Fake It Til You Make It With Erin Lee Carr

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)




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 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




“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 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— 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)


 




I want to hear from you!


Have a question about writing or creativity for Sarah Enni or her
guests to answer? To leave a voicemail, call (818) 533-1998.


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Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author
of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture
Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator
of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  Michael
Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender;
John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and
frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their
careers and creative works.


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