NICKSAV Film & Music SHOW

First-time directors face all kinds of unexpected challenges. For Alex Ferrari , host of the Indie Film Hustle podcast, that meant trying to shoot a $20 million feature film in Louisiana and across the country for a bipolar, egomaniacal gangster. The dream of becoming a feature-film director turned into a nightmare for Alex, and it led to a textbook example of how not to make a film. That traumati...

Our SXSW 2019 podcast coverage continues with two representatives from film-financing company  Forest Road . The company sponsored one of the filmmaker dinners at SXSW this year. More importantly, they are a financing company that puts the filmmakers first. Forest Road Company's CEO  Zach Tarica  and Director of West Coast Operations Eric Boshart  came on the podcast to break down the film financi...

Recently I had the opportunity to do podcast coverage at SXSW 2019 , my third time doing coverage at Austin's preeminent film and music festival. (Before, I did coverage there as The nsavides Podcast. I changed the name to NICKSAV Film & Music SHOW for clarity and because nicksav.show  is easier to remember then podcast.nsavides.com.) Part I  of my coverage includes some general observations about...

Years ago, I came to SXSW to see The Last Bison perform. Now with a few new hits and a refined sound, they're back, playing at Austin's esteemed film and music festival once more. Frontman Ben Hardesty came on the show to discuss The story behind their evolving sound What went into making their latest music video How they create a unified experience for their fans across the country What getting s...

This is the commentary track for my interview with singer-songwriter Lynn Drury , who has been performing in New Orleans for over 20 years. Some of the things I discuss include How to be more effective as a performer  Building quality relationships over quantity  The role of the artist in the world at large  Things that get in the way of trying to make the world better in some way For links and mo...

The seventh season of the NICKSAV Film & Music SHOW kicks off with  Lynn Drury , a singer-songwriter who has played music in New Orleans for over 20 years. Those in the know about the New Orleans music community go out of their way to see Lynn perform, as do audiences across the country and around the world. Some of the things we discuss include How to build a music career that lasts for years How...

This is the commentary track for my interview with compositor Travis Nobles ( Hugo, Game of Thrones, Mortal Engines ). In it I share some of my takeaways from the interview, give my review of Mortal Engines and expand on my conflicted thoughts about Game of Thrones. T he Lord of the Rings, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms , and Westworld Season 1 also get discussed. For links and more detailed s...

Compositor Travis Nobles  wanted to work on films ever since he saw The Lord of the Rings . Through an unexpected journey that led him from the United States to Germany and then to New Zealand, he finally got to work for the company that brought CG Gollum to life: Weta Digital. Before Weta, Travis's resume includes several Emmy-winning seasons of Game of Thrones,  where he got to composite a numbe...

This is my commentary track for my interviews at  Cutting Edge C.E.,  an annual music conference in New Orleans that brings together prominent musicians, industry professionals, and filmmakers from across the country. Both episodes and show notes are here , or check feed for the prior episode with interviews.   # If you'd like to hear from another band that has played at Cutting Edge, check out th...

Cutting Edge C.E.  is an annual music conference in New Orleans that brings together prominent musicians, industry professionals, and filmmakers from across the country. The 26th Cutting Edge conference concluded a few weeks ago, and for my podcast coverage I had the opportunity to interview the festival's founder Eric Cager, along with some musicians performing at the conference and a filmmaker w...

This is my commentary and takeaways from my conversation with Gordy Hoffman, the Sundance-winning writer of Love Liza (starred his brother, Philip Seymour Hoffman), and founder of BlueCat Screenwriting Competition. Check the feed for the interview.    In this commentary I discuss What I appreciate about Gordy  My thoughts on feedback and dealing with the issues that come up when giving and receivi...

Gordy Hoffman's   first produced feature screenplay, Love Liza , won the prestigious Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award when it premiered at Sundance. The film also featured a memorable performance from his brother, Philip Seymour Hoffman, his first starring role in a film.  Dog Bowl , a short film that Gordy wrote and directed, also premiered at Sundance, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Pri...

Alex V. Cook  is a journalist and music critic who has written for an assortment of publications including The Believer, The Oxford American, DownBeat , and Paste Magazine. His book Darkness, Racket and Twang: Essential Listening from the Fringes of Popular and Unpopular Culture is a compilation of his music essays, which includes commentary on artists ranging from Lou Reed to Bob Dylan to the Mou...

Do U Want It?  is a music documentary that tells the story of the New Orleans funk band, Papa Grows Funk, their residency at The Maple Leaf Bar, and then their indefinite hiatus that they announced in 2013. The film doesn't just capture a band in transition and the creative differences that came along though. It also offers an insider's glimpse into what makes the New Orleans music community so sp...

Wumbo  is a word coined on  SpongeBob SquarePants . It is also an indie-rcok band that The Advocate recently included in their list of 10 bands to check out in Baton Rouge. The band has played at most of Baton Rouge's esteemed music venues including The Varsity, Spanish Moon, Mid City Ballroom, Happy's Irish Pub, 524 Studios, and more. In a few days they'll be starting their tour across the South...

Filmmaker  Joshua Overbay 's first film, As It Is in Heaven , was a Critics' Pick in The New York Times  and favorably reviewed on rogerebert.com. Luke & Jo   is Josh's third film, and it continues the tradition of exploring big questions while telling an intimate, character-driven story that Josh started with his first film. Nathaniel Glass  was one of the producers on As It Is in Heaven, and he...

Michael Berry  is the writer-director of Stuck , an original character-driven musical set in a New York subway that stars Giancarlo Esposito, whom  Breaking Bad fans might recognize as the cunning owner of Los Pollos Hermanos. Giancarlo plays a very different character in Stuck:  a mysterious, seemingly homeless man prone to break into song, who may or may not be on some kind of cosmic special ass...

Some songwriters would kill for the chance to work with just one multi-platinum artist. Songwriter Brent Baxter has worked with a handful of them. One of his songs even made it onto Rolling Stone 's list of the 40 Saddest Country Songs of All Time. How does a songwriter get to write for multi-platinum artists, and what's it like writing songs for Alan Jackson, Lady Antebellum and Randy Travis? I b...

This year, I had the chance to interview several filmmakers screening films at the Louisiana International Film Festival.  On this episode, I recap some of those interviews and share some of my experiences and takeaways from LIFF2018. Here are my  prior interviews from #LIFF2018 . On the recap below, I share some of the highlights from each interview, what it was like getting to screen my short at...

My coverage of LIFF2018 continues with  Tinker producer  Tom Bhramayana .     It was a sci-fi film that started as Kickstarter campaign which brought in over $100,000. A few year later, it has won 19 best-of awards at festivals around the country, and all three screenings at this year's Louisiana International Film Festival have sold out. The term producer has many connotations, but Tom wasn't jus...

Show notes coming soon. 

Brimstone & Glory is a documentary produced by the Department of Motion Pictures that tells the story of Tultepec, a town in Mexico that is dedicated to the making and celebration of fireworks. It's a poetic, visually stunning film that the National Board of Review recognized as one of the top five documentaries of 2017, and it is one of the films screening at this year's Lousiana International Fi...

My podcast coverage of Louisiana International Film Festival 2018 continues with director Maya Washington . She's the filmmaker behind Through the Banks of the Red Cedar and the daughter of Gene Washington, the wide receiver who played for Michigan State and then the Minnesota Vikings and the Denver Broncos. Gene's storied football career led to an induction into the College Football Hall of Fame,...

My #LIFF2018 coverage continues with makeup artist and documentary filmmaker Tiffany Bartok . She's the director behind Larger Than Life: The Kevyn Aucoin Story . Prior to seeing the documentary and doing the interview, I wasn't aware of Kevyn, but then the few makeup artists I'm aware of tend to be special-effects luminaries like Jack Pierce ( Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein ) or Rick Baker (...

This is the first part of my coverage for Louisiana International Film Festival 2018, which happens in Baton Rouge from April 19-22. In this episode, I talk to director Vincent Grashaw about his film And Then I Go . His film tells the story of two young people who contemplate a potential school shooting against their classmates as retaliation for the slights they've endured. Unfortunately, the Par...