Mike and Kevin make a big announcement today on Cinematic Heartland: A Filmmaking Podcast.

Joining us on this episode of Cinematic Heartland is Elliott Bales who is currently based in Virginia but has appeared extensively on stage and screen in Iowa. He talks about pursuing his acting career full-time after a career in the military, working on the film Remote, producing audio books, getting an agent, and being a member of SAG-AFTRA. What has he learned in his theater work that has helped him in film and vice versa?

Colorado based actor Michael Ridley sits down with Kevin on this episode of Cinematic Heartland: A Filmmaking Podcast. Michael is known on the Iowa film scene by working in such projects as Remote and Knee High which we talk about in depth. He was fortunate enough to be able to work on the set of Jurassic World and he passes along that experience to us.

Demian Alan Mancino joins Kevin and Michael on today’s episode of Cinematic Heartland: A Filmmaking podcast for a fun filmmaking conversation. He was born and raised in New York, has lived in 43 states, and currently resides in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He tells us about his mixed martial arts background, how he got into acting, working on You Should Have Killed Me, and collaborating with the Cintree Films team on multiple projects. We also talk about his experience directing the film Rosie’s Necklace.

Jude Rawlins of Bella Luna Productions sits down with us to talk all things films and filmmaking. He tells us his story from how he came to settle in Marshalltown, Iowa to making the feature film Little Johnny Jewel to his film Dream Time to filming in New York for his film Mania. He has found that filming in Iowa is special in the fact that you can find anything you need almost instantaneously. On top of that, he has been able to work with his dream casts because there are so many talented actors here. He names his filmmaker influences, favorite films at this time, and gives his advice to other Heartland filmmakers out there.

Today's show features our first roundtable discussion and the topic at hand is film festivals. We welcome Eric Dean Freese of The Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival, Greg Gale of The Flatwater Film Festival, Bill Cooper of The Twin Cities Film Festival, and Tadd Good of The Snake Alley Festival of Film. They give us tips on what can improve your chances as a filmmaker to get accepted into film festivals and things to do and not do when you attend film festivals. We take a look under the hood of what makes quality, well-run festivals work. They also share some of the horror stories and behind-the-scenes of running your own festival as well as a whole lot more. A definite must listen for filmmakers venturing out onto the festival circuit. This roundtable will also be released on YouTube very soon.

Michael James Minard returns to the Cinematic Heartland podcast to revisit the very important topic that so many filmmakers and non-filmmakers struggle with... imposter syndrome. We have talked about this on the show before but Michael brings another filmmaker's perspective. He tells us how it has affected him, his work, and what he has done to combat it.

Joining us today are filmmakers Bernd Wittneben and Jörg Rochlitzer, who are both originally from Germany but now reside in Iowa. We go in depth about their feature film, Reveille, how they gathered some of the items used in the movie, and how they set out to differentiate it from other traditional war movies. Bernd explains to us why he prefers making feature films over short films and Jörg talks about his love of old cameras and films and why he was invited to Paramount Studios in California. They also tell us about their production company, Film Farm Iowa.

The multi-talented Iowa based filmmaker, JoJo Munkee, joins us on the show today. Most filmmakers in the Iowa film scene know or have heard of JoJo but you may learn something new about her as our topics range from belly dancing to sword balancing to Batman to wearing goat legs. How did she get involved with the Snake Alley Festival of Film and how did she end up leading the screenplay table reads which take place there. She gives us her advice on successful networking, and we talk about her love of improv.

Nebraska based filmmaker, Maverick Knox, sits down with us on this episode of Cinematic Heartland. He tells us about attending film school in Arkansas, his film projects, his production studio, and what he does as an adjunct professor at Metropolitan Community College. Maverick is an experienced DIT. He tells us what that is and what the job entails. What does he see are the benefits of being a Midwestern filmmaker?