3min chapter

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ALEX PRITZ - Documentarian

Team Deakins

CHAPTER

Do You Think You'd Ever Work on a Documentary Again?

I like the physical aspect of shooting a lot. I overthink everything when I'm directing in a good way. Do you think you'd ever work on a documentary again? Dramatic films are going so far away from reality and the topics that say in the 60s and 70s feature films were dealing with the crucial issues of the day. But I don't see much of it now, which is sad.

00:00
Speaker 3
And writing's a good thing too because you can do that wherever so you guys can be together. What are your
Speaker 1
plans? I'd like to make another documentary. I think I'm really focused on just making sure the territory lands well in the world right now and some of these goals with the media center. But have my eye on a couple other films, probably still about climate and in the land. But
Speaker 2
you still be shooting for other people. Do you like that?
Speaker 1
I do. Yeah. I think I would miss it. There's something
Speaker 2
so
Speaker 1
physical. I like the physical aspect of shooting a lot. I like the intuitive nature of it. I overthink everything when I'm directing in a good way. It's probably a good atmosphere. I just problem-sotted all the time. But it just feels like it flows more when I'm shooting. There's a lot of directing, I think, at least in documentary cinematography, especially in present tense filmmaking, the type of stuff I've been doing where you are the first conduit of images, a lot of creative decisions.
Speaker 2
It all happens downstream of you. You're basically making the decision, aren't you? How to capture something? Yeah. I miss that, now and again on a feature, I get to shoot it handheld and I can do what I want. I feel free really. I do miss that about documentary. Yeah. That's why I loved it. But also, I think the documentaries, for me, was a life experience. I'd hardly been outside the country.
Speaker 1
Do you think you'd ever work on a documentary again?
Speaker 2
You think about it sometimes, as I said earlier, I think documentaries are becoming more and more important. Dramatic films are going so far away from reality and the topics that say in the 60s and 70s feature films were dealing with the crucial issues of the day. But I don't see much of it now, which is sad. I want to ask you, I want to go off level track. I just ask you about a film you worked on called My Dear Kyrgyzstan. Now I thought that was really interesting. Why was that film made? And tell the people that are listening. It's a set in Kyrgyzstan. It's about this guy called Emile who wants to bring tourists to his own little town, which is kind of a backwater. But he wants to bring skiers and tourists to hike the mountains in a beautiful place. It was a very strange film because he think, I think, is the, were you making an advert for him and the village show? How did that film
Speaker 1
come about? It's such a great question. And one of the crew finances a film about Kyrgyzstan back in the town. All credit goes to the producer and co-director on that film, Nome Argov, who had gotten a grant from National Geographic to make a short film about horse skiing, which was Emile's big innovation. He has these beautiful mountains in Kyrgyzstan. They're like the Alps, you know, the Swiss Alps or something. Beautiful mountains, pristine skiing conditions, amazing powder. But nobody has enough money for a helicopter to get up there.

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