Split Diopters, Indie Film Private Equity, and the Rock and Roll of Making Movies | Episode 558

Something is shifting in independent film right now, and Ron Cohen, one of the producers on June July and a veteran of physical production, is exactly the person to make sense of it. Chris and Daniel bring him in for a wide-ranging conversation that touches on everything from The Odyssey's marketing to the A24 backlash of the moment, but the real news is that the team just wrapped a shoot on June July, and Ron walks through how it actually went.

The conversation moves into the details of that shoot, where fully ray traced and relightable Gaussian splats, an unplanned split diopter, and a crew that improvised through a rough second day produced a shot nobody storyboarded. Ron also weighs in on private equity's growing role in indie film financing, the five to ten million dollar sweet spot for creative freedom, and what the Warner Bros/Paramount consolidation could open up for smaller studios willing to bet on story over stars.

References mentioned:
A24
Google DeepMind
The Odyssey
Warner Bros / Paramount

Sponsors:
Center Grid Virtual Studio: https://cgvirtualstudio.com/