Episode Details

Even with Ken Burns and Don Henley attached, funding a PBS documentary is brutal. So what hope do the rest of us have?

Erik and Christopher Ewers get real about PBS funding, AI’s impact on filmmaking, and how they landed George Clooney, Jeff Goldblum, Ted Danson, Tate Donovan and Meryl Streep for their new PBS documentary Henry David Thoreau.

In Part 2 of this conversation, the Ewers Brothers open up about the financial realities of documentary funding, even with Ken Burns and Don Henley attached, why Chris sees AI as the next revolution instead of the apocalypse, how broadcast is giving way to streaming, and the stories behind casting some of Hollywood’s biggest voices. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation.

In Part 2, you’ll learn:

— Why having Ken Burns and Don Henley as executive producers doesn’t make funding easy and who actually made the Thoreau film possible

— Chris’s case for why AI is the digital camera revolution all over again, not the death of filmmaking

— The best professional advice Chris ever received and why it will never change

— How Chris kept his mouth shut on a commercial set with Jeff Goldblum and how that silence led to Goldblum voicing Thoreau

— The story of how Don Henley quietly recruited George Clooney as narrator and Clooney’s reaction when asked how long he’d known Henley

— Ken Burns’s advice on directing Meryl Streep: “You don’t.”

— How streaming is changing episode length and why “the director’s cut” isn't what it used to be.

— Erik’s approach to pre-planning edit cuts for PBS broadcast time slots without sacrificing the story

— Why Ken Burns treats his mentorship like tough love — and why Erik is grateful for it

— One thing filmmakers need to know about getting a documentary on PBS

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

1:21 Unpacking the Thoreauvian mindset

2:46 Thoreau’s prescience on consumerism

3:50 Erik on Thoreau’s “cost of life” quote and the iPhone

4:40 Thoreau and the birth of the Industrial Revolution

6:03 Christian’s advice: think from the end back

6:50 Chris on the state of the industry — Industrial Revolution to AI

10:20 Christian: as a voice actor, AI is a challenge

10:53 The best professional advice Chris ever received

11:36 Christian on the struggle to fund the next film

12:54 Money is always the biggest hurdle

13:15 How the Ewers Brothers fund PBS docs without federal money

14:49 Ken Burns’s two binders of rejection letters

15:07 The Movies That Made Us — encouragement for indie filmmakers

16:26 The reality: it’s hard for everybody

17:52 Erik on Ken Burns’s legacy projects and the privilege of the brand

20:58 Er