The Stuph File. He’s a great interviewer with a huge track record of great interviews of everyone from actors like Karl Malden and Ed Asner to politicians and trendsetters to Apollo astronaut Alan Bean who walked on the moon.

Anthony grew up in Montreal, Canada, the son of immigrants from Barbados. We talk about what the immigrant experience was like compared to what growing up Black in America is like where every traffic stop can suddenly become a fatal flashpoint.

We also talk about Barbados – one of the best places I’ve ever gotten to visit.

Hey, Barbados Tourist Board – we should talk!

Visit Barbados!

Like me, Peter grokked what he wanted to be when he was a kid. Like me, he walks around in a state of semi-bliss because he gets to do the thing he loves pretty much every day.

After all these years doing what he does, Peter’s got almost 2500 interviews under his belt. Clearly, I’ve got some catching up to do! Well, let’s get this started then!

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THE BLURB: There's a difference between writing movies and TV shows about the PARANORMAL and living it. KYLE YATES is a PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR whose investigations overwhelmed his own initial skepticism. Meet a man whose willingly stood toe to toe with things that go bump in the night while they're bumping in the night!

SHOW NOTES

I tackled the paranormal more than a few times while I was making Tales From The Crypt and The Outer Limits and various other TV and movie projects. But I never went at it from the perspective of Paranormal Investigator Kyle Yates. Though a skeptic by nature, and despite coming to paranormal investigation as a kind of second career, as you’ll hear, Kyle may well have been born to it.

To be honest, I’m a little agnostic about things paranormal. I want everything rooted in what we can verifiably know. But, alas, we don’t verifiably know everything.

Consciousness, for instance, remains mostly a mystery to us. As you’ll hear, an awful lot of what we think is “paranormal” is absolutely explainable by organic means. Electricity and the magnetism electricity produces can create effects that do seem genuinely “ghostly” under the right circumstances.

But those ghostly effects are just electricity and magnetism. Or something else with a simple, logical explanation.

But, then stuff happens that can’t be explained. At all.

You start running out of “well, it could be this” or “it could be that’s” that sound like they maybe could be.

And that’s where people like Kyle step in - and explain it paranormally. Like the episode’s title says: there’s something paranormal happening here!

Catch Kyle's terrific podcast - The Vibes Broadcast Network - here!

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THE BLURB: My friend COLMAN DEKAY knows everybody. And if he doesn't, he knows almost everybody. It's always been that way. The son of a publisher, Colman got used to writers like DONALD WESTLAKE, JAMES BALDWIN and NORMAN MAILER just "hanging out" at their apartment in NYC. A terrific writer himself, Colman would go on to write several episodes of TALES FROM THE CRYPT and the feature BULLETS OVER BROADWAY and NINE LIVES: A MUSICAL HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS. He's also worked extensively with PENN & TELLER. I meant what I said: Colman DeKay knows EVERYBODY!

SHOW NOTES:

So – why do I say my friend Colman DeKay knows everybody? Because, as you’ll hear, HE KNOWS EVERYBODY! And, he’s so used to knowing everybody that he doesn’t even realize that he knows everybody.

As you’ll also hear, Colman doesn’t drop names. But names - ones you recognize cos lots and lots of people know who they are - they come up in conversation because Colman was having a conversation with that person just last week. You know, like he’s having a conversation with you right now.

It’s been like that since Colman was a kid. His family was involved in publishing in New York. His family’s Manhattan living room was a non-stop, A-List literary salon.

A very, very, VERY scant sampling of the people Colman's rubbed elbows with since he was a kid: Donald Westlake, James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Penn & Teller, Ken Kwapis, Steven Soderbergh.

Colman became a talented writer himself - of screens small and large and of the stage. I first got to know Colman when he wrote a handful of episodes for us at Tales From The Crypt.

Among Colman’s episodes - “In The Groove” and “Fatal Caper” and an absolute classic - “Staired In Horror” - which Colman wrote with occasional writing partner Teller from Penn & Teller.

It’s a great episode because of the writing – and because we somehow put a whole Louisiana swamp on our stage in Los Angeles.

Something about that part of the world – southern Louisiana, the swamps around there, New Orleans especially – has a powerful hold on Colman. Along with the musician PAUL SANCHEZ, Colman put together "NINE LIVES: AN ORAL HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS", a 40 song cycle that tells The Big Easy's story via its music.

Personally? I think Colman's ripe for a podcast of his own. A conversation just with his friends would be, in essence, a conversation with everybody. Everybody interesting. 

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THE BLURB: If ever there was a metaphorical “FIELD OF DREAMS”, it’s HOLLYWOOD. And, in order to get anywhere near that field of dreams, you’re gonna need either an AGENT, a MANAGER or a PRODUCER. Hey – what if you could get all three in one person! In this episode I chat with JEFF FIELD – the man who manages my entertainment career. As you’ll hear, “manager” describes only one of the three Hollywood jobs Jeff’s held. Before he became a manager (mostly of writers, producers and directors), he was a topflight agent at THE WILLIAM MORRIS AGENCY (which became William Morris Endeavor – WME).

SHOW NOTES:

In addition to managing careers for clients, Jeff has also produced work for his clients. What that really means is vital. It means that, as a producer, Jeff was essential in putting his clients’ vision on the screen.

Even under the best of circumstances, getting anything made in Hollywood is stunningly hard. Having a producer who understands how creatives think can make a huge difference as they – the producer – navigates the minefield of production.

It demands tact and diplomacy when necessary, but also a good sense of when to be aggressive and how to recognize that you hold all the good cards in a negotiation. Taste is important, too. And emotional honesty.

It’s not an easy cocktail to make or maintain. That’s why only a handful of people have successfully travelled from agency to management to producer-of-quality. Lots of former agents are now producers. It’s the stop in between that’s handcuffing them.

If you like hearing how Hollywood Deal-Making Sausage gets made – at the grinder level – this episode is in your sweet spot! Jeff’s a terrific storyteller. And wait till you hear what some of these sausages became!

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THE BLURB: Oscars-Schmoscars! It may be Academy Awards time in the rest of Hollywood, but here at The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast, we’re celebrating The HACK-CADEMY A-WEIRDS instead! It’s our bad-attitude approach to a business fast going down the creative toilet. As a matter of fact, GIL ADLER (producer of studio tentpole movies like SUPERMAN RETURNS, VALKYRIE and CONSTANTINE) is a VOTING MEMBER of THE ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS & SCIENCES. So, Gil will tell us how at least part of the Academy is thinking!

But, before we get down to Oscars business, we have some catching up to do – and some more bitching and moaning about the entertainment business (such as it is).

Gil will take you behind the curtains to explain – as he does to a baffled friend – how exactly movies get made (or teeter toward getting made). There’s no formula. No how-to guide. As Gil explains from 50 years of experience, every single creative project is its own kind of monster.

Gil’s close on a couple of great feature film projects. He’ll take you deep inside the game and the gamesmanship. Want to know what exactly a movie producer does? Gil delivers (another) MASTER CLASS.

We also talk about our good friend, the late CHRISTOPHER REEVES, Gil’s relationship with him and the new documentary about Chris and the accident that altered the course of his life.

And we’ll celebrate the fact that (on the day we recorded this – February 14 – it was GIL’S BIRTHDAY!

At last we’ll get to this year’s NOMINATIONS. How is Gil going to vote (he hasn’t yet, but he’s about to!)? What, you think we’d ruin the ending for you?

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