"Nobody cares about your story, whether you're a writer of books or screenwriting.", Robin Christian

Welcome Robin Christian:

We're joined on the Starline by a filmmaker who refuses to pick a lane: horror, holiday, musical, true story. The horror-thriller "Below," brings bull sharks to landlocked Illinois. We welcome Robin Christian.

Robin, let’s go Beyond the Mic. You've made a bull-shark thriller, a Christmas drama, and a musical, horror. How does your movie making range fit, or does it not fit anywhere on purpose?

"Below" was shot nowhere near an ocean. What's the hardest part of pulling off a genre movie like that on an independent budget, project after project?

You've proven you can make almost anything. But why?

Champaign-Urbana keeps showing up as your home base for shooting. What does that town give you that LA or Canada never could?

One Ed Asner’s last movies was with you. How did his presence change you?

How did you meet Ed?

The Rockin' 8:

Filmmaker Robin Christian joins us for the Rockin' 8, 8 random questions, just trust your first instinct. There is no Pressure.

1. C.O.R.N. stands for the Collective Order of Recreational Necrophilanthropists. Who in the hell came up with that name?

2. You worked as a laborer for Habitat for Humanity for over two years. What was the skill from a construction site that you still use on a film set?

3. You married Cathy on November 7, 1987. What's one thing about that day you still remember clearly?

4. You helped out at the Austin Film Festival Writers Conference in 2024. What's one piece of advice you give new screenwriters that you had to unlearn yourself?

5. You went to Urbana High School. What's one class or teacher from there that still shows up in how you work today?

6. Of everything you've made, is there one poster you'd keep on your wall if you could only keep one?

7. What's a habit from your very first film set that you still do today?

8. You've taught Sunday school to teenagers for six years, and you also write and direct movies about death cults and reanimated killers. How do those two things relate?

The Back Half:

Your screenplay about the Beatles' first promoter, the guy who helped launch them and then missed his own moment, is something your own production company calls a hidden gem. Do you relate to that guy at all?

Important you make your own joy, what joy to you now?

When was the best memory with your family?

Is there a version of your own career Robin where you almost missed your moment?

Past and Adversity:

How do you go from analytics to illumination to polymers to film making?

Filmmaker Robin Christian joins us Beyond the Mic. Robin, how has adversity changed you?

One of the stories your company has done was of the Morris Goldner. A story about a teenager who snuck into a concentration camp to photograph what was happening inside, and those photos may have helped confirm what the Allies suspected. What drew you to that story, and how do you direct something that true without it becoming a spectacle?

Why do you keep chasing the art itself instead of settling into one format or genre?

First musical you saw growing up?

Mentor:

Who was your mentor who has guided you on this path of film making?

Robin, how has your work changed from the films you made when you started to what you're making now?

Which directors working today have actually changed how you think about your own craft?

What's a rule of film making you had to break to make something you actually believed in?

So what's the project that almost didn't get made, the one where you nearly walked away from?

Who believed in you before there was any real reason to?

Two Big Questions:

1: What's the story: yours, or one you're telling, that fires you up to keep doing this every day?

2: Has a stranger ever told you that one of your movies changed something for them and did you believe them?

The Wrap:

At his wedding the fire engine wouldn’t start and loves Mrs. Clemens his accounting teacher. He wants you to watch his CORN Horror Trilogy. Robin Christian thanks for taking the time to talk with us today.

And that my friends is Beyond the Mic.