EP032 – Podcasts Are The New Mayonnaise w/ Scott Ballew

12.04.2025 - Season: 1 Episode 32

Keith’s out this week, so Ben is strutting Travis Heights solo with his good pal Scott(y) Ballew. Scott’s a lesson in cutting-against the grain and getting more for it. You might know him from his work as the former Head of Content at Yeti, making 100+ branded docs with one rule: no product placement. Scott’s path is pure chaos theory – starting with a UT football national championship ring, spending time as an insurance salesman, working the ol’ LA PA grind to end up changing how brands tell stories (all while writing and recording his own songs), Scott’s tried it all. We dig into the decade-long golden era at Yeti where he worked with 20 filmmakers at once (including Ben on the TOOTSIE film), and how he learned directing on the job from his inspirations. Scott breaks down Terry Allen’s “follow the muse” philosophy (including how it sent him on his own musical journey), the surreal Telluride premiere of ALL THAT IS SACRED (his Jimmy Buffett/Tom McGuane film that premiered the day Buffett died), and why he’d rather make films with friends than chase a Townes Van Zandt-type of obsession (learning in part by documenting Townes’ son, J.T.).

Plus: exploring classic Texas cinema with Jeff Nichols, why loving your subjects beats gotcha filmmaking, and the eternal truth that podcasts are the new mayonnaise.

This episode is sponsored by our friends at The Long Time—a 5-acre event-space and playground for your imagination. It’s also the home field of The Texas Playboys (the sandlot baseball team that both Ben and Scott play for).

For more information go to thelongtime.com and follow along on IG @thelongtimetexas

Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction and Travis Heights Walk 02:00 Defining Yourself as a Creative 05:00 UT Football and National Championship 09:00 LA Dreams: Music Manager to PA 13:00 Podcasts Are the New Mayonnaise 15:00 Starting at Yeti 18:00 Why Branded Docs Work 24:00 Learning to Direct in the Edit Room 31:00 The Golden Era and Going Public 35:00 Writing Songs Out of Necessity 40:00 Tom McGuane, Jimmy Buffett, and Key West 47:00 Loving Your Subjects 53:00 Telluride and Jimmy Buffett’s Death 57:00 Moving to Tecovas 01:00:00 Working with Jeff Nichols 01:02:00 Lightning Round: NO DIRECTION HOME (at home) 01:06:00 Dynamic Life vs One-Track Obsession 01:12:00 Closing Thoughts

Okay.

I am

solo today,

and

I am walking

with my good Scott

Ballew.

Scott is

a filmmaker, he's

musician.

was the head of content Yeti, which is how we met, making branded

documentaries.

and he now is the Creative at Tecovas.

he also is a Texas Playboy, plays on our Sandlot baseball team and we get

into a lot of things we walk through.

his neighborhood, my neighborhood, Travis Heights in Austin, Texas.

So hope

you this

and Keith, are missed.

Alright, we go.

On your left,

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

on the way over here, I was thinking you're.

It's such an interesting combination of so many different things.

You're a musician, you are a director, you're a creative director.

I knew you or we worked together a lot when you were a producer.

So rather than me describe you, what, how would, how do you think about yourself?

How do you describe what you do

most days?

I, I would just, I feel like a Charlton and, you know, I'll, that

I'm just like faking all of it and, uh, trying to fool people.

And sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't

stop it.

If you're faking it till you make it.

I think you have, you've made it,

I don't know.

It's like asking, like trying to, I fail at being able to describe

what genre of music I am too.

I don't know how I really think of myself.

Maybe it's kind of a lame question.

I mean, do you, do you not think of it like that?

Like you don't, you're not like, I'm a, I'm a filmmaker.

You're, you just think of it more as like, you're a creative person and

it comes out lots of different ways.

I think people ask me what I do.

I say I'm like a, I make films and music and stuff, but I

also help make films to music.

And that's like a facilitator of creation.

I never said that.

I don't know if that like going into that, but I just, yeah, I like being in the

middle and the process of making things.

And sometimes that's songs and sometimes that's, you know, making brands and

building brands and I think it's all the, it's all related to story storytelling.

So you and I met when you started at Yeti, right?

So you were the, what was your title at Yeti?

You were the head of head of content?

Yeah, I kind of came in the.

I came into the creative side of things through the back door

when we met.

You were coming from Los Angeles as a producer, and you had gotten hired at Yeti

to basically help them make this kind of new style of advertising, or at least what

morphed into what felt like a new style.

Right.

So the initial job was to start and create and run and figure out, like,

I guess what they're calling their documentary short film program.

My background was I moved to LA from here without any clue or ambition or talent

and kind of wound up on sets for movies and TV shows as like a pa as a guy that

got coffee and But what are you saying?

Is that true?

Yeah.

Because you have the distinction of we're, we're about 35 episodes in at

this point, and we have definitely never interviewed somebody who has.

A national championship ring from being on.

You were a, uh, running back.

I was a running back.

And you

were on the UT football team when you guys won the national championship, right?

That's true.

I mean, I don't So you

had to have had some ambition as my,

well, it wasn't professional ambition, you know, I think that's maybe the, I wasn't,

I was kind of like in the moment and my dreams only existed as far as I could see,

and I think a lot of athletes kind of fall into that sort of thing, like when their

sports career ends, what do, what do I do?

Mm-hmm.

You know, I didn't have the foresight to.

Or really the interest at the time, I didn't uncover my passion

in high school or college.

Okay.

Through academics or anything.

So it was all

sports focused when you were growing up?

Just sports.

Like that was, that was what I spent all my time doing.

And was it football?

Because we also play on the playboys together and you are

frustratingly good at baseball.

Well, the like, you probably come to like every, I don't know, third

game or so, but it's like a joke in the dugout that when you get up

to bat, you often hit a home run.

Well, I think

that's the key.

Less is more for me.

If I, if I bat once every three games, my, my home run percentage is high.

The more I bat, the lower that goes down.

It's like playing golf.

If I play golf once a year, right.

I'm really good.

If I start playing often I become worse and worse and worse and worse.

So this

is an interesting life lesson.

It's by,

it's by design because you, yeah.

The key to it all is to not overthink it.

I just step up the plate once every four games.

Yeah.

Then I have no bad habits in my head or overthinking my swing.

You're on this street, right?

Yeah.

We're walking to, uh, my old rent house and this will now be the

second episode where, uh, we are walking by an old rehouse of mine.

We did this on Beasley's.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

We walked by where he and I lived together when I first moved to Austin.

Katie and I used to live on this street, and this is right when you

and I started working together and I remember you dropping by this house

and looking in one of the windows and we were watching Three Amigos,

or wasn't like keeping, I didn't have like binoculars or anything creepy.

I think I was, I was dropping off.

Some DVDs or something.

You were definitely coming by

for

a reason.

Yeah.

But I

remember you sort of like you walked in and I think it was three amigos.

It may have been the great outdoors, but you took particular delight

in the fact that you were like interrupting us, watching us.

Well, I knew we'd be friends after that.

There's some good campfires in this house.

Yes.

Yeah.

We had mini a party in this place.

Oh man.

And look at this like that was definitely not there when we lived here.

That thing is, seems way too big for that lot.

I prefer that brick, that at least they chose like a cool old Mexican brick than

like the white, the white space barn.

Oh, here she is.

This is the, the yellow tape from here through their windows

and there's still a crime scene.

And this is it.

This is the old rent house right here where.

Me and Katie lived during COVID is where Young Love started.

That's right.

So we were talking about how growing up you were focused on sports and

it wasn't until you moved to LA stop playing sports that you became,

well, first I sold insurance Love.

I was an insurance salesman for six months.

You were, I didn't know this idea.

That's what insurance seems to be a good profession for all ex-athletes

who have no clue what to do.

I did that here for six months.

Turns out that was not my calling.

Mm. And moved to LA just really on a whim.

And the goal, I, I would not, I don't know if I'd call it a goal, but I

moved out there and at the time my buddy Jesse Woods was a musician.

He was playing football at a and m when I was playing at ut. And I

thought he had a lot of promise as.

Budding folk singer.

And so I went out there and I think my idea as a 21-year-old, I was gonna be

like a music manager, a music mogul.

I was gonna manage Jesse.

Oh, interesting.

Was my plan.

Okay.

And so he lived on my couch for a little bit and I kind drove around

town talking to managers and booking agents and record labels and thought I

was gonna get into the music business and, and break Jesse was honestly

the, the first year I spent out there.

And then, you know, that didn't work and I had no money.

So I started PAing, like my cousin was a line producer for commercials

and he connected me with some ads and that was kind of, at the

time it was just like survival.

Make a couple hundred bucks here and there.

Yeah.

To pay for rent as I can while I.

Make Jesse famous was, wow.

And then, and then I did, like,

I had Scotty BI had no idea about this.

'cause I really, yeah.

I didn't know that you A, had sold insurance b that so much that the

film wasn't like a particular focus.

And that that was something that kind of happened almost by accident.

That's, that's what it happened.

And this, it is like a, you know, it happened by accident and it

took a long time to happen to where I'm, what I'm doing now.

I started out as a pa.

Mm-hmm.

And I did like a season of Entourage as a pa. I did a note bomb back

movie called Greenberg as a pa.

Whoa.

You worked on Greenberg.

Yeah.

I love that movie.

like, those were cool experiences and I kind of became

interested in the lifestyle.

Yeah.

Less about the art or the craft.

I still wasn't like looking at Noah and dissecting his shots and how he interacted

with like, I was just thinking like.

Wow.

You get to travel and drink and smoke cigarettes and wear whatever

you want and you know, not going into an office, this is a cool job.

Yeah.

Is really the extent of my, my connection with the film business early on, and this

is like early twenties, this is like

22, 3, 4. Okay.

Is when I kind of so moved out there and should we go up this

way living in Santa Monica?

Short version is, I mean, you're a pa, you fall into the producers and the

line and the ad sort of route, right.

Which is all logistical, scheduling money and not creative really.

Like, well the good ones are creative, but, so that led to me kind of going

with some other producers to make commercials and that's how I learned,

that's how I learned to produce, is I started as a PA and then a production

manager, production coordinator, and then I was a line producer.

For commercials.

And that's kind of became my gig for four or five years, well, 10 years ultimately.

But it was, it, it ended up being like line producing, executive

producing, big budget, you know, car commercials and right ad agency stuff.

And that's what led to the Yeti thing.

I produced Yeti's first broadcast spot.

So we are in Travis Heights on a gorgeous November morning here.

There's like these kind of cool wispy clouds in the sky, I guess.

Okay.

And it's like 70 degrees a little breeze.

This is like the sweet spot and awesome work.

Did people ever

ask you what your, like what, when they pass you like what these cameras are?

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

But you know, the, they think we're

famous.

You know, the really interesting thing that I've discovered is that when you are

out filming something with like, you know, a crew and big cameras, everybody stops.

And no matter what you say you're doing.

They want to know about it.

Right?

Right.

They ask follow up questions with this.

When I say, oh, we're doing a podcast, zero follow up question.

They're like, so that's what we should start doing when we have the big, the

big cruise, big cruise, like we're just filming an elaborate podcast.

It used to be, you say that you're making a mayonnaise commercial, right?

You ever hear that one?

No, but that's good.

That always shut it down.

Whenever people would be like, what are you filming?

Just go, oh, it's a mayonnaise commercial.

And then that kind of scrambles their brain enough that they

just stop talking and move on.

That's funny.

But yeah, I think maybe podcasts are the new mayonnaise, which

could be the episode title.

I like that.

Podcasts are the new mayonnaise with Scott Ballew?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

So you're in la you, you work with Yeti as a line producer, and then you

meet the brothers who started Yeti

through that?

Well, I met Corey, the guy we're talking about.

Corey Maynard was on set.

So yeah, so now we're 10 years into my run in LA and I've like kind of

found my groove as a, as a produced producer and executive producer.

But you know, on the, on the logistical money, managerial side of it, all sales,

I wasn't directing, I wasn't writing, had no, like, wasn't really crossing my mind.

Did the Yeti commercial, we hit it off.

I was kind of, you know, 10 years was I think all I was ready for in la Yeah.

And they knew that, and they knew I was from here and Yeti was just like.

Taking off.

I think the, the founder, Roy Cedars and the head of marketing at the time,

Cory Maynard, with their extra marketing money, instead of pumping it into media

buys and real cumbersome ad agency driven marketing, they're like, we, we wanna

make films and grow our roots and, and our audience and tell our story and

build our brand through documentaries.

And didn't they specifically tell you we don't want to talk

about coolers or ice retention or anything specific about the brand.

We want to make documentaries that are good and true and then

bring, like, presented by Yeti.

Exactly.

And we kind of developed it, you know, that, and part of my job was

like, all right, let's, let's hone in our, our voice and the stories

we're telling, but the general brief.

That was pitched to me is like we're doing character driven

stories with no product placement.

A story I always tell people when they ask about those Yeti films, we were making the

Tootsie One, which is the first one that our company, the Bear did and I directed.

And that's when I met you.

'cause I think you had been hired, like right as that shoe was

happening and we were filming with Tootsie, it was sunset, golden Hour.

She's feeding her cattle by hand.

They're literally eating the pellets out of her hand.

We're in this pasture.

She sits down on the truck bed, she picks up a Yeti, Tumblr takes

a sip, and the sunlight glints off the logo on the bottom.

And I was like, oh, I mean, there's our shot.

Like that's 100% no question, gonna be in the cut.

And so we put together our first edit of it and that shot is highlighted

and your note was, no, no, no.

Take that out.

Yeah.

And it blew my mind.

And then I realized like, oh, this is something totally different.

Like this isn't about trying to highlight the product in some cool way.

That's kind of why I took the gig, is I had like some PTSD from millions

of Corona commercials where you'd spend a whole day just for the cheers.

Right.

And the, and the high five, the sunset, high five.

Right.

And you know, I don't know anything about advertising or marketing,

but I loved films and I loved documentaries and I loved Winnebago

Man to all the people that we were bringing in to make these short films.

Were.

Yeah.

Not because they made product Ford commercials.

It was because they had like their finger on a pulse of an interesting

story and character and it took, that was the hardest part of my job the

first couple years was untraining people and just being like, no, no, no.

Do what you do.

Do what you guys are good at.

Don't think, don't think about storyboards or scripts or product

shots or these, these moments that have been ingrained with us on these little

32nd scripts from man ad agencies.

As a director who also makes commercials like that to me is like a dream, you know?

Why do you think more brands don't do that?

Like did it not, 'cause it clearly worked, it translated into Yeti being this

huge, enormous, international success.

Well, the truth is, I don't know if anyone knows what works when it

comes to marketing, like it's such a.

It is just like little fairy dust.

What was happening at Yeti is it was happening on its own.

Um, the cult, the word of mouth thing, the cult following the brand was, was going

from a $40 million to $200 million to billion dollar company just kind of based

on the product and the word of mouth.

I think that's why it was a nice position for us to be in, that there's

no pressure for those to do any heavy sort of lifting in terms of sales.

Like people make commercial to sell stuff when they're going into the fourth

quarter or the holidays and they need to sell a certain boot or a certain cup,

right.

Or a certain cooler.

Like I think the crazy thing about the timing for all of us at Yeti is that like.

It was almost intended to slow down sales.

Like honestly, they didn't have inventory.

Oh, funny.

So it was like a, it was a slow play.

Marketing wise.

I think the idea is with stories and documentaries and people, is, it,

it's not the the quick conversion.

It's not like, oh, I see Tootsie drinking or rambling.

I go buy one.

Oh.

But it's falling in love with Tootsie and being a fan of the brand for life.

Right.

So it was, uh,

so it's a, it's more of like what they call it, like the slow food movements.

Exactly.

Of African as

we would, as we call, as like, you know, you're the the Yeti tree.

Like this oak tree right here.

Oh yeah.

Was getting very top heavy because it was growing so fast.

Right.

And my job was to build the roots, so it hung on

so well.

So you go, you spend 10 years at Yeti.

10 years at yet.

And you made over a hundred of these branded documentaries, right?

We made them, yeah.

The goal when I first started was to make one a week.

Wow.

And I had an insane budget to do that.

And it was how we met, it was like I, I sent out A RFP, there's an

RPF, I don't know the acronyms.

I think it's an RFP.

Um,

although I never got one of those.

It was always like you and me going Yeah.

And Barrant for lunch.

Exactly.

And then we would just talk through ideas, or if we had an

idea, we would just text you.

And it was usually like, yes or no pretty quick.

Or let's go have, let's go to Kura with Evan and feel it out.

It started out with me calling all the filmmakers I had worked with

that I liked or wanted to work with.

Right.

And said, this is what I'm doing.

Do you have any ideas?

And then sometimes then it kind of came to like, Hey, you know, I

found this person, or I found this story, then I need to find the.

The filmmaker, like, you know.

Yeah.

Chris Malloy is like, Hey, I think there's this film here on JT Van Zt in towns.

Oh, and

would you say that's your favorite one anchor point?

It's so good.

Well, I'm sure it's hard to pick your favorite, but like that one

in particular seems like it has like all the right elements in it.

That was the unlock where it was, you know, like Tootsie was an ambassador.

Yeah.

Like all the, the first few were all really ambassador profiles.

Yeah.

JT was the first one.

He wasn't an ambassador at the time, and it was kind of a heavy

nuance story about fatherhood

because his dad, of course, his town's man's aunt.

Yeah.

So that was the first one where it got a little deeper than just like, this person

does cool things and has a, you know.

Right.

My favorite one was the last one I did.

All that is sacred.

Oh, like that with Jimmy Buffett and Tom McGuin.

When did you start directing the Yeti films?

Like which one was your first.

The first one debut.

The first.

The first one was the long time with, with Jack.

Oh, wait a second.

Hang on.

There's some good graffiti right here in this wizard.

So we're talking about your directorial debut was one of the Yeti films

that I show people all the time when they ask about the Sandlot

baseball team that we play on, which is the one about Jack Sanders.

What's that one called?

I think it might just be called The Long Time.

That would make sense.

I can't, I think it is.

That's the name of the field where our sandlot team, that

Texas Playboys plays baseball.

The long time.

And also where Katie, my wife and I got married.

Yes.

On the pitchers mound.

You were there.

I was there.

Yeah.

Okay, so that was your directorial debut, and then did you have like the

moment where it was like, this is what I want to do, this has like all been

leading towards this sort of thing?

It all just seemed kind of like utilitarian.

I mean, even leading up to that before Yeti, I hadn't, I was, I had no interest

and I was not invited into an ed bay.

You know, like my job was to get the footage done in the best way

possible under budget and then leave it with the creative people,

right.

Or the agency to ruin it.

Um, but what happened, even with the early ones, like I think as a representative

of the brand paying for them, I would come in and give notes or sit with

the director and the editor and as a team figure out what felt good for us.

That was when, you know, I think it started to shift

into more of a creative role.

I remember the Tootsie one, you know, it was like, man, there's just something.

There's something not working and, and working with you guys.

Oh yeah.

I remember that actually to figure out,

you know, like we remember we ended up,

our first cut had that Glinting Tumblr moment.

Well, not

only that, but she was interviewed like she was going through

heavy stuff with her family.

Yeah.

And like ultimately Right.

We're like, what if we just don't have her talk at all to the very

end?

Yes.

Yeah.

And like that was, there's a lot of, for all of those films, it was like,

each one was a film school for me.

Right.

And like a live time exercise of how do we get this story told

in a new and interesting way.

Yeah.

Because I was doing 20 at a time.

So I had the, the advantages of like, well this one's feels like

this, this one feels like that.

Right.

So I had to go into all these edit rooms with you guys.

Right.

And, and make them not feel redundant to each other.

Yeah.

Make it feel right for Yeti.

But also represent y'all's vision.

Dude, what an incredible learning opportunity It

was.

I guess like going back to just being a dumb ass football player like

it who did not go to film school.

I learned a lot from, from you guys and having these conversations and it was

a bit of a new medium for a lot of us.

Like we'd all, everyone had done 90 minute films.

Yeah.

Everyone had done 32nd commercials.

Sure.

No one was, was spending that sort of time and money on a seven minute film.

Right.

It was like a really new arc and we were all learning together, so we

were kind of creating it right too, but also infusing certain rhythms and

styles from commercials that we liked, but also with character development.

Right.

And like the attention to detail of like a three x structure of a 90 minute

film, which like, it was a really Right.

Interesting challenge.

Well, and the budgets were good enough that you could have really

nice cameras and you could spend time and you didn't have to rush.

And you could make really cinematic images, but you

could also have multiple days.

Whereas most of the time commercials are like, you know, every shot has to

look perfect and you spend a lot of money to have like a big crew to do

things a very high level, very fast.

And this was like smallish to medium sized crew that allowed us to spend all

night with Tootsie smoking a brisket.

Right.

For example.

Whereas like we normally just grab a couple of shots of that.

Right.

You know, but we got the ability to like hang out and

really get to know our subjects

Well and what happened, and this is kinda like, I guess key to my

development as a director is the budgets were good enough to shoot it right.

But I think we kind of also were aware we weren't paying the kind

of dough where a director could spend three months on an edit.

So guys like you and Chris Malloy and Jimmy Chin would shoot it, maybe

with an editor, do a rough cut.

And then oftentimes I found myself, because you guys would go on to

other jobs, or simply it wasn't respectful financially to make

you guys just sit in the edit.

Like, I would come in and sit with the editors.

Mm. And man, you know, the director started being like,

Hey, I like these notes.

Just go and do 'em.

Yeah.

I'm in Chile shooting something else.

So.

Right.

What happened is I learned that sort of the, the way to communicate with

editors and patching the story is kind of filling in on the back end

for the directors that were, you know, doing the projects on the front end.

And so that's kind of how a lot of, like my taste and rhythm

as a director was shaped, was.

Yeah, coming in after everything had been shot, whether I was on the shoot

or not, and working with the editor to get it to a final resting place.

I can't imagine a much better like way to learn how to be a director because so

many great directors start as editors.

Pal Ashby is like a famous example, you know, and his unique sensibility

and rhythm and all that came from him understanding how every

shot was gonna work together.

Um, well

also the, you know, I was working with 20 directors at a time, right?

So like seeing all the different, I like Ben sense the humor and like,

you know, verite hand movement.

And I like, you know, Chris Malloy's soul.

I could, I was seeing all these different things and like a musician just pulling

inspiration and tricks from 20 people at a time and just seeing how they

worked with subjects and how they worked with cinematographers and, yeah.

Yeah, it was like a, a real cool.

You know, hands on man, film school

and you're getting paid and I'm getting paid to do a lot to do it.

And, and it's also clearly working, which is interesting 'cause you're

part of this company that is just growing by leaps and bounds.

So that had to just been a, like, like when you look back on that,

remember a hundred percent exciting,

solely responsible for the growth of Yeti and why it went public

and became such a cult brand.

That's what I mean.

You should be getting Yeah.

Lots of royalties.

But I mean, like when you look back on that, do you, you look back on that

fondly for the most part or, yeah,

I look back on it like it was a unicorn moment and we knew it at the time.

'cause lot the farm league guys and Chris Malloy, who I've worked with

forever, you know, we saw it happen at places like North Face and Patagonia,

where there, there's always a, a window that is like the golden era, right?

When it's the right amount of employees.

Yeah, it's not interesting.

It's not too big and cumbersome.

Yeah.

It hasn't gone public.

Once it reaches a certain threshold, Chris and I, we would, we would be, you

know, off a mountain in Denali or some catamaran in Hawaii or wherever and

just be like, just like take it all in.

Be present.

'cause this is not gonna last forever.

Oh, interesting.

That's funny.

That, and it didn't, that you had that inside perspective because I think at the

time when we were making those films with you guys, our sort of naive assumption

was like, this is working so well and all anybody ever wanted to talk about

with us, like other creatives that we would do other spots with, they would

want to talk about the Yeti films because they were so unique and so interesting.

And so I think we kind of did think like, oh these are gonna,

you know, these are working.

You could feel it going to the airport and if you're wearing a Yeti hat, people

weren't coming up to be being like, man.

The ice retention on those coolers are really remarkable.

They'd be like, man, I saw that JT Van Zt dock right here.

Let's, let's stop here for a second.

I love this bridge here in the, in this neighborhood, in Travis

Heights, where there's this little wooden, like, what feels very

handmade bridge over this beautiful little portion of the creek here.

The leaves are turning.

Yeah.

This always feels like a, like a little hidden gem.

Yeah.

We're like, you'd find a like, stand by me.

Kids would find a dead Bobby.

Exactly.

So you kind of, that's interesting to me that you sort of knew while it

was happening, like this is, this is 'cause you'd been through it before.

Been through it before.

People, you know, when I was there, Yeti went public, brought in, Corey left.

They brought in some new marketing people that I think have pressure.

To grow.

Yeah.

You know, to, to grow and to prove what's working like the films and a

lot of the marketing is intangible.

You know, we feel it being out in the world, but there's no, like,

how many, how many coolers did this Tootsie Film on YouTube sell?

Right?

Like, there was no real concrete evidence.

So when a a, a company's sole objective is to grow, it becomes

harder and harder to do some of the more esoteric storytelling efforts.

So your last film at Yeti is the 34 minute film about Tom McGuin and

Richard Brogan and Jimmy Buffet.

Is that that right about that?

Was that the last Yeti film?

This is my brother's place.

See if, oh, right here.

No way.

Yeah.

Let's see.

Is he here?

See, this is what you did to us, me and Katie.

Here's his dog.

That's Diane Keaton.

That's the dog's name.

Yeah.

Is Diane Keaton?

Hi Diane.

Your brother's gonna be like, what?

Who is torturing my dog out here?

Yeah, she's a yapper.

All right.

Looks like he's not hunting, but yeah.

Anyway, so yes, as the budget got smaller, you know, it became more necessary

for me to be involved as a director.

Yeah.

As I honestly, Hey, he is home.

We're doing a, we're doing a podcast.

Hey.

And this is I,

this

is Diane Keaton.

Diane Keaton.

RIP.

Oh my goodness.

Hey, she loves Uncle Scott.

Look at that.

She smells Mickey.

Oh,

hi.

Hi buddy.

How's it going?

You wanna be on the podcast,

Scott, how you doing?

How are you?

Good to see.

Good.

Yeah.

Sorry to just knock on your window there.

Barge in.

We were just talking about mayonnaise.

Ow.

Come on.

So you were saying as the budgets got smaller, it became, as the budgets

got smaller, I started direct, like started making a lot of commercials

there that I would come up with or Right.

Or direct.

And it just became like I, I found my voice and the confidence based on the

repetition of making all these films.

And then also with the budgets getting smaller, we couldn't afford making

as many external films as Right.

We started out as kind of what happens with all.

Brands like sure, you know, we can't, how do we do this with the same quality

but without the money that we had when we started and I started making

some music stuff with Ryan Bingham and, and Terry Allen and Margot Price

and directed some of those and all of it was just out of necessity.

But you're also pitching those ideas is like, this could be a cool

way to like reach a new audience of music fans for instance.

Yeah,

exactly.

The Yeti thing was all about dynamics and connecting the dots.

How do you connect barbecue with rodeo and how do you connect rodeo with surfing

and surfing with bow hunting and climbing?

With skiing.

So Ryan Bingham was a good starting point in terms of music 'cause

he also surfed and he rode bulls.

Right.

And he loves hunting.

So it was right.

It was a music film, but with dynamic people.

I see.

And, and the thing I didn't understand that I love about this is.

You and Jesse Woods were friends from way back.

Yeah.

And so you started bringing him into the fold of all Exactly.

And he starts making a lot of music for the Yeti films.

And you started working with you be Befriend Ryan and you

started making films with him?

With him and Terry.

Through Ryan.

I met Terry.

Okay.

And through and and that's Terry Allen.

Terry Allen, the

famous singer songwriter artist.

And, and that's kind of the story of how I got into music.

We didn't have huge budgets to score things, so I would, I started just

calling my friends, Jesse Woods, Todd Hannigan mainly Will Patterson.

And, and I would sit with them in the studio and essentially

direct them to come up with songs.

I would write songs.

Yeah.

The first song, like the first song I wrote, good Luck Kid, was written for

a documentary because we didn't have, we didn't have any budget to license.

One wrote that for Todd Hannigan to sing.

And then I ended up recording it myself for an album.

But yeah, you know, learning to write songs was a similar process of just

out of necessity not being able to afford existing songs or pay for

some composer to do the whole film.

I just started, you know, working with my friends.

And so then you start writing lots of songs to the point where you've now put

out your fourth album, is that right?

Uh, fourth album in four years.

And it's called

Paradiso Paradiso Available now.

Lighting the Attic Records.

And you're actively touring.

You're like playing Lots of

touring is a loose, loose term.

Basically.

I've taken the Terry Method where I'll make an album a year and then

try to do one fun show a year.

Yeah.

An album release show and make that fun.

And then a couple small things pop up here and there.

But because I am just have a day job.

I don't tour.

Yeah.

And we haven't even talked about your day job, which is another very creative, very

cool way for you to make films for brands.

You're now the, is your title Creative director at Tekos Chief's Creative

Officer.

Wow.

Yeah,

really?

Chief look at you.

The CCO at Kovus.

I don't know, it's kind of like Yeti.

I don't know if I ever, I don't have like business cards or anything.

When you leave Yeti, you were directing commercials, right?

For for hire essentially, or with another production company And when

did Tecovas come in the picture?

Alright, so the last film I did at Ybi was the All That Is Sacred and Oh,

which we should talk more about.

Okay.

Because I love this film and it premieres at Telluride, it's about

Jimmy Buffet, Tom Quain, Richard Brogan.

This really.

Influential, beautiful, amazing group of creative people that all

found each other in the Florida Keys in the seventies, early eighties.

I didn't really know about that subculture.

So like how did you come across that story and why did you wanna make that?

Well, oddly, I grew up like a, a, a big Jimmy Buffet fan.

Really?

So, like I Was your dad a pyramid head?

No, no.

I went through this like weird pirate phase when I was in sixth grade and went

through all the Jimmy Buffett catalog, wanted to, I, I pierced my ear Wow.

And wore like one of my mom's dangly earrings and took out my bed and

put in like a hammock and, and like tried to sleep in a, I thought,

admittedly, I never told my mom this, but it was so uncomfortable.

I never really slept on the hammock, but I just slept on the floor.

But I just had

But you had to commit to the bit at that point?

I committed to the bit,

I and Jimmy Buffet was writing books at that point.

Like, where is Joe Merch?

A salty piece of land, and I just, I, I don't know.

I, I still don't remember how I got into it, but through all that,

I was super aware of Key West.

Yeah.

And tangent.

Tom McQuain, who's his brother-in-law and these kind of like these

writers that he hung out with.

Yeah.

And Tom McGuin wrote River Runs Through it, and

Tom McQuain is the one that brought River runs through it to Redford and

said, I think you should make this movie.

But he Oh, okay.

He wrote some books like 92 In The Shade was his first big one,

kind of a cult classic Panama.

He wrote a bunch of long form fiction and then a bunch of short form fiction.

Anyway, the short version is I grew outta my Jimmy Buffet phase.

Cut to like 30 years later, a friend sends me this book

called Some Horses by Tom Quain.

Okay.

Which is a collection of.

Short stories about horses.

Okay.

And then also Jim Harrison.

Jim Harrison was Tom's best friend and a poet, and he wrote Legends of the Fall.

And so this was all at the beginning of the pandemic and coincided with,

with getting to know Terry and making a couple things with Terry and Jim's

poetry and Tom's words and Terry's whole philosophy was be kind, became

the unlock to me wanting to write songs.

Say more about that.

What's the philosophy?

Terry's philosophy is like, you know, you don't have to be one thing and

just do it because you love to do it.

Terry was a, a painter, a sculptor, a visual artist, a playwright, a

musician, a songwriter, a husband.

And I kinda just spent three years with him and, and became like part of

the family, started spending new years with him and just seeing how he viewed

the world and lived as an artist.

Broke it open for me at least spiritually be like, oh, I don't,

I'm not just a commercial director, I'm not just a documentary promotion.

You don't have to be one thing.

Follow the muse on a daily basis because you want to forget about the audience.

You know?

He was really the only one that was kind of encouraging

when I started writing songs.

Wow.

I would send him some songs and, uh, you know, kinda going back to what you said

about Rick Rubin, just like, just do it.

Just

make the thing that you want to see or listen to.

So anyway, that, that was all happening and reading a lot of like just Tom

and and Jim have just like this really sharp wit and use of language

and terms of phrases and all of that jumbled with what I was listening

to musically to I think help shape.

What was that like for you?

Because when you and I were becoming friends, one of the main things I remember

was how into Terry Allen you were, and you were listening to him all the time.

And so to then all of a sudden make friends with him and have

him like encourage you that way, that had to have been incredible.

Well, it was, and it's kind of started through Ryan Bingham when we were

doing the film series with Ryan.

He suggested Terry was the guest, not knowing how obsessed I was with Terry.

Yeah, I was like, of, of course.

Oh wait a minute.

We gotta, we gotta get this sign here.

The hugs may bite,

but yeah.

So Terry, you know, we did the Midnight Hour, which was the Ryan

Bingham series and through that,

and that was a music series that you did with yet Fred Yeti.

Yeah.

And through that, like I, I think Terry was really proud of how that came out.

And he was doing this show, he started doing these shows.

At the Paramount, and this was like another sort of

exercise of just like function.

He called, he called and was like, I want to film it.

I wanna direct something around this like live, live concert thing.

And I was told at the beginning there was a budget and then

turns out there wasn't a budget.

And at this point I like people lined up to shoot.

It also had this suspicion that no one was gonna watch just like a hour long

concert film of an my obscure hero.

Right.

So basically, I mean, basically what happened to that is he called and ass and

like I, how do you say No to Terry Allen?

So we made this little film for $0 kind of on the heels of all these Yeti projects.

Yeah.

Is really what happened.

And every shoot that I was at with a, a crew that was near someone

that I could interview about Terry, I would just be like, can we spend

an hour interviewing this guy?

And it was one of those things like I didn't know what it was gonna be.

Going into it.

Yeah.

Like I thought, I was like, all right, maybe I'll just film the

concert and give him the footage.

But it just kept building one little, one little section at a time until

he was like, all right, I think we can make like a little hour long,

kind of like half concert film.

It's not, it doesn't tell a story, but it gives it context.

I remember you and I talked about a John Prine film that was kind of

like that too, where it was like half concert film and half like

just hanging out with John Prine.

Exactly, yeah.

And the hope was for the budget and the access, the best hope was to it

to be like a calling card of like, if someone asked you who Terry Allen is,

you could be like, this is, watch this.

That's Terry Allen.

Yeah.

I feel like that was all these little precursors leading up to, uh, you

know, whatever the next thing is.

'cause that was still, it still wasn't a full.

A documentary, it still felt like a bit of a compromise

because of how we had to make it.

And that film is called Everything For All Reasons.

For All reasons.

And then that came before All of It is Sacred.

Yes, correct.

All that is sacred.

Going back to reading a bunch of Tom and Jim beginning of Pandemic,

I just emailed Tom Quain and said, I'd like to make a film on you.

And it was kind of vague.

I just knew I wanted to start with Tom and I knew about his friendship with Jim.

Obviously I knew about Jimmy Buffett, I knew about Key West, but I think going

into it, the idea was to do one on Tom.

Oh, interesting.

Okay.

' cause he had a, he is a crazy life.

He's in the, the Literary Hall of Fame.

He's in the Fly fishing Hall of Fame and the cutting horse Hall of fame.

Wow.

So.

Talk about like the

Terry Allen model.

Like you don't need to be one thing.

Exactly.

And basically I went out there, he's like, all right, I don't know who you are, but

come out and talk and I'll sniff you out.

And I went up to Livingston, Montana, spent like a day with him talking.

So you flew out specifically to pitch him on making Yeah.

A project with him.

And he, we liked each other.

He is like, all right, let's do it without any sort of like, here's the, here's

the doc, here's what the documentary is.

I wanna start right there and ask you some more questions about this.

'cause one of the things that I admire about you and I feel like

you're really good at is befriending people who you admire artistically.

Or like being able to collaborate with lots of different people.

And so this is a situation where you don't know this person.

You want to collaborate with them on a project.

You're going to essentially.

Convince them to give you access.

How do you go about doing that?

What are you trying to do when you're trying to get access like that?

Well, the hope is that you just be yourself, you know?

Right.

I think one thing, going back to what I learned from all you guys and working

from all these different directors, is how to do that and the type of

filmmaker that I wanted to be was, which I think is limiting too, but it's like

the only way I feel comfortable doing it is, you know, there's filmmakers.

Like you can call 'em like Gotcha.

Filmmakers or the stories that are out there where you're trying

to expose someone or, or Right.

You know, extract something.

Right.

I think all the people that I've always drawn to was, was drawn to, are

people that I admired and wanted to learn from, and saw 'em as like giving

a blueprint to the world of how to live and how to think and how to, you

know, handle adversity and struggles.

So it was like, it's kind of like a, a one-sided.

A thing that I was interested in is someone who just loved

biographies and loved Yeah, biopics.

It was like, how do these people do it?

How do these people that I'm inspired by who are having unique

life experiences, how do they do it?

I wasn't drawn to these kind of corrupt, fucked up stories where I could

expose something or go in and extract.

I was like really candidly, just in interested in people that I looked up to.

'cause I wanted to learn.

I love that.

'cause it's so pure and you're approaching it like a fan.

Yeah.

You're just saying, I like what you do.

I want to be around what you do and I want to like shine a light and help sort of

give you a stage or a platform basically.

Well, kinda like what you're doing with this doc.

You know, if I was a 21-year-old insurance salesman, the type of films that I feel

like I ended up making are the type of films that had I seen at 21, I would've

quit my insurance job and go try to do it.

Like a lot of these projects.

I don't know if it's good or bad, but a lot of 'em are started without

knowing what the end is gonna be.

Oh.

I think

that's the only way to do it.

Yeah.

mean, who said it is like if you end, if you end up with the the documentary

that you set out to make, then you didn't make a documentary, you failed.

Yeah.

And you know Albert Maisels, who's like one of my heroes and he's one

of the founding fathers of Verite documentary, always talked about you

just really need to love your subjects.

Yeah.

And that's the reason you're there.

And then everything else reveals itself to you.

But if you start from that place of just loving the person you're

filming, then it's gonna work out.

Yeah.

And that's what with the Terry thing is like the goal was, 'cause I always

had a hard time explaining who Terry was or why he was so interesting to me.

Yeah.

Or why he was so out there.

Right.

Why he was so creative.

So going into it, I thought that's gonna be the film.

I'm gonna explain how cool and creative Terry is.

Right.

And I remember being like a dumb ass asking David Byrne questions like that.

And David just look at me like.

I'm not gonna answer that.

This is what makes Terry special.

He's, he's been married for 60 years and he has a family and he is genuine

and he's kind, and he's done all these things while being an artist.

Wow.

He's like, very few people do that.

So like, that was like one of those moments where like, wow, that's just,

that's the film and that's what it ended up being is like yeah, he's

creative doing very interesting work.

But like at the core, he's a decent guy that's held it all together and is still

married with his, to his girlfriend of that they met when they were 12 and

that, and it was just struck me as like, that's what David Byrne is impressed by.

Yeah.

And he is.

Right.

So that's this going back to the McQuain and Buffett thing is after

the first interview with Tom, which was like, you know how it is, the

first one's kind of exploratory.

Let's like unpack some things and then the job of a documentary

director is to follow.

The truth or what's interesting to you.

Yeah.

And after the first one, it was clear that he had these lifelong

friendships that are now gone because of death and age and disease.

Mm-hmm.

And he hadn't really reconciled with that.

And this magical era that culminated in Key West in the early

seventies was symbolic of this friendship that became lifelong

creative partners and competitors.

And all these people were now gone or fading.

Jimmy Buffet died.

Right?

The day that we premiered at Telluride.

was gonna ask you about that.

That's so strange.

And so, uh, synchronous, it feels like, you know, like you're making

a film about mortality and like you said, everything you just said.

And then when you premier, excuse me, you premiere it, he's supposed to be

there and instead gets sick and passes.

Well, gee, the other subject.

He passed away, um, right after we locked the picture.

So the last thing he saw was the final Wow.

And, and his, and

did, did Jimmy Buffet get to see the film?

Jimmy Buffet got to see it.

He loved it.

Wow.

Oh, Scott, that had a film.

Amazing.

And that's how, you

know, it's, that's that's going like, what'd you say?

Love your, like, I think a goal, and this is not all filmmakers operate like this,

and I don't know if anyone's gonna win an Academy Award to operate like this, but

so much I felt like people like Tootsie or Evan or JT Van Zandt or Terry, they trust

us enough to come in and tell their story.

Like so much of my goal as a filmmaker was to present

something that they were proud of.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

Which it's hard to do that, to tell a complicated and nuanced story and,

and get some of the darkness and all this stuff necessary to build and

arc. 'cause I think a lot of these, these things are meant to like.

Destroy people.

You know, like a lot of the good documentary, like a lot like Jeffrey

Epstein is an obvious example, but

you mean like instead of being like an expose where it's exposing somebody

as like a criminal or whatever, like yours are more from a fan's perspective

where you're showing people why they should love them and and become fans.

Yeah, but but also showing them the, their flaws and how they handle that.

You know, you can't do just this one sided right.

Puff piece, but,

and especially now when we live in this era of the Charlie Sheen

documentary and the Pam Anderson doc, and they're all making

it themselves.

That's what I mean, like

everybody's an executive producer on and controlling their own story.

So tightly that you can't make something that's like poetic and true and no, I

always use the Tom Petty documentary as an example, and then he made another

hit exactly Peter Vic's story, which is like, the music is amazing and he

is with him in the studio during all these pivotal moments and literally

nothing ever goes wrong for Tom Petty.

There's one sneeze, like,

and he was a heroin addict and Les Offord wife, but then he made another hit.

He goes solo and breaks up with his band and then they

triumphantly get back together.

Yeah.

And make a number one album.

And nobody's feelings are ever heard.

The most

one-sided documentary.

Totally.

Where, where really the truth and this story about Tom Petty

is so much more interesting.

It would bring so many more people in.

That's That's a great example of a one-sided puff piece.

Yeah.

So, all right, so then you premiere that at Telluride, which had

to have just been incredible.

What was that like?

I mean, that's 'cause to have a film at Telluride is like most filmmakers dream.

It was crazy and it was a culmin.

I knew it was gonna be my last film at Yeti and like, you know, the struggle,

like all the stuff that we tried to do, submitting our, the short films to

South by and all the film festivals.

And I feel like we made a lot of good seven to 10 minute documentaries.

And the problem with all of 'em is like, what's the distribution?

Like, what are the accolades?

And

Right.

There weren't any, and I think kind of like the Terry film, I wish there

would've been a way to make the McQuain and Buffett film into a 90 minute piece.

'cause it ended up being 35 minutes based on access.

Based on budget, based on footage, and based on who was around.

Right.

And just the story.

You know what I, you could do the Tom Petty Jimmy Buffet doc in Fort Parts Easy.

Right.

But this is like, I think where I'm at with a filmmaker, I th I.

The more specific, the better.

Yeah.

For me, you know, and

this was just about that time where they all just about that time and

that friendship.

Yeah.

The, the friendship.

And then when they're really all kinda at the beginning of their careers.

So at this point, after a hundred of these, my expectations for what

happens with these films we're low.

You know, it's like they go on YouTube, some people see him great.

But I get a call from Frank Marshall, for those of you who don't know

is, is Steven Spielberg's producer?

The, the Born Identities?

Yeah.

I mean Series Close Encounters.

Yeah.

Each married to Kathleen Kennedy.

So Kennedy Marshall is, and he's directed a bunch of films too, but he's making

a ton of documentaries.

He's making, he did

the, he directed the Be Gees one.

He is doing the Beach Boys one Fleetwood Mac.

Wow.

But anyway, it was cool.

And he was friends with Jimmy Buffett, which is how he saw the film.

Okay.

And Frank called and was like.

This Sc Ballew, you know, uh, congratulations.

Your film's in, uh, Telluride Film Festival.

It was a surreal experience.

'cause that happened, you know, maybe six months before Telluride.

And then after that the, one of the key subjects, gee de la Valdi passed away.

And, uh, you know, leading up to the festival, Jimmy was supposed to

be there and we got word like three days before that about his cancer.

And then he died the day.

And that Friday we premiered it and Frank Man and Tom were in the audience.

Wow.

The day he, so it was just like a heavy, crazy feeling.

Did they come up after and do a q and a And we did a

q and a and Tom did one of the funnier Q and as I've ever I've ever

heard, like in light of the death.

Um, but it was heavy.

You must have felt like you were almost part of that crew in a way to be there

with them during that pivotal moment.

I just felt really relieved that, you know, we were able

to capture it and show them.

Jimmy was so proud.

Like, I think you get, you think of mortality and all that.

Like I think part of the film was them finally acknowledging how

magical that time was and with all of their success and money, I think

everyone has that sort of ahaa era.

So I was just relieved that Jimmy got to see it with his family.

I like preserving these legacies and stories, having people be able to watch

and learn and, and get inspired by him.

'cause I think these, these people that live extraordinary

lives, that's how I learn.

Yeah.

Um, is, is through how they did it.

I love that.

So what are you working on now?

Now you're, you're at Kovas.

So I'm at Kovas.

That, that, uh, that premiered, uh, Telluride came out and this

is 2023.

This was.

No, this came out almost a little over a year ago, somewhere over a year ago.

So 20.

So yeah, after 10 years at Eddie, I, I leave trying to figure out, write

some music, direct some freelance commercial stuff, and then get connected

with another Austin brand to Kovas.

Mm-hmm.

Who was looking for some help, rebranding, started making

commercials with them on kind of like a one, one off contract basis.

And they liked them and kind of have since brought me in to run their

whole creative department marketing and, uh, rebrand, which has been fun.

'cause it's been a different muscle than Yeti.

It's been all real specific scripted, like s. Short form commercials and then

started to do longer form scripted, short stories to test the water there.

Interesting.

So was that your idea to go, 'cause you're so steep in this world, the documentary,

did you want to challenge yourself and do something new by going scripted?

I think you know how it is.

Like you do a hundred of anything, it starts to feel repetitive.

Yeah.

And I think that was kind of the feeling at Yeti is like, all right,

how do I make another fishing film interesting or different?

How do I, I feel like we really cracked the code on the seven to 20

minute short film, a documentaries.

And so, and in a way I went back to the beginning and making these really

kind of stylized cool 32nd commercials seemed like a, a new challenge.

Yeah.

And going back to the necessity of it all, where it's kind of internal.

So I'm riding them and directing 'em and get to do the music for some of them.

Let me whack your car for a second.

Okay.

Because the first Tokos commercial that I saw after you took over.

We watch a lot of baseball at our house and it played constantly.

Yeah.

And it's so good.

And you used a track by one of my favorite artists, Dean Johnson's

sub dean,

that changed his career.

Yeah.

Like made him a lot more well known I think.

And then all of a sudden I started to see Teko billboards popping up.

Yeah.

That I'd never seen before.

And it seems like you really had an impact pretty quickly over there.

It was a little bit of a blank canvas or it seemed like a new challenge.

'cause it was so specific.

It was the West, right.

It's fashion.

It's music.

Yeah.

That it was everything all over the world.

Right.

So you, so you got to like focus in on just one genre basically.

And a genre that I understand.

Yeah.

You know?

So that's been fun.

And then, yeah, now we're at the phase, like how do we, going back to the

storytelling, like every brand, like you said, be because of the Yetis.

Because the Patagonias, everyone's trying to figure out their storytelling.

I had a hard time getting excited about doing more.

Yeah.

Aspirational character driven documentary.

right

at Telluride, one of the cool things is you meet other directors.

I got humiliated meeting Wind Winders and Werner Herzog, but I

met Jeff Nichols, like I was sat next to Jeff Nichols at Telluride.

Yeah.

Two Austin people.

Yeah.

In a sea of like, just crazy.

You know?

Crazy artists.

And we bonded and have been trying to figure out something to do together.

So when Kova is like, what would be your dream project right now?

If we wanted to do something long form.

Yeah.

Them thinking I was gonna be like, I wanna do a documentary on this guy.

Right.

I called Jeff, I was like, I had this idea for doing like a love letter to Texas

stitching together scenes and characters and themes from like eight iconic Texas

film and made a little rip out of these old films that Jeff wrote a script to.

That'll be like a seven minute, very specific stylized.

Short film

and it references like Paris, Texas, and

Giants and Hud.

Tinder Mercies.

Cool.

No Country for Old Men.

Last picture show.

And for fun, we threw in Badlands even though it's, you know,

technically not Texas, but

Yeah.

Well, he lives here now.

It's from

here.

Wow, man.

That sounds like a dream.

That's so cool.

it'll be either really cool or the thing that gets me fired.

Well, most good things start like that, right?

Yeah.

All right, so we're here, we're at the end of our walk and we do a thing at

the end called The Lightning Round.

So what was the first movie made you wanna make films or, or

think about becoming a director?

Maybe it's not an easy answer.

I think there was like three that came out, I feel like the same year.

Yeah.

That, that it was Dig, it was the Be Here to Love Me mm-hmm.

And the Daniel Johnson

film.

Cool.

Yeah.

And I don't, I'd be lying if I said that those made me want to make films.

Yeah.

But it, it was.

I saw at the time in my life where I realized like that I was

doing the wrong thing, you know?

Well, and interesting about that is two of those three are Texas stories.

I know.

Yeah.

So going full circle, we, we ended up making a Yeti film with Margaret.

Yep.

Jeff was her assistant.

Jeff Nichols was Margaret's assistant making that film.

And then, which JT Van Z was in it.

Which Yeti film was that one that you, that you made with Margaret?

Margaret?

We did a film called The Jubilee.

Okay.

About like, and she pitched, or actually I, this is one where I found this article

about this jubilee that happens outside of Mobile, Alabama, where she's from.

Mm-hmm.

And pitched it to her to direct and, you know, it was, it was

great and fun and good experience.

The one that.

I was still in college when No Direction Home came out.

Yeah.

The Bob Dylan one.

Oh, yeah.

And that really messed me up.

That wasn't, it wa It was like debilitating.

Like it was beyond inspiring.

Say more about that.

What do you mean?

Well, it tipped over, it was like so inspiring that it made you feel It was so

inspiring.

It made me feel like I would never achieve anything in my life.

Mm. You know, like I, I'm a grandiose thinker.

Yeah.

And the scale of Bob Dylan's like catalog.

Right.

And like whole thing, you know, at, at 20 or 21 years old to see that my reaction

was like, I wanna go do something special.

It was like, I'll never do anything

special.

Right.

And

it was really cool.

I remember with, with no instinct of that I might be a filmmaker.

Just, I really liked that Scorsese chose to, it was such

a specific window, you know?

Yeah.

It was, it was four hours and it was, it ended at the motorcycle crash in like 66.

Right.

Or 67.

You know, it didn't do the whole thing.

It didn't do the Tom Petty like, you know.

I was like, that's a cool choice.

Yeah.

It just ends.

And then, you know, there's 60 years since that.

That was left on answer, but it just emphasized the, the

persona and the mystery and all the cool stuff surrounding Bob.

I can deeply relate to what you said about feeling so inspired that it

tips over into being like self-pity.

'cause I feel that way a lot of times when I see something like that where, like the

Scorsese doc series, it's out right now.

Mm-hmm.

I so admire people that who just feel so compelled towards one direction.

That is so clear.

Yeah.

'cause I feel like I haven't had that clarity in my life where it's like, oh,

this is the thing and you just like find it early and you just exploit it to,

its like fullest most amazing potential.

Yeah.

And I suffer a lot from feeling like this sense that like, I

want to live up to my potential.

And so when I can, when I get down about that, I can get

like in kind of a dark place.

Like, oh, that means I'm.

A failure or something.

But what I've come to realize as I've gotten older is that it's also that

instinct that makes me a creative person.

Yeah.

And like being hard on myself in that way is the thing that makes

me want to make the next thing.

Yeah.

And the next thing.

Well, it makes you dynamic too.

Like going back to the Terry thing versus Scorsese.

'cause I had that feeling doing all the Yeti films.

The common denominator is like, wow, these people got obsessed with

what they were doing at a young age.

Surfing, skiing, climbing.

Mm-hmm.

And it was like, you know, I didn't have that with songwriting or filmmaking.

So it was like at this disadvantage starting in my mid thirties mm-hmm.

Where all these people that Paul Thomas Anderson's and the Scorsese's making

super eight films when they're Right.

Six years old.

Yeah.

You know, it was like, that was not me.

Yeah.

So it was like, it is overwhelming.

Like, well of course.

But then you also like Scorsese as an example, like.

There are the dark side of being one track mind and obsessed and like, you know, all

of the, the carnage with the family stuff.

Yeah.

And the diction.

All this married five times and Yeah.

So going back to like you or Terry, like you're a husband and

a father and you play baseball.

Mm-hmm.

And you make commercials and you make documentaries of people

love and you're making podcasts.

So I think that was 'cause I, the, the Dylan thing, like, and all

the Yeti stuff made me insecure.

Like, well the thing, the path I chose at that age was football

and that didn't work out.

Right.

That's what, that's what I knew better than anyone.

That's what I was born to do.

And then that ended is when I'm 20, 21.

Mm. I wish I would've just been obsessed with filmmaking when I was five or stuff

with surfing or just finding these things.

So I think it is debilitating to see these people with these

lifelong obsessions fully do it.

But I've turned the corner and I'm drawn to people who are dynamic.

The Jack Sanders of the world.

Right.

The McGuin of the world who can be like.

Yeah, I might write a book, but I'm also gonna enter rodeos and

I'm also gonna write short stories.

I'm also gonna have grandkids and I'm also gonna travel.

Yeah.

And I'm also gonna do this.

So I think, you know, my big takeaway from the town's, this is all getting

really meta now in Full Circle book, the towns documentary, the takeaway from the

towns thing, and then getting to know jt.

Mm-hmm.

And doing that was like, art slash your legacy isn't worth being an asshole.

A miserable asshole.

The carnage of these one track mind obsessed people, it's a selfish pursuit.

Mm-hmm.

And someone like Towns Van Ant, or Blaze Foley, all these people that we grew

might have grown up in Austin idolizing.

Yeah.

You get to know their sons or the people around them.

Yeah.

And be like, oh, you start to think about the actual smells of what it was like

to be around them, and the wet dogs and the fucking needles and the ashtrays.

And, and JT being just abandoned on like airport stoops waiting for him.

You're like, that's not worth this song.

And so you meet people like Terry or, or Tom or even Jimmy Buffett, who's

like, I'm just gonna do the best I can, but also try to have a full life.

Right.

And, and do interesting things.

I think I'm finding peace of like, you know, doing, trying

to do it, the do it all.

But there is that, there is the sense of the greats or like,

these guys were just obsessed.

Right.

And they did one thing their whole life.

Yeah.

Until they were the master.

Sorry, these answers are very rapid.

I know we're,

we're not doing a good job with the lightning round, but it's, it is gonna

me thinking like maybe, 'cause I do understand very, I've felt that very

strongly a lot of times of that almost like shame that you haven't done enough.

And I wonder if the lesson is that we're supposed to like

find inspiration from that and.

Transpose it in our own way.

Yeah.

Not try to be like they are, but do it in the way that comes naturally to us.

Yeah.

Like you working with your friends to make the next cool project because you

met Jeff at Telluride and you're just riding the wave of that experience.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Or you know, Jesse from childhood and you need some music and

so I'll work with my buddy.

Yeah.

And I think I have one of those unfortunate LA stories where

after Winnebago Man, I got all the managers and agents and was

having lunch with celebrities and being told how awesome I was.

And I was like, I'm gonna go this direction and leave by friends behind.

Not in that way.

Not like purposefully and really coldly, but more like I'm gonna

go do new things with new people.

Right.

And I wish if I had to do over that, I would've brought all of the people

with me that had helped me make things up to that point, rather than go and

just try to like be a stranger in a strange land and almost start over.

It's.

Long-winded way of saying that, like it's a good lesson I think to

just like, be where you are and work with the people who you are around

and take that inspiration from the Bob Dylans and channel it and work

through those people work in that way.

Exactly.

I think that's where I've, I've landed the emphasis being on the process.

Yeah.

And, and the experience.

Right.

And who you surround yourself with.

'cause like at the end of the day, towns Van Z isn't around

enjoying his posthumous legacy.

Right.

You know?

Right.

He died in a trailer park with little friends or little to, to show for it.

I'd rather have fun making something with the people that I love.

Yeah.

And, and, and hope for the best.

Then like even some of those Scorsese films, you're like,

that didn't look fun to make.

So that's, that's always gonna be the rub.

Yeah.

And like, you know, it's just as challenging sometimes working with

your friends and the people you love.

Mm-hmm.

As it

is complete strangers, you know, when there's that much.

Emotion and familiarity and like, you know, but it's like a family.

You can have these hard conversations Yeah.

And get through it.

And making music too.

It's like I want people in the studio or on stage with me that

like I have a good time with.

Yeah.

And like can learn from and like, we're, we're friends.

Because that's really the only tangible thing that that comes from.

It is like the moment.

All right.

Dream collaborator.

If you could work with anybody who were to be,

well, I mean, I,

I am doing it with Jeff Nichols right now.

You know, meeting him at, at, I remember seeing mud and thinking like, wow,

there's someone that lives in Austin that, you know, writes and directs

movies with actual movie stars.

You know, like that, that seemed like a Yeah.

Big deal.

Of course we have like link later there's like an some amazing, you know, you have.

The Robert Rodriguez and stuff, but there was something like kind,

kind of personal and, and, and homemade feeling about Jeff's films.

He's on the top of my head because it was just one of those kind of, you know,

things, how a lot of these happens.

We were randomly sitting next to each other, a Telluride bonded

over a few things and like a year later where working on something

that, uh, transitions nicely into the last question, which is like,

what is the thing right now that you can't stop thinking about

a custom couch?

That project is like, I'm like, I, you know, I spent the last two days working

on a song with Ryan Bing on for this little film and you know, we just, you're

making with Jeff, whatever we're making with Jeff and we just scouted West Texas.

So it's like that's, that's on the mind right now.

And then I'm about to record another record.

So my kind of, my kind of thought is on that film.

And then just inspiration kind of direction for the next next record.

I, I like to go all the way in one at a time with a project, but I'd love to,

I think doing that all that is sacred left some desire to make a full length

documentary, which I've never made.

Cool.

You know?

Yeah.

So I gotta, I'm, I'm kind of just actively thinking about what that could be.

Love it.

Well, this has been amazing, Scotty.

Be thanks for taking the time and going on a walk.

Yeah.

Is there anything we didn't talk about that you want to

cover?

No.

I mean, I think give credit, I think, I feel like Winnebago Man fits in that,

like, there was such a golden era of that, I guess called mid s like documentaries,

you know, that I feel like did, like all these that you were definitely in

the middle of and, and responsible for.

And, uh, I think have inspired a lot of people to go out

and find these characters.

I look at like, um, with Lance Oppenheimer, you know,

there's like, oh yeah, yeah.

You know, oh my God, he's ring fair.

He's making some good ones, but I feel like you, like, in terms of finding.

The, you know, with chopping steel and like you, you have that sort of

Oppenheimer instinct of like, this is a, an interesting underworld Yes.

Culture and, and, and capturing the nuance of these, these people.

So it's like, oh shucks.

Well thanks man.

You, I mean, thank you for waxing my car.

I really appreciate it.

And to waxers back like the Yeti work that we made together, like

that Tootsie Doc is still one of the things that I'm most proud of.

And, and I really feel like I connected with her on a, like, true like emotional

level to the point where when I go to Snows, you know, she gives me a big hug.

We still trade Christmas cards, me and Tootsie and

yeah.

We made some lifelong friendships and made like, I feel like these are a

gift to a lot of these subjects too.

Yeah.

That you guys did.

Mm-hmm.

And, and you know, the whole back to who do I wanna collaborate with?

Like, it's hard to answer 'cause I feel like over the course of 10 years I

was able to, to do that with you guys.

Yeah.

And.

I got to, to work and learn from the best and the people that inspired me,

um, behind the camera and in front of it.

That's awesome, man.

Wow.

Can't, can't ask for much more than that.

Yeah.

So people can find your work.

Uh, you've got your new records, Paradiso Paradiso, and where can

people find your films and your music?

And

most of 'em, all that is sacred.

The latest ones on, on YouTube, everything for all reasons is on iTunes and Amazon.

Okay.

Um, and the rest is on my website, leisure rodeo.com.

Leisure Rodeo.

Yeah.

Cool.

All right.

Thanks brother.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Okay, so that was Scott Ballew.

That was, uh, Scott Ballew.

Apparently I wasn't actually there for it.

Like you.

I am just checking with Scott Ballew for the first time here.

Ben, great job.

Thank

you.

You were missed on that walk.

I know you have been very busy.

Tell us what you've been doing.

You know, it's the end of the year and I'm just trying to get in grant submissions.

We're doing multiple grants.

I've got four projects in development and each one has like one significant

grant or one kind of initiative we're applying to, which means writeups,

tightening up sizzle reels, decks,

the whole whole, you threw a real show off.

See, I'm just not as productive.

Well, you've got a company to run and, and, and business to conduct.

Ben,

tell me about this t-shirt and Well, uh, our first ever sponsor,

our first sponsor is the longtime Texas, um, I, what is that?

It is a venue.

Uh, my wife Katie and I got married there.

Okay.

But it's a baseball

field, right?

It's also a baseball field.

Scott Belu and I play on the Texas Playboys started by Jack Sanders, and

that is the name of the baseball field.

It's called The Long Time.

There's also concerts out there.

You can rent it for all kinds of different parties, et cetera.

So the long time is our first sponsor and it makes sense because Scott and I play.

On the team together.

Well, we've been doing this for nine months, so that's a long time.

It feels a real long time.

Long time.

So thanks to Jack Sanders.

Thanks for the long time.

That's right.

And if you are considering sponsoring Doc Walks, what will you get, Ben?

Well, you'll get shout outs in the episode.

We can put your logo in the credits.

We can post about you on social media.

We can talk you up in the episode.

That's right.

We can do all that stuff.

We're not gonna overdo

it, right?

Because we're still documentary filmmakers and I mean, Keith might get a tattoo.

Very, very unlikely unless you hit a certain threshold and it's high.

But anything's possible, folks, you know, our social

media footprint is growing.

That's right.

By the

moment.

That's right.

We just passed 400 followers on Instagram today, so we're very

excited about that benchmark.

And next week we have documentary filmmakers, Louis Alvarez and Andy Coker.

You know what, I'm not doing it.

And you're not doing that one either.

I'm not gonna go, I'm not showing up for that.

I'm gonna make you tell me about it after the fact.

Or maybe I'll just watch it like you guys.

Louis Alvarez and Andy Coker

here from New York.

Longtime collaborators with Paul Steckler.

Nice episode 19.

Um, ooh, I like that.

You know, the episode number like that.

They have been making documentaries together for 50 years, which is amazing.

I mean, we haven't even been doing this podcast for a year.

Can you imagine 49 more years of this?

I cannot,

and I have a good imagination.

I'm excited about that one.

I have spent a good amount of time with Andy and Louie,

and they are full of jokes.

They're full of experiences, they're full of information and uh,

and it's a fun walk.

We go all around the UT campus.

We comment on sculpture and the Ransom Center.

They tell me about an architect who designed one of the

buildings I knew nothing about.

So it's very informative and I had a blast walking around ut with those guys.

Okay, so thank you Scott Ballew, thank you to the long time.

And, uh, tune in next time for Louie and Andy and my friend Ben

Talkbox.

Hey, exterior.

All right.

Alright.

Dog Walks is presented, directed, created, edited by myself and this guy.

Hello.

We couldn't do it without co-producer Dayton Thompson.

No, we couldn't.

Thank you.

Dayton continues to knock it outta the park.

Thank you Dayton.

And thanks to the folks at The Bear,

the folks at Go Valley.

We have a team of interns that are working hard for us,

and, uh, thank you for sticking around.

If you're still here, you're a diehard and we appreciate you.

We'll catch you next time.

Doc Walks, follow us at Doc Walks pod on Instagram X and YouTube.