EP11 – No Wasted Steps with Kahane Corn Cooperman

06.26.2025 - Season: 1 Episode 11

It’s a picture perfect spring morning in East Austin, a beautiful walk made better by the presence of our guest, acclaimed filmmaker Kahane Corn Cooperman, in Austin to premier CREEDE, USA, her newest doc. Keith & Ben explore Kahane’s illustrious career, from her 1991 Sundance debut with COOL WATER, to her days behind-the-scenes of DAZED AND CONFUSED, through nearly two decades as a producer and EP on The Daily Show, and her Oscar nominated run with the heartwarming short, JOE’S VIOLIN. An easy-going ramble through the Boog Creek greenbelt yields candid insights into Kahane’s storytelling approach, as she provides invaluable advice for emerging filmmakers. “No wasted steps!” she says. And none were, in the making of this episode.

00:00 Introduction and Mic Check

01:11 Introducing Kahane Corn Cooperman

02:22 Kahane’s Early Career and Sundance 1991

04:11 Her Dazed and Confused Doc

10:19 The Daily Show Journey

14:53 Transition to Joe’s Violin and Beyond

17:24 The Struggle of a Showrunner

20:22 It’s All Connections

20:45 Introducing Creede, USA

26:24 Challenges and Realities

34:52 Advice for Emerging Filmmakers

36:31 Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes

We are rolling.

Mic check.

Mike.

Mike Anthony, Michael Hall.

Michael Jackson.

Michael B. Jordan.

Michael Dukakis.

That's a good Michael.

Gimme some more.

Michaels.

Mike.

Mike Anthony, Michael Hall.

Michael Anthony Bassist of Van Halen.

Michaelangelo.

Ooh, uh, Saint Michael.

Okay, hold on.

I'm gonna do it.

Did you already say Michael Jackson?

Oh, Michael Jackson.

Michael,

can we say that in 2025, Mike Jordan, can we still say Michael Jackson?

Mikey Diamond.

Oh, there we go.

Mike D

Yeah, that's Mikey Diamond.

There you go.

I went to college with his brother, Steve.

Steve.

Well now you're just rest in peace.

Well, now you're just showing off.

I mean, we're, what can I say?

Well, we're 30 seconds into this and you're already, yeah.

Name drop.

You're already, I'm gonna

name drop so much that you're.

Headphones are gonna just fall off

on your left.

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

Ben, I am pleased to introduce the Doc Walks audience to Kahane Corn Cooperman.

Kahane is somebody that I've gotten a chance to know over the last seven or

eight years, and I admire, uh, mostly from a distance, although she's staying

in the trailer at Go Valley tonight.

Woo hoo.

Which means we are now better friends than ever.

Best

Kahane is a filmmaker with a long and varied career, and that's actually

the thing I wanna talk about first.

Sure.

Because I don't think we've talked to anybody who has worn so many

different hats in this industry.

And who has seen, you know, so many different kind of angles on what it

is to be a nonfiction storyteller.

And, uh, you know, most obviously she's an Academy Award nominee for Joe's Violin.

Um, which, what year was that?

Kahane?

That was 2017.

2017. Shortly after

I, I

met her, so I was, yeah, we were on the, we were on the Fest tour together.

That's right.

That's how I got to meet you.

I heard Austin and I was like, Hey.

I've got some Austin connections.

I made a doc in Austin.

She did way back almost at the very beginning, but not

the very, very beginning.

No.

And so this doesn't need to be a super walk down memory lane, but if you wouldn't

mind, like take us back to Sundance, 1991.

Sure.

So I made a short documentary, 16 minutes long, called Cool Water.

It was about two ice sculptors in love.

They loved each other.

Ice Sculpting and Led Zeppelin, and they carved Jimmy Page out

of ice and a lot of other things.

Anyway, I was a student at the time.

I was answering the phone at Maysles Films, which when I called to try

to get a job there, I didn't even know who they were and really, yeah.

The godfathers of, yeah.

David had cinema.

David had sadly passed away, but Albert was.

Still alive and yeah, so I, I started answering the phones there and they

let me use their equipment, which was a steam back by the way, at

night and on weekends to cut my own film, which was my student film.

And miraculously that film got into Sundance 91.

And so it brought me to Park City when Sundance was.

I still had, you know, much more of an indie vibe and there

were so many cool films there.

Alexander Payne had a short Paris's Burning, was there, Todd

Haynes, Hal Hartley, and Slacker was there, Rick Linklater's film.

So I met him and that kind of helped lead me to the set of

Dazed and Confused with my.

Best friend from growing up.

Deb Lewis, Austin Bass cinematographer.

Yes.

One of Austin's finest.

Yes.

So you and Deb grew up together and

We did.

We met at age 14.

Where is this

In Bethesda, Maryland.

Okay.

Rick lent us his Ari, Deb used it.

I, I recorded sound on a Nagra and we got this bizarre access to the

set of Dazed and Confused every day.

So it was like, you know, all these young actors having kind of the

summer of their lives in a way.

And because the film kind of, it took a little while for

that film to gain its momentum.

Uh, you know, the.

The footage was sat on for a while, but it was really incredible footage.

And then around 2003, Rick Linklater gave me a call.

He said, Hey, there's gonna be a 10 year reunion of the release of the film.

What do you think?

And I'm like, no brainer.

Like I'll come, you know, come down there and we, Deb and I can shoot everyone.

You know, kind of looking back 10 years later at who they are and.

And the time that's passed and be like, have this reflective aspect

and then I was able to finish it.

Um, and it's on Criterion now.

Wow.

That is so cool.

Really, really cool.

And you know what I realized we haven't talked about, we are walking on an

absolutely perfect spring morning.

Here in the middle of South by, on a trail here on the east side.

I think this is the

Boggy Creek

Trail

in East Austin,

the Boggy Creek Trail.

We are walking

through the Go Valley neighborhood.

The neighborhood my production company is named for.

This is one of my favorite spots.

I'm allowed to share it with you two.

It's super beautiful.

Um, this is a team.

Yeah.

Describe what we're seeing here.

So we're seeing beautiful, kind of green stretch of land with a gravelly

path and some really old trees.

That aren't blooming yet, so they look kind of haunted, but gorgeous,

haunted old pecans.

Is that what they are?

Yep.

Those are pecan trees.

So it's a grove

of pecan trees and there's birds and a few people walking their

dogs, and it's absolutely beautiful.

And you know, Keith is trying to make this podcast about

birdwatching, but I won't let him.

He's gonna ask you what your favorite bird is.

He's probably gonna point out these grackles here.

So just be prepared.

Grackles, they, they're, they make quite a noise.

It's been covered on this podcast before, I'm sure.

What's, I mean, getting a boots on the ground first person experience

like you had being there, seeing all those young actors at play.

You know, a young director making a real mark with a film that

would go on to kind of define.

A high school experience for a couple generations of kids.

Yeah, certainly mine.

That was,

that's probably the movie I've seen the most because it was on almost

like a record, like a, like a, it was just on in the background

my senior year of high school.

Wow.

At pretty much everybody's party.

Yeah.

In everybody's house.

So I wanna know what you, what you learned and what you saw in that experience.

What did you take from that?

Oh my gosh.

What I, you know, kind of tuned into was, um.

The different experiences that all of these young actors were having and the

stress that Richard Linklater was under.

This really was a film made in Indie spirit, but with some studio

pressures and they played out like kind of daily, uh, the, in the

documentary, you know, Rick speaks very.

Descriptively and eloquently to, you know, the, the almost fist fights that

he got into with the producers and stuff.

But I think, you know, it was just really having this observational

post of the experience that all these kids were having.

And I've always been a person who's, who's been kind of tuned in to like

the fleeting nature of everything.

And I mean, maybe that's what drew me to making a short film about

an ice sculpture because it melts.

And the idea that like, I was re recording all of these experiences, but I was old

enough at the time to know that like, this is so temporary and how you're

feel feeling in here is so temporary, all of you people making this thing.

And I was always so curious, like what parts of it they were

gonna hold onto in their lives.

Oh, that's so interesting.

Yeah.

And, and so, uh.

That's kind of what advanced a view at a young age to understand

that it was fleeting here.

Let's get on this side.

So this bike rider doesn't crash into this here.

Do you think that's a big part of what drew you to making documentaries?

Maybe 'cause in a weird way, I think if there's any kind of connective

tissue between the documentaries that I make besides sort of

looking for the humanity in people.

It's, I think time and how it both separates and like connects us.

I even think Dazed and Confused documentary is ultimately about

time because I was able to kind of shoot it and then go back

10, 10 years later and shoot it.

So that's about people looking back on the experience and then how the past

gets reinterpreted in the future sort of.

Yeah.

Because I don't know, I'm rambling.

No, no, that's, that's of how my mind works.

That's,

that's, I mean, in a way you could say that's like what almost

every documentary is about, right?

Yeah.

Is sort of, you know, capturing a, a certain point in time and then, um,

people's experiencing it at a later time.

Yeah.

And then how they interpret it based on the modern context, you know?

Yeah.

I should probably flip around.

Speaking of time, speaking of time, it is, uh, I flip it around 10 after, uh,

uh, so you, should we flip around here?

Sure.

Okay.

So we started out in 1991.

Yeah.

You were at Sundance since you met Linklater and, and all these other kind

of luminaries of the 1990s indie film.

Boom.

And what gets you from there to.

But the Daily Show where I know you were an executive producer for many years.

Well, despite the Rumors, documentary doesn't pay very much.

Um,

this is a hot take.

You're here to dispel.

I'm here to dispel, I mean.

I'm surviving and I'm doing what I love.

So I'm, I'm rich in other ways.

Rich in spirit.

Yes.

So as amazing as it was to be making these documentaries, um, I was also,

you know, needing to make a living and I, uh, did like a housing swap

with a friend in LA I produced.

Nick Broomfield's documentary about Heidi Fleiss called Heidi Fleiss Hollywood.

Madam, it was me, him and the camera person, Paul Close, who was from Austin.

And uh, and that's a, that's a feature doc.

And then, and then, um, someone I had met through the ice sculpture

documentary was an executive at New Line.

New Line was doing a television show about reunions, but it was documentary style.

So I got hired as a field producer on that.

It was like a six week gig, and it was awesome because I realized,

Ooh, I have some skills that can translate into like a paycheck.

And so I reunited Albert Maysles with a woman he was too scared

to talk to in high school.

Wow.

I reunited a band from my high school.

Wow.

And I made these little stories and it was great.

And that this, this

show sounds awesome.

What was it called?

It was called, it was called Lost and Found, and it was on

FX when FX was first starting.

I mean, it was Wow.

You know, a one season show and, but it was a great experience and that

led to an interview with some people who were developing a show, and it

might be called The Daily Planet.

And it was gonna be on Comedy Central and they didn't really know what it

was, but I had a great interview.

They liked, uh, my documentary background and about six weeks

later I got a call, we'd love you to be a field producer for 12 weeks.

And I lied about what I was used to earning a week and they said yes.

So I got a U-Haul, threw all my LA stuff in there, drove across country.

And started this job on day one of this show called The Daily

Show, and I think I field produced about 40 stories my first year.

And I got a little talking to by the executive producer because I was used to

telling stories that don't have, you know, a on-camera presence guiding you along,

which is how the correspondence work.

And I was like, but these people can tell their own stories.

And I got totally taken down by the executive producer.

It can't really be documentary.

It really has to be comedy, which was never, it's a host, a

hosted, guided, hosted, guided kind of set up, knock 'em down, phone

news.

Yeah.

Piece.

And so I had a, like, I had to really learn what that meant and how to do that.

And it, in some ways it was different.

But after that first year, I got.

Promoted to senior producer.

'cause that first 12 weeks turned into a year, and then that year

turned into another year, and then I started rising up the ladder.

And then within two years, Jon Stewart came on board.

And the whole, yeah, the whole show's point of view shifted in this

incredibly smart and amazing way.

And fast forward 12 weeks.

Became 18 years, my last eight years for co-executive producer of the show.

It was, it was velvet handcuffs a little bit, you know?

And also I was having kids.

I had family.

I, it was great having a reliable income.

It was great knowing when I could have time off, and it was also great

being part of something that became such an incredible institution.

Well, okay, so then, all right, so after 18 years with,

uh, the golden handcuffs on,

during this time, you know, I still had my nonfiction storytelling.

Heart was still fluttering away in there, and honestly, the higher up I got at the

Daily show, the less creative I became.

And after that many years there, I just was like, I, you only live once.

I've gotta get myself back to the thing that really feeds my soul, and that

is where on my commute from New Jersey to New York one day to the Daily Show,

I heard this 15 second promo for an instrument drive on the radio, and that

planted the seed for what would become.

Joe's Violin that, you know, was a, a Labor of Love Kickstarter project.

And then Jon Stewart announced he's leaving and I'm in

the middle of Joe's Violin.

Jon Stewart's announced he's leaving.

I'm itchy anyway, and because of his announcement, Alex Gibney, who I had met

a couple times, filmmaker who of great Renno gave me a call and he's like,

Hey, I don't know what Jon Stewart's departure means for you, but I've

got a really interesting opportunity.

And it was a show running opportunity on a series that was based on

content from the New Yorker magazine.

And it's called the New Yorker Presents.

And um, basically it was taking content from the New Yorker.

We had access to the entire library since 19, I think, 25 when it first started.

And, um, looking at it and everything from non-fiction narrative, comedy

pieces, cartoons, we could kind of, you know, use it for all its

parts to create short form films.

And so, yeah, so I was the showrunner on the New Yorker presents, and I

got to work with all these great filmmakers and the series premiered

at Sundance and it was just wonderful.

And again, one hit wonder 'cause Amazon took six months to tell

us they weren't renewing it.

And that was a bummer because there's a whole nother, like a

whole nother like lineup of great.

Um, filmmakers who were kind of knocking on the door saying

like, I wanna do one of those.

Uh, I, yeah, I'm familiar with that setup.

I've had, uh, two TV shows feel very successful when they come out and.

Seem like it's a no brainer to go to season two.

Yeah.

Only to be told many months later.

Yeah.

That they're not being renewed.

Yeah.

Well, in true documentary spirit, I need to duck out.

I have a pitch coming up, uh, that I need to go prepare for.

Wishing you the best on that.

Thank you very much.

Well, you know, it's not easy.

You know the struggle, it's.

Scary.

And interestingly, this is a showrunner for hire job.

Uh, and that's why I need to leave early.

And I apologize 'cause I'm very much enjoying the conversation.

I am

too.

I'm, I'm sorry.

You have to go.

Yeah.

You're

stuck

with me.

Well, that's,

which is not a great place to be.

I'm really sorry.

No, I'm

feeling good about it.

Hi Ben.

Would you give me almost like a bullet point of the different, uh,

steps that get us to Joe's Violin?

Yeah.

Um.

Let me think.

So how did I get to Joe's Violin?

I got to Joe's Violin because I really think it's because I was at a point

in my life where I was essentially dying to tell another story through.

A documentary through nonfiction form.

And I think when you're hungry like that, your, it's like

your senses are open a little.

And that's why I think, you know, within months I was driving to, to,

uh, the Daily Show and I always say, you know, I was driving from the

progressive suburb of Montclair, New Jersey that I live in, in my Prius.

Listening to NPR on my way to my job at the Daily Show.

I mean, I couldn't be more of a cliche, but, um, but I, uh, the WNYC had a

promo for their sister station, the classical music stations instrument

drive, and it was about 15 seconds, and all it said was, Hey, donate your

instruments, um, to our instrument drive.

All the all instruments donated will go to New York City School kids in need.

And you know, they were like, donate your flute like so and so from Brooklyn or

your violin, like, you know, Joe from the Upper West side, a Holocaust survivor.

And I was just like, huh?

Like I was set the light being like, huh, I wonder, I wonder

if that violin has a story.

And then, you know, at the next light I was like, I wonder if the kid who gets

that violin is ever gonna know that story.

And then the next light, I was like, wait.

I wonder what that kid story is.

And then I pulled into the parking lot and I was just like, oh my God, like

two strangers in the big city are gonna be connected by this, this object,

you know, by a musical instrument.

And there was something so moving about that to me, like I didn't know, even

if they never met, they still had this connection of whatever powers this object.

Might hold and I don't know, I was just intrigued.

So I immediately emailed the radio station and that started

me on my journey of Joe's Violin.

Um,

that, you know, it's funny, we were talking a moment ago about time

and this theme that you've seen through your work, uh, of time.

Yeah.

But what I'm hearing is a, a theme of connection because, you

know, cool water is the connection between these two ice sculptors.

Yeah.

And Joe's Violin is this connection.

Across time and across the instrument.

Uh, yeah, two

people born 80 years apart from completely different worlds.

And, and you know, we'll get to talking about Creed USA in just a moment, but I,

having seen that film a few nights ago, I know that that is a film about connection.

Yeah.

And overcoming the disconnect between two communities within one small town.

Yeah.

And, um, and so this idea of Joe has a story.

Yeah.

Undoubtedly.

Yeah.

That kid has a story.

Yeah.

Most likely.

Yeah.

And finding a way to put them together.

Um, how, how easy or hard it sounds like the idea came almost like in

a flash of three three stoplights.

Honestly.

In the three stoplights in parking lot, what?

What I didn't realize is that I already had a structure for this

film because the only thing I didn't know was the most important thing

was will these people ever meet?

You know, and I didn't know, but I was also ready to tackle

the intangible if they didn't.

Because then you just leave.

Leave it to the viewers to wonder how.

How this connects them in some cosmic way, you know,

and on a beautiful piece of music.

Yeah, exactly.

Um, so, we'll, I mean, that's proof that sometimes the first

idea really is the best idea

sometimes.

But I also think like I, it was also timing because I don't know that like,

I necessarily would've like paid that much attention to a 15 second promo on

my car radio if I hadn't been so hungry to tell a story and to get back into.

Telling a documentary story like my heart was longing for it.

And so I think I was open to it.

It's, it's the same way honestly, like I happen, I barely ever read a hard copy

of the New York Times, but I happen to be flipping through one and right then

and there is an article about a theater company in this small old mining town

in Colorado, and I kind of had the same.

Thought as like the Joe's Violin moment where I'm just like, wait a second ever.

Just the more I learned, the more questions I had and the more

I wanted to find out about it.

So that was the beginning of Creed, USA,

and that was a skillful segue from Joe's Violin to Creed USA.

Thank

you.

Uh, thank very much.

It's like, Hey, let's talk about the thing we're here to promote.

Uh, let's talk, um, creed, USA is.

A microcosm of American society writ within this, this tiny atypical community,

which is called Creed, which is called C. Name of the C town called C.

There we go.

Yeah, CRE.

E. D. E,

correct.

So yeah, I read an article in the New York Times about, um, a theater

company that was in this little mining town, and I, in my college

days, worked on a lot of theater productions, always behind the scenes.

And I saw, I was a former theater nerd.

I like a good theater story, but I was like, how the heck

does a theater company function?

For this long a period of time.

'cause this theater company started in 1966 in this town, so it's

coming up on its 60th season.

How does that even work in a little teeny, mostly conservative town.

And I thought that was interesting.

And also when I, when I learned of the theater from this article,

I was also at a point where.

Like this was August of 2021.

I live in a progressive bubble.

It was very comfortable for me, but I was only engaging with

people who think and feel like me.

I was starting to get uncomfortable with my own knee jerk reactions against

others and sick of my echo chamber.

And so when I read the story of Creed, I was interested in the theater, but I was

also interested in like, how does this.

Town even work.

I couldn't imagine it.

My bubble was so strong.

So yeah, I went there by myself a couple times, total outsider

and started out with the theater who said yes to meeting with me.

And I had had a couple zooms with the artistic director, John De Antonio,

and then one inch person introduced me to one another and then another.

And suddenly I was talking to the very people that I had.

Otherized myself and you know, all our guards were up and everything, but they

went, honestly, they were seated quickly.

Once you start talking on the human level with people and I was like,

I think there's a reason to tell the story of this place right now.

Because I knew like if there's a Venn diagram, like you've got one circle is

like the history of this town old West.

Very cool.

The history of the theater.

Awesome.

Really interesting.

Very integrated with the town.

It's the town that brought the theater there to try to embolden the

economy, which was failing in the mid sixties, but it was like in the Venn

diagram, it's like that little center section that I was interested in.

I had no idea where I was gonna find it, but I felt like it was worth exploring,

and that's kind of what you see play out.

In the film through the various people we follow, and then ultimately got

access to the very place where all of the ideas and these people kind

of come together and they hash out.

They have some of the most, you know, difficult conversations that our whole

country is having within its own bubbles.

They're having it together in a room and it's really hard and can be really

tense, and that was really meaningful and I really wanted to explore that.

So.

Yeah, that's Creed.

USA.

You do explore that and you don't shy away.

You know, it is a film about the overlap of that Venn diagram and it's about

exploring common ground, but it doesn't do in kind of like a sickly sweet kind

of whitewashing of reality that says, oh.

Yeah.

Look, if we just tried a little harder, we could all get along.

Yeah.

Um, can I just say

thank you for saying that?

Sure.

Because if I presented Creed as a utopia or some kind of Pollyannish,

kumbaya view of how we all get along, I would have failed completely.

It is not that.

It's It's not.

And you don't shy away from including these, these scenes that are.

There not to give away too much of the film.

Uh, and it doesn't, it won't sound, I'm just gonna warn you, this won't

sound like the bit that you would put in the trailer for the film, but there

are scenes that are bureaucratic, wranglings, uh, there are meetings of

people on opposite sides of an issue.

Working through frustration.

I'm sometimes deeply experiencing frustration and finding no common

ground in, in one beat, and then coming back to the table again and again.

Um, it has an almost west wing quality Cool to it.

Um, but it is, it has a reality.

I mean 'cause it is reality.

Yeah.

And it's a reality of people who are in the small community and in their own ways.

They're, they're still in their bubbles.

Their bubbles are much smaller.

But the bubbles are forced to interact.

Yeah.

And they're forced to make communal decisions.

Yeah.

To talk directly to the way they're raising their children.

That's one of the main issues, yeah.

Is how are they going to, uh, approve a new curriculum for the school, a health

curriculum that is challenging to, um, to various people's point of view.

And it's riveting.

It's, you know, it's the kind of scene that, that I think when you're filming

sometimes in a, in a bureaucratic situation like that, you have to roll

a lot of tape and you don't know.

If this is gonna feel like, uh, is this cinema where, you know, I'm putting a

camera at people at a table, you know?

Yeah.

Um, but then through the def editing, we, we spoke to your editor the other day.

I know

Andrew Sanderson, amazing editor.

This, he did a great job.

This our, our sixth time collaborating together.

He's an really talented editor and, and filmmaker.

Well, I, you know, between your vision and persistence and the depth

of knowledge that you have about these characters from your multiple

trips out there, um, and, and his.

Cutting.

You have created an opportunity for us to explore, um, what a society

needs to do to recognize difference, but find commonality, and you've done

it in a way that, that, I don't know, inspires you to want to get up and

go burst your own bubble, inspires you to want to talk to your neighbor.

This film in no way proposes like.

The answer to the problems in our country.

But it does show, I think, a crucial step that everyone needs to take,

which is we all, and I did this the whole time, I was thinking to him,

you gotta get a little uncomfortable.

Um, uh, you gotta get outta your comfort zone.

You gotta engage.

And I really respect how the people in this town do that.

And I think that's what enabled.

My access to a large degree because in a town of 300, if you, you

know, misstep with anybody, you're

that, that's probably it for you.

Word gets around.

So I was very respectful as they were of me.

I am one of those people that loves hearing how people got to

where they've got to, why they make the decisions they make.

I mean, it's probably, I'm sure you're the same way.

Every documentary filmmaker I know is curious and obsessed with understanding

someone's psychology, but listening to this kind of string of events.

From Cool Water, which I have to see, um, through, you know, the Daisy Confused

experience really hits home for me and, uh, and the daily show experience.

You know, I can't even, I don't even feel like we remotely wrapped our arms around.

How could you?

It's 18 years and it's Jon Stewart and it's such a changing set of

circumstances in our nation that you were, you know, right there for,

but your life after the Daily Show.

First with Joe's Violin and now with Creed, USA is kind of like

a recapturing of the life that you set out to have in 1991.

Yeah.

Is that right?

Yeah, you're, you're totally right.

And you know, there, there have been some, you know, nice projects and

also some challenging ones in between Joe's Violin and now Creed, USA.

But both of those, uh, are the ones like that are completely

from my heart and soul.

Um, and those are the.

Ones, I just can't help it like they mean the most to me.

What

do they say about you as a filmmaker?

What is like somebody who's, who's watched those two films?

I, I mean, I do think they're reflective of the way I see the world, which, um,

I'm just gonna say it like, it might not be my, my cup is half full all the time.

Like generally speaking, I assume the good in people until they prove otherwise and.

That's kind of like how I approach encounters large and small.

Um, and it's, it's a little bit of my point of view without being naive and

without being Pollyanna and without, but I, I just, you know, I'm not a super

religious person, but I'm spiritual and I don't mind saying that like.

Like, I believe in like a God of my own definition, but what it is for

me is like the cumulative goodness of humans throughout millennia.

And that power is kind of what I, what I feel like, I don't know,

guides me as I navigate the world.

Um, it's just what I connect to about people and hopefully, um,

with the films that you know, are.

Are the ones that are coming from my heart that, that gets illustrated.

That I, I, my viewpoint of people and the beauty of life, even without

avoiding the darkness, the unfairness, the horrors and all of that.

Um, 'cause I can't, 'cause I also, I, I, I come from that in a lot of ways.

Well, you're not afraid.

To walk the path that admits that there is a dark side of, of living this life.

Um, but I do think that that optimism does shine through.

Um, and, you know, we need that, uh, I want that, especially out of the kind of

films that I've seen from you, that, that.

Meet people where they are and have a very honest and kind of, dare I say,

earnest, you know, kind of approach.

You know, I know some people have a problem with earnestness,

but I think, you know, I

know.

No, they, it's definitely like, you know, not cool, don't have an edge.

And I kind of say F that to all of it.

'cause actually, like I think my films are in their own way, they are subversive

and sometimes it's against the grain of.

What's perceived as cool and, uh, so yeah, I'm just, uh, I just disagree.

And also I don't think, you know, my films or myself are all nice either, but I also

like, I'm not shy, I admit, like I know that it can be an effective tool in your

toolbox for how you relate to people.

And

certainly is when you, when you travel cross country and you plop down in a town

in the middle of nowhere and you, uh.

Yeah.

And you set yourself the task of convincing absolute

strangers to let you in.

Yeah.

Well, I think it's not disingenuous and I think people can sense that.

And if it is, you're never gonna get, I think as the access, the

true access that you really want.

You need to be genuine with people to get their genuine selves back at you.

Well, that's a good, that's a

good piece of advice.

That kind of keys up where I want to wrap this thing out.

Sure.

You've been at it since 1991 at least, and I know you've got many more years

ahead of you of great storytelling.

Um, what advice can you share with an emerging filmmaker and when with new

storytellers who are, who are seeking to have the kind of success that you've had?

Well, I think.

You have to be driven in a lot of ways, but I also think you have to be open

to where the path is gonna take you.

And like, there's, there's just no wasted steps.

There's zero wasted steps.

And I think like, if you wanna make films, but you're, you have a day job, you know?

Like I did in the past, like didn't seem like I was getting myself anywhere, but

what really I was doing was like getting to observe humanity and be around people

that I didn't always cross paths with.

And it just all, it was all like ingredients for the cauldron

that gets you where you wanna go.

And so I, I just think like.

Like nothing is a wasted opportunity and it can all move

you forward in surprising ways.

So, so, and the other thing I learned is that, that I, is, that sometimes

you feel like if you're not actually like physically filming or writing

that you're not doing it, but you are.

'cause you're, it's percolating and it's in your head and

it's in your consciousness and you're, so my advice is like.

Give yourselves a break.

I absolutely love that.

No wasted steps.

I'm pretty sure that's the name of this episode.

Uh, no Wasted Steps with Kahane, Corn Cooperman.

Um, Ben had to duck out as we know, uh, a little bit ago for his pitch.

So let's all, uh, send him some, uh.

Some good luck through the magic of the airwaves and time and

hope that his pitch went well.

Absolutely.

Hope it went well, Ben.

Uh, and uh, and I'm so glad that we got to spend this time together.

Me too.

It's just been a blast.

Thanks for, thanks for letting me crash in the trailer in your backyard.

Well, it's not for every, uh, doc walks guest.

Um, but uh, but for you anytime.

Yeah.

It's my dream come true.

Alright, that was Kahane Corn Cooperman.

Her new film, creed, USA, is out on the festival circuit as we speak, and

I hope you get a chance to see it.

And I hope you get a chance to come back next week for

the next episode of Doc Walks.

Ben will be back in the fold, and we welcome distribution advocate.

Averil speaks to, uh, walk around Mueller Lake Park here in Austin.

We're talking, producing, talking, directing, talking

show running, talking the modern state of distribution and veil's.

A lot of fun.

So hope to catch you on the next episode of Talk Walks with Ben and Keith.

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

Hello and my friend Keith Maitland of Go Valley.

Thanks for tuning in.