WEBVTT - Morgan Neville 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:13.000 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Steps Podcast. My 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:17.079 guest today is director Morgan Neville won an Oscar for 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.239 twenty Feet from Stardom and should have won an Oscar 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:25.400 for his Mr. Rogers movie. Morgan, Welcome, Hi Bob. Okay, 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.240 you were presently working on a Rick Rubin documentary series 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.760 for Showtime. How did that come together? It came together 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:37.959 because somehow Rick and Showtime it started talking to each other. 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:40.479 And I think initially the idea was it was going 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:42.880 to be more about the studio. So Rick owns the 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.400 studio Shango Law that originally was put together by the 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:49.599 band in the mid seventies, and Bob Dylan ended up 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:51.480 spending a lot of time recording there. But other people 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.600 did too, Eric Clapton and you know, Bunny Raid and 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:59.400 on and on. And I was less interested in just 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:03.920 doing a commentary about the recording studio than than Rick, 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:07.839 because Rick is a fascinating character. So I started meeting 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.400 with Rick. Let's be clear, Yeah, Rick wanted in Showtime 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:13.480 want to do something? Were you there from the very beginning, 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:17.640 not the very beginning, but close to it? Okay, there 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.399 was just this kind of vague idea how long ago. 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:25.039 Was this somewhere between a year and a half and 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:27.640 two years ago, probably closer to two years ago, So 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:32.959 there was a while ago and UM and I think 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:37.000 what Rick and I started talking about that I think 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:39.280 we both connected about. There were a number of things 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.600 that we connected about. One was, UM, create a process, 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:47.080 you know, how people and kind of the universality of 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:49.040 creat a process. It's something I've spent a lot of 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:51.720 time making things about. I do a series for Netflix 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.720 called Abstract about designers, but so much of that show 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:56.960 is actually about creative process. And Rick had love that 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:02.000 show and we talked about that UM and and Rick 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.520 is an interesting character too, So I think there was 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:09.160 an ongoing debate and continues to be an ongoing debate 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.960 even though we finished the show as to what UM 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.360 what the show is because I feel like UM, in 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.840 Rick's mind, his role as a producer is merely to 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.359 be a mirror and to reflect what the artist wants. 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:26.480 And as I say in the opening of the show, 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:29.880 there's a real conversation I had with Rick. I said, well, 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.360 my job is a documentarian is to reflect you. And 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.680 if I'm making a reflection of our reflection, that we're 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:38.720 going to find ourselves in a hall of mirrors. And 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:45.240 Rick said, yeah, isn't that great? And that's kind of 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:47.200 what the show has been. It's been a hall of mirrors. 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:50.000 It's you know, lady from Shanghai with Orson Welles, you know, 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.440 both of you know, we had bonded about that too, 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:56.680 and you know this kind of um, the embracing the 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.000 surreality of it, and what I came to really embrace 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.840 about it is I think one of Rick's maintenance in 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:07.640 life is that when the lines get blurred between what's 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:12.959 real and what's unreal, interesting things happen and go a 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:14.880 little bit deeper what would be real and what would 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:20.520 be unreal. Well, for instance, anything that resembles a rule 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.120 or a deadline or a budget or any of those things, 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:31.320 I think Rick just doesn't believe them, you know, willfully, UM. 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:33.840 And I think that stems from his earliest days. I mean, 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:35.760 if it stems from his childhood, I think in some ways, 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.080 but certainly in college. You know, Rick being a rule 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:43.240 breaker UM has rewarded him again and again. So there's 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:47.320 been a lot of positive feedback that this idea of 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.760 doing exactly what you want and not caring about what's 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.920 popular or not caring about what people say you can 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.520 do or what you're supposed to do. Um is actually 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:01.800 really for old ground. So I think that's that's part 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:06.880 of it. It's just a wilful disregard for any Whenever 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:09.640 anybody says, well this is supposed to happen like this, 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:13.800 you know, you might as well be speaking foreign language 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.240 to Rick. Okay, but let's go back to the point. 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:18.240 They wanted to make a movie about the studio. You 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.360 were more interested in Rick, So then you got involved. 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:25.000 How did they find you? Um? Well, I think the 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:27.760 people a showtime and Rick knew my work right. I've 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.360 been a working documentary and for twenty five years, I've 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:32.279 made a ton of music films. I made lots of 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.400 non music films. Um. And as I said, Rick was 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:37.039 a big fan of this design show I'd done. That 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.920 was another thing they talked about, and so I think 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:41.160 they all said, well, if we can get somebody to 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.440 do this would be Morgan. So I honestly think it 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:48.039 was me coming on board and having a series of 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:52.760 conversations with Rick that kind of swung the show from 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:54.479 what they thought it was going to be into what 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.640 it is. I don't have a good way of describing 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:02.320 what it is, because it's a rather indescribable show. You know, 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:07.800 it's it's a very idiosyndradic show. It's been, um in 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.760 many ways, some of the most rewarding stuff I've done 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:15.080 and some of the most challenging stuff I've done. It's 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.800 forced me way out of my comfort zone. Give us 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:24.280 an example. Um okay, Well, Rick said at the beginning, UM, 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:29.479 I'm never going to do an interview with you on camera. Um. 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.080 So what I ended up doing? Why do you think that? Well, 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:35.839 it's just that's normal. That's what people do. You know. 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.000 I don't like talking heads. I'm never going to do it. 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.279 You know, typically if you do a documentary with the subject. 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.880 He said, Oh, can I'll sit down do interviews with you? 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:44.919 Can I get a shot of you walking, you know, 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:48.479 across your house? Can I do this? I could never 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.719 ask to do anything like that. So what I ended 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:55.760 up with was said, well, let me just do audio conversations. 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.520 I'd even call them interviews, just conversations. So Rick um 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.520 Off is uh at his house in Hawaii, and so 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:07.159 part of my job was taking several trips to Hawaii 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.360 where I'd go over and we'd spend the day having conversations, 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:12.760 and that conversation we could talk about the Ramons for 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.640 an hour, you know, we could talk about Um, Tom 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:17.440 Petty for an hour. We could talk about anything. And 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:19.800 I went in with no agenda. You know, this is 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.080 not me trying to interview Rick. This is just talking 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.280 about what what's interesting, and you're recording it and I'm 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:27.120 recording it. So I'm by myself. First of all, I'm 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:29.400 forced to be my own audio engineer, which scares the 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:31.720 Jesus out, I mean, especially in front of Rick being 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:36.440 who he is. UM And plus you know, just dealing 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:39.839 with the nature of hawaiis I'm trying to record good audio. 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.000 And we ended up doing more than twenty four hours 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:48.159 of audio interviews and that really became kind of this 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:52.520 text that flows throughout the series. And then I had 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.400 to figure out how am I going to actually illustrate 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.640 this cinematically, and it forced me into a lot of 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:03.240 very create of solutions. Um And I know you've only 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:09.960 seen half the series. It gets even weirder. Okay, from 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.880 the beginning, was it going to be four episodes, It 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:14.920 was gonna be something like that. It was a mini series, 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.000 you know, could have been Yeah, but I think four 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:20.800 was always kind of the goal UM, and we didn't 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:24.400 know what it was going to be UM. And part 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:26.080 of it is I mean, originally it was going to 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:29.120 take about a year. It's been about a year and 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:33.880 a half. UM. And there's a kind of an unpredictability 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:38.640 also to to what's happening in the studio. So a 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.040 lot of what you see in the in this series 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:44.680 is just me getting call from Rick saying such and 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.240 such as coming in the studio tomorrow, you should show up, 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:51.400 and we show up, And sometimes I have no idea 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:53.400 who they are and or how they're going to fit 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.600 into it. So I feel like in many ways, I 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:02.160 was given this incredibly diverse but random um set of 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.080 ingredients and then I was told to make the best 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:09.520 meal I'd ever cooked. So it was it took just 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:14.600 a lot of um outside the box thinking to kind 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.080 of stitch together things that don't normally get stitched together. 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:23.840 What do you think Rick wanted out of it? UM? 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.280 I don't know. I mean I have a very hard 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:30.320 time answering anything for Rick UM other than I know 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:36.640 he's definitely been more interested in, you know, speaking publicly 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:38.559 a little bit you know, he has his podcast now, 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.719 and and he's been somebody who's been kind of notoriously 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:48.280 um off the grid in anyways. Um. And the fact 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:52.240 of the matter is Rick has done and learned a lot, 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:57.120 and I think part of him understands that there's some 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.920 wisdom that could be shared. And I think one takeaway 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:03.880 he and I had when we're having these initial conversations 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:07.280 was if you could come away from the show knowing 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.200 what it's like to be produced by Rick, that's a win. 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.280 And so in many ways, it's not trying to tell 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.280 his story or the story of the studio per se, 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:20.240 though it's all in there, but um, but to try 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:22.800 and give the experience of what it would be like 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.440 to come in and work with Rick and what you'll 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:29.000 glean from that as an artist or even more perfectly, 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.320 as any kind of creative person or any person you know, 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.160 because the rules he's talking about that I'm interested in 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:37.640 are the universal ones that apply to you, you know, 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.200 if you're a filmmaker or a writer, or or a 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:46.480 musician or anything else. Um, that's what excites me. So. 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:51.400 UM that was the goal. But it was no easy goal. Okay, 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.480 you watch or the half that I've watched you get 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:58.400 the impression that Rick is trying to make the most 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:04.560 successful record in later in the series or just your discussion. 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.079 Not everything he does is successful. Now, you know, we 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.160 had this tenure with Columbia Records, which really wasn't that successful. 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:15.920 But does that factor into his thinking I'm talking about 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:20.560 financially successful. Yeah, I know. I don't think finance figures 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:25.640 in in any way I've ever been able to detect um. 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:27.600 I mean, I wish I could be that pure in 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.320 my decision making. I try. I think most of us 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:32.480 wish we could be that pure um. But from what 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:37.200 I could tell, Rick really really doesn't care. Okay, So 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.079 if you watch the film, it begins with people from 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:43.000 the hip hop world. I must admit some of them 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:46.200 I didn't know. Okay, how about yourself? Did you know them? No? 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.080 I mean I knew some. You know, I knew Tyler 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:52.400 Um creator who's in it. But you know, people like drama. 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:55.440 So part of what Rick wanted to show, which is 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:59.440 very real, is that somebody like drama. This um, young 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:05.120 hip hop artist Rick discovered on SoundCloud UM when he 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.600 only had three listens. Somehow, Rick became the three first 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:12.040 listen and you know, tweeted that he was listening to 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.319 drama and next thing you know, he's producing drama. So 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:20.599 Rick is still actively interested in finding new things he 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.280 hasn't heard before. So there are a lot of people 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:25.440 throughout the show who are people I didn't know, people 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.600 who nobody knows, or people who are barely known that 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:32.320 Rick is is trying to mentor I guess, Okay, we 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.080 live in an era where it's conventionally believed that hip 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:39.280 hop dominates. I noticed through the first episode, Uh, it 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:43.920 was mostly African Americans talking. Was that a conscious choice 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:48.360 to be hip? No? No? And in fact, I think 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:52.200 by the end of the series, the balances is much wider. 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:53.679 I mean, if you look at the artist Rick's work 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.319 with two it's well, I mean, I know from my 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.280 association with Metallica, you know that he's worked with them, 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:01.480 and then certainly in the first two episodes, I didn't 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.319 see Metallica. There was a mention of Slayer at the beginning. 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:06.840 There wasn't a mention of the Black Crows, which was 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.200 on his label. He was not the producer. Does that 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.480 stuff come up? Um a little bit, But again, it's 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:17.280 not the Rick Reuben story. You know it's and Rick 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:22.000 was very clear about that that, you know, this is 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.320 not going to be just the a diazy of Rick Ruben. 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:31.120 And honestly, I'm more interested in doing the other version 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.560 than the Wikipedia version. You know, I see so many 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:39.320 music documentaries that feel like I'm watching a version of Wikipedia, 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:41.440 you know, or behind the music or behind me. They 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:42.880 did this, and then they did that, and they worked 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.000 with this person, they did this tour, and then this happened, 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:48.040 and they have to check every box. I find that 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:53.719 not good storytelling. Okay, you're making the movie, and are 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:57.040 you ever saying at certain points, because you're filming a lot, okay, 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.360 now I have it, Now it's coming together, or converse 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.920 with you saying hey, I need something. It's not like 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:05.400 it's just like Rick of the movie. I can't tell 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:07.920 you what it is, but I know what I'll get there. Um, 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.920 I don't know if I'm ever gonna feel like I've 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.800 gotten there. You know. I rarely feel that way, even 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:15.920 about films of mine that have done very well. You know, 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:21.319 I feel like, um, my whole career has been iterative. 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:23.760 I'm a huge believer in that. And maybe it's because 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:25.840 you know, I started my career in journalism, and I 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:31.040 came out of um deadline journalism, which I love because 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:33.320 it's about doing what you can do and then the 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.160 next day you do it again. And something about that 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:40.560 iterative process lets you learn faster. I mean, I know 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:44.480 filmmakers that do one film for seven years at a time. 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.840 I can't work that way, and I feel just by 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:52.400 doing things more, I get better at it. Um. Well, 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:55.640 you know there's certainly uh, what's his name? The documentary 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.000 the guy do the Eagles nick whatever? The guy who 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:03.480 I mean maybe his name is Alex. He seems to 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:06.720 make a million. He's always work. He actually not that 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:08.640 you know when you're the three. But is he actually 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.960 hands on it all these movies? Um, I don't know, 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:14.679 but I know he's somewhat hands on and all those movies. 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:16.240 And I think anything he puts his name on as 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:18.319 director because he also produces things he doesn't direct, and 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:20.960 I think, actually, I'm trying to remember did the Eagles doctor? 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.680 Did he just produce it? I'm not sure if he 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:25.960 actually directed it because there was a woman who directed it. 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.800 I could be wrong. It was great, yeah, So and 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:32.160 it's interesting. I mean, Alex, I've known Alex for a 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:35.720 long time, and he's somebody who's you know, had the 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:40.400 kind of career that's very enviable. I mean, it's interesting. 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:42.200 And we could talk about documentaries if you want, because 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:43.560 I've been doing it for a long time and it's 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.120 changed tremendously. What documentary is today is let's let's get 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:51.400 completely different. Let's go let's let's go back to Rick 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:56.000 and make sure that we don't leave certain stones unturned. Um, 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.120 there's a plethora of product out now, and there will 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.440 be a marketing campaign, usually with a fewer dollars than 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:06.640 there is in a theatrical world. Even though I believe 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:12.440 this stuff should list beyond the flat screen. What do 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:16.160 you anticipate in what would be satisfying or unsatisfying in 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:23.760 terms of response? UM? I don't want to sound um disingenuous, 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:28.240 but I don't really care. Let's say, hypothetically was the 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:33.360 theatrical film? Do you care? Then? UM? I would, But 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:37.920 to me, I think of them differently. UM. I feel 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:44.440 like this Rick experience has been a process of experimentation 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:50.520 and trying things, and it's you're learning on their dollar well, 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.880 but it's also idiosyncratic, and I think there are people 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:56.000 who are going to think it's awesome and people who 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:59.200 are going to think it's terrible. I'm okay with that, 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:03.160 you know. And I feel like we had the support 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:06.800 from Showtime, and I feel like it was kind of 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:10.240 the mission statement going in that this is going to 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:16.080 get weird, and um, I feel like doing something for television, 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:18.080 it gets judged differently than if I put into a 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:20.160 theater and want people to pay money on a date 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:22.680 night to go and sit there and watch it. So 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:26.880 I think about them differently, um, which is part of 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:28.560 why I thought of it as a mini series. And 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:33.560 it kind of has a um, I don't know how 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:37.320 you describe it, kind of a a drifting, you know, 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:41.560 kind of we referred to it as the Gossamer Construction. 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:46.560 You know. It has this kind of, um, lightly connected 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:49.480 kind of tangent of ideas. I mean, normally I'm a 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:52.560 big story and character person. This was a challenge of 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.160 trying to kind of tell a story with a narrative 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:59.720 of ideas and um. And I'm really happy with what 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.840 we did. But it's I know, it's not the most 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:06.159 mainstrength thing I've done, and that's cool, you know. I'm 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:08.880 happy to do things that certain people will say that's 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:10.600 my favorite thing, and other people say I hate it. 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:12.600 I may have done films like that and that's great. 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:15.359 I've done films that are kind of broad cloud crowd 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:20.000 pleasers too. And then to what degree was Rick steering 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.720 to the final destination or making comments on the edit? 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:28.719 I mean, I had final edit. But you know, of 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:32.160 course everybody wants Rick to be happy and we want 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.720 to talk about it. But honestly, the discussions were not 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:40.360 you know, we it was much more collaborative in that 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.760 it's this kind of debate about what it is. I mean, 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:48.760 I think in a way, I mean it's it's it's 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.560 no stretch to say that, um, Rick was trying to 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:57.520 produce me that. Um absolutely, the conversations I had with Rick, 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:00.119 with the kinds of conversations, the habit is our this 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.399 And even though I would protest and say making a 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:05.800 film is not making a record, part of me knows 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:08.280 that making a film is making a record, and that 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.080 I when Rick says, well, I know, you say that's 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:15.320 the best way, but how do you know, How do 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:17.320 you really know what happens if you don't do that? 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:22.679 And um, you know, and that can be frustrating and 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.240 it was. But it can also lead you to places 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:26.920 you would never go to on your own, which it did. 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:32.439 Ok Um, I learned to be much freer making this. 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.439 I just feel much fear as a filmmaker, you know, 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:40.200 much less constrained about um rules. And it's Rick happy 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.000 with the final product. I think. So, So, how did 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:45.080 how did step Goden end up being in the film? 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:48.119 Seth and Ricker good friends? Really? Yeah? How did how 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:52.439 did that come together? I mean Rick has um a 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.960 collection of interesting friends and people. I mean there are 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.359 other people. He's not in the first two episodes, but 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.679 Michael Lewis uh appears in one of our episodes in 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:06.320 a conversation. Um, he does a podcast in Malcolm clab Well, like, 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.479 I think he's interested in Well is he? You know? Well, 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:12.560 that's the conflict in the movie in that on some 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:16.200 level you see this guru who barely speaks, but then 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:18.320 you show what was happening in the dorm room and 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:20.720 you have actual footage of him hyping the Beastie Boys 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:22.959 and he said, this is a pretty aggressive guy who 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.600 knew where he wanted to go. Absolutely. Um, So do 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:32.480 you think that still applies today? No? I think Rick's 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:39.080 journey is one of um getting away from the idea 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:41.720 that you know, I mean, in fact, he says it 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:45.040 and later a later episode that I mean. This is 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:48.040 the example he gives, which you will appreciate. Um. In 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.320 the movie Hall Hale Rock and Roll, as Rick says, 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:53.440 the film that Keith Richard's made about Chuck Berry I 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:58.840 as a documentary would differ the Chuck that UH was 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:04.480 not made by uh by Keith Richards. But um, I'm 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:08.280 blanking on the director it was, I'm blanking. We can 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:11.160 look it up on he did. He's made to Hella Marin, 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:14.600 he did coal Miner's daughter. Um, it'll come to you 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:20.119 in anyway. Um so anyway, Um so Rix talks about 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:23.040 Hell Hell Rock and Roll and that when he saw 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.960 that film when it came out. There's a scene where 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.080 Keith is constantly trying to break Chuck into getting his 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:35.400 act together, tuning his guitar, actually rehearsing, and like getting 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:37.760 putting him on a pedestal so he'll sound as good 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:41.640 as he can sound. And Chuck resists this and sabotages 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:44.600 it again and again. And Rick said, in the beginning, 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.160 when I watched this film, I thought Keith is doing 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:49.560 the best he can to help this artist, and Chuck 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:54.440 just won't listen to him. And now I'm on chuck side. 0:20:57.080 --> 0:20:59.280 As Chuck says, if I want to play guitar, the 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:03.080 sattit tune, that how Chuck Berry plays it, and you 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.399 know what, there's wisdom in that too. Um. But I 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.320 think something Rick talks a lot about is this idea 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:13.439 of letting go of your beliefs and admitting that you 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:17.720 don't know. He also has luxury based on his past success. 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:19.760 As you said earlier, a lot of us, you know, 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:23.640 are not that rich because that many accolades. While you're 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:25.680 making this, I want to tell you one of this 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:27.840 story because this echoes another story that's not in the film. 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:30.520 But I heard that We talked to Rivers Cuomo from Weezer, 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:36.359 and Rivers tells this story that there was a cover song, uh, 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:40.000 like a Tony Braxton cover song that Rivers wanted to 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.760 do and they recorded it and the rest and the guy, 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:45.280 the rest of the guys and Weezer were like, this 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.920 is not good. We should not do this, and Rick 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:51.920 had been supportive of it, and so Rivers was like, Okay, 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:53.800 I'm going to strategize about how we're going to get 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:55.159 on the album, and how I'm going to convince the 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:56.920 guys in the band. And he goes into talk to 0:21:57.040 --> 0:21:58.920 Rick and says, guy, you know, Rick, nobody else in 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:00.680 the band wants to use this song, must put it 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:03.560 on the album. Um you know what are we gonna 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:06.280 do about it? And Rick pauses and says, well, maybe 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:11.600 the right And it just took Rivers back right onto 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:16.480 his back. Heel didn't be like, oh, I never thought 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:19.159 you would have said that. And I think that is 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:23.080 part of what Rick has learned, is to understand that 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:27.320 maybe other people are right. Okay, while you're making this 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:33.160 Rick mini series, are you also working on other projects simultaneously? Okay? 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:37.360 And I should say because it's very much worth saying that. Um, 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:39.719 I have a partner on the Shangri Law this Rick 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:42.879 Reuben series, Jeff Malmberg, who directed the series with me, 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:45.679 So we each did two episodes, but he was my 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:47.879 editor and won't you be my neighbor the Mr. Rogers 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:49.520 film and he's a great filmmaker in his own right. 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:51.680 So Jeff and I have been how do you split 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:53.560 up the duties? How does he do two episodes and 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:58.200 you Dutch episodes? I mean realistically, we both just directed 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:01.480 whenever we could. We just covered to shoots and then 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:04.040 we kind of divated all up at the end. Okay, 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:07.000 let's go back to your earlier comment how documentary has 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:11.520 changed over the years. Yeah, documentary. Um, it's been twenty 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:14.480 six years since I started my first documentary. And back 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:18.400 then there was nothing cool whatsoever about documentaries. I mean 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:24.120 it was PBS, maybe something on HBO, but I mean 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:27.240 there was Capturing the Freedman's I mean that was two 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:33.080 thousand four we started. So, Um, Michael Moore was about 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:36.240 the only very successful but even then, not in nineteen well, yeah, 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:40.920 so he done. Um rogery was so. I actually Roger 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:44.720 Me came out, Um in the fall of nine. I 0:23:44.760 --> 0:23:48.000 was working as a journalist in San Francisco. It opened 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:49.560 up in two theaters, one in New York, one in 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:52.600 l A. And I convinced my roommate to drive with 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:54.399 me to l A for the day to see a 0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:56.920 matinee of Roger Me and drive home to San Francisco, 0:23:57.280 --> 0:24:00.560 which we did. Um. So even then, and I had 0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:04.040 a real fascination with documentary, and there were a number 0:24:04.040 --> 0:24:07.600 of documentaries along the way that really showed me what 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:10.000 I could do well besides Roger and what were they? 0:24:10.080 --> 0:24:15.320 I mean, Roger me Um, Hearts and Minds, Sherman's March, Um, 0:24:15.440 --> 0:24:20.240 when we were Kings, Um Brothers Keeper. You know some 0:24:20.359 --> 0:24:23.240 of those films that were just so influential and I 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:27.520 loved so much. It's so good, so good, uh, And 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:29.280 I have to say for Fake That or in Wales 0:24:29.400 --> 0:24:38.919 film there was hugely influential on me. Occasionally really interesting 0:24:38.960 --> 0:24:41.440 docs getting made, but they were hard, hard to see 0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:44.760 and and there have been a number of waves where 0:24:44.800 --> 0:24:46.920 ducks made a little bit of progress. So in the 0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:49.320 early two thousand's there was a period where Capturing the 0:24:49.359 --> 0:24:51.359 Freedman's and spell Bound and a few films like that, 0:24:51.600 --> 0:24:56.880 um Man im Wire came out, and UM, more ducks 0:24:56.920 --> 0:24:58.720 were getting made and there was more money going into it, 0:24:58.720 --> 0:25:00.520 and then everybody lost money and all kind of went 0:25:00.560 --> 0:25:04.400 away for a while, and then this last really kind 0:25:04.400 --> 0:25:10.000 of six years. UM, there's been an explosion in documentary UM, 0:25:10.080 --> 0:25:12.080 and I think part of that is the streaming services. 0:25:12.600 --> 0:25:14.960 You know, a lot of people talked about places like 0:25:15.040 --> 0:25:18.919 net Netflix being um kind of the end of the 0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:21.840 theatrical documentary, and I think it's actually had the opposite 0:25:21.880 --> 0:25:26.359 effect in that for years people told me I love documentary, 0:25:26.400 --> 0:25:28.520 I just don't know where to find them. And once 0:25:28.560 --> 0:25:32.439 you put documentary on even platform with comedy and drama 0:25:32.480 --> 0:25:35.439 and everything else, lots of people choose documentary. So I 0:25:35.440 --> 0:25:39.359 think it just grew the audience for nonfiction storytelling. And 0:25:39.880 --> 0:25:42.200 you know, last year was one of the greatest years 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:46.280 for theatrical documentary ever. Um. So I think it's changing 0:25:46.280 --> 0:25:49.320 in that way. And just seeing people, I mean, having 0:25:49.359 --> 0:25:51.680 worked in l A for all this time and having 0:25:51.680 --> 0:25:54.120 worked with so many people out of film school, there 0:25:54.200 --> 0:25:57.240 was always this attitude of documentary is like a stepping 0:25:57.280 --> 0:26:01.280 stone to real movies. And needless to say, I've always 0:26:01.280 --> 0:26:04.680 resented that attitude. Um, But more and more and more 0:26:04.720 --> 0:26:08.639 I'm finding young people who I just want to make 0:26:08.680 --> 0:26:12.240 documentaries for their life. Um. It's great. Okay, Let's go 0:26:12.280 --> 0:26:15.840 back to the beginning. You grew up where Santa Barbara, California. 0:26:16.119 --> 0:26:20.040 Santa Barbara. Your parents did what for a living? Um? 0:26:20.200 --> 0:26:26.640 My dad um was an antiquarium book dealer so um 0:26:26.720 --> 0:26:30.480 and a huge, huge rock and roll fan. Huge. How 0:26:30.480 --> 0:26:36.080 old is your father? Um, seventy four? Really so young 0:26:36.160 --> 0:26:39.639 by today's since very young you know, having me getting 0:26:39.640 --> 0:26:41.439 married and having me was a good way to not 0:26:41.480 --> 0:26:48.200 go to Vietnam. But you know, huge Dylan fan huge 0:26:48.720 --> 0:26:51.840 you know Van Morrison and but also British Invasion and 0:26:51.880 --> 0:26:56.600 everything else. Um. So by the time I was getting 0:26:56.600 --> 0:27:00.240 into punk rock, my dad had all those records. He 0:27:00.320 --> 0:27:04.159 had every Patti Smith and um Sex pistols. You know, 0:27:04.320 --> 0:27:06.040 just go to my dad's record collection to pull that 0:27:06.040 --> 0:27:08.080 stuff out. Did he also play all that stuff in 0:27:08.080 --> 0:27:10.320 the house and on the cars to exposed to it. 0:27:10.680 --> 0:27:14.679 Some I think my dad's real music taste tended to 0:27:14.680 --> 0:27:18.640 be more literary, So people like Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen, 0:27:18.680 --> 0:27:21.159 Bob Dylan, Fan Warrison, those were his kind of go 0:27:21.280 --> 0:27:24.399 to people. Um who were great? Who are some of 0:27:24.440 --> 0:27:30.040 my very favorites too? Um and uh and my dad 0:27:30.080 --> 0:27:35.280 my parents went to the Last Waltz and on that well, 0:27:35.960 --> 0:27:37.679 my they were huge fans of the band and they 0:27:37.720 --> 0:27:39.760 knew I don't know if they knew Dylan was going 0:27:39.800 --> 0:27:43.680 to be performing or whatever, but um, I don't even know. 0:27:44.680 --> 0:27:49.680 But they had an extra one and they talked about 0:27:49.720 --> 0:27:56.440 bringing me was nine at the time. Um, they did 0:27:56.440 --> 0:27:59.240 not bring me, um, but they went and they brought 0:27:59.320 --> 0:28:02.280 my aunt and I guess they'd served the whole Thanksgiving 0:28:02.280 --> 0:28:05.719 dinner beforehand, and then they cleared the tables or whatever may. 0:28:05.720 --> 0:28:07.840 They didn't cleared the devils. Anyway, they had the concert 0:28:07.920 --> 0:28:11.600 and um, to this day, I give my dad shit 0:28:11.720 --> 0:28:14.240 about not taking me. I would have been the coolest 0:28:14.320 --> 0:28:16.399 kid ever if I had gone to the last Waltz. 0:28:16.480 --> 0:28:18.920 But but it was that type of upbringing where music 0:28:18.960 --> 0:28:23.240 and literature and film were hugely important. And uh, you're 0:28:23.440 --> 0:28:25.480 how many kids in the family. I have a sister 0:28:27.080 --> 0:28:30.720 three years younger, and she's a geneticist in Oxford, England, 0:28:31.119 --> 0:28:34.840 so she went the other way. Wow. And the middle class, 0:28:34.880 --> 0:28:37.919 upper middle class? What kind of upbringing, upper middle class? 0:28:38.160 --> 0:28:42.520 And also how do you end up going to penn Um. 0:28:42.560 --> 0:28:45.360 It's interesting as a kid from California, did you got 0:28:45.360 --> 0:28:47.960 a public school, private school, went to private school? Actually 0:28:47.960 --> 0:28:50.840 went to boarding school? Uh in o Hi school called 0:28:50.840 --> 0:28:55.160 Thatchure And just going back he seemed like the thing 0:28:55.200 --> 0:28:56.560 to do. And just do you want to get away 0:28:56.600 --> 0:28:59.360 from home? And and and I actually fell in love 0:29:00.080 --> 0:29:02.080 with the kind of history of the East Coast. I 0:29:02.200 --> 0:29:06.600 majored in Colonial American history of all things. So but 0:29:06.680 --> 0:29:09.200 I still find it fascinating because they were basically making 0:29:09.280 --> 0:29:12.120 up a civilization from scratch at the time, you know, 0:29:12.280 --> 0:29:15.120 by their own rules, and it was a unique situation 0:29:15.200 --> 0:29:19.720 that way. And I still find Colonial America very fascinating. UM. 0:29:19.760 --> 0:29:22.440 And I was kind of running away from from California 0:29:22.480 --> 0:29:25.960 and I um and my plan was to be a journalist, 0:29:26.400 --> 0:29:29.320 which I ended up doing for a time. So the 0:29:29.360 --> 0:29:32.000 experience in college was a good experience. It was great. Yeah, 0:29:32.000 --> 0:29:34.880 I love it. But I was a huge devotee of 0:29:35.400 --> 0:29:39.880 new journalism. So you know that new journalism menthodology that 0:29:39.920 --> 0:29:44.040 Tom Wolfe edited in the early seventies with tweets and uh, 0:29:44.400 --> 0:29:47.920 John Didion and or Mailer and everybody else. Um. I 0:29:47.960 --> 0:29:50.640 mean that was like my Bible, you know. And plus 0:29:50.680 --> 0:29:54.480 people like Hunter Thompson UM, who ended up who was 0:29:54.680 --> 0:29:58.520 family friends of ours. So my dad also had a 0:29:58.560 --> 0:30:03.840 small addition press. He was publishing authors he knew and liked, UM, 0:30:03.960 --> 0:30:08.840 so he published um Hunter Thompson book. Um. They were 0:30:08.880 --> 0:30:11.880 good friends with Charles Wakowski who stayed at our house, 0:30:12.240 --> 0:30:15.040 you know, who is a very bohemian I guess you 0:30:15.040 --> 0:30:18.440 would say, kind of upbringing UM. So between the punk 0:30:18.520 --> 0:30:24.600 rock and the Charles Wakowski. It was not your conventional So, okay, 0:30:25.000 --> 0:30:28.080 you're at PEN. You go into Pen knowing you want 0:30:28.080 --> 0:30:32.360 to be a journalist. I had a pretty good idea. 0:30:32.680 --> 0:30:34.680 I mean, this is also in the late eighties, and 0:30:34.720 --> 0:30:37.000 you remember, you know, there was like a new magazine 0:30:37.000 --> 0:30:40.120 opening every week. There was a new magazine. You know, 0:30:40.120 --> 0:30:43.560 in the news stands are bursting with amazing long form writing. 0:30:44.080 --> 0:30:47.080 And that was just the thing and the idea that 0:30:47.280 --> 0:30:50.520 it's It's funny because all the things the new journalism preached, 0:30:50.880 --> 0:30:55.200 which was really using techniques of fiction writing to nonfiction storytelling, 0:30:56.360 --> 0:30:59.640 is exactly what I'm doing now. It's exactly the same thing, 0:30:59.680 --> 0:31:03.400 taking techniques of um, you know, scripted storytelling and putting 0:31:03.400 --> 0:31:07.600 into into nonfiction stories. So and I still think of 0:31:07.600 --> 0:31:11.720 myself as a journalist. It's just documentaries, like three D journalism. Okay, 0:31:11.720 --> 0:31:14.080 so you graduate from Pen. What's your first job the 0:31:14.200 --> 0:31:17.680 Nation magazine and you're doing what are you actually writing? 0:31:17.920 --> 0:31:21.520 Started as an intern, then became a fact checker. Then 0:31:21.560 --> 0:31:25.840 I worked as on the history of the Nation magazine. 0:31:25.960 --> 0:31:28.880 So I worked on a book was a long term project, 0:31:29.280 --> 0:31:31.680 and then I moved to San Francisco and started working 0:31:31.680 --> 0:31:34.320 at a wire service called Pacific News Service, and then 0:31:34.320 --> 0:31:37.480 went to work for Pacific A Radio. Flo How do 0:31:37.520 --> 0:31:39.960 you go from the new service to Pacific Radio? I 0:31:40.000 --> 0:31:42.560 mean it was a small The kind of left wing 0:31:42.720 --> 0:31:46.960 journalism world of UM San Francisco in the early nineties 0:31:47.000 --> 0:31:50.200 was very small, and everybody knew everybody else. The problem 0:31:50.360 --> 0:31:54.600 I had was, as a young person, all of the 0:31:54.680 --> 0:31:57.160 jobs in media, particularly in the Bay Area, but this 0:31:57.240 --> 0:32:00.239 is true throughout most of journalism. We're taken up by 0:32:00.280 --> 0:32:03.560 baby boomers who are not going anywhere soon. You know that. 0:32:03.720 --> 0:32:07.600 Basically my bosses that was the job I wanted, and 0:32:07.600 --> 0:32:10.120 they were twenty years away from retirement. And that was 0:32:10.160 --> 0:32:14.480 true everywhere. So part of me leaving that world was 0:32:14.520 --> 0:32:17.239 feeling like I had to make my own opportunity and 0:32:17.280 --> 0:32:19.960 I had to come back to l A to do it. Okay, 0:32:20.160 --> 0:32:22.560 you switch from news to radio? You were doing what 0:32:22.640 --> 0:32:26.240 at radio? I ran? I was still writing freelance UM, 0:32:26.280 --> 0:32:29.760 but there was a program called Youth Radio UM where 0:32:29.800 --> 0:32:33.680 we would train kids, inner city kids to be radio 0:32:33.760 --> 0:32:37.920 engineers and reporters, and we had a weekly show in Berkeley, 0:32:37.960 --> 0:32:41.440 but we also ran stories on MPR and it was 0:32:41.520 --> 0:32:44.160 kind of like a just a cool program to get 0:32:44.200 --> 0:32:46.800 young people, you know, trained up into media. Okay, so 0:32:46.840 --> 0:32:49.520 you ultimately quit that to come back to l A 0:32:49.640 --> 0:32:53.120 to do what to make my first film? Okay, so 0:32:53.640 --> 0:32:56.040 you're in San Francisco. How long does it take for 0:32:56.080 --> 0:33:00.560 you to say I'm gonna quit? Two weeks? Let me? 0:33:01.120 --> 0:33:02.800 I mean you just suddenly said I gotta go when 0:33:02.840 --> 0:33:04.320 you went, well, I've been thinking about it for a 0:33:04.400 --> 0:33:06.880 long time. I think basically the truth is I've been 0:33:06.880 --> 0:33:08.920 in denial that I wanted to be a filmmaker forever. 0:33:09.040 --> 0:33:12.240 I thought that journalism was like a real adult career 0:33:12.240 --> 0:33:14.920 and filmmaking was like what I did on weekends, you know, 0:33:15.000 --> 0:33:17.920 because it was too much fun, you know, to dilettante 0:33:17.960 --> 0:33:21.600 is for me to actually want to be a filmmaker. Um. 0:33:21.640 --> 0:33:27.040 And then I kind of had this epiphany that all 0:33:27.120 --> 0:33:29.520 the years of doing political journalism, you know, from the 0:33:29.600 --> 0:33:33.800 nation on that basically I was in denial about what 0:33:33.840 --> 0:33:36.520 I actually cared about. What I spent all of my 0:33:36.600 --> 0:33:40.440 week nights and weekends on was culture. I was playing 0:33:40.480 --> 0:33:43.800 in bands, I was going to art museums, I was 0:33:43.840 --> 0:33:47.000 reading books, and I was devouring movies. And I said, well, 0:33:47.000 --> 0:33:49.560 why don't I actually spend my days doing the thing 0:33:49.600 --> 0:33:53.560 I spend all my extracurricular hours doing. And that is 0:33:53.600 --> 0:33:55.920 pretty much when I was twenty five, I made that decision. 0:33:55.960 --> 0:33:59.320 I haven't looked back. All I've done since this culture. Okay, 0:33:59.320 --> 0:34:02.960 will you make movies? Before you left San Francisco, I 0:34:03.080 --> 0:34:08.560 was flirting with it, um and again documentary Like there 0:34:08.600 --> 0:34:10.719 was no clear path to have a career as a 0:34:10.800 --> 0:34:15.120 documentary and you saw yourself as a documentarian. So what 0:34:15.200 --> 0:34:17.560 happened is I started my first film not a little 0:34:17.640 --> 0:34:20.880 slower you moved. Yeah, so I go down there. I 0:34:20.880 --> 0:34:22.759 think it's going to take the summer for me to 0:34:22.800 --> 0:34:25.919 make a film. And my first film ended up being 0:34:25.920 --> 0:34:30.120 called Shotgun Freeway Drives through Lost l A. So it's 0:34:30.160 --> 0:34:33.120 this kind of Mondo l a history documentary which you 0:34:33.160 --> 0:34:35.920 can find out there. Okay, but the first question is 0:34:35.960 --> 0:34:37.880 the average person would say, you're moving to l A 0:34:38.280 --> 0:34:41.600 and you're making a movie on what money? So this 0:34:41.680 --> 0:34:44.520 was in the era of get a bunch of credit 0:34:44.520 --> 0:34:47.680 cards and you know, rack up all the debt. This 0:34:47.760 --> 0:34:52.800 is what you know Robert Rodriguez. And there was a book, um, 0:34:52.840 --> 0:34:56.960 you know what was it called by John Pearson? Uh? 0:34:57.120 --> 0:35:01.560 What was it called? Spike, Dikes, Mike and whatever, which 0:35:01.600 --> 0:35:03.759 was kind of like the bible for how to go 0:35:03.800 --> 0:35:05.799 out and just do your own thing. And you know, 0:35:05.880 --> 0:35:07.880 so we were all this is the early nineties, that 0:35:07.960 --> 0:35:10.800 kind of heyday of early independent film where everybody felt 0:35:10.840 --> 0:35:12.960 you know, Soderberg's and all these people are just kind 0:35:12.960 --> 0:35:15.160 of jumping out there and doing it. So I thought, well, 0:35:15.200 --> 0:35:18.640 I can do that. Um at the end of the day, 0:35:18.800 --> 0:35:23.000 we ended up making the film for thirty five thousand dollars, 0:35:23.400 --> 0:35:26.040 all on credit cards. Um well, we ended up getting 0:35:26.040 --> 0:35:31.680 one investor who put in, but still so we But 0:35:31.880 --> 0:35:35.279 the the story is that we basically made it for 0:35:35.280 --> 0:35:38.960 no money. You know, and your first film, everybody will 0:35:39.000 --> 0:35:41.320 work for you one time for free, and you know 0:35:41.320 --> 0:35:44.160 they won't do it for your second film. But um, 0:35:44.200 --> 0:35:47.520 I mean, for instance, it's also being kind of young 0:35:47.600 --> 0:35:49.480 in a city like this with all this opportunity and 0:35:49.480 --> 0:35:51.920 all these people that want to become cinematographers and editors 0:35:51.920 --> 0:35:54.880 who are all stuck at as assistant editors and you 0:35:54.920 --> 0:35:56.960 know everything else. That a friend of mine was a 0:35:56.960 --> 0:36:00.640 post production supervisor on the TV show Northern Exposure, and 0:36:00.840 --> 0:36:02.799 they had some of the first avid's that had ever 0:36:02.840 --> 0:36:06.000 been used in production. And he said, if you for those, 0:36:06.000 --> 0:36:09.520 people don't know if those are computer editing, nonlinear editing 0:36:09.800 --> 0:36:13.600 editing on computers, which is brand brand new at the time, um, 0:36:13.640 --> 0:36:17.279 and incredibly expensive and inaccessible. So he said, if you 0:36:17.320 --> 0:36:20.160 come in from eleven PM to eight am, you can 0:36:20.280 --> 0:36:23.759 use the machines. So that's how I edited the films. 0:36:23.920 --> 0:36:27.920 We stayed up all night, um for like a year. Okay, 0:36:28.440 --> 0:36:31.480 let's be clear. You hadn't made a movie previously right now, 0:36:31.800 --> 0:36:34.640 so you must have made a lot of mistakes along 0:36:34.640 --> 0:36:37.040 the way. Yeah. I made a ton of mistakes. And 0:36:37.040 --> 0:36:40.080 I always say my first film was my film school. Um. 0:36:40.120 --> 0:36:42.799 But two weeks into making it, I wrote a letter 0:36:42.800 --> 0:36:44.799 to my parents and I said, this is what I'm 0:36:44.800 --> 0:36:46.560 going to do for the rest of my life. Like 0:36:46.640 --> 0:36:50.520 it was so clear when I started it that everything, 0:36:50.680 --> 0:36:53.960 all my skill sets, they all come together perfectly in 0:36:53.960 --> 0:36:56.680 this job. And it's really all I've done since. And 0:36:56.719 --> 0:36:58.880 you said, we, who was we? I had a co 0:36:59.000 --> 0:37:02.319 director on my first film, here a Palenberg. Um he 0:37:02.440 --> 0:37:05.359 still makes films and um as an old old friend 0:37:05.360 --> 0:37:08.040 of mine. Okay, so you finished the film you shot 0:37:08.080 --> 0:37:10.640 at one on sixteen on video. It was a combination 0:37:10.680 --> 0:37:12.840 of everything. I mean, it was mainly videotape, but we 0:37:12.880 --> 0:37:16.600 shot sixteen kind of inserts and super eight and it 0:37:16.680 --> 0:37:19.359 was kind of a mondo collage of what history means 0:37:19.360 --> 0:37:21.840 in l A. And we got people like James Elroy 0:37:21.840 --> 0:37:24.400 and John Didion to be in it, and Mike Davis 0:37:24.440 --> 0:37:27.120 and all kinds of other people, and it was right. 0:37:27.160 --> 0:37:29.200 I mean really, the reason for me doing it was 0:37:29.880 --> 0:37:32.600 as a kid from South California going to college back east, 0:37:33.840 --> 0:37:35.919 people laughed at me when I talked about their being 0:37:36.000 --> 0:37:39.560 history or culture in Los Angeles, and I had more 0:37:39.640 --> 0:37:43.359 than a little chip on my shoulder about it. Um 0:37:43.400 --> 0:37:45.919 So I ended up making this film to basically say 0:37:45.960 --> 0:37:48.800 fuck you to all these people that l A History 0:37:48.880 --> 0:37:51.800 is not an oxymoron, and that there's so much culture 0:37:51.840 --> 0:37:53.879 here and so much history here. It just doesn't look 0:37:54.360 --> 0:37:57.120 like what you're using used to seeing urban history look like. 0:37:57.680 --> 0:38:00.960 You know, it's it's just a different shape. Okay, So 0:38:01.120 --> 0:38:05.200 are at the time were you happy with the finished product? Yeah? 0:38:05.520 --> 0:38:07.319 Very happy? And so then what happened? You did the 0:38:07.360 --> 0:38:11.560 film festival, supermarried it south By, We got a theatrical release, 0:38:11.640 --> 0:38:14.120 We sold it to the Sundance Channel, and we made money. 0:38:15.000 --> 0:38:20.439 How's that? How do you remember? Like we made like okay, 0:38:20.480 --> 0:38:23.520 so this is happening. Now you're thinking about the second movie. 0:38:24.440 --> 0:38:26.839 So I then was offered was so the other thing 0:38:26.880 --> 0:38:28.800 I didn't tell you, And this may be a locals 0:38:28.800 --> 0:38:31.480 only thing, but I had a day job to make 0:38:31.520 --> 0:38:35.880 money throughout this period producing Huell Houser's TV show how 0:38:35.880 --> 0:38:38.279 did you get that? Gig um? Because he was doing 0:38:38.280 --> 0:38:40.360 this l A History show. He with those of you 0:38:40.440 --> 0:38:44.040 don't know, was this kind of eccentric southern quasi bumpkin 0:38:44.200 --> 0:38:47.400 character who would go around California and Los Angeles doing California, 0:38:47.760 --> 0:38:52.960 California's gold Fuel House. And so he was doing his 0:38:53.000 --> 0:38:55.360 own l A History California history thing, and people I 0:38:55.400 --> 0:38:58.000 knew somebody who worked at KCT here, the PBS station, 0:38:58.000 --> 0:38:59.400 They said you should meet him, and I met him 0:38:59.400 --> 0:39:01.719 and he was like, oh, you're into this stuff, come 0:39:01.719 --> 0:39:03.840 work for me. So I ended up working for him 0:39:03.920 --> 0:39:06.520 to make money. Why I finished my first film, and 0:39:06.560 --> 0:39:09.000 then right when I finished my film, I got offered 0:39:09.000 --> 0:39:12.200 a job producing any biography And I did that for 0:39:12.360 --> 0:39:16.279 three years and I learned so much more, not just 0:39:16.360 --> 0:39:19.120 about filmmaking, but about how to run a production company. 0:39:19.400 --> 0:39:22.239 UM had actually work with employees and how to deal 0:39:22.280 --> 0:39:25.279 with all that stuff. And during that time I got 0:39:25.320 --> 0:39:28.920 to do I did to Brian Wilson two hour Any biography. 0:39:29.000 --> 0:39:31.719 I did a brill building documentary and if you remember that, 0:39:32.040 --> 0:39:37.239 UM for Any and Bert Backrack Libran Stoller like I 0:39:37.280 --> 0:39:39.200 pushed them into music in a way that they weren't 0:39:39.280 --> 0:39:42.799 doing before. And then kind of my my coup was 0:39:42.880 --> 0:39:45.560 that UM. I was a huge fan of Peter Gonnis, 0:39:45.800 --> 0:39:49.400 you know the music and Peter I basically run him 0:39:49.400 --> 0:39:52.520 a fan letter and said, I would love to do 0:39:52.520 --> 0:39:55.000 a documentary with you, do you have any interest? And 0:39:55.440 --> 0:39:57.239 he had done a book called Sweet Soul Music that 0:39:57.360 --> 0:39:59.520 I really loved and I was thinking about trying to 0:39:59.560 --> 0:40:01.719 do and he said, there are only two subjects I 0:40:01.760 --> 0:40:05.120 want to make a film about, Doc Pomas and Sam Phillips. 0:40:06.000 --> 0:40:09.239 And I thought about it and I said, well, I'm 0:40:09.239 --> 0:40:11.360 gonna have a much easier chance making the Sam Phillips 0:40:11.400 --> 0:40:15.400 documentary than the Doc Pomus documentary right now. And Peter 0:40:15.400 --> 0:40:17.440 and I went about pitching it and we ended up 0:40:17.480 --> 0:40:21.560 making a two hour Sam Phillips documentary. It was fantastic, 0:40:21.800 --> 0:40:26.600 Thank you, and it was an incredible experience for me 0:40:26.800 --> 0:40:29.799 because you know, Peter and I went to Memphis for 0:40:29.880 --> 0:40:33.680 three months. I had all this time again like I 0:40:33.719 --> 0:40:36.520 was being produced by Sam Phillips. I got the experience. 0:40:36.560 --> 0:40:37.960 I was feeling like I was one of the last 0:40:38.080 --> 0:40:40.520 artists that Sam Phillips ever produced, because I got the 0:40:40.560 --> 0:40:45.360 full on, you know, fire breathing, fog horn, leg horn, 0:40:45.640 --> 0:40:53.080 Sam Phillips treatment. Um, And it was amazing and basically, UM. 0:40:53.120 --> 0:40:55.600 There were a couple of big takeaways from that. One was, 0:40:56.520 --> 0:41:01.279 UM that Peter Gorini, who was really lea somebody, had 0:41:01.320 --> 0:41:03.480 taught me so much about what I do and is 0:41:03.640 --> 0:41:06.239 one of the greatest music writers of all time. UM. 0:41:06.280 --> 0:41:08.480 He said something me early on that I've thought about 0:41:08.800 --> 0:41:12.319 so many times, which is, the three least interesting things 0:41:12.400 --> 0:41:16.120 about rock and roll are sex, drugs, and getting screwed 0:41:16.120 --> 0:41:20.280 over by your record label. Because everybody tells the same stories. 0:41:21.160 --> 0:41:24.000 And I've thought about that so often. I mean, that 0:41:24.080 --> 0:41:27.040 kind of is behind the music basically. So once you 0:41:27.080 --> 0:41:30.120 take all that away, what's the differentiator between all these stories? 0:41:30.239 --> 0:41:33.719 That's what I'm interested in. UM. But the other thing 0:41:34.000 --> 0:41:36.640 was that Sam Phillips himself was such a believer in 0:41:36.680 --> 0:41:40.280 his own vision you know, bringing in African American artists 0:41:40.280 --> 0:41:43.759 to record in Memphis, you know, early on, I mean 0:41:44.200 --> 0:41:46.080 like Turner and BB King and Hallam Wolf and on 0:41:46.160 --> 0:41:48.680 and on and on, to the point where he was 0:41:48.719 --> 0:41:52.000 completely ostracized by his peers and the rest of white 0:41:52.040 --> 0:41:54.200 society and Memphis, and to the point where he had 0:41:54.239 --> 0:41:57.920 nervous breakdowns, was given shock therapy, and he never wavered 0:41:57.920 --> 0:42:00.600 in his belief in this music. And I came away 0:42:00.640 --> 0:42:03.600 from finishing that film and said, I have to work 0:42:03.600 --> 0:42:06.600 for myself. I can't ever work for anybody else, and 0:42:06.640 --> 0:42:09.560 I haven't since. So I basically started my own production 0:42:09.600 --> 0:42:14.440 company then Tremlow Productions, and haven't looked back. So that 0:42:14.560 --> 0:42:18.719 was what year two thousand? So what was the first project? 0:42:20.800 --> 0:42:23.360 I mean, in the beginning, I was just scrambling to 0:42:23.400 --> 0:42:26.680 make money doing things um and I did projects for 0:42:27.280 --> 0:42:31.960 museums and UM. I think my first real documentary I 0:42:32.040 --> 0:42:35.960 made was Muddy Waters Film, And that was because Robert Gordon, 0:42:36.239 --> 0:42:38.799 the Memphis music writer who was also kind of a 0:42:38.800 --> 0:42:41.319 disciple of Peter Groundings. Peter had introduced us and we 0:42:41.400 --> 0:42:44.080 become friends, and Robert was finishing his book on Muddy 0:42:44.080 --> 0:42:46.640 and said, nobody's ever done a proper Muddy Waters documentary. 0:42:47.480 --> 0:42:49.839 Let's do it. So we jumped in and we did 0:42:49.840 --> 0:42:52.839 it again, not knowing how we were going to pay 0:42:52.880 --> 0:42:54.160 for all of it, and we ended up getting you 0:42:54.360 --> 0:42:56.000 some money out of Channel four in England and it's 0:42:56.040 --> 0:42:58.560 kind of stitching together money from home video back when 0:42:58.560 --> 0:43:02.000 you could do that and um and we made it 0:43:02.280 --> 0:43:04.759 and had such a good experience we ended up selling 0:43:04.760 --> 0:43:09.840 it to American Masters here for PBS and UM and 0:43:09.960 --> 0:43:12.120 that really kind of got the ball rolling for me 0:43:12.280 --> 0:43:15.040 as a production company. I next it at Hank Williams 0:43:15.080 --> 0:43:18.960 American Masters and what I found, I mean, I am 0:43:19.000 --> 0:43:25.200 a music fanatic. It's no surprise, but I have many interests. 0:43:25.200 --> 0:43:27.000 But part of the reason I did so many music 0:43:27.040 --> 0:43:32.120 films was I could get them funded. You know that 0:43:32.680 --> 0:43:35.000 the difference with the music film is that there's a 0:43:35.000 --> 0:43:38.200 built an audience that cares about this music in most cases, 0:43:38.880 --> 0:43:42.120 um and in many cases there's a publisher, label or 0:43:42.120 --> 0:43:45.200 an artist or somebody who cares about a film getting made, 0:43:45.800 --> 0:43:48.799 as opposed to making a film about his subject where 0:43:48.840 --> 0:43:54.400 there's zero awareness and zero built in audience. UM. And 0:43:54.480 --> 0:43:58.400 it just felt both like I could feed my music obsession, 0:43:58.440 --> 0:44:00.360 but I could also kind of get no as the 0:44:00.440 --> 0:44:03.440 music guy, which I did to the point where I 0:44:03.440 --> 0:44:06.000 started getting calls from people all the time saying, Oh, 0:44:06.040 --> 0:44:09.480 we have this music project. Are you interested? Are you interested? Um? 0:44:09.520 --> 0:44:11.759 Which was great as an impended documentary filmmaker at the 0:44:11.800 --> 0:44:13.239 time when there weren't a lot of ways to get 0:44:13.280 --> 0:44:17.160 films made that you know, I had my niche Okay, 0:44:17.200 --> 0:44:21.440 so Buddy Waters, where are you from there? So? Um, 0:44:21.560 --> 0:44:24.680 Hank Williams. Then I made a film called The Cool 0:44:24.760 --> 0:44:27.000 School about the l a art scene in the fifties 0:44:27.040 --> 0:44:33.920 and sixties is not easy to sell, like a music film. Um. 0:44:34.239 --> 0:44:36.640 Like a lot of these things, they're just things that 0:44:36.719 --> 0:44:39.400 I can't get out of my head. Um. So The 0:44:39.440 --> 0:44:43.000 Cool School was because I went to the Getty to 0:44:43.080 --> 0:44:45.640 see a guy named Walter Hopps who was a legendary 0:44:45.719 --> 0:44:47.960 curator who had started this gallery called the Ferris Gallery, 0:44:48.719 --> 0:44:51.520 essentially the first big modern art gallery in Los Angeles, 0:44:52.200 --> 0:44:54.400 and he gave a talk at the Getty. This is 0:44:54.440 --> 0:45:00.000 maybe two thousand two, and I found it so fascinating 0:45:00.000 --> 0:45:02.879 eating and I came home and said, well, I want 0:45:02.880 --> 0:45:05.000 to watch the documentary about him. I looked and there 0:45:05.040 --> 0:45:06.799 was no documentary about him, and I said, well, then 0:45:06.840 --> 0:45:09.080 I'll read the book about him. And there was no 0:45:09.080 --> 0:45:11.919 book about him or about that scene, which was incredible 0:45:12.040 --> 0:45:15.480 that nobody had documented it. And then it was one 0:45:15.480 --> 0:45:17.600 of those moments, well, well I guess, I guess I 0:45:17.600 --> 0:45:21.480 have to do it right, um. And it was fascinating 0:45:21.719 --> 0:45:24.400 to then get into that world of all the Venice 0:45:24.480 --> 0:45:27.439 artists and the Robert Irwin ed Ruche and Keen Holds 0:45:27.480 --> 0:45:32.359 and Larry Bell and Billy Albankston, that whole group of artists, um, 0:45:32.440 --> 0:45:36.920 who were fascinating kind of a group of alpha males 0:45:37.200 --> 0:45:40.000 kind of half and then we're Venice beach bum surfer 0:45:40.160 --> 0:45:42.719 slash art modern artists and the other half for kind 0:45:42.760 --> 0:45:46.640 of proto hippies living up into Panga or a Laurel Canyon, 0:45:46.960 --> 0:45:49.640 and they all kind of came together around the las 0:45:49.640 --> 0:45:52.719 Anega scene and would hang out of Barney's Beanery and 0:45:52.760 --> 0:45:54.960 all that kind of legendary the early days of the 0:45:55.040 --> 0:45:56.960 la arts scene. And again this was also feeding my 0:45:57.160 --> 0:46:00.000 l A Has culture obsessions, so it was another middle 0:46:00.040 --> 0:46:02.239 finger to the rest of the country. And what was 0:46:02.320 --> 0:46:06.200 really interesting in making that film, and this is the 0:46:06.200 --> 0:46:08.640 first time it ever really happened to me um and 0:46:08.680 --> 0:46:10.440 it's happened a few times since. Where you make a 0:46:10.480 --> 0:46:13.359 film and you never expect a film to have an 0:46:13.400 --> 0:46:16.719 actual impact. You know, maybe people like it, but it 0:46:16.840 --> 0:46:20.440 to actually change things you don't expect. Um. But the 0:46:20.520 --> 0:46:24.960 Cool School was something that really planted a flag for 0:46:25.239 --> 0:46:27.160 the fact that l A has a real art scene. 0:46:27.840 --> 0:46:30.480 And out of that, I don't think it's a stretch 0:46:30.560 --> 0:46:32.200 to say, and I think they admit it that. The 0:46:32.320 --> 0:46:35.880 Getty then started their specific standard time series, this huge 0:46:36.239 --> 0:46:41.640 year's long program um in, this huge oral history program. 0:46:41.680 --> 0:46:44.360 And John Baldassari, who's in my film too, who was 0:46:44.440 --> 0:46:48.000 teaching forever at cal Arts, said in the wake of 0:46:48.000 --> 0:46:50.520 that film that for years he would tell his graduates 0:46:50.560 --> 0:46:53.279 out of art school moved to New York, and that 0:46:53.360 --> 0:46:56.880 year he said, stay in l A. Like case the 0:46:56.880 --> 0:46:59.960 moment it changed. I mean, that must be very satisfying. 0:47:00.280 --> 0:47:02.960 To have that level of impact. It was great. You 0:47:02.960 --> 0:47:05.359 never expected. If I had, I probably would have bought 0:47:05.440 --> 0:47:08.960 more art. Okay. And then who distributed that movie alter 0:47:09.719 --> 0:47:12.360 a company called Art House. It was PBS aired it 0:47:12.400 --> 0:47:16.839 here in the States, um and and it got out, 0:47:16.880 --> 0:47:19.040 you know, it was on the BBC, and you know 0:47:19.080 --> 0:47:21.960 it was around the World after the Art film then 0:47:22.120 --> 0:47:24.239 and I did all kinds of things in between. I 0:47:24.239 --> 0:47:28.080 did a film on um. I should look at my 0:47:28.160 --> 0:47:30.719 IMDb to remember all them, you know. I did little 0:47:30.719 --> 0:47:34.520 projects like an Iggy pop project about raw power. Um. 0:47:34.560 --> 0:47:37.960 I'm a huge Iggy fan. UM. I did a film 0:47:37.960 --> 0:47:42.160 about women and country music. Uh. Did a film by 0:47:42.239 --> 0:47:48.399 the Highwayman. Um. So all kinds of so. And are 0:47:48.440 --> 0:47:51.759 you working around the clock or you scrambling? You know. 0:47:51.960 --> 0:47:54.759 Traditionally a movie producer as a number of projects and 0:47:54.800 --> 0:47:57.960 it may take years one to actually flourish. Yeah, and 0:47:58.000 --> 0:48:01.239 they could take years. I mean. Another one before I 0:48:01.280 --> 0:48:03.799 move on was Stax Records. I did a film called 0:48:03.880 --> 0:48:05.880 Respect Yourself with the Robert Gordon, which is one of 0:48:05.920 --> 0:48:08.640 my favorite films I've done because stacks stacks music is 0:48:08.719 --> 0:48:11.759 unbeatable and the story is well, that's the amazing thing. 0:48:11.840 --> 0:48:14.279 I went to Memphis to do a gig. Everybody talks 0:48:14.280 --> 0:48:18.439 about Nashville Memphis. There's so much just you, I mean, 0:48:18.480 --> 0:48:21.279 between Sun and Stax and High and all of that stuff. 0:48:21.320 --> 0:48:24.279 I mean, Memphis is just I love Memphis and you 0:48:24.360 --> 0:48:27.480 go there and well, across the river's Arkansas. For those 0:48:27.520 --> 0:48:29.960 of us live in California or coastal whatever, and you 0:48:30.040 --> 0:48:32.879 know Mississippi is right there, right there, I know, by 0:48:32.920 --> 0:48:34.520 down the border. In fact, I was there this summer 0:48:34.560 --> 0:48:36.880 with my family and um, my wife and kids, and 0:48:36.920 --> 0:48:39.120 I walked across the bridge to the Arkansas side just 0:48:39.200 --> 0:48:41.759 to go over there, and I was driving him around. Yeah, 0:48:41.760 --> 0:48:43.960 as I said, I did that, didn't do that. I said, well, God, 0:48:44.440 --> 0:48:45.840 what am I ever going to get back to Arkansas? 0:48:45.880 --> 0:48:53.759 Because I had in Arkansas? How do you end up 0:48:53.800 --> 0:48:58.040 doing twenty feet from stardom? So? Um, I got a 0:48:58.080 --> 0:49:03.600 call from somebody who knew Gil Freeson. And Gil many 0:49:03.640 --> 0:49:06.200 people maybe listening will know, had been the president of 0:49:06.200 --> 0:49:09.640 A and M Records and for forever, forever, from virtually 0:49:09.680 --> 0:49:11.440 from the beginning. I think he was the first employee 0:49:11.440 --> 0:49:14.520 actually at A and M, and people called him the 0:49:14.600 --> 0:49:18.480 ampersand in A and M. So uh. And Gil was 0:49:18.520 --> 0:49:21.120 retired and had invested his money wisely and was kind 0:49:21.160 --> 0:49:27.040 of looking for a project. Um, and he somebody said, 0:49:27.040 --> 0:49:28.560 do you want to be with him? He has a 0:49:28.640 --> 0:49:31.080 music project he's talking about, and I said sure. So 0:49:31.360 --> 0:49:34.399 we met. We actually first bonded over modern art because 0:49:34.440 --> 0:49:35.920 he was a big modern art guy, and so was I. 0:49:36.080 --> 0:49:38.719 So we talked about that. UM. I said, so what's 0:49:38.760 --> 0:49:42.319 your what's your idea for a music film? And he said, well, 0:49:43.560 --> 0:49:46.040 my wife and I went to a Leonard Cohen concert 0:49:46.120 --> 0:49:50.239 in Las Vegas and I smoked a joint and I 0:49:50.280 --> 0:49:54.480 spent the whole concert looking at these amazing backup singers 0:49:54.480 --> 0:49:57.480 he had, and Leonard Cohen didn't have amazing backup singers. 0:49:58.120 --> 0:50:00.600 And uh, he said. The next day, A, I just 0:50:00.680 --> 0:50:03.600 kept thinking about these backup singers and wondering what's their story. 0:50:04.760 --> 0:50:07.439 And I said, oh, that's really interesting. So so what's 0:50:07.480 --> 0:50:09.520 the film? He said, I don't know. You have to 0:50:09.520 --> 0:50:16.759 figure that out. Says like, okay, backup singers, um. And 0:50:16.760 --> 0:50:21.960 it's interesting for somebody who is such a music geek. UM. 0:50:22.120 --> 0:50:26.000 I didn't know much about backup singers. UM. And even 0:50:26.040 --> 0:50:28.280 on my drive home, I was thinking about it and thinking, 0:50:28.320 --> 0:50:30.480 you know, what are songs with great backup vocals? I 0:50:30.480 --> 0:50:33.120 could come up with like six, you know, because your 0:50:33.160 --> 0:50:38.640 brain is not programmed to notice what's in the background. UM. 0:50:38.680 --> 0:50:43.480 And I over time completely reprogrammed my brain to to 0:50:43.600 --> 0:50:46.360 this day when I hear a great song with backup vocals. 0:50:46.520 --> 0:50:49.000 I added to a Spotify list I have just because 0:50:49.600 --> 0:50:52.680 now it's like precious to collect, you know, great songs. 0:50:52.719 --> 0:50:54.719 And I ended up with kind of hundreds of songs 0:50:54.760 --> 0:50:58.200 and I put together a kind of a theoretical soundtrack. UM. 0:50:58.239 --> 0:50:59.640 But it was another one of those things when I 0:50:59.640 --> 0:51:01.359 went home said, well, who's written a book about him? 0:51:01.360 --> 0:51:04.080 Who has made a film about them? Nothing? Nothing? I 0:51:04.080 --> 0:51:06.520 found one article in gold Mine magazine and that was it. 0:51:06.760 --> 0:51:10.200 On backup singing UM, And I said, well, then the 0:51:10.280 --> 0:51:12.719 only way to learn about this world is to talk 0:51:12.760 --> 0:51:16.680 to them. So I said, well, let's and this was 0:51:16.800 --> 0:51:20.719 Gil's idea too, well, let's just do some interviews. Let's 0:51:20.960 --> 0:51:23.439 talk to people. And he had found Lisa Fisher because 0:51:23.440 --> 0:51:25.359 he knew sting and she was singing a sting at 0:51:25.360 --> 0:51:29.080 the time. UM. And Lisa was great, and she opened 0:51:29.120 --> 0:51:30.759 the door to a bunch of people, and there were 0:51:30.800 --> 0:51:34.880 a few other people who really helped. UM. But we 0:51:35.000 --> 0:51:41.360 ended up doing probably thirty forty oral histories in the beginning, 0:51:42.080 --> 0:51:44.520 just to figure out how this world worked, like how 0:51:44.560 --> 0:51:47.399 big is it? How what? What are the themes? You know? Um? 0:51:48.600 --> 0:51:53.480 And what I very very quickly came into focus, like okay, 0:51:53.520 --> 0:51:55.360 here I understand what the big themes are, you know, 0:51:55.520 --> 0:51:57.440 and there are some of them seem obvious of you know, 0:51:57.640 --> 0:52:00.520 the church finding its way into secular music and choir 0:52:00.560 --> 0:52:03.840 of voices and um and kind of the themes of 0:52:03.920 --> 0:52:09.880 the industry versus um versus um, you know, kind of 0:52:09.960 --> 0:52:15.600 personal um integrity, I guess um. But the thing we 0:52:15.640 --> 0:52:18.399 really discovered when we decided to kind of jump and 0:52:18.440 --> 0:52:20.640 really make the film. I ended up interviewing over eighty 0:52:20.680 --> 0:52:23.360 backup singers for the film, and I think only twenty 0:52:23.560 --> 0:52:26.520 or in the film, but I learned so much by 0:52:26.560 --> 0:52:30.040 talking to all of them that what the film ultimately 0:52:30.040 --> 0:52:36.080 became about was that your happiness is directly proportional to 0:52:37.040 --> 0:52:39.120 the piece you make with the life you're actually living, 0:52:39.160 --> 0:52:41.480 not the life people have told you should live, or 0:52:41.480 --> 0:52:44.840 that you thought you were supposed to live. That you know, 0:52:44.880 --> 0:52:47.160 we live in a culture that tells us that being 0:52:47.200 --> 0:52:50.440 a rock stars the most important thing, or being famous 0:52:50.440 --> 0:52:53.279 and rich is the most important thing. And of course 0:52:53.480 --> 0:52:57.239 very few people live that way. And for those of 0:52:57.320 --> 0:53:03.279 us that can't get over that delusion, um, we can 0:53:03.320 --> 0:53:06.120 be tortured by it. And the people who are best off. 0:53:06.120 --> 0:53:08.960 For the people that I love, the singing, love, the 0:53:09.000 --> 0:53:11.200 work for the sake of the work, and I think 0:53:11.360 --> 0:53:14.319 that was the universal theme. And I didn't know this 0:53:14.440 --> 0:53:16.839 when we started the film. I found it on the way, 0:53:17.120 --> 0:53:19.480 but this is the theme I identified with, and this 0:53:19.560 --> 0:53:22.399 is the theme so many people identified with, because most 0:53:22.400 --> 0:53:25.080 people are backup singers for their life. And in fact, 0:53:25.120 --> 0:53:28.319 we had a screening early on at the Minneapolis Film 0:53:28.360 --> 0:53:30.920 Festival and a guy stood up in the Q and 0:53:30.920 --> 0:53:33.759 A afterwards and said, you know, I just wanted to 0:53:33.760 --> 0:53:37.080 say I'm the middle manager to software company, and you know, 0:53:37.840 --> 0:53:40.200 I like what I do, but I don't get all 0:53:40.239 --> 0:53:44.719 the money or attention in the world. And um, but 0:53:44.840 --> 0:53:47.719 I'm I just here to say that I feel like 0:53:47.760 --> 0:53:50.200 I'm a backup singer and I'm happy to be about singer. 0:53:50.920 --> 0:53:53.640 And the whole crowd applauded, and it was just one 0:53:53.640 --> 0:53:56.439 of those moments. You're like another one of those moments 0:53:56.480 --> 0:53:58.920 where you make a film and you're like, this connected 0:53:59.000 --> 0:54:01.000 in a way, per found way that I couldn't have 0:54:01.000 --> 0:54:03.840 predicted when that happens. And this happened a few times. 0:54:05.000 --> 0:54:08.880 You again, you don't go into films thinking, oh, you know, 0:54:08.920 --> 0:54:10.719 it's going to make people feel this or do this 0:54:10.840 --> 0:54:14.319 or change this. You can't play that game when you're 0:54:14.320 --> 0:54:16.759 making a film. Well, you know, I remember seeing it 0:54:16.840 --> 0:54:19.880 before the film came out, and it was utterly riveting, 0:54:20.719 --> 0:54:23.279 and you knew it was something special. At what point, 0:54:23.280 --> 0:54:25.640 because you've made a lot of producer and directed a 0:54:25.640 --> 0:54:27.160 lot of stuff, at what point do you say, wait, 0:54:27.239 --> 0:54:34.359 this is different, Um, Sundance opening night film. Um, it 0:54:34.440 --> 0:54:37.520 was kind of the night to change my life because 0:54:38.400 --> 0:54:40.520 UM to be the opening night film and Sundance one 0:54:41.120 --> 0:54:43.960 to the women in the film all came. None of 0:54:44.000 --> 0:54:46.800 them had seen the film, so they're all in the audience. 0:54:47.719 --> 0:54:52.640 And Gil passed away in December, so Sundances in January. 0:54:52.719 --> 0:54:57.360 So we were finishing the film. Gil died, which, um, 0:54:57.400 --> 0:55:00.440 you know, it was a rather fast illness, and so 0:55:01.360 --> 0:55:05.560 all of Gil's friends, UM and family came to Sundance 0:55:05.880 --> 0:55:08.799 to to support So Tom Freston and jan Winner and 0:55:09.000 --> 0:55:11.879 all these people came to Sundance to support Gil, and 0:55:12.120 --> 0:55:14.279 you know this was gils. I mean I think a 0:55:14.280 --> 0:55:16.279 lot of them honestly thought it was Gil's folly for 0:55:16.320 --> 0:55:18.600 a long time, like, how good luck Gil have documentary 0:55:18.640 --> 0:55:22.520 about backup singers? You know, Um, but I know, I 0:55:22.520 --> 0:55:24.279 mean Gil had said to me and I don't think 0:55:24.840 --> 0:55:27.279 it's inappropriate to share it that when he was sick 0:55:27.320 --> 0:55:30.799 in the hospital, he said everybody with cancer should have 0:55:30.800 --> 0:55:34.640 a documentary they're working on, because I think it really 0:55:34.680 --> 0:55:38.120 gave him something creative and positive to be thinking about 0:55:38.280 --> 0:55:40.839 during that time. So I know he was very proud 0:55:40.840 --> 0:55:44.240 of it. And then so that night, so we screened 0:55:44.239 --> 0:55:48.040 the film and it's just electric. I mean, it's the 0:55:48.040 --> 0:55:53.719 biggest theater there, people there, it's packed, and it's just unbelievable. 0:55:54.400 --> 0:55:57.960 And the film ends, the women get up on the 0:55:58.000 --> 0:56:00.960 stage with me and we're all kind of shaking and 0:56:01.560 --> 0:56:03.840 they're all in tears because they hadn't seen the film, 0:56:03.920 --> 0:56:07.360 and and uh and they started singing, and it was 0:56:07.440 --> 0:56:12.480 just unbelievable. I mean, the crowd was, you know, just 0:56:13.719 --> 0:56:19.040 you know, completely enthralled. And then we had that classic 0:56:19.120 --> 0:56:23.439 old school sundance experience where the film ends and it's 0:56:23.480 --> 0:56:25.640 eleven PM and they say, Okay, now we're gonna stay 0:56:25.719 --> 0:56:28.400 up all night and sell your film. So we spent 0:56:28.640 --> 0:56:32.799 the next nine hours traveling from distributor to distributor while 0:56:32.840 --> 0:56:35.080 they made us offers on our movie, and we sold 0:56:35.120 --> 0:56:40.600 it at sunrise. So that classic sundance experience, you know, 0:56:40.960 --> 0:56:43.680 and by morning I was like, Okay, you know, I 0:56:43.680 --> 0:56:45.719 guess this is how it goes. And what was it 0:56:45.760 --> 0:56:53.640 like winning the Oscar? Um? Surreal? Um? It was? I 0:56:53.680 --> 0:56:57.080 mean it was you know, of course rewarding. And you know, 0:56:57.080 --> 0:57:01.640 I'm as a lifelong film fanatic. Um. You know, there's 0:57:02.600 --> 0:57:05.759 no greater validation in that way, you know, whatever you 0:57:05.760 --> 0:57:08.600 think of the words, and you know, I too can 0:57:08.680 --> 0:57:12.600 be like, oh words, no matter but um, but it 0:57:12.719 --> 0:57:17.000 just feels like you can exhale in a way. Um. 0:57:17.040 --> 0:57:19.240 But the other thing I will say, by far, the 0:57:19.280 --> 0:57:24.160 most important outcome of that was that part. You know, 0:57:24.280 --> 0:57:28.320 Basically before then I was spending sixt of my time 0:57:28.880 --> 0:57:33.120 raising money to make my movies. Now I spend four 0:57:33.200 --> 0:57:35.760 percent of my time raising money to make movies. So 0:57:35.920 --> 0:57:37.840 I can just be so much more productive and so 0:57:37.960 --> 0:57:40.600 much more creative because of that. You know, whether or 0:57:40.640 --> 0:57:44.360 not that's valid, I'm the same filmmaker essentially I am 0:57:44.400 --> 0:57:46.240 now than I was before I won the Oscar. And 0:57:46.280 --> 0:57:49.040 if they need that validation to one of fund my movies, 0:57:49.400 --> 0:57:51.920 I get it. I'm not going to complain about it. 0:57:52.080 --> 0:57:54.760 You know. So people keep saying, oh, you've been so 0:57:54.880 --> 0:57:58.560 prolific since the Oscar part of it is I don't 0:57:58.560 --> 0:58:00.400 have to spend time trying to raise my I could 0:58:00.440 --> 0:58:05.120 just make things, which is amazing. Where is the Oscar home? 0:58:06.680 --> 0:58:08.640 Some people keep it in the bathroom, some people put 0:58:08.640 --> 0:58:10.880 it in a Providence demands home my end I have, 0:58:11.160 --> 0:58:13.880 UM not to brag. My wife says, you haven't. You 0:58:13.880 --> 0:58:15.840 have a real ego because I have an Emmy, a 0:58:15.920 --> 0:58:20.240 Grammy and an Oscar, So I know you got I 0:58:20.320 --> 0:58:23.040 keep looking. If anybody out there has a um, you know, 0:58:23.120 --> 0:58:27.440 Broadway project, I would love to get involved. Okay, then 0:58:27.480 --> 0:58:29.560 you make the political movie? How does that come to 0:58:29.600 --> 0:58:33.280 get the Best of Enemies? Um? Again, I mean it's 0:58:33.360 --> 0:58:35.520 the Best of Enemies is a film about the debates 0:58:35.520 --> 0:58:39.760 between Corbette and Wayne M. Buckley. They had ABC television 0:58:39.840 --> 0:58:43.880 during the political conventions. And that again was Robert Gordon, 0:58:43.960 --> 0:58:46.640 my friend in Memphis, who had a bootleg tape years 0:58:46.640 --> 0:58:50.760 ago VHS tape that he had gotten of most of 0:58:50.800 --> 0:58:57.600 these debates, UM from somebody who was like the doll fanatic. Um. 0:58:57.680 --> 0:59:03.160 And I watched these debates raw and just thought there's 0:59:03.200 --> 0:59:05.960 something amazing here, Like I don't know what it is, 0:59:06.360 --> 0:59:07.919 and I don't know what the story is or where 0:59:07.920 --> 0:59:11.280 it's going to go, but just in terms of huge 0:59:11.400 --> 0:59:14.880 characters way M. Buckley and Gore Vidal and huge themes, 0:59:14.960 --> 0:59:17.240 and I just felt like whatever it was saying was 0:59:17.280 --> 0:59:20.960 saying something about what's happened to television. And it was 0:59:21.000 --> 0:59:25.040 one of those great stories that once you start telling it, 0:59:25.040 --> 0:59:27.360 it gets better and better. You know, every detail it 0:59:27.400 --> 0:59:30.640 gets added just gets juicier and juicier. But that was 0:59:30.640 --> 0:59:36.040 the film we had started making before from Stardom. In 0:59:36.080 --> 0:59:40.480 the wake of from Stardom, suddenly people said, oh, what else, 0:59:41.080 --> 0:59:42.800 And we said, well, I have this film Best of Enemies. 0:59:42.840 --> 0:59:44.880 It's great, we'll finish it. I don't know if I 0:59:44.920 --> 0:59:47.680 hadn't made start them, if I ever would have gotten 0:59:47.680 --> 0:59:50.200 the money to finish Best of Enemies, you know, as 0:59:50.240 --> 0:59:52.280 sad as that is to say. And then how does 0:59:52.480 --> 0:59:57.920 Mr Rogers movie come together? That happened because I was, 0:59:58.440 --> 1:00:02.600 I mean, the real story. I home, um in bed 1:00:02.720 --> 1:00:06.840 at night on YouTube and somebody had maybe sent me 1:00:07.360 --> 1:00:10.760 a link of a Mr. Rogers commencement address he had given, 1:00:12.040 --> 1:00:15.280 and I somehow went down the YouTube rabbit hole of 1:00:15.560 --> 1:00:20.720 watching more Mr Rogers, particularly speeches and interviews, and as 1:00:20.760 --> 1:00:23.880 I was hearing it. I just kept feeling like, where's 1:00:23.920 --> 1:00:27.000 this voice today? Like what he's saying is exactly what 1:00:27.120 --> 1:00:30.400 I feel the culture should be hearing right now, this 1:00:30.520 --> 1:00:34.120 kind of voice of radical kindness and empathy and understanding. 1:00:34.200 --> 1:00:37.960 And um, and I woke up in the morning and 1:00:38.000 --> 1:00:40.439 I turned to my wife and I said, I think 1:00:40.440 --> 1:00:44.120 I need to make a film about Mr. Rogers. And 1:00:44.200 --> 1:00:46.919 she's a children's librarian, I will say, and she said, 1:00:46.960 --> 1:00:52.040 I love that idea. Um. I literally went to the office. UM. 1:00:52.080 --> 1:00:53.640 I made a couple of calls, and I'd made a 1:00:53.640 --> 1:00:55.920 film with Yo Yo Maa and his and Yo Yo 1:00:56.440 --> 1:00:59.600 knew Fred Rogers pretty well and had told me stories 1:00:59.600 --> 1:01:01.800 about to which was also in the back of my mind. 1:01:02.040 --> 1:01:06.040 And Yo Yo son is a filmmaker, and I called 1:01:06.120 --> 1:01:08.480 him and I said, is this crazy to make a 1:01:08.480 --> 1:01:11.480 film about Fred Rogers? He said, not only is that 1:01:11.520 --> 1:01:13.640 not crazy, I want to produce it with you. So 1:01:13.720 --> 1:01:18.280 he's one of my producers. And so we flew to Pittsburgh. 1:01:18.280 --> 1:01:20.640 We sat down and I said to them, you know, 1:01:20.800 --> 1:01:24.000 I'm again not sued to do a Wikipedia version of 1:01:24.000 --> 1:01:26.920 Fred rodgers life. I want to make a film about ideas. 1:01:27.520 --> 1:01:32.520 And to me, his ideas are incredibly relevant today. This 1:01:32.560 --> 1:01:34.840 is not a film about nostalgia. There's a film about 1:01:36.120 --> 1:01:39.000 the big things he thought fought for. And I think 1:01:39.040 --> 1:01:42.200 what they responded to was that he was never taken 1:01:42.360 --> 1:01:45.960 very seriously in his own lifetime. So what we were 1:01:46.040 --> 1:01:49.320 trying to say, I think was something they felt needed 1:01:49.360 --> 1:01:51.480 to be said for a long time. But it was 1:01:51.640 --> 1:01:56.880 again purely instinctual, like, this is something I want to 1:01:56.920 --> 1:02:00.640 put out in the world, and I again having no 1:02:00.760 --> 1:02:03.040 idea how much the world wanted to hear it. I 1:02:03.040 --> 1:02:05.320 had no idea how big an audience for Mr. Rogers 1:02:05.400 --> 1:02:08.440 would be. Um well became a phenomenon. What was the 1:02:08.720 --> 1:02:13.120 what was the ultimate theatrical gross? About three? Yeah? And 1:02:13.160 --> 1:02:14.880 I have to ask you did some of that fall 1:02:14.960 --> 1:02:19.720 to your bottom line? Not yet? Yea? How long it 1:02:19.760 --> 1:02:22.640 takes for studios to pay well usually I I worked 1:02:22.680 --> 1:02:25.440 as an attorney on a film that was the second 1:02:25.440 --> 1:02:28.600 biggest of a year, and it was three years later 1:02:29.040 --> 1:02:31.560 and the film was still in the negative part position 1:02:31.560 --> 1:02:35.000 for the profit participants. It's that crazy. It's crazy. I mean, 1:02:35.040 --> 1:02:37.400 we got a bonus, but but I think the real 1:02:37.800 --> 1:02:40.520 if if I do see back end, it hasn't happened yet, 1:02:40.560 --> 1:02:42.800 so we'll see. And we had two great group investors 1:02:42.800 --> 1:02:44.080 and other people that kind of came in to help 1:02:44.160 --> 1:02:46.200 us make that film. Well, what's the budget for a 1:02:46.200 --> 1:02:51.920 film like that? UM? Just under two? Okay? Yeah, So theoretically, 1:02:52.040 --> 1:02:55.080 what percent of the film do you the What percentage 1:02:55.080 --> 1:02:59.919 did you still have? UM? What percentage of the back 1:03:00.040 --> 1:03:07.400 of the profits? Profit participants? UM? I mean typically equity 1:03:07.840 --> 1:03:12.400 would control about back end and creative about back end, 1:03:12.720 --> 1:03:16.040 and then with my producers and team, I shared that 1:03:16.120 --> 1:03:19.040 back end, so you know, maybe a quarter you know, 1:03:19.880 --> 1:03:24.240 thank you about Okay. So what are you working on now? Um? 1:03:24.280 --> 1:03:27.280 Other than the Shangri Law project? I don't. I hate 1:03:27.280 --> 1:03:29.600 to say this, but I can't say what I'm working on? Okay, 1:03:29.640 --> 1:03:32.880 then we will we will go specifics. How many films 1:03:32.880 --> 1:03:38.600 are you working on right now? I'm not actually making 1:03:38.600 --> 1:03:41.440 a film at this very moment, but I'm about to 1:03:41.480 --> 1:03:44.560 work on two projects. And if they go according to plan, 1:03:44.640 --> 1:03:47.040 they would be ready for the market when one would 1:03:47.040 --> 1:03:52.040 come out in the one would come out. Okay. So, 1:03:52.080 --> 1:03:56.680 now that you've had the success, especially in non music areas, UM, 1:03:56.720 --> 1:04:00.880 are you personally thinking of broadening from music? Yeah? And 1:04:01.040 --> 1:04:04.600 my last three films haven't been about music, and um, 1:04:04.640 --> 1:04:09.080 and I've kind of willfully turned down any music documentaries. Uh, 1:04:09.080 --> 1:04:12.280 and these next two are not music documentaries. UM. I 1:04:12.320 --> 1:04:14.880 am interested in music series, and I'm working on some 1:04:14.960 --> 1:04:18.600 music series, and I've produced some music documentaries and even 1:04:18.600 --> 1:04:20.760 back in the day, I produced music documentaries. I produced 1:04:20.800 --> 1:04:24.000 Pearl Jam twenty for Cameron Crow, and I produced Crossfire 1:04:24.040 --> 1:04:27.959 Hurricane for The Stones, and UM, you know, I still 1:04:28.000 --> 1:04:30.040 love music. I think part of it is I just 1:04:30.040 --> 1:04:32.520 don't want to be Pigeonholed is like the music one 1:04:32.560 --> 1:04:37.760 of the two best music documentaries ever ever leaving anything 1:04:37.760 --> 1:04:41.480 you worked on out. I mean, it's funny. Some of 1:04:41.480 --> 1:04:44.280 my favorite music documentaries are about bands I don't love. 1:04:45.400 --> 1:04:49.000 You know, which is great? You know, whether it's UM 1:04:49.120 --> 1:04:54.120 some kind of Monster or the Metallica film, UM or 1:04:54.520 --> 1:05:01.120 Um The Devil and Daniel Johnson, UM, all kinds of 1:05:01.120 --> 1:05:05.920 other interesting ones. UM not Dead yet. Have you ever 1:05:05.960 --> 1:05:08.920 saw that one? No? I didn't see that one. And 1:05:09.000 --> 1:05:12.240 not to mention neither the kind of great concert docs 1:05:12.720 --> 1:05:16.840 Stop making Sense and Last Waltz and things like that. UM. 1:05:16.880 --> 1:05:20.000 And I watch every single music documentary. I don't think 1:05:20.080 --> 1:05:24.960 you could find a music documentary I haven't watched. Okay, Um, 1:05:25.000 --> 1:05:27.600 I was gonna ask whether you thought certain ones were overrated? 1:05:27.680 --> 1:05:31.000 But in your viewing time, how much viewing do you 1:05:31.040 --> 1:05:34.840 take of anything? I still watch at least a hundred 1:05:34.840 --> 1:05:38.680 documentaries a year. And but how about like Netflix series 1:05:38.680 --> 1:05:42.920 that are not documentaries? Not that many some? Um, I 1:05:42.960 --> 1:05:44.760 watch a ton of movies. I mean I watch a 1:05:44.800 --> 1:05:48.720 ton of documentaries. I watch a lot of movies, old 1:05:48.760 --> 1:05:52.120 and new. Um. And then I watched only the very 1:05:52.160 --> 1:05:54.920 best series like if five people tell me I need 1:05:54.960 --> 1:05:58.400 to watch it? So have you watched? I just watched Chernobyl? Okay, 1:05:58.520 --> 1:06:01.160 what do you think? I it was really good? How 1:06:01.200 --> 1:06:03.400 much you know? How much did you know about Chernobyl 1:06:03.480 --> 1:06:06.360 going in? Not that much? You know, I wasn't. I 1:06:06.480 --> 1:06:08.280 was young and not paying that much attention to it 1:06:08.320 --> 1:06:13.200 at the time. And um, yeah, I really I found it. 1:06:13.000 --> 1:06:16.680 It got to me. Okay, that was, you know, somewhat documentary. 1:06:16.920 --> 1:06:20.640 What other series? Um? You know Fleabag and I loved 1:06:20.720 --> 1:06:24.640 the new season of Fleabag. Um. You know I love 1:06:25.240 --> 1:06:27.960 kind of biting Black comedy is one one of my 1:06:28.080 --> 1:06:32.560 very favorite gears. Um, And I guess by extension and 1:06:32.800 --> 1:06:37.160 killing Eve I really liked UM, but not that many series. 1:06:37.200 --> 1:06:39.440 I'm trying to think, you know, it's just the time investment, 1:06:39.720 --> 1:06:41.600 of course, I mean, but the thing that bothers me. 1:06:41.640 --> 1:06:44.040 I'm obviously a little older than you was. I remember 1:06:44.080 --> 1:06:46.120 moving to l a in the seventies and I go 1:06:46.160 --> 1:06:49.280 to the movie six nights a week. You could literally 1:06:49.280 --> 1:06:52.120 see everything and you could know what was going on. 1:06:52.720 --> 1:06:56.320 The fact that in all culture you can't be comprehensive 1:06:56.400 --> 1:06:59.400 drives me nuts. Me too. It's like, you know, where's 1:06:59.440 --> 1:07:01.440 the frame of I have the same disease. You know 1:07:01.680 --> 1:07:04.600 that there was a long time where I just felt 1:07:04.640 --> 1:07:08.080 like I had to be culturally conversant in pretty much 1:07:08.120 --> 1:07:12.280 everything television, movie, music, literature, Like I just had to 1:07:12.280 --> 1:07:16.000 be up on everything. And um, I think it was 1:07:16.040 --> 1:07:18.680 both getting older and having kids that cured me of 1:07:19.080 --> 1:07:22.120 feeling like I had to do everything because you can't. 1:07:22.360 --> 1:07:24.880 You know, it's just become this avalanche, never ending avalanche 1:07:24.920 --> 1:07:29.240 of more culture coming at you. So so now I try. 1:07:29.280 --> 1:07:31.680 And you know, like I said, when it comes to documentary, 1:07:31.920 --> 1:07:34.240 I'll watch everything because the good thing about documentary is 1:07:34.280 --> 1:07:36.960 even a bad documentary, you're going to learn something. I 1:07:37.000 --> 1:07:39.720 can't say that about it. One thing. One thing. I five. 1:07:40.080 --> 1:07:41.280 This is one of the reasons I don't go to 1:07:41.360 --> 1:07:45.320 theatrical films anymore I have been, is I find I 1:07:45.360 --> 1:07:49.400 can't slow my mind down enough for that experience. It's like, oh, 1:07:49.520 --> 1:07:52.120 to watch even last night, to watch, you know, episode 1:07:52.120 --> 1:07:55.480 of something at eleven o'clock at night, no problem, but 1:07:55.640 --> 1:07:57.960 like even seven pm, two pm. You know, I said, 1:07:58.000 --> 1:08:02.120 I'm gonna take a break, but I just it's really 1:08:02.280 --> 1:08:04.680 hard to slow down, and particularly I think it's harder. 1:08:04.760 --> 1:08:06.959 I have a much easier time doing it in the theater, 1:08:07.080 --> 1:08:10.280 but when you try and watch a movie at home, 1:08:10.680 --> 1:08:13.200 it's really hard not to double screen, you know, and 1:08:13.280 --> 1:08:15.720 that's not good for the film or good for you, 1:08:15.760 --> 1:08:17.280 and I try not to do it. I was just 1:08:17.320 --> 1:08:19.599 talking to a friend of mine who says she's watching 1:08:19.680 --> 1:08:23.200 all films with subtitles because it forces her not to 1:08:23.280 --> 1:08:26.120 double screen. She has to only watch that movie at 1:08:26.120 --> 1:08:29.360 that time. And you say, you watch docs, you watch 1:08:29.439 --> 1:08:33.000 new movies. What genre of movies do you watch? Um? 1:08:33.040 --> 1:08:37.120 I mean I love independent film and foreign I also 1:08:37.160 --> 1:08:41.320 have to uh young kids twelve and fourteen, so it 1:08:41.360 --> 1:08:48.080 means I see every Marvel movie, And um, I'm just 1:08:48.120 --> 1:08:50.080 not the audience for it, you know, or can you 1:08:50.200 --> 1:08:52.680 enjoy that? You know? This is a big debate, and 1:08:52.720 --> 1:08:56.400 I feel like, I mean, seeing a film like Endgame, 1:08:57.000 --> 1:09:00.080 I actually thought for the Thousand Balls, they had the 1:09:00.120 --> 1:09:02.639 air on that film. They did an incredibly good job 1:09:02.720 --> 1:09:06.719 of balancing it in a way that satisfied most people. 1:09:07.000 --> 1:09:09.800 You know, incredibly difficult task. I know that as a filmmaker, 1:09:10.040 --> 1:09:12.120 how difficult that is to do. And a film like 1:09:12.200 --> 1:09:14.760 thor Ragnarok, you know, has all of that humor in 1:09:14.760 --> 1:09:17.840 it too, And certain films like that or Spider of 1:09:17.880 --> 1:09:20.559 the Spider Verse I thought was great just for its 1:09:20.640 --> 1:09:23.439 kind of experimental attitude. Let's hold that. Because you're talking 1:09:23.479 --> 1:09:26.439 about your kids, do your kids turn you onto new music? 1:09:27.520 --> 1:09:32.599 My kids are not that into music. It's very strange. Um, 1:09:32.640 --> 1:09:34.840 of course, Like my daughter is obsessed with you know, 1:09:35.000 --> 1:09:38.439 Queen right now because of them Rhapsody, and we're going 1:09:38.479 --> 1:09:40.880 to go see them when they come to town next month. 1:09:40.880 --> 1:09:42.439 And I know it's not the same thing, but whatever. 1:09:42.479 --> 1:09:44.280 I'm just happy to take her to a concert that 1:09:44.320 --> 1:09:48.720 she's excited about. Um, But my kids are not. Their 1:09:48.760 --> 1:09:52.440 relationship to music is not what my relationship was. Um. 1:09:52.479 --> 1:09:55.240 I mean I grew up in record stores, devouring as 1:09:55.320 --> 1:09:57.920 much music as I could get, and to me, it 1:09:58.080 --> 1:10:01.760 was like my you know, I'm not the first person 1:10:01.800 --> 1:10:03.320 to say it, it it was kind of my religion. It 1:10:03.439 --> 1:10:05.320 was like how I found a sense of identity in 1:10:05.360 --> 1:10:10.320 connection with the world. Um, and music for young people 1:10:10.400 --> 1:10:15.400 just doesn't penetrate. It can, but seeing the choices they have, 1:10:15.640 --> 1:10:19.960 whether it's social media or video games or just YouTube 1:10:20.040 --> 1:10:22.439 or all of the other things coming at them, it's 1:10:22.439 --> 1:10:26.200 hard for them to have the the quietude to be 1:10:26.240 --> 1:10:29.280 able to let music in in the same way. We 1:10:29.320 --> 1:10:31.519 could go on about that, I'd be a separate podcast. 1:10:31.560 --> 1:10:34.280 But going back to theatrical films, you know, one of 1:10:34.280 --> 1:10:36.200 the big stories the last couple of weeks has been 1:10:36.240 --> 1:10:40.400 Book Smart and its failure in the marketplace. Some people 1:10:40.439 --> 1:10:43.000 said it should have been platformed. I starting in a 1:10:43.000 --> 1:10:46.519 few number of theaters, good gross is press whatever the 1:10:46.640 --> 1:10:48.840 distributor said, No, no, the word of mouth will happen, 1:10:48.880 --> 1:10:53.679 which doesn't seem to be happening. Is the theatrical really 1:10:53.880 --> 1:10:57.519 just for these big budget cartoon movies. Well, again, it 1:10:57.520 --> 1:10:59.479 depends on expectations. So I went to go see book 1:10:59.520 --> 1:11:02.160 Smart this week. Yeah, I loved it. I thought it 1:11:02.200 --> 1:11:07.679 was great, you know, um, and it's gonna break twenty 1:11:07.720 --> 1:11:11.240 million and then some which so it's not a failure 1:11:11.280 --> 1:11:13.880 unless you compare it to Super Bad, and I think 1:11:13.920 --> 1:11:16.240 it's an unfair comparison. I think all the people that 1:11:16.280 --> 1:11:20.200 were saying, um, it was it should have done that 1:11:20.240 --> 1:11:23.799 kind of box office were just misreading the tea leaves 1:11:23.840 --> 1:11:26.040 because not only was Super Bad ten years ago in 1:11:26.040 --> 1:11:29.320 a very different theatrical space, but you know, there are 1:11:29.320 --> 1:11:33.080 no big names playing prominently in the film. Um, it's 1:11:33.080 --> 1:11:36.599 a first time director. Yes, she's well known, but it's 1:11:36.600 --> 1:11:41.879 some harder slog to get that film sold. I personally 1:11:41.880 --> 1:11:44.600 probably would have platformed it more if I was the distributor, 1:11:44.880 --> 1:11:47.000 because I think it's an excellent word of mouth film 1:11:47.120 --> 1:11:49.599 and opening it not many theaters, I think a couple 1:11:49.600 --> 1:11:55.200 of I think that was shooting very high. Um, because 1:11:55.200 --> 1:11:58.640 it is a great, great film. Um, and it's my 1:11:58.680 --> 1:12:00.439 wife and I went it was a great date night film. 1:12:00.560 --> 1:12:02.759 You know, it was the future of that type of film, 1:12:02.840 --> 1:12:07.240 anything other than the uh special effects, you know, Marvel 1:12:07.520 --> 1:12:13.519 type film. Is that really the flat screen? It's hard 1:12:13.560 --> 1:12:16.360 to know again, you know, if you asked me two 1:12:16.400 --> 1:12:18.880 years ago I probably said yes. Then I put out 1:12:18.880 --> 1:12:22.599 a documentary that nobody thought would doing, ring that grows 1:12:22.640 --> 1:12:24.479 more than twenty million dollars about a guy who was 1:12:24.560 --> 1:12:30.640 on TV, you know, decades ago. Um. So what I 1:12:30.680 --> 1:12:32.960 do think in a certain way, I mean, what the 1:12:32.960 --> 1:12:34.960 reason I think people went to the movie theater to 1:12:35.000 --> 1:12:39.080 go see Won't You Be My Neighbor was that they 1:12:39.120 --> 1:12:43.519 wanted a communal experience, And what Mr Rogers was about 1:12:44.080 --> 1:12:47.400 was the neighborhood and kind of community. And in many 1:12:47.400 --> 1:12:50.559 ways the film is like a secular sermon, so it 1:12:50.680 --> 1:12:53.719 plays better if you're watching with other people. I heard 1:12:54.120 --> 1:12:58.000 many people say that there was spontaneous hugging between strangers 1:12:58.040 --> 1:13:02.200 at the end of screenings in the theaters. That's either 1:13:02.240 --> 1:13:06.240 creepy or great however you look at it. So um, 1:13:06.280 --> 1:13:08.320 but stuff like that makes me happy. So I feel 1:13:08.360 --> 1:13:10.960 like whenever I whenever you want to close the coffin 1:13:11.000 --> 1:13:16.599 on theatrical small theatrical films, Um, something happens and something 1:13:16.680 --> 1:13:19.559 unexpected happens, and something new comes out of it. So 1:13:20.040 --> 1:13:22.600 not dead yet, I would say, is is what I 1:13:22.600 --> 1:13:27.400 would classify it as. Um, But it's certainly not what 1:13:27.520 --> 1:13:29.640 it was, you know, in terms of I mean the 1:13:30.000 --> 1:13:33.000 real thing I think is the mid level films that 1:13:33.880 --> 1:13:39.400 cost million dollars to make. Um, the kind of adult 1:13:39.479 --> 1:13:42.320 dramas and comedies that just don't get made in the 1:13:42.360 --> 1:13:44.760 same way anymore. They've all those stories have migrated to 1:13:44.800 --> 1:13:50.080 television essentially. Okay, So you have twenty or thirty years 1:13:50.160 --> 1:13:53.000 left to make movies, maybe a little bit more if 1:13:53.040 --> 1:13:55.680 your career kept on this thing and you kept on 1:13:55.760 --> 1:13:58.960 making documentaries. Are you happy or is there some big 1:13:59.280 --> 1:14:04.000 yet unful old dream. Um, I'm happy. You know. It's 1:14:04.040 --> 1:14:08.280 funny because people still will come up and say, oh, well, 1:14:09.200 --> 1:14:12.360 when you're gonna make a real movie. So I've been 1:14:12.400 --> 1:14:16.519 making movies for twenty years, um, and you know I 1:14:16.560 --> 1:14:20.280 love scripted movies, and I've flirted with different projects that 1:14:20.320 --> 1:14:23.120 haven't happened, and um, and one may happen and it 1:14:23.120 --> 1:14:25.240 would be fun, you know, it'd be a fun challenge. 1:14:25.680 --> 1:14:28.080 But my day job is documentary and it's always gonna 1:14:28.080 --> 1:14:31.240 be documentary. I mean, that same sensation I had two 1:14:31.280 --> 1:14:33.840 weeks into making my first documentary, where I knew it 1:14:33.920 --> 1:14:37.680 was my life's calling has not changed, and that, in 1:14:37.720 --> 1:14:42.040 a way gives me great comfort because it means whatever 1:14:42.040 --> 1:14:44.519 I'm into at whatever age I can make a film 1:14:44.560 --> 1:14:47.280 about it and learn about it and it will fulfill me. 1:14:47.439 --> 1:14:48.960 Let's just go back because a lot of this the 1:14:48.960 --> 1:14:51.800 audience for this podcast is people who are into music. 1:14:52.160 --> 1:14:55.080 How do you feel about today's music? I'm I have 1:14:55.120 --> 1:14:56.960 a much harder time being into music in the way 1:14:57.000 --> 1:14:59.559 I was into it before because that you were the music. 1:15:00.000 --> 1:15:04.280 It's hard for me to judge. Um, I'm not gonna 1:15:04.320 --> 1:15:06.200 push you on it. No, I don't. I mean, I 1:15:06.320 --> 1:15:09.440 listened to plenty of music, but I feel like my relationship, 1:15:10.040 --> 1:15:12.559 I gave so much of my life to music that 1:15:12.640 --> 1:15:16.519 I'm kind of Um, it just took up so much 1:15:16.600 --> 1:15:19.200 my life that I feel like I'm on sabbatical. You know. 1:15:19.240 --> 1:15:21.160 When I come back and find a new artists I love, 1:15:21.360 --> 1:15:25.839 It's great. Um, but it kind of ebbs and flows. 1:15:26.479 --> 1:15:29.800 So you're a cultural vulture. And even though you do 1:15:30.040 --> 1:15:33.200 not comprehensive like you used to be, you still you 1:15:33.240 --> 1:15:36.679 know there's a smugger's board of stuff that you partake of. 1:15:36.920 --> 1:15:39.880 For my audience, can you recommend two things that they're 1:15:39.960 --> 1:15:44.160 unaware of? Music, movies, books, documentaries that they really should 1:15:44.240 --> 1:15:51.200 check out? Um? Sure, Can I think about this for 1:15:51.280 --> 1:15:55.519 a minute. Uh, well, you know, I didn't mean to 1:15:55.560 --> 1:15:57.160 put you on the snow. I know, because I want 1:15:57.160 --> 1:15:59.280 to give the best answer problems. Like in the New 1:15:59.320 --> 1:16:01.240 York Times book review, they say, you know what's on 1:16:01.240 --> 1:16:04.120 your nightstand when there's no way in hell those books 1:16:04.160 --> 1:16:06.639 around the nightstand. It's like they just want to look 1:16:06.640 --> 1:16:09.519 good for the audience who is looking at that. So, 1:16:09.680 --> 1:16:13.040 I mean, like the last film I made I loved Um, 1:16:13.080 --> 1:16:15.680 I mean or film I saw that I loved, I 1:16:15.720 --> 1:16:22.800 mean Book Smart. I would certainly recommend UM, and I've 1:16:22.880 --> 1:16:25.880 been I signed up for the Criterion Channel. They have 1:16:25.880 --> 1:16:30.160 their news streaming service. Highly recommend the Criterion streaming service. 1:16:30.520 --> 1:16:33.960 As a real ciny asked, you know, I love the 1:16:34.040 --> 1:16:35.720 chance to be able to just go back into that 1:16:35.760 --> 1:16:38.439 and supporting those types of films and making sure we 1:16:38.479 --> 1:16:40.880 can still see those types of films too. What are 1:16:40.880 --> 1:16:43.120 a couple that you would recommend? And this is just 1:16:43.200 --> 1:16:45.880 you know, on the channel in general. Um, I've been 1:16:45.880 --> 1:16:48.920 going through a Cassavettis phase, which has been interesting. So 1:16:49.000 --> 1:16:54.759 what's your favorite Cassavettis um Chinese bookie? Really? Yeah, mine's 1:16:54.800 --> 1:16:57.639 Woman under the Influence. I think he really nails how 1:16:57.680 --> 1:17:00.160 the you know, Peter Flack has no idea what's went 1:17:00.200 --> 1:17:03.280 on with his wife, and his wife is really I 1:17:03.360 --> 1:17:07.040 just found the juxtaposition really good. Yeah, and they know 1:17:07.080 --> 1:17:10.040 there's something about that time period too, and you know 1:17:10.160 --> 1:17:12.160 a lot of Los Angeles and some of that stuff too, 1:17:12.479 --> 1:17:18.360 But I just really respond to um. So yeah, in 1:17:18.400 --> 1:17:21.760 a way, I end up going backwards more than anything. Well, 1:17:21.760 --> 1:17:23.479 the movies were different with a great thing about a 1:17:23.520 --> 1:17:27.120 movie and whether it's certainly better to theatrical experience, is 1:17:27.160 --> 1:17:28.920 that it shuts out the rest of the world, and 1:17:28.960 --> 1:17:32.760 when done well, you're immersed. I want that experience, you know, 1:17:32.840 --> 1:17:34.760 you want an experience where you don't want to check 1:17:34.760 --> 1:17:37.599 your phone, you don't want to look at your watch. Yeah, 1:17:37.640 --> 1:17:39.800 that is like the best review you can get. Check 1:17:39.840 --> 1:17:43.519 my phone once, you know which I aspired to. Okay Morgan, 1:17:43.600 --> 1:17:46.200 this has been wonderful. The audience will look forward to 1:17:46.240 --> 1:17:48.760 your Rick Ruben project. Thanks so much for being on 1:17:48.800 --> 1:17:51.720 the podcast. Talking to you until next time. This is 1:17:51.800 --> 1:17:52.639 Bob left Sets