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Doc Walks

Ben Steinbauer & Keith Maitland

Documentary filmmakers, Keith Maitland (TOWER, DEAR MR BRODY) and Ben Steinbauer (WINNEBAGO MAN, CHOP & STEELE), host this lively walk & talk podcast featuring conversations with today's best non-fiction storytellers. DocWalks takes the conversation to the street (or nature trail), offering candid insight into the art & industry of documentary filmmaking for an audience of emerging filmmakers and doc-lovers alike.

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  • 20 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 1 hr 1 min
  • English

Episodes 20

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  • S1 · E67
    Thursday · 1 hr 8 min

    EP067 - Flip On the Porch Light w/ Margaret Brown

    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

  • S1 · E66
    August 20 · 1 hr 4 min

    EP066 - Tale as Old as Time w/ Gene Gallerano

    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

  • S1 · E65
    August 13 · 1 hr 11 min

    EP065 - I Don't Get Served My Own Movies w/ Penny Lane

    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

  • S1 · E64
    August 6 · 1 hr 1 min

    EP064 - You Don't Need a Restaurant to Eat w/ David Liu

    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

  • S1 · E63
    July 30 · 1 hr 5 min

    EP063 - The Edge of Psychosis w/ Hisko Hulsing

    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 fuck 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)

  • S1 · E62
    July 23 · 1 hr 12 min

    EP062: Back To The Root w/ David Alvarado

    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

  • S1 · E61
    July 16 · 1 hr 1 min

    EP061 - Log Off and Hang Out w/ Lauren Hough

    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

  • S1 · E60
    July 9 · 1 hr 5 min

    EP060 - Angels Watching Over Me w/ Ya'Ke Smith

    Take a spirited walk though East Austin, Black History, and the Texas State Cemetery with filmmaker, educator, and self-described activist-artist Ya'Ke Smith—on Juneteenth week, no less. We kick off our walk under a Moonlight Tower and basically never stop moving: past Franklin Barbecue (pour one out for the old Ben's Barbecue), over to the Victory Grill, and into a cash-deal for some Bass Reeves-inspired street art. Ya'Ke walks Keith through CYCLES OF RESILIENCE, his new doc chasing a Juneteenth bike ride across Austin's erased and revitalized Black landmarks. We get into JUNETEENTH: FAITH AND FREEDOM, his PBS doc, and the role of an activist and an artist in search of community. Ya'Ke explains why he refuses the "documentary filmmaker" label, because "film is film" of course—thank you, Agnes Varda. And it's only fitting that our wander into the Texas State Cemetery (a DocWalks first) becomes the backdrop for a discussion on the spiritual side of filmmaking and how Ya'Ke's new hybrid short ANGELS WATCHING OVER ME grew out of Paula White's "African angels" prayer for Trump and the gutting of DEI on his own campus. Angels, maybe ghosts… and graveside visits with Stephen F. Austin (father of Texas), Sarah Weddington (Roe v. Wade), Bill Witliff (Lonesome Dove screenwriter), Barbara Jordan (legislative pioneer), and Cedric Benson (Longhorns legend) serve to remind us what matters as artists, and storytellers revealing untold histories and creating opportunities for empathy. Ya'Ke and Keith cover a lot of territory landing with the former's origin story: as an 11-year-old in San Antonio watching BOYZ N THE HOOD and knowing, right then, that movie-making was the way. Plus: 4000 Black Juneteenth liberators, ideas that "impregnate" you until you birth them, the spiritual battle Ya'Ke thinks we're all fighting, inspiration via Ernest Dickerson's 10-minute storyboards on THE DEUCE, and why—even in despair—you've got to find the joy. His advice for filmmakers? In the words of Nike: just do it. DISCUSSION LINKS: CYCLES OF RESILIENCE (2026) | JUNETEENTH: FAITH AND FREEDOM (2022) | WOLF (2012) | ANGELS WATCHING OVER ME (2026) | THE OHIO, TEXAS REMIX (2025) | BOYZ N THE HOOD (1991) | WHEN THEY SEE US (2019) | THE DEUCE (2017) | TOWER (2016) | THE MS. PAT SHOW (2021) | LONESOME DOVE (1989) | BARBAROSA (1982) | RED HEADED STRANGER (1986) | THE PERFECT STORM (2000) | HONEYSUCKLE ROSE (1980) | THE BLACK STALLION (1979) | THE THIRD MAN (1949) | THE LONG GOODBYE (1973) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Walking into Rosewood, East Austin 02:33 Meet Ya'Ke Smith 02:45 Cycles of Resilience and the East 11th mural 04:52 I-35, redlining and the 1928 master plan 08:07 Shooting a bike ride: three cameras, a drone and GoPros 14:30 The Victory Grill 16:45 Meeting artist Marshall Fabella and his Bass Reeves painting 19:52 Agnes Varda and "film is film" 20:39 Refusing the label, and directing The Ms. Pat Show 22:58 Into the Texas State Cemetery 28:05 Bill Wittliff, Sarah Weddington and Barbara Jordan 31:08 Rewriting history, book bans and the university 33:34 Angels Watching Over Me and Paula White's "African angels" 40:10 Wolf and the power of the room (thank you, Barbara Kopple) 44:21 Juneteenth: Faith and Freedom 47:40 Finding joy in the despair 48:45 Ideas that impregnate you 50:08 The gateway drug: Boyz n the Hood 52:58 Buying the Bass Reeves painting 54:09 Advice for filmmakers: just do it 55:40 Creighton Gerst, Super 8 and self-editing 58:09 Dream collaborators: Max Richter, Bradford Young, Ernest Dickerson 01:00:25 The mural, the Masons and community 01:04:39 Next time on Doc Walks

  • S1 · E59
    June 25 · 41 min

    EP059 - Don't Listen to Me About Anything w/ Isaac Gale

    We hit the streets of South by Southwest with Isaac Gale—director, artist, and one-half of the Minneapolis noise outfit Marijuana Deathsquads, in town to play the fest with his band. Isaac's the kind of guy who'd rather break a piece of software than master it, and that restless, try-anything energy runs through everything he makes. We wind through Ben's old neighborhood and retrace how the two first met—around WINNEBAGO MAN, which Isaac's partner JoLynn Garnes cut an early version of—then dig into SWAMP DOGG GETS HIS POOL PAINTED, the gloriously weird doc Isaac co-directed with the famously camera-shy Ryan Olson. It premiered at South by in 2024 and got scooped up by Magnolia Pictures for a theatrical run. We trace the whole origin story: a cold call to Ryan's label (Totally Gross National Product), a 2017 trip to shoot one sad music video, and a house so perfect—Swamp Dogg, Moogstar, and Guitar Shorty living together like a psychedelic Brady Bunch—that they never wanted to leave. The pool getting painted becomes the anchor, so everything else (Mike Judge, Johnny Knoxville, Tom Kenny, a blink-and-you-miss-it Yo La Tengo cameo) gets to be as chaotic as it wants. Isaac walks us through the hand-built AI intro—a Swamp Dogg model trained on a PC in his bedroom and iterated for a year and a half—and why he's fine getting his hands dirty with tools everyone loves to hate. Then the good stuff for emerging filmmakers: make it like a band, keep your crew close, and if you can't find money, make it without money. Plus CRUMB and AMERICAN MOVIE as gateway drugs, a dog named Ricky, the first time in 50+ episodes we've run out of card space, and why Minneapolis—community and all—is the thing Isaac can't stop thinking about. DISCUSSION LINKS: SWAMP DOGG GETS HIS POOL PAINTED (2024) | THE FEARLESS FREAKS (2005) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | CRUMB (1994) | AMERICAN MOVIE (1999) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Markers, selfie sticks, and SXSW sunburn 01:00 Ben's old neighborhood and how he and Isaac met 03:00 Artist vs. musician: Marijuana Deathsquads 04:00 Ryan Olson, the co-director who won't be photographed 05:00 SWAMP DOGG GETS HIS POOL PAINTED premieres at South by 07:00 A Doc Walks first: the SD card fills up 08:00 Take two: the Magnolia acquisition and theatrical run 10:00 Origin story: a cold call to Total Gross National Product 11:00 Showing up to shoot a music video in 2017 12:00 Who is Swamp Dogg? Ben the music head 14:00 Crooner to country: "She's All I Got" and John Prine's "Sam Stone" 16:00 Auto-tune, Justin Vernon, and Love, Loss & Auto-Tune 17:30 The "I'll Pretend" video; meeting Moogstar and Guitar Shorty 20:00 Naming the film: the pool as the anchor 22:00 Card-table cameos: Mike Judge, Johnny Knoxville, Tom Kenny, Yo La Tengo 24:00 Ricky the dog crashes the walk 25:00 100+ music videos and art school 26:00 MCAD, flatbeds, and editing like painting 28:00 Directing in any medium: Unreal Engine and breaking the tools 30:00 The AI intro: building a Swamp Dogg model in his bedroom 33:00 Being in a band at 40; "you should try making a podcast" 34:00 Lightning round: the gateway docs (CRUMB, AMERICAN MOVIE) 36:00 Advice: make it like a band, make it no matter what 37:00 Keeping your crew close: WINNEBAGO MAN lessons 38:00 Not film: Minneapolis, community, and standing together 39:00 Where to find Isaac and the Swamp Dogg Blu-ray

  • S1 · E58
    June 18 · 1 hr 11 min

    EP058 - The Jellyfish Died w/ Juli Berwald

    Meet Juli Berwald—a marine biologist turned science writer and the author of an invertebrate page-turner—she's the founder of a coral-reef nonprofit in Honduras, aaaaand she's producing her first doc. Throughout our waterfront walk at Ladybird Lake Juli opens up about her adventures in science writing—how getting fired off a book project (& replaced by Elizabeth Kolbert) inspired Juli to create her own destiny and finally write her own book. What follows is a masterclass in turning science into memoir called SPINELESS—a jellyfish book secretly structured like a jellyfish lifecycle, complete with a fever dream that sent her to Japan to find the world's biggest jellyfish (spoiler: it died right in front of her). We dig into "hiding behind the facts," the boldness it takes to put yourself on the page, and the best creative-accountability advice we've heard yet: combine a tight writing group with Elizabeth Gilbert's "take your project on a date," add in some John August-style sprints while following a roommate's admonition to "write the worst book you can—"and you're on your way. Theres's a whole lot of science, a bunch of laughs, and some doc-stuff in this one too. THE REBEL REEF: SEEDS OF HOPE is Juli's hopeful short doc about a reef to remember and divemaster Christian Carias, whose own healing becomes the heart of the film. Plus composer Chad Cannon (AMERICAN FACTORY, JOIN OR DIE), a $100K biobank dream, and perhaps an answer to the question of "how do you get to Symphony Space?" Also: An entire taxonomy of recumbent coots; shoutout to a Charles and Ray Eames numerically inspired mid-century film; and the official-yet-disputed name of a celebrated Austin footbridge. And yes—Juli already has another book on the way… DISCUSSION LINKS: THE REBEL REEF: SEEDS OF HOPE (2026) | POWERS OF TEN (1977) | AMERICAN FACTORY (2019) | JOIN OR DIE (2023) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | SPINELESS (2017) | LIFE ON THE ROCKS (2022) | THE SHELL SEEKER (2026) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 High fives and meeting Juli 01:00 Marine biologist to author 02:00 A miserable Texas postdoc (subsidence vs. sinking) 04:30 Becoming a writer: Think Well's CD-ROM textbooks 06:00 Laid off, then freelancing for National Geographic 11:00 The ONE CUBIC FOOT gig—and getting fired off it 14:30 The Pfluger footbridge and Lady Bird Lake history 18:00 THE REBEL REEF preview: a hopeful documentary 19:00 "I can't write a book like that"—finding her voice 21:00 SPINELESS: jellyfish and growing a spine 23:00 Willing to get lost 25:00 "Write the worst book you can—but write it" 27:00 A fever dream sends her to Japan 28:30 Finding the giant jellyfish (it dies) 31:00 Building a book around the jellyfish lifecycle 36:00 Our hideout: duckweed, Barton Springs, cyanobacteria 38:00 The Puum Temple and possums vs. opossums 39:30 Creative accountability and the writing group 47:00 BIG MAGIC: take your project on a date 50:00 The 20-minute timer and John August's sprints 52:00 Recumbent coots and the title hunt 53:00 THE REBEL REEF: the Honduras coral story 55:00 Christian Carias and the heart of the film 58:00 Cinematography, score, and the crew 61:00 Lightning round: the gateway book (Henrietta Lacks) 63:00 Advice for emerging storytellers: practice 64:00 Carnegie Hall, Yo-Yo Ma, and a floating cello 68:00 Crediting Dayton and where to find Juli's work

  • S1 · E57
    June 11 · 1 hr 7 min

    EP057 - Don't Make a Documentary (It'll Ruin Your Career) w/ Luke Korem

    We hit the boardwalk with Luke Korem—the Emmy-winning documentary director behind DEALT, MILLI VANILLI, and ACTION—and somewhere between a guy blasting EDM off a portable speaker and the bats under the bridge, Luke hands us a filmmaking philosophy worth bottling: it's all the same muscle. Doc, series, scripted—storytelling is storytelling, and the trick is knowing a series is a sprint and a feature is a marathon. Luke walks us through the whole arc: his accidental first feature LORD MONTAGU (a chairman, a castle, fifty grand, and four guys who'd never made a film), the SXSW-winning DEALT about blind card magician Richard Turner, and how the real story is never the hook—when it comes to DEALT, it's a man learning to embrace his weakness. We get the gospel of "no control" (the studio that passed on MILLI VANILLI, then came begging six months later), why he prays his way through the gambles, and why AI makes real human stories more valuable, not less. Then Ben hijacks his own podcast with the greatest one-that-got-away in doc history: the time he tried to con conman Frédéric Bourdin—subject of THE IMPOSTER — into a movie, got double-crossed, taunted by a Photoshopped postcard from the French Riviera… and learned years later the postcard was forged by his own friend in Paris. Luke's verdict: cut that out and make it its own episode. Plus: Luke's mom's catering empire, his magician dad, the gateway drug of renting EDTV, and plenty of advice from a man with zero social media. DISCUSSION LINKS: LORD MONTAGU (2013) | DEALT (2017) | ACTION (2019) | THE NEW YORK TIMES PRESENTS (2020) | MILLI VANILLI (2023) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | THE IMPOSTER (2012) | CHOP & STEELE (2022) | HIGH HOPES (2023) | CHEER (2020) | LAST CHANCE U (2016) | EDTV (1999) | FIELD OF DREAMS (1989) | THE KARATE KID (1984) | ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD (1994) | JURASSIC PARK (1993) | WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN (1941) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Two reluctant "documentary influencers" 01:00 Meet Luke — DEALT, the SXSW win & Richard Turner 01:40 LORD MONTAGU — the castle, the chairman, the first feature 03:00 ACTION, MILLI VANILLI & the NYT Presents Emmy 04:30 Texas A&M, no film school & the high-school broadcast suspensions 07:00 Doing anything for money → the uncle in the castle 08:00 Delegating your way to "all I do is direct" 09:20 On the bridge — the dancing guy with the speaker 10:30 Curiosity as the filmmaker's engine 12:00 Being authentic vs. taking the wrong job 14:30 Starting Keep On Running & selling a vision 15:30 Mom's catering empire, dad the author & magician 18:00 Every film is its own little startup 19:40 "It's the same muscle" — doc, series, scripted 22:00 Greg Whiteley's cold-call advice; sprint vs. marathon 26:00 Keeping gas in the tank; rich people making docs 29:00 Prayer, the spiritual side & character-driven stories 31:00 The hook is not the story — embracing weakness 34:00 Are your docs about you? MILLI VANILLI's real subject 36:00 The MILLI VANILLI origin & chasing Fab Morvan 40:00 Pitching & the brutal greenlight ratios 42:30 "No control" — the studio that passed, then begged 46:00 AI vs. the value of real human stories 48:00 Ben's THE IMPOSTER saga — buying Bourdin's life rights 51:30 The double-cross & the cease-and-desists 53:00 The postcard from the French Riviera 56:00 The one that got away 57:30 The twist — the postcard was forged by a friend 1:01:30 Stolen ideas & trusting no one in Hollywood 1:02:00 WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN 1:03:30 Lightning round — EDTV, FIELD OF DREAMS, Spielberg 1:06:30 The thing he can't stop thinking about — will the show sell? 1:07:00 Where to find his work; no socials, just the Aggies

  • S1 · E56
    June 4 · 48 min

    EP056 - Walk to the Next Block w/ Barlow Jacobs

    Barlow Jacobs says: Walk to the Next Block.. easy to say when you're sitting there, not-walking on DocWalks. It's day three of the AFS Doc Intensive, and we close out our run in the room for a sit-down with actor-turned-documentarian Barlow Jacobs—a guy we've been hearing about for 20 years ever since he burst out of Sundance with LOW AND BEHOLD in 2007. Barlow brings his doc-debut, THE VOYAGE OUT to Austin for Doc Days. Shot on 16mm, fully off-grid, on a nine-day elk hunt deep in the mountains—the gear hauled in on pack goats, lenses wrapped in towels inside Igloo coolers because the Pelican cases wouldn't fit, this is a unique production setup for a unique doc, and all that extra work really pays off—every frame looks like an oil painting. Keith's on the hunt for answers, but Barlow's quick to point out that THE VOYAGE OUT isn't a hunting film. It's a reckoning with mortality, kicked off by a 2009 brain tumor and later, a head-on collision with a dump truck, two life changing events that had Barlow questioning his own relationship to life & death. Barlow finds answers thanks to his film's three leads: hunting guide Marc Warnke (Bruce Willis meets John Wayne with a philosophy degree), off-grid survivalist Callie Russell (you might've seen her on ALONE), and fellow seeker Mansal Denton. We dig into the technical insanity—film canisters kept warm in a teepee, a rain-soaked tent, a lab calling in a panic about celluloid that smelled like smoke—and then there's the executive producers who showed up with support, including Chris & Eleanor Columbus's Maiden Voyage Pictures, Ley Line, and Sons of Rigor Films. All indie filmmaking is a roll of the dice, but Barlow owes a special thanks to the pro gambler whose $2-million poker win came through just in time to float the shoot. He may be a first-time doc director, but Barlow's a festival and indie vet, and he's flipping the script on distribution. And this is where we can all take notes: how he's self-releasing to 75 theaters next year, building an audience of hunters (and bespoke butcher-shops) and why he wishes he'd planned for all of this before shooting a single frame. Plus, Keith namedrops Jeff Nichols and Toby Halbrooks; Barlow shares a gateway-doc run through Adam Curtis, GREY GARDENS, GIMME SHELTER, and Frederick Wiseman—and a reminder that filmmaking is completed one step at a time. So, when it all starts to fall apart, just walk to the next block. DISCUSSION LINKS: THE VOYAGE OUT (2025) | LOW AND BEHOLD (2007) | THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019) | EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022) | THE BIG SHORT (2015) | McCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971) | HOME ALONE (1990) | HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE (2001) | BUCKS HARBOR (2026) | GREY GARDENS (1975) | GIMME SHELTER (1970) | TITICUT FOLLIES (1967) | EX LIBRIS: THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY (2017) | VERNON, FLORIDA (1981) | HYPERNORMALISATION (2016) | CAN'T GET YOU OUT OF MY HEAD (2021) | RUSSIA 1985–1999: TRAUMAZONE (2022) | ALONE (2015) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Day three of the AFS Doc Intensive 01:00 Barlow Jacobs: 20 years of near-misses and LOW AND BEHOLD at Sundance 02:00 THE VOYAGE OUT premieres tomorrow, shot on 16mm 02:30 The origin: a brain tumor, a dump truck, and mortality 05:00 Finding the hunt: Mansal Denton, Marc Warnke, and the pack goats 06:30 Callie Russell joins; everyone has a relationship with death 07:30 The goats, the fire, and the film's real subject 09:00 Six months of prep and the tech scout 11:00 Why shoot a documentary on film 11:30 Hauling gear on goats: Igloo coolers and Old Fast Glass 13:00 A linear hunt, formalistic language, planning every scenario 15:00 Working with the subjects without impeding the hunt 16:30 Gems pulled from the field audio 17:00 The only-way-to-do-it setup; feels like a million bucks 18:30 Film canisters, 12-degree nights, the rained-on tent 19:30 The Polish AC and "it's gonna have to take a bath" 20:30 Colorlab panics: everything smells like smoke 21:00 The executive producers: Columbus, Ley Line, Sons of Rigor 22:00 The $2-million poker win that funded the shoot 23:00 COVID delay and finding the film in the footage 24:00 Nature as a character; the sound-design second unit 25:00 Bringing fiction technique to nonfiction 26:30 The hunt as a built-in three-act structure 27:00 '70s docs, Altman, and McCABE & MRS. MILLER's grain 28:30 An instructional film: Marc as teacher 29:00 Did Barlow grow up hunting? Sustainability and connection 30:00 COVID, mortality, and the questions the film asks 31:00 Distribution: the indie landscape is constricting 32:00 The plan: 50–75 theaters, self-release, March 2027 34:00 Know your audience: 15 million hunters, butcher shops 36:00 Mailing lists, Callie and Marc's followings, Kinema 38:00 Why the real work begins after the premiere 40:00 Holding the audience for the next film 41:00 Marshaling the forces; a paradigm shift 42:00 Gateway docs: Adam Curtis, GREY GARDENS, GIMME SHELTER 43:00 Frederick Wiseman, TITICUT FOLLIES, VERNON FLORIDA, BUCKS HARBOR 44:30 Advice to emerging filmmakers: walk to the next block 47:00 A question worth dying for 47:30 Next week: Luke Korem and DEALT YOUTUBE TAGS: Barlow Jacobs, The Voyage Out, Doc Walks, documentary filmmaking, Austin Film Society, AFS Doc Intensive, 16mm film, elk hunting documentary, Marc Warnke, Callie Russell, Mansal Denton, Chris Columbus, Ley Line Entertainment, Adam Curtis, Frederick Wiseman, independent film distribution, shooting on film, Ben Steinbauer, Keith Maitland, mortality documentary

  • S1 · E55
    May 28 · 51 min

    EP055 - Chief Emotions Officer w/ Alisa Payne

    Alisa Payne cannot be stopped… certainly not by a little rain. When the downpour chases us indoors, we're lucky enough to post up in a cozy podcast studio at Austin Public—the public-access station where, Alex Jones got his start—and the home to the Austin Film Society Documentary Intensive, where the Oscar-nominated producer is serving as a mentor. You may know Alisa as the producer behind Geeta Gandbhir's body-cam-footage based, 'Stand Your Ground' Netflix doc THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR. But it's just one (important) stop of a dynamic career that took "20 years to be an overnight success." Flashback to the late 90s when young Alisa, a recent biochem grad quit the lab to chase Queen Latifah, presenting 500 petitions that convinced one queen to hire another. From that point on it's been nonstop. Alisa made her name as a producer, showrunner, and a production company co-founder known for her focus on pushing the documentary form. Check out STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING with Roger Ross Williams (that wasn't exactly THE MANDALORIAN); BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME, an ambitious production at the terrifying height of COVID; and KATRINA: COME HELL AND HIGH WATER with Spike Lee, Samantha Knowles and future business partner, Sam Pollard. Alisa makes the case for the producer as "chief emotions officer"—and her role as the parent of everyone in the credits. What does that mean? Shielding directors from notes, restoring the historical record when journalism can't be trusted, and making film more equitable in front of and behind the camera—those are just some of her responsibilities. This one's full of energetic wisdom and stories of production mishaps and their solutions, including: a tension-building bodega showdown over some purloined PPE fronted by one tough producer on a mission, because Alisa Payne will not be stopped! Plus, we take a swing through the AFS Doc Intensive and meet the fellows and mentors that Alisa and Keith have been Intensive-ing with; And Alisa shares her passion for Brooklyn birding & identifying birdsong. Ben's not quite there yet, but Keith's happy to bird-up the podcast any chance he gets. DISCUSSION LINKS: TRUE STORIES (1986) | WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE (2006) | THE MANDALORIAN (2019) | BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME (2020) | DEAR MR. BRODY (2022) | STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING (2023) | KATRINA: COME HELL AND HIGH WATER (2025) | LISTERS: A GLIMPSE INTO EXTREME BIRDWATCHING (2025) | THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (2025) | WHO MOVES AMERICA (2026) | UNTITLED FLACO DOCUMENTARY (TBD) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 No jumping right in: banter and transactional meetings 02:00 Rainy day, no walk: Brooklyn birds, FLACO, and the Merlin app 03:30 Two dipshits talking about birds (the pilot that wasn't) 04:30 Meet Alisa Payne + a tour of Austin Public 05:30 Inside the AFS Doc Intensive: four projects, the mentors 07:00 Studio two and the Alex Jones lore 08:00 Shooting DEAR MR. BRODY eight blocks from home 09:00 STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING and the Mandalorian dream 10:30 COVID, a snowstorm, and the ceiling that caved in 11:30 "It wasn't the Mandalorian" 12:00 THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR: Oscar nod, Sundance, Stand Your Ground 14:00 Pushing the form with body-cam footage 15:00 Biochemistry to film: chasing Queen Latifah 17:30 500 petitions and getting hired 19:00 Wear black on set / "keep wearing your colors" 21:00 First doc: Harlem gentrification and Mart 125 22:30 BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME: showrunning at COVID's peak 26:00 Edit drives in the mailbox at 5 a.m. 27:00 Brooklyn Tech floor plans for HBO 31:00 Hazmat on a Harlem walk-up — and the PPE heist 33:30 "You remind me of my mother" 35:00 Producing as mothering: the chief emotions officer 37:00 The director–producer partnership 39:00 The notes she never passes along 40:00 Her fingerprints: the PERFECT NEIGHBOR drone shot 41:00 KATRINA: COME HELL AND HIGH WATER and holding the POV 43:00 A seat at the table: restoring the historical record 45:00 Lightning round: WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE as the gateway 47:00 Advice for emerging filmmakers: be yourself 48:00 Back in the room: Doc Days, Holly Herrick, and the cohort

  • S1 · E54
    May 21 · 1 hr 10 min

    EP054 - Stories Are Everywhere w/ Pete Muller

    We duck inside for the first time ever — into the Blanton Museum of Art, because it's pouring in Austin and Pete Muller had the brilliant idea to bring our show into a gallery. Pete is the National Geographic photographer behind BUCKS HARBOR, his five-years-in-the-making debut feature about lobster fishermen in Downeast Maine, premiering at Berlinale and playing Doc Days at the Austin Film Society. We wander past Jacob Lawrence and Andrew Wyeth and Jerry Bywaters' OIL FIELD GIRLS while Pete walks us through the family that made him: his grandfather Leon Kelly (one of the pioneers of American surrealism), his art-conservator father (who once paid him to spit into a beaker so he could clean centuries-old paintings), and the paternity bombshell in his twenties that preceded his career embedded in conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East. We dig into BUCKS HARBOR's sea critter metaphors, the editor Noel Paul who shaped hundreds of hours with a special structure, the Hiss Golden Messenger song that lands just as it's needed, and Pete's gentle insistence that "fly on the wall" is a lie — the camera is always doing something. Plus: the most admissible form of male feeling and why art belongs to everyone (no whispering required). DISCUSSION LINKS: BUCKS HARBOR (2026) | THE FEARLESS FREAKS (2005) | BOMBAY BEACH (2011) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Whispering into the Blanton — our first indoor episode 01:00 Jacob Lawrence and the Great Migration 03:00 Andrew Wyeth's SEA LEGS, painting the same people for decades 06:00 Pete's grandfather Leon Kelly — American surrealism 08:00 Crescent Fellowship, Paris 1925, André Breton 11:00 Why Pete won't call himself an artist 13:00 Mom the nighttime newspaper photographer in Lynn, MA 14:00 Dad the art conservator (and the beaker of spit) 17:00 Making art about practical, rough-and-tumble people 20:00 Thomas Hart Benton, folk + high-brow, painting on board 25:00 OIL FIELD GIRLS by Jerry Bywaters 28:00 How BUCKS HARBOR began — five years in Downeast Maine 29:00 The paternity reveal that sent Pete chasing masculinity 32:00 Cross-cultural masculinity from Sudan to New England 34:00 Anger as the only admissible male feeling 38:00 Dave's teeth, Mark's drag — lobsters molt, men molt 42:00 Mark the lobster-trap-maker as 50,000-follower TikTok star 45:00 Bill Viola, Alice Neel, Deborah Roberts 50:00 Editor Noel Paul, hundreds of hours, four-and-a-half years filming 53:00 Nathan Golden on cinematography, a shared visual language 55:00 What does "directing" a documentary even mean 58:00 Why "fly on the wall" is a lie 01:02 Festival run: Berlinale → True/False → Doc Days → Margaret Mead → Seattle 01:03 Score by Nikolai Hess + Hiss Golden Messenger end credits 01:06 Bombay Beach as inspiration 01:07 Advice: keep it cheap and close

  • S1 · E53
    May 14 · 56 min

    EP053 - I'm No Good on My Own w/ Bradley Jackson

    Ben walks Glassell Park in L.A. with Bradley Jackson—screenwriter, novelist, and the documentary writer/producer behind FACING NOLAN, DEALT, MILLI VANILLI, and the Showtime sports-betting docuseries ACTION. Bradley leads Ben up his neighborhood hill as he details exactly how he ended up in a "premium economy" English castle filming a bisexual British aristocrat for his very first doc—and why he never left doc-making behind. Bradley lays out his role as creative-producer in his partnerships with director (& future DocWalks guest) Luke Korem. We dig into doc storytelling and why structure is the only lever a doc filmmaker really controls. And he shares some b.t.s. on what it took to inspire Nolan Ryan's family to trust him with the Hall of Famer's legacy. Ben's in heaven with all this baseball talk—Bradley's got a take on Pete Rose, and we learn why a fastball that "rises" is the most American story ever told. A teamplayer at heart, Bradley admits he's a B-minus alone, but an A-plus with collaborators—a working theory he applies to writing partners, doc partners, and the kid-juggling-bills life of a working filmmaker post-pandemic. He explains the L.A. before/after split (zero in-person meetings in a year), how he wrote his INTRAMURAL screenplay at 6:45 a.m. before clocking in at a Texas edtech job, and why your first draft is always the scrambling of a madman. Plus: REQUIEM FOR A DREAM as a deeply unexpected gateway drug for a guy who writes comedies and baseball docs, Bill Hader as a too-intimidating dream collaborator, and Mike Schur as the better-looking, more successful 4.0 version of himself. This one's a walk-and-talk for filmmakers who juggle, rewrite, and trust that life is funnier than anything they could make up. DISCUSSION LINKS: REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2010) | INTRAMURAL (2014) | DEALT (2017) | BARRY (2018) | ACTION (2019) | THE LAST DANCE (2020) | FACING NOLAN (2022) | MILLI VANILLI (2023) | MEGALOPOLIS (2024) | MEGADOC (2025) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Glassell Park walk and stepping into the future 00:35 The finer Steiner: Ben's sister and Compass Learning 01:30 WINNEBAGO MAN at the Alamo Drafthouse standby line 04:30 Screenwriter, novelist, or filmmaker? 06:30 First doc gig: a London castle and a British aristocrat 08:30 "Don't belong here" as a feature, not a bug 09:30 Randy Johnson, the Big Unit, and the Mariana Trench 10:10 Griffith Park, the observatory, and the ridge 12:00 Story structure is the doc filmmaker's only lever 14:30 From creative producer to director 15:30 Central characters and intoxicating worlds 18:30 DEALT, the blind magician, and the knife-throwing dog 21:30 FACING NOLAN: who's my Texas Michael Jordan? 29:30 The plumber-pitcher pipeline to Nolan's family 33:00 13 months from first day of shooting to picture-lock 37:00 Pete Rose, the 4,000th hit, and the pre-interview cram 38:30 The fastball that "rises" and a 27-season anomaly 40:30 Failure as the working filmmaker's baseline 41:30 Why Bradley is B-minus alone, A-plus with partners 43:00 INTRAMURAL, Kate McKinnon, and Austin to LA 43:30 Pandemic split and the death of the in-person LA meeting 46:30 Lightning round: REQUIEM FOR A DREAM as a gateway drug 48:00 Advice: write every day, draft 14 is the real draft 50:30 The thing he can't stop thinking about: a new baby 51:30 MEGALOPOLIS, MEGADOC, and Coppola yarns 52:30 Dream collaborator: Duplass Brothers, Bill Hader, Mike Schur 54:30 Where to watch FACING NOLAN and MILLI VANILLI

  • S1 · E52
    May 7 · 42 min

    EP052 - Make Bad Art w/ Jena Friedman

    Let's get into the tragic side of comedy with documentarian, comedian, and Academy Award–nominated screenwriter Jena Friedman. The BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM co-writer is in town for the Moontower Comedy Festival to perform her hour-long stand-up about her mother's death. Two minutes in and we're deep into the grief, as the former DAILY SHOW correspondent talks about editing her own SundanceTV true-crime show, while pregnant, and dealing with her mother's illness and death. Jena and Keith have something in common—Keith lost his father 25 years ago—and she asks probing questions about his relationship with his dad, before and after his passing. She describes how her mom became her biggest career champion right when work was busiest, why grief comedy is "exposure therapy," and how a half-page Austin Chronicle headline once dubbed her THE MUSE OF MEDIOCRITY. (Her counter: "Mediocrity is my muse.") We dig into INDEFENSIBLE, her two-season SundanceTV true-crime show that nobody really wanted made, and Adult Swim's SOFT FOCUS WITH JENA FRIEDMAN, where she disarmed John McAfee in his own living room. Jena makes the case for bad art in the AI era: if your work isn't optimizable enough for the robots to scrape, then you're free. We talk THE REHEARSAL, the crepe myrtle as paint-by-numbers tree, why DocWalks badly needs a drone sponsorship, and how "improv was my rosebud". We squeeze a whole lot into this rambling, lakeside chat then grab a cortado at Revolution Coffee before Jena heads to the Paramount Theatre to perform. Then it's back to work on her EPSTEIN FILES BOOK CLUB podcast and heading home to her son. Plus: Letterman in 2011, Keith wielding two cams, how criticism can feel like a hug from mom, our shared affection for Kahane Corn Cooperman, and the power of pennies that show up exactly when you need them. DISCUSSION LINKS: NOT FUNNY (2023) | SOFT FOCUS WITH JENA FRIEDMAN (2018) | INDEFENSIBLE (2021) | BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM (2020) | THE REHEARSAL (2022) | WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S (1989) | EPSTEIN FILES BOOK CLUB (2026) | THE JOKES AI WON'T TELL - TED TALK (2025) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro and Moontower setup 01:00 Crossing at Fifth & Trinity — who is Jena Friedman? 03:00 NOT FUNNY: an hour about losing her mom 06:00 SOFT FOCUS, John McAfee, allegedly dead 08:00 The 180-degree rule (we don't care) 10:00 Lady Bird Lake, rowing pheromones 12:00 Improv as the gateway drug 13:00 EPSTEIN FILES BOOK CLUB podcast 14:00 The crepe myrtle as paint-by-numbers 17:00 Six weeks, third trimester, the worst show 21:00 Keith's dad, 25 years gone 23:00 Pennies on the ground 26:00 Coffee break, lightning round 27:00 The BORAT NDA + Pregnancy Crisis Center 30:00 Bad art is the future 33:00 Letterman 2011 was already dead inside 34:00 INDEFENSIBLE on Sundance TV 36:00 The Daily Show as film school 38:00 Tonight at the Paramount, comments as hugs

  • S1 · E51
    April 30 · 49 min

    EP051 - Terrified Of Cheese w/ Bryan Storkel

    We walk South by Southwest with director Bryan Storkel—HOLY ROLLERS, THE LEGEND OF COCAINE ISLAND, THE PEZ OUTLAW, ALABAMA SNAKE—in town to premiere I GOT BOMBED AT HARVEY'S, his new feature about the man who built a thousand-pound bomb and walked it into a Lake Tahoe casino in 1980. Keith's on vacation, so it's just Ben and Bryan, two directors aiming cameras at each other ("this is like a Beastie Boys video"). Ben's catcher finger is wrecked from yesterday's Sandlot game. Bryan's been on a pickleball tear in LA. We dig into how Bryan keeps making so many films—a Ken Griffey Jr. doc that fell apart the night before his first interview with Sir Mix-A-Lot, the AMC anthology TRUE CRIME STORY: SMUGSHOT (umbrella: "crimes of entitlement"), and a Hulk Hogan series now released to acclaim for Netflix. We trace his exodus from Oral Roberts University through HOLY ROLLERS (card-counting Christian pastors), FIGHT CHURCH (cage-fighting pastors), and ALABAMA SNAKE (the Pentecostal who tried to kill his wife with a rattlesnake)—each film quietly walking him further out of the faith he grew up in. The reenactment talk is the heart of it. Bryan walks us through the COCAINE ISLAND / PEZ OUTLAW method—cast the actual subject in their own reenactments, build a scripted-feeling rough cut from a documentary edit, then shoot the recreations like a narrative. The secret: be terrified the whole time it'll be cheesy. "That terror is the thing that makes it good." HARVEY'S, he tells us, snuck up on him as a father-son story underneath the heist. Plus: an annual dog-on-a-table photoshoot ambushes the walk, the empathy-machine theory of documentary, and why every prolific filmmaker should learn to edit first. DISCUSSION LINKS: AMERICAN MOVIE (1999) | OKIE NOODLING (2001) | HOME MOVIE (2001) | SUMMERCAMP! (2006) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | HOLY ROLLERS (2011) | LITTLE HOPE WAS ARSON (2013) | FIGHT CHURCH (2014) | THE BATTERED BASTARDS OF BASEBALL (2014) | NOBODY SPEAK: TRIALS OF THE FREE PRESS (2017) | CASTING JONBENET (2017) | THE LEGEND OF COCAINE ISLAND (2018) | ALABAMA SNAKE (2020) | THE PEZ OUTLAW (2022) | THE SAINT OF SECOND CHANCES (2023) | DICKWEED (2024) | I GOT BOMBED AT HARVEY'S (2026) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Cold open — two directors, one Sandlot finger 01:00 The Ken Griffey Jr. doc that fell through 02:00 THE BATTERED BASTARDS OF BASEBALL & THE SAINT OF SECOND CHANCES 04:00 Solo walk intro — Keith's on vacation 04:30 Premiering I GOT BOMBED AT HARVEY'S at SXSW 06:00 Theo Love, Amy Bandlien Storkel, and the long road to a feature 09:00 Why Bryan is so prolific — SMUGSHOT, Hulk Hogan, FLORIDA MAN 11:00 Sidestilt — the Norwegian word for juxtapose 13:30 Born in Seattle, Oral Roberts in Tulsa 14:30 First docs: HOLY ROLLERS, FIGHT CHURCH, LITTLE HOPE WAS ARSON 17:00 ALABAMA SNAKE and the exit from Christianity 19:00 Documentary as empathy machine 20:30 Hulk Hogan — separating Terry from the performer 22:00 The unreleased Kid Rock doc 26:30 Zilker Park, Barton Springs, the Austin pitch 28:00 The HARVEY'S premiere and the "kitschy" review 29:00 Reenactments — terror as creative engine 31:00 Casting the real subjects (Steve Glew, Cocaine Island) 33:30 An annual dog-on-a-table photoshoot 36:00 Steve Glew's beard test, hotel hallway, duffel of Pez 37:30 The CASTING JONBENET trick on a Smugshot episode 40:00 HARVEY'S as a father-son story 42:00 Lightning round — gateway docs at SXSW 44:00 Best advice: learn to edit 45:30 Pickleball, two teenage daughters

  • S1 · E50
    April 23 · 1 hr 20 min

    EP050 - We Follow the Heartbreak w/ Berndt Mader

    We mark 50 walks with business partner, co-conspirator, and professor of things cinematic—Berndt Mader, co-founder of The Bear and Ben's filmmaking better-half of nineteen years. Lady Bird Lake, placid gray spring weather, and Berndt tracing his arc from sandbag-slinging grip on David Gordon Green's GEORGE WASHINGTON to Austin's hybrid-film provocateur. The main event: the $2M Kid Rock documentary that was, until it wasn't. Berndt pulled Ben past "no way" and into Nashville, where Danny McBride's blessing got them into Bob Ritchie's house weeks before COVID locked everything down. Katie Steinbauer sewed a mask, Berndt drove up anyway, and they captured an apology scene where an aging rockstar says he's going to "try to sneak into heaven." Then June 2022 happened—a homophobic slur went viral, Roughhouse evacuated, Live Nation grabbed the hard drives, and MY NAME IS KID became a film that will never see daylight. We get into the art of directing real people through fake scenarios with BOOGER RED, Berndt's CLOSE-UP-inspired hybrid adaptation of Mike Hall's Texas Monthly exposé of the Mineola case, and how that story got a second life as the HBO docuseries HOW TO CREATE A SEX SCANDAL. Plus Werner Herzog impressions, the Pete Best of The Bear, a Richard Linklater dream collaboration, and the thesis statement for episode 50: "We follow the heartbreak." DISCUSSION LINKS: GEORGE WASHINGTON (2000) | BOOGER RED (2015) | HOW TO CREATE A SEX SCANDAL (2023) | CHOP & STEELE (2022) | CLOSE-UP (1990) | THE THIN BLUE LINE (1988) | COCKSUCKER BLUES (1972) | SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY (1987) | A POEM IS A NAKED PERSON (1974) | WERNER HERZOG EATS HIS SHOE (1988) | APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) | 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) | MAKING A MURDERER (2015) | EASTBOUND & DOWN (2009) | THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES (2019) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 50 episodes deep with Berndt Mader 02:00 Naming The Bear (before the TV show) 05:00 19 years of the production company 06:00 Richardson origins and the George Washington swing grip 10:00 UT Austin RTF and the accidental production company 15:00 The movie about the Kid Rock doc 17:00 $2M Live Nation budget, Roughhouse, Danny McBride 20:00 First impressions of Bob Ritchie 24:00 Filming during COVID with Katie's handmade mask 30:00 Co-directing divisions and the General Lee 34:00 Super Bowl scene and the Biden victory apology 39:00 Sundance dreams and the homophobic slur 43:00 Live Nation takes the hard drives 47:00 Booger Red and Kiarostami's Close-Up 52:00 The HBO docuseries How to Create a Sex Scandal 58:00 Lightning round: Thin Blue Line, Apocalypse Now, 2001 61:00 Werner Herzog impression and initiative makes films 63:00 Richard Linklater dream collab and signing off

  • S1 · E49
    April 16 · 51 min

    EP049 - The Trust Fall w/ Sharon Liese

    Kansas City here we come! Well, just Ben this time, revisiting old haunts along the Tomahawk Creek trail with Sharon Liese—Emmy-winning director of THE FLAGMAKERS and TRANSHOOD. Sharon proves you don't need an LA zip code to premiere at Sundance—her new feature SEIZED—a nuanced, complicated portrait of what happened when police raided a small-town Kansas newspaper—was a must-see at Park City this January. A film about justice and freedom of expression is a pressing tale today and Sharon walks us through the messy reality of telling a story where nobody's quite the hero you expect. We dig into the two-and-a-half year journey of making the film, the year it took to get suspicious small-towners to open up, and the 98-year-old newspaper co-owner whose defiant attitude captured on police body cam footage will absolutely wreck you. The serendipity is real: mid-walk, we stumble onto gnome houses on the trail—a callback to Sharon's gorgeous short THE GNOMIST, which was filmed on this very path. We trace her origin story from a Kansas marketing gig to following 12 girls through high school for HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, getting an agent by name-dropping an RJ Cutler meeting, and the fateful Facebook message that led to Ben & Sharon working together on PINK COLLAR CRIMES. Sharon opens up about TRANSHOOD, following four trans kids for five years on HBO, and the devastating new Kansas legislation that just dropped overnight. The conversation turns to the state of an industry where good storytelling is getting squeezed from every direction and Ben gets real about his eight-year Onion documentary saga. But the vibe stays warm—Sharon's grandkids just moved to KC, the crowded table she always dreamed of is full, and MAD HOT BALLROOM is confirmed as a gateway drug film that changed Sharon's life. Plus: the parents who thought they'd get a VHS tape and ended up on national TV. DISCUSSION LINKS: SEIZED (2026) | THE GNOMIST (2015) | TRANSHOOD (2020) | THE FLAGMAKERS (2022) | HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL (2008) | PINK COLLAR CRIMES (2018) | MAD HOT BALLROOM (2005) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT (2025) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Introduction and Kansas City arrival 01:00 Meeting Sharon Liese and SEIZED at Sundance 03:00 The Marion, Kansas newspaper raid 05:00 The other side of the story 08:00 Gaining trust in a small town 10:00 Paul and the family filmmaking team 11:00 Walking Tomahawk Creek in Leawood 12:00 Making films where you live 15:00 Driving to Marion the day Joanne died 17:00 Navigating high-profile partnerships 18:00 How we met on PINK COLLAR CRIMES 20:00 Stumbling onto gnome houses and THE GNOMIST 22:00 TRANSHOOD and following four kids for five years 24:00 Kansas trans legislation 25:00 Sharon's origin story and HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL 28:00 Getting an agent and the RJ Cutler name-drop 29:00 Ben's Onion documentary white whale 34:00 Grandkids, the crowded table, and family 36:00 THE FLAGMAKERS and the road to an Oscar shortlist 40:00 Documentary curiosity and the trust fall 41:00 The state of the industry 44:00 Lightning round and MAD HOT BALLROOM 47:00 What Sharon can't stop thinking about 49:00 Where to find Sharon and upcoming festivals

  • S1 · E48
    April 9 · 1 hr 5 min

    EP048 - Criminally Open Minded w/ Daniel Lombroso

    Let's talk about MANHOOD—specifically, Daniel Lombroso's startling new doc about the growing world (haha) of penis girth enhancement. You heard that right. This is the penis injection movie that SXSW audiences (& DocWalks guests) won't stop talking about. At 33 years old, the Brooklyn-based Lombroso considers himself to be "criminally open minded" (his words, then immediately walked back), and the kind of filmmaker who waits seven months in a D.C. parking lot to get one lunch meeting. He's done it before. With WHITE NOISE, his 2020 alt-right portrait, he embedded with Lauren Southern, Mike Cernovich, and Richard Spencer for years, as a Jewish grandson of two Holocaust survivors. With NINA & IRENA, his New Yorker short, he hovered around Errol Morris until Errol called him back: "Daniel, your grandmother's a fucking incredible character." We dig into MANHOOD start to finish: the Dallas entrepreneur trying to make girth injections as common as Botox, the OnlyFans model who got botched and bared everything anyway, and the standup-dad of five whose reckless choices break our hearts. Daniel maps the access game—turns out women and queer execs got the pitch instantly, while straight guys at the top kept killing the deals—his journalism roots at The Atlantic and The New Yorker, the Sheila Nevins stamp of approval at 87, and how Penny Lane and World of Wonder rallied around him when he was unemployed, depressed, and flying Spirit Airlines back to Dallas to film alone. He's funny about his Republican father calling MANHOOD "a beautiful commentary on modern America." But he's serious about the male loneliness epidemic, the manosphere, and the smartphone-induced inadequacy that pushes men to spend their savings on the one thing they don't need more of. Plus: how to bother Errol Morris in a parking lot, the lightning-round answer that made us laugh—"give yourself reps"—and a brief detour through 2 Girls 1 Cup we did not see coming. Discussion Links MANHOOD (2026) | WHITE NOISE (2020) | NINA & IRENA (2023) | HAIL SATAN? (2019) | LISTENING TO KENNY G (2021) | CONFESSIONS OF A GOOD SAMARITAN (2023) | THE FOG OF WAR (2003) | GATES OF HEAVEN (1978) | RAISING ARIZONA (1987) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) Timestamps 00:00 Two girls, one cup, and a high five 02:31 Meet Daniel and MANHOOD 03:34 Inside the girth enhancement boom 06:36 Daniel's Republican dad weighs in 10:12 Why straight execs kept killing the deal 11:19 33 and prolific 12:00 WHITE NOISE and the alt-right embed 13:02 Self-taught from age 14 14:10 Bothering Errol Morris in a parking lot 17:12 Meeting Penny Lane at Big Sky 20:19 From journalism to documentary in Istanbul 24:28 The access question 25:44 "Criminally open minded" 26:21 Lauren Southern's seven-month chase 30:23 Cernovich, Spencer, and the contradictions 32:33 The Kid Rock movie that fell apart 34:37 Meeting Bill, David, and Ruben 38:50 The throuple twist 40:30 David's reconstructive journey 42:11 World of Wonder breaks David open 44:13 The smartphone inadequacy machine 47:51 Ruben and the male loneliness epidemic 52:53 Lightning round 53:38 How Sheila Nevins came aboard 57:39 Give yourself reps 58:53 What keeps Daniel up at night 01:01:34 Where to find MANHOOD 01:02:27 The state of documentary 01:04:10 Sharon Liese is up next

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