EP025 – I’m Not Sure That’s A Sculpture with Hillary Pierce

10.09.2025 - Season: 1 Episode 25

This week we’re roaming from Go-Valley (the production compound) thru Govalle (the neighborhood) with Marfa, TX-based filmmaker Hillary Pierce, a producing force behind Ben Masters’ THE RIVER AND THE WALL, and Maisie Crow’s AT THE READY..

Hillary’s path involves assisting the legendary Albert Maysles in New York (yes, he ate her leftovers), looping back to Austin, and then simultaneously working on two wildly different features with Keith, TOWER and A SONG FOR YOU. A meandering stroll through Govalle’s sculpture garden and lizard-lurking trails, Hillary shares why “love your subjects” is ardent filmmaking advice, how producing a wedding preceded additional documentary productions, and why she eventually fled to Marfa during COVID.

We dig into the Documentary Producers Alliance – why it matters, what those crediting guidelines actually do, and how unsexy spreadsheets save productions. Hillary breaks down fundraising across political aisles, the death of traditional distribution, and why your next project might not need to be a feature.

The industry’s burning down? Rumor has it. But Hillary’s got ideas for what we build next.

Discussion links: TOWER (2016) | A SONG FOR YOU (2016) | THE RIVER AND THE WALL (2019) | AT THE READY (2021) | DOCUMENTARY PRODUCERS ALLIANCE

Timestamps: 00:00 Govalle Adventures Begin 02:00 From Maysles to Austin 07:00 The Costa Rica Doc That Never Was 09:00 Producing Two Features at Once 14:00 What the DPA Actually Does 21:00 Escaping to Marfa 24:00 Conservative Conservationists & Border Politics 28:00 Plans Are Made to Be Changed 33:00 Direct Distribution Isn’t Plan B Anymore 40:00 Redefining Documentary Success 44:00 What Do We Build Next?

Tags: documentary filmmaking, film producer, documentary producer, Tower documentary, The River and the Wall, Albert Maysles, documentary distribution, direct distribution, indie filmmaking, Documentary Producers Alliance, DPA, Austin filmmakers, Marfa Texas, film production, documentary careers, filmmaking advice, Keith Maitland, Ben Steinbauer, documentary industry, independent film

All right.

Today we're at Go Valley,

which is between I 35 and the airport.

Ooh.

Yeah.

The helpful sign there, which was actually picked up on one

of our previous stock orders.

That's right.

Episode seven.

Charlie Shackleton.

Oh, I love that you remember

the number.

And today we have with us colleague, friend, producer, west Texan by way

of North Carolina, Hillary Pierce.

Hi.

Yay.

Hello, Hillary.

All right, we are gonna now leave Go Valley and walk through the

neighborhood called Go Valley.

Ooh, with no, I'm sensing a theme here, Keith.

So this is Ben Steinbauer.

I'm Keith Maitland.

This is Hillary Pierce.

And you are on Doc Walks Do, do, do, do, do.

That's the music.

Now we come back.

Wait, how does the music go again?

Ding, ding.

I like it.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

I don't think that's how our theme song sounds like.

Did you compose

it, Keith?

Thankfully, no.

Yeah.

On your left,

you're listening to Doc Walks with Ben and Keith.

So Hillary, I know that you're a longtime collaborator with Keith.

Um, and you guys have known each other for how long now?

Since 20.

14.

We met at South by Southwest in 2014.

Wow.

Yeah.

And

what do you remember about that first meeting?

Well, we were just talking about it the other day, so I had a, what I remember

is talking about it the other day.

We met at the Hideout Theater on Congress Avenue.

Uh, Hillary was recommended to me by your friend of mine, George Sledge.

Ooh, yeah.

The sledgehammer.

And, uh, and so we met up during South by.

For a quick coffee, which turned into a good conversation, which turned

into a trip together to the Paramount Theater to see Margaret Brown's

oil spill.

The

oil spill dog.

Oh, and that, so that was March of, of 2014?

Uh, yeah.

2014. Let's, we were just getting going.

Ben found a

butterfly.

Yeah, the city.

Beautiful butterflies flying around right here.

It's a wildlife walk.

It's as go valley as it gets right there.

Orange butterflies on an orange pride of Barbados.

Oh, and now there's a cat.

Hi kitty.

Hello, little cat.

Yeah,

you're on a podcast.

Hello Kitty.

You're on a podcast.

Sohil.

What do you remember about that initial meeting?

I think we both might have been a little hungover

south by Southwest 2014.

Um,

Keith was telling me about the projects that.

He had teed up and both of them in very different ways

were of great interest to me.

So I was pretty excited.

And

what was your story at that point?

Were you out of film school?

Did you know that you wanted to get involved in documentaries?

Yeah, I, um, had just graduated from an MFA program at Wake Forest in documentary

film and I'd moved back to Austin.

I had been in Austin briefly, uh, prior.

To grad school.

I loved Austin.

Didn't really mean to leave the first time, but got an internship in New York.

Um,

that's one of the things that struck me most when I first met Hillary,

is she was fairly fresh off of working at Maisels in New York.

Maisels.

Wow.

Yeah.

And with, uh, fellow Austin filmmaker, Amy Bench.

I didn't realize Amy had worked

there too.

We've talked to a handful of other filmmakers who got their start

there and yeah, it was great.

That's awesome.

Um, yeah.

Uh, if you could give a quick distillation maybe of what you learned working with

Albert Maisels, what would that be?

Well, his, his number one advice was always love your subjects,

which is fantastic.

I love that.

And I did get to go film with him a few times and just kind of absorbing his

energy and, and spirit of it all like.

I thought was pretty special.

You know, like he just has kind of a special unobtrusive, but chiming

in here and there kind of way of filming with people and Yeah.

Um, a lot of it was also, he was in his later years.

Yep.

And it was as much having an internship as it was, um,

having kind of like a surrogate grandfather, which was really nice.

That's a great deal.

Yeah.

Um, so he was giving you life advice at the same time he was giving you

totally advice about your projects.

I would quote Seinfeld or something.

He was like, oh, you speak Yiddish.

And then he, he used to eat my leftovers outta the fridge.

Oh, that's hilarious.

Uh, which was a very grandfatherly thing to do.

I feel like.

I mean, we're

talking about Albert Mazel.

One of the godfathers of documentary filmmaking.

Like what a, what a special experience that was.

It really was.

was a total sweetheart and just really incredible to get to know.

Awesome.

I mean, he, and you know David before him, which I know you

probably never met, right.

Um, you know, they're Mount Rushmore figures Yeah.

In American doc filmmaking.

Um, who else is that for you, Hillary?

Ooh, good question.

Besides Keith Maitland.

Yeah.

Other than Keith Ma side Stepping Steiner, stepping the

obvious.

Um,

well, d Cona Baker

nice too.

Yeah.

Uh,

OUS, um,

I think they, uh, I was lucky enough to meet them several times.

They used to volunteer at the Full Freedom Come Festival in Durham

when I lived in North Carolina.

And it was really cool because I was just a. A young film student and I'd

get to like meet all these legendary documentary filmmakers coming to the

festival and kind of pick their brain.

'cause it was my job to greet them at the airport.

Oh, cool.

And bring them to the festival.

Cool.

you get a lot of like dedicated time with really legendary people.

So I actually met Albert that way the first time and.

Just as like an observer to your story so far, it's, it's like you were

very clear that you wanted to make documentary films from the very beginning.

Like how did that happen for you?

Well, I went to undergrad for film in Spanish at the University

of North Carolina, Wilmington.

Okay.

And I had a friend there who approached me about making a documentary in

Costa Rica and I, I sounded great and.

He, uh, had an idea for a story but uh, wasn't fully fleshed out, and he

was like, do you wanna go to Costa Rica for the summer and make a documentary?

And I said yes, and went, and we did not end up making a documentary.

Uh, we shot a lot of footage,

uhhuh,

but uh, we ended up having kind of different ideas about what it should be.

Never ended up cutting anything with it, but it was a really cool experience

because I realized how much I enjoyed.

Interviewing people Right.

And shooting and producing and just the whole thing.

So after that experience, I was pretty sure I wanted to

do documentary and full frame.

Also just really had a big effect on me.

Yeah.

Going to festivals early on and mm-hmm.

Getting moved by the experience of seeing documentaries in a theater.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Especially anytime the participants are there.

Right.

You

know, afterwards, which full frame was always good about that.

Yeah.

So it was really cool.

Awesome.

So, okay, so you go to New York, you work with Maisels, you come back

to Austin, you meet Keith and you guys start working together pretty

quickly after that first meeting.

Uh, we did, as a matter of fact, Sarah and I were getting married about a

month after that, and Hillary jumped right into the process of that kind of

became our defacto wedding producer.

Yeah.

Oh boy.

Um, uh, which was greatly appreciated and necessary and was like a fairly,

uh, exciting way to like cement.

Our collaboration.

Um, she kind of showed up right when we needed her.

She got the idea right away that this is a family business and she was kind

of thrust in the middle of the family in that regard and it was great.

Um, and we were making, you know, we were in production on

two features, two doc features simultaneously, which I had never done.

And so you've got,

why not also get married?

Yeah.

Look at this.

They're, uh, repairing a phone pole here.

Is that what's happen?

Uh.

Alright.

It was a lot of, lot of awesome energy.

Energy,

always something exciting happening in Go Valley.

Hillary and I worked together for the next two and a half years.

And so that was Tower and song

for you, song for you.

Wow.

Two very exciting projects.

Yeah.

And very, very different.

But really, I think a, a good matchup for making at the same time.

Hmm.

Say,

say more about that.

How so?

I mean, tower could be heavy at times.

And a song for you was very light, a lot of filming music.

Right?

Uh, so it gave you kind of a, a break after some of the heavier stuff.

But, um, they, they were both so rewarding in different ways.

It's a great pivot point to be able to go from, you know.

Mass murder to hanging out on the bus with Willie Nelson,

right?

Like those are, those two things serve each other very well.

Uh, none of us had taken on anything of that size of really either film.

So to do them simultaneously was like a real set of confusions.

And initially my thought was before I met Hillary, I needed two distinctly

different teams to work with.

If I was gonna direct two different.

Two different docs at the same time.

I would have two sets of producers, two sets of editor, two sets of camera

operators, just church and state.

Very different mindset.

Right?

And then when it turned out they were both unfunded, that got thrown out

the window 'cause they didn't have the luxury of, of asking that many people

to work for, for next to nothing.

Right.

And so instead what what was formed was this like really intense

production unit that could pivot from one to another, like oftentimes.

Piggy, you know, ping ponging within one day,

within the same day.

I remember watching like YouTube clips all day about mass school shootings

and we were making kind of a montage for tower of those to kind of tie

it to the current situation and then wrapped that up at the office.

And I think we went and filmed Beck.

That was a great night.

So got to hang out with Beck and listen to him and.

It was just a nice yin and yang

and weirdly, both of those scenes kind of play in the same moments of both movies.

Oh, that's true.

Both of those are like the post climactic moment of, of each movie.

Wow.

That's true.

ISN about that.

Wow.

Art imitates life and vice versa.

That's really, yeah.

That's amazing.

So, but

that, you know, working at Go Valley and working on those films isn't the

totality of Hillary's experience at all.

If, if anything, we were just.

Um, one stop.

I hope a significant one, but one stop on her journey.

Let's jump here into the sculpture garden.

This is the sculpture garden

and, uh, and explore the art and dimensionality of the rest of Hillary's.

Are those experience

sandbag sculptures?

I think those are concrete sandbags.

Yes.

You wanna go take a look at those?

Sure.

So you were there for the complete production

mm-hmm.

Of a song for you pretty much, and the overwhelming majority of tower, and then

the release of Tower and the song for you.

But Tower had a particularly robust release.

What was that festival we went to together?

Is it River Run?

We went to River On, yeah, I was gonna say dead.

Yeah, we

hung out with Ben,

which is where I really remember first like meeting you guys.

Yeah.

I think that was the first time actually meeting you and I had

overlapped before, but like we'd never really hung out like that.

Yeah.

We had like, I had to meet your

house, had for dinner once in your previous incarnation, I remember.

Yeah.

Well I actually, but we had, we didn't really like solidify that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it was that, yeah.

Hanging out in Oklahoma City at Dead Center and going to that

crazy old man bar together.

That was, that was really like, oh, now we're, it took us going to

Oklahoma City to hang out as friends.

KC brings people together, should be on there.

I liked to kc, I was so pleasantly surprised by that trip and

yeah,

I went to the memorial too while I was there.

Which, so well done.

Very, very, yeah.

I remember you went and I was gonna go the very next day and the next day was

the day of the Pulse nightclub shooting.

Exactly.

I do

remember that.

Oh jeez.

And instead of going to the memorial of mass murder, I stayed in my hotel bed and

binged six hours of CNN and M-S-N-B-C.

Ugh.

That

kept happening.

Like we released, we made tower as we're making it more shootings,

and then we released it more shootings and it's continued well,

and even as we're talking, unfortunate.

There was, you know, just recently the Charlie Kirk shooting.

Right.

And I'm sure,

well then there was a school shooting that day.

The same day.

Yeah.

And since that more people have died in shootings in America, then

will die in the entirety of next year on the incontinent of Europe.

Geez.

America averages 120 gun deaths a day.

Um, let's keep moving.

So, you know, in the years after that, Hillary, you stepped

into a couple of new roles.

You became a producer with Maisie Crow.

Mm-hmm.

You went back to your alma mater virtually and became a college professor.

Yeah.

At UNCW, you've become an advocate for doc film makers and a rep to

the documentary Producer's Alliance.

Mm-hmm.

Which of those three things should we jump into next?

Let's talk about the dpa.

Okay.

Yes,

I'm excited about the DPA.

I am not a member of the

DPA for those, uh, listening and for those like myself who don't know what

you're talking about, what is the DPA?

It's the Documentary Producers Alliance and uh, it's an organization

of documentary producers.

Um, and they, we make resources for the documentary filmmaking

community, particularly for producers that are usually like best

practices or guidelines on how to.

Best do something.

So there's waterfall guidelines and contract negotiating guideline guidelines

and, um, crediting guidelines that they've researched heavily and made

over the years and now made available.

And it's also community with other producers.

I think you guys can probably understand like how isolating it can be sometimes.

Absolutely.

To produce.

Yeah.

Um,

so it's nice to have other producers that you can.

Ask questions of, or, uh, just vent to.

Yeah.

Uh, but yeah, it's, it's a really great organization.

So what's your role in it?

Like what, how do you help coordinate that community?

I have kind of a dual role right now.

I am the Southwest Regional co-chair.

I'm also the impact consultant for the contract negotiation guidelines.

So it's essentially running an impact campaign for one of the

resources that we've built.

Hmm.

Uh, so that it gets out to more people.

Cool.

Like how many people belong to the DPA?

That's a good question.

I actually don't know the membership number, but it's, it's gotta be

high hundreds, if I had to guess.

Yeah.

80 over a thousand.

I'm not, I'm not, actually not even sure.

Feels like it's missing two for, for guys walking around claiming to be,

uh, documentary filmmakers talking about the state of the industry.

Yeah.

We should, yes.

Woefully under, uh.

Utilizing

a very important resource.

Why don't you

keep your finger on the pulse?

I would say, well,

you know what this is reminding me of is, uh, our recent guest, Bradley

Beasley, when talking about our podcast, was making fun of us saying, you're

gonna run out of subjects very soon.

It's like you guys set out to interview astronauts or something like how many

documentary filmmakers are there?

And we both.

Oh no.

You would be surprised.

Like we haven't even scratched the surface.

Yeah, that's right.

How many filmmakers?

Quite an old man.

Nevermind the fact that like a lot of documentary filmmakers call Austin home,

but people come through here all the time for festivals and all the time springs.

And

like last night I moderated a screening at a FS with Maureen Gosling, who was

Les Blank's long longtime collaborator.

Yeah.

And she's here at 75 with a new doc feature.

What an

incredible person to.

Get to know and learn from ab It was

very cool to like get to celebrate her and have her on a walk, and that

is really cool.

Yeah.

But we need to be more involved

in the Yeah, well, like the Documentary Producers Alliance, I feel like

focused very primarily on documentary producers that weren't also directors.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's true.

And so

they made it clear to me that they didn't necessarily, they

weren't necessarily me missing my.

Participation.

Yeah, don't worry.

Um, and that's fine.

Um, I, there's many rooms I am not welcome in.

And this just seemed like another one initially.

Uh, but then Megan joined up and she became deeply involved and was like on a

steering committee and, and, and became like really, I think, pivotal in helping

write some of those best practices docs.

Yeah.

She was very instrumental in, in writing those and has probably, yeah, spent.

More time in the DPA than a lot of us combined.

Uh, working hard at this.

know.

I know.

It's something that she spent, she was really passionate about, and I

have benefited greatly from the DPA's, um, best practices in crediting.

It's funny, I remember when Hillary first started working, uh, with

us, we had a conversation about crediting because I always felt like

documentary credits are very amorphous.

Mm. And we were trying to figure out what exactly Hillary's role

was because she was carrying a lot of different responsibilities.

And I think, did we end up with supervising producer?

Coordinating, coordinating, coordinating producer?

I think I recommended supervising producer.

And you said that's a TV credit.

Mm-hmm.

That means something different than what this is.

Yeah.

And I said, oh, okay.

I, you know, these credits all seem made up to me.

I just, I know what a director does.

Well, and Amy ended up being our supervising producer for ITVF

for it.

And you're right.

And from the TV side Yeah.

Of the, so, um.

The DPA has this best practices in crediting docu document that is crystal

clear on like what the rules are.

Right.

And it makes hiring and conversations like that so much easier.

Right.

And it also makes conversations with investors.

Mm-hmm.

Much easier because you know, how often has somebody said,

oh, I'd love to be a producer.

And you say, well, that's not really what a producer is.

A producer isn't the person who wrote the check.

That can be an executive producer if you hit these certain benchmarks.

Right.

And those benchmarks, most of us for years have just been

making them up as we go along.

Project to project.

Yeah.

Having uncomfortable conversation after uncomfortable conversation.

And now because of the DPA's document, you can have something to point to.

Mm-hmm.

And you can say, we follow the guidelines as set forth by the

Documentary Producers Alliance.

So I've really valued that.

Um, and I also think, what's the other one?

The, the, there's one about, there's the waterfall

guidelines.

And, uh, the contract negotiation guidelines, which I think both do kind of

similar things where it like gives you a standard, it gives filmmakers something

to point to when they're talking, having these discussions and it sort of

standardizes it in a way that makes it, uh, kind of equitable across the board.

Yeah.

Um, one of the things that I learned doing contract guidelines was.

Just negotiating those roles.

And we all have to be producers.

Even if we're directors, right?

In documentary, it's sort of required.

We wear all the hats

usually.

Yeah.

So I think you can become a better producer by engaging with the DPA A.

Yeah, I like that.

Let's do a quick speed round of catching shots of all these

sculptures before we get outta here.

We're gonna run aren't circles around.

Yeah.

So.

And not only is this a beautiful little sculpture garden, it's also a

lovely pecan grove, and we're getting close to the time of year where the

pecans are gonna drop just in time for Thanksgiving and pecan pie.

Mm, most wonderful time of the year.

Is that table A sculpture?

Let's take a look.

Art is all about creation and sometimes destruction, so

That's so true.

I think so.

I'm not sure that's a sculpture.

That might be the name of the episode.

I'm not sure that's a sculpture.

We have a lot of interesting sculptures in Marfa.

Yeah, you do.

So, okay.

You now live in Marfa.

So when did you leave Austin and why did you leave?

I. Left Austin, but didn't really intend to permanently leave.

Austin and I, I haven't completely, but I did, um, just get the urge

to go out west during COVID.

Oh yeah, sure.

I lived in Barton Hills and when COVID hit, uh, it seemed like everybody in

Austin decided to go to Barton Hills to walk around and enjoy the park and mm-hmm.

I felt really claustrophobic and.

I'd spent a lot of time in West Texas, uh, making river in the wall and just

kind of always wanted to spend some more time out there and it seemed like

nothing mattered and I wouldn't see many of my friends anytime soon anyway.

Right.

So I thought I'd give it a go.

So I got a sublet and moved out there and called my friend Macy Crow, uh,

and told her I was coming 'cause she was the only person I knew who

lived in Marfa full-time at the time.

And, um, she was like, oh, great, I need a producer.

So it, it was kind of, uh, serendipitous.

That sounds very serendipitous.

So after you, you and Keith worked together on these two movies and you

had this great experience of touring around the world with these films,

where, when, where do you go next?

I met Ben Masters through.

Our mutual friend John Aldrich, who's an editor in town, a producer in town too.

Okay.

Um, and he was just like, you guys, like the same stuff you should meet,

tell our listeners who Ben Masters is.

Okay.

Uh, Ben is a local Austin filmmaker, grew up in San Angelo and Amarillo,

and had a really crazy idea to make a film with his college buddies.

He was not a filmmaker at the time, and he made a film called Unbranded.

Uh, where he traveled on wild Mustangs through public land from Mexico to

Canada to explore wild horse issues.

Basically.

He had a lot of success with that film, um, and kind of realized I think

the power of filmmaking, documentary filmmaking to bring attention to issues.

And so that was kind of the concept behind the river and the wall was let's

combine adventure with social issue.

And kinda maybe invite new people to the conversation.

Awesome.

Which I think we did.

And so you met through this mutual friend.

You guys got paired together, he pitched you the idea.

And then where do you go from there as a doc producer, like you,

you meet somebody you wanna work with, they've got a cool idea.

What's the next step?

Well, we started putting together some written materials, synopsis and

a pitch deck and that sort of thing.

Started fundraising right away and.

The border wall conversation was really hot at the time, so we kind of wanted to

make the film as quickly as possible to get it into the national conversations.

We thought time was of the essence, and so we kind of set a production date as

like a deadline for fundraising, for enough for production, and said, we're

taking this trip no matter what December 1st, and, and that's what we did.

The deadline worked.

We raised enough money to do at least that portion of production

and, um, it was, it was a wild ride,

literally.

I'm gonna interrupt here just to say we've walked behind the Austin

Bouldering Pro, uh, project through this like industrial landscape of

broken glass and broken dreams.

Yes.

We're gonna take it a step further and go here on this, uh, like weird path.

Under Airport Boulevard to the right, which is then gonna

hook up with the actual path.

But this is one of my like various like places to get poison Ivy, Huck

Sawyer Huck, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn.

Kind of like off the beaten path.

Yeah.

Sort of like adventure walk spots.

Okay.

I'm gonna let you lead.

It feels a little stabby.

Oh yeah, it's very stabby.

There's also good street art.

On these panels back here.

So hp, when you were making River in the Wall, you know you started out,

you had to fundraise, which we all do.

But Ben's work and the work you guys did together is a little different than

really anyone else I know is work in that.

Look at this.

I love this spot.

Somebody's little art gallery that they've posted here.

Oh, that's cool.

Some more over there.

And then it's just like such a great, like little visual Oh yeah.

Like scheme here under Airport Boulevard.

I've never seen these big old piles of, of, uh, Sandy Lo.

So I'm not sure what they're gonna be doing here.

There's some project about to kick off.

Wasn't here, but Do you remember the Swing?

Yes.

That's under the Seventh Street overpass.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

I love that whole, you know, I love being under an overpass.

Okay, what I was getting at is the work that you've done

with Ben requires fundraising.

Like all our work requires fundraising, but he has tapped into, uh, different

sources for funding and uh, and I think that's so interesting.

Is that something you could share?

Kind of like that plan.

Texas is a really interesting place.

I think.

Um, a lot of few whole big environmentalism liberalism, politics.

You know, on the left caring by the earth and the wildlife.

Uh, but in the, in tech for some of our best conservationists are smoke.

And here it's,

yeah,

not always, but actually I think a real kind of unique to Texas thing that

people on both sides of the aisle care about conservation and the environment.

And so we were able to kind of tap into some family foundations and some

donors that wanted that to be known.

You know, they, they wanted the rest of the country to know

we might be Republican, but we don't want a border wall

right

in our state.

But I mean, on our RI mean, if it similar all opened it up to ize, but there's just

some really great folks that, you know, want to have something different to say.

Watch this bike rider here.

Yep.

So this is the trail that meets up with the Walnut Creek Trail.

Not

no more Boondoggling Boondoggling.

Boon docking.

Boon boondoggling,

right?

Okay.

Yep.

So, okay.

So you're tapping into these family foundations.

You're tapping into people on both sides of a political issue.

And that film, uh, engages with politics, the river and the wall.

And if you haven't seen it.

It's a film that travels the distance of the, of the Texas border, exploring

the building of the wall, the communities that are impacted by it.

And it's a group of, like you said, kind of adventurers.

Mm-hmm.

And they travel by horse canoe and mountain bike.

Yeah.

Wow.

They kind of close to, they cover the entire terrain from all these

different kind of perspectives and, and they share what they're seeing.

It's a little bit like what we're doing right now.

Oh, very similar.

Very similar.

There's practically

no different.

It's the bike

path and the fence.

Oh my goodness.

Whew.

Dejavu.

This is, you're, you're making the sequel right now.

Ben's been doing direct distribution, which is the term I like to use.

A lot of people call DIY distribution.

Yeah.

But it has become increasingly more necessary.

Yes.

I think a

documentary and, um,

well, and more possible too.

Right?

True,

true.

More possible.

And uh, in some ways makes it.

Easier to, to reach the audiences that you wanna reach.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, which has been really great.

I mean,

so what did you learn working with Ben on that film and

what do you feel like you brought to it that you know, they benefited from you?

Because I, I've always benefited from working with you and I don't,

I wanna make it clear like you are a powerful force when you join any team.

Well, I learned so much from Keith and Megan on Tower that

I kind of was able to bring.

Kind of the, the full, like all the way through festivals and

distribution, uh, side of things to the table, um, which was helpful.

I learned that

you really, if you do wanna reach new audiences, it's good

to be intentional about that and find creative ways to do so.

Uh, I just really loved kind of the adventure meet, social issue combo.

That film.

Yeah.

And it was really rewarding to show it in communities that maybe didn't have

an opinion without the border wall, or maybe were super pro border wall.

And then after the film they learned more about, uh, that issue and maybe

had different feelings about it.

Right.

Um, a lot of anecdotal, you know, wow, I never thought about the wildlife or

Right.

I never thought about how you might.

Lose some of your private land that you own.

Right.

Which

is a

big issue for Texans.

Sure.

Yeah.

Get off my land.

Don't, nobody here wants to be told what to do.

I don't like it.

Keith included.

Yeah.

I got a lot

of spreadsheets into the mix.

They got, I said one time on a q and a that, uh, these spreadsheets

weren't sexy, but they were necessary.

Yes.

And I stand by that.

Isn't good spreadsheet fan.

Isn't that the truth?

Yeah.

Thank goodness that, uh, you love doing that and are, are so good at that because

that is oftentimes what, uh, creative vision needs is somebody who can come

in and provide the, the structure.

An organizing factor.

Yeah.

It's something that, and it's honestly so hill like a lot of this podcast

in our mind is really aimed at.

Engaging with emerging filmmakers, and I feel like so many of the roles that you

played with us, and I know, you know, since then you've gone on to, to expand

your repertoire and do a lot more as the Capital P producer on projects as well.

But so many of the roles you played with us are things that when I was getting

started, I didn't realize another person could join the team and do.

Yeah.

Um, and because of that, they, they mostly went undone and, uh.

And so like with that audience in mind?

Mm-hmm.

Like when you're, just 'cause we're talking about spreadsheets, like what

is, what is some like organizational bullet points that you could offer?

think one of the most common misconceptions about documentary is

that you just shoot willy-nilly and then find the story in the edit suite.

That can be true in some ways, but you should really

start out with a strong plan.

It's good to have plans so that you can change them and adapt.

Uh, but I think starting from a place of planning is very important.

Yeah.

So, you know, the river and the wall could have been a really disorganized

trip with a lot of moving parts, but I felt like to effectively capture it

and tell the story we wanted to tell, we needed to know where they were gonna

be, when they were gonna be there.

Really practical reasons.

We had to get permissions to camp on people's project property story beat.

You know, meeting people along the way.

Uh, that was a big part of that was kind of, uh, there's so many lizards.

know.

There are so many.

It really is.

I haven't seen this many in one walk before

there's start.

Yeah.

It's, I think that's one of the biggest things I would say to anybody who's

trying to make their first feature or something, is have a plan and

just be prepared to deviate from 'em.

Well, and that river in the wall is such a unique situation.

I've never been in a situation exactly like that.

Where it's a linear story, right, with like a beginning and an end physically.

But then like you're saying, like to hit story beats that kind of roll out for

the audience at 12 minutes, 25 minutes, 45 minutes, and the flow of storytelling

that we've all come to expect or rely on.

Right?

All my work has been nonlinear.

Mm-hmm.

In that way, as a producer, how are you working with a director to hit that,

hit those points in the plan making?

One interesting dynamic about River and the wall was that

Ben was actually in the movie,

right?

Uh, so he was in front of the camera, but he was also trying to direct and sometimes

like be at odds with one another.

So I did kind of a lot of fuel producing and keeping everybody on the same page

about where the story 50 headed and making sure we captured things that

would effectively fill it out because.

It was kind of a one and done, right.

We weren't gonna do this trip again.

You know, it was a right one long trip, and we had to get

everything that we needed for the most part, uh, on that trip.

So after Rivering the wall is a, is a huge success.

What's next?

Yeah, so I, I, like I mentioned earlier, I told Macy I was coming to Marfa and I

knew about the project she was on because.

The Rivering a wall and that project were in the a FS dock intensive together.

That's how Macy and I met originally.

I came, um, and I remember at the a FS Dock intensives, she, you

know, shared her projects about educational or criminal justice

education at the high school level.

Okay.

And students in as grades, as young as nine.

Learning how to be border patrol agents.

Oh, whoa.

Uh, and here

I, I feel like we need to stop.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but let's look at, that's lovely.

Very apropos sign here for Go Valley.

This whole wall is a, is a whole wall of murals that we're about to pass.

Cool.

I love you.

As a matter of fact, there's a local PBS show about street art in Austin

and murals in particular that focuses on this whole wall for an episode.

Um, wow.

So cool.

Anyway, you were telling us about at the Ready with Maisie Crow.

Um, yeah.

Which

is, you know about, um, children, young teenagers who are learning

the ins and outs of law enforcement in school and actually preparing

for careers in law enforcement.

And in many cases they're from communities on the border.

Many of the kids are Hispanic, not like majority, and so they

are kind of being trained.

To essentially police their own community one day.

And I just thought it was fascinating.

And I just remember being kind of jealous that Macy had stumbled

on this concept and I was like, oh, I'd love to make that film.

And then cut to a few years later, she had some folks leave the project during

COVID because of difficulties with it.

And she was kind of carrying the torch by herself at that point.

And I jumped in and we finished the film.

It was really cool to be a part of that project when I had admired it.

So much earlier.

Yeah.

How cool.

And so you, uh, is it fair to say you came in sort of at the end of that project or

did you come in and help it get finished?

It was mostly shot.

Uh, we did have some pickups, but we had multiple characters

that they were following.

Mm-hmm.

And so we did a lot of like figuring out classic story bras

stuff, just, uh, finding, um.

I, I'm not saying that really well.

Well, when, when does that film come out?

It's been now

nos When, when Yeah.

Sorry.

When, when did that film come out?

Uh, so that film, uh, premiered at Sundance in 2021, uh,

which was the virtual year.

Oh,

I'm

sorry.

Yeah.

So I, you know, finally get into Sundance and.

I got to go to my premier in my pajamas in my living room, essentially.

It was cool, but I don't think enough people saw that film

because of when it came out.

Right.

And that was frustrating.

Yeah.

And I, I feel like we're remiss in not mentioning that we're

recording on the day that the news came out that Robert Redford died.

That's right.

Oh,

and uh, he was such a pivotal person in the independent film.

Scene here in the United States.

And, uh, so maybe you could talk a little bit about like, what it was like

for you to have a film go to Sundance.

Was that, was that your first one?

That was my first film at Sundance.

And um,

like what did it mean for you and for your career and,

yeah.

No, I mean, it's, it is that benchmark.

It is like this thing that you at least.

Filmmakers of my time, I guess.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I think things are changing.

Um, I'd be curious to see how Sundance, um, does in Boulder.

Right.

Um, it's kind of interesting that it's moving to Boulder

just as Mr. Redford is passing.

Mm-hmm.

And yeah, it's clearly a, a shift.

Um, I'm glad that I got to go to Sundance when it was still in Park City and get

a sense of what the festival was like.

There.

Mm-hmm.

Um, I, I went the year at the end of our tower festival,

run distribution, like we, uh,

so Sundance 2017?

Yes.

Uh, so I was glad that I got to go one time, uh, before it, it moved

and before I had a film in it.

Uh, just really understand, uh, the context of it all.

He appreciated.

But yeah, I mean he's, he did so much for independent film.

Um, creation at that school has really driven so much of what

we do, so it was really special.

Yeah.

Even if it was virtual,

even if you

were in your

pajamas.

Yeah, that's right.

I'm curious, like when you look at everything that's changed.

What do you think we should be doing as individuals, as individual creators, to be

kind of taking advantage of this moment?

What are you like seeing other people do, whether it's through your

colleagues at Duck, uh, Ary, producers Alliance, other people living in Marfa?

What are people doing and what can we be doing to kind of

take advantage of this moment?

Um, we, I would say.

The state of country mirrors the documentary industry right now, and

that it feels, it feels sometimes like everything's burning down around

us and we need to build it back.

I think one of those things that, that I think has been really challenging,

but cool is direct distribution and like taking things more into your own hands.

The classic model of premiering at a Sundance or South by having

a splashy premiere getting bought.

And having a distributor take it from there.

Yeah.

Um, can sometimes be really disappointing.

Yeah.

Frankly.

So how do you measure like the, uh, you know, what's the new measurements, right?

Because it's like, like Ben said a few minutes ago, Sundance is like

this thing that we've all been.

Um, holding up as like this kind of arbiter of success as an indie, I don't

like, and you, you kind of alluded this.

I don't know that that's still true.

I, I don't know that it is either.

Um, I think it's already changed in the last few years,

but I also don't even know that the festival model, any festival is the answer

when festivals were meant as a step.

To kinda launch you into the more lucrative, uh, means of distribution

and those lucrative means of distribution are no longer lucrative.

And so now like a festival steps, speaking of steps, I think I've just

taken us to a, we can get down there.

All right.

Yeah, we can, can you do it, Ben?

Oh, I can do it.

Nice.

Um, and so I think we're like, we're potentially rewriting

like what the standards are.

What does that mean?

Kinda handling things yourself and planning for it.

I think there was a time where people really shot for the moon

and if they didn't make it, they didn't have a backup plan.

And it shouldn't be a backup plan.

It should be an initial plan.

Think about impact as a part of distributions and it should be synergistic

and it should support one another.

Uh, kind of symbiotic, I think.

Um, but you get to.

Have a say in who sees your film instead of just kind of finally, you

know, giving it over to somebody who doesn't know the film as well as future.

Yeah.

As somebody who does impact producing, somebody who is looking

at direct distribution and, and, and somebody who lives in kind

of like, not even a third place.

Location, but a fourth or a fifth place location as far as like where, what

people think of as a, as a film hub.

Mm-hmm.

Or a center of industry.

Yeah.

You have to be creative when you live in a place like that.

As you're like looking at this new direct distribution model, how are the

forms changing and what kind of ideas do you have about short form serial

shorts versus features like are there new shapes that we should be looking at?

Definitely.

I think one of the most like freeing things I ever realized was that,

yes, I'm a documentary filmmaker, but not every creative idea has

to be a feature documentary.

You know, some things are podcasts, some things are books, some things

are traveling, art exhibits, some things are, you know, a short article.

Just know what the proper outlet is for your idea.

How do you know?

Like how do you, where's that come from?

I mean, I go back to audience too.

I, I think there's sort of a dichotomy.

There's like, make films to express yourself, make your art, and

you're just expressing yourself.

And then there's try to reach people and share new ideas with

them or let people see a slice of life, uh, that kind of thing.

Topaz, what's up buddy?

Sorry, one second.

How you doing?

Alright.

Good to see ya.

What are you doing?

We're making a podcast where we walk around and talk to people.

Oh yeah?

Yeah.

Good to see ya.

This is my buddy Keith to see you.

This is my friend Hillary guys.

This is Topaz.

Nice to meet you.

Topaz plays on the baseball team with me.

Did some music for my last documentary.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I gave you a ride home to this

house at some point and I thought months ago.

Well, good to see you, man.

What the podcast?

It's called Doc Walks and we walk with documentary filmmakers.

Oh, cool.

And we talk about the state of the industry and state of projects and walk.

Yeah.

Fun.

Yeah.

Why you this one are you?

What's that?

You live here?

Why this?

I live two blocks from here.

Oh, that's good.

That's why you dropped me on.

Yeah.

We also just walk all over, like we've done 'em in Sundance

and New York and LA and yeah.

So it's, uh, wherever we find interesting people we want to talk with.

I'll have to subscribe.

Yes, you will tell your friend.

No,

no.

See you buddy.

Um,

oh, I was saying go.

Going back to audience, you know, like maybe that's what guides you to a medium.

Um, you know, the, the story matter at itself, like.

How much do you need to say about this?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think that factors into what avenue you take to tell a story.

Um, but that was really freeing for me to just realize I, I might be

a documentary filmmaker right now.

I might find a water, my identity in that, but I can do anything.

You can do anything.

Ben, do you feel like you could do anything?

I don't know if I feel like I can do anything.

I, to be honest, I feel a little, uh, about the city of the industry.

It's hard not to be a little depressed sometimes, you know?

And I know it's hard.

It's supposed to be hard.

That's why if it was easy, everybody would do it.

But I don't know.

I feel like it's, it's kind of easy to get down about the state of the industry.

It is.

how do you, how do you stay up?

How do you not get down?

Every time we have one of these like state of the industry

conversations, we've had so many, I think like virtually especially.

Yeah.

And people do get so bleak and there's no funding, there's no distribution.

It it, and that's true.

I mean, it, it has gone that way.

But I always ask people, what, what is the solution?

What, you know, what solutions are we coming up with,

right?

What can we point toward to be hopeful?

Right.

Um,

and people have ideas.

I, I've heard some great ideas and it's trial and error and.

We really have to explore new ways of doing things because

the old ways are so different.

Okay.

That was, uh, Hillary Pierce ending on an optimistic note.

That was our friend Hillary.

Uh, my old friend.

Your new friend.

My new friend, yes.

I like to hope.

Um, it's a cool, like Hillary lives in Marfa, which is 2000 people.

It's a one.

Stoplight town in far west Texas with

a national reputation as a artist's, uh, Mecca.

Yeah.

So people from all over the world come there to be inspired and to

see great works of art and to go make art and yeah, it's a cool

place that she gets to live in.

It's very cool.

We should take the podcast to Marfa one of these days.

Ooh, yes.

But for now, I'm glad she was here in Austin with us.

I love going through that sculpture park and I love taking you guys on a tour

of this little, little neighborhood.

And didn't we talk about, uh.

Uh, that's not a, that's not sculpture or, I'm not sure that

that's a work of art or is that

Illa sculpture?

Is that, I don't know.

We'll figure it out.

Um,

we look forward to finding out.

Yeah.

Anyway, thank you, Ben.

Thank you, Keith.

Thank you, Hillary.

And we'll see you next time

on Doc Walks

next time.

On Doc walks.

On Doc Walk, we have, uh, my, a very old acquaintance of mine,

Alex Ross Perry is here with a new documentary about video stores.

I am excited to talk to Alex Ross Perry, 'cause I've never met him.

I'm a fan of his like indie scripted feature comedies.

Yep.

And he also did that pavements documentary, which

is awesome.

And I I, it'd be interesting to talk to him about if he thinks

of it as a documentary or not.

It's a very meta film either way.

Yeah.

What is a documentary with Alex Ross Perry?

Next time on Doc

Walks.

Next time Doc Walks is created, produced, and edited by my friend

Ben Steinhower of the Bear.

Hello, and my friend Keith

Maitland

of Go

Valley.

Thanks for tuning in.