“SYNECDOCHE” PRODUCER ANTHONY BREGMAN ANSWERS MY STUPID QUESTIONS

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone, make that anyone, in the film industry who would say a bad word about producer Anthony Bregman. Not only is he great at his job, but he’s also a gem of a guy. (How many producers can you say that about?) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Friends With Money and the recently-released directorial debut of Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, are just a few…

Named by Variety as one of the ten “Producers to Watch” in 2002, Ant also teaches film production at Columbia, co-founded NYC prod.co. This Is That with Ted Hope and Anne Carey and was Head of Prod at the legendary Good Machine for nearly a decade (which is where I met him back in ‘97. Ant’s debut producing effort, Love God, was credited with being the world’s first fully digital feature film… and starred your’s truly;) A father of 3 and husband to the amazing Mallaika, Anthony Bregman is now the head honcho at Likely-Story… and remains one of my favorite people on the planet– but not just because he took time out of his sched to answer my “catch-all” questions regarding:

The future of indie cinema:

Tough to say. The long-term is always rosy, because this is a business that has an audience. But in the short term, the challenge is how to reach that audience. The indie distributors seem to have mostly left the business — some against their will and some by their own volition — but the next generation of distributors (both traditional and new media) are still figuring out how to successfully monetize distribution, so they’re still a ways off from making the business work. The immediate future is going to be very rocky — filmmakers always need to be crafty with their filmmaking; now they need to apply some of that craftiness to survival skills.

His producing philosophy:

Listen. Aggressively.

His personal philosophy:

There’s no real need to do anything in life but, if you do choose to do something, make it great.

The rules of filmmaking:

Make the art of it great, and the business of it good.

Words of wisdom:

I’m not a wise person, so I’ll have to quote someone who is — Gustave Flaubert: “Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.“

His favorite film of all time:

Well, I’ve got two (blame the Italians): The Conformist & 8 1/2.

His favorite book:

That’s easy: Anna Karenina

His advice for young(er) producers:

Find a good mentor.