Eyes On: How Hollywood Works

About Eyes On: How Hollywood Works

Ever wonder how a movie actually gets made? Eyes On: How Hollywood Works is the filmmaking podcast that pulls back the curtain on the people who bring films and TV to life, the artists, technicians, and storytellers working up and down the call sheet. Hosts Chris Hanada and Tanner Kling sit down with the cinematographers, production designers, casting directors, script supervisors, special effects makeup artists, sound designers, puppeteers, VFX artists, and crew whose work you've seen in your favorite movies, even if you've never heard their names. Each episode is an honest, jargon-free conversation about craft, collaboration, career paths, and the wild reality of working in the entertainment industry. Whether you're a film student trying to break in, a working professional curious about other departments, or just a movie lover who wants to know how the magic really happens, Eyes On gives you a front-row seat to the business and the art of moviemaking. Past guests include script supervisor Hannah Driscoll, casting director Jeff Gafner, production designer Meg Bell, cinematographer Garrett O'Brien, sound designer Mark Camperell, and special effects makeup artist Carleigh Herbert. New season drops June 17, 2026. Subscribe now and see Hollywood the way the people who build it do. A Retrofit Films production.

Publisher

Retrofit Films

Category

tv & film

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

12 Sept 2025

Latest episode

30 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

22 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   30 Sept 2026

   Eyes On: TV Writer / Horror Novelist Tom Hanada

   A shy kid who could only express himself on the page spent 15 years chasing a screenwriting career, then self-published a horror novel Hollywood had passed on, and it changed everything. Meet Tom Hanada, who writes as T.J. Payne. Tom is a working screenwriter and TV writer (Motherland, Little House on the Prairie, and the Duffer Brothers series on Netflix, The Boroughs) and co-host Chris Hanada’s brother. He taught himself screenwriting in Rob Reiner’s edit bay, took 15 years to earn his WGA card, and is honest about how the path really works: why the assistant, not the star, is your way in, and how a genuine six-year friendship landed his first staff job. He also unpacks the best writing advice on the show: why pitching is an archaic ritual you still must master, what “voice” really means, and how his self-published novel Intercepts, a script his own reps buried, found a grassroots audience, sold well over ninety thousand copies, and got picked up by Penguin Random House. Plus a clear-eyed take on AI: it can do 95 percent of the job, but the last 5 percent is where the soul is.

2. 

   23 Sept 2026

   Eyes on Unit Production Manager David Witz

   When a movie goes over budget or a location falls through, everyone looks at one person: the unit production manager. David Witz has been that person for 30 years, on Dunkirk, War of the Worlds, Mission: Impossible III, and Escape from L.A. David calls himself the general contractor of a film set, the person who turns a director’s vision into a number and then makes that number happen. He breaks down what a UPM and a line producer really do, how he ground out the DGA qualification list, and how the biggest directors handle money: Nolan announcing Dunkirk would cost $100 million and cutting a whole country to get there, and Spielberg making War of the Worlds for scale and Witz building the budget off a bullet-point outline. Then the war stories: a 1986 shoot in Barcelona where the office was bombed the week before cameras rolled and he carried $85,000 out of a bank in his jacket, Tom Cruise on a crane in a lightning warning, why production has left Los Angeles, and the real flyable Spitfire they built for Dunkirk because Nolan will not do green screen. His advice for the next generation: there is no single path, so learn everything.

3. 

   16 Sept 2026

   Eyes on Photo Producer Sarah Brookshaw

   Every movie poster and billboard you walk past was produced by someone. Not the photographer, the photo producer. Sarah Brookshaw is the person who makes that single image come together, and she says if she does her job right, you never notice her at all. Sarah produces the photo side of the big 360 campaigns behind the shows and films on Disney, Hulu, and beyond: key art, posters, bus-stop ads, and editorials. She breaks down what a photo producer actually does, the difference between editorial, advertising, and key art, why unit photographers on set are basically ninjas, and how some photographers prep a single shot down to the lens. She goes into her unlikely career story: from wanting to be a lawyer at age eight, through a year of law school she hated, video game publishing, automotive PR, and wedding photography, to photo production almost by accident. Plus a genuinely balanced take on where AI fits in photography, and the line she will not cross. You cannot AI human connection away.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

9 ratings

Contact Eyes On: How Hollywood Works

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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