First Draft Episode #240: Erin Lee Carr

Erin Lee Carr is a director, producer, and writer whose upcoming four-part docuseries How to Fix a Drug Scandal will be released on Netflix on April 1st. Carr has also directed At the Heart of Gold, about the USA Gymnastics scandal, and I Love You: Now Die, about the Michelle Carter murder-by-texting trial, both for HBO. Her first feature length film was Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

• The Witches by Roald Dahl

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV show)

• Pleasantville (movie)

• Moulin Rouge (movie)

• carr-media-equation-columnist-for-the-times-is-dead-at-58.html">David Carr, legendary New York Times journalist and author of memoir Night of the Gun

• James Frey is the author of A Million Little Pieces which raised a massive public debate about truth in memoir after it was revealed that portions of the book was fabricated or wildly embellished, and Oprah confronted him. She has since apologized for that confrontation.

• David Carr on The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert talking about his memoir

• The t.html">New York Times Book Review write-up about Carr’s memoir

• Page One: Inside the New York Times, a documentary by Andrew Rossi (who is now a mentor to Erin) featured David Carr extensively

• Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room a documentary by Alex Gibney, was an incredibly influential film that made Erin want to pursue documentary fimmaking

• Shane Smith, founder of VICE

• Erin was an office PA for the TV show Girls before she moved on to making videos for VICE

• “ca-mn-erin-lee-carr-documentary-20190705-story.html">How true crime documentaries helped Erin Lee Carr move forward after her father’s death,” Erin’s interview with the Los Angeles Times, interviewed by Amy Kaufman

• Patricia Bosworth, documentarian and memoirist, author of The Men in My Life: A Memoir of Love and Art in 1950s Manhattan, Diane Arbus: A Biography, Montgomery Clift: The Ultimate Insider's Guide for the Budget Savvy

• Sheila Nevins, former president of HBO Documentary Films and currently launching MTV Documentary Films

• National geographic photographer Cory Richards’s 2017 SXSW Keynote speech

• Erin’s editor Andrew Kaufman

• Cheer on Netflix (which was optioned)

• McMillions

• “The Girl from Plainville,” the Esquire piece by Jesse Barron about the Michelle Carter case

• Erin’s episode of Dirty Money dealing with the pharmaceutical industry

• Cindy Lee, editor on At the Heart of Gold

• Sarah Gibson was executive producer on At the Heart of Gold

• “Still rendering,” Erin’s Medium piece which she wrote in the wake of her dad’s death

• Mary Karr’s books including Lit, The Liar’s Club: A Memoir, and The Art of Memoir

• Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp

• In an interview with Caryn Ganz coast-bethany-cosentino.html">for the New York Times, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino talks about coming to the decision to be sober. I also liked how Jenny Slate spoke about her choice to stop drinking—at least temporarily— cut-on-tuesdays-jenny-slate.html">in The Cut on Tuesdays.

• Erin on Fresh Air with Terry Gross

• Erin loves the Fresh Air episodes featuring Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Howard Stern

• Erin recommends watching documentaries every night for a month, and diagramming them. Then, she suggests, also go ahead and diagram the careers of some of the greats, including: Liz Garbus (director of There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane, What Happened, Miss Simone? and more); Alex Gibney (director of Going Clear: The HBO Special and The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley); Andrew Jirecki (director of Capturing the Friedmans); Amy Berg (director of The Case Against Adnan Syed and Janis: Little Girl Blue); Erroll Morris (director of The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara)

   

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