Landon Van Soest: The Creative Hurdles of Documentary Filmmaking
Landon Van Soest’s genre-bending documentaries present social commentary through rich characters and immersive narratives. All images courtesy of Van Soest.
Emmy Award-winning director Landon Van Soest begins each day with the biggest challenge or inspiration on his plate, working at it as long as possible until he needs to step away to maintain some type of normalcy and sanity. The life of documentary filmmakers, you know.
If it weren’t for his films, which make social commentary on a range of issues like bank robberies, rural life, and police violence, this might not make sense. But once you see it, you get it: the 16-hour long workdays are for a purpose, to tell stories that the world needs to hear. His most recent film The Jewel Thief was critically acclaimed by everyone from Rolling Stone and Psychology Today to the Wall Street Journal for brilliantly unraveling the story behind one of the most creative, calculating, and accomplished criminal masterminds in modern history.
Here, the documentary filmmaker and producer shares how he works, including how he finds peace and solitude in a cabin in the Catskills; the importance of progress over perfection; and his idea to re-invent the whole shower concept so there’s no waiting around and wasting water anymore.
Watch “The Jewel Thief” on HULU now.
What’s your morning routine?
I’m definitely the most clear-headed and productive first thing in the morning, so on a good day, I dive into the biggest challenge or inspiration that I’m facing straight away. It’s pretty much as follows: shower, coffee, AG1, get to work for as long as I can hold focus. As soon as I get distracted by some email or call, all bets are off.
Describe your work uniform.
Black jeans and a button up. Some of my favorite shirts were vintage finds, but I’m just as likely to wear something off the rack from JCrew.
How do you structure your days?
It’s hard to generalize since every day is so different. I think that’s the blessing and the curse of the production cycle — I love going from inception to production to post-production, and meeting the challenges of new projects. But it also means I’ll have weeks of 16-hour days followed by long stretches of quietly wondering what I’m supposed to do with all the extra hours of the day. I tend to be pretty dogged in general, but try to keep normal work hours as much as possible to maintain some normalcy and sanity.
A meeting of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective (BFC), an organization Van Soest co-founded many years ago.
Give us some playlist favorites.
It’s mostly podcasts these days: The Daily from NYT, Love + Radio, and Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend are on heavy rotation. Music depends entirely on my mood, right now it’s Bahamas, Outkast, MF DOOM, Tex Crick, etc.
What are the tools you use in your line of work?
I don’t nerd out too much about tech, it’s all just a means to an end. I have my preferences for cameras, lenses, and editing platforms, but I’m probably at my best just working off of notecards on a corkboard. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a slave to my laptop though, these days most of my time is consumed with Zoom, Dropbox, and GoogleDocs.
Describe your dream studio.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I had a vibrant production space in Brooklyn for over a decade with a lot of great creatives that I gave up during the pandemic. These days I mostly work independently from a cabin in the Catskills (upstate New York). I love the peace and solitude of the woods (maybe a little too much), but definitely miss the creative community. Still trying to find that balance I guess.
The cabin Van Soest works from these days.
What is one unique thing about your work process?
I’ve never really stopped to think about that. I’ve been self-employed for twenty years, so it’s always just felt like finding the best way to accomplish the task at hand.
Do you have a mantra?
“Progress over perfection.” That’s something I adopted from my wife, and if I ever learn to adhere to it, I expect to be a happier, healthier person!
What’s your brightest idea that never saw the light of day?
Man, I’ve got a long list of inventions — tools, gadgets, apps, or whatever — that I keep threatening to go all in on. I’ve got an idea for a shower head that heats water internally to a pre-set temperature, so you don’t have to stand around waiting, wasting water, and twisting knobs. Any others, I’ll need you to sign an NDA… Kidding.
Is there a to-do list item that keeps you up at night?
All of them! Stress and inspiration seem like different sides of the same coin in that regard, both keep me staring at the ceiling.
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