TheProcess.Ink

Tom Benedek talks the creative process with writers, showrunners, directors, producers, actors, executives, agents, managers and other cultivators of truth and beauty.

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#4 – David Kanter (film producer & manager) at Paramount Studios

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David Kanter (producer: The End of the Tour, The Revenant & manager: Anonymous Content) talks developing scripts and producing films while separately managing writers and filmmakers.

We talk about:

  • Working at Anonymous Content
  • Growing up in Michigan
  • Making of ‘The End of the Tour’
  • Getting ‘The Revenant’ produced
  • A pilot, ten years in the making
  • The current state of the film and television industries
  • A kind of work ethic the yields success
  • Balancing life as a manager and a producer

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Quotes from the show:

“The movie happened because it reflected for everyone who made it something that was essential to each of us.”

“All the things I aspired to do growing up with movies, I kind of transferred it over now to the world of television that I watch.”

“One of the nice things about being a manager as opposed to being an agent, it’s an unspoken but very powerfully interpreted rule that you don’t go and steal other people’s business. You just don’t do it.”

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#6 – Rick Rosenthal (film director & TV producer) at White Water Films

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Rick Rosenthal (Transparent, Bad Boys, Halloween II) discusses wearing multiple hats in both film and television, and the efforts of his production company, White Water Films.

We talk about:

  • Selling vs. Not Selling Scripts
  • Bonding in Television vs. Film
  • Producing vs. Directing in Television
  • Working on ‘Transparent’
  • Script Notes and Editing for the Long Haul in Television
  • Improvisation and Mapping Out Seasons in Television
  • “Is this Story a Movie or a Series?”
  • Today’s Movies and Budgets
  • Producing vs. Directing in Film
  • Investing in Productions and Setting Expectations
  • Balancing Film and TV Projects
  • Casting Big Names
  • Building and Maintaining Relationships

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Quotes from the show:

“You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make a duck wear a saddle. I thought that sort of summed up Hollywood well for me.”

“Television needs… to sort of look at the way novels are structured and layered, and [how] things are set up and developed over time. Most television hasn’t been like that.”

“Your role as a producer… is to make sure that the ship doesn’t hit the rocks, or at the very least, doesn’t hit the rocks under full steam. Yet, at the same time, you have to give a certain amount of creative freedom to get dangerously close to the rocks.”

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