Archives: Podcast
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S2E20: “Charlie Fleischer Is In ‘Toon’ With The Universe”
If you don’t know Charlie Flesicher’s name, you know his voice. He’s the voice of Roger Rabbit. He’s appeared – in human form – on TV and in movies since the 70’s. We worked with Charlie on “Demon Knight” – the first “Tales From The Crypt” branded horror movie. He plays Wally Enfield. It’s been […] -
S2E19: “Rust Makes Our Heads Explode”
Nobody should ever die on a film or TV set. No one should ever get injured either but physical things happen (stunts, for instance). Injuries should should be rare. Death should be a complete stranger. With hundreds of hours of produced film and TV content under our belts, Gil Adler and I had the exact […] -
S2E18: “Who’s The Boss?”
Film sets are a fascinating place to work. They definitely reflect the nature of the people working on them – especially at the top. But who’s really in charge of any set? Who’s the boss? Most sets are like bee hives. And, while everyone thinks the director is queen bee, on the set itself, it’s […] -
S2E17: “Castle Of Horror”
The movie biz attracts all kinds. The horror biz attracts the most unusual among the movie biz. And those who succeed in the horror biz? They’re a truly special breed. The House On Haunted Hill… The Tingler… 13 Ghosts… These were all competently made horror movies. What made them noteworthy and keeps them noteworthy is […] -
S2E16: Car Ride To Hell
Welcome to our first new episode of 2023! We’re dropping a Joel Silver story we’ve been threatening to tell since we started this podcast last year. The Car Ride To Hell! How do we know it ended up in Hell? Well, for starters, Donald Trump makes an appearance – two actually! Here’s the setting. As […] -
S2E15: “Best Bits”
For a lot of people, 2022 was an outright annus horribilus. One to forget. That wasn’t the case for us here at the How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast. For starters, we came into being this year. That was a good thing (all things considered). We found a growing audience – that’s been even […] -
Bonus Episode: “Is “Die Hard” A Christmas Movie?
Tis the season to ask this essential question: Is “Die Hard” a Christmas movie? -
S2E14: “Post Mortem” (Featuring Chelsea Rebecca & Jason Stein)
The body’s on the slab now. Let’s do the post mortem. This past Saturday, our little Podcast held a benefit for the Motion Picture Home – the MPTF. They’re a great organization that takes care of film folk in need. We performed a live table read of “Dead Easy“. That’s the “Crypt” film we never […] -
S2E13: “(James) Bonding With Peter Iliff”
Peter Iliff‘s passion for movies started with James Bond. He was six and his dad took him to see “Goldfinger” on the day it opened. They watched it twice. Now, it may seem strange – a dad taking his six year old to see a Bond film – but, strangely, something happened there in that […] -
S2E12: “Buried Bodies”
A great Hollywood assistant is someone who knows where all the bodies are buried because THEY helped bury em. -
S2E11: “An Unexpected Journey”
Doing this podcast has been the ultimate unexpected journey. It all started when when the Dads From The Crypt interviewed me for an episode of their podcast. The moment Jason Stein – one of the dads – told me the group’s franchise – reviewing Crypt episodes and giving parenting advice – they had me. And […] -
S2E10: “Hanging Out W Alan & Gil”
Pull up a chair (if you’re not already sitting)! Gil & Alan are sitting down for a hang out! -
Can You Believe Taye Diggs???
The short answer is YES! You absolutely can believe Taye Diggs and that’s the whole point of this episode! We ask the question “What makes an actor ‘believable’?” And, the actor we’re using for demonstration purposes in this episode is the terrific Taye Diggs who, it just so happens, Gil (Adler) has cast twice. The […] -
S2E8: Bill Sadler Is A Really Nice Guy
This conversation feels like a pair of comfortable slippers. It’s that warm and familiar. -
S2E7: “Dirty Laundry”
If you really want to know what’s happening on any film or TV set, the last people you should ask are the executives. We know nothing of value. We may have a pretty good fix on where the budget is, but we have no idea who’s sleeping with whom. Film and TV sets are emotionally […] -
S2E7: Dirty Laundry
If you really want to know what’s happening on any film or TV set, the last people you should ask are the executives. We know nothing of value. We may have a pretty good fix on where the budget is, but we have no idea who’s sleeping with whom. Film and TV sets are emotionally […] -
S2E6: “How NOT To Make A (Monster) Movie”
Welcome to our Halloween podcast – How NOT To Make A (Monster) Movie. One of the masters of movie make up special effects is our very good friend Todd Masters. We’re sure you remember Todd vividly from Season One of The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast. Todd became Tales From The Crypt’s permanent […] -
S2E5: Steve de Souza Has Even MORE Of A Story
This episode picks up where E4 left off. And then it gets even more epic. This is a big episode in more ways than one. -
S2E4: “Steve de Souza Has A Story”
In this episode of “The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast”, we sit down with a master storyteller: writer/director/producer Steve de Souza. You may not know Steve’s name, but you definitely know his work: 48 Hrs, Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Commando, Streetfighter, Judge Dredd, Beverly Hills Cop 2. Steve practically invented the modern […] -
S2E3: Casting About With Victoria Burrows
In this episode of “The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast: Horror Stories From The Movie Making Trenches”, we sit down with one of the biggest casting directors in the business, Victoria Burrows. Or, as we prefer to put it, we go “Casting About With Victoria Burrows”. In season one of “The How NOT […] -
S2E2: “What’s Funny Is…”
Turns out, what’s really funny is the paths we all took to show biz success. -
S2E1: THE Crypt Keeper Interview
In this episode, the four people responsible for creating and producing one of the world’s most iconic characters – “Tales From The Crypt’s” Crypt Keeper – discus how that happened. The cool part? We’ve never had this conversation together. Ever. It’s about time we did. -
Season 2 Promo: The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast
In season two, we expand the franchise. “Horror stories from across the movie-making trenches”. More painful personal stories of movie-making craft turning into crap. -
The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast: Promo #2
“The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast” is an object lesson in what happens when you do things for all the wrong reasons. Spoiler alert: nothing good. It’s the outrageous, true story about what happens when craft turns to crap. -
Episode 10: Can We Talk Sequel?
I’ll close season one as a solo act with a few remaining “horror stories from the show business trenches”. I’ll tell more of those stories in Season 2! In this episode: a makeup special effects near disaster with actor Tim Curry playing three parts; how to tell an Oscar-nominated composer (Michael Kamen) you’re not happy with his work; how to talk to Superman; how to get a studio tent pole movie green-lit IN THE ROOM! -
Episode 9: Joel Directs!
As you’ve probably gained from listening to this podcast, working for Joel Silver was an adventure. So, if you like stories about Joel, you’re gonna love this episode. The Joel Silver Fan Club In this one, we tell the story of the time our boss, Joel Silver, directed an episode of HBO’s “Tales From The […] -
Episode 8: The Martini
The classic Martini is simple. Elegant. Ice cold gin or vodka with a whisper of vermouth. It’s the perfect end of the day cocktail. This episode will feature another kind of cocktail – a lively conversation wherein the Dads From The Crypt will interview Tales From The Crypt. Dads From The Crypt First, let me […] -
Episode 7: Tales About “Tales”
Get a bunch of people together who worked on a project and they’ll have stories. That’s what this one is – backstage stories from “Tales From The Crypt”. How to describe the experience of making “Tales From The Crypt“… It was unique, for starters! Back in the 1990’s when we made Crypt, the feature world […] -
Episode 6: “The Cutting Room Floor”
The Cutting Room Floor is legendary in Hollywood. Whole careers have happened there. In fact, there’s a whole weird history in Hollywood of scenes and actors who famously never made “the cut”. Kevin Costner, for instance, was entirely cut out of “The Big Chill“. He plays Alex – the guy who’s funeral all the other […] -
Episode 5: “Endings Are Never Pretty”
As the production of “Bordello Of Blood” stumbled toward its climax, we knew we’d leave Vancouver with an unfinished movie in hand. That was ironic because our unfinished movie had finished one relationship (between Sly Stallone and Angie Everhart) and was on its way to finishing another – the decade-long creative one between Alan Katz […] -
Episode 4: “Special Effects”
In a horror movie, makeup special effects are everything. Get them wrong and your audience will hate you. It’s just how the horror business is: no guts, no glory. If Freddy Krueger had looked like 1953’s “Robot Monster” (with a gorilla body and a deep sea diver helmet head – with antennas), the whole “Nightmare […] -
Episode 3: “Welcome To Vancouver/Can We Go Home Yet?”
This episode also could be called “Location, Location, Location!” Where you shoot your movie makes a huge difference. One surefire way to turn craftsmanship into crap is to shoot somewhere you have no organic reason to be. For “Bordello of Blood”, that location was Vancouver. Like the script for “Dead Easy”, “Bordello of Blood” took […] -
Episode 2: How NOT To Cast A Movie
In a horror movie, the lead’s important but the villain is more important than anything. -
Episode 1: Sausage Making, Hollywood Style
“The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast” is a jaw-droppingly absurd story of Hollywood excess. Outsized egos run amok while the movie’s creative team slowly succumbing to the kind of madness only Hollywood can produce. -
Episode 7: Some Tales About “Tales”
How to describe the experience of making “Tales From The Crypt” for HBO… It was unique, for starters. Back in the 1990’s when we made Crypt, the TV world and the feature film world intersected very little. “Tales” was an exception to that Rule. We all had a feeling – as we made “Tales” that the experience of making that show together was truly a special experience. One then has to go and have a whole career – and the life that goes with it – to fully appreciate just how special making Crypt was. Doing anthologies isn’t like doing any other show. You have to invent a whole world every time out (as opposed to a regular series with a regular cast and standing sets which doesn’t have to reinvent anything because it already is). Every episode of Crypt was a challenge to make. In all honesty, they weren’t all gems. But some still make us incredibly proud that we made them. In this episode, we put the band back together to talk about Crypt – and spin a few tales about the making of “Tales”. And we put you right there with us! -
Episode 6: The Cutting Room Floor
One of the cool things about podcasting is how granular you can get in the storytelling. Whatever the reasons I couldn’t or didn’t use this content in the story, I’m delighted that I can use it here. So many great stories, so little time in which to tell them all. -
Episode 5: “Endings Are Never Pretty”
How a movie starts is really important. How it ends though – how it sends its audience out into the night – is really, really important. The script for “Bordello Of Blood” had a perfectly acceptable ending. The Hollywood sausage-making process that put Bordello on the screen however had no ending. Put in horror movie terms, the creative team behind HBO’s highly successful TV series “Tales From The Crypt” – a creative experience they all found unique in their careers – suddenly found themselves having to make a real monster: a movie none of them wanted to make. And then – as movie monsters do – their flawed creation haunted them. And yet… can horror movies have happy endings? -
Episode 4: “Special Effects”
Nothing is more important to a horror movie than its makeup special effects. Ironically, we live and die by the quality, the craftsmanship, the authenticity and the sheer OMG-ness of how well we re-create the illusion of gore. That’s where this episode begins: we’ve realized that our local makeup special effects team – talented and willing as they are – needs help because we’ve set them up for failure. Dennis wants to be anywhere but the set, Erika doesn’t want to play the role she agreed to play and Sly finally breaks it off with Angie – leaving her an emotional wreck. Then Joel comes for another disruptive visit to Vancouver! And all to make a movie none of us want to make to begin with! -
Episode 3: “Welcome To Vancouver/Can We Go Home Yet?”
There’s something inherently hopeful about starting a feature film or TV show. A team of strangers comes together to make something they all believe in. And then there’s “Bordello Of Blood”. Where a team of strangers got together – and simply got “stranger” with each other. In Episode 3, we settle in for the long haul – and the long haul settles in on us. -
Preview: “When Coming Attractions ‘Kill’!”
“Bordello Of Blood” – even 30 years after it’s tortured making – stands as an object lesson in what happens when you do things for all the wrong reasons. Spoiler Alert: Nothing Good!