20th Anniversary Celebration with acclaimed directors Brian Koppelman, Thomas Kail, Mike Mills, Sarah Polley, and Siân Heder

What It Covers

Design Matters celebrates its twentieth anniversary with excerpts from interviews with five acclaimed directors: Brian Koppelman, Thomas Kail, Mike Mills, Sarah Polley, and Siân Heder, exploring their creative processes and career-defining moments.

Key Questions Answered

• •Writing partnerships: Brian Koppelman and David Levine outline stories together, then write scenes separately in a shared master document, alternating polish passes. This structure maintains individual voice while ensuring collaborative cohesion throughout the screenplay development process.
• •Meditation for anxiety: Transcendental meditation reduces physical anxiety symptoms at levels comparable to prescription medications like Lexapro, without pharmaceutical side effects. This practice provides calmness and stillness that supports creative work and reduces manifestations of stress in high-pressure environments.
• •Documentary interviewing technique: Leave silence after subjects finish answering questions rather than immediately jumping to the next one. People often fill that space with more potent, unintentional revelations than their constructed responses, revealing deeper truths about their perspectives and experiences.
• •Authentic representation: When writing characters from unfamiliar communities, assemble collaborators from that culture both in front of and behind the camera. Siân Heder learned deaf families arrange living spaces circularly for visual communication, not centered on televisions like hearing households typically do.