Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. I.
You just. You were just talking before about, like, wanting to have your hair really big for the daytime Emmys.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: I love that story. I think that's just so fun. What have you always wanted to, like, I get. I always want to ask, like, is that been a part of your style, just, like, embracing that or, like, change throughout the years?
[00:00:28] Speaker B: I think I have been. I have been heavy my whole life. And I remember as a kid, I used to say to my mom, can we go to the children's store? And my mother was like, oh, honey, no, no. And so there was always a desire to fit in. And as a heavyset woman, I would wear black all the time and try to hide. And then I got to a point where I said, no, I just want to be myself. I just want to be me. And part of that was walking away from black clothes and stop trying to, like, every time I went to the salon, it was. It felt like it was a competition to see who could straighten my hair, you know, get it as straight as possible.
And finally, I'm like, I just, like, embracing my big hair. I love my big hair. And so I. There was a change in my life. I'd say when you get to your thirties, you kind of realize it's not worth all the effort anymore.
And that's when I really kind of threw open the closet. Threw open my embrace of silly things. Threw open. I'm gonna wear my hair the way that it is and the way that I love and I appreciate it and not kind of let it hold me back. Yeah.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: The idea of being different and, like, standing out in a room, I mean, I feel like it's challenging for a lot of people. So how have you been able to kind of navigate that for yourself?
[00:01:55] Speaker B: I have felt, and I know a lot of heavier women would probably agree with me, is you spend your whole life trying to be small is trying to be hidden. Like, you walk down the sidewalk. And almost every heavyset person I know, we move to the side because we don't want to be in the way. We don't want to kind of be, you know, out there and present because we've been constantly conscious about how we. How we are and how we look. But there just comes a time of, this is who you are, and this is what you are about. So there's a great line from the movie four weddings and a funeral when the one character decides Kristen Scott Thomas, she's choose to wear all black. And then at the end, she says, I am all the colors of the rainbow and more. And I really embraced that. I said, I'm going to be my individual self. I'm going to try to work with people who appreciate the fact that in a positive way, not in a negative way, I really don't have a filter. I don't have subtext. And people are like, well, what do you mean? And I'm like, well, what did I say? That's what I mean.
What did I just say? That's what I meant. I don't have subtext. Just being that and realizing that I don't have to kind of hide who I am all the time. And. And I found that when I started doing that, I was a lot more confident, I was a lot more joyous. I just found a lot more, a lot more light in the world and embraced that kind of silliness, even though a lot of things I do are very serious. But it's okay to be silly and light.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: And so did that start, like, did you wake up one day and be like, you know what? Today's the last day I'm gonna be doing this? Or was it like, just a gentle journey that you just, like, one day found yourself being just more authentic and free?
[00:03:50] Speaker B: I was a very intense teenager and very intense college student. I really enjoyed college. I enjoyed, like, I enjoyed getting into doing projects. I graduated with a degree in video art and sculpture and art history, and I thoroughly enjoyed college, but I was really, really driven. And then when I was 29, I was running a staffing firm for design and advertising professionals in Chicago.
A little crazy. I was in my late twenties, and I was running this multimillion dollar company in the boom of the nineties. And my mother had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. And my siblings and I decided I was living in Chicago. My brother was in Philadelphia, and my sister was in Seattle. We decided to all move home and help take care of our mother for the last four years of her life.
And when you go through something like that, one thing about it, I don't hate many things in this world, but I hate Alzheimer's. I fully hate Alzheimer's. But it's also, you deal with stuff that is completely illogical and completely inane and just bizarre, and you just shrug and you do this. And my family coped through humor. We coped through embracing and laughing and finding those moments of joy. And I think that was the tipping point. The tipping point for me was I wasn't going to take everything so seriously. I had just seen this and experienced this with my mother and said, you know, it's okay to be silly. It's okay to have fun and be yourself and still be driven at work. I was still a supervising producer at a senior producer at Discovery Channel. I was still working on some big projects, but I took things just a little lighter. And as I got older, I became lighter and lighter and lighter. So I'd say that was a turning point.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: I'm just really struck by that because it takes so much courage and strength to intentionally find joy when things are so dark.
So you do, do documentaries? Correct. So how is that kind of like a guiding anthem that you use, finding lighter. Finding, like, lighter things in your work?
[00:06:20] Speaker B: I do. It manifests itself in a way that some people are offended by this, but some people are not. They get, what I mean is, when I'm working on a project, I try to channel, for most of them, I try to channel the kind of awe and wonder that a 13 year old child has.
And I say that because 13 year olds, when you see a 13 year old in a museum or the zoo or something, they're smart enough to understand bigger concepts. They understand predation and pray, and they understand how the ocean works, but they're still just blown away by the, you know, that isn't a killer whale, that is a grizzly bear. That is just the incredible things that just inspire you, that make you kind of get energized. So when I approach a project, I try to look at it through what is going to bring that enthusiasm? What's going to bring that level of joy or interest or curiosity that I feel that most tweens have and we still have deep inside of us for people who really want to learn. So when I was working on secrets of the whales, when we were developing the project, we were looking at the whale behavior and looking at, from a very scientific point of view, it was very, very science driven. We were working with some of the top scientists in the world, accessing their data, profiling them, listening to them, and then how do we distill it? That's going to be, what's going to be that kind of curious hook. And a good example of it was orcas.
Orcas. They had discovered that in orcas, in different places in the world will eat different things and they will not eat something different. If there are fish, if they eat fish, they will only eat fish. And you can't pick that orca up and move it someplace and introduce it to seal a seal or, or something that that seal that orca that eats seals will not eat fish. It's very. The similarities to that is, you know, here in the United States, we eat a lot of hamburgers. We eat a lot of hot dogs. Where in Japan or elsewhere they eat a lot of fish. It's cultural differences. So it's finding those connections that you can say, oh, that makes sense. That kind of is kind of makes sense. So that's the joy that I bring. I love learning. I love finding out these new things. I learned something new yesterday and was telling my poor husband, who tolerates it. Cause I'm like.
And he's like, okay, what'd you do now? And I'm like, okay, let me tell you all about it. And I get so excited about it. So that's the joy that I bring when I'm working on these projects, is I love learning. Can I bring that passion to the audience as well? Yeah. Cool.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: What's the most exciting thing you've learned this past week?
[00:09:19] Speaker B: I've been working on a project about Yellowstone and the Yellowstone ecosystem. And, you know, the Yellowstone ecosystem has multiple types of habitats. Everybody thinks of grizzly bear and think of wolves, but there's this entire dry area that's part of the ecosystem. And it's similar to places, other places in the world where the rain only really falls on one side of the mountain, and on the other side, they don't get much rain at all. And the connection for me is my brother happens to live in Oahu, and my brother lives on the windward side, not the leeward side of Oahu. So he lives on the rainy side. And I'm like, oh, it's just like my brother. So it's the personal connection. It seems really silly. And, like, why didn't I know that before? But that connection of, like, hey, yeah, okay, I get that. So I learned that yesterday, and that was. And I've done numerous things on. On Yellowstone and the animals there. So I learned something new and. And I'll store it in my brain and, you know, be an excellent pub trivia partner, which is all documentary filmmakers are great trivia. Pub trivia partners. Yeah.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: I'm very jealous. Trivia is not my strong suit. I just. I tried it. Remember that app? Oh, man. What's it called?
[00:10:34] Speaker B: That.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: That used to have, like, trivia nights?
[00:10:37] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: Oh, I would be embarrassingly bad, and I'd have to do it at work.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: And it'd be like, okay, who can. Who can get it? And we. You're diving into, you know, we've all worked on most of us in this field. We've worked on hundreds of hours of programming, and yet my specialty is more on information heavy science, health history, documentaries. I had someone I was talking to recently, and she brought up a cast member on below deck, and I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't do reality. I don't do it. It's not my specialty. So I'm like, okay, sure, you know, that's great.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: So how did you find yourself in this world that you currently are in?
[00:11:29] Speaker B: Well, we can kind of go back to my mother, and what was going on was I graduated from college in 92, and my degree was in art history and video art. And there were, this is before the boom of cable tv. This is before streamers and everything. And there was very few jobs to get. So I ended up becoming a talent agent. So I used my art background and became a talent agent. And I had always had an analytical side of me, and I always had a side that was good at organizing and processing data. So when my mother got sick, I needed to move back home. And my friend happened to be a supervisor of the nighttime editors at Discovery Channel, which was just doing, like, really basic things. And I said, he said, I'll give you a job so you can help move back. So I took a huge pay cut and came and worked the midnight shift and ended up at Discovery Channel editing. And I had this kind of background in arthem. And what I found was I still had always loved learning. So I dove into it and said, well, if I love learning, but I also love telling stories, let's see if I can combine those two. And that's what I did, was, how do I tell this story? How do I convey this information in a way that's going to really be effective?
And my experience as an artist and then my experience running a business all kind of lend itself to do that. So I joke, the one class I didn't take in college was documentary filmmaking. I did not take it.
And people were like, you always wanted to be a documentary filmmaker? And I'm like, no, that wasn't part of my plan. But life throws you hurdles. Yeah, this is, nobody expects to have to kind of shift careers when you have a family emergency. But I have zero regrets. I have absolutely no regrets at all, because it was just what life had in store for me. And it ended up blending kind of my careers, where I had been running a business and doing sales and helping out artists who then tapping into my own art side and for many years, I worked at coming up with ideas for programs and developing shows for television.
It was a good balance of both sides of my brain and I've been able to kind of capitalize on that. Now. Don't ask me to do a budget. Not my thing.
I always underestimate. I have deferred that to, there are experts I work with who are fantastic at it, so I know where my limitations are. And in fact, I was trying to, been trying to do some more taxes and do some more money and my accountant explained something to me and I just completely just no idea what you're talking about, so. But that's how I balance both sides again. It's that I've always loved learning and that idea of being able to tell a story, I was still able to kind of do that. So that's how I kind of fell into it.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: That's really nice. It's, I mean, life is funny. Life really does throw you, as you said, hurdles. But it's, it's been really, it's cool to hear how you were just able to take that and just naturally fall into something that was perfect for you all along.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: You're so not defined by what you are in your, your twenties. There's so much life ahead and so much more to experience and it's, I like doing and challenging myself. I just recently took a mosaic art class. I am horrible at it. It was, it was, it was embarrassing how bad I was, but it was something new and I was like, I just want to try something new. So it's, it's, it's, you shouldn't feel that you're completely defined by like, what you are in your twenties or what you are in your thirties. There's so much time to kind of explore everything that's out there.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: That's so true. As someone in their twenties, I feel, I remember teenage me having goals, I guess, and ambitions for my twenties. And now that I'm in my twenties, it's like, what are you talking about? Like, it's just not how life panned out at all.
So I guess a question on that because I guess, I mean, if anyone's like me, it's hard sometimes to have ambitions and goals for things that you want to hit in your twenties or things you feel like you should hit by certain milestones and you don't. So do you have any advice for that? Like when you just, when it just doesn't work out of.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: I saw myself in college and I saw that I was going to be creating artwork and running a museum and seeing the world.
And I never, if someone had told me when I was in college that I was going to end up spending the majority of my life in my hometown, I would say, absolutely not. I don't believe you. I don't believe that that is what I meant to do.
But I realized that my goals shifted. My goals became less as I got older. My goals became less career focused, less monetarily focused. Don't. Don't get me wrong. I'm not gonna turn down money. Everybody, when everybody says that, I'm like, no, I'd be a millionaire. I'm not gonna. Not stupid. But, you know. Yeah. But what I found was gradually it was less about achieving and moving ahead and more about, does this kind of fulfill what I want to do, what drives me and what makes me happy? And I know that when I mentor people, family members, and there's some people, some young professionals I mentor through organizations, I say your goal is to, is to live responsibly as an adult. If you can live responsibly, then you can achieve your goals, whether you work at a coffee shop or you're an executive at an advertising agency. Just do it responsibly. If that feeds your soul, if that makes you happy. That's not to say, I know people who, they're going to drive and drive and drive, and their motivation is to succeed in business. And there is a part of me that's still like that. But that doesn't have to be the end goal. The end goal should be what is going to help you live responsibly and live the kind of life that you want to lead.
I think that's the advice I give, because when you look back on it and you look back on, there were days I would work 14 hours days, and there were days where I did quick turnaround documentaries about a natural disaster.
And those were exciting. That was great because I was young, I was motivated. I was like, I can do this. And as you get older, you're like, you know, this just isn't as exciting as it was.
This is not. What's more exciting now is, oh, I got wordle on the second one. Yay.
And there's nothing wrong with that. That's great. You know, when I was younger, it was like, oh, where am I going to go see the world now? One of my favorite times is to sit down on Sunday mornings and do the New York Times crossword puzzle, because it's a time of peace. It's a time to kind of contemplate and look at everything and kind of get grounded again. So I think for anybody, just keep in touch with what, what soothes you, what keeps you grounded. And as long as you keep in touch with that, be a day trader, be a barista, whatever that is. Just make sure you're feeding that part of you.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: That feels so peaceful, like, I can feel the peace that you're talking about. There's just, like, living, talk about living lighter, like, there's just a sense of freedom and release in the way you're describing it. So I feel compelled to ask, what is or in your life, what has been the thing that's fed your soul? What is that guiding thread for you?
[00:20:01] Speaker B: First family. I'm very thankful that I come from, I have siblings that I am extraordinarily close to, and they are my best friends in the world. And having that connection as well as, like I've mentioned, I have had the same best friends since I was a little kid. So they're almost family for me. So that helps me. It keeps me level. It keeps me, keeps me grounded. It's a very kind of good balancing act.
And as I said, I think that for me, constantly learning, constantly discovering something new, my husband and I like to go on Viking cruises, and we jokingly call them the nerd cruise because it's all about learning. It's all about going to cultural places and going to museums and visiting sites, because we love that. That feeds our soul, is to explore and learn. And for me, that brings me peace. That brings me to, it just, it just energizes me.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
Going back a little bit to storytelling, and I just, the way you were talking about something before, what has been a story that you've told that you still remember?
[00:21:32] Speaker B: Oh, that's a, that's an interesting one. I have some projects that are my favorite that are, that I worked on and I really care about.
I worked on one when I was at Discovery Channel that was called Discovery Atlas, and it was about exploring cultures around the world. And we approached it in a way to make it very relatable to people. We didn't want it to seem like we were because so frequently you see these things and it's like you're off to an exotic land and all those kind of bad, cliche, pseudo colonialist words pop out and everything. And we didn't want it to be that way because as I've traveled the world, I found that people are a lot more like each other than separate. It's, we're really, we're really a lot alike, you know, so it's that, that was something that was part of, part of the goal, and I was really engaged with it. It was a very much a passion project for me.
And so that's a story that's always stuck with me. It's a project that has really, I think, for me, what really gets me excited is when I come upon a story and I find a hook, I find something that I know people will be like, will get as energized. And I don't know if I throw movie quotes out all the time, but there's this great scene in searching for Bobby Fischer where Lawrence Fishburne recognizes that the kid has figured out how to win the game, and he points and he goes, there it is. And that's the moment in my head. I made it into a gif on my phone. It's just, that's it.
That's it. I found it. That's the hook. That's the thing that's going to pull everybody in. And that really, really rejuvenated. That makes me so happy and so motivated and so, like, one story I can tell you is that when I was working at my previous company with Red Rock, where we had huge success and just a wonderful experience in company, I was at the office, we were allowed to bring dogs in. And my dog, his name is Span, S p a n.
He was there. And my dog looks like he's like, got the body of a lab and these tiny, itty bitty legs.
He's very strange.
And people will see him and see him and go, think he's a big dog. And then it's like, oh, he's got no legs. It's like, no, he's got no leg.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: You know?
[00:24:21] Speaker B: And one day I was sitting there and I looked at them and I said, what? What are you.
Boom. And I came up with a show idea called who's your doggie? And it was on National Geographic, and it was, we take people who have mutts, we bring in experts, we look at them, we try to analyze by their behavior and their look what type of dog it is. And then we do the DNA test, and we find out what breeds they are. Right? Because people who have mutts look at their dogs and go, what? What is going on there? And that was just a revelatory moment. It was just this staring at my dog one day and going, what?
There's a show idea. That's great, you know? And so he ended up being profiled in the show. I just want to make this really clear. He went through an anonymous process. They had no idea was my dog. And the network chose him because he was so freaky looking. So it ended up. Was in the pilot. He was in the.
So that's. Those are the storytelling moments that stick with me. Is that. Aha. Moment of. That's what's gonna pull people in. That's what's gonna make people as excited and engaged as what pulls me in. So those are. Those are the moments that stick with me.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: That's nice. What type of dog is he?
[00:25:38] Speaker B: He's a lab chihuahua mix, which was horrifying to find out. Yeah.
Horrible. Lab chihuahua. Lab chihuahua. And then now that we know, you look at him and you. You totally see it. You can see how he's a lab chihuahua. And, of course, people are like, how did that happen? We're like, we don't know. We don't want to know. He's a rescue, you know? It's okay. Lab chihuahua. Yeah.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: I gotta look up lab chihuahua. I have pictures in my head, but it's just like, no, I love that. That's amazing. I love that so much.
So getting into the topic of just finding a hook. So have you ever been in a time where it's taken a bit to find a hook?
[00:26:23] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There's numerous times where you're working on something and you're plugging away. Either you're writing it or you're editing it together, and you're going, this isn't working. This is just not happening. And you have to sit back and go, okay, let's figure out what's going on. Let's see if we can break this down. And a lot of times you have to.
Sometimes it's taking post it notes or taking index cards. You put them on the wall and you look and you kind of analyze inappropriately. Call it, you, beautiful mind it. You kind of look and you start putting all the pieces together and make it all work. You know, sometimes you have to bring someone else in because you're really close to it and you can't see it because you've been working on it. You've been working on it so closely, it's like a pointillism painting. It's like a surratt painting. You're only seeing the dots, but you bring someone else in and you pull back and they can see the full perspective of it. So, for that, that is.
That's a really good way to kind of see if they can find and help you get back to what that initial motivation is. And there's also been times where I'll be developing an idea.
I think it's a good idea. I do the research, I bring on people. I start looking at it. I haven't sold it yet. I'm trying to work it. I'm trying to work it. And you just realize it's not there anymore. It's just, you hadn't, it was a nugget. It's, it's, I like using the phrase acorn. You have an acorn. How do you grow that into a tree? And sometimes the acorns, a dud. It's just not going to go anywhere. And you have to, you have to acknowledge that. You have to realize and that you have to walk away. And it's hard, it's hard when you have these ideas you really care about to walk away.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Yeah, but so then, like, how do you know, especially if you care about it and you've given so much time and resources to finding it, like, how do you, how do you know when.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: It'S done, if you have an idea and you can't generate the enthusiasm for it, if you can't find it? Because when you go and you have a show idea or a pitch idea, documentary idea, whatever, you have to convince people to get on board, whether it's the network, whether it's an investor, it's the crew, the director, talent, whomever, you have to convince them. If you can't generate that, if you can't convey that enthusiasm, if you can't convince them in your treatment, in your write up, in your whatever, your elevator pitch, your meeting, then you know it's not there because you've got to sell it. You've got to have the passion for it, even if it's not even your idea. And I work with companies and I advise them and they'll give me an idea and I'm like, okay, that's, I see it.
And I'll help them develop their pitch and then go pitch their idea. Because I see that. I see that potential. I see what's there if it's not there. Sometimes you just can't fake it that well. You've got to find that enthusiasm. And that's when it's really, really hard to just walk away. You know, I know that working with staff and working with younger professionals, they'll come to me with documentary idea and they'll say, look, I've got this, this idea. Can I pitch you? I'm like, sure. And they'll pitch it to me. And remember, no subtext. I don't mean it in bad way. It's just more of a nurturing thing. And I'll say, okay, what's minute 23?
What's the arc after this happens?
I'm only hearing nine minutes. I'm not hearing an hour.
I'm not seeing the full product. You've got to tell me what I'm going to see that entire time.
Or, you know, if it's a simple thing, like, if you're saying we're going to do the last voyage of the Titanic, okay, well, I can kind of see how that is. It's an explained narrative, but if you're bringing an idea, you have an idea, you have to think of it in that full context because you're telling a full story.
And if it's not there, then it's just not there. You've got to make sure you have it. All of it.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. That's very. I've never thought of it like that. Like having it all fleshed out in your mind before and having to. You can't fake enthusiasm.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: You can't. There are people who can, but the buyers, the networks, the people who have done it a lot.
During my time, I worked at National Geographic as a commissioner. I heard pitches and helped put them on the network. During that time, I heard 500 pitches over a three year period. I'm underestimating. It's got to be more than that. You learn to identify what's going to work, what's not. I'm not hearing that. I'm not seeing it. So the people who, they'll know, they'll say, hold on a second. And it's not coming from a bad position. It's coming from a position of expertise that they've seen it. They know what works. They can see and analyze. I can see how that story is going to play out. So, yeah.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: What is one client interaction that you still remember?
[00:31:59] Speaker B: I thoroughly enjoy working with my clients and the people I've interacted with. One thing I will tell you, and I just wrote about this on a LinkedIn essay, is it's a very small community. We all know each other. It's not as big as you think. It's a pretty small community. And if you don't know it, you're one or two degrees away from someone. There's been times where I've been in the room with an executive, and remember I was saying that. Aha. That Lawrence Fishburne, there it is. When they see it and you get that kind of like you're in sync it's a great moment, and it's like, they get it. They have all the enthusiasm that I have. This is great. And they'll be excited with you, and, okay, let's do this together.
Let's make this thing together, and let's make it. Let's make it great. You know? And that's a really great moment, is when you get that synergy, you get that connection of. Yes. Okay, we're gonna make something awesome here. Yeah.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: Oh, that's so cool. Like, the camaraderie, like, when two people, I can. I can picture, like, two, like, 13 year olds, like, working together on something, like, just going back to the idea of awe that you were talking about and just.
Just having that excitement.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Because we're creative people, so this idea of, you know, it does tap into, you know, let's go put on a play. You know, it's kind of that, let's go dance. Let's go do something. Because we're creatives, ultimately, we want to tell a story. We want to be really creative, and it's. And it's. When it goes great, it's so much fun and so thrilling. Yes. You work to the bone, and you're exhausted afterwards, and then you wake up after sleeping for two days, and you're like, okay, what's next? And you go and you do the next one. That's what you do. Yeah.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. I did so much theater when I was in college, and that is the feeling. You go through the shows, and you're in hell week, and you're like, oh, my God, I'm gonna die. Like, I haven't slept in days, but I have put on the show. Then you go to the cast party, and then you die. Then you wake up, and you're like, okay, so auditions are for the next one. You're just like, yeah. In this wiggle.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Dulce. Dulce. Sloan, the comedian from. She's on the great north and daily show. She talks about her theater experience, about just going and doing summer stock and being just white, and then was like, okay, what's next? Let's. What's next? Yeah. And it's. That's the adrenaline that creatives function with. They want that. We like that adrenaline. And so when you have that synergy, when you get that team and everybody's doing it, it's just. It's a great feeling. It's really wonderful.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: That's awesome.
The way that you tell your story and how you approach life is just so light and free. So I'm really curious, like, how do you have you define success in your life?
[00:35:05] Speaker B: I'm gonna tell a story. Okay. So. And this kind of defines success for me is when secrets of the whales came out, it was a big deal. It was, you know, a wonderful collaboration with James Cameron.
Sigourney Weaver narrated it. It was the second time I'd worked with her. She's just an incredible person. The team was just.
Everything was great. It was absolutely wonderful.
And remember, I'm a baseball junkie, so I have season tickets to the Washington Nationals and the people who sit around my seats. We have all become friends because we've all been seasoned ticket holders for years. Like, you know, I think going on 17 years, so we've gotten to know each other, and one of the people who sits by me, Bob, is now a retired curator for the National Park Service.
And he turned to me and he said, hey, I watched your whale sting.
Good job. That was great.
And that meant the world to me. And the only other compliment that meant the same was my neighbor's four year old daughter, who told me that she now loves Wales. And it was because of my shows.
So that's how I judge success. And I know this sounds like an upworthy moment, like some type of weird, like, Internet meme, but the fact is there's accolades and your peers, but when, you know, you've kind of really changed somebody, when you've, you've impressed not only a scientist, but a four year old who's now going to be passionate about these animals, that, to me, is success. That means so much to me. And, and I appreciate that. I. That's the.
Those are the things that I like, and I. It motivates me.
And as well as I'm a sister, a wife, a friend of, and then I'm a tv producer, so that's kind of the level of my. And I might even put baseball fan over tv producer, you know, not, it's. It's. It's just one part of who I am. So that's how I would define success.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: But I can. I can imagine that little girl, like, buying, like, a stuffed whale just because she saw my documentary. I mean, that is. That is a very. That's a cool sense of pride. Like, that is really cool.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: And even, like, there will be random people or family members who will mention a part of the show, and I'm like, oh, they watched it. Oh, wow. Okay.
Thank you. I really. I really appreciate it. You know, and if it sticks with them, they learned something and they enjoyed it, and it sticks with them, then my job was done. I was successful. So that's that. That's what makes me happy.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: It also sounds like they don't go out of their way to watch for stuff either. It just kind of, like, falls naturally. Or do they, like, try to, like, watch everything, like, in terms of, like, how much they're involved in your work?
[00:38:38] Speaker B: I'd love to say that I go and tell my friends and family to go watch, like, every single thing that I do.
I do not, and I don't, because even when my own stuff comes on tv, I don't want to watch it because, remember, I've seen it now, like, a hundred times. For me, it's, it's, I'm done. I've seen it. I know it. You know, I'll just find, I'm like, why did I put that edit there? Why didn't I do this? You know, that will really start to eat away at me and things. But it's also that, you know, if it's something I'm really proud of and something I think they'll enjoy, I'll absolutely recommend that they watch it. But I'm not.
How does this, I'm trying to think of how this sounds without sounding really weird. I'm not producing for them. I'm not, you know, if they want to watch it, that's great. You know, if someone had told me, I joke with an old high school friend of mine, you know, one of my close friends, and she did become a marine biologist, and she's like, I never thought you'd be doing lots of sharks documentaries. I said, I never thought I'd be doing lots of shark documentaries. It just happened that way, you know? And she's like, well, they're good. I'm like, okay, good. I'm glad you like them. That's great, you know?
You know, it's, it's, it's, it's nice when people watch it. It's nice when people appreciate it.
And if they want to watch it, they can watch it. I'm not going to force them to watch anything they don't want to watch.
[00:40:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it feels like you're just coming from a place of genuine love and care for this project and for the people that it's going to inspire that off, not necessarily, you know, for, like, approval or so it's just like, I don't know, it comes from a different place, so it just feels better.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: It comes from a very pragmatic place because the overwhelming majority, I mean, when I say over, I'm like 99% of the work I do is I am being paid for from a client to do it and to identify with their clientele and their clientele, meaning viewers. So recognizing what their viewers are, that's where that analytical side comes in. So I'm both creative and analytical, is knowing what that audience is going to be looking for. Because particularly this type of documentary, and I still say this, for anybody who wants to do documentary work, you are not making the product for yourself.
You're making it for an audience. Because if you make it for yourself, it's like the tree falls in the woods. Who's going to know? You've got to. It's going to be ineffective if your message isn't getting out, if that story isn't getting out. So you have to recognize the audience. You have to take that into consideration so you can make something that motivates you and energizes you. Like right now, I am independently developing a film.
It's only in development at the moment, but it's about the people who are at the back of the pack in Marathon, the people who finished dead last.
And it's something I'm passionate about because even if it takes you 9 hours to finish that marathon, you still ran 26.2 miles. You deserve all the kudos. And there's a special type of toughness and tenacity and grit and just amazing perseverance for someone who chooses to do that and achieves that. That's something I'm really passionate about. And I have to make sure that I'm making it for people to make them as passionate as I am. So I think that's a pragmatism that has to come in there because you're.
You can't just make it for yourself. You've got to make it for people to watch. Whether it's an indie, small indie doc film festival or it's for everybody on Netflix, you've got to make sure that you're taking the audience into consideration.
[00:42:35] Speaker A: You want to make sure you're being honest with yourself and don't do it for the expectations of other people.
[00:42:40] Speaker B: It's both. You can't lose sight of what motivates you and what you're passionate about and what you are. Whether you're finding that passion or you bring that passion, you can't lose that because that brings an honesty and it comes through in your work. And even if you're Martin Scorsese and you've been given a script and you're told you have to do the film he's still going to put his passion, his artistry and his fingerprints all over it. But if you make it for only your needs, your basis, your, for you and only you yourself, then you're not taking into consideration of what others will get from it. So. So, like, your style, this is amazing. It's like we're talking at a bar. We're just having a conversation. We're just, we're just kind of getting together and we're kind of exchanging and doing this.
But you're also conscious of like, who's going to hear this? Who is it going to go out to? You know, are you, would you invite the friend who. Maybe they're fascinating, but they don't talk a lot.
[00:43:58] Speaker A: Sorry. I don't know why. We all have that one friend who's like, I love you.
That's it. That's it.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: They might be the most creative, incredible person, but, and still lovable and great, but if you know that in an interaction for what you're producing, they're kind of a pill, you're not gonna do it. So that's. That's what I'm saying. It's both. I don't mean to kind of smash the, or crush the independent spirit or the artist spirit, because you do need to. You do need to have that and have that drive, but you can do that if you also just don't need to make money and live and pay your bills and do that.
[00:44:47] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a good point. When we're all millionaires, then.
[00:44:50] Speaker B: Then you can make whatever you want. And after it gets to a certain point where there's not a lot of nobility in box macaroni and cheese every night or ramen noodles, it doesn't.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:05] Speaker B: After a while it's like, uh, yeah.
[00:45:09] Speaker A: No, yeah, I need to shake things up like, I need to.
Oh, man, this has been amazing. I have one more question for you before you go.
[00:45:20] Speaker B: It's fun.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: Thanks. Oh, good. I'm glad you had fun.
And I love asking this question because it's always fun hearing people's responses. Okay.
If you were to go back in time to the beginning, whatever the beginning means for you, whether it be start of college or when you were ten years old and you wrote your first story or first play, what would you have told yourself?
[00:45:48] Speaker B: I typically have two answers to this. Right.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: And the reason is, I did have someone ask me that recently. It kind of stumped me because the one key thing is that life is going to throw you hurdles, and so it's going to throw. It's going to put stuff in front of you, and you can't predict that. And you don't want to predict that. You don't want to.
You don't want that to be a part of it, you know? I don't. I don't. You know, my mother's illness threw a huge hurdle in my life, and so I wouldn't want to say, you know, go back to my 16 year old self and be like, oh, guess what?
Some blank is going down. Just be ready, you know? Like, I don't want to do that. I don't want anybody. But I think that one thing I see and I. And I do wish I did know is life isn't that serious, and it's not that black and white. It's not.
There's so much gray in the world that makes life just not as complicated as it seems when you're young, you know? And there are things I would fret about and things I'd be nervous about, and I'd be like, well, I have to do this, and I want to do this, and I want to do this. And. And then as you get older, you do realize that there's other things that bring you joy and bring you, um, peace and bring you, um, fulfillment. And I I think I would go back and say, just don't take it all so seriously. It's good. It's. It's just, don't take it too seriously. And that's kind of my. My. My one thing is, um.
Yeah, you know, it's okay. It's. It's. You don't have to be so driven. You don't have to be.
It's all gonna be fine. Yeah.
[00:47:56] Speaker A: The pressure coming off, like, yeah, no, that feels really good.
[00:48:02] Speaker B: Thank you. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:48:07] Speaker A: Oh, man. Thank you so much. I really appreciated this.
[00:48:09] Speaker B: Absolutely. This was a lot of fun. So anytime. Yeah. And if we can do it in person, let's do it in person. Absolutely.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: Oh, that'd be awesome. Whenever you're in new York, please let me.
[00:48:20] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. Totally.
I will absolutely let you know when the next time I'm in New York.
[00:48:26] Speaker A: Yes, please.
