IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit

Director Margaret Brown discusses the cinematic and narrative choices that helped shape the story of "Descendant" – from building the sounds of the South to collaborating with the film's subjects to resurfacing the filmmaking of Zora Neale Hurston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charlotte Wells joins the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast to talk about the evolution of her first feature: creating anchor points for memory within the story of the film, the joys of working with DV camcoder footage and the liminal place it sits between objective and subjective points of view, refining perspective and the sense of memory in editing "Aftersun" together, finding immediacy within a specific time period through the look of the film, and even more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Series creator Armando Iannucci discusses the benefits of satire while working in genre, building a future out of our ridiculous present, and how the pandemic influenced the HBO comedy's second season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you were an action fan in the 1970s, ’80s, or ’90s, one of the great pleasures of filmgoing was the experience, every year or two, of a new Walter Hill movie. No one else was really making movies like him, and no one had before; Hill created a body of work that spoke to American culture both past and present where the jokes are funny but the bullets are real. On this episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, Hill speaks about returning to his favorite genre, the Western with his new film "Dead for a Dollar." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Director Nicholas Stoller, of "Neighbors" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" fame, joins Filmmaker Toolkit to discuss his process developed on some of the best comedy films of the last couple decades and how he applied it to his latest film, 'Bros.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Writer-director Andrew Dominik wrote his adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' novel "Blonde" in about four weeks — and then waited 12 years for the opportunity to bring it to the screen. The "Killing Them Softly" director joins Filmmaker Toolkit to talk about his decade-plus-long journey to bring Joyce Carol Oates' fictionalized portrait of Marilyn Monroe to the screen, and the epic study of trauma and Hollywood's exploitation of it that he created. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ti West, director of "X" and "Pearl," stops by Toolkit to discuss how he landed on the golden age of Hollywood aesthetic he captured for his horror prequel, how he achieved the film's singular look, and how he tapped into a more formal style of filmmaking where blocking and framing can tell the entire story of a family and lead us to understand Pearl herself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, creator and star of 'Mo', Mo Amer discusses how he and his team built a series that juggles a tone that can fuse comedy and drama, how they built the show's hip and absurd sense of humor, and how they made filmmaking choices that spotlight the city (Houston) and the culture (the Palestinian diaspora) at the show's heart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Director George Miller shares insights on '3,000 Years of Longing,' describing it as a refreshing shift from 'Mad Max: Fury Road.' He delves into the philosophical themes of desire and love in the film, stemming from a rich novella. Acclaimed actress Tilda Swinton and versatile actor Idris Elba discuss the creative dynamics that arise when filmmakers act and reveal the importance of their collaborative rehearsal process. Together, they explore how these elements create a more authentic cinematic experience.

Executive producer and director Jamie Babbit discusses how the new Amazon Prime Video series "A League of Their Own" uses its camera to turn the show's large cast into a team and breaks down the cinematic language she found to highlight both the joys of playing baseball and of falling in love. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices