EP055 - Chief Emotions Officer w/ Alisa Payne

EP055 - Chief Emotions Officer w/ Alisa Payne

Alisa Payne cannot be stopped… certainly not by a little rain. When the downpour chases us indoors, we're lucky enough to post up in a cozy podcast studio at Austin Public—the public-access station where, Alex Jones got his start—and the home to the Austin Film Society Documentary Intensive, where the Oscar-nominated producer is serving as a mentor. You may know Alisa as the producer behind Geeta Gandbhir's body-cam-footage based, 'Stand Your Ground' Netflix doc THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR. But it's just one (important) stop of a dynamic career that took "20 years to be an overnight success." Flashback to the late 90s when young Alisa, a recent biochem grad quit the lab to chase Queen Latifah, presenting 500 petitions that convinced one queen to hire another. From that point on it's been nonstop. Alisa made her name as a producer, showrunner, and a production company co-founder known for her focus on pushing the documentary form. Check out STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING with Roger Ross Williams (that wasn't exactly THE MANDALORIAN); BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME, an ambitious production at the terrifying height of COVID; and KATRINA: COME HELL AND HIGH WATER with Spike Lee, Samantha Knowles and future business partner, Sam Pollard. Alisa makes the case for the producer as "chief emotions officer"—and her role as the parent of everyone in the credits. What does that mean? Shielding directors from notes, restoring the historical record when journalism can't be trusted, and making film more equitable in front of and behind the camera—those are just some of her responsibilities. This one's full of energetic wisdom and stories of production mishaps and their solutions, including: a tension-building bodega showdown over some purloined PPE fronted by one tough producer on a mission, because Alisa Payne will not be stopped! Plus, we take a swing through the AFS Doc Intensive and meet the fellows and mentors that Alisa and Keith have been Intensive-ing with; And Alisa shares her passion for Brooklyn birding & identifying birdsong. Ben's not quite there yet, but Keith's happy to bird-up the podcast any chance he gets. DISCUSSION LINKS: TRUE STORIES (1986) [https://www.criterion.com/films/29038-true-stories] | WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE (2006) [https://www.hbomax.com/shows/when-the-levees-broke-a-requiem-in-four-acts/0efe1317-8a8e-413f-b66c-ee87672012f9] | THE MANDALORIAN (2019) [https://www.disneyplus.com/browse/entity-422f6dcc-226f-44e7-98d4-22de69b31cf3] | BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME (2020) [https://www.hbomax.com/movies/between-the-world-and-me/db726bb8-8a45-44f9-bf72-01fa55161c7f] | DEAR MR. BRODY (2022) [https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/dear-mr-brody/umc.cmc.2dht2zwxe5d1gkvyzse3kv3m1] | STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING (2023) [https://www.netflix.com/title/81321341] | KATRINA: COME HELL AND HIGH WATER (2025) [https://www.netflix.com/title/81676595] | LISTERS: A GLIMPSE INTO EXTREME BIRDWATCHING (2025) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-wAqplQAo] | THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (2025) [https://www.netflix.com/title/82018736?trackId=259776131&trkId=259776131&src=tudum] | WHO MOVES AMERICA (2026) [https://www.whomovesamerica.com/] | UNTITLED FLACO DOCUMENTARY (TBD) [https://www.indiewire.com/news/breaking-news/penny-lane-owl-flaco-hbo-documentary-1235100939/] TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 No jumping right in: banter and transactional meetings 02:00 Rainy day, no walk: Brooklyn birds, FLACO, and the Merlin app 03:30 Two dipshits talking about birds (the pilot that wasn't) 04:30 Meet Alisa Payne + a tour of Austin Public 05:30 Inside the AFS Doc Intensive: four projects, the mentors 07:00 Studio two and the Alex Jones lore 08:00 Shooting DEAR MR. BRODY eight blocks from home 09:00 STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING and the Mandalorian dream 10:30 COVID, a snowstorm, and the ceiling that caved in 11:30 "It wasn't the Mandalorian" 12:00 THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR: Oscar nod, Sundance, Stand Your Ground 14:00 Pushing the form with body-cam footage 15:00 Biochemistry to film: chasing Queen Latifah 17:30 500 petitions and getting hired 19:00 Wear black on set / "keep wearing your colors" 21:00 First doc: Harlem gentrification and Mart 125 22:30 BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME: showrunning at COVID's peak 26:00 Edit drives in the mailbox at 5 a.m. 27:00 Brooklyn Tech floor plans for HBO 31:00 Hazmat on a Harlem walk-up — and the PPE heist 33:30 "You remind me of my mother" 35:00 Producing as mothering: the chief emotions officer 37:00 The director–producer partnership 39:00 The notes she never passes along 40:00 Her fingerprints: the PERFECT NEIGHBOR drone shot 41:00 KATRINA: COME HELL AND HIGH WATER and holding the POV 43:00 A seat at the table: restoring the historical record 45:00 Lightning round: WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE as the gateway 47:00 Advice for emerging filmmakers: be yourself 48:00 Back in the room: Doc Days, Holly Herrick, and the cohort

EP054 - Stories Are Everywhere w/ Pete Muller

We duck inside for the first time ever — into the Blanton Museum of Art, because it's pouring in Austin and Pete Muller had the brilliant idea to bring our show into a gallery. Pete is the National Geographic photographer behind BUCKS HARBOR, his five-years-in-the-making debut feature about lobster fishermen in Downeast Maine, premiering at Berlinale and playing Doc Days at the Austin Film Society. We wander past Jacob Lawrence and Andrew Wyeth and Jerry Bywaters' OIL FIELD GIRLS while Pete walks us through the family that made him: his grandfather Leon Kelly (one of the pioneers of American surrealism), his art-conservator father (who once paid him to spit into a beaker so he could clean centuries-old paintings), and the paternity bombshell in his twenties that preceded his career embedded in conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East. We dig into BUCKS HARBOR's sea critter metaphors, the editor Noel Paul who shaped hundreds of hours with a special structure, the Hiss Golden Messenger song that lands just as it's needed, and Pete's gentle insistence that "fly on the wall" is a lie — the camera is always doing something. Plus: the most admissible form of male feeling and why art belongs to everyone (no whispering required). DISCUSSION LINKS: BUCKS HARBOR (2026) [https://www.berlinale.de/en/2026/programme/202604750.html] | THE FEARLESS FREAKS (2005) [https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0GYYO8D151HTS7SMZ4TPUPCW1R] | BOMBAY BEACH (2011) [https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/bombay-beach] TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Whispering into the Blanton — our first indoor episode 01:00 Jacob Lawrence and the Great Migration 03:00 Andrew Wyeth's SEA LEGS, painting the same people for decades 06:00 Pete's grandfather Leon Kelly — American surrealism 08:00 Crescent Fellowship, Paris 1925, André Breton 11:00 Why Pete won't call himself an artist 13:00 Mom the nighttime newspaper photographer in Lynn, MA 14:00 Dad the art conservator (and the beaker of spit) 17:00 Making art about practical, rough-and-tumble people 20:00 Thomas Hart Benton, folk + high-brow, painting on board 25:00 OIL FIELD GIRLS by Jerry Bywaters 28:00 How BUCKS HARBOR began — five years in Downeast Maine 29:00 The paternity reveal that sent Pete chasing masculinity 32:00 Cross-cultural masculinity from Sudan to New England 34:00 Anger as the only admissible male feeling 38:00 Dave's teeth, Mark's drag — lobsters molt, men molt 42:00 Mark the lobster-trap-maker as 50,000-follower TikTok star 45:00 Bill Viola, Alice Neel, Deborah Roberts 50:00 Editor Noel Paul, hundreds of hours, four-and-a-half years filming 53:00 Nathan Golden on cinematography, a shared visual language 55:00 What does "directing" a documentary even mean 58:00 Why "fly on the wall" is a lie 01:02 Festival run: Berlinale → True/False → Doc Days → Margaret Mead → Seattle 01:03 Score by Nikolai Hess + Hiss Golden Messenger end credits 01:06 Bombay Beach as inspiration 01:07 Advice: keep it cheap and close

EP053 - I'm No Good on My Own w/ Bradley Jackson

Ben walks Glassell Park in L.A. with Bradley Jackson—screenwriter, novelist, and the documentary writer/producer behind FACING NOLAN, DEALT, MILLI VANILLI, and the Showtime sports-betting docuseries ACTION. Bradley leads Ben up his neighborhood hill as he details exactly how he ended up in a "premium economy" English castle filming a bisexual British aristocrat for his very first doc—and why he never left doc-making behind. Bradley lays out his role as creative-producer in his partnerships with director (& future DocWalks guest) Luke Korem. We dig into doc storytelling and why structure is the only lever a doc filmmaker really controls. And he shares some b.t.s. on what it took to inspire Nolan Ryan's family to trust him with the Hall of Famer's legacy. Ben's in heaven with all this baseball talk—Bradley's got a take on Pete Rose, and we learn why a fastball that "rises" is the most American story ever told. A teamplayer at heart, Bradley admits he's a B-minus alone, but an A-plus with collaborators—a working theory he applies to writing partners, doc partners, and the kid-juggling-bills life of a working filmmaker post-pandemic. He explains the L.A. before/after split (zero in-person meetings in a year), how he wrote his INTRAMURAL screenplay at 6:45 a.m. before clocking in at a Texas edtech job, and why your first draft is always the scrambling of a madman. Plus: REQUIEM FOR A DREAM as a deeply unexpected gateway drug for a guy who writes comedies and baseball docs, Bill Hader as a too-intimidating dream collaborator, and Mike Schur as the better-looking, more successful 4.0 version of himself. This one's a walk-and-talk for filmmakers who juggle, rewrite, and trust that life is funnier than anything they could make up. DISCUSSION LINKS: REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000) [https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/641-requiem-for-a-dream/watch?locale=US] | WINNEBAGO MAN (2010) [https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/42918-winnebago-man/watch?locale=US] | INTRAMURAL (2014) [https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/263913-balls-out/watch?locale=US] | DEALT (2017) [https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/438440-dealt/watch?locale=US] | BARRY (2018) [https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/73107-barry/watch?locale=US] | ACTION (2019) [https://www.amazon.com/Action-Season-1/dp/B07PVW3D6N] | THE LAST DANCE (2020) [https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/79525-the-last-dance/watch?locale=US] | FACING NOLAN (2022) [https://www.facingnolan.com/] | MILLI VANILLI (2023) [https://www.paramountplus.com/movies/video/RyBU_xBfU0NhkIZRN5y_UMWs1Iu0HDdb/] | MEGALOPOLIS (2024) [https://www.megalopolis.movie/] | MEGADOC (2025) [https://megadoc.utopia.film/] TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Glassell Park walk and stepping into the future 00:35 The finer Steiner: Ben's sister and Compass Learning 01:30 WINNEBAGO MAN at the Alamo Drafthouse standby line 04:30 Screenwriter, novelist, or filmmaker? 06:30 First doc gig: a London castle and a British aristocrat 08:30 "Don't belong here" as a feature, not a bug 09:30 Randy Johnson, the Big Unit, and the Mariana Trench 10:10 Griffith Park, the observatory, and the ridge 12:00 Story structure is the doc filmmaker's only lever 14:30 From creative producer to director 15:30 Central characters and intoxicating worlds 18:30 DEALT, the blind magician, and the knife-throwing dog 21:30 FACING NOLAN: who's my Texas Michael Jordan? 29:30 The plumber-pitcher pipeline to Nolan's family 33:00 13 months from first day of shooting to picture-lock 37:00 Pete Rose, the 4,000th hit, and the pre-interview cram 38:30 The fastball that "rises" and a 27-season anomaly 40:30 Failure as the working filmmaker's baseline 41:30 Why Bradley is B-minus alone, A-plus with partners 43:00 INTRAMURAL, Kate McKinnon, and Austin to LA 43:30 Pandemic split and the death of the in-person LA meeting 46:30 Lightning round: REQUIEM FOR A DREAM as a gateway drug 48:00 Advice: write every day, draft 14 is the real draft 50:30 The thing he can't stop thinking about: a new baby 51:30 MEGALOPOLIS, MEGADOC, and Coppola yarns 52:30 Dream collaborator: Duplass Brothers, Bill Hader, Mike Schur 54:30 Where to watch FACING NOLAN and MILLI VANILLI

EP052 - Make Bad Art w/ Jena Friedman

Let's get into the tragic side of comedy with documentarian, comedian, and Academy Award–nominated screenwriter Jena Friedman. The BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM co-writer is in town for the Moontower Comedy Festival to perform her hour-long stand-up about her mother's death. Two minutes in and we're deep into the grief, as the former DAILY SHOW correspondent talks about editing her own SundanceTV true-crime show, while pregnant, and dealing with her mother's illness and death. Jena and Keith have something in common—Keith lost his father 25 years ago—and she asks probing questions about his relationship with his dad, before and after his passing. She describes how her mom became her biggest career champion right when work was busiest, why grief comedy is "exposure therapy," and how a half-page Austin Chronicle headline once dubbed her THE MUSE OF MEDIOCRITY. (Her counter: "Mediocrity is my muse.") We dig into INDEFENSIBLE, her two-season SundanceTV true-crime show that nobody really wanted made, and Adult Swim's SOFT FOCUS WITH JENA FRIEDMAN, where she disarmed John McAfee in his own living room. Jena makes the case for bad art in the AI era: if your work isn't optimizable enough for the robots to scrape, then you're free. We talk THE REHEARSAL, the crepe myrtle as paint-by-numbers tree, why DocWalks badly needs a drone sponsorship, and how "improv was my rosebud". We squeeze a whole lot into this rambling, lakeside chat then grab a cortado at Revolution Coffee before Jena heads to the Paramount Theatre to perform. Then it's back to work on her EPSTEIN FILES BOOK CLUB podcast and heading home to her son. Plus: Letterman in 2011, Keith wielding two cams, how criticism can feel like a hug from mom, our shared affection for Kahane Corn Cooperman, and the power of pennies that show up exactly when you need them. DISCUSSION LINKS: NOT FUNNY (2023) [https://www.amazon.com/Not-Funny-Essays-Comedy-Culture/dp/1982178280] | SOFT FOCUS WITH JENA FRIEDMAN (2018) [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQl8zBB7bPvJI-KcrtWP8B8GAJvT-EQgF] | INDEFENSIBLE (2021) [https://www.amcplus.com/shows/true-crime-story-indefensible--1043481] | BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM (2020) [https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0H3D1IZ6BXXZESU8IM8ITTTB2C] | THE REHEARSAL (2022) [https://www.hbomax.com/shows/rehearsal/609d8b4c-f0a6-4a5d-b9d3-bb0f2e207efb] | WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S (1989) [https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/weekend-at-bernies/umc.cmc.5aeud5da34g608pyj5457zy2x] | EPSTEIN FILES BOOK CLUB [https://open.spotify.com/embed/show/3mgRG6QKs88Zy10FSvEkFI] (2026) | THE JOKES AI WON'T TELL - TED TALK (2025) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ5Kuowfc4g] TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro and Moontower setup 01:00 Crossing at Fifth & Trinity — who is Jena Friedman? 03:00 NOT FUNNY: an hour about losing her mom 06:00 SOFT FOCUS, John McAfee, allegedly dead 08:00 The 180-degree rule (we don't care) 10:00 Lady Bird Lake, rowing pheromones 12:00 Improv as the gateway drug 13:00 EPSTEIN FILES BOOK CLUB podcast 14:00 The crepe myrtle as paint-by-numbers 17:00 Six weeks, third trimester, the worst show 21:00 Keith's dad, 25 years gone 23:00 Pennies on the ground 26:00 Coffee break, lightning round 27:00 The BORAT NDA + Pregnancy Crisis Center 30:00 Bad art is the future 33:00 Letterman 2011 was already dead inside 34:00 INDEFENSIBLE on Sundance TV 36:00 The Daily Show as film school 38:00 Tonight at the Paramount, comments as hugs

EP051 - Terrified Of Cheese w/ Bryan Storkel

We walk South by Southwest with director Bryan Storkel—HOLY ROLLERS, THE LEGEND OF COCAINE ISLAND, THE PEZ OUTLAW, ALABAMA SNAKE—in town to premiere I GOT BOMBED AT HARVEY'S, his new feature about the man who built a thousand-pound bomb and walked it into a Lake Tahoe casino in 1980. Keith's on vacation, so it's just Ben and Bryan, two directors aiming cameras at each other ("this is like a Beastie Boys video"). Ben's catcher finger is wrecked from yesterday's Sandlot game. Bryan's been on a pickleball tear in LA. We dig into how Bryan keeps making so many films—a Ken Griffey Jr. doc that fell apart the night before his first interview with Sir Mix-A-Lot, the AMC anthology TRUE CRIME STORY: SMUGSHOT (umbrella: "crimes of entitlement"), and a Hulk Hogan series now released to acclaim for Netflix. We trace his exodus from Oral Roberts University through HOLY ROLLERS (card-counting Christian pastors), FIGHT CHURCH (cage-fighting pastors), and ALABAMA SNAKE (the Pentecostal who tried to kill his wife with a rattlesnake)—each film quietly walking him further out of the faith he grew up in. The reenactment talk is the heart of it. Bryan walks us through the COCAINE ISLAND / PEZ OUTLAW method—cast the actual subject in their own reenactments, build a scripted-feeling rough cut from a documentary edit, then shoot the recreations like a narrative. The secret: be terrified the whole time it'll be cheesy. "That terror is the thing that makes it good." HARVEY'S, he tells us, snuck up on him as a father-son story underneath the heist. Plus: an annual dog-on-a-table photoshoot ambushes the walk, the empathy-machine theory of documentary, and why every prolific filmmaker should learn to edit first. DISCUSSION LINKS: AMERICAN MOVIE (1999) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181288/] | OKIE NOODLING (2001) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0294805/] | HOME MOVIE (2001) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275408/] | SUMMERCAMP! (2006) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808487/] | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1396557/] | HOLY ROLLERS (2011) [https://www.netflix.com/title/70237101] | LITTLE HOPE WAS ARSON (2013) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2549138/] | FIGHT CHURCH (2014) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2118623/] | THE BATTERED BASTARDS OF BASEBALL (2014) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3445270/] | NOBODY SPEAK: TRIALS OF THE FREE PRESS (2017) [https://www.netflix.com/title/80168227] | CASTING JONBENET (2017) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6333052/] | THE LEGEND OF COCAINE ISLAND (2018) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8106596/] | ALABAMA SNAKE (2020) [https://www.hbomax.com/movies/alabama-snake/a54bdea1-2176-48c1-ace8-ce64e3cf31ad] | THE PEZ OUTLAW (2022) [https://www.netflix.com/title/81641996] | THE SAINT OF SECOND CHANCES (2023) [https://www.netflix.com/title/81476121] | DICKWEED (2024) [https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/dickweed-a-smugshot-special/umc.cmc.1a95kz4sj9oysbxrr9h55khsy] | I GOT BOMBED AT HARVEY'S (2026) [https://schedule.sxsw.com/2026/films/2249927] TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Cold open — two directors, one Sandlot finger 01:00 The Ken Griffey Jr. doc that fell through 02:00 THE BATTERED BASTARDS OF BASEBALL & THE SAINT OF SECOND CHANCES 04:00 Solo walk intro — Keith's on vacation 04:30 Premiering I GOT BOMBED AT HARVEY'S at SXSW 06:00 Theo Love, Amy Bandlien Storkel, and the long road to a feature 09:00 Why Bryan is so prolific — SMUGSHOT, Hulk Hogan, FLORIDA MAN 11:00 Sidestilt — the Norwegian word for juxtapose 13:30 Born in Seattle, Oral Roberts in Tulsa 14:30 First docs: HOLY ROLLERS, FIGHT CHURCH, LITTLE HOPE WAS ARSON 17:00 ALABAMA SNAKE and the exit from Christianity 19:00 Documentary as empathy machine 20:30 Hulk Hogan — separating Terry from the performer 22:00 The unreleased Kid Rock doc 26:30 Zilker Park, Barton Springs, the Austin pitch 28:00 The HARVEY'S premiere and the "kitschy" review 29:00 Reenactments — terror as creative engine 31:00 Casting the real subjects (Steve Glew, Cocaine Island) 33:30 An annual dog-on-a-table photoshoot 36:00 Steve Glew's beard test, hotel hallway, duffel of Pez 37:30 The CASTING JONBENET trick on a Smugshot episode 40:00 HARVEY'S as a father-son story 42:00 Lightning round — gateway docs at SXSW 44:00 Best advice: learn to edit 45:30 Pickleball, two teenage daughters