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Episode 75, the Diamond Jubilee, and it's just the two of us. With no guest, with no safety net or buffer, this one finds Ben feeling both naked and vulnerable. But Keith is there to calm his nerves with: a full craft episode, with three buckets. First bucket up, OBSERVATIONAL FILMMAKING. What's right & wrong about fly-on-the-wall as a premise and who gets it right. Ben walks through his plan for an upcoming shoot, and Keith pokes at whether that's observation at all. We'll talk Wiseman and the Maysles and turn to our experiences with 100-plus days hanging out with teenagers at the Texas School for the Blind for Keith's THE EYES OF ME; and one great day on Ben's undergrad short DAY WITH JOHN. Bucket two: RE-CREATION. Keith's got opinions. And a time-tested theory that re-cre (as well as animation) works when it's A-roll and fails as a B-roll Band-Aid. We get into our work on TOWER, DEAR MR. BRODY, and CALLS TO OKIES—and widen out to discuss the subjects and objects of NANOOK OF THE NORTH, THE THIN BLUE LINE and THE ACT OF KILLING. Speaking of subjectivity, Keith drops the bold claim that re-creation is more truthful than observation because it announces itself and Ben has thoughts. Bucket three, for today was meant to be ARCHIVAL STORYTELLING.  But as episode 75 runs out of road, we punt on an archival deep-dive for a future episode. So, call this one: 2 out of 3 buckets. Plus: a callback to Barlow Jacobs & Pete Muller; we start counting steps; and we close with some in-theater, under-the-radar recs: WTO/99 and FLAG DAY. DISCUSSION LINKS: THE EYES OF ME (2009) | DAY WITH JOHN (2002) | SALESMAN (1969) | GIMME SHELTER (1970) | TOWER (2016) | DEAR MR. BRODY (2022) | CALLS TO OKIES: THE PARK GRUBBS STORY (2015) | NANOOK OF THE NORTH (1922) | THE VOYAGE OUT (2025) | THE THIN BLUE LINE (1988) | THE ACT OF KILLING (2012) | LA 92 (2017) | LET THE FIRE BURN (2013) | BUCKS HARBOR (2026) | WTO/99 (2025) | FLAG DAY (2026) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Cold open: selfie sticks and old live oaks 00:55 Episode 75, and no guest 02:00 Why we're doing a craft episode 02:30 The step counter starts now 03:30 Three buckets: observation, recreation, archival 04:15 The Diamond Jubilee and the fire department boats 06:00 Bucket one: what is observational filmmaking? 07:00 Ben's upcoming shoot: a podcast, a conference, a plan 10:30 Be Fred Wiseman for a minute 15:30 People vs. places 17:00 THE EYES OF ME: 100 days at the Texas School for the Blind 19:30 DAY WITH JOHN and learning to direct 23:30 Casting, premise and structure 27:00 The Maysles, SALESMAN and "the Al of this combo" 29:00 Quickfire advice on observation: patience 30:30 Your temperament is how you see the world 32:00 Bucket two: recreation 34:00 TOWER and DEAR MR. BRODY 38:30 Recreation works as A-roll, fails as B-roll 42:30 CALLS TO OKIES and imagining the character 45:30 NANOOK OF THE NORTH and the ethics of artifice 50:00 THE VOYAGE OUT and "recreation is more true than observation" 52:30 Why fiction can tell you more about an era 54:00 Not "should you?" but "how?" 55:30 THE THIN BLUE LINE 57:00 THE ACT OF KILLING 1:00:30 Replaying the walk on the drive home 1:01:00 Bucket three: archival (saved for later) 1:02:30 Recs: WTO/99 1:03:50 Recs: FLAG DAY 1:06:00 Thank-yous and sign-off

If you're looking for a beer and a sandwich you're in the right place… welcome to Red Hook, Brooklyn, home of dock workers and DocWalkers—meet Jeremy Workman. Jeremy is the director behind the arthouse success story, SECRET MALL APARTMENT. He's also known for LILY TOPPLES THE WORLD, and this year's festival hit, SCHOOL FOR DEFECTORS.  When thunder rolls in, we duck into the Red Hook Lobster Pound for a beer, and Jeremy shares his experiences as a second-generation filmmaker (shoutout Chuck Workman) and a deeply experienced trailer-cutter, name-dropping Tarantino, Scorsese, and Maitland along the way. But today's all about the secrets to success in documentary self-distribution. If you haven't seen SECRET MALL APARTMENT, go watch it on Netflix—Jeremy shares the long and self-designed road that got it there. After a SXSW premiere, SECRET MALL APARTMENT had no offers, so Jeremy and his team released it themselves, pushing the "treatise on art" to more than 300 theaters, grossing a million bucks, before landing on Netflix's top five. His take on most distributors? Not kind.  We also get into how Jeremy funds his films with a tight circle of private investors, his collaborations with Jesse Eisenberg, why a seven-figure sale of LILY TOPPLES THE WORLD didn't feel like a win, and the Ed Pressman memorial that led him straight to Flaco the owl, star of Penny Lane's WILD INSIDE. Plus: how to survive festival rejection (say yes to yourself); inspiration via early Errol Morris, Gary Hustwit, and MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA; and why we need Chris Smith on this show. We end the way every DocWalk should: an Italian combo, plus sopressata from Defonte's Sandwich Shop.   DISCUSSION LINKS: SECRET MALL APARTMENT (2024) | SCHOOL FOR DEFECTORS (2026) | LILY TOPPLES THE WORLD (2021) | THE WORLD BEFORE YOUR FEET (2018) | WILD INSIDE (2026) | AMERICAN PACHUCO: THE LEGEND OF LUIS VALDEZ (2026) | WHO MOVES AMERICA (2026) | SHERMAN'S MARCH (1985) | DEAR MR. BRODY (2021) | TOWER (2016) | THE EYES OF ME (2009) | WHAT IS CINEMA? (2013) | THANK YOU VERY MUCH (2023) | MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA (1929) | GATES OF HEAVEN (1978) | THE THIN BLUE LINE (1988) | THEREMIN: AN ELECTRONIC ODYSSEY (1993)   TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Walking Red Hook, Brooklyn 01:11 Meet Jeremy Workman 02:54 SECRET MALL APARTMENT and the self-distribution tease 03:25 How Keith met Jeremy: the DEAR MR. BRODY trailer 04:39 From college job to studio trailers 06:44 Wheelhouse Creative and trailers for documentaries 08:30 Rain, Van Brunt Street and the Red Hook Lobster Pound 11:40 Ed Pressman and a surprise owl 13:51 Developing trailer editors 15:08 Trailers on Jeremy's desk: SHERMAN'S MARCH, WILD INSIDE, WHO MOVES AMERICA 17:29 A synchronicity: the WHAT IS CINEMA? DVD 19:43 Growing up the son of Chuck Workman 22:07 What his father taught him about money and craft 23:50 SECRET MALL APARTMENT in a nutshell 27:21 Twenty-five hours of footage on a $100 camera 28:51 Meeting Michael Townsend in Athens 31:17 Raising money without grants 33:27 Why most distributors disappoint 36:15 Selling LILY TOPPLES THE WORLD: was that a win? 39:40 The SXSW premiere and the decision to self-release 41:42 300 theaters, $1 million and Netflix 45:11 The next chapter: SCHOOL FOR DEFECTORS and consulting 46:08 Gary Hustwit and rethinking the doc industry 47:59 Penny Lane, Gene Gallerano and the dream team 48:38 Advice for first-time filmmakers: say yes to yourself 51:21 What draws Jeremy to a story 52:16 Industrial Red Hook 54:12 Gateway docs: Errol Morris, MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA, THEREMIN 56:35 Dream collaborator: Chris Smith 57:57 The Defonte's finale 58:59 What's next, including the Calgary jury 1:00:05 Next week: our 75th episode

You may remember Dana Reilly, New York filmmaker, and UT Radio-TV-Film alum from our walk around Main Street at Sundance this year. Well, she's back in Austin to present her first feature, OUR BODY ELECTRIC, at the AFS Cinema.  From nimbus clouds, to a walk around the DAZED AND CONFUSED baseball diamond, Dana shares the stories that got her to this auspicious moment at the Northwest park trail. From her expat childhood in London (Chris Columbus' kids went to her school) to PROMISES and the classroom AV cart that hooked her on docs, to Brown, the Washington Post Brand Studio and a quarter-life crisis that landed her in Austin for grad school and an impactful stint at Go-Valley. Keith edited her thesis doc, FAVORITE DAUGHTER—a loving portrait of her mom and her grandmother quarantining together in a Tribeca apartment during COVID. It went from a messy, beautiful jumble to Telluride and MTV Documentary Films (thank you Sheila Nevins!)  Then the walk goes sideways/back in time. Medieval LARPers take over the park, and pull our attention. Meet the Vinland Texas Vikings, sword-fighting under the Texas sun with helmets, shields and their own strict code of conduct… Dana shares the spotlight for a few moments before we re-center on OUR BODY ELECTRIC. This episode features a trailer for the film, which follows three women bodybuilders vying for the Ms. Olympia title. And we conclude the walk at the AFS Cinema for the post-screening Q&A…  When it comes to indie doc-making, Dana tells it like it is, "no one's comin' to save you." Not body-builders, not viking LARPers—no one, but you (& your friends at DocWalks).   DISCUSSION LINKS: OUR BODY ELECTRIC (2026) | FAVORITE DAUGHTER (2022) | DEAR MR. BRODY (2022) | DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993) | SLACKER (1990) | EL MARIACHI (1992) | SEVEN UP! (1964) | PROMISES (2001) | PUMPING IRON (1977) | PUMPING IRON II: THE WOMEN (1985) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Clouds, nimbus puns and a walk in Northwest Park 01:00 Hunting for the DAZED AND CONFUSED baseball field 02:00 Dana Reilly joins us ahead of her AFS Cinema screening 03:00 Born in New York, raised in London 05:00 Ten years at an American school abroad 06:00 SEVEN UP! and Keith's gateway drug 06:30 Documentaries as classroom: the AV cart and PROMISES 08:00 Brown, media criticism and the idea that video is authored 09:45 Post-college New York and the Washington Post Brand Studio 11:00 The quarter-life crisis that led to UT 11:45 Found it: the DAZED AND CONFUSED field 12:30 Why Wiley Wiggins couldn't pitch 14:30 Why Austin, and why UT's hybrid program 17:00 Falling in love with teaching 17:45 FAVORITE DAUGHTER: the thesis about her mom and grandmother 19:00 COVID, Go-Valley and working with Keith 20:30 Editing the beautiful jumble 22:30 Balancing what an audience wants with what Dana wants 24:30 Medieval LARPers: meet the Vinland Texas Vikings 32:30 Back to FAVORITE DAUGHTER and the odd-couple dynamic 33:30 Sheila Nevins, MTV Documentary Films and Telluride 34:45 The hardest part: connecting with an audience 36:00 The long road of OUR BODY ELECTRIC and teaching in New York 37:30 Setting up OUR BODY ELECTRIC and the Olympia 39:00 One bright light, one concern 40:00 Breathe in before you breathe out 41:00 Throwing to the clip

It's a rainy day in Brooklyn, but it sure felt like the sun was shining—guess that's just the effect that Geeta Gandbhir has on those around her! Geeta is having a big year—she just became the first director ever nominated for both documentary feature and a documentary short Oscars in the same year… the first woman, and woman of color with two same year directing noms, challenging the long-standing status of Walt Disney who pulled that feat off in the animated categories decades ago. But we're talkin' docs here and Geeta made two incredible entries last year with the feature, THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR for Netflix, and the short THE DEVIL IS BUSY for HBO. Keith was bowled-over by THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (produced by Episode 55 guest Alisa Payne) and Geeta shares plenty of behind the scenes details on this singular film. How does a community tragedy in Ocala, Florida become an innovative all-archival film built almost entirely from police bodycam footage? Start with a two-year neighborhood dispute, collect 30 hours of unsynced video, and rely on the talents of editor, Viridiana Lieberman, to figure out a new grammar for 21st-century archival storytelling. No big deal, it just had Keith bawling like a baby, on his second watch, on a plane ride to NYC. No. Big. Deal. We deep-dive, into a moment when a chance encounter with Spike Lee yields a gig on MALCOLM X, sound-room time on Robert Altman's SHORT CUTS, and a mentorship with Sam Pollard that took her from animated to scripted to documentary by way of WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE. There's real advice here for editors turning directors (know every job on set), directors and editors (get a referee), and anyone telling a story about a community that isn't theirs. We dig into the pending merger, the squeeze on buyers, and why going independent was the only way THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR could exist.  Plus: her next project on Whoopi Goldberg, the comic books and the spaghetti-less western, SHOLAY that got her here, and a mention of Harry Belafonte, because why not? We bond over DO THE RIGHT THING and she recommends LA HAINE while we successfully avoid the rain, posting-up on Geeta's Prospect Lefferts Gardens stoop to round out our speed round.  Keith loved this walk, and not just because Geeta is EP'ing his new short doc, MY FIRE ESCAPE (produced by Alisa!). Thank you, Geeta!   DISCUSSION LINKS: THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (2025) | THE DEVIL IS BUSY (2024) | DO THE RIGHT THING (1989) | MALCOLM X (1992) | SHORT CUTS (1993) | SUMMER OF SAM (1999) | WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS (2006) | SHOLAY (1975) | SALAAM BOMBAY! (1988) | LA HAINE (1995) | UNTITLED WHOOPI GOLDBERG DOCUMENTARY (TBD) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Rain in Flatbush, meet Prospect Lefferts Gardens 01:00 Meeting Geeta and how Doc Walks began 02:00 Two Oscar nominations in one year 03:00 Inside the awards campaign 04:00 Sundance 2025 and the festival run 07:00 What a nomination does for viewership 08:00 THE DEVIL IS BUSY and the long short-film rollout 10:00 How THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR began: Ajike Owens 12:00 Organizing in Ocala, and the stand-your-ground fear 13:00 Keith on the Sundance buzz and what the film is 16:00 Bodycams as A-roll 17:00 From media liaison to 30 hours of footage 19:00 A film about patterns that plays like horror 22:00 Why the police never saw Susan as a threat 23:00 When it became a documentary 26:00 Editing with Viridiana Lieberman and staying inside the footage 28:00 B-roll interstitials as the film's style 30:00 Found footage and the surveillance state 31:00 DO THE RIGHT THING as a touchstone 33:00 Stalking Spike Lee and landing on MALCOLM X 36:00 SUMMER OF SAM and hanging up on Spike 37:00 The scripted years: Merchant Ivory and SHORT CUTS 39:00 Sam Pollard and the turn to documentary 40:00 WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE 41:00 What Sam Pollard is like as a mentor 43:00 From editor to director to producer 45:00 Advice for editors who want to direct 47:00 Advice for directors working with new editors 48:00 Storytelling as human connection, and doing it ethically 50:00 Representation and power on your team 53:00 Where the industry is headed: the merger 56:00 The executives on the inside 57:00 A professor's lesson: artists walk the other side of the street 59:00 Going independent with THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR 61:00 The Whoopi Goldberg documentary 64:00 Gateway films: comic books, SHOLAY, DO THE RIGHT THING 66:00 SALAAM BOMBAY! and LA HAINE 68:00 Final thought: lead with the human story 70:00 Goodbye from the stoop

We hit the trail with Austin's own husband-and-wife filmmaking duo, Andrew and Melissa Shea. They've been married for nearly 30 years, partnered on every film they've ever made, and, according to Ben, may be the first couple to pull that off. Andrew's road to filmmaking was wonderfully circuitous. He started as a New York theater kid, passed the bar in two states, ran a regional theater in Santa Fe for eight seasons, and enrolled at USC film school in his 30s. That's where he met Melissa on day one and immediately clashed with her so badly that their TA had to mediate (hence the episode title). Three decades and two kids later, they're still married and still arguing their way toward great movies. We trace the full arc of their filmmaking lives, from the narrative features SANTA FE, THE CORNDOG MAN, and FORFEIT to Andrew's pivot into documentary with PORTRAIT OF WALLY, a 13-year legal thriller about a Nazi-looted painting; WRESTLING ALLIGATORS, centered on a chairman of the Seminole Tribe; and BUZZ, his HBO documentary about journalist Buzz Bissinger's reckoning with Caitlyn Jenner.  Then we arrive at FLAG DAY, Andrew and Melissa's first true co-directing effort, more than a decade in the making. The idea began when they fell in love with Three Oaks, Michigan's self-proclaimed biggest Flag Day parade while spending summers there to escape the Texas heat. Shot with 11 crews during a tense election year, the film is a vérité portrait of a divided community that still finds a way to show up for one another. At its heart is a sunset flag-raising ceremony, scored to Paul Simon's "America," that left the entire crew in tears. Along the way, we dig into what documentary filmmaking borrowed from Andrew's years in the theater, why FLAG DAY is exactly 75 minutes long, and why the Sheas are giving the film away to American Legions and libraries instead of chasing a paycheck. Plus, a Great Dane at Westminster, a mediator nobody wanted to use, and the possibility that FLAG DAY might just become the Rocky Horror of small-town America.   DISCUSSION LINKS: FLAG DAY (2026) | SANTA FE (1997) | THE CORNDOG MAN (1999) | FORFEIT (2007) | PORTRAIT OF WALLY (2012) | WRESTLING ALLIGATORS (2016) | BUZZ (2019) | I'LL BE THERE (2023) | DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) | FLASHDANCE (1983) | THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)

Welcome to the first-ever Doc Walks International! Keith treks to Sweden, to the tiny Baltic island of Fårö, where INGMAR BERGMAN built his creative base. Keith's there shooting for his new documentary, BERGMAN IN DALLAS, about the filmmaker's forgotten 1981 visit to Texas — enjoying an artist's residency at the Bergman Estate. And this journey into the world of Ingmar Bergman brought Keith to this week's guest, Jannike Åhlund, founder of  the Bergman Week festival and chairperson of the Bergman Center, a cultural space and museum here on Fårö. Jannike reflects on time spent with Bergman, going back to her days as a film critic and editor at the Swedish Film Institute's CHAPLIN magazine. And she's got the stories: the convenience-store pitch that birthed Bergman Week, the actual AI chatbot version of Bergman she's had to sit across from, and why "chasing the truth" through Bergman's autobiography is a fool's errand. We dig deep into the making of PERSONA — pitched in a single sentence — plus, why WILD STRAWBERRIES might be his most perfect film, and how the mother/daughter conflict of AUTUMN SONATA hits Jannike hardest, personally. And she lays out why Bergman had almost no direct disciples.  Jannike also opens up about co-directing CITIZEN SCHEIN, her own documentary about Harry Schein, the Holocaust survivor who basically invented Swedish film funding and made Bergman's career a possibility. This episode doubles as a deep dive bit of research for Keith and his doc, and a peek into the life of a cinematic legend; it's a different sort of Doc Walk, and we think you're gonna dig it. Along the way: Ruben Östlund's double Palme d'Or run (TRIANGLE OF SADNESS, THE SQUARE); shoutouts to filmmakers Bo Widerberg, Jan Troell, Lars von Trier, and Joachim Trier; and Jannike's gateway film (hint: it's French, black-and-white, and involves 400 of something). Plus: windmills, thatched-roof hovels, and Swedish sheep.  Next time, we're back stateside with Andrew and Melissa Shea, the husband-and-wife team behind FLAG DAY, a verité portrait of small-town Michigan's biggest party.   DISCUSSION LINKS: SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT (1955) | THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957) | WILD STRAWBERRIES (1957) | THE 400 BLOWS (1959) | THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY (1961) | PERSONA (1966) | THE PASSION OF ANNA (1969) | FÅRÖ DOCUMENT (1970) | AUTUMN SONATA (1978) | FÅRÖ DOCUMENT 1979 (1979) | FANNY AND ALEXANDER (1982) | FORCE MAJEURE (2014) | CITIZEN SCHEIN (2017) | THE SQUARE (2017) | TRIANGLE OF SADNESS (2022) | FLAG DAY (2026) | BERGMAN IN DALLAS (TBD) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Welcome to Fårö — Doc Walks goes international 01:47 Arriving at the Bergman Center with Jannike Åhlund 02:19 Founding the Bergman Center as an offshoot of Göteborg 02:54 From film critic at Chaplin magazine to meeting Bergman 05:01 How Bergman Week began (the convenience-store pitch) 07:37 Bergman's abandoned plan for a film city on Fårö 09:37 The tax scandal and Bergman's self-imposed exile 10:10 Bergman as an autobiographical filmmaker 11:22 Laterna Magica and the "AI Bergman" chatbot 17:17 PERSONA: reinventing himself as an artist 19:49 Scouting Fårö for THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY 20:26 What Fårö is really like (500 people, then 10,000) 22:54 FÅRÖ DOCUMENT, FÅRÖ DOCUMENT 1979, and the island's politics 23:38 Funding Bergman: the Swedish Film Institute and Harry Schein 33:20 Harry Schein, Ingrid Thulin, and CITIZEN SCHEIN 35:33 Co-directing a documentary after a career of criticism 38:07 The gateway drug: THE 400 BLOWS 41:05 Bergman and the French New Wave 42:19 Swedish filmmakers Americans should know (Ruben Östlund and more) 43:32 What to take away from Bergman's career 44:41 Advice for emerging filmmakers 46:29 Teaser: FLAG DAY with Andrew and Melissa Shea

We walk Hyde Park with longtime friends Sam Wainwright Douglas and David Hartstein — the co-directing team behind Blue Suitcase — and it is not a short story. Turns out it started at Slamdance 2006: David was editing ALONG CAME KINKY: TEXAS JEWBOY FOR GOVERNOR and needed an editor who actually knew Texas; Sam had THE HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS: BOUND TO LOSE playing the same festival. One carpetbagger recognizing another, basically. Before teaming up, David quietly built a run as a go-to producer — THE HAPPY POET, a Venice Biennale College Cinema slot for BARRACUDA — while Sam directed and edited on his own path, making CITIZEN ARCHITECT, HONKY TONK HEAVEN: THE LEGEND OF THE BROKEN SPOKE and NONO A DOCUMENTARY, among many others.  Then they finally co-directed together: FADERS UP: THE JOHN AIELLI EXPERIENCE, a loving portrait of the KUT radio legend that started as a short film, went viral off his estate-sale footage, and ended in a standing ovation and an Audience Award at the Paramount during SXSW. From there the pattern holds — a work-for-hire deep dive into Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips (LUV YA BUM!) and a gorgeous, prescient border-art doc, THROUGH THE REPELLENT FENCE, about Postcommodity's two-mile art installation stitching the US and Mexico together. Sam and David break down their "good cop, bad cop" creative rapport, the philosophy of "building consensus" instead of dictating on set, and why work-for-hire gigs can be exactly the thing that funds the passion projects. We close on a lightning round — 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and STOP MAKING SENSE as gateway drugs, fatherhood and AI as the things they can't stop thinking about. Two decades of friendship, a dozen-plus films between them, and they're still bickering like it's day one.

Keith goes coastal this week, walking the foggy cliffs of Point Lobos, California with Bay Area filmmaker Chris Metzler—co-director of PLAGUES AND PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA, EVERYDAY SUNSHINE: THE STORY OF FISHBONE and RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE. Chris and Keith go back to 2008, when they met at the PBS Producers Academy at WGBH, and their cohort reads like a Sundance roll call: S. Leo Chiang, Su Kim, Christine Turner and more. We dig into how a kid from Independence, Missouri who "hated documentaries" got converted by Errol Morris' FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL, picked up a Canon GL1 with his USC dorm-mate Jeff Springer, and spent four years in Final Cut Pro 1 making a comedy about an ecological disaster. Then the twist: a VHS-tape finds its way into the hands of John Waters, and PLAGUES AND PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA finds its voice. Chris breaks down exactly what that narration changed—tone, trust, discoverability, and a cult afterlife that now includes Joe Rogan and John Mulaney thinking it's a Waters film. We also get into the birth of RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE, why co-directing is a relay race (& a play on Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady's "co-directors take-turns" model), and Chris's honest math on client work: independent films don't pay, but "award-winning independent filmmaker" brings clients to the table.  Along the way there are sea birds & sea lions (and barking filmmakers), a check-in with a plein air oil-painter, spotting a legendary Ansel Adams cypress, and enough rocky, coastal views and 65-degree breezes to cool you down no matter where you're tuning in from. Plus: insight into Angelo and Norwood from Fishbone, the early days of the Documentary Channel, and not-enough time spent talking about SFIndiefest and SFDocFest, the festivals that Chris helps program and run. DISCUSSION LINKS: PLAGUES AND PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA (2006) | RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE (2017) | EVERYDAY SUNSHINE: THE STORY OF FISHBONE (2011) | FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL (1997) | BARAKA (1992) | AMERICAN MOVIE (1999) | OKIE NOODLING (2001) | SEVENTEEN (1983) | EYES ON THE PRIZE (1987) | THE EYES OF ME (2009) | A VILLAGE CALLED VERSAILLES (2009) | HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING (2018) | HOMEGOINGS (2013) | AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (2006) | GREMLINS (1984) | FOLKTALES (2025) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Sea otters, selfie sticks and a high-five slate at Point Lobos 00:43 Treasure Island's real coastline (and the guano) 03:00 Meet Chris Metzler 04:05 How we met: the 2008 CPB Producers Academy at WGBH 05:08 Judith Vecchione, Kathy Lo and the ITVS system 06:35 KQED, Truly California and a DIY festival tour 07:50 Keith on PLAGUES AND PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA 09:15 Jeff Springer and the rock-star cohort 12:09 PBS is an amoeba 13:48 Finding a cohort without film school; the Ansel Adams tree 15:41 "I hated documentaries": FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL, BARAKA, AMERICAN MOVIE 16:40 Tom Neff, USC music videos and America's Treasures 18:00 Sonny Bono, a Canon GL1 and 200 festivals 19:42 An extra VHS for Ann Alexander's neighbor 21:12 Strange moss, and what a John Waters narration changes 23:00 Joe Rogan, John Mulaney and the long tail of a cult doc 25:25 Bombay Beach Biennale: the Salton Sea becomes a destination 26:49 Meeting plein air painter Coraly Hanson on the trail 29:57 Painters, patience and the serendipity of RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE 31:50 Thomas Gonzales checks his mail: day five of seven 33:08 Talking to strangers with a camera (and flying like the Unabomber) 34:14 Sea lion call and response 37:03 Why Pacific Grove; Independence, Missouri; business plus film at USC 39:24 Thirty years with Jeff Springer; the traveling-salesman inventor dad (GREMLINS) 41:44 Funding RODENTS: Kickstarter first, ITVS finishing funds, red-state stories 44:59 Co-directing as a relay race; Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady's FOLKTALES 50:04 Client work: nonprofits, motion graphics and charging more as the outsider 53:46 Sagebrush 54:20 EVERYDAY SUNSHINE: THE STORY OF FISHBONE (2010, not 2019) 55:59 Lev Anderson, a rainy night at the Independent, "you must be weird guys" 59:17 Doc Walks becomes Doc Drives 1:00:17 Lessons: overconfident but not overconfident; write the treatment, then forget it 1:02:28 The ITVS application as a rough-cut screening 1:03:50 Gateway drugs: FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL and SEVENTEEN 1:04:36 SF DocFest and a live Doc Walk 1:05:35 Next time: Sam Wainwright Douglas and David Hartstein

We walk with Margaret Brown, director of BE HERE TO LOVE ME, THE ORDER OF MYTHS, THE GREAT INVISIBLE, DESCENDANT, and THE YOGURT SHOP MURDERS, and winner of Peabody, Independent Spirit, SXSW and Sundance awards. She brings along Max Pickle, her nine-year-old wire-haired dachshund, who sets the pace: shade, water, and a hard stop whenever he's done. Margaret's deep in publicity mode on THE YOGURT SHOP MURDERS, her HBO series about the 1991 killing of four teenage girls in North Austin. The series premiered on HBO in May, four episodes became five, and the case was solved just three weeks after the finale. THE YOGURT SHOP MURDERS is screening all week at AFS Cinema, culminating in a special September 3rd screening of Episode 5 featuring a Q&A with detectives from the case, moderated by Richard Linklater. Austin friends, don't miss this one! Margaret's blunt about the cost. She'd sworn off true-crime podcasts while making it. "Raise a toast to murder" felt like a cheap shot. She froze up in her first interview and holds one line firm: she's the filmmaker, not the detective. Ben has a better read. She flipped on a porch light, and everything came to it. Then the craft. How she and DP Justin Zweifach built a neon color language out of TWIN PEAKS and DRIVE without letting style flatten the families' honesty. Nobody had asked her about that until now. How A24 paid for crew therapy, a first in her career. How Claire, the UT student who tried to tell this story twenty years earlier, became her secret weapon and the show's spine. Ben traces the line from BE HERE TO LOVE ME through THE ORDER OF MYTHS, THE GREAT INVISIBLE and DESCENDANT, heavy places and buried histories, and Margaret resists the tidy version. This one was different, and she didn't know what she was signing up for. Then the Austin part. She and Pamela Colloff met at Brown and moved here in the '90s because they knew everyone at Emo's and could eat for a dollar at Quack's. Pam's "96 MINUTES" became TOWER, and Margaret's push over a 2012 lunch is why Keith made it at all. Margaret also talks about learning to wait for the thing to happen, and finding her own way into filmmaking at a midnight screening of SHADOWS during a New York heat wave, thinking: I have friends. We could film that. Plus: a stranger yells something unprintable, and it nearly becomes the episode title.   DISCUSSION LINKS: THE YOGURT SHOP MURDERS (2025) | BE HERE TO LOVE ME (2004) | THE ORDER OF MYTHS (2008) | THE GREAT INVISIBLE (2014) | DESCENDANT (2022) | TOWER (2016) | SHADOWS (1959) | SLACKER (1990) | DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993) | TWIN PEAKS (1990) | DRIVE (2011)   TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Meet Max Pickle 00:47 Ben's Freaks and Geeks era 01:51 Keith's fake film-student music videos 02:26 A stranger yells the episode title 04:15 Late July, and deep in publicity mode 05:36 Why she said no to true-crime podcasts 07:20 "I'm the filmmaker, not the detective" 07:53 Into Casa de Luz 08:01 Claire, the filmmaker who came first 10:35 Four episodes became five 10:53 The case gets solved 11:14 Flipping on the porch light 12:20 A cloud over four accused teenagers 13:38 Secret weapon, and the meta narrative 15:17 The Innocence Project scene 16:36 Justin Zweifach and shooting grief 17:28 Pam Colloff's dare 18:15 TWIN PEAKS and the footage 19:24 Color theory and neon beer signs 22:08 Wiseman: it's still 100% fake 23:22 The body of work, film by film 25:32 Why this one was different 26:32 A24 pays for crew therapy 26:59 "This is the last interview I have to do" 28:01 Celebrities on the trail 28:44 Recognized at the Impact Partners party 30:01 No separation from the work 31:10 When strangers bring you their grief 32:04 Pam Colloff and CATCH THE DEVIL 33:29 Brown, Emo's, and moving to Austin 34:38 Quack's, and old cheap Austin 35:10 The man who cleaned the yogurt shop 36:56 Keith's very old tattoo 37:20 Texas Monthly, and 96 MINUTES 38:31 There would be no TOWER without you 40:13 Lee Daniel, and dating your cinematographer 42:46 Diane Weyermann and Participant 44:19 A weird moment for the industry 45:18 How a project starts now 47:44 Commercials, favors, and paying people 50:18 The BE HERE TO LOVE ME edit Ben walked away from 51:34 The haunted post-production office 52:30 BE HERE TO LOVE ME, re-released 53:17 NYU, her dad, and the animating question 55:41 Bergman, van Gogh, and the cost of an artful life 59:18 Is there a through line? 1:03:14 The guests we still can't book 1:06:17 Improv, and deep listening 1:07:31 Gateway drug: Cassavetes' SHADOWS 1:10:07 A dream collaborator, declined 1:12:00 Where to watch, and AFS on September 3 1:13:10 Next time: Doc Walks International

Keith walks Hyde Park—with a detour into & across the Hancock Golf Course—with LA's Gene Gallerano.  An East Dallas kid raised on the humanities and Poor David's Pub, Gene's an actor-turned-producer-turned-Emmy-winning director, fresh off multiple wins at the Waco FF for THANK YOU FOR LISTENING, his Texas Monthly short about country singer Joshua Ray Walker. The origin story is a rom-com: Gene boards a flight, spots Joshua Ray, and talks to him for seven hours straight—true love at 30,000 feet. Then… nothing. 3 ½ months later, the text: Joshua Ray was diagnosed with cancer, off the road for eight months—do you still want to make something? No money, no camera, no crew. But Gene is all in. He builds a set in the loft at his mom's house, recruits Austin doc-maker Bob Ray to co-direct, and shoots the doc on his late friend Ross McDonnell's camera gear—"just don't change any of his settings, it'll feel like we have him." From there we work the whole map: moving to the East Village at 19, studying theater under Austin Pendleton, and turning a rejected-everywhere $13,000 "thin feature" — featuring Meryl Streep & Philip Seymour Hoffman among others—into a 19-minute short that premiered at Tribeca: STARRING AUSTIN PENDLETON. Talking his way into hurricane zones with a camera. Producing AMERICAN SYMPHONY with Matt Heineman. And holding the boom for hours in COVID ICUs on THE FIRST WAVE, steadying himself on the repetition of his daughter's favorite lyrics: "a tale as old as time, Beauty and the Beast.". Plus: a first-ever DocWalks golf swing on a borrowed club, the broads of the East Village, Reed Birney and the break that came at 57, and the advice that sticks—if you have time to worry, you have time to work. DISCUSSION LINKS: THANK YOU FOR LISTENING (2026) | AMERICAN SYMPHONY (2023) | THE FIRST WAVE (2021) | STARRING AUSTIN PENDLETON (2016) | THE EYES OF ME (2009) | HELL ON WHEELS (2007) | COOL HAND LUKE (1967) | DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993) | THE DOORS (1991) | BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 First Light Books and a Hyde Park morning 01:09 Meet Gene Gallerano — best projects start in an alley 01:40 THE EYES OF ME and the wedding-table origin story 04:49 A man on the move: Dallas, and Waco Film Festival wins 05:36 Love at 30,000 feet: meeting Joshua Ray Walker 06:56 Ghosted — then the text that changed everything 07:18 Fresh off producing AMERICAN SYMPHONY 08:34 Put yourself in the corner: no money, no camera, no crew 10:13 Star-crossed lovers and the circle of confusion 11:42 Stepping behind the director's chair from a distance 12:20 Building a set in the loft above mom's bed 13:58 The pitch begins with your subject and continues with your crew 16:18 Ross McDonnell's camera: "don't change any of his settings" 18:54 A three-string guitar from a pawn shop 19:06 Every crew member had lost someone to cancer 20:27 The material defines the length: thin features 20:50 STARRING AUSTIN PENDLETON — Streep, Hoffman, and $13,000 24:06 The secret iMovie recut that made Tribeca 25:56 Beat away with a baseball bat — "oh, is he still here?" 26:43 Dayton and the wisdom of just showing up 27:41 East Dallas, Poor David's Pub, and a house full of humanities 29:46 New York at 19: landing in the East Village 31:05 The broads of the East Village 33:23 A first-ever golf swing on the Hancock course 35:47 Classic Stage Company: the North Star on 13th Street 36:20 Studying with Austin Pendleton at HB Studio 38:17 Ivanov with Ethan Hawke — standing on the North Star stage 39:07 Acting: the great impossibility 41:50 The Polish restlessness — done asking permission 42:49 Talking his way into disaster zones 44:22 What rebuilding reveals about people 46:01 THE FIRST WAVE: holding the boom in COVID ICUs 48:33 Tale as old as time 50:35 Nuts and bolts: skitter-scatter brains 52:54 Hybrid films and never overstaying your welcome 53:44 Collaboration, Bob Ray, and HELL ON WHEELS 55:43 The Nonfiction Hot List says yes 57:50 Texas Monthly comes aboard 59:06 If you build it, they will come 1:00:00 Lightning round: DAZED AND CONFUSED meets THE DOORS 1:00:20 COOL HAND LUKE, a perfect film 1:01:33 Advice: if you have time to worry, you have time to work 1:02:16 Reed Birney and the break that came at 57 1:03:32 Next time: Margaret Brown

We were supposed to be in Central Park. We are not. It's raining so we're in Penny Lane's apartment, shoes off, with a cat named Luna auditioning for the role of "the action," and Flaco the Owl on the TV behind us. So much for a walking show. Penny's deep in what she calls PR season for WILD INSIDE, her new HBO doc about the Eurasian eagle-owl who broke out of the Central Park Zoo in 2023 and spent a year as the most photographed bird in New York. Then she tells us she barely shot it. A volunteer army of Central Park bird photographers had already amassed infinite footage, so Penny's crew went back and shot the reverse angles — Flaco's POV of the people watching Flaco — and rebuilt a whole year of seasons to match. "I don't think anyone understands that we just weren't there all the time." We go long on money and fear. Eight features in, a ninth half-funded, and her first thought is the tenth. That festivals and awards absolutely do matter, whatever people tell you. That this is her worst financial year and she has a hit, simultaneously. Plus: NUTS! and the Kansas goat-testicle doctor, cornering the cool dad market, the grad school shoot where Ben watched the levels all night and recorded nothing, Letterboxd as the only proof anyone's watching, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP as the film that taught her to make one movie for the 1% and the 99% at once, dirty fuel versus the clean kind — and the thing she can't stop thinking about, which is how much of the internet is just bots talking to bots. DISCUSSION LINKS: WILD INSIDE (2026) | CONFESSIONS OF A GOOD SAMARITAN (2023) | LISTENING TO KENNY G (2021) | HAIL SATAN? (2019) | NUTS! (2016) | OUR NIXON (2013) | EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (2010) | TARNATION (2003) | THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (2025) | MARY OLIVER: SAVED BY THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD (2026) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 We were supposed to be outside 01:15 Introducing Penny Lane 01:23 PR season for WILD INSIDE 02:02 Lynn, Massachusetts and the city of sin 02:58 Newbury Comics and finding culture pre-internet 04:04 NUTS! and the Kansas goat-testicle doctor 05:43 Cornering the cool dad market 07:16 Kindles, hardbacks, and a book a day 08:51 Podcasts ate her reading and her music 10:48 Grad school at UT Austin with Naiti Gamez 11:33 The shoot where she recorded no sound 14:08 Meeting Gabriel Sedgwick and building a crew 16:52 A year spent arranging the art wall 18:40 Competing with the entire Seinfeld catalog 20:00 Four Kenny G albums before a hit 20:50 When did movies become a prestige art form 22:39 The future of documentary, and why AI can't do it 23:42 Nobody knows your movie is out 24:39 The broadcast era is kaput 25:58 Hunting for her own film on Netflix 28:20 Eight features, a ninth half-funded, already worried about the tenth 30:24 Festivals and awards do matter 31:05 Who paid whom to release the movie 32:40 Not a business, a calling 33:39 The only reward is getting to do the work 34:34 Williams, Hampshire, Colgate, tenure — then quitting 36:07 Dirty fuel and the clean kind 37:40 Stay in shape, paddle out, catch the wave 38:48 Letterboxd as the only feedback loop 41:25 iMovie, mini DV, and TARNATION 44:02 Why she doesn't care what camera it's shot on 45:14 How WILD INSIDE was built from birders' footage 47:18 Shooting the reverse angles 48:46 Rebuilding a year of seasons 50:54 Jeremy finds Flaco first 52:08 How a project actually starts 53:10 Donating a kidney before there was a film 55:45 The film as an imprint of a life 58:13 A hit movie in her worst financial year 59:32 Why a filmmaker runs a Substack 1:02:27 Geeta Gandbhir and THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR 1:04:19 Advice: do what you can do right now 1:05:22 EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, the gateway drug 1:06:30 One movie for the 1% and the 99% 1:08:31 Lightning round: is anyone on the internet real 1:09:35 Next time, we actually walk

Ben walks the lake at Mueller with David Liu—director, editor, producer, composer, and until 2024, an AI engineer. Fifteen-plus years in hardware, software, product design and machine learning, and then generative AI showed up and he decided he didn't want his name on where it was going. So he went looking for the one medium the technology can't enter without destroying it… documentary filmmaking. Here's the crazy part - he never wanted to be a filmmaker. He wanted to score films. A friend pointed out that nobody can stop you from composing your own movie, which meant he now had to go find a story worth telling. Enter Covid, four Austin restaurants and one pandemic. Seventeen shooting days spread across four years. Four years of grant pitches where everyone told him TO BE SEEN was impossible: four subjects, non-linear, no way. He shot it with almost no lighting, no rehearsals, and a rule about never overstaying his welcome, because the second take is where the artifice creeps in. Fiore Tedesco of L'Oca d'Oro handed him the title in the first sit-down, "you don't need a restaurant to eat, you need a restaurant to be seen." Plus a three-hour interview that became the spine of the film. Then the assembly came back all talking heads, and he sat stuck for a full year, thinking he had made a huge mistake. What unstuck him was filming  chefs mushroom-hunting in the Pacific Northwest. That short—HIDDEN STORIES–FORAGED AND FOUND—went to DOC NYC, two hundred people went dead silent, and he had his formula. Plus: cashing out the retirement account to finish, and finding out at the premiere— sitting next to chefs who had never seen a frame—that the thing is actually good. DISCUSSION LINKS: TO BE SEEN (2026) | HIDDEN STORIES–FORAGED AND FOUND (2024) | VALLEY UPRISING (2014) | FREE SOLO (2018) | CHEF'S TABLE (2015) | FIRE OF LOVE (2022) | THE FIRE WITHIN: A REQUIEM FOR KATIA AND MAURICE KRAFFT (2024) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Sync, sync—and a thesis: "my job is to discover the answers" 00:22 Your job as an artist is to pose the question 00:40 Fifteen, twenty years of engineering, and a pretty big gamble 01:00 Riley, cue the music — David Liu, ladies and gentlemen 01:30 Toasty and muggy: Mueller, the lake, and the ducks 02:00 To Be Seen, four Austin restaurants, and the AFS Cinema premiere 02:40 The Bullock on the 13th, Austin Public on the 14th 03:00 L'Oca d'Oro, Foreign & Domestic, LeRoy and Lewis, Pho Craft 03:30 "I never tried to get into filmmaking" 03:55 A terrible idea: just make your own film and score it 04:20 A calling card for a production company that didn't exist yet 05:00 Failing at pop songs, accidentally good at scoring to picture 05:45 Play every instrument badly — that's a composer 06:40 Hoping for narrative, and what the industry decided instead 07:15 Hardware to software to product design to AI 08:00 2018, and a career that started taking off 08:30 The gut says hedge: what if it goes wrong? 09:00 Looking for the most opposite thing, and finding documentary 09:40 Use AI in a doc and it's no longer a doc 10:20 What he didn't like about where doc was going 10:40 Too lit, too rehearsed, too formulaic 11:00 Chasing celebrity, crime, cults — the three Cs 11:20 Four years of grant pitches: "you're breaking all the rules" 11:45 No lighting, high verite, nothing rehearsed 11:55 Seventeen shooting days over four years 12:10 Don't overstay your welcome — the guttural first reaction 12:50 Quitting in 2024, and watching how people were using it 13:20 Conference talks, reputation, and a better use of storytelling 14:00 Deep fakes, meme manipulation, and the removal of autonomy 14:40 "I got into this for curing cancer and weather predictions" 15:00 Teach it to desalinate water, not to make our paintings 15:45 If it's automatable and nobody likes doing it — perfect 16:20 Cost, displacement, and who's to blame when it goes wrong 17:30 "We can save money by removing jobs." You're looking at it wrong 18:30 The layoffs start, and the writing was on the wall in early '23 19:00 Reading the 10-Ks: something ain't mathing 19:40 The better question — what would I regret not doing? 20:40 Burning the entire retirement account 20:55 Films will probably outlast every tech company 21:45 "Everybody says I'm wrong. What if I just try?" 22:00 Herzog, and the two volcano docs about the same subject 22:45 Stopping at the water — L'Oca d'Oro is right over there 23:00 The lockdown steps where he started writing music again 23:30 Fifteen years since he'd touched it. It's not great, but it's there 24:00 How do you shoot a documentary? YouTube 24:15 Cashing out in 2023, and never planning to direct this 24:50 Late '22: an LLC, some gear, and the pieces of a company 26:00 Product design, problem-solving, and "everybody says it's impossible" 26:35 What a restaurant symbolizes for a community 27:20 Non-linear time, the thing they said would never work 28:00 He thought it was a 30-minute episode 28:15 First interview you're wrong, second you're on a bigger story 29:00 If I don't tell it, this gets lost to time 29:30 An introvert asks why he even goes to a restaurant 29:50 Fiore's line: you need a restaurant to be seen 30:10 COVID takes the thing away — the existential test 31:00 Snowpocalypse, Valentine's Day, and what we've chosen to forget 32:40 Processing the collective trauma, and a worldwide audience 33:00 The real subject: how we, the patrons, changed 33:20 Less patient, less personal, more hyperindividual 33:50 Why nobody wants to go to a theater anymore 34:00 Thaison Nguyen of Pho Craft saw the insularity coming 35:45 Fine dining chefs, a precarious moment, and the ask 36:20 Authenticity goes both ways 36:50 No rehearsing, no fabricated emotional places 37:45 The interview style changes halfway through the film 38:00 Sitting down in 2020, standing in their space by 2022 38:30 An assembly of pure talking heads, and a full year stuck 39:00 A trip across the country, and matsutake in the snow 39:50 Accidentally handheld, the entire time 40:00 Mic'd under the vent hood in the loudest place possible 40:20 Hidden Stories–Foraged and Found goes to DOC NYC 40:40 Two hundred people, dead silent. That's the formula 41:10 And then the last two subjects said yes 42:00 Standing in front of L'Oca d'Oro 42:45 "Oh — you did that to make it through?" 42:50 Fiore Tedesco, and philosophy through restaurant ownership 43:50 A three-hour interview becomes the spine of the film 44:20 It's not what's on the plate, it's what's not on the plate 44:30 One restaurant wins a Michelin star. One goes out of business 45:00 Chef's Table, Bourdain, and the lens nobody else has used 45:30 Adam Orman, and a calling card for the working class 45:40 Brain drain: the institutional knowledge that walked out 46:30 The worst thing you can do — not showing them until the premiere 47:20 Restaurants play music, and restaurants are loud 47:40 Ninety percent of the sync audio, stripped 47:50 Rebuilding the entire kitchen with Soundcrafter, mixed in Atmos 48:40 Did you make the film you set out to make? 48:50 "If it's not good, I'll go back to tech." It's good 49:00 Now the distribution rules are being rewritten 49:50 Self-distributing, and selling the partnership instead of the film 50:10 Supper club screenings, and making it an event 50:30 The restaurants showed up, and got to be the heroes 50:55 Lightning round 51:00 The gateway drug was climbing films 51:15 Valley Uprising, Sender Films, and actually climbing in Yosemite 52:00 Chef's Table, Alinea, and eating at the restaurant afterward 52:50 Herzog, Ken Burns, and the rungs of documentary 53:40 You never hear his voice — but the editing changes 54:00 The Pho Craft reveal: the painting is in his apartment 55:20 Not everything lasts, and it still can be beautiful 56:00 Advice: do it, and don't follow the rules 56:30 Pathfinding, and why "nobody knows" is the right place to be 57:30 Documentary got too safe 58:00 What he can't stop thinking about: the new normal 58:30 No income, and an industry eating itself alive 59:00 Attention spans, plasticity, and how we adapt 59:50 Asking all the right questions 1:00:00 tobeseenfilm.com, @tobeseenfilm, and Narriforge

When Hisko Hulsing is in town, you grab your camera & mic, and hit the trail, ready to court controversy with the best oil-painting animator this side of the Netherlands. Hisko is the wild artist that doc-maker Brett Morgen trusted to paint the inside of Kurt Cobain's head for MONTAGE OF HECK. He's a director who's marshalled the talents of dozens of artists over multiple years to bring HARRY RENTS A ROOM (1999), SEVENTEEN (2003), and JUNKYARD (2012) to life. He's known for his uniform black shirts, his loose brush strokes, and his penchant to speak his mind… Keith and Hisko are two of the only roto-animation directors working in docs and that's not all they share: they've both collab'd with Austin-animation studio Minnow Mountain, and both have TV projects with BOJACK HORSEMAN producers Tornante. It's through Tornante that Hisko and Keith met, years ago, on the set of Amazon's UNDONE. Back when Hisko was —his words— in a panic. Flying between LA and Amsterdam and back again, directing Rosa Salazar and Bob Odenkirk live on a green screen taped-off like Lars Von Trier's DOGVILLE, then going home to tirelessly train ten painters to work in oil, in his personal style, Hisko's UNDONE was almost his own undoing. Three cities, a 17th-century atelier, and a show built on interdimensionality and ambiguity — he pitched the showrunners the dream sequences from ROSEMARY'S BABY and lived up to the premise.  He takes us back to his own relationship to art and psychosis: in Amsterdam, taking-up weed at age twelve, a grow operation at fifteen, skipping every class except philosophy and drawing, and hallucinating the world "in an oil painted manner." A journeyman animator/filmmaker, everything changed when JUNKYARD went viral and a cold email arrived from Brett Morgen. Suddenly he had four months to make what had taken him nearly six years. Sixty oil paintings, a team of collaborators, and a house of cards that crashed around him before finally winning-over Courtney Love and Frances Bean Cobain with his hand-painted efforts to bring an icon into sharp, re-imagined relief.  And now, today. In the face of conflict and controversy: DANSE MACABRE (2026), his new short that just premiered at Annecy to… protests, walk-outs and a vocal minority boo-ing. Hisko tells his side of the story—how DANSE MACABRE came to life and how a guild-led protest over his use of a self-trained AI shader sparked an international dialogue about AI tools that is still unfolding. When they announced his name, lost in the cacophony of boos and loud walk-outs, Hisko said, "thank you and f**k you," offering his dissenters his middle finger. This one's complicated. Hisko thinks he's gotten a bum deal from out of touch "purists" who don't know the difference between AI, machine learning, and indie filmmakers making their best work in new ways. He also believes that OpenAI should be forced to fund every artist it scraped. This is new territory… and the conversation is just beginning—Hisko wants your honest review. Plus: why animation is an opportunity to dream, not a way to cover the bald spots in your doc, and shoutouts to animator Craig Staggs (TOWER & UNDONE), Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Peter Bogdanovich, and Pink Floyd. DISCUSSION LINKS: JUNKYARD (2012) | LAST HIJACK (2014) | COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK (2015) | UNDONE (2019) | THE SANDMAN (2022) | DANSE MACABRE (2026) | THE MAKING OF DANSE MACABRE (2026) | THE EYES OF ME (2009) | TOWER (2016) | THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE (2002) | CHICAGO 10 (2008) | WAKING LIFE (2001) | SLACKER (1990) | DOGVILLE (2003) | ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968) | THE TENANT (1976) | REPULSION (1965) | KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962) | CHINATOWN (1974) | WALTZ WITH BASHIR (2008) | PINK FLOYD: THE WALL (1982) | FANTASIA (1940) | BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997) | INHERENT VICE (2014) | ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (2019)

Spark up a big cigar with Ben and filmmaker David Alvarado in honor of  Luis Valdez, the central figure in Alvarado's new film AMERICAN PACHUCO (playing Austin's Cine Las Américas). A Dallas kid turned Brooklyn doc-maker, David found his calling twice: once when LA BAMBA (1987) showed him a Chicano family reaching the American dream, and again when a college cinéma-vérité class screened A TIME FOR BURNING (1966), which blew the medium wide open for him. We trace the whole arc—from a high-school dropout turned straight-A student at the University of North Texas, to the Stanford MFA where David partnered with Jason Sussberg and built Structure Films. Then there's the science trilogy: THE IMMORTALISTS (their $400K-and-ramen first feature), BILL NYE: SCIENCE GUY (a record-smashing Kickstarter, now in the Library of Congress), and WE ARE AS GODS, the Stewart Brand doc that was spun into an eight-hour Audible series.  But right now, we're puffing smoke about AMERICAN PACHUCO, a tribute to a personal hero—Luis Valdez, the playwright behind ZOOT SUIT and LA BAMBA. The doc won the U.S. Audience Award at Sundance this year amid ICE-raid headlines, and David makes the case that the Chicano story is the American story—right down to the cigar in our hands, pure American tobacco the Maya smoked before Columbus set foot on these shores. This one goes deep (to the indigenous root) as we hit the trail and take hits on these stogies with Sundance-winner David Alvarado.   DISCUSSION LINKS: AMERICAN PACHUCO: THE LEGEND OF LUIS VALDEZ (2026) | THE IMMORTALISTS (2014) | BILL NYE: SCIENCE GUY (2017) | WE ARE AS GODS (2021) | LA BAMBA (1987) | ZOOT SUIT (1981) | A TIME FOR BURNING (1966) | TRUE CONVICTION (2017) | OFF THE CHARTS: THE SONG-POEM STORY (2003) | THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS (2007) | HORRIBLE BOSSES (2011) | FOUR CHRISTMASES (2008) | SALESMAN (1969) | PRIMARY (1960) | PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002) | YOUNG GUNS (1988) | I AM BIG BIRD: THE CAROLL SPINNEY STORY (2015)  TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Cigars, sugar-cane tips & "espresso parenting" 03:27 Meet David Alvarado & AMERICAN PACHUCO 04:20 Who is Luis Valdez? (LA BAMBA, ZOOT SUIT) 08:57 Meeting Valdez in college & founding Texas Filmmakers 09:32 Dropping out at 17 11:42 PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE wakes him up 13:10 North Lake to UNT — straight A's 14:15 A TIME FOR BURNING & the vérité awakening 16:51 Ben's own awakening: SALESMAN 18:34 Walking Mabel Davis Park 19:20 THE IMMORTALISTS & the Stanford years 26:20 Aubrey de Grey, Bill Andrews & the longevity gamble 28:49 Hot Docs, Big Bird & "the Big Bird of science" 29:52 Finding Bill Nye 33:29 Seth Gordon, Jamie Meltzer & TRUE CONVICTION 34:22 OFF THE CHARTS: THE SONG-POEM STORY 35:35 "Goddammit, Tony!" — a filmmaker on the trail 38:39 The record-breaking BILL NYE Kickstarter 41:56 WE ARE AS GODS, Stewart Brand & Stripe 46:34 Pandemic pivots: kids, Brooklyn & the Audible series 49:55 Back to AMERICAN PACHUCO & Luis Valdez 51:19 Belonging, the Chicano story & indigenous roots 54:49 Cigars, Che, Castro & pure American tobacco 57:41 Funding the film: PBS, Ford, the grant road 59:47 Sundance, the Audience Award & the ICE-raid moment 01:04:46 Lightning round & advice to young filmmakers 01:11:03 Next time: Hisko Hulsing

We walk Austin's Boggy Creek Trail with acclaimed memoirist Lauren Hough — from a childhood spent in a cult to Air Force vet to ex-cable technician; and now, she's the writer whose viral essay about fixing people's cable got read 8 million times in a single weekend. Lauren's backstory is so enormous it usually eats a whole interview: she grew up in the Children of God, got run out of the military under Don't Ask Don't Tell (they torched her car), flipped a coin between Atlanta and DC, and told dumb cable-guy stories at the Iron Bear until one of them turned into a book. That book, LEAVING ISN'T THE HARDEST THING, made her a New York Times bestseller and got Cate Blanchett to narrate the audiobook — and, yes, she brought Cate to the Iron Bear. Now book two, MONSTER OF A LAND, is days from release and Lauren is, in her words, throwing up about it. We get into the terror of the follow-up, why she loaded her very cute dog Woody Guthrie into a Dodge van and drove the country like Steinbeck's TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY, and what she actually found out there — not the screaming internet, but hunters in Georgia helping a stranger find a campsite and neighbors defending neighbors when ICE rolled into Minneapolis. Along the way: the cult was boring (too many guitars, bad Bob Dylan rip-offs, one paragraph of hard-won Civil War research), the octagon on the White House lawn is sponsored by Monster Energy, and the cure for all of it might just be to log off and go hang out. Plus: worry monsters in a little free library, why she can't stop muttering about that octagon, and why chasing one good sentence feels like a serial killer chasing a high. DISCUSSION LINKS: MONSTER OF A LAND (2026) | LEAVING ISN'T THE HARDEST THING (2021) | TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY (1962) | CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS (2003) | SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952) | IDIOCRACY (2006) | THE CIVIL WAR (1990) | KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL (2000) | EDUCATED (2018) | THE SLIP (2025) | CATCH THE DEVIL (2026) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Becoming the podcast people they used to heckle at the Iron Bear 01:48 Your family's not gonna read your book 04:05 Meet Lauren Hough, and the David Sedaris comparison 05:06 The cult, the military, and Don't Ask Don't Tell 08:33 They torched my car — getting out and landing in DC 15:37 The cable guy essay that 8 million people read 16:31 Bringing Cate Blanchett to the Iron Bear 18:40 Why nonfiction, and modeling the book on Travels with Charley 21:04 Capturing the Friedmans and stories that take a U-turn 24:20 "I remember needing to pee" — the detail that unlocks an essay 29:27 The cult was boring: diapers, Singin' in the Rain, bad Bob Dylan 32:32 Second-book terror (and throwing up) 33:57 Woody Guthrie, the Dodge van, and no Subaru sponsorship 36:00 Texas Highways vs. the conversations she actually wanted 39:17 What she found on the road: kindness, Minneapolis, Georgia hunters 41:38 Log off and go hang out — screens broke our brains 42:05 The AI fight: her brother, ChatGPT, and what actually matters 44:37 Nine months in Durham where nobody pet the dog 46:18 Boggy Creek Trail — stick libraries and worry monsters 49:00 Between therapists, courtesy of the VA 50:44 There's an octagon on the White House lawn (it's Idiocracy) 52:07 The Fox News callback from the cable essay 54:08 Lightning round: Bourdain as the gateway drug 55:42 Advice for writers, and Austin's book crew 59:29 Pop-Tarts, and a great place to end