Working through his production company, Taublieb Films, Paul Taublieb is an award-winning producer and director of documentaries, feature films and creative-driven action sports events and content. Paul Taublieb is the director, writer, and producer of the Emmy Award winning film, "Unchained: The Untold Story of Freestyle Motocross" (Netflix, 2016), as well as the creative director and producer of the Emmy Award winning ESPN 30 for 30 film, "Hawaiian: The Legend of Eddie Aikau,"(2013). He is also the producer of the feature film, "The Vow,"(2012) starring Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams which grossed almost $200mil at the box office, and the producer and director of "Big Wave Hellman," a documentary reality series about big wave surfing for ABC and ESPN (2014).

Paul Taublieb is also a leader in action sports events and programming, having worked as one of the creators of the ESPN X Games for whom he produced live content and in depth athlete features. Also for the youth market, Taublieb produces, directs and writes viral videos including a number for MTV star Rob Dyrdek with millions of organic views, as well as the ground breaking soccer viral video featuring the top soccer freestyle athlete which received over 15 million views, and Paul also serves as content consultant and producer for Monster Energy and has produced and directed short form branded content for companies including Activision/Call of Duty and Carl's Jr., among others.

Paul develops, writes and produces commercials for traditional broadcast and on line media for top brands utilizing his unique approach to sound design. He is also the producer and creative director of the feature, "Fastest"(2011) about MotoGP racing, distributed by Universal Pictures. He is the producer, co-director and co-writer of multiple-award winning documentary, "The Lost Wave,"(2007) and producer of long-form, dramatic television movies for Showtime, CBS and USA Networks including the award-winning anti-slavery film, "Enslavement: The True Story of Fanny Kemble"(2000) winner of the Literacy in Media Award (2001) for Showtime. Paul produced "TORC Off-Road Racing"(2009) for ABC and ESPN, and created and produced the OP Boat Trip Challenge for Fox, among numerous other productions.

Based in Malibu, CA, TAUBLIEB Films is an award-winning production company and creative agency whose work includes theatrical films and feature documentaries, televisions series and shows, viral videos and :30 commercials.

Productions include the Emmy Award-winning Netflix Documentary “UNCHAINED: the Untold Story of Freestyle Motocross” (written, produced and directed by Paul Taublieb, Susan Cooper executive producer), the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, “Hawaiian: The Legend of Eddie Aikau,” the theatrical film, “The Vow” ($200 million worldwide gross), the feature documentary, “FASTEST” about MotoGP racing, television shows and series like “Big Wave Hellmen,” “X Games,” “Monza Rally,” and “World of X Games,” and numerous viral videos with multi-million views starring Rob Dyrdek, Wee Man and the 100 million-plus viewed “Abuelo Memo” soccer spoof, along with videos for other global brands, and serving as the branded content agency for Monster Energy Drink.

In addition, the company has recently launched TAUBLIEB Post, a state-of-the-art editing facility offering turn-key editorial, sound-design and delivery of projects at any level, overseen by the TAUBLIEB Films’ creative team.  TAUBLIEB Films also offers event production and is a founding partner in the groundbreaking scoring system.

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 8:08 AMThere are those who dream. Those who strive to climb higher swim deeper and Venture further than the rest. Here they come stand back and watch as they Inspire the human race by living a DaVinci life. How's it going today? Be good. Where are you based? Where am I talking to you from Mid-Hudson Valley? Just about two hours. North of New York City. No, the are you in New York originally? Oh yeah, really worried about born in Brooklyn. Grew up in Long Island. Nice. Very nice. Of course, morning from Montauk, or closer to the city. I grew up in Great Neck, actually, but I spent a lot of time in Montauk is to go out there surfing quite a bit. It's a nice place where I love ya your Malibu now, what's excuse me? I'm in Malibu Malibu Malibu a place called Point Dume in Malibu, nice. I rather be in Malibu right now than this in New York, but I do not up States. Very nice. Beautiful area. Yeah, it is, it is, it definitely is, I'm going to Travelers so this covid crap has been really been rather annoying grounding everybody. But yeah, you make the best of it. So how's things out in Malibu though, with with everything we're dealing with. Um, I guess I can't complain too much, you know, but it's been difficult. I also had traveled a lot over the years. I usually do hundred twenty-five, hundred fifty thousand miles a year, but I've actually kind of adapted pretty nicely about getting on the planes all the time and I can't. Yeah, it's so terrible. You know, that's one thing I have to say to it once you get past that that that grounded feeling it's not too bad. Wake up in the morning and realize you don't have to you know fly the other side of the planet or something like that. I just went to Mexico on a trip. This past week has got back Saturday and I just forgot about airports and customs and all that stuff. So wasn't too bad though. What would the much different than normal? I just say it's mellower. Everybody's everybody's a little less people. So that makes it like everything little bit quieter. That's cool. So thanks a lot for thanks. A lot for coming on the show quality. Really, really appreciate it. Love your word. Love your work.

Time was watching Unchained last night, right? In fact, what? What a great? What a great film. The thing I really like. I had Robbie Maddison on last week. So I'm kind of kind of in the modem mode right now and I really like the fact that, you know, you always see the glory of what these guys do and you don't see the Falls, you don't see the personal lives and just what they have to go against the Other side of the Glamour and man, these guys put up with some brutal beatings to do what they do. Yeah. One of the things that people want to talk, talk about this project and go. Oh, so you did this piece about these crazy guys who just do crazy stuff and I said, well, they're really not crazy. I mean, it's very methodical. It is the theme of the movie. If there is one is sort of, if you fall down, get back up. And these guys do that, and there's a comment in the movie. I think dr. G. The doctor says, you know, you don't

See we see them and I'm having this sort of epiphany at the time. You know, I was working at X Games and all that and you know, they it's like, they're like a toy that you think of the make like a toy coming out of a box, they're all shiny. They have their motorcycles and their fancy outfits and they go to these crazy tricks. Then you accept, you know, if you didn't know better, you sort of disappear for a year and then they come back at X Games and along the way, all you don't see what they go through. The amount of pain, the amount of struggle, and they don't just go do a trick and throw them. Ourselves in the air willy-nilly. It is now there is a quality of it. That certainly is, you know. So there's a point we just have to say, I'm going to go for it, and they do. Yeah. But it's not crazy. Daredevil nutjobs kind of things how it's perceived and in fact. Yeah, people who don't know, the sport of freestyle Motocross, you saw the movie, The screenings we had when it was on the circuit and everything people who didn't know, are by far the best audiences because they just, you know, they had never seen back.

Lips and they couldn't believe what they were doing and they couldn't believe how You know, these guys, what they would go through to get back on the bike. Yeah. And that was my initial reaction. You know, I remember with Robbie Maddison. The first thing I saw was the ski jump, when he jumped at that, gigantic ski jump. And first reaction was this guy's nuts out of his mind. Then you see them all the other things he does. And it's wait a minute, this this guy, he knows exactly what he's doing, right? He's he's right on the And yet, yeah, there's got to be a little nuts in there anyway, but, yeah, it's not all that. There's definitely a deeper reason for showing Schumann as well. The base jumper, I just interviewed and again with them it wasn't just like a this time going to Drennan junkie who likes to jump off of buildings and bridges is definitely a deeper part to it. And actually I have a question I have for you with that is I know you really love surfing and done some Fantastic Four. Reductions on surfing, that's obviously dangerous sport as well. And I'm assuming to, they're not the Adrenaline Junkies, what's the deeper reason to feel a lot of servers, as well as yourself as a surfer get from doing well, I think surfing and I thought a lot about I didn't really have when I was in Mexico, as you sir from last week, it was a big swell. I flew down to writing you know, roughly 10 foot waves, it's at its surface kind of different. Surfing is More about the sense of danger than actual risk. There's a very few serious injuries and Vic, not no deaths, but almost no deaths in surfing given the number of people in a given day, like this past weekend, there was a the same as well. I surfed in Mexico came from the Southern Hemisphere and then came up to me to California and there was probably tens of thousands of surfers all along the coast of California over the weekend. A lot of and covid is because unfortunately fast service. You don't More Surfers as brought out. A lot of people. It's an activity a lot of people do but I didn't hear about anybody getting serious to get a hurt nobody died. And you had all these people doing it, think about surfing is because we as humans are not really designed to be in the water your fear level in the water. Makes it feel more dangerous than it really is because few instinctual is my pet Theory. Your instincts, really designed, as soon as you're underwater, you're dreading the moment. You go into water. You've begun to Drowning process if you don't want to preview. And then

Is when you reach the end of that process. So your body reacts very quickly to I'm underwater I'm panicking you know something's going to go wrong. So I think surfing has the feeling of now at the large scale level which I've also moved the production right now. In fact I have a 20-minute documentary dropping on Wednesday or Thursday the 28th Jeopardy that is gone outside TV online chronicling the past five, five different surface stories of this past winter. You know, then you start getting into a much more serious. Arius, you know, dilemma about waves and the risk factors a lot higher. But even then, the number of people who died is really, really small given. Is it just turns out that human body is actually able to take an incredible amount of punishment? Anything that happened in surfing in big ways that completely change. The dynamic was probably now going on 10 years ago eight to ten years ago. A surfer named Shane Dorian and I did a little documentary on this. He was out surfing at Mavericks a place where two people have

Sighs. So it's a very dangerous spot, there's some certain characteristics of that wave that makes the particular dangerous. So he gets he wipes out, he's pushed down 40, 50 feet, he's beginning to go really. He's now deep in the drowning process, he says he's inhaling water and he's having a gag reflex and he has, what's called the dreaded to waive? Hold down. It's one thing when you get hit, by a way, when driven down and you come up, but if you get driven down and you don't get up in time for another breath, for the next wave you can meet and that's really how you Die. Because you become so he said, he was laying on the bottom of the ocean of Northern California. It's freezing cold. He's dreaming of his kids. He goes, why am I doing? This is crazy at this point, you've already established himself and he gets on the airplane to fly home and he notices the stewardess puts on the life, vest, right? You've seen it many times, it says, no, the event of a water landing, which by the way, is very funny phrase. There's no such thing as a landing in the water. There's another word for that and she does, you know, instead of a water landing, you pull these two chords and you will.

Look to the surface. And so Shane has this Epiphany that What if I could build this into a wetsuit where we can have an influence vest, you would inflate in the event of a bad Wipeout, which he then goes in advance. And there is to this day, a vest that all the big wave Surfers where every one of them is actually a number of them Patagonia and Billabong. Both have commercially available one. You could go buy one initially, they were just sort of kept to a handful of people but now it's widely available. As a little CO2 canister, you pull a cord Boom the best experience. Expands. And what it means is, you're coming to the surface. Now since there's still been close calls with people and has big eyes of who held under so long even with the best way of so powerful that they've been someone unconscious. But if you come to the surface and you know you're going to be rescued, you know, your whole mentality change when you're under when you're down there and it's dark. And you being thrashed part of it is you have to fight the Panic reflect because if you had a can try to swim against it, you're burning up your oxygen. So you have it in train thing and

8:18 AMGiant waves in extreme conditions so it really changed the whole game that's amazing. And it seems so simple in so genius at the same time like why didn't we do this long ago? Yeah and exactly and there was a it's like everything else Shame by the way himself I just did an interview on another document and working on that. We talked about this, he kind of put himself out of business with that way, but that vest because it's allowed, you know, almost anybody at a lower level of training and skill to have to go out in the water, which is created, more crowds and more competitiveness, push people to ride bigger and bigger waves and sooner or later a vest will fail. And someone probably

Have a bad outcome. But so far they've really got the technology down. They work really well, I'm not heard of one. I have heard stories of surface said you have to pull a string and if you if you if you're thinking well, I don't know if I want to pull it quite yet and you wait too long, you could be underwater where your arm literally can't get to the string. And the string is flapping around and you're trying to find it. I spoke to a guy once who also panic because there's two strings, one inflates, the best one deflates that Best. And he said, he panicked and pulled a deflating one deflated and then all of a sudden he was what did I just do? So but it's a and that's unlike freestyle Motocross. You there's no such option gravity is going to do what it's going to do. It tried to all kinds of different, safety things. There are inflatable suits that some of the Riders wear and it's certainly in MotoGP. I looked I did a movie about that as well go fastest and they try to protect the spine as much as they can.

But at speeds of 200 miles, an hour in crashing, there are consequences to it. Yeah. Now then your film The Last and your film, The Lost wave, you propose that surfing started in Africa. Now when I think of Surfing, I think of Hawaii, I think in California, think about stray, Leah. Why is Africa been overlooked Well, a few reasons one. In this may be a little too nuanced or maybe not great interest. But you know what is surfing. It's the writing of waves for pleasure. So if you're a fisherman and you go out fishing all day and the end of the day on your way and you catch a wave and ride it in because it's fun, you know, you're kind of Surfing. So, exactly what constitutes it in Hawaii, surfing had been and has been proven and documented a long, you know, as far back as time goes, as a part of the history of the culture of Hawaii, it was a strategy.

Wide world. They were certain spots in only Kings could serve and women, you know, Hawaii was Paradise, but it was also a highly stratified Society on they were Kings and workers. And it wasn't just everybody got along Kumbaya just hang out on the beach. There was a society structured, you know, and Africa doesn't have a written history. This is the nature of the, the continent. And so Hawaii, just became an empty in what we found in the Lost wave was actually we had a question. You know was surfing and Indigenous African Sport and then you would raise the question, you know? Did it predate Hawaii? And therefore they started it first and what we could we determine one but not the other other Island. We went to place called South till May which is an independent nation. Apparently, like the second or third least visited island in the world very remote, very has a very strange history and has been a controversial history but it was an uninhabited Island. That Was Then inhabited by slaves in the 14 or 1500 is brought over there by Portugal, but they came from Angola, which is a country on the coast of west east at West Africa, be West Africa. So when we interviewed the people, they said our tradition is that from the Angola era for priests out till May Our ancestors Road waves for fun. So when did that happen? How did that happen? There's no documentation of it. So and there was some controversy, there were some people who wrote the time, oh Paul, you must be mistaken because we asked them, do you know, did you have visiting Surfers because traveling surface go all over the world. In fact, this surf spot was found by a surfer of partner of mine. At the time Named Sam George, who had gone there.

Seen some surfing then told me about it. And then we went back. The documentary and he had very little knowledge about it. So we discovered it just as a funny story, there was a kid he surfed with when we were inside, when he was there, who was 10 or 11 years old, and the conceit of the movie was we were going to go back and see if we could find this kid. And was he still surfing? So, we travel to the Ivory Coast we travel across we get there. When this remote island, we walk up to the Village, we see wooden surfboards there. So we know we're in the right place and we said is this kid named shun there? And They go. Oh, he joined the army yesterday and is no longer here, but the father said, we remember you. I'll go get him and we were about five hours from the capital and there we are. We got our film crew, we have this photo are all ready for this big emotional moment and he had last the day before. So we were can't believe this how could this happen? And then the father walks off into this dirt road and says I'll go up to the Capitol and get him. And we think it's five hours away like what did he said? No, don't worry about

The next day he showed up with his son, he went to the Army Barracks, had hitchhiked and gotten to the capital brought the kid back. The next day, we were there and he showed up and we all serve together. So that was a fairly low profile project didn't get a lot of exposure, a lot of distribution. But some years ago before the streaming services, existed it was on a run was one of the first HD surf movies HD just come in, so kind of a big deal at the time. You did it. So it just didn't get a lot of notoriety and it's also not the story people. Now, there is a large movement about surfing and Peru and there's a lot of documentation of people surfing in Reed, boats in Peru. And there's a guy, he's sleepy Polmar dilip Kumar, who is a former world champion, like, 68 or 69? And he's a Peruvian, and he's always out there beating the drum through is the real original birthplace. Of Surfing and his pictures and he's gone there and it had these Reed boats that they apparently ride waves on. So that's great a little bit. Yeah. I, well, my wife's from Peru and I got in the Peruvian Amazon for 15 years. Oh well. And and so I just absolutely love the place. And what's the city? I don't ignore them.

The famous Surf City, there's a lot of good waves in the group. I've always wanted to go, I've always wanted this. I always wanted to serve never did it. It's my bucket list. I'm going to do it and that's where I was thinking of going but I can never even remember the name of the city I'm always in the jungle so but it looks like fantastic service so really it's it with that big and it started in Peru. There's a very is a whole movement that believes that surfing should be acknowledged as being born in Peru but against a little that pre. Katrina, prehistory where it's hard to know what, you know, but but the the surf spot, you're probably thinking of is called jicama. That's a familiar. Yeah, it is. If it is not the longest wave in the world, it certainly among the top two or three, the length of the ride the way. You know what? Most people don't understand about? Surfing is waves are created by storms far off and see thousands of miles away and that storm functions. Like you imagine dropping a stone in the water and then the Ripple. Has come out. Well Storm like the waves were riding here in Malibu today. There's some surf here, we're generated in Antarctica about two weeks ago and I've traveled through the swell as energy have moved through the water and then it finally arrived here. I was surfing in Mexico a couple days ago. The waves are now here as it moves up. The West Coast will be Surfin Santa Cruz and it will literally get to Alaska. They'll be surf up there from that storm, the Southern Hemisphere, and then how wavebrake and refract and what causes them to

Unfold to be a reef that could be a point. It could be a sand bottom. There's different types of waves going to get 2 of us, new ones on you. But um so the place in Chicago me is called it's a Point Break where there's a Promontory of land and the way the swell hits it and refracts, and that refraction allows the wave to just keep going and going and going based on the Contours and it's also a relatively user-friendly with some encouraging. You Not a super dangerous spot is easy place to learn to surf. If you get up your life for like a half, a mile perfect, that's where I'll go then now your background, I'm sorry, no, go ahead. Stay on that, this changes the subject. But you know, every time I just say, from where you are, you know, on Long oxen, closest place to go, but just waves in Boston and Cape Cod and New Jersey and obviously Long Island. So from a couple hours from your house,

Options. Yeah, I every year as a child The caveman and see some some surfing there, but never got on the board yet, but it's on the bucket list. All right, I'm sure you'll get there. Your background originally was in journalism and was that a something we're okay, I'm going to do journalism to produce films or is that later on in life, you decided I'm going to produce film saajan. Parlay the journalism into production. Well, I was a journalist, I actually met Almost everything in my life in some weird way. Without any planning is always circled back to surfing in one fashion or another and I was living in New York City and I was exercising and, you know, trying to stay in shape. But I found that I was a journalist. I worked for People magazine, that's Magazine with four different, The Village Voice, a trade Business magazines. And so I think in the water that much and I started doing some exercises and I created an exercise program for surfing for myself, which I then turn into a video.

8:29 AMBut the point is I was a journalist. It's a very solitary craft, you know, you sit in a room, interview people and then you go off and sit for hours and hours and write and writing is hard. And I'm pretty good at it, but I'm not great at it and it's not very social, you know, it's a solitary thing. You turn it into your editor and then that's it and it really didn't fit my personality. I really wanted to do something that involved a more complicated interaction with people and had more creative and happy. So, I Art of producing an exercise video which led me to other videos, but the foundation of a writer. And you know, I get asked from time to time. Hey, I want to be a producer. I want to be a director, what do you recommend? And I say cabinet as strong literary. Education is the best thing you can do because there's quality in the different types of work that's out there and I'm I try to do my work to have it as much Dimension as possible. And it's based in writing, it's based in collecting data dispassionately. But you know, if you, you know, traveling,

And and seeing what's out there and then finding a cohesive structural way to put it together. That's why I think I've had the success that I've had in action sports because a lot of people in this world are more like hey I great cameraman I can capture great action. You know I know all these crazy people. I can do this to do that but they don't think in terms of classic storytelling with setup beginning, middle and ends payoff and and looking for Universal themes. So that's looking so many more. Is about NASCAR called blink of an eye which is not being made into a feature film with Sony. And so it's being a journalist collecting information and then being able to sit down and write a script and put it at the end, if even if the script is really describing things that you're going to show on video, you lay it out on paper first. And then the other big thing that I focused on is if I have any sort of a little bit of a talented, something is interviewing people. Getting people to talk about what they're really thinking learning how to really listen and shape an interview. And then most of the stuff I do is based around people, talking about what they have done. And we're going to do or did do and then find a cinematic way to bring it a lot. It's the foundation of everything I've done is take some writing in journals. I've tried to do fictional stuff over the years, you know, all I'm going to write a play or I'm gonna write an original screenplay and I've done a few and they're really terrible. And I'm talentless when it comes to my closest friend, who I travel with the surf, he created the show Homeland, which you may have seen and, you know, he basically Creek, you know, comes out of the stuff out of his head and has full fully fleshed characters and so on, it's just not what? I have an ability to do. I have it's frustrating sometimes because I tried. Yeah, it's an amazing gift and in perfect advice. You give them a call because I asked one of my friends.

Great producer. You know what your advice and she did story story stores and its structure of story. It's set up and pay off its and then if you're going to make a 90-minute documentary, had people come to me fairly often, do I have this great idea for a documentary? Here's a story. And this can be a pretty good story but to do 90 minutes where every minute is compelling. Every minute has something in it that leads to something else, that's part of a larger Arc.

It's not, you know, it's not that many great stories out there. They're hard to find. Yeah, I'll have them 90 minutes in that brings. It brings me to the question. Now Hollywood biopics are very popular. Next. Bohemian Rhapsody. There's just so many going on now. Do you feel sometimes Hollywood is having a tough time coming up with Original Stories. Um, Sure. I don't, I don't think so. I mean, there's plenty of movies out there trying to think of one of them have to watch the Academy Awards last night, you know, Ma rainey's black, bottom or whatever. Great one is. You know what won the Academy Award Menard was it was nomadland, that was based on a book, which is sort of true. I think there's been there's so much reality content out there that people like the stories based or inspired by true. So the general shift in that direction, it seems to resonate more than completely made-up things. But so I think there's a bit of that Trend but I'm not sure. The story is, there's a lot like my friend Alex, there are a lot of really creative people out there who are thinking pick up stories and pull them out of their butts and craft them. I haven't tried to Playing the people. Still really, really hard to write night, you know, a hundred and twenty pages that is compelling and then turn into a feature film is its, this is a lot of screenplays out. There's a lot of forests that have diluted in dreams of people who think they're writing, is the next great movie, and they're not. But yeah. So I think it's both. But there's luckily for me, there is an interest in when it's in one is true, life story. Yeah, now I really like Your style is really interesting because you direct and sometimes you produce and write sometimes you direct and produce sometimes a direct produce and right. Yeah. What's your favorite and doing it? All some never get overwhelming at times. It's an interesting question. You have to know your personality when you in terms of how you're going to do this. When I did a movie a few years ago called fastest about

To GP someone brought me the project a director who's very talented had done a previous MotoGP movie new the world. I knew nothing about Valentino Rossi in the world of motor motorcycle racing but I discovered in the process that as a producer there's an old joke that when you hire director, you're hiring your boss and is now the director will is really makes the movie. And I found that not a comfortable thing for me because I do have creative thoughts. I do have the instincts The director in a wider and it was a so it became a very challenging process. The director was like, hey, Paul, I know, you understand what I'm doing, but leave me alone. Let me direct this movie. I Am the director, you are not the director and I had trouble letting go of that. We ended up cutting heads, because I said, I don't care what the titles are. I'd like to see this. I'd like to see that he was a talented guy and movie was successful, but it was, it wasn't a pleasant process. And now when I did another movie called Hawaiian, the legend of Eddie Aikau, Which was an ESPN 3230. I was the producer and I came up with a hybrid title, called the creative director, which is in the movie world, doesn't really exist. But I said to the director look, I'm going to be involved with this thing, had more than just a producer. I'm not here. Just say, here's your execute your vision, but the other hand you are the director. So you'll have the title director. I'll have this weird one that I made up because I was materially involved. He was a first-time director, he did a great job. I also creatively was very involved. So producer, you know, we hired a producer whose job it is just to run the business side. So, as an example, the last shot of Hawaiians illegitimate a video cow is him. Paddling off into the distance and I thought well, you know, if we sit on a top of a boat you know what, get a fishing boat and then just go up. 20 30 feet, I can get a pretty good shot of a guy paddling away and the director was like, no no I want a helicopter shot.

Lost into Oblivion. And there was a huge financial difference between those two shots and I was this would be really is the producer and running a budget. We had other things that were over budget and so on. And at first, I was like, we can make this all work, okay. Maybe you don't, we don't have to go do that because the producer thinks, in terms of creative and money of a balance, but eventually he said, no, we really have to happen. So, it was fairly expensive because the shot had to be out at Sea, where they were, no boats, no Highlands, nobody there. We had to get a boat. You had to go out, we had to drop some guy off and then we had a leave, then we had a call to helicopter from Honolulu airport, to come out and find him without winning that before yesterday. Anything like that. So we were a little scared, you might lose the guy because it was too big, it was supposed to be in rough seas and it was left and we had to get out of the shot. So the helicopter to do so. And I remember thinking and first of all, we might lose the guy and then is it worth it. Well, it turns out, it was worth it because he needs to the helicopter, got Higher, and Higher, and Higher, and Higher and

Was Whitecaps, everywhere, it was in a white surfboard and we had the exact effect we wanted where he disappears with the Sea of White Caps which would not have been achieved. If we do my GP job of just having paddling away and shot him from the side of the boat. So there is this balance. I find a most comfortable when I have complete control. And I've learned that about myself in the process that when I'm a writer producer director, as we like to say, is I do, I am very collaborative. I Getting other people's ideas and someone wants. Paul you approaches, he's everybody. Gets an opinion but I only have a final vote. So I found that that works the best for me because now I'm responsible for everything for good and bad and it is though a push and pull in your mind when you're thinking about. Everything time is money on a movie set. So when you're shooting with shooting blink of an eye, the NASCAR one and it starts with the conceit where the driver is going to drive down this road and remember it's all in his mind type of thing and we had one day to get all these scenic's in North Carolina and the weather wasn't great at first. And you know, how many times am I going to we're going to do this drone shot. So we have and the catnip camera guys by the way,

8:39 AMDon't care. They just want a better better better. I don't care what it costs. They always want another lens. They always want another piece of lighting and and you have to sort of when you're both producer-director go I want it to look great too. What do you say? How is it? I can really have like a conversation in my head, go to the, you know, the creative person going, do it again. And then the business person will call you just spent on the five grand. Stop it. But I for me works the best that way. Now I have total control and when I did Unchained, by the way, We had it edited and people looked at the first cut and people said we do, I think it's pretty good. This is good, you know, let's turn it in and I looked at ago, I don't think it's quite right. So I let me bring another editor in, which was another chunk of money and time and it got better and it had a bunch of people I showed it to you say, oh this is fantastic. And I know I just don't think it's right. I this this things here and we'll talk about editing in a minute how important that is. And then I

I want to broaden the third editor. At this point, my wife was now involved and saying, I think it's good enough call. You sure you want to do another edit. And, you know, editing is a very time-consuming expensive, complicated process. And we did, we brought in the third editor, who did sort of a beautiful polish of the whole film, and I'm quite convinced that's why that film got. As you saw it, got those accolades, a lot of this nuances, the pacing the timing and we were both. We're also very fortunate with both Eddie. A iCal and unchanged have Josh Brolin do the narration you know he's just amazing these voices incredible. His acting abilities credible, the hardest part is when Josh because okay call you directly and I'm like you're just sticking Brolin like you want me to tell you and then you tell me how you want this and then you we had to do how Josh wanted. You know how I got to actually direct him and we become, I wouldn't say I'm

We're very friendly. We still communicate from time. If all the areas that I let go of the most it's when I get to the point when we have like a rough cut and I really have no problem handing it to an editor and saying try putting it together for me and see how you come up with. And I it's not it's you know, the Fairly Clear Vision and there's an outline and there's I picked the sound bites and so on but you're paying a lot of money to a guy with a lot of talent. And so I'm very happy when have a great editor who can really come in and take over. And then I get very involved, though, in the re-editing process and giving notes and giving notes, I used to sit in the editing rooms a lot. You know, shot-by-shot. I have found though, it's just easier to find really great editor during go. Here's what I want and it's very important to find someone you're sort of in sync with. I also have some in-house editors who are really good now, who I'm working with and You know, I've had some editors go, if you don't like that shot some exactly what shot you want to change and I don't like those types of veterans because I don't really drink that way necessarily what I've but I enjoy is. When I say that are, you know, this just doesn't feel right. It feels a little slow here and I'm not really feeling something, see what you can figure out. So I'm more hands-off in that part of the process but like I said with Unchained, we went through three different editors You know, feature documentary can take three to six months to edit, no problem, and that's not an unusual amount of time. So I feel like Unchained sure you master this huge amount of footage. Now did you have a battle of where you've had like this epic shot but it isn't pushing the storyline. The Akita, do you cut? It was a famous line in some once it has yet to kill your babies in this, Business. And yeah, absolutely, you find stuff that's just particularly Unchained. It's been true in all the movies I've done where you have just amazing footage or great interviews a maybe a little clearer example that comes to mind is in the movie blink of an eye. It's a story of NASCAR and one of the most colorful and coolest parts of NASCARs history is there's Moonshiners involved who cars developed out of, you know, chasing through the hills of North Carolina and so on and it was in the original script and week.

Interviews because we thought we'd help people understand the sport. Doing it. But our main character, Michael Waltrip, and the person he dealt with Dale Earnhardt, it's about their friendship, neither of them were moonship diners, and it just didn't as much as it. We had a great segment, we went and shot, we found it, 32 Ford and did some Recreations driving through the Backwoods of North Carolina and then the producer side of me is saying, well, you spent that money. You got to use this, but it just felt like it went off in this cul-de-sac. Make little story is super colorful but it did not as you put in the you put it exactly correctly. It didn't move the story forward as anyway. Had nothing to do with our characters. It was just an appendage that was out there. That was cool and fun and people liked it and whatnot. But we just said we have to kill it. The same even with Unchained and what have we got criticized by some people oh you didn't cover this.

You know I said look, I'm not doing a definitive history, I will say this, the inspiration for the style that I have and comes from a filmmaker, very well-known, filmmaker named Stacy Peralta, who did zebra Dog? Tannen Z-Boys and he also did riding giant, which is the seminal big wave, documentary know if you've seen either of those but I'd really recommend writing. Giants is a fantastic, fantastic documentary about big wave surfing when he did was

In the history of big-wave. Surfing has lots of stories but he covered three stories that cut and Compass 50, 60 years. And there were people who were mad about him but you didn't mention this Surfer. You didn't make me because I never set out to do an encyclopedia and it wasn't designed to cover. And I said the same thing and Unchained I go, they were a, lots of other Riders, there were lots of other contests. I chose the ones that I felt represented the stories that were important.

And they were people who were mad, who said, you didn't get in here. And I did, I won this gold medal, I did that. And I didn't get a mention in your movie and I said it wasn't personal to you, but it didn't. You know, he was a point because to the ACT to the non, you know, person involved in it. Once you hit a certain emotional note, hitting it again with a different person, but the same story like Robbie Maddison has I know he's in Unchained but very, very little only in the end and a quick mention. Well, I know he was

At the about that because he was one of the most important figures in freestyle, but, and nothing against Robbie, his, his real Fame did not come through X Games. His came from post X-Games doing giant Hollywood, stunts in the stuff you recommended and doing Big Red Bull. You know, night of the world really phenomenal things but we covered that in a different way. When Mike Metzger, does his big stunt at Caesar's Palace that kind of covers the stunt world and Seth enslow Who represented, you know, the core part of that and what he did. So the guys are beat. Ya know, they just, it's unbelievable. But to then say and then Robbie Maddison crashed. This is like, well, I kind of experiment to the non freestyle guy. They went through that RollerCoaster of a guy, taking taking a high-risk doing a stunt to do it again, you know? And so he was one of those guys who I know wasn't happy with Unchained because it is a definitive story. But it never said, Set out to do the history. I never said and then and then and then write every single thing. That's a different type of project. It's not what I do that. When you pick your documentaries, do you pick it from the standpoint of, what? Interests you or what do you think? We'll have an audience. I mean, for example, blanket like but I, you know, that had a no one. Well, you know, unfortunately, you have to think about like how am I gonna get the money for this? Now, these are not unexpected. These are any theater, not inexpensive things there. They're, you know, they're way way in the six figures approaching seven figures to get one of these things done correctly. The you're a top editor is a hundred grand just right off this this top right off the bat so you're looking at a lot of money. So it's about a sponsor. It's about a backer. I also don't believe you should really think about your audience at all in any kind of specific way. I don't I just picture. How do I tell the story, the best, the purest that emotionally resonate

And the audience will then find it if you Find yourself thinking about how it will be perceived. You're going to make decisions that are not the right ones at least in my opinion. And that's where, you know, having dealt with directors as hiring them you know, the ego of the director of saying this is what I want, is a double-edged sword. And so so I have to but you have to believe in it. You have to believe in the filmmakers vision of what you want and, you know, you always get a lot of opinions. I also, one of the things I do in my process is I like to show them We do a lot of people before it's done and see what works. I like to watch people watch the movie, you can see when they look down at their phone or they look over you. Sometimes you have laughter, we didn't expect. That means all kinds of things happen. And sometimes you take those things too hard. And sometimes you say, I don't care if this is how I like it and that's what I'm going to do it. So but input is great. So the answer is who can I get money from funding, who has an interest in the topic and then you see what happens. And everyone has

Different Dynamic, you know from that standpoint. Yeah, funding is obviously the biggest monster there is. I'm dealing with it now. I don't even know where to go. Even this may be edited, I don't know, but I'd love to just ask you this question. My first TV series I did was call Hotel Amazon and I was for Travel Channel where they followed me down into the Amazon and I built a large down there with a guy who was financing

8:50 AMIcing it. Who won. $35,000 on? Fortune and was totally a fish out of water. You know, he could not connect with this place whatsoever. Everybody hated him or scared of them and it was a fucking train wreck, really even the great show. It really didn't go. It's one of those things where I had the vision for the show. Travel Channel, got into it, of course now they're paying the bill, then it goes a different direction, blah blah, blah, and all that. I then developed another show, called ham. Jean detox. And I work with shamans throughout 15 years and using a lot of the medicine that they have down there but particularly Ayahuasca. And I've seen that do wonders for people with trauma, drug addiction, everything like that. So, I developed a show to where we bring in people who just a traditional rehab methods and United States would didn't work and then bring them down there and then not only put them through working with the shaman.

Then I'd take them out into the jungle and kind of connect them with the natural world, connecting with the natives and and do this whole process here we're got out and actually dr. Drew Pinsky, got into it and he wanted to cook the you know co-producer with me and be the fly on the wall him as a doctor. Can't say oh go and do Ayahuasca, you know, of course. But he said I've seen enough evidence to where there might be something to it so he wanted wants to come. Down as a fly on the wall. Let me do my process and see the goodness that comes out of it. See what the pitfalls are, blah blah blah, all that. The hell you get funding. There's no easy answer. There's and there's no stairs. No simple answer, it's unfortunate. The skill set to get funding is different than the skill set to make the product I suffer from the same thing. You know, I don't like has having to be a Salesman. Good. You don't get to do what you like to do, unless you, soon, as you have to take the medicine along the way, I think the key is a And it's something that I struggle with, because once I have an idea, it seems completely obvious in my mind. This is what it is. The story, I don't really need to pitch you the whole thing because here it is going to be great. Michael Waltrip Dale, Earnhardt, Star-Crossed friendship, and, you know, here's how it's going to end or unchain, you know. So some some people just buy based on that, but I think the secret is a very detailed, you know, someone's going to give you hundreds of thousands of dollars, putting a lot of faith in you, they have a boss and you To sort of say, how do I approach this person to give them the highest Comfort level. And the answer to that is a document or piece of video that has as much information as possible. So you know, they can see it and the truth is maybe more than any time that I know of there's more options than there ever have been. I mean yeah you have you know Netflix and Amazon and Hulu and HBO and Showtime and Nat Geo which I'm sure you've bumped into them along the way. Yeah, and it used to be if you don't have an agent at CAA or William Mars, there's no way they were going to talk to you. That is gone away mean they need for reality or the Amazon and so on. Those, you know that real part of the world is so overwhelming. These days that you can pretty much pitch. Anybody, you know, you just put a little bit of work and find out who they are. There's a company that you may be familiar with called real screen. And if, you know them, yes. Yeah. You have an annual Gathering annual Gathering, they have resources, there's a group out of the UK called, like, the commissioning index or something, that's a little bit on more, little more expensive. It's like 8 or $900 to join. I just recently joined it Don't know whether it's any good or not. We'll see. But they provide you with names and these people are looking for Content, you know? I mean that's their job is to find the next goofy. Crazy thing. I did have a guy come to you with an Ayahuasca project once they're based in Costa Rica and I spent a bit of time looking at it, and one of the reasons I actually went away from it and said, even though I understood the whole thing about, you know, heroin addicts going down and people having transformational experiences. And the guy who was working for me, at the time, he was so committed to, it had done Ayahuasca bunch and felt it was such an amazing drug. He was cute. Lily, left working for me, full-time to go do a series, that was somehow funded, and think was funded through the people who are running the Ayahuasca Retreat who were making beaucoup.

This is all. Lots of relatively low and you can charge a lot from this experience, but I said to me, like you have a problem and your problem is, it's an internal experience that what that person goes through is inside their head. And you, I mean, I know all the tricks of fuzzy lenses, and shaky camera and sunrises, and sunsets and all the things you can do to try to recreate some sort of internal transformation. Because someone told me a long time ago that in movies, there is no Thinking or feeling in a movie, there is only acting and talking and that creates emotion, but you can't show emotion versus a novel in a novel. The Voice you can say ice to, he felt that way. He was nervous, whatever. You know. Now you can you can say someone's hand is shaking, that means that person's nervous. So I said, you know, yeah, might be interesting but you're going to have these people who have these serious problems. We were going to be and they're all kind of the same.

In a way, you know, there's all and then you're going to try to show something that. And then even if they aren't sure, they still look the same, you know, or they're going to go home now and they're too busy. No longer going to drink again or do drugs, you can't. And if and if you even if you went and followed them, you say, look my life is now boring in normal. I don't do drugs anymore. Okay. That's you know, how compelling is that on camera? You know, there's, you know. So anyways, he actually came back and said, can I have my job back? This didn't work. If we made these videos, we tried you were right. We had the drones going through the jungle, and the colors and everything, you know, in. And I saw the footage inside the Ayahuasca tents, and people throwing up another that and all that proves. Once you see a couple of them, it's just hard. Just doesn't make good TV. He doesn't mean it's, it's horrible. I filmed it when I work with the shamans. All these years, I've filmed it. And it's, I'm or did it for record because it's all the magic is happening in here.

So that's why. With my part is that the Ayahuasca itself is probably about 10% of the show. You know, bringing in fishing with piranhas swimming with the pink dolphins, bringing in totally out of their environment and most likely scaring the living shit out of at the same time because if just being stuck in a jungle and give them challenges, now, I'm not going to put them through something, that would be like a Survivor to that coin. But almost is taking them out of their comfort zone and seeing you know, how they relate to it, or how they don't. So, I knew that had to be really that whole core of the, of the, of the production and the Ayahuasca ceremonies itself. There's other ones to camo is where we give them. You probably see these dots on my arm, and it's Campbell where they your burn, and it's a mucus from a tree frog, and it's it's done wonders. I've actually heard people have to fight is smooth, and it's helped so many things, but it's very visible. You're taking it from the Frog, then you're burning, then you're given to them, then they're turning white. And it's like, taking camo in the thing with Amazon medicine. As opposed to Western medicine is that when you take Western medicine, you feel great. When you take it and then video afterwards and Amidon medicine, you feel shitty when you're take it. Then you feel great afterwards. So with the camo it's like going from 0 to your work anger over in like 10 seconds and you're purging and on the ground. But then, you know, once you wipe it off, it gets through your body and then like, I feel like you could lift up a truck afterwards, it's amazing stuff. So, you're right. I had to go with all the visuals. Unfortunately, I think, whenever I go to pitch it, they get in their mind, right? Well, there's nothing more depressing than drug addiction story. So that's understandable, but I try to at least get the point across. That is not and specially nowadays to wear with the opiate epidemic. We have soccer moms and businessmen as opposed to what you would call the cliche addict anymore. So I think there's potential is produced in that way, but I got obviously. Did convince someone to pay for is the different? You know, it's a topic that's never going to go away. Probably maybe. You look at the ones, the one series. And by the way, I mean, I have an opinion, you whatever it's worth. Is that series called Intervention? We remember those. You know, I think it's still on the air, but the story there is the family getting the person to agree to go to rehab. Yeah. In that moment, when they bring the person in and you have the background and there's a sense will they or won't? They? And then there's a solution. Did they go? Did it take and it's not always a happy ending with that show. So maybe there's a little bit of different ways to skin the cat where you find someone and I don't know, but it's all about presentation. And if you're going to be the host, that's the key things. They want to know, who's on the camera, who's going to do it absolutely ability to, you know, you probably do a good job. So the other thing I've learned is you don't stop pitching because this week, they think this and Executives change all the time and what they want always changes. So I would say You know, if it's the world and what you do have is, you know, I give someone said Paul, you want you to do an Ayahuasca thing in Peru, I'd be like, okay, I'm going to go on the internet. I don't know anybody, it would be hard, you already have, you know, these expertise and the context there. So, and have been there and someone's gonna write a check natgeo for x amount of dollars, you know, they want to know, you're not just going to go down and get lost in the jungle and never be seen again, right? You have that experience would be a positive. So I don't know what advice to give you, but

9:01 AMYou know, the everybody's reach And they didn't really want to talk to the actual filmmakers or TV producers, they want an agent to bring it in and that they just don't do that anymore. They're hungry. They're looking for something different. Yeah, you're starting to get a starburst on your camera there. I don't know if it's the sun. Yeah, there we are having construction in our house here. Actually Your Picture film The Vow. Those are Rachel McAdams and gent a no. Matter, nearly 200 million dollars, and that's a hell of a Payday. Have you ever been tempted to say, oh, wait a minute, you know, maybe I'll go exclusively into feature films, or do you still have that passion to doing the socially conscious Productions like enslavement? Well, the story about the vows kind of interesting, you know, having a background in journalism again, true story, I didn't make it up. It's true story, I beat out 48, producers to get the rights to that. Before I went and met the people. There was a it was a, it was a big deal at the time and then I was meeting. I had an offer to do it as a TV movie from nothing. But human, say Network, and it was a good deal. I was a producer was, you know, Will guarantee a green light this movie? I said to my agent at the time, just take that deal because, you know, deal with those are so hard to get you help. All, I think we could sell. This is a feature. So we I said, look, I have to say yes to this other deal by Friday, this was a Tuesday or a Wednesday said. If you can get me in a meeting and get me a commitment before Friday, I'll look I'll do it. But after Friday, I'm not screwing around, I'm not going to lose this, you know, bird in the hand. So we went around my wife and I work with my wife.

Most of my projects and we went and pitched a guy. Named Roger burned down, Roger is one of the preeminent producers in the history of Hollywood. He's made a hundred and twenty movies from Rain Man to the sixth sense to producing James Bond movies at MGM you know a Titan of the industry and we act didn't actually pitch him. We pitched his head of development. We did the pitch, they said it's great. We get in the car driving away in the phone, rings in the garage, and then never met the guy. He says Titan of the industry and my agent has for a boat. Out load of money because we knew we had a hot property and I knew I had a deal in hand and Roger starts cursing at me, I want this movie, but who the hell are you? And I can't believe you're asking for this. You don't have the track record to support this this and he's screaming and yelling at me. That's it, hold on what I said and you go I go look. It was a miracle, the woman survived the accident. It was a miracle that she fell back in love with her husband. It was a miracle that I got the rights and ago and it's another miracle that a man at your

Just talking to me on the phone. This is a series of Miracles. This is not like a business. This is an extraordinary sequence and he laughed and said, come into my office. Come meet with me. So, I gonna meet with him and he laughed about that and he said, well, you don't call the reason I want to make this movie is, have you ever laid in bed and looked person next year ago? Who the hell is that? The less what happened? My first wife? And it goes, this is happening real and you know the fact that it had a happy ending. So we but that it took 10 years to make that move because I see As the idea sounds, the actual script writing process. Casting took 10 years. So the answer your questions, a long answer but is you know, I was tempted. I thought I'll catch a movie maker. Now, I'm going to, you know, make them and do the next thing, but finding those stories is really hard, making them happen is hard. I have a family. I have regular bills to pay and college and so on and I say, you know, and what actually happened. So what they for the vow to hire. Writer who was a top writer at the top for a lot of money and I was inspired to the producer of making sure he was on track and make sure things were going well. So, three months into the project and we've sold the deal Rogers doing it, I call the writer up and I go. How's it going? You want to talk about it? You have any questions? You know, I knew the story very well and the guy kind of goes. I'm busy, you know, I'm working, leave me alone. I just got this thing. It had been three months ago. Okay. Are you feeling good? Because, well, I could tell it was a weird call but he's a Writer. He's off of the room by himself. Three months later, the studio who's now has given him way in the six figures, they call me up and say, can you check and see where the hell's our script then call the writer back? Now, he's really aggravating, he's kind of screaming at me. Why are you calling me? Why are you harassing me? You call me all the time. I go to second time. I've called you like I just want to know and he's very clearly upset and kind of hangs up fault until the studio. He says he's working. I kind of put a kind of little bit of good spin on. It seems like he's excited but I'm thinking this guy,

So, three months later, I call him back and now he's like Not hostile screaming know this story is driving me crazy because I'm coming in next week. We're going to have a meeting. So it's okay. Well Lisa it goes. I have so he walks into the meeting and he's got two scripts. One is 220 pages. Long one is a about a hundred eighty pages long and a feature film script should be about 110. It has two of them are both gigantic and he's like I can't figure this story. I quit here's two scripts. Try look at both of them. I can't do this. I can't I can't make this work. Thank you. If you liked him fine, but I'm done, and everybody's flabbergasted and look at the thanks, of course, to get made and so on. But that's when I started realizing, this is crazy. Now, I also wrote the original paper and produce the X Games, like came up with the idea, stat there and produced it. I ran it, you may both TV and I ran every as you know, from one chain and it was a steady business. And I work with clients at work with monster at work with Ferrari, I work with ESPN.

And so if you ask me, if I could have been a full-time feature film producer, the way we like, Roger at that level, if that opportunity had presented itself, I may have pursued that but it didn't really present itself. And I saw how crazy is people who are what I was going through with the vow and then at different points and that's another it was actually it ended up being three sets of writers. Many was issues with Talent, you know, everyone from Julia Roberts to I can't even remember the name is going to be in the

Difficult schedules, they have different difficult negotiations. Bradley Cooper was going to do you know on and on it was back and forth until obviously it all eventually worked out fantastically which is a long way to say you know it's not really a business at least. What I do has enough variables in terms of doing Action, Sports, and documentaries and dealing with the X Games and sending guys on motorcycles in the air, when I ran all that. But at least it had a foundation of. Hey, it's going to happen again next year. It's going to be events. I ran my own tours. So you know what, I like to just make great feature films for all the time and make a lot of money because there if it hits, you can make, I mean, I made money with the vowel. I mean, it made a lot, but I did not get my Hollywood back end. It was

There's no giant money, typical net profits, kind of the deal with its great accomplishment. The movies very successful, it's very beloved by a lot of people. Interestingly enough, the movie where the feature film version of blink of an eye is with the same people and they're like, hey Paulie did great for us once and I had forgotten that I mean I wasn't on top of my mind when I went to Sony to pitch blink of an eye. But as I walked into the office, There was the poster for the vow and I really think. That's right. We do you guys know who I am and say and Roger was produced and I had brought blink of an eye to Roger because Hollywood is about relationships. And having, you know, when you talk about a move to took you to about, going to the Amazon say, okay well here's you know, $500,000 for five episodes in a hundred grand, a piece of whatever that is. That's a fair amount of money but it's not that much money in the world of Hollywood, we talk about a feature film, you're talking about that here's 20 million dollars you know we hear but

It says abstractions but their real money is 20 is 40 60 million cash and they look at it like that's a lot of money. They don't just is not a vending machine where it's movie budget money coming out. So someone like Roger you know the manufacturing of a United. How complicated is to make a feature documentary with a crew of 15 or 20 people in lighting and coordinating but you know, making a feature film is a giant machine with, you know. So They Studios very happy to have someone like Roger involved because he, you know, they know he can make it, you know, you're dealing with talent. You have to massage a lot of Egos and I don't have a lot of that experience. So I partnered with Roger again, I'm blink of an eye which is that project right on the cusp of we want in the final draft of the script and everybody's great happy with the direction fingers crossed within the next 30 days. Or so we will get a new draft and it'll

It'll solve the problems that the studio wanted and we can make a movie, you know. How does technology change Bill making today? I think the I can't speak on the feature end because that's not, I don't have a lot of hands-on experience. I did make Fanny Kemble, I did make a few other network, television movies. But look, the biggest differences is you shooting video and because you're shooting video, you don't have to worry about film stock. You can, you know,

Even in documentaries, you know, I

9:10 AMStyle of interviewing is I'll spend two or three hours of someone I believe you really have to almost wear them down. Get their emotions. Everybody's protecting people come in with sort of a narrative. They want to sell you which is usually not the narrative, that's the truth. And how do you get that person to get through that? Well, you kind of have to emotionally, you know, in almost a therapeutic way that many many people say. After a long interview, Paul that was almost like seeing a therapist and I feel different and I didn't know. I felt that much about, you know, so on and so forth. I'm also So a seem to have a talent in the people cries so but I'll have to worry about all. I'm doing is just loading cards in the red camera. And then someone's, you know, the deit is the most technically difficult part to make sure you don't blow any of that footage and you copy that you go. So it's made it really easy and I did a documentary series as the Director now. It was fun. A couple years ago I got hired by a filmmaker out of New York in Alex Gibney may have heard of Alex is Academy Award winner. He's the

Documentarian and they were doing a series for ESPN. I was one of three directors, picked do couple episodes about the future of sports and I was just a director and it was fantastic because I didn't have to pick anything up. Like I started helping carry the gear and they were looking at me like, what are you doing? Well, we got a load the van right. I'm, you know, they were like, it's a good, the director. You don't have to load the van. It's like, wow, this is weird. And we show up at the hotel we went to Africa and one of the trips to East Africa Go and, you know, get to the hotel and then Mr. Talbot, here's your key. Here's your room. What time would you like to be picked up in the morning? And this is not normally, I'm part of the crew and Hands-On kind of producer. So, the answer your question, I would say, you know, on, that's funny story. There we do that. One of the episodes we did was about Kenyan Runners. And why this one little area of East, Africa, produces 90% of the best long, distance Runners, and the world. And

So once we had a big fancy that was an Alexa at the time and a big crew and one day we were out scouted and we're looking for the next location and I was with the DP and I was, but I was by myself and we didn't bring any gear. We just wanted to go see this Countryside and we were going to be shooting. Well, little did we know we knew that running was the core of this culture, this part of East Africa that everybody ran, they don't have school buses. So they would, we heard they'd rent. They ran from home to school, but it didn't fully. Sister what that meant? I thought I meant. They walk to school or whatever, maybe they jacked, or something. Well, because running is such a big part of culture in East Africa and part of the culture of this world. The truth is when they get let out of school. All these Junior and senior in high school kids, they run like athletes that 235 miles to their Village to the school. And they mean and it's a spectacular sight like normally you see a school? Let out a bunch of kids with backpacks and you know, No heading on behind the school to smoke cigarettes or whatever, they're doing. These kids are not like that. You're Barefoot, they're poor and they take off running looking like a bunch of Olympians heading through these beautiful Rolling Hills of East Africa. I mean, it was spectacular and you couldn't create something, so cinematic, we didn't have any of it. But I had my iPhone with so I jumped out of the van, you know, it's 4K. It does slow mo and it just so happened that it was sort of staggered as we drove through these.

We kept coming into one after another after another as they're getting let out and there were kids, you know, running all over the place, they're all heading home from the different schools. It was like, it was just fantastic and we shot the whole thing with our iPhones because we didn't have the cameras, we couldn't recreate it. And have the next day we had someone else. Do we have to go? So the point is you know you technology has made it so easy and a lot of that footage got used. Unlike, you know we had a big Alexa with a thousand millimeter lens. Be at all, this gear we had lighting and drones and A big key part of describing, what happened in East Africa came from iPhones? So that, that, you know, I do a lot of stuff with five D's and a Sony A7, you know, little cameras do amazing work. So I would say that's the biggest thing. On the other hand, if you really want to differentiate your work, you know, so it doesn't have that you to be Vibe, you know, you are dealing with camera, you still need cameraman, you still need color correcting, You still need, you know, lighting. Everything in one of the things I do, tell people a lot Shooters is to me. The worst word, in filmmaking particular, documentary filmmaking is the word shooter and because it sounds cool. I'm a shooter. You know, I go shoot. And so, if you're a shooter you're aiming, your camera at the subject, right? And I'm shooting your footage, but the truth is, it's a complete misnomer because you're not shooting anything. You're catching, light is coming into the camera. Light is not going out of the cameras. And if you You if and if you if you think of it that way as a catcher as a painter, not as a shooting as an aggressive thing where I'm just targeting you. So if I'm shooting you right now, I can see you're in the middle of the frame but there's some interesting things in the frame. Obviously by Design, you have your, you know, the Indian skins over there and a crystal over there and a picture behind you. Well, as a catcher, I want to look at that. And say I want to capture all these things. How do I set my frame up to make sure like you?

One picture this partially cut off but we're your right shoulder. What is it now? Maybe it's by Design, maybe it's not maybe you didn't want to be any wider because a lot of reasons that could happen but as a capture person if I was going to interview you I mean want to reposition that because everything in that frame I am captured and I'm annoyed. What is that? I don't know what it is. Hard to say exactly but it's actually a bird made with real feathers, but it's like a painting.

So I tell my Shooters, don't think of yourself as a shooter. Think of yourself in a passive way of sitting behind the camera, light is coming in everything in that frame is important. Every single Corner, not just that subject, that's the other problem with shooting is you. If you shoot, you're going to shoot a hornet, should have lion, you aim at the freaking line because you want to shoot it but that's not what you're doing. So that's one of the techniques I use from to give that and what When you find is people start framing things differently and feeling differently as cameraman. And you know when you're on a set even doing interviews, you're setting a vibe that I like a formal set, very formal with a lot of lighting because most people go what you should make your interview subjects comfortable and I don't know, I wanted to be uncomfortable I want them to feel on the spot and and that's what they know they are there to really give you something special

It's not just over in your house, will set up a little light. You do this quickly. I want them to feel the Monumental effort that we're putting in and that tends to make the people realize the stakes here are higher. I better really come along so that's how I approach it. So, you know, and the other key thing is having the right people because I'm not a technology guy, I've hired you, you cut corners and then the words you don't want to hear it. So it's not supposed to do that and then you do your And I had a guy in Hawaii who they told me was this great camera guy, and I got there and right away. I knew it was a bad deal. He was like, oh, you know, I gotta borrow a battery from somebody because mine is kind of loose on the back of the camera and that I'm like, I don't even want to ever hear about your camera. If you know, it should be, you have it taken care of. I don't want to hear about cards. I don't want to hear about anything. You know, I work that way. I deliver you should deliver and a lot of guys can't do that, you know? And

It's funny. When we went to Africa. They, I was. And I was just the director. So then it was not a big-budget production and the production company said, we're will hire a drone guy for you because there was some key drone shots of the runners running through the hills. And we all got in the van, we drove out to the bush. You're out there in the Drone shot. Was until the second or third day. So finally, it's time for the Drone shot. I go over to the guy and I'd seen him around, but I didn't need him at first. So I said, okay, here's the shot. I want. I'm describing, I want you to come over. He'll that son's going to be coming up 15 Runners and Bubba. Bubba, I'm looking at his face and I go he doesn't know what the fuck. I'm sorry, I go you've done this before right? He goes, oh yeah, I got the Drone, the other day. This is my second time that was just experience. So then I realized I'm going to have to fly the Drone because I have a lot, a great drone pilot. But I've done enough of it and I can tell you just didn't understand what I was talking about, but I said to him and didn't ask the right question. I go, you have extra batteries and extra cards, right? Because, oh yeah. So it'll

At least I can, you know, shoot away and I'll figure this out and I'm Three other camera man I got Africans running at dawn, we're in the middle of the Jungle and and there. And what I didn't anticipate was when you deal with these are Olympic quality athletes, these were top Olympian Runners. Well, they run it like 15 to 18 miles an hour and they are going. So, if you set up a hundred yards away from them for 200 yards away there at you in two minutes, like, it's not like, if I had to run 200 yards, it would be like it's call me when you get here.

9:20 AMThat's what these guys are going. 15 miles. Are going 50 miles an hour, travel 200 yards, a minute or two. So the Drone is up there, I'm getting the shots and and I shoot a whole bunch of the beginning because I think the guy told me is extra cards and extra batteries. So I'm all I'm burned through almost a whole battery because I had stuck the Drone up there and I go okay how many more batteries do you have? Because I have an extra it one extra battery for drone that has a 20-minute flight time. So now I had to like shoot the rest of it. I'm an hour long and running and little 32nd pieces. So you have to be sensitive. You have to be, you know, where and having it was very, very fortunate that I had, you know, had basic, if not great, basic drone skills. I was able to get what became really important to shots. So, between my iPhone, having the Drone pilot, you have to be ready for anything. Yeah, what's more pressure directing and producing? I would actually say producing because you're dealing with money and you know and usually it's my money right? You know. And you know create a mistake you can kind of fix if it's like I didn't get the answer I want but if you make if you planned your budget wrong and you're spending more than you can you can't you can't fix it. You know what I mean? A helicopter is a helicopter if you didn't get the shot that day. So the pressure of that, and then, like I said with Unchained as the producer and the director, you know, I kept going back for another editor which is going back into my pocket for a lot of money and it worked out great because it won. An Emmy is the best sports film of the year and we just helped my career and it was other people involved who are very very happy that they the whole bunch of investors all have enemies. Now in their house and they came back and they funded other movies and other project because They still say, people come in their house and they go, you won an Emmy and there's this MV and their names are on it. One of the funny stories was it was this one couple in Hawaii, who put up a lot of the money and they couldn't come to the Emmy Awards. So they decided later, once we had the trophy, they held an Emmy ceremony in their house, where they all got dressed up and gowns, and suits and brought their neighbors over and had a black tie party and they put up a little microphone.

Microphone and each person got to get these the statute because he had gotten one and do it acceptance speeches. And they said, it's one of the greatest neiser lives of their night when they all got to win Emmys and they have it in and they say, people come to their house. And, you know, the last thing you expected. Some guy's house is there's this beautiful statue there with people recognize I have two of those actions which is nice. My wife has him. So he looks like we're so I finally asked how are you Go on a mantle. The right I can show you want to see one but there are living room. If you hear any noise, we're having construction done. I live in which we have live in Malibu, we have fire problems. We two years ago, we had a horrific situation here. We lost about 20% of the homes in the community. I literally stay here for three days. I'm not a fireman. Like, I don't know how to fight a class so we stayed me and the neighbors and literally save the house, but we're now

Fixing the exterior trees in my yard were on fire you know so on. So it was pretty traumatic. Yeah just never I never thought of myself as like, I don't know anything about fires, right? So for example we live on a dead-end street and either side of the street is a small little going in the fire was in the gullies because that's where the wind would go and that's what was in it with income up to people's houses. So we came up with, we thought was a bright idea. We went to everybody's house, anybody's house backs up to the goalie when the two sides of the street. And we took their garden hoses and strung them out into the Gully. So when the fire would get there, we would scream up. Turn on the water and we would have water. He's like a pretty good idea. We thought we've been pretty smart. So one night, three o'clock in the morning, the wind picks up ashes, you know, as Embers are flying all over the place like climb down through the brush head and

Always sitting there I go. This is great. Just the way we planned it and I'm screaming turn on the water and the guy goes, it's on. I go. No, it's not on it. You're screaming in the middle of the night. The wind is howling. Ashes are coming down in. There's no water coming out of this hose. So now I got to run hundred yards back up the hill middle of the night. Stumbling in the, you know, afraid that I'm about to get caught in a fire and I can't believe this guy. I'm figuring he's turning the knob the wrong way and I go. He goes, no, I turned it to the left, it's open. Well, we didn't realize because I have no experience that as ashes were coming down. It was burning. The rubber hoses, all the water was leaking out. So our great plan of laying out, hoses turned out to be a terrible plan, because we burned all our hoses now. We had no hoses. So then we had to go to other neighborhoods because we couldn't leave the police have closed it off. We had a break into people's houses, in order to find in their garages to find old hoses. So weak and then we realized, you save the hose until you need to pull it down to the fire. And we had again x's and

You know shovels and now and just so I don't sound too dramatic. We're not find fighting walls of way. This is not like we see a fireman. This is more like ashes are coming down there spot fires swirls of Ashes. Just problem was you know you want goggles for your eyes which of course, I don't have a fire goggles, but my wife had these pink bedazzled ski goggles. So during the fire, I'm running around with pink goggles with the dazzles on the side. And I wore sneakers, Is the first night of the fire. I thought I can run around faster, but this feet fire would come out of the ground on my sneakers were melting. So you don't wear sneakers in a fire, you wear boots. So I was wearing snowboard boots because they're heavier and so I got snowboard boots and pink goggles on and bandana around my mouth because we didn't have this tree masks and and the whole neighborhood was the same thing. There was about a dozen of us and one of the funny stories was we had no electricity. So

But he's freezers was were going, you know, we tried getting warm and a lot of the people here, had very fancy food in their freezers State caviar as a lobster tails, but propane tanks still work, because still Grill. So, every night we were having gourmet meals to steak and caviar and lobster, tails and everybody's freezes while we're stuck up here by cantaloupe, but it was, it was quite an adventure. Anyway, that's it has nothing to do with filmmaking and television or anything that it's all about life. And

Make the best of the tragedy, right? Yeah. And the community is still actually dealing with, you know, loss of 20% of the population has implications for the school's rebuilding is a process of my house did not burn down, but we had a lot of damage to the exterior of the house. And so we're in the process of bit-by-bit fixing insult. My wife went to lie, she evacuated Things, what did she grab the Emmys load in the carbon uptake, the Emmys. For, if she was grabbing those friend for clothing Emmys, then the drooling truth, we're not losing these things because we have four, I think I might have done the same thing. Yeah, so I'm great. So it was honored with the windows and we're happy to have something. Elephant. 3D technology, it's getting really big today. Can you conceive of any 3D documentary? Surfing freestyle Motocross? It's a good question. I think there's two quarts of the question. One is 3D. The other is virtual reality and they're actually very different with with the IMAX right now about a large big wave 3D film. It's one of these things I've been talking to Max about five years about this on and off different ways. I think we have finally found a way to do it, you know, location in a story and characters but I'm dealing with it. Unfortunately is always something. Person is a hatchery man in nameless who has access to a giant wave, a hundred hundred 20-foot wave. That's never been served. And unfortunately, and it's in Africa somewhere. He wants to do it, but he has been keeping it a secret, his whole life, and I've seen some footage. I know it's real, I know people have been there. So I know he's kind of like it's like he wants the world to see it but he doesn't want the world to see. Yeah, dealing with like this guy who, He, you know, one hand so excited and then he the other hand, he's afraid that people will figure out where it is and it's very, very common problem with surfing in 3D is a technical technological. One and a function of the the nature of Surfing which is a nature 3D. If you don't have foreground elements, 3D doesn't work because a surfer on a wave. If you have a clear shot at him and nothing in the foreground just Really working 3D that much. Look at 3D. And if you don't have boats in front or multiple Surfers, it tends to look to even though you're in 3D. So you have to decide how much it's worth the other thing you can do with which I've now learned if you're shooting with a red camera and you're shooting an 8K, you can do it, you can do 3D and post it's expensive, it works really well. So Like is a lot because if you shoot in 3D, you have to shoot with two cameras side by side to create, each one's doing so many different don't asking when this. But I know you need two cameras and you're dealing with enormous. You have to 8K cameras running for hours on end. The amount of data, you're capturing an amount of dat that's as well just mind-blowing. So in terms of 3D it seems you know we would do it for IMAX, we do it for big screen. There's also you have your big money shots with waves but

9:31 AMAlso have training. If you going to do guys, one of the ways guys training, big waves, as they run on the bottom of the ocean with a rock underwater Rock grunting, they run along to build up their capacity. Well then I could find a place where there's rocks in front of me and I could, I could make, you know, any controlled environment as a director. I could find ways to make it work, so I think it has potential but it also feels fairly limited these days. I know I Max one of the they're doing it's a business. They do fantastic with recycling or reuse. Her being a platform is probably better but of Hollywood movies that works quite well. What does it work? Because it used to be that I Max was really the only place you can see movies many years ago. Documentaries it was you know school trips going into Science Center, very common experience. But now in this huge boom, there's bit of the documentary world. Turn on Netflix, you got your choice of a hundred documentaries. If your elementary school kid, why am I going to put kids in a bus driving to a planetarium? You know, have them, throw ice cream at it, each other and get lost and you know all this other stuff when I can just do that. So the documentary business is paradoxically well as a whole documentaries are growing. I'm axis is actually not as making as many as they used to. And, of course, the pandemic changes everything, why you nobody's funding movies? So the net on the flip side, the 360 stuff I got very involved with initially. And now I am a complete non believer.

And I found that like if you went to an Ayahuasca thing and you put a 360 camera in the middle of that tent, you would capture everything in that Hut or tent or whatever it is, no point of view, as a filmmaker. It's because everything in 360 degrees. Now, what might be most interesting would be the shaman. Might have these amazing tattoos or making this up or the creation of the potion or whatever it is. But if I if it's a 360 Cameron one hand is the scared. Looking Kid From Brooklyn who you know in the middle of the Jungle about to go he's going to hallucinate and the other is this very calm Shaman. If I have to figure that out as the as the viewer, I don't know what's important. I don't know where to look, I don't know. I now come to learn that a filmmaker like yourself in the middle of the Jungle, you have to make that decision for me. You have to then say I'm going to go in on this guy's eyes. Could see? Scare, or I'm going to look at the shaman as he's preparing it, but putting it 360 camera room where all those things are

You as a filmmaker or not, telling you what my experience should be. So, I've now sort of flipped around, we have another call coming up here in a couple minutes actually. Just realized, it's okay, we can wrap it up.

So anyway, that's my thoughts about technology is that, you know, it does work. But on the other hand

I can tell you quickly, thank you so much. So what can we look forward to you in the future? I'm doing a doing a big project with Twitch TV which is that gaming channel where we're going to be doing taking people who create video games, like Tony Hawk. The UFC and have the people who are in the video games play each other and then also have experiences around it. So it's a client has come to me and we're developing ways to try to get onto the video game platforms. And then I'm also doing the history of Supercross even won't really be that history is the story of the guys who race motorcycles and so those are the two big projects right now and then hopefully blink of an eye that I'll be on the set and they cannot move the soon. And lastly, but Paul, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a blast. You're definitely a DaVinci and I'll I'm going to be keeping an eye on you very well. Thanks a lot was nice chatting. I'll change my mind, my pleasure, and thank you so much. And hopefully someday maybe we'll serve together. Come out to Malibu anytime, perfect.