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Creativity isn’t tidy—it’s risky, chaotic, and full of surprises. It’s full of breakthroughs and breakdowns, moments of flow and moments of doubt. Join Mishu Hilmy for unfiltered conversations with artists, filmmakers, musicians, and fearless makers who thrive in the unknown, embrace imperfection, and create at the edge of possibility.
This is your front row seat to the self-doubt, unexpected wins, and messy emotional work of making something real. But craft isn’t just about feeling—it’s about problem-solving, process, and the devotion behind mastery.
Subscribe now for weekly episodes that celebrate the unpredictable, the playful, and the deeply human side of making things. Join the mailing list at mischiefpod.com
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Mishu Hilmy (00:03.244)
Welcome to Mischief in Mastery, where we embrace the ups, downs, and all around uncertainty of a creative life, and that steady, and sometimes not so steady journey toward expertise. Each episode we talk candidly with people I know, people I don't know, folks who produce, direct, write, act, do comedy, make art, make messes, and make meaning out of their lives. You will hear guests lay out how they work, what they're thinking about, where they get stuck, and why they snap out of their comfort zones and into big, bold, risky mo-
So, if you're hungry for honest insights, deep dives into process philosophies and practical tips, plus maybe a little mischief along the way, you're in the right place. For more, visit mischiftpod.com.
producer whose creative roots trace back to cutting together joyful mockumentaries in the cornfields of Champaign, Illinois, piecing together short films from hours of improvised footage and explosions ripped directly off of YouTube. Santhe is a Northwestern University film school grad and she's built a brick-by-brick post-production toolkit that's taken her from indie features to broadcast advertising.
becoming a trusted all-around post-production collaborator along the way. was producer and editor on Line Cooks, an independent feature film shot this summer and set to premiere soon. And she's currently working as a colorist on the documentary series, One Million Experiments in the Field. And as a post-producer on Adam Presence's feature documentary, American Dendrite, which was screened at Chicago Underground Film Festival. Santhe has a sharp eye and playful edge, and her work gravitates towards satire and offbeat.
So there's lots of fun games to talk with Xanthi and we chatted about the joys of post-production, thinking on your feet, solving problems that no one's told you about, as well as building that confidence from doing the work consistently and professionally. And it was nice. We also got to celebrate some of our film scene mentors, our Chicago film scene mentors, collaborators, and the push to just keep saying out loud, hey, I'm here. I'm an editor. I'm a colorist. I'm a writer, producer. I'm creating, even if self-doubt.
Mishu Hilmy (02:13.806)
keeps getting in the way or wants to keep you quiet. stick around and enjoy the conversation. You can learn more about Zanthe at Zanthe underscore does underscore film on Instagram. You can also learn more about Zanthe on her website at Zanthe themoon.com and I'll have all that in the show notes. So without any more delays here, it is a very fun, very lovely conversation with my friend Zanthe Brown and myself.
man, it has been a hell of a year. Really, really busy year. Not just, you know, mostly for journey work, but also just for me and my personal life just moving. We moved to a new office space, which in and of itself is like a gigantic, gigantic upgrade and also adjustment. And also we shot a feature film earlier this year. And in general, I have been
coming down off a period of my life where I'm saying yes to absolutely anything that offers itself to me, which has been fruitful and also exhausting. Definitely like, I think that's where I'm at right now is I'm looking forward to entering 2026 and setting some intentions to maybe have better boundaries for myself and make some goals for me and not just say yes to everybody else's goals, I would say is what I'm working on.
I'm curious, what inspired this year of being like, this is a year of yes, what inspired that desire to just go for it and take work or take projects or just really put yourself out there?
I think that's been kind of my mode since I graduated and I graduated in 2023 and I've been so lucky to even have work in this industry, work in post-production and be able to pay the bills doing that from right out of school. But I think there was a little bit of this mindset of like, don't lose this progress that you've made. Don't lose this product. If people are approaching me, I have to say yes and
Xanthe Brown (04:18.606)
fit it into my schedule no matter what. And it's been great. I've gotten such amazing experience and gotten to work with so many different people and friends from school who are growing up and turning into, we're all turning into professionals and able to employ me, which is amazing. But I think it's also like, I now am at a place where I feel established, I feel safe, and in order to move forward with some of my personal goals, not even just creatively or in film.
but just my personal goals I need to start like, I need to start paring down my extracurriculars. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. think it's, mean, it's an exciting, it's an exciting position to be in where it's like, I'm in need of that kind of growth attitude, that growth mindset of like, you're willing to support people and help people and just like say yes to a bunch of projects. then after a certain period, you're like, okay, I think I've gotten a lot of, I think I've got a lot of practice.
Yeah, I think it's also like, really enjoy working with my friends and really enjoy work just like giving people deals and like doing stuff for you know, as little money as I can for for people outside of my full time job. But it's also it is also like those people have deadlines and, you know, need those things done at a certain time. And the more of those people I say yes to the harder it actually is to fulfill my, you know, contract to them. Yeah, but yeah, grateful for it anyway.
Has it been predominantly through editorial work when you're collaborating with this past year, working with friends around either coloring or editing? I'm curious, how has that been manifesting?
Xanthe Brown (05:58.232)
A lot of it has been color, which is, think, a lot of the time because I'm the only colorist people know, which feels good. But yeah, and such a breadth and variety of projects and needs. Color is such a fascinating thing to me because it's just so hard to talk about. It's really, really hard to put those visuals into words. what does it mean when someone says this image is
not feeling nostalgic enough, you know, and that's a valid note, but how do I as the technician and artist interpret that? And so I think like working with tons and tons of people on a variety of like small projects has really helped me kind of hone that skill.
think with coloring too, like I did the DaVinci certification and it's one of those things of you get more practice at solving problems because all these different short or variety of films you're working on, it's like, I've never done a two minute long or four minute long one take. And it's like great, great at environment where it's changing lights. think there's a lot of opportunities to practice. I'm curious how much was, when you're working with collaborators, it supervised versus they'll give you notes and you'll, you know, take a crack at it over a week. what?
What have you found like the balance of supervised color grading sessions versus just getting the notes and working.
The of people I work with is unsupervised notes and that's primarily because of budget. And a lot of the time for me to be able to say yes to somebody, the conceit of being flexible with their budget is that they are able to be flexible with me on the timeline of the delivery. So a lot of the time it can be really difficult for me. We rescheduled this like three times. I appreciate your patience. It's really difficult to schedule with me.
Xanthe Brown (07:50.328)
So a lot of it has been unsupervised notes. And sometimes that's difficult for me because I'll get notes and then the next time I have a free moment is like three weeks from now. And I won't remember what we were talking about in read the black point of this particular image. so kind of the whole process sometimes takes a little bit longer, but yeah, I do really value having people in the room where I can just, I can do something and we don't have to talk about what it is I'm doing. I can just do it and you can say better or worse. Yeah.
So much faster, but it's also like, you got to have them. You got to have the schedule work out.
Yeah. Yeah.
I like working with my friends or people I like in Chicago and I'll email them like, Hey, if you have any footage that you need to be edited, like I'll happily do it. But the price is like, I'll gladly do things for free for people I like or friends I know or projects I like, it's like you get like virtually no rounds of provisions or you might get like two rounds of notes and it'll take maybe, you know, two to four, eight weeks or however long, but it is, it's like a nice thing to offer.
No, I love being able to do it for people. yeah, that is the conceit is like fewer revisions, fewer rounds of revision. I'm like so uncomfortable asking for anything in general. That it can be difficult. It can be difficult for me to ask for like the baseline of, know, we have to set a boundary of this is the limit of what I can do for you. Because when I take those jobs, I really want people to be happy with what I'm, I just want them to like what I'm.
Xanthe Brown (09:18.4)
what I'm putting forth. so like, at the end of the day, I end up going, doing as many as we have to do to, for them to love it.
Hmm. Fellow people, pleasing energy. think. yeah. Yeah. Well, like what, cause I think it takes practice and I, we've talked about it in the past of like making requests, but it's like, what, what is it that you're like, I can't, I am, I'm having a hard time putting a term in this email, this deal memo, even if it's like a friend, you probably do want some degree of like, this is just the email terms of like, I'll it to you in like eight weeks, won't become whatever. But like, what's, what's the hangup of saying like.
I can only do like, Hey, I'm doing this for free. can only do like three rounds of revisions or two, two rounds of revisions. Like what makes that so difficult?
I, I, it's funny you mentioned email because I actually find I can do a way better in writing than I can in person. I think, I think that's part of it is like, I just hate. And we can talk about my feature that I'm writing too about this very thing, but I hate disappointing people. I hate it. I want to give you everything you want and want to see in this piece of art, but it does it like, it does sometimes.
I have to remember, I have to sort of trick myself out of it by remembering that like it actually does not serve the art in the long run. If I don't allow myself to actively be part of it and actively be like an equal participant in making of the thing, then the person who's contracting me and yeah, so that's how I trick myself out of it from a people pleasing perspective. It's like, it's actually better for this person that, you know, that I'm taken care of and happy.
Mishu Hilmy (10:53.036)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I also think it is a challenge, especially with like editing specifically, cause there's so much joy to a degree in like problem solving and like the fun of like every time you do another pass, you can reduce it and refine it better. So there's something like very enjoyable about it, but I don't think that hopefully this doesn't happen to you too much, but when it reaches a point where the notes no longer align with your sort of aesthetic editorial principles and you're like,
All right. Now you're asking me to do something like, I don't want to do, but we created no boundary around revisioning. And you're really adamant around like, actually, can you make this 20 seconds longer? And you're like, I don't want to, but you're asking.
Yeah. think my way around that is I still, even though I don't want to disappoint people, I still give them as much honesty as I can in the room and say, here's why I would not recommend this. And I also think in terms of editorial specifically, editor, their role is sort of to be this spokesperson for the audience's perspective of a piece of art. And I think
Oftentimes, like, when people come to session, they're carrying a lot of baggage from set of like, my God, it was so cold this day and we worked so hard to get this shot. I might be thinking not having any of that context of set being like, this feels really out of place for this narrative. I don't know why I would cut to this view or want to see this view. And I do sometimes like, I think the best policy is for me to just say like, I don't understand. This isn't effective for me.
as a viewer. And I think that can be really valuable for people. found like my favorite editorial experiences are when people come to me and just say like, I shot this, I am having a hard time cutting it. I'm not really feeling what it's not feeling how it's supposed to feel. And let me just give it to you. And I don't know what it needs to be. Just find something. And that's my favorite. And that's like the world I come from too. I grew up shooting, you know, like on my camcorder with my cousins and we were just
Xanthe Brown (13:02.414)
and then they would go back home and I would be there with the computer and the footage and just try to string something together that was coherent and had some sort of narrative and created some feeling for the audience. I think that's as an editor, that is, it's a strength to be removed from a subject matter in some way. Yeah.
Yeah. I always have the, it's like the sunk cost fallacy. And when you have someone who's like knows that it took eight hours in the blistering cold to get the shot, but then you alone in the editing bay who's hasn't seen any of those sunk costs, like, well, this image has zero impact. It's too slow. It's like the performances wasn't there. Like I'm not going to cut to this. And then to have to like be an advocate for like your reasoning why it's like a powerful position for the editor to be in. I think I'm sure most directors.
We'll trust that, some people are really kind of, you know, they, well, we spent so much time and money on this shot. got to, we got to show it. And I don't think that's the best form of, you know, creation.
Yeah, I think ultimately it's about how it's going to affect the people sitting in the chairs buying the tickets to send them the check. And that's not saying like, I really value working with people who know the complete in and outs of their story because that's the perspective I'm missing as an editor and someone who's coming in. Like when we cut Line Cooks recently, Mary Jane was my co-editor on the editor's cut and Mary Jane of course wrote the film. And so she has a very solid understanding of like...
what the beats of the story are, what needs to be accomplished. And I would touch something sometimes and she would say like, really feel like we're missing this character's perspective. This scene is supposed to be supporting this character's perspective. And I would be like, thank you, that's amazing to know. And I think it was also valuable for me to, I was a producer on the film and also on set, but for the majority of the time removed from the production part of it. like things would get changed in the heat of the moment. And I, as a...
Xanthe Brown (14:59.968)
as an editor, the only context I have is what I see in the program. So it was a really good partnership for that reason. I think we worked really well to each other, like being able to point out, we're coming to it from like very opposite ends of the filmmaking process almost. And that's also when you sent this form out, that's kind of what I wanted to talk about is like writing and editing are so far on the other end of the perspective of the process of filmmaking, but I think they're two sides of the same coin.
and in really different ways.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, cause that's an interesting dilemma that comes up a lot where you have that sort of script, the blueprint, and then when you're in production, actors are adding to it. The crew is adding to it. The constraints are evolving it because of either time or props or something's funnier that's discovered maybe prop wise or moment wise that's never been written down. And then you're in the, you know, a studio editing.
And you're like, Whoa, I have the script in front of me or the beach here or whatever. none of these, none of these lines are there. like a dealing with that new form of revision and then sort of at the edit, you're also like revising based on, you know, what was picked up during production.
Yeah, yeah, 100%. I also think writing is about just, it's just this sort of pure form of creation and inspiration and editing is similar, but you're not working with unlimited constraints. The constraints are, all I can do is change the order of things and remove them, change the timing. So they're very different, but also you can create a really different film if you cut that opening scene that's way too long and...
Xanthe Brown (16:39.954)
over-expository and all this. Like it can, it's this process of like creation through elimination. I think it's, I don't know. I find editing like less scary than writing for that reason. Like everything, it's already been shot. Everything's already there. I have a limited number of permutations to make something work.
It's a very, and thinking outside of the box in the edit is like, how can I use sound design? How can I use, you know, other outside tools, digital zooms to accomplish what I want to accomplish?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those digital optical zooms, digital zooms. Cause there's not, there's technically not that much in the sort of the tool belt. But with the, this, you know, dozen or some odd tools that an editor can use, you can do a lot. But yeah, I agree that writing is, it's like, think editing can be overwhelming by the sheer volume of like material you have to go through and look through, but it's different in writing in that, like you just have blankness. have zero constraints versus editing. It's like,
Well, we have, these are the constraints. This is it. This is the footage.
Right, yeah, right. think like coming from post, was the scary part about being a producer was like, like in post, I'm used to people being like, well, you know, all you can do is make it better from what we have. Like it can only go up from this pile of footage that we needed to sort through. And in producing, it's like, you have to find a way to generate anything to work with. So yeah, kind of a scary role.
Mishu Hilmy (18:10.91)
How has it sort of evolved your writing approach given that you've been spending so much time professionally in post-production, editorial, coloring and editing?
A lot. It's changed a lot. think from just watching tons and tons of movies and like sitting in the room and being like, why isn't this moment working? Why isn't this scene working? What can we do to fix it? I think it's like helped me develop a sense of like, you need to know what every scene is about. And straight up that comes, that's like every editorial decision I make is comes down to supporting what that moment, which then builds the scene, what the message is there.
And I think that's that is a really good way to approach writing as well. You need to be really clear with what your words, especially in comedy, like you there's not a lot of room for ambiguity if you're trying to make someone laugh. We need to know why we're laughing. We need to we need to immediately have it be legible to us. I don't know. Do you agree? Yes. Yeah.
Yeah, I agree. mean, especially with comedy, one of my teachers and mentors who I admire a lot, Michael Delaney, would just say, know, context is king. The most important thing in comedy isn't the laugh, isn't the bit, isn't the joke. Number one is context. Because without that context, you can't create an angle or situation where the joke makes sense or the bit makes sense. I think editing is very similar of creating a context. And if that context is like an emotional thrust, a narrative thrust, or
sort of the status changes within the scene or the moment. Like that's the context you need to like live off rather than some sort of intellectual idea. And yeah, with writing, I think I agree with like the writing element too. It's tough at the first draft, I believe just like right from the heart and get as much nonsense and then revise. But I think editing the final product, you realize like in the writing that I'm doing revision number seven, editor Mishu is going to cut this whole period.
Mishu Hilmy (20:06.286)
I know the editor is going sit down. They're just going to cut all this out. like, guess I might as well get it out of the draft.
That's so sad. do. I feel like also as an editor, it's such a funny position to be in. You mentioned the word powerful at one point, and it does feel powerful to be the person in this dark room, sitting there judging every single other person's work up until this point in time and saying, nope, that take was too bitchy. We're not using that delivery. She's whining too much.
It's or, you know, I don't the the prod in the background is distracting me. We're not using this angle like all that stuff. But it's that's kind of how an audience is as well, like they're they're deeply judgmental and.
Yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (20:58.424)
Right, right. Yeah, I think it goes back to context as King, because it's like for the emotional tenor of this moment, a performance, I've seen where an actor gives a very strong performance, but it's very strident. And in that moment, like we don't want to lose the empathy between the audience and the characters, or in this moment, stridency doesn't make sense. So though it's the strongest take, it's the strongest performance, but it doesn't contextually make sense.
So we go with a take that's or a moment that's a little bit better. And I don't necessarily think it's judgmental. I think it's maybe more discerning because you have time either working with the director, working the story to know like what needs to happen in this moment versus what ended up itself is probably the strongest performance, but it might not be the best for the context.
How does that feel like editing your own work? I haven't done that in long time.
Yeah, think I get removed from it. it's like, don't, I have no sun costs. I'm pretty ruthless with it. love editing and I think just having written a lot that there's nothing precious and it's like, oh, this is, maybe I'm too impatient, but I'm like, this doesn't, this needs to go, this is too clever. I gotta get rid of it. So overall it's pretty solid, but I think from production to editing, there needs to be at least like,
some time passing so I've forgotten the footage and then what I usually do is like a la Walter Merch at sort of the Steinbeck. I'll just watch all the footage back to back and then start editing.
Xanthe Brown (22:27.97)
Yeah, right. That distance from the process is really important. I also, as an editing practice, try to focus on my first reaction to anything. If something makes me laugh, I'm immediately putting it in the timeline. We can cut it later if it really doesn't work for some other reason, that's number one is because an audience is viewing it for the first time, however that feels that first time coming out of the can.
I think it's really difficult when you've been on set to actually see it for the first time as footage. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I think, I don't know. It's like pretty uncommon to have editors on set, like given sort of your opportunities where you can produce, it's, probably helpful, especially with, you know, dailies and whatnot, but yeah, I've never had this. mean, everything I've edited where I've directed or produced, have been on set, but there's at least enough time to get away from it.
It was like with line cooks, especially we had my boss, Anna, who is an editor by trade was our script supervisor. And that was extremely useful on set because she, you know, the director would often turn to her and be like, do we have it? Do we have the coverage that we need to cut the scene? And a lot, it's a lot of, you know, close ups and people cooking. There's a lot of continuity needing to happen with pop gags and stuff like that. So having, having someone who can sort of envision it down the line.
Yeah.
Xanthe Brown (23:51.232)
is really, really important. And she also, she pushed for lots of inserts, lots of close-up stuff for montages. The movie is as it is right now. I don't know if I'm allowed to talk in depth about it, but there's a lot of montages and that requires a ton of content. And she was sort of that voice in the room being like, you know, this is something we need. I do think people in production oftentimes think of post as post-production.
there are some really solid, technically solid practices that you can adopt during production like dailies, which can save you a lot of money. That was another thing was I was doing dailies for linecoats and I ended up catching an audio issue like one or two days into the shoot that was causing audio drift where it would be, it would be in sync at the beginning of the take. And then at the end of the take it'd be two or three frames off. And that would have been a nightmare to resolve.
15 days of that as opposed to two days and we're able to catch the equipment issue and fix it. but yeah, that's, that's the value of adding post to your production process. Yeah.
Yeah. And I'm curious if you could like maybe explain dailies from say like an indie standpoint, because I think people might have a understanding of like dailies from sort of the old studio system, old Hollywood, a bunch of people sort of getting their rushes later that evening. What's it, what's it, or what's it look like at least at the indie level for line cooks?
Yes. So dailies for independent features, would say oftentimes looks like at the end of your shoot day or also in the middle, whenever you have a full camera card and it's time to take a break, it looks like you're DIT running up to your dailies off and offloading all of the footage, all of the audio that you've shot thus far. And there's a couple of reasons you want to do that. That's step one. The number one reason is simply for safety. If your equipment fails for any reason, you want to have
Xanthe Brown (25:44.748)
or three backups of it as quickly as possible. And that's the number one reason I would say dailies is we talk about as protecting your investment in production because if you lose a day of footage that's thousands of dollars of labor, of location fees, equipment rentals, all that stuff that you just don't get back. So that's step one is offloading your footage and then your dailies operator will load it up into your program, will sync all the audio with the footage.
label it all with your scene and take metadata and then oftentimes do a really quick color matching paths which is not strictly necessary for your technical fortitude but it's a really good process like protective process for editorial because you may when you're cutting a producer may notice a color shift between you know the wide and the close-up and say I don't like that cut it's bothering me but not know why exactly what's happening and we may know in post it's because
the close-up is a little more red. But it's helpful to just sort of have the footage be as continuous as possible. Yeah. And then at the end of that syncing process and coloring process, we render out the proxies, which are just smaller files that an editor can work with more deftly than those gigantic red files that you're shooting on. And then at the end of the editorial process, we do something called onlining, where we bring all of that. We unlink that proxy media and we relink it to the original.
gigantic red files for your color session and eventually your render. Yeah, so that's what the process looks like. the sort of like old school Hollywood sense, dailies has traditionally been done overnight, where as soon as there's footage available from that day, a dailies off will stay up until three or four in the morning, processing your footage, rendering it out, uploading it to iPads, doing whatever needs to be done so that the next morning.
the producers and the director have access to all that footage. Some people in the industry are starting to phase that out because it can be really bad for people, people's sleep schedules. Ryan and Ana, my bosses are very much against that practice whenever possible. I've done dailies a number of times and we just do it the day after. And while it's slightly less optimal in terms of that protecting your investment thing, it makes a world of difference for your actual dailies up.
Xanthe Brown (28:04.366)
And another thing to consider in that world is that because of union rules, you have to wait, I don't know what exactly it is, but you have to wait, I think 12 hours before work can begin, or maybe it's eight hours before work can begin. So if set runs over time and you don't wrap until midnight, everything gets pushed. So you might be starting your daily sessions at, you know, 8 p.m. on Monday and then not start them until 5 a.m. on Saturday because of OT.
you mentioned when you were younger, shooting things with your cousins and editing them. I'm curious, like, you returned to any of those old sort of family home videos recently? Have you like watched them and sort of uncovered any laughs? Like, wow, that's a pretty, pretty good cut. Pretty good edit.
not, not in a while. think we used to watch them every year and you know, I'm sure if I pulled it up, I would know it front to back by heart. Everything we've ever said and what cuts come when it is fun. I think it's fun to like watch myself progress as an editor in watching those back and the older I get, the more kind of advanced.
the techniques become I'm doing like explosions and you know, montages and stuff like that. It's definitely fun. think, you know, I think it's also we've tried to shoot stuff since then and we're all kind of adults now. So it's a little harder when we're all together to just have, you know, three days of unfettered time where our parents don't want to talk to us and just send us outside with the camcorder.
I think I also like now being a professional in film, I think I'm a little bit annoying to them about like, my God, like this is the, we're totally overexposed, you know, or like, wait, let me take a crack at that edit, you know, that kind of But it's still fun for me.
Mishu Hilmy (29:57.71)
Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Cause I think, cause I'm curious, cause it's also, you you, um, you produced and did you write and edit a pilot, um, uh, as a sort of a graduation project. like, uh, I'm just curious, like, um, how that, how that sort of transpired as, cause you, you edited it and wrote it, but you had, uh, was it a co-directed or a different director?
I had a director, the fabulously talented Lola Selby, who is my dear friend. Yes, that was the band was a pilot. wrote a senior year of college that was chosen for a grant to be produced at the school. And when I wrote it, I just, I did not think it was going to get chosen at all. So I did not write for producibility and then we had to make it. I always like everyone who works.
who worked on the band like just has my undying admiration and respect because it was it was actually really hard. was like we had a child character. It was like a ensemble with like seven characters. A lot of them had to be like full grown adults. So we had to people drive in from out of town, six locations. And we shot two weekends for like under four thousand dollars, which was so absurd. And yeah, yeah, I'll always love that pilot. I think I learned a lot.
from writing it and getting to look back on it now after having a bunch of industry experience and saying, my gosh, I can see so clearly all of the things I could have done differently. It feels good. That used to of hurt, but it actually feels good to be in a position where I have grown in some way. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Cause I'm, I'm curious. Cause it's like, um, with that, cause that's the sort of lessons from producing and early writing. And you also have lessons from, um, a feature film editorial side. So I'm curious between sort of your practice in the world of professional editorial, well as independent producing and writing. How has that changed your writing process? Cause you mentioned sort of not thinking producibility wise. So I just would like, like, I want to know like how, how is your writing process?
Mishu Hilmy (32:10.602)
Now, you know, it's never evolving thing, but like, how has it been changing, transforming? What's your experience of writing?
I think probably it should have changed more and into being more producible and it has not. I have a really hard time with that honestly with writing like I'm I the script that I'm writing right now is about a people pleaser who dies and she can't handle the disappointment that everyone in her life feels over her death so she just comes back to life and she's a full-on zombie she's decomposing her arms are falling off I don't know how to write that to be more producible I don't
I almost am not interested in writing it to be more producible. But I also know from a practical standpoint, like people, especially in the indie space, like you have to cut down as much as you can. I mean, shooting a two person, 15 minute short in one location is very hard. It's already really hard to do for very little money. So shooting a gigantic feature film that involves special effects and zombies and vomit and you know, whatever. Yeah.
I think, I do think like as a writer, I've probably at least now that I've been through the experience of producing something that was really hard to make, I at least can prepare for that process a little better. Even if I'm not writing towards it, I can foresee maybe things that we might need on set to accomplish what I'm writing towards versus just going in totally.
Yeah, I think it's something I think we might talk about but it's like a struggle because the more you learn about the industry and the more sort of expertise and professional development you have within it, there's just different parts of you that understand things. But I don't think ultimately it's the writer's responsibility to ever think about producibility until maybe that writer gets a check signed by, you know, a green light or a studio or whatever. But it just it's such a terrible, it's a difficult hang up to deal with of like,
Mishu Hilmy (34:07.7)
knowing how difficult it can be on set and how expensive things are, that it sort of infects your writing rather than like to truly just keep writing and revising in a way that best, you know, expresses your whimsy or your story. I think it's a hard demon to kind of like shut up.
Yeah, think also just, you know, to write you really have to be free of and allow your mind to just run where it needs to run. And maybe that's the value of drafting is like showing this to interested partners and having them say like, dude, there's no way you can shoot a scene where like on your budget of, you know, 75 K for this feature, there's no way you can have an arm fall off and reattach and fall off again. You know, that's your entire budget is special effects.
Yeah, maybe that's maybe you just have to like that first draft just has to be whatever it's going to be for you.
I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Cause it's like, that a lack of creativity from the producers? I think you, you need to trust your collaborators and the experts you bring on and how can they creatively express it? Cause yeah, I think we're using hypotheticals, but it's a whole cloth. Just go like, what? You can't do that. It's too expensive rather than, wow, I love this with the resources we have. How can we, how can we make it happen? And maybe it is like,
You blow a four hour or a 10 hour shoot trying to make it happen. It's like, no, we really can't. But I do think like, I think the problem for me is like, when you are dismissing creative potential out of the guise of producibility, rather than we keep it and we see what we can like kind of, you know, don't know, mock it up, brainstorm it out. I would rather like have that creativity still be allowed to exist rather than like some outside parties like not too expensive change, change it, which is a valid argument, but.
Mishu Hilmy (35:53.784)
Sometimes I worry there might be a lack of due diligence, creative-wise.
Yeah, I like that perspective. I think that was we ran into that with the band a lot where the version that got chosen for the grant I did a ton of rewrites for to, you know, just put the story in slightly different settings where it was, you know, we have this like, there was this whole empty warehouse location where the band was going to rehearse and get locked in and all this stuff. And we just turned that into a basement because that's what we had access to. Yeah. And I think maybe if you have a if you have a good enough
story and some say if your story is strong enough it can change locations and the core of it is still interesting or even you can sort of you know create this sense of believability that the audience will buy just enough because they're already interested in the characters enough to overlook any you know any less than optimal producer leave decisions you had to make.
Writing practice wise, what's, what's your current writing practice and rewriting practice looking like?
I would say I write as often as I feel good about writing. And I think that's, that's, that can be rare sometimes. I try to make it at least once a week for about two hours at a time. That's what I, that feels the most solid to me versus like making it a daily practice is actually really difficult for me. And, but also,
Xanthe Brown (37:26.446)
I'm trying to do it on a regular schedule of like Sunday mornings, I'm writing for two hours. And that really helps because it's, think waiting to feel inspired is not always the best way to do it. Sometimes it's more a matter of just sitting down and doing it than like waiting for ideas to come to you. But at the same time, I think I've also like since graduating, I've taken a much more lax approach to writing in general, because I think in school it was like,
I would take a screenwriting class and we'd sit down and week one, they'd be like, all right, like next week you're going to come in with your series Bible and you have one week to write a series Bible. And that was like, that did not allow me a lot of time to sit with or like having to evolve. Like the feature that I'm writing right now is it's taken me forever, but I'm also really enjoying how it's changed from my initial conception. I save every draft that I write so I can look back at my drafts from 2024.
And be like, wow, I like what I have right now a lot better. But I also think the longer you spend with something and don't send it out into the world, the harder it can be to send it out into the world. You know, I think it's ever evolving. I'm enjoying it. And that was the most important thing for me.
Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah, I think that's the best answer though. Cause it's like, the creative practice, devotional practice to just like entertaining your creative curiosity rather than an ambitious practice. Cause yes, of course, I think if you're very deeply ambitious to the point of neurosis, then maybe you're like, I got it right. Two hours a day, which I think if you're a professional, then yeah, maybe you can sustain it because you have, you know, evidence or money coming in to do it.
But if it's not there, I think it can be long-term harmful or create. don't even want to call it a people pleasing habit, but like a compulsive pleasing habit where it's like, just told myself I got to do this every day rather than, you know, once a week or every other week for this period of my life has been more fruitful. I've really been trying to meditate on like, you know, dabbling and dawdling. I'm like, yeah, you can, you can just noodle around and enjoy it. So that's, yeah, it's a kind of inspiring practice of.
Mishu Hilmy (39:38.454)
knowing what's enough either weekly or daily.
I love that. I love that. think that's a goal. I was listening to an interview with Zach Kregger of Weapons and he was talking about the inspiration of that movie and part of it came from, said, I think his creative partner died in a really tragic accident. And part of writing Weapons was like him sort of just exploring like what that person may have been going through and
And he said in the interview that like it was a privilege to write from the perspective of trying to get the venom out versus writing from ambition. That the pain of like grief and loss for him and the catharsis of that writing process was actually less painful than ego he felt writing his first feature. I thought that was fascinating.
And I can't say I've gone through that. I can't really compare. And how do you compare those two pains? I think it speaks a lot to how much it can really hurt when you're writing from a place of ambition.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think what makes this so difficult is like the trust of knowing when you're aligned versus out of balance. Cause like, yeah, you can have too much ambition or you can be like too, too rationalizing, too justifying of like, tomorrow there's always tomorrow. And then some of your, your ideas just disappear. you know, 40 years later, you're like, I could have done that thing. So it's, know, not zero sum or either, or, but I do think it's, it's good to have that mindfulness. But yeah, I generally think like.
Mishu Hilmy (41:20.738)
The less things that are driven by insecurity, the more you'll enjoy it.
man, yeah, yeah, it's hard. sometimes I have to question why I'm interested in it at all. If I'm looking for this validation, if I'm looking to prove something to myself about my intelligence or my charisma, or if it's just truly the joy of like, of almost problem solving.
Yeah. Yeah. That's what I think it goes back to like the creative act. Why the word producibility is such a dangerous word in the midst of a purely creative act. And, everyone can do their own process, but I do think like, let that, let that come later when you're like excited about trying to, trying to make the thing and problem solve rather than, you know, at the, just generate it out of, you know, curiosity or joy.
Yeah, think also filmmaking is just such a, it's truly insane and miraculous that the amount of like, once you've done it enough, like the amount of work and labor and the number of minds that have to be activated to make one minute of content is astounding. And I think like the term producibility almost dismisses the very real and beautiful transformation that your film goes through.
from being an idea to being something people watch. I think it's beautiful and it requires so many different people to bring their own perspective to it. it's so, it's like fateful in the sense that there's all these external forces that you can't control that shape your film one way or another and not for better or for worse, it's like being born.
Xanthe Brown (43:03.894)
You can't control every aspect of that person that you become. I don't know. I think that's amazing. think people try to fight it and make their film exactly what they had in their mind. that's really hard to do.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what makes it sort of difficult as a creative medium because there's so many levels of interpretation and group work. It's not like a painting. So I think that's what makes it so difficult is that it's a creative act that involves a lot of others. And because it involves a lot of others, the commercial element of it can show itself even more, which makes it, I think when I think about maybe confusing
or difficult to navigate because it's one thing you alone with a canvas. It's another thing you and your community spending 10 hours every day for a month, a month or whatever. So like that's when the economics of it make the creative act, I think challenging to, don't know whether it's creating boundaries or creating a relationship. It's similar to, think theater making, but theater making is a little bit more accessible because there's no delusion of scale. There's no potential of a piece of Shakespeare that you make.
at the local corner theater going all across the world. So you don't necessarily have to contend with like, show me the money as much.
That's so true. Yeah. Your piece of media exists forever somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. That is so true. It is astounding just how much labor is involved. I truly firmly believe it's so important to pay people for their good labor. I think it's sort of standard in the industry for like, you you need to cut your teeth and work for free. you know, I've definitely, I've been extremely lucky to.
Xanthe Brown (44:52.938)
have sort of been adopted by two mentors who, you know, have paid me as much as they could from day one. But that's like, that's not a lot of people's experience in the industry. And yeah, it's really hard to get stuff made on that small level without doing that. Like without, without asking people to, to work for free or for a minimum cost. I think the other side of that coin is like, people are really motivated to work on that small independent stuff.
because it's oftentimes really outside of the box. And, you know, it's because it hasn't been vetted by tons of executives. It's it can be really creative and fulfilling and feel like you're you're part of a local history. But it's still like, do we how do we like retain that relationship where we're treating people good and and make that sustainable to keep making small scale stuff? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Cause I think that's like really the kind of the crux of it, the scale of it of like, if it's going to have the play of community or sort of, think a teacher I used have Neil Casey would call it sort of comedy communism of like it's small scale and we're having fun together. So it's, it's only living and dying in this moment. So we don't, we're not worried about compensation because we're present and playful and we are all consenting. But I think as the vision increases or the expectations increase or the scale increase.
increase like, we're not just a bunch of artists in a room together for eight hours for the next two weekends. Like we're, we're becomes different. And that's where you just got to negotiate and navigate. Like it's not, it's not a purely creative act to a degree. It's, it's not a communal act. Now there's a little bit of expectation money wise.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's true. I think it's especially true when you involve like, like technical expertise and that takes time to develop and gear that costs money. And you don't always want to ask people to bring that to you for free. I also think like, talking about this kind of stuff makes me really sad as an artist. And so it's important, like it's important to just do stuff for fun that you as the creative don't have any expectation that it's going to go anywhere or be anything or, you know,
Xanthe Brown (47:02.574)
I think Joni Mitchell talks about crop rotating her art forms where she never gets burned out because she's tired of playing a song, she'll paint. I try to do that as well. I paint, sing, I do karaoke in my car, all that stuff. retain that sense of play because as a working artist, I have to think about, oh my God, am I charging enough to do this thing? It's like Tad. I don't want to think about that.
Yeah. Yeah. I think you helped the guy to give me clarity because it's like, yeah, I spent a year this year doing this podcast partly because maybe I was, I think just getting tired of writing two to four spec scripts a year. And it's been, this year has been nice to kind of crop rotate out and go, all right, I miss, I miss focusing being on set or I miss doing this. So I think it is an important practice to like be aware of when you're, it's that sort of that demon of producibility. Cause then it's like about the economics rather than like.
Hey, I haven't seen my buddy in a few months. I got my iPhone. Let's just like hang out in their living room and do the most mumble core nonsense for two hours. No one's going to see. And that's like a great way to like crop rotate back into like the love of love, nature of it.
my God, yeah, it's so important. mean, that's, and that's, think, where a lot of us come from and come into this business is like making stupid stuff with your friends. And it's, it's so, it's like a beautiful thing that we, you know, we are able to build careers out of, but we kind of lose the time to be able to do that or the inspiration. You know, you've been, I've been shooting all month. Like, why would I want to go shoot something with my friends? I've been, you know, especially when I can charge for it. But it's so important. It's so important.
to return to that every once in a while so you don't get burned out.
Mishu Hilmy (48:48.11)
So we're talking a bit about the writing practice, but I'd like to know like your rewriting practice. Like what's that look like? How does that compare to say the Sunday for two hours? Like what's your relationship with rewriting?
think lately rewriting for me has come down to just spending enough time away from the piece that I can come back to it and read it with fresh eyes and say like, this is hilarious. Why did I cut this line versus like what I don't even know what I'm trying to say here. And that's that can kind of simulate like before I'm ready to share it with other people, which I think is I think that's number one.
rewriting practices. In school, we used to sit around a table, assign roles, and everyone would read out loud. People would react naturally to stuff. And that's so fruitful for a rewrite. But when it's just me right now, time. Time is the best way to do it. I also think writing in general is such a lonely process because you're kind of on this island with
all of your ideas and only like 10 % of those actually make it onto the page or need to be on the page. And you kind of have no idea how what you've actually written is hitting anybody else. And I love the process of like hearing my words be read by other people, hearing how they react to stuff, because I'm the only person left out of that room. I'm the only person who does not. It's impossible for me to know what this line that I think is packing a ton of subtext.
how that's actually hitting anybody else. So I think that's my favorite part of the rewrite is when I get to that point where I feel comfortable showing other people and having them read it out loud. For now, it's me and a couple weeks time suffice to fill that role.
Mishu Hilmy (50:32.27)
Yeah. Yeah. I do think there's like a responsibility around protecting and preserving your creative self. it's like at most, usually by version three, I might be able to share it with folks, but I think there's the risk of like folks who just like, all right, here's my first draft. Please read it. Like, I think that's a little bit too dangerous too early, having time is good. love.
being humbled by table reads. They're the most humbling, just these great lines just tumbling out of people's mouths. wow, this is clunky. I can't believe I thought that.
Yeah. It's so, it hurts so bad. It hurts so good. think, yeah, it's important to go through that process before that's, before it's what you've shot and to hear people say it. I was talking to John Mossman, the director of Line Cooks, and we were talking about a script idea and he had said like, thank you so much for sharing this with me. I often, you know, protect my young ideas before I have a lot on the page because it's
can feel like showing somebody a fetus where they don't know if that's gonna be a baby. it's, you know, I think it is really important to, you know, maybe talk to one trusted person about a problem that you're having. But when you open it up to a whole room that can, yeah, dangerous is the right word. Can really hurt you when you're in a, you just need to generate, you just need to flow. Yeah.
I think especially with ideas, because you have a distinct creative point of view and you can have an idea that's three words or 10 words and like you understand how you would approach that idea but at the sort of the idea level it's like if I say this out loud people will be like what are you talking about? This doesn't make sense? So I'm pretty like only Audrey, I'll only tell Audrey like my dumb ideas because I know like she doesn't care and she'll just like make fun of them but it doesn't bother me there.
Mishu Hilmy (52:27.706)
But that's, that's literally like one person. yeah. What if we can time travel through sweat? Like what? Like what? Yeah. Yeah. I'm working on it. It's a
Please write that.
Xanthe Brown (52:39.928)
think one thing that I've been reflecting on a lot is, as I would like to still say, recent graduate, my relationship to school and how that has sort of negatively or positively influenced my relationship to filmmaking. think in school, I was always a very good student, but the path to success as a student is they tell you what you need to do to succeed.
And I kind of grew up believing that's what life is as well, and filmmaking. And there's no, that is completely different from the skill set that you need to make a movie to produce something. You have to find a way. They don't tell you what the way is and then you memorize it and regurgitate it back to them. You have to exercise an entirely new kind of creativity where, you know, we need to, we gotta shoot the scene where her arm's falling off. These are our resources.
how are we gonna make that happen? Nobody's teaching you that. Yeah, and I think that process was initially really scary and having made a living on film for the last couple years, I've come out of it with a lot more confidence than I think when I graduated school. Yeah.
Yeah. So like the, risk of schooling is that it can make it seem simple. Like all you gotta do is take the steps one, two, three, four, and then boom, you're a successful, actually solvent, creative person. When in reality, it's like this, it's not a very amenable industry. It's a very, you know, time, effort and luck based industry versus something that's a little bit more, you know, causal.
Yeah, 100%. And even like with color and finishing, which are very technical. And the reason I have this job is because I was in school and took a class from Professor Ryan Stempel, who reached out to me after graduating. So in that sense, school has been everything to me as I've graduated. Like even in that technical profession where, you know, you would assume there's a right and a wrong answer for like, am I going to interpret this?
Xanthe Brown (54:46.658)
time code or whatever it is. It's oftentimes requires a lot of creativity and thinking on your feet and problems that you didn't know you might have to solve. I have a 50 page Google Doc of notes from my first couple of years of working in color editorial and finishing. Just not even like how tos, but like situations I've been in where what happens if a conform comes in and they've shot mixed frame rate.
Right.
Xanthe Brown (55:15.224)
How do I conform that into a 23976 timeline? Here's what I did this time in just collecting those experiences as opposed to like writing a one size fits all tutorial for post.
Totally. Yeah. Cause it's like that thing. It's like, it's not always input output. Like, well, should I use a magic mask or should I use a power window? Like it's like players choice to a certain degree. And you don't know until you're confronted with the problem. And then even your own sort of muscle memory is like, you're choosing to solve it this way. When a different colorist might solve it a different way.
Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah.
Like given how uncertain the industry is and this world is like, how, how have you been staying motivated with your creative practice or life in general?
And I have been lucky to not find that difficult recently. think like being surrounded by an awesome group of coworkers and mentors and friends, Chicago is a beautiful community of really nice people who just want to make stuff and everyone sees each other as a collaborator. I think it's really easy for me to be excited. I think the difficult part is to, is making it actually happen and, you know, getting over
Xanthe Brown (56:26.638)
getting over my own self doubt and having the confidence to jump in and say like, here I am, I'm an editor, I'm a colorist, I'm a writer, read my stuff, I'm part of this community as well. think being young, that's been the struggle for me, man, like I have an awesome job and really awesome coworkers who everyone's just a complete badass who I get to be around all day. It's really easy to like.
come into work and just want to be more like them. That's, Yeah.
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, yeah, Xanthi, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for sharing.
Yay, thank you so much, Mishu. This feels like, you know, going out for coffee and drinking a gigantic espresso. I used to feel weird to do that and talk about comedy every once in a while. And I always just felt like I was like doing drugs with my friend Mishu. And that's what I'm doing.
Yes, yes, yes, this is great.
Xanthe Brown (57:22.894)
you
Mishu Hilmy (57:29.102)
Before sending you off with a little creative prompt, I just wanted to say thank you for listening to Mischief and Mastery. If you enjoyed this show, please rate it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your support does mean a lot. Until next time, keep taking care of yourself, your lightness, curiosity, and sense of play. And now for a little Mischief motivation. All right, let's do a little fun prompt. Let's do it.
I think this is maybe more about impulse building, discernment building, just kind of testing. So instead of over explaining your creative choices, this is just better or worse. Those are the two words you can use. No justification, no language. So find something that you've made or an idea you have and compare it to another idea you have, you know, whether it's two photos, two poems, two lines, two images, two shots, two takes, whatever it is, just look at it.
hold it, take a gander, and between the two, better or worse. And play around with those two options to prevent over-intellectualizing and playing around with developing that impulse to work on speed and the comfort with just rapid feedback in around aesthetic judgments and aesthetic choices. So give that a shot, see if it works for you, see if it doesn't work for you. But yeah, compare two of your things. And if you don't have a lot of things to compare to, two different things from different artists, you enjoy.
better or worse and see how that might help your creative discernment and your impromptu fast twitch aesthetic judgments. All right, I don't know if that one's going to work, but give it a shot. Alrighty, I'll talk to you all there.