The Tim Ferriss Show - #597: Morgan Fallon — 10 Years on the Road with Anthony Bourdain, 9 Emmy Nominations, Lessons from Michael Mann, Adventures with Steven Rinella, High Standards, Wisdom from West Virginia, and More

Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode is brought to you by Gravity, makers of the original weighted blanket. Listeners of this podcast know I place sleep at the very top of my list for optimizing health, energy, and performance. I've had onset insomnia and all sorts of sleep issues almost my entire life. It does not come easy for me, which is why I'm always experimenting and adding new sleep aids to my roster of experimentation. This is currently my number one priority because it's the basis, the foundation for everything else. If that's in place, it helps everything else. If it's not in place, it hurts everything else. One of my new favorites is the gravity

Starting point is 00:00:35 weighted blanket. My girlfriend is also a fan. You might recognize gravity from some of my interviews on this podcast with superhuman athletes. A number of them use gravity-weighted blankets and have mentioned them, which is how I picked up the thread and ended up testing them out. 72% of gravity users have reported better, more restful sleep, and 76% have reported falling asleep faster and feeling more rested in the morning. For me, the falling asleep faster is the key piece. Better, deeper, uninterrupted sleep is key for brain function and cognitive abilities, as well as everything cardiovascular health to immune function. You know this. And if you do any form of training,

Starting point is 00:01:15 it's also the cornerstone of recovery. Gravity is the leader in weighted blanket technology. They have all sorts of other products as well, which you could check out. And they have been named the best weighted blanket by CNN, Business Insider, Good Housekeeping, and many more. And now Gravity is offering you guys, my listeners, a special discount. Order a blanket of any size or weight and receive 15% off of your order. Just go to gravityblankets.com slash Tim, and the discount will be automatically applied. That's 15% off at gravityblankets, gravityblankets.com slash Tim to get your own original weighted blanket, gravityblankets.com slash Tim. This podcast episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Sleep is super important to me in the last

Starting point is 00:02:06 few years. I've come to conclude it is the end-all be-all, that all good things, good mood, good performance, good everything seem to stem from good sleep. So I've tried a lot to optimize it. I've tried pills and potions, all sorts of different mattresses, you name it. And for the last few years, I've been sleeping on a Helix Midnight Luxe mattress. I also have one in the guest bedroom and feedback from friends has always been fantastic. It's something that they comment on. Helix Sleep has a quiz, takes about two minutes to complete, that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. With Helix, there's a specific mattress for each and every body. That is your body, also your taste. So let's say you sleep on your side and like a super soft

Starting point is 00:02:51 bed. No problem. Or if you're a back sleeper who likes a mattress that's as firm as a rock, they've got a mattress for you too. Helix was selected as the number one best overall mattress pick of 2020 by GQ Magazine, Wired, Apartment Therapy, and many others. Just go to helixsleep.com slash Tim, take their two-minute sleep quiz, and they'll match you to a customized mattress that will give you the best sleep of your life. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for 100 nights risk-free. They'll even pick it up from you if you don't love it. And now, my dear listeners, Helix is offering up to $200 off of all mattress orders and two free pillows at helixsleep.com slash Tim. These are not cheap pillows either, so getting two

Starting point is 00:03:32 for free is an upgraded deal. So that's up to $200-E-L-I-X, sleep.com slash Tim for up to $200 off. So check it out one more time. Helix, H-E-L-I-X, sleep.com slash Tim. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would you see an appropriate time. What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

Starting point is 00:04:11 The Tim Ferriss Show. So you started mountain biking a couple of years ago. Actually, right after Tony died. I quit drinking right after Tony died and started mountain biking a lot. I tend to overdo it with everything. So mellow trail mountain biking on the fire roads quickly turned into enduro charging on these DIY kind of ridiculous enduro courses that they build around here that are totally unpredictable, really unpredictable lips on the jumps and stuff like that. And I ended up just hammering one of these things and had just a horrific crash. I broke my nose. My nose was sideways. I was all torn up. I made my way back

Starting point is 00:04:57 to the main trail and these two Russian guys actually helped me out. And you know, you're in bad shape when the Russian guys have have to help you out that's right yeah exactly the but the difference the profound difference in like having that fall at 44 as opposed to the last time i had ridden when i was young is it's unreal i'd never broken anything i'd never even hurt myself and it's's like, I just shattered on the ground. It was like dropping like a China plate, you know? Oh, so bad. It's so bad. So you are, or at points have been, and have also self-described as a very physical shooter. And if I'm remembering correctly, please, please call BS on me if I'm

Starting point is 00:05:43 misremembering, but you told me a story about running, I want to say, on a football field while filming. Could you just briefly tell that story to give people an idea of what physical shooter means? You might give an additional example after that, but I just remember almost losing my lunch with that one. So why don't we start there? Well, this was kind of the depressing example. But yeah, we were shooting a documentary, me and my longtime friend, Todd Lubin, who I'm still in contact with. We're shooting a documentary in 2003 on a football team in South Carolina, Coastal Carolina, who's gone on to become D2 champions. I mean, they're players in the NFLfl and stuff there's a really good program now but uh i was trying to run sprints while holding the camera sideways along with you

Starting point is 00:06:31 know the players as they were running sprints i started with like the o-line and it's like the o-line guys you can keep up with the o-line guys right so i got all cocky feeling like i was hot shit running with the o-line guys who were 15 years older than now. I started, I tried to run with the, uh, the running backs. It was like, I was racing a Ferrari in a shopping cart. Yeah. So I'm running down the side and I, and yeah, I stepped in a hole and just, oh, obliterated my knee, just blew it to shreds. But the dumbest thing I did was I went, I flew to New Hampshire. I got an MRI and flew back and finished the show. I shot another two months on the, on the knee before getting surgery. And I regret it every day.

Starting point is 00:07:11 I mean, it's just a disaster now. I didn't know that everything's amplified when you get older, you know? And so it's like, you ever climbed up the top of a mast on a sailboat when you're out at sea? I wish I could say yes, but yes but i haven't well i've done this more than once but it's kind of mellow when you're on the deck you're kind of rolling and stuff when you realize you're at the top of a 60 foot mask those the little bit of rolling there is like these massive 20 foot swings back and forth and you just get shredded that's what growing old is with injuries it's like at the point of injury, it was kind of mellow. I was like, oh, I can roll with this. I'm tough. I got tons of hormones still producing in my body and

Starting point is 00:07:53 I can do anything. I just didn't realize that at 46 now, the effect of that would be so amplified that I basically spend my life limping around. Well, you and me both. You and me both, but I feel like you have better stories to tell. Most of mine are just from terrible decisions and questionable circumstances. But before we get any further, let me just read this bio, which was fun to read because I don't know if I've actually read a bio of yours before. Obviously, we've spent some time together. But let me just jump into this. Morgan Fallon on Twitter, at Diamond Mo Fallon, is a nine-time Emmy-nominated executive producer, director, and cinematographer who was born and

Starting point is 00:08:29 raised in New England and studied film at Emerson College in Boston. First question is probably going to be what you learned and did not learn in your film courses at Emerson. After graduating, he spent three years working for his mentor, director Michael Mann. And in 2007, he began a long-term working relationship with producers Chris Collins and Lydia Tenaglia and their New York-based production company, 0.0 Productions. Through his tenure at ZPZ, Fallon focused primarily on work with ZPZ creative partner, Anthony Bourdain, on several episodic series and documentaries produced by Bourdain, including the Emmy-winning Mind of a Chef, the theatrically distributed documentary, The Last Magnificent, and the Emmy Peabody PGA, TCA, and ACE award-winning series Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown,

Starting point is 00:09:11 which Fallon shot, directed, and produced throughout the series' 103-episode run. Currently, he is a director and executive producer for the Emmy-winning series United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell. He lives in California with his wife and production partner, Jillian Brown, and his two children. You can find them, like I mentioned, on Twitter at DiamondMoFallon, Instagram at Fallon.Morgan, and I'll include the Facebook and everything else in the show notes. And the website for 0.0 is 0.0.com. now we're back so morgan aka mo thank you thank you thank you and you have seen me read a lot of scripts and look into a lot of lights and maybe we'll cover some of that a lot of stuff i mean we did a lot of stuff about physical shooter like you know you were you were

Starting point is 00:10:04 headlong into that project well you know you want to talk about physical shooter, like, you know, you were headlong into that project. Well, you know, you want to talk about like things that you roll with and then you realize now you're at the top of the mast in a squall. That parkour episode, which was the first episode. I am still fixing injuries from that episode. Oh, 100%. Of the Tiberius experiment. Oh, God. And it just seemed like such a great idea at the time.

Starting point is 00:10:27 I know, but you're jumping in with people who had been doing that forever. Those kind of athletes, when they get to that point, they're like a purpose-built race car. You know? Yeah. That is what they are designed for. And to jump into that was, yeah, it was a lot. You did it, though. That is one of the more generous ways to put it.

Starting point is 00:10:45 Yes, I did it. And slowly rebuilding my body, however many years later. So Emerson College, studying film. Why did you choose to study film? And what were the most important things that perhaps you learned, if any, and the most important things that you did not learn? And we could take a piecemeal also. We don't have to answer all of it. I mean, I think the story for me is like a lot of people in creative fields. It goes back far beyond college to my initial introduction to school and education and kind of figuring out my brain style didn't really jive with what people were asking me to do. So the academic portion of school was always really difficult for me. And then I found art. And so art was always a

Starting point is 00:11:32 huge part of my life. That goes up through high school. I was actually, I was originally, I was going to do ceramics. I was like headed to Alfred University and I wanted to do ceramics and did that a lot in high school and actually had had pieces in the National Art Show and stuff. So I'm still pretty proud of that. But at some point, I started doing math and ceramics. Listen, no shade on ceramics. And you climb to the top of that ladder like any other ladder, you can make a lot of money. But it's not exactly the best life plan, I guess.

Starting point is 00:11:59 And the other thing is I wanted to do something. I wanted to be in a medium that had power, that had power to tell stories, to inform people. I grew up with two kind of bleeding heart liberal teachers in my family. And my mom was a writing teacher and she focused on teaching writing through using film. So she was using like Pink Floyd, The Wall, Deliverance, Apocalypse Now, do the right thing. Deliverance is intense. Exactly, right? She was using pretty heavy stuff with high school students to grow ideas and to teach critical thinking. Okay. All right. I'm glad you mentioned the timeframe. High school, I'm imagining teaching little Timmy

Starting point is 00:12:45 in third grade how to do his cursive with deliverance. Age-appropriate. Age-appropriate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, age-appropriate. Age-appropriate stuff. Well, I mean, kind of age-appropriate. I don't know. Deliverance, I don't know. Some high school students, maybe. Some high school students, maybe not. But that introduced me to film and introduced me to the idea that film could be more than just the art form or the money-making enterprise, that it could be actually a way to talk about issues that are going on in our culture, a way to reflect on ourselves as humans. And I wanted to be a part of telling those stories. So I just pivoted from ceramics, which is the original goal, to i mean i had jaws this was i i love that movie and

Starting point is 00:13:27 i i had jaws on vhs tape i recorded it off of hbo right i watched that movie so many times i broke the vhs tape so there was like a love for like the the art form before i even knew what the art form was and i wanted to chase that so i went toerson. It's the only school in the end. It was the only school that I actually sent an application to. They denied me. And I got in my car because I lived in New Hampshire. I got in my car. I drove down to Boston and went to the admissions department. I was like, why did you deny me? And they put me in a room and I talked to someone. And at the end of the meeting, she left and she came back in and she said, cool. You want to come to Emerson? Come to Emerson. That's incredible. I couldn't believe it.

Starting point is 00:14:11 What was, so after you, after the, I can't believe you denied me. Why'd you deny me? Was there a plan going into it? Why do you think they let you in? Was it just the sheer fact that you were there in person and wouldn't leave? I think that's exactly it. We work in an industry where tenacity is kind of the key ingredient, right? I was a total fuck up in so many ways. And I didn't know my ass from my elbow. But I was tenacious enough to go down there and basically demand that they save a bed for me. I do think in the meeting at some point I said, you better save a bed because i'm showing up and uh and i i just think she likes

Starting point is 00:14:49 that you know uh it's great i wish i wish i knew who that was i wish i knew that admissions person because i do have to kind of thank them yeah so yeah they saved me a bed it was great they read the tea leaves correctly too you know know, in a sense. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. A couple of turns I didn't expect in the road there, but like, yeah, for sure. No, no doubt. Did you learn what you were hoping to learn in school? I mean, honestly, going into college, I'm not even sure I knew what I wanted to learn.

Starting point is 00:15:23 You know, I had like these really weird conceptions of what the industry was. I pictured it in terms of, you know, I kind of want to crawl out of my small town context and live in some big glitzy kind of space, you know, and I think that's what I thought Hollywood was. And so like that was that was kind of the goal originally. And you like quickly learn that that's not really how it rolls. But here's a you know, here's the thing about Emerson College. It is a really great school in a lot of ways. They put you on set. And so Emerson's kind of known for building technicians. And what I learned that I don't know that I went in wanting to learn, but was the most

Starting point is 00:15:59 valuable thing is I learned how to be on set. I learned how to use everything on set. And I learned how to do everything on set. And that's a rarity. A lot of film school is just theory. This was hands-on. And that allowed me to go out and actually start doing stuff. And little did I know that my particular little niche of this industry in the end would require me to know how to do everything. So I learned that. I guess I kind of believe in that. I believe in that aspect of going to college. And I know there's a lot of people out there who think you don't have to go to film school. And I guess I would kind of agree with that too. I think that you can go out and you work in the industry and you'll learn what you need to learn. A lot of different ways, different paths to approach it. And post graduation, you spent three years working for your mentor, director Michael Mann. Now, maybe

Starting point is 00:16:51 for people who have no context, A, kind of explain in brief who Michael Mann is now, and then at that time, who Michael Mann was and how that actually came to be that you were working with him. I was extremely lucky because I mean, like literally going out of school, I was like, I want to work for Michael Mann or Terrence Malick or Martin Scorsese. It was like, this thing just fell into my lap. Who Michael is, is, and I think the most important thing to note about who he is and who he was then is Michael was one of the few truly powerful directors that was left in Hollywood. There's obviously a few now, but the age of the Peckinpahs, you know, these incredibly powerful juggernaut directors, it's kind of like come and gone.

Starting point is 00:17:39 What is, I will admit, what is Peckinpahs? I don't know what that is. Oh, like Sam Peckinpahs, like a't know what that is. Oh, Sam Peckinpah is a very famous director. Think of The Wild Bunch. Got it. These very, very powerful, huge personalities that can drive a set with 300 extras and explosions and massive camera teams. Think of the big 70s kind of films and these directors who were just so big and so powerful

Starting point is 00:18:06 that they could drive all of that. Well, Michael was that and even at the time that I started working for him, which was in 2000, you know, and so he still had the power to go against the studio. When you say power, I'd love to hear you elaborate on that in terms of leverage because of past performance, just sheer personality and stubbornness where people will fold and allow him to do what he wants to do. I'd love to hear you describe. A little bit of all of those things. I think what he did really well and was really smart about was he always had the talent on his side. Actors felt safe with him. His track record was obviously just incredible. I mean, you think of a film like The Insider and what he was able to do with Russell Crowe, who's obviously a brilliant actor, but look at that character in The Insider and look at what Michael was able to build.

Starting point is 00:19:02 And so he had the trust of actors. And when you have the trust of actors at that level and the actors are like people like Russell Crowe and Will Smith and Tom Cruise, you have a lot of power. So that's one thing he had, but he also, and I think this is like a thing that people don't understand a lot about directing. It takes a level of discipline and drive and energy and fortitude that is not within

Starting point is 00:19:29 the scope of normal human existence to make these films. To pilot a $150 million film, a $200 million film, to be in charge of something that is so big and so sweeping and epic. And I worked with Michael on the making of Ali. So we were, what, I think, 130, something like that was the end budget. But we had nights. I mean, we had a night in Mozambique where we had 15,000 extras. And think about that. And he's at the helm of all that. And he has to hold all that together.

Starting point is 00:20:02 And he has to keep know keep keep focus keep straight keep drive keep the actors in there keep the crew in there you know all of that stuff that takes a truly unique person usually takes a total fucking tyrant as well and he would fall into that category also but those kind of directors are kind of less and less because the studios have quite a bit of control now. And so the studio, it's more kind of decision by committee now. You have very powerful studio heads, you have very powerful executive producers of the directors. I mean, I guess Paul Thomas Anderson would be like a modern kind of example of this, who can go in and say, this is the film, this is the story, this is my vision, this is what we're going to execute, and you're not going to fucking touch it. And that's rare. And Michael had that. How did you get the job with Michael? And actually, two questions, maybe we can back up.

Starting point is 00:21:02 So you said, I want to work for Michael Mann, a name I didn't recognize, or Martin Scorsese. Terrence Malick. Who is Terrence Malick? And why those three in your mind? Terrence Malick is Thin Red Line. He just has a way of making these incredibly articulate films that almost feel like visual poems, but a very powerful director and someone who was able to really exercise the medium of film and use all of the tools and spend like, anyone who works in the industry will know, it's like how hard it is to get like 45 seconds of silence into a film or into a television show or into everything where you can just absorb

Starting point is 00:21:43 the natural space or absorb the characters going through something. It's like you constantly need to be packing action and you constantly need to be packing information. You constantly need to be feeding and feeding and feeding, right? And what I really loved about his films, if you watch his films, he has these beautiful little detailed nuanced moments within the film that just hard to achieve i mean martin scorsese is martin scorsese he directed probably the greatest american film ever made which is goodfellas i believe i think it was tony's favorite as well it's i agree with him it's you know it's a masterpiece and then but mich I loved Insider and I loved Heat.

Starting point is 00:22:25 I think that the last sequence in Last of the Mohicans is one of the masterpieces of filmmaking. It's technically perfect. I just rewatched Last of the Mohicans recently because I read the book for the first time. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Isn't it amazing? So that's Michael. So Michael did Last of the Mohicans and it's cool. Yeah. Isn't it amazing? So that's Michael. So Michael did Last of the Mohicans,

Starting point is 00:22:47 and it's a good film. I like the rest of the film, but from the moment that they leave the village where they burn the, I forget his name, the British soldier, and he chases them up into the hills, it's perfect. It's perfect.

Starting point is 00:23:03 He doesn't miss a beat in that. It's beautifully, really beautifully conceived and beautifully shot and also creatively deviates from the book in a bunch of really interesting ways. And so at some point, I would love to talk to the screenwriter. I mean, this is a fantasy, right? Sit at dinner, have some wine with the screenwriter. Mike will be like, I know it was a long time ago, but let's talk about it. All right. So how did you get the job with Michael? It's totally random. I just got a phone call one day. What? Well, why did they know who the hell you were? Because I got a call from someone who I had known at Emerson. And it just said, hey, they need a temporary office

Starting point is 00:23:42 assistant for three days. I can't take the job. It's Michael Mann's office. Do you want to do it? I was like, are you fucking kidding? Yeah, absolutely. And I got in that office and I look back now and I'm like, they must have all thought I was just totally out of my mind. I didn't leave.

Starting point is 00:23:57 I left at like 1130 at night or something. I stayed. I stayed after. I cleaned the whole copy room. I organized the fridge i just did anything i could i was like i'm doing anything i can to stay in this office and i did and at the end of the three days they're like yeah we got a film coming up do you want to be a pa on the film of course so i took that where it really turned though is that Michael had an assistant and I was there and I was like the runner and the office lackey. But I knew stuff. Because of Emerson, like I said, I knew how to run cameras. I knew how to run systems. I knew how to do a lot of stuff. And I had a solid base of understanding filmmaking. And the other thing I did is when I got in there,

Starting point is 00:24:45 I asked for the research material. And they're like, hey, read this book, read this book, read this book. And I just went and read them all. And so I knew how to do all these things. And eventually, I started setting up the rentals on cameras and stuff like that. And then their video cameras, none of these cats know how to use them. These older filmmaking cats, cats, like Michael and his generation, they didn't look at a video camera. It's like they had no idea what to do with these things, you know? And so he's like, oh, you know how to run it? And I'm like, yeah, I know how to run all this stuff. And he's like, okay, come down to the gym where we're training with Will and you can help me set these things up and stuff like that. So I would basically just set these cameras up and hand them to Michael. And every once in a while, lift my head up and be like, oh my God, I'm standing in a room with Will Smith and Michael Mann. And then eventually Ali came by, hanging out with Ali. And then Darius Kanji, who's a very famous cinematographer, was there. And I remember one day Darius Kanji, who I was like, these cats are like my idols when I'm in film school, right? Darius Kanji shot Delicatessen. Darius Kanji came up to me. He's like, hey, man, he's like, don't tell anyone, but I have no idea how to use this camera. I'm like, okay, cool.

Starting point is 00:25:55 But like dial it in for him. I'm like, you're all good, man. Just ask me. By doing that stuff and reading the research material, like eventually Michael kind of pulled me more and more in. And then I remember one night, I still feel kind of bad for this kid, but it was such a bad call. He had this assistant and the assistant went to a Roger Waters concert and left me alone with him.

Starting point is 00:26:13 I'm like, dude, you just left the fox in the hen house, man. You closed the door behind you. I am going to fucking destroy you. So I stayed and eventually michael comes out and he's like he's like where's you know so and so and i'm like oh he went to a concert he's like oh he went to a concert i was like yeah yep i'm here and he's like yeah but you don't know any of the stuff he's like i need this quote from the david remnick book and i was like actually i read that book and i know right where that quote is and i'll get it for you right now and i went down

Starting point is 00:26:43 and made the photocopy and like i I don't know, a week later, that kid's moving his shit out of his desk and I'm moving into his desk. And it was that cold. And I went on this incredible ride with him. Wow. I was going to ask you how the research materials came in. Wow. So from the three-day office assistant, that has to be a world record pole vault into a whole different stratosphere of responsibilities. That's just incredible. I mean, what a story. It was amazing. And he handed me also like being his assistant, he handed me responsibility over all the creative materials. So listen, Michael, he's a very, very difficult person. He can be

Starting point is 00:27:22 cruel. He can be incredibly cold to people who have been loyal to him for years. There's a very, very difficult person. He can be cruel. He can be incredibly cold to people who have been loyal to him for years. There's a lot of ugliness there and a lot of stuff that eventually I was like, you know, I don't want to be that kind of person. And I still feel that way, but I can't, but respect him to the highest degree as, as a creative, I've never seen someone with so much creative energy and so much drive. It was like all of a sudden just being in a different universe, you know, where like I at 24 was using every ounce of energy I had to keep up with this man who is 60. And like, that's the difference. That's the difference, you know, with someone like him. But he handed me this,

Starting point is 00:28:06 he would keep these running notes that were thousands of pages long, these huge volumes, huge three ring binders, where he had thousands of pages of creative notes that he had made on every scene. And he handed me responsibility for all that stuff. And so a lot of what I was doing was a look into someone who's operating at the very highest level, who's arguably a master of their craft. It was incredible. I mean, it was amazing. And I was next to him for every second of it. That's incredible. The research materials. So I see how the research materials ended up being helpful. Did you request the research materials because you thought there might be an opening like that, or was there a different reason for you requesting? I was like, I have a foothold here and I am going to live and breathe whatever I can that this man

Starting point is 00:28:59 lives and breathes just because I'm here and I'm 24 and I got just like full of energy. I do think that they probably thought I was like a speed freak though. I think they probably thought I was like either a cokehead or a speed freak. I wasn't, but I was just so charged up and so full of energy that I just did all these things. Yeah. Just total immersion. It was amazing. How did television enter the fray, so to speak? How did you then become involved with television? My career took a very weird kind of turn. I finished working for Michael. What I had done while I was with him, they handed me a video camera.

Starting point is 00:29:41 They're like, well, you're here for everything. So just keep the camera on you, film what you can. In terms of like a behind the scenes type of thing exactly i ended up filming quite a bit of that and they were producing a documentary for hbo on the making of the film and it ended up being that like 50 of the footage and the end result was mine and which film was this just uh you mentioned but which ali oh that was ali yeah that was the film the film was this just uh you may have already mentioned but which ollie oh that was ollie yeah that was the film the film was ollie yep and so i had filmed all this stuff they ended up using a lot of it the producer came up to me and she said hey listen like we get a lot of footage from assistants and it's it always sucks your footage is actually really good we use quite a bit of it you might think about this as this is a skill you have. At the same time, young in Hollywood, there's a lot of temptation.

Starting point is 00:30:31 I might need you to elaborate on that. What does that mean? Just the vices of Hollywood? Yeah. In the end, I got pretty deep on just alcohol and partying. And a lot of stuff got caught at DUI. I broke up with my girlfriend at the time stopped working for michael things just kind of fell apart a little bit but i always had

Starting point is 00:30:51 the camera so i ended up picture this i'm like one day i'm flying around in gulfstream fives with michael and will smith and like i had dinner at fucking nelson mandela's house in mozambique like picture that you know 24 hanging out with Nelson Mandela. Quick interjection. Correct me if I'm wrong. You grew up partially at least in West Virginia in an old farmhouse with no electricity. Am I making that up or is that legitimate? That's true. When I was much younger though. Yeah. So I'm just painting the contrast since you're mentioning flying around in a G5. It's a good thing to paint because West Virginia comes full circle in this story of my life too. West Virginia still has a place in my heart.

Starting point is 00:31:32 I'll elaborate on that in a bit. So yeah, one day I'm flying around in Gulfstream and hanging out with Nelson Mandela. And the next day I'm in my parents' basement back in the middle of winter in New Hampshire, like a broke ass, bombed out alcoholic, like, dude, you got to put your life back together. And so I ended up teaching a film class for my dad who ran summer programs at this private school that I grew up at and saved up enough money to buy a camera. And then I just started shooting from the very bottom, you know, and I just started again.

Starting point is 00:32:05 What did you start shooting? I was literally shooting like America's most fantabulous homes and stuff like that. Were you finding the gigs in New York or how did you find the gigs at that point? My friend, the same friend that I shot the documentary on the football team with, my buddy Todd Lubin reached out to me. And there's a number of times in my career and in my life that Todd reached out to me and was like, hey, you should come do this. A couple of life-changing moments. So he reached out. He hooked me up with these gigs, making not much money. I didn't have a license. I lived in New Hampshire. Most of the jobs are in New York. I'd have to take a bus to South Station in Boston with all my equipment and all these huge pelican cases

Starting point is 00:32:46 get on the train go down to new york shoot these things get back i was hustling you know and eventually rebuilt it and you know how it is like you get better and better projects you get kind of known for things you meet people your network starts to spread the time with michael was almost like just like an appetizer like an amuseche. And then the real work came of like building something from scratch again, building from the bottom. But that taught me how to be tough and it taught me how to shoot and it taught me how to be scrappy. And most of all, and the thing that ended up paying off the most when I got down the road with Tony and stuff is I learned how to make something out of nothing.

Starting point is 00:33:21 You know, because when you're like with Michael and on the projects like that, you got all these resources, huge projects like that, you got all these resources, huge budgets, huge, huge stuff. When you're working on the kind of stuff that I do, it's a knife fight. You're intentionally small. You don't operate with big crews. You operate with small crews. You don't want to freak people out. I don't work with actors. I work with people. You got to have a light touch. You got to go in. You got to figure out how to pull the most value out of things with the fewest amount of resources. Yeah, totally. How did you then end up connecting with Chris and Lydia at ZPZ? Working my way back up through the ranks by like 2000 and I guess it was 2006, I had shot this show in Buffalo called Tough Love.

Starting point is 00:34:10 It was a dark, like romantic comedy about a matchmaker set in Buffalo. I lived in Buffalo for six months in the winter, which is, I mean, hats off to anyone in Buffalo. You are tough people. And the DP on that show was someone named Zach Zamboni, who is absolutely just a phenomenal, gifted DP who understands this genre better than anyone else I know. And when I say this genre, I mean like the Verite documentary genre. He ended up giving my name to Chris and Lydia because he had been working for them and was at that time working for Tony on No Reservations. They hired me for a couple of jobs, and that's how I got in with them. I owe a tremendous amount to Zach. I still talk to him all the time as much as possible. What can you say about him? He's the master. uh sounds like a mensch too along with along with todd yeah question about working your way back up so if we do now just a mini flashback yeah you're taking all sorts of different projects now i'm tempted to say whatever you okay so anything whatever you can get however i know you're also

Starting point is 00:35:19 a very smart guy one could say what happened with mich Mann was one part luck, but it was also many other, required many other ingredients for that to actually coalesce into what it did. As you were working your way back up, was there any particular strategy about how, let's say, past the halfway point before you get to ZPZ about how you chose projects or anything like that? Or was it really just throw as much against the wall and hope there is some synchronicity? It was definitely throw as much against the wall as possible. But I think that a marker of many people's careers is certainly not my philosophy or anything like that, but kind of like a trapdoor spider or something. You sit there,

Starting point is 00:36:00 you're kind of patient, you're grinding out the days. And when the cricket comes by, you grab it. And that's the moment. And I think that that has been... When the assistant goes to the concert. Come on, dude. Come on, man. Rules of engagement. No, that's legitimate.

Starting point is 00:36:19 That's terrible. That is a terminal move that he made. I agree. I mean, who does he think he's working for? It was stunning to me that he allowed that opening. And for Roger Waters, which respect, but it's not Pink Floyd. Yeah, yeah. I think that it's just knowing those moments.

Starting point is 00:36:35 And there are career-changing moments. And it's sometimes just a phone call. And it's out of the blue. And you're like, oh, this is the moment. This is the thing. This is the moment this is the thing this is the project when i got turned on to zpz and chris and lydia that was like very clearly it and i was very aware of tony and no reservations at that point and was like that is what i want to do i want to do that and so when they came into the picture i was like oh, oh, yeah, I'm going to do anything that it takes. Put me on any project you want, and I will prove to you that I deserve to be on that ride and working with Tony. And that's what I tried to do.

Starting point is 00:37:15 So how did you go about trying to I don't know own the place. I don't know the basics. Yeah. Luckily learned how to do that shit from my dad. You know, he taught me how to work hard. And I don't think that I've been like someone in my career. I mean, there are people, a lot of people in this industry that are just way more calculated and Machiavellian about how they go about. They see it way, way down the road. They know where they're headed. They know the strategy to get there. That's impressive to me. I can't do that. I see the thing come, I grab it.

Starting point is 00:38:09 That's what happened with that. I knew that I wanted to work with Tony. I saw a window and I just was not going to leave. So, I mean, that's, I guess that's it. Same thing with showing up at Emerson and telling them that I'm coming regardless of whether they have a bed for me or not, I guess. AG1 by Athletic Greens. If you're traveling, if you're just busy, if you're not sure if your meals are where they should be, it covers your bases. With approximately 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food source ingredients, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more nutrient-dense formula

Starting point is 00:38:55 on the market. It has a multivitamin, multimineral greens complex, probiotics and prebiotics for gut health, an immunity formula, digestive enzymes and adaptogens. You get the idea. Right now, Athletic Greens is giving my audience a special offer on top of their all-in-one formula, which is a free vitamin D supplement and five free travel packs with your first subscription purchase. Many of us are deficient in vitamin D. I found that true for myself, which is usually produced in our bodies from sun exposure. So adding a vitamin D. I found that true for myself, which is usually produced in our bodies from sun exposure. So adding a vitamin D supplement to your daily routine is a great option for additional immune support. Support your immunity, gut health, and energy by visiting athleticgreens.com slash Tim. You'll receive up to a year's supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your subscription.

Starting point is 00:39:41 Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash Tim. So part of what prompted me to reach back out, and I think I said this in the text, was I had an international flight and I watched Roadrunner, this documentary about Anthony Bourdain, Tony Bourdain. And I thought it was to the extent that I could even assess it because I didn't know him, but I thought it was well done. It wasn't, it didn't seem one dimensional in the sense that they really approached it from many different perspectives. I would be curious to know what you thought was, if you have any opinion, like what you thought was important for them to include that they included, and then perhaps what you would have liked to have seen more of or mentioned.

Starting point is 00:40:30 I'm stoked to talk about Roadrunner. We should back up at some point on the ZPZ stuff because there's a bunch of stuff that happened in between there, which is Steve. And we should talk about Steve. Oh, yeah, yeah. We're definitely going to do that. So Roadrunner, it was directed by Morgan Neville, who's one of the great documentary filmmakers out there right now. By the way, I should specify, there were a lot of people that worked for Tony and a lot of people that were really close with him. It is in no way am I the person or a singular kind of thing there. There was a lot of people that were really close to Tony

Starting point is 00:41:05 and went on the ride with him. And I'm sure a lot of them have different opinions about Roadrunner. For me, when I watch a film and I've only seen it once, I may only ever see it once, it's hard. It's hard for me to watch it again. What I saw, I think did what they did was as good a job as you could do with that subject without having been on the inside of it, which I guess is in some ways, I mean that in as kind of the greatest compliment I can give. had to really be there and know him and have gone through that experience to really fully grasp and

Starting point is 00:41:47 understand. And I think they did a really good job of getting who he was and getting what that journey was. And as far as things I wish they had leaned into more and away from more, I do wish they had gotten a little bit more of who Tony was in terms of his relationship to people and the way he approached people, the way he approached the world. Yes, he was a champion of the underdog, and they mentioned that in the film, but it was more than that. Tony really, really deeply felt, I think, a connection to people whose environments he was walking into. And he felt that connection as a guest. But he was the kind of person who weighed into a room and pick up a baby and sit in someone's living room and really actually be there and be with them and be with them on their terms. And that was one of the intangibles about him, because he's a very connected person to the world. For someone who

Starting point is 00:42:54 is as strangely agoraphobic as he was, he had an amazing ability to be truly like connected and in the moment and see the beauty in things that are often passed up in the season like the beauty in people and in the small nuances and details of their life and i guess that a little more of that and a little less of the kind of whodunit aspect of tony's suicide i understand going down that road for sure. In whom I talk, I'm like, I contributed as much to that as anyone else through my interview, you know. But it is not the defining characteristic of who Tony was. There are so many others that I feel could have, I guess, played a little bigger. It's well done, though. Yeah, it makes sense. And we'll certainly come back to

Starting point is 00:43:45 Tony. So you mentioned ZPZ. Let's talk about ZPZ and Steve. So who is Steve and what do these chapters look like? So I came in on foodies and then did a couple of no reservations with Tony. Those were great. So the first one, I got called to replace someone on the Egypt show with Tony and I got along with him, which was kind of amazing, I guess. I didn't know at the time. I didn't know it was anything special, but I got a call after from Lydia and she's like, he knows your name. This is a benchmark moment. I was like, oh, okay, cool. So I went to Egypt with them and we'd had a great show. I did a few other No Reservations, was like getting to know Tony. But then they called me. I was working at the time, again, for my buddy Todd, who was show running Biggest Loser. And I had shot 96 episodes of Biggest Loser, which is real formatty reality TV with a little more puking than normal reality TV. But I had gone in like I'd done that for three years. And really, I learned like how to shoot on that thing because you're just grinding

Starting point is 00:44:53 out. You have a camera on your shoulder for like 10 hours a day and you are just grinding out shooting the same stuff over and over again. But you're like, you'll really learn it. I got a call and they're like, we have this guy, Steve Rinella. He's got a really interesting story. He lives in Brooklyn, but he hunts for his food. He's a conservationist and a hunter and a writer. And he's a really smart guy and you should meet him. I think you'd get along with him. And so I go and meet Steve in a parking lot in Michigan. And within 35 minutes, I am this deep in a swamp, up to my shoulders in a swamp, holding the camera above my head as Steve sets turtle traps.

Starting point is 00:45:34 And it was just like this moment of like, oh my God, this is it. Because this is like super experiential. It's super visual. He's incredibly smart. Just a fountain of information, as you know, from hanging out with him. Yeah. He's incredibly smart. Just a fountain of information, as you know from hanging out with him. Yeah, encyclopedic. It's just unbelievable. And so it had all of, everything was there. You got all of the information. You got something that's really smart.

Starting point is 00:45:56 You got a philosophy behind it that makes sense. And yet you're doing stuff that's highly physical, that's really cinematic, that's really gripping and hits on a root human level. You're out doing it. You're out getting food. So I met him in that swamp and just started a journey with him. We went on to film eight episodes of a show called Wild Within, which was an early attempt to make a hunting show and figure out what a hunting show could be in terms of also telling a story and having a narrative progression. It was really unique in that we were just actually doing the stuff that we said we were

Starting point is 00:46:42 going to do. I remember early on, a producer came on. They're like, okay, where's the line item for the animal wrangler? Steve's like, fucking animal wrangler? He's like, there's no animal wrangler, dude. We're going to Alberta to hunt moose. He's like, well, how do you know you're going to be successful? He's like, I don't. It's hunting. We don't know if we're going to be successful. Who's dropping off the moose? No one's dropping off the moose. To present that to a network and be like, how are you going to assure us that you come up with something here? We're not. We're going to go out and actually do it. That was a lot for a

Starting point is 00:47:15 network to get their heads around, but it allowed us to be genuine about what we were doing. And I really believe, when you watch these shows, people know. They know when they're being bullshitted and they know when it's honest. The bullshit is fun to watch. I get it. It draws numbers and people enjoy it. But if you want to build a legacy, you want to build one of these legacy shows, you got to be honest with your audience. That's what they will come back for year after year after year. That's what they're looking for. And that's what Steve provided. And so we went and we did this show that was really unique. And I felt like we had moments that were unlike anything I had ever seen on TV before. We're in it, man. Hunting pigs in Hawaii, having the pigs run up this coulee and

Starting point is 00:48:03 get in this little, they got in this little stream there where we found them they're like in a fight to the death with the dogs that had run them down steve's like in there with a knife trying to stab pig and not dog there's blood there's screaming there's mud and shit flying all over the place and i know that that can be very difficult for some people to hear and understand but for me i had this moment where i was like well i feel incredibly connected to like the human experience to the natural experience i feel like a part of kind of the whole dynamic and we ate pig and we used all of it and we you know we were responsible about it and so i could kind of from a philosophical standpoint i felt like i could get my head around it and like understand oh this is why this person does this had you ever hunted prior to that show

Starting point is 00:49:01 or been involved with hunting not at all never what I realized is like growing up in New Hampshire, I felt like I was outdoorsy. And then I went with Steve to Alaska and I was like, oh, I'm not outdoorsy at all. I've never been off a trail. I've never been off like a well-marked trail. And all of a sudden you're standing in the middle of like Prince of Wales Island with Steve.

Starting point is 00:49:22 It's fucking pouring rain. You're freezing cold. You're cliff hung because it's Steve and rain. You're freezing cold. You're cliff hung because it's Steve and something always happens. What do you mean by cliff hung? What does that mean? What is cliff hung? So cliff hung, I think it usually happens when you're descending. But basically, say you're descending through heavy cover and you get out to a cliff and you make a decision which is like i can get down this thing and you go down a drop that you can't come back up and then you realize that the drop the next drop isn't 15 feet it's 60 feet then you're cliff on oh shit so that sounds that sounds like

Starting point is 00:50:02 a great situation yeah and you got to figure it out. But figuring all that stuff out was incredible. Again, I was just like, I'm just a dude. I didn't come from any kind of special background. I'm not a Green Beret. I was dropped into this thing with no understanding of what my capacities were when I was put into an environment where you have to rely on like your natural instincts and your ability to do shit and your ability to like not get yourself fucking killed when you're out in the woods and at first i was like i can't do this and by the way i've got a 50 pound pack on in a camera

Starting point is 00:50:35 all the time so i got one hand everyone else got two hands at first it was terrifying i remember that first time we got a little bit cliffhung and I'm like, where's the sat phone? Let's call the coast guard. And they're like, dude, we don't call the coast guard over this. Trust me, you're going to be okay. And it was an incredible, an incredible realization to be like, oh wait, I am going to be okay. I've got all the stuff is innate in being human that I need to survive this and to figure it out and to deal with it. Whereas I think a lot of my career up to that point had been like how to navigate the human world. The constructed world. Yeah. That's right. I had never connected with the natural world. And I had no idea that within me and within all of us is this ability to navigate the natural world by simply connecting

Starting point is 00:51:27 with stuff that we are born with. Steve brought that out of me. And once I realized that, then the whole world opened. And you're like, oh my God, I'm in the middle of this highly dynamic, highly visual thing that we can just run with. And we can like, no one one's i don't want to say no one's ever done that style you know of production before but truthfully honestly in the hunting world they did a lot of like and you know what it is they sit in a blind they shoot

Starting point is 00:51:56 a bear over a 55 gallon drum of donuts i find all that shit disgusting a lot of these shows won't even finish the episode unless they get a good kill shot and we were like fuck kill shots i don't give a shit about the kill shot we were doing something that just felt so raw and real and unproduced and unscripted that it was very refreshing and once kind of figured out oh this you put your feet here you walk this way you hold the camera like this this is how you don't like this. This is how you don't get yourself killed. This is how you don't get yourself hurt. Once we figured all that shit out, or once I figured all that shit out, then you were

Starting point is 00:52:30 left with just this incredible canvas to paint on. And I think we did something really special. I think we really put people in that sensory environment, what it feels like to be out there and to be a predator and to be part of this whole dynamic that's always going on around us, but that we have largely excised ourselves from. And we were there with a camera to capture it. I'll be the first to concur that Steve is as legit as I've seen. Certainly having spent time with him for one episode in in the brooks range which was

Starting point is 00:53:06 incredible you got thrown into the deep end oh that was that was exciting yeah having the barren barren ground grizzlies charging the camp oh my god and steve i remember when uh when one charged the camp and it's running because janice spotted it but janice is that is that right am i getting his name that's correct yeah yeah so so janice nickname i thought would be like the bear whisperer i think on that trip ended up at some point he was just unpacking some gear or something and then he kind of sat up and he's like wait a second grabbed his binoculars and then lo and behold he spotted this bear that was on its hind legs smelling some of our meat. And it just comes galloping.

Starting point is 00:53:49 That's probably not the right term, but like loping towards us around this lake. Barreling is usually the way I feel about bears. Yeah, barreling. That's, yes, absolutely barreling. And I remember Steve is being summoned, right? We're all like, Steve, Steve, because half of us are muggles who have never dealt with bears before.

Starting point is 00:54:09 And Steve comes out of his tent and he's so pissed off because he had left his cell phone in the corner of his tent and this mosquito kind of deet liquid had pooled in that side and destroyed his cell phone. And so he's like ranting and raving and fuck this and fuck that and he's so pissed as this bear is running he's completely unconcerned

Starting point is 00:54:31 we're all like uh steve bear uh steve bear steve bear and you know eventually he's like yeah yeah yeah he like shoots a shotgun in the air and like waves at it and it runs off and turns around a quarter mile away and just sits there staring at us i And I'm like, now what do I do? But he is absolutely- 100%. Able to walk the talk. Yeah. And every part of that story, including him destroying his cell phone,

Starting point is 00:54:54 it rings so true to Steve. But that's exactly right. I mean, to be with Steve Rinella, you're with someone who is so, so sure-footed and so competent in their environment. It is really something to behold. And he kind of shrugs it off when you try to compliment him, but that is one of the toughest, smartest, most solid people I've ever met in my life.

Starting point is 00:55:17 I was just going to add, incredible human. And also for those people who are like, oh, isn't that the hunting guy on TV? He's also an incredibly talented, and not just talented executive executive infers he's born with it out of the box. Maybe some of that is true, but skillful writer. I mean, American Buffalo, many other books. Excellent writer. That's earned. I mean, sure, like born with a predilection for writing, sure. I'm sure that's true. But he's a writer. I mean, he writes from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon every day he does the job and it has made him a great writer and i would say that his

Starting point is 00:55:51 voiceover and his writing is some of the best in the industry he's just excellent and has built that initial show wild within went on i mean of course it was canceled in the first season because like no network was ever going to be able to really wrap their head around what we were doing and so we launched a self-financed endeavor which was mediator which has now grown into this big company that steve owns or partially owns or whatever i don't know exactly what the ownership structure is but it's grown into this big thing when we actually went out and did that, that was the fully formed version of the show. I feel like Wild Within, we were just learning how to be outside and how to

Starting point is 00:56:30 make TV and how to not bullshit people. And trust me, we did a little bit of eye-rolling bullshit in Wild Within. But by the time we got to Mediator, we weren't bullshitting anymore. We were just going out and doing it and grinding, and we got really good at it. And I've just watched recent episodes now, and they're beautiful and smart and just excellent, high-quality TV. And very, very proud of that, that something I was involved in on that ground level has maintained that kind of quality. It's incredibly rewarding what do you feel like aside from what we've already discussed what skills did you develop or what did you learn from that show that experience on the show that has ended up transferring to other things helping with other things later say Does anything come to mind?

Starting point is 00:57:27 The psychological game is everything. I think we have a tendency to shut down when we feel defeated or to shut down when we feel like we've reached an impasse. And what's amazing about being in the natural environment like that and really doing it is that you're forced to face the landscape. You're forced to face the elements. You're forced to face the elements. You're forced to face weather. You're forced to face all these things that are incongruous with producing television and achieving your goal. And you don't have the option because you're out alone. I mean, you know how it is. I mean, from the Brooks Range Show, you get dropped off by like a Piper Cub the middle of nowhere, and they're not coming back for 10 days or however long you were out.

Starting point is 00:58:11 And so you've got to figure all that shit out in between. And yeah, we go out with a lot of tools and stuff, but it's hard not to feel defeated when you're freezing, when you're soaking wet, when you roll out of your sleeping bag in the morning and the reality you're facing is that you got to put on your soaking wet wool underclothes that have been out in 40 degree weather all night and it's going to suck and it's going to hurt and it's going to be miserable and cold and depressing and you got to push through that anyways. I think for me, and I don't know that this is the same for everyone else, but I think for me, that was the greatest thing that I took away from that is keeping your headspace, keeping your mood elevated, keeping the possibility of something amazing and beautiful and brilliant happening and keeping

Starting point is 00:59:06 grinding is the way to do this specific line of work. Because again, we don't have the resources to control all the variables and we're working with real people in all the work that I do. So you're kind of at the whim of a lot of dynamics and you got to learn how to see the things that get in your way as gifts you know you got to learn how to take them and operate around them and move off of them and and use them that's what i learned out there with steve so let's try a segue into the world of tony and this may or may not make sense as a segue, but let's try it. And then we can go anywhere you want to go.

Starting point is 00:59:49 The first time working with Tony in Egypt, this is sort of the, what was the term you used? Trap spider moment of sorts for you? That definitely was. Yeah. Let's have you describe what happened in Egypt. Yeah, I got the call I was waiting for, which was, hey, one of the shooters can't go to Egypt. I think he got sick or something. And is your passport up to date? Can you go next week?

Starting point is 01:00:16 And I was like, absolutely. There's no way I'm missing that. So I went to Egypt. I kind of jumped in. That show had been going already for a while. And so they had ways of doing things. I tried to do my best to assimilate to the ways they were doing things and bring what I could to the table. But the thing that changed it all, and Tony was not like everyone that came in the door. It was like, hey, how's it going? He plays it cool. And the other thing is if he doesn't like you like you are just simply

Starting point is 01:00:46 not going anywhere on that show and there's a lot of people he didn't like he had pretty kind of like particular i think if you were honest i think if you weren't a dick to people i think that if you carried yourself in a respectable manner i think that if you saw that you worked hard and i think that if you saw that you could like hang out and I have to admit there was a lot of drinking on the show. If you could hang out and not become just like a sloppy drunk, then you were kind of cool and you could hang out. But initially, he wasn't going to give you anything. The thing that changed it for me with Tony was we were going out. We were going to go out and spend a night out in the Western desert with the Bedouin.

Starting point is 01:01:26 And we go, we drive a few hours outside of Cairo. We meet them in the desert and you're like on a paved road with just sand on both sides. We meet this group of Bedouin all in their late seventies Toyota Land Cruisers, which is the car of choice in the Western desert of Egypt. And we're just going to go drive off into the desert. And I was like, well, okay, so car of choice in the Western desert of Egypt. And we're just going to go drive off into the desert. And I was like, well, okay, so we're driving across the desert. I should get up on the roof of one of these cars and just film a bunch of car to car stuff. Like we're driving across the desert. How bad can it be? Five minutes later, we're going like 80

Starting point is 01:01:57 miles an hour across the desert. I am absolutely terrified. I have one hand on the camera and my other arm my right arm was around a four post bed that for some reason they had strapped to the roof of the car and so i have my arm now by four post bed this is like a bed with a huge canopy above it is that what you mean yeah one of those it was broken down into pieces they had broken it down into the pieces and strapped it to the roof of the car i think that they thought that tony would want to sleep in a fourth post bed like out in the desert which is absurd you know and like tony if you know tony like all tony wants to do is go off and like pass out in the sand so anyways they had this ridiculous thing on top of the car and it saved my life because i was able to hold on to the car i this whoever the driver was must

Starting point is 01:02:45 have been like i am gonna show this white boy you know and uh and so they go barreling off across the desert and it is harrowing and i see tony looking out the window at this big ridiculous grin looking at me and like oh yeah look at the new guys suffer you know like this is great yeah i got great footage and also what i think did it for me is like by the time we got to camp i had a hematoma the size of like a small nerf football on my bicep where i was holding on that was like deep purple where i'd been holding that's how hard i was holding on to this thing and that's the kind of beating that you took up there and i think that that act of he's like oh this is a cat who's like likes it i mean i'm a physical shooter this is a cat that's gonna throw

Starting point is 01:03:31 himself completely into this and it's like a light switch went off i landed in camp he's like hey all right that was a pretty rough ride i was like oh yeah look at this i showed him the bruise and from that moment on tony liked me i got called after that like i said lydia was like, oh yeah, look at this. I showed him the bruise. And from that moment on, Tony liked me. I got called after that. Like I said, Lydia was like, this is a benchmark moment. He actually knows your name after one show. Do you want to come back? You want to do another? I was like, I'll do as many as I can for as long as I can. And that's what I did. So that was the introduction to Tony. It just took a act of... I don't know. I didn't have kids at the time, so I don't consider it too selfish, but I wouldn't recommend it

Starting point is 01:04:10 to any young shooters. What were some other pivotal moments or episodes for you with Tony? I'm thinking one, and we could do something chronologically that happens sooner, but you know, like Ethiopia.

Starting point is 01:04:27 Ethiopia was huge. Yeah. So we could, we could jump into that if you want to just describe. So when I came on the show, I was just a camera operator and then worked my way up where I was the lead camera and a DP on the show. And then I was like, if I don't take the opportunity to try to direct this show and produce this show and do everything that I can on this show, I'm going to regret it. And so around, I guess it was around like 2014, I started asking and being like, I really want to direct the show. And I did a season of Mind of a Chef with Magnus Nielsen in Sweden, which was a show that Tony produced. That allowed me to really showcase like, hey, I can go out there. I can make eight episodes. I can lead a

Starting point is 01:05:19 show. I can get it done. And it turned out really well, because magnus is like a absolute genius and one of the most fascinating people you can hang out with he's like with steve just an incredibly dynamic person i mean someone who had created like one of the best restaurants in the world out of a what was a mousse fondue restaurant in central sweden imagine imagine what he started with created one of the best restaurants in the world by his mid-20s and was already a master saum at that point. So that's who Magnus Nelson is. Yeah, that is incredible. It's incredible. But I did that. Tony saw it. Tony liked it and agreed to let me direct. And

Starting point is 01:05:59 it was Ethiopia with Marcus Samuelson. So if you know Marcus, Marcus... I know of him. I don't know him personally, but certainly know of him. He's on tons of cooking shows. He's an incredibly magnanimous, huge smile, wonderful person, tons of energy. But Marcus's story is that he was born in Ethiopia. And during a, oh God, I want to say it was a cholera outbreak. It was an infectious disease outbreak in Ethiopia, tuberculosis, tuberculosis. And Marcus's mother walked he and his sister when they were just little, little kids like something like 75 miles from her village into addis and got them to an orphanage and then died and so marcus and his sister were adopted and grew up in sweden so this was this show was his return to ethiopia and he had been there before but like it was also

Starting point is 01:07:00 his wife maya who's just an absolutely incredible person and just simply one of the most gorgeous human beings you'll ever meet, was also from Garage and from one of the more prominent tribes in Ethiopia. And so it was a return to her village. It was a return to find his father and reconnect with his father. It was a big show. And I was terrified. I don't even know why. It seems irrational at this point, but I was totally terrified. What were you terrified of? I don't know. I just respected Tony so much. I love the show so much. And I'm someone, I suffer from anxiety disorders. I, you know, I'm bipolar.

Starting point is 01:07:45 I, you know, I have a few things, you know, in my bag, like everyone does to kind of deal with and it set those off pretty good. But, you know, I went, I did it. We had this incredible show. Ethiopia is just a totally extraordinary place. Like so many places in Africa, totally misunderstood. One of the more dynamic environments that you can step into. It's got a young population there that is just totally plugged in, totally driven, super hardworking. It's one of those places where

Starting point is 01:08:18 you're like, man, if the corruption at the top can ever get out of its own way, these people are going to just kill it. It was an amazing experience. An amazing experience to go back into Maya's home village to find Marcus's father. The funniest part of it was for all the shit that Tony ate through his career, he just cannot handle Ethiopian food. I love Ethiopian food. Of all things. Of all things. He said he found his kryptonite. And so he was basically starving to death during

Starting point is 01:08:50 the show. I'm begging him to eat cliff bars and stuff like that because he wouldn't eat anything. It was just like wasting away. But that was amazing. That was the first show I directed. It was a huge moment. And Tony was very kind to me. He gave me the benefit of the doubt. How did you prepare for that? And what is, I know this is going to seem like a really elementary, naive question, but I've seen you in action with the camera, right? And we're going to talk more about that just because the kind of dance involved, especially when you have multiple shooters, is incredible.

Starting point is 01:09:24 I mean, it's such an amazing craft and so much geometry. So we're going to get into that. But directing in a situation like this seems to represent other skill sets that you've not exercised perhaps as much. So how did you prepare for this? You don't seem like the guy to just wing it. Directing is like an interesting word to use for these because when you typically think of a director, you're working in narrative. And so you're working with actors, you're working with the crew, storyboarding it out or whatever. Very, very precise endeavor. This is different. What we do on these shows initially starts with a ton of research. We're just trying to get our head around the environment. We're trying to understand the dynamics of what's going on, trying to understand what we can and can you do. And the people that we work

Starting point is 01:10:26 with there are going to be left with the repercussions of what we do and how we behave there. So you know certain things off the bat where you're like, there's certain stuff that we're not going to do. There's certain boundaries we're not going to try to push. And again, hats off to all the people that go and do that. I hope they do it carefully and with respect to the people that they're leaving behind. But we were going to be very careful going into an environment like Ethiopia because I don't want to end up that my PAs or my drivers or my fixer is sitting in some dingy prison because of something we did. And that's a reality there. So it's going in and assessing what you can and can't do, assessing what the boundaries are, knowing the landscape, and then starting to pull out, okay, so this is this very interesting thing. There's this culture of these Asmari there, and they are basically minstrels, right? Play this very kind of old-fashioned kind of music. It's kind of like a rap where they'll freestyle stuff from the room. They used to travel around from village to village. But what's really interesting there is they use the Esmari

Starting point is 01:11:31 as a way to have these kind of coded political discussions, right? So they have all kinds of nuance and intricacies in the way that they do their freestyle rap that is actually talking about politics in an environment where you can't talk about politics, right? So we know we're going to, this is a cool thing. We're going to do a scene with them. Okay. Where are we going to do that? What's that going to look like? So you're finding different Asmari, you're looking at the locations, you're pulling people in. Okay. So we're going to do the Asmari, but we need some, you know, we want to bring some dancers in. There's another dance troupe over here. We can get them to work together. This is

Starting point is 01:12:08 a good environment, you know, this particular place to shoot it. What you're actually trying to do is set up an environment that is simultaneously real and authentic and also constructed. And in a way that we know that the apparatus of television making is going to work, we're actually going to walk away with something that works. The sound's going to be workable. The lighting's going to be workable. We're going to be able to control the environment

Starting point is 01:12:38 and not have other kinds of background pollution or other things that are out of our control infecting what we're trying to do. I think Zach Zamboni, who I referenced before, said it best. And he said, when we make a show about Vietnam, Vietnam doesn't look like that. But Vietnam doesn't not look like that either. These are real things, but they are filtered through our process of trying to set them up in a way where we can then kind of just give the ship a little push and hope that it crosses the lake. And that's what we're really trying to do is pull those elements together. And that's the directing. direct an actor that was never going to happen you maybe can get him to ask a couple of questions and if he spends 45 minutes of his hour-long interview talking about john wick too

Starting point is 01:13:30 you're gonna have to kind of like suck it and deal with that you know which happens a lot so like the amount of shit that i've heard about john wick i've never even seen it i actually won't watch john wick because i've heard heard Tony talk about it so many goddamn times in moments where I'm like, dude, I need content here. We're dying here. I don't have anything to put this scene together. And you're talking about fucking John Wick. I won't watch the movies. And I hear they're great. Yeah, that's incredible. That's basically the process of what we're doing. And you're talking to the the dps about how we're going to shoot it and what style elements we're going to use what that's going to look like etc you know and this was a show where we had a lot of film

Starting point is 01:14:14 references that we were trying to pack in what makes someone a dp maybe we should also just spell out what that stands for and did did you interact, as a director, did you interact with the DPs differently than most directors interact with DPs? Definitely. I'm sure it drives them crazy. Because I have really high expectations. Because I was a very accomplished DP before. So a DP is a director of photography, cinematographer, shooter, kind of go by all those names. I did really well. That was my thing. I was

Starting point is 01:14:46 really good at it. I did really well. And I was known for it, again, in my little kind of sub genre. So yeah, I interact with the DPs differently because I can see the shots. I have a real advantage in that. My wife is a director as well well she doesn't come from a cinematography side so i spend a lot of time working with her on like how to see things from a photography standpoint and it gives you a real advantage when you can it also will drive your fucking dps crazy because i'm breathing down their neck all the time i'm like yeah is that the best shot maybe stand over there a little bit more you know move over that way a little bit tighter you know they're like dude i'm trying to find it so yeah i think i'd probably ride them a

Starting point is 01:15:31 little harder but uh i'm right so it's okay most of the time i'd like to double click on high standards yeah because this is fertile territory for all sorts of conversations. Yeah. All right. So I want to read something. You can't believe everything you read on the internet, but in the course of doing research for this conversation, I found something on CNN. I'm going to read it and then we can explore it. Would Morgan Fallon, director, cinematographer, and producer of Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown, misses most about working with Tony is the pressure.

Starting point is 01:16:09 In a recent phone call with CNN Travel, Fallon described Tony's exceedingly high expectations and awe. Indeed, he may have been smiling on the other end of the phone when he explained the editing process for Parts Unknown. You could get absolutely gutted in a rough cut, Fallon said. In other words, Bourdain didn't sugarcoat it, and this approach was appreciated by Fallon and other crew members. The celebrity chef and star producer, quote, was never going to accept anything mediocre, end quote, said Fallon, who was pleased with the workflow. I felt good when Tony was happy with the show, he added.

Starting point is 01:16:36 And I was watching, and we don't have to spend a ton of time on this, but this doc that in some ways prompted me reaching out, you know, Roadrunner. You know, Tony is so human and so nuanced and like so loving in so many ways and has really fucking high standards, right? And I remember at one point when in that doc, they're talking about the rough cut and they said something like more than once, Tony told an editor to unfuck themselves

Starting point is 01:17:03 or something like that. Oh, we got told to unfuck ourselves all the time. I got told that on a daily basis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, the books aren't working. Unfuck yourself. Okay. Yeah, so let's talk about different types of high standards.

Starting point is 01:17:19 Could you elaborate on Tony's particular species of high standards? And if you have any funny stories, that's always great. But any stories that come to mind are also super helpful. And just so you know where this is going, I'm wondering how it contrasts with, say, a Michael Mann. Or I don't think you've had experience with James Cameron, but James Cameron, another person who's really famous for having extremely high standards and where the line is between being brutally direct and turning into something else. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I do.

Starting point is 01:17:55 I'd love to explore that because this is something I struggle with also. So speaking at the very high end, you were speaking about the Michael Manns, the James Camerons, the level of expectation is never achievable. It's never good enough. They do not have a level where it's good enough. It can always be better. You have to be that way. Yes, they are assholes. I will say it straight up. Michael Mann is an asshole and he's known that way in the industry, but he has to be. That is the only way that you get that caliber of project done. You want to get through a Titanic, you are going to have to be an asshole, 100%. And the same is true in high caliber kitchens. You want to run a high caliber kitchen? There

Starting point is 01:18:38 is only one way to do it. And you are not friends with your crew. You are in charge and it's your responsibility. And I think that Tony approached it from that perspective, at least initially. He had extremely high expectations that I think were based on his history of knowing how to run an effective kitchen. And at the same time, he had all kinds of his own neuroses and stuff that bled into that. And you see it in Roadrunner. Actually, one of the parts I really liked was when he talks about, hey, I'm not going to stop for the cameras. You guys learn how to get fast. You get fast, I do what I do. And that was, I loved it because I could do it. I was fast and I loved working fast like that. So yeah, super high standards. With Tony, though, different than like Michael and James Cameron. And I have not worked with James Cameron.

Starting point is 01:19:32 I know a number of people who have, though. I don't think you're ever going to get that moment with Michael or with someone like Michael Mann or someone like James Cameron, where you're like sitting down and drinking beers with them out in the desert and talking about life and things that really mean something. And with Tony, you did. And that was the difference. He was actually, he was a friend and a very, very important friend who I miss every single day. He was not those guys. He wasn't an asshole. He could be an asshole. He could be an asshole all the time. He could be incredibly frustrating to work with. But there was something under it. There was something very loving there. There was something very caring. And once you were kind of in his sphere, he really did care about people. So from that perspective, it was different. From the work perspective,

Starting point is 01:20:20 though, he wasn't going to mince words in the same way that he wasn't going to mince words when a dish isn't right in the kitchen. You can't. It doesn't work that way. Unless you want 20 fucking risottos sent back, you better get the first one right. And if someone fucks it up, you better let them know that they fucked it up big time right now immediately and correct the problem. And that was a lot of the process with Tony in post for sure. In the field, it was more like things that were cumbersome or inconvenience. Tony, he didn't like messiness. He didn't like sitting around and like, you know, that when shit goes south on a crew, I mean, my God, we just look like a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off running around trying to make shit happen or trying to make shit work.

Starting point is 01:21:07 And there's a lot of reasons that that can happen. You know, he didn't like any of that. And you'd hear about unfucking yourself quite a bit in those moments. But when it came to posts, like, that's a much more calculated thing. And, like, I would send him rough cuts. And everyone has been through this. I would send him rough cuts where from the very beginning, he's like, what possible reason do you have for presenting me with this piece of garbage? I didn't work so hard, dot, dot, dot in full caps. You didn't work so hard to have your work flushed down the toilet by this asshole editor.

Starting point is 01:21:50 And you're like, oh, okay. Are we going to go in a constructive direction? But he would. And that was the thing about him is that the good ones are right. Michael Mann is as much of an asshole as he was to people. You'd have to kind of be like, well, he's right though. He's right. He knows. And he's right. He's not wrong. With Tony, also like 90% of the time, he was right. And it wasn't up to the standards. What was cool about Tony is that then he would go on and work

Starting point is 01:22:25 the material. You would start reforming it. You'd start working with him. He'd give constructive notes. And that's something that I tell people or try to explain to people. And I think that people should know about him. And something I do kind of wish they had said in Roadrunner too. Tony was, you go on his Wikipedia and it's like celebrity chef. And it's like, that's not how I think of him. And he wasn't that great of a chef. Also just that label doesn't, and I didn't know him at all, but the label doesn't make any sense. Sounds so hollow to me, given the breadth of what he did. Yeah, totally. Right. A hundred percent. To me, what he was more than anything else within my sphere of working with him was he was an absolutely incredible television producer. He understood story. He understood

Starting point is 01:23:14 story structure. He understood cinematography. He understood using the tools of film to make something that was cinematic. Even though we were making our little show on TV, it was like it always wanted to be a feature film. And so we were using our limited resources to get as close to that benchmark as possible. It should look beautiful. The framing should be great. The lighting should be great. The music needs to be great. The editing, the pace, the buildup, the way that you present subjects, you know, all of that stuff needs to be like at the highest level. And that's what people are seeing. I think when they respond to the show and the kind of response that the show has gotten,

Starting point is 01:23:57 which is really incredible, they're seeing a couple of things. Authenticity, because we never did shit twice. We never faked anything. That's all real everything you see is real we didn't set up shots we didn't call cut we didn't call action we got fast we did what he told us to do we got fast you see authenticity and you see just a very very high level of production value given our resources and i I think it's something that I constantly want to point out to people is like, look at the weight classes that we were punching in. We were way out of our

Starting point is 01:24:32 group. We're going out on shows where we're shooting for seven days in the field. We had a $3,000 external equipment rental budget and we're getting cinematography nominations. My last cinematography nomination was up against Free Solo. It was up against Free Solo. We're punching way out of our class. And that was because of the very high standards. And that can only come from the top. We were down with it because over the time, he was powerful enough and the show was magnetic enough to pull in people who were very talented who were gifted who really wanted to do like good work and push the genre as far as they could but that comes from the top and that was tony that's what you get from that impeccable

Starting point is 01:25:18 nature of like no everything needs to be good and also you just tony was so fucking cool that you like you you really wanted to please him on my wall i have framed the best email i ever got from him it was when i sent him the first act of the nigeria show that we shot in legos and it just says out fucking standing with two exclamation points and then under it says couldn't be happier and i framed it and i put it on my wall so maybe that's a little bit i mean that's like the highest moment of my career so you know there are two things and there are many others but two things jump to mind as i'm listening to you describe all this you know the first is that when you watch roadrunner yeah and i'd never seen any of this archival footage but it took a while for tony to find the path to express himself

Starting point is 01:26:18 authentically in front of cameras right it wasn't immediate it wasn't automatic it took some screwing around and throwing a lot against the wall to get there and when i think of some of my favorite episodes and i don't know if you were on this particular episode i'm going to reference but there are many examples of this yeah the authenticity of things going totally sideways and him being really fucking pissed off and having the writing chops to actually make it into a super entertaining scene. Are you talking about the Sicily show?

Starting point is 01:26:58 I think it was Sicily with the octopus and the guy throwing the octopus. Can you, okay, tell, you you know that's funny you and i have never talked about this no and you knew exactly what i was thinking about okay so please tell this story because it's so fucking hilarious oh my god it wasn't there it was directed by sally freeman who's an incredible director and one of my like favorite fucking people in the world she is just this ass-kicking salty brit who doesn't take any shit from anyone she's the only person i've ever seen be able to refer to tony as shit cakes to his face without being summarily fired which in and of itself is a

Starting point is 01:27:41 tremendous achievement i literally saw her in finland in the hotel lobby say to the group where's shit cakes with tony standing right behind her and then turned around and she says oh there you are so hats off to sally she must have been good at what she did yeah she was directing that and i don't think that that that wasn't premeditated on her part. I mean, they were going to go out. They were going to dive for octopus. But I think she, as I recall, she said that she kind of knew they were fucked when they got there. Because it was like a popular beach.

Starting point is 01:28:16 There's tons of people in the water. It's like this whole thing. The guy shows up. They go. They're putzing around in the water looking for octopus. Of course, there are no octopus there because the you know water on that beach was probably 20 urine and uh and and all of a sudden so the way tony described it and we talked to him we were in tokyo with him like right after this happened and he's telling us this story was sitting in the bar of the park

Starting point is 01:28:42 hyatt in tokyo right where bill murray was in lost in translation soaking up just being in that space and being like this is the spot where bill murray was and tony's saying like you wouldn't believe it i was in sicily i'm underwater all of a sudden this dead fucking octopus floats down to the bottom of the ocean. And I realized what's happening because the other diver goes and claims the octopus, the dead limp octopus off the bottom of the ocean and goes to the surface and holds it up as if he's found the octopus, you know? And so it was a total setup. And I think it was actually like a really miserable moment for Tony because he was not when we got to Tokyo Tokyo it wasn't like

Starting point is 01:29:25 oh I'm gonna write this thing and it's gonna be great and we're gonna figure it out and it's gonna be funny he was like that was the worst fucking moment of my life he went into like a hole of existential angst he is you know in the show he goes and he downs like six Negronis after that you know oh yeah he just he's like he just fucks off and walks down the beach and just gets beyond hammered. He was genuinely bummed. And the reason he was genuinely bummed is because he felt like it was a breach

Starting point is 01:29:55 of exactly what we were talking about, of that authenticity, you know? And the thing that had really been the most important trading capital of the show up until that point was, well, not up until that point. I mean, there are other examples of that. That certainly didn't break that. But he was bummed about it. I think it's also a testament to Sally that she was able to say, hey, no, there's something here that's really funny and really worth exploring. And then he wrote to it, and it ends up being this iconic scene. Lots of people talk about it. But what you're seeing there is a real response from Tony. He was genuinely bummed out. So let me come back to the quote framed on your wall for a second. This is going to be a bit of a non sequitur from what we were just talking about. Plop, plop, plop, as I recall the voiceover was something like,

Starting point is 01:30:43 plop, plop, and then I realized what was happening. Yeah, exactly. These poor dead octopi are being thrown into the water around him. Yeah. Are there any particular quotes, poems, books, memorabilia, could be anything that you have found to be meaningful enough to revisit more than once?

Starting point is 01:31:05 Could be anything. I'm just thinking about this letter on your, this email on your wall, right? Is there, is what did I keep around my house? Do you keep around your house or that you keep inside your head? Could be anything. It's full of stuff. I mean, it's full of shit.

Starting point is 01:31:17 This is the piece of paper that he was typing. We needed a scene of when we did the Tangiers episode, we needed a scene of him typing. And tangiers episodes we needed a scene of him typing and so he's typing and we're just filming him type and this is what he wrote it was the best of times it was the worst of times call me ishmael this is the saddest story ever told jackie brown at 26 with no expression on his face said he could get some guns you're watching cnn you're watching mind of a chef you're watching treme on hbo you're watching the layover you're watching cnn you're watching mind of a chef you're watching treme on hbo you're watching the layover you're watching repeats of no reservations so this is him just freestyle

Starting point is 01:31:51 typing i don't know why i picked it up it's on my wall my life is full of these things i have shit everywhere from just stuff that i picked up when we were on the road with tony like an adobe brick from martha of a muzzle break from west virginia you know i have a lighter that josh homey gave us uh when we did the show with queens of the stone age you know just collected crap everywhere all right i'll narrow it down so yeah let's assume family any pets photo albums all of that is in the clear but house is burning down you can take three to five of these many items that you have fuck it let it burn yeah let it all burn okay i think it's more in the spirit of tony i'm probably grabbing the emmy i don't know man it all means you know honestly all jokes aside it all means something to me like

Starting point is 01:32:53 these are the things i decorate my house with these are the things i want around this is the greatest thing i ever got to do in my life was be with Tony, to travel the world with Tony, to see a world that a tiny handful of people get to see because the price of admission as a civilian, as someone who just wanted to go out and do those things would be so extraordinarily high that you just, you can't achieve it. it wasn't like we got to go on some sweet vacations it wasn't like oh i have the money to go to the maldives and stay in like a sick resort it wasn't like that we had access we had things that no one else will ever get because of who tony was and that is why this shit is special to me you cannot do this again this is not replicable

Starting point is 01:33:47 and i think it's actually a lesson that the tv industry needs to learn because i hear a lot of it's the bourdain of this it's the bourdain of that it's the bourdain of that and you're like no it's not because the first word you're using is bourdain and that is gone and it's not coming back we got to stop trying this was a singular experience and i think we're all very aware of that so yeah i decorate my house with the detritus of traveling the world with tony and i'm fucking proud of it but junk all over my house so tony and we don't have to explore this it's going to segue to a question about you tony obviously had things in his sort of psychological psycho-emotional bag

Starting point is 01:34:31 yeah as i think you mentioned earlier you do yeah and we all have our demons of different types you know battles we're fighting that no one knows about, or maybe only a few people know about. For the anxiety and bipolar disorder and so on, what have you found to be most effective in terms of tools or behaviors or anything at all for helping with those things for you? So work in progress. Bipolar, I mean, you can, I'm still trying to go unmedicated. I don't want to go on a mood stabilizer. They're pretty heavy. Consistency is really important.

Starting point is 01:35:16 It's a hard thing to do when you're traveling the world is have a consistent schedule. You know, but having a consistent schedule, I have no proof of this. This probably gets into your world and your expertise a lot more than mine. But I find techno, I listen to a lot of techno. A Bluetooth head and I will listen to seven, eight hours of techno straight while I work. And it's like a metronome for my head. It keeps me planted, on task, clean. So those things, exercise, eating right, those are the ways that I'm trying to deal with my bag. But yeah, we all have them. Tony definitely

Starting point is 01:35:54 had plenty of them. But I also think that most of the people on our crew did. We kind of were a collection of like minds. and i don't want to speak for anyone but i think what we found in the end when we kind of looked around the room and these are the people in my life that i like i hold was like the highest regard and like the greatest value that we were all people who had strong creative capacity and we're all kind of for some one reason or another kind of i don't want to say that island of misfit toys because it's so corny but it's you know it's got kind of an element of that you know everyone was kind of had like a thing that was broken and a thing that they were struggling with and you kind of knew those things but those that brokenness and

Starting point is 01:36:42 in the kind of pain that comes out of that, I think was critical in terms of looking at the world through the lens that we were trying to look at the world through, where we were trying to see everything. We were trying to see the beauty. We were trying to see the pain. We were trying to see all of it. That's not a formulaic show. That's not a show that everything's going to end happy every time. That's not a show where you're going to hit happy beats every time. It's not like an upbeat travel show where we're like, oh, today we're, you know, it's not. It was an exploration of the world and all of the permutations of what that means. And if you don't understand pain, you don't understand fear, you don't know those things,

Starting point is 01:37:22 you are never going to be able to see it. You're not going to be able to see it. And I don't know those things. You are never going to be able to see it. You're not going to be able to see it. And I don't mean to be dismissive of anyone, but I remember at one point we had a new editor coming on for a show. And I talked to him for 10 minutes on the phone. And I asked him a few questions. What's your favorite shows? What's your life like? What do you do for it?

Starting point is 01:37:44 What are your hobbies? And stuff like that. And I called my showrunner, Sandy Zwick, and I said, I'm sorry, this isn't going to work. And she's like, why? And I was like, he's too fucking happy. His life's too good. Everything's okay with him and he's not going to get it. And he didn't. And that wasn't prophetic on my part. It was just knowing that we had to embrace those things. And so, you get to the end and what happened happened and all of those things. And there's a lot of different ways to analyze that. But what's, I think, important to note is that those things, that experience of pain and dealing with those things was a critical part of making the show. And it came with a lot of shit that we were kind of

Starting point is 01:38:34 all hot to trot on at the time, but I, that I look back and I'm like, you know, a lot of alcohol, Tim, there was a lot of like, I'll speak only for myself. There was a lot of like, and I'll speak only for myself. There was a lot of almost daily. I mean, yes, daily. Just drink yourself to sleep, wake up in the morning, hammer fucking coffee, go on adrenaline and caffeine as far as you can, and then start drinking again and come down. And that was the rhythm of the gear shifts every day. And that's kind of how we got through it. Why did you stop drinking when Tony died? Is it because you felt that was maybe a contributing factor? Was it for other reasons? And I'm not asking you to speculate. I'd just love to hear your thinking, what your experience was. I want to be careful about not speculating.

Starting point is 01:39:22 I want to be respectful to everyone in tony's sphere i will say this it is impossible for me to separate alcohol from tony's death and that's kind of a reality for me is like and i feel like other people on the show felt that way as well again i don't want to speak for them there's a lot of people involved in this there's a lot of people that have their own journeys there are people who who are a lot closer with Tony than I was, but I was fairly close with him. And after he died, I could not separate alcohol from his death. I don't mean that he died because he had been drinking. I just mean that that was part of the calculus for sure. It was in there and it's a dangerous drug and it's severely underestimated in our culture. I just couldn't

Starting point is 01:40:12 do it anymore. I couldn't. And I went hard for a long time. What did that process look like for you? Stopped drinking. Removing that. Was it easy? I mean, was it hard? It was frantic at first. I stopped drinking. I got a mountain bike. And I swear, for the first couple months, I was riding every night. I was riding 20 miles a night up on the fire roads outside of my house. And this is in the months after Tony died. And I would ride from my house up to the Nikeike station on dirt mall holland and back and

Starting point is 01:40:47 it's you know 10 miles each way it's not the hardest 10 miles i'm not like i don't think i'm lance armstrong i'm definitely not lance armstrong but like that's where i that's where i was and i was alone at night riding you know and just trying to don't know, trying to make sense of shit. It got, it was dark right after like the, the month after he died, I went pretty hard. I woke up on my lawn one night. You mean went hard drinking?

Starting point is 01:41:13 Yeah. Like I drank like a bottle of tequila. I woke up on my lawn, scared myself. I have two young kids. And I was like, this is this, this must end.

Starting point is 01:41:22 Good for you, man. Well, yeah. A lot of people do it yeah and and and they all need credit you know it's a hard thing to uh to do yeah let me ask you a related question as i watched roadrunner i thought it was well done i'm sure it's imperfect but there were some takeaways or perspectives that seemed to be shared by more than one person. And one of them was that when Tony was doing jujitsu seriously, he was perhaps in one of the better places, emotionally speaking.

Starting point is 01:42:00 And parallel with that, I'm thinking about something you said earlier in this conversation that I, I just want to highlight cause I'm not sure people understand just what it requires. And that is running through the wilderness with a 50 pound backpack with a camera on your shoulder, being able to use one hand and maybe the technology has changed. But when you and I were spending time together and I was able to watch you film,

Starting point is 01:42:23 this is not an iPhone that you're using to film. And this is a significant rig on, I don't know how much it weighs. I mean, what would you say at the time? I don't know, 20 plus pounds for sure, I would imagine. Yeah, probably 20 plus pounds. We were on slightly bigger cameras for Tim Ferriss experiment than what we use like with Meat Eater. Meat Eater was slightly smaller cameras, but it doesn't really matter. Yeah, it's incredibly physical. Yeah, it's very physical.

Starting point is 01:42:49 There were days we were doing 15 miles of backcountry. That may not sound like a lot. That's a fair amount when you're doing it day to day, when you're in snow, when you're in environments that you're not on a trail, you're in backcountry. Again, I'm not trying to pretend like I'm super rugged, but it definitely took some doing.'re pretty rugged man i mean i don't want to you know

Starting point is 01:43:09 overstate it but you're pretty rugged and and where i was going with that is you've been very physical you know i'm speculating but i would imagine that's been good medicine for you to be that active. A hundred percent. Yeah. What are your versions of jujitsu? Like the activities that seem to nourish you and counterbalance maybe some of these things that you're carrying in your bag, right? The anxiety, the bipolar, et cetera. When would people say you are at your best? What type of activities? What are my hobbies? Yeah, sure. Surfing, mountain biking,

Starting point is 01:43:51 and I was really into racquetball for a long time, but my knees are kind of, my knees have been a little tough on me with racquetball. Those things for me, when you're doing them, you're not doing anything else. Surfing's got a solitary element to it that's almost like meditation. Doesn't even matter if you're really catching waves i mean that's like a bonus but you're sitting there you have the rhythm of the

Starting point is 01:44:09 ocean you're thinking you're processing things but you know you're on liquid you know and you're staring out at the ocean waiting for waves it's unbelievable i mean it's very very centering and there's a reason that there are stereotypes of surfers you know it's true you get a surfer to you i like mountain biking because it's really physical it's like a real grind it really pushes your heart rate but when also when you're doing like you know like i said i like the kind of enduro style stuff you know you got a lot of shit coming at you fast and you're making a lot of calculations,

Starting point is 01:44:47 a lot of decisions. I like that. It's very dynamic and I tend to like solitary kind of sports. Racquetball is just fast and for anyone who knows racquetball, it's a killer game. You're looking for kill shots.

Starting point is 01:45:02 You're playing strategy. You're playing geometry and looking for opportunities to execute kill shots and it's a blast i don't know i like aggressive shit and i like shit that like keeps your heart rate way up all right i'm gonna use the door that was just opened by the use of the word geometry and then we're gonna go to muzzle break in west virginia because yeah we made going to go to muzzle break in West Virginia because we made a promise earlier to come back to West Virginia. But I mentioned the dance and watching, and this is segued into the geometry, and you really need kind of two players in the game,

Starting point is 01:45:37 maybe, to fully visualize this, at least, which is why I wanted to mention Marcus Lehman, who was also working on Tim Ferriss' experiment. Great guy, very skilled. And watching the two of you guys dance with geometry was so fun to the extent that it was almost not distracting, but I was so intrigued and almost just puzzled by how you guys could pull it off. So for someone who has no idea what the fuck I'm talking about, could you just explain how geometry plays into what we were doing or what you would do with Steve and so on? So if you picture it in a basic sense, right? Say you have two characters who are talking to each other. They're standing in a room and they're facing each other. This is like very simple setup, right? We are not a scripted show. There is no script. We need to capture as much of that conversation for the edit as possible in real time. When you're on a scripted show, you can shoot one camera on one angle of that conversation, and then you can move the camera is shooting one angle on character A and one camera shooting the other angle on character B. Now that's the basic setup. And you could just stand there and you could be in one frame size and whatever, and you could cover the conversation

Starting point is 01:47:18 and the editor will cut back and forth between those two cameras as they see fit, but it's going to be boring. You want to add dynamics. So you're going to need to add movement to that scenario. You're going to need to move your characters around the room. You're going to need to allow them to go on some kind of endeavor. They need to accomplish some goal. They need to do whatever. So they start moving. And now the geometry is always changing. Now you need to be shooting both sides of that interaction. You also need to be shooting your insert shots. You need to be shooting both sides of that interaction. You also need to be shooting your insert shots. You need to be shooting wider shots to give you a context of the environment. You need to be shooting all of the supporting footage that tells you where you are and what

Starting point is 01:47:55 those characters are doing. And you need to have that in your head and you can't talk out loud. I mean, I can talk on the walkie a little bit to the other camera operator, but when you're really doing it well, you know, and I guess there's a million different ways to do this. So there's all kinds of different ways that people achieve this. But when you're doing it really well with someone who really knows what they're doing, you know, inherently, I know because of the action, because of where the other camera is standing, I know what their shot is. I know where their lens is. I know where their background is. I know where not to cross into their shot. I know what they have. So you're simultaneously watching them and understanding

Starting point is 01:48:37 what they're covering and where they are. And you're reacting to that or you're establishing your shot and they're reacting to you, right? When it's really good, it moves that way without conversation. And after you shoot with someone for a while, you really get into a rhythm where you both know what the other person has. You know what the other person's shooting. And as your characters move around the world, as they do their thing, you know how to move together to maintain that coverage. There's a variable in that which dictates a lot of this, which is called the 180 degree rule. So picture this. There's a car moving along a bridge and you are shooting from a helicopter out on the passenger side of the car tracking along with it right you can picture that got it again the direction of the car then if you're doing that is moving from frame right to frame left that is the way that the action moves. If you then cut to a shot from the driver's

Starting point is 01:49:48 side. Oh, wait a second. Could you say that one more time? So I'm imagining in my head, I'm in the helicopter. It's so much easier when you can draw it out. Passenger side is on the right-hand side of the car. Passenger side is on the right-hand side of the car, and you're moving along with them, and the car is going along. And so when you see that shot on the screen, the car is moving in a direction that is from the left-hand side of the screen. Left side. Left side. I messed it up. Left-hand side of the screen to the right-hand side of the screen, right? The car is pointed to the right. Now, if you go and you switch over and you shoot from the driver's side,

Starting point is 01:50:26 what direction is the car going when it goes on screen? It's going the opposite. It's going right to left. You've crossed 180 degree line. A lot of these rules are just set up to be broken, right? So there's a lot of variables in there. But in a basic sense, you are confusing your audience because the car that was going left to right is now going right to left. And that is confusing when you're following the continuity of an edit. The same thing with a conversation. If you have two characters and the cameras are standing on the same side of those characters, you have one character which is looking screen direction left, and then you have one character which is looking screen direction left,

Starting point is 01:51:05 and then you have one character that's looking screen direction right, and you're cutting in between those. If one of those cameras crosses that line, you now have two characters either looking screen direction right or screen direction left. And when you try to cut between them, it won't make sense because they both look like they're looking away from each other. Yeah. When it's done well, you don't notice it, but when it's screwed up, you really notice. That's right. I was watching a super high budget scripted show. I'm not going to mention the name, and they messed this up. It was like a bunch of royalty seated at a long table on one side

Starting point is 01:51:42 having a conversation. And it was so confusing to my brain that it was uncomfortable. I think what people don't appreciate a lot is that you need to establish the geometry of your environment in order for people to understand what's going on in a physical sense when you're in a scene. There's a lot of tricks to doing that. And there are some things that you can do that break that. And that's one of the things that you can do that breaks that. But now picture, you have two characters who are now, like, I keep thinking of the one we did in Vegas, right? Where you're basically, what did we call that episode? It wasn't the gambling one. It was...

Starting point is 01:52:19 We did two in Vegas. We did the poker, the heads-up poker, and then we did the evasive driving. Yes. Or evasive tactics, right? Because it was also on foot. It was getting out of zip ties. Yeah, exactly. So you have two characters moving around in a dynamic environment there, and they're constantly crossing each other. They're constantly crossing the line. They're constantly moving around. Now, you need to know where that 180-degree line is all the time. And both your cameras need to be tuned up enough to move with that line and reestablish that line without thinking about it and without talking. And that's the dance that you're seeing. So when you talk

Starting point is 01:52:57 about the dance, the dance is really maintaining that coverage in a way that is going to make sense for the editor and ultimately make sense for the audience. And it is difficult to learn. And once you do learn it, like with anything else that's fun to do, it's a blast. It's really cool to work with someone that understands how that works. I don't know if this schedule we had was normal. If it is, I don't know if this is the schedule we had was was normal if it is i don't know how the hell you guys do it for so long but we had yeah i yeah i remember we had whatever was like 13 weeks of shooting and it was like five or six days of shooting a half day to a day of transition to another location if necessary and then you're right back into shooting yeah and then i was reviewing rough cuts and so on at night which was just a really incredible introduction to the velocity of that type of production.

Starting point is 01:53:50 But what I was going to say is it also makes it sometimes hard to remember because they're removing pieces and sometimes people wouldn't be available for a week or two. Were you on the New York City episode with Josh Waitzkin and Maurice Ashley? Yeah, that was amazing. I want to mention one scene because A, it's a super fun scene, but it also demonstrates how well shooters can dance this dance in a complex environment.

Starting point is 01:54:18 You probably know where I'm going. But this is Grandmaster Maurice Ashley playing this hustler, the trash talker. I loved it. Oh, my God. It's one of my favorite things I've ever seen. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:54:30 Oh, it's incredible. And people can find this clip actually on the YouTube channel for Grandmaster Maurice Ashley. And I want to see how many views it has now. It's got, yeah, 9 million views. This is just such an incredible scene in washington square park yeah it was amazing so maybe you could just walk us through since this is a real world example right if you recall just what were some of the considerations what was happening because we're sitting in washington square park it's freezing out like people are wearing their

Starting point is 01:55:00 winter clothing and this is where a you know joshzkin, who was the basis for Searching for Bobby Fisher, both the book and the movie, played as a little kid. It's where, in the details from Maurice Ashley, it's where the late, great Vinnie Livermore used to beat my ass at the same table. This is from him. Maybe you could just, if you remember any of the experience, just kind of walk through it. Because this is complex.

Starting point is 01:55:24 It seems to me, at least, hard to get right. And it just came out so, so well. Yeah. So I don't remember the specifics of the blocking. I remember it was one of the coolest things that I've ever seen because you had this grandmaster chess player sit down with a New York City street hustler. And listen, I don't know shit about chess, but I know that those New York City street hustlers are damn good chess players and they play fast. Yeah, they can play. And we watched a grandmaster sit down and devour this cat as if he just didn't even exist.

Starting point is 01:55:57 And also return fire with shit talking in equal measure, right? That's right. And called him out when he tried to knock the pieces over and hustle him. It reminded me, there was a famous quote, I forget the name of the Crow Scout who was working with the US Cavalry when Custer was decimated at Little Bighorn, but they asked him after how long it took. And he said, about as long as it takes a hungry man to eat a sandwich. And that's how we described Custer getting taken down at Little Bighorn. And that's how I would describe that Grandmaster running through that cat. He fucking devoured him. It was so satisfying to watch.

Starting point is 01:56:35 Not because I have anything against the street hustler, by the way, but just to see someone that proficient at something was incredible. I don't remember the specific blocking, but this is what I would say in remembering that scene and thinking about how I would go into that, right? So you know a couple things going in. You know that it's going to be all about the energy between them, right? And so you're looking at tight shots of eyes. You're looking at establishing their connection, establishing the board, and you have two things going on, the connection between them and the shit talking and all that stuff. And then what's going on in the board and you got to cover what's going on on the board too. And then you have the crowd

Starting point is 01:57:13 around them. I'm getting to that part, right? I'm getting to that part because you in their dynamic, you need to cover the game, right? You need to cover the game, but you need to be quick enough to know that you got to get up to the two shot. You also got to cover the game, right? You need to cover the game, but you need to be quick enough to know that you got to get up to the two shot. You also got to establish the environment, right? And part of the environment and part of what you know is going to tell the story is the reaction of the people that are standing around. So you got to get out to those wide shots, got to see where the crowd is, got to see

Starting point is 01:57:39 where everyone is placed, right? Got to get in on the details of the game, got to get in on their rapport. And then you got to start searching the audience, that crowd that was standing there for the telling reaction shots. And so when I'm standing in an environment like that, I'll be doing my coverage, looking around, and any moment I get, I'm looking up and I'm like, who's the most expressive here? Who's the person that's going to come out with the big line? Who's the person that's going to... And I think I remember that day someone being eventually to the street hustler guy, kind of patting him on the shoulder and being like, do you know who this is? Am I right about that? I feel like he at one point...

Starting point is 01:58:19 Yeah. There was definitely a moment. Yeah, there was. Absolutely. Exactly. And so it's looking for that and understanding in two cameras, you know, you know that the people that are on your side of the line, the other camera is going to have them. And the people that are on the other side of the line, you have them and you're kind of those, that's how you divvy up the responsibility. But if you miss it, you miss it. And remember, these are not actors. You cannot cannot go back you cannot get those original reactions again you have to get it in the moment and that's where it gets back to tony and when he said you be fast and he was he was right about that and it pissed a lot of people off a lot of

Starting point is 01:58:57 people come on to the show and be like this is fucked we don't get time to set up we don't get some of those do that and i'd be like dude you are not cut out for this show. Or not just dude, a lot of women in our line of work too. But you're not going to make it here. Because what you don't understand is that you're fucking it up by trying to get it right. You got to learn how to not miss it the first time. And it might not be perfect, and it might not be pretty pretty but you got to get it that's how i would think about a scene like that the most important element being that it doesn't happen again happens once yeah 100 and what made that scene also so gratifying is that maurice is like a handsome charismatic yes morppheus in a black leather jacket

Starting point is 01:59:45 and can also just murder people on the chessboard and trash talk really well. So it's so fun. We'll put a link in the show notes. Yeah, that's worth watching. So what I'm pulling up, you may never guess who I texted. So I texted John Bedolis and Chris Vivian.

Starting point is 02:00:03 Oh yeah, John. And so John directed a ton of these Tim Ferriss Experiment episodes. And so I asked him what topics and questions he thought might be fun to explore. Okay. This is going to be interesting. Yeah. Well, yeah, he has some good ones. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:00:21 And I'll start with, and there are many different ways we could go here, but like from DP to director to showrunner, what skills or habits do you find help most in transitioning from a more narrowly creative role to a broader creative role with more managerial responsibilities? So there are many ways to approach this. I mean, I suppose the simplest way would just be to say,

Starting point is 02:00:42 what advice would you give to someone who is really technical and good at one thing, right? They deliver, they're really exceptional, and they hope to embrace or they're being asked to embrace a role that is broader with managerial responsibilities. Like, what advice would you give to your younger self as you were doing that or to someone else who's in a similar position? Get ready to relinquish control because if you don't, you're going to smother the people who are working under you. You need to trust them and you need to be able to work with the people who need work in a proactive manner to get them to the place where you need them to be because you are not going to be able to control everything anymore. When you have the camera in your hand, you have this tiny little world in the viewfinder and you can control every aspect of it. As you start to climb the ladder up to directing and then to show running, you need to depend on other people. So part of that is bringing good people in. The other part is understanding when you need to let people do their job.

Starting point is 02:01:50 Well, let's get super specific. So this I would imagine is super hard for people who are very proficient in something they are now supervising, right? Like you were talking about with the DP is right. And you're just like, you sure that's my shot? Like, why don't you move over a little bit? Yeah. I think maybe a little tighter tighter so does it mean just picking your battles well and like letting things go that you can let go but holding a really strong line on certain quality decisions where you need to push a little bit i just love to hear because it doesn't sound easy to just like flip a switch i don't think it is easy and i think it took me some time and i had times when I blew up at camera operators or DPs that I really regret because it was like exactly the wrong way to go about things. I had a DP who I really, really respect. We had a pretty vicious exchange in the field one time and he came to me after and he's like, dude,

Starting point is 02:02:41 you took what was just a lovely, delightful day where we were getting great stuff and you fucking murdered it over a detail and you've ruined the whole vibe of the day in the shoot. And that was really profound for me. And I thought about that a lot, you know, for what? Because like he missed a shot that I knew was there. I know I was right. I know the shot was there. I knew the shot would make was there. I know I was right. I know the shot was there. I knew the shot would make the edit. I knew it was important. Why I had to rip his head off about it, I have no idea now. I don't do that anymore. So I think that one aspect is just finding

Starting point is 02:03:16 ways to approach what you need to get in a way that's positive and proactive. We worked with Angelo Dundee when we were doing Ali. Angelo Dundee, to just fill everyone in who doesn't know, Angelo Dundee was Ali's trainer. He's one of the great boxing trainers of all time. So you want to talk about a level of expectation and perfection. I mean, that is operating at the very highest level of that. But he wouldn't come in and be like, your jab sucks and like, what the fuck? Why am I wasting my time on blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. He would come to Ali and he'd be like, hey, I was watching your jab. You're doing really good with that jab. I love the way

Starting point is 02:03:56 that you're doing this. Even if it was something that Ali wasn't doing, he was trying to point out something to get a response, to get him to focus on a particular aspect of that movement. And I think that that's really important in finding ways to work with people and say, get what you want in a way that is a little smarter than just coming out and just hammering folks. So what might you have said to that guy, the newer version of you, how might you have handled that situation? In retrospect now, I think the number one thing is I would stay calm. I didn't stay calm in that moment because I was kind of dying because I knew I needed a shot. But I think I would stay calm and

Starting point is 02:04:40 say, hey, listen, this is happening right now. You need to break off. Let go what you're doing. Don't worry about the shot that you're on. We're fine on that. I got it in post, but we need this right now. I think that's a pretty easy explanation. But we tend not to do that because we're so controlling that in the moment, it feels like you're losing control. And that's not the truth. I think that as you get older, you get more experienced with management, unless you're going to be a Jim Cameron or a Michael Mann, unless you're going to be a tyrant, which trust me, that's 20 hours a day of work, hard work. I'm not that, and I'm not going to do it. And I never was. And I don't want to treat

Starting point is 02:05:23 people like that. And listen, no shade on them. What they do is unbelievable. But I think I know myself enough now to know that that's not the style and how I'm going to accomplish what I need to accomplish. I think it's building people up now and saying, I trust you. Think about it this way. Think about it this way. Try this.

Starting point is 02:05:42 I know from experience, I can tell you that this is going to work, but being willing to work with people. Let's come back to that muzzle break on your shelf. Maybe you can explain what a muzzle break is to people. And then let's talk about the return to West Virginia and why it matters. A muzzle break, first of all, is a way to dispense the energy of the bullet coming out of the gun. It can provide accuracy and safety by pushing the energy of firing the bullet out to the sides. This muzzle brake was made by J-Mac Customs in West Virginia, which is cool because they're an independent operation, which takes people who were laid off in coal mines and various other extractive industries that have left West

Starting point is 02:06:32 Virginia and puts them to work and trains them as machinists. And they do high quality work. I'm not particularly into guns, but I respect what they're doing and uh probably get a little bit of commentary online about my understanding of the dynamics of muzzle brakes but that's what the internet's for yeah west virginia for me you know and this is a very personal story so if everyone can bear with me like west virginia for me was the most important thing that I ever did. When I say West Virginia, I'm talking about the Parts Unknown episode of West Virginia. I had lived in West Virginia when I was a kid, and my family went through a pretty tough time when we were there. My parents were kind of on the rocks. West Virginia can be a tough place, especially in that time.

Starting point is 02:07:22 It's a place that's been hit really hard by the dynamics of extractive industries and capitalism. And listen, I'm not bitching about capitalism. I believe in capitalism, maybe not our particular form of it, but for the most part, I believe in it. But you have a state that was really predicated on the coal industry. And as soon as they found easier, cheaper coal in China and in Wyoming, they just dropped those people like they didn't even exist. And so it created a tough environment. And I grew up to some degree in West Virginia in an environment that was kind of tough. We didn't have running water, electricity, et cetera. There's also some things I remember about it that are very fond, but it was like a really formative moment in my life. And I had really bad associations with West Virginia for

Starting point is 02:08:10 a long time and just wouldn't think about it, wouldn't go there. I went back in 2003 after I stopped working for Michael Mann and I happened to be there in Southern West Virginia when there was really bad flooding. And I saw these people and had this moment where I was just like, you're talking about the heart and soul of America. They are, especially when you get down to Southern West Virginia, that is a mixed group of white folks, black folks who came to that area to build lives for themselves and in the process built this country. And we basically shit on them. We engage in these ridiculous hyperbolic stereotypes of who they are. We consider them to be uneducated. And I mean, how many jokes do you know about

Starting point is 02:09:01 hillbillies? It's not true. They're like the hardest working, most independent, rugged, self-determining people. And that's the reason they went to those mountains in the first place. They are the heart of who we're supposed to be as a country. And I think we've seen, and I don't want to dive into politics here, but I think we've seen the result of what happens when you shit on those people and you ignore them. They get fucking angry and they got a right to. I always wanted to go back and make a show from what I saw there and the hardships that those folks were going through. And so we were in Antarctica with Tony and I pitched him on a West Virginia show and he was stoked on doing it.

Starting point is 02:09:41 And so we got to go back to the town of Welsh in McDowell County. McDowell County is the highest percentage population loss in the United States for any county over the past 50 years. It's a place that's just been decimated. It's always number two or three on the most impoverished counties list in the United States. And we went there and I had this moment where I was like taking Tony to a place where there's no restaurants, there's no food. It's like literally a food desert. Is he going to connect with this place? Is he going to like see what I feel like I saw, which was what I feel like we were kind of always looking for it to some degree in the show, which was like the beauty that's underneath that surface level. And we went there, we go through the first couple of days of shooting, and then Tony starts tweeting

Starting point is 02:10:30 like these tweets, like, nothing moves me like this place. Just all these really beautiful, wonderful. And I had this moment where I was like, yeah, dude, it's Tony, man. Of course he gets it. Of course he gets what you're trying to show him. Of course he gets these people in this place. And I think it was so important because it showed on a show called Parts Unknown, we're going to Central Appalachia in the United States. I think it showed his ability to walk into a context and environment. This is right after Trump was elected, by the way, to walk into a context and environment. This is right after Trump was elected, by the way, you know, to walk into a context and environment and see people for who they really are, not what our perception of them is, not based on his political feelings, not based on anything but the evidence of sitting down with someone and saying like, what, what are your values? What,

Starting point is 02:11:24 what does life mean to you? What do you want? You know, what are you looking for? And as soon as he saw who they were, he, he responded to it. We made this beautiful show. It was one of the few shows that we got to do where CNN gave us extra time. They gave us an extended episode, show won an Emmy. And I sent the Emmy back to Welsh and it's in Welsh. It's someone's house in Welsh. Oh, that's amazing. How cool. And it was just for me personally, for me professionally, in every way, it was like, this is full circle. This is how you make peace with something that's painful in your childhood.

Starting point is 02:12:00 You go and you confront it and you find out what's really there beneath the surface. And then you try to be benevolent about what it is. And I guess that's in part, now I'm kind of making this a little bit of a leap, but looking for, like gift in it, which was like an understanding of this place and a connection to it that allowed us to go and do something within our own country, looking at ourselves at a time when we critically need it because we are fucking falling apart if you haven't noticed. Yeah. Anyone who hasn't noticed, man. But we need to connect with each other. We need to talk to each other. We need to be good to each other. How are you choosing the projects that you work on now? And how did you end up becoming involved with United Shades of America? America. I mean, this was like, again, this was like one of those lucky moments where you're like, oh, well, obviously I'm going to do that. We had taken Kamau Bell to Kenya on Parts Unknown, and CNN wanted to do a crossover show. Kamau has a Kenyan name, though I don't know what his genetic descent is, but probably West African, not East African. For those who don't know, who is Kamau?

Starting point is 02:13:25 Kamau is a comedian from Oakland, Black comedian from Oakland, who has really, I think, carved out a niche for himself dealing in identity and cultural issues in the United States, but from a comedic lens. And has been someone who's really been willing to sit down with the other and have honest conversations with them, but do it in a way that is not so heavily laden. He's really kind of brilliant at that. Again, I mean, one of these people that I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to work with because he's super smart, super dynamic, and is doing something at a time in America where I really believe we need it, where we are talking about these things head on. His current project, which I had absolutely nothing to do with, is the four-part documentary on Showtime on Bill Cosby.

Starting point is 02:14:18 And I think it's really brave of Kamau to come out and be willing to have that conversation. A lot of people weren't. That's who he is. We took him to Kenya simply because his name is Kenyan. Kamau in Kenya is like Dan here. You look at the phone book and it's like half the people in the phone book are Kamau's. We shot this awesome show there. So cool. Went on safari, we were like three feet from lions, you know, the safari was black rhinos, white rhinos, hung out with the Maasai,

Starting point is 02:14:50 hung out in Nairobi, which is an incredible, incredible city. Again, with like a really young, really vibrant, really hardworking population that is another place

Starting point is 02:15:01 that is just driving this kind of like, how does one even say it? I mean, Africa's on fire right now. And I believe it's the next real growth place. With some hot centers around like Lagos and Nairobi and Accra and other places, but shot this great show. And at the end of it, I kind of, with a little bit of scumbaggery producer-ness, said, hey, listen,

Starting point is 02:15:27 if you're ever dissatisfied with your production company or if you ever just want to make a change, I shouldn't say dissatisfied because I don't want to put words in his mouth, we'd love to work with you. And we got a call a year later and he wanted to try something new. So we've been lucky enough to do that. And again, I feel very, very lucky in that because at a time when we're bleeding, man, this great, incredible country that we have, we're hurting. We got to be able to talk about these things with each other without ripping each other's heads off. And more and more, it feels like we're just ripping each other's heads off.

Starting point is 02:16:01 So whereas my life was really focused on like the external world, you know, the world outside of the United States for so many years with Tony, I felt like at a time when we really needed to look inward, like I got a chance to, you know, I have gotten a chance to do that with Kamau and it's been amazing. Learned a tremendous amount about who we are and have seen some shit that I can't unsee. I feel like it's so hard for us as white Americans to get a glimpse into what it's like to be black in this country. And I will never know that. And I know that I will never know that. But I've been able to see with much clearer resolution than I think a lot of people get to see what that experience is like and I can't unsee it now for whatever that's worth like anyone in black America gives a shit what I have to say about anything but well I mean be that as it may as you mentioned these are hard conversations to have but if the conversations aren't had, we're fucked.

Starting point is 02:17:05 What are we going to do? I mean, what are we going to do? Yeah, I mean, then what? What's plan B in that case? We know what plan B is. All you got to do is read history, you know what plan B is. Plan B is blood, man. Plan B is not good.

Starting point is 02:17:22 Yeah, so better to go with Plan A. And I was struck, I didn't know about this, but when you mentioned that Kamau was working on this, you said miniseries for Showtime? Yeah, four-part series. Four-part docuseries on Bill Cosby. That is, and I don't know the content, I don't know the angle, I don't know him. I'm not referring to Bill, but referring to Kamau.

Starting point is 02:17:47 But that is a ballsy move. Very. That's a bold move. And I applaud that, however people may feel about Bill Cosby. To make a character study and a historical study of that, I think, it seems important. It seems important. And we have to talk about it we want to fix these issues you have to talk about it you know but again for kamau and i don't want to speak out of turn here but as a black comedian i look at what bill cosby did and bill cosby broke more goddamn barriers. What he accomplished was amazing. And that's why

Starting point is 02:18:28 I think that what ended up coming out about Bill Cosby, which is pretty irrefutable, despite the fact that he is now walking the streets free, that is soul crushing. That is hard to face. That is hard to deal with when you've looked at this as a person who has been able to transcend a lot of the boundaries that have held you down. So I think as a Black American, to do that and to take that on head-on is damn gutsy. I think you should be applauded for that, regardless, again, of how you feel about Cos about cosby and in the cases surrounding cosby in particular so what's next for you what are you most hoping to do or looking forward to doing in the next few years oh man just wait waiting for crickets to walk by

Starting point is 02:19:16 waiting for crickets you seem to have you know when an uncanny ability to wait in the right spots and to pick the right crickets, I must say. You're an excellent spider. You're a fantastic, fantastic spider. I don't honestly know, Tim. I mean, you want to keep progressing, right? You want to keep building and you want to see how far you can go. I think that I'm open, man. I'm open.

Starting point is 02:19:43 I want new challenges just like everyone else. And we'll see where that goes. I have another Bedola's question. Yeah. And I'm going to read it exactly as he texted it to me because I love the brevity. It's almost like a haiku. So I would probably reword this just because I'm a different person, but I love it in its current form. So I'm going to read it. Here we go. You work with your wife, period. Potentially loaded situation, period.

Starting point is 02:20:10 How do you deal? Question mark. So this is though, I think a question that applies to a lot of people. How have you navigated or made rules around or figured out how to coexist and collaborate with a spouse? Honestly, be willing to lose and be honest about what is right in a particular situation. I think a lot of times in relationships, we've spent so much time trying to prove that we're in control and competent. I think, again, it is giving someone the respect to give them space and allow them to take control of a situation. You know, I mean, we do that at home with the kids. We do that, you know, in our household. We do it at work. And I don't know, I came up with this concept. I didn't come up with it. What the fuck am I talking about? It tapped into an age-old concept uh that i feel like has some wisdom to it which is

Starting point is 02:21:06 like this idea of like strategic loss be willing to lose some fucking battles what are you trying to prove it's your wife she's not i mean she's not going anywhere you know i hope i needed to do a couple of things to make it all work this is the life want. I want to work with my wife. I want to travel around the world with my wife. I want to be as much a part of helping her build her career as I want to build my own. But it took for me to come to the point where I had to be like, you are going to have to learn how to lose, not be right about everything, give her space, let her learn, let her teach you, and follow through on the shit that you say you're going to do. And that, to me, is like number one relationship killer, right? If we're just talking about the relationships.

Starting point is 02:21:57 You say you're going to do something, do it. Don't not do it. You're breaking trust. And when it came down to my wife going back to work after she raised the kids and went through two home births without medication, I have to mention that because she's rugged as shit. Match made in heaven for Mo Fallon. That's right. I said to her, if you go back to work, I will learn how to do this stuff. I promise you, I will follow through on my end of holding up the family, my end of the household. Learn how to do this stuff.

Starting point is 02:22:33 You mean handling the kids and so on? Yeah. That was perfect timing. Yeah, there they are. Cute kid audio. There's a daddy long leg. I think that that's going to be okay. In the house.

Starting point is 02:22:48 There's a daddy long leg in the house? No, on the painting. I'll come handle it, sweetheart. I just got to finish this up, though. So give me 10 minutes, okay? Give me 10 or 15 minutes. You don't have to worry about that. I do need some space there.

Starting point is 02:23:04 Give me a hug. All right. You say hi to Tim? You say hi to worry about that. I do need some space there. Give me a hug. You say hi to Tim? You say hi to Tim? Hello. What's next? You can come play with it after, sweetie. All right, I'll be in in a sec.

Starting point is 02:23:20 I'm so glad I slipped her that 20 to make that appearance and talk about spiders. It was perfect. But for me, it was like realizing that anyone who doesn't think that taking care of kids in the household isn't like a full-time professional job is like it just has not done the work and does not understand what goes into it. It is a full-time gig. If my wife was going to go back to work and we were going to have this future where we could work together, I had to be willing to ante up. I did.

Starting point is 02:23:49 And it made all the difference. But what a dream, right? I mean, just to put this in perspective a little, and I don't want to cry on my own violin here, but when Tony died, Jillian and I had just finished co-directing, co-producing the second Parts Unknown that we made for him. And it was in Florence. It's a show that has not aired. It was never finished. We shot it a week before Tony died. And we were sitting with Tony on the last day and he turned to Jillian and he gave her his seal of approval. He said, I like this. I like working with you. We're going to do this a lot more.

Starting point is 02:24:31 I just signed another three years and buckle up, get ready. And that was the last interaction the three of us had together. And Jill and I went home that night and we looked at each other and we did it. We did it, man. This is the dream. We're on the coolest fucking show on TV. The best ride you can possibly go on if you're a centralist who wants to see the world, this is it. It doesn't get better than this. We're doing it together. We're able to bring our kids. The next show that we talked about potentially doing was in Kyoto. It's like, who who doesn't want to do that we had the dream you know and we had worked

Starting point is 02:25:10 really hard to get there and a week later that was gone and that was a tough blow and so we've just focused in on like okay cool how do we get back there and that's i mean man that's so important to me she's also super super good at what she does. So it makes it easy. Now she's outgrowing me though, because everyone wants her. Well, quality problems. And it sounds like you have, it sounds like you both have great co-pilots

Starting point is 02:25:37 for kids and daddy long legs and everything in between. I'm pretty well. Well, Mo, let me do this. Because I know you have a lot going on over there and we've already been gone for almost three hours. That's so much fun. This is so great, man. It's so wonderful to see you and I'm so happy to see you doing so well with the family.

Starting point is 02:25:57 And is there anything else you would like to say, share, any requests you'd like to make of the audience, any complaints about the podcast you'd like to make of the audience any complaints about the podcast you'd like to state publicly anything at all that you'd like to add before we wind to a close here there's so many things like when we were going to do this i was just going through all this these incredible experiences in my mind it's too much to get into one thing but i did want to talk about one day that i felt like it was you know really the best my career. And I feel like I really got to typify what the whole experience was about. And I don't know if this will what I was talking about. Like you can't buy this ride. You got to earn this with something special like that show. We get invited to go down to Antarctica.

Starting point is 02:26:51 You know, now you've been, you know, you fly, you fly to Christchurch, hop a C-130 to McMurdo. And then from McMurdo, we hopped another C-130 to the South pole.

Starting point is 02:27:03 Like we had our own C-130. How ridiculous is that? But me and Tony and the rest in the crew, actually the show was directed by Eric Osterholm, which I got to give him mad props for getting us down there, and produced by Josh Farrell, who was also just a great producer. And co-DP on that was Fred Minow, who's a gifted cinematographer. And we also had Josh Flanagan,

Starting point is 02:27:32 who is one of our other DPs, who's also just gifted on the show. So we have this incredible crew. We had our own frigging C-130 flying around. And we did this thing where we went out to a place called Dry Valleys, which is kind of like the get if you go to Antarctica, you hang out at McMurdo. Dry Valleys is interesting because they've had no precipitation for like 10,000 years. So you're in Antarctica, but it looks like you're in the desert. People don't know this. There's places in Antarctica where there's no snow. Where we were, it was kind of mixed. You get glaciers and you get rock.

Starting point is 02:28:02 So we go have this incredible meal this crew that's there we're drinking whiskey out of ice that's these little shot glasses they make out of the ice there that's 50 000 years old ice in our drinks it's 50 000 years old there's a beach there next to the so we're like sitting on the beach tony's playing music as he always would he would be like the dj we drink shoot a little, play Frisbee, shoot the shit, talk, just kind of soak it up. It's like bright sunlight, 12 at night. He was playing specifically, he was playing gin and juice. I remember that. And we're all just having a great time. We go to sleep, camp out next to the glacier there and

Starting point is 02:28:42 wake up the next morning. And the next morning we we were just going to shoot B-roll. And we get picked up by a helicopter, right? An A-star that's piloted by a pilot who had been flying Apaches and Cobras in Afghanistan and then got to go down and be one of these pilots on the ice. But when you're a pilot down there, basically all you do is you either pick up human waste and shuttle it back to mcmurdo from these uh substations or you're like ferrying scientists and samples back and forth like you don't really get to do a lot of fun stuff but then we're like the rock and roll crew that comes in and we get this pilot who's just hot to trot and you want to go see some shit and we're like yeah we want to go see some shit and And we're like, yeah, we want to go see some shit. And just took us on a tour of all the craziest shit that he could get to within fuel range of that substation.

Starting point is 02:29:33 And we're flying through these canyons and no one's ever been in. Fly you up to a cliff that's 2,000 feet high. The scale of Antarctica cannot be described. We'd be on this cliff that's 2,000 feet high looking the scale of Antarctica cannot be described. You'd be like, we'd be on this cliff that's 2,000 feet high looking down into a valley where you could easily fit Manhattan with room left. No one's ever touched and standing in a place where no human beings ever been. Hop back in the helicopter and then he'd do some crazy drop off the cliff where you're like weightless for a second, go fly around and going through canyons and just everything you ever wanted to do.

Starting point is 02:30:10 If you ever had a helicopter and a Apache pilot to yourself, you know, and we're filming and filming and filming. And eventually we need fuel. We stop at this refueling station. There's intermittent refueling stations around. And we're sitting there and surrounded by 55-gallon drums of jet fuel. And these three folks come out. And they are the people who work at the refueling station. And their job is to be out there all season long refueling choppers.

Starting point is 02:30:40 Pretty lonely out there. You are literally, at that point, you are living on Hoth. And they come out with these pulled pork sandwiches. They made pulled pork sandwiches for us. And so we're sitting there drinking warm coffee, eating pulled pork sandwiches, over a 55-gallon drama jet fuel. The helicopter is still hot. And just had this moment of like, this is it, man. This is the top for this particular thing that I'm going to do in my life, this particular journey, nothing is going to get

Starting point is 02:31:13 any cooler than this. Nothing is going to get any more singular, inaccessible, or like amazing to be able to do those things and see those places and to hope to be able to capture enough of that in an organic enough way that it would translate some of what that journey was to people at home who will never be as lucky as I've been to stumble into this thing and to be able to hang out and hang on and get to that place. That was it, man. I don't know. It feels kind of selfish to tell that story in a way because, oh, look at the awesome fucking thing that I got to do. But I actually don't mean it that way. I actually mean I hope that what we did at the end of the day was be able to bring some of that back and show people what is out there.

Starting point is 02:32:08 It is vast and beautiful and extraordinary and so much bigger than our little daily, you know, kind of day-to-day context. I'm not trying to belittle or trivialize that, but there's something very freeing about the humility that comes with those massive spaces and being able to say, no one's ever stood here. This ice is 50,000 years old, or this is timeless. This goes so much deeper and beyond me. I hope that maybe everyone gets to experience some degree of that at some point in their life because i i think it's really important to be able to feel small and ultimately that is what the show did i guess for me and like the best way is give me a perspective on what this world really is fyi we should fucking take care of it

Starting point is 02:32:59 and don't be so goddamn afraid of other people. I keep telling people what I saw out there, seven continents, 70 countries, and a lot of hairy moments, and a lot of beautiful moments, and a lot of whatever. 99% of the people that we encountered were just beautiful, awesome people that wanted to take us into their homes and feed us and share their life with us and tell us who they were. And that's the truth of what's out there there's a lot of othering that goes on in this world and like they're not same concerns same people all of them same shit we're trying to do same same i don't know if that makes sense that is that makes perfect sense and that i could not have scripted a better place to end,

Starting point is 02:33:46 and I'm glad that there's no scripting involved, man. It's the perfect place to wrap up. Mo, it's so nice to see you again. Yeah, man, it's great. Hopefully we can hang out in person at some point here, too. Oh, I would love that. I would love that. And people can find you on Twitter at DiamondMoFallon,

Starting point is 02:34:04 and I already got the Mo part, F-A-L-L-O on Twitter at Diamond Mo Fallon. And I already got the Mo part. F-A-L-L-O-N. Instagram Fallon.Morgan. Facebook Morgan.Fallon.31. And 0.0, you can find all spelled out 0.0.com. Yeah. Come be another one of my disappointed and frustrated social media followers. I don't do great on social media. Oh, that is the perfect way to get people to look at your social. Brilliant. Genius.

Starting point is 02:34:34 Absolutely genius. And really appreciate you and what you do in the world and the ruggedness and rigor that you bring to what is both incredibly artistic, but, and I saw this when we were working together, also very tender and human. It's a gift that you help bring to the world. So thank you for doing that. I mean, that's an incredible compliment coming from you and everything that you do and bring. And I think you bring that same humanity to everything that you do, a real marker of your success. So, I mean, listen, I'm humbled, man, by the whole

Starting point is 02:35:11 thing. So, thank you. Yeah. Thanks to you, man. And we'll get together, have some coffee, maybe go mountain biking on something that isn't like a 45-degree single track. And I'll let you get to the daddy long legs. And for everybody listening, for links to everything we discussed, everything we talked about and more, I will put that all in the show notes at Tim.blogs.com. And until next time, be just a little bit kinder than you think is necessary. And thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is Five Bullet Friday.

Starting point is 02:35:51 Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or

Starting point is 02:36:11 discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog.com slash Friday. Type that into your browser, tim.blog.com slash Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.

Starting point is 02:36:53 This podcast episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Sleep is super important to me. In the last few years, I've come to conclude it is the end-all be-all that all good things, good mood, good performance, good everything seem to stem from good sleep. So I've tried a lot to optimize it. I've tried pills and potions, all sorts of different mattresses, you name it. And for the last few years, I've been sleeping on a Helix Midnight Luxe mattress. I also have one in the guest bedroom and feedback from friends has always been fantastic. It's something that they comment on. Helix Sleep has a quiz, takes about two minutes to complete, that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you.

Starting point is 02:37:35 With Helix, there's a specific mattress for each and every body. That is your body, also your taste. So let's say you sleep on your side and like a super soft bed, no problem. Or if you're a back sleeper who likes a mattress that's as firm as a rock, they've got a mattress for you too. Helix was selected as the number one best overall mattress pick of 2020 by GQ Magazine, Wired, Apartment Therapy, and many others. Just go to helixsleep.com slash Tim, take their two minute sleep quiz quiz and they'll match you to a customized mattress that will give you the best sleep of your life. They have a 10 year warranty and you get to try it out for 100 nights risk-free. They'll even pick it up from you if you don't love it. And now my dear listeners, Helix is offering up to $200 off of all mattress orders and two free pillows at

Starting point is 02:38:20 helixsleep.com slash Tim. These are not cheap pillows either. So getting two for free is an upgraded deal. So that's up to $200 off and two free pillows at helixsleep.com slash Tim. That's helixsleep.com slash Tim for up to $200 off. So check it out one more time. Helixsleep.com slash Tim. This episode is brought to you by Gravity, makers of the original weighted blanket. Listeners of this podcast know I place sleep at the very top of my list for optimizing health, energy,

Starting point is 02:38:59 and performance. I've had onset insomnia and all sorts of sleep issues almost my entire life. It does not come easy for me, which is why I'm always experimenting and adding new sleep aids to my roster of experimentation. This is currently my number one priority because it's the basis, the foundation for everything else. If that's in place, it helps everything else. If it's not in place, it hurts everything else. One of my new favorites is the gravity weighted blanket. My girlfriend is also a fan. You might recognize gravity from some of my interviews on this podcast with superhuman athletes. A number of them use gravity weighted blankets and have mentioned them, which is how I picked up the thread and ended up testing them out. 72% of gravity users have reported better, more restful sleep,

Starting point is 02:39:45 and 76% have reported falling asleep faster and feeling more rested in the morning. For me, the falling asleep faster is the key piece. Better, deeper, uninterrupted sleep is key for brain function and cognitive abilities, as well as everything from cardiovascular health to immune function. You know this. And if you do any form of training, it's also the cornerstone of recovery. Gravity is the leader in weighted blanket technology. They have all sorts of other products as well, which you can check out. And they have been named the best weighted blanket by CNN, Business Insider, Good Housekeeping,

Starting point is 02:40:19 and many more. And now Gravity is offering you guys, my listeners, a special discount. Order a blanket of any size or weight and receive 15% off of your order. Just go to gravityblankets.com slash Tim and the discount will be automatically applied. That's 15% off at gravityblankets.com slash Tim. Get your own original weighted blanket, Gravityblankets.com.

The Tim Ferriss Show - #597: Morgan Fallon — 10 Years on the Road with Anthony Bourdain, 9 Emmy Nominations, Lessons from Michael Mann, Adventures with Steven Rinella, High Standards, Wisdom from West Virginia, and More

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.