March 21, 2024

Respect The Process Podcast: Cinematographer Dustin Pearlman on The Great Buster

When I trekked to the True Gentleman Headquarters in Santa Monica on February 20, 2024 to record my episode of Jordan Brady’s podcast, I didn’t know where our conversation would lead. While I’m pleased with the result, I regret to share that there were a few factual inaccuracies.

Fear not—they weren’t intentional.

https://vimeo.com/925650252

I didn’t clearly share the challenge I faced while shooting Peter Bogdanovich’s final film, The Great Buster. If you listen to the unabridged podcast (which I suggest you do), it may sound like we shot most of the film exclusively in the theater at the Pacific Design Center. While we did spend a good chunk of time there, what I meant to say is that we searched high and low throughout the building to avoid repeating shots. Nonetheless, the Silver Screen Theatre hosted a majority of our set-ups.

In brainstorming ways to share my episode with the world, I thought it would be fun to edit snippets from the podcast with video related to our conversation, since the episode wasn’t filmed (in fact, we regrettably failed to take a photo together afterward). While trimming my words to the bare bones necessary for this highlight piece, this misrepresentation became glaringly problematic.

Please forgive me for any other brain farts I may have let slip during our 90-minute conversation. Malcolm Gladwell made a wonderful podcast about the unintentional failings of memory. After you listen to my episode of Respect The Process, I highly recommend you listen to this classic from Revisionist History.

As a reminder, you can watch the award-winning documentary, The Great Buster, on a variety of streaming platforms—most notably for free on Kanopy.

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