After 21 Years of Sundance, Collaboration Remains Just as Vital for Mark Duplass, but for Very Different Reasons

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For another Creative Collaborations in Filmmaking panel, check out this discussion with the cast of “Your Monster.”

21 years ago, Mark and Jay Duplass made their Sundance debut with their short film “This Is John.”

“I was 25, and Jay was my collaborator, he was like my spiritual soulmate. He was my everything,” said Mark while on IndieWire’s Creative Collaborations in Filmmaking panel at the Adobe on Main space, which you can watch in the video above. “I think what happens when you’re coming up you tether yourself to a couple of people because you feel like if something’s working, like don’t fix it, don’t change.”

Over 21 years, under the Duplass Brother Production banner, Duplass has brought a number of different projects to Sundance. During the discussion, Duplass talked about how as he got older, he got more confident, and could branch out more and be more independent.

“I have kids now. I’m home a lot with them, and so collaboration to me now is more about finding those voices,” said Duplass. “People who are in touch with things that I can’t possibly be in touch with, and then offering them whatever I can offer in terms of the Duplass Brothers platform, whatever popularity, money, helping them sell the thing, helping it get up going.”

Duplass credits his producing partner Mel Eslyn, who joined him on the panel, with helping see the work and effort required to bring more diverse talent into the fold. Duplass recalled being impressed with Eslyn in her roles as an assistant director, unit production manager, and line producer, so he brought her on as a creative producer, and eventually promoted her to president of Duplass Brother Productions.

“I felt seen,” said Eslyn of her early collaborations with Duplass. “But I think what I had done is I had learned every role on set that I could so that I could come to the table.”

According to Eslyn, creative producer was a natural transition into her first directing project “Biosphere.” Then during the pandemic, when Duplass started to conceive of story of 16-year old girl, “Penelope,” he brought it to Eslyn to co-write, direct, and showrun. Duplass credits Eslyn with fleshing out his original idea, and bringing a point-of-view that made the project countless times better than if he’d tried to do it himself.

“Penelope” marks a significant moment in the history of their company, which funded and shot all eight episodes themselves, rather than work with one of their traditional streaming partners like Netflix, HBO, and Hulu.

“We designed this show about a 16 year old girl who runs away into nature and starts to live her life out there,” explained Duplass. “If we were to take this and get it made somewhere, inevitably it would be like, ‘Well, let’s get as many Tiger attacks in there as we possibly so we can to make it interesting.”

Over the 20 years of Sundance, the media landscape may have changed, but the importance of collaboration and independence for Duplass have not.

“Why can’t we have independent TV? The streamers are dying out. They’re not going to make anything interesting anymore. All they want is ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ remakes.”

Watch the full discussion below.