Creative Principles

Scott Andrew James is an instant poet. About ten years ago, Scott felt disconnected from the world, which led him to poetry, thanks to the advice of his wife. Now, he’s written over 10,000 instant poems in the last decade. In fact, in this episode, Scott actually creates an instant poem on the spot. The subject? We discuss an idea from Seth Godin about the Icarus Myth. Daedalus says to Icarus, "Do...

When James Traylor and Max Collins found out that they were both writing a book about author Mickey Spillane, they decided to collaborate rather than compete. For the first time ever, Traylor and Collins have completed the first biography on Spillane. The description reads, “Beginning in 1947 with I, the Jury, and continuing with his next six novels, Spillane quickly amassed a readership in the te...

“I was a rugby player and a ballet dancer,” said Lesley Paterson, triathlete and co-screenwriter of the Oscar nominated All Quiet on the Western Front. Dabbling in acting and producing, it wasn’t until she met her eventual writing partner Ian Stokell that she felt like screenwriting could be a path to a career in filmmaking. “To be able to act, you have to be able to write and produce your own fil...

“Honestly, I pursued acting and standup at the same time, but I never really got as many opportunities in acting. In standup, you have a little more control over your own destiny,” said Jim Gaffigan, one of the most well-known comedians alive today. “But also, the most fulfilling characters to portray, end up being dramatic roles. So, over the years, finding creative fulfillment in stand-up, writi...

Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka met in the Graduate program at Columbia Film School. Gatewood says, “We weren’t friends. We didn’t really hang out, but we had our first screenwriting class together and we liked each others’ writing.” “We started to talk and found we had an uncanny similarities in terms of taste, what movies we liked, writers we liked, and in our second year, we started to wri...

“Growing up, I thought I would be either a professor of cultural anthropology or a non-fiction, long-form writer, but then I fell in love with cinema.” Combining these childhood dreams into one career, Sara found herself behind the camera on films like The Last Season, The Seer and the Unseen, and most recently, Fire of Love. In college, Sara was active in economic justice groups and saw a documen...

“I grew up watching horror films,” Christopher Landon said. “I started at a pretty early age, inappropriately so, probably when I was about six. And, I was just obsessed. It was never a doubt or question it was what I was going to do.”  Landon followed the traditional route, making shorts in high school, working internships as a young adult, and pursuing the path to screenwriting. “The great benef...

Drew Birnie was in the middle of a PDH program in neuroscience when he started working with Mark Manson. “That came out of left field,” he told me. Manson initially hired Birnie as a researcher to help the author “synthesize” complicated ideas. These days, Mark Manson is one of the most famous authors alive thanks to 'The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.' Birnie has been with him since the early d...

As a child actor, Jason Woliner knew he wanted to be a Director. He started with a mini DV camera and set out to make a feature for Sundance. He dropped out of college, convinced a few friends to join him, and ended up making a “long student film.” The 97-minute “terrible, horrorible” project taught him a great deal about filmmaking. Over the years, Jason has worked with Patton Oswalt, Aziz Ansari...

“Most people don’t know stand up is an indigenous art form to the states,” said Mohammed Amer. “It’s jazz, hip hop, and stand up comedy, as far as I know, which are the three indigenous art forms to the states. I saw stand up live the first time when I was ten years old and that was a moment of complete clarity for me, what I was destined to do.” Amer, who goes by “Mo Amer,” said he didn’t underst...

Gabe Liedman got his start doing stand-up. Because people were familiar with his voice, he started getting writing jobs on shows like Inside Amy Schumer, Kroll Show, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, PEN15, Broad City, and Big Mouth. In this interview, Gabe talks about branding yourself with sexuality, not being fearful about your comedy, how TV shows misrepresent the writers room, why movements are stretched i...

“I’m pretty sure that what started me writing was reading,” said Branden Jacob-Jenkins. “I was always bookish and I remember a day when I read something and thought, ‘I don’t think that was good’ and realized maybe I could do it better. Maybe I could tell stories.” As a teenager, Branden wrote short stories, fiction, poetry, and everything in between. He entered some young writing workshops, then...

The Peabody and Emmy winning production company has signed a multi-year production commitment overall deal with Netflix, with a first-look component for projects developed by Irony Point, encompassing stand-up comedy, sketch, variety, alternative formats and more. Alex and Daniel will serve as executive producers on all projects.   In this interview, Alex and Daniel discuss their projects like Ins...

“I started as an artist,” said Darren De Gallo. “In the back of my mind, I wanted to be an animator, so I got a job at Dreamworks as a PA in the story department. I was thrown in the deep end of a company that was just starting.” Darren pursued acting not long after, then did some work as a storyboard artist, and then started writing. While pursuing these roles, he met his future wife Amy Adams (A...

“I played in shitty scream-o bands. I was in the radio club in high school,” said Brandon Dermer. “My friends and I made comedy videos that played in the morning announcements. I always wanted to be creating.” Getting some attention from shorts in college, Brandon won with a fake trailer that led him to an internship and job in Los Angeles. Soon after, he was working on music videos for Major Laze...

“Having been in acting class for as long as I did, you learn the vocabulary, how different actors approach character and that gave me a foundation. One of the things I love about Directing is what actors respond to…” Clare Niederpruem is best known for directing holiday movies for the Hallmark Channel, such as You Light Up My Christmas, The Christmas Bow, Holiday for Heroes, One December Night, an...

“Wednesday, for us, from concept until now, has been a three and a half year journey,” said Alfred Gough. “We came up with the initial idea which was teenage Wednesday Addams in boarding school. We had to track down the rights and then we pitched it to the Addams Foundation.” As screenwriters, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar are known for Shanghai Noon, Smallville, I Am Number Four, Spider-Man 2 (20...

“I loved movies. I wanted to be on set. I wanted to be in the mix,” said Noah Segan, who is perhaps best known for being in every Rian Johnson movie (Brick, The Brothers Bloom, Looper, Breaking Bad, Knives Out, Star Wars - The Last Jedi). Currently, Noah is the star-writer-director of Blood Relatives. The story follows “a vampire's loner lifestyle is thrown into disarray when a teenager shows up c...

“I made a fake trailer as a collage project — a remake of the shoemaker and the elves, with these evil puppets — and I think that’s when I realized I didn’t need to describe my process.” This led him to becoming a film director. Finnegan is best known for Vivarium (Imogen Boots, Jesse Eisenberg) where “a young couple looking for the perfect home find themselves trapped in a mysterious labyrinth-li...

“I wanted to be an actor at first,” said Harry Bradbeer. “Then I was directed with some great directors in school and the way they would direct us on stage made me start to see things in frames and shapes, then I directed a play. One day I just took a left turn and made a film.” As a Director, Bradbeer is known for working on Killing Eve, Ramy, and Fleabag. But after he landed the job of directing...

Psychology professor William Indick was teaching theories of personality when he realized his students simply weren’t getting it, so he started doing film analysis in his classes to explain these dense topics with examples from the silver screen. This led to a handful of books including Psychology for Screenwriters, Movies and the Mind, Psycho Thrillers, and Ancient Symbology in Fantasy Literature...

“I used to be a professional horseback rider and professional horseback rider trainer,” said Mali Elfman. This all changed when one of her students — Missy Stabile (Ghostbusters, The Fault in Our Stars) — told her she would make a good Producer. These days, Elfman is known for being a producer, a writer, and director. In her feature debut, Next Exit, stars Katie Parker and Rahul Kohli. The plot fo...

“My socialization was by television,” said Steve Black, “the television of the 70s and 80s. As a lawyer, Blackman really wanted to be a writer, so following the “write what you know” model, he wrote an original pilot called The Young Attorneys. Over the past two decades, Blackman has written for shows like Wild Card, Bones, Las Vegas, Private Practice, Fargo, Legion, and Altered Carbon. He’s also...

Thomas Jane got his start by working on sets in high school, when one particular teacher inspired him to step on stage and giving acting a shot. These days, he’s known for ‘The Punisher,’ ‘Boogie Nights,’ ’The Mist,’ ’Deep Blue Sea,’ ’The Thin Red Line,’ and ‘Hung.’ Most recently, he’s starred in two films under Director K. Asher Levin (Episode 368) called ‘Dig’ and ‘Slayers.’ In Dig, “A widowed f...

As an actor and martial artist, Scott Adkins is known for starring in Avengement, along with the Undisputed Series and the Accident Man series, including the latest film, Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday. Adkins has also been featured in Day Shift with Jamie Foxx, the Ip Man series, American Assassin, and will soon be in John Wick 4 alongside Keanu Reeves. Adkins also hosts The Art of Action, a stun...