Cameron sits down with Jon Reiss and Marjan Safinia to examine the structural challenges facing independent filmmaking—and why many of the assumptions that shaped the last two decades no longer hold.

Jon is a filmmaker, author, and media strategist whose book Think Outside the Box Office has become a key resource for independent filmmakers thinking seriously about audience building and distribution. Through his company 8 Above, he creates custom audience-building strategies, theatrical experiences, and digital release campaigns for independent features and documentaries—and actively distributes films himself, most recently bringing The Librarians to over 200 theaters. He has consulted with hundreds of filmmakers and organizations worldwide, helped run the IFP/Gotham Filmmaker Lab for a decade, and founded the 8 Above Distribution Lab to teach filmmakers how to distribute and market their work.

Marjan is an Iranian documentary filmmaker whose work—including Seeds and But You Speak Such Good English—has played at over 100 international festivals and been broadcast across North America, Europe, and the Arab world. She is the longest-serving president of the International Documentary Association and the only woman of color to have led the organization since its founding in 1982. A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Documentary Branch and a Sundance Catalyst Fellow, she is also a board member of Chicken & Egg Pictures and co-hosts The D-Word, a leading online documentary community.

Jon is also the co-founder and board president of the Future Film Coalition, formed in 2025 to unite independent film professionals and organizations in building collective power, securing visibility, and shaping public policy that ensures U.S. independent filmmaking continues to flourish. Marjan is an active member of the coalition. The FFC has already notched a meaningful early win, helping secure an independent film carve-out in California's expanded tax credit program.

In this conversation, Jon and Marjan discuss how financing, distribution, discoverability, and audience behavior have fundamentally shifted—and why the biggest challenge facing independent filmmakers today isn't simply getting a film made, but building a sustainable path for that film to reach an audience. They explore why distribution thinking needs to begin at the earliest stages of development, how marketing and audience strategy have become inseparable from production, and why understanding who a film is for long before it premieres has become essential. The conversation also covers the changing economics of streaming, the realities of theatrical exhibition, and the growing importance of filmmakers building direct relationships with their audiences.

Finally, Jon and Marjan discuss the Future Film Coalition's broader advocacy work, including efforts to address media consolidation, strengthen tax credit programs across the country, and make the case to policymakers and regulators that independent film is a significant economic force in communities across the United States.

The views and opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are solely their own and do not reflect the views of Wrapbook, its employees, or affiliates.

Cameron sits down with Jeff Caruso, Wrapbook's SVP of Studio Sales and Success, for a candid look at where production finance has been—and where it needs to go.

Jeff's path to Wrapbook is anything but theoretical. He started in hands-on production roles before moving into production finance at Summit Entertainment, then spent nearly 13 years at Cast & Crew helping studios and streamers manage the business side of their productions at scale. That combination—set experience, finance expertise, and deep familiarity with the tools the industry has relied on—gives him a uniquely clear-eyed view of why those tools have started to fall short.

The conversation covers the real cost of fragmented systems and manual workflows: not just inefficiency, but risk that shows up at the worst possible moments. Jeff talks about what modern production finance actually demands, why budget-building that once took weeks is on the verge of taking hours, and what he's seen happen when technology and service fail to move at the speed of production.

But the episode doesn't end with technology or trends. Jeff makes the case that no platform replaces the person who picks up the phone, understands the pressure, and says "I'm going to fix this for you." Because at the end of the day, a paycheck isn't just a paycheck—it's someone's car payment, their mortgage, their kid's tuition. The stakes are that real, and the people supporting productions need to treat them that way.

The views and opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are solely their own and do not reflect the views of Wrapbook, its employees, or affiliates.