The Art of Storytelling with Emmy-Nominated Filmmaker Abby Fuller
Abigail Fuller is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work includes five seasons on the Emmy-nominated series Chef’s Table, Dear Oprah for Apple TV+, and the feature documentary Do You Dream in Color? Her work has twice premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Telluride’s MountainFilm, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art to name a few. Abby is dedicated to telling deeply human stories that allow for empathy and sharing new perspectives.
Abby joins Chris Sparks to share the elements of telling a great story.
What makes a story powerful? How do we become better listeners to reveal the hidden superpowers in the people around us? How can we structure the stories we tell to better connect with an audience?
As a director, Abby helps us see ourselves in the people who once seemed different. She has a deep understanding of what makes a character tick, building the rapport and trust necessary to bring their truth out and communicating that truth visually on screen in a way that resonates.
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Topics:
(02:15) The love of telling stories
(06:12) Zeroing in on the story worth telling
(13:44) Creating a sense of trust with your subject
(29:29) Don't force the shot
(35:04) Creative growth
(50:10) Advice for becoming a better storyteller
Conversation Transcript:
Note: transcript slightly edited for clarity.
Chris (00:05): Welcome to Forcing Function Hour, a conversation series exploring the boundaries of peak performance. Join me, Chris Sparks, as I interview elite performers to reveal principles, systems, and strategies for achieving a competitive edge in business. If you are an executive or investor ready to take yourself to the next level, download my workbook at experimentwithoutlimits.com. For all episodes and show notes, go to forcingfunctionhour.com.
It is my honor to introduce Abby Fuller. Abby is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has premiered at film festivals all around the world. Abby has directed four seasons of the Emmy-nominated series Chef's Table, Dear Oprah, for Apple TV+, and the coming of age documentary, Do You Dream In Color? Abby just returned from Japan, where she was recording her fifth episode of Chef's Table. She directs commercial content and films for nonfiction unlimited, and is the co-founder of APD Farm, a regenerative grazing operation focused on healing ecosystems. As a filmmaker, Abby is dedicated to telling deeply human stories that allow for empathy and sharing new perspectives.
Our topic for conversation today is the art of storytelling. We are telling stories all the time. We are sharing lessons, whether it's in an article, a podcast, or a conversation. Maybe as a founder, we're rallying clients, team members, or investors to our cause. But all the time, any time we open our mouths we are communicating our goals and values to others through the way that we tell stories.
So with that in mind, let's join Abby behind the camera to learn the elements of uncovering and telling a great story. Thank you so much for joining us, Abby, I can't wait to tell a story together.
Abby (01:56): Hi, Chris. Great to be here. How fun. So bizarre to be, you know, a participant, rather than, you know, the person behind the camera kind of directing. But to be seen and to be heard is stepping into a new space for me, but I'm excited to try it with you.
Chris (02:15): The script has been flipped. I can't wait. We have so much that can be learned. Let's start with learning a little bit about you—how you got started as a storyteller. I'm curious, what is it that you love about telling stories?
Abby (02:30): Sure. Well, I guess there's two parts to that question. How I got started, I'll start there. You know, I, not unlike, I think a lot of people who get into this industry from an early age, was just kind of a nerdy kid with a video camera running around getting all of the kids in the neighborhood to be in my plays or my movies. And when we first got editing software in my junior high school, I was there you know, until they would kick me out after school, trying to put together my films. And so I always loved watching movies, I always loved writing, and it was something that from an early age I had such a passion for.
Documentary was something that I kind of got into—and then of course I went to film school. I guess not "of course." But I did go to film school, since I knew that I wanted to kind of put my efforts into storytelling and filmmaking specifically. And after film school I wanted to—I originally wanted to get into more narrative filmmaking. But really the—what I realized is to do that, it takes a lot of time, a lot of money, actors, and sets and a great script, and there's like all of these barriers to entry that as a poor college graduate you don't really have access to. But with documentary filmmaking, there's another whole world, because there's really few barriers to entry. And this was at the time, where suddenly you know, Final Cut Pro was on our laptops and you could buy a decent video camera, the Panasonic HVX, which is dating me now, but for those of you who know, that was like the kind of great camera that you could take with you and make something that had like a cinematic quality to it. So it allowed for this entry into filmmaking in a way that were my first steps, and that's how I started with that, with the film you mentioned, Do You Dream In Color?
Fast forward now to answer the second part of the question, why do I love and why do I continue on this path of storytelling and filmmaking and documentary filmmaking, and I think that there is a power in storytelling that is unique to any other art form. It allows us its ability to really connect and emphasize with people who, on the outside, may seem different from ourselves, but in reflecting and hearing their story and their hopes and their fears and what makes them tick and their philosophy and their pain, we can see ourselves in that story. We can see ourselves and our own lives in the lives of others, basically. And I find that to be a really powerful tool. A healing tool, really, to combat so much of the divisiveness that we see in our world today, and have seen historically in our world.
But you know, I've gotten the privilege to tell the stories of all sorts of different people, whether it's someone who's a shepherd or an immigrant or a chef, and every single person has an ability to communicate their story in a way that we can see ourselves in them. And I think that to me is something that brings me back to this art form again and again, is the opportunity to show that there's a lot more common ground, and even though we see ourselves as opposed, oftentimes there's a lot that we have in common. There's humanity in it that I'm looking for.
So that's the long way to answer there.
Chris (06:12): I wanna dive in. How do you know when you've found the humanity in the story? How do you know when you're zeroing in on a story that's worth telling?
Abby (06:24): Good question. I think that everyone's story is worth telling, to some degree. And that's kind of the point, is that we can see ourselves in all of these stories, because there is so much shared humanity. We all are born, we're all going to die, we all go through heartbreak, we all go through rites of passage and change and growth and we all have hopes and fears, and so I think that pretty much, you could present me with anyone and ask me to tell their story, and I could apply that craft of helping to tell that person's story. So I think it's really about once though you have locked into the story you're going to tell, or the subject that you're trying to tell the story about, how do you decide how to make that resonate with an audience? Right? What are the ways that you're going to obviously—and I'm talking right now more in like a biographical storytelling way, versus—obviously there's so many different types of storytelling, but in this sense of like having the honor or the privilege of telling a specific person's story, like we do in Chef's Table. It's really about making these evaluations about how I am looking for their truth and what makes them tick and what makes them both different from anyone else, but also the same.
And that really is a process of listening, and with the goal of making sure that there is the integrity of what is their truth is heard, but at the same time we're crafting it into a story that can be heard and felt by potentially millions of people. And taking somebody's life and condensing it down to a forty-five minute film, for example—there's a lot that we have to omit, there's a lot of choices you have to make, there's a lot of decisions. It isn't just an objective portrayal of the truth, right? A lot of choices are made by filmmakers and the teams that we have working on these projects, but the essence of their truth has to be there, and the closer we get to that, the closer it is usually felt by other people.
So that was kind of like rambling—I hit on a few things there, but maybe you can dig into something.
Chris (08:56): What does that feel like, when you've discovered someone's truth or found out what makes them tick? How do you know? What is that like?
Abby (09:06): I think it's a lot of listening. When people ask me why am I any good at documentary filmmaking, or what has allowed me to have a career in this field, I think that I'm good at it because I'm a good listener and I'm actually interested in what people have to say and how they feel. And I think the emotion is where the truth is, and that's where the power of the story is. So by giving someone the opportunity to say, "First of all, you can trust me." That's the first step. Because if they don't trust you or they feel self-conscious or they're unsure of the idea of putting themselves, right, because I'm not usually—Sometimes I work with celebrity talent, and that's a totally different ballgame, but when you're working with somebody who's not a professional of being on camera, and they're going to have to share it, share their ideas and share a part of their soul with their audience, the first step is to create that sense of trust.
And that's a process, obviously. But the next piece is just really listening. Right? And if you listen to the stories that they tell the most, or if you listen to the things they zero in on or where the emotion is, that's where I want to dig in. And that's where I want to learn more, and then I'm going to corroborate that with other people in their life. I'm gonna ask them more stories about that. But it's kind of a slow process of really kind of honing in on what does this person want to tell me, what do they want to share? And that's usually kind of the first piece of developing what the story is going to become.
Chris (10:55): That seems like an interesting push/pull, where I imagine you come into filming with an idea of some themes that you might like to explore, or the beats to the story that you have in mind, but by listening and trusting the process unexpected things come up, and you start to hear more of the story that they're interested in telling. How do you navigate the push/pull of trying to stay within the structure but allowing the magic to emerge?
Abby (11:33): Yeah, it's funny. I was just—I had a conversation with a friend of mine who is also a filmmaker, and we were talking about this dance where we're doing two things. One, we're really trying to construct the truth and put it into this format of, "I'm using the craft of filmmaking to tell a story." And in that way we're kind of picking and choosing ideas and words and stories, and how to build that. On the other hand, if you overdo that you're going to lose the character, you're going to lose the emotion, you're going to lose the heart. And so you almost kind of then need to stop telling the footage what you want it to be—and this is more in the editorial process—but then start listening to what it's trying to tell you.
And the same thing goes for the process of in development and pre-production and when you're on set, it's that going in with a specific point of view of like, "Here's where I think the story is going, and so I'm gonna push it in this direction to make sure I have the pieces to tell that story." But also being ready and open to move in a new direction when you hear something that is more interesting or shines a light on another truth that you didn't recognize that was beneath that. So it's that constant dance of having a plan and feeling really confident in sculpting that and directing the narrative, but also knowing when to pull back and say, "I'm actually here to listen, and I want it to be authentic and real, and so I have to let this person and the story guide me." So it is that push and pull, and it is a dance, and that's really where you find the magic, because if it's unguided and there's no direction, then you know, there's no story. There's no beginning, middle, end, there's no emotional arc. But if you come in too prescriptive, you're gonna lose the essence of the truth. And that's really the fun part in filmmaking, and making sure that the film is good and really resonates with people.
Chris (13:44): So, talking about creating trust. I imagine if you're featuring someone, there's a few different dimensions to this. The trust that you will make them look good, that you will tell the story that they agree with, the trust that you are competent, that you will see things through, that the final product will turn out. And you mention that this is a process. You're with the character over time. Do you have any things that work really well for you for creating this sense of trust for the person that you are filming or interviewing to open up to you?
Abby (14:22): I think part of it is just that I—again, back to why am I good at this or why is this the career that I have, why was I interested in it as a kid? A lot of it has to do with the fact that I just actually care about people, and I'm really interested in what they have to say. And that earns a lot of trust, because it's not coming from a place of, "Okay, this is a job. I'm showing up on set because some client asked me to extract a certain thing from somebody." It's not manipulative. I'm showing up there with a really open mind and an open heart about how I can share something really powerful. That's my intention. So with that intention, I actually say to my subjects early on, "I see this," (which is a fact), but, "Filmmaking, as a collaborative art. It's not like painting. It's not like writing. You can't do it on your own, really. You rely on teamwork. And I see the subjects in the film as part of that team." So I let them know that from the beginning. "This is us making a film together. This is you and I collaborating as a team to tell your story, and I want you to be a part of this process."
And by letting them into that, suddenly they're not questioning, "Okay, a bunch of people showed up with all this equipment and all of this craft and all of this jargon that I don't understand and I feel I left out." No. They're looped into that part of the process from the beginning. So that's one of the ways I try to create trust, but it is also one of the ways that I think it's part of my process in making a great film, because I want that person to feel like a collaborator, because the more they know about how the filmmaking process works and our goals, they can actually be the best person to let us into where the heart of the story is. And they're not going to be guarding the secrets or guarding the truth, because they're not going to feel like it's going to be manipulated, because they're—Again, they're a part of the team crafting this. And we're doing it together, and we're there with the same intent, which is to make something powerful.
So I find that to be something that's really helpful.
Chris (16:53): You mentioned the craft of storytelling, the structure, the beginning, middle, and end. I would just love to hear, I think it would be pretty cool, a recent project that you worked on and how you think of that in terms of beginning, middle, end, that narrative arc that the story went through.
Abby (17:13): Yeah. So I'll kinda tell you a little bit about how my process is for a new project. There's so much to it, and I think it's one of those things you spend so much time in these bubbles with other people who also do this, so you forget that outside of that bubble people don't know how it all works. And so in some ways, it's hard to explain it, right? It's like, "Hmm, where do I start?" But yeah, I think that in—So I was just right now, I'm working on—I'm in post-production on a Chef's Table edit, and then I'm in development and soon to be starting pre-production on a new series for Netflix that's gonna be a four-part series that's a totally new genre. So that's exciting. It's also a huge challenge. One that I'm excited about, but a huge challenge because it's a totally different genre than I'm used to. So it's having me really do a lot of work, and new—Like, the brain is firing in new ways on this one. Which is, I think, a good thing.
So, to start from where—You know, in this case, for example, Netflix came to me and they were like, "We wanna tell this story." And Netflix is great, also, I'll say, because they're a really filmmaker-driven streaming platform. So rather than kind of doing a commercial or even doing something like on cable TV, which is where I got my start, where they come in with a highly prescriptive brand and idea and you're really executing, Netflix is really empowering. They want to take creative filmmakers who have a craft, who have an art form, and they wanna empower you to make a great film. So they basically said, "This is our story. This is what we want to do. What's your take? Why don't you go develop this and decide what you want to make from it."
So that's the first step, is kind of like thinking, "Well, what am I trying to say?" Brian McDonald, who is a little bit of a storytelling guru that I think is a brilliant guy, he has a great podcast. If you're interested. I think it again applies to all life. You don't have to be a writer or a storyteller to get a lot of wisdom from him. But his podcast is called, "You are a Storyteller." And he talks about the idea of the armature, which is essentially like the thesis statement that can be proven or not proven. And it goes back to this idea that storytelling has been—As humans, we've been telling stories since before there was language, essentially. And the reasoning for having storytelling so baked into the way we communicate is because usually there's a lesson to be learned, right? It's the Joseph Campbell Hero's Journey. Like, there's always a moral to the story, essentially. There's something—some sort of information you're trying to share, whether that's literal survival or it's spiritual or it's emotional or it's cultural, but there's like a lesson to be learned, and I think going in with some sort of idea of what you're trying to communicate is a great place to start.
I think obviously that changes with each project you take on, but for me what I'm always looking for is, "What am I trying to say with this?" Then it's a lot of research, and I think that that goes from everything like visuals, right? So it's a very visual medium, and I think very visually, so I'm always thinking about how to communicate visually and what are the cinematic tools that are gonna push the boundaries? How do those factor in? What are the key pieces in terms of the plot, right? So there's plot, there's emotional arc, there's usually an A storyline and B storyline, but a lot of it is the writing. So, it's like writing out the story arc. And in this four-part series, for example, there's an overall story arc, and then there's a story arc within each chapter break. So that adds another layer to it. And you can weave all those pieces together, those forward-moving plot pieces, what's going to happen next, with the idea that in the end you're going to have a story where you can communicate a bigger takeaway, so people leave having said, "Wow, I feel this emotion." And whether or not they are internalizing it and saying that exact idea you had, they're gonna feel it. And that's always the goal.
For Chef's Table, it's similar, where I have to kind of present to the executive producers a writeup of what I think this story is about. And so again, it always starts with finding that kernel of truth for that person, writing it down—This last chef that I got to film with in Japan, he, fortunately, had written a book. So I had so much of his writings to work off of. And then I take that and I apply it to the format of the show, which—a show like Chef's Table has a bit of a formula, so you can kind of dissect his writings, his worldview, his biography, and then kind of apply it to the format that we've established on that show. But I'll start with writing it out. And this is before we've gotten into production.
And then in production, again, I'm like—what we talked about. I go in with an idea, and then I'm ready to change it at any moment depending on where I hear the emotion or what's happening, what I learn. I'm very reactive. My producer says of all the directors he works with on that show, my schedule changes the most from the beginning. So like some directors go in and they're very—they have everything figured out before they even show up, and the schedule's kind of set. And I kinda come in and my line producers are—can be maybe a little more challenged in some ways, because by day two or three, like the whole schedule is changed, because I've been listening and I'm like, "Oh, I didn't realize that you had, you know, this tension with your mom, or this relationship with your third-grade teacher, and oh my gosh, you told this story about this spiritual journey in the mountains, we gotta go film there. Let's scratch that other plan we had."
So I'm always adapting to where I hear the most emotion, and what I think is gonna make the story the best. And then you get to post-production, which is really where all of the—Again, to finally get to the question you asked, the narrative part. All of that is really in post-production, where you're piecing together scene by scene, you know, the beginning, middle, end of the film with that goal in mind, of communicating that armature. Like, the moral of the story. Knowing, having that as your North Star, and then finding with the craft of the Hero's Journey, the beginning, middle, end, how we take each scene and place it so that we can take the audience on that journey.
Chris (24:48): I love that framing of a narrative journey. I think we can all even relate. Say we're telling a story at a party where we set the scene. Here's where we were, here's who we were with, and what we were feeling, and we have a desired end state that we're trying to take them to. Here's the lesson that we want to impart or the emotion we want them to feel. But there's a lot of paths that we could take from point A to point B, and as you said, a lot of latitude that you have as a director to decide what is best going to accomplish that objective of imparting that lesson, that emotion. How do you decide what aspects that you've captured make it into the final cut, which aspects remain on the cutting room floor?
Abby (25:41): So it starts with, you know, note cards are my best friend. Index cards. And each scene has an index card, and on it—We'll stick with Chef's Table, because I feel like I could suddenly be talking for hours if we wanna go. You know, there's so many different ways on different types of projects to talk about this, but I think being specific is probably the most helpful, so I'll stick with this because it's also very fresh on my mind as I'm about to—this week I'm handing in my V1 cut to Netflix, so it's—I'm deep in it right now. But we'll start with the index cards.
In a show like Chef's Table, we are now in our eighth season, and there's a pretty established formula, like I said, to it. So we have a little bit of kind of like guideposts around it. But we'll start with like, we know going in where kind of, we have an idea, I have an idea of what the tent poles are of the kind of the big emotional impact scenes. Like, where do we wanna go in the end? And almost starting with those scenes, like the emotional climax and the end are where I'm going to find out, like—We wanna know where we're building to. So if we can nail those pieces, or find that the emotion resonates there and make those scenes really strong, I'll usually wanna build those first.
So that, yeah. There are advantages to going in a linear way, but I think what we think about doing is knowing where we're landing and building to that. So I'm gonna use the note cards, we're gonna think about each scene, we're gonna build drafts of these scenes, and some of them are gonna be on the cutting room floor, but we have to kind of build every scene. And then at that point, once every scene is built, we put them all together and cross our fingers and watch it and cringe and it's painful, but we start to see, "Okay, where are the threads of what's working, what's resonating, and then how do we do another draft? How do we dive in deeper to what's working and make it stronger and remove anything that's distracting us from where the emotion is?"
The other questions we ask are, "Does it make sense?" "Is it confusing?" "Where are we bored?" Right? The typical stuff that you would want in any story to keep you paying attention and wanting to know what's going to happen next and feeling the emotional arc. So once we have that rough cut, then it's all about where the structural change is, how do we strengthen the emotions? How do we build?
And then we start bringing in the composer and we start thinking about sounds and music and all these other tools we have to bring it to life. And then we get to kind of really play too with some of the specifics, like, "Oh, are we going to include—" How do we lean into the actual fun part of the cinematic filmmaking? Like, how are we gonna do interesting graphics on the archival photos? Are we gonna add cross dissolves? Are we gonna—What are the ways that we're gonna kind of polish this in a way that can feel aligned with the story that we're trying to tell, and can make it also feel like it has an artistic voice?
So those are kind of the steps in order to get it to the final stage. And again, I don't know if I'm answering your question at all, but I'm kind of just trying to loop you into what the process of moving through this, trying to make a film is like, or make a documentary film.
Chris (29:29): That's incredible. And I think it emphasizes how there are all these branching paths, and how the early choices really lead into the affordances, the opportunities that are available as the project progresses, and thus that intentionality being so important. What strikes me is just how much of this process is outside of your control. I know just the level of preparation and planning that you put into one of these productions, but then you fly to a foreign country and you land on location and many things are gonna be different than what you expected. As you told me, you're dealing with real people in real-time. How do you navigate this needing to get the shot but also not being able to force it, where you just have to see—You can create the conditions, but you have to see what happens?
Abby (30:28): You know, it's—So much, right, depends—Every project is funny. You finish one film and you think, "Wow, I really figured out how to do this." You get to the end, and then you start a new one, and none of those things that you problem-solved in the last one apply. It's a totally new set of problems to solve. And I feel like that's kind of—It's a very humbling pursuit in that way, because every time you feel like, obviously you do learn and it is cumulative and you bring a level of intuition that you don't always realize after you've done this enough times, but it will humble you in that there's a new set of challenges. And in that, kind of striking the balance, as you were saying, of creating trust and also needing to get the right shot but also dealing with real people, you know, it really changes from person to person and story to story.
And I definitely—Luckily on this last shoot, I had such an amazing collaborator in this chef that was extraordinary. Honestly.
Like usually what happens, you hit about five or six days and people are wanting to participate, they want to have this platform to tell their story, they want to have all of the publicity that comes along with doing a Netflix show, and then five or six days in—And these are, you know, like twelve-hour days. We're there for ten days total to capture somebody's life story. It's a bit grueling. And these are people who are even working hard, but this—Even for them, it's like—They've got other stuff to do. They've got families, they've got, you know, they want to sleep, they wanna—They don't really quite know what they're signing up for some of the time. And so they usually hit that point around day five or so where they're a little bit harder to get a hold of or they're kind of avoiding you or they're less enthusiastic or there's some pushback. Really helpful to have good producers around to support you when that happens. But it is definitely—And, the normal part of the process is like, these are real people with real lives and they're not actors, and you have to be able to give someone the space that they need, because at the end of the day pushing hard and forcing somebody into something where they're not comfortable, the content isn't gonna be good and you're gonna lose the trust.
At the same token, every single day we're shooting is highly expensive. Right? We only have nine days, maybe ten with B-roll to get everything we need to make this show, so losing half a day will put you at a huge disadvantage in that. So there are ways that we just have to be really creative and adapt on the fly if we realize that somebody isn't up for filming that day, or there's some challenges or some burnout or some pushback.
So there's those types of kinda human challenges to making sure that you can have someone fully committed to participate is crucial. And it goes back to the trust piece that we talked about. Again, if they're part of that process we can move through those things as a team, and they can say, "Listen, I'm really not up for it today." Or, "I'm feeling, I'm struggling going there emotionally." And we can have that conversation. And I can say, "I totally get it. We're going to film this other scene that we can do without you, or we'll film this other interview and we'll give you a break." Or I can have a pep talk that says, "Listen. We have no other time. This is the only time we can get this interview, because of this location, and this is our last day of shooting, or these types of things can't change. Let's talk through it, let's get you to a place where you do feel better. How can we move through this as a team?"
So those challenges have definitely been there, and there's a huge spectrum of how comfortable people feel in this process, and you don't really know until you're moving through it. So I was really lucky in this last project to have a chef who was fully committed, and we never reached a point of—Again, it might be just because of the Japanese polite respect culture, where everyone—They're very selfless in that way, as a whole, in Japan. So I feel like that's part of the reason why he made himself so available. But it definitely is a consideration every single time you film with someone who's not used to being on camera.
Chris (35:04): The schedule—It's clear that it really fits into this sprint/rest type cycle. You mentioned the ten day shoots for Chef's Table where it's all hands on deck and then you go back and you run through the footage and you try many combinations. But being someone who is really serious about practicing the craft, how do you continue to improve as a storyteller, as a filmmaker? Is there anything that you do outside of the schedule of a project that allows you to continue to grow?
Abby (35:40): As I mentioned, I'm starting this new project that is pushing me in a new direction. And I think saying "yes" to new things is important, because there's a little bit of a sink or swim that happens, but you usually can swim, but you have to go through that growth and you have to kind of get yourself ready for it. So I find that trying my hand at new projects that are outside of my comfort zone is definitely a process that keeps me growing.
Like I said, documentary filmmaking—Even if it's, again, the eighth season of a show you've done that many times, it's still humbling, because there's going to be completely new challenges that you've never even—that you didn't see the first seven times you did it, when you do a new episode or when you do something, when you work with a new cast of characters. So it kind of is forcing you to grow every time you make a film, even if you don't want to. Even if that's not the intention, it kind of is what happens.
But otherwise, I try to just—You know, I think watching films is another way that I'm continuously trying to grow, is kind of looking towards other filmmakers and studying their work, enjoying their work, feeling inspired by other films, listening to other like podcasts, like I mentioned with Brian McDonald, and there's lots of other great podcasts on filmmaking and storytelling. In the height of the quarantine I took an acting class for fun, just because I was like, that's something that is another facet of the filmmaking process that's like great to learn how to, you know, that craft. Because it all applies, right? It's a very—there's so much overlap in these different departments. So I think just kind of thinking about it from a different lens is helpful, because it's the same place you're trying to go with that idea of telling a really powerful emotional story, so sometimes it can just help you think about it from a new perspective. So I try to kind of do it in that way.
But also surrounding myself with really new collaborators. I used to always want to work with the same crew again and again, because again, you develop a shorthand and there's a level of trust, and again, if something is working well, why change it? But at this point, I really actually look at seeking out other cinematographers or editors who I appreciate their work, and try to work with new people, because in doing so I learn so much from them. I don't get to work with other directors, and I'm so curious what that looks like, because when I'm working I'm the only director there, and all the other crew members work with other directors, but I never get to see what that position looks like. But I do get to work with different cinematographers, and different producers, and different editors, and everyone kind of has a different, yeah, a different skill set and a bit of a different superpower in their own way that they bring to that collaboration, and different experiences. So that keeps me growing as well.
Chris (38:52): That's fantastic. I think that developing taste has an underrated part of being able to create beautiful things. That it's difficult to make something that's great until you've seen many other great things before. Then you can start to deconstruct what allowed this thing to be the way that it is. I know, but I think the people listening would find this really interesting, could you mind just describing how you consume a film? Because I imagine that your process of watching what someone else has created through this lens of, "What can I learn and take away towards the way that I tell a story, towards the way that I produce and direct?," what does that look like for you to be on the consuming side of the watching, of seeing what other people are doing?
Abby (39:46): Yeah. It's so interesting to try to articulate that, because you know, it's like the fish in the water who doesn't realize the fish is in the water. I don't know what it's like for somebody else to watch a movie, so it's hard for me to make that comparison. But yeah, I think you honed in on the idea, or you mentioned "taste," and I think that's a really important piece to talk about, because so much of what I think about and what I gravitate to has to do with taste. Like, when I—Again, am I seeking out the films that I want to watch, the cinematographers, or the editors that I wanna collaborate with? The writing that I wanna—You know, all of these pieces, like there's something that feeds my aliveness that I can pin down to like the taste. And it's a bit of an intangible, but it's like how I feel when things are edited a certain way and certain cinematic tools are used to communicate specific ideas. Like it's a really niche thing but that's the stuff that I love. Like, that's the stuff I get excited about, and I think about how to apply that, and that is so fun.
And so when I'm looking at other films, like when I—So when I went to Japan, as you know, I was in a fourteen day quarantine. Your listeners don't know that. But I had to—Americans weren't, and I think still are not, allowed in Japan. But we had a special work visa where we had to quarantine for fourteen days in a hotel in Tokyo. And it was the ultimate FOMO because I'm looking out over Tokyo and I can't go out and enjoy this amazing city, and so the way I felt that I could connect with Japanese culture and prepare myself for this adventure I was about to have was to watch all this Japanese cinema. And so I was kind of like really sinking into that as like a cultural touchstone to feel like I was there in a more present way, but also there's so much you can understand about the culture and the time periods of like post World War Two Japan, just from the filmmaking—Like, there's so much embedded in that that you can understand from the filmmaking and the choices that were made and the artful choices that are made in the filmmaking that are indicative of the culture and how those things coalesce in a way that I just find really fascinating.
And so kind of digging into all of those films was really fun, and then allowed me to say, "Oh, what do I want to borrow from those filmmakers, or nod to them in this project that I'm about to do in Japan? How can I stand on their shoulders and use the tools they used that you don't see in a lot of Western cinema, but will feel really appropriate in this world that we're creating, which is like a very Japanese world in this film?" And I'm thinking of this as a white American woman coming and telling a story about this, a Japanese man, and like how do I think about those cultural pieces, and again the responsibility and the privilege to tell his story the right way.
And so there's all these things that I consider, but the taste piece is really I think key. And there's so much baked into what that means. Right? Like, what is taste? And I think that's a fascinating question, and I don't even have the answer for it, but it's like what you gravitate to, and there's like so many intangibles in there. But I think there's a lot of meaning that we can't always decipher beneath it. And I think that's really what I'm after. That's what I love about filmmaking, as opposed to maybe other storytelling or art forms.
Chris (43:52): I wanna pull on this thread of "artful choices," because I think there's two interesting elements there. The one that you shared was—Just a sense of what is possible in terms of things in your toolset, different elements that you can draw on, but the second part, once you have them knowing the right time to employ them, to use them. Is there an artful choice from a recent project that comes to mind?
Abby (44:20): Well, you know, just to kind of springboard off of what we were talking about with the homages to some of the Japanese filmmaking, you know, a lot of the post-WWII Japanese cinema I was watching, the pacing is pretty quiet and slow. And a lot of it is shot on sticks. On tripods. And there's a lot of depth of field, and there's a lot of symmetry. And when this one filmmaker, Ozu (he's a very famous Japanese filmmaker), films dialogue scenes, the characters are actually looking straight into the lens of the camera, as opposed to looking off. Like, off over the shoulder. That's a really kind of bizarre thing to see. Like, we don't see that in cinema, in Western cinema. Or, you actually don't even see it in Asian cinema, outside of this kind of one group of filmmakers in post-WWII Japanese cinema. But in watching—You'll see homages to it in other modern Japanese cinema, which I think is kinda cool, but that's—For example, that's just like a bit of a bold choice to make, because it's very unconventional.
Also using, filming something on a tripod. Right? So in a documentary, the default is always to film it handheld, because you can cover the most in real-time. You can move in for a closeup, out to a wide, pan down to hands, swing around, something changes, like, right? It gives you the most ability to be flexible. So it's always the default. To decide I wanna put this camera on a tripod on a wide-angled shot and I'm gonna use a lens that has a servo zoom on it so it's like, that's a very retro feel, like, that's a really kind of—it's a choice that is not the default choice. So I like to do things like that. You know, we put all of the—across all of the B-roll that we shot in Japan, I put on the zoom lens. Which is—I don't think that's ever been done before on Chef's Table, and definitely is not like the obvious thing that people do. But I like to kind of say, "Okay, if there's an intention behind it, or there's a level of cultural specificity, or this feels true to this character or this scene," then I can use these tools to say, "Actually, no, this is actually better than just doing the default."
Right? Even though we might lose some things in flexibility, we're gonna gain a lot more because we're gonna allow the audience to feel more present or connected to the story, because we're creating this language. So there's a lot of artful choices like that that we make that, as filmmakers, that can enhance our ability to sink deeper into the themes of the story and connect with the characters. And they're also sometimes just cool, and like look great. So from the visual aspect, I'm always interested in that, too. Like, how it's going to look and how that makes you feel.
Chris (47:33): When we started, you had the really apt observation that storytelling allows us to build empathy, that we think we are experiencing characters who are so different, but in the end, we end up seeing how similar we are. We are able to put ourselves in their shoes, and this being especially important today to combat the natural divisiveness of we're all living in our own worlds. How much do you think it's, let's say, important to ground a story that you're telling in the cultural zeitgeist, in the present moment? Do you think about connecting what's happening in one person's life to the broader conversation?
Abby (48:20): No. Is the short answer. I think that that will happen naturally if it's a good story. I think that's kind of the byproduct of good storytelling, and that can be the intention, but it's not how you formulate the idea. The story itself is always going to the truth and the emotion, and the rest is like actually just what humanity is. You know, we know from—you and I have both done an extensive amount of traveling in our lives, and I think that anyone who's done something like that can say that you can meet people all over the globe who've had, walked very different lives, but spend enough time talking to them and you'll realize that you guys have a lot in common. And I think that that is—that happens if you are present enough to care to listen to who they are and what they have to say.
So that's my job as the filmmaker, is to get people to care to listen to this story. And the byproduct is understanding, like, "Wow, I actually, I've never met you know, a chef who's an undocumented immigrant and separated from her daughter, but I actually can connect with something about her humanity to mine. I understand what it would be like to be driven by love that much, to make those types of sacrifices." So by telling her story as true as I can, other people will connect to it. Yeah. So it's not kind of going in with such a specific goal to say, "There's a broader context here." It's more leaning into what is real, and then that happens naturally.
Chris (50:10): I love that. That's so beautiful. I really respect and appreciate coming here and sharing some of your process, both the systematic and the intuitive of what goes into revealing and telling a great story. If a friend was coming to you for advice on how they could become a better storyteller, what advice would you have for them?
Abby (50:38): It's about volume. I think that, you know, doing the work again and again and again is where you start to learn. You know, we can take a lot of classes and you can watch a lot of movies, but it's in the doing that I think is where you can learn the most. So I would say if filmmaking is the type of storytelling you wanna do, pick up a camera or, you know, write something. Try to start making something. And you'll be humbled by it, I can promise that, but you'll learn a lot, and the more you do it the better you'll become.
Chris (51:18): Thank you, Abby. We appreciate so much coming here, having a wonderful conversation, sharing your story. Is there any closing words of advice, any places you want to send the listener?
Abby (51:32): No, I would say that was just, you know, thanks again for having me on. Yeah. You can check out this next season. We'll—This Japanese episode I've been mentioning will be available later this spring. So tune in to that. And yeah, thanks again for having me on, and I love to be able to really think about my own process deeper, you know, by getting to talk about it with you. So, thanks again.
Chris (51:58): Thank you. Highly recommend, if you guys are looking for something to add to the queue, to check out those Chef's Tables episodes, Abby's feature film, Do You Dream In Color? is online, as well as I believe The North Face: Shepherd's Song, which I had the privilege of seeing recently. Wonderful work, and I think it'll really ground some of our conversation today in these artful choices that were made. You know, thank you so much, Abby. Really appreciate you being here. This is just I think a wonderful exploration of a timeless art, and how we can always be practicing our craft and revealing universal truths. So however you tell your story, I hope there was something here that you can take away today to improve your own ability to impart lessons and to share your emotions. Abby, thank you again so much for being here. For listeners, can't wait to see you again next time. Take care.
Tasha (52:56): Thank you for listening to Forcing Function Hour. At Forcing Function, we teach performance architecture. We work with a select group of twelve executives and investors to teach them how to multiply their output, perform at their peak, and design a life of freedom and purpose. Make sure to subscribe to Forcing Function Hour for more great episodes, or go to forcingfunctionhour.com to sign up for our newsletter so you can join us live.