June 12, 2025 • 21 mins
Taking it back to the indie film boom of the 90s with super-sales-agent John Sloss of Cinetic Media. Walking through the tree-filled Zilker neighborhood in an escape from SXSW, John shares his career journey from a life-changing pickup basketball game with John Sayles to longtime associations with film legends like Richard Linklater, John Pierson and Errol Morris. Ben & Keith eat up the stories of John’s early days, but it's his unique perspective on the current state of the doc marketplace that makes John Sloss a real ‘get’ for Doc Walks.
00:00 Introduction and Setting the Scene
00:32 Meeting John Sloss
01:12 A Walk Through Zilker
02:15 Career Highlights and Insights
13:54 The State of the Documentary Market
17:25 Wrapping Up and Future Episodes
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Keith, who are we aboutto talk with today?
(00:03):
We've broken free of downtown Austin,which is very nice, and the town has
been invaded by a hundred thousandfilm fans and mostly interactive tech
nerds and all kinds of other people.
So it's an exciting time in Austin,but it's also a crowded time in Austin.
So I'm excited to break out of themain hubbub into one of my favorite
neighborhoods, Zilker and Barton Hills.
(00:24):
And meet up with one of those 100,000people that came to town, but one
that, that means a lot to me, hasmeant a lot to my career, and I
think it will have a lot to say.
And that's super Sales agent John Sloss.
From Cinetic That's right.
And I have been shouting at partiesfor the last three days to some of
those a hundred thousand people.
So my voice is in tatters still.
(00:45):
So I'm gonna let Keith do a lotof the talking in this episode,
which is great because you and Johnhave a history and our friends.
So it seems apropos.
And knowing John, I'm prettysure he's gonna do most of the
talking, and that is just right.
He is the salesman after all
on your left.
You're listening to DockWalks with Ben and Keith.
(01:12):
Alright.
We are over in the beautifulZilker neighborhood of Austin
where we are surrounded bywhat has recently described as.
Trees of torment, whatdid you call them, John?
Um, anguish, possibly.
Anguish laden live oaks.
Yes.
So our guest today is noneother than icon Torts.
(01:33):
Good though.
Oh yeah.
Torment.
Torment might be more appropriate.
Okay.
It's like the documentary world.
That's right.
There you go.
Caught between torment and anguish.
Well, that's the name of the episode.
There we go.
So here we are today, walking downthe street here in Austin, Texas.
With Icon, living legend,trailblazer, icon of classed.
(01:54):
Proud father, proud dad who's justtelling us about his kids, both his
biological and all the many films thathe's helped put out into the world.
Please welcome John SLOs.
Hello to Doc Walks.
Hello John.
Thank you so much for doing this.
That is
heat.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Well, we have a beautiful morninghere as Crisp, crisp Spring Morning.
(02:15):
So tell us what you're doing here in town.
You know, I'm very closely alignedwith Richard Linkletter and I've
often said that if I could do myjob from Austin, I would live here.
And I took the opportunity for thefirst time in my career last year
to on ground produce two movies.
And they were both Linkletter films.
(02:36):
We shot one in Paris and one in Dublin.
And there's a lot of work to do on those.
So I'm spending time with him.
We're also selling five films.
Here at South by Southwest, I wouldargue most notable among them is a
film called The Age of Disclosure,which is a controversial film, I
(02:58):
would say that makes the case thatwe are not alone in the universe.
I. Wow.
Okay, so this is the UFOdoc I've been reading about.
Yes.
Yes.
Well, lets,
we'll come back to that.
Okay.
So you have five films here and Ifor a long time, Doc Walks listeners,
you're gonna have to go all the wayback to episode two to remember our
conversation about what is a sales agent.
(03:18):
And so.
Who was on that?
I hope it wasn't Josh Braun.
Josh.
Josh is a hard get John.
I'm like, is he really?
Oh, I didn't ask.
Oh no, I didn't ask him.
I not yet.
No, don't tell him that.
Yeah, no, don't wait till the end.
Wait till the end for the insult.
I know.
Like a
chump.
We usually have a lightning round ofinsults at the end of the podcast.
Um, got it.
No, we were, you're explaining it'sjust me and Ben wandering the streets
(03:41):
of Park City talking about all thedifferent elements of a festival for.
It for people.
And we were talking about what makes asales agent in the role of a sales agent.
And so for people listening, that greatintro of John SLOs is, as far as I can
tell, the primary, the most heraldedsales agent in independent film history.
He is the leader of theteam at Cinetic Media.
(04:03):
Cinetic, yeah.
Media.
Genetic media.
Cinetic
How would you simply explainwhat it is that you do?
I would say.
There are people who have avision and are storytellers and,
you know, create that vision.
(04:25):
I'm a person who facilitates those people.
Um, I've always said until I havesufficient passion to tell a story
myself, the best use for me is tofacilitate people who have that passion.
And John has been representing.
Independent filmmakers, includingmyself, Richard Linklater, Kevin
(04:46):
Smith for many years, and I wantedto go back, if you didn't mind, to
the very beginning, the origin story.
Ah, I'd be happy to talk about that.
How far back do we want to go
at least to John Sayles?
Ha.
Okay, so I went to collegeat a time before VHS.
(05:06):
When you saw repertory films.
Films from film history in anauditorium on a film society.
I went to the University of Michigan,which had a lot of film societies and
I got turned on to film very quickly.
And I'd say I saw at leastone film a day for four years.
Wow.
And that kind of filled in thegaps I had in my filled history.
(05:29):
At the same time, I'm from afamily of salespeople and that's
a lot of fun and exciting.
But it's a harrowing existence.
And I thought, huh, I need askilled trade to fall back on, and
I'm not very good with my hands.
So I decided to go to law school.
So having fallen in love with film,having become a lawyer, I said, okay, I'm
(05:52):
gonna go to New York, not Los Angeles.
And.
Try to figure out how to be anentertainment lawyer that wasn't apparent.
So I took a job on Wall Street andI was a corporate lawyer for three
years, and then got the lay of theland, and then I sent my resume out
and became an entertainment lawyer.
I realized very quickly uponbecoming an entertainment lawyer
that you eat what you kill.
(06:13):
Especially in New York, it's notlike the Hollywood system where
being an entertainment lawyer islike shooting fish in a barrel.
You really have to scratch and claw.
And at that point I was playing alot of pickup basketball and I got
in a pickup basketball game witha guy named John Sayles who many
of your viewers may not even know.
That's a shame.
Which is kind of amazing.
Yeah, it's kind of amazing.
(06:34):
'cause he is a very, he's a legend.
He an icon.
He's a legend.
And he was the Paul ThomasAnderson of his day.
He was at the birth of independent film.
He was the icon.
And where in his career doesyour basketball intersect?
He had just made eight men out, I think.
Okay, awesome.
And brother from another planet?
I wasn't on those.
The first one I was on wasMatewan, where you can see me in
(06:56):
the background in West Virginia.
In a, in the church sceneyelling, praise Jesus
with Will Oldham, one ofmy favorite musicians.
There we go.
Chased off the pulpit byJohn Sales in that scene.
I'm right behind Mary McDonald,I think over her right shoulder,
and then I went to him.
After that film, and I said, Inegotiate all day with financiers and
(07:19):
distributors, and I don't see why itisn't better for me to go and try and
raise the money for your films than foryou because you don't like doing that.
You'd rather just focuson producing films.
And I had observed this sort ofinefficiency that the producers who
were getting films financed were theones who were good at raising finance.
(07:40):
Not good at necessarily developingmaterial or finding the right
filmmakers to align with.
John Sayles.
And Maggie Renzi, his producer,said, we would love to not have to
go out and raise money for our film.
So feel free to go out and try to do that.
And I did.
And that was the film City of Hope,and we raise the money for that.
(08:01):
Then when it was done, we had to sell it.
And I said, oh, I have aaffinity towards sales.
Why don't we take it to afilm festival and I'll be the
point person on selling it.
So I started doing stuff like that.
That wasn't strictly the practice of law.
And so that was the birth of Cinetic,
that was the birth of,and what did you like?
Was there a moment in thereas you were transitioning?
(08:23):
From entertainment attorney to, wereyou an executive producer or a producer?
I was an executive producer.
Executive producer.
Yeah.
I said, it's funny because atthat point, this is a true story.
At that point, I was a partner ina huge law firm because I'd become
an entertainment lawyer, and thena big San Francisco law firm came
and bought my entertainment lawfirm to be its New York office.
(08:45):
And so I was a partner in a firmthat had Bank of America and Fujitsu
as clients, and I had said to them.
Because I had said to John Saylesand Maggie Renzi I'd like to get
an executive producer credit.
'cause I want to advertise to theindustry that I'm willing to do more
than the average entertainment lawyerand maybe attract clients by doing that.
They said, sure, of course.
(09:06):
And I still practice law, but Ido have this other area of focus.
We have a law firm at one end,but we also have a finance group.
We have a sales group.
We do whatever we can.
To help movies get madeand out into the world.
And now you've gotten into management.
You've always been deeply involved inyour clients' careers and it seems like
(09:29):
a natural extension, but I don't thinkit was legitimized as a vertical for you.
It's a branding thing because I'vealways felt that I just, by my nature,
was the sort of most significantperson in each of my client's
life, which is odd for a lawyer.
Yeah.
So I said, really, I'm a manager.
And so those early days right there,you're in the hustle and bustle of
(09:53):
figuring things out on your own inNew York, and you look around at
the landscape and Sayles, like yousaid, is a godfather of the modern
indie movement, but he wasn't alone.
Who else did you see outthere and how did you connect?
Well, the, the most valuable apart,arguably from sales, the most valuable
relationship of my early career waswith a current Austinite John Pearson.
(10:16):
Another Titan of the historyof independent film who many
people don't know about.
When he was a producer's representative,he isn't trained as a lawyer.
He didn't, he would, mightdispute this, but he really
didn't like negotiating deals.
He liked picking filmmakersand taking films to festivals
and getting people interested.
(10:36):
And I became buddies with him and he'sthe one who introduced me to Linklater.
He's the one who introducedme to Kevin Smith.
And he was an interesting guy who woulddiscover all these filmmakers, Michael
Moore, Spike Lee, people like that.
And he would take their films andstart their career and he would
not necessarily clinging onto them,which is very unusual and selfless.
(10:59):
And Errol Morris too, wasn't
he involved in The Thin Blue Line?
I actually, I actually workedwith Earl Morris before he did.
I was the lawyer on thin blue Line.
Oddly enough.
And we should stop here and say we aregoing straight up a very steep hill,
which is why we are all open wheezing.
Coffee wheezing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yes.
Gasping for breath here.
Yes.
You,
we all drew my paces.
(11:20):
That's right.
We're getting our stepsin moving the blood.
So that's the origin story.
John came up at, at a moment in timewhere he saw an opportunity and seized it.
I think I was in the rightplace at the right time.
And so what's, what have you seen?
What, what, what's thebig difference between.
The indie boom of the nineties, the turninto the digital age in the two thousands.
(11:42):
Here's what I will say.
I was at a think tank a few years ago andthey all went around the room and everyone
talked about their vision for the futureand what their new company was gonna do
and all these tech people and Phil people.
And it got to me and I said, ofeveryone in this room, I think
I'm the closest to the creators.
And more and more I'm likingthat position, which is to say.
(12:04):
That the way films are consumed, whoever'sfinancing them, that all changes.
But the people creating the storytelling,as long as they're protected by copyright,
they're really the scarce resource.
So that hasn't really changed.
Obviously the buyers and thelandscape on how content is
consumed has changed radically.
(12:25):
And how are you keeping up with that?
How Cinetic
By pivoted.
Yeah, by being agile,which is what we are.
Okay.
I'm excited about.
People who were in the shoes that Benand I were in 15 years ago, 10 years ago,
at the start of their career, maybe onthe working on their first feature or
their third short or something like that.
And people always say, oh,you gotta have a sales agent.
(12:46):
You gotta have a sales agent if you getinto a festival or to get into a festival.
How does somebody engagewith Cinetic Media?
Well, that they don't have agencies.
They don't have managers.
They're an independent voice.
You don't, you, you haven't heard ofthem yet, but they've been making.
They're the next Charlie Shackleton or thenext Dan Farah, the next Ben Steinbauer
Thank you for that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wish the, I wish more of them existed,but the agencies are so good at ferreting
(13:09):
out these people early on and tryingto grab them that there aren't that
many of them, to be perfectly honest.
Dan Farah, for instance, the guy.
Who directed the, uh,the Age of Disclosure?
He was talking to one of our managementclients, David Gordon Green, and just
talking about his film, and Davidsaid, oh, you should talk to Cinetic.
And I get a call from this guyand he, and he says, I've got
(13:31):
this film, David's recommended.
I want to come to NewYork and show it to you.
And he came to New York.
We screened his film and we talked tohim and he hired us to represent her.
It was as simple as that.
It was in a vacuum.
There was no other, no competition.
There was no festival.
And then together we created a festivalplan and we thought this is a film that
would be perfect to screen in Austin.
(13:54):
You, you've answered this a little bitalready, but what do you think the state
of the modern documentary marketplace
is?
I mean, it's complicated because.
When I press the buyers, Isay, this market is tougher
than it was a couple years ago.
Is that because fewer people are consumingdocumentaries and none of them say yes?
(14:15):
They say no.
It's as great a value in relationto cost as in terms of eyeballs, as
anything we do apart from Netflixand to a certain extent, HBO, it
hasn't been a very active market.
We're trying to understand.
Apple is its own thing and welove Molly, and some of it is that
there's more and more commissions.
(14:37):
The other is that, I don't know,it's just a general reluctance.
It does docs even when they'resuccessful in relation to price.
Don't move the needle at these streamers,and so they don't prioritize them,
but it's so we're doing everything wecan to get everybody back in the game.
Yeah.
I mean, even when there's somethinglike a Will and Harper, for example,
that is, does very well commercially.
(14:59):
Yeah.
For something like Netflixthat has celebrity, that's
about a hot button issue.
Right.
Gets uh, um, not on the shortlistnomination, but gets it, did
get a shortlist.
Oh, it did.
It didn't get nominated, butit was on the short list.
The other film I sold at Sundancelast year, Superman, about Christopher
Reeves did not get on the short list.
Ah, okay.
Gotcha.
(15:19):
But like even a film like that,you, you're saying Netflix doesn't
necessarily look at as beinga, a priority or a money maker.
I
mean, Netflix still does, uh,it's really more the others.
I see.
It's more Amazon, uh, Amazon needs.
There's no reason why Amazonshouldn't be a more active doc buyer.
We're kind of scratchingour head about that.
(15:40):
I mean, they did pay $40million for Melania Trump.
Uh, so I guess that makes 'eman active doc bar, but that's
another matter altogether.
Yeah.
We should maybe stay away from that one.
Right.
So John, what do you have asfar as your view of the world?
Again, focus on emerging filmmakerswho are developing something,
(16:01):
who are out actively tryingto pursue independent equity.
Weighing the option of goingstraight to a streamer.
Trying to turn a development processinto a commission process or staying
kind of the indie route, which will leadthem closer to what you're known for.
Do you have thoughts on that to share?
Yeah.
The real imperiled sector is thediscovery scripted sector because
(16:24):
however, stress the doc market is thescripted market, the streamers do not
come to Sundance looking for discoveries.
There are the neons andthe A24s of the world.
Who still do and need, because thosefirms need the ethical release in
order to really make a impo impact.
So by comparison, documentaries arein better shape and they're probably
(16:48):
a better equity investment in general.
They're still not up where they usedto be or where I think they should be.
But I would not discourage people whoare interested in being in the industry
and understand the inherent risksfrom putting equity in documentaries,
especially if they're sort of.
Political documentaries arechallenged at this point.
(17:08):
We have a documentary coming upfor sale soon about E Jean Carroll.
Oh yeah.
The woman who got an $84 millionjudgment against Donald Trump.
I'll be very interested to see.
It's an extremely good film.
I'll be very interested to seewhat the buyers think of that.
We're getting close hereto the end of our walk.
You only have a fewhours left in festival.
(17:30):
Land yourself before you.
Jet back that off?
Yeah.
New York.
What are you excited to kindof wrap out the festival with?
Margaret Brown has her yogurt shopmurders episodic screening at noon.
I'm excited about that, and Rick'sgonna do a talk with her afterwards.
I'm doing a panel this afternoonabout production in Ireland of all
(17:52):
things, and we have Carl Lewis film,which premiered earlier in the week.
We have Selena, which we'reselling outta Sundance.
There's a Mark Maron dockthat premieres tomorrow.
Uh, we're selling that.
And so anyway, I'm ex, I'm excited.
Obviously I love Austin.
I love South by and I love film,so what's not to be excited.
(18:16):
Yeah, that's great.
To wrap up, what would be youradvice to a an up and coming,
just starting documentarian?
I think you need, it'sa commercial art form.
You can't.
It create stories in a bubble.
You have to pay some attention towhat people are willing to consume,
and you have to scale your filmaccordingly to that audience.
(18:39):
And if you're gonna make something onspec, then you need to probably find a
sales agent and align with them earlieras early in the process as practicable.
Yeah,
that's great.
I love that, John.
This was a treat.
Yep.
Thank you.
Okay,
Ben, we appreciate you.
Yes, Keith as ever, yeah,
we'll be bumping into you atMargaret's screening as well.
Okay, good.
(18:59):
Um, and I can't wait tosee age of disclosure and
I can't wait for you to see it.
You've gotta tell meexactly what you think.
Yeah, I'll do it for sure.
Alright, thanks guys.
Thanks guys.
Excellent.
Thanks again.
So that was John Sloss,
that's our friend, John Sloss.
That was a great, um, walk throughZilker and just talking about.
You know, I loved hearing the originstory of how John got started, but
(19:20):
I think maybe even more important isgetting his view of the landscape right
now, because he's got a unique view.
That, you know, I think people would payto get into a room to hear his advice.
Oh, absolutely.
And him coming up with Linklater and,uh, John Pearson and, I mean, those guys
are godfathers of indie cinema, so I feelvery lucky that we got to talk to John.
And, uh, let's see, next week we havean episode of just the Two of Us.
(19:44):
Well, that is what's happeningnext week, but this week.
We put out a bonus episode.
I don't think we've ever done that before.
How could
I forget?
Um, so that's a, uh, another oneof these, south by Southwest.
Uh.
Peaks into the community here in Austin.
Uh, join Ben and I at, uh, theepisode's called The Watering Hole.
(20:04):
It's at the AFS party during South by, andwe talked to basically all our friends.
Yeah.
Austin Film Society showed upand, uh, and we were there.
I. To kind of catch them
wearing headphones and alllooking like total dweebs with
our friends, making fun of us.
But we recorded it just for you guys.
We hope you like it.
And, uh,
y'all check out, uh, that bonusepisode at the Watering Hole
(20:26):
with the Austin Film Society andnext week as Ben was alluding to.
It's just the two of us.
Once again,
like the song, we go on a walk, wetalk about spring being in the air,
and I think we get into new formatsand the, uh, the overall landscape
that we're seeing for, uh, thedocumentary film community Right now,
not surprisingly, Ben has differentideas than I have about the future of our
(20:48):
industry, but we chat about what's coming,who we are, and how we're gonna fit in.
Maybe you'll find your wayto fit in in, uh, next week's
episode, I think it's called.
Spring is in the air.
Oh, look at that.
It's very poetic.
I'm proud of us.
Thanks for sticking around.
We'll catch you next time On Doc Walks.
Doc Walks is produced, created,hosted, edited by Keith and Ben.
(21:13):
That's Ben Steinbauer ofthe Bear, and Keith Maitland
of Go Valley.
With help from our, uh, theme musiccomposer, uh, San Billen of Primary Color
Music, and we have a little VFX help
from Go Valley intern Josh Allenand editorial help from Juliana
Rios, who's doing a great job.
Yeah, that's right.
You're doing great, Julie.
(21:34):
Thank you so much.
Okay.
Appreciate y'all.
See you next time.
Follow us at Doc Walks Podon Instagram X and YouTube.
Keith, who are we aboutto talk with today?
(00:03):
We've broken free of downtown Austin,which is very nice, and the town has
been invaded by a hundred thousandfilm fans and mostly interactive tech
nerds and all kinds of other people.
So it's an exciting time in Austin,but it's also a crowded time in Austin.
So I'm excited to break out of themain hubbub into one of my favorite
neighborhoods, Zilker and Barton Hills.
(00:24):
And meet up with one of those 100,000people that came to town, but one
that, that means a lot to me, hasmeant a lot to my career, and I
think it will have a lot to say.
And that's super Sales agent John Sloss.
From Cinetic That's right.
And I have been shouting at partiesfor the last three days to some of
those a hundred thousand people.
So my voice is in tatters still.
(00:45):
So I'm gonna let Keith do a lotof the talking in this episode,
which is great because you and Johnhave a history and our friends.
So it seems apropos.
And knowing John, I'm prettysure he's gonna do most of the
talking, and that is just right.
He is the salesman after all
on your left.
You're listening to DockWalks with Ben and Keith.
(01:12):
Alright.
We are over in the beautifulZilker neighborhood of Austin
where we are surrounded bywhat has recently described as.
Trees of torment, whatdid you call them, John?
Um, anguish, possibly.
Anguish laden live oaks.
Yes.
So our guest today is noneother than icon Torts.
(01:33):
Good though.
Oh yeah.
Torment.
Torment might be more appropriate.
Okay.
It's like the documentary world.
That's right.
There you go.
Caught between torment and anguish.
Well, that's the name of the episode.
There we go.
So here we are today, walking downthe street here in Austin, Texas.
With Icon, living legend,trailblazer, icon of classed.
(01:54):
Proud father, proud dad who's justtelling us about his kids, both his
biological and all the many films thathe's helped put out into the world.
Please welcome John SLOs.
Hello to Doc Walks.
Hello John.
Thank you so much for doing this.
That is
heat.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Well, we have a beautiful morninghere as Crisp, crisp Spring Morning.
(02:15):
So tell us what you're doing here in town.
You know, I'm very closely alignedwith Richard Linkletter and I've
often said that if I could do myjob from Austin, I would live here.
And I took the opportunity for thefirst time in my career last year
to on ground produce two movies.
And they were both Linkletter films.
(02:36):
We shot one in Paris and one in Dublin.
And there's a lot of work to do on those.
So I'm spending time with him.
We're also selling five films.
Here at South by Southwest, I wouldargue most notable among them is a
film called The Age of Disclosure,which is a controversial film, I
(02:58):
would say that makes the case thatwe are not alone in the universe.
I. Wow.
Okay, so this is the UFOdoc I've been reading about.
Yes.
Yes.
Well, lets,
we'll come back to that.
Okay.
So you have five films here and Ifor a long time, Doc Walks listeners,
you're gonna have to go all the wayback to episode two to remember our
conversation about what is a sales agent.
(03:18):
And so.
Who was on that?
I hope it wasn't Josh Braun.
Josh.
Josh is a hard get John.
I'm like, is he really?
Oh, I didn't ask.
Oh no, I didn't ask him.
I not yet.
No, don't tell him that.
Yeah, no, don't wait till the end.
Wait till the end for the insult.
I know.
Like a
chump.
We usually have a lightning round ofinsults at the end of the podcast.
Um, got it.
No, we were, you're explaining it'sjust me and Ben wandering the streets
(03:41):
of Park City talking about all thedifferent elements of a festival for.
It for people.
And we were talking about what makes asales agent in the role of a sales agent.
And so for people listening, that greatintro of John SLOs is, as far as I can
tell, the primary, the most heraldedsales agent in independent film history.
He is the leader of theteam at Cinetic Media.
(04:03):
Cinetic, yeah.
Media.
Genetic media.
Cinetic
How would you simply explainwhat it is that you do?
I would say.
There are people who have avision and are storytellers and,
you know, create that vision.
(04:25):
I'm a person who facilitates those people.
Um, I've always said until I havesufficient passion to tell a story
myself, the best use for me is tofacilitate people who have that passion.
And John has been representing.
Independent filmmakers, includingmyself, Richard Linklater, Kevin
(04:46):
Smith for many years, and I wantedto go back, if you didn't mind, to
the very beginning, the origin story.
Ah, I'd be happy to talk about that.
How far back do we want to go
at least to John Sayles?
Ha.
Okay, so I went to collegeat a time before VHS.
(05:06):
When you saw repertory films.
Films from film history in anauditorium on a film society.
I went to the University of Michigan,which had a lot of film societies and
I got turned on to film very quickly.
And I'd say I saw at leastone film a day for four years.
Wow.
And that kind of filled in thegaps I had in my filled history.
(05:29):
At the same time, I'm from afamily of salespeople and that's
a lot of fun and exciting.
But it's a harrowing existence.
And I thought, huh, I need askilled trade to fall back on, and
I'm not very good with my hands.
So I decided to go to law school.
So having fallen in love with film,having become a lawyer, I said, okay, I'm
(05:52):
gonna go to New York, not Los Angeles.
And.
Try to figure out how to be anentertainment lawyer that wasn't apparent.
So I took a job on Wall Street andI was a corporate lawyer for three
years, and then got the lay of theland, and then I sent my resume out
and became an entertainment lawyer.
I realized very quickly uponbecoming an entertainment lawyer
that you eat what you kill.
(06:13):
Especially in New York, it's notlike the Hollywood system where
being an entertainment lawyer islike shooting fish in a barrel.
You really have to scratch and claw.
And at that point I was playing alot of pickup basketball and I got
in a pickup basketball game witha guy named John Sayles who many
of your viewers may not even know.
That's a shame.
Which is kind of amazing.
Yeah, it's kind of amazing.
(06:34):
'cause he is a very, he's a legend.
He an icon.
He's a legend.
And he was the Paul ThomasAnderson of his day.
He was at the birth of independent film.
He was the icon.
And where in his career doesyour basketball intersect?
He had just made eight men out, I think.
Okay, awesome.
And brother from another planet?
I wasn't on those.
The first one I was on wasMatewan, where you can see me in
(06:56):
the background in West Virginia.
In a, in the church sceneyelling, praise Jesus
with Will Oldham, one ofmy favorite musicians.
There we go.
Chased off the pulpit byJohn Sales in that scene.
I'm right behind Mary McDonald,I think over her right shoulder,
and then I went to him.
After that film, and I said, Inegotiate all day with financiers and
(07:19):
distributors, and I don't see why itisn't better for me to go and try and
raise the money for your films than foryou because you don't like doing that.
You'd rather just focuson producing films.
And I had observed this sort ofinefficiency that the producers who
were getting films financed were theones who were good at raising finance.
(07:40):
Not good at necessarily developingmaterial or finding the right
filmmakers to align with.
John Sayles.
And Maggie Renzi, his producer,said, we would love to not have to
go out and raise money for our film.
So feel free to go out and try to do that.
And I did.
And that was the film City of Hope,and we raise the money for that.
(08:01):
Then when it was done, we had to sell it.
And I said, oh, I have aaffinity towards sales.
Why don't we take it to afilm festival and I'll be the
point person on selling it.
So I started doing stuff like that.
That wasn't strictly the practice of law.
And so that was the birth of Cinetic,
that was the birth of,and what did you like?
Was there a moment in thereas you were transitioning?
(08:23):
From entertainment attorney to, wereyou an executive producer or a producer?
I was an executive producer.
Executive producer.
Yeah.
I said, it's funny because atthat point, this is a true story.
At that point, I was a partner ina huge law firm because I'd become
an entertainment lawyer, and thena big San Francisco law firm came
and bought my entertainment lawfirm to be its New York office.
(08:45):
And so I was a partner in a firmthat had Bank of America and Fujitsu
as clients, and I had said to them.
Because I had said to John Saylesand Maggie Renzi I'd like to get
an executive producer credit.
'cause I want to advertise to theindustry that I'm willing to do more
than the average entertainment lawyerand maybe attract clients by doing that.
They said, sure, of course.
(09:06):
And I still practice law, but Ido have this other area of focus.
We have a law firm at one end,but we also have a finance group.
We have a sales group.
We do whatever we can.
To help movies get madeand out into the world.
And now you've gotten into management.
You've always been deeply involved inyour clients' careers and it seems like
(09:29):
a natural extension, but I don't thinkit was legitimized as a vertical for you.
It's a branding thing because I'vealways felt that I just, by my nature,
was the sort of most significantperson in each of my client's
life, which is odd for a lawyer.
Yeah.
So I said, really, I'm a manager.
And so those early days right there,you're in the hustle and bustle of
(09:53):
figuring things out on your own inNew York, and you look around at
the landscape and Sayles, like yousaid, is a godfather of the modern
indie movement, but he wasn't alone.
Who else did you see outthere and how did you connect?
Well, the, the most valuable apart,arguably from sales, the most valuable
relationship of my early career waswith a current Austinite John Pearson.
(10:16):
Another Titan of the historyof independent film who many
people don't know about.
When he was a producer's representative,he isn't trained as a lawyer.
He didn't, he would, mightdispute this, but he really
didn't like negotiating deals.
He liked picking filmmakersand taking films to festivals
and getting people interested.
(10:36):
And I became buddies with him and he'sthe one who introduced me to Linklater.
He's the one who introducedme to Kevin Smith.
And he was an interesting guy who woulddiscover all these filmmakers, Michael
Moore, Spike Lee, people like that.
And he would take their films andstart their career and he would
not necessarily clinging onto them,which is very unusual and selfless.
(10:59):
And Errol Morris too, wasn't
he involved in The Thin Blue Line?
I actually, I actually workedwith Earl Morris before he did.
I was the lawyer on thin blue Line.
Oddly enough.
And we should stop here and say we aregoing straight up a very steep hill,
which is why we are all open wheezing.
Coffee wheezing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yes.
Gasping for breath here.
Yes.
You,
we all drew my paces.
(11:20):
That's right.
We're getting our stepsin moving the blood.
So that's the origin story.
John came up at, at a moment in timewhere he saw an opportunity and seized it.
I think I was in the rightplace at the right time.
And so what's, what have you seen?
What, what, what's thebig difference between.
The indie boom of the nineties, the turninto the digital age in the two thousands.
(11:42):
Here's what I will say.
I was at a think tank a few years ago andthey all went around the room and everyone
talked about their vision for the futureand what their new company was gonna do
and all these tech people and Phil people.
And it got to me and I said, ofeveryone in this room, I think
I'm the closest to the creators.
And more and more I'm likingthat position, which is to say.
(12:04):
That the way films are consumed, whoever'sfinancing them, that all changes.
But the people creating the storytelling,as long as they're protected by copyright,
they're really the scarce resource.
So that hasn't really changed.
Obviously the buyers and thelandscape on how content is
consumed has changed radically.
(12:25):
And how are you keeping up with that?
How Cinetic
By pivoted.
Yeah, by being agile,which is what we are.
Okay.
I'm excited about.
People who were in the shoes that Benand I were in 15 years ago, 10 years ago,
at the start of their career, maybe onthe working on their first feature or
their third short or something like that.
And people always say, oh,you gotta have a sales agent.
(12:46):
You gotta have a sales agent if you getinto a festival or to get into a festival.
How does somebody engagewith Cinetic Media?
Well, that they don't have agencies.
They don't have managers.
They're an independent voice.
You don't, you, you haven't heard ofthem yet, but they've been making.
They're the next Charlie Shackleton or thenext Dan Farah, the next Ben Steinbauer
Thank you for that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wish the, I wish more of them existed,but the agencies are so good at ferreting
(13:09):
out these people early on and tryingto grab them that there aren't that
many of them, to be perfectly honest.
Dan Farah, for instance, the guy.
Who directed the, uh,the Age of Disclosure?
He was talking to one of our managementclients, David Gordon Green, and just
talking about his film, and Davidsaid, oh, you should talk to Cinetic.
And I get a call from this guyand he, and he says, I've got
(13:31):
this film, David's recommended.
I want to come to NewYork and show it to you.
And he came to New York.
We screened his film and we talked tohim and he hired us to represent her.
It was as simple as that.
It was in a vacuum.
There was no other, no competition.
There was no festival.
And then together we created a festivalplan and we thought this is a film that
would be perfect to screen in Austin.
(13:54):
You, you've answered this a little bitalready, but what do you think the state
of the modern documentary marketplace
is?
I mean, it's complicated because.
When I press the buyers, Isay, this market is tougher
than it was a couple years ago.
Is that because fewer people are consumingdocumentaries and none of them say yes?
(14:15):
They say no.
It's as great a value in relationto cost as in terms of eyeballs, as
anything we do apart from Netflixand to a certain extent, HBO, it
hasn't been a very active market.
We're trying to understand.
Apple is its own thing and welove Molly, and some of it is that
there's more and more commissions.
(14:37):
The other is that, I don't know,it's just a general reluctance.
It does docs even when they'resuccessful in relation to price.
Don't move the needle at these streamers,and so they don't prioritize them,
but it's so we're doing everything wecan to get everybody back in the game.
Yeah.
I mean, even when there's somethinglike a Will and Harper, for example,
that is, does very well commercially.
(14:59):
Yeah.
For something like Netflixthat has celebrity, that's
about a hot button issue.
Right.
Gets uh, um, not on the shortlistnomination, but gets it, did
get a shortlist.
Oh, it did.
It didn't get nominated, butit was on the short list.
The other film I sold at Sundancelast year, Superman, about Christopher
Reeves did not get on the short list.
Ah, okay.
Gotcha.
(15:19):
But like even a film like that,you, you're saying Netflix doesn't
necessarily look at as beinga, a priority or a money maker.
I
mean, Netflix still does, uh,it's really more the others.
I see.
It's more Amazon, uh, Amazon needs.
There's no reason why Amazonshouldn't be a more active doc buyer.
We're kind of scratchingour head about that.
(15:40):
I mean, they did pay $40million for Melania Trump.
Uh, so I guess that makes 'eman active doc bar, but that's
another matter altogether.
Yeah.
We should maybe stay away from that one.
Right.
So John, what do you have asfar as your view of the world?
Again, focus on emerging filmmakerswho are developing something,
(16:01):
who are out actively tryingto pursue independent equity.
Weighing the option of goingstraight to a streamer.
Trying to turn a development processinto a commission process or staying
kind of the indie route, which will leadthem closer to what you're known for.
Do you have thoughts on that to share?
Yeah.
The real imperiled sector is thediscovery scripted sector because
(16:24):
however, stress the doc market is thescripted market, the streamers do not
come to Sundance looking for discoveries.
There are the neons andthe A24s of the world.
Who still do and need, because thosefirms need the ethical release in
order to really make a impo impact.
So by comparison, documentaries arein better shape and they're probably
(16:48):
a better equity investment in general.
They're still not up where they usedto be or where I think they should be.
But I would not discourage people whoare interested in being in the industry
and understand the inherent risksfrom putting equity in documentaries,
especially if they're sort of.
Political documentaries arechallenged at this point.
(17:08):
We have a documentary coming upfor sale soon about E Jean Carroll.
Oh yeah.
The woman who got an $84 millionjudgment against Donald Trump.
I'll be very interested to see.
It's an extremely good film.
I'll be very interested to seewhat the buyers think of that.
We're getting close hereto the end of our walk.
You only have a fewhours left in festival.
(17:30):
Land yourself before you.
Jet back that off?
Yeah.
New York.
What are you excited to kindof wrap out the festival with?
Margaret Brown has her yogurt shopmurders episodic screening at noon.
I'm excited about that, and Rick'sgonna do a talk with her afterwards.
I'm doing a panel this afternoonabout production in Ireland of all
(17:52):
things, and we have Carl Lewis film,which premiered earlier in the week.
We have Selena, which we'reselling outta Sundance.
There's a Mark Maron dockthat premieres tomorrow.
Uh, we're selling that.
And so anyway, I'm ex, I'm excited.
Obviously I love Austin.
I love South by and I love film,so what's not to be excited.
(18:16):
Yeah, that's great.
To wrap up, what would be youradvice to a an up and coming,
just starting documentarian?
I think you need, it'sa commercial art form.
You can't.
It create stories in a bubble.
You have to pay some attention towhat people are willing to consume,
and you have to scale your filmaccordingly to that audience.
(18:39):
And if you're gonna make something onspec, then you need to probably find a
sales agent and align with them earlieras early in the process as practicable.
Yeah,
that's great.
I love that, John.
This was a treat.
Yep.
Thank you.
Okay,
Ben, we appreciate you.
Yes, Keith as ever, yeah,
we'll be bumping into you atMargaret's screening as well.
Okay, good.
(18:59):
Um, and I can't wait tosee age of disclosure and
I can't wait for you to see it.
You've gotta tell meexactly what you think.
Yeah, I'll do it for sure.
Alright, thanks guys.
Thanks guys.
Excellent.
Thanks again.
So that was John Sloss,
that's our friend, John Sloss.
That was a great, um, walk throughZilker and just talking about.
You know, I loved hearing the originstory of how John got started, but
(19:20):
I think maybe even more important isgetting his view of the landscape right
now, because he's got a unique view.
That, you know, I think people would payto get into a room to hear his advice.
Oh, absolutely.
And him coming up with Linklater and,uh, John Pearson and, I mean, those guys
are godfathers of indie cinema, so I feelvery lucky that we got to talk to John.
And, uh, let's see, next week we havean episode of just the Two of Us.
(19:44):
Well, that is what's happeningnext week, but this week.
We put out a bonus episode.
I don't think we've ever done that before.
How could
I forget?
Um, so that's a, uh, another oneof these, south by Southwest.
Uh.
Peaks into the community here in Austin.
Uh, join Ben and I at, uh, theepisode's called The Watering Hole.
(20:04):
It's at the AFS party during South by, andwe talked to basically all our friends.
Yeah.
Austin Film Society showed upand, uh, and we were there.
I. To kind of catch them
wearing headphones and alllooking like total dweebs with
our friends, making fun of us.
But we recorded it just for you guys.
We hope you like it.
And, uh,
y'all check out, uh, that bonusepisode at the Watering Hole
(20:26):
with the Austin Film Society andnext week as Ben was alluding to.
It's just the two of us.
Once again,
like the song, we go on a walk, wetalk about spring being in the air,
and I think we get into new formatsand the, uh, the overall landscape
that we're seeing for, uh, thedocumentary film community Right now,
not surprisingly, Ben has differentideas than I have about the future of our
(20:48):
industry, but we chat about what's coming,who we are, and how we're gonna fit in.
Maybe you'll find your wayto fit in in, uh, next week's
episode, I think it's called.
Spring is in the air.
Oh, look at that.
It's very poetic.
I'm proud of us.
Thanks for sticking around.
We'll catch you next time On Doc Walks.
Doc Walks is produced, created,hosted, edited by Keith and Ben.
(21:13):
That's Ben Steinbauer ofthe Bear, and Keith Maitland
of Go Valley.
With help from our, uh, theme musiccomposer, uh, San Billen of Primary Color
Music, and we have a little VFX help
from Go Valley intern Josh Allenand editorial help from Juliana
Rios, who's doing a great job.
Yeah, that's right.
You're doing great, Julie.
(21:34):
Thank you so much.
Okay.
Appreciate y'all.
See you next time.
Follow us at Doc Walks Podon Instagram X and YouTube.
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