June 19, 2025 • 38 mins
The flowers are blooming, Ben’s chasing squirrels while Keith eyes the skies over Hyde Park for hawks… oh, and we’re talkin’ docs. Spring brings up new thoughts about New Media and the docmakers role vs the “influencer’s paradise” of Youtube and social media. This episode steps into Ben & Keith’s perspectives on storytelling approaches and the future of media consumption — and we even stop to smell the flowers. Plenty to consider here, and next week look forward to a conversation with Academy Award nominee Kahane Corn Cooperman, feeling good after the SXSW premiere of her new doc, CREEDE, USA.
***Note that Ben got the numbers wrong for YouTube's net worth. They are projected to make $22 billion in 2025. The $8 billion he quoted was for the 1st quarter of 2025.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Here we are.
(00:00):
Keith.
We are.
Hey, how you doing?
Oh look, we're behind a fire station here.
This is kind of cool.
There we go.
Engine nine.
Engine engine number nine.
Number nine.
Coming down the Austin line.
(00:21):
So today we are in a new walk zone forthe podcast, but this is kind of my.
Daily walk zone.
This is Hyde Park in Austin, Texas.
Yeah, we're here on a walking out.
Beautiful morning
an alley.
Check this alley out.
I love an alley.
(00:42):
This is a particularly good one with theflowers growing off of the side here.
Lots of shade from the trees.
Got birds chirping at us,which you will appreciate.
No doubt.
I like how Ben acts likehe doesn't like birds.
I'm the only person who likes birds.
Well, I'm just not trying tomake our podcast about birding.
(01:03):
I'm not the one that keeps bringing it up.
Okay, fair.
So what are we talking about today, Keith?
What are we
talking
about?
You know, I guess one thing we couldtalk about is that we at this point
have gone audio to video to audioto video in our podcasting, and we
could explain that to our listeners.
(01:26):
Explain yourself.
We are embracing this newvideo technology, but we are
not embracing it every time.
So, uh, we are going to.
Eventually shift over towhere everything is on video.
But for now, we are going backand forth to test the quality
and see which one we prefer.
(01:47):
Um, but I think so farI'm liking the video.
I know you like the video.
Uh, I enjoy, uh, elementsof the video for sure.
And I think it's fun putting it together.
You know, as a filmmaker it's image andsound go together, but it does add a
little bit of pressure in my mind of.
Wanting it to be as good as it can be andknowing that this is kind of just like a
(02:10):
little side action, it's hard to feel likewe can fully commit to the kind of layered
multimedia approach I would like to takeif this were, you know, one of my films.
So I have that in the back of my mind.
I need to get over it.
(02:30):
So what you're saying, thisis an issue of control.
You, if we're shootingvideo, you want it to be.
You want to, you want every frame tobe precise, is that what you mean?
Uh, I think it's in anissue of expression.
Um, but control is always at play,um, in every, everything I do.
Yeah.
(02:50):
Is a navigation, a negotiation withcontrol internally and externally.
Yeah.
You've said that before and Ilike that because that is, it's
not only whoa on the squirrels.
Run the squirrel
on your left.
(03:11):
You're listening to DockWalk with Ben and Keith.
Spring is in the air
here.
Should we stay?
Let me stay on your right.
So we, there we go.
So on your
left, spring is in the air.
Here in Austin, we are walkingin the alleys of Hyde Park,
(03:33):
which is a great neighborhoodnorth of the University of Texas.
It's kind of a classic oldneighborhood filled with little
bungalows and craftsmen houses builtin the forties through sixties.
Yep.
And when I, uh.
Started in grad school.
I, uh, lived just rightaround the corner from here.
(03:55):
Spent a lot of time up here andI always associate this very
strongly with, uh, the film school.
So it's apropos that we're walking here.
So what does springtime anddocumentary filmmaking mean to you?
I think about South by Southwest.
Right, honestly.
And, uh, af s's Doc days, the AustinFilm Society hosts something called
(04:16):
Doc Days where they bring in films thatusually premiered at Sundance, have yet
to be released, and they bring in thedirectors to come and talk about them.
So I'm excited for that.
That's coming up.
What about you?
What does springtime meanfor you, Keith Springtime?
Well, I think about new beginningsand I think about kind of.
(04:39):
And opening up the flowers, open upthe trees, have new buds, and we're
all coming out of our winter dormancy,uh, in development terms, it's a
great time to get to pitching Before,you know, the black hole of summer.
(05:00):
It drops down and nobodywants to hear your dumb ideas.
The black hole of summer in pitchterms, it's a real dead spot.
It's true.
Um, but yeah, spring to me is likean opportunity to express new ideas.
Um, so anyway, that's where my head isright now on springtime in doc filmmaking.
(05:21):
I have a bunch of projects thatI'd like to get some traction on.
And so I'm balancing my time betweenfocusing on production and edit
on this murder mystery, while alsodeveloping, um, kind of a, uh,
philosophical environmental filmdeveloping, uh, a scripted animated
(05:44):
series that I've been on for a fewyears with some great producers that
feels like it's inching forward in, inkind of exciting ways, um, of another.
Uh, all archival doc thatfocuses on international cinema.
That's great.
So that's kind of like, I'vegot a development slate.
(06:04):
There's,
yeah.
It sounds like you have manyprojects, which is enviable.
That's really cool.
My head's been kind of in thinkingabout new media, you know, doing this
podcast in particular and talking withsomebody about doing a cooking show
that will be in small segments thatwill be distributed mainly on YouTube.
And then I've been trying for along time now to make a documentary
(06:27):
about The Onion, which we'vetalked about on other episodes.
Which, which state
is that in at this point,
we are talking to the new owners andthey, uh, are in a, because they've
just bought the Onion, they're ina period of growth and they don't
want to document this period yet.
Okay.
So they keep saying it's goingto happen, but not yet, and not
(06:49):
giving us an indication of when.
So that one is kind of justindefinitely on hold, but we keep
making inroads and, uh, meeting a lotof the alumni writers, the founders
that created the voice of the Onion.
So is this film, you said it'sabout the history of the Onion?
Well, history and present day.
(07:11):
I mean, it's basically what'shappening right now with The Onion is.
Such an exciting story.
And also just politically the onion ismore and more invaluable it feels like.
And they're doing really interestingthings like trying to buy
Infowars from Alex Jones and, um.
It's just a, in my opinion, theperfect time to be following a
(07:34):
modern day storyline while alsotelling the history of the onion.
So that's where we're at and it's a littlefrustrating, um, but it's one of those
projects that feels like it's gonna happenat just the right time when it's meant to.
And I just have to keep, keep pushing.
So that's where I'm at.
(07:55):
Okay.
And do you see that as a featureor a series where, to where, what?
What's the ideal home for that?
Like what's your vision for it?
My vision for it has changedover time because for a while
I thought it could be a series.
Based on the 35 year history, um, andlike I said, you could really do a deep
dive and spend time with the founders andgo back and really dissect the articles.
(08:18):
But now I think that a 90 minute orless feature that is just fast and
furious and hilarious at every momentis probably more the way to go.
I like the sound of that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I do too.
Do you have, uh, $2 million?
I mean, I'm good for 1% of that.
(08:43):
I'm, I'm going to hold you to that, Keith.
I'm a little worried about that.
All right, so you're talking about, youstarted out talking about new media.
Look, there's a hawk up there.
Oh,
here.
Let's get a shot of that.
There we go.
You got it?
Yeah.
You got it.
Um, you started out bytalking about new media.
(09:04):
Mm-hmm.
Which is a phrase I feel like you've,we've heard thrown around for a long time
now, but the media is constantly changing.
Like, what else constitutes new media?
Basically everybody is watchingthings on their phone, and
that's only continuing to.
Uh, to grow.
I mean, I think there's, putyour phones down, people.
(09:26):
There's definitely a place for goingto the movies and for watching TV
shows, but I think that it's a smallerand smaller place, whereas, you
know, social media is just crowdingout all the other competitors.
And a statistic about that is that.
YouTube is on track right now to be worth$8 billion at the end of this year, which
(09:52):
would be double what Disney is worth.
So I'm thinking more and more abouthow do I take this love of documentary
and translate that into some type ofcontent that will be interesting to
people who are consuming media that way.
Making something for
YouTube.
(10:12):
I mean, this what we are doing right now.
Yep.
Somebody is watching thison YouTube right now.
Exactly.
And, and so we are contributingto those billions of dollars.
Yep.
At what point do some ofthose dollars come back to us?
Great question.
And uh, any advertisers outthere who want to sponsor doc
walks, you know where to find us.
(10:32):
And that's, you know, that's sortof the culture that we're in right
now where if I were 20 years old.
If I were in film school rightnow, I would be ecstatic about
the state of the industry becauseit is a creator's marketplace.
As lame as that sounds, um, if youcan basically have a, some type of,
(10:55):
of following that you develop on yourown, then you are in the driver's seat.
That is a provocative statement.
You would be ecstatic with thestate of the industry right
now because it is a creator's.
Yeah.
Paradise.
Well, remember I said ifI was 20, oh, you are 20.
I'm not 20.
I'm 47.
(11:15):
And so what I mean by that is if I wasa young person with the enthusiasm and
the energy and the focus that I had inmy twenties for making documentaries,
I would be ecstatic because I couldshoot on my phone, I could edit on my
phone, I could distribute on my phone,and all I had to do was have the idea.
(11:36):
And the focus to just pumpout content basically.
But why can't you dothat as a 47-year-old?
Well, I could, uh, but I feellike social media by and large is
kind of a young person's language.
Okay.
And I haven't kept up with it very well.
Right.
So it's a creator's paradise, but thereward in paradise isn't necessarily
(11:58):
the same rewards we set out to, to,to gain access to when we started.
Low those many years ago?
Well, I don't know.
I mean, that's interesting to debatebecause I think it is the same.
I think it's eyeballs.
I think it's wanting, uh,to communicate something.
I think it's the sameartistic drive to create.
Is there, I think just the,the format is different.
(12:23):
Well, and the languageand the grammar, right?
Yeah.
Like the palette, the tools, and maybeI'm wrong, but when I started out.
I was emulating and inspired by work thathad been created generations before me.
Yep.
And I wasn't, I didn't feel like, andI still don't feel like I'm on the
(12:44):
cutting edge of what's next necessarily.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
But that I can take the inspirationand the, the language of the past and
recontextualize it with some currencythat, uh, that allows me to have some.
Some place within the conversationallows me to be expressive.
(13:04):
Mm-hmm.
Um, so what you're saying is, like youwanted, you were in inspired by movies
and you wanted to go make movies.
Exactly.
And so to be a 20-year-old today in thisparadise that you're talking about, I
don't feel like I would feel that way.
I feel like I would be even morefrustrated than I am now that I,
I was born too late, um, for, forsomething, but that's probably
(13:26):
a sucker's argument because.
You are right in that it comes down toartistic expression, the need to express
something and the need to explore,you know, kind of a maker's life.
Yeah, and I, and I, I mean, that's areally interesting point that, that we
were inspired by a preexisting thing thatwe wanted to then emulate, and I think.
(13:52):
You are onto something there, becausewhile we were using new technology to
do it, like I, I loved Les Blank movies.
He was going out and shootingon a 16 millimeter camera.
I was shooting on a DV camerathat had just come out, but to me
they were still like very similar.
Those are, you know, that's just a sort ofchange in the technological capabilities
(14:17):
of the camera rather than the.
Me going out and startinga new genre, let's say.
Right?
Whereas like social media has really onlybeen widely available for, what, 10 years.
And so the idea of what a successfulinfluencer is is not really set yet.
(14:40):
So I think probably a lot ofthese people are emulating, uh,
celebrities or, you know, other.
I, I don't know if they'reemulating filmmakers.
I actually don't think they are.
Well, that's, I don't think they're,
that's my point.
Yeah.
Is like, when you say, if, I thinkif I were to transport myself
Body Switch style into the bodyof a 20 year, 20-year-old Yeah.
(15:01):
I'd wanna be making movies and I'mnot interested in being an influencer.
Like even this, what we're doingwalking around a neighborhood Yeah.
With two cameras up in the air Right.
Chitchatting about stuff.
Yeah.
It, it feels off, uh, it does not feellike this is not scratching the itch.
Of creativity for me.
Mm-hmm.
And if anything, that's what, like we,we, we've talked about this before.
(15:22):
Some of my reticence to put avideo framing on this is that
that visual language is the placethat I express myself and play.
Right.
Versus this, which feels kind of like a,like an opportunity for just like kicking
it with a friend Uhhuh, it's like amixture between a snapshot slice of life.
(15:44):
Yep.
And like a. A sharing, a passingalong of things that have, that have
started before me and are passingthrough me to whoever's next.
Right.
And I don't equate that as cinema.
Yeah.
And I wouldn't say thisis cinema by any means.
Yeah.
I mean, I think this is, this is in thetradition of where we are right now,
which is like everybody's expected tobroadcast their lives and you know, I
(16:09):
am taking this thing from my life thatI enjoy, which are walks with you.
Yeah.
And choosing to figure out a way tobroadcast that and thinking that that
might have some value for people inthe same way that other podcasts do.
That um, or influencers do that online.
And I think really more the, the desireto like be a broadcaster is maybe
(16:35):
the overwhelming sentiment behind alot of social media, rather than be a
filmmaker, you know, like people are.
Are more interested in like, tellingyou their thoughts than they are
like shaping and crafting and, um,delivering like an artistic narrative.
Yeah.
If that makes sense.
(16:55):
Well, that, that does make sense.
And I, I like to equate it to some realold media, like if we were writers,
this is like a weekly column, right?
Where we, we complain about what'swrong and, and point people towards.
You know what we like and, you know, kindof make some dumb jokes along the way.
(17:17):
Yeah.
Versus like writing like agreat short story or a novella.
Um, and so to me that's why like the,this conversation about what 20-year-old
version of you would, would make of thismoment is, uh, is interesting to me.
It's exciting because I haven't reallythought about it, um, in those terms.
(17:40):
I mean, there's a part of me.
That thinks about like my, myhigh school and college friends.
Mm-hmm.
And we made kind of like silly videostogether that nobody ever saw that
we would show in my friend's livingroom, you know, that I would edit
by hooking two VCRs up together.
Right.
But mostly we are in camera edits.
(18:00):
Right.
And, uh, and were really, insubstantialhad no pressure on them to be any
good and they weren't any good.
Right.
Um, but they scratched.
A creative itch and urgefor our entire group.
But if I was 20 years old today and I hadthe full production capabilities and the
distribution capabilities, I don't thinkI would be looking to be an influencer.
(18:21):
But I wonder what those funny littlevideos we made, I. Would be like,
mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And uh, that's a, that's a good point.
The, the sort of pressure to makesomething substantial is an interesting
point about that, because similarly,when I was first playing in bands, for
example, I played drums in a lot of reallybad rock bands that nobody's heard of.
(18:43):
And I had a blast and it was me and myfriends, and we were being creative,
and we would make our own logos andmerch and songs and record covers and
play these like house party shows.
And it was so much fun and I pinelike I think back so fondly about
those days because there was neverthe expectation that we were gonna get
(19:05):
signed or be like an important band.
Yeah.
And it was very freeing in that way.
And I think that the idea of, um, needingto have followers and wanting to have like
the most amount of social media presence.
(19:25):
Uh, robs people of that, you know, andespecially young people making stupid
videos like you're talking about, orbeing in bad bands like I'm talking about.
Um, I, I wonder if theyhave that same freedom.
I. But then on the flip side of that, whenI started making documentaries and music
videos from my friend's bands, I wantedas many people as possible to see them.
(19:49):
Okay.
And I would take the VHS tapesof like a band in Lawrence,
Kansas, where I went to undergrad.
I would take them to like the PBS station.
And I was desperate for anybodyanywhere to show my work.
And so, um.
And, and same thing with the, youknow, the first short documentaries
(20:11):
that I made, like getting into anyfilm festival was humongous because
it was a chance to watch it with anaudience and to, um, feel validated.
And that is basically lifted at thispoint because you can put it online
and you're validated by the number ofpeople who watch something that you make.
(20:31):
Right.
So, so I think in that way when I saylike, I would be ecstatic, that's what
I mean is that you don't have thosesame barriers to an audience that, uh,
we had when we were first coming up.
Um, but I
don't think people, or at leastI don't think I have understood
until very recently, thedomination of the entertainment
(20:55):
industry that YouTube represents.
Like it is a complete and utter.
Paradigm shift.
Well let from anythingthat we grew up with.
Right?
Yeah.
Lemme
drop something into the conversationthat, that's, I think, speaks to
that from an inside the industry.
Um, little bit of intel, whichis that there's an exec I
(21:17):
was working with last fall.
We had a development deal with a prettygreat company and that great company.
Surprising to me, I guessprobably not surprising to
people who pay closer attention.
Um.
I tightened their belts rightbefore Christmas and laid
off most of their execs.
Yeah.
Including the one I was working with.
And I called him and I asked him whathe had planned, you know, next, what
(21:39):
he thought he would do in, in response.
And that's when he let me know.
He saw the industry changing in one verysignificant way and that major studios
were reacting to YouTube in a whole newway, in a way that I don't think has
been made that public in a way that Ihadn't heard elsewhere, but Makes sense.
Which is that, um, YouTube isgonna be rolling out an all
(22:04):
new interface for television.
Mm-hmm.
So I, I, I access YouTube via Roku.
Yep.
And, uh, and sometimes I, Iplay it from my phone Yeah.
To the tv, but I watch a lot of YouTubeon tv and primarily what I'm watching is
you're watching it through the app.
So through the app it kindof looks like, like a desktop
or something.
It's very similar to the desktop setting.
Yeah.
And I'm mostly watching live music.
(22:26):
Mm-hmm.
Um, a little bit of, uh,clips and trailers for movies.
Lately with my 9-year-old son, we'vebeen watching a lot of magic tricks.
Awesome.
Um, but anyway, my friend, the execwas telling me YouTube is gonna be
rolling out this whole new interface.
Which doesn't feel like the desktop app.
Yeah.
Which feels much more in linewith TV that we grew up with.
(22:47):
Right.
And so they're encouragingcontent providers to make
more TV like fair, right.
Serialized, ongoing, dramaticadditions to the YouTube lineup.
And to that end, my friend, the execwas telling me that major studios are
formulating whole new departments.
(23:08):
Just to create Yeah.
Material for this new, youknow, user marketplace.
Yeah.
Uh,
and, and I, it, I'm sure somebody smarterthan me could make the argument that,
you know, this is how media always worksand like, you know, the advent of radio,
you know, was like this, where there wasa lot of people who had their own radio
(23:30):
stations and then suddenly, you know.
Towers and stations came along andsort of standardized the approach,
and then that became radio as weknow it, and then TV came along, or
the movies came along and then they.
You know, surpassed radio.
And this is talkies?
Talkie, yeah.
Silence and then talkies,and then into color.
And Richard Linkletter, one of Austin'spatron Saints of Filmmaking, whose house
(23:55):
we just walked past, whose house we justwalked past made this really interesting
point That film has basically been dying.
Since it was born, like it'salways going through rebirths and
periods of extreme transition.
You know, VHS was supposed to comealong and kill the, the Theatergoing
experience, and that didn't happen.
And then TV was supposedto do the same thing.
(24:17):
It did kill Beta Max.
That's true.
But um, but the point being that like,this is just another iteration Sure.
Of people's need for stories,which I do agree with.
I think that the idea that people learnfrom narrative and understand themselves
in the world through interpreting stories.
Is true.
That's just how humans work.
(24:39):
We are sort of pattern makingstory machines and we need those,
uh, in our lives in all differentforms, and I think this is just
another way of delivering that.
The big wrinkle to that is that.
Most of the way that young peopleare using social media does not
necessarily fit with that idea.
(25:02):
You know, like Mr. Beast, who isarguably the most influential YouTube
creator right now, does these reallyhigh profile stunts in what are
essentially like these host drivenkind of, you know, 10 minute or less.
Videos and they get watched by hundredsof millions of people, like more
(25:23):
people than live in the United States.
Like, you know, he gets 500 millionviews or something like that, which
is just mind breaking to consider.
Uh, but it's, people aren't necessarily,it doesn't have the same like
narrative arc that we're talking about.
Well,
that's what I'm, that's what Iwant to get back to in, in my
(25:43):
assessment of this next chapter.
Which may be right.
I feel like figuring out narrativenonfiction in this new media
landscape is the challenge.
Yeah.
That's before us.
Absolutely.
Uh, because neither of usare a 20-year-old entering
the influencer paradise.
(26:04):
Right.
I don't wanna be, but I do want tocontinue to work and I do want to engage
with audiences because even though.
Finding audiences wasn't importantto me for my high school films,
my high school band, to adegree, even this podcast, right?
Finding and connecting with audienceson my creative storytelling and on
(26:28):
the ability to relate narratively toan audience, to bring a humanistic
approach to storytelling into, ifit has to be YouTube, it can be
YouTube, if it has to be, you know.
Floating holograms.
I'm game for that in 10 years or less.
Funny
you mentioned that.
Uh, oh, somebody, uh, what do we, here,I have something to say about holograms,
(26:50):
but let's, what are we doing here?
First, I just wanted
to pause for one second and sayI would like us and I feel bad.
I was doing it kind of, you weremaking a good point and I was
stupidly like couldn't, I couldn'tstop the embrace of those flowers.
Uhhuh, I want us to capture a littlebit of springtime beauty 'cause it's
only gonna list exist for five minutes.
Yeah.
When we say spring is in theair, it'd be nice to cut to
a little montage of Totally.
So I was just gonna say on the, ifwe're, I figured we're heading back now.
(27:11):
Yeah.
Let's head back.
And so as long as one of us is doinga good job on faces, like we can each
take turns getting some more POVs.
Yeah.
And getting some spring,um, montage pieces.
Great.
And I also just wanted to hanghere in the shade for one second
and catch our breath.
Yeah.
Well, I definitely wanna get theseflowers right here, these red flowers.
Okay.
But
oh.
Floating holograms.
(27:32):
Floating holograms.
You said floating.
I said floating holograms.
You said speaking of that, I said Uhoh.
Uhoh.
Yeah.
So I was on a call, uh, with a castingdirector who I've worked with over the
years, and he has a new venture where, uh,brands can go to him and they can access
(27:54):
a database of actors all over the world.
Who they can then write scriptsfor, to, uh, perform essentially
a commercial, but to their phones.
And it's a lot like remote casting.
Um, but it gives the agency theability and a director to direct
(28:17):
these folks very specifically.
Um, and it looks like user generatedcontent, like something that would be
like an Instagram reel or a TikTok video.
Um, but it's being usedby PepsiCo or whoever.
And so he was sort of givingme a demonstration of this new
technology and he said that formany years, studios have been.
(28:46):
Taking their content and developingholograms of actors and basically banking
them to be used down the road in some way.
Oof.
So AI is going to sort of birth hologramsand we are suddenly going to like be
living in this kind of wild world wherewe are seeing more and more of those.
(29:12):
Okay.
Progress.
Uh, not for the faint of heart.
Right.
Um, so with that in mind, you know, doing,doing things like making a 90 minute
feature documentary that people have togo sit in a movie theater to see Yeah.
Feels very.
(29:33):
Um, not current.
Um, and I'm somebody, look,I, I read books all the time.
I'm an avid reader.
I love to sit and, and read, butI realize that most people don't,
and that that's not a way that.
People access information much anymore.
(29:54):
And so I don't think that it'snot valid to make feature films.
I mean, that's what I fell in love with.
That's why I wanted to dothis in the first place.
Um, but I do think that findingfinancing for them is only going
to be harder, and that the budgetsare only going to keep shrinking.
Right.
(30:16):
Well.
So besides that, Mrs. Lincoln,what do you think of the play?
Um, you know, you're an avid reader.
We started our walk this morningin front of first Light books.
A brand new bookstore here inAustin opened just over a year.
Yep.
A friend of yours opened the place.
Yep.
Your first thought was
Taylor Bruce, and how are you
gonna survive?
(30:36):
And I said, why wouldyou open a bookstore?
And yet that place was bustling.
Yep.
Hustling and bustling.
And I will also say, you know,my PAL works at Waterloo Records.
There has been such a growthin the world of vinyl.
Yep.
That's obvious over the last couple years.
Right.
Vinyl sold as many.
(30:57):
Yeah, units two years ago asit did in 1988 or some, there's
some language around that.
But what, what happened to vinyl?
It got replaced by CDs the other day.
I overheard a couple, 22 yearolds say, I'm getting into CDs.
Oh man.
And then it's like, oh
yeah, CDs are great.
(31:18):
Um, so we may be dinosaurswho want us like hold onto
the theater experience, but.
Um,
there are other dinosaurs out there.
Is there's, I
think there's just enough dinosaursout there to, uh, to keep our new
media concerns at, at, at bay.
Yep.
For you at, at.
The Well, and that's true old ageof 47 and me at the young age of 49
(31:40):
and, and people, you know, being anauthor is still a career and people
still get paid to write books.
It's just fewer people than, you know,20 years ago, less money and less money.
And so, you know, it's, I'm not sayingthat it's gonna go away entirely, but the.
You know, it being part of like thenational conversation is shifting
(32:04):
away and I'm, you know, I'm noteven saying that I need to be
part of a national conversation.
I'm just more interested in, youknow, if people, if you start with
this premise of people need stories.
And the way that people areconsuming media is on their phones.
How can you tell those stories on phones?
(32:27):
And I think something like Quibi,which was the um, the short form
content producer, the short-livedcontent, very short-lived.
Uh, it launched basically the samemonth as COVID, unfortunately.
And I think that is going to look in10 years, like something that, like an
idea that was just ahead of its time.
(32:47):
Just a little too early.
Yeah.
I'll tell you what, I met with Quibiwhen they first came down the pipe.
Yeah.
They have a piece of interfacetechnology that blew me away.
Oh yeah.
You were telling me about this.
Yeah.
Changed the way that I saw.
Um, looking at, looking at, uh,it could and TV on your phone.
It could go vertical to horizontal.
Was that
the Yeah.
The way
it worked is
(33:08):
you were, um, you were, you're holdingthe phone in your hand, and what they
did is they commissioned a littlestudy to say, do people prefer to hold
their phone horizontal or vertical?
And what they discovered is thatpeople like both your wrist gets tired.
If you're holding up horizontal for awhile, you're gonna switch to vertical.
If you're holding up vertical awhile, eventually you go horizontal.
Interesting,
(33:28):
right?
And so.
What they created, and I would sayperfected was a system that as you
turned your phone from horizontalto vertical, the image switched.
And what was a horizontal image became twostacked vertical images filling the frame.
No letter box, no pillarbox, just full frame imagery.
(33:52):
And what was kind of amazing about itwas you were becoming a defacto editor.
So as you turned your hand, right,you got to choose from a single
perspective shot to a double perspectiveshot, not, not that different
than what we're doing here, right?
Um, for people watching the videowhere sometimes it's, it's a single
(34:13):
shot and sometimes you're gettingboth of us at the same time.
Um, but with Quibi, you got to become thestoryteller through that narrow window.
And, and I have to tell you like.
It was a really powerfulexperience seeing that.
I mean, it's easy to be cynical aboutthat as a, as a creator and someone
who is interested in control, right?
(34:34):
Like giving up and seeding control tothe audience in that moment, right.
Seems like it would kind of cut againstthe grain for me, but it didn't, it
really kind of inspired a differentview and made me know, like if I'm
shooting verite, having Multicam upand running, knowing that you're gonna
want to make use of that other camera.
Through this portal.
(34:54):
And if you are, uh, and if you'reshooting narrative where you're
taking a more creative approach tononfiction, you can offer secret other
worlds through that second window.
Mm-hmm.
You could be on a character and intheir mind at the same time, and
it's up to the user in a chooseyour own adventure kind of approach.
Yeah.
And so I have to tell you,when Quibi went under.
(35:16):
So quickly and dramatically, Ireally thought we are gonna see
them license this technology.
Yeah.
To Hulu, to Amazon.
Maybe it'll become ubiquitous, right?
Like, uh, like Kleenex and we'll stillcall it, you know, the Quibi effect.
Yeah.
And like the Ken Burns effect.
Right.
Um.
But I haven't seen it anywhere else.
(35:37):
And so I don't know if they're holdingthat, uh, that, that piece of code,
um, close hold or if I'm just notengaged in the, in the marketplace
of distribution ideas enough.
But, but I have to say,like, I think you're right.
They were ahead of their time.
You know, they, they burned abunch of money on some high dollar
creatives and a lot of material thatwas created for, it went unseen.
(36:02):
And I, you know, I don't have anopinion or, or much insight into that.
I. But, but I was excited aboutthat interface and, and I'd love to,
to, to explore playing with that.
Yeah.
A
little bit.
Absolutely.
And I think, I mean, it soundslike you're a new media enthusiast.
I'm enthused, Keith.
I am caffeinated, which translates
(36:22):
into enthusiasm.
Oh my gosh.
All right.
Well, we're nearing the end of our walk.
We're back in the alley.
We're back in the alley.
Buy first light books.
What did you think aboutthis Hyde Park Walk?
I, I do this walk.
Without cameras, withoutyou, several days a week.
This is the neighborhood I walk.
Wait, you walk without me?
I walk with Amy Bench, I walk with
Sally O'Grady.
Ah, I walk with Andrew Bki.
(36:44):
I love all those people, but Ihate you for walking without me.
I feel so cheated upon.
But I have to say, I also walkand talk with other people.
You talk,
how dare you.
Um, keep it quiet over there, Steinberg.
Um, all right, so, uh.
What'd you think about Hyde Park?
I love it.
(37:04):
I, this is, this has been a blast.
I think we should do this more.
I love getting coffee at first light,walking down the alleyways, and, uh,
just seeing sort of the, the beauty andthe sort of, uh, mystery of Hyde Park.
I, I, I'm a fan.
There we go.
Next time on dog walks, who will it be?
(37:29):
We are gonna talk toKahani Korn Cooperman.
That's right.
Khanani Korn Cooperman with herworld Premier documentary Creed,
USA here at South by Southwest,
which I for one, cannot wait to see.
Uh, she's been involved in twoof my all time favorite projects.
(37:50):
She, uh, shot the behind thescenes film of Dazed and Confused.
We're gonna talk all about that.
And she was the executive producerof The Daily Show with John Stewart.
We're gonna talk about that too, butwe're also gonna talk about Creed, USA
and I think you guys are gonna love her.
She's, she's just a blast totalk to and, and to walk with,
so stay
tuned for that, everybody.
See you there.
(38:10):
Doc Walks is created, produced, and editedby my friend Ben Steiner of the Bear.
Hello, and my friend KeithMaitland of Go Valley.
Thanks for
tuning
in.
Follow us at Doc Walks podon Instagram X and YouTube.
Here we are.
(00:00):
Keith.
We are.
Hey, how you doing?
Oh look, we're behind a fire station here.
This is kind of cool.
There we go.
Engine nine.
Engine engine number nine.
Number nine.
Coming down the Austin line.
(00:21):
So today we are in a new walk zone forthe podcast, but this is kind of my.
Daily walk zone.
This is Hyde Park in Austin, Texas.
Yeah, we're here on a walking out.
Beautiful morning
an alley.
Check this alley out.
I love an alley.
(00:42):
This is a particularly good one with theflowers growing off of the side here.
Lots of shade from the trees.
Got birds chirping at us,which you will appreciate.
No doubt.
I like how Ben acts likehe doesn't like birds.
I'm the only person who likes birds.
Well, I'm just not trying tomake our podcast about birding.
(01:03):
I'm not the one that keeps bringing it up.
Okay, fair.
So what are we talking about today, Keith?
What are we
talking
about?
You know, I guess one thing we couldtalk about is that we at this point
have gone audio to video to audioto video in our podcasting, and we
could explain that to our listeners.
(01:26):
Explain yourself.
We are embracing this newvideo technology, but we are
not embracing it every time.
So, uh, we are going to.
Eventually shift over towhere everything is on video.
But for now, we are going backand forth to test the quality
and see which one we prefer.
(01:47):
Um, but I think so farI'm liking the video.
I know you like the video.
Uh, I enjoy, uh, elementsof the video for sure.
And I think it's fun putting it together.
You know, as a filmmaker it's image andsound go together, but it does add a
little bit of pressure in my mind of.
Wanting it to be as good as it can be andknowing that this is kind of just like a
(02:10):
little side action, it's hard to feel likewe can fully commit to the kind of layered
multimedia approach I would like to takeif this were, you know, one of my films.
So I have that in the back of my mind.
I need to get over it.
(02:30):
So what you're saying, thisis an issue of control.
You, if we're shootingvideo, you want it to be.
You want to, you want every frame tobe precise, is that what you mean?
Uh, I think it's in anissue of expression.
Um, but control is always at play,um, in every, everything I do.
Yeah.
(02:50):
Is a navigation, a negotiation withcontrol internally and externally.
Yeah.
You've said that before and Ilike that because that is, it's
not only whoa on the squirrels.
Run the squirrel
on your left.
(03:11):
You're listening to DockWalk with Ben and Keith.
Spring is in the air
here.
Should we stay?
Let me stay on your right.
So we, there we go.
So on your
left, spring is in the air.
Here in Austin, we are walkingin the alleys of Hyde Park,
(03:33):
which is a great neighborhoodnorth of the University of Texas.
It's kind of a classic oldneighborhood filled with little
bungalows and craftsmen houses builtin the forties through sixties.
Yep.
And when I, uh.
Started in grad school.
I, uh, lived just rightaround the corner from here.
(03:55):
Spent a lot of time up here andI always associate this very
strongly with, uh, the film school.
So it's apropos that we're walking here.
So what does springtime anddocumentary filmmaking mean to you?
I think about South by Southwest.
Right, honestly.
And, uh, af s's Doc days, the AustinFilm Society hosts something called
(04:16):
Doc Days where they bring in films thatusually premiered at Sundance, have yet
to be released, and they bring in thedirectors to come and talk about them.
So I'm excited for that.
That's coming up.
What about you?
What does springtime meanfor you, Keith Springtime?
Well, I think about new beginningsand I think about kind of.
(04:39):
And opening up the flowers, open upthe trees, have new buds, and we're
all coming out of our winter dormancy,uh, in development terms, it's a
great time to get to pitching Before,you know, the black hole of summer.
(05:00):
It drops down and nobodywants to hear your dumb ideas.
The black hole of summer in pitchterms, it's a real dead spot.
It's true.
Um, but yeah, spring to me is likean opportunity to express new ideas.
Um, so anyway, that's where my head isright now on springtime in doc filmmaking.
(05:21):
I have a bunch of projects thatI'd like to get some traction on.
And so I'm balancing my time betweenfocusing on production and edit
on this murder mystery, while alsodeveloping, um, kind of a, uh,
philosophical environmental filmdeveloping, uh, a scripted animated
(05:44):
series that I've been on for a fewyears with some great producers that
feels like it's inching forward in, inkind of exciting ways, um, of another.
Uh, all archival doc thatfocuses on international cinema.
That's great.
So that's kind of like, I'vegot a development slate.
(06:04):
There's,
yeah.
It sounds like you have manyprojects, which is enviable.
That's really cool.
My head's been kind of in thinkingabout new media, you know, doing this
podcast in particular and talking withsomebody about doing a cooking show
that will be in small segments thatwill be distributed mainly on YouTube.
And then I've been trying for along time now to make a documentary
(06:27):
about The Onion, which we'vetalked about on other episodes.
Which, which state
is that in at this point,
we are talking to the new owners andthey, uh, are in a, because they've
just bought the Onion, they're ina period of growth and they don't
want to document this period yet.
Okay.
So they keep saying it's goingto happen, but not yet, and not
(06:49):
giving us an indication of when.
So that one is kind of justindefinitely on hold, but we keep
making inroads and, uh, meeting a lotof the alumni writers, the founders
that created the voice of the Onion.
So is this film, you said it'sabout the history of the Onion?
Well, history and present day.
(07:11):
I mean, it's basically what'shappening right now with The Onion is.
Such an exciting story.
And also just politically the onion ismore and more invaluable it feels like.
And they're doing really interestingthings like trying to buy
Infowars from Alex Jones and, um.
It's just a, in my opinion, theperfect time to be following a
(07:34):
modern day storyline while alsotelling the history of the onion.
So that's where we're at and it's a littlefrustrating, um, but it's one of those
projects that feels like it's gonna happenat just the right time when it's meant to.
And I just have to keep, keep pushing.
So that's where I'm at.
(07:55):
Okay.
And do you see that as a featureor a series where, to where, what?
What's the ideal home for that?
Like what's your vision for it?
My vision for it has changedover time because for a while
I thought it could be a series.
Based on the 35 year history, um, andlike I said, you could really do a deep
dive and spend time with the founders andgo back and really dissect the articles.
(08:18):
But now I think that a 90 minute orless feature that is just fast and
furious and hilarious at every momentis probably more the way to go.
I like the sound of that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I do too.
Do you have, uh, $2 million?
I mean, I'm good for 1% of that.
(08:43):
I'm, I'm going to hold you to that, Keith.
I'm a little worried about that.
All right, so you're talking about, youstarted out talking about new media.
Look, there's a hawk up there.
Oh,
here.
Let's get a shot of that.
There we go.
You got it?
Yeah.
You got it.
Um, you started out bytalking about new media.
(09:04):
Mm-hmm.
Which is a phrase I feel like you've,we've heard thrown around for a long time
now, but the media is constantly changing.
Like, what else constitutes new media?
Basically everybody is watchingthings on their phone, and
that's only continuing to.
Uh, to grow.
I mean, I think there's, putyour phones down, people.
(09:26):
There's definitely a place for goingto the movies and for watching TV
shows, but I think that it's a smallerand smaller place, whereas, you
know, social media is just crowdingout all the other competitors.
And a statistic about that is that.
YouTube is on track right now to be worth$8 billion at the end of this year, which
(09:52):
would be double what Disney is worth.
So I'm thinking more and more abouthow do I take this love of documentary
and translate that into some type ofcontent that will be interesting to
people who are consuming media that way.
Making something for
YouTube.
(10:12):
I mean, this what we are doing right now.
Yep.
Somebody is watching thison YouTube right now.
Exactly.
And, and so we are contributingto those billions of dollars.
Yep.
At what point do some ofthose dollars come back to us?
Great question.
And uh, any advertisers outthere who want to sponsor doc
walks, you know where to find us.
(10:32):
And that's, you know, that's sortof the culture that we're in right
now where if I were 20 years old.
If I were in film school rightnow, I would be ecstatic about
the state of the industry becauseit is a creator's marketplace.
As lame as that sounds, um, if youcan basically have a, some type of,
(10:55):
of following that you develop on yourown, then you are in the driver's seat.
That is a provocative statement.
You would be ecstatic with thestate of the industry right
now because it is a creator's.
Yeah.
Paradise.
Well, remember I said ifI was 20, oh, you are 20.
I'm not 20.
I'm 47.
(11:15):
And so what I mean by that is if I wasa young person with the enthusiasm and
the energy and the focus that I had inmy twenties for making documentaries,
I would be ecstatic because I couldshoot on my phone, I could edit on my
phone, I could distribute on my phone,and all I had to do was have the idea.
(11:36):
And the focus to just pumpout content basically.
But why can't you dothat as a 47-year-old?
Well, I could, uh, but I feellike social media by and large is
kind of a young person's language.
Okay.
And I haven't kept up with it very well.
Right.
So it's a creator's paradise, but thereward in paradise isn't necessarily
(11:58):
the same rewards we set out to, to,to gain access to when we started.
Low those many years ago?
Well, I don't know.
I mean, that's interesting to debatebecause I think it is the same.
I think it's eyeballs.
I think it's wanting, uh,to communicate something.
I think it's the sameartistic drive to create.
Is there, I think just the,the format is different.
(12:23):
Well, and the languageand the grammar, right?
Yeah.
Like the palette, the tools, and maybeI'm wrong, but when I started out.
I was emulating and inspired by work thathad been created generations before me.
Yep.
And I wasn't, I didn't feel like, andI still don't feel like I'm on the
(12:44):
cutting edge of what's next necessarily.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
But that I can take the inspirationand the, the language of the past and
recontextualize it with some currencythat, uh, that allows me to have some.
Some place within the conversationallows me to be expressive.
(13:04):
Mm-hmm.
Um, so what you're saying is, like youwanted, you were in inspired by movies
and you wanted to go make movies.
Exactly.
And so to be a 20-year-old today in thisparadise that you're talking about, I
don't feel like I would feel that way.
I feel like I would be even morefrustrated than I am now that I,
I was born too late, um, for, forsomething, but that's probably
(13:26):
a sucker's argument because.
You are right in that it comes down toartistic expression, the need to express
something and the need to explore,you know, kind of a maker's life.
Yeah, and I, and I, I mean, that's areally interesting point that, that we
were inspired by a preexisting thing thatwe wanted to then emulate, and I think.
(13:52):
You are onto something there, becausewhile we were using new technology to
do it, like I, I loved Les Blank movies.
He was going out and shootingon a 16 millimeter camera.
I was shooting on a DV camerathat had just come out, but to me
they were still like very similar.
Those are, you know, that's just a sort ofchange in the technological capabilities
(14:17):
of the camera rather than the.
Me going out and startinga new genre, let's say.
Right?
Whereas like social media has really onlybeen widely available for, what, 10 years.
And so the idea of what a successfulinfluencer is is not really set yet.
(14:40):
So I think probably a lot ofthese people are emulating, uh,
celebrities or, you know, other.
I, I don't know if they'reemulating filmmakers.
I actually don't think they are.
Well, that's, I don't think they're,
that's my point.
Yeah.
Is like, when you say, if, I thinkif I were to transport myself
Body Switch style into the bodyof a 20 year, 20-year-old Yeah.
(15:01):
I'd wanna be making movies and I'mnot interested in being an influencer.
Like even this, what we're doingwalking around a neighborhood Yeah.
With two cameras up in the air Right.
Chitchatting about stuff.
Yeah.
It, it feels off, uh, it does not feellike this is not scratching the itch.
Of creativity for me.
Mm-hmm.
And if anything, that's what, like we,we, we've talked about this before.
(15:22):
Some of my reticence to put avideo framing on this is that
that visual language is the placethat I express myself and play.
Right.
Versus this, which feels kind of like a,like an opportunity for just like kicking
it with a friend Uhhuh, it's like amixture between a snapshot slice of life.
(15:44):
Yep.
And like a. A sharing, a passingalong of things that have, that have
started before me and are passingthrough me to whoever's next.
Right.
And I don't equate that as cinema.
Yeah.
And I wouldn't say thisis cinema by any means.
Yeah.
I mean, I think this is, this is in thetradition of where we are right now,
which is like everybody's expected tobroadcast their lives and you know, I
(16:09):
am taking this thing from my life thatI enjoy, which are walks with you.
Yeah.
And choosing to figure out a way tobroadcast that and thinking that that
might have some value for people inthe same way that other podcasts do.
That um, or influencers do that online.
And I think really more the, the desireto like be a broadcaster is maybe
(16:35):
the overwhelming sentiment behind alot of social media, rather than be a
filmmaker, you know, like people are.
Are more interested in like, tellingyou their thoughts than they are
like shaping and crafting and, um,delivering like an artistic narrative.
Yeah.
If that makes sense.
(16:55):
Well, that, that does make sense.
And I, I like to equate it to some realold media, like if we were writers,
this is like a weekly column, right?
Where we, we complain about what'swrong and, and point people towards.
You know what we like and, you know, kindof make some dumb jokes along the way.
(17:17):
Yeah.
Versus like writing like agreat short story or a novella.
Um, and so to me that's why like the,this conversation about what 20-year-old
version of you would, would make of thismoment is, uh, is interesting to me.
It's exciting because I haven't reallythought about it, um, in those terms.
(17:40):
I mean, there's a part of me.
That thinks about like my, myhigh school and college friends.
Mm-hmm.
And we made kind of like silly videostogether that nobody ever saw that
we would show in my friend's livingroom, you know, that I would edit
by hooking two VCRs up together.
Right.
But mostly we are in camera edits.
(18:00):
Right.
And, uh, and were really, insubstantialhad no pressure on them to be any
good and they weren't any good.
Right.
Um, but they scratched.
A creative itch and urgefor our entire group.
But if I was 20 years old today and I hadthe full production capabilities and the
distribution capabilities, I don't thinkI would be looking to be an influencer.
(18:21):
But I wonder what those funny littlevideos we made, I. Would be like,
mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And uh, that's a, that's a good point.
The, the sort of pressure to makesomething substantial is an interesting
point about that, because similarly,when I was first playing in bands, for
example, I played drums in a lot of reallybad rock bands that nobody's heard of.
(18:43):
And I had a blast and it was me and myfriends, and we were being creative,
and we would make our own logos andmerch and songs and record covers and
play these like house party shows.
And it was so much fun and I pinelike I think back so fondly about
those days because there was neverthe expectation that we were gonna get
(19:05):
signed or be like an important band.
Yeah.
And it was very freeing in that way.
And I think that the idea of, um, needingto have followers and wanting to have like
the most amount of social media presence.
(19:25):
Uh, robs people of that, you know, andespecially young people making stupid
videos like you're talking about, orbeing in bad bands like I'm talking about.
Um, I, I wonder if theyhave that same freedom.
I. But then on the flip side of that, whenI started making documentaries and music
videos from my friend's bands, I wantedas many people as possible to see them.
(19:49):
Okay.
And I would take the VHS tapesof like a band in Lawrence,
Kansas, where I went to undergrad.
I would take them to like the PBS station.
And I was desperate for anybodyanywhere to show my work.
And so, um.
And, and same thing with the, youknow, the first short documentaries
(20:11):
that I made, like getting into anyfilm festival was humongous because
it was a chance to watch it with anaudience and to, um, feel validated.
And that is basically lifted at thispoint because you can put it online
and you're validated by the number ofpeople who watch something that you make.
(20:31):
Right.
So, so I think in that way when I saylike, I would be ecstatic, that's what
I mean is that you don't have thosesame barriers to an audience that, uh,
we had when we were first coming up.
Um, but I
don't think people, or at leastI don't think I have understood
until very recently, thedomination of the entertainment
(20:55):
industry that YouTube represents.
Like it is a complete and utter.
Paradigm shift.
Well let from anythingthat we grew up with.
Right?
Yeah.
Lemme
drop something into the conversationthat, that's, I think, speaks to
that from an inside the industry.
Um, little bit of intel, whichis that there's an exec I
(21:17):
was working with last fall.
We had a development deal with a prettygreat company and that great company.
Surprising to me, I guessprobably not surprising to
people who pay closer attention.
Um.
I tightened their belts rightbefore Christmas and laid
off most of their execs.
Yeah.
Including the one I was working with.
And I called him and I asked him whathe had planned, you know, next, what
(21:39):
he thought he would do in, in response.
And that's when he let me know.
He saw the industry changing in one verysignificant way and that major studios
were reacting to YouTube in a whole newway, in a way that I don't think has
been made that public in a way that Ihadn't heard elsewhere, but Makes sense.
Which is that, um, YouTube isgonna be rolling out an all
(22:04):
new interface for television.
Mm-hmm.
So I, I, I access YouTube via Roku.
Yep.
And, uh, and sometimes I, Iplay it from my phone Yeah.
To the tv, but I watch a lot of YouTubeon tv and primarily what I'm watching is
you're watching it through the app.
So through the app it kindof looks like, like a desktop
or something.
It's very similar to the desktop setting.
Yeah.
And I'm mostly watching live music.
(22:26):
Mm-hmm.
Um, a little bit of, uh,clips and trailers for movies.
Lately with my 9-year-old son, we'vebeen watching a lot of magic tricks.
Awesome.
Um, but anyway, my friend, the execwas telling me YouTube is gonna be
rolling out this whole new interface.
Which doesn't feel like the desktop app.
Yeah.
Which feels much more in linewith TV that we grew up with.
(22:47):
Right.
And so they're encouragingcontent providers to make
more TV like fair, right.
Serialized, ongoing, dramaticadditions to the YouTube lineup.
And to that end, my friend, the execwas telling me that major studios are
formulating whole new departments.
(23:08):
Just to create Yeah.
Material for this new, youknow, user marketplace.
Yeah.
Uh,
and, and I, it, I'm sure somebody smarterthan me could make the argument that,
you know, this is how media always worksand like, you know, the advent of radio,
you know, was like this, where there wasa lot of people who had their own radio
(23:30):
stations and then suddenly, you know.
Towers and stations came along andsort of standardized the approach,
and then that became radio as weknow it, and then TV came along, or
the movies came along and then they.
You know, surpassed radio.
And this is talkies?
Talkie, yeah.
Silence and then talkies,and then into color.
And Richard Linkletter, one of Austin'spatron Saints of Filmmaking, whose house
(23:55):
we just walked past, whose house we justwalked past made this really interesting
point That film has basically been dying.
Since it was born, like it'salways going through rebirths and
periods of extreme transition.
You know, VHS was supposed to comealong and kill the, the Theatergoing
experience, and that didn't happen.
And then TV was supposedto do the same thing.
(24:17):
It did kill Beta Max.
That's true.
But um, but the point being that like,this is just another iteration Sure.
Of people's need for stories,which I do agree with.
I think that the idea that people learnfrom narrative and understand themselves
in the world through interpreting stories.
Is true.
That's just how humans work.
(24:39):
We are sort of pattern makingstory machines and we need those,
uh, in our lives in all differentforms, and I think this is just
another way of delivering that.
The big wrinkle to that is that.
Most of the way that young peopleare using social media does not
necessarily fit with that idea.
(25:02):
You know, like Mr. Beast, who isarguably the most influential YouTube
creator right now, does these reallyhigh profile stunts in what are
essentially like these host drivenkind of, you know, 10 minute or less.
Videos and they get watched by hundredsof millions of people, like more
(25:23):
people than live in the United States.
Like, you know, he gets 500 millionviews or something like that, which
is just mind breaking to consider.
Uh, but it's, people aren't necessarily,it doesn't have the same like
narrative arc that we're talking about.
Well,
that's what I'm, that's what Iwant to get back to in, in my
(25:43):
assessment of this next chapter.
Which may be right.
I feel like figuring out narrativenonfiction in this new media
landscape is the challenge.
Yeah.
That's before us.
Absolutely.
Uh, because neither of usare a 20-year-old entering
the influencer paradise.
(26:04):
Right.
I don't wanna be, but I do want tocontinue to work and I do want to engage
with audiences because even though.
Finding audiences wasn't importantto me for my high school films,
my high school band, to adegree, even this podcast, right?
Finding and connecting with audienceson my creative storytelling and on
(26:28):
the ability to relate narratively toan audience, to bring a humanistic
approach to storytelling into, ifit has to be YouTube, it can be
YouTube, if it has to be, you know.
Floating holograms.
I'm game for that in 10 years or less.
Funny
you mentioned that.
Uh, oh, somebody, uh, what do we, here,I have something to say about holograms,
(26:50):
but let's, what are we doing here?
First, I just wanted
to pause for one second and sayI would like us and I feel bad.
I was doing it kind of, you weremaking a good point and I was
stupidly like couldn't, I couldn'tstop the embrace of those flowers.
Uhhuh, I want us to capture a littlebit of springtime beauty 'cause it's
only gonna list exist for five minutes.
Yeah.
When we say spring is in theair, it'd be nice to cut to
a little montage of Totally.
So I was just gonna say on the, ifwe're, I figured we're heading back now.
(27:11):
Yeah.
Let's head back.
And so as long as one of us is doinga good job on faces, like we can each
take turns getting some more POVs.
Yeah.
And getting some spring,um, montage pieces.
Great.
And I also just wanted to hanghere in the shade for one second
and catch our breath.
Yeah.
Well, I definitely wanna get theseflowers right here, these red flowers.
Okay.
But
oh.
Floating holograms.
(27:32):
Floating holograms.
You said floating.
I said floating holograms.
You said speaking of that, I said Uhoh.
Uhoh.
Yeah.
So I was on a call, uh, with a castingdirector who I've worked with over the
years, and he has a new venture where, uh,brands can go to him and they can access
(27:54):
a database of actors all over the world.
Who they can then write scriptsfor, to, uh, perform essentially
a commercial, but to their phones.
And it's a lot like remote casting.
Um, but it gives the agency theability and a director to direct
(28:17):
these folks very specifically.
Um, and it looks like user generatedcontent, like something that would be
like an Instagram reel or a TikTok video.
Um, but it's being usedby PepsiCo or whoever.
And so he was sort of givingme a demonstration of this new
technology and he said that formany years, studios have been.
(28:46):
Taking their content and developingholograms of actors and basically banking
them to be used down the road in some way.
Oof.
So AI is going to sort of birth hologramsand we are suddenly going to like be
living in this kind of wild world wherewe are seeing more and more of those.
(29:12):
Okay.
Progress.
Uh, not for the faint of heart.
Right.
Um, so with that in mind, you know, doing,doing things like making a 90 minute
feature documentary that people have togo sit in a movie theater to see Yeah.
Feels very.
(29:33):
Um, not current.
Um, and I'm somebody, look,I, I read books all the time.
I'm an avid reader.
I love to sit and, and read, butI realize that most people don't,
and that that's not a way that.
People access information much anymore.
(29:54):
And so I don't think that it'snot valid to make feature films.
I mean, that's what I fell in love with.
That's why I wanted to dothis in the first place.
Um, but I do think that findingfinancing for them is only going
to be harder, and that the budgetsare only going to keep shrinking.
Right.
(30:16):
Well.
So besides that, Mrs. Lincoln,what do you think of the play?
Um, you know, you're an avid reader.
We started our walk this morningin front of first Light books.
A brand new bookstore here inAustin opened just over a year.
Yep.
A friend of yours opened the place.
Yep.
Your first thought was
Taylor Bruce, and how are you
gonna survive?
(30:36):
And I said, why wouldyou open a bookstore?
And yet that place was bustling.
Yep.
Hustling and bustling.
And I will also say, you know,my PAL works at Waterloo Records.
There has been such a growthin the world of vinyl.
Yep.
That's obvious over the last couple years.
Right.
Vinyl sold as many.
(30:57):
Yeah, units two years ago asit did in 1988 or some, there's
some language around that.
But what, what happened to vinyl?
It got replaced by CDs the other day.
I overheard a couple, 22 yearolds say, I'm getting into CDs.
Oh man.
And then it's like, oh
yeah, CDs are great.
(31:18):
Um, so we may be dinosaurswho want us like hold onto
the theater experience, but.
Um,
there are other dinosaurs out there.
Is there's, I
think there's just enough dinosaursout there to, uh, to keep our new
media concerns at, at, at bay.
Yep.
For you at, at.
The Well, and that's true old ageof 47 and me at the young age of 49
(31:40):
and, and people, you know, being anauthor is still a career and people
still get paid to write books.
It's just fewer people than, you know,20 years ago, less money and less money.
And so, you know, it's, I'm not sayingthat it's gonna go away entirely, but the.
You know, it being part of like thenational conversation is shifting
(32:04):
away and I'm, you know, I'm noteven saying that I need to be
part of a national conversation.
I'm just more interested in, youknow, if people, if you start with
this premise of people need stories.
And the way that people areconsuming media is on their phones.
How can you tell those stories on phones?
(32:27):
And I think something like Quibi,which was the um, the short form
content producer, the short-livedcontent, very short-lived.
Uh, it launched basically the samemonth as COVID, unfortunately.
And I think that is going to look in10 years, like something that, like an
idea that was just ahead of its time.
(32:47):
Just a little too early.
Yeah.
I'll tell you what, I met with Quibiwhen they first came down the pipe.
Yeah.
They have a piece of interfacetechnology that blew me away.
Oh yeah.
You were telling me about this.
Yeah.
Changed the way that I saw.
Um, looking at, looking at, uh,it could and TV on your phone.
It could go vertical to horizontal.
Was that
the Yeah.
The way
it worked is
(33:08):
you were, um, you were, you're holdingthe phone in your hand, and what they
did is they commissioned a littlestudy to say, do people prefer to hold
their phone horizontal or vertical?
And what they discovered is thatpeople like both your wrist gets tired.
If you're holding up horizontal for awhile, you're gonna switch to vertical.
If you're holding up vertical awhile, eventually you go horizontal.
Interesting,
(33:28):
right?
And so.
What they created, and I would sayperfected was a system that as you
turned your phone from horizontalto vertical, the image switched.
And what was a horizontal image became twostacked vertical images filling the frame.
No letter box, no pillarbox, just full frame imagery.
(33:52):
And what was kind of amazing about itwas you were becoming a defacto editor.
So as you turned your hand, right,you got to choose from a single
perspective shot to a double perspectiveshot, not, not that different
than what we're doing here, right?
Um, for people watching the videowhere sometimes it's, it's a single
(34:13):
shot and sometimes you're gettingboth of us at the same time.
Um, but with Quibi, you got to become thestoryteller through that narrow window.
And, and I have to tell you like.
It was a really powerfulexperience seeing that.
I mean, it's easy to be cynical aboutthat as a, as a creator and someone
who is interested in control, right?
(34:34):
Like giving up and seeding control tothe audience in that moment, right.
Seems like it would kind of cut againstthe grain for me, but it didn't, it
really kind of inspired a differentview and made me know, like if I'm
shooting verite, having Multicam upand running, knowing that you're gonna
want to make use of that other camera.
Through this portal.
(34:54):
And if you are, uh, and if you'reshooting narrative where you're
taking a more creative approach tononfiction, you can offer secret other
worlds through that second window.
Mm-hmm.
You could be on a character and intheir mind at the same time, and
it's up to the user in a chooseyour own adventure kind of approach.
Yeah.
And so I have to tell you,when Quibi went under.
(35:16):
So quickly and dramatically, Ireally thought we are gonna see
them license this technology.
Yeah.
To Hulu, to Amazon.
Maybe it'll become ubiquitous, right?
Like, uh, like Kleenex and we'll stillcall it, you know, the Quibi effect.
Yeah.
And like the Ken Burns effect.
Right.
Um.
But I haven't seen it anywhere else.
(35:37):
And so I don't know if they're holdingthat, uh, that, that piece of code,
um, close hold or if I'm just notengaged in the, in the marketplace
of distribution ideas enough.
But, but I have to say,like, I think you're right.
They were ahead of their time.
You know, they, they burned abunch of money on some high dollar
creatives and a lot of material thatwas created for, it went unseen.
(36:02):
And I, you know, I don't have anopinion or, or much insight into that.
I. But, but I was excited aboutthat interface and, and I'd love to,
to, to explore playing with that.
Yeah.
A
little bit.
Absolutely.
And I think, I mean, it soundslike you're a new media enthusiast.
I'm enthused, Keith.
I am caffeinated, which translates
(36:22):
into enthusiasm.
Oh my gosh.
All right.
Well, we're nearing the end of our walk.
We're back in the alley.
We're back in the alley.
Buy first light books.
What did you think aboutthis Hyde Park Walk?
I, I do this walk.
Without cameras, withoutyou, several days a week.
This is the neighborhood I walk.
Wait, you walk without me?
I walk with Amy Bench, I walk with
Sally O'Grady.
Ah, I walk with Andrew Bki.
(36:44):
I love all those people, but Ihate you for walking without me.
I feel so cheated upon.
But I have to say, I also walkand talk with other people.
You talk,
how dare you.
Um, keep it quiet over there, Steinberg.
Um, all right, so, uh.
What'd you think about Hyde Park?
I love it.
(37:04):
I, this is, this has been a blast.
I think we should do this more.
I love getting coffee at first light,walking down the alleyways, and, uh,
just seeing sort of the, the beauty andthe sort of, uh, mystery of Hyde Park.
I, I, I'm a fan.
There we go.
Next time on dog walks, who will it be?
(37:29):
We are gonna talk toKahani Korn Cooperman.
That's right.
Khanani Korn Cooperman with herworld Premier documentary Creed,
USA here at South by Southwest,
which I for one, cannot wait to see.
Uh, she's been involved in twoof my all time favorite projects.
(37:50):
She, uh, shot the behind thescenes film of Dazed and Confused.
We're gonna talk all about that.
And she was the executive producerof The Daily Show with John Stewart.
We're gonna talk about that too, butwe're also gonna talk about Creed, USA
and I think you guys are gonna love her.
She's, she's just a blast totalk to and, and to walk with,
so stay
tuned for that, everybody.
See you there.
(38:10):
Doc Walks is created, produced, and editedby my friend Ben Steiner of the Bear.
Hello, and my friend KeithMaitland of Go Valley.
Thanks for
tuning
in.
Follow us at Doc Walks podon Instagram X and YouTube.
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