Mark Duplass Talks Producing Movies at Bloomberg Screentime

Award-winning actor, filmmaker and producer Mark Duplass has appeared in a wide range of film and television projects, earning multiple Emmy nominations for his role in the Apple+ series 'The Morning Show.' Duplass, along with brother Jay and collaborator Mel Eslyn, create original projects for film, television, and digital media under their banner Duplass Brothers Productions. He joined Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on 'Bloomberg Businessweek Daily' at Bloomberg Screentime to discuss the state of the media industry.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Well, let's get to someone who's definitely a triple threat.
We're talking about Mark Duplas, who is award winning actor,
filmmaker producers company Duplas Brothers Productions, joins us here live
at screen time.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
How are you? I'm great? How are you guys?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Doing okay?

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Doing okay?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I'm a big fan of the Morning Show, But.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Thank you, you do it all.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Is there one that I'm sure you get this in
a million times, that you like more than most in
terms of doing, producing, directing, or do you love how
everything kind of helps the other thing.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
I do like the blending of all the things.

Speaker 4 (00:33):
And I come from the independent sector, you know. I
came into this business making three dollar movies in my
kitchen with my brother on our parents video camera.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
So I'm no stranger to doing at all.

Speaker 4 (00:44):
But that said, I think that as I've been fortunate
enough to do both indie projects and also be on
a show like The Morning Show, which you know, one
day's catering on that show is more expensive than most
of the work I make.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
I like the balance, you know.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
I like hanging lights with my friends and sweating on
my indie projects. But then I like when my burrito
has brought to me in the trailer of the morning
show and I'm taking care of So these.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Are the things. Well, someone who likes burrito is.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
It doesn't like a burrito delivery, also a trailer pretty nice. Yeah,
I'm wondering about if you were getting into the business
right now and how that would be different. It's like
you're making movies in your kitchen with your brother, but
maybe you'd be using an iPhone, you'd be editing it
using AI.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
I think the headline is the democratization of the technology
has made it so wonderful that you can make anything
you want now so much more cheaply than I had it.
So you have it a lot better than me on
that front, but you have it way worse than I
had it in two thousand and five when I came in.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Because we talk about that.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
But the distribution channels are not there, right, and so
we're now experiencing sort of the death of the hyperbolic
television movement.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
And we staffed up and we got all ready for it,
and here we are and then it just dried up
on us. So now we're going to have to start
a new road of direct consumer distribution. You know, we're
working in so many different models now. We're making television
series completely independently and taking them out and selling them afterwards,

(02:12):
because it is the wild West.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Well, you know, it's funny that you say that, because
I think about something like YouTube and how much I
want YouTube and specific channels and like anybody can put
anything up there. When you think about distribution, channels or
what seems to provide the most opportunities for you, especially
since you say you play a bit more in the
indie world.

Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, I'm very very fortunate and
that I've been doing this for twenty years, so you know,
I at least have somewhat of a name that people
are interested in working with us. But I think YouTube
is certainly exciting because you can put it up, it
can catch fire. But the monetization of that and sustainability
is really questionable in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
But then you have these.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
Smaller substreamer services like you look at Dropout TV and
what they're doing in comedy, and you look at Shutter.
You know, they've become the home of horror fans as
a subsidiary under ams, you know, and they're doing things
in a low cost model. So I think the future
here is going to be figuring out how to make
things relatively cheaply, cutting your big producer fees, cutting a

(03:10):
lot of everybody's fee across the board, and then when
you're in a position to be on top and power,
really share that back end with people. And that's how
I came up an independent film. We would make movies
for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Everybody would make
one hundred bucks a day. It was creative communism, and
then you get points. We could take them to Sundance
and sell them for a couple of million bucks, and
the sound guy would make fifty thousand dollars and buy

(03:31):
a home.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
It was a beautiful time.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
It's not quite that easy anymore, but there's something in
that model that will still work.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
I talked to somebody who lives out here's in the industry,
has been doing this for thirty years, and he was like,
I've got award winning casting directors walking dogs on rover
to make ends meet.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
No, it's real, I did that bad.

Speaker 4 (03:48):
I mean I live in the valley, which is you know,
the place where basically below the line union heads were
able to buy their homes, you know, and that was
under the sort of unspoken promise that this industry would
continue to boom. Strikes fires, but not just that, the
death of the streaming wars, which were unsustainable from them.
That was just an arms race to see. So Netflix
one who could chuck somebody out?

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Right?

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Netflix and Apple are the winners.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
I mean TVD because we could see a merger happen
in five minutes after this that changes everything, and there
are won't I won't go that far, but yes, there
are certain people that have interests.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
In those mergers and don't have interests.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
So does do you see the industry getting better?

Speaker 4 (04:25):
I think the industry is going to change. Look, I've
been in this for twenty years. I know people who
are been in this for much longer than me, and
we there are times when, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
It was the nineteen eighties.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
If you had a movie that had, you know, a
gun and blood and some fighting in it, you could
take it to VHS and you'd make your money and
it was a killer. In the nineties, it was that
for DVDs and the two thousands. The streamers came in
and I got to make all these cool movies for
Netflix and TV. But it's going to change. We don't
know which way it's going, but we got to be vigilant.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
You know.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
It's We've seen it in the media industry and we
still like being in it. It's incredible to be thirty
seconds still having fun.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
You like it, I love it. I don't say I'm
having fun all the time.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
Bill A deep responsibility for like my brothers and sisters
in LA and in New York and everywhere who are
just getting choked out by this business. So I'm trying
to find what is that thin lane that I still
want to make outlier interesting content but at the right
price that.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
Makes sense and sustains us. And I don't have all
the answers for that, So appreciate.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
You joining us. I know you're growing up on a panel.
Looking forward to hearing that as well. Mark, Thank you
so much.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
Sureus guys, Yeah, take care.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Mark Duplas joining us right here of course on Who
Burgers this weekend.