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INDEPENDENT MEDIA & MARKETING

for filmmakers by filmmakers

INDIE INSIGHTS BLOG

Here is where you'll find our show notes, insights from our friends in film, and a variety of thoughts, ideas, and perspectives we've developed during our time in the film industry.


MAKE IT Podcast, Bonsai Creative, Filmmaking, Film

Chris and Nick talk about slow sales activity at this year's Sundance Film Festival and what might help, Jennifer Lopez's new Rom-Com 'Marry Me' and the potential impact on the genre, and Chris makes an amendment to one of his long-time beliefs.









 

About the MAKE IT Podcast The MAKE IT podcast is a platform for the voice of independent filmmaker. We offer a variety of educational, aspirational, and entertaining content that promotes the success of creatives across the filmmaking community and the film industry. Our Conversations with filmmaking professionals are dedicated to sharing the advice, knowledge, and insights of experienced filmmakers while exploring what it truly means to be an independent creative in the highly competitive world of filmmaking. Each filmmaker conversation is backed by thoughtful research that allows us to uncover the raw, authentic truths behind each filmmaker's journey. Through our Indie Talks, we share our thoughts and perspectives on navigating independent film from the perspective of Advisory and Executive Producers. We discuss topics that are relevant to filmmakers across a wide spectrum of filmmaking perspectives, and we do our best to uncover hidden truths and new developments in the film industry. Our goal is to help filmmakers avoid the pitfalls and obstacles on the business side of film so that their filmmaking creativity can thrive. Our Industry Insights provide bite-sized actionable advice that filmmaking professionals and creatives of all kinds can use to keep their heads up as they continue their filmmaking journeys. With advice sourced from the filmmaking community, we build upon the wisdom of our filmmaking guests to provide our audience with truly aspirational and inspirational content. The Mistakes in the Making series gives our filmmaking friends an opportunity to speak directly to our filmmaking audience to share a specific lesson they've learned through a mistake they've made. We are firm believers that mistakes can be the gateway to success when we open our hearts and minds to learning from them, sharing them, and using them to Be Better.


MAKE IT Podcast, Bonsai Creative, Michelle McGregor, Mistakes in the Making, Filmmaker, Film

Comedian, actor, and writer Michelle McGregor talks about what she learned from the mistakes she made attending a graduate school acting program at Yale.












About Michelle McGregor


Michelle is an LA based actress, comedian, and singer with an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama. She has performed stand-up at The Comedy Store, The New York Comedy Club, The Federal Bar, and clubs nationwide. Michelle fronts several rock bands including the The AC/BG's, OzzyTrain, and Solitary Friends. She is the host and co-created of the music/comedy live show Get Riffed featuring Kevin Nealon, Mary Lynn Rajskub, and Joe DeRosa.


About the David Geffen School of Drama


Yale University founded a Department of Drama in the School of Fine Arts in 1924 through the generosity of Edward S. Harkness, B.A. 1897. In 1925, while the University Theatre was under construction, the first class of students was enrolled. George Pierce Baker, the foremost teacher of playwriting in America, joined the faculty to serve as the first chair of the department, and the first Master of Fine Arts in Drama was conferred in 1931.


In 1955, by vote of the Yale Corporation, the department was organized as a separate professional school, Yale School of Drama, offering the degrees of Master of Fine Arts, Doctor of Fine Arts, and Certificate in Drama (for those students who complete the three-year program without having the normally prerequisite bachelor’s degree).


The School is now David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University in celebration of a $150 million gift made by the David Geffen Foundation in 2021 to support tuition remission for all degree and certificate students in perpetuity.


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About the MAKE IT Podcast The MAKE IT podcast is a platform for the voice of independent filmmaker. We offer a variety of educational, aspirational, and entertaining content that promotes the success of creatives across the filmmaking community and the film industry. Our Conversations with filmmaking professionals are dedicated to sharing the advice, knowledge, and insights of experienced filmmakers while exploring what it truly means to be an independent creative in the highly competitive world of filmmaking. Each filmmaker conversation is backed by thoughtful research that allows us to uncover the raw, authentic truths behind each filmmaker's journey. Through our Indie Talks, we share our thoughts and perspectives on navigating independent film from the perspective of Advisory and Executive Producers. We discuss topics that are relevant to filmmakers across a wide spectrum of filmmaking perspectives, and we do our best to uncover hidden truths and new developments in the film industry. Our goal is to help filmmakers avoid the pitfalls and obstacles on the business side of film so that their filmmaking creativity can thrive. Our Industry Insights provide bite-sized actionable advice that filmmaking professionals and creatives of all kinds can use to keep their heads up as they continue their filmmaking journeys. With advice sourced from the filmmaking community, we build upon the wisdom of our filmmaking guests to provide our audience with truly aspirational and inspirational content. The Mistakes in the Making series gives our filmmaking friends an opportunity to speak directly to our filmmaking audience to share a specific lesson they've learned through a mistake they've made. We are firm believers that mistakes can be the gateway to success when we open our hearts and minds to learning from them, sharing them, and using them to Be Better.


Nick Frangione, The MAKE IT Podcast, Bonsai Creative, Filmmaker, Film

In this episode, we have a conversation with Director/Writer Nick Frangione. We talk about his fantastic feature 'Buck Run,' his work on a forthcoming musical and why he's making it, how mourning his beloved mother and healing wounds with his father shapes his filmmaking and his top tactics on getting the best performances out of his actors on set.






About Nick Frangione


In 2021, Freestyle Digital Media acquired Nick Frangione's BUCK RUN (James Le Gros, Kevin J. O'Connor, Amy Hargreaves, Alicia Goranson, Jim Parrack, Angus Macfadyen, and starring Nolan Lyons) for release on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube Movies, Cable, and Satellite On Demand. The atmospheric and delicate drama premiered Opening Weekend at Palm Springs International Film Festival alongside films such as A STAR IS BORN and IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK and toured the festival circuit. BUCK RUN won Best Feature at Flickers Rhode Island International and Fayetteville Film Festival; Best International Feature at Nordic International Film Festival and Santorini Film Festival; Best Actor for lead Nolan Lyons at Breckenridge Film Festival; and the Orson Welles Award for Achievement in Directing at Tiburon International Film Festival.


Critics have called the film "Evocative," "Timelessly Melancholy" (Dennis Harvey, Variety). "Beautifully acted. Very well shot." (Ray Greene, LA Critics Association). "A masterly done meditation on America's working-class dilemma, broken fatherhood, abandonment, and acceptance" (Brazilian Press).


Before BUCK RUN, Frangione directed ROXIE. Tommy Cook of Collider.com said of the film, "Roxie, at its heart, is a tragedy about lives spent reliving the past, an unmasking of the harsh realities of time and aging, on the need for a real connection and how any false one inherently corrupts and leaves you bare. It's a testament to zero-budget filmmaking and how even the smallest of films can possess the greatest of ambitions. It was, by far, the best film I saw during my stay at Sonoma (International Film Festival)".


 

About the MAKE IT Podcast The MAKE IT podcast is a platform for the voice of independent filmmaker. We offer a variety of educational, aspirational, and entertaining content that promotes the success of creatives across the filmmaking community and the film industry. Our Conversations with filmmaking professionals are dedicated to sharing the advice, knowledge, and insights of experienced filmmakers while exploring what it truly means to be an independent creative in the highly competitive world of filmmaking. Each filmmaker conversation is backed by thoughtful research that allows us to uncover the raw, authentic truths behind each filmmaker's journey. Through our Indie Talks, we share our thoughts and perspectives on navigating independent film from the perspective of Advisory and Executive Producers. We discuss topics that are relevant to filmmakers across a wide spectrum of filmmaking perspectives, and we do our best to uncover hidden truths and new developments in the film industry. Our goal is to help filmmakers avoid the pitfalls and obstacles on the business side of film so that their filmmaking creativity can thrive. Our Industry Insights provide bite-sized actionable advice that filmmaking professionals and creatives of all kinds can use to keep their heads up as they continue their filmmaking journeys. With advice sourced from the filmmaking community, we build upon the wisdom of our filmmaking guests to provide our audience with truly aspirational and inspirational content. The Mistakes in the Making series gives our filmmaking friends an opportunity to speak directly to our filmmaking audience to share a specific lesson they've learned through a mistake they've made. We are firm believers that mistakes can be the gateway to success when we open our hearts and minds to learning from them, sharing them, and using them to Be Better.

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