The No Film School Podcast

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord, Jon Fusco, and Erik Luers discuss how theatrical documentaries are taking over the summer box office, give a fall festival preview, and mull over a newly announced Oscar category. In gear news, we reveal two new mobile audio solutions and an affordable ultra-wide zoom. Jon answers an Ask No Film School question about how to make sure your film script is properly formatted—and the right length. As always, we also bring you the latest gear news, upcoming grant and festival deadlines, new indie film releases, weekly words of industry wisdom, and other notable things you might have missed while you were busy making films. You can see all the links from this show in this week’s podcast post at nofilmschool.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With only $7K, fourteen days, and no crew, Alejandro Montoya Marín made a chockablock action-comedy feature. If you're wondering why these parameters, here's the reason: it took $7000 bucks for Robert Rodriguez to shoot his breakout film El Mariachi. And since it’s the 25th anniversary of that film, Rodriguez decided to host a show with El Rey called Rebel Without a Crew where he picks five filmmakers to each make a feature using the same arsenal. Marín was one of those filmmakers! The contingency of being on the show was that you would make a feature film with $7K and only fourteen shooting days -- with only a plus-one as your crew. In this conversation, NFS contributors Oakley Anderson Moore and Chris Boone talk to Marín about how he was able to pull all this off, and how ultimately, this experience was the perfect way to get past the hurdle where he can now himself a filmmaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord, Jon Fusco, and Erik Luers discuss the union negotiations that might have the Hollywood film industry gearing up for a strike, and ponder what the heck is going on with Moviepass. Jon also shares wisdom from Short of the Week about how to develop a distribution strategy for your short film. In gear news, Liz reviews the Freefly Movi smartphone stabilizer. Aerial cinematographer Randall Esulto joins us to answer an Ask No Film School question about how to get started with drones. As always, we also bring you the latest gear news, upcoming grant and festival deadlines, new indie film releases, weekly words of industry wisdom, and other notable things you might have missed while you were busy making films. You can see all the links from this show in this week’s podcast post at nofilmschool.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Emmy-nominated TV editors A.M. Peters ('Queer Eye') and Tenille Uithoff ('Full Frontal with Samantha Bee’) join Liz Nord to discuss how to break into post-production for TV, what you can expect once you do, and how to make it in the television editing business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord, Jon Fusco, and Erik Luers discuss what we should make of James Gunn being fired from the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ franchise over controversial tweets. We also reveal an industry trend worth watching from this year’s massive Comic-Con. Charles Haine joins us for gear news including confirmed rumors of Nikon's new mirrorless camera. Charles also answers an Ask No Film School question about building a portfolio website for your film work. As always, we also bring you the latest gear news, upcoming grant and festival deadlines, new indie film releases, weekly words of industry wisdom, and other notable things you might have missed while you were busy making films. You can see all the links from this show in this week’s podcast post at nofilmschool.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim Cummings career is a case study in DIY Filmmaking. His short film Thunder Road redefined the path of a festival award winner. After earning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, the short took the internet by storm, bringing Jim and his crew ample exposure and a shot to turn their project into a feature. One would think that having a viral, Grand Jury Prize winning short would be enough to attract the attention of major studios, but despite the fact that they had a whole fifteen minutes of the film they could show off right away, Jim and his producing partner Ben Weissner could not get any big bites from investors. So they took matters into their own hands. The self-produced and largely crowd-funded feature version of Thunder Road premiered at SXSW earlier this year where it, guess what, won the Grand Jury Award for best feature. Now Jim and Ben want to share the knowledge they’ve learned over the course of their experience with young filmmakers across the world and to do so they’ve launched a Short to Feature lab in Malibu. We asked them to give us a rundown of what applicants can expect as well as the skills that they think every filmmaker interested in controlling the entire life of their film should know. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord, Jon Fusco, Erik Luers, and Charles Haine discuss why you might be able to skip having your film on Netflix in favor of launching your own streaming service. We also discuss a new study on film critics and what it means for production funding, and say a sad goodbye to Blockbuster Video. In gear news, the MacBook Pro sort of wins us back. Charles also answers an Ask No Film School question about why you should buy a stills camera to shoot video. As always, we also bring you the latest gear news, upcoming grant and festival deadlines, new indie film releases, weekly words of industry wisdom, and other notable things you might have missed while you were busy making films.You can see all the links from this show in this week’s podcast post at nofilmschool.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s very hard to make a film about music that’s better than actually just listening to music. That’s the challenge co-directors T.G. Herrington and Danny Clinch took on in A Tuba to Cuba, a documentary the revered New Orleans Jazz band as they travel to post-embargo Cuba. NFS writer Oakley Anderson Moore sat down with Herrington and producer Nicelle Herrington, as well as band leader and doc subject Ben Jaffe at the film's SXSW premiere. They talk The importance of knowing your story, whether or not you know where it will take you, how to capture musicality through visuals and recording sound on a music documentary that contains and live concerts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jon Fusco, Erik Luers and Charles Haine are here this week to help you identify a few dozen film festivals that need to be on your radar, go bananas over just how many billions of dollars Netflix is spending in 2018 and Nicolas Winding Refn's shocking accusation about the film industry. In gear news, we get serious about some security measures you could take to ensure the protection of your projects. This week on Ask No Film School we answer whether you should be using a blue, green, or even a red screen to accomplish digital effects in your film. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Emmy-winning director Madeline Sackler, Cinematographer Wolfgang Held (BRÜNO, PARTICLE FEVER) , and actor/producer Boyd Holbrook (LOGAN, NARCOS) join No Film School’s Liz Nord to share how they pulled off one of the most amazing behind-the-scenes production stories we've ever heard. Their narrative feature O.G. and documentary IT’S A HARD TRUTH AIN’T IT were both shot simultaneously in an active maximum-security prison. The documentary is co-directed by 13 incarcerated men and the feature was cast with more than 90% real inmates as extras and even as one of the leads. This conversation and the huge steps these filmmakers had to take to get their projects made—including spending an hour each way going in and out of prison security with all their gear every single day of production—will be an inspiration to anyone who has lofty goals but big constraints for their independent films. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices