We were supposed to be in Central Park. We are not. It's raining so we're in Penny Lane's apartment, shoes off, with a cat named Luna auditioning for the role of "the action," and Flaco the Owl on the TV behind us. So much for a walking show.
Penny's deep in what she calls PR season for WILD INSIDE, her new HBO doc about the Eurasian eagle-owl who broke out of the Central Park Zoo in 2023 and spent a year as the most photographed bird in New York. Then she tells us she barely shot it. A volunteer army of Central Park bird photographers had already amassed infinite footage, so Penny's crew went back and shot the reverse angles — Flaco's POV of the people watching Flaco — and rebuilt a whole year of seasons to match. "I don't think anyone understands that we just weren't there all the time."
We go long on money and fear. Eight features in, a ninth half-funded, and her first thought is the tenth. That festivals and awards absolutely do matter, whatever people tell you. That this is her worst financial year and she has a hit, simultaneously.
Plus: NUTS! and the Kansas goat-testicle doctor, cornering the cool dad market, the grad school shoot where Ben watched the levels all night and recorded nothing, Letterboxd as the only proof anyone's watching, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP as the film that taught her to make one movie for the 1% and the 99% at once, dirty fuel versus the clean kind — and the thing she can't stop thinking about, which is how much of the internet is just bots talking to bots.
DISCUSSION LINKS:
WILD INSIDE (2026) | CONFESSIONS OF A GOOD SAMARITAN (2023) | LISTENING TO KENNY G (2021) | HAIL SATAN? (2019) | NUTS! (2016) | OUR NIXON (2013) | EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (2010) | TARNATION (2003) | THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (2025) | MARY OLIVER: SAVED BY THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD (2026)
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 We were supposed to be outside
01:15 Introducing Penny Lane
01:23 PR season for WILD INSIDE
02:02 Lynn, Massachusetts and the city of sin
02:58 Newbury Comics and finding culture pre-internet
04:04 NUTS! and the Kansas goat-testicle doctor
05:43 Cornering the cool dad market
07:16 Kindles, hardbacks, and a book a day
08:51 Podcasts ate her reading and her music
10:48 Grad school at UT Austin with Naiti Gamez
11:33 The shoot where she recorded no sound
14:08 Meeting Gabriel Sedgwick and building a crew
16:52 A year spent arranging the art wall
18:40 Competing with the entire Seinfeld catalog
20:00 Four Kenny G albums before a hit
20:50 When did movies become a prestige art form
22:39 The future of documentary, and why AI can't do it
23:42 Nobody knows your movie is out
24:39 The broadcast era is kaput
25:58 Hunting for her own film on Netflix
28:20 Eight features, a ninth half-funded, already worried about the tenth
30:24 Festivals and awards do matter
31:05 Who paid whom to release the movie
32:40 Not a business, a calling
33:39 The only reward is getting to do the work
34:34 Williams, Hampshire, Colgate, tenure — then quitting
36:07 Dirty fuel and the clean kind
37:40 Stay in shape, paddle out, catch the wave
38:48 Letterboxd as the only feedback loop
41:25 iMovie, mini DV, and TARNATION
44:02 Why she doesn't care what camera it's shot on
45:14 How WILD INSIDE was built from birders' footage
47:18 Shooting the reverse angles
48:46 Rebuilding a year of seasons
50:54 Jeremy finds Flaco first
52:08 How a project actually starts
53:10 Donating a kidney before there was a film
55:45 The film as an imprint of a life
58:13 A hit movie in her worst financial year
59:32 Why a filmmaker runs a Substack
1:02:27 Geeta Gandbhir and THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR
1:04:19 Advice: do what you can do right now
1:05:22 EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, the gateway drug
1:06:30 One movie for the 1% and the 99%
1:08:31 Lightning round: is anyone on the internet real
1:09:35 Next time, we actually walk
