Documentary Panel Discussion | Variety Virtual FYC TV Fest: The Nominees 2024

Variety
Variety
  • 3 weeks ago
Documentary - Moderated by Emily Longeretta
Andrew Jarecki - Director, Executive Producer, Writer, The Jinx: Part Two
Morgan Neville - Director, Producer, "STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces"
Mary Robertson - Executive Producer and Director, "Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV"
Emma Schwartz - Co-Executive Producer and Director, "Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV"
Justin Wilkes - Producer, "Jim Henson Idea Man"
Transcript
00:00Hi, everyone, and welcome to today's documentary panel.
00:08I'm Emily Longoretta, the Senior TV Features Editor at Variety, and I'm very excited to
00:12introduce this talented group of people and talk about their projects.
00:16We have Andrew Jarecki, the Director, Executive Producer, and Writer of The Jinx Part 2.
00:22Morgan Neville, Director and Producer of Steve Martin, a documentary in two pieces.
00:27Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz, Executive Producer and Directors of Quiet on Set, The
00:32Dark Side of Kids TV.
00:34And Justin Wilkes, Producer of Jim Henson, Idea Man.
00:37Thank you guys all so much for being here today.
00:41I kind of want to start out a little bit general here and ask what made you guys want to become
00:50documentarians and really talk about people, tell people's stories and where that kind
00:55of came from.
00:57So anyone who wants to start, Morgan, I think maybe I want to start with you.
01:03It's funny.
01:04I mean, it's a long, long story and a short story.
01:06I mean, the gist of it is the two things I always loved as a kid were, you know, movies
01:12and writing.
01:16And when I was in college and out of college, movies seemed too frivolous and writing seemed
01:22serious.
01:23And I was a young, you know, serious journalist.
01:27And I love journalism, but it kind of never occurred to me that there was a way to put
01:32them together until I started my first documentary, which was 32 years ago, I started my first
01:39documentary.
01:41And I remember sending my parents a note two weeks into starting my first documentary saying,
01:46oh, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life.
01:48Like I instantly knew that documentary was kind of all these different things I liked,
01:54the storytelling, the writing, the research, the interviewing, you know, all of it, the
01:59visual part of it, the emotional part of it, the musical part of it, and putting it all
02:04together in one thing.
02:06Wow.
02:07Okay.
02:08Justin, how about you?
02:10For me, I just love storytelling and I love the movies.
02:13And I had posters on my wall of some of the people that I now get to work with, like Ron
02:17Howard and Brian Grazer and even Jim Henson.
02:19And to be honest with you, I didn't really know or appreciate that documentaries were
02:23a thing.
02:24And then I sort of saw three things around the same time.
02:26One was some of the early Jacques Cousteau.
02:30It was a TV series, but it was his whole like under the sea series.
02:34And then I saw D.A.
02:35Patty Baker's Don't Look Back.
02:36And around the same time, I saw Berlinger and Sinofsky's Brother's Keeper.
02:40And I was like, I didn't even know this was a way that you could tell stories.
02:44Each one was different.
02:45Each one was wonderful.
02:46And each one was was magical.
02:48And then from that point on, I was I was just hooked.
02:50Telling stories about real people just brought so much relevance and inspiration to my life.
02:56And I figured this is a this is a great form to work with, work in.
02:59Yeah.
03:00Andrew?
03:01First of all, I think I'm just I'm very curious person.
03:08So I feel like when I get into a conversation with somebody like at a dinner party, it's
03:12usually the two of us are sitting there like long after the people left.
03:16And people are like, I think you've spoken for a long time.
03:19You might want to talk to somebody else.
03:20So I get I think I get really engaged in conversation.
03:25And it's and it's there's something about being able to do a long form interview with
03:33somebody where it's not just the conversation.
03:36There's also something else that kind of starts flowing in the conversation.
03:40I think it's the there's a certain level of like, I don't know, safety or sort of even
03:47hypnosis that happens to both parties.
03:50And you both kind of go into this very deep realm.
03:53And there's something really appealing about that.
03:56I also the reason I got, I guess, fixated on documentaries, because I had made different
04:01kinds of films before, is I hadn't made a film for a while.
04:07And then I thought, well, let me just get back into it.
04:09And I'm going to start working on a documentary that's going to be about a very simple bite
04:13size subject, that'll be funny, and perhaps a little dark.
04:17So I started working on a film about professional children's birthday party entertainers in
04:22New York City, which was this very quirky little group of the population.
04:27And they all called each other by their stage names, like their clown names, and like Silly
04:32Billy was best friends with Princess Priscilla.
04:35And when they had like a relationship problem, they went to Professor Putter.
04:39And I just thought, well, these guys are kind of interesting.
04:42Let me get into this.
04:43And then of course, as I started working on it, I discovered that one of the main characters
04:47I've been talking to Silly Billy, who was like New York's number one birthday party
04:52entertainer, had this secret story.
04:55And then that suddenly I was going down that rabbit hole, and that became this film capturing
04:59the Freedmen's.
05:00So it was just part of it is you get addicted, I think, to the surprises.
05:06And if you're really, really listening closely, you will find surprises.
05:11Sometimes you're lucky, and you find really, really fascinating ones.
05:14But that's something that really drew me.
05:16Yeah.
05:17All right, Mary, you're up.
05:20I think it was Errol Morris's Gates of Heaven that first compelled me towards documentary.
05:28I think like my colleagues here, I grew up as a student of the arts, and a lover of the
05:35arts, and a lover of the written expression, and photography, and cinema.
05:39When I saw Gates of Heaven, I understood that documentary could be more than staid, that
05:46the form could be really alive, and that it could create space for truths that were really
05:52complicated.
05:55And I was studying film at the time in college, and from there on out, I said, I really need
06:00to be pursuing documentary.
06:02And then soon after that, I really fell in love with the work of the early Maisels, and
06:08D.A. Pennybaker.
06:09And out of college, I ended up working as an office manager for the Maisels.
06:14And actually, Andrew, I remember when I was working as an office manager at the Maisels,
06:18I remember you walking in periodically to visit Al Maisels and tell him about your clown
06:23film.
06:25That's true.
06:26I remember that.
06:27It was the building with Studio 54 on the ground floor, and then you guys had that incredible
06:33loft that had looked like it had been there for a million years.
06:36And he was really a very, very big influence on me in a lot of ways.
06:40Yeah.
06:41The most generous filmmaker I've ever met.
06:45Great spirit.
06:46And I feel very lucky that I've been able to work in this field for over 20 years.
06:52And over the course of the last 10 years, have really found my way towards expressions
06:58that really marry serious journalism and explicitly narrative works.
07:05And that's a lot of what we've tried to do with Quiet on Set.
07:08My co-director, Emma.
07:11Well, I think storytelling in some form was always something I knew I wanted to get into.
07:17And maybe I actually started as a journalist, as a print reporter.
07:21I think maybe like Morgan, I thought writers were more serious.
07:24But somewhere along the line, I picked up a camera, I started watching more documentaries,
07:30and I felt like I'd always wanted to tell stories in depth, right?
07:34And in the documentary form, you really got to sort of feel the people, be closer to them,
07:38and sort of tell that with an authenticity that you couldn't really write your way out
07:42of.
07:43And, you know, as I started to do that, I knew this was the form that I wanted to sort
07:47of continue that storytelling in.
07:50Okay.
07:51I want to, I think so interesting, when I was kind of prepping for this, I was realizing
07:55that all of you tell this during, in such, tell your stories in such different ways and
08:00in such different formats, where versus, you know, five episodes versus two parts versus,
08:06you know, a full film versus six episodes.
08:09So I want to talk a little about that and how you use that ability as storytelling.
08:13Is that something that comes early?
08:14Or is that something that comes later that you start thinking, we want to split this
08:18up into a certain amount of episodes or hours or however that is.
08:22And for anyone who kind of wants to talk about this first, I think it's just a very interesting
08:25way to kind of dive into the process.
08:28I'll jump in.
08:31I'll jump in just because, you know, I just did Steve in two parts, which I've never done
08:37a two part project before.
08:41This guy was getting people so happy.
08:44I always thought this just does not happen.
08:47And it did.
08:50He's the most idolized comedian ever.
08:54He reinvented stand up.
08:57It was a cultural phenomenon.
08:59Good evening and welcome.
09:00My name is Steve Martin.
09:02Steve Martin.
09:03Yes.
09:04Sometimes you, you've sold something you're thinking of it in a certain way.
09:09And there are certain, you know, reasons that may dictate that it's a film versus a
09:15series, though, you try not to do that.
09:17But in this case, I was incredibly fortunate that, you know, when I started it, I started
09:23it with age 24.
09:24And they said, just figure out what it is.
09:26So I worked on it for six months before I knew what it was.
09:30And that whole time, what I was getting from working with Steve was, I was getting two
09:36different directions.
09:37I was getting deep into who he was this isolated, you know, artist trying to kind of performance
09:44artist figuring out who he was and how he kind of almost accidentally became, you know,
09:50the biggest stand up of his generation.
09:52And then the guy I met who was so different from that person and spending time with him
09:57and filming with him in his life.
09:59And I just thought, well, what if I made two different films, which is kind of what I ended
10:04up doing in a very extreme way, to the point where I didn't let my editors look at the
10:09other film until they had finished their cuts.
10:13So I, that, to me was an experiment, which you don't always get the kind of the time
10:19and the money to be able to do that.
10:22But you know, I did, I think all of us would probably say it's always best if those decisions
10:28come out of the creative whenever they can.
10:31That's what was true with Henson.
10:32And hello there.
10:33My name is Jim Henson and I'm a puppeteer.
10:37Sesame Street, the Muppets, Dark Crystal, Labyrinth.
10:44Jim created out of innocence.
10:46He showed people the good in all of us.
10:49Ron, unfortunately, couldn't join us because he's finishing up his narrative feature right
10:53now in Australia.
10:55But his whole MO was as we were getting into the Henson archive.
10:58And I think one of the things that neither of us had appreciated was that Jim, before
11:02he got into Muppets, was an experimental filmmaker.
11:05You know, he was very into stop motion animation.
11:07He would make little movies about his kids, like home movies, but they were all shot in
11:11a very stylistic way.
11:12He really sort of innovated this syncopated editing.
11:16So early on, Ron thought, well, we should make the doc feel like it's Jim telling his
11:21story. Or like, how would Jim want to tell his own story?
11:25So if you see it, we use a lot of those same techniques with stop motion animation and
11:28syncopated editing. And I think somewhere because of that, we also felt like there was
11:33a very natural beginning, middle and sort of, unfortunately, untimely ending to his
11:38story that sort of fit naturally into a three act structure.
11:41And so feature just became, I think, early on what we had we had gone for.
11:46Yeah, we had, should I say, we had.
11:50But I guess this happens on pretty much everything I worked on, you start out with this
11:56massive rough cut and certainly with The Jinx, you know, I had just made a feature about
12:03Robert Durst and then he called me out of the blue to say, hey, I read this article in
12:07New York Times saying that you made this movie about me.
12:09I'd love to see it. And then he and I got together.
12:12I showed it to him and then he called me.
12:14He said, I'd like the movie very much.
12:17I'd like to be involved in some way.
12:19And then it was clear we were making something else.
12:21The Jinx is a six part HBO documentary series.
12:24It details a case of real estate heir, Robert Durst.
12:28The director promises tonight's final installment will answer questions people have been
12:33asking for decades.
12:35As The Jinx aired, Bob and I spoke after every episode.
12:40He was very nervous.
12:43And then I shot like I didn't know what we were making.
12:46I just knew that the guy that I just made a movie about was interested in talking and
12:50he was a guy I'd never spoken about any of the three murders he had been accused of,
12:54et cetera. And so I thought, well, let me just start shooting this interview.
12:58And we shot maybe 21 hours of me asking him every question that I had been asking
13:03myself for the years when I was making the first film.
13:06And finally, we had this material and
13:11started stringing together this what was going to be kind of a comprehensive
13:15story of of his life.
13:18And it was five and a half hours long and we'd try to trim
13:23it back and we'd say, all right, we'll get this thing down to two hours.
13:25And then, you know, we'd cut something out and somebody would say, wait, wasn't he?
13:30Didn't he get married again after he killed his first wife?
13:33And I said, well, yeah, he did get married.
13:35And they'd be like, I can't not see that woman.
13:38Like who marries a guy after he kills his first wife?
13:41Like she seems like she's pretty important.
13:43So every time we had an excuse to cut something, we sort of realized it was going to
13:47damage the story. And at the time, there really weren't documentary
13:52series like that that were six parts.
13:53The last one had been, you know, the last significant one for me had been this
13:58staircase and it had been a long time.
14:00And we thought, well, maybe it's time for there to be something that's five or six
14:04parts. So we just went on the blackboard and started sketching out what would this
14:08look like if we gave each of these their own their own time, if we gave
14:12enough time to each of these essential parts of the story.
14:15And then it just really flowed.
14:16It was obvious just on the blackboard that a lot of the things that we were struggling
14:20with were going to change and that there was reason to do it.
14:23You know, you don't just want to you're not like Dickens getting paid by the word.
14:27You're not trying to make the thing long.
14:29You're trying to make things short.
14:30But some stories punch you in the face and say, sorry, I'm not doing that.
14:34Well, Mary. Yeah. Mary and Emma, please, because I know that your process was a little
14:37bit different. Sure.
14:39When we began Quiet On Set, we were commissioned to create a three part series for
14:45Investigation Discovery.
14:47And it was three parts because we understood there was an epic quality that the story
14:51would span decades. We were looking, of course, at Dan Schneider's oeuvre, the era in
14:55which he was kingmaker and Nickelodeon, and that spanned years and years and would
14:59hopefully encompass and include the voices of many.
15:02But it was three parts.
15:03Working for Dan was like being in an abusive relationship.
15:09Dan's treatment of people on your shows was an open secret.
15:13So my lawyer filed complaints, gender discrimination, hostile work environment,
15:18harassment. And it was so devastating.
15:20How safe can any kids be in that environment?
15:24After months and months of really sensitive conversation with Drake Bell, my
15:30colleague, Emma, was leading those conversations.
15:36And after months and months and months of those conversations, he decided that he
15:39wanted to share his story for the very first time on Quiet On Set.
15:44And at that point, we worked with our partners at ID and we said this should be four
15:49hours, right? This Drake story should stand almost alone.
15:54His father, of course, also participated and we should add another hour to this
15:59endeavor. And then in the in the days and weeks after, but really days after the
16:04broadcast and the premiere, when it became clear that the public was really engaging
16:09with the project in this dynamic and passionate way, when questions were swirling,
16:16we decided to create a fifth episode that would allow the audience to really engage
16:20quickly with the questions that were swirling around the series.
16:23Yeah, definitely.
16:25Emma, did you want to add anything to that?
16:28No, I think it was it was an evolution in some ways.
16:30That's, you know, I think what all of us experience in this project is that the stories
16:35evolve and we try to evolve the form with it.
16:37Yeah, absolutely. I mean, while all of these are such you guys are all telling such
16:41different stories and some very dark and some very light, I think there's something
16:46that fascinates me about any documentary I watch is that the amount of story you fit
16:52in. But there's also so much story that's left on the cutting room floor.
16:56I think that they're all of these people that you guys examine are fascinating in
17:00different ways. And I can't imagine the struggle of deciding what ends up you do have
17:06to cut. I mean, of course, like I mean, we got to see the second wife, but what if we
17:11didn't? So I think there's there's definitely a lot of that.
17:13So I'm curious how how much is it decisions ahead of time that change along the way of
17:20who and what is actually specifically targeted?
17:23Or is it kind of kind of have to start with a clean slate and see what happens?
17:29We screen a lot, you know, so we have and certainly in the jinx, you know, part two of
17:35the jinx was such it was also such a sweeping story.
17:38And it was like, you know, nine years worth of stuff.
17:41And we had been shooting the whole time.
17:43And so a big part of that was making a list of all the people that we trusted and then
17:49some random people like, you know, my kids, friends or people that we just know are smart
17:53viewers and getting them packed into a screening room early and swearing them to
17:59secrecy because the thing was in the middle of a trial and all that stuff.
18:02And then, you know, you get 20 people to see it the first time and then you keep
18:07screening over and over and over.
18:09And if you're lucky, you know, you end up with like nine people by episode six who've
18:14seen all the prior episodes because otherwise you're not really getting a good read.
18:18So you're just winnowing down this little group of really smarties to try to give you
18:23the best feedback you can get.
18:24But by the end, you're like begging people like, what if I send you a car to pick you
18:28up so you can because there's like nobody left because you started out with this big
18:31group. But the great thing is, you know, they people will give you these incredible
18:36responses like you'll put something in that you think is important.
18:40And I remember a friend of ours who who was, you know, an editor just said, no, yeah, I
18:45got that. That was kind of it was great.
18:47It was like a remnant.
18:49And we're just like, oh, my God, that's out like it was just it was we were just nervous
18:54about anything that didn't feel like it was incredibly central to the story.
18:58And luckily, the audience, if you screen and you try to pick good people to watch it, you
19:02will really get that feedback.
19:04Yeah, but Ron does the same thing, which which drives his editor nuts.
19:09And he does this both on his documentaries and as well as his narrative film.
19:13Within, you know, six weeks of an editor being in a room, he'll want to throw the string
19:18out of whatever it is up on the screen and then invite an audience in to just to just
19:22take it apart. And this is like Ron Howard standing there in front of an audience like,
19:26what do you think of this?
19:27What's missing here? We're all in the back just like, you know, pulling our hair out.
19:32And there's other filmmakers I work with who, you know, they won't show anybody until
19:36it's absolutely fully baked in their mind and then and then ready to go.
19:40But through that process, and as Andrew was saying, like it becomes iterative and you
19:44start to see in the service of the story, do you need this scene or how can we move
19:48from here to here faster?
19:50And I remember on Henson in particular, there's because there's so much archive.
19:54Jim was one of these people.
19:55He shot everything in addition to his home movies.
19:57He always had cameras running.
19:59And at a certain point, believe it or not, seeing the behind the scenes of Jim and Frank
20:03literally creating Bert and Ernie, I hate to say it, like we put as much of that in the
20:08film as I think narratively you could get away with.
20:11But there was so much more that didn't make it in there.
20:14That's that's equally, you know, a gem.
20:15So it's just figuring out what's the best way to move the story, you know, move the
20:20story forward. I would watch hours of that.
20:24There's plenty. There's plenty.
20:27Morgan, what about you? Because I'd imagine.
20:29Yeah, I mean, I feel like I, you know, I absolutely screen my my cuts, my films for
20:37trusted people and then other people, you know, and I want them to rip it apart.
20:42You know, that's the whole idea.
20:44I think, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago, I I kind of flipped the way I worked in going
20:53from the kind of like massive edit, you know, the four hour edit that becomes a three hour
20:59edit becomes a two hour edit.
21:01And I said, well, what if I just start making the scenes that I think are essential and
21:08I'll build all those first?
21:10And then I put that together on the first time I did that.
21:13And it worked great.
21:16And I now I kind of I do that.
21:19I kind of build a skeleton first and then I try and stick things on it and see how much
21:27you can sustain.
21:28So it it actually has been really interesting.
21:32And really, you know, I think I've become way more brutal on my cuts, you know, way
21:37less precious about things, you know, and of course, as when you're young, you know,
21:42you you're thinking, oh, God, all the effort it took to shoot this whole thing or to get
21:47this thing.
21:48And we're just going to cut it like now I don't even blink at that stuff.
21:51It's like I remember how difficult that was.
21:53But now kill it, kill it, you know, right away.
21:57So, you know, maybe that's just something I picked up along the way.
22:02But I, I kind of like this idea of starting with what you really want to say, because
22:09it keeps your intention front of mind.
22:12Because I think a lot of times when you're just sifting and sifting through everything,
22:16you know, you get seduced by things, you know, the shiny new object or the whatever, when
22:20you're editing, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, like, what do you want to say with each
22:24scene and start there and then build from that?
22:28Yeah.
22:30Emma and Mary, do you guys want to talk a little about that?
22:34Well, I always sort of joke, you know, we write out a treatment where you think this
22:37is like how you're going to tell your story, you know, based on talking to people, knowing
22:41people, especially when you're doing stories, which are so much in the past, which I guess
22:45I've been doing a lot lately.
22:46And I always sort of will go back and look at that after we finish.
22:50And inevitably, it's like, completely wrong, right?
22:54So I say that's a preface that you go in with the best of intentions of knowing exactly
22:59what every story should stand to or why you're using it.
23:02And I think, you know, half the time, if I'm right, half the time, I feel pretty good.
23:05And then I think sometimes you realize that something that sounded really good or that
23:09you thought was really poignant in an interview really doesn't land on screen or that three
23:13people told the same kind of story.
23:15And you really only need that story once.
23:17And so it's a process.
23:20But I definitely think that you want to sort of start with a structure and then kind of
23:25you pick that apart as you go forward, as you learn new things.
23:29And I guess one thing about the kind of work I think I've tended to do is when it's more
23:33investigative in nature or you're dealing with, you know, uncovering things, people
23:38are going to be in and out of your process.
23:40They're going to say they want to do it and they're going to be out or they're going to
23:42get afraid.
23:43And then you have to figure out what do you actually have access to to tell that part
23:46of a story.
23:47And so it's like, do you have the archive?
23:51How can you use it?
23:52You know, all those sorts of questions.
23:53I'm very proud that our group of all women editors, this amazing group of talented women
24:00were nominated for an Emmy for their editing this year on this project as well, too.
24:05I think, you know, what I'm hearing from my colleagues and what is an opinion I absolutely
24:10share is that it's of critical importance to surround yourself with the smartest people
24:13you know, to hire the smartest people you know, the most seasoned and intelligent people
24:17you know, and to engage often with perspectives that, you know, are beyond your own and often
24:26come at some remove.
24:27I had a not to quote a film professor, but I had a film professor in college who said
24:32that the process of editing is losing objectivity through time.
24:36And certainly that's the case.
24:38And there's enormous value in bringing in others who will say, you know, to Andrew's
24:41point, that's a remnant.
24:43I also think to Morgan's point, that the longer you do this, and, you know, I know
24:48we all might look like we're 30, but we've all been at it for a long time.
24:52The longer you do it, the more I think you come to really trust your own instincts and
24:57develop a very, I think, kicking, quick and keen sense of where you lose attention, where
25:04you are losing focus.
25:06And the longer I've done this, the more I've learned to really listen to that inner voice
25:10that's saying, I want to check my phone right now.
25:15I want to check my phone right now, then maybe that's a remnant, to borrow Andrew's
25:19phrase again.
25:20And maybe we should cut that piece out.
25:22Yeah.
25:23Morgan, I appreciate what you said about maturing over time and getting tougher about
25:27editorial choice.
25:28And I'm wondering if you have any other advice for, you know, much younger filmmakers
25:31like myself.
25:38You know, it's interesting.
25:40Yeah.
25:43Well, I mean, there are so many different things, but I think, you know, a lot of what
25:48you were saying, Emma, resonates with me, which is, you know, when you start making
25:53a film, you know, often you kind of put together a treatment or something.
25:56And I always say, you know, it's like drawing a map to a place you haven't been, you know,
26:00and the last thing you want to do is hang on to what you thought the film was going
26:04to be.
26:05Actually, Al Maisel said one of my all time favorite quotes, that if you end up making
26:10the film you set out to make, then you weren't listening along the way.
26:13You know, and I think about that all the time, because our job is to listen.
26:17You know, our job is to be curious.
26:19Our job is to discover things.
26:20So, you know, I often think when I find myself telling somebody, telling my wife or telling
26:27somebody about something that happened, even if it seems very fringy to what the story
26:31might be, now I know maybe that should be in the film.
26:34You know, that thing that feels like it's off over here, you know, if I find myself
26:39telling people about it, then, you know, maybe it should find its way into the film.
26:44So I think just trying to hold things loosely in that way, as much as we all kind of know
26:50the direction we're going, we're trying, you know, the sense of discovery, I think
26:55is still huge to for all of us, you know, and, you know, and, and, and that's the thing
27:03that makes these films a lot, you know, that's kind of what we're doing, too.
27:06It's like, we're, we're trying to capture the randomness of real life in a way, and
27:16put it into a form that is watchable.
27:18But, you know, this is all messy.
27:20It's what is so great about documentaries, you know, there's so much gray in it.
27:24And, you know, it's what it's why I love this form for storytelling more than anything,
27:32because we get into the nooks and crannies of human nature in a way that very few other
27:37people get the time and to really dig into.
27:41Yeah, I tell you, can I say one, one nasal story?
27:46So when I started making when I started making capturing the fragments, the first thing I was
27:50going to do before I knew what it was, was I was going to go out and shoot people who
27:54are professional birthday party clowns and magicians doing parties like on Park Avenue,
27:58it just was like a very goofy thing to do.
28:01And I was really nervous about doing it for some reason.
28:04And I hadn't made a film in a long time.
28:05And, and, and Al said, well, you know, well, what have you shot?
28:10And I said, well, nothing.
28:12And he's wait, you haven't shot anything.
28:13I said, no.
28:14And he's like, well, who's going to shoot it for you?
28:16I said, I don't know.
28:17And he said, well, I'll do it.
28:20And I was like, oh, great, legendary cinematographer of all time.
28:24Sure, let's do that.
28:26And he's like, just meet me in front of the Dakota on Saturday morning.
28:29We're going to go shoot some clowns.
28:31And I go out there.
28:33And then he meets me in front of the in front of the in front of his building.
28:36And I pull up in this rented car.
28:39And I'm standing on my side of the car.
28:41And he walks across with his white chalk of hair and his awesome glasses.
28:44And his eyes are huge.
28:45And and he looks at me.
28:47And he could tell that I was nervous.
28:49And he just walks around to my side of the car.
28:53And he leans up really close to my face.
28:56And I can see his eyes are enormous.
28:58And he holds his hand out.
28:59He takes my upper arm.
29:01And he leans in and he says, well, we're going to get our feet wet.
29:06And then he went around.
29:07And I almost started to cry when he said it because it was such a release.
29:11And he had he had heard me and he had understood my nervousness in that moment.
29:16And he was like, this is going to be a great day.
29:18And you're going to be OK.
29:19And you're going to be starting to make your film.
29:21Won't that be a wonderful thing?
29:22But he was kind of incredible like that.
29:25He really knew how to engage in that way.
29:27Whether it's a subject of a film or somebody that he was mentoring.
29:30So I could tell an Al adjacent story.
29:33If you love the Maisels like so many of us do, then you love Susan Frumke, too,
29:37who is one of the powerful engines who made that operation run for so long.
29:45And speaking of great editors and great editing,
29:47she came up through the edits working with Charlotte Zwerin and Muffy Meyer.
29:51And she understood that that's where films were made.
29:55So often I asked her at a certain point if she would.
29:58When I was an office manager, I said, can I attend your film school?
30:01Will you once a week give me a little lesson?
30:04And she humored me.
30:06And her first lesson was that beginnings of films are really hard,
30:12that they're really, really, really hard.
30:14And of course, she told the story about how when they were making Grey Gardens,
30:19they edited for two years.
30:22You can imagine, particularly with that film,
30:24there was so much invention and reinvention that was necessary.
30:27But I think, and Emma's probably heard me say it 10 times,
30:29I always think to this day about how beginnings of films are so hard.
30:33It is always a truth for me.
30:36You need to give the thing momentum.
30:38You need to give the thing propulsion.
30:39You need to provide exposition in the most graceful manner possible.
30:44Do it all with artistry and efficiency.
30:49Well, I know we're about to wrap,
30:51but I want to just quickly ask each of you,
30:55what was it during filming that you either did remind yourself of
31:00to stay sane and stay focused during this process,
31:03or wish you, or toward the end, knew that you should be reminding yourself of?
31:07What was that little pep talk in your head that you needed to keep telling yourself
31:10to keep going in this process?
31:11Because I know even the more fun topics like Jim Henson and like Steve,
31:16it can still get a bit heavy.
31:17So what was that kind of quick little bite that you guys kept in your head?
31:21Emma, do you want to start?
31:23Oh, yeah, because it was a little heavy.
31:24Yeah.
31:27Look, a lot of what I also do is,
31:29I have strong relationships with the people who participate in the project.
31:33And, you know, it's sort of like I have a certain responsibility to them.
31:36So when I'm like frustrated, or like exhausted,
31:38or getting a call at 1130 at night because someone's panicked,
31:42like, I know it's not just about me.
31:44It's about all the people who've stepped forward.
31:46And so, like, in all of my moments of frustration,
31:49I know I can't walk away because I'm in this sort of spiderweb
31:53that's going to emerge.
31:56Mary?
31:58I'll just finish Emma's analogy.
32:00I agree with everything Emma said.
32:02Emma really did an incredible job building and maintaining relationships
32:07with all of our contributors.
32:10And Emma, you talk about the spiderweb.
32:12And I think we hope that eventually, you know,
32:15there's a, I don't know,
32:17there's a butterfly that emerges from the chrysalis somehow in there.
32:24And I think about the commitments and the promises
32:28that we've made to anyone who lent their time
32:31and their energy to our project contributors,
32:35and our many, many teammates and colleagues.
32:39And, you know, wanting to ultimately do right by them.
32:43Yeah.
32:44Justin, how about you?
32:46I think for us, it was looking at Jim and looking at his creative output.
32:51And while he didn't have a premonition that he was going to die young
32:55in any way, shape, or form,
32:57he had this just constant engine, internal engine of,
33:01he had to keep creating.
33:02He had this sort of insatiable curiosity.
33:05And even in the moments, and there were, like any artist,
33:08moments of struggle trying to first get his ideas out there,
33:12first trying to launch a Muppet show,
33:14which took decades before that came to fruition.
33:16When he finally got into feature film,
33:18something he'd always wanted to do,
33:20it wasn't just a walk in the park for him,
33:22and he had some failure with that too.
33:23He always kept it fun.
33:25And for someone who worked around the clock
33:27and was flying everywhere,
33:29and, you know, doing all the things,
33:30versions of all the things we do as producers and directors,
33:34he would just bring a levity to everything.
33:35And when you hear so many people in the archive,
33:37and even present day interviews,
33:39just talk about what Jim meant to them,
33:41it all came from that place of,
33:43he would just light up a room.
33:45He would just make you smile,
33:46even if it was one in the morning
33:47and we were still trying to get the shot.
33:48And we just always took that advice
33:51because it's easy to get grumpy
33:53when you're working around the clock,
33:55and it's easy to get grumpy
33:56when you're up against a deadline,
33:58and then you see what he was able to create,
34:01and just the beauty of that,
34:02and all the people he was able to inspire.
34:03There was a lot of inspiration from that.
34:05Absolutely.
34:07All right, Andrew?
34:09I think the North Star for me was always
34:14the McCormick family.
34:15You know, Bob Durst had killed his wife in 1982,
34:18and she was an incredible person.
34:20She was sort of the center of that family.
34:24She was this ambitious young woman
34:27who was like, just everything that he wasn't.
34:31And I think she had that feeling
34:33like she was gonna fix him,
34:34and that, you know, he was like this far away
34:37from being a good person,
34:38which I think he kind of was.
34:40And that optimism and beauty
34:44was something that was always with me.
34:45And then when I went and visited very early on,
34:48you know, this is now 20 years ago,
34:50when I visited her brother and her niece,
34:53who looks exactly like her,
34:55and started talking to them,
34:56I realized how destroyed that family had been,
34:59and yet they still had each other
35:02in a way that the Durst family never did.
35:04You know, the Durst family has billions of dollars
35:07and they're at each other's throats.
35:09They can't stand each other.
35:11And here you have the McCormick family
35:13who are living this very modest life
35:16and have struggled a lot
35:17with losing such an important part of their family.
35:20And yet they're optimistic
35:21and they're meeting with me,
35:22and they're talking about keeping the porch light on
35:24for Kathy and why it's so important to work on the film
35:27because they don't want people to forget her.
35:29So for me, it was always just thinking about,
35:32you know, what would they do
35:33and what would they want me to do?
35:34And do they want me to give up
35:35on trying to call some witness 400 times
35:38who's saying they don't want to do it or whatever?
35:40And, you know, it just kind of raises
35:42the standard of care on what you're doing, I think,
35:45and inspires you to keep doing it when it's hard.
35:48Absolutely. All right, Morgan.
35:50Last one, not the least.
35:52Okay. I mean, something we're all talking about
35:54is the relationships that come with doing this work,
35:57you know, and part of it is you have to show up,
36:01like really show up, emotionally show up,
36:03be there for it.
36:04And in a film like with Steve Martin,
36:07you know, often with many of these people,
36:09you know, you end up in these almost kind of
36:10paratherapeutic relationships
36:13where they're sharing the most important things
36:16in their life with you and trusting you with them.
36:19But I think a lot of it actually goes both ways.
36:22And we don't often talk about
36:25kind of autobiography in our films or any of that.
36:28But I think I see so much of what I think about
36:34and deal with in my own life reflected
36:37in the choices I make and the films I make
36:39and the way I make them, you know,
36:42issues people are going through
36:44and how I want to handle those
36:46and how I want to be treated and, you know,
36:48mistakes I've made.
36:49And so in a way, you know, I feel like with Steve,
36:54it was in a way, I think a lot of what he was working
36:58through were things I've worked through in my own life, too.
37:01So in that way, it really feels like a two-way street.
37:06It's not just taking from us filmmakers.
37:08I think it's sharing, too.
37:10It's such a beautiful note to end on.
37:13Thank you all so much for being here
37:15and congratulations.
37:16Good luck.
37:18Thanks, guys.