What's Wrong with Hollywood?

Jon Stahl
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In the What's Wrong with Hollywood podcast, a Hollywood Nobody asks professionals from TV, Film and the Creator Economy one single question while we try to repair an ailing industry and build a new kind of entertainment studio. hownot.substack.com

Episodes

  1. 08/19/2025

    What's Wrong with Hollywood Ep. 5: Regina Hoyles

    In the fifth episode of What's Wrong with Hollywood, I speak to actress, writer, director and web series creator Regina Hoyles, who recently launched the YouTube series, Gina Gina, the web series Naps, and the award-winning short film Adullam and was a writer on Disney’s Hey, AJ. As a performer, she has appeared on The Chi, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and 9-1-1: Lonestar. In our full conversation, we cover: 🩹 Comedy as healing and necessity - Regina views comedy as both a callous and balm during difficult times, describing it as "just as necessary as breathing" and her way of being a healer in the world 🗣️ The "talk back culture" advantage - Drawing from Black church tradition, Regina embraces real-time audience feedback on YouTube instead of waiting for traditional ratings, incorporating viewer suggestions directly into her next episodes 💖 Spirit over resume mentality - When choosing collaborators, Regina prioritizes "where's your heart at?" over credentials, saying she'll "prioritize your spirit far more than I ever will your resume" 🎯 Surrender while doing the work - Her best advice combines action with letting go: "plan but surrender" and "don't try to babysit the blessings" because most opportunities came through word-of-mouth, not resumes 🏗️ Mini-studios and niche networks prediction - Regina forecasts the entertainment landscape will fragment into specialized, community-driven networks serving specific audiences, with creators who adapt to change determining their own success Full Transcript Below: Jon Stahl Hi everyone. Thanks for joining another episode of What's Wrong with Hollywood. I'm your host, Jon Stahl, and today I'm joined by Regina Hoyles, an award-winning writer, actor, and filmmaker who embodies exactly what we talk about on this show, taking creative control and making things happen. Regina created the web series Naps and the award-winning short film Adullam. Recently launched the YouTube series, Gina, Gina, and wrote for Disney's Hey, AJ. She successfully navigated both traditional Hollywood and the new creator economy, and I cannot wait to talk to her about the future of independent storytelling. Regina, welcome. Regina Hoyles Hey, thanks so much for having me, Jon. Great to be here. Jon Stahl Yeah, I really excited to jump in. There's a lot of interesting stuff that we're going to cover in this one. And like me, you're in the space of just like going out and making stuff. So let's get started from like the history books. So you started in entertainment at nine years old. Tell us about that experience. What was that like? What's that all about? Regina Hoyles Yes, well, I am one of those people who knew what I wanted to do since I was an embryo. It was very clear to me upfront, like literally if you see all of my Barbie fill in the blank books growing up, I would say like, I'm literally going to do this. Like, don't think it's a pipe dream. Actually, this is what's going to happen. And so this conviction stayed with me long enough for my parents at an early age, thank God to be like, you know what? I think she's really serious about this. So we need to find ways to pour into her. And so I started to take classes out in Chicago and also just contact other people that were doing the thing from our network, the people we did know. Because Chicago has a little bit of a smaller market out here in the film and TV space. And I got an agent after some one of those big like conventions that a bunch of kids who say they want to do the thing go to, and I have had representation like since I was nine, I've really never been without representation my whole life. And so it started out with me doing a lot of the commercial gigs out here in Chicago. There's a huge commercial market in Illinois. And then also booking my first speaking role in a studio feature film called The Express. That was the film that got me my SAG card at age 12. And so I also spent a summer during pilot season in Los Angeles. And what is so crazy is that same apartment building that I stayed in became the apartment that I first moved into once I graduated from college. And I didn't realize it and put two and two together until I recognized like from photos I'm like. This is the same place. It's just totally renovated. And so it was very like full circle. And so acting is what I've been doing the longest. Professionally though, I have been writing since I, again, was an embryo and making a lot of like comedy sketches and skits was where I first was getting my hand at that, and also making like these little storybooks that I would write and illustrate. I would just see things super clearly and know how I needed them to be executed. So whether that was me making a sketch and writing it and filming it, and then editing on Windows movie maker. Hey, throwback. And then putting that together, like that was always a part of my story, but I've always been creating in some capacity. And it's one of those things that feels like breathing to me. I feel like if you've seen Pixar's Soul when they're in the zone, like that's me. Like when they're floating. And so yeah, it's something that brings me great joy and others joy I find. So it's something that's always been a part of who I am. Jon Stahl Yeah. Can I ask you what drew you to comedy? Regina Hoyles I listen, I'm a funny girl and I love making people laugh. I think it just brings such a level of fulfillment for me to know that I can make people feel relief, to feel ease in their spirit. I know for myself, I know I'm a healer and I know that that is one of the main ways that I do that. And growing up it was just something that came so easily for me and I was always finding ways to make my friends laugh. My mom will, she will tell you, she's always been like, Regina, why you got to be the entertainment? Why you always got to be entertaining somebody. She said it just like that. And I would just be like, girl, this is who I am. But it was something that came supernaturally. It was instinctive and just even the craft of comedy. I just started watching the history of the sitcom recently it's a docuseries and I was having a spiritual experience watching this. Just seeing the ways comedy has evolved throughout the years and how much it's served as such a callous and also a balm, like during crazy times. Hello, good morning. And it's just like this is one of those things that will forever be needed. People will always need to laugh. Like it's a very serious time in a serious world and Apocalypse Now, all of that. Yes. And, but like, it's necessary, just as necessary as breathing. To me, just feeling that in your soul is something that I will always connect with. But comedy, yeah, it's it. That's it for me, for sure. Probably got a little too deep, but Jon Stahl Yeah, no, I feel the same way. I mean, like, this is something that I've talked about before and I feel it's a super important genre to like, help people get through their day and Regina Hoyles Yeah. Yes. Literally. Jon Stahl Yeah, exactly. And so at what point did you decide that you wanted to make your own content rather than solely focusing on traditional film and TV? Tell your own stories. Regina Hoyles Also since I was an embryo, made that decision. I knew that for me, whenever I have, I always say like, the fact that you were given a vision for is more than enough reason for it to exist. And so for me it's always been about simply finding a way to do the thing. Like just do the thing and anything that feels like it's gatekeeping or acting as an obstacle or trying to imply that you need permission, you know, I itch with that. It makes me itchy. I think not because I have, since I've had this drive to create from such an early age, for me, it feels so real. So why not go ahead and make it real? And I think that has stayed with me from every phase of my life. Whether again, I was creating, when I was really young or going to college and graduating a semester early and allowing what would've been my last semester to be an opportunity for me to create an entire web series where I'm writing and also like acting in it, and also looking around at my community like, you're really good at this. Let me bring you in here to this. You're great at that. And just finding ways to get people activated because I do feel like I have a gift of being able to discern like talents and abilities and just being able to see and encourage people in their giftings and like wanting to just get that together. I'm like, we got to do something with this. Like, we're not just supposed to sit here just for ourselves. And so I think that's just something that has always stuck with me. And while I have worked in Hollywood and it's been an incredible experience, especially when I think about the community that I've been able to build within this world, I've still always kind of seen it as a means to an end, which is like creating at the end of the day for a living. And that that is just the most paramount thing to me. That, and serving the audience that's meant to be served with the work that I create. And so it's just been about saying yes to myself repeatedly has been my motto, saying yes to the ideas that I'm given and just going forward with that. Jon Stahl Well, let's dive into one of those projects that you're working on. And dive into Gina. How are you thinking about building an audience on YouTube on this platform? After coming from more mainstream places like TV, Regina Hoyles Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think one thing that I have found is I've been saying, I've been like this data kind of acquisition period where I'm just creating and I'm just for whatever feels right to me and then taking in information, feedback that I'm receiving. But I've found that anytime I lean into where my energy is naturally going. It is often well received, even when I'm not thinking about that as far as like audience. Because yes, at th

    24 min

  2. 07/29/2025

    What's Wrong with Hollywood Ep. 4: Todd A. Jackson

    In the fourth episode of What's Wrong with Hollywood, I speak to multi-hyphenate filmmaker Todd A. Jackson, who co-founded QuickFlick TV and is producing / editing / starring in a new web series Unrequited, which can be found on the Penjot Media Group YouTube page. In our full conversation, we cover: 🎭 Hollywood's creative brain drain - Why the industry is no longer run by creatives but by tech bros and money people, leading to a content wheel that prioritizes speed and generic output over artistic vision 🤖 Fighting AI with authenticity - How creators must lean into their "weirdness" and unique voice because that's the one thing AI can never replicate—your lived experience and personal rhythms 📺 The QuickFlick revolution - Building a streaming platform where audiences decide what gets renewed through a "produce or not produce" button, giving power back to viewers instead of algorithm-driven executives ✂️ Post-production as storytelling superpower - How documentary editing skills create "different beasts" who can splice together cohesive narratives from chaos and rewrite stories three times over 🚀 The Tyler Perry blueprint - Why independent filmmakers need to become their own studios and stop chasing perfection, because audiences want to see the trajectory, mistakes, and growth journey of authentic creators Full Transcript Below: Todd A. Jackson Trying to bridge that gap from taking a show you created and pitching it and getting it picked up, it's not realistic anymore. It's become a content wheel. It's what can we get out as quick as possible, as generic as possible, and just make money, because consistently you have people hating the stuff that's being put out, but showing up to watch it. Hollywood has created perfection. There is no room for mistakes. There is no room for lines being fumbled. Everything is so polished, and that's the thing that I feel like people are going to want to see more of as AI takes over, they want to see the nuances. They want to see the mistakes. They want to see some of the low budget, they want to see oh, hey, they have a budget now. The writing's gotten better. They want to see that trajectory. There is no place for us in this old Hollywood. And I think we can definitely take what's working, combine it with what we're doing, and that's going to be the future of where this industry goes. Jon Stahl Hi everyone. Welcome back to What's Wrong with Hollywood. Today we have joining us on the show, Todd A. Jackson who is a multihyphenate filmmaker who embodies the new generation of independent creators. After graduating from SDSU with a Bachelor's in film and screenwriting, he founded his own video production company and built a YouTube following with Todd Foolery Productions. As co-founder and chief content officer of QuickFlick TV, Todd is working to democratize film distribution. His latest project, Unrequited showcases his range as a writer, director, producer, and star with expertise spanning post-production, podcasting, and music. I would call Todd the perfect embodiment of the Greenlight Yourself movement. Thank you so much for joining us today, Todd, it's a real pleasure to have you here. Todd A. Jackson Thanks Jon. This is great. This is awesome. Jon Stahl Yeah. So I mean, I'll often start the episode with just a general question, like, what's wrong with Hollywood? But I would add to that, like what's, where are we now in Hollywood's trajectory and where do you see things going and how can it be improved? Todd A. Jackson Yeah. The one thing I keep coming back down to with what's wrong with Hollywood right now is that it's not run by the people that keep it running. Hollywood used to be run by the creatives. It used to be run by the people who wanted to produce art. I just feel like over the last 20 years, it was during the tech boom, I feel like people realized you could patent it, you could package it, and you could push out content, and I think that's what's happened with Hollywood right now is it's become a content wheel. It's what can we get out as quick as possible, as generic as possible, and just make money, because consistently you have people hating the stuff that's being put out, but showing up to watch it. So Hollywood has no reason to stop because we continue to perpetuate the cycle. And honestly, what I really do feel like where the industry is going, and I truly do believe this, I believe Hollywood is going to separate into two different versions. You have the content, which is very similar to social media right now. You have content and you have art. And I really feel like eventually what's going to happen with Hollywood, they're going to get rid of all of the creatives. They're going to go to AI and they're just going to produce content, just mass produce content. And not to say there's not going to be people who aren't AI working in that cycle. You're going to have people who are going to be working in that cycle, but you're also going to have a new Hollywood that's going to be born from the creatives who take it back from this industry, who build a new version, and that's where we're at right now. We're in this gray area where nobody knows what's going to happen. Everyone's throwing things at the wall trying to make it stick. But the one thing that I think unifies us is we all, all the creatives, especially the artists, hate what's happening right now. There's not a single person I've met that is an artist and a creative that says Hollywood is great. It's the best it's ever been. The only people I know that are saying that are the studio heads, the execs, and the people behind the streaming money. Like that's the only thing. And so I really do feel like we are now creatives are now seeing how much power we have. And we're going to start just creating our own Hollywood. And I think that's what we got to start doing right now, is creating this community within ourselves, stop competing with each other and team up and take down the real problem, which is the studios at the moment. And I really feel like that's the route we're going. And maybe I'm optimistic, but that's where I feel like we're going. Jon Stahl In a world where like AI is so prevalent. I guess this the near future that we're describing, which some would describe as dystopian, how do you stand out as a human being? Like what do you do to set yourself apart? Todd A. Jackson Yeah. I think, and this is what I feel like we all have as creatives. All the best creatives, the people that rise to the top the fastest do. And I think what AI is forcing most of us to do, at least for me, is I have to figure out who I am, like hardcore because that's the one thing that AI cannot replicate. It cannot replicate my lived experience. It cannot replicate the rhythms in my voice the way that I speak. And what that's really forcing me to do is just be as weird, as unique, and as Todd as I can. Because that's really what's going to set me apart, because I've written a lot of things and I've gone back and written some of my work, and it's just like, where's the voice? Where is the Toddness of this? Where is the weirdness, the uniqueness of how I speak, the way that I see the world, and I think I'm using this moment right now with AI to really figure out who I am as an artist and create work that truly represents who I am. And I think that's what we have to do in this landscape right now because it's getting scary. Like I've been trying to stay in AI so I know how to read through it and spot it, but it's getting harder and harder and it's only been six months. It's very wild to see how quickly it's just evolving. Jon Stahl Yeah, so speaking of the Toddness of it all. I'm jumping around a little bit in our question list, but like, tell me a little bit about Unrequited. Tell me about what you love about it. Tell me about the experience. Tell me about what's hard about it. Anything that you want to share. This is like a therapy session. Todd A. Jackson Yeah, well, so Unrequited is the new show that I just released on YouTube. I've been trying to work in the studio system for nearly a decade now. And not to say I haven't been successful, made great connections and worked with some amazing people, but trying to bridge that gap from taking a show you created and pitching it and getting it picked up, it's not realistic anymore. And so when I got cast on this project, I actually was brought on as an actor initially. Which is odd because it was a non-paid role at the time. I refused to do any more non-paid roles, but apparently I submitted somehow and so I got latched onto it, and from the moment I met the director, I knew that this was a project I wanted to be a part of. Because when you meet people and you talk about projects, a lot of people don't have, they don't see the bigger picture. They see just the pilot and then that's it. They don't know where they're going from there. This director, the creator, he had a full on business plan for a year, and I was like, what? And so immediately after that meeting was over, I asked, hey, how would you feel if I was attached as a producer before we even filmed anything? Like I believed in it that much. As I started working with it a little bit more, it is a black queer dramedy and so it was something I've never seen before and when I was cast into the role, he really gave me a lot of creative freedom with the character. And I was able to make it my own. I was able to make it not a stereotype. I was able to make it me, I was able to just show up and be me, and he really embraced that. And so after that I really fell in love with it. And when we got the rough cut of the first episode, I realized that I was going to need to step in and take a shot at it. So I pitched that I would come on as a video editor because I do have that experience. I cut it together in about a week and we sat back and watched it and realized it was bigger than anything else. And so we

    36 min

  3. 07/15/2025

    What's Wrong with Hollywood Ep. 3: Ellis J. Sutton

    In Episode 3 of What's Wrong with Hollywood, I sit down with filmmaker and creative development professional Ellis Jamal Sutton, who also writes the Substack newsletter Notes from the Studio. In our full conversation, we cover: 🎬 The Hollywood innovation crisis - Why the current system isn't built to foster creativity and new voices, keeping the same writers, directors, and IP projects on repeat 📝 The secret script standards - Why your entry-level writing needs to be way better than what you see on screen, and how to write "calling card" scripts that get passed around the industry 🎯 Building audiences before festivals - How Ellis learned that putting your film's fate in programmers' hands is a mistake, and why creators need to build direct audience relationships from day one 🏷️ The film label experiment - Ellis and Taylor Lewis's innovative approach to creating collective branding and marketing for movies that don't exist yet, targeting the Letterboxd/A24 crowd ⚖️ Writing for yourself vs. the market - The delicate balance between unfiltered creativity and understanding your audience, plus why filmmakers now need to think like distribution and marketing executives Full Transcript Below: Jon Stahl Hi everyone. Welcome back to the What's Wrong with Hollywood Podcast. I'm here with Ellis Jamal Sutton, who is a filmmaker and creative professional. He's worked in feature development at Warner Brothers, Netflix, and now works at Heartbeat, which is Kevin Hart's production shingle. Ellis is also the founder of All of a Sutton Productions, where he has produced and directed a number of short films and music videos. He recently wrote and directed a short relationship drama called Game Night about a budding young couple whose relationship gets put to the test during a game night with close friends. It is out now. On top of all that, Ellis writes the popular Substack Notes from the Studio, which I am really enjoying. Ellis, welcome to the show. Ellis Jamal Sutton Thank you for having me, Jon. It's a pleasure to be here. Jon Stahl Yeah. So we were just chatting a second ago about Substack and about the stuff that you're working on. But right from the top, I want to get into the big question, which is the name of the podcast. What's wrong with Hollywood? I know we talked about this. So what is wrong with Hollywood? What can you fill us in on there? Ellis Jamal Sutton What am I allowed to talk about? And then also, where do I begin? Jon Stahl Anything you want, you could start wherever you want. I mean, this is like an airing, you could use this as an airing of grievances, if that's what you want it to be. Ellis Jamal Sutton Well there's a lot of problems. But I think the biggest problem overall is that the system is not currently built to foster innovation and creativity. So we don't have people in positions of power who feel like they have the ability or strong incentive structure to champion new talent, new voices. And ultimately when you foster new talent, new voices, you lead to more creative things. And when you're not incentivized to do that, whether you're working with the same writers over and over, or going back to the same directors or greenlighting the same types of IP projects, you're going to ultimately lead yourself down a path that is going to be creatively bankrupt. And it's no surprise that when people watch overall Hollywood movies, they feel like it's the same stuff. So I think that's the biggest problem is that we haven't figured out how can we make a way to champion creative voices without people feeling like their jobs are on the line. Or feeling like there's not a great path forward to get something innovative seen in front of a wide group of people. Jon Stahl Yeah. Well, I mean, you've been on both sides of that equation, right? You've been in the development role and you've been in the writer director role. From the development role, what are some ways to incentivize people, new voices to be brought into this ecosystem? Ellis Jamal Sutton Yeah, man. I mean, everything I'm about to say is going to be easier said than done. Right. You're dealing with big institutions at the forefront. But I will say that if you are a budding writer and maybe you have any aspirations to work in the Hollywood system, I think similar to trying to come up in social media or YouTube, you have to first show that you can sort of assimilate before you're allowed to innovate. So your scripts have to feel like they're Hollywood writer scripts. That's the first bare entry. And you have to have a few of them, right? My old boss used to always say, my old boss used to be an agent, and he didn't just go after a writer who just wrote one great script. You usually had to have two or three really great ones. And usually you're probably not going to sell any of those, but those are your scripts that are your calling cards. So I'd say the very first step is trying to get your things to be similar to the things that are already accepted. And honestly, if you're watching movies or TV shows and you're saying, oh, that's crap, I can write something similar. I'm going to tell you this right now. The scripts that end up getting writers' careers are way, way better than anything you'll see on television or on a feature screen. So just know that your entry point is not the television or what you see in the movies. It is the scripts that are getting passed around the industry that people are like, wow, that was super incredible. You got to read this. That's what I would say on the development side. Jon Stahl That's some great insight. You are also a creative and you literally just this morning, I know this is going to air a little bit later than today, but this morning I saw that you posted on Substack about the most recent short that you wrote and directed. Tell everyone about that. Where did it come from? What excited you about the concept and how did you get it made? Ellis Jamal Sutton Yeah, man. So Game Night is a short that I finished last year, and I was starting to write it almost three years ago now with my old roommate, one of my good friends from college. We had just worked on a movie together. And I said, yo, let's step it up. Let's get you a bigger role in the movie. And so because we're roommates, we were just sort of spitballing at night trying to crack the script. And so we had come upon this idea of like, hey, what's a scenario where we can talk about this issue? I don't want to spoil the movie, but how can we talk about what it is a modern couple sort of goes through and what is a modern friend group look like. And the movie is basically about this couple who's having a little bit of a critical point in their relationship. And when a girl is invited to a game night amongst this guy and his close friends, she realizes that their relationship is taking a turn that she didn't quite anticipate and now she has a new layer of something that she's going to have to deal with. We were just sort of spitballing of like, what is the way we want to talk about these things? What's a setting that's fun? And we always talked about game night as being a cool, fun way to do some really fun things. And so it took a while to write it. We worked really hard to write the draft and then because when we initially started writing the draft, I had just got my new job in career development at Warner Bros. And so we had to put it on pause, but then I was like, so I had to learn how to do my job and then once we started ramping up again, I was like, I think I got to handle this. Let's start writing again. I end up leaving my job at Warner Bros to my job at Netflix. And I had about a month's period of time in between Warner's to Netflix and I told my producers, I said, look, if we're going to shoot the movie, we have to shoot it within this window because I'm not going to be able to shoot it after that window. And so we shot it right between my time, and then I just spent a bunch of time in my first year at Netflix editing the movie and then ultimately screening it there about a year later after shooting. Jon Stahl Yeah, that's really cool. Feel free to just say no or nothing, but was there anything that you learned from working in creative development at Warner Brothers and at Netflix that you brought to the either production or post-production of this short? Ellis Jamal Sutton I would say yes, I think the main thing was the professionalism. Which I wanted to carry into the production, so in my meetings and how I was dealing with cast and crew. I'm witnessing meetings a lot amongst executives and we're doing a lot of lingo and so I just sort of get wired a certain way about how you should be going about the process. And I just tried to bring that to the process. Every single time we had every meeting, every approach that I had into the movie. The other thing too is the creative development job, especially if you work at a studio, is a lot of times the executives are supposed to be representing the audience. Whenever they're giving creative notes and creative discussions, they're representing who, what is the viewer actually going to be seeing? So if an executive is confused, right, that in a way that's sort of saying an audience member might be confused at certain points. And so I think learning, being in creative development really has started to wire my brain into thinking more like an audience member. So when we were cutting the movie together, I think I had a better ability than others to be able to take a step back and be like, oh, this is what the viewer would be seeing. Now again, even if you do it enough times, you sort of get lost in the shuffle anyway. But I think on top of that, it also allowed me to realize how important feedback was. How critical it is. And so I took feedback very seriously during that process and I had to learn how to interpret notes in ways that like, hey, someone may have given me a note that I

    27 min

  4. 07/01/2025

    What's Wrong with Hollywood Ep. 2: Sam Widdoes

    In Episode 2 of What's Wrong with Hollywood, I sit down with Entertainment Attorney and Emmy Award-winning Producer Sam Widdoes, who also writes the Substack newsletter Widdoespeak. In our full conversation, we cover: ⚖️ The rap lyrics as evidence crisis - How prosecutors use artists' creative work against them in criminal trials, and why this represents a massive intersection of art, law, and racial bias 🎬 From 8-year development hell to Emmy nomination - The incredible journey of getting "As We Speak" made, including false starts, patient IP owners, and a brutal 8-month production timeline 💰 The doom and gloom vs. booming business paradox - Why Sundance film panels were all about industry collapse while creator/brand panels celebrated explosive growth 🎯 Building audience before you build the film - Why starting a TikTok for your character or creating a podcast around your story can be more valuable than a perfect script 📺 The direct-to-audience revelation - How filmmakers are discovering that self-distribution provides not just money, but invaluable audience relationships and creative satisfaction 🤝 The creator-filmmaker bridge - Exploring how traditional filmmakers can learn from creators' audience-building expertise without abandoning their storytelling craft Full Transcript Below: Sam Widdoes The panels that were film and financing and distribution related, were almost all doom and gloom. The industry is in the dumps. We're not getting any money, we're not getting any distribution. I went to a couple creator and brand panels and they're like, business is booming. I know these guys will not want to associate themselves with creators with the word content, and the creators, they really don't know how to make films, nor do many of them want to. Jon Stahl Hi everyone. Welcome back today. I'm joined by Sam Widdoes, an entertainment attorney and producer who specializes in helping creators navigate the intersection of creative strategy, financing and distribution. Sam writes the Substack Widdoes Peak, and was producer on the Emmy nominated documentary series As We Speak. He's here to discuss how the legal and business frameworks are evolving as creators increasingly bypass traditional Hollywood gatekeepers and tell us a little bit about his own creative journey on the stuff that he's working on. Sam, welcome. Thank you so much for joining. I really appreciate you taking the time. Sam Widdoes Thanks, Jon. It's awesome to be with you. I know we're fairly newcomers to the Substack universe, but have been enjoying just connecting with all the folks, especially who are coming from more of a traditional entertainment world and trying to really explore and understand where the creator world can help grow what we're making. Jon Stahl Yeah, I'm really excited to talk to you because you have a unique perspective on this space and how it's growing and evolving, coming from the legal representation side of things, but you're at a really interesting intersection of legal and creative. I think that very often, people who come from that legal background are really good storytellers just because that's how you have to think. Can you talk a little bit about what that intersection looks like for you and your career? Sam Widdoes Yeah, so right now the majority of my time is spent with my legal clients. I work with mostly independent filmmakers. A lot of, probably more documentary than narrative, but altogether it's filmmakers, production companies who are raising money and then getting into production and then finding distribution, going to film festivals. So I get to work with filmmakers along that whole journey and look at how they want to build, not just the story they're telling, but how does that fit into a larger strategy. I think as we've seen over the last several years, the mindset of, I'm going to make a great film, get it into a top tier film festival and get a global rights deal. That may have been a more feasible path five years ago, but it's really not these days. It's fun to be able to advise clients as early as possible and to work with them as more of a strategic partner, and creative partner and legal partner, along that journey so that they can start thinking and encouraging them to start thinking about the different opportunities they might have along with a streaming deal. But then also the different opportunities that are starting to arise in terms of different ways to exploit their story even before it becomes a feature, and understanding what other elements might attract audiences and maybe even ways to release bits and pieces of it before and start trying to build and find that audience on different platforms. I sort of encourage my clients to do that. But at the same time, communities like the one on Substack and then also just the different events and different film festivals, really trying to understand what are the use cases, what are the success cases of other films that have been able to go direct to audience, build relationships with brand partners, independent distributors, just all the various ways that more entrepreneurial producers and filmmakers are starting to think about the way that they tell stories. Jon Stahl That's great. Can you, I have a friend who I spoke with yesterday who's producing, self financing and producing a horror feature film. And I have been thinking a lot since talking with this person about the kind of distribution pipeline and having a market in mind and an audience in mind. Can you give some advice to someone who's never really gone through that process of distribution for a feature before and strategies to implement as soon as possible. Sam Widdoes Yeah, so I'll say at the top, I've never worked in horror. The genre space as they say, but I kind of wish I had, because it seems to be the one space that always has an audience. You can make the film, it's the Blumhouse model, right? He was making films for nothing and they were getting enormous returns because people love that genre. So that specific audience, I'm not familiar with it, but I know it exists and so I would just encourage him first to say get to know what that audience looks like, understand how the most successful horror films have performed, where they performed. And some of the, let's just look at the marketing and distribution tactics that those films have used. The other things have been little tidbits I've picked up from different conversations, whether it's Evan Shapiro, a couple filmmakers who independently worked with the Fian group to independently distribute their narrative film theatrically and the way that they just cold called a bunch of brands and said, hey, we have this movie about, it's a romantic comedy, but it takes place in Mexico. Whether it was sex forward brands or hotels, funny companies that wanted to partner and when it came time for distribution, they were giving, they were partnering for free giveaways to get audiences in seats. Anyway, that's one funny example. But the one other example I would say about understanding your story and maybe getting it out early was the notion of creating an online presence for your character or for your story before it exists in feature length form, right? If you have a film about a character, start a TikTok for that character. And have, if you have an actor, if you're the writer, whatever, just like start putting that story out there and seeing how audiences respond. Build on that and see if you can generate enough interest and say, you like this character, I've got a screenplay. Eventually say I've got a screenplay ready to go and start crowdfunding and start understanding if it's about an issue or it's about a particular genre. Maybe there again, are brands or production companies that specialize, or studios that specialize in that sort of sector. But I think the notion of getting your story out there, even in little bits, it doesn't give away the whole film. It just starts giving a taste to the world of what storytelling might be to come. Jon Stahl Awesome. I think that's very valuable, even if you don't have that experience in the horror world. I think it's universal and applicable across genres. So you were a producer on As We Speak, an Emmy nominated feature film. This is relatively recent development. This Emmy nomination happened mere weeks ago. Can you talk about your role in the feature and what that experience was like? Both producing it and receiving the Emmy nomination? Sam Widdoes Yeah. It's been, I mean, it's a process that started eight years ago now in 2016 was when I first read about the issue that became the book that became the documentary. And the documentary concerns the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials. Which on its face is sort of a, and specifically how it's used is someone's on trial for a crime, the course of their investigation finds that that person put out a song on YouTube or Instagram or had some rhymes written in a notebook that may or may not have anything to do with the crime in question. But is still entered into evidence, either as a confession. See, this guy rapped about selling drugs and he's on trial for selling drugs. Therefore, he must have sold drugs, or as character evidence, right? To establish motive or intent. This person raps about selling drugs, therefore, and he's on trial for selling drugs, therefore he had the motive to sell the drugs. In either instance, it's not just absurd that art is used as evidence, but it also is wrapped up in just flagrant racism, stereotypes, underlying implicit biases. And prosecutors know this, and they've used it in hundreds of cases over the years. And so when I first read about the issue, I realized there is a theatrical element and it's the reason why legal dramas do so well over and over and over again because there's just inherent drama when someone is on trial for their life. And 12 strangers are just hearing a s

    31 min

  5. 06/17/2025

    What's Wrong with Hollywood Ep. 1

    In this inaugural episode of What's Wrong with Hollywood, I sit down with filmmaker Alex Rollins Berg, an award-winning writer-director, NYU Tisch professor, and writer of the Substack newsletter Underexposed. In our full conversation, we cover: 🎭 Why "humanize don't moralize" - How being preachy and didactic in storytelling alienates audiences who are already allergic to message-driven content 🌱 The biodiversity crisis in Hollywood - Why bringing back small and mid-tier budget movies is essential for a healthy entertainment ecosystem instead of the current monocrop model 💌 The art of indie outreach - Specific tactics for reaching talent and financiers, from providing comps and case studies to writing heartfelt letters that explain the "why" behind your project 🚢 Why traditional Hollywood feels like boarding a sinking ship - How the wrong people now control studios, running them like tech companies while shutting out original voices who aren't nepo-babies 📱 The Luke Barnett breakthrough model - How a filmmaker got rejected from every major festival, released his short online, gained millions of views, and now gets to make his movie 🎬 Building your own studio from scratch - Establishing a strong house style and brand identity, exploring hybrid crowdfunding models like Eli Roth's approach, and ditching antiquated marketing techniques Full Transcript Below: Jon Stahl: Hi everyone. Welcome to the inaugural episode of What's Wrong with Hollywood, where I talk to professionals from Hollywood and the Creator economy on how to improve the entertainment industry and seek their guidance on building a new type of entertainment studio. That's a mouthful. I'll work on that. The very first guest on our show is filmmaker Alex Rollins Berg. Alex is an award-winning writer and director based in New York City. He's the winner of the Blacklist and Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Fellowship for his writing. He has written, directed, and produced for brands like Vanity Fair, BBC America, and Proctor and Gamble, and teaches at NYU Tisch, focusing on screen acting, development, and production. He also publishes the popular Substack newsletter Underexposed where he dissects cinema culture, which I highly recommend to all four of my listeners. Alex, welcome. Alex Rollins Berg: Thank you, Jonathan. It's a pleasure to be here on this maiden voyage. Thank you for having me. Jon Stahl: We're gonna be learning in real time. It's all happening now, and we'll figure it out. Thank you again so much for joining. First things first, gotta start with the question at the top. What is wrong with Hollywood? Alex Rollins Berg: Well, that's a rich vein to tap into. I always reach for analogies and I think Hollywood used to be like a vineyard, where the focus was on cultivating quality over time. And I think what's happened in recent decades is that it's become more like an industrial monocrop farming situation where we're optimizing for yield but not necessarily taste. And how that came to be, I think in my estimation is that over time due to various factors such as deregulation and corporate consolidation, these larger conglomerates have come to take ownership over studios. And with that, I think the guiding principles of Hollywood have shifted away from quality storytelling and toward more quarter by quarter profit. I'm not the first to observe that, but I think that's at the heart of the issue. I think that coupled with the phenomenon of the blockbuster has been both great and terrible for Hollywood. Starting in about the mid seventies and extending into our current era, blockbusters have expanded the scope of what people think is possible in terms of profitability. And that's been true. That coupled with the emergence of new film going markets like China, it's amazing to consider that China in particular, back in 2005, their market was the size of Switzerland and now they're the largest movie going market in the world. That's an incredible growth. And I think that has affected the types of films that Hollywood wants to make and their incentives for making them. And now of course, that's in flux with the current trade war situation. So these kinds of influences for both good and bad ways have changed the nature of Hollywood over time. Another thing that's happened is that the people that run the studios have changed over from people that appreciate the art of making films along with the art of commerce, which are both legitimate. It is a business, it is show business, and they've gone over into strictly people that think in terms of business and people that want to protect their jobs in the short term and make money in the short term. So to reach back into an agricultural analogy, I would say it's a little bit like slash and burn agriculture where you're just making as much money quarter by quarter that you can perhaps at the expense of the long-term health of the industry and the field. So that's a long way of saying that's my personal armchair analysis of what's wrong with Hollywood at the moment. Jon Stahl: I love the farming analogy. Have you thought about ways to return to that more organic model, so to speak, or cultivate a new way of doing things? Alex Rollins Berg: Yeah, let me see if I can extend the analogy to the idea of biodiversity. You've got a situation where you have an ecosystem of movie makers, large and small, kind of like any kind of ecosystem. And what has happened is it's just become dominated by one large species. And the ecosystem then just ultimately inevitably suffers, dwindles and dies. When there's no smaller fish to eat, there's no medium fish to eat. All of these medium sized players that we might have grown up loving the movies that they made in the mid-market, mid-tier range have all been absorbed or collapsed in the face of these larger beings. And I think what needs to happen is the same thing that needs to happen in the case of those situations is that we need to encourage more biodiversity to come back and make the place more vibrant and diverse in terms of smaller budget movies and mid-tier movies. I mean, I think that's what's gonna resuscitate and revive the industry. How that happens is anyone's guess, but it's just untenable the way that we've been going. I think everybody is slowly starting to realize that and so it's pretty inevitable that something's gonna happen. We just don't know quite what. Jon Stahl: Yeah. That leads to the next question. You teach at NYU Tisch and you have students who have not yet been exposed to the industry. What about the experience of teaching these students has made you hopeful about the future of filmmaking? Alex Rollins Berg: Oh, it's made me hopeful about so many things. I have to tell you that one of the weirdest, strangest surprises of my life is how fulfilling and mutually beneficial teaching has been. I think everybody should know that, especially people in the creative industries. It's just amazing the kind of things you can learn from younger generations and the enthusiasm and energy, the creative energy you can absorb from them is amazing. I started teaching there in earnest around fall of 2021, and I came into the situation with all of the negative, cynical prejudices that you would expect of an elder millennial stepping into a nest of Zoomers. Like this is a bunch of iPad babies or whatever. And I couldn't be more wrong. We walk around with these glowing ideas of the greatest generation, right? And the reason why we think of the Greatest Generation as great is because they survived all this adversity. They survived the war. They started victory gardens. They made sacrifices, and through that they became stronger people. And we admire them. Well, who is surviving more adversity than the current generation of Zoomers? I mean, look at what they're up against. It's incredible. It's unprecedented. And I think we need to acknowledge, and I had to personally acknowledge seeing it firsthand. There were times when I was trying to make movies with these guys at the height of the pandemic, and we weren't even allowed to roll camera without masks on, without us leaving the room. I would have to roll the camera, leave the room, shoot one side of a scene with one actor, unmasked, come back in, shoot the reverse, all sorts of crazy shit like that was going on. And yet these students, not once did they really complain, they all just rolled with it. And so I think the thing that we're not really thinking about with them is how adaptable they really are. And how strong they must be becoming in the face of all this adversity. And we've gotta give them props for that and find ways to do what we can to give them the benefit of the privileges of how we were raised, both by exposing them to great movies and TV, showing them that there's a world outside of all the stuff that they've been fed through algorithms, because they're certainly capable of appreciating it, and they're certainly capable of generating really fresh and amazing creative work. Jon Stahl: So you mentioned the idea of algorithms feeding content to this generation. How would you say Gen Z Zoomers are leveraging the technology they have at their disposal to tell the kinds of stories that you'd like to see come back? Alex Rollins Berg: I wish I felt they were. I think that they have the capability of it. They might be doing it, and I'm just unaware, but I just think that there's this thing of a lot of bad incentives have been created through the nature of these new platforms. I think we're all dimly aware of it at the very least, and we're becoming more and more acutely aware of it day by day almost. To a point that I think we're reaching a breaking point, where people are tired of it and people are, especially of that generation who have been raised with it, are becoming kind of disillusioned with it. And they could speak to this obviously more accurately than I could, but I think they

    29 min
  • 5 Episodes

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In the What's Wrong with Hollywood podcast, a Hollywood Nobody asks professionals from TV, Film and the Creator Economy one single question while we try to repair an ailing industry and build a new kind of entertainment studio. hownot.substack.com

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