StageRunner Podcast

Neil Waller built one of the largest creator economy businesses in the world. Now Hollywood is finally paying attention — and he's watching them scramble to catch up. As CEO of The Whalar Group, Neil sits at the exact collision point between creators and traditional media. Creators aren't influencers anymore. They're producers, entrepreneurs, and full media companies — and the brands and studios that used to ignore them are now writing checks to reach their audiences. In this episode: how the creator economy is reshaping what production actually looks like, why traditional studios took so long to embrace it, and what Hollywood can learn from a distribution model built entirely outside its walls. The old gatekeepers didn't see this coming. Neil did.

Reel Change Founder Jules Kovisars on Streaming’s Fast Collapse, Strikes, AI Threats, and Career Pivots for Entertainment Pros Stage Runner podcast hosts Gannon Murphy and Jason Fisher interview Jules Kovisars, founder of Reel Change, about how she went from DGA-trained assistant director to line producer and studio executive roles at companies including Turner and Paramount+ before launching a career strategy business for entertainment professionals. Kovisars describes streaming’s rapid shift from subscriber growth to profit demands, early layoffs beginning in 2021, acceleration by 2023, consolidation pressures from Wall Street, and how offshoring driven by international incentives compounded disruption around the 2023 strikes. She explains why entertainment skills often don’t translate cleanly to corporate hiring systems, drawing from her own misfit move into project management at AVI-SPL, and details Reel Change’s one-on-one approach to resumes, LinkedIn, interview storytelling, and realistic timelines, including examples of clients pivoting or augmenting income amid AI-driven risk to post and other roles.

Jonas Barnes spent 20 years producing major studio films. Then Hollywood contracted — and he built something in the gap nobody saw coming. Micro dramas. Minute-and-a-half episodes. Cliffhanger structure. Paywall monetization. $200K budgets. 12-week shoots. Predominantly female audience. Brand-funded from the jump — and studios are already circling for IP. Jonas breaks down exactly how the format works, who's watching, how the money moves, and why Hollywood professionals are quietly crossing over while pretending they aren't. The new entertainment economy doesn't look like the old one. This is what it actually looks like.

On this episode of the StageRunner Podcast, we sit down with PJ Ace—a commercial filmmaker who went from scaling YouTube channels to 1M subscribers to running an AI ad agency charging six-figure budgets. PJ walks us through the two-day Kalshi NBA Finals campaign, the shift from text-to-video to photoreal talking heads with Google Veo 3, and why his team is already turning down work. We dig into viral "Bible influencer" sketches, the four-panel consistency trick, hybrid LED stages like House of David, and why 22-year-olds are making $500K/year creating AI ads. Plus: why studios should abandon $400M series and make 10 hyper-niche Star Wars shows instead, and how long the ad automation window stays open before tools commoditize and taste becomes the only edge.

Kevin Reilly joins the Stagerunner podcast to map the seismic shifts reshaping the entertainment industry: shrinking budgets, studio consolidation, the fading era of pilot season, labor pressures, and the rapid arrival of generative AI. They discuss what AI can and can’t replace, how creators and workers should adapt, and where new opportunities will emerge as the business rebuilds around changing audience behavior and technology.

A new long-form podcast exploring the future of film and TV with the people shaping it. Each episode dives into how production, distribution, and emerging technologies like AI are transforming the industry—and what it all means for the jobs, workflows, and creative opportunities ahead. Subscribe, follow, and leave a review to support the show. Website: ⁠https://stagerunner.com⁠ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stagerunner⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/stagerunnerla⁠ TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@stagerunnerla⁠ Sponsors & partnerships: please contact [email protected] © StageRunner Podcast. All rights reserved.