Interview with Producer Adam Leipzig - On the phone with David Serero - The Culture News

Interview with Producer and Founder of MediaU Adam Leipzig - On the phone with David Serero - The Culture News

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.Well come on the capture news. My
name is David Cerebro, and Ihave the pleasure to have today over the
film such an amazing and wonderful person. His name is Adam Leipzig. Let
me spell it for you. It'slike the city in Germany l Ei z

(00:22):
I g Adam lives. So it'svery hard to say who is this man
because he's so many many things.But he is truly a hero, a
truly a hero because he's first ofall, a phenomenal producer. He has
produced so many movies. And incase you don't know what a producer is,

(00:44):
a producer is someone who basically createsjobs. Let's not forget about that
he has created. He has producera lot of wonderful movies, executive produced,
but also produced so many many moviesthe associate with them. Just a
young actress called Whoopie Golberg. Justto just to name it, you know,

(01:06):
just to name it one of myfavorite movie titles with Antoni Upkins,
The Way Back Too Much, Somany many great things. And guess what.
He is also the founder of awonderful career accelerator, Achieve your career
goals in the film and television industrywith Media You. He's the founder of

(01:27):
media you can go on the websiteis MEDIAU the letter you mediau dot com.
Of course, it's now time tointroduce a wonderful guest, the one
their own by mister Adam Leipzig.How are you Adam today? I am
blown away cut print David um.I would like you to introduce me everywhere.

(01:51):
You know, I have people whotold me once David, I want
you to write my eulogy that's alivefor a long time exactly. I hope
I don't have I don't have todo that. So for people who are
listening, this is the this isthe real thing. This is someone who

(02:14):
knows about this industry, who knowsabout content, who knows about filmmaking,
who works the old fashioned way whenpeople were taking their phones and they were
getting results. And they will forgiveme for the expression cutting all the bs
to get exactly to what you need, because you know, it's so nice

(02:38):
to hear all these advices everywhere.But then you know when people tell you,
yeah, you have to believe inyourself. Okay, but how do
I get my movie down? HowI've done that movie, what the next
step? How do I get fundings? But like, really, how does
it work? And you have answeredall these questions on media you So first

(02:59):
of all, I want to knowmore about yourself. Can you tell us
where are you from? And howdid you land into the entertainment world in
the first place. Of course,I was born in Los Angeles and the
very first career that I had wasin the theater. I was the dramaturg

(03:19):
and one of the producers that builtthe Los Angeles Theater Center in downtown Los
Angeles. And at a certain point, I just wanted to work on a
larger canvas, so I kind ofI metaphorically walked across the street from theater
into film and I did a nicestint at Walt Disney Studios, and I

(03:44):
was the president of National Geographic Films. I have worked independently. I've worked
for studios, I've made feature films, I've made documentaries, and I've really
had a pretty amazing time sitting atthe big banquet table of the moving industry.
Wow, and you understood the alsoyou were a both to make the

(04:10):
creative aspect but also the business aspect. And I think this was always your
signature, isn't it. Yeah?My brand kind of works in both directions
because I am a creative myself,and I've also had to learn how to
be a business person because I've saton both sides of the table. And

(04:31):
I think perhaps one of my greatesttalents is the ability to translate between these
two worlds and work with creatives tounderstand how the business works, and work
with business people in finance heres anddistributors about how to talk to creative people
and really helped to demystify the creativeprocess for them. One of the things

(04:55):
that's so interesting, David, isthat those two processes are so mysterious to
both sides, Right, The businessprocess is so mysterious for creative people,
and the creative process is completely unknowableto business people. So it's it's it's
it's a real privilege to be ableto understand them both because I've seen both
and I've done both, and nowto be able to share both with media,

(05:17):
you wow. And indeed, whata beautiful achievements. Again, one
of my favorite movies of all timesis Sizes. You Know? Is I
mean you know? Is it yourbackground in theater that pushed you to to
to produce this amazing film. Thankyou. It is one of my very

(05:41):
favorite films that I've done as well. And we shot it in Italy with
a couple of weeks in Croatia withthe amazing Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lay and
Allen Cumming and Harry Jay Lennox andstraordinary cast and directed by Julie Timar.
It was Julie Timar's first film asa director. I had always loved I

(06:02):
actually always loved Titus, which isreally interesting because it is a pretty obscure
play today, although in Shakespeare's timeit was one of his most popular and
Julie had always wanted to direct Titus, and uh, we were brought together,
Uh, and it was. Itwas a really hard shoot and the

(06:24):
movie is really good. I'm soproud of that film. Oh you can
be it's it's uh, it's Imean, in my opinion, there's nothing
has been done better than this,you know it was. It was produced
so perfectly, and the poster manwith the blue face, it's like one

(06:47):
of the best thing I've ever seen. Uh, thank you, thank you
for saying that. This is.Yeah, the film is. The film
is really memorable and you know that, Uh my job as producer of that
was to somehow get Julie Taymore's brilliantcreative brain on the screen. I think

(07:09):
we did that. Oh you did, and you did another movie called The
Way Back with you know some likebeginner actors like Ed Harris, Colin Farrell.
Right, you know it's good you'regiving opportunities to young talents like that,
right yep, and also fabulous actorslike Jim Sturgis and sure Sni.

(07:32):
You know that that film is themost recent film directed by the master director
Peter Weir. And I was alsoreally lucky to work with Peter on one
of his very early films called ThatPoets Society, which a lot of people
remember, and to this day,I'll walk into rooms and people say,
that's one of my favorite movies.And that's really gratifying, No, it

(07:54):
is. It is. So Nowfast forwarding to these um wonderful company called
Media You. So it's switten.When I go on the website, which
I invite everyone to go MEDIAU theletter you MEDIAU dot com, it's switten.
Achieve your career goals in the filmand television industry with Media you.

(08:16):
So you have exclusive courses, mentoring, networking events, We'll get you hired,
gates paid, and get discovered becausea lot of people, I'm so
glad that you separated the three ofthem. You know, get hired,
get paid, get discovered because peoplekind of mix the three of the thing

(08:37):
is the same thing. Or onceyou're discovered, you would get paid,
you would get hired. You know, Oh you got hired once, So
okay, your career is done forever. You know, you're going to get
a lot of work. And I'mso glad that you also separating courses,
the mentoring, and the networking events, which are three or so different thing.

(09:00):
So tell me what are you tryingto achieve? What you're already of
course achieving, But what is yourgoal with media? You well, we're
trying to pull back the curtain andopen up those doors that seem to be
so shut and scale the walls thatseem to be so high. So people

(09:22):
who are creative, who really wantto be in the media industry in general,
and I think of media as anythingthat's on a screen right now is
somehow media. Um So people whowant to do that can understand how it
really works. What's really gone on. We don't. We do not offer

(09:43):
four year degrees. We don't takehundreds of thousands of dollars. And you
know why, one of us,and this is one of the motivations for
us. We've done research and asyou know, as you and your audience
know, there are there are thesethings called schools out in the world,
and they charge hundreds of thousands ofdollars at the so called top film schools,

(10:07):
and they take four years and fiveyears after people have graduated from those
programs, less than five percent ofthem have a job anywhere near the industry
because they don't show you what's reallygoing on and how it really works.
MEDAU is the opposite of that.MEDIAU is about what do you really need

(10:28):
to know so you can really practiceyour craft and get paid for it,
because we believe that creative people shouldbe able to pay their rent and go
out and buy dinner with their creativityinstead of driving uber or working at Starbucks.
And we're just opening those doors ofaccess for people who may have thought

(10:50):
that there was no way to getinside, and for people who have already
come on board and are already startingtheir creative careers. But how do they
upskill themselves? How do they staycurrent? How do they learn what they
need to learn and have those networksand have that kind of access. You
know. One of the flagship programsthat we're just launching right now was developed

(11:13):
because we surveyed the community of independentfilmmakers and we said, what do you
really want to know? And theysaid, well, we have no idea
how to market and distribute our filmseffectively. So we've created a marketing and
distribution roadmap for independent filmmakers, whichis facilitated by two people who have distributed

(11:33):
something like three hundred movies. It'sthe real deal, and we'll just take
you through. How do you makea roadmap for yourself whether you end up
making a deal with distributor and youhave to be able to work with them
well, or you end up distributingyour film yourself, which many filmmakers do
now and can do much more effectivelythan ever before. But really to do

(11:56):
it effectively? Do it well?Because you made your movie for an audience,
how do you get in front ofthat audience so they can appreciate it
and then leverage yourself to make yournext movie. That's that's what we're doing
We're just trying to open up thosedoors and you are doing that, and
you are doing it in a modernway. So because I have the feelings,

(12:20):
these days, people don't read anymore. They want to to see.
So you guys also understood how tocaptivate Also the students. You know,
if you give them five hundred pagesbook about how to produce a film,

(12:41):
most likely they're going to read fivepages. But the good things is that
you bringing also people who know whatthey're doing and directly everything they're saying.
It really makes sense because they feelthe part of the industry already. And
there is something really good which Iinvite everyone ago is the entertainment career queen,

(13:03):
you know, which I think isreally good. It tells you which
Hollywood career is right for you.Take the quez and it's very very interesting
and I did it and it's veryvery very very interesting. So you have
to start learning. You can startright away. You have all the great
courses. Uh take your the onlinefilm and TV courses anytime in anywhere,

(13:26):
which is also good. You canalso travel with your with your studies.
That's really really, really wonderful.So, um, what are you the
most I would set proud of theachievements of your students, because entertainment is
not you know, it's not foreverybody. Let's face it. You know,

(13:50):
everybody saying we're all driving amazing carsand producers we print money at home,
you know. Uh, and peopletend to forget that the producer is
the last one to get paid.Um. So it's it's uh, it's
a very very challenging. It's verytough industry. And with all these content

(14:11):
platforms, there is more competition andmore content than ever before. You know.
Um so what is this YouTube andall of that? What are you
what are you the most proud offrom your students? Yeah, so,
first, you're s right, becausethe producer is the last one to get
paid and sweeps the floor and cleansthe toilets like that. So sure is

(14:35):
the first, first one, firstone in and the last one out.
And um and and one of thethings that is important that you also said
is that the entertainment industry in themedia is just super glamorous and three hundred
thousand dollars cars and red carpets andpaparazzi, But really it's a day to

(14:56):
day work. It's real work,and there are more than a one hundred
and fifty professions in the entertainment industry, which as media you expands and grows,
we have to do trainings on awhole bunch of them, where people
who are perhaps dreaming about being inthe media industries don't even know that there
are jobs like production manager or dataanalysts for the streaming platforms, or storytelling

(15:24):
storytellers who work with businesses. There'sso many jobs in the media industries.
But you asked me what am Imost product of the people who participate in
MEDIAU there's one word, persistence.The people who have participated in media.
You who are coming to work withus and get mentored with us, they
persist. They know it's hard,and they keep coming. And that's the

(15:48):
beauty of our industry. Everyone who'slistening. As a creative, you know
that you just keep going. Youkeep going over and over again, and
you get a lot of rejection,and every once in a while you get
a yes, and it's beautiful.But you just have to show up every
day as a creative, keep doingyour work. You know, in the
United States alone, there are betweeneight thousand and ten thousand independent movies made

(16:11):
every year that's a lot of persistence. Now most of them, unfortunately,
most of them problem are not thatgood. Some of them are good,
many of them just don't get distributed, many of them don't get in front
of audiences. We look forward totraining people to tell their stories with greater

(16:32):
with greater effectiveness, more beauty,more craft, more poetry, and then
on the business side, know howto get in front of audiences and do
the business and make their deals andand really develop sustainable creative lives. Because
isn't that what's going to make ourworld a better place? If more creative
people had sustainable lives and could showthe beauty of their work for more people,

(16:57):
wouldn't our world be better? Ibelieve that creative rights or civil rights
and more creativity makes for a morecivil society and more jobs. Also because
the job again, so many jobs, so many jobs, because if you
have if a filmmaker makes the movie, it's so many jobs. It's from

(17:22):
the camera operators, from to theextra to the restaurant around the corner,
to whom the staff is going toorder food, to the distributors, to
the people who are going to printflyers and and posters, to the people
who are going to do the prSo it's it's so so, so much

(17:44):
work. This is why I think, you know, uh, filmmaker really
deserves to be well trained, likewith media you dot com. So before
we start to say goodbye to eachother, what else can you tell us
about these great school And most importantly, let's say I don't know anything about

(18:07):
producing, I'm going to be scaredto go into it. Do I need
to be I would say, toknow about producing? Do I need to
have any experience? Or? Afterall, can we don't we have all
the right to start somewhere. Yeah, well yes, everybody starts exactly where

(18:30):
we are at the moment we start. And the more we do it,
the better we get. And ifwe can accelerate our knowledge, we're going
to get better even faster the stepsthrough. If you're a producer, or
if you're if you're a if you'rean accountant or a doctor or a carpenter,

(18:52):
the more knowledge you can get,the better you will get at it.
We're about to launch a spotlight courseI'm Producing, which is a fast
at very information filled hour which wouldgive people basic understanding of producing and from
from two producers who have together producedfifty or sixty television shows and movies.

(19:17):
Again just really real, honest,true information and everything that we do is
accompanyed with some checklists and guides andbackstage information packs so you can really really
keep track of your knowledge and keepgetting better. We're doing it from producing,

(19:37):
we're doing it for how do youget great actors into your low budget
moving and work with saga after theactors, and how to get your how
to get your project financed and reallyburrow into financing. So we're developing we
have already and we're developing more informationportals so people who can walk through them

(20:00):
and emerge betters, murder and moreaccelerated than they were before. And indeed,
it is nothing but successful. Andwe are so so so happy,
and it's such a pleasure to haveyou today on the show, and I'm
so grateful that you're taking some ofyour time to be with us today.

(20:22):
And definitely we support this amazing,amazing thing. Media you MEDIAU dot com
check it out. You is theletter you ladies, A gentlemen. My
name is David, so we wroteI had the pleasure to have today on
I Heeart with you of many otherplatforms, the wonderful executive producer Adam Leipzig

(20:48):
Let me stay for you l EI p z I G. He is
a wonderful producer to produce, executiveproduce so many great classics, so many
wonderful movies. But he is alsothe founder of the wonderful Media You which
we talk about wonderful, a careeraccelerator for the entertainment a world right now.

(21:11):
More music on our Heart Radio,Stay tuned with us. It's a
beautiful day.