Izzy Stevens talks Indie Spunk and championing filmmakers through podcasts

There are many reasons for starting a podcast, especially when you frequent the creative industries, but actor and award-winning filmmaker Izzy Stevens is delightfully candid as to why she’s created Indie Spunk, the podcast for emerging filmmakers:

IZZY: To be entirely honest, making this podcast was a selfish move on my part. I love to interview and champion the creatives I know & respect, and I dig any excuse to learn from a filmmaker who’s done it their way. But I ultimately followed through because, about a year ago, I realized that I was having similar conversations with many of the wonderful emerging filmmakers I coached and consulted with inside of indie spunk club – my membership platform for filmmakers.

These are directors, producers, writers and actors who are inspired to build an empowered, fulfilling career in the film industry, on their own terms, but just need some kind of blueprint or roadmap to get there. I am a director myself, who’s inspired to build this kind of a career.

I’ve always known I wanted to bring these conversations into a podcast format. I’m excited it’s finally here. My intention is to open up access to film industry insight and dissect how to strategically build a career using your individual creative voice.

Born in Australia and now an honorary American, Izzy has starred in notable series such as Puberty Blues and Underbelly, and many will have seen her in the 2018 sci-fi movie Occupation – she began her career in the entertainment world from an early age and knew exactly the path that she wanted to take.

I started professionally acting at 17 in TV and film, which exposed me to a world of filmmaking that I instantly fell in love with. I wanted to direct. I wanted to learn all of the roles on set. As well as directing, I fancy editing, production design, sound design, producing, and writing. The whole process. It’s an endless rush to collaborate with a team towards a shared creative vision. I intend on making films my whole life, I just love it!

During the pandemic and over the past few years, I’ve built a production company and coaching practice helping upwards of 60 filmmakers go from script to screen, which has taught me a whole lotta delicious wisdom juice about my own career. So came the podcast.

The podcast clearly wants to help emerging filmmakers, why is this so important to Izzy?

When I started out I really wished I had access to mentorship and guidance. Navigating this industry alone can be tough and confusing. There is also so much more I want to learn, and I figured that we can seek these answers together. I love supporting emerging filmmakers because they’re, in my mind, some of the best people I’ve met. Ideas driven, curious, playful, motivated and kind.

I believe the world becomes a more empathetic, cooler place when filmmakers from all walks of life get their stories seen and heard and experienced by an audience. Not just the dominant voices.

Filmmakers are inherently collaborative and want to network, and there is plenty of peer to peer help in the higher levels of the industry, the problem is we need more diversity in those higher level industry roles who will take bets on newer voices.

And Izzy knows that we need diversity in the industry to get new and exciting stories, she’s clear about this…

Hire women, hire queer folks, hire people of color — when our sets are equitable, the stories get better. It’s science proven. You can’t argue with science.

The Indie Spunk podcast has an array of eclectic episodes ranging from interviews with a mentoring tone, to out and out industry advice and guidance. What more can we expect as the episodes roll out?

Much more! So far we’ve had directors, writers, producers and special guests join us on the podcast who’ve worked with Sundance, created festivals such as HollyShorts, written for The Simpsons, and made award-winning films. But it’s only the beginning. I am giddy about what’s to come. We also run filmmaking workshops and events inside indie spunk club.

The podcast is all about you taking action. The best place to start is to surround yourself with a like-minded community, get busy creating from a place of curiosity, and seek guidance. You can listen to the podcast here where we get into it all.

It’s clear Izzy displays an unyielding passion for the arts and film, and the Indie Spunk podcast is part of a much wider project and conversation.

Indie Spunk podcast is an offshoot to my mentorship programs & production company, Indie Spunk, and I see it all continuing to grow as we support more filmmakers and make more films. As a director, I currently have a feature film in development, and I’m in production on a number of short films as a director and producer.

Indie Spunk can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all good podcast platforms and Izzy Stevens can be found on Instagram: @izzystevens and @indiespunk, as well as IzzyStevens.com