Practical craft talks for working creators.
Creative Principles treats creative careers as practical systems, not mystery. Recent conversations move from horror directing and television showrunning to children’s animation, author marketing, micro-budget filmmaking, and the daily routines that keep work moving.
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Creative Principles is a craft-forward interview show about how creative work gets made, revised, packaged, and sustained. Its center of gravity is writing, but the conversations keep widening into directing, producing, cinematography, marketing, pitching, and audience-building. The show is patient. Guests are given room to explain the actual sequence of decisions behind a book, a show, a film, or a career move. That makes it feel less like promotion and more like a working notebook. Recent episodes spend time with Kae Wagner on genre rules, tropes, author visibility, and the business logic of writing in series. The conversation treats craft and marketing as linked problems, especially for writers who want more than a one-off book. Stefan van de Graaff brings the show into micro-budget filmmaking, social proof, winter night shoots, missed tax-credit opportunities, pickups, and the scramble toward distribution. Christina Alexandra Voros grounds the discussion in large-scale television, rough terrain, cowboy camp training, and collaboration around Yellowstone, 1883, Lawman Bass Reeves, and The Madison. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett bring a co-director perspective, with attention to collaboration, genre, budget limits, and the gradual discovery of a shared creative lane. Liz Sarnoff’s episode moves through physical production, morning pages, David Milch, Deadwood, Lost, and the shift into showrunning Scarpetta. Miriam Schulman pushes the show toward creative entrepreneurship, pricing, local reputation, buyer relationships, and why social platforms are not enough on their own. Brandon Violette’s conversation adds children’s animation, studio pitches, storybook testing, character dynamics, and the uncertainty around AI animation. The horror-focused episode shows the same pattern from another angle: voice, tone, studio collaboration, trailer positioning, and finding the right mix of tension and humor. Across these conversations, Creative Principles keeps asking how taste becomes process. It is strongest when a guest names the constraint that changed the work. A cold location matters. A genre promise matters. A buyer’s story matters. A pitch that fails can still create a job. The show suits listeners who want career lessons without the neat mythmaking. It respects ambition, but it is more interested in the calendar, the draft, the budget, the room, and the next practical choice.
Made for: Creative Principles is for writers, filmmakers, showrunners, artists, and creative entrepreneurs who want detailed process talk from people inside the work. It also fits listeners studying how creative careers are built through drafts, pitches, constraints, collaborations, and market realities.
What sets it apart: The show gives guests room to think in full, practical runs, then steers the conversation back to usable specifics. It connects craft choices to career mechanics: genre expectations, production limits, studio paths, pricing, visibility, and the work required after the work is made.
Welcome to Creative Principles, I'm your host Brock Swinson. Here I'll be speaking with writers, directors, actors, musicians and more. We'll discuss the habits, routines, and methods of a creative life.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Brock Swinson turns filmmaker and screenwriter interviews into candid accounts of how creative choices survive production and career pressures.
Creative Principles makes creative work concrete through interviews that keep returning to decisions, constraints, and careers. Brock Swinson asks screenwriters and filmmakers how projects move from an idea into production, then follows the practical consequences.
Preschool storybook tests meet freezing night shoots; your big creative plan may need a coat.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical talk about books as a business tool, with genre rules and series thinking at the center.
Kay Wagner's conversation starts with an early writing award on a dairy farm and widens into a clear case for books as tools for visibility, speaking, and client growth.
A craft-first look at how an independent filmmaker turns constraints into leverage.
This episode stays close to Stefan Van de Graaff's practical path through independent filmmaking, starting with a stolen parents' camcorder at about eight and running through Simmer, which found an HBO Max sale after 1 million views on Facebook.
A grounded conversation about helping creative work become easier for the right audience to find and value.
Creative Principles uses Miriam Shulman's perspective as author of Artpreneur and a strategist on luxury market messaging and pricing to make a plain case for helping creative work become easier for the right people to understand and value.
A grounded episode on animation craft, pitching, and the realities of building a writing career.
Brandon Violet keeps the conversation grounded in the daily work of children's animation: dialogue that has to justify its space on screen, preschool storybook testing, and character dynamics that can carry more weight than heavy world building.
A focused horror review about restoring comic voice to a draft and carrying that logic into the trailer.
This single-episode review frames the conversation as a close look at horror craft, especially the uneasy work of letting comedy back into a screenplay.
Indie film, minus the fantasy fog.
Screenwriting craft, career reality, and working process.
Creative origin stories with sharper edges.
Science, sideways and sharply told.
Felicia Pride, showrunner of Netflix's A Different World, says she began writing after a professor, Professor DeCrane, noticed an angry essay about her father and later wrote music reviews starting with Mary J.
Kay Wagner lays out how writing a book can support an author's broader career.
Stefan Van de Graaff keeps the conversation grounded in the work.
This episode features an interview with director Christina Alexandra Voros, discussing her career journey from aspiring actor to director, her collaborations with Taylor Sheridan on shows like Yellowstone and 1883, and her latest project The Madison.
This episode features an interview with directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, discussing their careers, the Ready or Not franchise, and the challenges and benefits of co-directing.
The host welcomes Miriam Shulman to discuss Artpreneur.
Brandon Violet talks about writing for animation.
This episode features discussions with horror creators about writing techniques, dialogue, and the creative process, sponsored by Autocrit for authors.
This episode features an interview with Julie Christeas, founder and CEO of Tandem Pictures, discussing strategies for de-risking film projects, changes in indie filmmaking, and talent discovery in the entertainment industry.
This episode features an interview with writer Tony McNamara, discussing his work on films like 'Poor Things' and 'The Favourite', his approach to screenwriting, and his latest project 'The Roses'.
This episode features an interview with cinematographer Stephen Murphy, discussing his work on projects like 'Say Nothing,' 'Mr.
This episode features an interview with director Matt Tyranuer and chef Nobu Matsuhisa about the documentary 'NOBU', exploring Nobu's journey from Japan to global culinary fame and Matt's documentary filmmaking approach.