The Austin Meyer Podcast

Finding the perfect documentary film idea is like being in the world's biggest scavenger hunt! Here are 14 tricks that I use to find my story ideas.

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WHO AM I? If we haven’t met yet before - Hey 👋 I'm Austin Meyer and I am a documentary filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. I'm a National Geographic Explorer and my work has been featured by HBO, Hulu, Apple TV, The New York Times, National Geographic, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and PBS among others. Through my videos here on this channel, and my podcast called The Austin Meyer Podcast, I share skills, mindsets, and lessons to help you become a better documentary filmmaker and build the life full of creativity that you aspire towards.

A set of rules and principles can be incredibly useful to help guide our decision making in the world of documentary filmmaking. That's why, when I saw award winning documentary director Victor Kossakovsky write up the 10 rules he follows in his filmmaking, I had to check them out. In this video, I share those 10 rules, respond to them, and say which 3 have been most helpful to me in my career.

Follow Austin Meyer's socials:

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WHO AM I? If we haven’t met yet before - Hey 👋 I'm Austin Meyer and I am a documentary filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. I'm a National Geographic Explorer and my work has been featured by HBO, Hulu, Apple TV, The New York Times, National Geographic, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and PBS among others. Through my videos here on this channel, and my podcast called The Austin Meyer Podcast, I share skills, mindsets, and lessons to help you become a better documentary filmmaker and build the life full of creativity that you aspire towards.

Interviews are the backbone of so many documentaries. They are also very challenging to nail. Especially when you are working as a solo shooter or in small teams, like I do a lot, the amount of things that can go wrong can feel overwhelming. In this video I go over 5 mistakes I see documentary filmmakers, which, if you keep in mind, can dramatically increase the odds that you'll walk away from your next interview feeling good!

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WHO AM I? If we haven’t met yet before - Hey 👋 I'm Austin Meyer and I am a documentary filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. I'm a National Geographic Explorer and my work has been featured by HBO, Hulu, Apple TV, The New York Times, National Geographic, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and PBS among others. Through my videos here on this channel, and my podcast called The Austin Meyer Podcast, I share skills, mindsets, and lessons to help you become a better documentary filmmaker and build the life full of creativity that you aspire towards.

Planet Earth III, the world's premiere natural history documentary series, is back with its third installment, presented and narrated by Sir David Attenborough. The series represents five years of work. The eight episodes comprise 134 total shoots across 1,904 shooting days and took place in 43 countries across six continents. In this episode, I interview executive producer Mike Gunton and freelance cinematographer Prakash Matada about the making of this remarkable series.

the creative director for the BBC's natural history unit and the executive producer of Planet Earth 3. Prakash Matada is a freelance cinematographer, National Geographic Explorer, and wildlife filmmaker who filmed a wild dog sequence in the Forests episode of the series.

WHO AM I?

If we haven’t met yet before - Hey 👋 I'm Austin Meyer and I am a documentary filmmaker based in Oakland, California. I'm a National Geographic Explorer and my work has been featured by HBO, Hulu, Apple TV, The New York Times, National Geographic, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and PBS among others. Through my videos here on this channel, and my podcast called The Austin Meyer Podcast, I share skills, mindsets, and lessons to help you become a better documentary filmmaker and build the life full of creativity that you aspire towards.

Our Great National Parks is a beautiful five-part Netflix documentary series that invites viewers to experience nature in the world's most iconic national parks. Today on the podcast, my guests are executive producer James Honeyborne and series producer Sophie Todd. James Honeyborne is the creative director of Freeborne Media, having previously worked as an executive producer at the BBC Natural History Unit where he oversaw some 35 films, including Blue Planet II. Sophie Todd works on everything from high-end natural history films, to science and observational documentary, most recently writing, directing and series producing on Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive To Survive.



In this conversation, James, Sophie and I discuss the vast amount of research, planning, and scripting that went into this series, how they managed a global production team during the peak of the pandemic, and why natural history documentaries are so important when it comes to illustrating how interconnected we all are with the natural world and animals around us.



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Vera Krichevskaya is a documentary filmmaker from Russia who co-founded TV Dozhd (TV Rain), which is the only independent private television channel in Russia. Her most recent documentary titled “Fuck This Job,” is an incredibly timely story that documents the ten-year journey of that television station that made it one of the top media targets of Putin's government.



In this conversation, Vera and I discuss what it’s like to be an independent documentary filmmaker in Russia, what happened when the war broke out right before her film’s premiere in Russia, and the value of independent news and documentaries in a just society.



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The Oscars are coming up on March 27, 2022. To preview the documentary feature category I am joined this week by IndieWire's editor-at-large, Anne Thompson. In this episode we talk about each of the nominated documentaries, reflect on the snubs that missed out on the big show (I see you, The Rescue and The First Wave), and give our predictions on what documentary will take home the Academy Award.



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This week on the show my guest is Luc Forsyth, a cinematographer from Canada who has worked on films for Netflix, National Geographic, HBO, Showtime, ESPN, and many more.



In this conversation Luc and I discuss the lessons he learned as a photojournalist that have helped him develop as a cinematographer, how to think about investing in gear and networking as an up and coming DP, and how he covers a scene as both a single operator versus working on larger production teams.



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Hope you all are getting out there and creating stories! Thanks for listening <3

Dawn Porter is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has appeared on HBO, PBS, Discovery, and Netflix among others. She has had two feature documentaries premiere this year -- John Lewis: Good Trouble and The Way I See It.



Good Trouble explores late Congressman John Lewis’ pivotal role in the Civil Rights movement and decades of political and social activism on important issues including voting rights, immigration laws, and much more. The Way I See It is about photojournalist Pete Souza, who served as Chief Official White House photographer for President Barack Obama and previously as an Official White House photographer for President Ronald Reagan.



In this conversation, Dawn and I discuss the overlapping themes and unique storytelling challenges of these two movies, creative ways of managing production during covid, and tips she has for aspiring documentary filmmakers.



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On today’s episode I sit down with the team behind the hit Netflix documentary, and one of my personal favorite films of the year, My Octopus Teacher. Co-directors Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed, as well as cinematographer Roger Horrocks, take us behind the scenes and under the water to reveal how they crafted this incredibly moving story about a filmmaker's unlikely connection with an octopus.



Pippa Ehrlich, based in South Africa, is a natural history filmmaker and award-winning environmental journalist, specializing in the field of marine science and conservation.



James Reed, based in the UK, is the founder of Underdog Films and has directed and produced documentaries and natural history features for Disney, Netflix, and the BBC.



Roger Horrocks is a world renowned wildlife cinematographer, having worked on Our Planet, winning a BAFTA for outstanding cinematography for Blue Planet 2, and is currently working on BBC’s Planet Earth 3.



Watch My Octopus Teacher on Netflix



The Sea Change Project

Jeff Orlowski is the director of the newly released Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, which explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations. He also served as director, producer, and cinematographer of the Sundance Award-Winning and Oscar short listed films, Chasing Ice and Chasing Coral.



In this conversation, Jeff and I discuss where he got the idea to make The Social Dilemma, why his team decided to use the unique stylistic choices of dramatizations and animations, and the process of taking a ton of disjointed interviews on broad/complex topics and weaving them together to create one of the most talked about documentaries of the year.



LINKS:



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www.thesocialdilemma.com



Tristan Harris' podcast, Your Undivided Attention

Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss are co-directors of the newly released documentary, Boys State, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Grand Jury Prize. The film, which is now streaming on Apple TV+, is a political coming-of-age story, examining the health of American democracy through an unusual experiment: a thousand 17-year-old boys from across the state of Texas gather together to build a representative government from the ground up. High-minded ideals collide with low-down dirty tricks as four boys of diverse backgrounds and political views navigate the challenges of organizing political parties, shaping consensus, and campaigning for the highest office at Texas Boys State—governor.



In this episode, Jesse, Amanda and I discuss how they came up with the idea to make a documentary about Texas Boys State, the unique challenges of filming a feature length doc in the course of one week, and why a verité documentary like this is such an effective tool for holding a mirror up to our political system and divided country.



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Tayo Amos is a director and filmmaker from the Bay Area now currently living in Los Angeles. After double majoring at Stanford, Tayo went on to earn her MFA in Film Production at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, where she focused on Directing. She is the winner of USC’s First Look Faculty Award for Excellence in Directing, and her thesis film, “On The Clock” screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
In this conversation Tayo and I discuss her experience and key takeaways from USC film school, what qualities make a good director, and how recent events in our country around race and diversity are pushing our respective movie industries to take a good hard look in the mirror.
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My guest today is Devin Concannon, who was one of 4 editors on ESPN’s mega-hit 10 part documentary series, The Last Dance. The Last Dance revolves around the career of Michael Jordan, with a particular focus on his last season with the Chicago Bulls. The project itself is a beast of an endeavor.. we’re talking 10 episodes, over 100 interviews, and according to director Jason Hehir, 10,000 hours of footage to sift through: that includes every game from every main character they had and every news report that had been done on them, both nationally and internationally. The Last Dance averaged 5.65 million viewers across all 10 episodes when they premiered on Sunday nights over the course of five weeks in April and May — making it the most-watched ESPN documentary of all time.
How do you go from 10,000 hours of footage to a 10 hour series? I turned to editor Devin Concannon to ask that question and many more. Devin is an editor based out of New York City. An NYU Film School graduate, Devin edited Rest In Power: The Trayvon Martin Story and Fyre Fraud, about the infamous Fyre Festival, before joining The Last Dance Team.
I hope you enjoy the conversation!

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Meena Harris is a lawyer, activist, and the founder of the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, a female-powered organization that brings awareness to intersectional social causes. And now Meena is also an author, with her new children’s book titled Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea, set to debut on June 2nd. The book is based on a true story from the childhood of Meena’s mom, Maya Harris, and aunt, Kamala Harris. In it, two sisters make a difference in their community by dreaming big, organizing across diverse groups, and fighting for what they believe in. Senator Elizabeth Warren calls it “A must read for little girls around the world.” And Stacy Abrams says the book is “An inspiring tale.”
In this conversation, Meena and I talk about the creative process of writing her first children’s book, the impact of diverse representation in children’s books, and how stories shape our identities from a young age.
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Laurel Chor is an award-winning freelance visual journalist and National Geographic Explorer from Hong Kong. In 2019, she worked with the New York Times, National Geographic, Getty, AFP, Reuters, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, NBC News, the Telegraph, and many more. Laurel also has a lot of experience as a text reporter and video journalist. In the past, she was the Asia reporter/producer for VICE News Tonight on HBO.
In this conversation Laurel and I talk about her start in journalism and the lessons she learned from working on deadline as a local news reporter, how being a world cup rugby player has prepared her for life as a freelance photojournalist, and what it was like to cover the 2019 Hong Kong protests.
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Rerunning an episode of the Say It Loud show, in which host and photographer Raul Espinoza invited me on as a guest to talk about my documentary filmmaking, why I am drawn to human-centered stories, and my mission that drives everything I do.

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Austin Meyer is a documentary filmmaker, photographer, and podcast host. He is a National Geographic Explorer and the 2015 winner of the New York Times International Reporting trip with Nicholas Kristof competition. His work has been published by The New York Times, Washington Post, National Geographic, The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and Slate among others. His documentary films have screened at the American Documentary Film Festival and the Mill Valley Film Festival. On his podcast titled The Austin Meyer Podcast, Austin interviews the world's best storytellers in all sorts of genres about how they craft the stories they tell.

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Check out the video version of this interview and all of Raul's other episodes of the Say It Loud show

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Max Romey is an adventure filmmaker and water color artist who, for the past few years, has documented the sport of trail and ultrarunning for Salomon TV. What is it like to film a 200 mile race circumnavigating Lake Tahoe as a one-man production crew? Why is the success of a running film determined by much more than just keeping up with, and filming, a runner? In this conversation, Max and I dig into those questions and much more to learn how he has become one of the premiere filmmakers in the ultrarunning space!

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Henry Maillet is a photographer whose stories focus on conservation and development. After serving for two years as Peace Corps Volunteers in Paraguay, Henry Maillet and his colleague Jeff Wong decided to stay in the country for the adventure of a lifetime. In partnership with WWF, they rowed a handcrafted wooden rowboat down one of the continent's last remaining free-flowing rivers. Over the course of six months the team covered 1,300 km and visited a wide range of riverside communities, from the Yshir indigenous peoples of the Pantanal to the metropolitan capital city of Asuncion. Through photography and recorded interviews, they documented the rich bio-cultural diversity found along the river's banks, and shed light on the critical need for freshwater conservation and cultural and idiomatic preservation along the Paraguay River.

Having just finished the expedition, Henry is currently quarantined in Paraguay during the coronavirus pandemic. He and I jumped on a call to talk about the project, how his work as a freelancer is being impacted by coronavirus, and the advice he has received that is helping him stay creative during this unprecedented time.

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Patricia Vidal Delgado is a film director and writer from Lisbon, Portugal. Only recently having graduated from the MFA program in Production/Directing at UCLA, Patricia has already been featured in some of the world's most prestigious film festivals. Most recently, Patricia's first feature film, La Leyenda Negra, which also happened to be her UCLA thesis project, made its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was also a Top 20 Finalist for the Roy W. Dean Grant.
In this conversation, Patricia and I discuss how she got into directing, the most valuable lessons she has learned along the way, and how she took her first feature film, using actors from a local high school, from a school project to the Sundance Film Festival.
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