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Interview with Elvis Mitchell from Thomas Attila Lewis on Vimeo.
KCRW has plenty of excellent original programming, but among the best is "The Treatment", a weekly film-heavy pop culture show that airs on Wednesdays at 2:30pm. We suggest that you crawl through the archives and grab podcasts to play during long drives or other such travel.
Mitchell has been a film critic for many newspapers, most notably and recently, the New York Times. He has taught at Harvard, is the host of Turner Classic Movie's "Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence", and has produced two excellent documentaries about the experiences of being black in this country: The Black List: Volume One and The Black List: Volume Two.
We met with Mitchell at the Paley Center for Media in New York (be sure to check out the programs at their incredible LA location), where they kindly let us use Bill Paley's conference room, surrounded by artifacts collected by Paley during the metamorphosis of CBS from a small string of radio stations to an international multi-media superpower. It was a surreal a space to be the interviewer interviewing the contemporary King of Interviewers.
We are convinced that no one else does nearly as much research in preparing for interviews than Mitchell. Additionally, we only wish we could have 1% of the calm confidence that the affable and charismatic Mitchell exudes - a major advantage when interviewing subjects from Russell Brand to Ron Howard.
The very dapper and friendly Elvis Mitchell.
