the 1,000 second podcast
Jeff Jackson didn’t follow the traditional path to politics. In fact, it was never part of his plan at all. Perhaps that’s why he’s not a traditional politician.
In an election season known mostly for its venom and blatant lying, Senator Jackson places honesty and decency at the forefront of his campaign. In this episode, find out why Jeff is so hopeful about the 2020 election outcome and why he thinks gerrymandering is the biggest roadblock to real progress.
Janie Bryant is an Emmy Award winning Costume Designer, well known for her work on the shows Deadwood, Mad Men, The Romanoffs, and more. Her iconic designs have influenced Michael Kors, Prada, Marc Jacobs and others. She’s currently costume designer for Why Women Kill, a comedic drama set in three different decades on CBS All Access.
Sometimes 1,000 seconds just isn’t enough! This week, we’re releasing extra content from our interview with music supervisor extraordinaire Thomas Golubić. Scott asks him to describe his favorite music/scene pairings from four of his most high profile shows:
Diane Restaino is the founder and president of the Joedance Film Festival. The festival is named in honor of her late son Joe, with the goal of raising awareness and funds for pediatric cancer research and clinical trials. From its humble beginnings in 2010, the annual festival has grown tremendously, and has raised $170,000 in donations. With dates for next year’s festival already in place, there are no signs of slowing down.
Our guest is Amanda Back, an accomplished talent producer and the co-owner of One Foot Productions, a New York City-based company which works on 20 to 25 projects a year. In addition to booking major talent for events all around the country, she and her business partner also founded the Bear Music Fest, “a one-of-a-kind experience described as part summer camp, part music fest and part dance party.”
Tom Gabbard is one of the most important people in the world of theater today. He is an accomplished and successful Broadway producer – producing or co-producing over 70 Broadway shows. He is a Member of the Board of Governors of the Broadway League, a Tony Award voter, co-chair of the National High School Musical Theatre Awards – also known as the Jimmys. He is President of the Independent Presenters Network – a group of Broadway presenters from North America, the UK and Asia… And he is President/CEO of the Blumenthal Performing Arts, managing six different performance venues and over 1,000 shows every year.
Guy Nattiv and Jaime Ray Newman are a husband/wife, director/producer team to watch. Not only did their short film Skin win them an Oscar at the 2019 Academy Awards, but also their feature film—a thematically similar story, also titled Skin—recently opened to critical acclaim. Peter Travers at Rolling Stone writes, “Jamie Bell’s awards-buzzed tour de force in this fact-based drama about a neo-Nazi overcoming his toxic upbringing makes this a movie you can’t get out of your head.” It’s currently available to rent or buy on most video on-demand platforms.
Other topics of note in this episode include Guy’s use of short films as a blueprint for features, the difficult decision to use their retirement savings to fund Skin the short, and the all-encompassing role of a producer (presented without context: occasionally you might have to blow-dry pig skin).
In advance of 1K’s third season, we wanted to bring you some of our favorite memories from the last year and a half that we’ve been doing the show. Scott calls professional chef and cookbook author Jenny Brulé at her new restaurant, hoping they’ll end on better terms this time. We reminisce on our first explicit rating, get an update on an 11-year-old actress who’s already more successful than the rest of us, and producer Jordan Snyder gets the chance to grill Scott during the speed round. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Enjoy this look back, and get ready for even more new episodes of 1K coming to a podcast player near you.
Our guest on this episode is Sonya Pfeiffer, a former award-winning TV journalist and documentary filmmaker turned criminal defense attorney. Pfeiffer’s former life in television and film, and her current one as a barrister, were transformed by one extremely publicized case, the trial of Michael Peterson, which was the basis of the Netflix series, “The Staircase.” Her focus and expertise is on wrongful conviction cases—in this episode, we explore two such cases.
The first was a landmark for her: the case of Floyd Brown. Floyd was arrested for the murder of a well known woman in his community in Wadesboro, NC. The police received a vague tip pointing to Floyd, and they procured a confession from him under suspicious circumstances. However, with an IQ of 50, he was never deemed competent to stand trial. Instead, he was held in a mental institution for 14 years before earning his release.
The second case focuses on Tim Bridges, whose life in many ways mirrors Tim Robbins’ character in The Shawshank Redemption. Bridges was wrongfully imprisoned for the 1989 rape and burglary of an elderly Charlotte, NC woman. He was exonerated in 2015. During his twenty-five years in prison, Bridges was assaulted and raped. During that time, his grandparents, aunt, uncle and parents died. He had no close family when he was released.
Pfeiffer notes, no amount of money can make up for a stolen life, but there is a definite sense of purpose in working to right a horrendous wrong.