In this episode of Documentary First, host Christian Taylor welcomes back Emmy-nominated director and producer Nicholas (Nick) Bruckman for his third visit to the show. Together, they pull back the curtain on the real world of documentary filmmaking—from getting into top festivals like Sundance and Tribeca, to navigating labs and markets, to landing a doc on Netflix.

Nick shares how his early narrative feature Valley of Saints got into Sundance off a “cold” submission, and how he’s since used programs like Gotham Week, Film Independent’s labs, and Tribeca’s Creators Market to build meaningful relationships with programmers and industry partners. He breaks down his rough-cut screening process (including Google forms and phone-watching “tells”) and explains why being radically open to feedback is one of the most powerful tools a filmmaker has.

Christian and Nick also dive into Minted: The Rise and Fall of the NFT, exploring why that film became Netflix’s “definitive” NFT documentary—and what that reveals about marketplace demands, cultural buzz, and why some critically acclaimed films (Not Going Quietly) still don’t land on major streamers.

The conversation then turns to Nick’s latest four-part docuseries, The Price of Milk, which premiered at Tribeca. Christian shares her strong personal reaction to the series, especially its portrayal of small family dairy farmers and the government “checkoff” program that was supposed to support them. Nick unpacks the hidden story behind the “Got Milk?” campaign, how money flows from farmers to industry groups, and why transparency, policy, and political engagement matter more than simply switching what’s in your grocery cart.

Finally, Nick reveals how Oatly helped fund The Price of Milk while still allowing full editorial independence—and offers practical advice for filmmakers on working with brands, nonprofits, and mission-aligned partners to get ambitious projects made and seen. He closes with a DocuView Déjà Vu recommendation: Secret Mall Apartment, a doc that not only tells a wild story but also models what’s possible with clever, independent distribution outside traditional gatekeepers.

Links:

Minted - on Netflix & Prime Video, IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27548035/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_1

Valley of Saints - on Prime Video, IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2088967/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_3

Catapult Film Find: Catapult Film Fund

Gotham Week: Gotham Week

TriBeca X: Tribeca X

Peoples TV: People's Television

DocuView Déjà Vu

Secret Mall Apartment, 2024, 91 mins, Watch on Prime Video, IMDB Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21221386/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_secret%2520mal

Time Codes

00:00 Introduction to Documentary Filmmaking

03:31 Navigating Film Festivals

09:50 The Importance of Feedback in Filmmaking

16:04 Getting Projects on Netflix

21:58 Understanding Market Demands in Documentary Filmmaking

27:47 Exploring 'The Price of Milk'

34:13 The Role of Government in Dairy Industry

42:05 Funding Documentaries: A New Approach

47:13 Collaborating with Brands for Storytelling

54:06 Conclusion and Recommendations

Sponsor: Virgil Films http://www.virgilfilms.com/

Support us by buying merch or watching our films: https://documentaryfirst.com/

Welcome to Documentary First, everybody.

2

My name is Christian Taylor and I am the host of Documentary First, also a documentary

filmmaker.

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This podcast is an inside look at documentary filmmaking and I am really excited today to

have another documentary filmmaker with me here, Nicholas Bruckman.

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We call him Nick.

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This is the third time he's been on our show.

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Nick, we're super happy to have you here today.

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Thanks for being here.

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Thank you so much, Christian, glad to be back.

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Yeah, he's talking about a new project.

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We're also going to talk about another project that he spoke about before called minted,

which is now you can find on Netflix.

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We're going to talk about how it got there.

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We're going to talk about a new project that he just came out with his, or, you know, it's

going to be on the film festival circuit.

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It is called the price of milk.

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I just finished watching it and boy, let me tell you, I got some really strong feelings

about that.

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I can't wait to talk about.

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But first, let me read his bio.

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Nick Bruckman is an Emmy nominated director and founder of People's Television in New York

City and DC based creative studio producing award winning films and storytelling campaigns

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for the world's leading brands, foundations and social movements.

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His feature documentary, Not Going Quietly, which is phenomenal and everybody should see

that.

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about healthcare activist, Addie Barkin won both the audience and jury awards at South by

Southwest and was a release to critical acclaim in theaters nationwide and on Hulu.

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Is it still there?

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No, it's not on Hulu, but it is still on Amazon and Apple TV.

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Good.

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His follow-up minted the rise and fall question mark of the NFT premiered at the Tribeca

Film Festival.

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And I absolutely love that film and was released by Netflix earlier this year.

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And I'm assuming it is still there.

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Yep.

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Most recently the docu-series, The Price of Milk, which we're going to talk about today,

which uncovers the hidden story behind the iconic Got Milk campaign had its world premiere

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at Tribeca in June.

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So

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That's just a small introduction of who Nick is.

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uh Nick, thank you so much for all of those projects and for your experience.

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I um really want to look under the hood and figure out about how you were able to make all

this happen, particularly about how the heck you get into Tribeca and how in the world you

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get your stuff on Netflix.

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And...

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how you get things funded like the price of milk because I just finished watching it.

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was an excellent production.

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You used all sorts of things from amazing graphics to a lot of archival stuff.

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You had interviews all over the place.

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So I know there was a lot of travel uh and just talking heads and just different people

that you interviewed.

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So it looked like it was a big uh undertaking.

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So lot of questions for you.

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Thank you.

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Yeah, I appreciate all the run through and there's different themes that emerge.

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And I know a lot of your audiences, filmmakers themselves who are trying to make their

first or maybe second or third or fourth project and things are changing very fast in the

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documentary landscape.

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so I'm happy both to talk about the stories but also the behind the scenes under the hood.

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I'm super happy that you're here because you're one of the filmmakers that I feel like I

can talk to is sort of on my level.

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You're not, you're ahead of me, but you are an everyman in a sense where you are an

independent filmmaker.

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You're trying to get your stuff out there, but you have been super successful with getting

your things in the high profile film festivals and now, you know, getting your shows on uh

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streaming services like Netflix.

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So let's start with how you're getting your things into Tribeca.

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That's really hard to do.

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How have you made that happen?

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Thanks, yeah, that's a great question.

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I mean, I should caveat by starting to say that film festivals are important, but they're

not everything.

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um Of course, they're really important launch pads for films.

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um And I know that a lot of filmmakers can put a lot of emphasis on them.

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And I think that's right.

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I include myself in those filmmakers that emphasize them.

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So I don't want to diminish it anyway, but I do want to make sure that we button this talk

about Tribeca and how to get in with the fact that

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you can still make a great film and you can still get it out to the world without those

laurels.

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uh But it is really important to think about how you're gonna present your film to the

world for the first time.

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That's where all the buzz and attention will begin.

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um so, at bare minimum, like one piece of advice that most filmmakers um will learn on

their first film is to really try to reserve that first screening for the right fit.

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And that can be a really challenging process because

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Everybody, you send your film to Sundance and it doesn't get in as not all some of my

projects have, but many have not.

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And then you say, okay, well, what now?

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Do I try to go to South by Southwest?

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Do I go to Tribeca?

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What if one of them says no?

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What's the next best thing?

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So there's a couple of things that I've done.

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um One is just to, and this is uh important, is to really try to develop the pedigree of

your project through different labs and markets.

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So we're talking about the price of milk, which is our...

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four part documentary series about the absurd history of milk in America.

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And we actually um had that project developed at the Tribeca Creators Market in 2024,

which is something that we submitted to.

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And through that, we're able to make some connections to the Tribeca programming team.

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I also have had projects in Tribeca in the past, but there are markets like that which

help to

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um cultivate some type of relationship with a festival.

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That way you're not just writing to submissions at sundance.org, but instead hopefully

writing to a programmer there that you have some connection to.

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Now, that can help because you can put it on their radar early, you can get more attention

from them.

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um And a lot of filmmakers will say, well, how do I get those relationships in the first

place?

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And there really are ways to do it.

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You can attend.

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The programmers often speak at events, speak at panels.

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They do these labs and markets.

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But I've done these different kinds of labs and markets with most of my projects from Not

Going Quietly to The Price of Milk.

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Not Going Quietly was in a program called Gotham Week, which is here in New York, which is

also a project development uh marketplace.

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There's also one that we participated in called Fast Track, which is run by Film

Independent in Los Angeles.

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They have a documentary lab as well and a producing

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a workshop and a rough cut workshop.

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And the reason why these things are, I encourage people to apply to these things.

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It can be a bit burdensome to do that is not only to make those connections to

programmers, but also to evaluate the strength of the material in the first place.

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uh Even those, course, like film festivals are very competitive to get in, but it's a

place where you can really show the work to a lot of peers and also to industry and get

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feedback.

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And I think that brings me to the

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Last thing I just want to mention besides kind of making relationships, applying to labs

is it really comes down to, I don't think it's that political.

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My first ever film that I produced, we made it with a crew of three.

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I was 25 years old.

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We submitted it cold.

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I didn't have any program relationship at the time to the Sundance Film Festival.

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uh And I got the call on Thanksgiving weekend.

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Congratulations.

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I wasn't, know, everything I'd heard before that was, you have to, you know,

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be the studio head, Harvey Weinstein can make the call or that at the time.

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I don't know, you've got to be head of Netflix.

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We'll pick up the phone for you or CAA or whatever.

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And so we didn't need that.

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Of course, those things do help.

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But fundamentally, it comes down to making something that is unique, that's competitive in

the marketplace, that has a distinct point of view.

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And the way that I approach it as a storyteller, this is not about business or

connections.

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is really back to this idea of getting feedback and getting feedback from peers, from

people you trust.

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And every project that I've done has probably had, you know, going on five, 10, 15 rough

cut screenings where I've sent them, sent the links to friends.

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We've had screenings at the office.

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We have this technique where everybody gets a little form, a Google form, and they all

have to,

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movie ends, the rough cut ends, and everybody has to silently take out their laptops or go

on one of the computers and put in their raw, unvarnished, unfiltered thoughts before

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anybody says anything.

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That way you hear what people thought individually.

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And of course you can do this online.

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But I recommend making an actual form.

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Don't just say, can you look at this and tell me what you think.

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Try to actually put radio buttons in there that say,

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on a one to five, would you recommend this to a friend?

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And where were you bored?

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One thing that I um really notice when I'm in these rough cut screenings is not just what

people click there, but when I see people reach for their phones in their pocket, if it's

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a live screening.

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And when you watch people do that, you got to cut that scene or shorten it.

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And so I say all this because I think fundamentally, this is the best way to improve as a

filmmaker.

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You can also go to film school.

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great, great collaborators, all of the stuff that, you know, is obviously fundamental

storytelling, but being open to critical feedback and continuing to iterate on your

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project until that stuff starts to improve.

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If you were getting threes and fours in the reviews of your film from your friends and

family, keep working on it until you start to get fives.

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Because if it's not, if your friends and family don't think it's incredible, now you have

to compete with

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the other 10,000 people submitting to Tribeca.

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So this is not foolproof.

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It's just to say that, you know, focus on being open, being vulnerable, you know, listen

to what people tell you about your work.

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Cause it can be really hard to get that perspective from the outside.

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So true.

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What was that first film that you submitted to Sunday?

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Valley of Saints.

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the producer on the film and it was at Sundance in 2012.

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That's also on VOD now so you can download to rent or buy it on Amazon or Apple.

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It was very formative project for me.

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It was directed by an amazing filmmaker named Musa Saeed who I still collaborate with

today and we filmed it in Kashmir on the Indian Pakistani border.

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uh And it's a narrative film, a love story, but shot in a very documentary style.

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And I was the producer and the sound recordist because we only had a crew of three to make

the movie.

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and that was a scary time to be there, actually.

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My son was in Afghanistan at the time, right on the, in the Pakiya province, right near

the Pakistan border.

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So I know that was not a easy time to be over there.

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It was not, and we um actually included the story is around some of the conflict that is

happening there.

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And we actually included kind of some of the real protests and real um strikes and things

that were going, even though it was a scripted film, we sort of incorporated some of those

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um elements into the story, which I think made it really unique.

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And not a lot of films have been made in that part of the world with that perspective.

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Yeah, I'm sure that's why you got into Sundance.

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So congrats on that.

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So let me just ask you about these creators markets and these labs.

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Just talk to me about exactly what that is.

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So I mean, I've seen that when I've gone to Sundance's website or when I've gone to the

Tribeca's website and I really have been intimidated uh because they seem very onerous to

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get in.

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uh I feel like, gosh, I'll never get in.

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They're expensive or they're time consuming.

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Just explain a little bit more about what your experience is, you know, to get in and what

it's like when you get in there.

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Yeah, I mean, similarly to the festivals, they are very competitive and we all just have

to acknowledge that being a filmmaker, being a storyteller is a very privileged position

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and there's always gonna be, as well as any kind of artist, there's going to be more

creators than there are uh room for in the market, especially when you're you know, kind

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of socially oriented documentaries.

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People wanna kick back and watch reality.

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And if you definitely want to work, you can definitely get into other parts of the

industry that are not as competitive.

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But all of us in this field are really motivated.

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We're really passionate about the stories.

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We know that nobody else is going to tell them if we don't.

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And so we don't let a little rejection slow us down.

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And I've experienced plenty of it.

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For every project you just described, there's others that I couldn't get off the ground at

all.

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ah There's films that...

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I was, uh, gotten pretty far and never got out.

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there's films of friends that I've helped support that never got into any film festivals

and, know, had to be self distributed and all of those things have found their way.

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having thick skin for all of that is important, but I do think applying for the labs can

help because it can show you the promise of the project early on.

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And there's different kinds.

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There's some that really look at projects very early on at a sort of development stage.

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And there's some that.

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you're sending the rough cut of your film to.

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And for documentaries, really, it's all about getting the story right in post.

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um All of my projects have taken, all three of the main kind of documentary projects you

mentioned were in post-production for almost a year.

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um And all of that was finding the story, refining it, making sure it works, having it

resonate, doing those rough cut screenings.

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So the labs that do that are great.

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There's a uh rough cut retreat.

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that I haven't participated in held by an organization called Catapult Films.

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um although I've heard great things about it, but I would really encourage, a lot of film

festivals have um pitch sessions where you can pitch your idea or show your preview of it.

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But I can speak particularly to Gotham, which is kind of New York's main film nonprofit

and Film Independent, which is LA's main film nonprofit.

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as being very welcoming of new and diverse voices.

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um And ah both of those programs were great.

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So they consist of kind of two different tracks.

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One is the kind of story workshops or labs where you really hone your craft.

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There's a directing lab at Film Independent, a producing lab, an editing lab, et cetera.

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Those are great.

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And then there's also with both of these organizations kind of uh networking markets.

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And those are really not about

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being a better filmmaker, those are about connecting your project to industry.

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And that's really critically important.

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One tip I will say is that those, as we talk more about the business side of how do you

find money, how do you find the programmers, how do you find the festivals, et cetera, at

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a lot of those labs, they do publish the names of the people who attended.

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And the people who attended are generally,

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the people who are looking for projects in some capacity and You can email those people

and try to get to those people even if you're not in the lab So I recommend staying up to

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speed on who's attending these things you can also just go as an attendee if you don't get

in to many of these things like Gotham week here in New York and uh You know buy buy a day

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pass or a conference pass and really try to network and if you're a you know ambitious

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independent filmmaker, I know you'll have no problem kind of going up to somebody, shaking

their hand, pitching your project, just getting their email and being persistent.

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And I, as any good producer, have a big spreadsheet of anybody who I think might possibly

support a project from a traditional investor to a donor, to a foundation, to a brand, to

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a journalist, um and trying to manage those relationships.

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at scale, you can be honest about being a first time filmmaker or being up and coming and

really trying to get your first project off the ground.

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And people are receptive to that kind of honesty and helping you out.

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um yeah, developing and managing relationships is important.

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And that's what those market side of those um programs do.

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And there's a few more that are escaping me right now besides those two.

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And a lot of individual and local film festivals also have um workshops and markets.

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Well, that's what Google and ChatGPT are for.

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I think you've given us a good list and I really appreciate it.

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say AI in any of my answers today, just as a a drinking game to see if I can get through

the whole interview without saying it.

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No, no, you're good.

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But actually, thank you so much for those inside tips.

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I think that is uh the stuff that filmmakers are looking for.

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So thank you.

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Let's move on now to talk about Minted because Minted is, we were talking about this last

time.

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We talked about what was going on.

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You couldn't talk to us about it.

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I had a sneaky suspicion.

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You were talking to Netflix and.

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I was hoping that that would go through for you.

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It clearly did.

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I want to know how it happened because my film was not accepted by Netflix.

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And so how'd you make it happen?

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Yeah, well, don't, like I said about any kind of rejection, just to make you feel better.

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uh My other films, including Not Going Quietly, which got sort of many, many industry

accolades uh and attention, uh also was not acquired by Netflix.

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every project has its own path and journey.

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um And I am hopeful that some of the tips that I'm giving here will help you with your

next film getting on there.

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And just like I said, with film festivals, like getting on the Netflix isn't everything.

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It was a really big milestone for me.

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I'm obviously excited to talk to you about it.

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And it was great to have a lot of the accessibility of it for a lot of my friends.

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And most of our friends have it and therefore it makes it easier to see.

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Nobody wants the friction of paying $2.99 to rent a movie, although they should, because

it helps support these kinds of projects get out into the world.

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uh And in the case of uh

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minted the rise and fall of the NFT.

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We were lucky enough in April of this year to uh have the film uh licensed by Netflix in

about hundred countries, uh not everywhere.

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uh And it was uh a deal that was done uh by our agents.

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So the project has a sales rep and this is another part of the whole process that

documentaries can uh have somebody that helps you navigate the marketplace.

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And um they're um not difficult to get a good sales rep necessarily because it's their job

to sell films.

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And it kind of again goes back to the first principles of having a great story.

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Getting into a film festival will help you get a sales rep.

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And in our case, the project was represented by Range Media Partners headed by Jessica

Lacey, who I don't know if she wants to share this, but is Susan Lacey's daughter who you.

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mentioned and I really um love that Jessica is both a industry executive selling

documentaries, but also comes from a family of legendary documentary filmmakers.

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So she really knows and loves and cares about the craft as you know, not just a Hollywood

studio type.

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um And um they um made the deal happen.

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And I'll mention that the deal was done in conjunction with PBS.

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um the film broadcast on PBS Independent Lens and they were able to do a joint deal where

after the PBS broadcast, the film um then went onto the Netflix platform, uh which was

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great that they were willing to work together.

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um I'll mention a couple other things that are important.

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uh From the perspective of the story, the reason I think that that film was acquired was

because not just about all the quality,

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stuff that we've been talking about, about great stories, but it's also kind of the

definitive film about this one cultural flash point.

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And Netflix, they send these mandates about what they're interested in to industry.

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I'll send you one.

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They send them like once every few months to the sales agents and they're very informal.

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They're like, buzzy, true crime.

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We're looking for the next,

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greatest big scams and cults.

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They're not necessarily looking for some of the more mission-driven docs, which is why the

industry has been having such a hard time.

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And I'm sure your other guests have talked about that.

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the case of Minted, they really want projects that kind of drive like water cooler

conversation, right?

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What kinds of films are people gonna be like going into the office and saying, hey, did

you see that new Netflix doc?

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That's what...

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Tiger King is or the big celebrity thing is, right?

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You just have to subscribe to Netflix because then the reason for their business logic, in

my opinion, I'm not a streaming exec either, but their logic is they want people talking

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about the movies so that anybody not subscribing in that what friend group needs to

subscribe or they're missing out.

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And so I think having kind of like the definitive NFT.

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Doc helped because everybody was like, what was that whole thing?

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And yeah, and I don't know that it was strictly.

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So I think it's important when selecting your projects to think about, you you don't want

to cater to the marketplace.

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You have to do what you care about and what what story is you're passionate about.

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But I do think having something that has a little bit of that buzz and it's recent and

it's like a cultural phenomenon, all of those, I think, are the reasons that Netflix took

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it, even though, like I said, they did not.

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take my previous film before that, which was, you know, in some ways a more elevated, more

accoladed, won many more awards, but it was about a really difficult subject about

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somebody with ALS.

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It was very political and unfortunately there hasn't been as much acquisition of political

docs.

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And so, you know, I don't know that I want to tell people like, do what the marketplace

says.

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Like you should make the best story you can.

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But let's just talk about that for one second.

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And then I want to come back to, we're going to have to clarify what Minted is about in

case people did not listen to our other podcasts, which you should.

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It is on YouTube and it is on your other podcast streaming platforms.

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uh But we do need to talk about what Minted is about.

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let's do talk about this concept of making docs that the market wants, because we are in a

situation where we can...

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I have always said on this podcast, you must think about the end result.

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As a filmmaker, you can't just say, oh, I'm going to go and make whatever I want to make

and spend my money on all these things and then try to go and sell it.

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And I just think that's folly these days because that's not the way our industry works

anymore.

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It's narrowed so much and it's changed so much.

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that if you're not thinking about what the buyers are buying, then you are throwing away

your time and your money.

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You're right.

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It's a balance of making sure that you are doing the project for the right reasons and

your passion about the topic and the story are driving you forward while also being

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realistic that there is an audience for this.

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It's a story that needs to be told by you, the storyteller, but it's also a story that

needs to be heard.

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And there's an audience that wants to hear it.

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I agree, you know, going back to Chat GPT, I mean, I do think that the first thing when

you find, you know, I met this amazing person and he's got this great story and he

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overcame this thing and it's going to be an amazing film.

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I, you know, would that there I would encourage people to go into Chat GPT and, and I

know, I know, and ask it to list out every film.

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about this topic and there always will be, including for NFTs, including about Milk,

including even about um Adi, there was other things going on, he's the subject of not

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going quietly.

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And I wouldn't say to let any of that deter you, but watch those movies and think about

how did they perform, what works about them, what didn't, and what is your unique

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perspective on this?

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And of course, you know, the Fyre Festival had two documentaries made about it at the same

time.

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It doesn't mean you can't do something.

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It just means you have to have a unique take, a perspective, and you have to have, it has

to have an audience as a subject.

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So you're right about that.

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And, you know, I just don't want that to mean that everybody's just chasing the same buzzy

feeling projects, because if everybody followed that, there would only be true crime

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documentaries, which is 90 % of what's out there.

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true.

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So true crime and horror, some sort of horror thing, because that's what sells, sadly.

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um

317

fictional crime or real crime.

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That's what people wanna watch.

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And I think there's a lot of reasons for that.

320

And this is beyond the scope of this conversation, but I think having more media literacy,

more cinema studies in school, more documentary introduction earlier on, that I think can

321

really help cultivate more of an audience for it.

322

I think it starts.

323

when people are young, but I'll just mention this one anecdote.

324

Maybe I told you this before, but I was at the Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival, CPH

Docs with Minted last year, and um all the screenings were packed and much more full than

325

any festival I'd been to in the U.S.

326

mean, just regular Danish people just walking in wanting to see every documentary.

327

And I was asking somebody at a reception, like, why are the Danish people so into

documentaries?

328

And he said, that's easy.

329

It's because we're happy.

330

We have great health care.

331

We have good child care.

332

ah And we have good employment here.

333

And so when we have free time, we want to know what's going on with the rest of the world.

334

And so we like to watch documentaries to learn more about that.

335

And I think that's an interesting just take because here a lot of people, for whatever

reason, whatever your political beliefs are on why that's the case, people

336

you have to ask yourself, why are people so gravitated towards watching this kind of like,

you know, I don't want to say empty because true crime is great is a great medium.

337

But why is it that people want to watch that and don't have the energy on a Friday night

to watch something really hard hitting about veterans or about health care or about, uh

338

you know, food, the food industry.

339

uh And so it's like a societal thing that I don't have any answers for, but it's just

something.

340

that we need to think about because that's where all the pressure for the Netflix's of the

world to buy documentaries is going to come from.

341

People have to demand them.

342

Why do you think it is the case in the US?

343

What's your theory?

344

I mean, it comes down to, like I said, outside of the scope of this conversation, because

I think it comes into the political questions of why are, why, if you take that anecdote I

345

used about the Danish guy and its word, that people here feel a greater sense of struggle

in their own lives.

346

And so that makes them less inclined to watch cinema that

347

has people struggling.

348

yeah, yeah, so that it's as simple as that.

349

that's, that's why sports it's growing.

350

So if you look at the sports industry, especially sports and streaming, it's where the

money always is.

351

Like you could true crime or the sports industry or the betting industry, know, the kind

of gaming industry, those are.

352

It's blowing up.

353

media component to this, right, which is attention spans are going down.

354

And I think great stories can be told on social.

355

We make, as our production company, People's TV, we make a lot of social forward content.

356

I'm not a purist about only make documentaries for the big screen.

357

We do.

358

for Asia.

359

my goodness.

360

I've heard about these.

361

the vertical stories.

362

No, no, no, I know about those, the soap dramas.

363

Yeah, no, we haven't made any of those.

364

Yeah, so it's a big, like I said, it's a bigger topic than we can deal with here, but my,

to leave it on a hopeful note, I think, you know, the best thing people can do, filmmakers

365

and audiences, is just engage more with great stories.

366

Pay that, if it's not on Netflix, pay that $3.99 to rent.

367

the Girl Who Wore Freedom or Now I'm Not Going Quietly or any other project that's harder

to see on the bigger streamers and show that there's a demand.

368

Yeah, well, I will say that when I talk to people who do watch documentaries or take the

time to, they always say, I love them.

369

I love watching docs.

370

If they just make the choice to do that, they learn something new.

371

And then people are like, I love learning new things if they just need to make that step.

372

All right, so let's talk about minted real quick.

373

Talk about what an NFT is.

374

Talk about why it was the, you know, uh the, what'd you say?

375

What'd you say it was the?

376

In the zeitgeist, a cultural moment.

377

Yeah, but the like admit that what did you say it was the film was like the.

378

There you go, that's the word I'm looking for the definitive one.

379

Yeah, so minted the rise and fall of the NFT was my previous film before the price of milk

that we chatted about on a past episode.

380

So for more details, your audience can go back to that one.

381

But the um film tells the story of the sudden and explosive rise of the non-fungible

token, which is when a cryptocurrency like a Bitcoin

382

is attached typically to a piece of art or something else that gives it value.

383

And in 2021, when we started filming that project, a single NFT by an artist known as

Beeple was sold for $69 million.

384

And it shook up the entire art world.

385

It made him the third highest selling living artist.

386

And it created this phenomenon where artists around the world

387

and collectors started cashing in on this meteoric rise of the value of these ephemeral

digital tokens.

388

And for people who are now familiar with Bitcoin, they'll know how these cycles can come

up and rise and crash.

389

And the story follows over the course of the two years, artists around the world whose

fortunes rise and then dramatically fall through that market phenomenon.

390

uh And it's now on Netflix.

391

Yeah, and it's definitely worth a watch.

392

So make sure you do that.

393

Now, let's move on to this new film that I watched.

394

well, it's actually a four-part series called The Price of Milk.

395

And I have to say, extremely well done.

396

uh Visually a beautiful film about a very dirty subject, if you want my opinion.

397

um I was not at all um expecting where it went.

398

I don't know why.

399

think...

400

I shouldn't have known you.

401

should have known it was going to go in that direction.

402

anyway, talk to me.

403

My first question was, how the heck did you get excited about this subject matter?

404

What made you want to tell this story?

405

And give us the log line about it first.

406

So The Price of Milk is a four part investigative documentary series that follows the

407

America, the government and the milk and dairy industry.

408

And it's a fun and wild ride, also exposes, I hope you felt that way, but also exposes uh

bigger issues with how industries can capture our government and our politics and our um

409

economy um in ways that may not be at the best interests of everyday people.

410

And that could apply to almost anything.

411

And all my projects, I think, explore that to some degree.

412

But this one looks at it through a very

413

kind of uh simple and unusually deceptive thing, which is a simple glass of white milk.

414

Yeah, and I will say I did not read the log line before I jumped in.

415

you you mentioned before, Susan Lacey, Jessica Lacey and her mom, Susan Lacey, I thought I

was interviewing her today.

416

I will be interviewing her tomorrow.

417

And so I had to quickly watch your film and I just jumped in without reading any prep,

which actually I kind of liked.

418

I liked just not knowing what it was about and discovering it as I walked in.

419

And one of the things that I will say is I was in...

420

incredibly impressed by the organization of the story.

421

So I felt the story was super clear and told really well because it was divided into these

four parts that were easily digestible.

422

thought that, what'd you say?

423

Yes, no pun intended.

424

it was, um it highlighted, you know, it slowly took me, I felt like I was a frog in water.

425

Because it slowly developed until I fully understood at the end how bad the problem was.

426

So you gave me this education very slowly throughout the series.

427

um And then I fully understood at the end, holy cow, this is ginormous.

428

That's again the right expression that you keep using for the project.

429

Holy cow.

430

um yes.

431

Well, thank you.

432

I'm really glad it resonated with you.

433

And it was my first time doing a series.

434

um And I'll mention that it began as a feature, like most of my other projects that we've

talked about.

435

um going back to those rough cut screenings, when we were trying to put it together as a

feature,

436

It just wasn't really working as a story.

437

It was too sprawling.

438

It was too complex.

439

um It didn't have the kind of traditional arc that you'd want in the three act structure

of a movie.

440

And so we decided to break it up and turn it into an episodic series that is what you see.

441

Yeah, well that makes sense completely.

442

What I did love is I thought it was brilliant that you did have this, you start with this

one couple um and Joe and Brenda Cochran and they are small family farmers.

443

And it was very easy to follow their story and kind of their experience all the way

through the movie.

444

I kind of, you kind of see yourself as them um going through this process.

445

That was easy for me to get my head around.

446

And I really,

447

appreciated that.

448

And then you see their kind of plight um because really that's what this whole thing is

about.

449

You see it's the small farmer versus the corporate farmer.

450

That's kind of the beginning.

451

And I didn't really even begin to think about um how that happened in the United States

that I knew because I had actually done a voicing for this project where

452

we were talking about how we were losing these small farms to big real estate people that

were buying up the farms because the younger generations couldn't make a living farming

453

and they were turning them into developments.

454

And so we were just losing large swaths of America.

455

uh So I knew we were losing these small farms.

456

I didn't understand it was also happening to these corporations.

457

So that was a highlight for me.

458

Yeah, that's great that you had some connection to it.

459

And I think when a lot of people read the log line or even hear the title, The Price of

Milk, they might think that the story is about milk being bad or bad for you um or that

460

farmers, dairy farmers are bad.

461

And it's really quite the opposite.

462

As you pointed out, the heroes of the story are small dairy farmers.

463

And the price that we talked about is kind of the price that um we all pay for um

464

the collusion between big dairy, industrial dairy, and the government, which is what the

series explores.

465

So episode one is about the Got Milk campaign, which is actually a USDA, that's the United

States Department of Agriculture, checkoff program.

466

So it's a federal program.

467

Yeah.

468

I thought it was the playwright checkoff.

469

was like, did they take that name and make it mean somewhere else?

470

But it's check, C H E K O F F check off.

471

And that was a hard concept to understand.

472

Why don't you explain that real quick?

473

I'll do my best.

474

um And it's a very obscure word.

475

It's a program for the USDA.

476

It means to check off a box for a farmer to, ah you know, take their pen and check a box.

477

And um the reason that um people will know about checkoff programs is because they've

heard of all of the advertising.

478

At least if you grew up in America in the 90s, as I did, you will have heard of Got Milk.

479

as well as beef, it's what's for dinner, perhaps pork, the other white meat, maybe the

touch, the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives, the incredible edible egg.

480

These are all generic advertising programs, which I don't think people have thought too

much about, kind of think of them as regular, I don't know, PSAs, like eat your

481

vegetables, but actually they're a US government program that all of the producers of that

product are forced to pay into.

482

And what we explore is whether that mandatory tax on America's farmers to advertise these

kind of generic products, A, whether the advertising works at all and B, whether it's

483

worth it for the small farmers.

484

And this is, as you pointed out, Christian, all set against the backdrop of small and

family farms closing across America.

485

And what we discovered through our research and following the reporters in the series is

that these programs are actually

486

basically robbing America's small farmers blind and transferring that money to big

industrial farms.

487

And they're sort of doing it with the pretense of helping America's farmers, but really

they're helping these kinds of, um you know, executive dairy industry moguls who we

488

uncovered in the series.

489

Well, and this is going to shock you because it shocked me, but I have another touch point

to this story because you say these advertisements were in the nineties and they were, but

490

they started actually in the eighties um when Reagan was elected and you had milk does a

body good in the early eighties, right?

491

But somewhere in there, correct me if I'm wrong.

492

they realized that there was this huge surplus of cheese and butter and all of these

things.

493

And they tried to get rid of that surplus by giving it away to, you know, um the poor

populations in the U S barely made a dent.

494

And they had to find some other way to um subsidize these farms so that they wouldn't go

under sort of like holding up the banks.

495

And so

496

the USDA under the Reagan administration decided to create this check off program.

497

And so they decided that they were going to tax the farmers 12 cents on every dollar or

whatever.

498

They were going to tax them and then use that money to pay advertisers to create these

campaigns to encourage us to buy more milk.

499

or buy more cotton or clothes or buy more whatever in order to help these farmers so that

they would, the small town farmers so that they would not go under.

500

That was the premise.

501

You got it, yeah.

502

Yeah, you did it better than me.

503

A little bit, you know, some of this began under Carter, so it's, you know, difficult to

pinpoint, you know, exactly where the checkoffs went wrong.

504

But I will say that it's actually a program, like many things in our government, that had

some good intentions.

505

The idea of increasing demand to support farmers is not necessarily a bad idea.

506

but what we explore in this series is how it kind of goes off the rails and how the

project is taken advantage of by the lobbyists who have their uh arms wrapped around our

507

government.

508

And this is where I want to explain my connection.

509

My father was the deputy undersecretary of agriculture from 1980 to 1984 under Ronald

Reagan.

510

Is he still with us, may I ask?

511

I'd love to get his take on the show.

512

Yeah.

513

I haven't been able to talk to him yet.

514

I remember him saying to me and talking to me at the time, because I worked in Washington

on Capitol Hill in radio and television production.

515

It's how I got my start actually in this industry.

516

But I remember him talking to me about these huge surpluses of dairy and how they needed

to subsidize the farmers.

517

And I remembered.

518

them trying to figure out a way.

519

I even actually found some papers as I was going.

520

had to move my father into an assisted living.

521

I was going through all those papers.

522

I found paperwork.

523

I should show you this.

524

I found paperwork on this stuff that he was working on this.

525

And so my father's a good man.

526

He was the undersecretary under Jack Block who was from Illinois.

527

I knew these people.

528

So I knew that they had good intentions to help these farmers.

529

Jack Block was a farmer.

530

So like you said,

531

Yeah, there were good people trying to do good things with good intentions.

532

But then my father became a lobbyist after he left.

533

And this is this rotating door, right?

534

So my father became a lobbyist who had a good relationship with Trent Lott, who at the

time was the majority leader in the Senate.

535

His job was to lobby the senator about, you know, these how to vote on certain bills.

536

My father then

537

was reliant on clients to pay him to pressure the Senator to vote certain ways.

538

And so he now is reliant, his salary is reliant on clients to pressure the Senator to do

certain things.

539

And there you have this untoward relationship, right?

540

It's not really pure anymore.

541

Yeah, that's right.

542

There's a total revolving door between private industry and government.

543

I mean, it's an interesting personal take on it.

544

I really want him to see the series and see whether he thinks we got it right, because we

do try to cover that time period.

545

uh And it's important to say that, you know, we look at milk as this kind of like it's

it's almost comical, like to think about making our two hours of television about a glass

546

of milk.

547

But you could apply a lot of these issues with

548

money in politics to almost any other, first of all, any other food, but also to any other

industry, to the weapons industry, to the defense, you know, many other ways in which our

549

uh representatives are not always acting in our interest.

550

But because everybody's got a relationship with milk and everybody remembers the Got Milk

campaign, we thought this was a fun entry point and not a too, you know, talking about

551

movies that people want to engage with, a way to explore these issues without hitting you

so much on the head.

552

I want to mention that one of the things that excited me about the project is the Got Milk

campaign itself is actually like incredible advertising.

553

Some of the ads are totally iconic.

554

The first Got Milk campaign was actually directed by Michael Bay of Transformers fame.

555

Yeah, the one about Aaron Burr and the contest.

556

Yeah, you'll have to see the series or look up that ad on YouTube.

557

So there's a lot of, you know, it's a way that you can kind of use pop culture, all the

celebrities who did the mustache.

558

Mm-hmm.

559

to look at these bigger problems in our food industry and in our political industry.

560

And hopefully to get people to think a little more critically about where their message is

and where they're advertising and where their food comes from.

561

Yeah, well, I'll tell you that Got Milk campaign was incredibly popular, but what you

showed us in this film was that it didn't benefit the farmers at all.

562

That's what we didn't get to.

563

So the farmers paid for this and then the small farmers didn't benefit from it at all.

564

They paid for it and yet they're still not helped and they're continuing to lose their

farm.

565

And what's interesting is then you contrast that with a corporate farmer masquerading as a

small town farmer who actually I pass constantly

566

no way.

567

Yeah.

568

kids, is another touch point, to see my kids at Wabash College.

569

I drive by Fair Oaks Farm.

570

I've actually eaten there and I actually thought, wow, this is such a cool place.

571

And guess what?

572

I buy Fair Life Milk.

573

I stopped for a while when I heard about the abuse of animals, but then, you know, I heard

about how they had reformed and changed things.

574

So I started buying Fair Life Milk again, but after this, I will never buy Fair Life Milk

again.

575

because now we have learned that they're not small town farmers, they're masquerading and

they're actually penalizing the small town farmers by what they're doing.

576

Yeah, episode two explores an example of a dairy baron, Mike McCloskey, who runs Fair Oaks

Farms.

577

there's, explore the animal abuse scandal that happened at his farm that you mentioned in

578

And, you know, it's important to kind of back up and mention here that the series is not

telling people not to drink milk.

579

We're not telling people

580

um you should switch to, uh yeah, switch to oat milk or plant milk.

581

Well, that's why, yeah, that's why um we do it because what we're gonna get to in this

conversation is how this series came to be and where some of our money came from to

582

finance it.

583

So I'll go ahead and go there now, which is,

584

Before we go there now, before we go there, let me just say, if it's not to tell people,

don't drink milk, what is the purpose of it?

585

Yes, great.

586

I spoke a little bit about this before, um which is that one, it's really to look at how

policy is shaped and how laws and how our collective rules around food are written.

587

If you go all the way back, I uh reference Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which was an

investigative

588

book written in 1910, I believe, about the meat industry.

589

And the book was such a powerful expose that it led to the creation of the Food and Drug

Administration, because we realized that we needed collective rules to regulate industries

590

that otherwise are just incentivized to maximize profit at everyone's expense.

591

And so when I think about great reporting

592

on food and this series in particular, sure, it's good to change your consumption habits.

593

And I applaud not buying Fair Life.

594

And if you watch the Price of Milk episode two, you'll see exactly why not to buy it.

595

But it's not a problem that I think as a storyteller and advocate around this issue that

it can be solved at the supermarket.

596

It's a political problem.

597

And we need to make sure that our

598

leaders, our representatives are advocating for our best interests and are creating rules

around these industries that protect us.

599

And the only way we can do that is if we're informed about what these industries are doing

in the first place.

600

And one of the big problems with the Chekhov program is that it's totally opaque.

601

There's no transparency about how the money is spent.

602

You see the journalists trying to submit requests that are blocked out by the government.

603

And it's the U.S.

604

government trying to keep journalists from getting information.

605

about how its own programs are run.

606

so, you know, starting with transparency, education, political engagement, those are what

the series is about.

607

And of course, supporting your local farmer is great and can be part of that.

608

But it's also about how we work together as a society.

609

Yeah, and ultimately how we vote because uh being engaged politically is more important

now than ever.

610

And we must, we must be engaged in our cities, in our states, you know, and, and, you

know, nationally, we just must.

611

That's our uh responsibility and our duties.

612

People died so that we have the right to vote.

613

That's my little pitch.

614

So please be, uh please be engaged.

615

Okay.

616

So now let's go to how you funded this film.

617

Yes, so this is the most important thing.

618

And actually, usually I start with this in our Q &A, and it's included in the series as a

title card.

619

But uh I was fascinated with milk for all the reasons that we talked about and grew up

with those Got Milk commercials.

620

But it wasn't until I heard that a plant milk company was looking to partner with a

filmmaker and a production company to tell a story of some kind.

621

that I got interested and actually developed the story.

622

And I got with my producing team in touch with Jeff Goodby, who came up with the Got Milk

campaign and talked to him about this project and learned about all of this stuff.

623

And then I went to the plant milk company, they're called Oatly, and they're disclosed in

ah the credits.

624

again, we show this in the film, in the series.

625

oh

626

pitch them on this idea of what if we explored the story from this perspective?

627

What if we looked at the Got Milk campaign?

628

And everything we just said about not telling people not to drink milk, not telling people

to drink plant milk, that was kind of rule number one for the collaboration because what

629

we talked about is if this series in any way feels like it's promoting plant milk or

telling people what to drink, it'll be advertising.

630

And what Oatley wanted to do was actually fund an independent documentary.

631

And they were amazing partners because they allowed my co-director, Yoni Brook, and our

producers, Jen Malak and James Doolittle, who are absolutely critical to this whole

632

project, even though I'm here talking to you, they deserve all of the limelight.

633

ah They ah gave us the freedom to tell the story that we wanted.

634

um And that was very unusual and really exciting.

635

what I think it speaks to is that now there's opportunities like this where brands are

realizing that they can support great storytelling and they can fill a gap in the

636

marketplace because I don't think any traditional funder or documentary investor would

have supported a project this ambitious.

637

yeah, so that's, that's, and it's an important caveat because we want to make sure that

audiences everywhere know that we have this connection because again,

638

all of this, everything I just told you is about transparency.

639

And so when you edit this together, you might want to consider moving this part earlier

into the edit.

640

It's up to you, at least, you know, knowing that I...

641

We can put that in the show notes.

642

We don't edit it.

643

We just put it up there as it is.

644

So we'll put it in the show notes.

645

a lot of our presentations around the film, we have the Oatly logo on there.

646

um The disclosure is important um and it's kind of ambitious and it's a new way of

partnering with brands to get documentaries made and seen.

647

So I'm very excited.

648

We had a great premiere at Tribeca.

649

We brought the farmers to come.

650

It was their first time in New York City and they came down to the Red Carpet and they had

a great time and they got to share their message with an audience.

651

That's awesome.

652

subversive and it really showed our independence.

653

I don't think anybody would imagine that a plant milk company would support a documentary

about dairy farmers and bringing the dairy farmers to share their message with the world.

654

We really wanted to make something that was universal and inclusive and was the story that

Yoni and I wanted to tell.

655

Yeah, mean, hats off to Oatley for sure.

656

I'm so thankful that they um funded you.

657

I think that's such a creative way to find funding.

658

I'm glad you've brought this kind of to light.

659

um How can other people look for similar opportunities?

660

Yeah, that's a great question.

661

So I run a production company called People's TV.

662

We've talked a little bit about the work that we do.

663

And that includes doing some storytelling with um brands.

664

And I think that as somebody in a career in independent film, making work that's

commissioned or brought by brands is a great um avenue towards making a sustainable

665

living.

666

There's different ways of doing it.

667

Some people teach, some people...

668

run podcasts, some people write, some people, um you know, work in restaurants so that

they can do their storytelling.

669

And for me, um I've engaged with this a lot.

670

And I think there's like a couple of key things to think about is like one, where is there

some type of um alignment between your story and a brand partner?

671

So if you do work around veterans, are there nonprofits or other organizations that might

want to support you with?

672

not just money, but possibly exposure via screening partner or maybe a donor to that

nonprofit wants to also do a collaboration between you and them, where you'll have a

673

screening there and there's resources that can be shared.

674

And I think it's really important to think for any of those types of collaborations, like

what you can offer them as a storyteller.

675

So can you have a panel at their office?

676

Can you bring more attention?

677

to their cause.

678

Oh, they have a lot of sustainability initiatives about climate change.

679

And so we've screened this series in that context.

680

just did one in New York with a large climate group that they support.

681

so trying to think about what you, not just like, hey, I need money for my film, but here.

682

Yeah.

683

pitching what you can do um really to support what they're already doing or what they're

passionate about?

684

exactly.

685

And that can be with your story that's really developed already.

686

That can be with something very early that you just have an idea for.

687

um And it's not a, um you know, I'm not the only person to do this.

688

If you, uh you know, look at, for example, at Tribeca and Sundance Festivals we talked

about, they now have brand sections in them.

689

There's an event called Tribeca X, which is all about brand storytelling.

690

We work with a lot of technology companies to do stories, some of which are more, um you

know, feel more like traditional marketing or commercials, and some which are like this,

691

which are really independent stories that they support.

692

And so, um you know, I wish we lived in a world, to be honest with you, where going back

to all the stuff happening in the industry, where you have a great idea, the streamer buys

693

it, and you go to the festival, and you get your big fee, and you make your art.

694

But I think, again, this is a very dynamic time and you have to be resourceful and go

different places.

695

And that can be, you know, trying to go to high net worth individuals and finding the

subjects that they care about and partnering with you.

696

If you're working on animal rights, there's people that are working on that.

697

How can your story help advance them?

698

you uh know, we talked, filmmaking is very collaborative in all of the artistic senses.

699

but it's also collaborative in the greater business, cultural, financial context.

700

And I think it can also be additive to your distribution plan to have a nonprofit or a

brand or a company or a small business behind you.

701

And it can be great exposure for them as well.

702

Absolutely.

703

Well, this has been super enlightening.

704

Thank you so much for your time, for sharing your information.

705

I know that it's hard one, and it's just such a gift that you are willing to share that

with me and with the other filmmakers that are listening.

706

So that's incredibly generous.

707

And I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

708

I wondered if you would share one more thing, which is we always like to ask our

filmmakers to bring something to everyone's favorite section, D'acuVu Deja Vu.

709

So.

710

Did you bring a documentary that you could share with our listeners that you might think

they would enjoy?

711

I did, and today I'm going to recommend Secret Mall Apartment by Jeremy Workman.

712

It is a documentary about a group of artists who build a secret apartment inside the

Providence Mall in Rhode Island and live there for nearly a decade without the mall ever

713

finding out.

714

yeah, and the reason I recommend it is not because Jeremy's an amazing

715

filmmaker, he was also the editor of our trailer um for The Price of Milk, but also

because it did not get traditional distribution.

716

And instead, Jeremy ran an independent theatrical campaign around the country.

717

And I think the film has grossed over a million dollars without, after being turned down

by every distributor.

718

So um I don't think it's in theaters anymore.

719

You'll have to catch it on digital, um but it's a great example, not only of a really

720

awesome story about kind of artists and gentrification and radical self-expression, but

it's also a great example of how you can get your movie out into the world despite the

721

gatekeepers saying no.

722

Can he come on our podcast too?

723

I would love to have him on.

724

That would be amazing.

725

Thank you so much for recommending.

726

do it.

727

send me a note, check out the movie and I'll send you guys an intro.

728

He's a close collaborator and a really talented artist.

729

Fantastic.

730

Well, this has been amazing.

731

Thank you so much for your time and we really appreciate having you on.

732

Totally, and just thank you, Christian.

733

I mean, the background of everything we talked about is there's just not enough exposure

for these films and for us as storytellers.

734

So I'm just like always happy to talk to you about my projects because you're doing a

really important service to that community.

735

Thank you, I appreciate it.

736

All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening to Documentary First, where we

believe everybody has a story to tell, and you can be the one to tell it.

737

Bye, everybody.