The Neil Berkeley Podcast

Stephen Murray is not only an entrepreneur launching a new film rental platform, he's also a musician and filmmaker. So he understands the pain artists feel trying to get their work out to the world. So he's built Bingable.net, where fans of films can watch movies and participate in the revenue generated from their support of those movies. Full disclosure, I'm a working with Bingeable...

I'm beyond thrilled to have my next guest on the show. Not only is Lois Vossen a legend in documentary film but she's also the person that put my first film into the world. We cover a lot of ground and her perspective on the state of things will be very interesting to anyone working doc film today. Lois Vossen is the Founding Executive Producer of Independent Lens, leading the PBS series t...

In this lively podcast episode, Neil dives into Joseph Granda's adventures as a documentary filmmaker with a twist. Granda, an open minded yet skeptical storyteller, explores conspiracy theories and paranormal activities, bringing a refreshing blend of humor and curiosity to subjects often shrouded in mystery. His work with Merkel Media stands out for its engaging, fun take on the unexplained,...

Nick Hudson serves as Executive Director at Entertainment 2 Affect Change. A proud AmeriCorps alum and bone marrow donor, Nick has over a decade of professional experience working in public service, nonprofit program management and development, strategic partnerships, and content creation. E2AC is a fully non-profit, documentary film company offering production services, fiscal sponsorship, educat...

Jennifer Tiexiera is adocumentary director, producer and editor. She directed  Subject  which will premiere in NY and LA on November 3rd. In 2020, she completed  P.S. Burn this Letter Please,  which won the Audience Award for Documentary Feature at the 2020 OutFest Film Festival. She is currently in post-production directing her first series for Jigsaw/HBO. Show Notes Jen Tiexeira iMDB Subject Fil...

Doug Blush is an award-winning director, producer, editor, writer and cinematographer whose work includes over 100 feature and television projects. Recent credits include, as consulting editor and producer, the 2018 Academy Award winning ICARUS, 20 FEET FROM STARDOM, and the recent HBO documentary THE MUSIC OF STRANGERS: YO YO MA AND THE SILK ROAD ENSEMBLE. He was Co-Editor and Associate Producer...

Eddie Schmidt is a wonderfully talented and delightfully funny documentary producer and director. He's not only a brilliant filmmaker but he's the kind of person that is passionate about great ideas and talented people and put a lot of energy into helping people get things made. As a former President of ID, Eddie has been a constant in the doc world for two decades. He's also been a pa...

Ryan White is a prolific documentary filmmaker who has told stories in every genre of doc filmmaking. He has a particular skill at telling intimate and revealing stories about very well known people. His new film, Pamela Anderson: A Love Story, is about one of the most iconic women in Hollywood. However, White's approach offers a look at her story and her approach to life that is as original a...

In this episode of the Neil Berkeley Podcast we set down with documentary legend, Caroline Libresco. Our conversation is as provocative as it is entertaining as Caroline brings decades of film world experience to a conversation that digs into the current state of documentary filmmaking. If you've worked in docs at all in the last twenty years you've heard of Caroline and you definitely wan...

Today on the Neil Berkeley Podcast we're talking about AI. It's here whether we like it or not and it's going to affect our lives whether we want it to or not. My guest, Basil Shadid, is a doc producer with a wealth of knowledge on the topic and his take might be refreshingly optimistic for people working in the film business. Basil Shadid is a documentary filmmaker whose credits inclu...

Maggie Contreras' directorial debut, Maestra, will be having its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 9th. In today's show we talk about Maggie's journey from actor, to publicist, to producer and now...to Director. Making her first film was a Herculean effort full of all the pitfalls and troubles that face so many doc filmmakers but Maggie's passion for this film and...

Nicola Marsh is a brilliant doc director currently working on her second feature. On the pod Nicola talks about making the jump from DP to director, her origins in local news, her latest projects, LUTs, lenses and lots and lots more! Nicola has a wide portfolio of work, having worked on scripted television, documentary, commercials and narrative features, as both a DP and a director. She is best k...

Dan Lindsay and his partner, TJ Martin have made some of the best documentary films in the last decade. The first film they made together, 2011's Undefeated, won them an Oscar and tells the story of a high school football coach in Memphis trying to keep his team together despite incredible adversity. On the show Dan talks about the pressures of winning an Academy Award at such an early stage o...

Max Libman, a high school junior at Academy High in Champaign, has watched the world through a camera lens ever since he can remember. He started filming his own movies before the age of ten, and at the age of twelve, began writing a screenplay inspired by his great-grandmother’s life under the Nazi regime. He submitted the screenplay to the screenwriting competition Pens to Lens, and his short Ei...

In this podcast, director Neil Berkeley interviews Director of Photography Graham Willoughby about his process and approach to filmmaking. Willoughby goes into great detail about how he helps directors achieve their vision and how he goes planning his work, choosing the right tools for the job and forming a connection with the stories he's telling. Throughout the conversation, Willoughby share...

To kick off this new version of an old thing, I'm once again talking to documentary filmmaker Clay Tweel. In this episode Clay talks about why he decided to take a break from social media and how seeing a constant scroll of your contemporaries on sets and at award shows can cause you to make unhealthy and more times than not unfair comparisons to your own life and career. We also talk about wh...

On this episode I'm joined by an incredible artist, a wonderful friend and the subject of the first film I ever made, Wayne White.  I've known Wayne for almost twenty years and his his work and his approach to life continue to inspire.  This one is probably best for the initiated since we seem to be starting wherever we left off so giving the doc a watch before might be a good idea. &nbs...