Novelist
It's interesting to me that the West has been shaped by two works of fiction, The Iliad and The Odyssey and the Gospels, which are prehistoric artistic works. The West has two feet. They're both fictional feet, and after that we started being rational and reasonable.
Actor and Director
If you are thinking about too much, you're probably not doing it right. Some nights you do it and you're just like, that just felt like it was ten minutes long and I just was on cloud nine. What was I doing? A great, great American actor George C. Scott had a great quote once, he said, "Every actor worth their salt has one good show a week and spends those other seven shows wondering what they did that made them so good that night." And nobody knows. If you could figure that out and if you could bottle that then, of course, everybody could do it.
Actor and Director
I've been so fortunate to work with such great actors over the years. Laura Linney, Joe Mantello and the entire company of The Normal Heart, Nathan Lane, who I consider one of my great educators. He was a real mentor to me. He was such a professional and he was so devoted to the character and worked tirelessly to make the character in the show as good as it could possibly be. Nathan never ever did it sitting down. He's always full steam ahead and there was a great lesson in that for me to watch somebody's work ethic. It taught me my work ethic.
Author, Screenwriter and Producer
So the great thing about being a writer is you can take the pain of your life and make something out of it. And you can mix it up with the happier parts and make something even better out of it. I mean, it's kind of all these things end up being gifts when you're older.
Author, Screenwriter and Producer
So the great thing about being a writer is you can take the pain of your life and make something out of it. And you can mix it up with the happier parts and make something even better out of it. I mean, it's kind of all these things end up being gifts when you're older.
Award-winning Xicana Activist, Editor, Poet, Novelist, Artist
Author of My Book of the Dead
One of the things of the things that is dying is our planet. We hear these sirens every single day. We’re being warned daily by experts and concerned people how vast that squandering is going. It’s a case of urgency and it’s astounding and a very sad, a very pathetic comment on modern life that most people are ignoring those signs. As a poet, it seems to me that one of the tasks that the poet takes on, it’s a vocation that’s born with it, it’s this consciousness, this serving as witness.
Writer · Producer · Director
Sex and the City, Modern Family, Everybody Loves Raymond, Otherhood
It was a long journey because I think I've been writing television now twenty-five years. I never really had the directing bug. I always loved writing and I like being behind the scenes and, in television, writers have so much control anyway to rise up the ranks and run the show and hire the directors, so I mostly had just great collaborations with directors.
Howard A. Rodman is a screenwriter, author and educator. His novels include The Great Eastern and Destiny Express. As a screenwriter, Rodman wrote Savage Grace, with Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne, nominated for Best Screenplay at the 2009 Spirit Awards, and AUGUST, starring Josh Hartnett and David Bowie. He also wrote Joe Gould’s Secret, the opening night film of the Sundance Film Festival, based on the memoir by iconic New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell. He is the past president of the Writers Guild of America West; professor of screenwriting at USC's School of Cinematic Arts; a member of the National Film Preservation Board; and an artistic director of the Sundance Screenwriting Labs.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Bret Young. Digital Media Coordinator is Yu Young Lee. “Winter Time” was composed by Nikolas Anadolis and performed by the Athenian Trio.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Howard A. Rodman is a screenwriter, author and educator. His novels include The Great Eastern and Destiny Express. As a screenwriter, Rodman wrote Savage Grace, with Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne, nominated for Best Screenplay at the 2009 Spirit Awards, and AUGUST, starring Josh Hartnett and David Bowie. He also wrote Joe Gould’s Secret, the opening night film of the Sundance Film Festival, based on the memoir by iconic New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell. He is the past president of the Writers Guild of America West; professor of screenwriting at USC's School of Cinematic Arts; a member of the National Film Preservation Board; and an artistic director of the Sundance Screenwriting Labs.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Bret Young. Digital Media Coordinator is Yu Young Lee. “Winter Time” was composed by Nikolas Anadolis and performed by the Athenian Trio.
Cinematographer Jonathan Furmanski’s credits include the film Good Boys. For TV, he’s lensed the cult crime comedy Search Party, Inside Amy Schumer, and The Detour. He’s shot on massive glaciers, active volcanos, and in international combat zones. His documentary feature films include The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers, 30 for 30: Doc & Darryl, Big Men and The Family Business: Trump and Taxes.
JONATHAN FURMANSKI
Directing is its own art form, so I have great respect and appreciation for directing and all the directors that I’ve had an opportunity to work with, but I just know that’s not me. So I’m happy that cinematography found me or I found it. I appreciate what you said about how cinematography, obviously is its own art form and can function as a character in a project and in the audience’s experience of watching that project. I think cinematography can–I don’t want to say make or break a project–because I think ultimately the writing and the performances are the foundation of any good project, but I think that cinematography can either elevate or undermine both the writing or the performances, depending on how it’s treated and how it’s executed. So, to me, it’s a fundamental part of the process.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Leni Sperry-Fromm. Digital Media Coordinator is Yu Young Lee.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process.
Cinematographer Jonathan Furmanski’s credits include the film Good Boys. For TV, he’s lensed the cult crime comedy Search Party, Inside Amy Schumer, and The Detour. He’s shot on massive glaciers, active volcanos, and in international combat zones. His documentary feature films include The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers, 30 for 30: Doc & Darryl, Big Men and The Family Business: Trump and Taxes.
JONATHAN FURMANSKI
Directing is its own art form, so I have great respect and appreciation for directing and all the directors that I’ve had an opportunity to work with, but I just know that’s not me. So I’m happy that cinematography found me or I found it. I appreciate what you said about how cinematography, obviously is its own art form and can function as a character in a project and in the audience’s experience of watching that project. I think cinematography can–I don’t want to say make or break a project–because I think ultimately the writing and the performances are the foundation of any good project, but I think that cinematography can either elevate or undermine both the writing or the performances, depending on how it’s treated and how it’s executed. So, to me, it’s a fundamental part of the process.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Leni Sperry-Fromm. Digital Media Coordinator is Yu Young Lee.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process.
President · Costume Designers Guild
The Mindy Project, Pitch Perfect trilogy, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Veronica Mars
Whether you're telling a story for the people at work or you're telling a story for your character on camera, I think that we tell a story every day by what we wear.
Award-Winning Screenwriter & Novelist
Edward Scissorhands · The Nightmare Before Christmas
Tim Burton had just Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. He was at some point in the making of Beetlejuice. Our agency didn’t know what to do with either of us with our off-kilter sensibility, so they introduced us, and we immediately felt a kinship and became friends. It was pretty clear from pretty early on that we wanted to work together. We threw out ideas. Among the ideas we talked about Tim mentioned to me a drawing he had made in high school of a character who had scissors instead of hands. And I said, ‘Stop right there!; First of all, this may surprise you, it was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard in my life, so I knew it was brilliant. It was so simple and so stupid and such an obvious metaphor, I knew that it had power beyond belief. I said, ‘Stop, I know exactly what to do with that!’
Award-Winning Screenwriter & Novelist
Tim Burton had just Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. He was at some point in the making of Beetlejuice. Our agency didn’t know what to do with either of us with our off-kilter sensibility, so they introduced us, and we immediately felt a kinship and became friends. It was pretty clear from pretty early on that we wanted to work together. We threw out ideas. Among the ideas we talked about Tim mentioned to me a drawing he had made in high school of a character who had scissors instead of hands. And I said, ‘Stop right there!; First of all, this may surprise you, it was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard in my life, so I knew it was brilliant. It was so simple and so stupid and such an obvious metaphor, I knew that it had power beyond belief. I said, ‘Stop, I know exactly what to do with that!’
Jack Thorne is an internationally acclaimed playwright and BAFTA award-winning screenwriter. His adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials is currently airing on HBO and the BBC, and his new series The Eddy was recently released for Netflix. Thorne’s screenwriting career began on the Channel 4 series Shameless and BBC series Skins. Later this year, his feature adaptation of The Secret Garden will be released and feature films Enola Holmes and Swimmers are on the way. Thorne’s films include The Aeronauts, starring Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, Wonder, starring Julia Roberts and A Long Way Down starring Toni Collette. As a playwright, Jack’s credits include the Tony and Olivier award-winning West End and Broadway hit Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Photo by Gage Skidmore
Tony Award-winning Actor and Director
When I read Mamet, to me, it was almost like–Yeah! I get it. This is a language I understand. It felt very comfortable to me. And I know he has told me that he has written characters with my voice in his mind as he wrote them, and so, again how lucky for me that that's the case. I feel very lucky that it's worked out that way that he's the writer that I ended up hooking up with.
Actor and Director
When I read Mamet, to me, it was almost like–Yeah! I get it. This is a language I understand. It felt very comfortable to me. And I know he has told me that he has written characters with my voice in his mind as he wrote them, and so, again how lucky for me that that's the case. I feel very lucky that it's worked out that way that he's the writer that I ended up hooking up with.
Trish Sie is a multi-talented director whose work spans the realms of music videos, commercials, and short and feature films. After spending a decade as a professional dancer, championship ballroom competitor and choreographer, she built a successful and championed career in filmmaking. The first music video that she produced, “Here it Goes Again” for the band OK Go, won her a Grammy award. Her success expands to the world of films, where she has directed the likes of PItch Perfect 3 and Step Up: All In, using her dance and choreography experience to make magic happen on camera. Along with the Grammy, Trish has won a number of awards such as the Youtube award for most creative video, the smithsonian ingenuity award, and multiple accolades for best short film at various film festivals.
Trish Sie is a multi-talented director whose work spans the realms of music videos, commercials, and short and feature films. After spending a decade as a professional dancer, championship ballroom competitor and choreographer, she built a successful and championed career in filmmaking. The first music video that she produced, “Here it Goes Again” for the band OK Go, won her a Grammy award. Her success expands to the world of films, where she has directed the likes of PItch Perfect 3 and Step Up: All In, using her dance and choreography experience to make magic happen on camera. Along with the Grammy, Trish has won a number of awards such as the Youtube award for most creative video, the smithsonian ingenuity award, and multiple accolades for best short film at various film festivals.
Documentary Filmmaker
I think it's interesting because I feel like in scripted films people are trying to infuse a spontaneity and a reality and a being in the moment into something that's very artificial. And I feel a lot of what we do as documentarians is try and impose a structure or a form on something that is utterly real and alive and in the moment and uncategorizable in many ways. So, we're kind of the opposite, coming from opposite ends of the same goal, which is to kind of create something that is or feels authentic to a certain truth, an emotional truth, or a literal truth.
