Documentary First: Conversations on Documentary Filmmaking

Who was Charles Grodin when the cameras weren't rolling?
Most people know Charles Grodin from Midnight Run, The Heartbreak Kid or Beethoven. Far fewer know that he spent the last 20 years of his life working to get women out of prison, and visited them every week. Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause, the Charles Grodin documentary from James L. Freedman, tells both stories.
In Episode 288, Christian sits down with James L. Freedman, a longtime sitcom writer who came to documentary filmmaking late. A question at a party about the best job he ever had led to his first film, Glickman, which Martin Scorsese executive produced for HBO. For his third, Grodin's widow, Elissa Grodin, sent him seven boxes of archives, about a hundred hours of material, and James did all of the research himself.
James explains why he wouldn't make "an hour of him being funny" with the activism saved for the end. Instead he seeded Grodin's conscience through the whole film: the class president who helped Black students in Pittsburgh, the 1969 Simon & Garfunkel television special that lost its sponsor, and the CNBC show that turned to social issues. James quotes Grodin's own line: "You don't want me to picket the governor's office, you want me to be in the governor's office."
He also walks through how he hunted down archival footage, how an independent filmmaker got Robert De Niro, Steve Martin, Martin Short and Elaine May on camera, and how he keeps a budget down as, in his words, "one guy making this movie."
WATCH THE FILM: Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause is available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home and Google Play.
James's film Carl Laemmle airs on TCM on Friday, October 23, at 8:00 p.m. ET.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why James writes down his first impression of everything he likes, so he remembers how it first hit him after he's gone numb to it
Why he finds a story's spine first, and how he knew his opening and closing when he saw them
How the stars said yes, and why famous interviewees want to know who else is in the film
How Elaine May changed her mind about an interview, and what she said after seeing the film
How a Johnny Carson story became a Charles Bronson sequence, and why every second needs intent
Where to find archival footage when none seems to exist
How fair use, donated clips, grants and paid festival screenings fit into a documentary budget
What surprised him most about Grodin: the weekly prison visits, and the father Grodin lost at 17

CHAPTERS
0:00 Midnight Run's Other Side
6:43 TV Writer Turned Filmmaker
12:24 Beginning, Middle and End
18:23 Getting De Niro and Elaine May
26:51 Charles Grodin on Johnny Carson
29:35 The Archival Footage Hunt
36:42 Narrating Your Own Documentary
39:43 Fair Use, Licensing and Costs
48:15 Scorsese's TCM Editing Trick
50:19 Weekly Prison Visits
53:54 Carl Laemmle Saved 300+ Refugees
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How did a small documentary get Robert De Niro, Steve Martin and Martin Short?
Director James L. Freedman says his first two films helped: Elissa Grodin watched both before giving him her husband's story, then connected him with Robert De Niro and Steve Martin. He cold-called Martin Short. Freedman believes they agreed because they loved Charles Grodin, and that stars want to see other recognizable names in a film so they know they aren't being exploited.
What did Charles Grodin do for prison reform?
For the last 20 years of his life, Charles Grodin worked to get women out of prison, most of them mothers of color with young children who had been caught in police stings. Director James L. Freedman says Grodin visited them every week, and a friend who saw him after those visits said he would come away a broken man, crying. As Freedman tells it, Grodin believed he could do more inside the governor's office than picketing outside it.
How do independent documentary filmmakers keep costs down?
James L. Freedman doesn't pay himself for his time, so he does the slow work himself: all of his own research and his own calls to studios. He asks rights holders to donate clips and photos, and when he has to pay, he asks for a discount, reminding them he is one filmmaker, not a corporation. When something unavoidable costs more, like a hotel suite for an interview, he makes the money back by spending less elsewhere.
How do you find archival footage for a documentary?
Director James L. Freedman does his own research and calls it a scavenger hunt. With no footage of Lovers and Other Strangers, the Broadway play Charles Grodin directed, he Googled every name in the Playbill and found a scene on The Ed Sullivan Show. For Glickman, he slowed a two-second newsreel shot to four seconds, and a snowy VHS tape led him to an old Paramount newsreel on nitrate film that came back crystal clear six months later.
DOCUVIEW DEJA VIEW PICKS
James's pick: Carl Laemmle (2019), his own second film, about the founder of Universal Studios, who helped more than 300 refugees escape Nazi Germany. It's on Amazon now. James says Glickman, his first film, comes to Fandango at Home by year's end.
Need a doc for date night? Browse every guest pick on our DocuView Deja View page.
SPONSORED BY VIRGIL FILMS ENTERTAINMENT
This episode is brought to you by Virgil Films Entertainment, distributor of Super Size Me and the Oscar-nominated Restrepo, with over 25 years of distribution experience. https://virgilfilms.com
LISTEN AND FOLLOW
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Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@documentaryfirst
SUPPORT THE SHOW
Join our community on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/DocumentaryFirst
CONNECT WITH DOCUMENTARY FIRST
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Christian Taylor on LinkedIn
ABOUT THE GUEST
James L. Freedman
Writer, director and narrator, Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause
James L. Freedman wrote in Hollywood for more than 25 years, on shows including Coach, Cybill, where he was also a co-producer, and Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane. Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause, his third film, is distributed by Virgil Films.
Website: https://charlesgrodinfilm.com
X (the film): https://x.com/ChuckGrodinFilm
ABOUT DOCUMENTARY FIRST
Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers, distributors, entertainment lawyers, actors and more, from Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy to first-timers, across nearly 300 conversations. Each week brings one of two formats: a long-form conversation with the people behind films for HBO, Netflix, PBS and independent film, or The Deep Dive, where Christian takes one insight from a recent conversation and follows it wherever it leads. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. New episodes every week.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
TCM Films on Film schedule

What does The Velveteen Rabbit, a 1922 children's book about a stuffed toy, have to do with old home movies and AI?

In Margery Williams' classic story, an old toy called the Skin Horse tells a stuffed rabbit that being real isn't about how you are made. It is something that happens to you when you are loved for a long time. In this episode of Documentary First: The Deep Dive, Christian Taylor follows that idea from the nursery to old home movies, the scratchy 8mm reels families shot for decades, and asks what it means to keep things real now that tools can make footage of things that never happened.
In this Deep Dive on Documentary First Episode 287 with Phil Maher, founder of Stockfilm, a home movie archive with over 200,000 clips from the 1930s to the 1980s, Christian picks up on something Phil told her. Stockfilm keeps the scratches and the dust, because they make the footage feel original and real. That sent her back to Christmas Day, 1986, in her family's home in Arlington, Virginia. She was 17. Her little sister Annie, then three, had been given The Velveteen Rabbit as a book and cassette, read by Meryl Streep with George Winston playing the music underneath. Annie fell asleep in her lap. Christian kept listening, had never heard the story before, and found herself crying. It became her favorite story to read to children.
From there, Christian brings the Skin Horse's idea back to Phil's archive. Phil has seen hundreds of Christmases on those reels and thinks of himself as a steward of these people's lives. Christian looks at why that kind of real matters more now that AI can show a face that never existed or a moment in history nobody was there to see, and at Phil's clear line: the footage itself stays 100 percent real, because it is the historical record. She shares why she has spent weeks setting up a NAS, network-attached storage, at home: she doesn't want to lose years of work, and the RAID drive holding her film The Girl Who Wore Freedom is failing. She also talks about why so many people want to own the album or the CD again instead of licensing it. She closes with practical steps for anyone with a box of old reels in the closet, and with the end of the rabbit's story, where his spots still show through.
In this episode, Christian explores:
Hearing The Velveteen Rabbit for the first time on Christmas Day, 1986
Why, once you are real, shabbiness doesn't matter
Why imperfection can be what makes an audience believe a film
Why Christian is setting up a NAS while the RAID drive holding her film is failing
Owning a movie or an album versus licensing it
What Phil sees again and again on old reels: people dancing together

CHAPTERS
0:00 The Velveteen Rabbit, Christmas 1986
4:21 What Is Real? The Skin Horse
6:34 Scratches, Dust and AI Footage
9:40 Why Physical Media Still Matters
13:50 The Splendid New Bunny
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is the Skin Horse's quote about being real in The Velveteen Rabbit?
In Margery Williams' 1922 book, the old Skin Horse tells the Rabbit that "Real isn't how you are made" and that "It's a thing that happens to you." A toy becomes real when a child loves it for a long time, not just to play with. By then most of its hair has been loved off and it is shabby, but, as the Skin Horse says, once you are real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.
Why do filmmakers leave the scratches and dust in old home movies?
Phil Maher, who founded Stockfilm, keeps his footage as close to the original as he can, scratches included. He says those marks make footage feel original and real, and show that this is how it looked. In this Deep Dive, Christian Taylor argues the imperfection is sometimes the very thing that lets an audience believe a film, and suggests filmmakers leave the scratches in when they tell the truth.
How do you preserve old home movies and film reels?
Start by not throwing them out. Phil Maher of Stockfilm says that is how many family memories get lost: reels sit in a closet in a format nobody knows how to play, until someone tosses them. Get them digitized, but keep the originals, and keep them away from heat and humidity. Then store copies in more than one place. Phil keeps three: on-site, in the cloud, and off-site with no internet connection.
Who narrated the 1985 recording of The Velveteen Rabbit?
The 1985 Rabbit Ears Productions recording of The Velveteen Rabbit was narrated by Meryl Streep, with music by pianist George Winston. It was sold as a book and cassette. Christian Taylor first heard it on Christmas Day, 1986, when her little sister Annie, then three, was given the set as a gift. Annie fell asleep, but Christian, then 17, kept listening and has read the story to children ever since.
Should filmmakers tell audiences when they use AI to recreate history?
Yes, according to Phil Maher, founder of the home movie archive Stockfilm. He uses AI to date and search footage, but he keeps the footage itself 100 percent real, because it is the historical record. If a filmmaker uses AI to recreate a moment in history, he says, the audience should be told what is real and what isn't. Christian Taylor agrees, and adds that viewers will likely trust the film more for it.
LISTEN AND FOLLOW
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SUPPORT THE SHOW
Join the Documentary First community on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/DocumentaryFirst
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Christian Taylor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meetchristiantaylor
ABOUT THE TOPIC
The Velveteen Rabbit
The Velveteen Rabbit, or How Toys Become Real, was written by Margery Williams and first published in 1922 with illustrations by William Nicholson. It is in the public domain in the United States and free to read through Project Gutenberg.
The 1985 Recording
Rabbit Ears Productions released The Velveteen Rabbit in 1985, narrated by Meryl Streep with music by pianist George Winston. It was sold as a book and cassette.
Phil Maher and Stockfilm
Phil Maher founded Stockfilm in 2015, after digitizing his grandfather's 8mm home movies. Stockfilm licenses real 8mm and Super 8 home movie footage from the 1930s through the 1980s, keeps every physical reel after scanning, and uses AI to search and catalog the archive, never to alter the footage.
Website: https://stockfilm.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philmaher/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stockfilm
X: https://x.com/stockfilmcom
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StockFilmFootage
The Source Episode
Archival Footage: Why Use Home Movies?, Documentary First Episode 287 with Phil Maher
Listen: https://pod.fo/e/699995
Watch: https://youtu.be/pQ7OXqY2av4
ABOUT DOCUMENTARY FIRST
Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers, distributors, entertainment lawyers, actors and more, from Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy to first-timers, across nearly 300 conversations. Each week brings one of two formats: a long-form conversation with the people behind films for HBO, Netflix, PBS and independent film, or The Deep Dive, where Christian takes one insight from a recent conversation and follows it wherever it leads. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. New episodes every week.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams (Project Gutenberg): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11757
The Velveteen Rabbit, Rabbit Ears Productions recording, 1985 (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Velveteen_Rabbit_(album)

What happens to a family's home movies when no one knows what to do with them?
Phil Maher was a software engineer looking for a sense of purpose when he started watching his grandfather's family reels and saw his father and his brothers, a big Irish Catholic family in Chicago. He kept going. Some families sold him their reels; others gave them so their family would be remembered. "Everyone's lost to history except the few elites that make it through history and are remembered," Phil says, and he wanted to be "a steward to these people's lives," down to their vacation trips, Halloween costumes and Christmases. Those home movies, the 8mm and Super 8 reels families shot from the 1930s through the 1980s, are archival footage that adds texture and emotion without narration having to explain it.
In Episode 287, Christian sits down with Phil Maher, founder of Stockfilm, a home movie archive with over 200,000 clips. Since 2015, Phil has built a library of archival footage that filmmakers can search and license. Stockfilm keeps every scratch and flaw on purpose, and it keeps the physical reel after every scan.
Phil walks through how a reel becomes a licensable 4K clip: cleaning, splicing, scanning, and dating footage with no label by reading the cars and clothes in the frame. He explains vinegar syndrome and why one decaying reel can damage the reels stored beside it. Christian and Phil take on footage houses that charge for public domain Signal Corps film and draw a firm line on AI. Stockfilm uses it to search and catalog the archive, never to change a frame. As Phil puts it, "We can prove every frame that we have, because we have it." Christian also shares 1947 home movies of Carentan, Normandy, shot by the father of Yves Marchais, whose story is at the center of her film in production, Heroes of Carentan.
The conversation turns to physical film versus cloud storage, and Christian brings up the Nine PBS case. In March 2026, the St. Louis public television station lost access to more than 50 terabytes of its archive, 70 years of its history, when its cloud storage vendor cut off access. It backs up Phil's point that the cloud can go away, because you do not really own it.
In this episode, you'll learn:
How one family's 8mm reels became a searchable archive
Why you should keep the physical reel after digitizing it
Why physical media belongs in a real backup plan

CHAPTERS
0:00 A Grandfather's 8mm Became Stockfilm
9:28 Racing to Save Fading Film
13:18 How Do You Date Unlabeled Reels?
18:38 What Is Vinegar Syndrome?
20:56 Is Public Domain Footage Free?
23:36 Why Home Movies Move Audiences
27:18 Smoking, Dancing, Forgetting to Smile
32:34 AI in Documentary Filmmaking
35:02 Cloud or Physical Media?
39:08 Donating Your Family Archive
42:44 Dawson City: Frozen Time
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Why use home movies as archival footage in a documentary?
Home movies capture ordinary life the way it actually looked, scratches and all. Stockfilm founder Phil Maher says filmmakers turn to them when they want texture and emotion, something real that doesn't need narration to explain it. In his words, "A few seconds of just showing someone a place and time can really just get people into that spot and really create that moment that connects with the audience."
Where can I find free archival footage for a documentary?
Much U.S. government footage, including World War II Signal Corps film, is free through the National Archives and the Library of Congress. Christian Taylor points out that commercial footage houses often charge download and license fees for that same public domain material. Doing the research yourself takes longer, but it can save an independent film real money.
How do you date old home movie footage with no label?
Start with the clues inside the frame. Phil Maher of Stockfilm explains that cars are one of the best markers, because a shot can't predate the model year of a car that appears in it. Clothing narrows it further. Today AI image recognition helps suggest dates and keywords, but the footage itself is never altered.
What is vinegar syndrome in old film?
Vinegar syndrome is the breakdown of acetate safety film, the stock used for most 8mm and Super 8 home movies. As it degrades, the film gives off a vinegar smell, warps, shrinks and dries out. Phil Maher warns it can spread almost like a mold to reels stored nearby, so separate affected film and keep it away from heat and humidity.
Should documentaries label AI-generated historical footage?
Yes, according to Phil Maher. Stockfilm uses AI to search and catalog its archive but never to alter the footage, because the footage is the historical record. If a filmmaker uses AI to recreate a historical battle or event, Maher says the audience needs to be told it is AI-created, a fictional rendition of what may or may not have happened.
DOCUVIEW DÉJÀ VU PICKS
Phil's pick: Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016), directed by Bill Morrison, built from more than 500 silent-era reels dug out of the Yukon permafrost in 1978.
SPONSORED BY VIRGIL FILMS ENTERTAINMENT
This episode is brought to you by Virgil Films Entertainment, distributor of Super Size Me and the Oscar-nominated Restrepo, with over 25 years of distribution experience. https://virgilfilms.com
LISTEN AND FOLLOW
Listen and subscribe wherever you get podcasts: https://pod.fo/e/699995
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pQ7OXqY2av4
SUPPORT THE SHOW
Join our community on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/DocumentaryFirst
CONNECT WITH DOCUMENTARY FIRST
All platforms: https://linktr.ee/doc1st
Christian Taylor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meetchristiantaylor
ABOUT THE GUEST
Phil Maher
Founder, Stockfilm
Phil Maher holds a computer science degree from Illinois State University and spent his career as a software engineer. He founded Stockfilm in 2015 and has spent more than a decade collecting, scanning and cataloging family reels.
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://stockfilm.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philmaher/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stockfilm
X: https://x.com/stockfilmcom
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StockFilmFootage
ABOUT DOCUMENTARY FIRST
Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers, distributors, entertainment lawyers, actors and more, from Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy to first-timers, across nearly 300 conversations. Each week brings one of two formats: a long-form conversation with the people behind films for HBO, Netflix, PBS and independent film, or The Deep Dive, where Christian takes one insight from a recent conversation and follows it wherever it leads. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. New episodes every week.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
National Archives: https://www.archives.gov
Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov
Dawson City: Frozen Time (Bill Morrison, 2016): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5215486/
Nine PBS lawsuit (Current): https://current.org/2026/08/nine-pbs-sues-iron-mountain-over-blocked-access-to-archival-data/

Do you have a documentary, or do you have a Wikipedia entry?

Somebody decides whether your documentary gets made. Sophia Dilley is one of those people. She runs Concord Originals, the division behind Stax: Soulsville U.S.A. on HBO, and she is Co-President of RKO, which Concord bought in June 2025 along with more than 5,000 titles including King Kong, Citizen Kane and It's a Wonderful Life. In this episode she gives away the three questions she asks before her team commits to anything.
In Episode 286, Christian sits down with Sophia Dilley, Executive Vice President of Concord Originals and Co-President of RKO, to talk about how a project gets chosen, how to reach out to someone far above you, and how music rights for film work when the budget you have is the only budget there is.
The spine of the conversation is a question Dilley asks before her team commits to anything: is this a Wikipedia story we're telling? If the whole thing is already available in twelve seconds of searching, there may not be a film in it. Around that sit her two other threshold questions, a working answer to why the documentary business feels impossible right now, and the plainest reassurance in the episode. "It's scary," she says. "It's scary for everybody." Along the way: a punk band that played CBGB's, a production designer father who left for set at four forty-five in the morning, Roger Deakins as a case study in how to write to someone you admire, and the difference between distribution rights and derivative rights, which is the thing almost everyone (including Christian!) got wrong about the RKO deal. If you have ever been told that music rights for film are impossible on an independent budget, she has a different answer.
In this episode, you'll learn:
The three questions Sophia Dilley asks before committing to any story
How to tell whether you have a film or a Wikipedia entry
What to say to a music company when the budget you have is the only budget there is
Why a rejection is usually about the marketplace rather than about your film
How to open a door with someone you admire without being, in her words, a scary, creepy fan
What it looks like inside a company that generates most of its projects out of its own catalog

CHAPTERS
0:00 What Concord Actually Bought With RKO
5:34 From CBGB's to Running a Studio Division
11:42 Reaching Out to People Above You
16:32 Why Distribution Is Scary for Everybody
21:26 Who Are You Really Competing With?
26:02 Music Rights for Film: Sync and Publishing
29:49 Why a Doc Takes Five Years
34:54 How Does She Decide What Gets Made?
41:44 Women, Allies, and Your Replacement
46:05 What if You Can't Afford the Song?
50:05 Closing Argument and DocuView Deja Vu
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How do you get music rights for a documentary?
You need permission from more than one owner. The song belongs to a publisher and the specific recording belongs to a label, so most documentaries need both a sync license and a master use license. On Stax: Soulsville U.S.A., that meant clearing more than thirty artists, multiple publishers and several estates. Concord Originals EVP Sophia Dilley says the first step is acknowledging you need those rights before you build the film around them.
What if I can't afford to license a song for my film?
Call anyway, and be honest about the budget. Sophia Dilley advises independent filmmakers to say who they are, name what the film was made for, show the actual scene the song would sit under, and ask directly for help. "Behind every door at every music company, there are real people," she says. A studio with a real budget cannot use that approach. A genuine independent often can.
How long does it take to make a music documentary?
Longer than most filmmakers expect. Sophia Dilley of Concord Originals puts the average at five years, at least. Stax: Soulsville U.S.A. began in 2018, when a colleague walked into her office with the story, and premiered on HBO in May 2024. Much of that time goes to music rights, estates and publishers rather than to production, because every stakeholder connected to the music has to be brought on side first.
Who owns RKO now?
Concord Originals acquired RKO Pictures in June 2025, but the deal is narrower than it sounds. Distribution rights to the classic RKO library remain with Turner. What Concord bought are the derivative rights, meaning remakes, sequels, prequels, story and stage rights to more than 5,000 titles the studio produced in-house. Sophia Dilley serves as Co-President of RKO, which continues to operate under Concord Originals.
DOCUVIEW DEJA VU PICKS
Sophia Dilley's picks:
New York Doll (2005), directed by Greg Whiteley. A deep cut about Arthur "Killer" Kane of the New York Dolls and his search for his own history. Dilley notes that Whiteley went on to make Cheer, and the warmth is already here.
Science Fair (2018), directed by Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster. She saw it at SXSW, where it won the Audience Award. Teenagers at the international science fair, and, in her words, so much magic in following a real human story.

SPONSORED BY
This episode is brought to you by Virgil Films Entertainment. Over 25 years of distribution experience, from Super Size Me and the Oscar-nominated Restrepo to Forks Over Knives and Speed is Expensive. If you are a filmmaker having trouble with distribution, talk to Virgil.
LISTEN AND FOLLOW
Listen on any podcast app: https://pod.fo/e/5ffe38
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@documentaryfirst
Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/DocumentaryFirst
CONNECT
Documentary First on all platforms: https://linktr.ee/doc1st
Christian Taylor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meetchristiantaylor
ABOUT THE GUEST
Sophia Dilley is Executive Vice President of Concord Originals and Co-President of RKO. Concord hired her in 2018 to build a content strategy, and in 2021 she launched Concord Originals, the company's film and television division. Her father was a production designer, so she grew up on movie sets watching what the work actually costs. Before film, she thought she would go into music: piano, violin, voice lessons, and a punk band in high school that played CBGB's in New York.
ABOUT CONCORD ORIGINALS
Concord Originals is the film and television arm of Concord, developing screen stories out of one of the largest independent music and theatrical catalogs in the world. Most of its projects are self-generated, which Dilley describes as the division's whole remit: take what is already under the roof and find a new life for it. Because the catalog is the source, music rights for film sit at the center of nearly every project the division takes on.
Recent and upcoming work discussed in this episode:
Stax: Soulsville U.S.A. (HBO, 2024), the four-part series directed by Jamila Wignot. Peabody winner, nominated for two Emmys.
Billy Preston: That's the Way God Planned It (2026), directed by Paris Barclay, in theaters through Abramorama.
Pretty Ugly: The Story of the Lunachicks (2026), directed by Ilya Chaiken, brought to Concord by Betsy West and Julie Cohen.
Films on Billie Holiday, Cyndi Lauper, Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop, and Creedence Clearwater Revival, with Robert Johnson and Fania Records on the way.

ABOUT DOCUMENTARY FIRST
Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers, distributors, entertainment lawyers, actors and more, from Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy to first-timers, across nearly 300 conversations. Each week brings one of two formats: a long-form conversation with the people behind films for HBO, Netflix, PBS and independent film, or The Deep Dive, where Christian takes one insight from a recent conversation and follows it wherever it leads. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. New episodes every week.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Soulsville U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records by Rob Bowman, the book behind the film: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2775862
Documentary First Episode 277, Teddy Cannon on music rights and licensing, the other side of this conversation: https://pod.fo/e/413f3a

Who finishes your film if you can't?
Andre N. Jackson had never made a film. He had twenty years in technology and security, an idea that arrived while he was sitting in a barber's chair, and no way into the industry. He finished the film anyway, and he came on the show with three lessons for other filmmakers. Two more came out while we were talking.
In Episode 285, Christian sits down with first-time filmmaker Andre N. Jackson to talk about "Beyond Banners," his film about the basketball program at Gwynn Park High School in Prince George's County, Maryland. Over a twenty-year run the team reached twelve state championships and won more than any high school in the state. The film starts there and ends up somewhere else entirely.
Andre puts it plainly: "I actually learned about filmmaking through making a film." The spine of the conversation is what it takes to make a documentary when nothing is set up in your favor. Andre leaned on the research and analysis skills he built as an intelligence analyst, cold-called a Hall of Fame coach, funded it through a fiscal sponsor, used AI as a second brain, and kept going through two heart attacks in three days, the second while he was still in the hospital. Along the way the film became a story about stewardship, about the people who stayed, and about what the commercialization of youth sports is doing to community public schools.
In this episode, you'll learn:
How an idea that arrived in a barber's chair became a finished film with no film school behind it
What a fiscal sponsor is, and how the Southern Documentary Fund made donors want to give
What two heart attacks in three days taught him about succession, and what he changed the week he got out

THE FIVE LESSONS
Lean into your superpowers
Get comfortable taking calculated risks
Get creative about filling gaps
Plan for your absence
Use AI as a second brain

CHAPTERS
0:00 No Film School, No Connections
3:16 How Do You Fund a First Documentary?
6:09 When a Team Becomes a Town
11:53 The Cost of Commercializing Youth Sports
18:58 Planning for Your Own Absence
24:37 AI as a Second Brain
29:16 Cold Calling a Hall of Fame Coach
33:45 Why the Collective Should Matter
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How do you make a documentary with no film school?
Lean into the skills you already have and hire for the ones you do not. Andre N. Jackson spent twenty years as an intelligence analyst, so he built his film on research and relationship building, the two things he was already good at. Then he deliberately recruited crew members who covered his gaps in craft and experience. He learned filmmaking by making a film, not before making one.
How do you fund a documentary with no industry money?
A fiscal sponsor is the most common route. It is a 501(c)(3) that sits between your project and your donors, so contributions become tax deductible and donors have a reason to say yes. Andre used the Southern Documentary Fund. You apply, you are accepted, you onboard, and then you can offer donors a tax break for backing your film. He combined that with personal funds and direct fundraising.
How do you get well-known people to be in your documentary?
Cold call them, and be specific about who you both know. Andre landed Hall of Fame coach Tubby Smith by reaching out directly and naming a mutual connection to establish trust. He got Wake Forest star Randolph Childress through a warm introduction from a Gwynn Park alumnus. The pattern is the same either way: ask, and use the relationships your relationships already have.
What happens to your documentary if you cannot finish it?
Plan for your absence before you need to. After two heart attacks during production, Andre started documenting what had only ever lived in his head and briefed his executive producer and his producer on the next steps, so the film could be completed whether or not he was there. Contingency planning in film usually means backup drives. It should also mean succession.
Can AI help you make your first documentary?
Andre used it three ways: to learn the end-to-end production process he never went to film school for, to generate an animated reenactment of a co-protagonist who had died and left almost no footage behind, and as a second brain that challenged his assumptions and pressure-tested his interview questions. He was clear it supplemented human mentorship rather than replacing it.
DOCUVIEW DÉJÀ VU PICKS
"Undefeated" (2011), directed by Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Andre's direct inspiration for making "Beyond Banners."
"The Last Dance" (2020), ESPN and Netflix. Andre is a Michael Jordan fan and names it as the film that came before Undefeated for him.

SPONSORED BY
This episode is brought to you by Virgil Films Entertainment, distributor of Super Size Me and the Oscar-nominated Restrepo, with over 25 years of distribution experience. Virgil Films Entertainment
ABOUT THE GUEST
Andre N. Jackson is a first-time documentary filmmaker based in Fairfax, Virginia, who wrote and directed "Beyond Banners." He spent twenty years in technology and security, including work as an intelligence analyst on cybersecurity and terrorism issues, and is a 1998 graduate of Gwynn Park High School, the subject of his film.
ABOUT THE FILM
"Beyond Banners" is directed by Andre N. Jackson and follows the basketball program at Gwynn Park High School in Prince George's County, Maryland. In the words of the film's own logline: a son returns to his alma mater to carry his father's coaching legacy, only to discover that the winning tradition he grew up in was built for a world that no longer exists.
Website: https://beyondbannersdocumentary.com
Instagram: @beyondbannersdocumentary
ABOUT DOCUMENTARY FIRST
Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers, distributors, entertainment lawyers, actors and more, from Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy to first-timers, across nearly 300 conversations. Each week brings one of two formats: a long-form conversation with the people behind films for HBO, Netflix, PBS and independent film, or The Deep Dive, where Christian takes one insight from a recent conversation and follows it wherever it leads. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. New episodes every week.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Southern Documentary Fund, fiscal sponsorship: https://southerndocumentaryfund.org
James Hawkins, book on Gwynn Park's 1968 to 1970 state championship three-peat
Marquis Smalls, writer, director and producer, Street Dreams Films, Brooklyn, New York: https://streetdreamsfilms.com
Higgsfield, the AI tool used for the animated reenactment

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