STORYBEAT WITH STEVE CUDEN

STEVE CUDEN INTERVIEWS UNIT PRODUCTION MANAGER/PRODUCER NAN BERNSTEIN

ANNOUNCER:

This is StoryBeat storytellers on storytelling, an exploration into how master storytellers and artists develop and build brilliant stories and works of art that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators of all kinds find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host. Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden:

Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Center for Media Innovation on the campus of Point Park University in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If you like this podcast, please take a moment to give us a rating or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to. Your support helps us bring more great StoryBeat episodes to you. Well, my guest today, Nan Bernstein has been an award winning motion picture and TV unit production manager and producer for over 30 years, she’s worked on numerous feature films, including Conspiracy Theory, Michael Collins, The Flamingo Kid, and It Takes Two, which was directed by StoryBeat guest Andy Tennant, her television work includes series such as I’m Dying Up Here, Aquarius, The Leftovers, Prime Suspect, Parenthood, and more than 70 episodes of Friday Night Lights, which earned her an Emmy nomination.

Nan also won an international Sunny Award for the documentary, The Making of Tootsie, which was directed by two times StoryBeat guest Rocky Lang. She was the production executive at Universal Cable Productions for The Pilot and first season of the extraordinary TV series, Mr. Robot, she’s worked with such entertainment industry luminaries as Johnny Cash, Julia Roberts, Sophia Loren, Mel Gibson, Christian Slater, Annette Bening, Blair Underwood, Michael Apted, Brett Ratner, Neil Jordan, Paul Mazurski, Kenneth Lonergan, Damon Lindelof, and Peter Berg to name just a few. So for all those reasons and many more, it’s really a true honor and privilege for me to be joined by the exceptional producer, Nan Bernstein, Nan. Welcome to StoryBeat.

Nan Bernstein:

Thank you.

Steve Cuden:

It is a great pleasure to have you on the show.

Nan Bernstein:

I feel honored.

Steve Cuden:

Well, the honor’s all mine believe me. So let’s start at the beginning. How did you get involved in production in the first place? Where did your love of it come from and what first sparked you to get into the movie business?

Nan Bernstein:

Grew up in rural Pennsylvania. When I was around 12 and a half years old, my sister was at the Art Students League in Woodstock, New York. My very liberal parents decided to send me up there for a month with her. And we saw a movie called Sundays and Cybele which was a French foreign film. And it just knocked my socks off. It was so emotionally moving and so powerful, even though it was very sixties. I thought, wow, if something can move you like that, I want to be in entertainment. I didn’t even really know what that meant at that time.

Steve Cuden:

And how old were you?

Nan Bernstein:

And I was a social worker first. I was getting my master’s degree at Boston University in Social Workforce, working in prison reform. And I have to say a broken up boyfriend pushed me to New York. And I literally took the yellow pages, copied the pages that said motion picture companies and made three columns. One the usual suspects, Warner Brothers, Paramount. I made a second column of Goldwyn Studios and those medium sized studios. And then one that I thought had cool names similar to Summer Tree Films. I thought, well, if I don’t get a job at one of these first two, I’ll at least work somewhere with a cool name.

Steve Cuden:

Right. Sure.

Nan Bernstein:

And knocked on doors until people were sick of hearing from me.

Steve Cuden:

And how old were you at the time?

Nan Bernstein:

23 I think I stayed in Boston a couple of years after I graduated. I think I moved to New York after that.

Steve Cuden:

And when you got your first job, did you work immediately as a UPM or did you do other things first?

Nan Bernstein:

No. I started as a receptionist at the Advertising Publicity Department of United Artists when United Artists was hitting every Academy award winning movie, like Sunshine Boys, Annie hall, we were just cranking out award-winning movies. Two things I didn’t really love working at a corporation, and I felt I wanted to work on shows where I could affect the outcome, not after they were done, trying to push them onto news outlets. So after two years I left and I heard two men talking in a coffee shop about a movie and I’m usually not that forward, but I went around and said, sorry for eavesdropping. And I said, do you need anybody? I can type really well. And they said, come up after lunch.

Nan Bernstein:

So I got a job on a movie with Susan Sarandon and David Stein for called something Short of Paradise. And not long after I was the production secretary, they upped the production coordinator and asked me to take over her job. I knew nothing, but she said, don’t be embarrassed to ask questions. Just you sit with me for three days. You’ll understand, you’ll get it. And I did that job on a couple of shows and then I was interested in location managing. I found it to be like your own schedule, I had a good eye. I loved being nosy. And I worked as a location manager for about 11 years in Vermont, Florida, New York, all over the place.

Steve Cuden:

So, tell the audience, the listeners, what a location manager does?

Nan Bernstein:

I feel like it’s the first step of the production design process. You have to present to a production designer or the executive producers options for physical spaces that fit the character and the story you’re trying to tell whether it be a period show, contemporary and you present options. I used to try to get six or seven options going, and you have to park trucks, find catering spaces, have places for the background actors to be held while they’re waiting to go on. So it involves, it’s like a mini production manager. I find of all jobs and still am location managing is the closest to being like a mini production manager they are handling every department in some way.

Steve Cuden:

So let’s relate the two. What is the difference and what does it UPM or a unit production manager do? What is the main function?

Nan Bernstein:

Functioning the budget, oftentimes when a show’s starts, we do a pass on the budget, make sure that the company we’re producing it for. And I feel like it’s producible for this amount of money. And then hiring the crew again, the executive producers get a chance to weigh in, but I try to put forth, not a billion options, maybe three in each department that I feel are good for that particular show. So to me, I always felt production managing was being like a general contractor. And you want to make sure that the electric goes in and the plumbing goes in before the walls go up.

Steve Cuden:

That’s a great way to look at it.

Nan Bernstein:

It’s not any fancier than that. Sometimes you want to pull your hair out. There’s a lot of social work managing with crews who don’t want to ever be told no. And I think departments should be heard because they have more experience than the individual think they do than I have.

Steve Cuden:

Sure.

Nan Bernstein:

So I sort of saw that as a general contractor and producing is more wrapping your arms around the whole making sure that production managers getting those things together. I still do hunt the heads probably a little more curated than I did as a production manager. And booking actors, making sure their contracts are correct. Lot of contract reading and a lot of union navigating.

Steve Cuden:

So you have to know lots of rules and how things operate then. Yeah?

Nan Bernstein:

Yes.

Steve Cuden:

And all three jobs, location manager, production manager, and producer, all three are pretty detail oriented jobs aren’t they?

Nan Bernstein:

They are.

Steve Cuden:

And you really have to pay attention to the little details.

Nan Bernstein:

I didn’t know much about the business, which I feel blessed about. I think people coming up today, there’s too much info out there and it looks like you can springboard to the top without really knowing what it involves. I never felt in a hurry. I felt like the ladder was really important to becoming a producer, both for my own knowledge base. And the crews know, they know when you’re not clear about how something is working or how to help them better, what we’re trying to accomplish. So I always felt like I’m comfortable staying at a job until the next one properly presented to me.

Steve Cuden:

And, and did you ever feel during the early parts of your career that you wouldn’t be able to find the next one or were there enough jobs out there at that time?

Nan Bernstein:

Always I think freelancing, especially in the beginning of a career. And I would think almost 10 years is always, I’ll never get another job again. Oh my God. When is somebody going to call me again? And I wouldn’t use my time well in between, because there’d be this underlying anxiety of where’s my next paycheck coming from, then the job would present and I’ve thought, man, you could have used that time so much better, but now I’m at the point where I’m not concerned. And I try to use my time off to replenish myself because they are grueling and to research new people, new ideas, so that on the next show, it’s not stale.

Steve Cuden:

And when you say you replenished, give us an idea. This is a question I like to hear from artists when you are in between, what do you do? How do you keep yourself in that replenishment mode, what are your go to things?

Nan Bernstein:

Sleep longer, I take walks, get massages, the friends that I don’t get to see very often when I’m working, and just utilize my time with things that I don’t normally get to do in the production grind.

Steve Cuden:

Because once you’re in that grind, it’s 24/7, basically, isn’t it?

Nan Bernstein:

It seems like with cell phones now and texting and emails, it has become much more labor intensive than when you had to just go to sleep, wake up and the information would come the next day. People like to get things off their desk and have no problem just texting it on to your desk.

Steve Cuden:

Dumping it on you.

Nan Bernstein:

Very late at night.

Steve Cuden:

Well, I teach school here in Pittsburgh and the students are the same way they think they can send you a text or an email at midnight on a Sunday night and everything’s hunky Dory.

Nan Bernstein:

It’s off their plate.

Steve Cuden:

It’s off their plate is exactly right. So when you first got into unit production management, you didn’t go to school or anything. You learned it in the school of hard knocks just by doing it, correct.

Nan Bernstein:

Totally. I am not a super proponent of film school. I think people come out expecting and being a little unrealistic about what they should do. And if you interview young people and say, okay, what do you want to do in the film business? I have rarely gotten the answer. I just want to work and learn.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah. That’s probably right.

Nan Bernstein:

It’s always I want to be a director of photography. I want to be a producer. I want to be a writer. I wouldn’t be a cinematographer. I want to be… not anything on the ladder. Like it seems to be a lack of understanding that more knowledge only makes you better at the next step.

Steve Cuden:

Sure. Well, I think part of it is if you get in it and learn it by being in it, you are climbing the ladder from the base up. But if you do go to school, you get a sense, hopefully if it’s a decent school, you get a sense of what those jobs are. So you feel like you’ve stepped up two steps on the ladder when in fact you’re still at the bottom. That makes sense to me that, that would be a problem. And then it’s an attitudinal issue more than a physical issue. Correct?

Nan Bernstein:

Very much so. It sounds like I walked barefoot to school five mile every morning, but we didn’t have collated copiers well I first started the business. And when you had to make 150 scripts, you would lay them out on the floor and then check that you didn’t miss a page. I never got like, how long do I have to be this for? I always thought if I don’t do this, the actors don’t have their words. And if there’s a page missing, that’s bad for them, for prop masters for everyone. And I felt like that stepping stone was just as important as being the queen. And I just would stay very focused on that path and try to do it 100%.

Steve Cuden:

So who did you learn from?

Nan Bernstein:

But now people say how many times do I have to go get food for the production office? I don’t know till we all stop eating.

Steve Cuden:

Well, those are  the PAs, right?

Nan Bernstein:

Yes.

Steve Cuden:

The production assistants, which production managers, as you were coming up, who did you learn from and who did you admire and who do you still admire as production managers?

Nan Bernstein:

Well, I had two mentors, both unfortunately passed away when they were 60. One was Bruce Pustin who produced Goodfellas, Jerry Maguire, Age of Innocence, big movies. And we did a bunch of television movies as well in the 80s and the other person’s name was Boris Harmon who did more indie films, movies of the week. They had completely different styles and personalities. But to me, both of their structures were very important to blend.

Steve Cuden:

What does that mean?

Nan Bernstein:

I don’t know a whole lot of other production managers, because when you’re doing it, you really don’t interface with a lot of people. And I don’t know that as many people that do this job are as granular as I am. And I can tell you a couple of film, examples of, I don’t know why that landed on my desk, but I succeeded in getting that thing because that’s just how I work.

Steve Cuden:

What do you mean by granular?

Nan Bernstein:

A one show and it wasn’t my job. It was on Five Corners with Jodie Foster and Tim Robbin and John Turturro. I needed to get penguins.

Steve Cuden:

Penguins.

Nan Bernstein:

Well, really it was one penguin, but you have to train to, to do what they needed to do. And I’m not an animal Wrangler. I don’t know where you get penguins that can work in New York city. But I decided to put my head down and I’m going to find these penguins if it’s the last thing I do. So I connected dots. I’ll call people not that personal lead me to another. And I found a man, who’s the PR director of Zoo Miami that knew a private collector that had an exotic zoo and there’s South American penguins there. So Ron got to South American penguins. The only thing they needed was an ability to get wet when they needed to. So we had a kiddie pool on set.

Nan Bernstein:

One of them was trained to imprint when someone moved, they would follow and the other one was trained to just stay still. And they smelled terrible. I mean penguins are the stinkiest animals and we had to feed them, smell and stuff, but we’d go to set in the morning. And the next thing I knew, they said, man, we got to get a hotel room for these penguins. Like Oh, great. So I’m calling hotels in New York feeling like, I know this sounds crazy, but I have two penguins and we need a hotel room for them. The trainers stayed with them and I came to pick them up in the morning for the first day of work. And they were lying on bath towels watching television.

Nan Bernstein:

They were little. Those penguins were probably like 20 inches long they’re little penguins. And then before we left to go into the van to go to set, he had the bathtub filled and he said, come on guys. And they jumped in the bathtub, swam a few laps in the bathtub to get wet, shook off. You put them in the cages, took them in the van, held our noses and brought them to step.

Steve Cuden:

Wow. Penguins in New York. You didn’t go over to the Central Park Zoo. Don’t they have them there?

Nan Bernstein:

Yes. I don’t think they would ever have let me take them out. We really needed somebody who understood that they were going to be used in a film taken care of. And I think just the structure of Central Park Zoo and who the curators are. I don’t think they would have loaned me two penguins.

Steve Cuden:

How, many productions have you worked on or did you work on prior to your feeling that you actually knew what you were doing as a UPM How, how long did it take?

Nan Bernstein:

I’d say eight to 10 years.

Steve Cuden:

Eight to 10 years. So for the listeners, listen to that.

Nan Bernstein:

Well I felt like I’m not ready to move to producing yet, maybe eight years and back then I would go back and forth because to me the jobs are very intertwined, and I didn’t really have an ego about whether I was the producer or the UPM. So I would for a while go back and forth. And each time I moved a category, for instance, from location managing to assistant production managing, I would only location manage for commercial companies. So I could make some money while I shifted gears and say to people, I’m sorry, I’m no longer doing that. I’m a blank now. Right. So I was able to work enough to make enough to live, but I separated the worlds and they are very separate. Commercial people are not necessarily aware of the film and television people. So during those transition years, I did commercial and then would just try to continue to hustle a job and my new category.

Steve Cuden:

But you would know people on both sides of the coin, you would know both commercial and features and so on.

Nan Bernstein:

I would have to call and say, do you know anybody that has a commercial production company in New York that I could call and do locations for? So I would always ask people to make an intro for me. I didn’t know them prior to working. I would just ask.

Steve Cuden:

All right. So explain what the relationship is between the UPM and the producer and what the differences are between the two jobs?

Nan Bernstein:

I can only talk about how I work.

Steve Cuden:

Sure that’s great.

Nan Bernstein:

I am not a fan of how some people I know work. Were they lay a lot of the job onto other people. But I really feel responsible to be aware of and in touch with every department, with the unit production manager. And we work very closely as a team. The person I’m working with right now as the production manager was an assistant director. And I just thought he seemed so bright and smart and never sat on his schedule laurels, always working the schedule said to him one day, do you want to be the first on the next couple of jobs I do? And he said, don’t ask me twice. And then I said, one day we were talking. I said, what do you want to do ultimately? And I thought, he’s going to say, be a director, be a writer.

Nan Bernstein:

He said, I want to be you. I was like, let’s start. Because I don’t know how many more years I’ll do the on the ground work. So we’ve been working together since he said that. And we’re really a team, we share all information. I think two brains are better than one. I don’t feel like I still know everything. I need to bounce things off of people. And I find it more of a collaborative job with them. The difference is if something were to go wrong, if something goes out of control financially, it doesn’t fall on the UPM. It falls on the producer.

Steve Cuden:

On the producer. Would you say the producer, Of course there are different kinds of producers. Are you considered a creative producer or more of a nuts and bolts producer?

Nan Bernstein:

Technically nuts and bolts, but I find they’re intertwined. And a lot of people do not totally understand that.

Steve Cuden:

So explain the difference.

Nan Bernstein:

The term line producer might be, I’ve been the Co-EP [Executive Producer] on many shows where I make suggestions that impact the script or a location to help make the show producible. So that to me is creative. And I always felt that location managing, which still is kind of always in the back of my head was the first line of production designing. I didn’t bring perfect or great locations to the table. The production designer didn’t have the, if you will, clay to work with for the show. So that was my first line of defense.

Steve Cuden:

When you were a producer, you have a different umbrella of responsibility that’s above the UPM, correct?

Nan Bernstein:

I always say next to I don’t use the term. My anybody, my producer, my UPM, my DP. I like the one I work with, the production designer on this show. It is technically above. I’m the one who has to intersect with the studios on a day to day basis and call when we have problems, call if a day didn’t go well, I’m the voice they hear on the production side. Whereas as a production manager, I rarely not never, but I rarely spoke to production executives at the studios.

Steve Cuden:

How much do you interact with the director?

Nan Bernstein:

I try to stay out of their way.

Steve Cuden:

Just stay out of their way.

Nan Bernstein:

Unless there’s a real problem. I try to support and be unseen. I’m not someone who sits on set at the monitor. There’s a director there and sometimes an executive producer and there’s plenty to do. I’m not a set sitter. I come by constantly during the day, I’ll go back and forth between the office and the set multiple times during the day unless we’re far, far away, then I’ll stop myself somewhere in a trailer to work. But I tried to help enhance what their vision is and get them the tools they want to do it, be it cranes, or a road runner, or a steady cam, but their financial limits to it as well. So we try to give them what they need or want without going over the line of what the show can afford.

Steve Cuden:

So, in other words, if a director says, I need X, Y, or Z, who does the director turn to, his first assistant? Does he turn to the producer? He or she turned to the producer? Who do they turn to?

Nan Bernstein:

Him and me.

Steve Cuden:

And so they might turn to you then…I’m sorry I interrupted you.

Nan Bernstein:

If they tell the production manager, because they happened to be on set right then and say Hey, on Thursday, when we’re doing that scene, I would like a Steadycam. They’ll come and tell me, and then we put it on the production schedule. Or if we’ve only budgeted three steady cam days, one Titan crane day, and they’re asking for a second or a third, I try to find out what they needed exactly for, and make sure that they’re not just getting a tool that won’t cut well in the end or that there’s a reason they really need it. And sometimes it isn’t sometimes it’s just, I want another toy but we can’t afford.

Steve Cuden:

What would you say are the common challenges that crop up frequently on sets that you have to constantly deal with? I know that every show is different, but what common ones?

Nan Bernstein:

Nowadays, HR.

Steve Cuden:

HR.

Nan Bernstein:

So it’s so precious Now, people said the most randy things in the 80s and especially being a female production manager, which I don’t know how many there were when I first started. I think under 50 in the country. The union guys would challenge me. And I think most of it is making sure people aren’t seething, making sure people aren’t adjusting their timecards incorrectly. And I find there are people you never have to worry about that with, and people that are very talented, but they’re a little shady in those areas. So it’s watching payroll, watching how they function on set, making sure that instead of they’re working, they are not asking for two more electricians or two more grips. When in fact each person seems to be carrying one piece of equipment. I watch all of that and I think the hardest thing is being available and not saying no as my first line of defense, I always try to listen to department heads because if I knew more than a key grip, I wouldn’t need one.

Steve Cuden:

Right.

Nan Bernstein:

And I don’t know how to rig a camera on a 10-story building. I don’t know how to rig a camera on a car, but I will always listen to them about alternative ideas to come to the best idea for the show. A lot of people I even have on their doors, the word know is aligned through it. Personally I don’t find that funny. Or they’ll say, don’t even ask. Well of course I should ask.

Steve Cuden:

How often does it happen that they have a production issue and you have the solution to it. Does that happen?

Nan Bernstein:

Me personally? Often.

Steve Cuden:

Often. So how do we solve X, Y, or Z? And you have the answer, correct?

Nan Bernstein:

Well, sometimes the answer, for instance, on Conspiracy Theory, we had that helicopter scene where the guy’s repelled in Union Square. Yet the FAA says you have to fly back to the pier to pull the ropes and get the guys back in. But you have to be out of Union Square by 11:00 PM. We’re standing there with the FAA. We go out to an airport, we test it for them so they can see exactly what we’re doing. And then they said, where’s your safety landing area? And I thought, I didn’t even think about that. And I said, what do you mean? They said, well, if something goes wrong, where are you going to land in Union Square? We walked around and we found the Northwest corner was big enough to land the helicopter. Wasn’t there trees. And they said, that’ll be your landing area. But again, you guys have to be out of here by 11:00 PM. And I said, let me just ask you a question.

Nan Bernstein:

I’m not trying to be bratty, but if we can land there in an emergency, why don’t you just let us land there to reset? And we’ll be out of here quickly and we’ll be done way before 11 instead of flying to the airport and back. And they looked at each other, they were like, well, that makes a lot of time sense. Were able to land that helicopter in Union Square. No movie has done that before, and it will never happen again, but we managed it up and were able to get a very reasonable way to get them what they needed, be safe and do it in the time zone they wanted it done in.

Steve Cuden:

And I think one of the beauty parts of being in any kind of production, whether it’s in film TV, or theater for that matter is that every day is a little bit unique. You don’t do the same day every day. And I assume that you find that to be refreshing, that there’s something new happening almost every day. Don’t you?

Nan Bernstein:

It’s fits more with my particular little bit ADD personality, it fits for me, and that’s why I really enjoyed television. I felt that if I prepped a feature really, really well, unless there was a weather problem or an actor got sick, we were just crossing off days of a 55 day schedule on television. You are doing three shows at one time wrapping one, choosing one and prepping the next one. So it’s like juggling. And I find that for me, sometimes stressful, sometimes annoying, but much more exciting personally. I mean, may not be true for everybody who does my job, but that’s what I find exciting. I sort of went to TV.

Steve Cuden:

And you’ve done a lot of TV, and TV is the sort of train that once you get that train running over a long haul, that’s a long haul, isn’t it?

Nan Bernstein:

Yes. Like the next show I’m doing is 70 days of shooting. I don’t know that many features except big Raiders Of the Lost Ark shoot that many days, usually they’re in the 45 to 60 days unless the big blockbuster.

Steve Cuden:

Right.

Nan Bernstein:

So it is a long haul and it’s a long haul without a break in the middle. So you’re just going, going, going for weeks.

Steve Cuden:

You work seven days a week or do you try to take a day off?

Nan Bernstein:

No, we normally work five. And then if there’s a problem or we fall behind, we sometimes add a Saturday, but there’s union rules about turnaround and rest periods for all of the unions.

Steve Cuden:

And that includes you and you’re in a union too, correct?

Nan Bernstein:

I’m in the Directors Guild of America.

Steve Cuden:

You’re in the Directors Guild of America. I think a lot of people would not understand that when you’re a unit production manager or that you’re in the Director’s Guild, that’s what’s always an interesting choice of words, right? Because it sounds like production versus directing.

Nan Bernstein:

Well, the Directors Guild has over the years wondered whether we were technically management and should not be lumped in with the assistant directors and the director. But if you work hand in hand with them, I don’t think they’ll get rid of that category in the Director’s Guild. But I think that it’s a very important merge of the two jobs and we are management, but we’re not management with a hammer, at least I’m not. So it is one of the categories in the Directors Guild.

Steve Cuden:

All right. So we mentioned it that you were the production executive on Mr. Robot, which by the way, I saw every episode and I just thought it was a spectacular show. Sam Esmail, that’s one genius. He’s incredible.

Nan Bernstein:

He’s got that. That and Homecoming, It’s frustrating I think for Sam to see other directors not totally get what he’s meaning. He’s got that show in his head, I wouldn’t say shot listed every frame, but he knows the pallet he’s looking for, he knows the feeling of the show. It’s better if he does it, because he knows what he wants.

Steve Cuden:

When I was watching that show and I would see that he wrote it and directed it and wrote it and directed, and then somebody else would write one and he’d directed her, he would write it and somebody else would direct it. And I think when does he sleep?

Nan Bernstein:

Not much.

Steve Cuden:

Not much that’s right. So all right, so you were the production executive on that. What is a production executive? That’s a different title.

Nan Bernstein:

I was in house at Universal, which now changed the name to Universal Content Production. But then it was Cable. They wanted to make sure that the producer in Manhattan had someone that had worked a lot more there and could help guide the show successfully. Because money was an issue on the first season on the Pilot. And I don’t think Igor who was the producer needed me as much as maybe the studio thought it was needed. And while I was there, I did budget for other shows that were coming through or they wanted to come through that studio. So I would go to New York, periodically, stay for a period of time and come back to a budget for instance, they were looking at Black Mirror then. And I would do a few budgets for different places for that show. And there’s lots of meetings. So you’re meeting constantly in the staff job, which doesn’t float my boat as much as being kinetic. So I like doing, I don’t want to have meetings about it, all the time.

Steve Cuden:

So production executive is a little more of an umbrella than just the producer.

Nan Bernstein:

I was just going to say, it’s the umbrella to the umbrella. And if I feel there’s a way to fix something, if it’s gone poorly financially, or we can’t find a certain location, I might intervene and call the film commission and say, hey, we’re really having a problem with this and I know your role, but we need this and that’s how we got the helicopter and see if I can help push it over the line a little. It’s kind of funny. I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Steve Cuden:

I was going to say another word sort of would be facilitator. You’re facilitating a lot of different things.

Nan Bernstein:

Yes.

Steve Cuden:

You’re a fixer. You’re making things happen.

Nan Bernstein:

I think I’m unique in some of those ways. Because sometimes I’ll just get a vision of how to fix it. I did a movie Sweethearts Dance with Susan Sarandon and in Vermont, and it was going to be spring and it was all about snow. And I thought, well, by the time we shoot, there’s not gonna be any snow around, I went to Bernie Sanders and said, I need somewhere where I can stockpile snow while we’re prepping so that we can blow it back onto the streets when we’re ready to shoot and it’ll be spring. And he helped me find this nine acre area outside of the town that I started stockpiling snow. And every time with snow we’d get bucket loaders and pile it and pile it, it was probably five stories high by the time we finished. And when we wrapped we finished in Florida, but I had to stay behind and wrapped the show. There was snow there in August, plenty of snow, and Bernie Sanders who would have thought that that guy helped me procure a meadow big enough to stockpile snow.

Steve Cuden:

Well, that’s pretty interesting connection you have to Bernie Sanders at snow.

Nan Bernstein:

He was very nice.

Steve Cuden:

I would imagine he was you were actually, I suppose their was money exchanged, in other words were you paying for that?

Nan Bernstein:

No.

Steve Cuden:

No. They were just letting you have the meadow.

Nan Bernstein:

That was the other wonderful thing. He was like, use that area. And we signed a little agreement that we cleaned it up at the end, all of that, but now they didn’t want money. The town was getting a lot of money with hotels and restaurants and winter closing. So they weren’t that worried. They did really well.

Steve Cuden:

All right. So let’s go to production itself. You have now been hired onto a show and whether it’s a feature film or a pilot, you’re going to receive a script and what’s the first thing you do. I know you’re going to break it down for budgets, is that the very first thing you do? Or is there anything else you do with it aside from read it Obviously.

Nan Bernstein:

Sometimes they do what I call robo-budgets, and I’ll get the script and not long after a robo-budget. And I’ll try to make sure that whoever did them, they always have to be fixed because they’re very generic. And then I tried to make that budget really speak to the script that I’m reading. I look at length not too long after I get it. I’ll usually have a script supervisor time it, because you need to produce a show in a certain amount of time. And it doesn’t help to have too much because it just winds up not being used costs money. And sometimes by not cutting it out early, it makes it more difficult for the editorial process. You end up gutting a C storyline or something that helped a storyline make more sense. So it’s better to get in front of that than just shoot everything that’s on the page. Some need a lot of work and some don’t need much work at all.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah. When you say a lot of work, you mean creative work.

Nan Bernstein:

Revisions.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah. And so you are involved in making those kinds of decisions or offering those kinds of opinions?

Nan Bernstein:

I would say offering those kinds of opinions more than making the decesions.

Steve Cuden:

Right, and so you’re part of the overall feedback loop on a show of some kind?

Nan Bernstein:

Correct.

Steve Cuden:

All right. And that means that on a TV series you’re working with, usually the executive producer of the show who would all often be the writer of the show or one of the writers of the show.

Nan Bernstein:

The show runner.

Steve Cuden:

The show runner, who is almost always a writer. Not always, but almost always.

Nan Bernstein:

Pretty much always.

Steve Cuden:

Pretty much always. It’s very interesting to me that the dichotomy between features and TV that notoriously most writers on features not part of the production usually, but most television series the shows are in fact run by the writers. I always find that interesting that difference. So in terms of-

Nan Bernstein:

There’s no writer’s room on a feature.

Steve Cuden:

Right.

Nan Bernstein:

There’s a singular or a partnership that write a script on a series where you’re trying to carry a show from eight episodes all the way up to 26 sometimes, there’s writers rooms that have eight to 10 writers. The writers production assistant, a writer’s assistant, a story editor. They’re all part of the process, but the buck lands with the show runner. But all the ideas are thrown out in sitting around the big conference table and pitching the season both to the studio and to the other writers. And then they get to work and you start getting scripts.

Steve Cuden:

And then it’s on you as the UPM or as the line producer to then to make the ship sail, the train run whatever you want to use.

Nan Bernstein:

Yes. Make sure that it’s doable. Sometimes I know people have been on shows that they shoot one week and they’re three or four days behind. And I was like, how does that happen? It never happened to me, but you can have it happen if a director just doesn’t get it or isn’t really watching the clock. But no that that can be a really big problem to fall really far behind and they’re constantly trying to come up with a solution, get it done in the time period. You’re mandated to get it done within.

Steve Cuden:

Okay. So two creative people on the show, the writers, you’ve read a lot of scripts in your time, what can you suggest for writers that will make life easier for production for directors, for the actors. What do you see that would make life easier if writers would only do X, Y, or Z?

Nan Bernstein:

It’s funny I did a seminar at the writer’s Guild for first time pilot writers that shows Greenlit or first time series and they would say, what are the things that freak you out when you read a script? And look, if you’re doing parts of the Caribbean, I can’t say don’t do anything on water. It’s got such a safety and camera boat. It’s not as if that one boat is what you’re dealing with. You’re dealing with divers, a stunt coordinators, safety boats, camera boats, it becomes a platoon. And if it’s not necessary to the story, I would say get that off the water if we can.

Steve Cuden:

Right?

Nan Bernstein:

The other thing is shooting in cars. Even if you rig the car the day before, it seems like you’re still waiting an hour and a half to two hours to actually go and shooting cars they’re tight, especially period cars take out the backseat, but you’re still squinching a whole bunch of people in a small space. And I think the third thing is stay away from nights as much as possible. And again, it’s not a hard and fast. I won’t do that. But if a scene’s written for night and it makes sense that it can be day, it’s not ruining the timeline. I might suggest, can we shoot this day? Or sometimes if we’re into your day for night where we’re blocking the windows and pretending it’s another time of day.

Steve Cuden:

So unless an entire show is a night show?

Nan Bernstein:

Right, that’s not my world to say. I won’t do that. I am not fond of doing it. I interviewed many years ago for Moth Man, Prophecies. And while I was in the interview, the shooting schedule was on this huge long couch and I couldn’t stop looking over and seeing that almost every strip was night. I think there were six days of this long shooting schedule. And I said, is that the shooting schedule for this show? And they said yes. And I just had to say, this isn’t for me. I have always tried to balance life with work. So if there’s a show that I noticed going to torture me physically, emotionally, I’ll try not to do them. So I’ve turned some down because of that.

Steve Cuden:

Because of the issues of timing on a production?

Nan Bernstein:

And my life style, making sure I still have a life and that I’m not sleeping during the day and working all night. I’ll do it on a show if it’s necessary. But I don’t love it, I wouldn’t like doing a whole show of nights. It’s really too grueling on me.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah. And of course there are certain people, and I know you’ve worked with them who are night people, they’re creatures of the night so they want to work at night. And then there are people who are morning people.

Nan Bernstein:

There’s plenty for everybody.

Steve Cuden:

Well yeah, there’s plenty of production out there. It’s a matter of whether you can catch the ride or not. So sort of the same question for directors. What is it that directors can do that will make the life of production better, that many don’t do?

Nan Bernstein:

Be a partner and not feel that we’re there just about the money. I think there’s a lot of paranoia that all that we in this job care about. And I have to say that is, some people that is all they care about. Bottom line, I just am not that person and I really want to convey to them, I will give you everything I possibly can and come up with alternative that will give you the same thing but not to look at me as the buck stops here, and we’re not going to spend another dollar on that. I don’t work like that. I try not to. So it depends on the personality of the director to some are just plain old paranoid and other people after they watched for a while and they see the set to looking great and the whole crew is very communicative, will start to trust that you’re not there to bomb them out. You’re there to support them. And I see it as a completely supportive job. Not saying no.

Steve Cuden:

So ultimately everybody, I believe everybody is serving to make the story as good as possible.

Nan Bernstein:

I think so I hope so.

Steve Cuden:

I hope you always hope so, of course doesn’t always work out that way but I think everybody goes into a production. I doubt anybody’s ever gone into a production thinking to themselves, even Ed Wood didn’t go into his productions thinking to himself, man, let’s see how poor we can make this. You’re, you’re always trying to make it great.

Nan Bernstein:

I think over the years you find crew people that no matter what you’re doing, you know they have rocked it on all the other times you’ve worked with them. And I will go back to the same people that know me, I know them. And a lot of times in the paranoia world, the director or EP will want to go another direction and they’re not, I don’t hire them because they’re my friends. I hired them because I believe in their skill sets.

Steve Cuden:

They’re good.

Nan Bernstein:

But you will find that sometimes presenting someone and you have to be careful about how strongly you push them in their face. They’ll go in another direction. And frankly I’ve found that often is a problem because you have unlike parts together. I feel like you need to cast a crew, like you cast the cast.

Steve Cuden:

Sure.

Nan Bernstein:

That’s extremely important personalities together.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah. You definitely are bringing together a crew and if you know in advance the two people are not going to work together well, you’re not going to put them together.

Nan Bernstein:

Yeah. I don’t care how great somebody thinks they are. They won’t get along with that person and I’ve experienced it. There’s certain people that can get along with everybody. Like there isn’t a show I wouldn’t hire them on. So I will try to go to the same people, certain departments, and one important place that often is a problem on shows and I don’t know why is makeup and hair, I think they’re the first port of entry for actors and it can be completely calm, supportive and forward moving or it becomes a rat nest of gossip and disturbance and I try to stay away from those people.

Steve Cuden:

You try to keep it calm and on an even keel.

Nan Bernstein:

Yeah. I don’t want gossip about, Oh my paycheck was $20 shortlist. They don’t need to know that. Come to me. Come to the accountant. Don’t be saying it in the hair and makeup trailer. Six o’clock in the morning. And arguments in there I don’t want it happening in front actors.

Steve Cuden:

You definitely want the actors to be in their own space that you don’t want them dealing with other people’s problems.

Nan Bernstein:

Right or hearing somebody yelling at somebody in front of them. I don’t like that.

Steve Cuden:

No, because your actor, you want your actors to get on set and be as calm as possible. So that they can do what it is they do. All right, so both TV and features making motion pictures in general is notoriously a pressure packed business and there’s just all kinds of, there’s time pressure, there’s personal pressures, there’s all these pressures. What is your trick if you have one to relieving that pressure? How do you deal with pressure?

Nan Bernstein:

Do a yoga class every week at least. I’ll walk around a lot. Like I’ll get these visions of a way to solve something and if I sit and try to hard to fix it, I get brain lock and if I cruise around, go down and see how construction’s doing, go buy wardrobe, just something will float to the top. They like ha, that’s what we should do and it’ll come to me. I walk around a lot and I’m thinking I’m not working, but it’s a way that I can relieve the pressure by looking at something else on the show and information will flow in by relieving myself of obsessing on it too much.

Steve Cuden:

When you’re walking around you carrying a radio or how are people getting in touch?

Nan Bernstein:

No. I don’t ever have a radio.

Steve Cuden:

What are you just by phone?

Nan Bernstein:

If people need me, they’ll text me and say, can you come back up to the production office or everybody knows where I am all the time. I don’t disappear.

Steve Cuden:

I see.

Nan Bernstein:

Even when I location manage, which is a notorious job where you need a radio. I used a radio on one show in Huntsville, Alabama because we were in a big cotton mill, and it was very difficult to know where you were in that humongous cotton mill. So I did carry a radio then and I would generally say if you don’t see me, I’m probably dealing with a problem and I will resurface as soon as it’s cleared up. Things like Johnny Cash worked with him twice. I needed to get in a federal prison and I couldn’t get through to the warden. And I asked him, I said, could you help me? Could you do me a favor? Would you call warden so and so at this prison in Georgia, we need to get in there. And he did. He was great. He was really, if people say like, who was the actor that you were most excited by working with? I think people are shocked when I say Johnny Cash.

Steve Cuden:

Johhny Cash. That would shock me too. After the list that we read at the top of the show of all these actors, it’s Johnny Cash or performers I guess. That’s very interesting.

Nan Bernstein:

He did such wonderful things for the crew. Both shows I did with him in the middle of the show, like midway, he would produce a party for the show and he would bring in Jesse Colin Young and Tommy T. Hall, The Carter Sisters and do a concert full with on dinner and Johnny Cash memorabilia at everybody’s table. And then somewhere in the middle of the show, the lights at all go out. A spot would come on. He come on the stage, dressed in black and he’d say, hi I’m Johhny Cash. And the crew would go wild. And It doesn’t take much to have that spirit just infused in people who will do backflips then.

Steve Cuden:

Isn’t that marvelous?

Nan Bernstein:

It was special.

Steve Cuden:

Well, so now you’ve gotten onto with very scrupulously avoided celebrity, but I do have a curious question about celebrity in general. You’ve worked with lots of famous people and lots of very impressive directors and people in the studio systems, or system. Is there something about people who have reached that kind of celebrity or fame? Is there something about them that others can take away from that would help them with their job, their work that you see that most people are not doing? Is there something special that they do?

Nan Bernstein:

Well I think coming on time because such a roll down effect if you don’t come on time and that’s a big thing. I think being kind to the crew. I don’t schmooze very much with actors. Even when I worked with Christian Slater twice, he remembered me, but it wasn’t like, Oh, I’m your friend because I worked with you on Mr. Robot. No. I kind of just let them do their thing. Say good morning, tell them I’m here if they need anything and stay out of their way. I have never felt so impressed by somebody in the show that I acted any different than I would to a department head or a crew member.

Steve Cuden:

They’re just people, they just happen to be famous.

Nan Bernstein:

Yeah. And they just happen to have a different job from me.

Steve Cuden:

And I suppose if you’ve been hired, they’re expecting you to be good at your job and as long as you’re good at your job, everybody’s happy. So one of the things that-

Nan Bernstein:

Making sure they get what they need.

Steve Cuden:

Right? Sure. So let me ask it this way sometimes, and I don’t name names if you would please. Actors can be notoriously prickly or difficult or challenging in some way. What would you say are ways to handle somebody, I guess whether they’re celebrity famous or not. What are your techniques for handling people that are creating major challenges for you on a personality basis?

Nan Bernstein:

Well, nowadays you have no option but HR, right. And we used to deal with more directly, but you can dig yourself your own little bad hole by not reporting that something’s happening. We had an actor who was crazy on a show and I had heard the same thing happened on the previous season, and was surprised that the studio did nothing about it. It was hurting my heart to watch that abuse. And I called every single day and said, you guys have to come here and do something. This is not okay and I’m not stepping into it. And they did. They came with HR and the head of production and had a little sit down. It lasted probably an hour of good behavior, but some of these actors are just not the nicest people. And that goes for crew as well.

Nan Bernstein:

There’s some crew people that are just, they behave like monsters and you’re like, why? And I try to sit and talk to them and I try to pull in a little bit of my social work background and say, is there something going on that either I can do better or that’s happening in your personal life that’s affecting your job? Can we have a couple of minutes to talk about it? Because if we continue like this, It’s not going to be great. And a lot of times people would just open up because they have the moment to.

Steve Cuden:

I think in my experiences, which are not inconsiderable, I think most of the time, maybe 80% or more of the time it boils down to some form of insecurity that’s being covered over. They just are, they’re fearful about something or insecure about something. And the way to not have people see it is to be monstrous in some way.

Nan Bernstein:

Right. You blocked them before they get you. And there’s a lot of substance abuse and many people have stopped the substance abuse but have not stopped the bad behavior.

Steve Cuden:

Sure. Of course. Because that’s what they’ve learned.

Nan Bernstein:

If you don’t get rid of that. You’re the same person who is dry.

Steve Cuden:

Right. They’ve learned that bad behavior and they know that somehow it works for them in one way, shape or form. All right. So if you were starting out in the business today, what did you know, what would you do that you perhaps didn’t know when you were starting out?

Nan Bernstein:

I think do anything. Don’t ask people who took call to get a job. Because when people have asked me that, I have said if you need to ask me that you’re not cut out for this business, part of it is learning, connecting the dots and the hustle and there’s no quick fix to do it. And I think getting to know people doing a really good job if you get hired on something and letting it be known what you’d like to do next. I think it’s just being comfortable with starting at the beginning and learning stuff. It’s like the emperor’s new clothes. People will see if you are not very knowledgeable about how the wheels go around. And once that happens, you’re stripped of any kind of mobility or power.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah, I think that’s absolutely true. But once you’ve been exposed for not knowing what you’re doing, you don’t know what you’re doing until you learn it.

Nan Bernstein:

Right. It’s exposed. So I think that the stepping stones for me, I’ve always been important. I was never in a hurry. I felt lucky that when I was done with one job, I figured a way to segue without not working at all like the commercial thing with locations and I don’t remember how I started producing in college and I really did. I think it was almost like a mistake. I didn’t know what I was interviewing for and it happened to be a TV series, and it was during a very slow time on the East coast and I went in to see, and there was this huge whiteboard with everybody’s name on it that were like my heroes. They were like one generation or one generation and a half above me. I was looking at that whiteboard and I thought, why are they putting this out in front of these interviewers? I’m not going to get this job. I’m a newbie. And I went in and I was just very relaxed because I already decided it wasn’t going to be me. And before I got in my car to drive back to the apartment, I got a call saying we’d love you to do this job.

Steve Cuden:

Look at that.

Nan Bernstein:

I was like What. So that started my TV career and thank goodness I had a really good accountant on it because it’s a different budgeting system and it took me a while to understand why certain things went into one budget, why certain things went in the other budget. Ultimately they’re merged. But there’s reasons you put things in what’s called the amortization budget and the pattern budget. And it took me a while to understand there’s reasons I kept going into the account and saying, I know I asked you this before, but why would this be in that budget? And once he explained this to me, I was like, okay, I got it. Got it. And by the end of that job I understood budgeting for television and how you functioned an ongoing news show however many days.

Steve Cuden:

Again, for the listeners can-

Nan Bernstein:

I felt I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know what I’m doing or could you help me figure this?

Steve Cuden:

Well that’s what I was about to say. For the listeners, pay attention to the fact that Nan has no fear to learn on the job as well as to understand what the job is and you must be willing to know when you don’t know what you’re doing and that you can ask for help. I think that’s critical.

Nan Bernstein:

And ask questions – I’ve always of camera companies or renting cameras. There’s always equipment. I don’t quite know what it is and when it’s on the list, I will call and say, what is this? What is a Ronin? What is a lens like this? I’ve never seen that before. And then once somebody tells me, I know it, sure, but I’m not embarrassed to ask and say, I don’t know what this is.

Steve Cuden:

Well now we’ve been talking for believe it or not, an hour and three minutes and we’re going to wind this thing down a little bit and I’m just curious in all of your many showbiz experiences, do you have one or more stories that you could share that are perhaps quirky or offbeat or weird or funny or really just or strange or really if they’re just amusing and entertaining?

Nan Bernstein:

I have a funny one, we were shooting in rural Georgia and in a church, a little Baptist church and the minister from the church was really curious about all the vehicles, the costumes, vehicle, the hair and makeup vehicle, and he said wow, you guys have a lot of trucks out there. And I said, do you want me to show you them? And he said, I’d love to see, so I’m walking around. This is where the actors hang out, they’re called Winnebagos, trailers, whatever. This is a honey wagon, stunt people, day players, if you can’t get enough trailers, this is where they are. And there’s crew bathrooms there. We showed them around, I go into the costume trailer and introduce the costume designer. She said, hi, really nice to meet you. Could you take your pants off? She thought it was the minister actor. And the guy unbuckles was pants, and drops them, and I’m shaking my head like no, no. And finally I said this is Reverend so and so for the church, not the actors. And she turned bright red. I thought do people just do whatever anybody in film tells them.

Steve Cuden:

That’s hilarious. Well clearly he’s easily suggestible. You can make him an actor. He just walks in, drop your drawers.

Nan Bernstein:

I think people are over, I don’t know how to say this, because I’ve had a great career in this business, but over infatuated with this business. Don’t really understand what it takes to be successful, what it takes to stay in the game for a long time and how hard it is. It isn’t fancy. We don’t sit around and watching movies and eating bonbons. But I think a lot of people think that.

Steve Cuden:

well people think the glamour of Hollywood or that Hollywood is all glamour, but you know firsthand that it’s anything but glamorous and the only glamour part of it is it perhaps at the big parties or the big award shows and otherwise it’s not glamorous at all. It’s just hard work.

Nan Bernstein:

And even those, I’m not totally comfortable at those kinds of venues. I don’t stay in touch with… I’m not that person. If people like my work or they remember me or they liked what I did and want to call me again, call me again. I don’t hustle people I’ve worked with, even when the job was really, really good, I don’t try to stay in touch with them. They know where I am, so they want to call, call. Other people really do curate the people they work with and it’s just never been my style.

Steve Cuden:

You’re in the game enough not to have to be too political about it.

Nan Bernstein:

It’s very political, but I try to just stay in my lane and that’s really, my life is also important. I want a quality of life and it’s not all about the best and biggest jobs. I always try to find one that fits within my life.

Steve Cuden:

Well, I think that is a great thing to aspire to. I know that there are people in the business who just take whatever comes their way because they want the job or the money or whatever. But when you get to a point where you can sort of name your own show, whatever that is in order to have the quality life that you’re talking about, I think that’s a great thing to aspire to.

Nan Bernstein:

Few years ago we moved around all a lot. Philly for two years, Austin for six years. Right now we don’t live in LA, but we’re here right now and it’s important to me that I not go far field and travel around anymore. I want to either stay here or go back to Massachusetts, where I live and try to work locally there. I don’t want to be in Utah for six, seven months. I used to find it exciting. I don’t know, my home is really important to me. Wherever I’ve moved I’ve had to make a nest that felt like mine, but I don’t want to do that constantly anymore. It’s really wearing and I don’t feel as grounded as I do when I can work and then come home.

Steve Cuden:

I can’t imagine that it gets easier the more you do it.

Nan Bernstein:

No it doesn’t. Caused and by age and by people are doing movies all over the place now looking for the next best tax incentive, the next best, wonderful place to work. And I am trying to make my field of vision a little narrower right now. And stay put.

Steve Cuden:

And how wonderful it is that you’re able to do that. So, last question, do you have a tip or perhaps a great piece of advice for those who are just starting out in the business or who are already in a little bit but they’re looking to get to that next level?

Nan Bernstein:

I think just make whoever your boss of that department is, whether your production system in the office or on set having, if you’re a PA on set and you want to get in the Guild and become an assistant director, you really need to show your best work and make it known to the second AD the first AD that you want to get your days and put your book in and become either a second, second and additional second. And that’s the other thing. You have to work your way up even within those. And you start out being an additional second and say, I’ll fill in on big days when you have a lot of background and let it be known that you want to move up.

Nan Bernstein:

If you are agitated and angry that nobody’s noticing you but they don’t know what you want to do. That’s on you. And I think you really need to let it be known that on the next show you do, can I please try to be this person and new used to getting more strict about filling jobs that used to be production assistant jobs with union people. So it is in some ways harder because you used to be able to have a coordinator for the art department. They’re all union now. You can’t hire a PA to coordinate even though they’re totally capable of doing it. Those jobs have all been unionized and partly to give people some pension and welfare, everybody should have it. So there’s trying to make it a little more unionized in the industry so people do get health benefits.

Steve Cuden:

You had spoken a little bit about this earlier, but I think this is a very wise and valuable thing to talk about that it is a matter of working your way up and to pay attention to the way that you’re treating people and how you can… that you’re willing to do things that are sort of at a lower level first. I think there are a lot of people, like you say, they come out of film school not being willing to work at the bottom end of things and that’s too bad because that’s where a lot of it comes from.

Nan Bernstein:

I don’t look at that stuff as lower level. To me it’s like weaving a tapestry.

Steve Cuden:

Good. That’s excellent.

Nan Bernstein:

Every single thread is important to the end result and I have never felt demeaned by a project because I saw it in the whole. I would be very like, I don’t know, chop wood, carry water Buddhist about jobs that were collating 150 scripts. I never was like this is stupid. I never felt that way. I felt like this is important. And I’ll do it until I don’t want to anymore.

Steve Cuden:

You always felt like you were part of the overall.

Nan Bernstein:

You know, find the people that you want to emulate and ask them to go out to coffee with you. Say, I really liked the way you work and like everybody hasn’t loved the way I work and I don’t think everybody loves the way anybody work. But I think you find the people that you want to emulate in your career and in the job you’d like to do and let it be known.

Steve Cuden:

Right. Well, I think this is incredibly valuable advice, especially for someone starting out to pay attention to what Nan is saying. Well, we’ve been talking to Nan Bernstein for a little more than an hour and 12 minutes and this has just been filled with all kinds of great information and advice all the way through. So Nan, I can’t thank you enough for being on StoryBeat today and joining me as someone who has all this experience to impart on the rest of the world. I thank you so much.

Nan Bernstein:

Thank you so much for reaching out to me. I’m really happy.

Steve Cuden:

And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you like this podcast, please take a moment to give us a comment, rating or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to. Your support helps us bring more great episodes to you. This podcast would not have been possible without the generous support of the Center for Media Innovation on the campus of Point Park University. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unforgettable.