Our Great National Parks is a beautiful five-part Netflix documentary series that invites viewers to experience nature in the world’s most iconic national parks. Today on the podcast, my guests are executive producer James Honeyborne and series producer Sophie Todd. James Honeyborne is the creative director of Freeborne Media, having previously worked as an executive producer at the BBC Natural History Unit where he oversaw some 35 films, including Blue Planet II. Sophie Todd works on everything from high-end natural history films, to science and observational documentary, most recently writing, directing and series producing on Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive To Survive.

In this conversation, James, Sophie and I discuss the vast amount of research, planning, and scripting that went into this series, how they managed a global production team during the peak of the pandemic, and why natural history documentaries are so important when it comes to illustrating how interconnected we all are with the natural world and animals around us.

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Vera Krichevskaya is a documentary filmmaker from Russia who co-founded TV Dozhd (TV Rain), which is the only independent private television channel in Russia. Her most recent documentary titled “Fuck This Job,” is an incredibly timely story that documents the ten-year journey of that television station that made it one of the top media targets of Putin’s government.

In this conversation, Vera and I discuss what it’s like to be an independent documentary filmmaker in Russia, what happened when the war broke out right before her film’s premiere in Russia, and the value of independent news and documentaries in a just society.

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The Oscars are coming up on March 27, 2022. To preview the documentary feature category I am joined this week by IndieWire’s editor-at-large, Anne Thompson. In this episode we talk about each of the nominated documentaries, reflect on the snubs that missed out on the big show (I see you, The Rescue and The First Wave), and give our predictions on what documentary will take home the Academy Award.

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This week on the show my guest is Luc Forsyth, a cinematographer from Canada who has worked on films for Netflix, National Geographic, HBO, Showtime, ESPN, and many more.

In this conversation Luc and I discuss the lessons he learned as a photojournalist that have helped him develop as a cinematographer, how to think about investing in gear and networking as an up and coming DP, and how he covers a scene as both a single operator versus working on larger production teams.

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Hope you all are getting out there and creating stories! Thanks for listening <3

Dawn Porter is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has appeared on HBO, PBS, Discovery, and Netflix among others. She has had two feature documentaries premiere this year — John Lewis: Good Trouble and The Way I See It.

Good Trouble explores late Congressman John Lewis’ pivotal role in the Civil Rights movement and decades of political and social activism on important issues including voting rights, immigration laws, and much more. The Way I See It is about photojournalist Pete Souza, who served as Chief Official White House photographer for President Barack Obama and previously as an Official White House photographer for President Ronald Reagan.

In this conversation, Dawn and I discuss the overlapping themes and unique storytelling challenges of these two movies, creative ways of managing production during covid, and tips she has for aspiring documentary filmmakers.

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On today’s episode I sit down with the team behind the hit Netflix documentary, and one of my personal favorite films of the year, My Octopus Teacher. Co-directors Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed, as well as cinematographer Roger Horrocks, take us behind the scenes and under the water to reveal how they crafted this incredibly moving story about a filmmaker’s unlikely connection with an octopus.

Pippa Ehrlich, based in South Africa, is a natural history filmmaker and award-winning environmental journalist, specializing in the field of marine science and conservation.

James Reed, based in the UK, is the founder of Underdog Films and has directed and produced documentaries and natural history features for Disney, Netflix, and the BBC.

Roger Horrocks is a world renowned wildlife cinematographer, having worked on Our Planet, winning a BAFTA for outstanding cinematography for Blue Planet 2, and is currently working on BBC’s Planet Earth 3.

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The Sea Change Project

Jeff Orlowski is the director of the newly released Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, which explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations. He also served as director, producer, and cinematographer of the Sundance Award-Winning and Oscar short listed films, Chasing Ice and Chasing Coral.

In this conversation, Jeff and I discuss where he got the idea to make The Social Dilemma, why his team decided to use the unique stylistic choices of dramatizations and animations, and the process of taking a ton of disjointed interviews on broad/complex topics and weaving them together to create one of the most talked about documentaries of the year.

LINKS:

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Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss are co-directors of the newly released documentary, Boys State, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Grand Jury Prize. The film, which is now streaming on Apple TV+, is a political coming-of-age story, examining the health of American democracy through an unusual experiment: a thousand 17-year-old boys from across the state of Texas gather together to build a representative government from the ground up. High-minded ideals collide with low-down dirty tricks as four boys of diverse backgrounds and political views navigate the challenges of organizing political parties, shaping consensus, and campaigning for the highest office at Texas Boys State—governor.

In this episode, Jesse, Amanda and I discuss how they came up with the idea to make a documentary about Texas Boys State, the unique challenges of filming a feature length doc in the course of one week, and why a verité documentary like this is such an effective tool for holding a mirror up to our political system and divided country.

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Tayo Amos is a director and filmmaker from the Bay Area now currently living in Los Angeles. After double majoring at Stanford, Tayo went on to earn her MFA in Film Production at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, where she focused on Directing. She is the winner of USC’s First Look Faculty Award for Excellence in Directing, and her thesis film, “On The Clock” screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

In this conversation Tayo and I discuss her experience and key takeaways from USC film school, what qualities make a good director, and how recent events in our country around race and diversity are pushing our respective movie industries to take a good hard look in the mirror.

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My guest today is Devin Concannon, who was one of 4 editors on ESPN’s mega-hit 10 part documentary series, The Last Dance. The Last Dance revolves around the career of Michael Jordan, with a particular focus on his last season with the Chicago Bulls. The project itself is a beast of an endeavor.. we’re talking 10 episodes, over 100 interviews, and according to director Jason Hehir, 10,000 hours of footage to sift through: that includes every game from every main character they had and every news report that had been done on them, both nationally and internationally. The Last Dance averaged 5.65 million viewers across all 10 episodes when they premiered on Sunday nights over the course of five weeks in April and May — making it the most-watched ESPN documentary of all time.

How do you go from 10,000 hours of footage to a 10 hour series? I turned to editor Devin Concannon to ask that question and many more. Devin is an editor based out of New York City. An NYU Film School graduate, Devin edited Rest In Power: The Trayvon Martin Story and Fyre Fraud, about the infamous Fyre Festival, before joining The Last Dance Team.

I hope you enjoy the conversation!

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Meena Harris is a lawyer, activist, and the founder of the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, a female-powered organization that brings awareness to intersectional social causes. And now Meena is also an author, with her new children’s book titled Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea, set to debut on June 2nd. The book is based on a true story from the childhood of Meena’s mom, Maya Harris, and aunt, Kamala Harris. In it, two sisters make a difference in their community by dreaming big, organizing across diverse groups, and fighting for what they believe in. Senator Elizabeth Warren calls it “A must read for little girls around the world.” And Stacy Abrams says the book is “An inspiring tale.”

In this conversation, Meena and I talk about the creative process of writing her first children’s book, the impact of diverse representation in children’s books, and how stories shape our identities from a young age.

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