Morgan Neville

to be more about the studio. So Rick owns the studio Shango Law that originally was put together by the band in the mid seventies, and Bob Dylan ended up spending a lot of time recording there. But other people did too, Eric Clapton and you know, Bunny Raid and on and on. And I was less interested in just doing a commentary about the recording studio than than Rick, because Rick is a fascinating character. So I started meeting with Rick. Let's be clear, Yeah, Rick wanted in Showtime

want to do something? Were you there from the very beginning, not the very beginning, but close to it? Okay, there was just this kind of vague idea how long ago. Was this somewhere between a year and a half and two years ago, probably closer to two years ago, So there was a while ago and UM and I think what Rick and I started talking about that I think we both connected about. There were a number of things

that we connected about. One was, UM, create a process, you know, how people and kind of the universality of creat a process. It's something I've spent a lot of time making things about. I do a series for Netflix called Abstract about designers, but so much of that show

is actually about creative process. And Rick had love that show and we talked about that UM and and Rick is an interesting character too, So I think there was an ongoing debate and continues to be an ongoing debate even though we finished the show as to what UM what the show is because I feel like UM, in Rick's mind, his role as a producer is merely to be a mirror and to reflect what the artist wants. And as I say in the opening of the show,

there's a real conversation I had with Rick. I said, well, my job is a documentarian is to reflect you. And if I'm making a reflection of our reflection, that we're going to find ourselves in a hall of mirrors. And Rick said, yeah, isn't that great? And that's kind of what the show has been. It's been a hall of mirrors.

It's you know, lady from Shanghai with Orson Welles, you know, both of you know, we had bonded about that too, and you know this kind of um, the embracing the surreality of it, and what I came to really embrace about it is I think one of Rick's maintenance in life is that when the lines get blurred between what's real and what's unreal, interesting things happen and go a little bit deeper what would be real and what would

be unreal. Well, for instance, anything that resembles a rule or a deadline or a budget or any of those things, I think Rick just doesn't believe them, you know, willfully, UM. And I think that stems from his earliest days. I mean, if it stems from his childhood, I think in some ways, but certainly in college. You know, Rick being a rule

breaker UM has rewarded him again and again. So there's been a lot of positive feedback that this idea of doing exactly what you want and not caring about what's popular or not caring about what people say you can do or what you're supposed to do. Um is actually really for old ground. So I think that's that's part of it. It's just a wilful disregard for any Whenever anybody says, well this is supposed to happen like this, you know, you might as well be speaking foreign language

to Rick. Okay, but let's go back to the point. They wanted to make a movie about the studio. You were more interested in Rick, So then you got involved. How did they find you? Um? Well, I think the people a showtime and Rick knew my work right. I've been a working documentary and for twenty five years, I've made a ton of music films. I made lots of non music films. Um. And as I said, Rick was

a big fan of this design show I'd done. That was another thing they talked about, and so I think they all said, well, if we can get somebody to do this would be Morgan. So I honestly think it was me coming on board and having a series of conversations with Rick that kind of swung the show from what they thought it was going to be into what it is. I don't have a good way of describing what it is, because it's a rather indescribable show. You know,

it's it's a very idiosyndradic show. It's been, um in many ways, some of the most rewarding stuff I've done and some of the most challenging stuff I've done. It's forced me way out of my comfort zone. Give us an example. Um okay, Well, Rick said at the beginning, UM, I'm never going to do an interview with you on camera. Um. So what I ended up doing? Why do you think that? Well, it's just that's normal. That's what people do. You know. I don't like talking heads. I'm never going to do it.

You know, typically if you do a documentary with the subject. He said, Oh, can I'll sit down do interviews with you? Can I get a shot of you walking, you know, across your house? Can I do this? I could never ask to do anything like that. So what I ended up with was said, well, let me just do audio conversations.

I'd even call them interviews, just conversations. So Rick um Off is uh at his house in Hawaii, and so part of my job was taking several trips to Hawaii where I'd go over and we'd spend the day having conversations, and that conversation we could talk about the Ramons for an hour, you know, we could talk about Um, Tom Petty for an hour. We could talk about anything. And I went in with no agenda. You know, this is

not me trying to interview Rick. This is just talking about what what's interesting, and you're recording it and I'm recording it. So I'm by myself. First of all, I'm forced to be my own audio engineer, which scares the Jesus out, I mean, especially in front of Rick being who he is. UM And plus you know, just dealing with the nature of hawaiis I'm trying to record good audio. And we ended up doing more than twenty four hours of audio interviews and that really became kind of this

text that flows throughout the series. And then I had to figure out how am I going to actually illustrate this cinematically, and it forced me into a lot of very create of solutions. Um And I know you've only seen half the series. It gets even weirder. Okay, from the beginning, was it going to be four episodes, It was gonna be something like that. It was a mini series, you know, could have been Yeah, but I think four was always kind of the goal UM, and we didn't

know what it was going to be UM. And part of it is I mean, originally it was going to take about a year. It's been about a year and a half. UM. And there's a kind of an unpredictability also to to what's happening in the studio. So a lot of what you see in the in this series is just me getting call from Rick saying such and such as coming in the studio tomorrow, you should show up, and we show up, And sometimes I have no idea who they are and or how they're going to fit

into it. So I feel like in many ways, I was given this incredibly diverse but random um set of ingredients and then I was told to make the best meal I'd ever cooked. So it was it took just a lot of um outside the box thinking to kind of stitch together things that don't normally get stitched together. What do you think Rick wanted out of it? UM?

I don't know. I mean I have a very hard time answering anything for Rick UM other than I know he's definitely been more interested in, you know, speaking publicly a little bit you know, he has his podcast now, and and he's been somebody who's been kind of notoriously um off the grid in anyways. Um. And the fact of the matter is Rick has done and learned a lot, and I think part of him understands that there's some

wisdom that could be shared. And I think one takeaway he and I had when we're having these initial conversations was if you could come away from the show knowing what it's like to be produced by Rick, that's a win.

And so in many ways, it's not trying to tell his story or the story of the studio per se, though it's all in there, but um, but to try and give the experience of what it would be like to come in and work with Rick and what you'll glean from that as an artist or even more perfectly, as any kind of creative person or any person you know, because the rules he's talking about that I'm interested in are the universal ones that apply to you, you know, if you're a filmmaker or a writer, or or a

musician or anything else. Um, that's what excites me. So. UM that was the goal. But it was no easy goal. Okay, you watch or the half that I've watched you get the impression that Rick is trying to make the most successful record in later in the series or just your discussion. Not everything he does is successful. Now, you know, we had this tenure with Columbia Records, which really wasn't that successful. But does that factor into his thinking I'm talking about

financially successful. Yeah, I know. I don't think finance figures in in any way I've ever been able to detect um. I mean, I wish I could be that pure in my decision making. I try. I think most of us wish we could be that pure um. But from what I could tell, Rick really really doesn't care. Okay, So if you watch the film, it begins with people from the hip hop world. I must admit some of them I didn't know. Okay, how about yourself? Did you know them? No?

I mean I knew some. You know, I knew Tyler Um creator who's in it. But you know, people like drama. So part of what Rick wanted to show, which is very real, is that somebody like drama. This um, young hip hop artist Rick discovered on SoundCloud UM when he only had three listens. Somehow, Rick became the three first listen and you know, tweeted that he was listening to drama and next thing you know, he's producing drama. So Rick is still actively interested in finding new things he

hasn't heard before. So there are a lot of people throughout the show who are people I didn't know, people who nobody knows, or people who are barely known that Rick is is trying to mentor I guess, Okay, we live in an era where it's conventionally believed that hip hop dominates. I noticed through the first episode, Uh, it was mostly African Americans talking. Was that a conscious choice to be hip? No? No? And in fact, I think by the end of the series, the balances is much wider.

I mean, if you look at the artist Rick's work with two it's well, I mean, I know from my association with Metallica, you know that he's worked with them, and then certainly in the first two episodes, I didn't see Metallica. There was a mention of Slayer at the beginning. There wasn't a mention of the Black Crows, which was on his label. He was not the producer. Does that stuff come up? Um a little bit, But again, it's

not the Rick Reuben story. You know it's and Rick was very clear about that that, you know, this is not going to be just the a diazy of Rick Ruben. And honestly, I'm more interested in doing the other version than the Wikipedia version. You know, I see so many music documentaries that feel like I'm watching a version of Wikipedia, you know, or behind the music or behind me. They did this, and then they did that, and they worked with this person, they did this tour, and then this happened,

and they have to check every box. I find that not good storytelling. Okay, you're making the movie, and are you ever saying at certain points, because you're filming a lot, okay, now I have it, Now it's coming together, or converse with you saying hey, I need something. It's not like it's just like Rick of the movie. I can't tell you what it is, but I know what I'll get there. Um, I don't know if I'm ever gonna feel like I've gotten there. You know. I rarely feel that way, even

about films of mine that have done very well. You know, I feel like, um, my whole career has been iterative. I'm a huge believer in that. And maybe it's because you know, I started my career in journalism, and I came out of um deadline journalism, which I love because it's about doing what you can do and then the next day you do it again. And something about that iterative process lets you learn faster. I mean, I know filmmakers that do one film for seven years at a time.

I can't work that way, and I feel just by doing things more, I get better at it. Um. Well, you know there's certainly uh, what's his name? The documentary the guy do the Eagles nick whatever? The guy who I mean maybe his name is Alex. He seems to make a million. He's always work. He actually not that you know when you're the three. But is he actually hands on it all these movies? Um, I don't know, but I know he's somewhat hands on and all those movies.

And I think anything he puts his name on as director because he also produces things he doesn't direct, and I think, actually, I'm trying to remember did the Eagles doctor? Did he just produce it? I'm not sure if he actually directed it because there was a woman who directed it. I could be wrong. It was great, yeah, So and it's interesting. I mean, Alex, I've known Alex for a long time, and he's somebody who's you know, had the kind of career that's very enviable. I mean, it's interesting.

And we could talk about documentaries if you want, because I've been doing it for a long time and it's changed tremendously. What documentary is today is let's let's get completely different. Let's go let's let's go back to Rick and make sure that we don't leave certain stones unturned. Um, there's a plethora of product out now, and there will be a marketing campaign, usually with a fewer dollars than there is in a theatrical world. Even though I believe

this stuff should list beyond the flat screen. What do you anticipate in what would be satisfying or unsatisfying in terms of response? UM? I don't want to sound um disingenuous, but I don't really care. Let's say, hypothetically was the theatrical film? Do you care? Then? UM? I would, But

to me, I think of them differently. UM. I feel like this Rick experience has been a process of experimentation and trying things, and it's you're learning on their dollar well, but it's also idiosyncratic, and I think there are people who are going to think it's awesome and people who are going to think it's terrible. I'm okay with that,

you know. And I feel like we had the support from Showtime, and I feel like it was kind of the mission statement going in that this is going to get weird, and um, I feel like doing something for television, it gets judged differently than if I put into a theater and want people to pay money on a date night to go and sit there and watch it. So I think about them differently, um, which is part of

why I thought of it as a mini series. And it kind of has a um, I don't know how you describe it, kind of a a drifting, you know, kind of we referred to it as the Gossamer Construction. You know. It has this kind of, um, lightly connected kind of tangent of ideas. I mean, normally I'm a big story and character person. This was a challenge of trying to kind of tell a story with a narrative of ideas and um. And I'm really happy with what we did. But it's I know, it's not the most

mainstrength thing I've done, and that's cool, you know. I'm happy to do things that certain people will say that's my favorite thing, and other people say I hate it. I may have done films like that and that's great. I've done films that are kind of broad cloud crowd pleasers too. And then to what degree was Rick steering to the final destination or making comments on the edit? I mean, I had final edit. But you know, of course everybody wants Rick to be happy and we want

to talk about it. But honestly, the discussions were not you know, we it was much more collaborative in that it's this kind of debate about what it is. I mean, I think in a way, I mean it's it's it's no stretch to say that, um, Rick was trying to

produce me that. Um absolutely, the conversations I had with Rick, with the kinds of conversations, the habit is our this And even though I would protest and say making a film is not making a record, part of me knows that making a film is making a record, and that I when Rick says, well, I know, you say that's the best way, but how do you know, How do you really know what happens if you don't do that? And um, you know, and that can be frustrating and

it was. But it can also lead you to places you would never go to on your own, which it did. Ok Um, I learned to be much freer making this. I just feel much fear as a filmmaker, you know, much less constrained about um rules. And it's Rick happy with the final product. I think. So, So, how did how did step Goden end up being in the film? Seth and Ricker good friends? Really? Yeah? How did how did that come together? I mean Rick has um a

collection of interesting friends and people. I mean there are other people. He's not in the first two episodes, but Michael Lewis uh appears in one of our episodes in a conversation. Um, he does a podcast in Malcolm clab Well, like,

I think he's interested in Well is he? You know? Well, that's the conflict in the movie in that on some level you see this guru who barely speaks, but then you show what was happening in the dorm room and you have actual footage of him hyping the Beastie Boys and he said, this is a pretty aggressive guy who knew where he wanted to go. Absolutely. Um, So do

you think that still applies today? No? I think Rick's journey is one of um getting away from the idea that you know, I mean, in fact, he says it and later a later episode that I mean. This is the example he gives, which you will appreciate. Um. In the movie Hall Hale Rock and Roll, as Rick says, the film that Keith Richard's made about Chuck Berry I as a documentary would differ the Chuck that UH was not made by uh by Keith Richards. But um, I'm

blanking on the director it was, I'm blanking. We can look it up on he did. He's made to Hella Marin, he did coal Miner's daughter. Um, it'll come to you in anyway. Um so anyway, Um so Rix talks about Hell Hell Rock and Roll and that when he saw that film when it came out. There's a scene where Keith is constantly trying to break Chuck into getting his act together, tuning his guitar, actually rehearsing, and like getting putting him on a pedestal so he'll sound as good

as he can sound. And Chuck resists this and sabotages it again and again. And Rick said, in the beginning, when I watched this film, I thought Keith is doing the best he can to help this artist, and Chuck just won't listen to him. And now I'm on chuck side. As Chuck says, if I want to play guitar, the sattit tune, that how Chuck Berry plays it, and you

know what, there's wisdom in that too. Um. But I think something Rick talks a lot about is this idea of letting go of your beliefs and admitting that you don't know. He also has luxury based on his past success. As you said earlier, a lot of us, you know, are not that rich because that many accolades. While you're making this, I want to tell you one of this story because this echoes another story that's not in the film.

But I heard that We talked to Rivers Cuomo from Weezer, and Rivers tells this story that there was a cover song, uh, like a Tony Braxton cover song that Rivers wanted to do and they recorded it and the rest and the guy, the rest of the guys and Weezer were like, this is not good. We should not do this, and Rick had been supportive of it, and so Rivers was like, Okay, I'm going to strategize about how we're going to get on the album, and how I'm going to convince the

guys in the band. And he goes into talk to Rick and says, guy, you know, Rick, nobody else in the band wants to use this song, must put it on the album. Um you know what are we gonna do about it? And Rick pauses and says, well, maybe the right And it just took Rivers back right onto his back. Heel didn't be like, oh, I never thought you would have said that. And I think that is part of what Rick has learned, is to understand that maybe other people are right. Okay, while you're making this

Rick mini series, are you also working on other projects simultaneously? Okay? And I should say because it's very much worth saying that. Um, I have a partner on the Shangri Law this Rick Reuben series, Jeff Malmberg, who directed the series with me, So we each did two episodes, but he was my editor and won't you be my neighbor the Mr. Rogers film and he's a great filmmaker in his own right. So Jeff and I have been how do you split up the duties? How does he do two episodes and

you Dutch episodes? I mean realistically, we both just directed whenever we could. We just covered to shoots and then we kind of divated all up at the end. Okay, let's go back to your earlier comment how documentary has changed over the years. Yeah, documentary. Um, it's been twenty six years since I started my first documentary. And back

then there was nothing cool whatsoever about documentaries. I mean it was PBS, maybe something on HBO, but I mean there was Capturing the Freedman's I mean that was two thousand four we started. So, Um, Michael Moore was about the only very successful but even then, not in nineteen well, yeah, so he done. Um rogery was so. I actually Roger Me came out, Um in the fall of nine. I

was working as a journalist in San Francisco. It opened up in two theaters, one in New York, one in l A. And I convinced my roommate to drive with me to l A for the day to see a matinee of Roger Me and drive home to San Francisco, which we did. Um. So even then, and I had a real fascination with documentary, and there were a number of documentaries along the way that really showed me what I could do well besides Roger and what were they?

I mean, Roger me Um, Hearts and Minds, Sherman's March, Um, when we were Kings, Um Brothers Keeper. You know some of those films that were just so influential and I loved so much. It's so good, so good, uh, And I have to say for Fake That or in Wales film there was hugely influential on me. Occasionally really interesting docs getting made, but they were hard, hard to see and and there have been a number of waves where

ducks made a little bit of progress. So in the early two thousand's there was a period where Capturing the Freedman's and spell Bound and a few films like that, um Man im Wire came out, and UM, more ducks were getting made and there was more money going into it, and then everybody lost money and all kind of went away for a while, and then this last really kind of six years. UM, there's been an explosion in documentary UM, and I think part of that is the streaming services.

You know, a lot of people talked about places like net Netflix being um kind of the end of the theatrical documentary, and I think it's actually had the opposite effect in that for years people told me I love documentary, I just don't know where to find them. And once you put documentary on even platform with comedy and drama and everything else, lots of people choose documentary. So I

think it just grew the audience for nonfiction storytelling. And you know, last year was one of the greatest years for theatrical documentary ever. Um. So I think it's changing in that way. And just seeing people, I mean, having worked in l A for all this time and having worked with so many people out of film school, there was always this attitude of documentary is like a stepping stone to real movies. And needless to say, I've always

resented that attitude. Um, But more and more and more I'm finding young people who I just want to make documentaries for their life. Um. It's great. Okay, Let's go back to the beginning. You grew up where Santa Barbara, California. Santa Barbara. Your parents did what for a living? Um? My dad um was an antiquarium book dealer so um and a huge, huge rock and roll fan. Huge. How

old is your father? Um, seventy four? Really so young by today's since very young you know, having me getting married and having me was a good way to not go to Vietnam. But you know, huge Dylan fan huge you know Van Morrison and but also British Invasion and everything else. Um. So by the time I was getting into punk rock, my dad had all those records. He had every Patti Smith and um Sex pistols. You know, just go to my dad's record collection to pull that

stuff out. Did he also play all that stuff in the house and on the cars to exposed to it. Some I think my dad's real music taste tended to be more literary, So people like Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Fan Warrison, those were his kind of go to people. Um who were great? Who are some of

my very favorites too? Um and uh and my dad my parents went to the Last Waltz and on that well, my they were huge fans of the band and they knew I don't know if they knew Dylan was going to be performing or whatever, but um, I don't even know. But they had an extra one and they talked about

bringing me was nine at the time. Um, they did not bring me, um, but they went and they brought my aunt and I guess they'd served the whole Thanksgiving dinner beforehand, and then they cleared the tables or whatever may. They didn't cleared the devils. Anyway, they had the concert and um, to this day, I give my dad shit about not taking me. I would have been the coolest kid ever if I had gone to the last Waltz. But but it was that type of upbringing where music

and literature and film were hugely important. And uh, you're how many kids in the family. I have a sister three years younger, and she's a geneticist in Oxford, England, so she went the other way. Wow. And the middle class, upper middle class? What kind of upbringing, upper middle class? And also how do you end up going to penn Um. It's interesting as a kid from California, did you got a public school, private school, went to private school? Actually

went to boarding school? Uh in o Hi school called Thatchure And just going back he seemed like the thing to do. And just do you want to get away from home? And and and I actually fell in love with the kind of history of the East Coast. I majored in Colonial American history of all things. So but I still find it fascinating because they were basically making up a civilization from scratch at the time, you know, by their own rules, and it was a unique situation

that way. And I still find Colonial America very fascinating. UM. And I was kind of running away from from California and I um and my plan was to be a journalist, which I ended up doing for a time. So the experience in college was a good experience. It was great. Yeah, I love it. But I was a huge devotee of new journalism. So you know that new journalism menthodology that Tom Wolfe edited in the early seventies with tweets and uh, John Didion and or Mailer and everybody else. Um. I

mean that was like my Bible, you know. And plus people like Hunter Thompson UM, who ended up who was family friends of ours. So my dad also had a small addition press. He was publishing authors he knew and liked, UM, so he published um Hunter Thompson book. Um. They were good friends with Charles Wakowski who stayed at our house, you know, who is a very bohemian I guess you would say, kind of upbringing UM. So between the punk rock and the Charles Wakowski. It was not your conventional So, okay,

you're at PEN. You go into Pen knowing you want to be a journalist. I had a pretty good idea. I mean, this is also in the late eighties, and you remember, you know, there was like a new magazine opening every week. There was a new magazine. You know, in the news stands are bursting with amazing long form writing.

And that was just the thing and the idea that it's It's funny because all the things the new journalism preached, which was really using techniques of fiction writing to nonfiction storytelling, is exactly what I'm doing now. It's exactly the same thing, taking techniques of um, you know, scripted storytelling and putting into into nonfiction stories. So and I still think of myself as a journalist. It's just documentaries, like three D journalism. Okay,

so you graduate from Pen. What's your first job the Nation magazine and you're doing what are you actually writing? Started as an intern, then became a fact checker. Then I worked as on the history of the Nation magazine. So I worked on a book was a long term project, and then I moved to San Francisco and started working at a wire service called Pacific News Service, and then went to work for Pacific A Radio. Flo How do

you go from the new service to Pacific Radio? I mean it was a small The kind of left wing journalism world of UM San Francisco in the early nineties was very small, and everybody knew everybody else. The problem I had was, as a young person, all of the jobs in media, particularly in the Bay Area, but this is true throughout most of journalism. We're taken up by baby boomers who are not going anywhere soon. You know that. Basically my bosses that was the job I wanted, and

they were twenty years away from retirement. And that was true everywhere. So part of me leaving that world was feeling like I had to make my own opportunity and I had to come back to l A to do it. Okay, you switch from news to radio? You were doing what

at radio? I ran? I was still writing freelance UM, but there was a program called Youth Radio UM where we would train kids, inner city kids to be radio engineers and reporters, and we had a weekly show in Berkeley, but we also ran stories on MPR and it was kind of like a just a cool program to get young people, you know, trained up into media. Okay, so you ultimately quit that to come back to l A to do what to make my first film? Okay, so you're in San Francisco. How long does it take for

you to say I'm gonna quit? Two weeks? Let me? I mean you just suddenly said I gotta go when you went, well, I've been thinking about it for a long time. I think basically the truth is I've been in denial that I wanted to be a filmmaker forever. I thought that journalism was like a real adult career and filmmaking was like what I did on weekends, you know, because it was too much fun, you know, to dilettante

is for me to actually want to be a filmmaker. Um. And then I kind of had this epiphany that all the years of doing political journalism, you know, from the nation on that basically I was in denial about what I actually cared about. What I spent all of my week nights and weekends on was culture. I was playing in bands, I was going to art museums, I was reading books, and I was devouring movies. And I said, well, why don't I actually spend my days doing the thing

I spend all my extracurricular hours doing. And that is pretty much when I was twenty five, I made that decision. I haven't looked back. All I've done since this culture. Okay, will you make movies? Before you left San Francisco, I was flirting with it, um and again documentary Like there was no clear path to have a career as a documentary and you saw yourself as a documentarian. So what happened is I started my first film not a little

slower you moved. Yeah, so I go down there. I think it's going to take the summer for me to make a film. And my first film ended up being called Shotgun Freeway Drives through Lost l A. So it's this kind of Mondo l a history documentary which you can find out there. Okay, but the first question is the average person would say, you're moving to l A and you're making a movie on what money? So this was in the era of get a bunch of credit cards and you know, rack up all the debt. This

is what you know Robert Rodriguez. And there was a book, um, you know what was it called by John Pearson? Uh? What was it called? Spike, Dikes, Mike and whatever, which was kind of like the bible for how to go out and just do your own thing. And you know, so we were all this is the early nineties, that kind of heyday of early independent film where everybody felt you know, Soderberg's and all these people are just kind of jumping out there and doing it. So I thought, well,

I can do that. Um at the end of the day, we ended up making the film for thirty five thousand dollars, all on credit cards. Um well, we ended up getting one investor who put in, but still so we But the the story is that we basically made it for no money. You know, and your first film, everybody will work for you one time for free, and you know

they won't do it for your second film. But um, I mean, for instance, it's also being kind of young in a city like this with all this opportunity and all these people that want to become cinematographers and editors who are all stuck at as assistant editors and you know everything else. That a friend of mine was a post production supervisor on the TV show Northern Exposure, and they had some of the first avid's that had ever

been used in production. And he said, if you for those, people don't know if those are computer editing, nonlinear editing editing on computers, which is brand brand new at the time, um, and incredibly expensive and inaccessible. So he said, if you come in from eleven PM to eight am, you can use the machines. So that's how I edited the films. We stayed up all night, um for like a year. Okay,

let's be clear. You hadn't made a movie previously right now, so you must have made a lot of mistakes along the way. Yeah. I made a ton of mistakes. And I always say my first film was my film school. Um. But two weeks into making it, I wrote a letter to my parents and I said, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. Like it was so clear when I started it that everything, all my skill sets, they all come together perfectly in this job. And it's really all I've done since. And

you said, we, who was we? I had a co director on my first film, here a Palenberg. Um he still makes films and um as an old old friend of mine. Okay, so you finished the film you shot at one on sixteen on video. It was a combination

of everything. I mean, it was mainly videotape, but we shot sixteen kind of inserts and super eight and it was kind of a mondo collage of what history means in l A. And we got people like James Elroy and John Didion to be in it, and Mike Davis and all kinds of other people, and it was right. I mean really, the reason for me doing it was as a kid from South California going to college back east, people laughed at me when I talked about their being history or culture in Los Angeles, and I had more

than a little chip on my shoulder about it. Um So I ended up making this film to basically say fuck you to all these people that l A History is not an oxymoron, and that there's so much culture here and so much history here. It just doesn't look like what you're using used to seeing urban history look like. You know, it's it's just a different shape. Okay, So are at the time were you happy with the finished product? Yeah?

Very happy? And so then what happened? You did the film festival, supermarried it south By, We got a theatrical release, We sold it to the Sundance Channel, and we made money. How's that? How do you remember? Like we made like okay, so this is happening. Now you're thinking about the second movie. So I then was offered was so the other thing I didn't tell you, And this may be a locals only thing, but I had a day job to make money throughout this period producing Huell Houser's TV show how

did you get that? Gig um? Because he was doing this l A History show. He with those of you don't know, was this kind of eccentric southern quasi bumpkin character who would go around California and Los Angeles doing California, California's gold Fuel House. And so he was doing his own l A History California history thing, and people I knew somebody who worked at KCT here, the PBS station, They said you should meet him, and I met him and he was like, oh, you're into this stuff, come

work for me. So I ended up working for him to make money. Why I finished my first film, and then right when I finished my film, I got offered a job producing any biography And I did that for three years and I learned so much more, not just about filmmaking, but about how to run a production company. UM had actually work with employees and how to deal with all that stuff. And during that time I got to do I did to Brian Wilson two hour Any biography.

I did a brill building documentary and if you remember that, UM for Any and Bert Backrack Libran Stoller like I pushed them into music in a way that they weren't doing before. And then kind of my my coup was that UM. I was a huge fan of Peter Gonnis, you know the music and Peter I basically run him a fan letter and said, I would love to do

a documentary with you, do you have any interest? And he had done a book called Sweet Soul Music that I really loved and I was thinking about trying to do and he said, there are only two subjects I want to make a film about, Doc Pomas and Sam Phillips. And I thought about it and I said, well, I'm gonna have a much easier chance making the Sam Phillips documentary than the Doc Pomus documentary right now. And Peter and I went about pitching it and we ended up

making a two hour Sam Phillips documentary. It was fantastic, Thank you, and it was an incredible experience for me because you know, Peter and I went to Memphis for three months. I had all this time again like I was being produced by Sam Phillips. I got the experience. I was feeling like I was one of the last artists that Sam Phillips ever produced, because I got the full on, you know, fire breathing, fog horn, leg horn, Sam Phillips treatment. Um, And it was amazing and basically, UM.

There were a couple of big takeaways from that. One was, UM that Peter Gorini, who was really lea somebody, had taught me so much about what I do and is one of the greatest music writers of all time. UM. He said something me early on that I've thought about so many times, which is, the three least interesting things about rock and roll are sex, drugs, and getting screwed over by your record label. Because everybody tells the same stories. And I've thought about that so often. I mean, that

kind of is behind the music basically. So once you take all that away, what's the differentiator between all these stories?

That's what I'm interested in. UM. But the other thing was that Sam Phillips himself was such a believer in his own vision you know, bringing in African American artists to record in Memphis, you know, early on, I mean like Turner and BB King and Hallam Wolf and on and on and on, to the point where he was completely ostracized by his peers and the rest of white society and Memphis, and to the point where he had nervous breakdowns, was given shock therapy, and he never wavered

in his belief in this music. And I came away from finishing that film and said, I have to work for myself. I can't ever work for anybody else, and I haven't since. So I basically started my own production company then Tremlow Productions, and haven't looked back. So that was what year two thousand? So what was the first project? I mean, in the beginning, I was just scrambling to make money doing things um and I did projects for

museums and UM. I think my first real documentary I made was Muddy Waters Film, And that was because Robert Gordon, the Memphis music writer who was also kind of a disciple of Peter Groundings. Peter had introduced us and we become friends, and Robert was finishing his book on Muddy and said, nobody's ever done a proper Muddy Waters documentary.

Let's do it. So we jumped in and we did it again, not knowing how we were going to pay for all of it, and we ended up getting you some money out of Channel four in England and it's kind of stitching together money from home video back when you could do that and um and we made it and had such a good experience we ended up selling it to American Masters here for PBS and UM and that really kind of got the ball rolling for me

as a production company. I next it at Hank Williams American Masters and what I found, I mean, I am a music fanatic. It's no surprise, but I have many interests. But part of the reason I did so many music

films was I could get them funded. You know that the difference with the music film is that there's a built an audience that cares about this music in most cases, um and in many cases there's a publisher, label or an artist or somebody who cares about a film getting made, as opposed to making a film about his subject where

there's zero awareness and zero built in audience. UM. And it just felt both like I could feed my music obsession, but I could also kind of get no as the music guy, which I did to the point where I started getting calls from people all the time saying, Oh, we have this music project. Are you interested? Are you interested? Um? Which was great as an impended documentary filmmaker at the time when there weren't a lot of ways to get films made that you know, I had my niche Okay,

so Buddy Waters, where are you from there? So? Um, Hank Williams. Then I made a film called The Cool School about the l a art scene in the fifties and sixties is not easy to sell, like a music film. Um. Like a lot of these things, they're just things that

I can't get out of my head. Um. So The Cool School was because I went to the Getty to see a guy named Walter Hopps who was a legendary curator who had started this gallery called the Ferris Gallery, essentially the first big modern art gallery in Los Angeles, and he gave a talk at the Getty. This is maybe two thousand two, and I found it so fascinating eating and I came home and said, well, I want

to watch the documentary about him. I looked and there was no documentary about him, and I said, well, then I'll read the book about him. And there was no book about him or about that scene, which was incredible that nobody had documented it. And then it was one of those moments, well, well I guess, I guess I

have to do it right, um. And it was fascinating to then get into that world of all the Venice artists and the Robert Irwin ed Ruche and Keen Holds and Larry Bell and Billy Albankston, that whole group of artists, um, who were fascinating kind of a group of alpha males kind of half and then we're Venice beach bum surfer slash art modern artists and the other half for kind of proto hippies living up into Panga or a Laurel Canyon, and they all kind of came together around the las

Anega scene and would hang out of Barney's Beanery and all that kind of legendary the early days of the la arts scene. And again this was also feeding my l A Has culture obsessions, so it was another middle finger to the rest of the country. And what was really interesting in making that film, and this is the first time it ever really happened to me um and it's happened a few times since. Where you make a film and you never expect a film to have an

actual impact. You know, maybe people like it, but it to actually change things you don't expect. Um. But the Cool School was something that really planted a flag for the fact that l A has a real art scene. And out of that, I don't think it's a stretch to say, and I think they admit it that. The Getty then started their specific standard time series, this huge year's long program um in, this huge oral history program.

And John Baldassari, who's in my film too, who was teaching forever at cal Arts, said in the wake of that film that for years he would tell his graduates out of art school moved to New York, and that year he said, stay in l A. Like case the moment it changed. I mean, that must be very satisfying. To have that level of impact. It was great. You never expected. If I had, I probably would have bought more art. Okay. And then who distributed that movie alter

a company called Art House. It was PBS aired it here in the States, um and and it got out, you know, it was on the BBC, and you know it was around the World after the Art film then and I did all kinds of things in between. I did a film on um. I should look at my IMDb to remember all them, you know. I did little projects like an Iggy pop project about raw power. Um. I'm a huge Iggy fan. UM. I did a film about women and country music. Uh. Did a film by

the Highwayman. Um. So all kinds of so. And are you working around the clock or you scrambling? You know. Traditionally a movie producer as a number of projects and it may take years one to actually flourish. Yeah, and they could take years. I mean. Another one before I move on was Stax Records. I did a film called Respect Yourself with the Robert Gordon, which is one of my favorite films I've done because stacks stacks music is unbeatable and the story is well, that's the amazing thing.

I went to Memphis to do a gig. Everybody talks about Nashville Memphis. There's so much just you, I mean, between Sun and Stax and High and all of that stuff. I mean, Memphis is just I love Memphis and you go there and well, across the river's Arkansas. For those of us live in California or coastal whatever, and you know Mississippi is right there, right there, I know, by

down the border. In fact, I was there this summer with my family and um, my wife and kids, and I walked across the bridge to the Arkansas side just to go over there, and I was driving him around. Yeah, as I said, I did that, didn't do that. I said, well, God, what am I ever going to get back to Arkansas? Because I had in Arkansas? How do you end up doing twenty feet from stardom? So? Um, I got a

call from somebody who knew Gil Freeson. And Gil many people maybe listening will know, had been the president of A and M Records and for forever, forever, from virtually from the beginning. I think he was the first employee actually at A and M, and people called him the ampersand in A and M. So uh. And Gil was retired and had invested his money wisely and was kind of looking for a project. Um, and he somebody said, do you want to be with him? He has a

music project he's talking about, and I said sure. So we met. We actually first bonded over modern art because he was a big modern art guy, and so was I. So we talked about that. UM. I said, so what's your what's your idea for a music film? And he said, well, my wife and I went to a Leonard Cohen concert in Las Vegas and I smoked a joint and I spent the whole concert looking at these amazing backup singers he had, and Leonard Cohen didn't have amazing backup singers.

And uh, he said. The next day, A, I just kept thinking about these backup singers and wondering what's their story. And I said, oh, that's really interesting. So so what's the film? He said, I don't know. You have to figure that out. Says like, okay, backup singers, um. And it's interesting for somebody who is such a music geek. UM. I didn't know much about backup singers. UM. And even on my drive home, I was thinking about it and thinking,

you know, what are songs with great backup vocals? I could come up with like six, you know, because your brain is not programmed to notice what's in the background. UM. And I over time completely reprogrammed my brain to to this day when I hear a great song with backup vocals. I added to a Spotify list I have just because now it's like precious to collect, you know, great songs. And I ended up with kind of hundreds of songs

and I put together a kind of a theoretical soundtrack. UM. But it was another one of those things when I went home said, well, who's written a book about him? Who has made a film about them? Nothing? Nothing? I found one article in gold Mine magazine and that was it. On backup singing UM, And I said, well, then the only way to learn about this world is to talk to them. So I said, well, let's and this was Gil's idea too, well, let's just do some interviews. Let's

talk to people. And he had found Lisa Fisher because he knew sting and she was singing a sting at the time. UM. And Lisa was great, and she opened the door to a bunch of people, and there were a few other people who really helped. UM. But we ended up doing probably thirty forty oral histories in the beginning, just to figure out how this world worked, like how big is it? How what? What are the themes? You know? Um?

And what I very very quickly came into focus, like okay, here I understand what the big themes are, you know, and there are some of them seem obvious of you know, the church finding its way into secular music and choir of voices and um and kind of the themes of the industry versus um versus um, you know, kind of personal um integrity, I guess um. But the thing we really discovered when we decided to kind of jump and

really make the film. I ended up interviewing over eighty backup singers for the film, and I think only twenty or in the film, but I learned so much by talking to all of them that what the film ultimately became about was that your happiness is directly proportional to the piece you make with the life you're actually living, not the life people have told you should live, or

that you thought you were supposed to live. That you know, we live in a culture that tells us that being a rock stars the most important thing, or being famous and rich is the most important thing. And of course very few people live that way. And for those of us that can't get over that delusion, um, we can be tortured by it. And the people who are best off. For the people that I love, the singing, love, the work for the sake of the work, and I think

that was the universal theme. And I didn't know this when we started the film. I found it on the way, but this is the theme I identified with, and this is the theme so many people identified with, because most

people are backup singers for their life. And in fact, we had a screening early on at the Minneapolis Film Festival and a guy stood up in the Q and A afterwards and said, you know, I just wanted to say I'm the middle manager to software company, and you know, I like what I do, but I don't get all the money or attention in the world. And um, but I'm I just here to say that I feel like I'm a backup singer and I'm happy to be about singer. And the whole crowd applauded, and it was just one

of those moments. You're like another one of those moments where you make a film and you're like, this connected in a way, per found way that I couldn't have predicted when that happens. And this happened a few times. You again, you don't go into films thinking, oh, you know, it's going to make people feel this or do this or change this. You can't play that game when you're making a film. Well, you know, I remember seeing it before the film came out, and it was utterly riveting,

and you knew it was something special. At what point, because you've made a lot of producer and directed a lot of stuff, at what point do you say, wait, this is different, Um, Sundance opening night film. Um, it was kind of the night to change my life because UM to be the opening night film and Sundance one to the women in the film all came. None of them had seen the film, so they're all in the audience. And Gil passed away in December, so Sundances in January.

So we were finishing the film. Gil died, which, um, you know, it was a rather fast illness, and so all of Gil's friends, UM and family came to Sundance to to support So Tom Freston and jan Winner and all these people came to Sundance to support Gil, and you know this was gils. I mean I think a lot of them honestly thought it was Gil's folly for a long time, like, how good luck Gil have documentary

about backup singers? You know, Um, but I know, I mean Gil had said to me and I don't think it's inappropriate to share it that when he was sick in the hospital, he said everybody with cancer should have a documentary they're working on, because I think it really gave him something creative and positive to be thinking about during that time. So I know he was very proud of it. And then so that night, so we screened

the film and it's just electric. I mean, it's the biggest theater there, people there, it's packed, and it's just unbelievable. And the film ends, the women get up on the stage with me and we're all kind of shaking and they're all in tears because they hadn't seen the film, and and uh and they started singing, and it was just unbelievable. I mean, the crowd was, you know, just

you know, completely enthralled. And then we had that classic old school sundance experience where the film ends and it's eleven PM and they say, Okay, now we're gonna stay up all night and sell your film. So we spent the next nine hours traveling from distributor to distributor while they made us offers on our movie, and we sold it at sunrise. So that classic sundance experience, you know, and by morning I was like, Okay, you know, I guess this is how it goes. And what was it

like winning the Oscar? Um? Surreal? Um? It was? I mean it was you know, of course rewarding. And you know, I'm as a lifelong film fanatic. Um. You know, there's no greater validation in that way, you know, whatever you think of the words, and you know, I too can be like, oh words, no matter but um, but it just feels like you can exhale in a way. Um. But the other thing I will say, by far, the

most important outcome of that was that part. You know, Basically before then I was spending sixt of my time raising money to make my movies. Now I spend four percent of my time raising money to make movies. So I can just be so much more productive and so much more creative because of that. You know, whether or not that's valid, I'm the same filmmaker essentially I am now than I was before I won the Oscar. And if they need that validation to one of fund my movies,

I get it. I'm not going to complain about it. You know. So people keep saying, oh, you've been so prolific since the Oscar part of it is I don't have to spend time trying to raise my I could just make things, which is amazing. Where is the Oscar home? Some people keep it in the bathroom, some people put it in a Providence demands home my end I have, UM not to brag. My wife says, you haven't. You have a real ego because I have an Emmy, a Grammy and an Oscar, So I know you got I

keep looking. If anybody out there has a um, you know, Broadway project, I would love to get involved. Okay, then you make the political movie? How does that come to get the Best of Enemies? Um? Again, I mean it's the Best of Enemies is a film about the debates between Corbette and Wayne M. Buckley. They had ABC television during the political conventions. And that again was Robert Gordon, my friend in Memphis, who had a bootleg tape years ago VHS tape that he had gotten of most of

these debates, UM from somebody who was like the doll fanatic. Um. And I watched these debates raw and just thought there's something amazing here, Like I don't know what it is, and I don't know what the story is or where it's going to go, but just in terms of huge characters way M. Buckley and Gore Vidal and huge themes, and I just felt like whatever it was saying was saying something about what's happened to television. And it was one of those great stories that once you start telling it,

it gets better and better. You know, every detail it gets added just gets juicier and juicier. But that was the film we had started making before from Stardom. In the wake of from Stardom, suddenly people said, oh, what else, And we said, well, I have this film Best of Enemies. It's great, we'll finish it. I don't know if I hadn't made start them, if I ever would have gotten the money to finish Best of Enemies, you know, as sad as that is to say. And then how does

Mr Rogers movie come together? That happened because I was, I mean, the real story. I home, um in bed at night on YouTube and somebody had maybe sent me a link of a Mr. Rogers commencement address he had given, and I somehow went down the YouTube rabbit hole of watching more Mr Rogers, particularly speeches and interviews, and as I was hearing it. I just kept feeling like, where's

this voice today? Like what he's saying is exactly what I feel the culture should be hearing right now, this kind of voice of radical kindness and empathy and understanding. And um, and I woke up in the morning and I turned to my wife and I said, I think I need to make a film about Mr. Rogers. And she's a children's librarian, I will say, and she said,

I love that idea. Um. I literally went to the office. UM. I made a couple of calls, and I'd made a film with Yo Yo Maa and his and Yo Yo knew Fred Rogers pretty well and had told me stories about to which was also in the back of my mind. And Yo Yo son is a filmmaker, and I called him and I said, is this crazy to make a film about Fred Rogers? He said, not only is that not crazy, I want to produce it with you. So he's one of my producers. And so we flew to Pittsburgh.

We sat down and I said to them, you know, I'm again not sued to do a Wikipedia version of Fred rodgers life. I want to make a film about ideas. And to me, his ideas are incredibly relevant today. This is not a film about nostalgia. There's a film about the big things he thought fought for. And I think what they responded to was that he was never taken very seriously in his own lifetime. So what we were trying to say, I think was something they felt needed

to be said for a long time. But it was again purely instinctual, like, this is something I want to put out in the world, and I again having no idea how much the world wanted to hear it. I had no idea how big an audience for Mr. Rogers would be. Um well became a phenomenon. What was the what was the ultimate theatrical gross? About three? Yeah? And I have to ask you did some of that fall

to your bottom line? Not yet? Yea? How long it takes for studios to pay well usually I I worked as an attorney on a film that was the second biggest of a year, and it was three years later and the film was still in the negative part position for the profit participants. It's that crazy. It's crazy. I mean, we got a bonus, but but I think the real if if I do see back end, it hasn't happened yet, so we'll see. And we had two great group investors and other people that kind of came in to help

us make that film. Well, what's the budget for a film like that? UM? Just under two? Okay? Yeah, So theoretically, what percent of the film do you the What percentage did you still have? UM? What percentage of the back of the profits? Profit participants? UM? I mean typically equity would control about back end and creative about back end, and then with my producers and team, I shared that back end, so you know, maybe a quarter you know, thank you about Okay. So what are you working on now? Um?

Other than the Shangri Law project? I don't. I hate to say this, but I can't say what I'm working on? Okay, then we will we will go specifics. How many films are you working on right now? I'm not actually making a film at this very moment, but I'm about to work on two projects. And if they go according to plan, they would be ready for the market when one would come out in the one would come out. Okay. So, now that you've had the success, especially in non music areas, UM,

are you personally thinking of broadening from music? Yeah? And my last three films haven't been about music, and um, and I've kind of willfully turned down any music documentaries. Uh, and these next two are not music documentaries. UM. I am interested in music series, and I'm working on some music series, and I've produced some music documentaries and even

back in the day, I produced music documentaries. I produced Pearl Jam twenty for Cameron Crow, and I produced Crossfire Hurricane for The Stones, and UM, you know, I still love music. I think part of it is I just don't want to be Pigeonholed is like the music one of the two best music documentaries ever ever leaving anything you worked on out. I mean, it's funny. Some of my favorite music documentaries are about bands I don't love.

You know, which is great? You know, whether it's UM some kind of Monster or the Metallica film, UM or Um The Devil and Daniel Johnson, UM, all kinds of other interesting ones. UM not Dead yet. Have you ever saw that one? No? I didn't see that one. And not to mention neither the kind of great concert docs Stop making Sense and Last Waltz and things like that. UM. And I watch every single music documentary. I don't think

you could find a music documentary I haven't watched. Okay, Um, I was gonna ask whether you thought certain ones were overrated? But in your viewing time, how much viewing do you take of anything? I still watch at least a hundred documentaries a year. And but how about like Netflix series that are not documentaries? Not that many some? Um, I watch a ton of movies. I mean I watch a ton of documentaries. I watch a lot of movies, old

and new. Um. And then I watched only the very best series like if five people tell me I need to watch it? So have you watched? I just watched Chernobyl? Okay, what do you think? I it was really good? How much you know? How much did you know about Chernobyl going in? Not that much? You know, I wasn't. I was young and not paying that much attention to it at the time. And um, yeah, I really I found it. It got to me. Okay, that was, you know, somewhat documentary.

What other series? Um? You know Fleabag and I loved the new season of Fleabag. Um. You know I love kind of biting Black comedy is one one of my very favorite gears. Um, And I guess by extension and killing Eve I really liked UM, but not that many series. I'm trying to think, you know, it's just the time investment, of course, I mean, but the thing that bothers me. I'm obviously a little older than you was. I remember moving to l a in the seventies and I go

to the movie six nights a week. You could literally see everything and you could know what was going on. The fact that in all culture you can't be comprehensive drives me nuts. Me too. It's like, you know, where's the frame of I have the same disease. You know that there was a long time where I just felt like I had to be culturally conversant in pretty much everything television, movie, music, literature, Like I just had to

be up on everything. And um, I think it was both getting older and having kids that cured me of feeling like I had to do everything because you can't. You know, it's just become this avalanche, never ending avalanche of more culture coming at you. So so now I try. And you know, like I said, when it comes to documentary, I'll watch everything because the good thing about documentary is even a bad documentary, you're going to learn something. I

can't say that about it. One thing. One thing. I five. This is one of the reasons I don't go to theatrical films anymore I have been, is I find I can't slow my mind down enough for that experience. It's like, oh, to watch even last night, to watch, you know, episode of something at eleven o'clock at night, no problem, but like even seven pm, two pm. You know, I said, I'm gonna take a break, but I just it's really hard to slow down, and particularly I think it's harder.

I have a much easier time doing it in the theater, but when you try and watch a movie at home, it's really hard not to double screen, you know, and that's not good for the film or good for you, and I try not to do it. I was just talking to a friend of mine who says she's watching all films with subtitles because it forces her not to double screen. She has to only watch that movie at that time. And you say, you watch docs, you watch new movies. What genre of movies do you watch? Um?

I mean I love independent film and foreign I also have to uh young kids twelve and fourteen, so it means I see every Marvel movie, And um, I'm just not the audience for it, you know, or can you enjoy that? You know? This is a big debate, and I feel like, I mean, seeing a film like Endgame, I actually thought for the Thousand Balls, they had the air on that film. They did an incredibly good job of balancing it in a way that satisfied most people.

You know, incredibly difficult task. I know that as a filmmaker, how difficult that is to do. And a film like thor Ragnarok, you know, has all of that humor in it too, And certain films like that or Spider of the Spider Verse I thought was great just for its kind of experimental attitude. Let's hold that. Because you're talking about your kids, do your kids turn you onto new music?

My kids are not that into music. It's very strange. Um, of course, Like my daughter is obsessed with you know, Queen right now because of them Rhapsody, and we're going to go see them when they come to town next month. And I know it's not the same thing, but whatever. I'm just happy to take her to a concert that she's excited about. Um, But my kids are not. Their

relationship to music is not what my relationship was. Um. I mean I grew up in record stores, devouring as much music as I could get, and to me, it was like my you know, I'm not the first person to say it, it it was kind of my religion. It was like how I found a sense of identity in connection with the world. Um, and music for young people

just doesn't penetrate. It can, but seeing the choices they have, whether it's social media or video games or just YouTube or all of the other things coming at them, it's hard for them to have the the quietude to be able to let music in in the same way. We could go on about that, I'd be a separate podcast. But going back to theatrical films, you know, one of the big stories the last couple of weeks has been Book Smart and its failure in the marketplace. Some people

said it should have been platformed. I starting in a few number of theaters, good gross is press whatever the distributor said, No, no, the word of mouth will happen, which doesn't seem to be happening. Is the theatrical really just for these big budget cartoon movies. Well, again, it depends on expectations. So I went to go see book

Smart this week. Yeah, I loved it. I thought it was great, you know, um, and it's gonna break twenty million and then some which so it's not a failure unless you compare it to Super Bad, and I think it's an unfair comparison. I think all the people that were saying, um, it was it should have done that kind of box office were just misreading the tea leaves because not only was Super Bad ten years ago in a very different theatrical space, but you know, there are

no big names playing prominently in the film. Um, it's a first time director. Yes, she's well known, but it's some harder slog to get that film sold. I personally probably would have platformed it more if I was the distributor, because I think it's an excellent word of mouth film and opening it not many theaters, I think a couple of I think that was shooting very high. Um, because it is a great, great film. Um, and it's my wife and I went it was a great date night film.

You know, it was the future of that type of film, anything other than the uh special effects, you know, Marvel type film. Is that really the flat screen? It's hard to know again, you know, if you asked me two years ago I probably said yes. Then I put out a documentary that nobody thought would doing, ring that grows more than twenty million dollars about a guy who was

on TV, you know, decades ago. Um. So what I do think in a certain way, I mean, what the reason I think people went to the movie theater to go see Won't You Be My Neighbor was that they wanted a communal experience, And what Mr Rogers was about was the neighborhood and kind of community. And in many ways the film is like a secular sermon, so it plays better if you're watching with other people. I heard many people say that there was spontaneous hugging between strangers

at the end of screenings in the theaters. That's either creepy or great however you look at it. So um, but stuff like that makes me happy. So I feel like whenever I whenever you want to close the coffin on theatrical small theatrical films, Um, something happens and something unexpected happens, and something new comes out of it. So not dead yet, I would say, is is what I

would classify it as. Um, But it's certainly not what it was, you know, in terms of I mean the real thing I think is the mid level films that cost million dollars to make. Um, the kind of adult dramas and comedies that just don't get made in the same way anymore. They've all those stories have migrated to television essentially. Okay, So you have twenty or thirty years left to make movies, maybe a little bit more if your career kept on this thing and you kept on

making documentaries. Are you happy or is there some big yet unful old dream. Um, I'm happy. You know. It's funny because people still will come up and say, oh, well, when you're gonna make a real movie. So I've been making movies for twenty years, um, and you know I love scripted movies, and I've flirted with different projects that haven't happened, and um, and one may happen and it would be fun, you know, it'd be a fun challenge. But my day job is documentary and it's always gonna

be documentary. I mean, that same sensation I had two weeks into making my first documentary, where I knew it was my life's calling has not changed, and that, in a way gives me great comfort because it means whatever I'm into at whatever age I can make a film about it and learn about it and it will fulfill me. Let's just go back because a lot of this the audience for this podcast is people who are into music.

How do you feel about today's music? I'm I have a much harder time being into music in the way I was into it before because that you were the music. It's hard for me to judge. Um, I'm not gonna push you on it. No, I don't. I mean, I listened to plenty of music, but I feel like my relationship, I gave so much of my life to music that I'm kind of Um, it just took up so much my life that I feel like I'm on sabbatical. You know. When I come back and find a new artists I love,

It's great. Um, but it kind of ebbs and flows. So you're a cultural vulture. And even though you do not comprehensive like you used to be, you still you know there's a smugger's board of stuff that you partake of. For my audience, can you recommend two things that they're unaware of? Music, movies, books, documentaries that they really should check out? Um? Sure, Can I think about this for a minute. Uh, well, you know, I didn't mean to put you on the snow. I know, because I want

to give the best answer problems. Like in the New York Times book review, they say, you know what's on your nightstand when there's no way in hell those books around the nightstand. It's like they just want to look good for the audience who is looking at that. So, I mean, like the last film I made I loved Um, I mean or film I saw that I loved, I mean Book Smart. I would certainly recommend UM, and I've been I signed up for the Criterion Channel. They have

their news streaming service. Highly recommend the Criterion streaming service. As a real ciny asked, you know, I love the chance to be able to just go back into that and supporting those types of films and making sure we can still see those types of films too. What are a couple that you would recommend? And this is just you know, on the channel in general. Um, I've been going through a Cassavettis phase, which has been interesting. So

what's your favorite Cassavettis um Chinese bookie? Really? Yeah, mine's Woman under the Influence. I think he really nails how the you know, Peter Flack has no idea what's went on with his wife, and his wife is really I just found the juxtaposition really good. Yeah, and they know there's something about that time period too, and you know a lot of Los Angeles and some of that stuff too, But I just really respond to um. So yeah, in

a way, I end up going backwards more than anything. Well, the movies were different with a great thing about a movie and whether it's certainly better to theatrical experience, is that it shuts out the rest of the world, and when done well, you're immersed. I want that experience, you know, you want an experience where you don't want to check your phone, you don't want to look at your watch. Yeah, that is like the best review you can get. Check

my phone once, you know which I aspired to. Okay Morgan, this has been wonderful. The audience will look forward to your Rick Ruben project. Thanks so much for being on the podcast. Talking to you until next time. This is Bob left Sets