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Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

By: Bulletproof Screenwriting
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  • Summary

  • The Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast shows you how to make your screenplays bulletproof. Weekly interviews with Oscar® and Emmy® award winning screenwriters, story specialists, best-selling authors, Hollywood agents and managers, and industry insiders. We cover every aspect of the screenwriting process. This is the screenwriting podcast for the rest of us. No fluff. No BS. Just straight talk that will help you on your screenwriting journey.

    Some of the past guests include 3X Oscar® Winning Writer/Director Oliver Stone, Eric Roth (Dune, Forest Gump), Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), Richard Linklater (Boyhood, Slacker) James V. Hart (Dracula, Hook), John August (Big Fish, Aladdin), Jim Uhls ( Fight Club), Peter Rader (Waterworld), Diane Drake (What Women Want), Daniel Knauf (Carnival, Blacklist), Derek Kolstad (John Wick) and Pen Densham (Robin Hood, Backdraft) to name a few.

    This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/2881148/advertisement
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Episodes
  • BPS 303: How I Wrote a Sundance Film with Chloe Okuno

    BPS 303: How I Wrote a Sundance Film with Chloe Okuno
    May 31 2023
    Today on the show we have writer/director Chloe Okuno.Chloe is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a masters degree from the American Film Institute Conservatory. There she received the Franklin J. Shaffner Fellow Award, and directed the award-winning horror short film SLUT.

    Her recent work includes writing a remake of “Audrey Rose” for Orion Pictures and writing and directing a segment of the anthology series V/H/S/94. She's the director of this year's Sundance feature film Watcher.Julia joins her husband when he relocates to his family’s native Romania for a new job. Having recently abandoned her acting career, she finds herself frequently alone and unoccupied. One night, people-watching from her picture window, she spots a vague figure in an adjacent building, who seems to be looking back at her. Soon after, while alone at a local movie theater, Julia’s sense of being watched intensifies, and she becomes certain she’s being followed — could it be the same unknown neighbor? Meanwhile, a serial killer known as The Spider stalks the city.

    Below is the story of making The Watcher from Chloe's POV.In making “Watcher,” I wanted to capture a kind of constant, uncomfortable dread that accompanies many women throughout their lives- one that is expressed through the character of Julia. Julia moves into this apartment building with her husband and quickly begins to believe she is being watched. She recognizes that the Watcher is a threat. She feels it very clearly- even if it’s difficult to articulate the extent of that threat to the people around her. It’s a situation that’s probably quite familiar to most women. We experience the world in a different way than men and then when we try to express that experience, we’re often doubted- written off as paranoid, irrational, or overly sensitive… which in turn can make us begin to doubt ourselves. This has always been at the core of a story that in other ways has evolved greatly since I was first hired to direct it in 2017. Initially, the script was set in New York City, but when it became clear that we would be shooting the movie in Romania, I decided to rewrite it to take place in Bucharest.There are times as a filmmaker where practical limitations end up being creatively very freeing- unlocking something great when you’re willing to embrace the unexpected. This was one of those times.

    Suddenly, Julia’s experience as a foreigner in this new city heightens all her other feelings of unease and uncertainty. She finds herself increasingly isolated- largely unable to speak the language and therefore alienated from everyone around her. There were of course natural (sometimes uncomfortable) parallels shooting the movie on location in Romania: unable to speak the language, oftentimes sequestered in a hotel room amidst the raging pandemic, and occasionally fighting against the doubt that surrounds you as a woman working in a male dominated profession. Fortunately, life didn’t fully imitate art. I finished the movie without any nightmarish descent into Watcher-style darkness, content with the hope that all of the tension found its way on screen. The filmmakers I admire are the ones who are able to create a language for emotion through their craft, translating what they feel into a form that other people can see and experience for themselves.

    For Watcher I was inspired by the work of David Fincher, Sofia Coppola, Satoshi Kon, Roman Polanski, Krzysztof Kieslowski, and Mary Harron- filmmakers who have excelled at translating fear, loneliness, and alienation. The hope is always that there will be someone else who can empathize- telling stories so that we can take comfort in the recognition of ourselves in others. As a person filled with seemingly endless anxieties, making films is the best- and possibly the only- way I’ve found to confront them. I’ve done my best to portray them honestly in this film, and I can only hope that those who have experienced similar fears and anxieties will find solace in the knowledge that they are not alone.

    Enjoy my conversation with Chloe Okuno.

    This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/2881148/advertisement
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    48 mins
  • BPS 302: Writing the INSANE World of Machette with Alvaro Rodriguez

    BPS 302: Writing the INSANE World of Machette with Alvaro Rodriguez
    May 26 2023
    Alvaro Rodriguez has been writing since childhood and, in fact, did his best work when he was 11. Without a movie camera in sight, Rodriguez relied on the written word and a Polaroid Button to storyboard the films in his head. A crash course in entertainment writing and editing at the University of Texas student newspaper and seminars in creative writing supplied more tools for the toolbox. When he riffed on a Spanish guitar figure as the hero's musical theme in cousin Robert Rodriguez's debut film, El Mariachi (1992) (Columbia Pictures, 1993), he began a collaboration that has lasted more than two decades.

    Rodriguez sold his first pitch to Dimension Films, a spaghetti-western prequel to the genre-bending vampire flick From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) called From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter (1999) (Miramax/Dimension, 2000), which starred Marco Leonardi, Michael Parks, Sonia Braga, Rebecca Gayheart and Danny Trejo, with Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino producing.

    Rodriguez co-wrote the wishing-rock children's movie Shorts (2009) (Warner Brothers, 2009), starring James Spader, Jon Cryer, Leslie Mann, and William H. Macy, and followed that confection with the bloodier Machete (2010) (Fox, 2010) starring Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan, Jeff Fahey, Don Johnson, and Robert De Niro. Both were directed by Robert Rodriguez.

    ]As of 2014, he is writing on the television series From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series (2014) for the El Rey Network, now in its second season, and is developing feature and television projects in the United States and Italy.A frequent panelist and presenter at the Austin Film Festival, he has also curated an "Epoca de Oro" Mexican film series at the Museum of South Texas History and has been a speaker at colleges and universities throughout the United States. His border-influenced short fiction has appeared in multiple publications, both physical and digital, including Mulholland Books/Popcorn Fiction, "Along the River" (2011), and the Bram Stoker Award-winning "After Death" (2013).

    This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/2881148/advertisement
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    1 hr and 26 mins
  • BPS 301: I Wrote a Short Film Now WTF Do I Do with Clarissa Jacobson

    BPS 301: I Wrote a Short Film Now WTF Do I Do with Clarissa Jacobson
    May 24 2023
    So you made a short film, now WTF do you do? Today guest is filmmaker Clarissa Jacobson and she is the perfect person to guide you through the rough waters of getting your short film out to the world.

    Clarissa is the writer, producer and creator of the multi-award-winning comedy/horror short - Lunch Ladies - based on her feature. The film garnered forty-five awards and is distributed all over the world.Her follow up short - A Very Important Film - also got distribution. Her optioned feature screenplay, Land of Milk and Honey, is in development with Elizabeth Avellan and Gisberg Bermudez.

    In addition, Clarissa wrote a book – I Made a Short Film Now WTF Do I Do With It: A Guide to Film Festivals, Promotion, and Surviving the Ride.I Made A Short Film Now WTF Do I Do With It is jam-packed with hard-earned knowledge, tips, and secrets on how to enter film festivals, promote your movie… and SUCCEED!I

    Made A Short Film Now WTF Do I Do With It covers everything from what festivals to submit to, how to maximize your money, secure an international presence, deal with rejection, gain publicity, harness the power of social media, what a sales rep does and much more.Included are exclusive filmmaker discounts on services/products from the subtitling company, Captionmax, and promo merchandisers, Medias Frankenstein and The Ink Spot.Get a FREE copy of the audiobook I Made a Short Film Now WTF Do I Do, released by Indie Film Hustle Books.

    Enjoy my conversation with Clarissa Jacobson.

    This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/2881148/advertisement
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    1 hr and 10 mins
Art Social Sciences
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Fantastic! Inspirational!

David is an inspiration to all new filmmakers who dream of make it in the business.

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Great Resource for Learning About the Business

I started listening to this podcast to learn as much as I could about the screenwriting process and information about the "industry", as one of many sources during my journey. This podcast certainly has that and more. Guests are a wide range of writers and filmmakers from blockbuster to indie films.

I will say there is a lot of information that seems to be geared toward the indie filmmaker, which seems to be a different world than the commercial industry. At least that's the way I've come to understand it through this podcast. However, through those indie film stories told, I've learned I am certainly not an indie filmmaker or screenwriter. This podcast has helped me understand that I am definitely more of a commercial writer, and that's a good thing in helping me find my voice.

Additionally, the podcast topics are focused on feature film versus television, although there have been a couple of guests - more specifically Pamela Douglas - who have shared their experiences and wisdom about writing for television. Even though I am more interested in TV writing, the podcast as a whole has been very educational.

I started from the first episodes and have been listening my way through the entire library. I will say that the host was a little frustrating to hear toward the beginning, because he would dominate the conversation and constantly share his experiences as a filmmaker instead of letting his guests share their experiences. However, I'm glad to see that Mr. Ferrari has tempered those tendencies as the show has progressed. What he shares is now more of a balance and a dialogue with his guests and the information gleaned is priceless.

I would recommend this podcast for anyone who is looking to find their voice, learn about the movie industry and get on the right path toward a career in either indie filmmaking or screenwriting. Break a leg!