EP07 – A Story That Went Nowhere with Charlie Shackleton

06.05.2025 - Season: 1 Episode 7

Walk and talk with ZODIAC KILLER PROJECT director Charlie Shackleton as he recounts the challenges (& opportunities) of bringing a film to new life after losing access to the subject. Ben & Keith explore Charlie’s love-hate relationship with true crime and the way his film twists up familiar tropes. Never one to accept creative defeat, Charlie extolls the virtues of having a close collaboration with your entertainment lawyer and takes us back to the inspiration of Nick Broomfield as a basis for overcoming rejection on screen. The three filmmakers have a lot of laughs and together decide to start a cult! Join them… for this episode of Doc Walks.

00:00 Welcome to Doc Walks: South by Southwest Day

00:49 Meeting Charlie Shackleton: A Unique Filmmaker

02:42 The Zodiac Killer Project: A Film About Failure

04:13 Overcoming Obstacles: The Making of Zodiac Killer Project

07:41 Archival Films and Legal Battles

11:17 Influences and Inspirations: The Filmmakers Who Shaped Charlie

15:28 Pitching and Funding: The Journey to Create Zodiac Killer Project

17:48 A Twist on True Crime: Charlie’s Unique Approach

19:56 Starting a New Cult: A Filmmaker’s Perspective

20:23 Intentional Critique in Documentary Filmmaking

22:08 Navigating Personal Involvement in Documentaries

25:32 The Reality of Developing Multiple Projects

29:13 Advice for Aspiring Filmmakers

34:24 Concluding Thoughts and Future Episodes

Welcome to Doc Walks.

This is your intro

and this is South by Southwest Day three, or is it day two?

It doesn't even matter.

No, I guess it doesn't matter.

I don't know, but Ben, well, it's day something because you can hear in Ben's

voice that he has been talking up a storm.

He's been doc walking with doc filmmakers, he's been meeting with advertising

and agents and doing his day job of.

Being a commercial impresario.

That's right.

I've been at many parties

shouting over loud music.

So my voice, uh, is destroyed already.

Just a couple days into the festival.

I'm mostly antisocial, so it works out fine that my voice

is as, as always well rested.

Yeah, you sound, uh, buttery and smooth as usual.

Dulce tones from head to toe.

So we're here this morning.

Uh, it's freezing cold, which is never the case at South by.

Uh, we're out in front of the Hilton Garden Inn waiting for Charlie Shackleton.

Yep.

Charlie's movie, Zodiac Killer Project made.

Its south by debut Last night.

He had his world premiere at Sundance last month.

We tried to get in, couldn't get in, um, in Park City, so I was thrilled when

I got a chance to see it last night.

It is a different kind of film.

He is a different kind of filmmaker.

You will hear in his voice.

He's from a different land altogether.

And he also sounds like the kind of guy who makes like personal film.

So I'll be curious to hear what he says about going on that journey and you

know, being a main character basically.

Yeah, I got to chat with him just a little last night and, uh, I'm already

looking forward to this time together.

He's smart, he's funny, and he is got a point of view that I don't think we've

encountered on this podcast just yet.

You, you mean British?

Basically,

oh, and I think here he is, right here

on your left.

You're listening to Doc Walk with Ben and Keith.

You know what, I was on, uh, I was on the phone to my friend back in London last

night, just as the bats began flying.

Oh, wow.

And she, and, and it immediately, it was just this insane chorus.

Of the, the bats screeching as well as like six different sirens that

seemed to go past in that moment.

Was your friend?

It sounded like I'd conjure it artificially to try and convince

her that I was in Austin.

Was your friend concerned for your safety?

Well, just sort of annoyed.

I think She's not that sympathetic.

Let's see.

Charlie, could you give me a little bit of, um.

Yes,

a test please.

So 1, 2, 3.

Hello.

I'll try looking in a couple of different directions in case I start.

You Sound sightseeing.

Fantastic.

Oh, I guess we should do an intro.

We are walking down 17th Street near Guadalupe with Charlie Shackleton,

filmmaker from London visiting Austin to share his film Zodiac Killer Project.

Well done easily itself by Southwest.

Easily gotten wrong.

That title.

I've had all manner of Zodiac Film Project, Zodiac documentary, et cetera.

So welcome, welcome, Charlie Shackleton, welcome to Austin.

Welcome back to South by Southwest.

I know it's not your first time.

Um, and thank you for, uh, thank you for having me at your screening last night.

I'm thrilled, uh, to talk about the film from the point of view of

somebody who loves this subject.

Uh, I was intrigued by your approach and is so eager to understand where

your process, uh, started and ended.

And, uh, but also share with Ben who.

We will be wandering aimlessly through the streets of Austin,

wondering what we're talking about.

'cause he didn't get a chance to

see it.

Yeah.

And I'm very bad at explaining this film, so you may have to do

half of the legwork, but we'll see.

Well now wait a second.

Don't you narrate, uh, the entire film

Exactly.

And it takes me 92 minutes to explain it.

So how am I gonna do it now to you?

We don't

have, yeah, we don't have that kind of time.

Not quite,

not quite that well.

Um, but if you would, to get back to Ben's initial question, could you

give us, uh, your best encapsulation of what Zodiac Killer Project is?

Sure.

For our audience who probably hasn't seen it yet.

So, Zodiac Killer Project is a film about my failed attempt to

make a true crime documentary.

So I had been trying to adapt this memoir into a. Documentary

about the Zodiac Killer and about one specific suspect in the case.

And as I was in, uh, pre-production and, and developing the story, the negotiations

for the rights to that book fell through.

And so I sort of licked my wounds and tried to move on to other

projects, but had done so much, like even beyond the actual like.

Practical work that had been done on the film.

I had made the mistake of kind of in my brain conceptualizing the entire

thing and sort of, you know, down to what it was gonna look like, how it

was gonna flow, narratively, et cetera.

And I really couldn't kind of leave it behind me.

I couldn't let it go and would find myself like recounting to friends.

In bars sequences from this imagined film, I would now never get to make

Right.

The the one that got away.

Yeah.

Which obviously we've all done and I, you know, it's happened

to me many times before and eventually you just get over it.

But on this occasion, it, yeah, it was so sort of enduring that I started thinking

about that as a potential subject for a film, that feeling of frustration

and kind of thwarted creative ambition.

I. I made a lot of films that are kind of just people telling well-worn

stories, and by this point I'd told this story so many times and I was like,

well, now I have a well-worn story.

And so, yeah, I, I started working on, on this film, Zodiac Killer Project.

And the way it kind of flow, the way it sort of is structured is that.

In real time.

I'm just describing what that other film would've been, which sounds boring and

some people is definitely, for me, it

doesn't sound boring to me.

It sounds like you took the inability to gain access and made a film about

that challenge, about that hurdle.

So in doing that, did you know right away that you would be the.

This sort of narrator that takes us through this journey, or how did

you start to think about it when you knew that you couldn't let this idea

go and you had to go make the film?

Yeah, I, I mean, even when, like, when it first fell through, I genuinely

was very, like, just devastated.

And I happened to be in Vallejo, um, where the Zodiac Killers crimes took

place when I found out, because I'd been screening a film, another film

of mine in, in, uh, San Francisco.

And so I took the ferry over.

I was looking around at like potential locations, uh, when I

heard that it had fallen through.

And even then, even in that disappointment, I think there was probably

a little glimmer of possibility in my mind because I, I know that so many

of my films have come from some sort of limit, from some sort of obstacle.

I don't think I'm the filmmaker who works very well with.

Absolute freedom.

I sort of need something to push against and this obviously was an

enormous thing to push against.

Wow, interesting.

Tell it, go more into it, like I've, tell me about some of your other films.

Are they also true crime stories that you had to fight for access to, or

it's more, I, I think it's like, like I've made a lot of archival films

and obviously when you work with archival material to some extent,

there is a finite limit on what exists.

Um, so for instance, I made a short film about, um, about a legal case

in in Britain in the early nineties, late eighties, which was about a

group of gay and bisexual men who were prosecuted for having, uh, a series

of sader masochistic sex parties.

And this set a very, sort of significant precedent in British law around consent

because it was basically decided that their consent to participate.

Uh, in these sex parties was not a defense to having quote unquote,

assaulted one another and aided and abetted assaults on themselves.

Um, wow.

So it was this very bizarre case.

Um, needless to say, very, in my opinion, homophobically motivated.

But the only reason they'd been able to even know that these things

took place, because obviously it was a victimless crime, right?

No one was reporting this to the police.

It was because the men had videotapes, the parties.

And so obviously when I began working on it, the first thing I wondered

is like, uh, do these tapes exist?

Right?

Police still have them.

Do any of the men involved?

Still have them?

And so I, you know, I spent like 18 months fighting this freedom of

information battle back and forth with the police who, you know, blocked my

every attempt to access any of this stuff.

I think ultimately.

The tapes probably aren't in their possession anyway, but they wouldn't

even get to the point of telling me what they had, let alone giving it to me.

And so that film likewise started from a position of.

Not being able to get or look at or access the, the thing that felt to some

extent, like it was the core of the thing.

Mm. Um,

I love that you use frustration as a driving, uh, energizer,

as like a, isn't it always?

Yeah.

No, I think we all do, and I think most of us take our frustration

and, and, you know, pivot and, and kind of try and put, end up putting

lipstick on a pig sometimes, but you, it seems like refuse to, uh.

To hide behind the limitation, but instead you highlight the limitation.

Right.

That's certainly what you do here, is that the, the short, uh, the, I'm

sorry, the archival film that you're describing, what is it called and, and

how did you respond to that frustration?

So it's called lasting marks.

Okay.

And it's, um, which is a great accent test.

I find.

It was always fun going to the US to screener because, uh, everyone

enjoys hearing me say lasting marks.

Um, yeah.

'cause we would say lasting marks.

Would you, you'd put, you'd do your hard.

Say it like that.

Would you do the hard R on marks still?

How would you say LA lasting marks.

Lasting marks.

Last lasting marks, right?

We can go last lasting.

Man.

Okay.

And so, so again, this is a story about something that you needed to basically

work really hard to gain access to.

You don't ultimately gain the access, but you find a new way.

To tell the story and to bring it

to life.

Yeah.

Maybe one day I'll actually like, get access to anything and then I can make,

make something that I actually, uh,

well, that's, I mean, it's such an interesting al almost like stoic idea

that like the obstacle is the way, right?

Like instead of, you know, turning away from it and going in the

opposite direction or giving up on the project altogether, you decided,

no, this is actually what will inform the project and help me make it.

Which is not everybody would do, I don't think.

And that's like a really beautiful way to sort of approach not only making a

film, but also life in general, like, so is that, um, were you inspired

by other filmmakers that do that?

And did you work, were you sort of working with somebody else's?

Were as, as a ref, uh, work as a reference.

I'm trying to think.

I mean, definitely yeah, like,

like that sort of like provocation.

It is very appealing to me, both as a filmmaker and a viewer.

I mean, the way, the way I sort of fell in love with documentary as a

kid, somewhat predictably was watching a lot of those sort of quite punky,

provocative, like plucky, you know, roving camera type documentarians like.

Well, specifically, I was gonna say Michael Moore, who I, I,

yeah.

Was success with as kid or, or Nick Broomfield.

But Nick Broomfield was

a big one.

Yeah.

So I remember having, as a teenager, having the, like Nick Broomfield,

DVD box set and the idea, especially him as a sort of like unlikely, quite

unassuming, slightly awkward and shuffling British figure, like bumbling into these

very fraught situations, but sort of refusing to back down at every limit.

That definitely did have an influence.

I remember one of his, one of his sort of lesser known films that I'd never

really heard anyone talking about.

It's a film called Tracking Down Maggie.

Mm. I don't know that one.

Which is

it?

It sort of, in some ways like a, a familiar premise.

It's just him trying to get an interview with Margaret Thatcher.

Oh.

I was hoping it was gonna be Maggie Smith.

It's a, it's a post post Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

She's in her retirement or maybe she's still an mp.

At that time, uh, but she's on a book tour and he's trying to get an

interview with her and she refuses.

And obviously there's a thousand films like this where it's just

about trying to get the interview.

You're never gonna get.

Roger and me, obviously.

Yeah.

Or, or last night our, um, uh, somebody else we interviewed who's

a friend of ours, Adam Ball, Lowe's movie, deep Faking Sam Alman.

That's the premise.

Oh, is that also the premise of that?

Yeah.

He's trying to get to Sam Alman and can't do it,

and it's, you know, it's, it produced lots of good movies.

Um, and this one probably isn't even a particularly remarkable

example of the sub genre.

But it was maybe the first one I'd seen and the directions in which that

sends him off spinning because he's obviously so hopelessly unable to get

an interview with Margaret Thatcher.

I found very like stimulating and interesting as a, as a prospect.

Yeah.

That that could be.

A film that, that could be a documentary.

I really love that too.

Like taking the audience along for the ride and they're sort of, um, complicit in

picking the film with you sort of thing.

Yeah.

And you're, and that you're wrapped into the, into the

process of the production as well.

Like there's such huge sueess of that film and just Nick Broomfield, like talking

to Margaret Thatcher's publicist, she's, she's a much bigger character in the

film than Margaret Thatcher Inevitably.

Well, and that it shows you how she's protected and how hard it is.

You know, how media trained celebrities are, and you know, it

gives you a interesting lens through which to look at someone like her.

Um, so that's fascinating.

So are you, are you going to continue on this route with your next film project?

Do you have something else you're working on?

It's weird to imagine making that like your, um, your kind of.

Staple your signature as a documentary filmmaker.

'cause I obviously can't like, produce limitations for myself.

You know, I can't like force a situation where I, uh.

Have to think outside the box or whatever.

I love how, uh, you turn like legal documents in conversations with lawyers

into riveting, uh, documentary cinema,

at least half of last night's q and a was, uh, Charlie extolling the virtue

of his relationship with his attorney.

I love my lawyer.

Oh, so he's my, yeah, he's my primary creative collaborator.

I want to, uh, I wanna, I wish you had credited him as such when you said that

in the q and a. I thought that Yeah.

Co-director.

Yeah.

Let's pivot back to the making of Zodiac Killer Project.

In the beginning, when you make the decision, I can't make the film I

wanna make, but I'm gonna make this other film instead, what is the

process for pitching and funding?

Are you sticking your neck out and going deep on spec to win people over with, with

a, with a really strong proof of concept?

Or are you setting meetings and.

Calling up old collaborators and trying to convince them to give you one more

shot or you, you knocking on new doors and saying, let's break new ground together.

How's it work?

So I always feel, uh, almost like guilty telling this part of the story, uh,

because it was insanely blissfully easy.

Oh.

Which is never the

case.

Well, you should feel guilty.

I know.

Oh man.

And certainly has not.

That is never the case, not been the case for me, uh, with any other project.

But yeah, after, after a lot of like, as I say, false starts, once I did conceive of

this film that I actually made rather than the one I didn't make, I went to Field

of Vision with whom I'd worked before a couple of times, including actually on

that short that I talked about before.

Lasting marks.

And um, yeah.

And then I basically just, I mean, I'd made a little kind of, uh, pitch video.

Essentially just kind of much like the finished film, just me kind of

rambling through the idea, um, with some various visual reference points.

Showed them that, and I think it was both good timing in that they were looking

to start a couple of new projects, but also Yeah, incredibly they were able

to see it and had faith that this would actually make sense, uh, as a film at

some point, which I think even I did not.

Totally believe at that point.

Wow.

Um, so your

financiers had the vision at times that even when you didn't, that is,

that's a rare case.

Very rare.

Yeah.

Lawyers, phenomen, financiers, easy money.

This is a Charlie.

This case is against all eyes.

I know

you are a unicorn in the field of documentary.

Truly.

Um, and I, and that to always be the redirect man, but I want to come back.

For our audience who hasn't seen the film, uh, I don't exactly know what.

Simple label you would apply.

Um, but the label that I've heard thrown around for this project

and, and others, including one I'm working on, is a twist on true crime.

I don't know if that's the way you would put it, but it, it is not

a standard true crime approach.

And if anything, I would say I saw last night a skewering

of true crime in a, in a way.

But how would you describe your relationship in this

film to true crime and why?

Yeah, it's fine.

Like the thing I always forget that obviously to some extent it does still

play as a true crime film because the, the form of it is me, you know,

perfectly replicating what the narrative beats of the unmade film would've been.

So at its best, hopefully, if, if people get into it, you have the

sensation of watching that film, even though you're not watching it.

So it, yeah, it has sort of the, the rhythm of a true crime film.

It has the structure of a true crime film, just sort of without

any of the actual meat of the thing.

Um, and it, my relationship to it, it's funny, like the thing that co

crops up again and again and again in reviews inevitably, is the phrase love

hate, which I get because obviously I, I express a lot of affection for

the genre in the film while also.

Kind of taking the piss out of it.

Parodying, uh, some of its more hackneyed tropes.

To me, the aim with the film was to express the sort of

the, the, just the sort, almost like the neutrality of how I, and it seems like

a lot of people relate to true crime.

It's like, it's almost like a passive thing.

It's just so, you know, saturated in our.

Culture and especially in the documentary industry, as you two both know.

Um,

yeah, what is it?

The three Cs, your pure, uh, pitch project.

You have to have one of the three Cs,

crime, celebrity and cult and cults cult.

I was wondering what the third one was.

I feel like the cults have gone a little out of fashion.

There's only, there's only so many of 'em, right?

They've run out of cults.

Yeah.

I mean, there's an opening, right?

Like start a new cult and you're guaranteed, you know, some airtime.

And so I think like the.

That actually might be I, that feels like an Adam Bhala Lough doc right there.

I was just

gonna say that sounds like somebody that's maybe your next film.

Charlie, you start,

Charlie, start a cult and it'll be our next film.

Yeah.

If the limitation is there are no cults left.

Starting one is a beautiful, all right.

We just to Charlie and

he's gonna start premises on premises here on Dock Walks.

How much of this is purposeful in your mind versus, uh, sort of like

accidental in the way that we were talking about Nick Broomfield's films

being a comment on Margaret Thatcher because he can't get to her, right?

Like, are you meaning to comment on the genre or are you just so enamored

with the story that, that you're making it however you can and then

that's a happy, uh, coincidence?

It's definitely intentional, but I suppose for me it was almost like.

That critique just rose inevitably out of the way that I would find myself and

my friends talking about this stuff.

It's like, you know, I know a lot of other documentary filmmakers, including many

who've made true crime films, and when they talk about working in their field,

they're not talking in these like, you know, sober austere terms about like the,

the gravity of the story or whatever.

Like anything else, when you're in it.

You talk about it in quite a kind of playful, glib way and you know,

you have like dark humor about it and you're confronted constantly

by the seriousness of it, but also the sort of absurdity of it.

And so the, the real sort of intentional thing was trying to capture that strange,

almost kind of amoral tone that I think a lot of this stuff is, is conjured within.

Um, and I knew inevitably that that would like, mean the film

was a critique of true crime.

So that was very inevitable.

I see.

Uh, I mean intentional, uh, as well as the, the possibility, uh, that

I seem like a bit of a smug jerk.

You know, I had a, I had a similar experience where my, my

first feature doc to make, and I'd made lots of other shorts.

I never even narrated any of them.

But my first feature.

It was a movie called Winnebago Man.

And very quickly the movie became my relationship to the guy who was the

star of this accidental viral video.

And it happened so organically that I didn't really think about it a

whole lot during the production because I was so busy talking him

into participating and trying to deal with how difficult he was being.

But when I, when we got into the edit, I started to realize like,

oh, this is, there's so many things.

But I should have done differently, uh, or the, or so many ways this could

go wrong, being the, um, the both the director and the star of the movie.

Um, and so I think I was lucky that I just wasn't like carrying

that neurosis, you know?

Uh, but now if I were to do that, I think I would be much more self-conscious.

So was there a level for you, knowing that you were narrating and that you're

a character in the film in some way?

Like were you sort of.

Trying to avoid certain tropes, or, I think I was, I

was definitely

like,

yeah, by contrast with your situation, obviously I was very,

very consciously inserting myself.

You know, I, I, I could have done it other ways and instead I chose to not only.

Plaster my voice all over the film, but even, uh, you know,

film those voiceover sessions.

Ooh, I'll sign it.

Yeah, I mean, not this way.

I was just

gonna say we can do one more lap 'cause we're pretty close to

where we started and I feel Yeah.

This is his hotel.

Maybe we do, yeah.

Do we just do one more quick?

That's what I was thinking, but

it's this, this east, west is what's killing us, is what's killing us.

Either way, we're gonna, or we just go back down.

Let's just go back down

and it is, uh, yeah, we've got about 10 more minutes.

I wanna respect your time here.

Yeah.

So, um,

let's just go down another block and then come back.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Um, and I, I don't want to like cut you short.

You were No, no.

You, you were mostly answered through that question.

Yeah.

Um, let's get to the other side of like, where this building

does and get into some wrap up.

Um, I, I'll let, yeah, I'll let you finish the, the thought, so, no, no.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Oh,

oh, this

is,

wow.

Yeah, I really

got, once

we get over here, you

should be all right.

Yeah.

And if we aren't, we can also just stand still.

We don't have to keep

No, totally up to you.

Well, let's see.

I think, yeah, I think Keith's right.

Once we get in front of this building, it should be up nice.

It'll better

here.

Let's stand in.

We'd always take refuge behind

this,

this little improvised sound booth that, that wouldn't look weird.

This little all glory hole setup, whatever's going on back there.

Here.

Let's try it.

Actually, I think this might.

Yep.

Yeah, I mean I think it has been phone to very

private moments.

A lot going on.

Yeah,

a lot going on.

We just inadvertently walked into an outdoor toilet, is what happened.

Um, but this is good right here actually.

Okay.

So yeah, this is, okay.

So Charlie, I think Keith brings up a great point.

We should probably redirect here, be some sort, have, have a, uh, shape this

in some way that we're learning to do.

We're novices here, but, um, one of the things we hope people get out

of this is, these are other working documentarians, listening to advice

from other working documentarians.

So as somebody who makes documentary for a living, can you just talk

about your process a little bit?

Like how many projects you're developing at one time, how you choose projects

to develop, that sort of thing.

Yeah, so I inevitably have.

An absolutely unfathomable number of projects happening at any one time.

I like it.

And when I say happening, I mean happening in the least meaningful sense.

They're like crawling along with no money and no activity whatsoever.

Well, let's drill down into that.

So like, is it, are you talking about like, you'll read an article, for

example and reach out to, uh, the author of the article and then so I

will establish a relationship like that,

or I have, I have a folder on my computer.

That is, uh, that says it's called like projects.

And within that folder there are three other folders and one is, uh, completed.

So obviously feel good about all those.

The other is, uh, abandoned and that's got like 50 sub folders

of ideas, both like actually meaningful to me that I have mourned.

And like so crap and insubstantial that I barely remember having

fleeting thoughts.

Literal.

Yeah.

I will start a new folder in there at the drop of a hat.

It does not need to have any value at all as an idea.

Partly because as you both know that you never know when something's

gonna suddenly seem relevant again.

And

you can drag one folder off from, uh, from one and folders move other.

Oh, what a feeling.

Which you did with this film.

It did, yeah.

You moved the folder

and then Yeah, finally like active.

And I maybe have six or seven things in there at any one time, so that hopefully

when inevitably these pauses, uh, come up in projects because you're waiting to

hear back from someone or you're hoping that something becomes available, I

can try and shift to one of the others.

What that inevitably means is that you go to film festivals and people are like,

so how long did you work on the film?

And then the answer is always like seven years.

And they're like, how?

How are you making anything else if you are taking that long?

Everything.

But it's like seven years staggered over every other seven year project.

Right?

One of these type years.

I'd love to just like.

Make something in a year.

It must feel incredible.

It must be Well, but I'm surprised you're not doing that with your,

uh, easy access to funding.

Well, indeed and your, your incredibly generous financiers.

And I suppose the

definitions are a little blurry on that one.

'cause Yes, if you're just talking about like the actual production

of the film, I have managed to make that, it was pretty good.

It was like a year and a half, which I will absolutely take.

Uh, the problem is once you start factoring in like the failed

film as sort of the same project.

Then we are, you know, we're getting up into like five, six years.

And, uh, unlike you, I don't use a folder system.

I have a spreadsheet in Google Drive that I refer to as my board.

And so at any point in time I say, I've got 21 projects on my board right now.

Um, but it's exactly what you described.

It's a question of, uh, the board is divided up into, uh, high

priority, low priority and confusion.

And then, uh, I don't even have completed, they just take it off the board.

But maybe I need.

They need to celebrate the

completions.

You need completed for a little feel good.

Yeah.

Like spark.

Yeah.

I can, I need that little feel good spark.

Um,

you do, I agree with that.

You need a feel good spark.

That's why I have you, Ben.

Ben is my feel good spark.

That's right.

I'm

the optimist.

He's the, uh, the Eeyore of the group, the pessimist.

I'm just grumpy.

Um, okay, so, uh, what advice do you have for young people?

Who discover that they cannot make the film that they wanna

make, what should they do?

Do they, uh, rent a 16 millimeter camera and, uh, and, and do what you did?

Or, or what is your advice?

I think like the, the best advice I could give, I think, and it applies

here as with so many filming situations, is I think never underestimate

quite how little can be a film.

Like this is something I like, I often like.

Talk to film students or like talk at film schools.

And the thing I observe again and again, I get why this happens, is like people

who are just starting out trying to make their first like student film first,

like thesis, documentary, whatever it might be, and they think it needs to

be about something huge, something that like earns its existence as a film.

And so they shoot for these huge topics, which inevitably as brand

new filmmakers, they're not really equipped to handle like it's, it's.

You know, and at worst it's like they feel like they need to dig into

the absolute most intimate parts of their life or their family history.

And it's like you're probably not actually at a place yet where you

can really get a grip on that.

Um, so I'm always like, no, no, it can be almost nothing.

It could be like a good conversation you had with a friend

or a story that went nowhere.

Um, and this film is obviously, you know, like a pretty, it's a, it's a

feature length, uh, explication of that because it's literally about.

Just nothing.

It's about something that didn't happen.

Um, but I think that's fared me very well in general, is accepting that

basically anything that interests you in however small way is meaningful and

is something, and is better than like chasing something because you think

someone else is gonna be interested in it.

That's great advice.

I think it's incredible advice.

Yeah.

A story that went nowhere I think is.

Potentially a great title for this episode.

Alright, so let's, let's walk back to your hotel.

Um, and as we do, I want to tell you, uh, a story about when I was a film

student, I had a professor encourage us to write to, uh, filmmakers we admired.

Mm-hmm.

And I was always kind of an arty kid who didn't like things that were popular.

So I loved, uh, Alan Berliner.

I loved, uh, Ross McElwee.

I love Les Blank.

So I wrote to those guys, uh, they all wrote me back.

Wow.

And Ross McElwee said something very germane to what you just said, where he

basically, uh, said that what, um, he quoted Wordsworth, which was very Ross

McElwee, you know, being a professor at Harvard and a sort of having a poetic,

um, a narrative style that he has.

Yeah, but he said the, uh, the edge of meaning never is far from personal

experience or something like that.

Meaning shoot what you have access to shoot your actual life that

you can then make into, uh, a story that'll be very relatable.

Almost more like the more personal you make it, the more universal the story is.

And I love that, that you're, you're giving similar advice, like

don't shoot for chasing headlines in the newspaper necessarily.

Make something that you personally feel strongly about and trust that

your audience will follow you there.

Totally.

Yeah.

Is is that a good summation of what you're saying?

Absolutely.

And also I think, you know, it's like,

like my film, you know, has, has certain formal elements that

on paper might sound kind of.

Alienating or oblique.

Um, much of it consists of just static shots of nothing happening.

Uh, there's a 10 minutes into the film, there's a five minute shot

of a table, um, all of which, yeah, like could sound off putting, I

hope it's on the poster and 10 minutes into the film there's

a five minute show at the table

or which could potentially be offputting.

But the thing I always, you know, said while we were working

on it is like, as long as.

That because that's accompanied by, you know, me telling this story in a

kind of conversational, improvised way.

I was like, that doesn't need to be any more off-putting than sitting at a table

and talking to someone for five minutes.

Ah,

and indeed, you know, I hope, I mean, not everyone feels this way, but,

but a lot of audiences seem to feel this way, that actually stuff that's

theoretically experimental or difficult or oblique, if it's just intuitive.

When you watch it and feels like easy to grasp, it needn't be, and like there's

no reason that's any more oblique than a, a talking head interview.

It's just that you've seen the talking Head interview 10,000 times before.

So you have this sort of prior relationship with that, what that means.

Um,

so you're expecting that, but then you're giving them something unexpected.

Yeah.

But I think people will really go with you if there's, if there's a sense of

it leaning something to you, as you say.

Yeah.

If it feels like.

Someone's actually invested,

right?

Yeah.

The more personal, the more universal.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, this is great.

Thank you so much for doing this.

Thank you.

Walk Sign is on to Cross Guadalupe at twelve eleven, ten nine.

So, uh, I don't know when you're gonna get a chance to see Charlie's film.

It is seeking Distribution.

I know he's got, uh, the folks at Cinetic working, um, to, to make a deal.

Uh, it's a hard film to imagine, you know, showing up on your feed

on Netflix on a Friday night.

I, I would hope the people at HBO would see the value in it.

Maybe it's an Amazon, um, but it's hard to say.

It's hard to say.

It's a unique film.

And so where does a film like that end up?

I don't know.

Well find out.

And, uh, so keep your eyes, uh, peeled for a zodiac killer project.

It sounds right up my alley with my love of Ross McElwee and.

Um, and, you know, filmmakers will take you on a journey, Michael Moore.

Uh, so I'm very excited to see it and I really enjoyed meeting Charlie.

So, uh, I hope he gets distribution and I hope, uh, somebody listening

buys it for lots and lots of money.

And I, I hope that the people in our audience feel the way that I feel, which

is inspired to lean into the obstacles.

Um, you know, most of this work is rejection based.

Um, you know, you gotta, you gotta gird yourself to, to take the no's.

But, um.

I talking to Charlie is a reminder that there's an opportunity for

creativity in that rejection and, um, we ran outta time with him.

But the question I would've asked is at this point, would he, uh, have

preferred to make the film that he set out to make or, um, or to have ended

up where he had, where he did now?

And it's hard to imagine the, uh, the version of the film that he describes

being more impactful than, uh.

Than, than what he actually created.

Amen.

Well, let's hope, uh, everybody feels that way about the films we make.

Let's hope.

Let's hope we can.

Hope.

We can hope.

Alright.

All right.

That's it for now.

I gotta go rest my voice.

Uh, we'll see for the next one.

Thanks everybody.

Thank you.

Next time on Doc Walks.

We've got two episodes coming at you next week.

Episode eight is gonna be a walk and talk with Indie film Impresario, John Sloss.

He's a sales agent to the stars and leader of Cinetic Media.

He's gonna tell us about his origin story, the 1990s indie film boom, that he

was such a big part of, and his view of what's going on in our industry right now.

What's the marketplace where we headed?

And we've got a bonus episode, Ben and I take you into the heart of the Austin Film

Society Parking Lot Party here at South by Southwest, where we're gonna go meet the

people, talk to our friends and colleagues here from the Austin Film Community.

We hope you'll join us.

We appreciate you.

Catch you next time.

On Doc Walks.

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

Hello, and my friend Keith Maitland of Go Valley.

Thanks for tuning in.