This is a recording of a members-only Substack Live I hosted two weeks ago. If you're a paid subscriber, this is exactly the kind of access and conversation you're signing up for!

Carolina Alvarez, writer-director and founder of Femme Regard, is the force behind Sync — a self-financed sci-fi feature now streaming on Amazon Prime that received SIX distribution offers. In this special chat, she breaks down what film school doesn't teach you:

• how she crowdfunded a feature in stages
• built a festival strategy around genre and community (not just prestige)
• reached out to 20+ distributors without a rep
• spotted the red flags in bad offers
• decoded the unsexy deliverables that can quietly blow your budget in post-production

This episode is for any filmmaker trying to figure out how to actually get your movie seen!

Subscribe to the AOP Substack for free to stay in the loop, or go paid to get access to members-only lives like this one, bonus content, and the full archive.

Links are in the show notes.

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QUESTIONS

​Submit them in our on going AMA

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In this solo episode, I get candid. I open up about losing my father in January, what grief looks like when you can't afford to stop moving, and the complicated truth about showing up anyway — to the meeting, to the festival, to the mic.

I also dig into eight listener questions from the year-end survey, covering: how I select guests, whether I'm still producing, how independent producers can find financing outside traditional models, tips for batching scenes on a micro-budget shoot, how to pitch yourself for freelance producing opportunities, where to actually network, how to work festivals like Sundance and SXSW, and how to define and achieve your goals in a season of uncertainty.

Raw, practical, and very real...

Thanks for doing this life thing with me!

Pam Carbonero is a seasoned Latina director, producer, writer, and first AD with 15-plus short films, a 12-episode mini-series, and a one-and-a-half hour vertical series under her belt.

When she's not directing, she's working full-time as a first AD across features, commercials, music videos, you name it. And she is a proud anti-gatekeeper.

But the thing I really wanted to bring her on to talk about is what she built from scratch out of pure necessity: the LA Director's Lab. In 2021, she had an idea for a space where directors could simply practice their craft. She started small: six directors, eight actors, a friend's bar, iPhones, zero professional gear. That was all she needed.

Today, LADL has grown into full two-day workshops with DPs, professional crews, screening days — and most recently, she executive produced five horror short films in three and a half weeks with her community of artists.

Tune in as we discuss mental health, doing the reps, and what makes an exceptional 1st AD.

Marina Stabile is a Brazilian-born, Swiss-raised producer and line producer with over 20 years of experience in film, documentaries, commercials, and digital content. She is also one of my favorite humans and I'm lucky I get to call her a friend.

She grew up in São Paulo, moved to Geneva at 10, attended an international school with 118 nationalities, and knew she wanted to produce after watching the Irving Thalberg Award presented at 3 a.m. on an Oscar broadcast. She studied film and international relations at USC, produced documentaries for the United Nations in Geneva, and returned to the U.S. to earn her MFA in producing at AFI, where her thesis film The Response won a Student BAFTA.

Marina's credits span indie and studio, including Miguel Arteta's Beatriz at Dinner starring Salma Hayek, the Sundance Grand Jury Prize–winning Clemency starring Alfre Woodard, Harrison Ford's The Call of the Wild (as VFX supervisor), Searchlight's Hold Your Breath starring Sarah Paulson, The People We Hate at the Wedding, and the pandemic-shot Untitled Horror Movie alongside fellow producer Bronwyn Cornelius.

Most recently, she produced Josephine — written and directed by Beth de Araújo and starring Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan — which won both the U.S. Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival before being acquired by Sumerian Pictures in a competitive seven-figure deal. The film went on to screen in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival.

In this conversation, we explore how culture impacts your craft, define once and for all what line producers really do, why the best career moves sometimes look like steps backward, and whether Los Angeles is still a special place to make movies.

Enjoy!!

CG

When movie maestro and mixologist Paul Feig offers to teach you how to make a proper martini at 10a on a Wednesday, you say yes.

It was thrilling to be tipsy before lunchtime. Almost as thrilling as it is to end 2025 with a conversation with the absolute icon that is director, producer, and comedy legend Paul Feig.

Paul created the cult classic Freaks and Geeks, directed Bridesmaids, Spy, and A Simple Favor, and has helmed episodes of The Office, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, and Arrested Development. He's a delight and the fun you feel watching is 100% the fun we had IRL.

We dig into his journey from being the comedy outcast at USC Film School to becoming one of Hollywood's most successful directors. We talk about the brutal 'in-between' years that almost bankrupted him, why comedies get overlooked at awards shows, and his latest film "The Housemaid"—a dark thriller that marks the launch of his new production company, Pretty Dangerous Pictures.

I quite liked the film and hope everyone will get their tushies out into a theater to experience it in the company of loved ones, friends, and strangers!

Tune is as we discuss what makes a project "undeniable", the state of comedies in 2025, and why vanity projects ruin careers.

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Barbara Muschietti is the phenomenal producer behind IT Chapter One & Two (combined $1.17B worldwide), The Flash, and the new Max series IT: Welcome to Derry.

We actually met 5 years ago during my early podcast grind when I cold-emailed Barbara inviting her on the show. She said yes! She invited me to the Warner Brothers lot, to her office, and generously gave me almost 3 hours of her time. It was a real turning point for me and the show.

The world, and certainly Hollywood, has changed tremendously since then.

Full disclosure: we recorded this mere days before the audacious news that Netflix won the bid to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery.

Five years later, we're back. Barbara opens up about "pushing a very, very heavy boulder" aka the reality of making movies even as an established producer with billions in box office success.

She talks about The Flash making $300 million worldwide and still being considered a disappointment. She gets raw about what she learned producing nine hours of IT: Welcome to Derry with child actors during the strikes. We also dig into the LA production crisis, why she still takes a photo of the Warner lot water tower every single morning, and she's terrified we might lose it.

Enjoy

xx cg

AOP SUBSTACK 📫 Musings, Mixers, Workshops, and Exclusive Content https://angleonproducers.substack.com/

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

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