Breaking: Los Angeles
Co-Director · Producer · Writer / Interviewer
A feature documentary examining the challenges emerging musicians face in a rapidly changing Los Angeles recording industry. Built from performances by nearly 100 bands and interviews with more than 40 music-industry professionals, Breaking: Los Angeles explores the tension between making authentic creative work and navigating an industry built around finding, developing, marketing, and selling it.
THE
FILM
Breaking: Los Angeles explores the music business through the eyes of artists trying to break through and the industry professionals whose decisions shape what reaches an audience.
The film moves between emerging bands, producers, executives, attorneys, radio professionals, managers, and others working throughout the Los Angeles music scene, examining the competing pressures around artistic identity, commercial viability, exposure, technology, and an industry undergoing significant change.
Rather than treating the story as simply artists versus the music business, the film explores a more complicated ecosystem in which nearly everyone is trying to respond to changing economics, technology, audience behavior, and increasingly uncertain paths to success.
Making
Breaking: Los Angeles
Making Breaking: Los Angeles required us to enter the Los Angeles music scene from multiple directions. We filmed performances by nearly 100 musicians and conducted more than 40 interviews with professionals working across the recording industry, building the story from a large field of sometimes conflicting experiences and perspectives
As a director, producer, and writer, much of my work involved finding the connective tissue in that material: where musicians' experiences intersected with the realities described by producers, executives, attorneys, radio professionals, and others on the business side.
The scale of the material became part of the challenge. The goal was not to find one explanation for why artists succeed or fail, but to make the larger system visible through the people trying to navigate it.
Selected Participants
David Kershenbaum — record producer and A&R executive
Michael Howe — music-industry A&R executive and producer
Michael Rosenblatt — music-industry executive and A&R professional
Julie Pilat — radio programmer and music-industry executive
Warren Riker — Grammy-winning producer, engineer, and mixer
Dina LaPolt — entertainment attorney
Featured Artists & Bands
Chasing Kings · HoneyHoney ·
Cosio · Spider Problem ·
Vanaprasta · Samuel Stewart
Their perspectives
are joined by dozens of
other industry professionals
and nearly 100 musicians
filmed across the
Los Angeles music scene.
Breaking: Los Angeles received digital distribution via Sony Music’s The Orchard and retail distribution via
MVD Entertainment Group, with availability across digital, retail, and educational channels.
Distribution
Press & Media
Rogue Cinema — Brian Morton
Read archived review →
4 out of 4 cigars
“A very interesting look behind the curtain…”
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