Creative Principles
Welcome to Creative Principles, I'm your host Brock Swinson. Here I'll be speaking with writers, directors, actors, musicians and more. We'll discuss the habits, routines, and methods of a creative life.
Episodes
December 19, 2025 • 27 mins
Caleb Walker is a 16-year-old high school student and filmmaker. Over a year ago, he wrote, directed, and produced his first short film, ATTRIBUTE OF THE STRONG, which went on to screen at the All-American High School Film Festival.
He recently finished his first feature-length script, which is a horror movie oriented around Mexican culture and urban legends. He is also currently working on and completing a script oriented around ...
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December 12, 2025 • 26 mins
Chandler Baker is a New York Times bestselling novelist turned screenwriter, showrunner, and producer. Her first feature film, OH. WHAT. FUN. premiered on Amazon Prime Video on December 3. The film follows Claire Clauster (Michelle Pfeiffer), who is the glue that holds her chaotic, lovable family together every holiday season. This year, her husband and grown kids get distracted and forget their mom.
As her family scrambles to fi...
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December 5, 2025 • 27 mins
Jason Fuchs is the writer, co-creator, executive producer, and co-showrunner of HBO Max's IT: WELCOME TO DERRY. The series serves as a prequel to the successful IT films and explores the origins of the infamous killer clown Pennywise. Set in 1962, it follows a family that arrives in Derry, Maine, just as children begin to disappear.
Jason made his feature writing debut with the box office hit ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT, which at t...
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November 28, 2025 • 27 mins
Becca Topol is co-producer and story editor of MARVEL’S SPIDEY AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS, which follows the adventures of Peter Parker, Gwen Stacy, and Miles Morales as they team up with Super Heroes to defeat foes.
A writer of both film and television series, Topol's writing credits include Disney Jr.'s Emmy and Imagen Award-winning ELENA OF AVALOR, and the live-action feature film THE RAMEN GIRL.
In this interview, we talk about ...
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November 25, 2025 • 27 mins
Zach Baylin and Kate Susman are a successful husband-and-wife creative duo and the co-founders of the production company Youngblood Pictures. Baylin is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter who achieved prominence for his debut feature, KING RICHARD - where Will Smith won the Oscar, and has since co-written major films including CREED III, THE ORDER, GRAN TURISMO.
Susman, a producer and screenwriter, is his primary creative partner, and...
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November 21, 2025 • 15 mins
Michael Shannon is an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Tony Award-nominated actor with a distinguished career in film, television, and theater. This fall, he stars opposite Russell Crowe and Rami Malek in the historical drama NUREMBERG and plays President James Garfield in the Netflix series DEATH BY LIGHTNING.
DEATH BY LIGHTNING dramatizes the stranger-than-fiction true story of 20th U.S. President James Garfield and his ...
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November 14, 2025 • 21 mins
Nora Garrett is a writer and actress. She is a 2024 honoree of Variety’s annual “10 Screenwriters to Watch” issue and was recently staffed on Ed Solomon’s new series THE SPOT for A24 and Hulu.
Nora wrote the new film AFTER THE HUNT, directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri, and Michael Stuhlbarg. The film follows a college professor who finds herself at a personal and professional cross...
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November 7, 2025 • 27 mins
Derek Kolstad is a screenwriter and producer best known as the creator of the global blockbuster JOHN WICK franchise and the writer of its first three films. He is also the creator, writer, and director of Netflix’s upcoming animated series SPLINTER CELL: DEATHWATCH, based on Tom Clancy and Ubisoft’s acclaimed video game franchise.
In addition to his film work, he was the writer and co-executive producer of Marvel’s Emmy-nominate...
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October 31, 2025 • 29 mins
John-Michael Powell is an Emmy Award–winning filmmaker and co-founder of Midnight Road Entertainment. His latest feature, VIOLENT ENDS, will be released theatrically by IFC Films.
VIOLENT ENDS is a southern-gothic revenge thriller set deep in the Ozark Mountains. The film chronicles the life of Lucas Frost, an honest man and one-half of a pair of star-crossed lovers, whose fate is inextricably tied to the crime family that raised h...
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October 29, 2025 • 27 mins
Bekah Brinkmeier is a USA Today bestselling author and ghostwriter behind more than 85 novels. When she’s not deep in a draft, she’s teaching at AutoCrit, speaking at author events, or coaching fellow writers—especially neurodivergent creatives—on how to wrangle their ideas and actually finish what they start.
In this interview, we talk about her path to becoming a full-time writer, her ghostwriting experience and the lessons lea...
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October 27, 2025 • 28 mins
David is the director, writer and producer of the IN SEARCH OF DARKNESS trilogy for CreatorVC, which debuted in 2019 as a critically acclaimed four-and-a-half-hour documentary about ’80s horror movies. The long-form follow-ups IN SEARCH OF DARKNESS: PART II (2020) and IN SEARCH OF DARKNESS: PART III (2022) were highly lauded by fans and critics alike and extended the journey through ’80s horror cinema to an epic 14-and-a-half hour ...
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October 25, 2025 • 27 mins
Marcus Kliewer is a writer and stop-motion animator. His debut novel WE USED TO LIVE HERE began life as a serialized short story on Reddit. Film rights were snapped up by Netflix, and it was acquired by Simon & Schuster in the US for publication even before it had been extended into a full-length novel.
His new novel, THE CARETAKER, comes out next year (April 21, 2026) and follows a young woman who accepts a caretaking job from Cr...
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October 23, 2025 • 27 mins
Ilona Six is an independent film producer best known for producing and selling THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE trilogy. A cult horror classic that became a worldwide success. She has worked across development, production, sales, and distribution on a wide range of bold independent films. Today, through The Film Business Club, she mentors the next generation of filmmakers, helping them with the business side of filmmaking.
In this interview, w...
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October 17, 2025 • 22 mins
Aziz Ansari is an award-winning writer, director, producer, actor, and stand-up comedian.
This fall, Ansari makes his feature film directorial debut with GOOD FORTUNE, which he
wrote and stars in opposite Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen, Sandra Oh, and Keke Palmer.
The film follows a well-meaning but rather inept angel named Gabriel who meddles in the lives of a struggling gig worker and a wealthy venture capitalist.
Previously, Ansari...
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October 15, 2025 • 28 mins
Will Tracy is an Emmy-winning writer and producer. He wrote the screenplay for BUGONIA, the latest film from director Yorgos Lanthimos starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. The film is based on a South Korean film, and it follows two conspiracy-obsessed men who kidnap the CEO of a powerful company, believing her to be an alien responsible for environmental collapse and the dying of the bees.
Prior to this in film, he co-wrote an...
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October 13, 2025 • 29 mins
David DiGilio is the writer, showrunner, and executive producer of Amazon’s hit series THE
TERMINAL LIST, starring Chris Pratt, Constance Wu, and Taylor Kitsch, and based on the
NYTimes best-selling novels written by former Navy SEAL, Jack Carr (see Episode 548).
The show’s character-driven action and authenticity have sparked not just a second season, but also a prequel titled THE TERMINAL LIST: DARK WOLF, starring Kitsch, Pratt,...
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October 10, 2025 • 28 mins
Craig Davidson has published five books of literary fiction, including RUST AND BONE, which was the inspiration for a Golden Globe–nominated feature film of the same name; the Scotiabank Giller Prize–nominated novel CATARACT CITY; and the novel THE SATURDAY NIGHT GHOST CLUB, which was a finalist for the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize.
He also writes horror fiction under the name Nick Cutter: THE TROOP, THE DEEP, LITTLE HEAVEN,...
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Ep668 - Best of Horror with James DeMonaco, Drew Hancock, Bruce Campbell, Sam Lansky & Philip Gelatt
October 8, 2025 • 38 mins
It’s almost Halloween! To celebrate, we've curated a compilation of the best moments from our interviews with the masters of horror.
First, we have James DeMonaco, who shares with us the origin of THE PURGE, which was inspired by a real-life road rage incident. Then we have Drew Hancock talking about his film COMPANION, which he describes as “Barbie with bloodstains,” followed by Bruce Campbell, who details the dangerous stunts fr...
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October 6, 2025 • 26 mins
Emmy-nominated writer Seth Reiss made his feature film debut with Mark Mylod’s THE MENU in 2022, which he co-wrote and executive produced with Will Tracy, and received a WGA nomination for Searchlight Pictures. He is currently a supervising writer on LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS, for which he has received five Emmys and five WGA nominations.
Reiss’ new writing and producing project includes Sony Pictures’ A BIG BOLD BEAUTIFUL JOUR...
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September 26, 2025 • 42 mins
Brad Ingelsby is an EMMY AWARD-NOMINATED writer, producer, and creator. He gained widespread acclaim as the creator, writer, and executive producer of HBO's hit limited series, MARE OF EASTTOWN, which starred Kate Winslet.
Ingelsby has since created and written the new HBO limited series, TASK, starring Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey. His recent film work includes the Apple TV+ thriller ECHO VALLEY and THE LOST BUS, an adaptation ...
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