Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

Sometimes, the fire of creativity is struck not by lightning but by the slow, smoldering ache of dissatisfaction. And in today's soul-stirring conversation, we welcome Shawn Whitney, a filmmaker who found cinema not in the corridors of academia, but in the quiet rebellion of self-taught screenwriting and micro-budget filmmaking. Shawn Whitney is a screenwriter, director, and founder of Micro Budget Film Lab who empowers indie creators to tell powerful stories on shoestring budgets.Our journey with Shawn begins not in childhood fantasies of movie stardom, but in the dense woods of Brechtian theater and the quiet study of old black-and-white films. His path wandered, as many worthwhile ones do, through rejection, basement solitude, and heartbreak—until something within him demanded not just expression but transmutation. Shawn didn’t study film in college. Instead, he emerged from the theater world and fell into filmmaking after a failed workshop production left him broke and dispirited. Yet that fall became his rise. As he said, “I just started writing screenplays and learning the craft in the quiet shadows.”There’s something beautiful in learning the art of story not from glamorous sets or high-priced workshops but from the bones of failed experiments and the echoes of dialogue bouncing around your own mind.Shawn described his education not with fanfare but humility—referencing Sid Field, Blake Snyder, and the ever-controversial Save the Cat—tools that became his spiritual guides, not rigid masters. And with every script, he refined a method. Not the method, mind you. A method. “You just need a method. You can’t just be anarchy,” he mused.But perhaps what struck me most was Shawn’s philosophy that screenwriting is not just structure—it’s an argument about what makes life meaningful. Films, he insists, must be animated not by market trends, but by inner turmoil, by the strange flickering passions of the human heart. “It can’t just be about chopping up zombies. Your characters must go through an inner transformation.” That idea—that a film is a living question—sets Shawn apart in a world often obsessed with following the formula instead of feeling the pulse.Shawn’s micro-budget films—“A Brand New You” and “F*cking My Way Back Home”—aren’t just titles that stick. They are rebellious acts of filmmaking born from limited means and limitless creativity.His stories unfold not in sprawling CGI landscapes, but in human longing, funny sadness, and philosophical absurdity. One film follows a man trying to clone his dead wife in the living room. Another explores redemption from the passenger seat of a towed Cutlass Supreme. With a budget of $7,000 and a borrowed tow truck, Shawn pulled off scenes that feel bigger than most tentpole blockbusters.But filmmaking, for Shawn, isn’t just about his own expression. Through Micro Budget Film Lab, he’s become a teacher, a mentor, and a kind of mad scientist in the alchemical lab of storytelling. His passion is not merely to direct, but to help others break free from the gatekeeping systems that keep fresh stories from being told. “We need a micro budget movement,” he declared, envisioning a cinematic rebellion where filmmakers use what they have to tell stories no one else dares to.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Michael Trent, a seasoned film editor renowned for his work on classics like Saving Private Ryan, shares his journey from the UK to Hollywood. He discusses the artistry of editing, emphasizing how it shapes audience emotions through rhythm and tension. Trent reveals how his early experiences and family influence honed his craft, and he offers insights into the collaborative nature of filmmaking. The conversation also explores unique editing techniques in genres like horror, showcasing how timing and shot selection create unforgettable cinematic moments.

On today’s episode, we welcome Michael G. Kehoe, a filmmaker who turned a whisper of an idea into the resounding voice of a feature film. From Brooklyn to Hollywood, from an eight-year-old boy watching his mother direct community theater to a director commanding his own set, Michael’s journey is one of persistence, heartbreak, and sheer creative will.In this profound conversation, Michael G. Kehoe shares the winding road of his career, one marked by passion and loss. A pact among friends, the bright lights of New York, and the uncertainty of Los Angeles formed the backdrop to his early years. But it was a personal tragedy—the untimely passing of two close friends—that set the stage for his first short film, Second Dance. With no roadmap but a fierce determination, he crafted a story that not only resonated but landed him in the heart of Sundance, proving that even the smallest project can open the biggest doors.The journey didn’t stop there.Years later, inspired by his twin boys’ innocent bedtime fears, he penned a horror story that would eventually become The Hatred. Rather than waiting for a green light from the industry, he carved his own path. He created Hush, a short film that distilled the very essence of fear—the anticipation of the unknown. The reaction was immediate. Audiences jumped, festivals awarded, and industry heavyweights, including the producers behind Halloween, took notice. The lesson? The industry rewards those who show, not just tell.But success in Hollywood is rarely a straight road. Shooting The Hatred on a tight budget and an even tighter schedule meant adapting, improvising, and making every shot count. “Poverty breeds creativity,” Michael says, a testament to the resilience needed in independent filmmaking. Working with a largely female cast, he crafted a horror film that stood apart from the blood-soaked clichés, focusing instead on atmosphere, character, and tension. The result? A film that paid homage to the horror classics of the past while carving its own identity in the present.Of course, filmmaking is a collaborative art. Michael speaks of the relationships that make the journey worthwhile—the actors who return to work with him time and again, the cinematographers who bring his visions to life, and the producers who take a chance on passion over pedigree. “Surround yourself with people smarter than you,” he advises. A lesson as true for life as it is for film.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

When the winds of curiosity rustle the mind and stir the soul, they often bring with them storytellers—those rare beings who don’t just recount events but breathe life into them. On today's episode, we welcome Joe Kowalski, a young filmmaker from Cleveland whose creative spirit dances between shadows and light, weaving stories through film, mystery, and innovation.Joe Kowalski is a filmmaker, game designer, and storyteller whose projects explore new ways to experience narrative across media.In this profound conversation, we journey through Joe's unique endeavor—a Stephen King “Dollar Baby” short film adaptation titled I Am the Doorway. What begins as a seemingly simple homage to the horror maestro evolves into a lesson in humility, time management, and artistic vision. Joe’s choice of story, influenced by a girlfriend and the limitations of a shoestring budget, was no accident. It was a study in resourcefulness—making the most of what one has while honoring a source of immense creative power. “You have to know what you can realistically accomplish,” Joe said. And that, my friends, is wisdom beyond years.Joe didn’t stop at simply retelling a tale. He reframed the horror classic into a new cinematic experience, wrapping Stephen King’s suspense within a short film festival format. This wasn’t about profit or prestige—it was about community, experimentation, and delivering value to the audience. His respect for the time and effort of collaborators is unwavering: “That’s the biggest thing they can give you,” he mused. And in a world obsessed with the bottom line, such reverence is sacred.But his imagination doesn’t remain tethered to the screen. Joe designed an interactive Instagram murder mystery game—an elegant rebellion against linear storytelling. Through a labyrinth of tags and grids, players navigate a digital whodunit, one clue at a time. Each piece of the game reveals not just a path to the culprit, but a deeper truth about human curiosity and our hunger for connection. It’s a digital scavenger hunt of intention, ingenuity, and play. A new mythology told in swipes and likes.Lest one believe that his path has been frictionless, Joe admits to the chaos of low-budget production, the stress of festivals, and the heartbreak of seeing good work shelved for lack of fit. Still, he views each project as a sculptor views stone—not yet perfect, but perfecting. His year-long film PRISM is another feather in this vibrant cap—a color-coded exploration of identity and emotional entanglement told through color-isolated cinematography. Here is a man who does not merely shoot films; he paints them.Throughout the conversation, what resounds most is Joe’s blend of youthful energy and ancient patience. He reveres the creative process, yet he’s unafraid to let go when the time calls for it. Whether planning podcasts with friends or studying the rise of VR storytelling, Joe doesn’t merely chase the next trend—he studies its rhythm, its heartbeat, and asks how it might elevate human experience. “You have to care about the story even when you don’t feel like caring about it,” he says—and that is the quiet devotion of an artist in bloom.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

What if the greatest stories of our lives are the ones we never meant to write? On today’s episode, we welcome Steven Bernstein, a man whose journey through the world of cinema has been anything but predictable. A writer at heart, a cinematographer by accident, and a director by destiny, his career is a living testament to the art of surrendering to the unknown. From his early days at the BBC to the sets of Hollywood blockbusters, his story unfolds like an unplanned masterpiece—one that ultimately brought him full circle, back to the thing he always loved: writing.In this profound conversation, Steven Bernstein recounts his journey from philosophy student to award-winning cinematographer, where his love of storytelling found an unexpected home behind the lens. He speaks of the curious ways life moves us, sometimes against our best-laid plans. “You tend to go with those things that are providing you income,” he muses, reflecting on how a passion for writing gave way to cinematography, leading him to films like Monster, Like Water for Chocolate, and Scary Movie 2. Yet, even as he shaped light and shadow for some of cinema’s most striking images, the writer within him never faded.There is an undeniable poetry in the way Bernstein describes his work. He doesn’t just shoot a film; he composes it, layering meaning through framing, movement, and light. Every choice—a dolly push, a backlight, an asymmetrical composition—whispers something to the audience. It’s a language beyond words, one that he speaks fluently. “Everything to do with film is a language,” he explains. “And like any language, it’s made up of two parts: that which we present and that which we mean.”His journey back to writing was not an easy one. After years of crafting imagery for others, he took a leap into directing his own films, starting with Decoding Annie Parker. It was a lesson in risk and resilience. At one point, he spent five years in poverty, refusing to return to the safety of cinematography. “If you hold out for the dream, maybe you achieve it,” he says. It is a stark reminder that the artist’s path is often one of sacrifice, but those who persist find themselves richer in ways beyond money.Yet, Bernstein also understands the tension between art and commerce. Filmmaking is an expensive endeavor, and investors want guarantees. He describes the struggle of balancing creative vision with financial expectations, a dance between inspiration and limitation. And yet, some of the greatest filmmakers—Terry Malick, the Coen Brothers, Charlie Kaufman—have defied convention, proving that the most resonant stories often break the rules.The conversation moves to the nature of collaboration, the unspoken alchemy that happens on a film set when everyone is in sync. He recalls moments from Monster, where the crew, sensing the gravity of a scene, chose to remain completely silent, whispering only when necessary. It was an unspoken agreement, an offering to the art being created. “It was one of the most magical moments I remember in any film I’ve ever worked on,” he recalls. It is a glimpse into the rare, sacred spaces where true storytelling happens—not in the scripts, but in the spaces between them.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

The mind is a curious trickster, delighting in dreams where logic pirouettes in absurdity. In today's extraordinary episode, we welcome Andrew Shaffer, a humorist and New York Times bestselling author whose wit slices through the storms of reality with a twinkle in his eye and a chainsaw in hand. From the earliest pages of his life, Andrew Shaffer was destined to dance with the ridiculous and sublime. As a child, he devoured horror and science fiction with a ravenous appetite, only to find himself drawn back to these imaginative playgrounds after a detour through the hallowed halls of literary fiction. His journey led him, almost inevitably, to the playful chaos of "How to Survive a Sharknado," a manual for the absurd that demands both laughter and preparation.In the dance of ideas, Andrew revealed how the birth of the Sharknado survival guide was as spontaneous as a tornado filled with teeth. Inspired by the original cult film, he offered his humorous talents when Random House and SyFy decided to create a companion book. Imagine being tasked with making flying sharks scientifically plausible; as he put it, "I had to talk to a marine biologist and ask, not could this happen, but how it might happen." It is in such delightfully impossible questions that the spirit of creativity is set loose.Throughout the conversation, there was a beautiful lightness, the kind one finds when nonsense is taken seriously. Andrew's research involved binge-watching over 30 sci-fi films—some genuine, some fabricated solely for the book—to weave an interconnected universe of mayhem. When asked how one might survive a Sharknado, he smiled into the void and said, “The answer in the book is simple: Stand and fight. Grab a chainsaw.” It is a lesson not just for storms of sharks, but for all the monstrous whirlwinds that life throws at us. Yet beneath the chuckles and chainsaws, Andrew's words echoed a deeper wisdom. Too much meta-awareness, he warned, robs a story of its soul. "If everybody's in on the joke," he said, "then the joke itself isn’t that funny anymore." Ah, but isn’t that true of life itself? When we cling too tightly to cleverness, we risk missing the raw wonder that makes each absurdity luminous. Perhaps the most chilling revelation of the day was the invincibility of the ghost shark, a creature birthed from sci-fi chaos. Manifesting from toilets, swimming pools, and even water bottles, it served as a reminder: some forces cannot be outrun; they must be met with courage, humor, and an open heart.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Today on the show we have documentary filmmaker Steve Concotelli, the director of OUTATIME: Saving the DeLorean Time Machine. Out of Time is the documentary about the restoration of the screen used Back to the Future DeLorean Time Machine.We discuss how the film came to be, his Kickstarter campaign, getting the rights from Universal, working with Back to the Future co-creator, producer and overall Godfather Bob Gale and how he distributed his little indie doc.Here’s some more info on Steve. Steve has been a creative force in the entertainment industry for over 10 years.  He began his career as an Editor on G4’s “Attack of the Show”.  Since then, Steve has worked nearly every job in production including Writer, Producer, Videographer, and ultimately, Executive Producer.  His clients span the creative landscape and include Disney, Crackle, Paramount, Science Channel, Discovery, TruTV, Spike and more.In 2015, Steve partnered with Universal Pictures to create OUTATIME: Saving the Back to the Future DeLorean Time Machine, a feature-length documentary about Back to the Future.  Steve wrote, produced, directed, and edited the film.  Since its release, OUTATIME has received critical praise, winning the “Best Documentary” Award at the 2016 Gen Con Film Festival. Currently, Steve is the Senior Creative Producer at Cricket Pictures in Los Angeles.Enjoy my “time-bending” interview with Steve ConcotelliBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Today’s guest is writer/director Natalia Leite. This director is one of the bravest filmmakers I’ve ever met. Her work on the VICE documentary ‘Life as a Truck-Stop Stripper was breathtaking. Not only did she direct the piece but one of the subjects in the film as well. Take a look below at her amazing work.Everyone knows what charming places strip clubs can be, but perhaps there is no club so charming as one in Moriarty, New Mexico—a truck stop with taxidermy and the bras of former employees on the walls, a few poles, a shitload of black light, and plenty of titties. Never mind that The Ultimate Strip Club List website describes it as the place “where strippers go to die.” Natalia Leite and Alexandra Roxo go Gonzo as they pose as strippers and experience something that can be best described as a Marina Abramovic performance crossed with a bizarro episode of Wife Swap directed by David Lynch’s daughters, set in the type of place where a one-eyed guy who shot himself in the head dispenses meditation advice to two naked women.Natalia Leiteis a Brazilian writer/director. Her work has been described as having “a bracing, assertive style” (Variety), “emotional intelligence and sensitivity” (LA Times), and as “cementing the reign over highly stylized, sexually progressive dramas” (Slant).Her feature film “M.F.A.”, a psychological thriller centered around rape crimes in a university, premiered at SXSW 2017 and was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize. The film stars Francesca Eastwood and was released in theaters October 2017. Her feature film debut, “Bare,” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2015, starring Dianna Agron.The film was released by IFC Films and Paramount Pictures. Natalia has created original content for Vice Media, most notably the provocative Vice show “Every Woman” which has garnered over 11 million views. She co-created and starred in the series “Be Here Nowish,” and has directed and shot documentaries internationally.Natalia is a contributing writer for Talk House and has been a featured speaker for NY Women In Film & Television, Apple Store Talks, IFP Filmmaker Conference, and numerous Universities. She also directs branded content for Vans, The North Face, Nasty Gal, and other companies. She recently signed with bicoastal production company Humble, her first commercial representation, and directs branded content for Vans, The North Face, and other companies.Enjoy my conversation with Natalia Leite.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Today on the show we have Slamdance Grand Jury winning filmmaker Hasan Oswald. Hasan's story is pretty inspiring. He did exactly what I preach all the time, he picked up a camera and began to tell his story. He made his first short film that was later tweeted by Stephen Fry, and the National Geographic came calling to work on their film Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS. He has since covered the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, drug trafficking, and homelessness in Philadelphia. He quickly established a unique ability to capture the human experience through "cinema verité."  His unfettered access to and intimacy with his characters creates a seamless veneer between the filmmaker and subject.After getting much need experience in the field he decided it was time to tell larger stories. His first outing as a feature film director, Higher Love, won him the top award at the Slamdance Film Festival. To finance his film he pulled a page out of Robert Rodriguez's playbook and sold his blood plasma to finance his film.Hasan's filmmaking journey is inspiring to say the least. He is using cinema to tell stories that will hopefully change the way people think. Higher Love is available on all major VOD platforms. His current project focuses on the Yazidi Genocide in Iraq.Enjoy my conversation with Hasan Oswald.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Sean Mullin is an award-winning filmmaker.  His critically-acclaimed feature film debut as a writer/director — Amira & Sam — won the top prize at numerous festivals and was distributed theatrically by Drafthouse Films. He’s the co-writer/co-producer of the film, Semper Fi – alongside Oscar-nominated director Henry-Alex Rubin (Murderball) and Oscar-nominated producer David Lancaster (Whiplash).  Lionsgate released the film theatrically in 2019. He’s the writer/director of a feature-length documentary – Kings of Beer – about the world’s most intense brewmaster competition, which was released theatrically in 2019.  He’s the writer/director of It Ain’t Over - a feature-length documentary about baseball legend, Yogi Berra – which will be released in 2022.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.