Long before stepping behind the director’s camera, San Francisco native Gilbert Milam Jr.—known globally as Berner—built an empire rooted entirely in independent hustle. Rising through the Bay Area hip-hop scene with dozens of independent albums, he parlayed grassroots marketing into founding Cookies, transforming a local strain into a worldwide cannabis, retail, and lifestyle powerhouse. In this episode of The Broadcasters Podcast, the chart-topping artist and entrepreneur applies that same self-reliant blueprint to Hollywood, breaking down how he bypassed the studio pitch machine by investing $2 million of his own capital to co-write, co-direct, and produce his feature debut, Splash City.
Berner details why creative sovereignty required delivering a fully finished, market-ready crime thriller directly to Lionsgate rather than getting trapped in development limbo. He explores the realities of capturing hyper-local Bay Area culture on screen—from the underground wave of "bipping" to bringing in local talent and refining street dialogue for raw authenticity.
The conversation pulls back the curtain on a grueling two-year post-production workflow, navigating the editing room to trim a three-and-a-half-hour rough cut into a tight 90-minute theatrical release, as well as completely rescoring the film in just three days. Berner also unpacks the modern independent release strategy, detailing the economics and audience response behind transitioning Splash City from a successful 12-city theatrical tour straight into the digital video-on-demand and streaming marketplace.
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