Becoming... Film & TV Producer, Director and CEO Brian Volk Weiss ("Films That Made Us," "Down to Earth w/ Zac Efron")

Mentors on the Mic: Your guide to pursuing a career in the Entertainment industry

How do you sell to Netflix?

Brian Volk-Weiss is the founder and CEO of the Nacelle Company, a leading Comedy producing and distribution house. Nacelle has produced and distributed scripted and unscripted content and established podcasting, development, distribution, records, publishing, marketing and management divisions.

Volk-Weiss has created, directed and produced hits such as Netflix’s docu-series, Down To Earth with Zac Efron, The Movies That Made Us, and The Toys That Made Us, and Kevin Hart’s Guide To Black History, as well as Behind The Attraction for Disney +, A Toy Store Near You, CW’s Discontinued, All The Way Black for BET+, and History’s Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek. He served as EP on the revival of the 1992 series Mad About You.

He has been nominated 19 times for Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Album and won 4 for production on performances by Louis C.K. and Dave Chappelle.

Through his years managing, producing, directing and writing in the entertainment industry, Volk-Weiss has negotiated deals with the likes of Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, HBO, Discovery, BET+, A&E Networks, Hulu, Viacom, History, and many more. He’s grown Nacelle’s comedy house, Comedy Dynamics, into the nation’s largest independent producer and distributor of stand up comedy.He served as EP on the revival of the 1992 series Mad About You.

In this episode, we talk about:

• The only job he’s ever been fired from (unjustifiably) - and how that lesson has helped him his whole career: “Appearance is sometimes as important to action.”

• The systematic approach he had to making it in Hollywood and why it wouldn’t work in NY

• How he lived off of $3k for 15 months working unpaid jobs - before he got a lucky break

• How he turned a job he didn’t like - being a manager to what he wanted to do, which was make TV and film

• The book that made them change their entire business model and a library of over 1000 hours they still make money from

• His tenets of directing comedy specials vs documentaries

• Toys that made us took us 7 years to sell

• What he looks for in a story and does he now cater to the audience

• The most interesting story that he wants to share involving Chester A Arthur

• Why he may not have started a toy division if he knew what it would entail

Guest:

IMDB Wikipedia Instagram Linkedin Twitter

Host:

Instagram: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneMiller

Twitter: @MentorsontheMic @MichelleSimoneM

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mentorsonthemic

Website: www.michellesimonemiller.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/24mmichelle

Resources:

The Long Tail

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