On Production

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.
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 getting a film made, but building a sustainable path for it to reach an audience. They explore why distribution thinking needs to begin at the development stage, how marketing and audience strategy have become inseparable from production, and why the changing economics of streaming and theatrical exhibition make direct audience relationships more important than ever.
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.

ABOUT WRAPBOOK
Wrapbook is the AI platform for production finance.
Built for today’s fast-moving production landscape, Wrapbook brings payroll, spend, and accounting into one AI-powered system—giving production teams the tools they need to do more, faster.
Built for features, TV, or commercials—Wrapbook helps the industry’s biggest production companies stay compliant, track every dollar in real time, and eliminate the paper-chasing that slows everything down. AI handles the busywork—reading invoices, flagging issues, syncing data—so your team can focus on the work that really matters.
But software is only half the story. Wrapbook pairs powerful automation with concierge support from industry experts who’ve worked on set and know what’s at stake. It’s how the best production teams scale smarter, protect their budgets, and keep their crews happy.
See how Wrapbook is a force multiplier for production finance teams at www.wrapbook.com.

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.

ABOUT WRAPBOOK
Wrapbook is the AI platform for production finance.
Built for today’s fast-moving production landscape, Wrapbook brings payroll, spend, and accounting into one AI-powered system—giving production teams the tools they need to do more, faster.
Built for features, TV, or commercials—Wrapbook helps the industry’s biggest production companies stay compliant, track every dollar in real time, and eliminate the paper-chasing that slows everything down. AI handles the busywork—reading invoices, flagging issues, syncing data—so your team can focus on the work that really matters.
But software is only half the story. Wrapbook pairs powerful automation with concierge support from industry experts who’ve worked on set and know what’s at stake. It’s how the best production teams scale smarter, protect their budgets, and keep their crews happy.
See how Wrapbook is a force multiplier for production finance teams at www.wrapbook.com.

Cameron sits down with Tobias Queisser, CEO and co-founder of The Cinelytic Group, to explore how AI is changing decision-making across the entire content lifecycle from development and packaging to marketing, distribution, and monetization.
Tobias brings a unique vantage point to this conversation. Before co-founding The Cinelytic Group, he spent a decade as an investment banker advising on complex international M&A deals, co-founded a global investment fund in London, founded Arctic Pictures Limited as an international film production company, and co-founded Cosmo Media Labs, producing TV shows, games, and Web3-based brand experiences. That cross-industry background—finance, technology, and entertainment—is exactly what drove him to build the tools he felt the industry was missing.
While much of the industry conversation around AI focuses on content creation, Tobias argues that some of the biggest opportunities sit on the business side. Drawing on his M&A background, he explains why filmmaking has historically lacked the analytical tools common in other industries, and how forecasting models, audience intelligence, and decision-support systems can help producers better understand risk before costs lock in. Cinelytic's proprietary models have achieved 97% accuracy on early 2026 domestic box office forecasts and are used to track streaming performance, franchise trends, and predictive signals for sequel success across major releases.
The conversation covers everything from script evaluation and talent packaging to release strategy, windowing, marketing analytics, and audience sentiment, including a look at SocialSense360, The Cinelytic Group's real-time tool for tracking audience reactions to trailers and campaign content. Tobias also discusses how forecasting models should be used—not as a replacement for creative judgment, but as a way to test assumptions, explore scenarios, and bring more clarity to the business decisions surrounding a project.
Please note: 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.

ABOUT WRAPBOOK
Wrapbook is the AI platform for production finance.
Built for today’s fast-moving production landscape, Wrapbook brings payroll, spend, and accounting into one AI-powered system—giving production teams the tools they need to do more, faster.
Built for features, TV, or commercials—Wrapbook helps the industry’s biggest production companies stay compliant, track every dollar in real time, and eliminate the paper-chasing that slows everything down. AI handles the busywork—reading invoices, flagging issues, syncing data—so your team can focus on the work that really matters.
But software is only half the story. Wrapbook pairs powerful automation with concierge support from industry experts who’ve worked on set and know what’s at stake. It’s how the best production teams scale smarter, protect their budgets, and keep their crews happy.
See how Wrapbook is a force multiplier for production finance teams at www.wrapbook.com.

Cameron sits down with Andrew C. Griego of the Santa Fe Film Office to unpack how Santa Fe actually functions as a production hub inside New Mexico's highly competitive incentive system.
Andrew grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and developed a passion for film and broadcast journalism that started in grade school. He went on to study filmmaking at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating with honors in 2013, before returning to New Mexico and building a career in the Locations Department. After joining IATSE Local 480, he worked his way up to Location Manager on large-scale features, television series, commercials, and documentaries, giving him a ground-level understanding of what productions actually need when they arrive in a region. He now calls Santa Fe home and brings that on-set perspective to his work at the Santa Fe Film Office.
While the statewide incentive often gets the attention, the conversation focuses on the operational layer producers encounter once a project lands in Santa Fe. From municipal permitting and historic districts to local crew depth, qualified production facilities, and the realities of shooting in a city with a strong architectural and cultural identity. Andrew breaks down how productions structure around the state's incentive uplifts, why Santa Fe works especially well for episodic television and contained features, and what producers often misunderstand about the region beyond the "desert" stereotype. They also discuss the city's production infrastructure, local crew culture, rural filming advantages, and how Santa Fe coordinates with the New Mexico Film Office to keep productions moving efficiently.
ABOUT WRAPBOOK
Wrapbook is the AI platform for production finance.
Built for today’s fast-moving production landscape, Wrapbook brings payroll, spend, and accounting into one AI-powered system—giving production teams the tools they need to do more, faster.
Built for features, TV, or commercials—Wrapbook helps the industry’s biggest production companies stay compliant, track every dollar in real time, and eliminate the paper-chasing that slows everything down. AI handles the busywork—reading invoices, flagging issues, syncing data—so your team can focus on the work that really matters.
But software is only half the story. Wrapbook pairs powerful automation with concierge support from industry experts who’ve worked on set and know what’s at stake. It’s how the best production teams scale smarter, protect their budgets, and keep their crews happy.
See how Wrapbook is a force multiplier for production finance teams at www.wrapbook.com.

Cameron sits down with Patricia Beaury, a production accountant who has been working in indie film since 2011. Her credits include My Mom Jayne, The Python Hunt, Pee-wee as Himself—winner of both an Emmy and a Peabody Award—and Anora, which won five Academy Awards including Best Picture. Her work spans narrative features and documentaries that have premiered at Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Sundance.
Patricia breaks down the real mechanics of production accounting: how cash flow, payroll, cost reporting, documentation, and approvals shape the day-to-day rhythm of a shoot. She shares how her background as a producer and line producer informs the way she reads a budget, spots trouble early, and brings narrative to the numbers so producers can make better decisions in real time.
The conversation also gets into the workflows that make productions run more smoothly, from standardized templates and weekly cost report cadence to receipt tracking, P-card envelopes, and audit-ready recordkeeping. Patricia explains why payroll is the most important part of the job, how trust with department heads keeps accounting efficient, and why a strong producer-accounting partnership can make the difference between a stressful closeout and a clean, predictable finish.

ABOUT WRAPBOOK
Wrapbook is the AI platform for production finance.
Built for today’s fast-moving production landscape, Wrapbook brings payroll, spend, and accounting into one AI-powered system—giving production teams the tools they need to do more, faster.
Built for features, TV, or commercials—Wrapbook helps the industry’s biggest production companies stay compliant, track every dollar in real time, and eliminate the paper-chasing that slows everything down. AI handles the busywork—reading invoices, flagging issues, syncing data—so your team can focus on the work that really matters.
But software is only half the story. Wrapbook pairs powerful automation with concierge support from industry experts who’ve worked on set and know what’s at stake. It’s how the best production teams scale smarter, protect their budgets, and keep their crews happy.
See how Wrapbook is a force multiplier for production finance teams at www.wrapbook.com.