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“Trying To Fit Someone’s Dream Into a Confined Budget Is Not Easy”: Producer Sam Intili on I Saw the TV Glow
I Saw the TV Glow, courtesy of Sundance Institute. A strange late-night TV show entrances teen loners, played by Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine, in I Saw the TV Glow, writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s sophomore feature. The program depicts a supernatural world existing underneath the duo’s suburban sprawl, hinting at the horror that lurks just under the surface of white picket fence aspirations.
First-time producer Sam Intili shares how they came on board the project and their pride in the finished film never compromising on “the queerness or explicit transness” of the material.
See all responses to our questionnaire for first-time Sundance producers here.
Filmmaker: Tell us about the professional path that led you to produce this film, your first? What jobs within and outside of the film industry did you do, and what professional experience best prepared you to be a producer?
Intili: I left undergrad with a cinema studies degree, hoping to get a job as a development executive like everyone else. Luckily there were no development jobs to speak of in New York and I fell into an incredible assistant job in the world of film finance & distribution instead. My first boss took a chance on me despite the fact that I was fresh out of college and had never worked at an agency. In that job, I had a birds-eye view of the way that prestige independent films are financed, produced and released, and my proximity to that world—something I had never been directly interested in—is what allowed me to advance quickly after I left. The independent producers and filmmakers who pitched us projects were the real heroes to me and that reverence led me to my next job at a smaller production company where I learned how to discover new filmmakers and support them creatively at pivotal moments in their career. Nothing can prepare you to be a producer, apart from going out and making a film, but the combination of these two experiences were crucial for me and I wouldn’t be here without having seen how the business side and the creative side differ and interact.
Filmmaker: How did you connect with this filmmaker and wind up producing the film?
Intili: I watched Jane Schoenbrun’s film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair at virtual Sundance and was completely shaken afterwards. I felt it was revolutionary cinema. A mutual friend introduced me to Jane via email and we started FaceTiming from our Brooklyn apartments at the peak of COVID. We had both started to transition at the same time and connected instantly on a personal level. I was between jobs at the time and didn’t know how I could be of use to them, but they shared the script for I Saw the TV Glow with me early. I read it immediately and told them that I wanted to be a part of it. They introduced me to Sarah Winshall, who had produced World’s Fair with them and was attached to TV Glow, and we started the journey there.
Filmmaker: How long a process was it to produce the film, and if you could break it into stages, periods of time, what were they?
Intili: Jane shared the script with me in April of 2021. We brought on Fruit Tree as our producing partners in June, did some very light development of the script together and then pitched the film to studios and financiers in July. We were shooting in New Jersey within a year and it took roughly another year to finish the film completely. For a complicated and ambitious film with a distinct vision, this is a relatively short amount of time from idea conception to delivery of the final product.
Filmmaker: Did you have important or impactful mentors, or support from organizations, that were instrumental in your development as a producer?
Intili: The independent filmmaking community in New York has been hugely instrumental in my career. My first boss, Glen Basner, has continued to be one of my biggest mentors in this business. Creative producers like Brad Becker-Parton, Josh Astrachan, Andy Roa and Dan Janvey have all been huge mentors to me and I wouldn’t have started producing myself without their guidance and faith in me.
Filmmaker: What was the most difficult aspect of producing this film?
Intili:It is incredibly difficult to stretch your resources and create something ambitious and immersive even when you’re lucky enough to have millions of dollars and studio support. Trying to fit someone’s dream into a confined budget is not easy.
Filmmaker: What single element of the film do you have take the greatest amount of pride in, or maybe were just most excited by, as a producer?
Intili: I’m proud that we never had to compromise the queerness or explicit transness of this work in order to get it made. The undeniable nature of the idea and the script made that a lot easier—as well as having supportive partners who cherished its uniqueness. Making queer work within a capitalist system will always require some type of stewardship and I feel proud to have protected the heart of the film along the way.
Filmmaker: What surprised you or was unexpected when it comes to the producing of the film?
Intili: This is incredibly specific, but it remains shocking to me to this day. The state of New Jersey offers a “diversity” tax incentive that is meant to encourage productions to “employ the services of women and minority persons.” You have to send them what is essentially a census of your crew in order to qualify. Their qualifications for a “minority person” don’t include nonbinary people, meaning that our director as well as multiple members of our cast and crew weren’t able to count towards this “diversity” incentive. We were able to qualify regardless, but this was infuriating to us. We tried to have it out with them so that we didn’t need to misgender any member of our team but they stopped answering our emails. I am consistently shocked by the backwards nature of many diversity movements in this industry and the degree to which gender variant people are unwelcome inside of them.
Filmmaker: What are the challenges facing young producers entering the business right now at this unique historical moment? And what could or should change about the film business to make producing a more sustainable practice?
Intili: Young producers are coming into a fractured industry that is evolving rapidly. It’s never been a harder time to make movies in general and the veterans of this industry are as clueless as everyone else about what audiences want to watch and how we can reach them. Independent filmmaking teams are being hurt the most by this, financially and creatively, and it all goes back to distribution. We desperately need people to be forming new distribution companies, taking a risk on ambitious films, and proving that people want to see them. There are too many good ideas and only a few American distributors who would ever put those films into theaters. If there was a market for these films, then they could be financed at bigger budgets and producers could participate in the success of these films more often.
Filmmaker: Finally, what advice would you pass on to a future young producer preparing to embark on their first production?
Intili: Making a movie is way too difficult to feel ambivalent about what you’re making. If you don’t feel electricity run through you when you read a script or speak to a filmmaker, don’t dedicate years of your life to it. It’s also an incredibly vulnerable thing to go off and produce your first movie. Try to be as honest as you can about what you don’t know and surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. If you want to make money or receive thanks for your work, do something else.
