Do Documentaries Have to Be Boring? | Derek Waters & Amy Scott | SBUTV | #15

Today on Sam Brown University TV, we’re asking a question that should have an easy answer: Do documentaries have to be boring? Because let’s be honest; documentaries are either the most interesting thing you’ve ever seen… or something you turn off halfway through and never return to.

Sam Brown is joined by Derek Waters, creator of Drunk History, and Amy Scott, acclaimed documentary filmmaker. Together, they break down why documentaries get a bad reputation, give a thousand Letterboxd recommendations for ones that don’t suck, and expound on what makes a good one.

So get comfortable, as we do the opposite of Netflix and don’t make a you sit through two hours of slow drone footage to do it.

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Producers: Colin Goheen & Meltem Saricicek

Editor: Andrew Michel

Theme Song: Jonah Ray

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Sam Brown University TV, Sput V, the only university TV show where Rush Week is the week where we listen to big audio dynamite all week long. Today we will be talking about movies. Not just any movies, but movies that come from reality. There's a name for these movies. It's documentaries. And our question today is do documentaries have to be boring? To help us with that, a man who revolutionized educational television by getting lit with his friends. He's a comedian, a writer, the creator of drunk history, and a guy I've hung out with a couple times. Please welcome the brilliant Derek Waters.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Thank you, Sam Brown. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me at your university. And I'm so excited to discuss this very important subject.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Are you pleasantly surprised that that's what I'm wondering if my Frederick Wiseman collection influenced it? A little bit. Okay, good. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Well, I noticed that you were you you besides the Frederick Weissmann, you you had quite a few documentaries in your collection. And I was like, oh this guy's really and I was like, oh, that makes sense because of the the nature of drunk history.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

It's it's you know uh which I never thought about that it was like a documentary.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

But I mean like as far as it's real, it's real, yeah, and then it's also uh a story within a story. You know, there's the story of the moment you're having with a comedian and the story that they're telling. Yeah. And then uh yeah, the the uh reenactment, which is something that was revolutionized in that documentary. Yes, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

Yes. Maybe the thin blue line.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

It's funny when you see that, when you you always hear about the thin blue line as being this like uh amazing, groundbreaking documentary, and you finally see it, and you're like, oh, this is like one of those true crime shows. Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

But it's one of those things where it's so Yeah, it's starting at like the first book and going like that book was okay, but then you're like, Yeah, but that book in I think of the staircase where like you can't look at any murder documentary and go like this was not influenced in some sort of way. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we could we're gonna nerd out today. It's very exciting. Does documentary have to be boring? Fuck no.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

So, so wait, I I skipped over my opening line. So let me let me do that. Uh uh today, just I the producers do good work here.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

They do great work, I can feel it.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

So I I feel like I should give this like the good intro. Please. Today we're talking about documentaries because let's be honest, documentaries feel like homework. If you were out with a friend and someone said, Oh, I saw a documentary last night, you'd immediately excuse yourself from the conversation. Uh, sure they're entertaining ones. Sherman's March, Fog of War, Blackfish, but most documentaries could have been an email. Which is why this episode we're talking about the very important question Do documentaries have to be boring?

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Yeah. Yeah, they do. I know, no, no. I'm just acknowledging it's a great question and an awesome subject to discuss.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Do you get that ever? Like when someone's like, hey, do you want to go see a movie? And you're like, yeah, what movie?

SPEAKER_03 3:39

And they go, Oh, this documentary, and you're like, I no, I I I don't I've never I've always been I not padded, I just have always been fascinated with human behavior, and I think some human behavior might be boring, but it's I still find it interesting because um it's behavior, but I'm not gonna I'm also not gonna watch a documentary about somebody's I should have turned it off first. Hey, at the university the professor is allowed to keep it on.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Colin, can you turn off my phone?

SPEAKER_03 4:12

You should have muted when you do it. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, is I should have looks like it says enterprise rentals calling in.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

It's an enterprise rental phone. You're renting that phone? It's the thing on the side. It's an iPhone. Everyone has the same phone.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

They don't have that.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

They don't have that anymore? That's not an oh man. Oh Professor Brown. What do they have now?

unknown 4:36

Nothing.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Now the episode's about iPhones. I'm sorry. So human nature.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

I think there's a difference between bo uh uh maybe this is a different subject, but based off boredom, the ones I won't see or get upset about are self-indulgent, like this is about my father dying of cancer. Yeah you know, like that it's it's a documentary more about the director and not so much about the subject or the world. I I think the best ones are worlds that we don't know that much about and we're about to go into this film and learning about it.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

But isn't there like isn't there a place for that? Is the documentary that is, you know, like more of a mirror? Uh like I mean one that comes to mind is Sherman's March, which is like we have a subject. I mean, Sherman's March actually seems, like now that I bring it up, like very spiritually connected to drunk history, and that like it is this kind of guy talking about history, but we're watching the guy.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

Yeah, I really hope your audience has seen it. Uh yeah, yeah. Because it is it is so great, and that it's just and these fascinating women that he entangled himself with and somehow ties it up at the end.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

I've never watched like a behind the scenes of how he the order of that. I mean, I know the order that they put in the movie that he had just broken up with his girlfriend, but it's so good. But yeah, I feel that's very Nathan Fielder. Or um what's uh uh John What's his name? Hold on, don't tell us anybody. Uh it's a W. John Wick. I I keep on I wanted to go to Williams, but we know it's HBO Williams, John How Do How To with John Wilson.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

We said not to tell us. I'm gonna get in trouble for that.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

Well, yeah, you can't throw pens at people anymore. Can I have my pen? Especially a professor. You're a fool for doing that. Professor, can I ask you, is there um, you know, is boredom an opinion? Like, you know, some people find looking at fish boring, some people are fascinated by fish, right? So like is there something that you're fascinated by no, nothing with a Ph. Okay. Um, unless it's a PhD. Thank you. High fives everywhere. Um I was racing to that.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

I know I saw it and you beat me to it.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

Problem talking slow, but we both talk slow. Yeah, but we think fast. Um the uh no, like uh like the subject is that does documentaries have to be boring? Some b some people find things boring that some are fascinated by. But I don't think they need to be these eight episodes anymore. That's a new thing that like everything has a number of how many they have to be when it's like, no, the story's over by episode three, but they long gate them now. I think there's a difference between a documentary film and a Netflix documentary that that's there's a problem right now.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Yeah, there's a problem where where everything needs to be stretched out, and no, it doesn't. It's not about the best way in telling the story, it's about getting the story to last a certain amount of time and check a certain amount of boxes.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

Is your phone still buzzing?

SPEAKER_02 8:10

It's still buzzing. Oh man, that's what I mean. I just kind of threw it. I feel like this is a very honest uh uh podcast, but also built on a lie.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

That's not really a university. But you are Sam Brown. Yeah. And those are real curtains. Yeah, these are real curtains. Is there a subject that you get fascinated by that others aren't?

SPEAKER_02 8:37

Uh I I am I do get like fascinated by uh technical things. I get like very interested in like technical, like how things works and and that kind of thing. And and I do sometimes, you know, see people, you know. Of course there's stuff. It's not that I don't enjoy them, but it's just that sometimes I just wish I had gotten the information and not watched it. Do you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 9:07

Yeah, more like uh like um a coffee table, but like just like, oh that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

And I mean I think it's it's maybe that that sometimes uh I think because I'm like, you know, someone who aspires to be a filmmaker, a writer, and a storyteller, yeah, is sometimes I I get much more interested in the the mechanism of the story and how it's told, and feel that sometimes a documentary can kind of be too obsessed with the information and not put enough emphasis on how they're delivering the information.

SPEAKER_03 9:47

Yeah. There's so many different worlds of documentaries, which makes it so exciting of like, oh, I don't like there's great football documentaries, there's great ballet documentaries, you know, like but Frederick Wiseman, I believe, is one of the only documentary filmmakers that's actually making a dot a documentary is document sorry, is documenting what is happening. And now there's so many documentaries that we do need a story, you know? Yeah. But you know, we also know some of these documentaries are kind of fibbed and like st the stories are adjusted to make sense. Like they're like Frederick Wiseman makes documentary, and when I told you high school is a great one, everyone should watch.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

I went home after we so so we hung out. Actually, for people who are listening to all the the episodes of the podcast, after the Josh Fadem episode, we went over to Derek's to have dinner. And the night ended with Derek going through his extensive Frederick Weisman collection and actually finding doubles. And Derek was being kind enough to to uh gift those doubles to Josh. And uh I went home that night and I was like, Emily, I gotta watch, I gotta watch high school. That's and it's on um um it's kind of hard to find, but actually, if you go on uh um what's the library? The library one. The um canopy, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

I can't read the word canopy. I always have to read it with a K, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Canopy with a K. I highly suggest like Canopy is such a slept-on app. If it's free with a library subscription, yeah, and it has such an extensive collection.

SPEAKER_03 11:34

Canopy, though, you're only allowed to watch a certain amount, which yeah but the amount is like 30 a month, which also is nice because you then finish what you start. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

You have this sort of like, well, I rented this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but we watched uh uh high school and me and my partner Emily, and uh afterwards I was like that was really cool, and she was like, I hated it.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

Great.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

I want to She was like, I was so bored.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

Right, and that is a that's beautiful because certain people are fascinated by other things. Nothing happens in his movies, and yeah, nothing happens. I just it's the study of human behavior and also filmmaking to be like, how did you get these people to be so comfortable with a camera? And uh I told you that he put those cameras in those rooms months before without any film to make them comfortable in the rooms, which is such a brilliant idea. And you know, I also really love the movie Stevie, and that's a very uncomfortable movie. But I like when you're like, How the hell did you get these performances um with a camera in the room? And I think that makes me go, Oh, that's filmmaking of like the director made that the crew made these people feel so comfortable that they you can get these honest, um honest reactions and um it truly is like like a time capsule, and that's like one of the interesting things like has that quality of like I get excited when I see you know something.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Uh maybe it's from a YouTube uh video or an old videotape I find, but when I see commercials, like a commercial break from the 90s, yeah, because I'm like, oh, I remember this, but also I'm like I cannot witness this anymore. And like this is such a sort of like indication of a time in in history and a place. Like that's high school felt like there's this time capsule.

SPEAKER_03 13:39

May I ask why Emily hated it?

SPEAKER_02 13:41

I think she was like, I think she was just like, I was bored. Yeah, I think she was like couldn't look up from her phone and was like, this seems like one of those film school movies. I think she was saying. What started you out on documentaries? What was like the first documentary that you were like really caught your attention?

SPEAKER_03 13:58

I grew up in Maryland and there was a Maryland Film Festival, and this is 1999. Does that have anything to do with John Waters? My dad. No, but it is cool. My last name is Waters.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

Yeah, yeah, you got me for a second. I was like, oh no.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

How did I not?

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Oh, wait, does he he doesn't have a son, right?

SPEAKER_03 14:18

Yeah, he does not have a son. No, but uh before my mom became a Waters, she was a Shores, which is just something fun. Oh yeah. And someone broke into her house and wrote John Waters was here as a kid. And I got to meet John Waters and I told him that story. He goes, I used to break into houses when I was a child, but I was never that stupid to leave my name. Please tell your mother I did not break into her house. But I went, but who else would have done it? It had to have been him. Um true, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

So we grew up how many John Waters were breaking into houses in the Maryland area.

SPEAKER_03 14:56

And you know, he thought that was cool. And I went to the same high school as Divine. Oh, cool. And Michael Phelps. So I like to say I'm a little in between today. You were swimming today? Yeah. Where'd you swim? Rose Bowl.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Nice. Aquatic Center. Sponsor us, Rose Bowl Aquatic Center.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

But I think if I uh uh uh answer 100%, the first documentary is Hands on a Hard Body, when that's not really a documentary, but it it I mean it is, but and American movie. Oh wait, no, so American Movie comes out in '99. I see it in Toronto, and yeah. And then I saw Waiting for Guff, like all of that like mushed together, like Waiting for Guffman, Hands on a Hard Body, and American Movie. Waiting for Guffman didn't happen. You know that, right? Waiting for Guffman didn't happen. Well, Guffman never showed up. Is that what you're trying to say?

SPEAKER_02 15:48

No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

It's a mockumentary. I'm just saying that that were those worlds, like I had never What if you didn't know? If I thought that was a documentary. Yes, I I like really wanted to answer that question. I think that the first documentary, though, is Hands on Harbody at the Maryland Film Festival. There might be something else. But if you saw that at the festival, yeah, that's cool. There's something there's another one that I'm gonna remember before um we finish that I taped on TV, and I remember going like, oh, I like this, and I just like feeling like you're in the room with someone, and I I I know everyone likes I I would hope people like people, but I just I love watching people, and I think documentary like the good ones, I'm just fascinated in human behavior. You collect VHS. What's the crown jewel of your collection? I have DVD, I do have some VHS. I collect a lot of things, but I don't know what my crown jewel of VHS is because a crown jewel would be like an original VHS. Yeah. I mu most of my VHSs are like things like taped off of TiVo or things that I taped as a child that I have too much um childhood guilt throwing them away.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Which which what what movies from your childhood do you still have tape?

SPEAKER_03 17:08

Like I have the original tape, uh it was Ferris Bueller and Stand By Me on one tape, which was awesome. My grandparents were like, we like Ferris Buller, but not Stand By Me. We didn't have HBO, my grandparents had HBO. And uh so they would tape me all the dirty movies.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

It was great. I have two VHS that are like wall art in my office and um that I keep it's a VHS copy of sneakers, like kind of a dad core movie, you know? Like that like kind of like oh it's dad core is a genre?

SPEAKER_03 17:44

I would say yeah. As in like the audience is a dad, or it's about dads.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

The audience is a dad. Okay. Like the kind of like, you know, like John Grisham or like uh uh Tom Clancy. That's like a big dad core kind of thing. You know, the things where it's like Harrison Ford movies, I would say, is dad core. Yeah. But this is like a an older Robert Redford, not so so much older, but like, you know, kind of leading a team of guys and clear up my record get out of my life. But yeah, it's a fun one. Uh and then the other one is I have a VHS copy of uh Three O'Clock High. Have you ever seen that? Of course. So I did a uh uh uh used to do a a night where at the the theater I used to run, we would just like have like VHS night, and I bought a VHS player and would show it through the projectors, and I would and one time I was finally like, you know, I this is one of my favorite movies. I gotta get a copy of Three O'Clock High. And I wouldn't like advertise this, it would just be the other comedians that would like come to this thing and I put out a thing on Facebook that's like, hey, come watch Three O'Clock High. And I was walking to the theater that night, and the person who ran the theater was like, uh, or who was like house manager at the theater, was like, hey, the guy's here. What do you mean the guy's here? And she's like, The guy? You wanted the guy from the movie here? And I was like, What? And I sh get to the theater, and Richard Tyson, who plays Buddy Ravel in that movie, found out from a friend of his that we were showing his movie and showed up and hung out with us the whole night, watched the movie, hung out, and like I like asked him questions afterwards, and then I got him to sign a copy, my copy of Three O'Clock High, and he signed it like two Sam, three three o'clock in the parking lot. We're gonna fight.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Fuck yeah. Oh, that's so awesome.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Yeah. I want to bring in, I feel like like this is one of those situations where I feel like we should have gotten the expert input. I'm so excited. All right, here to help us in our discussion is an acclaimed documentarian whose films have played at major festivals and earned national praise, and who, fun fact, has complained about documentaries so passionately she has gotten public training. Uh that's my kind of filmmaker. Please welcome Amy Scott. So, Amy, how'd you get into documentary filmmaking?

SPEAKER_05 20:17

I was an editor. I was gonna be a camera operator, and I slipped on the ice and broke my arm like the day before I was starting this job at University of Chicago. I was so proud. And then um just got into editing and editing documentaries specifically and kind of went down this PBS route. So I worked a lot with um Bill Siegel, who did uh Trials of Muhammad Ali and uh the Weather Underground documentary if you ever saw that. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I was also Studs Turkle's um assistant right before he died. So um so yeah, I had like a very like with studs. I started I was archiving his um his audio reels of his interviews. So I would spend all day like just listening to how the man conducted an interview, and so that became like a fascination. Like I because I was so into like just observational docs. I was like it's interesting because I was thinking about like people that put their themselves in in the film. Yeah, it's like you could even take that and parse that out into like, okay, are we talking about like Nick Broomfield? Are we talking about Ross McGelly and Sherman's March? Or who's Nick Broomfield? Curtin Courtney, like he Oh yes, yes. Yeah, and he he makes a point. I mean Verner Herzog's and it's yeah, depends on what which documentary you want to you know pick your flavor in terms of like you know, he's all over Grizzly Man and it's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

True, you must never listen to this.

SPEAKER_05 21:43

I know Werner, I'm never going to. He's sort of like I always feel like what Herzog does, he's wildly entertaining. He he always serves as like if you're like still behind and you haven't made this connection, he just kind of helps you, you know? He's like, we're all Ruled by chaos. And you're like, oh yeah, okay, that's the point. Cool. Let me get there. But then there's the filmmaker that's like, it's about me.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

Yeah. R.I.P. The most extreme is Morgan Sprilla was.

SPEAKER_05 22:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

Just like this is about him. But I mean, he was doing like human exercises.

SPEAKER_05 22:19

That's the thing. It's just like, bless his heart for the work that he did because he did kind of advance us in this way. Did you ever see the Beaver Trilogy? Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

That's one of my favorites that I I ask someone if they've seen it.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

But Beaver, not much goes on in there. It's just kind of a town where either you drag main or you go watch two. I should do.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

So I haven't seen the Beaver trilogy. I'm aware of the Beaver Trilogy. What do you know? Isn't it like a movie made three times kind of thing?

SPEAKER_03 22:48

Sure. But do you know what it what it is and how it started? If you don't, that's great. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. As long as you don't know that, then you can still go in it with fresh up.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

My crazy is Kristen Glover involved in this or no?

SPEAKER_04 23:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

Can I tell you for people that haven't seen the Beaver trilogy, fast forward this?

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

Including you.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Here's what we can do is we can give a spoiler alert thing on screen because there's people watching this on YouTube. Yeah. And then we'll take the spoiler alert thing and we're I have a very crazy theory about it.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

So I was lucky enough to work a Crispin Glover, and he invited me to his like a Halloween Halloween party. It was some sort of party. And I talked about the Breaver trilogy with him, and he's so proud of it. And he's like, it's one of my favorite performances, but it's blacklisted, and the only way you can see it is uh this very bad VHS dub. And I said, Well, I have a theory why it's blacklisted. Because Chris uh Sean Penn is doing Spicoli. And I was like, I think that's where he got spicoly. And he goes, Well, why don't you ask the director of Fast Times Rich Mahai, who is sit who was right next to us. And I asked her, and she goes, I've never heard of Beaver Trilogy. So Okay, that's it. Interesting. But I was like, it's so racist, you won't believe it. Sorry. It was just the joke that Sam couldn't hear what we were saying. Here's a little tip for you.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

If you're ever gonna plug your ears to you you move your fingers because that'll create a noise you can't hear. Like if you just plug your ears. I can kind of see, I can kind of hear you, but if I go like and move my fingers around. I don't want to put my fingers in my ears.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

I would cover them like that, because fingers in my ears just make me nervous.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

But still, I can kind of hear you. You heard what we said.

SPEAKER_05 24:45

You ever seen a film called Marjo? You know what this one is? No. You gotta watch Marjo. If you're into I see where we're going here.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

Yeah, what year? What era?

SPEAKER_05 24:53

Oh, uh early 70s. Um he was the youngest preacher, child preacher, and there's all this footage, and it's a Southern Baptist revival, revivalist, the world's youngest, you know, and and then he I don't want to spoil it, he grows up in his 20s and he is not a believer anymore. And he's like, Wow, that was kind of bullshit. Like my whole childhood is kind of bullshit. So he takes a film crew and and shoots this on 16 mil, and he does a revival tour as an adult to sort of deconstruct his past, and it's unbelievable. It's so good. So stuff like that. I was like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

Also, I was gonna ask you that I think the audience might know these two things. It's like there's a difference between Jesus Camp and Hellhouse, where like Jesus Camp is like, oh, these people are awful. Hell House is like, I'm just gonna show you what these people do, and that's what I love the most is like don't tell me how to vote. Yeah, show me who to vote for.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

But does that doesn't that get into the whole like you know, how much you put yourself in the documentary, how much you show yourself as the maker is like how much your opinion is in the documentary. Of course.

SPEAKER_05 26:04

Of course. I mean, like, even Frederick Wiseman was like, he hated the terms direct sentiment and stuff. He was like, that's bullshit because every single decision has a choice.

SPEAKER_04 26:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:14

You are just you're in there, you know. You're where you put the camera, where you put the lights, who you're gonna follow, what institution, how are you gonna cut it? Editing is, I mean, all of it is. It's just we've hit this point in history. And I mean, if the central question or the thesis that we're trying to unpack is, are documentaries boring? I would ask you, what defines boring? And and to be honest, like ultimately, what defines documentaries in 2025? Because we're so far I don't even know what is happening right now. Um, you know, I want to learn, I want to learn as much as I can about humanity by studying like Jane Goodall. Like, what am I watching?

SPEAKER_02 26:50

You know, um getting us a little closer to understanding each other, or am I telling you that are the things that people are doing on social media documentary?

SPEAKER_05 27:00

Yeah, I've seen this guy that like films himself cleaning out drains and stuff and mowing the lawn. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Oh yeah, and then they tell him so it well. Or the guy that goes up to houses and goes like, hey, uh, do you know what the deal is with this house? And then he looks like it's real satisfying. It's very satisfying.

SPEAKER_05 27:17

Do you have anxiety? Does this help you or hurt you? You know, it's some a lot of people are like, yeah, totally watch. The lawn is done.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

I totally throw out this like social media question as like a I don't think like a view to the you know, an influencer on the same page as you know, uh uh Weissman. Uh no way. But you can't just expect the future to go where the past has been. You know, you can't expect like the next amazing person at sort of like uh uh documenting human behavior to automatically be like, well, film is what I'm gonna do. And you know, like I feel like there is gonna be someone out there that will be able to do something similar to that or figure out something similar to figure out how to do it two minutes at a time.

SPEAKER_05 28:19

Yeah, I get um network notes on my films now that are really like you know, time driven, and it's like repeat the plot, say it again, say it again, keep saying it, show them what's happened, show them again. I'm like it is all the two-screen experience thing that is like shrinking the attention span. So I would hate to put them all in the same camp. I think there's documentary film, watching, viewing, and making, and then there's internet nonfiction. No, for film, for doc films, yeah. Which is troubling. No shade to all the streamers. I love them all, and they keep me employed. This is like what's a hard thing for me. No shade. But it is a it's a riddle that I have internally.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

Do you ever see a documentary and go like get to the end of it and go, uh, maybe they shouldn't have finished that one?

SPEAKER_03 29:19

Yeah. You and don't make me watch something that you don't have an ending for. Yeah, and we still don't know who did it.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Fuck you.

SPEAKER_03 29:28

Thank you. There's a handful of those being made now or have been that I'm just like, it's not finished. Don't rush it. It's fine to like have something take longer than you thought it would take because the story's still evolving.

SPEAKER_05 29:43

Totally, definitely. There's that case, and then yeah, uh my my first film took seven years, I think, to finish.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

So what's your first film?

SPEAKER_05 29:51

It's called Hal about Hal Ashby. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_05 29:55

Yeah, it was just a lot of editing. It's just a lot of a lot of it. I mean, I had two kids in the film, it was man trying to edit, but um, yeah, it was a they're hard.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Also, Hal Ashby, famous editor. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:08

That's why I wanted to make it.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:10

I think it's, you know, and those are certain kinds of films. Those the editors' documentaries are usually archivally based where I'm like, damn, you know.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

What are some pet peeves of yours?

SPEAKER_03 30:20

Uh exploiting, where you're making fun of someone that clearly like isn't um not like they're not all there, but just like you're tricking them in some sort of way. That's a I mean, that's a pet peeve in life. No one's like, yeah, I love when they're tricked. But I think also you can you can just tell certain certain documentaries you can go like, oh, this like Billy the Kid is one of my favorites that you're like, this boy is just being followed and he's just being himself. He's not trying to be anything except for himself. And um, some people don't like that movie. Do you like Billy the Kid?

SPEAKER_01 30:59

I haven't seen Billy the Kid.

SPEAKER_03 31:00

Oh, Amy. It's Jennifer Vendetti, who's a great casting director. Okay. And she found this boy in an audition and just filmed him over the course of I think three days and then a follow-up, and you see him fall in love. Um, he clearly is uh high functioning at that time just on the spectrum, but it's never ever talked about. You're just following this boy falling in love, and um this relationship with his mother is like so beautiful. So things like that where you're like, you're just watching, and there is a story, you can hear her talk a little bit, but so yeah, Pep P for me uh would be exploiting yeah, I'm sure I have others, but I want to hear you.

SPEAKER_05 31:48

No, I I like that because you brought up Stevie earlier, and that's a film that that's like the that's a good example of like non-exploitation, and it's a really hard person to follow. And it's yeah, and it used to be so precious um and and careful with you know the subject of the film. It's Steve James, so he's gonna do the right thing. But um but I think just rick writ large, like reality television is is that it's that like you might get taken advantage of in this in this documentary, you know, series that's heavily produced, and you know, but do you sign they sign up for it, but it's like in a tragic in a way.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

A a pet peeve I just remembered also is like when someone's talking and they're like, so then I called her and then they changed their voice to like over the phone. That that's been happening a lot where like so. I called them on the speaker and like Don't why are you changing your voice? Why is all of a sudden there's an editor going like what if it sounds like a phone? Because that's what I would have sounded like. It takes me out of it. Can I show you one thing real quick, Sam? But we have to switch seats. It's really quick. Yeah, yeah. It's really quick.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

I for a second I thought you were gonna like just bring up something on your phone or something.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

No, so uh you're gonna sit next to Amy. Okay. That's how you start now. But that's how we know. That's how we know they're real people and they know how to sit in a fucking chair. And I have a theory about that. That I think that whole started with an editor getting a note like we need 27 more seconds. It just it had to have been.

SPEAKER_05 33:34

I'm like, great coin. I don't think I might be guilty of something.

SPEAKER_03 33:37

It happens mostly sports docs. And I don't know why that's a thing. Shoot the empty chair and then see them come in.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

What do you think that is? Did you see the documentary about um um who's the the all the the Nickelodeon pedophile stuff? Sure. I don't remember what it was called, but the uh the dark side of Dark side of Nickelodeon. Yeah. At the they kept on talking about one of the the stars of the the things getting assaulted, and and you kind of were like, I like I wonder who they're talking about. It's kind of one of those things left out. And at the end of the second episode, they did the whole see Drake Bell come in, sit down, and they did a good job. They didn't do any interviews with them at all. But that's weird for me to say because it's like we're getting this story, and they intentionally were withholding information to from us to make it more impactful in the the them telling the story.

SPEAKER_05 34:41

I've I'm guilty of it. I've done it. I had an era of my filmmaking where it's like, Sam, sit in the chair. Never had anybody do like that, but it is it's a lot of things. As in like we're starting here and you're just staying on this. Yeah, I don't want to take your seat.

SPEAKER_03 34:54

Thank you for letting me. I like that. I like that a lot. But that's the only reason I think it makes sense is if someone we were told couldn't walk. And now we can see they can walk.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

How do you pick what what you're what you do as a documentarian, like what your next subject is?

SPEAKER_05 35:14

Well, I have a job and I pick the the people that call me and have money to do a job. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:22

So I pick them, and then when you say you pick them, the people that are calling you have the money as in like they're the ones paying you, and then they pitch you? Yeah. A subject?

SPEAKER_05 35:32

Or so fortunate enough to get calls or like compete for a job. And and then and then for just like me, like why what do I it's just the stuff that interests me, like my favorite things, you know? Like I've been filming with Elliot Gould, like it's like him and his house. Yeah, I don't know what's gonna happen with it. He has this way of talking. This is a we're going off the side road, but he has the coolest way of talking. It's really he's really poetic and he's really psychedelic, and then it's just laced with like film history and the funniest shit from all your favorite movies. So you're like, oh wow. But he has a way of talking about people where when he wants it's his version of walking in and sitting down in the chair and having to watch that, you're like, oh, it's this has gravity, you know. But he'll say someone's name, he'll be like, Billy fucking wilder. You know, and it takes so long to get it out, and you're like, I'm in. Whatever you're gonna say after the Colonel Fucking Sanders, you know? Dude, what's next?

SPEAKER_02 36:32

Oh, that's great. For for both of you, what do you see as as the future? What was the last thing you saw that you were like, this feels new?

SPEAKER_05 36:40

I I'll tell you, um, there's two things I saw this year that blew my mind. And I think I hope this there's a short film by Lauren Waters, it's her last name. She's an indigenous indigenous filmmaker from Oklahoma. And I'm pretty sure her film, it should get shortlisted for an Oscar. It won an audience award at Sundance last year. It's called Tiger. It's phenomenal. It's a documentary short. It is the the freshest perspective that I've seen in a long time. Where I just sat up and I'm like, damn, I gotta send this to it's on criterion. I mean, it's like her first film, and they're like, We'll take it immediately. And so that was exciting. And the other one was the Swamp Dog documentary. Did you see that? No God, it's so good. And that's super inventive. Yeah, Swamp Dog.

unknown 37:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 37:27

Swamp Dog, you know he is? Swamp Dog is this old RB guy, singer, that is who is like, you know, it's it's just this uh the classic underdog, but he's hilarious. And it's really inventive. I think Mike Jud Mike Judge is in it. There's just a lot of it's called Swamp Dog Gets His Pool Painted. And it's the the painting of the pool is you know the cre the narrative device that pushes the story along, and then you are telling, you know, who Swamp Dog is, and it's I laughed and cried like the ones that make you laugh and cry are so powerful. And Arthur Jones that did uh feels good man. Do you guys see that?

SPEAKER_01 38:06

I've never seen that.

SPEAKER_05 38:07

It's about Pepe, the Pepe the Alt-Right. Oh yes, yes, yeah, no, no. It's a really he's like a highly creative documentary filmmaker. Yeah, got co-opted by the alt-right. So he follows the artist.

SPEAKER_02 38:23

Do you feel like you are influenced by the artists? You I mean, you make documentaries about artists and musicians. Do you feel like you know you're you're hearing these stories that they're telling about their creative performance that bleed into the the piece itself?

SPEAKER_05 38:39

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay, good answer. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I just did a film that's coming out next week on HBO, and it um it's uh it's called Have You Seen Me Lately? It's the story of the Counting Crows, their first two records.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

Well, I am very excited. Yeah. Yes, uh keep going. I know I've seen the preview. Oh, you have?

SPEAKER_05 39:03

Yes. Okay, yeah. So that one, um, Adam's a really spent a lot of time with Adam Durritz.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

That's really funny.

SPEAKER_05 39:12

And um, he's a cool dude. Yeah he's really funny.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

I once was watching a finals basketball game, Golden State Warriors. Oh, yeah, yeah. And paused it and was like, see there in the middle of the crowd? That's Adam Duritz from Counting Cards.

SPEAKER_05 39:27

I interviewed Steve Kerr for this film, which is an odd choice for a music guy. Oh yeah. But um Yeah. Yeah, it was really fun. But in terms of like how it wasn't the music uh the music did not influence the the making of the film, except that there is a nineties aesthetic because I thought they were so quintessential they were such a nineties, and there's like a viper room, like there's there's just like kind of a sheen. Yeah, it's so cool.

SPEAKER_03 39:53

I cannot wait. When does it come out?

SPEAKER_05 39:55

The 18th. It comes out the 18th? 18th, so it's the eighteenth.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

By the time this is kind of this time, you're hearing it is out. It is out of the yeah, it is out.

SPEAKER_05 40:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:03

When you were interviewing Adam, at any point, um, did he say Yeah Long December. I mean, it's a lot of songs.

SPEAKER_05 40:14

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 40:14

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:15

Yeah. Rob Hardy.

SPEAKER_03 40:18

I'll stop. Amy, I don't want to brag, but I'm from Baltimore and our our football team is called the Ravens. The Ravens, yeah. And my fantasy football team is called the County Ravens.

SPEAKER_05 40:27

Oh my goodness. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

Uh I have a game here for us to play. Okay. Uh, boring or brilliant. I'm gonna pitch you documentaries, boring documentaries, and you need to figure out if they are real or not. Well, yeah, I thought it was boring or brilliant. That's two different games. Yeah. A woman leaves her family to fill a lifelong obsession with making the perfect omelet.

SPEAKER_03 40:58

This is we're at wondering if that's real or brilliant, or that's yeah, real or fake. Real or fake, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

We can call it real or fake. Okay, factor fiction. Fact or fiction. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 41:09

She's leaving her family to go do the perfect omelet. In this, I don't think it's real, but in this time of era, I don't know. But I'm gonna say fake.

SPEAKER_05 41:24

Yeah, because I'm like, okay, would it be Julia Child? She didn't do that. No, she didn't do that. It's not Martha Stewart. I mean, she had a different journey.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

Yeah. But it is a game show, and they like to trick you to be like, it was rude.

SPEAKER_05 41:37

I don't think the first one out of the bag is gonna be like Okay, we'll say fake.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

That was fake.

SPEAKER_05 41:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:42

I just made that up. I just made that one. A man searches for gold, never finds it. Was the journey itself the real gold?

SPEAKER_05 41:56

It sounds like a herzog gold.

SPEAKER_02 41:58

Yeah, I bet it's real. What do you think? It's a movie called Garnet's Gold. Sorry, I thought you guys were settling into real. We were settling into real.

SPEAKER_03 42:07

We were going to real and the real settled. I don't know who is that who made it.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Garnet's um I should have put that down. Who made it? A college student is embraced by an Eastern European community when he sets out to renovate an isolated farmhouse he purchased for 5,000 euros.

SPEAKER_05 42:28

I mean, it it does sound legit.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:31

Especially Euros. Yeah. Just the word alone.

SPEAKER_03 42:34

Yeah, too. Too specific to be fake.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

It's fake. But actually, I don't know. We kind of like like that's a uh Instagram series, a TikTok series that I've watched. There's a guy just documenting uh his like this is my I bought uh a this I bought a$5,000 house, Euro house, and I'm renovating it day ninety-two.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

So it's that's on the line. So it's it's on the line.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

It's not a long form theatrical doc, but it's but that's why I was that's the fun I was having. A beekeeper who deals with the suicide of a close friend while also dealing with his past in the military.

SPEAKER_03 43:19

Well, that sounds great. That sounds very real. Yeah, I would watch it too. The real? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

Hopefully. It's real, but it's not a documentary. It's the movie The Beekeeper starring Jason Statement. Which if you haven't seen, you gotta see it. I have not seen it. It's good. It's good. I kind of spoiled the the beginning of it. But yeah. Yeah, you guys did great. Thanks.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

I mean, you guys really flubbed the beekeeper question, but what do you uh what when you said oh that was actual movie, it made me think I wanted to ask Amy like what your when people make movies about documentaries, you know. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:58

Have you ever Yeah, like Well, that's a trend right now. Yeah. Streaming.

SPEAKER_03 44:03

Right. I wasn't bringing this up to tell the story, but I once was in a meeting and I was like, yeah, I just I heard they're trying to make King of Kong, like, and I just don't understand why you would just leave it alone. And they're like, well, we're making it and we really believe in it. And I was like, oh, sorry. And they're like, we have Johnny Depp as Billy Mitchell and Steve Weeby will be playing Steve Weeby. Luckily, that never happened. Oh wow. But I was like, that just leaves things alone. How how like like what's what's in the future for you? Only God knows, my brother. Only God knows. Um I don't I don't know. I'm I'm writing and pitching and never want to stop making things. Do you want to plug your Counting Crows?

SPEAKER_05 44:53

Yeah, wait, we did. We plugged it. No, I'm not sure. It's called have you seen it's called the Counting Crows Colon. Have you seen not the word County Crows? Have you seen me lately? It's coming on an HBO match. Counting Crows. Or HBO. I'm not sure. Wherever Music Box lives, because I can't afford all these streamers.

SPEAKER_02 45:12

So one last question for for both of you. On a daily basis, yeah. Like dive into fiction.

SPEAKER_05 45:24

I w yeah, I wrote a script. Yeah. Yes. But that's your lane.

SPEAKER_03 45:30

I mean No, that's both of our lanes of going like, what do we want to do? Yeah. Of course. Yes. 100%.

SPEAKER_05 45:37

Do you know I want to abandon reality and like like actually like seriously open like a cheese shop. Like I'm like going to blood shop and a cheese.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

That's great.

SPEAKER_05 45:47

And when I'm asked to write like a bio or a bio, you know, synopsis or whatever, it's like Amy Scott from Oklahoma wants to work at a cheese shop. Wants to have a cheese shop. I'm it's it's a it's hard. It's very hard. It's rewarding and hard. That's rewarding and hard.

SPEAKER_02 46:02

A woman leaves her career to fulfill her lifelong obsession making the perfect cheese shop. Real. Yeah. Real. There we go. Real. Okay. All right. Well, I here we go for you guys. Diplomas. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 46:17

Look at that. That's so cool. Documentary film study.

SPEAKER_05 46:21

I'm gonna sign it.

SPEAKER_03 46:23

Amy, I'm so glad to meet you.

SPEAKER_05 46:24

I mean, likewise, I'm always a fan of drunk history. I mean, all of it cracked me up. I couldn't, I was like, this is what's this is what's up. This is what's you made drunk history? Oh yeah. Oh god He's that guy. Whoa.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

He's that guy. I just realized now that I was like, oh, we didn't talk about that at all. I love talking about this.

SPEAKER_05 46:44

Even your format, what you did spawned a whole other thing. I mean, when I see the like hot, I mean, I like to watch the people eat hot wings and stuff and then talk, but it's like kind of a just there's some similar things. I was like, oh, you could trace it. You can trace it back to drunk history.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

I guess we've learned that documentaries, these movies are alright. Well, thank you so much for watching Sputviee, Sam Brown University TV. I want to thank my producers, uh Colin Goheen, Jeff Hershey, and uh my editor Andrew Michel, uh Sam Brown University. Last dismissed.