Isabel Thornton / Daily Nexus

On Feb. 10, the 40th Santa Barbara International Film Festival Panel brought together five Academy Award-nominated producers to discuss their 2024 releases. Moderated in conversation by New York Times reporter Nicole Sperling, the event featured Cale Boyter (“Dune: Part Two”), Alex Coco (“Anora”), Coralie Fargeat (“The Substance”), Alex Heineman (“A Complete Unknown”) and Brian Young (“The Brutalist”). 

With an introduction by the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) Executive Director Roger Durling, the panelists were welcomed on stage. Sperling congratulated the producers on their recent nominations before diving into the discussion, asking about the complications and lowest moments of the making of each film. 

Boyter, Young and Heineman all spoke about the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on their large and costly productions, highlighting the extreme choices that needed to be made from the production standpoint. In the case of “Dune: Part Two,” Boyter spoke of the pandemic as a chance to rethink the production team’s original plans, allowing them to create a “completely new retreat program.” Heimenan echoed his statement, saying that the pandemic “gave Timmy [Chalamet] a lot more time to train” while remarking on another delay —  the SAG-AFTRA Strike of 2023 that stopped the production dead in its tracks, just 10 days before it even began. 

Unlike the other producers, Coralie Fargeat spoke of having to wear “both the producer and director cap … The studio really didn’t like the film and said, ‘Coralie, I’m sorry, but you turned your back to the audience and you can’t release that film.’ That was a moment when time froze after five years, you know, working on that film. So, when I got the news that the movie was selected to Cannes [Film Festival], I knew that the movie was saved.”

Alex Coco touched on his working relationship with director Sean Baker, having worked alongside him since “The Florida Project” (2017). He expressed his gratitude for the kind of on-the-go production Baker creates: “I just love doing that, you know, like just conceptualizing the production as these two sizes and these two different tactics and approaches to how to do the film,” a process that often results in on-the-go rewrites of the script. 

Sperling followed up with a question about their process of tackling the grand ideas of their directors alongside the financial realities of creating a film. The producers collectively agreed that all funding given to the films was spent perfecting and creating the actual movies and “nothing was wasted” — a refreshing answer to hear from such a vast range of budgeted movies — from Baker’s $6 million New York drama “Anora” to director Denis Villeneuve’s $190 million space epic “Dune: Part Two.” 

The panel also touched on the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) fears in the creative industries, with Sperling asking how the producers feel about its emergence and its possible use in film (a question especially potent during the current discourse on “The Brutalist”’s supposed use of AI and Academy Award rule changes as a result).

Speaking on the matter, Young claimed that the issue “has been very overblown,” and referred to the technology they used as a “scalpel” similar to other audio dialogue replacement technology often used in modern filmmaking. 

While hesitant, the others agreed that technology has a future in helping production perfect the process, not specifically replacing the actors, but instead enhancing the production side while still being “a very big generational shift,” as cleverly remarked by Fargeat.

New York Times reporter Nicole Sperling (L) moderated the discussion. (Isabel Thornton / Daily Nexus)

Sperling weaved in a range of short questions about test screenings and their success, with the producers being very vocal on the importance of successful audience feedback, whether that is from friends and family, editors or complete strangers. “You can obviously have friends and family screenings, which are very helpful as well, but really showing the movie to 300 strangers is a good way to get some feedback,” Heineman spoke up. “We’re making movies for audiences, and we want to show a movie to [them] so we understand how they feel about it.” 

Sperling also highlighted the lengthy runtimes of all the films featured in this panel, remarking on the irony of growing movie lengths as opposed to the shortening attention spans of modern humanity — a comment met with agreement from the panelists. “Oh yeah, they’re wildly too long,” Boyter nodded along. “But we put two hours and 37 minutes in front of friends and families and we can tell whether they’re leaning in or if they’re going ‘Eh, let’s get the hell out of here,’ and that’s always been very valuable to our process.”

Rounding off the conversation, Sperling asked about the physical and practical effects of filming challenging movies like the ones featured in the lineup. Fargeat spoke of the “helmet cam” used to get into the nitty-gritty of “The Substance”’s prosthetic and POV shots. 

The discussion concluded with Sperling touching on and praising the fascinating sandworm effects used in “Dune: Part 2”, before diving into current the “doom and gloom”, as she called it,  climate of the filmmaking business. She remarked that the production companies seem to be putting less money into new independent art and with other possibilities being affected by the wildfires and strikes, artists are usually left at a loss – reaching out to the panelists for their thoughts on the situation and what it takes to get a movie made. 

Coco and Boyter both spoke of their glee that the movies of this year entice the younger generation to make and watch more movies. 

“I’m always so happy when college kids come to the screen, and they say they’re so inspired by the film, and not just the movie itself, but how we made it,” Coco said. “As long as we’re supporting new voices and people to make films by any means necessary and hopefully discover some incredible people and undeniable filmmakers.”

“You want to push the envelope. You want to keep giving people reasons to go to the movies, and that’s usually by telling new types of stories, giving them new experiences,” Boyter said. “But a big part of it is making sure that we’re getting people out of the house to come to the theater, right? … So I applaud that and we need to keep doing more of that, absolutely.”

“And you know, a lot of people up here are going to be responsible for that stuff in the coming years, so don’t mess it up,” Boyter joked, ending the evening on a hopeful note.