August 3, 2023 • 33 mins
In 2018, Lena Waithe, an Emmy winning writer and actor from Chicago, founded Hillman Grad, a film and television development and production company. With the help of Rishi Rajani, Hillman Grad would go on to become a force in the entertainment industry by offering unique perspectives, focusing on marginalized storytellers, and giving a platform to diverse voices across all mediums.
The company experienced rapid success securing deals and landing projects at Showtime, Netflix, Disney, Amazon, and many more. But as with any young company, success and scaling can lead to mismanagement and to setbacks, and Hillman Grad was no exception. On this week's episode of Idea Generation's All Angles, we talk with founder Lena Waithe, CEO Rishi Rajani, as well as VP of Operations, Justin Riley, and President of TV and Film, Naomi Funabashi, to get the complete story on how they built Hillman Grad into one of the most successful young production companies in Hollywood.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I went to Dixesus house.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I sat with him and al when I was a
big fan of Parks and Rat I had sat through
so many staff heeding conversation, which is what that felt like. Well,
you would literally have to go in and be your
authentic self. And that's what I did. And then I
got a call saying, okay, Asese wants you to read
with them.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Welcome to Idea Generations All Angles, a podcast about culture's
most influential brands and the teams that built them. If
you're an entrepreneur, creative, or anyone interested in harnessing the
power of collaboration, join me Noah Callahan ever each week
as we dissect the most dynamic companies in culture. Because
the only way to truly understand success is to look
(00:49):
at it from all angles. Idea Generations All Angles is
a Will Packer Media podcast. In twenty eighteen, Lena waith
an Emmy Award winning writer and actor from Chicago, founded Hilmingrad,
a film and television development and production company. With the
help of CEO Rishi Rijani waith In, Hilman Grad would
(01:11):
realize the company's unique vision, focusing on marginalized storytellers and
giving a platform to diverse voices across all mediums. On
the strength of Lena's as sending star and Rishi's meticulous
implementation of their shared vision, the company would experience a
string of rapid successes, securing deals in landing projects at Showtime, Netflix, Disney, Amazon,
(01:32):
and more. But along the way, as always happens its
scaling success, comes public scrutiny and internal challenges, and Hilman
Grad is no exception. On this week's episode of All Angles,
we talk with founder Lina Waith, CEO Rishi Rijani, as
well as VP of Operations Justin Riley and President of
(01:53):
TV and Film Naomi Funabashi to get the complete story
of how they built Hillman Grad into one of the
most successful young produt auction companies in Hollywood. But before
any of that happened, years prior to hillm and Grad
putting their first show on air, Leena Wait, a young
screenwriter from the busy streets of Chicago, was heading to
Los Angeles to chase her dreams in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I came to Los Angeles with the hopes of being
a television writer. That's really why I came out here
from Chicago. I came out here in.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Two thousand and eight, which feels like forevergo.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
It was really about doing writers groups and going to
events and panel after panel, and it was all of that.
There wasn't a ton of social media. It was beginning,
but it wasn't being used the way it is now.
And then obviously applying for assistant gigs, internships wherever you could,
and so I started getting assistant gigar, I'm assistant, getting
(02:47):
on girlfriends. I interned at literary agencies, and then I
got a gig working for Gina Prince Fithwood, and then
I started working for Ava.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
So I really kind of got.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
A chance to learn under people that had been doing
it for a long time and knew what they were doing,
and I got to watch them in action, which was
really great.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Having her foot in the door, Lena began to work
her way through the industry. Soon her assistant gig led
her to other opportunities and writing credits on Boxes, Bones
and Nickelodeon's How To Rock as Lena started to get
known around town. Rishi Rijani, a recent NYU grad with
a love for film and television, decided to leave behind
his investment banking career and take a shot at Hollywood.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
And you was great because it exposed me to a
lot of stuff, sposed me to a lot of different
kinds of people. It was supposed me to the city
and especially the film business, which is something again that
I had no idea really existed. I think we all
kind of grew up knowing that there's directors and writers
and theory. I didn't really know that there were careers
(03:49):
and entertainment. I didn't really understand that there you could
be a producer or even what that world looked like.
For me, it was always books. It was always being
at the library reading a ton and getting lost in
storytelling and being kind of this bit of an escapist
kid who loved Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter
and Star Wars. A lot of my early exposure to
film was my dad showing me The Good, Bad and
(04:11):
the Ugly or Indiana Jones Star Wars, and that being
kind of my first introduction to it. My first love
is probably books, but then kind of realizing when I
got to NYU, which has such a strong film program,
that there are a lot of artists that need collaborators
and need producers to be able to actually come in
and help manifest their visions. So I graduated a year early,
(04:34):
moved out to LA The Fox Book Scouts guys really
helped me to get kind of interviews at all these places.
I ended up accepting a mailroom gig at Uta, which
I think that was the thing the movie fre You
thought my parents a little bit, is to graduate from
NYU and then go into a mailroom. I found this
really great article that said why Harvard grads are going
to the mailroom and sent that to them.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
As Richie headed West, Lena was still writing a and
making a name for herself in the industry and online.
Her twenty eleven YouTube short Shit Black Girls Say went viral,
racking up over ten million views, and she found additional
success with her web series Twenties and Hello Cupid. Soon,
Lena would find herself on the radar of a famed
Hollywood casting director.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I was trying to be a television writer. I wasn't
even trying to write movies. I think because I had
been in the TV space and was making a name
for myself on the TV space.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Being an actor was never part of the plan.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
What happened was I did a pilot presentation for twenties
that I put that on YouTube. Justin Simmon directed those
four scenes, and my friends Courtney Sauce, Nida Jrba, and
Ashley Blank Fetherston were kind enough to be in it,
all of which are actors on Dear White People. But
at the time that was us just figuring it out
and shooting something and trying to find our voices. And
we put that online and it just did really well.
(05:51):
A lot of people tunedail, a lot of people watch it,
people are like, what is this and then we got
some write ups even about it.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Allison Jones, who is a famed casting director, read about
it and heard about it and wanted to meet with me.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I was literally on set producing Dear White People in
the feature when I got a call from my then
managers this casting director wants to meet with you.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And I was like, why does the casting director want
to meet me?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And I'm not casting anything, and he was like, I
don't know, but she's like really well known, like she
casts bridesmaids, freaks and geeks beat and she wants to
meet you, and I was just like okay.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Initially only wanting to write and never thinking of herself
as an actress. We took a chance with Jones and
found herself in front of the camera. She landed a
minor role on Lisa Kudro's to Comeback, her first official
acting credit. It was a small part, but just the
preparation she needed as a life changing role was right
around the corner.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
In that meeting, I thin could see that there would
be space for me to be on screen, and I
just still didn't see that. And she was like, do
you have any interest in auditioning? And I was like,
I really don't, and she said, let me just bring
you in for some stuff and just see what happens.
I booked this little small part on the Comeback season
two on HBO.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I'd be coming to read for that.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
And then finally the big break was she was casting
a Zsa's show.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Which would ultimately become Master of None.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
But he wanted to do something old school as he's
and Allen, the creators of the show, they wanted to
do something different where they were like, we don't want
to just you just send us actors, and because they
were like we're still figuring out what the show is today,
said can you send us interesting people for us just
to have a conversation with and then we'll decide who
we want to read with.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And by it, she just said you should see lean Away.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
She's very interesting. And so I went to a Zesu's house.
I sat with him and Allen. I was a big
fan of Parks and Red. I had sat through so
many staff like meeting like.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Conversations, which is what that felt like.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
We would literally have to go in and be your
authentic self, and that's what I did. And then I
got a call saying, okay, Asese wants you to read
with him, and then of course I went in, we read,
and the rest is history.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Master of None was an instant success and Waite was
a breakout star. But what really put her on the
map was the release of the now classic Thanksgiving episode
and Master of None's second season. The episode, co written
by was loosely based on her own experience coming out
as a lesbian to her family. After hearing Wait to
recount the story and conversation the show, starr and creator
(08:08):
as He's I'm Sorry insisted that they make an episode
from it, and that Wait writed. The episode became a
cultural touch point and would win her an Emmy for
Outstanding Writing in a comedy series, making Weight the first
black woman to win such an award, and with that,
Lena Waith was overnight one of the most sought after
names in Hollywood.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
She was like one of the hottest writers in town
and everyone wanted to work with her. I had been
part of option in this graphic novel called Black Those
basically set and emotionally black people are Superpowers. It was
a really awesome graphic novel and we had sent it
to her for consideration and she liked She and some
when Kathy Kasaki came in with this really awesome take
(08:52):
on material. It was super ambitious and told I believe
it ended in a race war. It was really kind
of fun and interesting, and I think was ultimately deemed
a bit too controversial for the group that I was
working with, but it kind of put me on her
radar a little bit.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
I was still the junior executor that wasn't talking a lot,
but I was there.
Speaker 6 (09:13):
A few months.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
Later, her manager at the time, Andrew Coles, gave me
a call and said, you know, Lina's looking for someone
to run her company, are you interested in interviewing? I
was like, oh my god, that absolutely.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Lena was on the verge of launching her own production
company and looking to assemble a team. The chance to
work with Lena Waite was a no brainer for Rishi.
The two decided to meet at La Mille Coffee Shop,
a cafe in Silver Lake. Riesche knew that this was
the opportunity of a lifetime, so he hit the film
room to study and make sure that he was ready
for the game.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Just remember like prepping like crazy, intensely hard for this thing.
And I had all these like file folders with lists
of writers and directors. I came with a stack of
books that I thought that she should option. You know,
was really like, this my game plan for year one
of the company.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
He came to a coffee spot where I met him,
and came in with a whole plant. He was like,
here's what I think you should be doing. This is
what I think could be interesting. Here's a cool project.
He just really came in and won.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
He won it. He took it, and I think that's
what was so impressive. He had.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He literally had a folder that's how old school get
printed it up. It was a whole situation and he
just had papers and he was just like, I think
it'd be cool if you were part of something like this,
So what if you went over there?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
He just sort of opening my mind to things that I.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Just didn't think that I would ever like do, where
I'm like, well, no, I think I lean more toward this,
and he's just like, but what if you lean toward
this way? Or what if you produce this Like that's trash,
that's different. I haven't seen that, And I was like, oh,
I haven't seen that either. I think that's sort of
really where he and I bond is like what hasn't
been done, who's missing? What stories haven't been told yet?
(10:51):
And I think that to us is what's so exciting.
And I think that, to me was what really made
me go I got to work with this guy, and
we've been down ever since. And the cool thing about
it is we can say it we're in this.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
For our lives. He's not going anywhere, I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And I think there's a security in that. There's a
safety in that, there's a knowing in that. And I
think once you have that which you know, you can
lian on somebody and they're there, and that creates a
different kind of work ethic.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Because his legacy is an intertwined with mine.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
An instant bond was born between Riesci and Lina as
they both understood their mission in Hollywood was much larger
than simply producing films. They were going to tell stories,
give opportunities, and help underrepresented communities gain traction in the industry.
Hilm Ingrad, a name that started as Lina's first Instagram
handled in homage to the fictional university from a Different World,
(11:37):
was starting to come into focus as a real entertainment company.
Capitalizing on the growing industry buzz. Lina and Rishi went
to work launching the first official him and grad project, Boomerang,
a comedy series based off the Eddie Murphy classic for beet.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
The first series that we did together and was at
the end of that first year. It's called Boomerang, and
it was sure that we for bt was based off
of the Eddie Murphy halle Berry film. It was a
wild experience because I had never really produced anything before.
When you're at the studio, you don't really get hands on,
boots on the ground producing experience, and so it became
(12:15):
this crash course worldwide for me, where I moved to
Atlanta for three months and got to learn how to
make a TV show. It was really kind of bizarre
and interesting because I was an executive producer on the show,
and which is sort of like the highest title that
one can have on a TV show, But I was
only executiveducer that was a non writing executive producer, and
(12:38):
everybody else in that set had done a million hours
more you know, TV production than me. I was there
to learn. I was there to be the conduit between
the production and the studio and the network, which is
kind of what producers really do. But I just asked
a million questions. I tried not to be the guy
that came in thinking he knew anything, because I literally
didn't know anything. And you became very close to their
(13:01):
producing director David Warren and our pilot director Dime Davis.
So it was really cool about that first season is
that we gave a lot of directors that had never
gotten to direct television before their first episodes. Joelle Taylor's
got a new Netflix movie, Sean Frank, who directed an
(13:23):
incredible Mercedes commercial for us afterwards, Dim Davis, who went
on to go do a Black Lady Sketch comedy show,
Tiffany Johnson, who wanted to go direct a ton of TV.
Aby Rockwell, who got her first episode on Boom Rang
season one, who we just wrapped her feature with Focused
Features one thousand and one. It was my first TV show,
but it was also a lot of people's first TV shows.
(13:44):
I feel like I definitely made some mistakes along the
way in the context of maybe not being thoughtful about
a script and not having any cover for rain in it.
We shot an entire episode in a parking lot. An
experienced producer might look at that script and go, well,
you know, if it rains, if there's bad weather, we
need to have something that we can shoot. Why don't
(14:05):
you try setting one of these things, like, you know,
at a gas station or something else, or like a
few scenes side of that. But I did not do that.
So cut to us being outside. Everyone's miserable. The rain
is coming down so hard. We have four days of
terrible weather, which is the four days that we have
to shoot this episode, and absolutely no cover built into
(14:26):
set at all. That's one of those learning opportunities around
looking around at a very miserable director, crew, and cast
and going, huh, that's as a good lesson. It's a
good lesson I learned, but there's lots of things like that,
you know, and running out of time, cutting pages on
set of things, learning how to manage things, learning how
to manage filmmakers and both be supportive to the cast
(14:47):
and crew, but also you know, learning the fundamentally, like
as a producer, you're not always there to just be
everybody's friend. You're also there to make hard decisions and
be kind of ultimately the person who was responsible for
delivering a great product at the end, I learned a
lot of that stuff. That was season one of Boomerang,
(15:07):
but that just catapulted us. The company just began to
grow and grow.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Boomerang was a success and ran for two seasons before
Wight decided to shift her focus back to another scripted
series that she had just launched prior to the formation
of Human grad Showtime's The Shy, a coming of age
drama based on Chicago's South Side. The Shine launched a
twenty eighteen to both critical and commercial success.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I wanted to write a show about my city, and
I've only written comedy because I was really.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
A comedy writer. That's what I think of myself as.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
But then I just was like I want to do
something about Chicago, but I was like, well, that to
me feels more like a drama. I want to do
an ensemble piece about the city and it's a drama.
So I said, okay, I'm a trauma hand to writing
a drama, and I did. And that was The Shy.
I gathered a lot of drama writers who I know
and respect and had to become and listen to a
table read and of it, and we all walked out
of there and just really thought, Wow, this could be something.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Though it seemed like hillm Ingrad couldn't miss. A sexual
misconduct claim on the set of The Shy at the
start of season two shook up the cast, crew and
the company itself. As a result, two of the stars
left the cast, and Lena and Rishi were left to
look inward. After some serious introspection, the two committed to
figuring out how to make sure hillm Ingrad was a
safe and desirable place to work and truly represented the
(16:23):
vision to which they were committed.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Shai is really Heilmograd's first thing, and it's actually it's
still an incredible crown jewel for the company. It was
also such a testament to Lena being able to kind
of weather the storm of that show, lose year, lead actor,
losing showrunners, Lena having to step in and really kind
of you know, every single script goes through her computer
for that show. We worked with a lot of different filmmakers.
(16:46):
I think we're finally kind of finding our footing and
rhythm on it.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Hillman Grad was growing fast and the inbound up or
tunities were coming even faster. Word it spread that if
you had a story to tell, Hillman Grad was the
best place to do it. To help oversee the rapidly
expanding production slate, Lena and Rishi made a key hire
in Naomi Funabashi, a Harvard grad who had worked your
way up from an assistant at CIA all the way
to VP of Programming and Development at Freeform. Funubashi rounded
(17:20):
out the executive team and added another all star to
its roster.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
I oversee the film and television departments. As a producer,
your job is to assemble the best team you can
and the right team for each project and creatively support
it as best you can. And I feel like you
sit at this intersection of the creative and business where
you have to understand the reasons why budgetarily their restrictions,
or why something may not fit on a certain buyers
slate or things like that, and help creatives navigate that
(17:47):
side of things, and then on the flip side, also
fight for your creative in terms of like, this is
their vision, this is what they need to be successful.
So you're sort of having both types of conversations and
being a bridge between two sides of things. It truly
varies depending on the people on the project and what
they need, their personalities. You know, what type of project
it is and where it is in the process. Rishi
(18:09):
and Lena had done this incredible job of establishing it
as this sort of white house and this wave of
change in the industry. You know, not only just seeing
the types of stories that were represented and that like
reflected all of us at the company and the worlds
that we lived in, but also showing that thinking outside
the box and change was possible in the industry generally.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
One of these stories was forty Year Old Version, a
film about a forty year old playwright and teacher who
finds herself drawn to a new career as a rapper.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
So forty Old Version was a project that Lena had
championed but it was written and directed by a woman
named Roda Blank, and so forty old version was the
first thing that we did as a company that was
not Alena written piece, which is a really big deal
for us. Lena actually took a one step further and
invested her own money in the project because it was
a project that had to be passed on around town
(19:02):
for I believe six seven years, and Lena really loved it,
really loved a script, really kind of saw something in it.
She said to me, reach, we got to get this done,
and she put five hundred thousand dollars in and we
found the rest of the money scrapped together, shot at
in New York, hustled it out for the Sundance Deadlines,
got into Sundance, where it got a massive standing ovation
(19:24):
and rave reviews, and got into a big bidding war
between a twenty four and participant and Netflix. I feel
like I grew up reading about is like the Sundance
bidding war, where you're you know, it's late at night,
you're in houses and beautiful houses in Park City, when
you're in the very lucky position of having multiple companies
(19:44):
that are coming to you. They're all coming to present
their strategy and their thoughts around it. And so they
come in and they talk creatively about the project, like
where they have notes on things where they would like
to maybe shift and re edit some pieces of the movie.
Then also what they would bring to it marketing wise,
scalability wise, what kind of budget they have, how much
(20:06):
money they're putting down for the film, And so you're
weighing all these different factors to really go, okay, does
this make sense as what we've always had as the
vision for the release of this film. It's tough because
we also live in a world where it's A twenty
four that's talking about the actrical release, and then Netflix
is talking about a streaming release, right, and that factors
in and streamers can pay more than the actrical attributors.
(20:27):
Streamers end up paying a lot more because you don't
have the added benefit of box office bonuses on things.
And so it's important for a Netflix or an Amazon
to be able to outbid not just kind of the
price point that an A twenty four someone else comes
in with, but also be able to give you enough
(20:48):
money so that you're not concerned about missing out on
a box office sex sensation. And so it was really
tough for us, and ultimately Netflix ended up winning the day,
but then the pandemic and so Netflix ended up being
the best option for us completely because the movie wouldn't
have come out for another couple of years really if
(21:08):
we hadn't gone with them. That project became a real
launching point for us because I think it made people
look at us a little bit differently as being very
legitimate producers that can come to us on dance with
that film and knock everybody socks off. It was this
sort of crazy world win for us that I think
really established us as the advocates for artists to be
(21:29):
able to look at somebody's passion project that they're writing, starring,
and directing and that the town hadn't really seen, and
in tandem with us, just with us signing this Amazon
deal for TV, so we're exclusively with Amazon for two years.
It gave us the capital and the ability and the
resources are hiring more members of the team, which was
(21:49):
a big relief for me.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
After the success of forty year old Version, Hillman grad
continue just search for stories to share, and Naomi quickly
discovered that these stories can come from literally anywhere you
can come from anything.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
It's books, comics, even in some cases Reddit threads, but
also it's things that are personal to us. Sometimes it's
just sitting with a writer too and you realize that
you both are in telling this type of story, and
then your brainstorming together, you're cracking a take. It can
also just come in in terms of like you meet
a director and they're like, I have a passion project
that I really want to make next. It's this thing
(22:27):
we A lot of times we say as home Ingrad
it is our job to sort of try to shift
and change the expectation of what the story can be.
And so we sometimes tell creatives that we're meeting with,
what's the story you always want us to tell? But
people have said now, and a lot of times incredible
stories come out of that.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
One of those stories was Queen and Sulin, the twenty
nineteen film starring Daniel Caluja and Jody Turner Smith.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
James Fribby picked me that idea about man a woman
they get pulled over, kill a compa self defense and
go on the run. I was like, Oh, that's it, interest,
that's a movie. There's something there, and that's really where
that was born. When I heard that idea. Now I
got to write this, I aspired.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Hillman Grad was racking up credits across Hollywood, but making
sure that the company was an incubator for underrepresented creators
remained paramount. So they expanded their focus on coaching young
talent by hiring organizational leader Justin Riley as VP of
Operations and Business Development. And with that addition, hillm Ingrad
recalibrated the ambitions of their mentorship program and decided it
(23:24):
was time to go big.
Speaker 6 (23:26):
These first twelve months really have been focused on getting
our company set. We hadn't really focused on that. It
was more focused on the creative lens of let's get
more projects. We need more help, we have more ideas.
Here comes this opportunity. Let's push, push, push the creativelopment.
But in pushing all of that, you also have to
(23:47):
operationalize and organize your company to ensure that it can
function at a high level on a day to day.
So that's where I spend a lot of my time
doing the boring stuff that no one likes to pay
attention to, but we all know is critical to a
business success. The key of what Lena preaches is mastering
one's craft. She's very adamant of being well studied, well versed,
(24:09):
and being knowledgeable about the space that you occupy. And
so we want to create a program that really had
an emphasis on teaching. Even though it's called the Mentorship Lab,
it's non traditional mentorship program where we pair you with
someone in the industry. You meet once a month, you
go have lunch, you have coffee. In six months you
hopefully they can land you a position or a meeting somewhere.
(24:30):
That's not what the program is. It's really a nine
month creative's academy where you really go deep in your
bag as a creative. So there's three tracks, one for writers,
one for actors, and one for execs. And we have
a whole curriculum built out. We have teachers that we
have hired to teach this. They meet once a week
every Saturday for three hours. Right now, we are funding
(24:53):
it through Lina's generosity, and I think that's what is
something that's so special too, is because mentorship is so
so important to her that she was willing to reinvest
her own money into tomorrow's future.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Mentorship was such a huge part of my brand. I
think that's because I was mentored. But I was doing
it when I was an assistant, you know, when people
would ask me things like, hey, this is what I've learned,
this is what I know, this is what does really
well for me, because I really was becoming a professional
assistant at one point. I mean it was crazy, but
because I had such a good reputation, people were like, yeah,
get her, she'll be great because I really did take
it so seriously. My assister Aba DuVernay and Gina Princes
(25:29):
bis to It and Mark bucker Kill. I mean these
are people where I could not drop the ball. And
that's why for me, I just knew that there was
always something to be.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Shared, even from those days. And then as.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Obviously as I progressed in my career, I would just
learn things.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
I would go, oh, that's not shouldn't do that or
remember that. But you only learn from when.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
You trip up, before you make a mistake, be from
when you slip in the fall. So real mentorship is
not just telling somebody, oh, I can get you a
job or here, come do this. It's really about hey,
like what's going on with you mentally, emotionally. But I've
learned in terms of mentoring some people especially when I
was just starting out on my own, before I actually
had a mentorship program. I found over the years a
(26:07):
lot of people have since left LA. I've got emails
some people that said, you know what I learned while
doing this, I don't want to be a writer.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
It sounded cool.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I thought it was supposed to be cool, but then
after getting into it, I'm like, oh, I don't want
to be doing this.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
This is hard. I gotta secrific I can do this.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I got to rewrite again and again, and then then
when I get into an actor, they may want to
change it and I gotta put it out, and then
I gotta it's so I'm like, yeah, and so what
I try to do is tell people the truth about
what it really is, because I think it's easy to
kind of go on someone with my Instagram or somebody's
social media and go, oh, it's so fun that you're
at a premiere with this actor, you're at a party,
(26:41):
and I know, and it's so difficult to show everybody
the entire process. But the truth is, what we try
to do is tell people the truth and say this
is what it means to be a working actor. This
is what it means to be a writer, because I
think people think, oh, you're writing and you're getting paid
to do it, But no, you're also dealing with a
bunch of notes execs.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
You know, you may disagree.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
With your producer partner about how to in the film
or what to do, and so I think those are
the things that people don't necessarily think to tell you
in the middle of the mentoring process.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
With the expansion of its mentorship program and a full
slate of projects and production, Hillman Grad looks ahead with
their core mission intact to provide a platform for diverse
voices across all mediums, and with a prodigious crop of
new professional talent emerging from their program and looking to
enter the industry, Hillm and Grad is positioned for success
long into the future.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Over the past year and a half, I've been in
this interesting position where the company has been growing and expanding.
We have been starting a lot of new verticals the company,
which has been really exciting. And so we have film
and TV, which is the core business. We started a
record label that's underneath def Jam. We started a book
publishing side under Xando Books. You know, are into the
(27:54):
process of creating a branded content division have the Helmo
Grad Foundation and our mentorships and a really kind of
super fruitful partnership with Indeed that we've been doing on
that front. Have a fashion line that's coming out. I've
been talking about a cannabis line. We have a podcast
Division two Rima on Trasfers podcast.
Speaker 6 (28:14):
You can't work at Him and Grad and not champion
underrepresented voices, not driven to create opportunities for those who
are often overlooked and discounted and stepped over. That ethos
is here and if you ever hear at Lena talk,
you get that. If you see anything that we put out,
whether that's on social that's through our projects that we
(28:35):
create out or any of the events that we do,
it's very community centered POC focus. When you can create
a company that influences culture and has people talking about
what you do beyond just the projects you create, you
know there's something special there.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
I think transparency is the number one thing. It's the
thing that I didn't have a lot coming up in
the business, and so I really try to let our
team know where we're at, let our team know we're
at from a revenue perspective, knowing what we need to
hit and why we're making the choices that we're making,
you know, being able to bring people into collaborative, creative
(29:12):
conversations about the mission of the company, because we are
still a startup in a lot of ways, and we're
still kind of defining our mission and what we all
stand for. And I'd much prefer that mission be something
that is defined by our team versus something that's weird
and top down and feels like something is just being
put on everybody. It's transparency, it's listening, it's bringing people
(29:34):
in the conversation. It's being able to take criticism.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
For me, it's getting to see and invest in talented
creatives that we know are talented and see them get
their shot, see them get their recognition, see people respond
to the art, and be like, that's my story too.
I feel seen by this. No one is talking about this,
but this person is. It's getting to see them have
their shot and see that story be met with a
(29:59):
lot of love and success. I mean, even on Chain
Can Dunk, I felt this personally, but I loved being
in some test screenings where some people were like, oh,
that's me. You know, growing up, I was that kid.
I never seen myself on screen before or I've never
seen this moment between a mom and or son talking
about food and flavoring and it's little things, but it's
a reminder that there are so many experiences that should
(30:23):
be equally valued, and I think getting to see that
is success for me.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I want people to work with folks that they're not
going to be exactly like you, but they are like
minded and have the same mission. If you have five
people working on a project and only four of them
are about the mission and one of them isn't, there's
going to be friction and so you got to say, like, hey,
either we can keep this person or we can say, hey,
you don't seem to be aligned with our mission, so
we're gonna wish you well and we're going to find
(30:49):
somebody who's come more aligned, and we're going to keep
a pushing And that is true leadership to kind of say, hey,
I got to make sure everybody is following the same
mission and we're on the same pave. It's never been
just me, and I think that's back and impart anything
on the next version is like get your community, get
your crowd, don't feel like you got to do it
by yourself.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Don't do it by yourself, do it with a group
of people.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
Can we continue to be the champion for voices? Can
we continue to build this platform and really stand for
what we believe in? And I think the answer is yes.
Each of these various divisions has the potential to grow
to the size, scope and scale that film and TV has.
And so while it has been this kind of insane
venture to launch what it feels like, six different businesses
(31:33):
all at once, they all kind of fit into our
core mission of being an entertainment company, a content company
that just happens to exist in various different mediums as well.
So I think we probably wouldn't do anything that felt
super out of the box for us, or like in
a completely different industry or business. But you know, everything
we have right now feels like it's part of the
same mission.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
The biggest thing is us always doing a gut check.
We don't want people to come in and be carbon
copies of us.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
That don't help.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
You want people with a different point of view, people
that have different ideas. But the through line is you
gotta always have your heart in the right place, and
we don't want people that want to step over people.
You know, it's about putting the person first.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Determine to put the storyteller first, highlight underrepresented voices, and
pave the way for young creatives. Helm Ingrat's core mission
propels them forward as industry leaders. We lean us in
a creativity Reshie's business acumen and the experience of role
players like Naomi and Justin Hilming grat success is a
team effort and a product of creativity and hard work
(32:42):
coming together from All Angles for Idea Generation. I'm Noah
Callahan Bever. Thanks for listening to the All Angles Podcast,
presented by Will Packer Media. I've enjoyed this episode. Please
don't hesitate to like, comment DM or tell a friend
(33:05):
to tell a friend about Idea Generation and the All
Angles Podcast. We can't do any of this without your help,
and honestly, your support means everything. We do this for
you and we can't do it without you. This episode
was brought to you by Will Packer, Executive produced by
John Valachick and Helena Ox. Original music by Valentine Fritz,
(33:25):
edit and sound mixed by Nonsensible Production, and hosted by
me Idea Generation founder Noah Callahan Bever. Idea Generations. All
Angles is a will Packer Media podcast
I went to Dixesus house.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I sat with him and al when I was a
big fan of Parks and Rat I had sat through
so many staff heeding conversation, which is what that felt like. Well,
you would literally have to go in and be your
authentic self. And that's what I did. And then I
got a call saying, okay, Asese wants you to read
with them.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Welcome to Idea Generations All Angles, a podcast about culture's
most influential brands and the teams that built them. If
you're an entrepreneur, creative, or anyone interested in harnessing the
power of collaboration, join me Noah Callahan ever each week
as we dissect the most dynamic companies in culture. Because
the only way to truly understand success is to look
(00:49):
at it from all angles. Idea Generations All Angles is
a Will Packer Media podcast. In twenty eighteen, Lena waith
an Emmy Award winning writer and actor from Chicago, founded Hilmingrad,
a film and television development and production company. With the
help of CEO Rishi Rijani waith In, Hilman Grad would
(01:11):
realize the company's unique vision, focusing on marginalized storytellers and
giving a platform to diverse voices across all mediums. On
the strength of Lena's as sending star and Rishi's meticulous
implementation of their shared vision, the company would experience a
string of rapid successes, securing deals in landing projects at Showtime, Netflix, Disney, Amazon,
(01:32):
and more. But along the way, as always happens its
scaling success, comes public scrutiny and internal challenges, and Hilman
Grad is no exception. On this week's episode of All Angles,
we talk with founder Lina Waith, CEO Rishi Rijani, as
well as VP of Operations Justin Riley and President of
(01:53):
TV and Film Naomi Funabashi to get the complete story
of how they built Hillman Grad into one of the
most successful young produt auction companies in Hollywood. But before
any of that happened, years prior to hillm and Grad
putting their first show on air, Leena Wait, a young
screenwriter from the busy streets of Chicago, was heading to
Los Angeles to chase her dreams in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I came to Los Angeles with the hopes of being
a television writer. That's really why I came out here
from Chicago. I came out here in.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Two thousand and eight, which feels like forevergo.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
It was really about doing writers groups and going to
events and panel after panel, and it was all of that.
There wasn't a ton of social media. It was beginning,
but it wasn't being used the way it is now.
And then obviously applying for assistant gigs, internships wherever you could,
and so I started getting assistant gigar, I'm assistant, getting
(02:47):
on girlfriends. I interned at literary agencies, and then I
got a gig working for Gina Prince Fithwood, and then
I started working for Ava.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
So I really kind of got.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
A chance to learn under people that had been doing
it for a long time and knew what they were doing,
and I got to watch them in action, which was
really great.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Having her foot in the door, Lena began to work
her way through the industry. Soon her assistant gig led
her to other opportunities and writing credits on Boxes, Bones
and Nickelodeon's How To Rock as Lena started to get
known around town. Rishi Rijani, a recent NYU grad with
a love for film and television, decided to leave behind
his investment banking career and take a shot at Hollywood.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
And you was great because it exposed me to a
lot of stuff, sposed me to a lot of different
kinds of people. It was supposed me to the city
and especially the film business, which is something again that
I had no idea really existed. I think we all
kind of grew up knowing that there's directors and writers
and theory. I didn't really know that there were careers
(03:49):
and entertainment. I didn't really understand that there you could
be a producer or even what that world looked like.
For me, it was always books. It was always being
at the library reading a ton and getting lost in
storytelling and being kind of this bit of an escapist
kid who loved Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter
and Star Wars. A lot of my early exposure to
film was my dad showing me The Good, Bad and
(04:11):
the Ugly or Indiana Jones Star Wars, and that being
kind of my first introduction to it. My first love
is probably books, but then kind of realizing when I
got to NYU, which has such a strong film program,
that there are a lot of artists that need collaborators
and need producers to be able to actually come in
and help manifest their visions. So I graduated a year early,
(04:34):
moved out to LA The Fox Book Scouts guys really
helped me to get kind of interviews at all these places.
I ended up accepting a mailroom gig at Uta, which
I think that was the thing the movie fre You
thought my parents a little bit, is to graduate from
NYU and then go into a mailroom. I found this
really great article that said why Harvard grads are going
to the mailroom and sent that to them.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
As Richie headed West, Lena was still writing a and
making a name for herself in the industry and online.
Her twenty eleven YouTube short Shit Black Girls Say went viral,
racking up over ten million views, and she found additional
success with her web series Twenties and Hello Cupid. Soon,
Lena would find herself on the radar of a famed
Hollywood casting director.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I was trying to be a television writer. I wasn't
even trying to write movies. I think because I had
been in the TV space and was making a name
for myself on the TV space.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Being an actor was never part of the plan.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
What happened was I did a pilot presentation for twenties
that I put that on YouTube. Justin Simmon directed those
four scenes, and my friends Courtney Sauce, Nida Jrba, and
Ashley Blank Fetherston were kind enough to be in it,
all of which are actors on Dear White People. But
at the time that was us just figuring it out
and shooting something and trying to find our voices. And
we put that online and it just did really well.
(05:51):
A lot of people tunedail, a lot of people watch it,
people are like, what is this and then we got
some write ups even about it.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Allison Jones, who is a famed casting director, read about
it and heard about it and wanted to meet with me.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I was literally on set producing Dear White People in
the feature when I got a call from my then
managers this casting director wants to meet with you.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And I was like, why does the casting director want
to meet me?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And I'm not casting anything, and he was like, I
don't know, but she's like really well known, like she
casts bridesmaids, freaks and geeks beat and she wants to
meet you, and I was just like okay.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Initially only wanting to write and never thinking of herself
as an actress. We took a chance with Jones and
found herself in front of the camera. She landed a
minor role on Lisa Kudro's to Comeback, her first official
acting credit. It was a small part, but just the
preparation she needed as a life changing role was right
around the corner.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
In that meeting, I thin could see that there would
be space for me to be on screen, and I
just still didn't see that. And she was like, do
you have any interest in auditioning? And I was like,
I really don't, and she said, let me just bring
you in for some stuff and just see what happens.
I booked this little small part on the Comeback season
two on HBO.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I'd be coming to read for that.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
And then finally the big break was she was casting
a Zsa's show.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Which would ultimately become Master of None.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
But he wanted to do something old school as he's
and Allen, the creators of the show, they wanted to
do something different where they were like, we don't want
to just you just send us actors, and because they
were like we're still figuring out what the show is today,
said can you send us interesting people for us just
to have a conversation with and then we'll decide who
we want to read with.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And by it, she just said you should see lean Away.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
She's very interesting. And so I went to a Zesu's house.
I sat with him and Allen. I was a big
fan of Parks and Red. I had sat through so
many staff like meeting like.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Conversations, which is what that felt like.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
We would literally have to go in and be your
authentic self, and that's what I did. And then I
got a call saying, okay, Asese wants you to read
with him, and then of course I went in, we read,
and the rest is history.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Master of None was an instant success and Waite was
a breakout star. But what really put her on the
map was the release of the now classic Thanksgiving episode
and Master of None's second season. The episode, co written
by was loosely based on her own experience coming out
as a lesbian to her family. After hearing Wait to
recount the story and conversation the show, starr and creator
(08:08):
as He's I'm Sorry insisted that they make an episode
from it, and that Wait writed. The episode became a
cultural touch point and would win her an Emmy for
Outstanding Writing in a comedy series, making Weight the first
black woman to win such an award, and with that,
Lena Waith was overnight one of the most sought after
names in Hollywood.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
She was like one of the hottest writers in town
and everyone wanted to work with her. I had been
part of option in this graphic novel called Black Those
basically set and emotionally black people are Superpowers. It was
a really awesome graphic novel and we had sent it
to her for consideration and she liked She and some
when Kathy Kasaki came in with this really awesome take
(08:52):
on material. It was super ambitious and told I believe
it ended in a race war. It was really kind
of fun and interesting, and I think was ultimately deemed
a bit too controversial for the group that I was
working with, but it kind of put me on her
radar a little bit.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
I was still the junior executor that wasn't talking a lot,
but I was there.
Speaker 6 (09:13):
A few months.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
Later, her manager at the time, Andrew Coles, gave me
a call and said, you know, Lina's looking for someone
to run her company, are you interested in interviewing? I
was like, oh my god, that absolutely.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Lena was on the verge of launching her own production
company and looking to assemble a team. The chance to
work with Lena Waite was a no brainer for Rishi.
The two decided to meet at La Mille Coffee Shop,
a cafe in Silver Lake. Riesche knew that this was
the opportunity of a lifetime, so he hit the film
room to study and make sure that he was ready
for the game.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Just remember like prepping like crazy, intensely hard for this thing.
And I had all these like file folders with lists
of writers and directors. I came with a stack of
books that I thought that she should option. You know,
was really like, this my game plan for year one
of the company.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
He came to a coffee spot where I met him,
and came in with a whole plant. He was like,
here's what I think you should be doing. This is
what I think could be interesting. Here's a cool project.
He just really came in and won.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
He won it. He took it, and I think that's
what was so impressive. He had.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He literally had a folder that's how old school get
printed it up. It was a whole situation and he
just had papers and he was just like, I think
it'd be cool if you were part of something like this,
So what if you went over there?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
He just sort of opening my mind to things that I.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Just didn't think that I would ever like do, where
I'm like, well, no, I think I lean more toward this,
and he's just like, but what if you lean toward
this way? Or what if you produce this Like that's trash,
that's different. I haven't seen that, And I was like, oh,
I haven't seen that either. I think that's sort of
really where he and I bond is like what hasn't
been done, who's missing? What stories haven't been told yet?
(10:51):
And I think that to us is what's so exciting.
And I think that, to me was what really made
me go I got to work with this guy, and
we've been down ever since. And the cool thing about
it is we can say it we're in this.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
For our lives. He's not going anywhere, I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And I think there's a security in that. There's a
safety in that, there's a knowing in that. And I
think once you have that which you know, you can
lian on somebody and they're there, and that creates a
different kind of work ethic.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Because his legacy is an intertwined with mine.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
An instant bond was born between Riesci and Lina as
they both understood their mission in Hollywood was much larger
than simply producing films. They were going to tell stories,
give opportunities, and help underrepresented communities gain traction in the industry.
Hilm Ingrad, a name that started as Lina's first Instagram
handled in homage to the fictional university from a Different World,
(11:37):
was starting to come into focus as a real entertainment company.
Capitalizing on the growing industry buzz. Lina and Rishi went
to work launching the first official him and grad project, Boomerang,
a comedy series based off the Eddie Murphy classic for beet.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
The first series that we did together and was at
the end of that first year. It's called Boomerang, and
it was sure that we for bt was based off
of the Eddie Murphy halle Berry film. It was a
wild experience because I had never really produced anything before.
When you're at the studio, you don't really get hands on,
boots on the ground producing experience, and so it became
(12:15):
this crash course worldwide for me, where I moved to
Atlanta for three months and got to learn how to
make a TV show. It was really kind of bizarre
and interesting because I was an executive producer on the show,
and which is sort of like the highest title that
one can have on a TV show, But I was
only executiveducer that was a non writing executive producer, and
(12:38):
everybody else in that set had done a million hours
more you know, TV production than me. I was there
to learn. I was there to be the conduit between
the production and the studio and the network, which is
kind of what producers really do. But I just asked
a million questions. I tried not to be the guy
that came in thinking he knew anything, because I literally
didn't know anything. And you became very close to their
(13:01):
producing director David Warren and our pilot director Dime Davis.
So it was really cool about that first season is
that we gave a lot of directors that had never
gotten to direct television before their first episodes. Joelle Taylor's
got a new Netflix movie, Sean Frank, who directed an
(13:23):
incredible Mercedes commercial for us afterwards, Dim Davis, who went
on to go do a Black Lady Sketch comedy show,
Tiffany Johnson, who wanted to go direct a ton of TV.
Aby Rockwell, who got her first episode on Boom Rang
season one, who we just wrapped her feature with Focused
Features one thousand and one. It was my first TV show,
but it was also a lot of people's first TV shows.
(13:44):
I feel like I definitely made some mistakes along the
way in the context of maybe not being thoughtful about
a script and not having any cover for rain in it.
We shot an entire episode in a parking lot. An
experienced producer might look at that script and go, well,
you know, if it rains, if there's bad weather, we
need to have something that we can shoot. Why don't
(14:05):
you try setting one of these things, like, you know,
at a gas station or something else, or like a
few scenes side of that. But I did not do that.
So cut to us being outside. Everyone's miserable. The rain
is coming down so hard. We have four days of
terrible weather, which is the four days that we have
to shoot this episode, and absolutely no cover built into
(14:26):
set at all. That's one of those learning opportunities around
looking around at a very miserable director, crew, and cast
and going, huh, that's as a good lesson. It's a
good lesson I learned, but there's lots of things like that,
you know, and running out of time, cutting pages on
set of things, learning how to manage things, learning how
to manage filmmakers and both be supportive to the cast
(14:47):
and crew, but also you know, learning the fundamentally, like
as a producer, you're not always there to just be
everybody's friend. You're also there to make hard decisions and
be kind of ultimately the person who was responsible for
delivering a great product at the end, I learned a
lot of that stuff. That was season one of Boomerang,
(15:07):
but that just catapulted us. The company just began to
grow and grow.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Boomerang was a success and ran for two seasons before
Wight decided to shift her focus back to another scripted
series that she had just launched prior to the formation
of Human grad Showtime's The Shy, a coming of age
drama based on Chicago's South Side. The Shine launched a
twenty eighteen to both critical and commercial success.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I wanted to write a show about my city, and
I've only written comedy because I was really.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
A comedy writer. That's what I think of myself as.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
But then I just was like I want to do
something about Chicago, but I was like, well, that to
me feels more like a drama. I want to do
an ensemble piece about the city and it's a drama.
So I said, okay, I'm a trauma hand to writing
a drama, and I did. And that was The Shy.
I gathered a lot of drama writers who I know
and respect and had to become and listen to a
table read and of it, and we all walked out
of there and just really thought, Wow, this could be something.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Though it seemed like hillm Ingrad couldn't miss. A sexual
misconduct claim on the set of The Shy at the
start of season two shook up the cast, crew and
the company itself. As a result, two of the stars
left the cast, and Lena and Rishi were left to
look inward. After some serious introspection, the two committed to
figuring out how to make sure hillm Ingrad was a
safe and desirable place to work and truly represented the
(16:23):
vision to which they were committed.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Shai is really Heilmograd's first thing, and it's actually it's
still an incredible crown jewel for the company. It was
also such a testament to Lena being able to kind
of weather the storm of that show, lose year, lead actor,
losing showrunners, Lena having to step in and really kind
of you know, every single script goes through her computer
for that show. We worked with a lot of different filmmakers.
(16:46):
I think we're finally kind of finding our footing and
rhythm on it.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Hillman Grad was growing fast and the inbound up or
tunities were coming even faster. Word it spread that if
you had a story to tell, Hillman Grad was the
best place to do it. To help oversee the rapidly
expanding production slate, Lena and Rishi made a key hire
in Naomi Funabashi, a Harvard grad who had worked your
way up from an assistant at CIA all the way
to VP of Programming and Development at Freeform. Funubashi rounded
(17:20):
out the executive team and added another all star to
its roster.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
I oversee the film and television departments. As a producer,
your job is to assemble the best team you can
and the right team for each project and creatively support
it as best you can. And I feel like you
sit at this intersection of the creative and business where
you have to understand the reasons why budgetarily their restrictions,
or why something may not fit on a certain buyers
slate or things like that, and help creatives navigate that
(17:47):
side of things, and then on the flip side, also
fight for your creative in terms of like, this is
their vision, this is what they need to be successful.
So you're sort of having both types of conversations and
being a bridge between two sides of things. It truly
varies depending on the people on the project and what
they need, their personalities. You know, what type of project
it is and where it is in the process. Rishi
(18:09):
and Lena had done this incredible job of establishing it
as this sort of white house and this wave of
change in the industry. You know, not only just seeing
the types of stories that were represented and that like
reflected all of us at the company and the worlds
that we lived in, but also showing that thinking outside
the box and change was possible in the industry generally.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
One of these stories was forty Year Old Version, a
film about a forty year old playwright and teacher who
finds herself drawn to a new career as a rapper.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
So forty Old Version was a project that Lena had
championed but it was written and directed by a woman
named Roda Blank, and so forty old version was the
first thing that we did as a company that was
not Alena written piece, which is a really big deal
for us. Lena actually took a one step further and
invested her own money in the project because it was
a project that had to be passed on around town
(19:02):
for I believe six seven years, and Lena really loved it,
really loved a script, really kind of saw something in it.
She said to me, reach, we got to get this done,
and she put five hundred thousand dollars in and we
found the rest of the money scrapped together, shot at
in New York, hustled it out for the Sundance Deadlines,
got into Sundance, where it got a massive standing ovation
(19:24):
and rave reviews, and got into a big bidding war
between a twenty four and participant and Netflix. I feel
like I grew up reading about is like the Sundance
bidding war, where you're you know, it's late at night,
you're in houses and beautiful houses in Park City, when
you're in the very lucky position of having multiple companies
(19:44):
that are coming to you. They're all coming to present
their strategy and their thoughts around it. And so they
come in and they talk creatively about the project, like
where they have notes on things where they would like
to maybe shift and re edit some pieces of the movie.
Then also what they would bring to it marketing wise,
scalability wise, what kind of budget they have, how much
(20:06):
money they're putting down for the film, And so you're
weighing all these different factors to really go, okay, does
this make sense as what we've always had as the
vision for the release of this film. It's tough because
we also live in a world where it's A twenty
four that's talking about the actrical release, and then Netflix
is talking about a streaming release, right, and that factors
in and streamers can pay more than the actrical attributors.
(20:27):
Streamers end up paying a lot more because you don't
have the added benefit of box office bonuses on things.
And so it's important for a Netflix or an Amazon
to be able to outbid not just kind of the
price point that an A twenty four someone else comes
in with, but also be able to give you enough
(20:48):
money so that you're not concerned about missing out on
a box office sex sensation. And so it was really
tough for us, and ultimately Netflix ended up winning the day,
but then the pandemic and so Netflix ended up being
the best option for us completely because the movie wouldn't
have come out for another couple of years really if
(21:08):
we hadn't gone with them. That project became a real
launching point for us because I think it made people
look at us a little bit differently as being very
legitimate producers that can come to us on dance with
that film and knock everybody socks off. It was this
sort of crazy world win for us that I think
really established us as the advocates for artists to be
(21:29):
able to look at somebody's passion project that they're writing, starring,
and directing and that the town hadn't really seen, and
in tandem with us, just with us signing this Amazon
deal for TV, so we're exclusively with Amazon for two years.
It gave us the capital and the ability and the
resources are hiring more members of the team, which was
(21:49):
a big relief for me.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
After the success of forty year old Version, Hillman grad
continue just search for stories to share, and Naomi quickly
discovered that these stories can come from literally anywhere you
can come from anything.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
It's books, comics, even in some cases Reddit threads, but
also it's things that are personal to us. Sometimes it's
just sitting with a writer too and you realize that
you both are in telling this type of story, and
then your brainstorming together, you're cracking a take. It can
also just come in in terms of like you meet
a director and they're like, I have a passion project
that I really want to make next. It's this thing
(22:27):
we A lot of times we say as home Ingrad
it is our job to sort of try to shift
and change the expectation of what the story can be.
And so we sometimes tell creatives that we're meeting with,
what's the story you always want us to tell? But
people have said now, and a lot of times incredible
stories come out of that.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
One of those stories was Queen and Sulin, the twenty
nineteen film starring Daniel Caluja and Jody Turner Smith.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
James Fribby picked me that idea about man a woman
they get pulled over, kill a compa self defense and
go on the run. I was like, Oh, that's it, interest,
that's a movie. There's something there, and that's really where
that was born. When I heard that idea. Now I
got to write this, I aspired.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Hillman Grad was racking up credits across Hollywood, but making
sure that the company was an incubator for underrepresented creators
remained paramount. So they expanded their focus on coaching young
talent by hiring organizational leader Justin Riley as VP of
Operations and Business Development. And with that addition, hillm Ingrad
recalibrated the ambitions of their mentorship program and decided it
(23:24):
was time to go big.
Speaker 6 (23:26):
These first twelve months really have been focused on getting
our company set. We hadn't really focused on that. It
was more focused on the creative lens of let's get
more projects. We need more help, we have more ideas.
Here comes this opportunity. Let's push, push, push the creativelopment.
But in pushing all of that, you also have to
(23:47):
operationalize and organize your company to ensure that it can
function at a high level on a day to day.
So that's where I spend a lot of my time
doing the boring stuff that no one likes to pay
attention to, but we all know is critical to a
business success. The key of what Lena preaches is mastering
one's craft. She's very adamant of being well studied, well versed,
(24:09):
and being knowledgeable about the space that you occupy. And
so we want to create a program that really had
an emphasis on teaching. Even though it's called the Mentorship Lab,
it's non traditional mentorship program where we pair you with
someone in the industry. You meet once a month, you
go have lunch, you have coffee. In six months you
hopefully they can land you a position or a meeting somewhere.
(24:30):
That's not what the program is. It's really a nine
month creative's academy where you really go deep in your
bag as a creative. So there's three tracks, one for writers,
one for actors, and one for execs. And we have
a whole curriculum built out. We have teachers that we
have hired to teach this. They meet once a week
every Saturday for three hours. Right now, we are funding
(24:53):
it through Lina's generosity, and I think that's what is
something that's so special too, is because mentorship is so
so important to her that she was willing to reinvest
her own money into tomorrow's future.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Mentorship was such a huge part of my brand. I
think that's because I was mentored. But I was doing
it when I was an assistant, you know, when people
would ask me things like, hey, this is what I've learned,
this is what I know, this is what does really
well for me, because I really was becoming a professional
assistant at one point. I mean it was crazy, but
because I had such a good reputation, people were like, yeah,
get her, she'll be great because I really did take
it so seriously. My assister Aba DuVernay and Gina Princes
(25:29):
bis to It and Mark bucker Kill. I mean these
are people where I could not drop the ball. And
that's why for me, I just knew that there was
always something to be.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Shared, even from those days. And then as.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Obviously as I progressed in my career, I would just
learn things.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
I would go, oh, that's not shouldn't do that or
remember that. But you only learn from when.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
You trip up, before you make a mistake, be from
when you slip in the fall. So real mentorship is
not just telling somebody, oh, I can get you a
job or here, come do this. It's really about hey,
like what's going on with you mentally, emotionally. But I've
learned in terms of mentoring some people especially when I
was just starting out on my own, before I actually
had a mentorship program. I found over the years a
(26:07):
lot of people have since left LA. I've got emails
some people that said, you know what I learned while
doing this, I don't want to be a writer.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
It sounded cool.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I thought it was supposed to be cool, but then
after getting into it, I'm like, oh, I don't want
to be doing this.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
This is hard. I gotta secrific I can do this.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I got to rewrite again and again, and then then
when I get into an actor, they may want to
change it and I gotta put it out, and then
I gotta it's so I'm like, yeah, and so what
I try to do is tell people the truth about
what it really is, because I think it's easy to
kind of go on someone with my Instagram or somebody's
social media and go, oh, it's so fun that you're
at a premiere with this actor, you're at a party,
(26:41):
and I know, and it's so difficult to show everybody
the entire process. But the truth is, what we try
to do is tell people the truth and say this
is what it means to be a working actor. This
is what it means to be a writer, because I
think people think, oh, you're writing and you're getting paid
to do it, But no, you're also dealing with a
bunch of notes execs.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
You know, you may disagree.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
With your producer partner about how to in the film
or what to do, and so I think those are
the things that people don't necessarily think to tell you
in the middle of the mentoring process.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
With the expansion of its mentorship program and a full
slate of projects and production, Hillman Grad looks ahead with
their core mission intact to provide a platform for diverse
voices across all mediums, and with a prodigious crop of
new professional talent emerging from their program and looking to
enter the industry, Hillm and Grad is positioned for success
long into the future.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Over the past year and a half, I've been in
this interesting position where the company has been growing and expanding.
We have been starting a lot of new verticals the company,
which has been really exciting. And so we have film
and TV, which is the core business. We started a
record label that's underneath def Jam. We started a book
publishing side under Xando Books. You know, are into the
(27:54):
process of creating a branded content division have the Helmo
Grad Foundation and our mentorships and a really kind of
super fruitful partnership with Indeed that we've been doing on
that front. Have a fashion line that's coming out. I've
been talking about a cannabis line. We have a podcast
Division two Rima on Trasfers podcast.
Speaker 6 (28:14):
You can't work at Him and Grad and not champion
underrepresented voices, not driven to create opportunities for those who
are often overlooked and discounted and stepped over. That ethos
is here and if you ever hear at Lena talk,
you get that. If you see anything that we put out,
whether that's on social that's through our projects that we
(28:35):
create out or any of the events that we do,
it's very community centered POC focus. When you can create
a company that influences culture and has people talking about
what you do beyond just the projects you create, you
know there's something special there.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
I think transparency is the number one thing. It's the
thing that I didn't have a lot coming up in
the business, and so I really try to let our
team know where we're at, let our team know we're
at from a revenue perspective, knowing what we need to
hit and why we're making the choices that we're making,
you know, being able to bring people into collaborative, creative
(29:12):
conversations about the mission of the company, because we are
still a startup in a lot of ways, and we're
still kind of defining our mission and what we all
stand for. And I'd much prefer that mission be something
that is defined by our team versus something that's weird
and top down and feels like something is just being
put on everybody. It's transparency, it's listening, it's bringing people
(29:34):
in the conversation. It's being able to take criticism.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
For me, it's getting to see and invest in talented
creatives that we know are talented and see them get
their shot, see them get their recognition, see people respond
to the art, and be like, that's my story too.
I feel seen by this. No one is talking about this,
but this person is. It's getting to see them have
their shot and see that story be met with a
(29:59):
lot of love and success. I mean, even on Chain
Can Dunk, I felt this personally, but I loved being
in some test screenings where some people were like, oh,
that's me. You know, growing up, I was that kid.
I never seen myself on screen before or I've never
seen this moment between a mom and or son talking
about food and flavoring and it's little things, but it's
a reminder that there are so many experiences that should
(30:23):
be equally valued, and I think getting to see that
is success for me.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I want people to work with folks that they're not
going to be exactly like you, but they are like
minded and have the same mission. If you have five
people working on a project and only four of them
are about the mission and one of them isn't, there's
going to be friction and so you got to say, like, hey,
either we can keep this person or we can say, hey,
you don't seem to be aligned with our mission, so
we're gonna wish you well and we're going to find
(30:49):
somebody who's come more aligned, and we're going to keep
a pushing And that is true leadership to kind of say, hey,
I got to make sure everybody is following the same
mission and we're on the same pave. It's never been
just me, and I think that's back and impart anything
on the next version is like get your community, get
your crowd, don't feel like you got to do it
by yourself.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Don't do it by yourself, do it with a group
of people.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
Can we continue to be the champion for voices? Can
we continue to build this platform and really stand for
what we believe in? And I think the answer is yes.
Each of these various divisions has the potential to grow
to the size, scope and scale that film and TV has.
And so while it has been this kind of insane
venture to launch what it feels like, six different businesses
(31:33):
all at once, they all kind of fit into our
core mission of being an entertainment company, a content company
that just happens to exist in various different mediums as well.
So I think we probably wouldn't do anything that felt
super out of the box for us, or like in
a completely different industry or business. But you know, everything
we have right now feels like it's part of the
same mission.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
The biggest thing is us always doing a gut check.
We don't want people to come in and be carbon
copies of us.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
That don't help.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
You want people with a different point of view, people
that have different ideas. But the through line is you
gotta always have your heart in the right place, and
we don't want people that want to step over people.
You know, it's about putting the person first.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Determine to put the storyteller first, highlight underrepresented voices, and
pave the way for young creatives. Helm Ingrat's core mission
propels them forward as industry leaders. We lean us in
a creativity Reshie's business acumen and the experience of role
players like Naomi and Justin Hilming grat success is a
team effort and a product of creativity and hard work
(32:42):
coming together from All Angles for Idea Generation. I'm Noah
Callahan Bever. Thanks for listening to the All Angles Podcast,
presented by Will Packer Media. I've enjoyed this episode. Please
don't hesitate to like, comment DM or tell a friend
(33:05):
to tell a friend about Idea Generation and the All
Angles Podcast. We can't do any of this without your help,
and honestly, your support means everything. We do this for
you and we can't do it without you. This episode
was brought to you by Will Packer, Executive produced by
John Valachick and Helena Ox. Original music by Valentine Fritz,
(33:25):
edit and sound mixed by Nonsensible Production, and hosted by
me Idea Generation founder Noah Callahan Bever. Idea Generations. All
Angles is a will Packer Media podcast
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