Bill Haney talks with Terry Meiners about 'Cracking the Code' at the Flyover Film Festival

July 23, 2025 / The Terry Meiners Show

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Terry Meiners:  Here with News Radio eight 40 WHAS. Terry Miners here. The Flyover Film Festival lands in Louisville this week, and they're featuring a lot of really fascinating films. One keys in on a Kentuckian who's made quite a life for himself, and it is the heck of a story. It's called 'Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution.' Phil's Journey's, a roadmap for the future of science and innovation. Cracking the code not only celebrates hiss achievements, but also challenges us to imagine what comes next. Mark Ruffalo is the narrator on this particular film, and we're pretty excited to see and learn more about this Kentucky and story he's listed as a Kentucky Farm Boy, and he's made it as a Nobel laureate embodying the American Dream and the triumph of an entrepreneurial spirit. So let's bring in the director and producer of this film, bill Haney. Hey Bill, welcome to the show!

Bill Haney:  Thanks so much for having me, Terry.

Terry Meiners:  Well, you must've worked hard on this project, but it's one of those projects where you learn a lot, don't you?

Bill Haney:  Yeah, it's been very inspiring to get to spend time in Kentucky and to watch the roots of this extraordinary American develop into something that changes the world in really profound ways. Phil Sharp is born in a one room dirt floor house in tobacco country, Kentucky on D-Day to parents who haven't been to high school.

Terry Meiners:  And he turns out, yeah, go ahead.

Bill Haney:  Yeah, he's so severely dyslexic that he still can't read fully and the fact that with grit and perseverance and a love of basketball, he makes it to winning the Nobel Prize for discovering how RNA works. So sort of fundamental human biology. He gives us totally novel insights into fundamental human biology, and he will simultaneously be part of starting the first biotech company in the world. And the second, and when he starts, there's not a single patient on earth who's being treated with a biotech medicine. And last year, 7.6 billion people took a biotech medicine.

Terry Meiners:  Isn't that unbelievable? I mean, like you said, coming from a dirt floor house like that and making his life just shaping it this way. Tell me about how you gathered information on him. Did you go to that area for this documentary?

Bill Haney:  Yeah, we had the great pleasure of filming in the Midwest various places that Phil spent some of his early years, and it was incredibly beautiful, but you can understand at the time that he grows up, it was also sort of isolating and in a way that kind of independence was a lot of what turns out to be a false character. And life on a tobacco farm is not now and was not then an easy life and in a way that teaches him the grit that he needs to go through, the challenges that will be before him. So from the Nobel Prize to, and a great Indianan and Larry Byrd is in the movie, and we got a chance to see a part of America in a really powerful and beautiful way as the kind of crucible of innovation.

Terry Meiners:  It's tough to edit things as well. A guy like you goes out, you have a vision, and then you collect information. You get surprised by certain things that you learn. So tell me about your craft of collating all this stuff to put it into a coherent message and still getting out as much information as you possibly can cram into the allotted space.

Bill Haney:  I don't know, Terry, I'm listening to you and I think you're kind of a master of the craft. Maybe you should tell me, you know, you're assimilating lots of information and turning it into something that is thoughtful and available and engaging for your listeners. And in that sense, you and I are doing the same work. It's true. You look at lots of things and in our case, to get to a 90 minute film, we've filmed 900 hours of footage and interviews with people all over the place, and we try to weave, this tells the story of America over this time and it kind of asks a lot about the entrepreneurial roots of America and how innovation works in our beautiful country. And so you're right that weaving those pieces together in a way that is fun to watch and emotionally engaging and kind of exciting for a viewer. And I think at least so far, most people have found it pretty inspiring is takes a lot of work. If you're better than me, probably take less work. But for me, it takes a lot of work.

Terry Meiners:  How challenging is it for you to watch other people watch your work and then you wait for their responses? And so that's tough. I mean, that's your baby, you created it and then you sit back and then wonder if it's landing on people the way you intended.

Bill Haney:  Yeah, it's a good question. John Ford was one of the great American directors, as you know, and celebrated for, among other things, his iconic look at the American Western, and made a lot of movies with John Wayne and a central figure. And nearing the end of his work life, he was out on set and it was his 75th birthday and the cast and crew found a local theater that would screen his greatest work and they're all sitting and watching. And the first 30 minutes passed and then the film started to flicker and they looked up and they could see John Ford in a fist fight with the projectionist. They could hear him saying, I'd always hated this scene. And finally, I can take the darn thing out. And I think you always think things can be better. And we've now screened the opening screening for this movie was in Sweden at the Nobel Institute, and I was nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof.

Terry Meiners:  Hey, that's a good phrase for a film cat on a hot tin roof. You might want to borrow that.

Bill Haney:  Yeah, exactly. Somebody should write a play. So this is my 19th movie, so I'm getting a little better at the

Terry Meiners:  Handling it,

Bill Haney:  Hoping people, hoping people have a good experience, but I'm not good at it. I'm just better.

Terry Meiners:  But we're all sensitive. People that are creators are sensitive to the way other people take in what's created, what comes out of our minds. And so I know that's got to be nerve wracking for you even at this stage, this far along in your career.

Bill Haney:  Yeah. Look, you do this every day and so you probably understand much better. I do. You can't do good work if you don't care deeply.

Terry Meiners:  That's right.

Bill Haney:  And if you do care deeply, sometimes people's reaction, well, they say you therefore want people to have a good experience.

Terry Meiners:  You bet. I'm sure people are excited to hear from you. I know there's a q and a that goes along with the showing of this film at the Flyover Film Festival. It's this Sunday two 30 to five, and then you're doing a q and a right after it's over.

Bill Haney:  There's going to be a whole ceremony there. And then I have to say there's a screening on Friday, this Friday at Phil's High School in Pendleton, Kentucky.

Terry Meiners:  Oh, cool.

Bill Haney:  And I think he might be more nervous about that one. So it's high school, you know, high school grabs you by the throat and never quite Lets go. That's right.

Terry Meiners:  That's part of your bone marrow your whole life.

Bill Haney:  If only we knew. Yeah. So I think that it's a great story about the power of Midwestern values.

Terry Meiners:  I love it.

Bill Haney:  And I think Phil reflects that really beautifully. I think your viewers will find it fun and inspiring to spend 90 minutes with him.

Terry Meiners:  People who've seen film just are raving about it, so I'm looking forward to seeing it. Alright, bill Haney, thank you so much and we'll see you on Sunday, and like you said, Friday at his high school in Pendleton. That's even phenomenal too. But the Louisville flyover film festivals this week, it's going on. There's all kinds of great films including this one, cracking the Code, Phil Sharp in the Biotech Revolution, and then a q and a with this gentleman on the phone right now. Bill Haney, who directed and produced a great talking to you, my friend,

Bill Haney:  Privileged being with you, Terry. Thanks for everything.

Terry Meiners:  You bet you. That's Bill Haney and the flyover film festivals going on all week. Just go to louisville film society.org and learn more.