EP01 – The Pilot OR Two Dipshits Talking About Birds

Step into ‘Doc Walks’ with indie filmmakers Keith Maitland and Ben Steinbauer as they kick off this walk & talk podcast with a pilot episode focused on their documentary origins, storytelling motivations, personal frailties, and a few bird sightings. Tune in for candid conversations, industry insights, and the ambient sounds of Austin’s hike and bike trail.

From The Bear and Go Valley comes the show you didn’t know you wanted (or needed, probably). Hosted, produced, and edited by Ben Steinbauer and Keith Maitland, with help from Tanner Bass. Theme song by Sam Billen and Primary Color Music.

00:00 Introduction and Sound Check

00:40 Launching the Podcast: Doc Walks

02:03 The Concept Behind Doc Walks

02:56 Insights on Documentary Filmmaking

06:22 Personal Journeys into Filmmaking

12:06 Challenges and Realities of Filmmaking

13:53 The Collaborative Nature of Filmmaking

17:19 Synchronicity and Creative Inspiration

25:34 Conclusion and Future Plans

Recording.

All right, we are rolling.

Sound speeds.

Sound as we say in the biz.

Sound speeds.

And I don't know how defacto I became the sound guy.

You volunteered.

I did.

But you brought the mics.

I just kind of started putting everything on.

That's

good.

Just uh, shows good initiative.

It's like go, go get a attitude that you need in early development.

I do.

I am enthusiastic.

My skill level is questionable, but my enthusiasm is high.

All right.

What do you think?

We ready?

I think so.

Should we do this?

Let's do it.

And we are off.

On the inaugural episode of Wary

Well, that may be the place to start is what's in a name.

Does

that

mean that you are

not feeling

wary?

I think Wary is a great name for a documentary podcast about walking,

but for a walk about documentaries.

A don't feel like it's a a great name.

You're listening to Doc Walks.

With Ben and Keith.

Well, I'm Ben Steinhower and you are Keith Maitland.

And what are we doing, Keith?

Well, I'm not sure what you're doing, but I'm feeling a little silly walking

down the street in Austin, Texas, talking to my friend who I go on biweekly walks

with without the benefit of a recorder.

Um, where we walk and talk and walk and dock.

We dock walk, we, we dock, walk.

Whoa.

Crossing the street about to get hit.

Here we go.

Okay, so we're walking and talking and talking.

Documentary dock walking here in Austin, Texas.

We're

walking past a baseball field near Barton Springs Road on the way to the

hike and bike trail next to the lake.

What are we doing here, Ben?

I told you from the beginning, I just love our walks and our talks.

And I thought that it would be fun to try to record 'em, pull some guests in,

and as working documentary filmmakers, see if we can't make something of

value for other people to listen to.

I think that there could be some value to that.

Yes, taking a look at like the creative approaches to documentary filmmaking,

that's my favorite thing to talk about, but also looking at the industrial

side of how do you make a career?

Out of this art form, how do you react to the state of the world,

politically and socially through the work of figuring out how to keep

the lights on and pay your mortgage if you're lucky enough to have one?

And so that's what I kind of hope we get into on these.

And as we reach out to guests and have people join us on these walks,

I'll be looking for new perspectives and, and expansions on those themes.

How about you?

Yes.

I think, uh, anytime I talk to another director about their career,

I feel like I always learn a lot.

I remember when I was getting started going to panels at South by Southwest

or Hot Dogs or something like that and watching these kind of like, I. Name

brand filmmakers sit up on the panel.

You know, people like, like Gordon Quinn or Errol Morris or Paul Steckler or

somebody like that who would say, oh, it just keeps getting harder and harder.

I could never make the films I made early in my career.

Now it's just so impossible.

And I remember as like a young, emerging filmmaker.

Being really annoyed by those fuckers.

Like, shut up.

You're up there on the panel.

You just made a, another great film and a series of films, and we're out

here just trying to figure out how to catch a little bit of that edge.

And so listening to them complain about how hard it's

gotten never really spoke to me.

So I don't wanna become one of those old guys.

I do see what they're saying now, but at the same time.

I think you have to be kind of a hopeless optimist to do this work.

And even though like most of our contemporaries and the people

that we followed are not shy about grumbling, about the realities and

the confusions and the challenges of this work and this industry, if

you're not waking up every morning.

Thinking, today's the day I'm gonna figure it out.

Today's the day I'm gonna crack the code.

I don't know what else gets you through.

So are you waking up every morning thinking this is today's the day?

Uh, not consciously.

I don't know if today's, today's the day that I'm gonna figure

out the industry or figure out my career, but today's definitely

the day to play with a new idea.

That's, that's every day for sure.

Love that.

I love that.

And that's part of what this podcast is for me, is talking about.

Our careers as documentary filmmakers and the highs, the

lows, gutter balls, the strikes,

the constant state of confusion is the way I like to look at my career.

Uh, which I love to hear, of course.

Uh, but every time we go for a walk, you tell me some amazing

story about a meeting that you've had or a project that is getting

funded by a very impressive company.

And, uh, I love the movies that you make and I love our friendship and I

love talking documentaries with you.

So when the idea.

It came about.

Uh, I think we both were like, why would we do that?

Yeah.

Why,

why would we ruin a good thing?

And yet here we are.

It's almost like we can't help ourselves.

Well.

I think you have an infectious, uh, enthusiasm and I had

a hard time saying no.

Even though I question and doubt it, and I doubt that will go away anytime soon.

Well, don't you feel that way when you're making your documentaries?

Yes.

That is the only way I know how to feel.

Well then I, I think by that logic, we're onto something.

What you might be hearing is the sound of grackles.

Now, I don't know a lot about Grackles, but I don't know of any other town

that has the sheer amount of grackles that Austin has at this time of year.

And what would you say a grackle sounds like?

I mean, they g crack at you.

That's what's the name?

They're racking it up, up there in the trees, crackling around on the ground.

It is a particularly

unsettling sound, the grackle.

I think it's like a warning that at any moment there might be a GRE attack.

So what's your origin story?

How did you get started in documentary?

I. I always wanted to be a filmmaker since I was 12 or 13 years old, and

I made little movies with my friends back home in my hometown, Plano, Texas.

I was really fortunate to create and play with a group of like super

creative guys that I played music with and made fun videos with and

you know, kind of grew up with.

And so I got into filmmaking pretty early and then after college I

moved to New York and was, uh.

Apprentice assistant director through the Director's Guild working on

like big budget features and, and TV series and, you know, and scripted.

And then I met my wife, uh, Sarah Wilson.

Okay.

Documentary photographer and now cinematographer and producer.

But it was working well, assisting Sarah and helping her with her work,

uh, doing documentary photography projects at the idea of focusing

on documentary became real for me.

Love that.

But through the impact of Sarah and her work.

I've gotten a chance to see what it is to make movies by entering into an existing

community and not just expressing, you know, kind of an ego-driven story

that, that's born outta my mind, but by, uh, reflecting some kind of

reality that exists out in the world.

So, I don't know, I guess that's, does that answer your question?

Is that what we're talking about?

I think so.

Yeah.

Like why, why do you make documentaries

I do it 'cause I wanna say something and I wanna say something in a way

that brings people closer together.

I wanna, I wanna get a chance to see my own life reflected up on screen, you

know, through the experience of someone else, a chance to kinda learn who I

am and I wanna share that with people.

I want other people to get a chance to see who they are through these stories.

So that's kinda what draws me in is like the universality of

experience that exists even in the most unique and peculiar stories.

That's what I'm looking for.

I love it.

Um, can you hear the sound of these cottonwood trees?

How did you get started with all this?

Like, where did you, where did you begin?

Where does, where does your.

How did you get started with all this?

Well, my, my origin story is that I always wanted to be a writer and thought that

that's what I would do as a voracious reader when I was a kid and I got into

what I like to call the gateway drug authors in high school, like, uh, the

Charles Bukowskis and the, uh, the beats.

So Kerouac and Ginsburg and Burrows and all those guys whose thing was to go have.

These wild adventures and then write about them in this poetic way and

make the story of the adventure, this sort of story of human experience.

And so I did a version of that when I graduated high school.

I didn't go straight to college.

I moved to Monterey, California.

I loved John Steinbeck.

I thought maybe I would be an author.

I wrote a lot of really terrible.

Short stories, uh, smoked a lot of non-filtered cigarettes.

Then when it came time for me to go back to college, I went to

the University of Kansas and I had a creative writing professor

there, essentially get rid of me.

He, uh, he told me my writing was very visual.

I. And that I should, uh, look into taking a film class.

And at the time I was like, this guy gets me.

But now having taught undergrads, I realize that he was basically

saying, there's the door.

Get outta here.

And so the first class that I could take in, in the film department

was a documentary production class.

And all the things sort of clicked and that was how I started.

And I literally took the camera that my dad.

Used to shoot our family vacations with, and I got a piece of software that had

just come out called Final Cut Pro 1.0, and I just started making documentaries.

They started getting into film festivals and that was 2000, and

I've been at it basically ever since.

Whoa.

Watch.

And the world just happened

that just pop hard on you.

Whoa.

I could hear it.

What just happened?

It might be just me.

My electromagnetic field is strong.

This is the mic telling me to wrap

it up.

Okay.

Hello?

Hello.

How's that?

Is that working?

Better?

Check in.

Dam it.

Well check.

Check here.

Let's walk a little bit and then you can hear it.

Check, check, check.

1, 2, 1, 2. Check.

Chest checkers.

Check the skeleton slipped in the shower.

The human torch was denied a bank loan.

Hello?

Hello, hello, bike riders.

Hello children.

Here's a child bike rider.

Putting them all together sounds great to me.

Really.

No, no hits, huh?

Okay.

How are you feeling so far in this podcast

so far?

What I like is the sounds of the trail and describing those sounds.

Yep.

And, uh, how is that traffic noise?

Is it kind of the kind of traffic noise that pulls you in closer and says.

I really want to hear what these guys have to say right now.

Or is it the kind of traffic noise it says we should edit out

this whole chunk of the trail.

It's probably the kind of traffic noise that one of us will spend a lot of

time trying to filter out of the audio,

which is tough because this is, uh, by design, a podcast that's meant to embrace.

The environment of the sounds of the world, natural and otherwise,

much like documentary where you don't have control of things like traffic.

And if you're out in the world, you're gonna hear some traffic.

I, I do love that rhythm though, of like the,

of the car is coming above.

Here.

Let's listen to a little bit of that.

I think I was drawn to documentary filmmaking because it's a place that

invariably you have to kind of give up control, and I think so much of my life

and my relationship to this world is kind of a negotiation with control, you know?

I'm not a verite filmmaker.

I'm not a fly on the wall kind of guy.

It's, there's a lot of construction going on and a lot of kind of structural

decision making, but it's almost all in reaction to an initial authentic push

into a world, a community, a story that

dovetails kind of nicely with what we are talking about with documentaries and those

sort of happy accidents and coincidences.

Our part of the thing that I love about docs and it's sort of

taught me to follow those things.

Like whenever I encounter those, I know that sort of onto something.

And if I trust that the imperfection or the hurdle or the chance

encounter is actually gonna make whatever I'm doing better, I would.

I almost every time that's what happens, sort of life intervenes

to sort of tell you what the story wants to be rather than the story you

think you're telling.

Yeah, I think that's always the case.

You know, I don't think I've ever made a film that I've never made a film where

I knew the third act, and I don't think I've ever made a film where at some

point afterwards, I didn't say, I thought we were making a film about this, but

it turned out to be a film about that.

Oh my goodness.

I'm having fun, Keith.

I have to say I like this.

I'm glad you like it.

Let's talk about our frailties and vulnerabilities.

Oh, please.

Okay.

Uh, you start, how, how, how frail are you feeling?

Always happy talking about my vulnerabilities.

I, I, I, I feel like I say the word I a lot and a lot of times that I'm

talking about my approach to filmmaking and I say I, what I really mean is

we, uh, because there is, um, almost never a moment where I am working

in a vacuum or working without the assistance input and always like.

Additive nature of my primary editor and, and close collaborator, Austin Reedy, uh,

bevy of wonderful producers like Megan Gilbride, Melissa Glassman, Veronica

Maciel, and, and interns, which I, we always have interns that we rely on.

Um, and so anyway, that is a vulnerability I'll admit.

Like I, I, I feel like as a director, producer, director, director, producer.

I often get far more credit than work deserves.

I like to think that I get more blame as well, but that's not always the case.

And so anyway, that's the vulnerability.

When I hear myself talking to you, walking down this trail, taking note of.

All the good variety of birds.

There's a little voice in the back of my head saying, stop talking about yourself.

Part of the reason we do what we do, I think, is the ability to de the world and

present the world from behind the camera.

You know, rarely using our own voices, although, you know, with full

acknowledgement that like the work that we present as a manipulation of reality,

that very much represents kind of the collective voice of our team as much

as the people we point the cameras at.

Anyway, that's the vulnerability I wanted to acknowledge and now I want

you to make me feel better about it.

I love that, and I fully agree.

Filmmaking is a team sport 100%.

I similarly could rattle off lots of other producers and collaborators and

um, that's part of actually what I love about every single project that I do,

is that it's sort of like building like a family structure with each project.

And I really admire about you.

That you have consistent collaborators that you go back

to again and again and again.

And I have that as well, but I also like to kind of switch it up

depending on what the project needs.

And I think that is a big part of the commercial filmmaking, informing

my doc filmmaking, because that is a, the like a thing that happens all

the time in commercial filmmaking.

So you, you end up working with a lot broader cross section of crew and a

lot of times sometimes like the TV.

Uh, crew that I use would not be appropriate for a commercial shoot.

Right.

You know, and vice versa.

Yeah, no, you've had, you've definitely been exposed to a lot

more craftspeople and collaborators than I have, you know, uh, kind of

self-selected both by nature of, uh.

Like my network of trusted associates and also my inability to pay very well,

um, you know, a certain group of people, but I, you know, I'm reminded of the,

the premier of the first feature doc I ever made is called The Eyes of Me.

It premiered at South by in 2009.

And my, uh, producing partner on that was my very old friend and frequent

creative collaborator, Patrick Floyd.

And as we went up on stage to, for the q and a and as the

credits kind of continued to roll.

He said, this right here is my favorite part of the movie, and it's the, the a

hundred plus names of people that roll by that it took to get to this moment.

And we should all take a moment to acknowledge them.

I, I love that and I think it is very important to acknowledge all of

the people that helped us get here.

For sure.

We were talking about synchronicity and my wife Katie.

Got an email from a friend asking her to produce her podcast.

Katie said she's very busy.

Her husband is actually starting a little bit a podcast, and if

she were gonna produce anybody's, it should really be his.

But she can't even do that because we have two young children.

She works full time.

So Katie says, let me think about some other producer friends I know.

Send me anything you have on it.

A couple days go by last night.

I am getting ready for this podcast when this woman sends her.

A description of her podcast in which she is planning to take walks and talk to

people while she's walking and talking.

What are the odds of that happening?

Completely unrelated.

Had no idea.

Very different topic, but what are the odds that not in the same month,

not in the same week, literally three.

The night before, night before our inaugural Walk and Talk podcast, a woman

reaches out to my wife to ask her to help produce a Walk and Talk podcast.

That's one of those things where you think like, sure, it's in the ether.

Not claiming that we're brilliant enough to have some idea that

nobody else has thought of before.

But the timing of that is what's remarkable.

It's with great auspice.

Yeah.

And so what, uh, when you come across a synchronistic moment like that,

what does it mean to you or what do you gain from that acknowledgement?

Well, in that particular moment, what I gained was, oh, we're onto

something Like, that's interesting.

If somebody else is thinking about doing it and it's out there, this is just like

the idea is percolating out in the world.

Then us picking up on it and playing with it is what needs to happen.

And I in Rick Rubin's book on creativity, which I love, he talks about how

the artist's job is to be an antenna and to pick up signals in the world

for things that want to be made.

So whether they're stories or songs or podcasts or paintings or

whatever, they are looking for a home.

And your job as the artist is to recognize them and give them that home.

The Rock and Roll photographer, Scott Newton, who's a, a guy that I've had the

pleasure of pointing a camera at quite a bit and also become friends with,

always talks about the relationship of the muse and how creativity is a

process that exists outside of ourselves.

And that if we are tuned acutely to it, it can transmit through us.

And, uh, you know, the, the idea of the muse actually being the

source of the word music, right?

It's.

Of the muse.

It's, it's an expression that comes from without and passes

within only to go out again.

I never knew that that was the root of music, was the muse.

That is fascinating.

I am not positive about that, but that is what Scott says and I think he's right.

He must be

alright.

Well see.

We're making progress, Keith.

It's all coming together.

I think it's such a privilege to be able to do this work, but most of the time I.

I feel like I, and just about every one of the people like you and that I consider

like my colleagues and are also just like suffering through a major sense of

like a circle of confusion at all times.

Ooh, that's a great title.

Circle of

confusion.

And so I think like, uh, it is, this is a world of confusion that

we operate in, but you also have to take into to, to account that.

So many things had to, to go right to get to this moment of confusion.

And you know, so many people start out wanting to do a version of what we have.

You know, stubbornly refused not to do that.

It's, it's a privilege.

I absolutely agree.

And when I have taught students in the past, that's one of the

things that I always sort of fumble my way into saying is that.

You know, if you're a dentist, you go to dental school, there's a very clear path.

You graduate from dental school, you get hired by a dental practice.

Maybe you start your own and you get patients and you clean their teeth,

and that's your job with filmmaking.

It doesn't matter who you talk to.

Everybody's path is unique and different, and no two people have the same success

or failure or origin stories and what.

Ends up being the case is that a lot of times people decide to stop doing

it and it becomes too insecure as a lifestyle to go on making projects

that are essentially on spec that you hope people will like, or that you can

get people to give you money to make.

And what I have always been attracted to about filmmaking,

both the filmmakers I love and what I've tried to do with my career is

think about it as a body of work.

I. Is that it's not just the one thing you're doing right now, it's, I want

to look back when I'm an old man and be proud of what is on my archival

hard drives, and hope that my kids or some younger filmmakers or somebody

get some inspiration and some spark out of it, and that that's sort of like

a, an imprint of a life well lived and an interesting, adventurous spirit.

And if I think about it that way, and not the funding for the next project

or where the last movie premiered, or did my last TV show get picked up

or whatever it is, who lied to your face and stabbed you in the back?

Oh, I can tell you exactly who that is.

Their names yes, yes.

Uh, but that's really the thing.

Like you said, it's a privilege.

It's amazing that we just get to come down here and look.

We're.

We landed.

Where we're standing right now is on the other side of the fence

from the iconic Barton Springs.

Uh, naturally fed the swimming hole here in Austin.

Let's go get some, some nice audio of the runoff of the water.

Okay,

here we go.

We're getting some audio of the water falling from Barton Springs.

On the one side into barking springs on the other.

So as we were recording the water falling here on that side, I looked

down and noticed that an XLR cable had come unplugged, and that we have,

uh, we may have just gone through that whole scene there, uh, with one of

our mics not plugged into the recorder

professionals.

We were too busy being profound to, uh, think about the

actually recording the audio,

audio problems with Ben and Keith.

Here's why 99% of podcasts take place sitting down.

Ooh, whoa.

Look at

that thing.

Oh wow.

That is a beautiful brown.

Slender bird with a sharp beak.

We kind of blew

what Bird is.

I don't know.

See, I feel like if we continue to do this, we are going to learn a lot

about the birds of Austin and wherever else this, uh, journey takes us.

Um, and eventually we'll just be doing a birdwatching.

Uh, podcast, which will probably have a much bigger audience.

I think it's fair to say there's probably more bird watchers than there are.

Oh, and there it goes.

Hey, did you hear those two div shits talking about independent film?

No.

I'm too busy listening to two div shits talking about birds.

That's actually a hell of a name for a podcast.

Two dip shits talking about birds.

Next time on Dock Walks we're gonna Sundance.

Yes we are.

And I have fought going until I had a movie in the festival,

but Keith convinced me to

go.

Anyways,

we're gonna have a great time.

I feel pretty good about it.

We're gonna catch up with some old friends.

Hopefully see a few movies, talk to people on Main Street and, uh, and, and take our,

take our doc walking, uh, out on the road

to

New

Heights.

That's it.

See you next time.

Everybody.

Doc Walks is created, produced, and edited by my friend Ben Stein Bauer of the Bear.

Hello, and my friend Keith Maitland of Go Valley.

Thanks for tuning in.