
Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast
Bulletproof Screenwriting
Some of the past guests include 3X Oscar® Winning Writer/Director Oliver Stone, Eric Roth (Dune, Forest Gump), Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), Richard Linklater (Boyhood, Slacker) James V. Hart (Dracula, Hook), John August (Big Fish, Aladdin), Jim Uhls ( Fight Club), Peter Rader (Waterworld), Diane Drake (What Women Want), Daniel Knauf (Carnival, Blacklist), Derek Kolstad (John Wick) and Pen Densham (Robin Hood, Backdraft) to name a few.
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Top 10 Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

BPS 033: Beat by Beat to a Better Screenplay with Jim Mercurio
Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast
01/16/19 • 87 min
“The best example of how an analyst can give concrete help without veering off the track of your story... (Jim) is not just telling you how to rewrite a particular script... but how to apply it to future work as well.”
Jim works with Oscar-nominated and A-List writers as well as complete beginners. He adapts to each writer and script.
Jim is a true champion for undiscovered writers and filmmakers. He produced Hard Scrambled which, like the horror-thriller he directed Last Girl, was discovered in a contest. The film stars Kurtwood Smith (That 70’s Show) and indie stalwart Richard Edson. It premiered at Cinequest and won Best Dramatic Feature at Garden State Film Festival. His experience as a filmmaker informs his approach to the material. He helps you to execute your vision with vivid and cinematic storytelling that can attract allies like directors and producers.
He directed more than 60 hours of Screenwriting education including the first 40 Workshops in the Screenwriting Expo Series including classes by some of the other top screenwriting teachers in the world. His own course Killer Endings was one of the best sellers from the collection. He wrote and directed Making Hard Scrambled Movies, filmmaking tutorials, as bonus material for Hard Scrambled’s original release. The Washington Post called them “a must for would-be filmmakers.”
Inspired by his work on the Expo series, Jim applied his entrepreneurial “go big or go home” attitude to the six-disc DVD set Complete Screenwriting: From A to Z to A-List, a behemoth of screenwriting instruction. It is one of the most comprehensive screenwriting resources in the world. It’s a fast and furious ten hours with an hour of stunning motion graphics that help to explain seldom-discussed topics like theme, concept and character orchestration.
Together, Jim’s course and book illustrate his forte, to illustrate advanced craft and nitty-gritty insight essential for mastery of screenwriting craft. Enjoy my conversation with Jim Mercurio.
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BPS 139: No Film School Needed - Direct & Sell Six Features in Two Years with Elizabeth Blake-Thomas
Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast
09/22/21 • 41 min
When I heard her story I had to hunt her down and find out how she did it. BTW, she's not stopping, Elizabeth is currently in prep for three more feature films. Talk about hustle. She is the definition of the phrase "INDIE FILM HUSTLE."
She is proof that no film school is needed. Enjoy my conversation with Elizabeth Blake-Thomas.
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BPS 136: Horror Screenwriting - The Nature of Fear with Devin Watson
Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast
09/01/21 • 72 min
He’s also written several books, the latest of which is Horror Screenwriting: The Nature of Fear.
Horror has, among all of the genres in film and written works, one of the longest, most distinguished, and often misunderstood bloodlines in history. It is often overlooked by critics who don't see anything more than blood and guts on the screen or a collection of cheap scares.
But what is missed is the hard-hitting commentary on society and life contained in those works.
Devin got his start working with the website, 'moviepartners.com' in the late 90s which was one of the first websites out there that really had any kind of information on independent filmmaking.
Eventually, he decided to try out writing some scripts. But reading what every he could find to prepare him for scriptwriting. He was influenced in a big way by Lew Hunter's book, Screenwriting 434.
Here, Lew Hunter shares the secrets of his course on the screenwriting process by actually writing an original script, step by step in Screenwriting 434.
When he felt ready, Devin wrote his first five scripts, all of which turned out not very good. Not until November 2006 that he wrote a script in 2 days for his friend, Phil Melfi. That was when he felt confident in his work. That script became his debut production and writing, The Cursed, which is still a sci-fi channel Halloween rotation regular.
Devin’s book Horror Screenwriting really dives into the craft of horror and screenwriting pretty deeply.
Enjoy my conversation with Devin Watson.
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BPS 224: Blockbuster Producing Techniques In Indie Films With Sunil Perkash
Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast
08/17/22 • 56 min
Sunil is an independent producer in Hollywood who holds a B.A. in economics and communications from Stanford University. He began his career in 1992 working as the U.S. Production Coordinator on CRONOS, Guillemo Del Toro's directorial debut. He developed a number of projects at various major studios throughout his career including Second Defense with Arnold Kopelson, Exit Zero with Renny Harlin at New Line, Second Time Around at Dreamworks, Suburban Hero with Scott Rudin at Paramount, Al and Gene with Adam Shankman at Walt Disney Studios, amongst others.
In 1999, he produced BLAST FROM THE PAST for New Line, starring Brendon Frasier, Alicia Silverstone, Sissy Spacek and Christopher Walken. He followed up with PREMONITION for Sony, starring Sandy Bullock, which grossed more that 85 million worldwide.
Next, he produced Disney’s ENCHANTED which became a worldwide mega blockbuster grossing $340million and received rave reviews and numerous awards, including multiple oscar and golden globe nominations. In 2009, he began principal photography on SALT, a vehicle originally developed for Tom Cruise, but transformed into a female lead for Angelina Jolie. The film also became a worldwide blockbuster in summer of 2010, grossing $300mil!
The Wrap listed Sunil in their exclusive list "Producers Who Are Making a Mark on Hollywood" and Fade In Magazine named him one of the prestigious ”Top 100 people to know in Hollywood."
He is currently in post production on the big budged DISENCHANTED, a sequel to ENCHANTED for Disney Plus starring Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey. He is also in preproduction on BACK HOME, a science fiction thriller to be directed by award winning director Ivan Mena with ICM on board to represent for festivals/sales.
Perkash is also developing a number of projects including a sequel to SALT at Sony with producer Lorenzo Dibonaventura, the Western biopic with award winning director Hughes William Thompson and Travel Back East written by Enchanted scribe Bill Kelly and to be directed by Alan Ritchson.
As the film landscape has changed Sunil has changed along with it. He decided to start producing independent films while he still worked and developed studio projects.
His latest indie film is Last Survivors.
Last Survivors takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where Troy (Stephen Moyer) raised his now grown son, Jake (Drew Van Acker), in a perfect wooded utopia thousands of miles away from the decayed cities. When Troy is severely wounded, Jake is forced to travel to the outside world to find life-saving medicine. Ordered to kill any humans he encounters, Jake defies his father by engaging in a forbidden relationship with a mysterious woman, Henrietta (Alicia Silverstone). As Jake continues this dangerous affair, Troy will do anything to get rid of Henrietta and protect the perfect utopia he created.
We discuss what is was like jumping from $100+ budgets to $1.5 million, how he attaches talent and how he packages his indie films for investors.
Enjoy my conversation with Sunil Perkash.
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BPS 268: Dropping Acid & Winning an Oscar® with Ghost Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin
Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast
01/18/23 • 67 min
He knew instantly he was one with all there was. In the years that followed, Bruce became an Oscar-winning screenwriter, a spiritual teacher, and, most recently, a photographer. Each aspect of his life has been a conscious effort to explore and reveal what he learned in that sandbox.
Bruce was born in the middle of WWII and raised in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Sondra and Jimmy Rubin. He has a younger brother and sister, Gary and Marci. There was very little remarkable about him. He wanted to be an actor, writer, and director but had no talent to speak of.
In 1965 he took a massive (and accidental) overdose of LSD and began a journey that lasted between 3 and 4 billion years. When he returned, he knew he would have stories to tell. He also knew he needed to find a teacher, so he hitchhiked around the world for nearly two years in search of one.
After living in ashrams in India and in a Tibetan monastery in Kathmandu, he met his teacher Rudi in New York City just blocks from where he had begun his journey. Rudi taught a meditation practice that became the foundation for Bruce’s spiritual life. He has meditated every day since.
Bruce’s screenwriting career began late in his life. Earlier, he had been an assistant film editor for the NBC Nightly News and Curator and Head of the Film Department at the Whitney Museum in New York. When Rudi died, Bruce gave up his museum career to continue his spiritual practice with a disciple of Rudi’s in Bloomington, Indiana.
While there, he was also writing movies, twice locking himself in a hotel room and refusing to emerge without a finished script. He also began teaching meditation to an expanding community of fellow seekers and continues holding classes to this day.
After 44 years of daily meditation, Bruce experienced what is referred to as a spiritual awakening. For him, it was a revelation that no one could awaken. The illusion of a separate ego dissolved and left him in a state of extraordinary emptiness and inexplicable expansion. It was a profound step in a journey that began in a sandbox and continues to this moment.
Bruce continues to share his evolving experience with his students. His talks can be found on YouTube and on his site. Recently, he also discovered photography as an unexpected opportunity for communicating his spiritual vision.
The result of always having an iPhone in his pocket, he describes this new phase in his creative life as the discovery of seeing. As Bruce explains, “The mystery and magic of the world are not hidden. It is under our feet, on old walls, and in rusting garbage cans. The beauty, the wonder, never ends.”
Please enjoy my conversation with Bruce Joel Rubin.
Originally aired on my other show, the Next Level Soul Podcast with Alex Ferrari.
What is NLS?
Next Level Soul founder Alex Ferrari is a #1 best-selling author, podcaster, speaker, conscious entrepreneur, and award-winning filmmaker. His industry-leading podcasts, the Webby award-nominated Indie Film Hustle and Bulletproof Screenwriting, have been downloaded 30 million+ times collectively.
He has had the pleasure of speaking to icons like Oscar® Winner Oliver Stone and Billy Crystal, music legends like Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden) and Moby (Grammy® Award Winning Music Icon), actors like Guy Pearce (Iron Man 3), Edward Burns (Saving Private Ryan) and Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives), thought leaders like Rich Roll (Best-Selling Author & Ultra Endurance Athlete), 2X Noble Prize Nominee Dr. Ervin Laszlo, Mindvalley Founder Vishen Lakhiani, and New York Times Best-Selling authors Dan Millman (The Way of the Peaceful Warrior), Neale Donald Walsh (Conversations with God), Bruce Lipton (The Biology of Belief), Gregg Braden (The Wisdom Codes) Dr. Eben Alexander (Proof of Heaven) and Dr. Raymond Moody (Life After Life).
Alex always asked the big questions; Why are we here? Is this all there is? What is my soul's mission in this life? He developed Next Level Soul to help people worldwide get closer to their higher power and look inward for the answers they are searching for.The Next Level Soul Podcast discusses all aspects of life's journey; Spirituality, Mindset, Relationships, Health & Wellness, Long...

BPS 272: Down the First Feature Rabbit Hole with Carlson Young
Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast
02/01/23 • 40 min
Ever since Margaret (Carlson Young) was six years old, she has been haunted by the memory of watching her sister drown during an explosive fight between her parents. As a young woman, she slides further into her twisted inner life, ultimately finding herself on the brink of suicide. Through an epic journey down the smokiest and scariest corridors of her imagination, she tries to exorcise the demons pushing her closer and closer to the edge.The Blazing World is Carlson Young’s debut feature; it is based on her short of the same name, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.
Young brings to life in striking vibrancy an internality that is at once darkly beautiful and entirely terrifying.Blending horror and fantasy, this film is imaginative and gutsy, painting Margaret’s inner life as at once an alien realm and a devastatingly familiar emotional landscape. Manifesting her trauma through a series of lusciously unnerving locations and moving, bizarre interactions, Young unearths something often quietly, privately buried in our struggles toward the light.
As the writer, director, and star, Carlson took her decade of on-set acting experience appearing in film directorial debut, THE BLAZING WORLD MTV’s SCREAM TV Series, KEY AND PEELE, and Netflix’s EMILY IN PARIS, and developed the feature which was shot during the height of the pandemic in Austin, Texas and also held its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2021.The film co-stars Dermot Mulroney, Vinessa Shaw, and horror icon Udo Kier. The Blazing World premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2021 to rave reviews.
We discuss the difficult process of bringing this personal film to the screen, how she used a short to get the feature film made, how she got financing, shooting durning COVID and much more.
Enjoy my conversation with Carlson Young.
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BPS 291: Inside One of the Most Dangerous Film Shoots in History with Jon Gustafsson
Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast
04/19/23 • 68 min
When Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson and his cast and crew, including Gerard Butler and Stellan Skarsgård, set upon Iceland to film Beowulf & Grendel in 2004, they expected the usual complications involved in making a major motion picture. What they encountered was a ruthless Icelandic winter on a foreboding landscape, financing complications, and a bizarre run of bad luck that led some of them to believe they were in an epic battle with the Norse gods themselves.
Filmmaker Jon Gustafsson was along for the ride. Hired to play one of Beowulf’s warriors, he’s one set with his camera as the crew battles hurricane-force winds and he’s in the backroom as the producers scramble to shore up a collapsing deal, creating an intimate portrait of filmmakers fighting the odds in pursuit of a vision.I'm also honored to announce that you can watch Wrath of Gods on the Indie Film Hustle TV. Plus you'll get exclusive bonus materials not available anywhere else. If you liked Lost in la Mancha or Burden of Dreams you will probably like this one.
Enjoy my conversation with Jon Gustafsson.
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BPS 282: REVEALED: Why HOLLYWOOD Is IGNORING This Billion Dollar Audience with Jon Erwin
Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast
03/08/23 • 73 min
They received 11 GMA Dove Awards nominations and 3 wins for Music Video of the Year. Jon and Andrew have also produced and directed several documentaries, including the multiple award-winning 9/11 story, THE CROSS AND THE TOWERS. In 2010, Jon and Andrew began exclusively developing dramatic feature films. In August 2018, they partnered with Kevin Downs and Tony Young to launch Kingdom Story Company, in an exclusive partnership with Lionsgate, which creates life-changing content from a variety of talented storytellers.
Their features have all opened in the top-ten box office and they have received the coveted A+ CinemaScore® three times. Early hits include OCTOBER BABY, MOMS’ NIGHT OUT, WOODLAWN, and the surprise hit I CAN ONLY IMAGINE, which became the #1 independent film of 2018, earning more than $86 million at the box office. Others include I STILL BELIEVE, a biopic about CCM megastar Jeremy Camp which was released by Lionsgate in 2020, followed by the 2021 release of THE JESUS MUSIC, sharing the untold story of how Jesus Music transformed into the multi-billion-dollar industry of Christian Contemporary Music.
AMERICAN UNDERDOG followed in 2021, which told the story of NFL MVP and Hall of Famer, Kurt Warner. JOHNNY CASH: THE REDEMPTION OF AN AMERICAN ICON, is a documentary that details the true story of a music legend’s spiritual quest and releases Dec 2022. Their latest film, JESUS REVOLUTION based on The Jesus Movement that changed the course of history and comes to theaters Feb 2023.
Jon is also the author of the book Beyond Valor: A World War II Story of Extraordinary Heroism, Sacrificial Love, and a Race Against Time, which tells the amazing true story of his grandfather Red Erwin, who received the Congressional Medal of Honor in World War II. Beyond Valor was published in August 2020.
Enjoy my conversation with Jon Erwin.
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BPS 312: How to Always Make Money with Independent Film Godfather Roger Corman
Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast
06/30/23 • 36 min
Horrified by the disconnect between his vision for the project and the film that eventually emerged, Corman took his salary from the picture, scraped together a little capital, and set himself up as a producer, turning out Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954). Corman used his next picture, The Fast and the Furious (1954), to finagle a multi-picture deal with a fledgling company called American Releasing Corp. (ARC). It would soon change its name to American-International Pictures (AIP). With Corman as its major talent behind the camera, it would become one of the most successful independent studios in cinema history.
With no formal training, Corman first took to the director's chair with Five Guns West (1955) and, over the next 15 years, directed 53 films, mostly for AIP. He proved himself a master of quick, inexpensive productions, turning out several movies as director and/or producer in each of those years--nine movies in 1957 and nine again in 1958. His personal speed record was set with The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), which he shot in two days and a night.In the early 1960s, he began to take on more ambitious projects, gaining a great deal of critical praise (and commercial success) from a series of adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories, most of them starring Vincent Price. His film The Intruder (1962) was a serious look at racial integration in the South, starring a very young William Shatner. Critically praised and winning a prize at the Venice Film Festival, the movie became Corman's first--and, for many years, only--commercial flop.
He called its failure "the greatest disappointment in my career." As a consequence of the experience, Corman opted to avoid such direct "message" films in the future and resolved to express his social and political concerns beneath the surface of overt entertainment.Those messages became more radical as the 1960s wound to a close, and after AIP began re-editing his films without his knowledge or consent, he left the company, retiring from directing to concentrate on production and distribution through his own newly formed company, New World Pictures. In addition to low-budget exploitation flicks, New World also distributed distinguished art cinema from around the world, becoming the American distributor for the films of Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, François Truffaut, and others. Selling off New World in the 1980s, Corman has continued his work through various companies in the years since--Concorde Pictures, New Horizons, Millenium Pictures, and New Concorde. In 1990, after the publication of his biography "How I Made A Hundred Movies in Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime"--one of the all-time great books on filmmaking--he returned to directing but only for a single film, Frankenstein Unbound (1990)With hundreds of movies to his credit, Roger Corman is one of the most prolific producers in the history of the film medium and one of the most successful--in his nearly six decades in the business, only about a dozen of his films have failed to turn a profit.
Corman has been dubbed, among other things, "The King of the Cult Film" and "The Pope of Pop Cinema," and his filmography is packed with hundreds of remarkably entertaining films in addition to dozens of genuine cult classics. Corman has displayed an unrivaled eye for talent over the years--it could almost be said that it would be easier to name the top directors, actors, writers and creators in Hollywood who DIDN'T get their start with him than those who did. He mentored Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, James Cameron, Robert De Niro, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, and Sandra Bullock. His influence on modern American cinema is almost incalculable. In 2009 he was honored with an

BPS 181: Clerks, Sundance and Making $500 Million+ at the Box-Office with Scott Mosier
Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast
03/11/22 • 98 min
We have a 90’s independent film icon, Scott Mosier. Scott is an indie film producer, editor, writer, director, actor, and podcaster of Smodcast, which he co-hosts with his long-term filmmaking partner, Kevin Smith.
From Vancouver Film School to Hollywood, Scott's trajectory has been inspiring for many in the industry. He produced some of the best 90s classics like Clerks 1 & 2, Jersey Girl, the Oscar® Winning Good Will Hunting, Dogma, and many, many more.
Scott acted in, edited the movie, original sound, and contributed to Clerk’s budget. After the massive hit, they followed up with the embattled Mallrats. The film was not well received and did no money at the box office. Kevin and Scott were essentially discarded and called a one-hit-wonder. For most filmmakers that would be all she wrote but not for Kevin and Scott.
They decided to go back to their roots and make another low-budget indie and prove to Hollywood that they were here to stay. Their next film was the brilliant romantic comedy-drama, Chasing Amy. The tells the unfortunate twist of a male comic artist who falls in love with a lesbian woman, to the displeasure of his best friend.
After self-financing, the majority of their initial projects (Mosier & Smith), 2001, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was Mosier’s first big-budget ($20 million) production.
Based on real-life stoners Jay and Silent Bob, so when they get no profit from a big-screen adaptation they set out to wreck the movie.
If that wasn't enough Scott also co-executive produced the Oscar® Award-Winning Good Will Hunting in his spare time.
Wanting a change Scott decided to branch out and start directing himself. His 2018 directorial debut was a stand-out project! A box office hit, grossing about $512 million globally and the highest-grossing holiday film of all time. Dr. Seuss: The Grinch became the third screen adaptation of the 1957 Dr. Seuss book, How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
I had a ball talking shop with Scott. We discussed the genesis of the independent film movement as we know it today, dealing with studios, what was it like being in the Clerks hurricane, and much more.
Enjoy my conversation with Scott Mosier.
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How many episodes does Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast have?
Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast currently has 518 episodes available.
What topics does Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast cover?
The podcast is about Society & Culture, Podcasts and Tv & Film.
What is the most popular episode on Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast?
The episode title 'BPS 033: Beat by Beat to a Better Screenplay with Jim Mercurio' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast?
The average episode length on Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast is 65 minutes.
How often are episodes of Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast released?
Episodes of Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast are typically released every 5 days.
When was the first episode of Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast?
The first episode of Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast was released on Mar 27, 2018.
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