Radicalized Pod Episode 39: With Alex Winter, Director of “The YouTube Effect”

A most excellent episode

We had an amazing time yesterday talking to Alex Winter, known to many as “Bill” from “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” who has been a prolific filmmaker and documentarian for decades.

Alex wrote and directed “The YouTube Effect” which we were privileged to get a chance to see. It is a terrifying yet hopeful film about the harm allowed by YouTube on its platform, despite the people genuinely trying to use it for good.

I was particularly grateful that Brianna Wu, who became a target of GamerGate after she spoke out about it, was a narrator for some of the film. Also shout out to Caleb Cain who does a wonderful job explaining how the process of radicalizing and erasure of empathy works.

Please watch and share this episode. 🙏💙

Radicalized: Truth Survives, an investigative podcast on disinformation and radicalization with Heidi Cuda, Jim Stewartson, High Fidelity, and Sean Conner.

Special Guest: Director, Writer, Actor Alex Winter

Guest socials: @winter

Websites: alexwinter.com

Bio: Alex Winter is a director, writer and actor who has worked across film, television and theater. Winter entered show business as a child actor with co-starring roles on Broadway in The King & I and Peter Pan, and came to prominence in movies such as Warner Bros’ hit The Lost Boys and the wildly popular Bill & Ted franchise.

As a filmmaker, Winter’s narrative features include the cult classic Freaked, for 20th Century Fox and the critically acclaimed Fever, for Lionsgate, which screened in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. Winter is the founder of Trouper Productions, which services his documentary work. In 2020, Winter released two new documentary feature films; Showbiz Kids, premiered on HBO to widespread critical acclaim, garnering a Critics Choice nomination for Best Score.

Followed by Zappa, the first all-access documentary on the life and times of Frank Zappa. The Kickstarter campaign for this project was the highest funded documentary in crowdfunding history. Zappa was released by Magnolia Pictures to widespread critical acclaim. A Critics Pick in the New York Times, Zappa was nominated for Best Music Documentary by the Critics Choice Awards.

The highly anticipated third installment in the Bill & Ted franchise, Bill & Ted Face The Music, opened in August, 2020, as the number one movie both in the U.S. and the UK, and is Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Previous documentary work includes The Panama Papers, about the biggest global corruption scandal in history and the journalists who worked in secret and at great risk to break the story.

A multiple award-winner, The Panama Papers is executive produced by Laura Poitras, opened to a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and is out now on Hulu, AmazonPrime and Epix in the US. Also in release worldwide is Trust Machine, about the rise of bitcoin and the blockchain, available on VOD. Deep Web is about the online black market Silk Road, and the trial of its creator Ross Ulbricht.

The film premiered on the Epix network, opening as the #1 documentary on iTunes and earning a Cinema Eye nomination among several award wins. Deep Web is now available for streaming and VOD. Downloaded is a VH1 RockDoc about Napster and the digital revolution. The film premiered at SXSW, garnering worldwide critical acclaim at theatrical and festival screenings.

Just completed is Winter’s next feature documentary, The YouTube Effect. Produced by Winter/Trouper Productions in partnership with Gale Anne Hurd/Valhalla Entertainment and Glen Zipper. The film had its world premiere at Tribeca in June and will be released later this year