The Evolution of the Film Industry with Writer and Producer Bill Guttentag

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Transcription of our conversation with Oscar-Winning Writer and Producer Bill Guttentag:

Immad Akhund: Welcome to Curiosity Podcast, where we go deep on a wide variety of technical topics with the smartest leaders in the world. I'm Immad Akhund, co-founder and CEO of Mercury.

Rajat Suri: And I'm Raj Suri, co-founder of Lima, Presto and Lyft. And today we're going to talk with Bill Gutentag, who is the Oscar-winning writer, director and producer, best known for You Don't Have to Die, Nanking, and Crime & Punishment. He is also a lecturer at Stanford, who has been lecturing for several years, and he's here today to talk about how filmmaking has evolved through the years, how technology is being integrated into filmmaking, and just the overall creative process of making films. Immad, what are you curious to talk to Bill about?

Immad Akhund: You know, I don't know that much about filmmaking. So I think even some of the basics, like how did he get into it? What's the process? You know, often people compare kind of startups to filmmaking. Wanted to discuss that and see like where the similarities are and where they end.

Rajat Suri: Absolutely. I am fascinated with film as it's like, you know, you're trying to build this almost perfect product because it lasts forever. You can't iterate. You have to basically put together the product under these very significant constraints. And it's very people-driven as well, which is similar to startups. It's also very technology-driven. And the industry itself changes a lot.

Immad Akhund: It's also a bit more ephemeral in nature, right? Like a startup you could do for decades, whereas a film you do and then you move on from the project.

Rajat Suri: It's ephemeral for you, but it could last forever from the audience perspective. We're still talking about films made 70 years ago. I think Steve Jobs talked about this, the difference between his work at Pixar and Apple. At Apple, his work is constantly being obsolete. I like the kind of juxtaposition between the two. At one side, you're making things that last forever. On the other side, you're on the bleeding edge and you're advancing the whole industry and humanity in some way with tech. So yeah, anyways, it'll be fascinating to talk to Bill because he's actually on the intersection of both. Given he is at Stanford, he actually sees tech quite often and he knows how to explain film really well as well. So excited to have him on the show. Welcome, Bill.

Bill Guttentag: Okay, well, thank you for having me.

Immad Akhund: Yeah, excited to have you. You know, filmmaking is obviously an unusual profession. How did you initially get into it?

Bill Guttentag: Well, I got, I started in high school and then I studied it in college and then I went to film school and after film school, like, you know, everyone, I, you know, sort of struggled to, uh, to get ahead and, uh, managed to get a job. Um, and, um, you know, just build, build on it, built on it from there.

Immad Akhund: What was your first break into it?

Bill Guttentag: I think the first major thing that I had done was I wrote a treatment for an HBO documentary and I was HBO bought the documentary and I was sort of under qualified, but I got a low level job on the film and that job. I ended up producing about 40% of the film due to some unusual circumstances. And at that point, you know, I went from being someone that HBO had never heard of to someone who had produced about 40% of the film they liked. And that made it a lot easier to get further work. And I did a bunch of HBO films from there.

Immad Akhund: You said you did a treatment on that. What does that mean?

Bill Guttentag: Well, so an executive at HBO had approached the director I was friends with and said, well, I think this would be a good idea for a film and that they kick loose a relatively small amount of money. And you did the research. And I still do this on films now where you develop a film and you spend a relatively small amount of money. And the idea is that Well, let's see if there's a film here. And if you don't feel like, if there's a film protects both you and the network, if you do feel like there's a film, you go forward. I mean, making films is inherently a risky situation. It's a little like playing pool. There's no guarantee that the ball is going to go in the pocket, but you do everything you can to try to line up the shot as best you can.

Rajat Suri: It's a little bit like a prototype. It's like they kind of write a script, right? Like you do mock-ups or something.

Bill Guttentag: Yeah. Yeah.

Immad Akhund: I wonder how many startup analogies we're going to do in this podcast.

Bill Guttentag: Yeah, well, that is true. It's a short thing. And especially documentaries, you know, you don't really know where it's going to go. And it helps alleviate the risk a bit. It de-risks it and it protects both the filmmaker and the network.

Immad Akhund: Yeah. You've done mostly documentaries. Is that like a particular passion?

Bill Guttentag: I've done documentaries and I've done fictional films. Most of the fictional films I've done have been related to true stories. I'm very interested in true stories. I find it completely fascinating. So yeah, I mean, I think I'm always looking for good stories.

Immad Akhund: Yeah. What is it about documentaries that gets you so excited?

Bill Guttentag: Well, you know, I find true stories of people's lives really, really interesting. So there's a writer which I really admired when I was in college called Studs Terkel. He's like an old school radio guy. And his whole theory was everyone has an interesting story. So, if you're at Stanford where I teach, the president of Stanford has a great story. The person who's driving the bus has a great story. The Nobel Prize winning professor's got a great story. The woman who's working in the cafeteria, you know, has a great story. I mean, people's stories are profoundly interesting. And so he wrote a book called, Studs Turkel wrote a book called Working, and also one called The Good War, among others, and those are the two I like the most. So, I always felt like, you know, people have good stories. And the other thing I like about doing it is that you're in some ways you're in a privileged situation. People are sharing their stories with you. There are these horrifying stats out there about how much time, real time, that parents speak to children, boyfriends speak to girlfriends, you know, boyfriends and girlfriends, just, you know, the relationship, our lives, the amount of real time folks speak is very small. You know, I mean, it's just shockingly small. So when you do a documentary, you set up a camera, you create an environment where people can often go back to the most important time in their life and spend 90 minutes, a couple hours. It can be really profound. You're asking people their life stories. And I found this with people who are really well-known and people who are not well-known. I mean, I've always found it interesting doing both foot soldiers and generals.

Immad Akhund: How do you get people to open up? It seems like that's a hard skill.

Bill Guttentag: I think most people want to open up on some level, but just the day-to-day buzzing around makes it difficult. So that's why in some ways there's just so little conversation between people. I can tell you a story where years ago I interviewed the civil rights legend John Lewis, who is quite famous. If you look at the footage of the bridge at Selma, he's the first person in line getting his head bashed in. He was at the March on Washington, he was friends with Martin Luther King Jr., a Congressman, just an extraordinary guy. And when I went to interview him, he had promised us half an hour. This is an extremely busy guy. And we set up and the lighting is beautiful. The camera person I used was on Ken Burns films, if you know that look. And we just started going through his life and it was really really moving. So half an hour became an hour became you know an hour and a half became two hours, you know in two and a half hours and at the end of it. You know he was crying the camera person was crying, I was crying was very emotional experience, you know just go back spend two and a half hours, go through this important time of your life. And after we finished, you know lights came on I guess we all dried our tears. And, um, and he sat around like, you know, we just sat around schmoozing for half an hour, you know, without the camera on. I mean, it's just really, you're affording people the opportunity to tell their story. And most people I believe want to tell their story, but they're not afforded the opportunity to do it.

Immad Akhund: Do you find there's any kind of particular questions that you ask that really are incisive?

Bill Guttentag: Well, I think, I'm looking to ask people questions that'll elicit thoughtful and or emotional responses. I mean, you know, a lot of times it's a resuscitation of the facts or, you know, it's not that interesting. I mean, you can, often you need it, you need his connective tissue, you know, in a documentary, you need the resuscitation of the facts, but you know, it's a lot more important about, you know, how you felt as you were doing this and, you know, and there's, You know, part of doing a documentary takes you to all sorts of places. I mean, you go quite literally all over the world. You know, one of the people here is Buzz Aldrin. So it's even out of the current world, you know, and you're asking him, you know, what's it like looking back at Earth? You know, I mean, so it's yeah, I mean, it really broadens you. And I can't tell you how many times I've done lengthy interviews with folks and they have thanked me. I'm like, thank you. You know, you took a big chunk of your day out of this. I'm incredibly grateful. And they're all, well, thank you. You know, it was really meaningful to me. So I think in that way, it can be a great reciprocal experience.

Rajat Suri: Bill, this has been your entire career, making films. You also teach, right, at Stanford?

Bill Guttentag: Right. I mean, I have sort of two things I do more than anything else, which is I've been making films and I've been teaching at the Stanford Graduate School of Business since 2001. I've also taught at the Stanford Design School as well.

Rajat Suri: And they're very different, right? One is very creative. The other one is more, you know, coaching and mentoring. You know, how do you balance those two?

Bill Guttentag: I have amazing students and based where I am here in Silicon Valley, I can't tell you how often students come to me and say, I have this idea and I say, wow, that's a really good idea. Some of these have become viable and really good companies. I think there's a line that I've heard said, which resonate with me where it's, I never fail to learn from my students. So I find it a really rewarding experience to be around the students. I think that they ask really good questions and sometimes of me, sometimes I have guests, and I think that it really helps keep you sharp, being around the students and tracking. The entertainment business is something that changes quite a bit, I'm sure you're very aware, you know, the class I'm teaching now in some ways is very different than the class I taught five years ago or ten years ago. The readings are completely different. Everything changes, you know, when you're in the entertainment world. I mean, just look back five or ten years, you know, think about that. If you're looking about where we're sitting right now, you know, I meet with a lot of students, a lot of students have projects, they have companies, which I sometimes advise on, sometimes formally, sometimes informally, and you know if you're just looking at the trends where we're sitting right now like you know you know everything has to do with A.I. and you know I don't think that's that much different than a lot of Silicon Valley at this point. But you're dealing with very sharp students who are trying to think about how is this going to be used and in what ways.

Rajat Suri: It's fascinating you mentioned that. Nowadays, programmers, especially young programmers, are becoming AI native, where they build programs along with an AI copilot. And more senior programmers are not used to that, so it's very strange for them to do that. So you're seeing this trend of new programmers becoming very productive and efficient. you know, compared to even more senior programmers, more experienced programmers. Are you seeing something similar in the filmmaking where, or you see that trend starting to emerge where younger filmmakers are like more using the tools that AI gives them and are able to have superpowers as a result?

Bill Guttentag: Well, it's a really big question, but what I think I just want to address your earlier point, Raj, is that I think a lot of folks around here can be on sort of bleeding edge of what's going on. I mean, I remember, like it seems crazy now, but I remember my son came home from school in Palo Alto and said, we learned this, you know, great new technologies in elementary school. I said, well, what, what's it called? He says, it's called PowerPoint. And, and it was so new. I said, well, so, you know, what is it this PowerPoint do? I was asking, he said, he's telling me about it. He said, yeah, we had a bunch of teachers from Holland come and see how technology is being used around here. You know, this was like an age, you know, it seems crazy now. PowerPoint was like leading technology. But you know, it has to be tried out for somewhere, you know, and this is before we were all using it. So, and I've always found that interesting. 

What's happening in AI is now, you know, it's a big debate about what it's going to be able to do. I think a general consensus is on things like for film, like scheduling and that sort of thing, it's complete, you know, it's great. I mean, why not? You know, on special effects, you know, it's, it's really kind of amazing. I mean, a lot of it's already used in all sorts of forms, like, you know, quite a few, um, actresses where, um, wigs these days and the wigs that come down low and there's a line and, you know, you need to track someone walking across the screen and it can help remove that's that sort of thing. These kinds of effects are, are being done. If you want to have like, you know, a fire burning behind you, that used to be an expensive effect. Now, it's like someone who's a freshman in college can do that pretty easily. I think that things like that, you're going to see just a lot of it being used. The real question going forward is, Like, how are you going to get deep into the creative space? So, if I'm filming, you know, conversation with the three of us around the table, you know, I might use two cameras, do, you know, five or six setups, setups when you move the camera someplace else. So, two cameras, five setups, and do five takes, right? Well, when you go to cut the scene, You know, that's a lot of takes to choose from. You know, what point, you know, do I go to Ma? What point do I go to Raj? 

Sometimes, you know, Raj, the line you deliver, you'll have a better facial expression and you'll want to use the voice from another take or which, sure enough, you can get away with or you cut to a shot of me. You know, this is really a game of inches. You know, actors will often give different performances on different takes. Not all, some of them are pretty close to each one. And then as a director, you have to decide which one works best. Again, this is inches. Also, how do you, in terms of the writing, how are you going to do the writing? I mean, right now, You know, right now, the writing is not very good. I mean, it doesn't mean that in five years it won't be good. And there's ethical issues that are involving this, too, where, you know, you can, especially if you go international countries, you know, extras can be much less, just cost less to hire an extra for a day. So, if you hire an extra and they sign a release to you, are you going to be able to use them, you know, forever? You know, I mean, these are these are like, you know, sort of ethical questions that come into play a lot, you know, and and I think it's going to unfold as we go forward, of course.

Rajat Suri: It seems to me that the future of filmmaking is going to be like you have. you know, a great director, you have maybe a limited, very limited number of actors who have maybe signed over their likeness or something to be used for the film, you know, and you just have much fewer people working on the same film to be able to deliver that, that, that, you know, a great story, right? Because ultimately you're storytelling. And if you have that core story, which is really compelling, You could spend $100 million to deliver it, but with the tools that you have, you could probably spend just $1 million or $2 million to deliver that same story quite efficiently and much faster without dealing with all the scheduling headaches of having to have a cast or a crew of hundreds of people. Do you think that's where filmmaking is going? Do you think it could be much more efficient teams building great things? Because we're seeing that in technology right now.

Bill Guttentag: Yeah, I think that's certainly going to be the case. So you'll have smaller teams. There is a core number that you need, but things like special effects for sure, and the scheduling for sure. When you're actually filming on a set, there's a certain basic number you need to get a look that's good. I mean, of course, in things like animation and animated features, it's going to have a big effect as well. So yeah, it will make things efficient, but At least in the near future, I can't see the major qualities that make you want to see a movie being replaced by AI. By the way, people have been talking about this for years. Every year, there's a study that they've broken the code on movies. We can predict what's going to be a hit. Look, if they had broken the code, every movie would be a hit. It's just like this is a little bit of a fantasy that you can somehow break the code of what creates a hit.

Immad Akhund: I think movies in the cinema are the furthest and hardest to replace. My seven-year-old sometimes ends up on these YouTube videos that are just purely AI done. I mean, they're awful. I'm banning YouTube, partly because these videos exist, but they're literally 100% AI generated. I think the text is probably AI as well. One person created it, and there's millions of these on YouTube now. So I think that's… the most creativity and the bottom end, well, the most AI usage will be at the bottom end initially, and then it will creep upwards, I guess.

Bill Guttentag: Well, there's always a lot of, look, there's always a lot of, like, stuff out there. And like, how do you separate out? I mean, you know, I mentioned that, you know, I've been an advisor to a number of companies. You know, one of the companies I was an advisor to was Masterclass. And, you know, I directed their first and third class. And one of the, The third one we did was with Serena Williams, who was the world's leading tennis player at the time. And, you know, the question, you know, before we went and filmed the class with Serena Williams, you know, I personally was watching a lot of tennis out there on YouTube. I mean, the whole world was awash in tennis lessons on YouTube. But then, you know, I think the folks who found a masterclass very wisely asked, well, how do we be different? You know, just because it's there doesn't mean it's good. And I think they endeavor to make it first rate. And I think you have a lot of that. There's just a lot of stuff out there. It doesn't mean it's good stuff. There's just a lot of stuff.

Immad Akhund: I guess I have two questions that are related. Number one, you know, startup fundraising and success is kind of this probability game where, you know, someone has a good page, they get funded to seed and, you know, they have some metrics that prove and then they get funded beyond that. And obviously, eventually they hit like the Nirvana of a unicorn or whatever. How do you compare that to the steps to like producing a film?

Bill Guttentag: There are similarities. I mean that's certainly true that you know in a way. Well you know what is a startup. I mean a startup is you hope a good idea. You hope a good team. You hope the proper funding and you hope you create a product that you know people will will use or like. Right. So that's you know that's the same thing for film you have a you know you hope you have a good idea a script or in a documentary case a treatment you know you put together a good team you hope you have the appropriate funding and in the end you know you hope you make a good product so yeah there are a lot of similarities you know to doing it and look there is this kind of overlap of a lot of stuff in Silicon Valley and a lot of stuff in Hollywood. But I think Silicon Valley is very interested in data. I mean, that's obviously no secret. But I have in my class one speaker after another that says they don't use data in making their programming decisions. 

I recently had the former CEO of HBO who listed all the classic HBO shows recently, Game of Thrones and Veep and you name it, the succession, all these really impressive shows. And he asked my students, how much data do you think was used in doing all these shows, all the classic HBO shows? And the answer was none, zero. There was zero testing on any of those, you know, so it's still a business where you're relying on the creativity and it's a chance. I mean, by the way, it's this, you know, well-known story in Game of Thrones, which arguably, you know, one of the most successful TV series ever made. You know, they thought they had a good series. They went out and they filmed Game of Thrones. And when HBO looked at the pilot, they thought it could be better and they re-shot the pilot for Game of Thrones. You know, again, these are the kind of sort of executive decisions that data is not influencing. This is just, you know, we think we have a good show, let's put some money into it. And again, like Game of Thrones, same deal, sort of like a startup, right? If they had if they had stopped in the pilot that wasn't so great, then it would have been a busted pilot. It would have busted a startup that didn't yield anything.

Immad Akhund: I feel like Netflix has a lot of shows that have, I don't know if they use data to decide to do the show, but they seem to have these patterns that they repeat. It's like, oh, this is a teenage drama. This is a

Bill Guttentag: you know, they're trying to get people to watch. I mean, it's not just Netflix, it's everyone else. There are certain categories that deliver. I mean, sometimes shows deliver things other than, you know, other than ratings. They're important shows to have on your network. I mean, they always said that about girls. Girls always had low ratings on HBO, but it was an important show for them to have. So yeah, the name of the game is to get people to watch, you know, so it's a very competitive space out there, especially now.

Rajat Suri: I mean, it's just so… Why was it important?

Bill Guttentag: Well, because it was important to their profile, you know, it was an innovative show and the audience that they were going for. Yeah, I think that, you know… It's a brand value. Yeah, it also, you know, it was an award show. I mean, a lot of shows are award shows and awards can help your network and help you attract other filmmakers.

Rajat Suri: So strategic value, yeah.

Bill Guttentag: Got it. Yes. Strategic family. You're running a portfolio. I mean, no one's ever looking to lose money. I mean, no one ever puts on a Broadway show and hopes no one shows up. You know, I mean, it's you're always looking to gather an audience. But how do you define success? I mean, this is also something that film does. You know, film can have a great influence in the social space. So the effect isn't just how many people what's your box office. It's like, how do you influence the conversation?

Immad Akhund: Is there a power of distribution in success, like in the sense that if you do 10, one of them makes most of the money?

Bill Guttentag: Yeah, I mean, it's still a hit-driven business. I mean, there's, you know, it's like books are hit driven business, too. You know, most books don't make money. And then there's some books that pay back their advances and everyone's looking for, you know, the big bestseller. And I think that's true in film. You know, it's like the metrics are a little bit tougher when you're dealing with the streamers. Like, how are you actually defining it? And it's a little tougher than a theatrical release. Right. In some ways, Netflix has the simplest business model of all of them. Netflix is overwhelmingly just selling programming and subscriptions. If you like it or you do not like it, you renew, do not renew. They're not in all sorts of other areas.

Immad Akhund: in the sense that I think they do release things to the cinema and stuff like that, right? What do you mean they're not in other areas?

Bill Guttentag: They release it for award consideration, you know, but it's not really their core business. And it also attracts filmmakers. I mean, filmmakers like seeing films on big screens. A lot of times, you know, a lot of the really beautiful stuff that you see on Netflix or Amazon or elsewhere, You know, it's stuff that's shot on big screens, you know, and since it's for the big screen, it's really beautifully shot. So they'll release it in theaters for a limited period of time. I mean, there's also issues of cannibalization, you know, on that. But once it goes into theaters, then it's eligible for this award consideration and they can promote it for the awards. And, you know, it's a cycle that keeps going. Yeah.

Rajat Suri: What do you think the future is of big screen movies? There's a lot of speculation there.

Bill Guttentag: It's a really good question, Raj. I think one of the negative effects of COVID is, as we come out of it, is that it's getting increasingly hard for smaller, mid-budget films to find a theatrical home. It's, you know, there's just, the movie theaters are becoming spectacle movie operations. And I think that's really, that's too bad. So, we'll see if we recover. Sometimes things will break through and we'll recover for it. But right now, we're dealing with the big spectacle movies. And even that has its own issues because folks are getting tired of a lot of the ten-pull movies. I mean, it's been a tough year for Marvel and others. People are just tired of it. And that's just in the U.S. I mean, if you start looking internationally, In China, the trend's been going on for a long time that the Chinese audience is much less interested in these big Marvel movies.

Rajat Suri: Yeah, it strikes me that the movie theater may go the way of the drive-in. It was a cool experience at some point, but now it's going to become at some point nostalgia. You go to a movie theater.

Bill Guttentag: Yeah, I don't think we're going to be there. You know, look, that's the hope. You don't want it to become the drive-in or opera or any of these sort of very niche places. But, you know, there's still people that want to go out on dates. They want to get out of their house. There's still movies that are shot. I mean, my experience of working on films is people take it really seriously. They take the art of it really seriously, the cinematography really seriously, the art direction, they treat movie, there's like movie movies, you know, which are different sometimes in series. So look, some series are truly spectacular. They look like a movie, you know, but there's also series that look a lot less spectacular, but the movies, people put a lot of care into it. And I think there's always going to be a home for it. It may be a reduced home, and I hope not too reduced.

Immad Akhund: You know, you've done various roles in movies, producer, director, writer. What is your favorite? What are the different things you get out of the different roles you've been involved in?

Bill Guttentag: Well, it's a really good question. You know, films are considered being written three times. You know, for narrative film, it's when you write the script or someone writes a script, then you direct it, and then you go into the edit room. So these are three very different parts of the process. And directors have the most say, of course, in the latter two. And there's a lot of directors that say they only go through the first 2 parts so they can get to the 3rd part. You know, it's and so you know they just love being in the room and you know, and I think I mean I love all parts, but I think I'm a little bit in that category. I mean if you think about when you're directing a film, it's very public, means a lot of people on a set and it's a very public experience and you're a leader of a team. 

I mean, you don't do these things yourself, but you and the heads of departments, the cinematographer and the makeup person and the production designer, and so on are all you know sort of working together and you hope working together well but it's very public there's a lot of people out there and you know and it's one of the things I'm impressed by actors you know they're out there the camera's in their face and they're being asked to be very vulnerable and you know a hundred people standing around and so actually sometimes a lot more than that. And then when you get in the edit room, it's almost like you can sort of, you know, try things and fail and the cost is not that much. When you get into edit room, it's yourself as director and editor, assistant editor, and sometimes an apprentice editor. I mean, it's really a small group and you're just trying things and can you, you know, change it? And sometimes I look at a scene and I have a, you know, it's not working and I really, I think a good idea let's cut this shot let's move this shot over here how about if we shave like you know four or six frames off this shot and you know maybe that'll do it and then there's other times you just say it's not working I have no idea you know and you're you're just trying to you know figure out why this scene is not working and you just try different iterations and you're failing and hopefully at some point you succeed You know, so you're really writing the film at that point. And by the way, you know, you're also writing the film and you're mixing the film and coloring the film. So there's a lot of stuff that happens after the filming ends, which I think is really important. But as I said, I like all the parts.

Immad Akhund: Is there ever a moment where you're like, Oh, we need to reshoot this, like you kind of step backwards?

Bill Guttentag: By the way, this is when you, You really rely on your team. You know, you don't do things by yourself. I mean, I want to emphasize this over and over and over again. I mean, this is the most collaborative art form ever done. I mean, to your point, when you're shooting, you're thinking about that. You don't want to be the person, you don't want to be sitting in the editing room and say, you know, who's the idiot that didn't get that close up? And you realize, oh, that idiot was me. You know, so while you're shooting, you do this. I mean, I had seen a film I did recently that we were shooting in the desert and cameras went down for about an hour, which almost never happened. Only time it happened. But the desert can be really hard on cameras. And we didn't get a close up. And it was on a I was on a Friday and over the weekend, I was talking with the editor a lot and say do we need to get the close-up, you know, can you cut the scene without this close-up was a car scene and so woman the backseat of a car and we we talked about we talked about it and you know to go back there yet to move like You've got to move, in our case, a 130-person crew just to get a close-up. I mean, when you're actually filming, it's a very small group, but the whole army has to move to do it. And she said to me, look, Bill, I think we really need it. And that becomes a financial decision, and we went back and we got it. I mean, the actual filming took 15 minutes, but the setting up took vastly more. And this is how you depend on your team. And so to your point, we really need that close-up. We would have gotten it if not for the cameras going down. But these are decisions you make, and you rely on your team. And you want to make sure that by the time you show up in the editing room, you have what you need.

Immad Akhund: Yeah. How do you decide between, and this is a thing that comes up often at Mercury, so yeah, you could ship it, but the quality wouldn't be good, right? Like it would be missing this close-up versus, you know, you stay on budget, you do it quickly, etc. Do you always go for the quality? Like you always keep a standard?

Bill Guttentag: This is the big question. I mean, they always say films are not finished, they're abandoned. So it's like, how much, how much do you do? Yeah, I mean, you're, yeah, I mean, The most important thing you have on any TV series or film is time. So how do you budget your time? If you have all the time in the world, you can get everything you want. You show up in an editing room and you can have that shot of a coffee cup on your thing 10 different ways and it's just absolutely gorgeous. But In the real world, if you need to close up someone, you're going to get it and you're going to move on. So yeah, you're constantly doing that. Films, at least the ones I'm involved with and the ones that should be run, they're run on a budget. So you try to shoot a certain amount each day and you really try to make your days to get that. So yeah, you're constantly asking budget questions. This is also the trade-offs that you get when you're making films that producers will say to directors, do you want this or do you want that? you know you just can't keep increasing the budget but maybe if you combine these two locations like you can say well you know you have two two bar scenes well you know let's go to one bar and we'll shoot looking one way and then we'll you know turn the uh the sports bar into a tiki bar by just doing the art direction and changing out the you know, the furniture, and then you're not doing, you know, what's called company move. You still have to spend time filming it, but if you're driving, you know, your whole operation in one place, you know, I mean, these are the kind of things that happen all the time that you're just trying to figure out how do I, how do I save money?

Immad Akhund: Do you think films do better when they do have constraints, right? Like presumably like a big Marvel movie or something doesn't have much of a constraint.

Bill Guttentag: Well, Marvel movies have constraints. I mean, they're just a lot looser. Yeah. I think that debt constraints can help you. They can engender the creativity. You're trying to think, how can I do this in this period of time? Don't forget, it is so creative and it is so collaborative that you're working with other folks. You're not doing it by yourself. If someone is saying to you, you know, look, you have, we have to cut a couple of days from your schedule, then you got to figure out how you're going to do it. Sometimes it's in the writing. Sometimes it's in the filming. You know, sometimes you're asking yourself, do I really need the scene? I mean, it's, it's, it's, it forces you to keep asking questions.

Rajat Suri: Bill, can you talk about some of your recent work? Are you interested in talking about?

Bill Guttentag: So I recently completed a film called Afghan Dreamers, which is based on the true story of the Afghan girls robotics team. And it's really a fascinating experience to get out there and we're making a film about a true story. I mean, anyone can look up the story. It was in the news quite a bit. And we're basically a two hour ad for girls in STEM. But the story is also incredibly inspiring and especially given what's going on in Afghanistan now.

Rajat Suri: Yeah, absolutely. It sounds fascinating. Tell me a little bit about your creative process. I'm curious about You know, it's very sort of like project-based, right? Like, you know, Immad and I are founders, you know, we start a company that could be a decades-long initiative. But like, you know, for you, how do you come up with your ideas? What's your process like? Do you have multiple things kind of in parallel? I'm curious on how that creative process works for you.

Bill Guttentag: I think most folks like me have multiple ideas going and you're never really sure when they're going to go. Different factors can actually turn something into sort of an idea, into a project that's happening. Again, you know, I can speak for myself and some of the friends I know, directors and writers in the business, you know, it takes years to make a film. So you better, you know, you better like the film that you're doing and you better think it's going to do some good out there. Otherwise, why are you spending years of your life on this? So, you know, it's often a pretty intense commitment. I often, you know, do films, um, based on true stories. So I can get close to the people who it's about when I do documentaries, of course, those are true stories and often get close to the people that those are about. So there's a, there's an emotional connection that comes with a lot of this. And ultimately you're asking, is this going to be a good film or not, or a good series? I've done TV series too. You know, You know, in a movie, people are giving you roughly two hours of their lives, which they're never going to see again. So, you know, and it's a lot more for a series and obviously vastly more in a video game. But, you know, what are you going to give them back for that time? So you have to feel like you're giving somebody something for that two hours for a movie and should be something worthwhile.

I'm always asking, you know, is this a worthwhile project? And then once you do it, it's all like a startup. Okay, well, you think it's a good idea. Who's the team that's gonna help you make it? And for, you know, the projects which, you know, a lot of the projects which I do, you know, often that they're lower budget operations, but you try to sort of cast and have people in them that, you know, are above your budget level. So you're asking people to essentially back your vision to say believe that I mean the film I just mentioned Afghan dreamers, you know we have like 3 songs from well, I am in there and he's a big believer in you know supporting robotics competitions and kids and that's I think pretty typical is that people just want to help me look there's other situations where you know people are you know they're not looking to help the kind of films I do you know always in amazing grateful for how much people

Rajat Suri: How do you come up with your ideas? Do you read this in the news and you say, okay, this could be a great story?

Bill Guttentag: Yeah, it can come from anywhere. I just think that we're surrounded by good stories, but then there are practical stories. Can you make the story? you know, is someone going to fund it? I mean, you know, if you're a filmmaker, you're always out there looking for funds. And, you know, there are a variety of places you can go, but you have an idea. And sometimes it's a sort of very general idea and then it becomes a specific idea. And, you know, OK, well, you have this specific idea. Well, who's going to who are you going to get to fund it? And that can be a whole project involved. I mean, sometimes you get lucky and you get more than one person wants to fund it. So, yeah, I mean, so it has to be a good idea and has to be, you know, something that's fundable and also feel like you have to make something people want to want to see. I mean, sometimes I hear people say, oh, I only want to make this film for myself. And when I hear that, I feel like saying, well, then don't show it to me. You know, I mean, you know, we all have limited time. So give somebody something of value for the time that, you know, they have. I mean, it's still, there's still something great about the collective experience of watching a film in a theater or coming in. 

I have this often in my classes where if there'll be a show that's really in the zeitgeist, the way, you know, Succession was fairly recently, I think there's something great about, you know your your crowd of friends and in my case students watching this show and talking about it and you know there's something there's something real there and uh and and and i think that there's it's real value do you sometimes have an idea that you think would work but you have a hard time like persuading anyone to fund it and like how do you like de-risk it or like convince them that it'll be good Yeah, all the time. I mean, you know, you just, you try to de-risk it. I mean, I think for any filmmakers or, you know, it's probably true in your business as well. You know, when you start out, people are saying, is it a good idea? And, you know, are you qualified to make it? So the more experience you get, the less they're saying, are you qualified to make it? They're just saying, is it a good idea? And a good idea can mean different things to different people. It fits our programming slate. It's something I want to get behind. It has, you know, views I want to promote. But yeah, you're always looking to do this. 

The thing is, rejection is the currency of the realm in Hollywood. Anyone who spends any time in Hollywood will tell you that. I mean, it's full of rejection and you have to… You know, I mean, it's even worse for actors. I mean, actors I think just have it exceptionally hard because a lot of times actors are being rejected on their physicality. You know, they're too tall or not tall enough. They're too blonde. They're not blonde enough. I mean, it's really, really brutal out there for actors. And I think it's true for filmmakers, too. There's a lot of rejection out there. And, you know, you just have to get up and, you know, you know, dust off your shirt and go back to fight another day. I mean, just about everyone I know deals with them. I know some very well-known people who, you know, it's tough. I mean, they're completely getting beat up in the comments. I mean, you can be at the top of the game and, you know, people can be just absolutely vicious in reviews and comments and online and even just getting the projects going. I mean, so you have to really have a passion for it. Otherwise, you know, you shouldn't be doing it because you really have to have passion to getting up there And fighting, there are a lot easier ways to make a living.

Immad Akhund: Yeah. Any other methods in dealing with rejection? You talked about getting up again, having passion.

Bill Guttentag: President Obama had this line, which I thought was great, where he said, let the highs get you too high and the lows get you too low. When they're calling you a genius, they're probably exaggerating. When they're calling you an utter idiot, they're probably exaggerating too. You just have to have some feeling that you're making a contribution here and it's got some value.

Rajat Suri: One last question I have, Bill, because I know we're almost out of time here. Do you have a community of other directors and creators that you exchange ideas with, you collaborate with? You know, in tech, we actually have, Immad and I are part of a couple of groups where we talk about things and we bounce things off each other. And we challenge each other, too, to do better. and improve our mental models. Is that community there?

Bill Guttentag: Of course. Yeah. You send scripts to people, you send cuts to people, you really value their feedback. I mean, a lot of times you'll have a screening for friends and family, and you're specifically looking for feedback. You know, I mean, this is you want people to tell you things and you want to listen to the crowd of people, you know, you respect, you know, because you can get in a place where you're not you're not seeing me as that sort of old saw where, you know, if I'm walking through Stanford campus and a bump to a student says, Bill, I can't believe it's 11 o'clock and you're drunk. So I didn't have anything to drink. And then you go into a coffee shop. Another student says, Bill, here it is. You know, you've been drinking already and say, no, I had nothing to drink. And if you bumped a third student, who says, why are you drinking? And you say, well, at that point, you're probably drunk. It's like you have to listen to what people say to you. And if you have enough people saying it to you, a lot of times, it's often valid. 

I mean, this is part of, I assume, like you guys are founders. I assume it's like part of being a boss is you're looking at cuts. It's very subjective. You can make changes. You can not make changes. If you're getting pressure, sometimes, you know, you stick with your vision and you're saying, well, even if, you know, the editor and everyone else is saying I need to change it, you know, I'm not going to change it. But I have to say far more often if you're, you know, if your editor is saying it and your friends are saying it, you know, you have to change something, then far more often and then that probably should be changed. Also, sometimes, again, I don't know if this is analogous to tech, sometimes people will have a problem with something, but that's not really the problem. They're bumping up against it, but they're really bumping up against something else. But then you have to figure out what they're bumping up against. But, you know, to your point, I mean, I think it's so valuable to have friends that you can share things with. And it's one that actually, you know, I feel like, you know, I've said some stuff that's, you know, not so great about the film business. One of the things that's actually kind of really nice about the film is people like watching movies. So it's easy to assemble people to do it. I've read a couple of books, you know, trying to get your friends to read a 300 page book, a lot tougher.

Immad Akhund: If you were a young filmmaker, what would you recommend in terms of building a community of like-minded people?

Bill Guttentag: I had the advantage of going to film school. I still work with people I went to school with. But you want to develop a supportive community that you can really trust. I mean, it can be people in the film business, it can be people outside the film business, but you want people who will support you. And by the way, this is just not my story, it's the story of just about everybody I know feels this way, that you want a team, not team, but a group of people who can, you know, tell you what they really think. I mean, a lot of times, you know, sometimes I send a film to someone I'm not as close with and they say, look, I'm going to tell you the truth. And you're just like, well, that's exactly what I want you to do. You know, you don't want someone to just say, oh, that's wonderful. I mean, you want them to look at it and give you feedback. You know, this scene, you know, I got kind of bored here. I didn't quite understand this character's motivation. You want to address anything that you can do to make it stronger. As I said before, films aren't finished, they're abandoned. So you want to feel like before you abandon it, you've done everything you can to make it great.

Immad Akhund: Yeah. So is there a big loop between editing, getting people to watch it, and then going back to editing? That must happen a lot.

Bill Guttentag: Well, I think, I mean, you can't do this like on a weekly basis. I mean, it's like, you know, but you want on a film, you know, you usually want to be far enough down the path that people can feel it. And then you can evaluate. I mean, there's a famous story of Pixar when they did Monsters, Inc. And they had tested it and the film did really well, but they didn't feel like the fur rippled well enough. And I think they shot down for like four months to just make the fur ripple, you know? I mean, just because you just want to make it as good as possible. By the way, there's a really good book, which I recommend to my students, called Creativity, Inc., which is about the inner workings of Pixar. And it's just an excellent book. And it's all about, you know, how you work as a team, how do you get feedback, At Pixar, they call it a brain trust, people who are gonna give you really good feedback and how to use it to make for a better film. And I can honestly tell you that every film I've ever done has benefited from the contributions, not of the people making the film, but the people I've shown the film to in preparation to release the film.

Immad Akhund: This was great, Bill. Thanks for joining us.

Bill Guttentag: Yeah, thank you very much for having me. It's fascinating.

Immad Akhund: I feel like I want to be a filmmaker. Yeah, I want to be a filmmaker now.

Bill Guttentag: You guys are doing really impressive stuff, so.

Immad Akhund: That was a great discussion, Raj. What were your favorite parts?

Rajat Suri: I really like just talking about the creative process and how he comes up with his ideas and having a group of people where he gets feedback from. In some ways, as a founder, you can kind of learn from that process. In some ways, you can't. One thing is like, yeah, you know, they basically roll off after a couple of years, right, of every project. So even when he talked about building a film for years, I mean, still not as long as, you know, we work on our companies. One thing I really like about Bill is that he makes movies that have a social goal in nature. He's not just making pulp, you know, he's actually making some really interesting movies and he's motivated by contributing to society, which is kind of a cool thing to see from a filmmaker.

Immad Akhund: He's also a very humble, down-to-earth person. Even now, he's trying to get things funded, worried about rejection, all these things, which you would think with his success, he would be past all of that, right?

Rajat Suri: One thing, though, that really fascinates me about film versus tech is how many great filmmakers there are in their 80s making great movies. There's Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg. The new Mad Max is about to come out this summer with George Miller, who's an 80-year-old film director, 81-year-old film director. It's kind of inspiring for us to think about like, hey, you can be creative and high energy up, you know, into your eighties, you know, making stuff that matters.

Immad Akhund: Yeah. In some ways, I guess it's easier to do that because a lot of it is kind of that individual contribution rather than like you, you have the team, but like, you know, you know, when you see you, it's like quite high stress and there's like hundreds of people that like, you have to kind of report to you.

Rajat Suri: There is an impression in Silicon Valley sometimes that people who are older and they are less capable of starting companies. I think I've seen that. I've also seen startups not hire older people. And in my last company, we had several people who were considered maybe older than average for a startup. And they did great. I mean, they actually did really well with us. And I felt like it was an untapped pool of talent. So we're talking about something else here. But I generally think in Silicon Valley, in tech circles, we give up on founders too early. There's no reason why someone can't start a successful company in their 70s. It's something I think about sometimes. So that was just one sort of tangential thought to filmmaking. Immad, what did you think? What were you interested to learn from Bill?

Immad Akhund: The one thing that was really interesting is this idea of craft and like, you know, there's definitely like an element of like, they're trying to get this like, emotion and this perfect moment. And, you know, there's like lots of these things around like, kind of, you know, we going to that shot in the desert to get like a close up and get Those kind of attention to detail things are super interesting because when you look at the whole film, you might not notice it, but it's got these thousands or maybe tens of thousands of these small attention to detail things that make it a great film and really pull together that story. And there's the emotional element to the attention to detail, like telling the story, getting deep there. I think that's really interesting. And there's an element of that in, startups and making products, you need to have that attention to detail and think about the user experience. But it's really extreme in filmmaking, which is purely creative. It's interesting to think about how one can make products that have that similar concept of craft in them, which we tried to do a little bit with Mercury, but it gets you inspired to go way further when you listen to someone like Bill.

Rajat Suri: Absolutely. No, that's why I love the craft and I love the art of filmmaking, but also the experience of watching it. One thing I've always wondered about is why can't films change over time? Like why can't now, especially with technology, like why can't we adapt Gladiator, you know, with some new scenes, you know, like, you know, of course we love the film as it was originally, but like, I think we also would love it with some new flavors, you know? And so, You know, like you have fan fiction for books. Yeah, you should have that for movies too.

Immad Akhund: And before, it would be too expensive, but now… Yeah, we talked a little bit about AI. In some ways, AI for this kind of state, like, you know, far enough along filmmaking, like, you know, like a real triple A movie is like very far, but you could imagine 10 years time we could, you know, take Gladiator and like swap out the role for myself or change the ending or, uh, like, it seems like those things are not like too far away. Uh, and that would be kind of interesting, like having kind of, a lot of personalisation. I think this idea of anyone becoming a filmmaker is also kind of interesting, right? It seems like there's a lot of luck involved to being successful, being in the right place, going to the right college and all that kind of stuff, which, you know, I think in AI could potentially enable that creativity and like a much broader set of people.

Rajat Suri: Well, great. That was fun. Thank you all for listening to the Curiosity Podcast and we'll see you next time.

Immad Akhund: Yeah, make sure you subscribe and all that.