EP056 - Walk to the Next Block w/ Barlow Jacobs

Barlow Jacobs says: Walk to the Next Block.. easy to say when you're sitting there, not-walking on DocWalks. It's day three of the AFS Doc Intensive, and we close out our run in the room for a sit-down with actor-turned-documentarian Barlow Jacobs—a guy we've been hearing about for 20 years ever since he burst out of Sundance with LOW AND BEHOLD in 2007. Barlow brings his doc-debut, THE VOYAGE OUT to Austin for Doc Days. Shot on 16mm, fully off-grid, on a nine-day elk hunt deep in the mountains—the gear hauled in on pack goats, lenses wrapped in towels inside Igloo coolers because the Pelican cases wouldn't fit, this is a unique production setup for a unique doc, and all that extra work really pays off—every frame looks like an oil painting. Keith's on the hunt for answers, but Barlow's quick to point out that THE VOYAGE OUT isn't a hunting film. It's a reckoning with mortality, kicked off by a 2009 brain tumor and  later, a head-on collision with a dump truck, two life changing events that had Barlow questioning his own relationship to life & death. Barlow finds answers thanks to his film's three leads:  hunting guide Marc Warnke (Bruce Willis meets John Wayne with a philosophy degree), off-grid survivalist Callie Russell (you might've seen her on ALONE), and fellow seeker Mansal Denton. We dig into the technical insanity—film canisters kept warm in a teepee, a rain-soaked tent, a lab calling in a panic about celluloid that smelled like smoke—and then there's the executive producers who showed up with support, including Chris & Eleanor Columbus's Maiden Voyage Pictures, Ley Line, and Sons of Rigor Films. All indie filmmaking is a roll of the dice, but Barlow owes a special thanks to the pro gambler whose $2-million poker win came through just in time to float the shoot. He may be a first-time doc director, but Barlow's a festival and indie vet, and he's flipping the script on distribution. And this is where we can all take notes: how he's self-releasing to 75 theaters next year, building an audience of hunters (and bespoke butcher-shops) and why he wishes he'd planned for all of this before shooting a single frame. Plus, Keith namedrops Jeff Nichols and Toby Halbrooks; Barlow shares a gateway-doc run through Adam Curtis, GREY GARDENS, GIMME SHELTER, and Frederick Wiseman—and a reminder that filmmaking is completed one step at a time. So, when it all starts to fall apart, just walk to the next block. DISCUSSION LINKS: THE VOYAGE OUT (2025) | LOW AND BEHOLD (2007) | THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019) | EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022) | THE BIG SHORT (2015) | McCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971) | HOME ALONE (1990) | HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE (2001) | BUCKS HARBOR (2026) | GREY GARDENS (1975) | GIMME SHELTER (1970) | TITICUT FOLLIES (1967) | EX LIBRIS: THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY (2017) | VERNON, FLORIDA (1981) | HYPERNORMALISATION (2016) | CAN'T GET YOU OUT OF MY HEAD (2021) | RUSSIA 1985–1999: TRAUMAZONE (2022) | ALONE (2015) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Day three of the AFS Doc Intensive 01:00 Barlow Jacobs: 20 years of near-misses and LOW AND BEHOLD at Sundance 02:00 THE VOYAGE OUT premieres tomorrow, shot on 16mm 02:30 The origin: a brain tumor, a dump truck, and mortality 05:00 Finding the hunt: Mansal Denton, Marc Warnke, and the pack goats 06:30 Callie Russell joins; everyone has a relationship with death 07:30 The goats, the fire, and the film's real subject 09:00 Six months of prep and the tech scout 11:00 Why shoot a documentary on film 11:30 Hauling gear on goats: Igloo coolers and Old Fast Glass 13:00 A linear hunt, formalistic language, planning every scenario 15:00 Working with the subjects without impeding the hunt 16:30 Gems pulled from the field audio 17:00 The only-way-to-do-it setup; feels like a million bucks 18:30 Film canisters