Movie podcasts seem to crop up everywhere, but The Projection Booth, hosted by Detroit native Mike White, has endured for in impressive 13 years. Since its inception in 2011, The Projection Booth Podcast has racked up an astonishing 700 episodes not including its signature “Special Reports.”
White has a film and video degree from the University of Michigan, but also found he loved writing about films. He combined that love of writing with a love of fanzines, creating Cashiers du cinemart (a play on the famous French magazine, Cahiers du cinema) from 1994 through 2011 — the same year as the inception of The Projection Booth Podcast. The fanzine had become cost prohibitive, and White was looking for something different to do.
The idea came to White and original co-host Mondo Justin while listening to podcasts on the way to a film festival. They decided they could do a better job. “We did it out of spite,” laughs White. When asked what “better” meant, White responds, “There wasn’t a lot of explanation in other podcasts as to what the movies were. They just assumed everyone knew the film. I wanted to cover things people hadn’t seen and walk through the film to give people an idea of what it’s about and start a discussion so everyone could listen and follow along.”
The show went through a few small changes including two co-hosts who moved on to their own projects but still drop in at times. This led White to rotate co-hosts depending on the type of film he’s covering including film scholars Maitland McDonogh, Troy Howarth, Kat Ellinger, Samm Deighan, and Heather Drain. Genres of films covered are all over the board. Because he’s a fan of Czech films, White usually has a month called Czechtember dedicated to them. November is another staple of the show.
Prepping for a podcast
What’s the prep work for a podcast like? “Some of the film choices are Patreon requests, some are from friends who want to come on and discuss a film, or if I can get interesting guests to come in and talk about a film, then that becomes an episode,” explains White.
White creates “course packs” for each episode — not only as research for himself but for each guest. He scours sites for copies of the film with the most useful extras like commentaries and interviews and delves into news sites and archives. If there’s source material in the form of a book or screenplay, he’ll read it.
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“I’ll go to the cinema files archive from Berkeley and grab everything that I can. Sometimes I’ll copy stuff into a PDF and other times there’s thousands of pages of articles. Obviously, I don’t read 2000 pages for every movie we cover, but there are some where you really can dive deep into things.”
Setting the stage
White brings different views to the table which makes for fascinating conversation. Episodes start with White and guest hosts having a roundtable discussion on the film, usually beginning with “When was the first time you saw this film, and what did you think of it?”
Says White, “I want to set the stage for people. Where were you at in your life when you saw this? White didn’t want a lot of filler chit-chat so prevalent in podcasts. Some guests saw these movies when they came out, in the context of the time they were made, and others didn’t. What’s interesting are the different points of view. Someone seeing a film from a time they weren’t living in has no preconceived notions, so they might pick up on things you missed or never thought of.”
Special guests
White doesn’t really set limits on his podcasts’ length — it all depends on the guest and how the conversation goes. Guests range from directors and actors to writers and producers, including Paul Schrader, Ellen Burstyn, Terry Gilliam, Keith David, Willem Dafoe, Nancy Allen, Joel Schumacher, Griffin Dunne, and Adrianne Barbeau.
Some of White’s favorite interviews include Jon Pulido, actor from The Rocketeer, Miller’s Crossing and The Crow. White recalls the actor being reticent to speak with him at first. “At one point I said, you always remind me a little bit of Akim Tamiroff, the character actor that Sturges used. And then of course he was in Touch of Evil, right? His attitude just changed 180 degrees. He opened up and was such a nice man to talk with. There’ve been so many people over the years that I’ve spoken with where there’s that real connection.”
White’s podcast is a labor of love— tailor-made for film geeks and historians. If you and your movie-going friends regularly end a night at the movies by getting shooed out by staff because you’re still discussing the film as the last employee is trying to leave, this is your podcast. Every episode is a lovingly crafted special edition.
