Mentors on the Mic: Your guide to pursuing a career in the Entertainment industry

Presenting... Part 2 of my Filmmaker Roundtable at the Hampton International Film Festival.

In this episode, we talk to the filmmaking teams of four short films. We delve into the process of creating their films and their experience at the festival.

Including:

• Director Jack Kendrick and Producer Taylor Ervin for TORNADO: A struggling contractor risks his young sons’ wellbeing to cut a sweet deal.
• Director Geneva Peschka and Cinematographer Safiyah Chiniere for THE SOLACE OF SISTERHOOD: The Caramel Curves are an all-Black female biker crew in New Orleans that defies societal norms by embracing their multifaceted identities.
• Director Jenifer McShane for QUILTERS: The movie follows a men's quilting group inside a maximum security prison as they create personalized quilts for local foster children.
• Director Lily Ahree Siegel for EQUAL PLAY: The movie delves into the lives of disabled youth, uncovering the transformative power that sports can wield.

Tom Nesher - Director & Writer

Born in Los Angeles in 1996, Tom Nesher is a graduate of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School. She directed four award winning shorts, and has created dozens of unique freeform documentary pieces as a journalist at one of Israel’s most prominent networks. Come Closer is Nesher’s debut feature film.

Logline:

When Eden’s beloved brother suddenly dies, she takes desperate measures to fill the void. Once she discovers he had a secret girlfriend, these measures assume a passionate and dangerous twist.

The 2024 Israeli film Come Closer won several awards, including Best Film at the Ophir Awards, and will represent Israel at the 97th Academy Awards.

Come Closer won the Viewpoints Award at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival. It recognizes films that present "bold and exceptional voices" in independent cinema.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Her first feature film ‘Come Closer’ after directing three short films

• The 5 year filmmaking process which included 4 months of rehearsal

• Adapting the film as she processed her grief over the years

• Tom’s experience at Tribeca Film Festival

• Her unique process with her actors: they read it, they improvised the scenes, and then Tom rewrote it

• Her advice for filmmakers is to trust and listen to your crew and your team

Presenting... Part 1 of my Filmmaker Roundtable at the Hampton International Film Festival.

In this episode, we talk to the filmmaking teams of two feature narratives and one documentary. We delve into the process of creating their films and their experience at the festival.

Including:

• Delaney Buffet (Director, Lead Actress, Writer) and Katie Corwin (Lead Actress, Writer) for Adult Best Friends. Nothing holds a mirror up to your life more than the examination of a friend from childhood. While Katie (Katie Corwin) should be celebrating her engagement to John (Mason Gooding), she can't help but fret over what her best friend, Delaney (Delaney Buffett), will think. Driftless and unambitious, her opinions and feelings matter most to Katie. In an effort to reconnect and break the news gently, she plans a girls' trip to assuage her codependent friend, setting the stage for a hilarious buddy comedy. With an attractive cast (including Zachary Quinto, Cazzie David and Alexander Hodge) and zippy dialogue, closeness and self-deprecating humor are felt through the screen.

Carol Baum has produced thirty-four movies, seventeen of them independently. Before becoming an independent producer, Baum was co-president of Sandollar Productions, Dolly Parton and Sandy Gallin’s production company, for ten years, where she produced such hits as Father of the Bride; the Academy Award-winning HBO documentary Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt; Tidy Endings; I.Q.; Jacknife; True Identity; Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Gross Anatomy; Shining Through; Straight Talk; and Kicking and Screaming. As an indie producer, Baum made, among other movies, The Good Girl; My First Mister; $5 A Day; You Kill Me; and Boychoir. She has produced five television movies for Hallmark and several documentaries. 

Baum currently teaches producing in the Film and Television Production Division at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. She is also a mentor for the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC.

In this episode, we talk about:

• The lesson she learned working at her first job at Bantam Books which led to the purchase and development of the autobiography of Malcolm X

• Being an advocate for the material and develop your taste

• Getting pregnant and working freelance for awhile

• Her 5 years at Palomar Pictures working on projects like The Stepford Wives and then moving to LA with her husband and becoming the studio VP at Lorimar

• Becoming known for developing “The Shining” at the Producer’s Circle

• Being a VP at 20th Century Fox and what she sees as the difference between a producer and an Executive

• Working at Dolly Parton’s company Sandollar

• How The Fountainhead made her love the business and why she thinks its important for young producers to watch movies from the 40s and 50s

• Launching the careers of David O. Russell and Mike White

• The story of developing with Father of the Bride and getting the rights from Ted Turner, the invention of Martin Short’s character, and how Jack Nicholson was thrown as a possibility for Steve Martin’s role

• Developing multiple projects as a producer and how it’s all about timing. She said that if David Cronenberg hadn’t had success with The Fly, he wouldn’t have been able to do Dead Ringers.

• Her recommendations for writers on what is commercially viable right now

• Carol’s explanation for spec scripts for films

• Her recommendation for writers on how to get an agent

Guest:

Cara Cusumano has been with Tribeca since 2008, during which time the festival has become a globally respected showcase for film and TV premieres, live music, talks, interdisciplinary events, and talent discovery. During her tenure as Festival Director, Tribeca has been called “an annual powerhouse” (Time Out), “reliably and inarguably excellent” (Village Voice), and “one of the most prestigious festivals of the new millennium” (Playlist). She has served on nominating committees for the Cinema Eye Honors, the International Documentary Association Awards, the Gotham Awards, and the Irish Film and Television Academy Awards, and festival juries including CPH:DOX, Los Cabos Film Festival, DOC NYC, Nordisk Panorama, Bogota Audiovisual Market (BAM), and the Nantucket Film Festival. She holds a degree in Film from Columbia University’s Barnard College, and an MA in Cinema Studies from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Internships and her first job as short film programmer at Brooklyn Film Festival

• The different programming teams involved in Tribeca and how she oversees them all

• Choosing films to be featured at Tribeca

• Typical day-to-day routine

• Networking at film festival and how do you get a seasonal job there

• Famous filmmakers/cast vs unknown first time filmmakers and films coming with distribution and film coming in without distribution

• Want a job at Tribeca or any festival? Cara’s recommendation for a starting position in the screening committee

• Advice for filmmakers who are hoping to get their film into a festival including in the pre-production and post-production stages of their films

• How to identify what films are “right” for Tribeca Festival

• Collaborations and partnerships with brands like Chanel, Mazda, Indeed, AT&T, and Canva

Guest: