There was no model how to make a documentary production company work. I figured it out as I went along.
I always tell aspiring documentary filmmakers, 'You have to go into it because you love it; if you go into it for the money, you're an idiot.' The number one prerequisite is you have to be intensely curious. If you love learning and trying to make people figure out what makes people tick, it's the best job in the world.
The presidential and vice-presidential debates are those rare moments when people come together, but to even call them debates is a stretch because they're played by such negotiated rules, and they're so over-rehearsed.
They don't make people like Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley anymore.
So much of what we get on our news debate shows is really people spinning one way or the other, giving their talking points one way or the other.
In a weird way, our satirists probably have the most complicated, nuanced views of our politics now - Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver. I don't know what that says about our country.
Politicians pretend not to be smart.
I so often doubt how much people on television believe what they're saying. They're playing roles for think tanks or political parties or shills of whatever stripe.
The idea of music coming from the Church is not new.
Church singing is a great training ground.
Success and singing is not synonymous.
By the rules of debate, if you lose your cool, you've lost the game.
Culture in general is important, and people's identify is tied up in it. It's how we connect with others.
There's no cultural revolution by mistake.
The easiest way to subjugate a people is to erase a culture. I've seen it in war zones.
Music, like film, is an incredible tool for creating empathy.
I'd worked on music docs for years. It felt like writing a novel. By the time I got to Keith Richards, it felt like making a sketch.
I feel like - like Netflix is great if you've got a project ready to launch itself into the world rapidly.
As a writer, I think about films I work on in a traditional Hollywood kind of a way. I'm curious to see how it translates.
I knew who Buckley and Vidal were growing up, being a political junkie.
