The Austin Meyer Podcast

I really believe that shooting stories with our final edit in mind is super important. You can have the best idea, and the best access, but if you don't have the shots to piece together the story, you're gonna lose your mind in the edit. So in this video, I share 10 of my favorite habits that help me save days in the edit. Enjoy :) Follow Austin Meyer's socials: ⁠Youtube⁠ | ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠LinkedIn...

Finding the perfect documentary film idea is like being in the world's biggest scavenger hunt! Here are 14 tricks that I use to find my story ideas. Follow Austin Meyer's socials: ⁠Youtube⁠ | ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠LinkedIn⁠ | ⁠Facebook⁠ | ⁠Website⁠ WHO AM I? If we haven’t met yet before - Hey 👋 I'm Austin Meyer and I am a documentary filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. I'm a National Geographic Exp...

A set of rules and principles can be incredibly useful to help guide our decision making in the world of documentary filmmaking. That's why, when I saw award winning documentary director Victor Kossakovsky write up the 10 rules he follows in his filmmaking, I had to check them out. In this video, I share those 10 rules, respond to them, and say which 3 have been most helpful to me in my career. Fo...

Interviews are the backbone of so many documentaries. They are also very challenging to nail. Especially when you are working as a solo shooter or in small teams, like I do a lot, the amount of things that can go wrong can feel overwhelming. In this video I go over 5 mistakes I see documentary filmmakers, which, if you keep in mind, can dramatically increase the odds that you'll walk away from you...

Planet Earth III, the world's premiere natural history documentary series, is back with its third installment, presented and narrated by Sir David Attenborough. The series represents five years of work. The eight episodes comprise 134 total shoots across 1,904 shooting days and took place in 43 countries across six continents. In this episode, I interview executive producer Mike Gunton and fre...

Our Great National Parks is a beautiful five-part Netflix documentary series that invites viewers to experience nature in the world's most iconic national parks. Today on the podcast, my guests are executive producer James Honeyborne and series producer Sophie Todd. James Honeyborne is the creative director of Freeborne Media, having previously worked as an executive producer at the BBC Natural Hi...

Vera Krichevskaya is a documentary filmmaker from Russia who co-founded TV Dozhd (TV Rain), which is the only independent private television channel in Russia. Her most recent documentary titled “Fuck This Job,” is an incredibly timely story that documents the ten-year journey of that television station that made it one of the top media targets of Putin's government. In this conversation, Vera and...

The Oscars are coming up on March 27, 2022. To preview the documentary feature category I am joined this week by IndieWire's editor-at-large, Anne Thompson. In this episode we talk about each of the nominated documentaries, reflect on the snubs that missed out on the big show (I see you, The Rescue and The First Wave), and give our predictions on what documentary will take home the Academy Award....

This week on the show my guest is Luc Forsyth, a cinematographer from Canada who has worked on films for Netflix, National Geographic, HBO, Showtime, ESPN, and many more. In this conversation Luc and I discuss the lessons he learned as a photojournalist that have helped him develop as a cinematographer, how to think about investing in gear and networking as an up and coming DP, and how he covers a...

Dawn Porter is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has appeared on HBO, PBS, Discovery, and Netflix among others. She has had two feature documentaries premiere this year -- John Lewis: Good Trouble and The Way I See It. Good Trouble explores late Congressman John Lewis’ pivotal role in the Civil Rights movement and decades of political and social activism on important issues includi...

On today’s episode I sit down with the team behind the hit Netflix documentary, and one of my personal favorite films of the year, My Octopus Teacher. Co-directors Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed, as well as cinematographer Roger Horrocks, take us behind the scenes and under the water to reveal how they crafted this incredibly moving story about a filmmaker's unlikely connection with an octopus. Pipp...

Jeff Orlowski is the director of the newly released Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, which explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations. He also served as director, producer, and cinematographer of the Sundance Award-Winning and Oscar short listed films, Chasing Ice and Chasing Coral. In this conversation, Jeff and I...

Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss are co-directors of the newly released documentary, Boys State, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Grand Jury Prize. The film, which is now streaming on Apple TV+, is a political coming-of-age story, examining the health of American democracy through an unusual experiment: a thousand 17-year-old boys from across the state of Texas g...

Tayo Amos is a director and filmmaker from the Bay Area now currently living in Los Angeles. After double majoring at Stanford, Tayo went on to earn her MFA in Film Production at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, where she focused on Directing. She is the winner of USC’s First Look Faculty Award for Excellence in Directing, and her thesis film, “On The Clock” screened at the Cannes Film Festival. In...

My guest today is Devin Concannon, who was one of 4 editors on ESPN’s mega-hit 10 part documentary series, The Last Dance. The Last Dance revolves around the career of Michael Jordan, with a particular focus on his last season with the Chicago Bulls. The project itself is a beast of an endeavor.. we’re talking 10 episodes, over 100 interviews, and according to director Jason Hehir, 10,000 hours of...

Meena Harris is a lawyer, activist, and the founder of the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, a female-powered organization that brings awareness to intersectional social causes. And now Meena is also an author, with her new children’s book titled Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea, set to debut on June 2nd. The book is based on a true story from the childhood of Meena’s mom, Maya Harris, and aunt, Kamala...

Laurel Chor is an award-winning freelance visual journalist and National Geographic Explorer from Hong Kong. In 2019, she worked with the New York Times, National Geographic, Getty, AFP, Reuters, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, NBC News, the Telegraph, and many more. Laurel also has a lot of experience as a text reporter and video journalist. In the past, she w...

Rerunning an episode of the Say It Loud show, in which host and photographer Raul Espinoza invited me on as a guest to talk about my documentary filmmaking, why I am drawn to human-centered stories, and my mission that drives everything I do. -- Austin Meyer is a documentary filmmaker, photographer, and podcast host. He is a National Geographic Explorer and the 2015 winner of the New York Times In...

Max Romey is an adventure filmmaker and water color artist who, for the past few years, has documented the sport of trail and ultrarunning for Salomon TV. What is it like to film a 200 mile race circumnavigating Lake Tahoe as a one-man production crew? Why is the success of a running film determined by much more than just keeping up with, and filming, a runner? In this conversation, Max and I dig...

Henry Maillet is a photographer whose stories focus on conservation and development. After serving for two years as Peace Corps Volunteers in Paraguay, Henry Maillet and his colleague Jeff Wong decided to stay in the country for the adventure of a lifetime. In partnership with WWF, they rowed a handcrafted wooden rowboat down one of the continent's last remaining free-flowing rivers. Over the cour...

Patricia Vidal Delgado is a film director and writer from Lisbon, Portugal. Only recently having graduated from the MFA program in Production/Directing at UCLA, Patricia has already been featured in some of the world's most prestigious film festivals. Most recently, Patricia's first feature film, La Leyenda Negra, which also happened to be her UCLA thesis project, made its World Premiere at the Su...

Francesco Lecce-Chong is the music director for the Santa Rosa Symphony and the Eugene Symphony where he has been dedicated to innovative programming, commissioning new music and engaging in community outreach. Described by critics as a “fast rising talent in the music world,” Francesco has conducted orchestras around the world, including the San Francisco Symphony and New York Philharmonic. . In...

Nirupa's Artwork Nirupa Rao is a Botanical Illustrator and a National Geographic Explorer from Bangalore, India. In beautiful and precise detail, Nirupa uses watercolor illustrations to record and celebrate the unique flora of India. As a National Geographic Explorer grantee, Nirupa just published a children’s book called "Hidden Kingdom—Fantastical Plants of the Western Ghats" that will help youn...

Nicholas Kristof is a columnist for the New York Times, an author, and a 2-time Pulitzer prize winner who covers humanitarian crises at home and around the world. In this conversation, Nick and I talk about how he came up with his wild idea to invite university students (me in 2015) into remote communities and conflict zones, how he builds compelling stories around individual characters and statis...

Happy New Year! In this special edition of the podcast, I am reflecting on my past year's storytelling journey. I distill the lessons I have learned, discuss my goals as a filmmaker, and reflect on the experiences that impacted me most this year. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast in 2019. I hope you learned something, felt entertained, and that it helped you on your own storytelling j...