Doc Walks

Ben Steinbauer & Keith Maitland
  • 4.6 (10)
  • Film Interviews
  • Updated Weekly

Documentary filmmakers, Keith Maitland (TOWER, DEAR MR BRODY) and Ben Steinbauer (WINNEBAGO MAN, CHOP & STEELE), host this lively walk & talk podcast featuring conversations with today's best non-fiction storytellers. DocWalks takes the conversation to the street (or nature trail), offering candid insight into the art & industry of documentary filmmaking for an audience of emerging filmmakers and doc-lovers alike.

  1. 2d ago

    EP065 - I Don't Get Served My Own Movies w/ Penny Lane

    We were supposed to be in Central Park. We are not. It's raining so we're in Penny Lane's apartment, shoes off, with a cat named Luna auditioning for the role of "the action," and Flaco the Owl on the TV behind us. So much for a walking show. Penny's deep in what she calls PR season for WILD INSIDE, her new HBO doc about the Eurasian eagle-owl who broke out of the Central Park Zoo in 2023 and spent a year as the most photographed bird in New York. Then she tells us she barely shot it. A volunteer army of Central Park bird photographers had already amassed infinite footage, so Penny's crew went back and shot the reverse angles — Flaco's POV of the people watching Flaco — and rebuilt a whole year of seasons to match. "I don't think anyone understands that we just weren't there all the time." We go long on money and fear. Eight features in, a ninth half-funded, and her first thought is the tenth. That festivals and awards absolutely do matter, whatever people tell you. That this is her worst financial year and she has a hit, simultaneously. Plus: NUTS! and the Kansas goat-testicle doctor, cornering the cool dad market, the grad school shoot where Ben watched the levels all night and recorded nothing, Letterboxd as the only proof anyone's watching, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP as the film that taught her to make one movie for the 1% and the 99% at once, dirty fuel versus the clean kind — and the thing she can't stop thinking about, which is how much of the internet is just bots talking to bots. DISCUSSION LINKS: WILD INSIDE (2026) | CONFESSIONS OF A GOOD SAMARITAN (2023) | LISTENING TO KENNY G (2021) | HAIL SATAN? (2019) | NUTS! (2016) | OUR NIXON (2013) | EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (2010) | TARNATION (2003) | THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (2025) | MARY OLIVER: SAVED BY THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD (2026) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 We were supposed to be outside 01:15 Introducing Penny Lane 01:23 PR season for WILD INSIDE 02:02 Lynn, Massachusetts and the city of sin 02:58 Newbury Comics and finding culture pre-internet 04:04 NUTS! and the Kansas goat-testicle doctor 05:43 Cornering the cool dad market 07:16 Kindles, hardbacks, and a book a day 08:51 Podcasts ate her reading and her music 10:48 Grad school at UT Austin with Naiti Gamez 11:33 The shoot where she recorded no sound 14:08 Meeting Gabriel Sedgwick and building a crew 16:52 A year spent arranging the art wall 18:40 Competing with the entire Seinfeld catalog 20:00 Four Kenny G albums before a hit 20:50 When did movies become a prestige art form 22:39 The future of documentary, and why AI can't do it 23:42 Nobody knows your movie is out 24:39 The broadcast era is kaput 25:58 Hunting for her own film on Netflix 28:20 Eight features, a ninth half-funded, already worried about the tenth 30:24 Festivals and awards do matter 31:05 Who paid whom to release the movie 32:40 Not a business, a calling 33:39 The only reward is getting to do the work 34:34 Williams, Hampshire, Colgate, tenure — then quitting 36:07 Dirty fuel and the clean kind 37:40 Stay in shape, paddle out, catch the wave 38:48 Letterboxd as the only feedback loop 41:25 iMovie, mini DV, and TARNATION 44:02 Why she doesn't care what camera it's shot on 45:14 How WILD INSIDE was built from birders' footage 47:18 Shooting the reverse angles 48:46 Rebuilding a year of seasons 50:54 Jeremy finds Flaco first 52:08 How a project actually starts 53:10 Donating a kidney before there was a film 55:45 The film as an imprint of a life 58:13 A hit movie in her worst financial year 59:32 Why a filmmaker runs a Substack 1:02:27 Geeta Gandbhir and THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR 1:04:19 Advice: do what you can do right now 1:05:22 EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, the gateway drug 1:06:30 One movie for the 1% and the 99% 1:08:31 Lightning round: is anyone on the internet real 1:09:35 Next time, we actually walk

  2. Aug 6

    EP064 - You Don't Need a Restaurant to Eat w/ David Liu

    Ben walks the lake at Mueller with David Liu—director, editor, producer, composer, and until 2024, an AI engineer. Fifteen-plus years in hardware, software, product design and machine learning, and then generative AI showed up and he decided he didn't want his name on where it was going. So he went looking for the one medium the technology can't enter without destroying it… documentary filmmaking. Here's the crazy part - he never wanted to be a filmmaker. He wanted to score films. A friend pointed out that nobody can stop you from composing your own movie, which meant he now had to go find a story worth telling. Enter Covid, four Austin restaurants and one pandemic. Seventeen shooting days spread across four years. Four years of grant pitches where everyone told him TO BE SEEN was impossible: four subjects, non-linear, no way. He shot it with almost no lighting, no rehearsals, and a rule about never overstaying his welcome, because the second take is where the artifice creeps in. Fiore Tedesco of L'Oca d'Oro handed him the title in the first sit-down, "you don't need a restaurant to eat, you need a restaurant to be seen." Plus a three-hour interview that became the spine of the film. Then the assembly came back all talking heads, and he sat stuck for a full year, thinking he had made a huge mistake. What unstuck him was filming  chefs mushroom-hunting in the Pacific Northwest. That short—HIDDEN STORIES–FORAGED AND FOUND—went to DOC NYC, two hundred people went dead silent, and he had his formula. Plus: cashing out the retirement account to finish, and finding out at the premiere— sitting next to chefs who had never seen a frame—that the thing is actually good. DISCUSSION LINKS: TO BE SEEN (2026) | HIDDEN STORIES–FORAGED AND FOUND (2024) | VALLEY UPRISING (2014) | FREE SOLO (2018) | CHEF'S TABLE (2015) | FIRE OF LOVE (2022) | THE FIRE WITHIN: A REQUIEM FOR KATIA AND MAURICE KRAFFT (2024) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Sync, sync—and a thesis: "my job is to discover the answers" 00:22 Your job as an artist is to pose the question 00:40 Fifteen, twenty years of engineering, and a pretty big gamble 01:00 Riley, cue the music — David Liu, ladies and gentlemen 01:30 Toasty and muggy: Mueller, the lake, and the ducks 02:00 To Be Seen, four Austin restaurants, and the AFS Cinema premiere 02:40 The Bullock on the 13th, Austin Public on the 14th 03:00 L'Oca d'Oro, Foreign & Domestic, LeRoy and Lewis, Pho Craft 03:30 "I never tried to get into filmmaking" 03:55 A terrible idea: just make your own film and score it 04:20 A calling card for a production company that didn't exist yet 05:00 Failing at pop songs, accidentally good at scoring to picture 05:45 Play every instrument badly — that's a composer 06:40 Hoping for narrative, and what the industry decided instead 07:15 Hardware to software to product design to AI 08:00 2018, and a career that started taking off 08:30 The gut says hedge: what if it goes wrong? 09:00 Looking for the most opposite thing, and finding documentary 09:40 Use AI in a doc and it's no longer a doc 10:20 What he didn't like about where doc was going 10:40 Too lit, too rehearsed, too formulaic 11:00 Chasing celebrity, crime, cults — the three Cs 11:20 Four years of grant pitches: "you're breaking all the rules" 11:45 No lighting, high verite, nothing rehearsed 11:55 Seventeen shooting days over four years 12:10 Don't overstay your welcome — the guttural first reaction 12:50 Quitting in 2024, and watching how people were using it 13:20 Conference talks, reputation, and a better use of storytelling 14:00 Deep fakes, meme manipulation, and the removal of autonomy 14:40 "I got into this for curing cancer and weather predictions" 15:00 Teach it to desalinate water, not to make our paintings 15:45 If it's automatable and nobody likes doing it — perfect 16:20 Cost, displacement, and who's to blame when it goes wrong 17:30 "We can save money by removing jobs." You're looking at it wrong 18:30 The layoffs start, and the writing was on the wall in early '23 19:00 Reading the 10-Ks: something ain't mathing 19:40 The better question — what would I regret not doing? 20:40 Burning the entire retirement account 20:55 Films will probably outlast every tech company 21:45 "Everybody says I'm wrong. What if I just try?" 22:00 Herzog, and the two volcano docs about the same subject 22:45 Stopping at the water — L'Oca d'Oro is right over there 23:00 The lockdown steps where he started writing music again 23:30 Fifteen years since he'd touched it. It's not great, but it's there 24:00 How do you shoot a documentary? YouTube 24:15 Cashing out in 2023, and never planning to direct this 24:50 Late '22: an LLC, some gear, and the pieces of a company 26:00 Product design, problem-solving, and "everybody says it's impossible" 26:35 What a restaurant symbolizes for a community 27:20 Non-linear time, the thing they said would never work 28:00 He thought it was a 30-minute episode 28:15 First interview you're wrong, second you're on a bigger story 29:00 If I don't tell it, this gets lost to time 29:30 An introvert asks why he even goes to a restaurant 29:50 Fiore's line: you need a restaurant to be seen 30:10 COVID takes the thing away — the existential test 31:00 Snowpocalypse, Valentine's Day, and what we've chosen to forget 32:40 Processing the collective trauma, and a worldwide audience 33:00 The real subject: how we, the patrons, changed 33:20 Less patient, less personal, more hyperindividual 33:50 Why nobody wants to go to a theater anymore 34:00 Thaison Nguyen of Pho Craft saw the insularity coming 35:45 Fine dining chefs, a precarious moment, and the ask 36:20 Authenticity goes both ways 36:50 No rehearsing, no fabricated emotional places 37:45 The interview style changes halfway through the film 38:00 Sitting down in 2020, standing in their space by 2022 38:30 An assembly of pure talking heads, and a full year stuck 39:00 A trip across the country, and matsutake in the snow 39:50 Accidentally handheld, the entire time 40:00 Mic'd under the vent hood in the loudest place possible 40:20 Hidden Stories–Foraged and Found goes to DOC NYC 40:40 Two hundred people, dead silent. That's the formula 41:10 And then the last two subjects said yes 42:00 Standing in front of L'Oca d'Oro 42:45 "Oh — you did that to make it through?" 42:50 Fiore Tedesco, and philosophy through restaurant ownership 43:50 A three-hour interview becomes the spine of the film 44:20 It's not what's on the plate, it's what's not on the plate 44:30 One restaurant wins a Michelin star. One goes out of business 45:00 Chef's Table, Bourdain, and the lens nobody else has used 45:30 Adam Orman, and a calling card for the working class 45:40 Brain drain: the institutional knowledge that walked out 46:30 The worst thing you can do — not showing them until the premiere 47:20 Restaurants play music, and restaurants are loud 47:40 Ninety percent of the sync audio, stripped 47:50 Rebuilding the entire kitchen with Soundcrafter, mixed in Atmos 48:40 Did you make the film you set out to make? 48:50 "If it's not good, I'll go back to tech." It's good 49:00 Now the distribution rules are being rewritten 49:50 Self-distributing, and selling the partnership instead of the film 50:10 Supper club screenings, and making it an event 50:30 The restaurants showed up, and got to be the heroes 50:55 Lightning round 51:00 The gateway drug was climbing films 51:15 Valley Uprising, Sender Films, and actually climbing in Yosemite 52:00 Chef's Table, Alinea, and eating at the restaurant afterward 52:50 Herzog, Ken Burns, and the rungs of documentary 53:40 You never hear his voice — but the editing changes 54:00 The Pho Craft reveal: the painting is in his apartment 55:20 Not everything lasts, and it still can be beautiful 56:00 Advice: do it, and don't follow the rules 56:30 Pathfinding, and why "nobody knows" is the right place to be 57:30 Documentary got too safe 58:00 What he can't stop thinking about: the new normal 58:30 No income, and an industry eating itself alive 59:00 Attention spans, plasticity, and how we adapt 59:50 Asking all the right questions 1:00:00 tobeseenfilm.com, @tobeseenfilm, and Narriforge

  3. Jul 30

    EP063 - The Edge of Psychosis w/ Hisko Hulsing

    When Hisko Hulsing is in town, you grab your camera & mic, and hit the trail, ready to court controversy with the best oil-painting animator this side of the Netherlands. Hisko is the wild artist that doc-maker Brett Morgen trusted to paint the inside of Kurt Cobain's head for MONTAGE OF HECK. He's a director who's marshalled the talents of dozens of artists over multiple years to bring HARRY RENTS A ROOM (1999), SEVENTEEN (2003), and JUNKYARD (2012) to life. He's known for his uniform black shirts, his loose brush strokes, and his penchant to speak his mind… Keith and Hisko are two of the only roto-animation directors working in docs and that's not all they share: they've both collab'd with Austin-animation studio Minnow Mountain, and both have TV projects with BOJACK HORSEMAN producers Tornante. It's through Tornante that Hisko and Keith met, years ago, on the set of Amazon's UNDONE. Back when Hisko was —his words— in a panic. Flying between LA and Amsterdam and back again, directing Rosa Salazar and Bob Odenkirk live on a green screen taped-off like Lars Von Trier's DOGVILLE, then going home to tirelessly train ten painters to work in oil, in his personal style, Hisko's UNDONE was almost his own undoing. Three cities, a 17th-century atelier, and a show built on interdimensionality and ambiguity — he pitched the showrunners the dream sequences from ROSEMARY'S BABY and lived up to the premise.  He takes us back to his own relationship to art and psychosis: in Amsterdam, taking-up weed at age twelve, a grow operation at fifteen, skipping every class except philosophy and drawing, and hallucinating the world "in an oil painted manner." A journeyman animator/filmmaker, everything changed when JUNKYARD went viral and a cold email arrived from Brett Morgen. Suddenly he had four months to make what had taken him nearly six years. Sixty oil paintings, a team of collaborators, and a house of cards that crashed around him before finally winning-over Courtney Love and Frances Bean Cobain with his hand-painted efforts to bring an icon into sharp, re-imagined relief.  And now, today. In the face of conflict and controversy: DANSE MACABRE (2026), his new short that just premiered at Annecy to… protests, walk-outs and a vocal minority boo-ing. Hisko tells his side of the story—how DANSE MACABRE came to life and how a guild-led protest over his use of a self-trained AI shader sparked an international dialogue about AI tools that is still unfolding. When they announced his name, lost in the cacophony of boos and loud walk-outs, Hisko said, "thank you and f**k you," offering his dissenters his middle finger. This one's complicated. Hisko thinks he's gotten a bum deal from out of touch "purists" who don't know the difference between AI, machine learning, and indie filmmakers making their best work in new ways. He also believes that OpenAI should be forced to fund every artist it scraped. This is new territory… and the conversation is just beginning—Hisko wants your honest review. Plus: why animation is an opportunity to dream, not a way to cover the bald spots in your doc, and shoutouts to animator Craig Staggs (TOWER & UNDONE), Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Peter Bogdanovich, and Pink Floyd. DISCUSSION LINKS: JUNKYARD (2012) | LAST HIJACK (2014) | COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK (2015) | UNDONE (2019) | THE SANDMAN (2022) | DANSE MACABRE (2026) | THE MAKING OF DANSE MACABRE (2026) | THE EYES OF ME (2009) | TOWER (2016) | THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE (2002) | CHICAGO 10 (2008) | WAKING LIFE (2001) | SLACKER (1990) | DOGVILLE (2003) | ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968) | THE TENANT (1976) | REPULSION (1965) | KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962) | CHINATOWN (1974) | WALTZ WITH BASHIR (2008) | PINK FLOYD: THE WALL (1982) | FANTASIA (1940) | BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997) | INHERENT VICE (2014) | ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (2019)

  4. Jul 23

    EP062: Back To The Root w/ David Alvarado

    Spark up a big cigar with Ben and filmmaker David Alvarado in honor of  Luis Valdez, the central figure in Alvarado's new film AMERICAN PACHUCO (playing Austin's Cine Las Américas). A Dallas kid turned Brooklyn doc-maker, David found his calling twice: once when LA BAMBA (1987) showed him a Chicano family reaching the American dream, and again when a college cinéma-vérité class screened A TIME FOR BURNING (1966), which blew the medium wide open for him. We trace the whole arc—from a high-school dropout turned straight-A student at the University of North Texas, to the Stanford MFA where David partnered with Jason Sussberg and built Structure Films. Then there's the science trilogy: THE IMMORTALISTS (their $400K-and-ramen first feature), BILL NYE: SCIENCE GUY (a record-smashing Kickstarter, now in the Library of Congress), and WE ARE AS GODS, the Stewart Brand doc that was spun into an eight-hour Audible series.  But right now, we're puffing smoke about AMERICAN PACHUCO, a tribute to a personal hero—Luis Valdez, the playwright behind ZOOT SUIT and LA BAMBA. The doc won the U.S. Audience Award at Sundance this year amid ICE-raid headlines, and David makes the case that the Chicano story is the American story—right down to the cigar in our hands, pure American tobacco the Maya smoked before Columbus set foot on these shores. This one goes deep (to the indigenous root) as we hit the trail and take hits on these stogies with Sundance-winner David Alvarado.   DISCUSSION LINKS: AMERICAN PACHUCO: THE LEGEND OF LUIS VALDEZ (2026) | THE IMMORTALISTS (2014) | BILL NYE: SCIENCE GUY (2017) | WE ARE AS GODS (2021) | LA BAMBA (1987) | ZOOT SUIT (1981) | A TIME FOR BURNING (1966) | TRUE CONVICTION (2017) | OFF THE CHARTS: THE SONG-POEM STORY (2003) | THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS (2007) | HORRIBLE BOSSES (2011) | FOUR CHRISTMASES (2008) | SALESMAN (1969) | PRIMARY (1960) | PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002) | YOUNG GUNS (1988) | I AM BIG BIRD: THE CAROLL SPINNEY STORY (2015)  TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Cigars, sugar-cane tips & "espresso parenting" 03:27 Meet David Alvarado & AMERICAN PACHUCO 04:20 Who is Luis Valdez? (LA BAMBA, ZOOT SUIT) 08:57 Meeting Valdez in college & founding Texas Filmmakers 09:32 Dropping out at 17 11:42 PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE wakes him up 13:10 North Lake to UNT — straight A's 14:15 A TIME FOR BURNING & the vérité awakening 16:51 Ben's own awakening: SALESMAN 18:34 Walking Mabel Davis Park 19:20 THE IMMORTALISTS & the Stanford years 26:20 Aubrey de Grey, Bill Andrews & the longevity gamble 28:49 Hot Docs, Big Bird & "the Big Bird of science" 29:52 Finding Bill Nye 33:29 Seth Gordon, Jamie Meltzer & TRUE CONVICTION 34:22 OFF THE CHARTS: THE SONG-POEM STORY 35:35 "Goddammit, Tony!" — a filmmaker on the trail 38:39 The record-breaking BILL NYE Kickstarter 41:56 WE ARE AS GODS, Stewart Brand & Stripe 46:34 Pandemic pivots: kids, Brooklyn & the Audible series 49:55 Back to AMERICAN PACHUCO & Luis Valdez 51:19 Belonging, the Chicano story & indigenous roots 54:49 Cigars, Che, Castro & pure American tobacco 57:41 Funding the film: PBS, Ford, the grant road 59:47 Sundance, the Audience Award & the ICE-raid moment 01:04:46 Lightning round & advice to young filmmakers 01:11:03 Next time: Hisko Hulsing

  5. Jul 16

    EP061 - Log Off and Hang Out w/ Lauren Hough

    We walk Austin's Boggy Creek Trail with acclaimed memoirist Lauren Hough — from a childhood spent in a cult to Air Force vet to ex-cable technician; and now, she's the writer whose viral essay about fixing people's cable got read 8 million times in a single weekend. Lauren's backstory is so enormous it usually eats a whole interview: she grew up in the Children of God, got run out of the military under Don't Ask Don't Tell (they torched her car), flipped a coin between Atlanta and DC, and told dumb cable-guy stories at the Iron Bear until one of them turned into a book. That book, LEAVING ISN'T THE HARDEST THING, made her a New York Times bestseller and got Cate Blanchett to narrate the audiobook — and, yes, she brought Cate to the Iron Bear. Now book two, MONSTER OF A LAND, is days from release and Lauren is, in her words, throwing up about it. We get into the terror of the follow-up, why she loaded her very cute dog Woody Guthrie into a Dodge van and drove the country like Steinbeck's TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY, and what she actually found out there — not the screaming internet, but hunters in Georgia helping a stranger find a campsite and neighbors defending neighbors when ICE rolled into Minneapolis. Along the way: the cult was boring (too many guitars, bad Bob Dylan rip-offs, one paragraph of hard-won Civil War research), the octagon on the White House lawn is sponsored by Monster Energy, and the cure for all of it might just be to log off and go hang out. Plus: worry monsters in a little free library, why she can't stop muttering about that octagon, and why chasing one good sentence feels like a serial killer chasing a high. DISCUSSION LINKS: MONSTER OF A LAND (2026) | LEAVING ISN'T THE HARDEST THING (2021) | TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY (1962) | CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS (2003) | SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952) | IDIOCRACY (2006) | THE CIVIL WAR (1990) | KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL (2000) | EDUCATED (2018) | THE SLIP (2025) | CATCH THE DEVIL (2026) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Becoming the podcast people they used to heckle at the Iron Bear 01:48 Your family's not gonna read your book 04:05 Meet Lauren Hough, and the David Sedaris comparison 05:06 The cult, the military, and Don't Ask Don't Tell 08:33 They torched my car — getting out and landing in DC 15:37 The cable guy essay that 8 million people read 16:31 Bringing Cate Blanchett to the Iron Bear 18:40 Why nonfiction, and modeling the book on Travels with Charley 21:04 Capturing the Friedmans and stories that take a U-turn 24:20 "I remember needing to pee" — the detail that unlocks an essay 29:27 The cult was boring: diapers, Singin' in the Rain, bad Bob Dylan 32:32 Second-book terror (and throwing up) 33:57 Woody Guthrie, the Dodge van, and no Subaru sponsorship 36:00 Texas Highways vs. the conversations she actually wanted 39:17 What she found on the road: kindness, Minneapolis, Georgia hunters 41:38 Log off and go hang out — screens broke our brains 42:05 The AI fight: her brother, ChatGPT, and what actually matters 44:37 Nine months in Durham where nobody pet the dog 46:18 Boggy Creek Trail — stick libraries and worry monsters 49:00 Between therapists, courtesy of the VA 50:44 There's an octagon on the White House lawn (it's Idiocracy) 52:07 The Fox News callback from the cable essay 54:08 Lightning round: Bourdain as the gateway drug 55:42 Advice for writers, and Austin's book crew 59:29 Pop-Tarts, and a great place to end

  6. Jul 9

    EP060 - Angels Watching Over Me w/ Ya'Ke Smith

    Take a spirited walk though East Austin, Black History, and the Texas State Cemetery with filmmaker, educator, and self-described activist-artist Ya'Ke Smith—on Juneteenth week, no less. We kick off our walk under a Moonlight Tower and basically never stop moving: past Franklin Barbecue (pour one out for the old Ben's Barbecue), over to the Victory Grill, and into a cash-deal for some Bass Reeves-inspired street art. Ya'Ke walks Keith through CYCLES OF RESILIENCE, his new doc chasing a Juneteenth bike ride across Austin's erased and revitalized Black landmarks. We get into JUNETEENTH: FAITH AND FREEDOM, his PBS doc, and the role of an activist and an artist in search of community. Ya'Ke explains why he refuses the "documentary filmmaker" label, because "film is film" of course—thank you, Agnes Varda. And it's only fitting that our wander into the Texas State Cemetery (a DocWalks first) becomes the backdrop for a discussion on the spiritual side of filmmaking and how Ya'Ke's new hybrid short ANGELS WATCHING OVER ME grew out of Paula White's "African angels" prayer for Trump and the gutting of DEI on his own campus.  Angels, maybe ghosts… and graveside visits with Stephen F. Austin (father of Texas), Sarah Weddington (Roe v. Wade), Bill Witliff (Lonesome Dove screenwriter), Barbara Jordan (legislative pioneer), and Cedric Benson (Longhorns legend) serve to remind us what matters as artists, and storytellers revealing untold histories and creating opportunities for empathy. Ya'Ke and Keith cover a lot of territory landing with the former's origin story: as an 11-year-old in San Antonio watching BOYZ N THE HOOD and knowing, right then, that movie-making was the way. Plus: 4000 Black Juneteenth liberators, ideas that "impregnate" you until you birth them, the spiritual battle Ya'Ke thinks we're all fighting, inspiration via Ernest Dickerson's 10-minute storyboards on THE DEUCE, and why—even in despair—you've got to find the joy.  His advice for filmmakers? In the words of Nike: just do it.   DISCUSSION LINKS: CYCLES OF RESILIENCE (2026) | JUNETEENTH: FAITH AND FREEDOM (2022) | WOLF (2012) | ANGELS WATCHING OVER ME (2026) | THE OHIO, TEXAS REMIX (2025) | BOYZ N THE HOOD (1991) | WHEN THEY SEE US (2019) | THE DEUCE (2017) | TOWER (2016) | THE MS. PAT SHOW (2021) | LONESOME DOVE (1989) | BARBAROSA (1982) | RED HEADED STRANGER (1986) | THE PERFECT STORM (2000) | HONEYSUCKLE ROSE (1980) | THE BLACK STALLION (1979) | THE THIRD MAN (1949) | THE LONG GOODBYE (1973) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Walking into Rosewood, East Austin 02:33 Meet Ya'Ke Smith 02:45 Cycles of Resilience and the East 11th mural 04:52 I-35, redlining and the 1928 master plan 08:07 Shooting a bike ride: three cameras, a drone and GoPros 14:30 The Victory Grill 16:45 Meeting artist Marshall Fabella and his Bass Reeves painting 19:52 Agnes Varda and "film is film" 20:39 Refusing the label, and directing The Ms. Pat Show 22:58 Into the Texas State Cemetery 28:05 Bill Wittliff, Sarah Weddington and Barbara Jordan 31:08 Rewriting history, book bans and the university 33:34 Angels Watching Over Me and Paula White's "African angels" 40:10 Wolf and the power of the room (thank you, Barbara Kopple) 44:21 Juneteenth: Faith and Freedom 47:40 Finding joy in the despair 48:45 Ideas that impregnate you 50:08 The gateway drug: Boyz n the Hood 52:58 Buying the Bass Reeves painting 54:09 Advice for filmmakers: just do it 55:40 Creighton Gerst, Super 8 and self-editing 58:09 Dream collaborators: Max Richter, Bradford Young, Ernest Dickerson 01:00:25 The mural, the Masons and community 01:04:39 Next time on Doc Walks

  7. Jun 25

    EP059 - Don't Listen to Me About Anything w/ Isaac Gale

    We hit the streets of South by Southwest with Isaac Gale—director, artist, and one-half of the Minneapolis noise outfit Marijuana Deathsquads, in town to play the fest with his band. Isaac's the kind of guy who'd rather break a piece of software than master it, and that restless, try-anything energy runs through everything he makes. We wind through Ben's old neighborhood and retrace how the two first met—around WINNEBAGO MAN, which Isaac's partner JoLynn Garnes cut an early version of—then dig into SWAMP DOGG GETS HIS POOL PAINTED, the gloriously weird doc Isaac co-directed with the famously camera-shy Ryan Olson. It premiered at South by in 2024 and got scooped up by Magnolia Pictures for a theatrical run. We trace the whole origin story: a cold call to Ryan's label (Totally Gross National Product), a 2017 trip to shoot one sad music video, and a house so perfect—Swamp Dogg, Moogstar, and Guitar Shorty living together like a psychedelic Brady Bunch—that they never wanted to leave. The pool getting painted becomes the anchor, so everything else (Mike Judge, Johnny Knoxville, Tom Kenny, a blink-and-you-miss-it Yo La Tengo cameo) gets to be as chaotic as it wants. Isaac walks us through the hand-built AI intro—a Swamp Dogg model trained on a PC in his bedroom and iterated for a year and a half—and why he's fine getting his hands dirty with tools everyone loves to hate. Then the good stuff for emerging filmmakers: make it like a band, keep your crew close, and if you can't find money, make it without money. Plus CRUMB and AMERICAN MOVIE as gateway drugs, a dog named Ricky, the first time in 50+ episodes we've run out of card space, and why Minneapolis—community and all—is the thing Isaac can't stop thinking about. DISCUSSION LINKS: SWAMP DOGG GETS HIS POOL PAINTED (2024) | THE FEARLESS FREAKS (2005) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | CRUMB (1994) | AMERICAN MOVIE (1999) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Markers, selfie sticks, and SXSW sunburn 01:00 Ben's old neighborhood and how he and Isaac met 03:00 Artist vs. musician: Marijuana Deathsquads 04:00 Ryan Olson, the co-director who won't be photographed 05:00 SWAMP DOGG GETS HIS POOL PAINTED premieres at South by 07:00 A Doc Walks first: the SD card fills up 08:00 Take two: the Magnolia acquisition and theatrical run 10:00 Origin story: a cold call to Total Gross National Product 11:00 Showing up to shoot a music video in 2017 12:00 Who is Swamp Dogg? Ben the music head 14:00 Crooner to country: "She's All I Got" and John Prine's "Sam Stone" 16:00 Auto-tune, Justin Vernon, and Love, Loss & Auto-Tune 17:30 The "I'll Pretend" video; meeting Moogstar and Guitar Shorty 20:00 Naming the film: the pool as the anchor 22:00 Card-table cameos: Mike Judge, Johnny Knoxville, Tom Kenny, Yo La Tengo 24:00 Ricky the dog crashes the walk 25:00 100+ music videos and art school 26:00 MCAD, flatbeds, and editing like painting 28:00 Directing in any medium: Unreal Engine and breaking the tools 30:00 The AI intro: building a Swamp Dogg model in his bedroom 33:00 Being in a band at 40; "you should try making a podcast" 34:00 Lightning round: the gateway docs (CRUMB, AMERICAN MOVIE) 36:00 Advice: make it like a band, make it no matter what 37:00 Keeping your crew close: WINNEBAGO MAN lessons 38:00 Not film: Minneapolis, community, and standing together 39:00 Where to find Isaac and the Swamp Dogg Blu-ray

  8. Jun 18

    EP058 - The Jellyfish Died w/ Juli Berwald

    Meet Juli Berwald—a marine biologist turned science writer and the author of an invertebrate page-turner—she's the founder of a coral-reef nonprofit in Honduras, aaaaand she's producing her first doc. Throughout our waterfront walk at Ladybird Lake Juli opens up about her adventures in science writing—how getting fired off a book project (& replaced by Elizabeth Kolbert) inspired Juli to create her own destiny and finally write her own book. What follows is a masterclass in turning science into memoir called SPINELESS—a jellyfish book secretly structured like a jellyfish lifecycle, complete with a fever dream that sent her to Japan to find the world's biggest jellyfish (spoiler: it died right in front of her). We dig into "hiding behind the facts," the boldness it takes to put yourself on the page, and the best creative-accountability advice we've heard yet: combine a tight writing group with Elizabeth Gilbert's "take your project on a date," add in some John August-style sprints while following a roommate's admonition to "write the worst book you can—"and you're on your way. Theres's a whole lot of science, a bunch of laughs, and some doc-stuff in this one too. THE REBEL REEF: SEEDS OF HOPE is Juli's hopeful short doc about a reef to remember and divemaster Christian Carias, whose own healing becomes the heart of the film. Plus composer Chad Cannon (AMERICAN FACTORY, JOIN OR DIE), a $100K biobank dream, and perhaps an answer to the question of "how do you get to Symphony Space?" Also: An entire taxonomy of recumbent coots; shoutout to a Charles and Ray Eames numerically inspired mid-century film; and the official-yet-disputed name of a celebrated Austin footbridge. And yes—Juli already has another book on the way… DISCUSSION LINKS: THE REBEL REEF: SEEDS OF HOPE (2026) | POWERS OF TEN (1977) | AMERICAN FACTORY (2019) | JOIN OR DIE (2023) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | SPINELESS (2017) | LIFE ON THE ROCKS (2022) | THE SHELL SEEKER (2026) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 High fives and meeting Juli 01:00 Marine biologist to author 02:00 A miserable Texas postdoc (subsidence vs. sinking) 04:30 Becoming a writer: Think Well's CD-ROM textbooks 06:00 Laid off, then freelancing for National Geographic 11:00 The ONE CUBIC FOOT gig—and getting fired off it 14:30 The Pfluger footbridge and Lady Bird Lake history 18:00 THE REBEL REEF preview: a hopeful documentary 19:00 "I can't write a book like that"—finding her voice 21:00 SPINELESS: jellyfish and growing a spine 23:00 Willing to get lost 25:00 "Write the worst book you can—but write it" 27:00 A fever dream sends her to Japan 28:30 Finding the giant jellyfish (it dies) 31:00 Building a book around the jellyfish lifecycle 36:00 Our hideout: duckweed, Barton Springs, cyanobacteria 38:00 The Puum Temple and possums vs. opossums 39:30 Creative accountability and the writing group 47:00 BIG MAGIC: take your project on a date 50:00 The 20-minute timer and John August's sprints 52:00 Recumbent coots and the title hunt 53:00 THE REBEL REEF: the Honduras coral story 55:00 Christian Carias and the heart of the film 58:00 Cinematography, score, and the crew 61:00 Lightning round: the gateway book (Henrietta Lacks) 63:00 Advice for emerging storytellers: practice 64:00 Carnegie Hall, Yo-Yo Ma, and a floating cello 68:00 Crediting Dayton and where to find Juli's work

See All (70)

Ratings & Reviews

4.6
out of 5
10 Ratings

About

Documentary filmmakers, Keith Maitland (TOWER, DEAR MR BRODY) and Ben Steinbauer (WINNEBAGO MAN, CHOP & STEELE), host this lively walk & talk podcast featuring conversations with today's best non-fiction storytellers. DocWalks takes the conversation to the street (or nature trail), offering candid insight into the art & industry of documentary filmmaking for an audience of emerging filmmakers and doc-lovers alike.

Information

  • Creator
    Ben Steinbauer & Keith Maitland
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    70
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025
  • Show Website
    Doc Walks

You Might Also Like