Creative Principles

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...

David Weiner originally moved to Los Angeles to get involved with filmmaking, where he mostly worked as Assistant Director. Soon after, he started writing and found journalism, where he worked for Entertainment Tonight, The Hollywood Reporter, and he even ran the Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine. There, Robin Block recruited him. Listen to the first chat with David back in Episode 294 of this...

“I started out as a field geologist and then I became a land-claim negotiator,” said Kim Hudson. “All of it very masculine, very linear, I would say, and then I had children and thought, ‘what do I authentically want? It was the 70s and women were doing ‘everything man can do’ but that changed when I had a child.” During this discovery phase, Hudson found a book by Julia Cameron called The Artist’...

“Folk tales, fairy tales, mythology, the past…I’ve always been interested in that,” said writer/director Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman). “I don’t entirely know why. I’m more interested in that subject matter than I am in films, maybe, in the end.” The same is perhaps true for Robert’s writing partner, Sjón, an internationally acclaimed Icelandic author who published his fi...

Finn Jones has wanted to be an actor for as long as he can remember. “It’s inherently been a driving factor of my life,” he told me, along with his early journey into film and television. As an actor, Finn is best known for starring as Danny Rand in Iron Fist and on Game of Thrones as Loral Tyrell. He’s also been in Swimming with Sharks, Dickinson, and Sleeping Beauty. Most recently, Finn starred...

“I’m a bit of a film brat,” said K. Asher Levin, who grew up in Los Angeles and has always had family in the business. Currently, he’s best known for screenwriting and directing, with films such as Dig, Slayers, and Helen’s Dead. In Dig, “A widowed father and his daughter whose house is up for demolition, are taken hostage by a dangerous couple, who won't stop until they retrieve what lies beneath...

“I was obsessed with comedy writing as a kid,” said Nicholas Stoller. “I remember watching Saturday Night Live and not wanting to be the actors, but wanting to write the sketches. I don’t even know how I knew that was a job.” As a screenwriter, Stoller has credits for Fun with Dick and Jane, Yes Man, Get Him to the Greek, The Muppets, Sex Tape, The Carmichael Show, Night School and Bros, many of w...

“I just love storytelling,” Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, in regards to how she got involved with screenwriting. “I loved writing as a kid. I wrote children’s books. I loved telling stories. I loved putting on shows in my living room. At more core, I love storytelling and the theater of it.” As a writer, Jennifer’s credits include the TV series Sweet/Vicious, and the movies Someone Great, Unpregnant,...