and a mea-culpa note twice as a make­up after we'd had a disagreement over costs and scheduling. And one of those times, I should have sent him flowers. Sometimes I wondered why we worked so well together. The truth was, we operated on very different wavelengths.

Some history to illustrate. Over the past eight years, before I teamed up with David, I'd done three "highly praised" documentaries. But getting to that point meant busting my behind for years and years at the lower end of the profes­sional food chain. After NYU, I toiled as a script supervisor on PBS documentaries, about as close to grunt work as it comes. Eventually I got a fling as a production assistant, assembling crews, but then the money dried up. (Thank you, Jesse Helms.) Whereupon I decided to try capitalism, work­ing for three years as an AD on the soaps: first Guiding Light, then As the World Turns, then Search for Tomorrow. I can still hear the horrible music. Then a connection got me a slot at A&E as a line producer. Eight months later the series got canceled, which was when I decided the time had come to take my career into my own hands. I hocked every last credit card, went to Japan, and made a documentary. The result: I was an "overnight" success. Men started addressing me by my name.

Some history to illustrate. Over the past eight years, before I teamed up with David, I'd done three "highly praised" documentaries. But getting to that point meant busting my behind for years and years at the lower end of the profes­sional food chain. After NYU, I toiled as a script supervisor on PBS documentaries, about as close to grunt work as it comes. Eventually I got a fling as a production assistant, assembling crews, but then the money dried up. (Thank you, Jesse Helms.) Whereupon I decided to try capitalism, work­ing for three years as an AD on the soaps: first Guiding Light, then As the World Turns, then Search for Tomorrow. I can still hear the horrible music. Then a connection got me a slot at A&E as a line producer. Eight months later the series got canceled, which was when I decided the time had come to take my career into my own hands. I hocked every last credit card, went to Japan, and made a documentary. The result: I was an "overnight" success. Men started addressing me by my name.

My first film was about the impact of Zen on Japanese business. As part of my research, I shaved my head and lived three months at a Kyoto temple, eating bean curd three meals a day, after which I had enough credibility to land long in­terviews with Tokyo CEOs. I then sold the edited footage to A&E. When it became a critical hit, they financed a 

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