Samantha Mustari on Producing NOAH KAHAN: OUT OF BODY
By Rebecca Green
Samantha Mustari is an independent producer and filmmaker who got her start at Communications High School in New Jersey, a vocational film program that helped shape her collaborative approach to storytelling, and went on to study film and television at Emerson College in Boston. During her years as a staff producer at RadicalMedia, she worked on music documentaries including YOU’VE GOT GOLD: A CELEBRATION OF JOHN PRINE, SPRING AWAKENING: THOSE YOU’VE KNOWN, and DAVID BYRNE’S AMERICAN UTOPIA. In 2024, she embarked with Noah Kahan’s tour to produce NOAH KAHAN: OUT OF BODY, capturing his transition from songwriting in his Vermont hometown to selling out Fenway Park. Samantha sat down with Dear Producer to discuss the realities of producing on tour, capturing vulnerability on camera, and making music films that resonate beyond the fanbase.
No two producing paths are the same, tell us how you got into documentary filmmaking.
I’ve been a lifelong filmmaker, but my first time working in documentary film was at RadicalMedia. During my time on staff there, I worked for Radical’s President of Entertainment and Executive Producer, Dave Sirulnick, who was and is an incredible mentor to me. I learned so much from him and the team at Radical about documentary filmmaking and creating great stories in collaboration with musicians.
The moment I took a step into documentaries, I was hooked. Working to tell people’s true stories and finding the narrative in real events is uniquely challenging and gratifying. I fell in love with following the action in the field, and sifting through hours and hours of archival footage in the edit to find the magic moments that give life to a story. I’m very lucky that my love of filmmaking and love of music have now overlapped many times, and I’ve had the opportunity to help tell the stories of different artists in different genres and stages of their careers.
Growing up in New Jersey, I attended a vocational school called Communications High School which has a great filmmaking program. We had a film teacher there who pushed us to find our own voices, and bring our own perspective and style to each project. Now, I’m always looking for the piece of the project I can see myself in or that resonates with me. Even if the subject matter itself seems far away from my own life on the surface, finding that connection point has been vital for me to do my best work on every project, documentary or otherwise.
I’m fascinated by Communications High School. How did you discover it and what was that experience like?
When I was around 10 or 11, I had heard from a friend of a friend about this arts high school and I was immediately intrigued. By that time, I was already dead set on spending my life storytelling and making films, and when I found out they had a film program, I made it my mission to go there. You apply in the eighth grade and they accept a small class of students who are interested in subjects like film, journalism, and live television. Different communication arts. When I started there, it was the first time I was in an environment where a bunch of kids were as obsessed with movies as I was. From freshman year, we had cameras in our hands and spent every opportunity we had making little films, learning how to use the equipment, editing, and collaborating with each other. I learned so much from constantly making things with my friends there. We cycled through every role on each other’s sets, trading favors, and teaching each other tricks we picked up. I gained a lot of confidence by just doing.
I’m interested to hear about the timing of NOAH KAHAN: OUT OF BODY, which was released simultaneously to his latest album. Did Radical seek out Noah or did his label reach out to make a film that would promote the album?
It happened organically in early 2024. Noah was at this incredible moment in his career. His album Stick Season had taken over the world, and he was on a whirlwind tour that changed his life and was headed towards a massive finale at Fenway Park, the biggest show of his career at that point.
We headed down to Nashville to spend an afternoon with Noah, hanging out on his back porch and chatting about what a film that captured this moment could look like. We weren’t saying, “Here’s the documentary we want to make about you.” We were saying, “Here’s what we think is interesting about this moment in your life and we want to explore it with you.” On that first meeting, I was immediately struck by how thoughtful Noah was about sharing his story in this way. He wasn’t at all interested in a vanity project or a surface level concert film. He really wanted to share his story as authentically as he could, even if it scared him. I knew with Noah at the center, this would be something really special and I was excited to go on this journey with him.
When we went into production with our director, Nick Sweeney, at the helm, all of these rich stories about his identity as an artist, his mental health journey, and his relationship with his hometown and family started emerging. Being at this crossroad in his life, a lot of big questions were coming up for him. In parallel, as he worked towards writing his latest album, The Great Divide, these themes were coming up in his music too. The film and the album ended up as almost two parts of a larger story.
I’m curious about the day-to-day reality of shooting on a tour. You’re trying to get meaningful footage for the film while also not getting in the way of the tour. I assume that would be very challenging?
Our goal was to have a small, nimble team that could follow the story and be flexible enough to pivot on a moment’s notice. Making a documentary, you need to be comfortable with and excited about uncertainty. Most of the time, our field team was very small: myself, Nick, and our co-producers Asher Brown and Henry Allison. Of course, each day we had our goals as filmmakers, but were also aware that we were stepping into Noah’s world as a small part of a bigger operation, and worked very closely with his team to make sure we were in lockstep.
We were constantly filming. We filmed with them at soundchecks, we squeezed into the sprinter van with them darting to venues, we staked out in the greenroom while Noah and the band did vocal exercises. We also worked in tandem with Noah’s amazing content team, extremely talented cinematographers who knew the tour inside and out, and collaborated with them at each stop to capture those incredible onstage moments too.
Noah was very open to having us around during a busy period of his life. It can be a challenge to find the intimate moments in such a high-energy environment when a lot is being asked of him. But Noah would let us into his dressing room during one of his rare opportunities to be alone, or let us follow along as he took his final breaths before running onto the stage. Some of the best moments in the film come from those on-the-fly magic moments you can’t plan for.
I turned the film on simply because I’m a fan of his music and I was quickly taken by how intimate the story feels. You captured really vulnerable moments without it feeling invasive or performative, while also showing the bigness of his life. How did you pull this off?
As filmmakers, we were totally upfront with Noah about what themes we wanted to focus on throughout the process. Nick and Noah had a very open dialogue and they were able to develop a trust with each other that I think made a lot of these vulnerable moments possible. But really, it comes down to the fact that Noah chose authenticity. He wanted to share the parts of himself that felt difficult to share, and was committed to that along the way. We would get into some really heavy subject matter during our shoots, and wait for Noah to tell us he didn’t want to talk about something, but that moment never came.
One of my favorite things we were able to capture in the film is Noah’s unique humor. Not only is he able to articulate these complex feelings, but he’s, obviously, also really funny. This is something he and Nick have in common, they thrive in the crossover of emotion and humor. That allowed us to dive into difficult topics without veering into melodrama. We wanted to invite the audience to laugh. I think making jokes is a coping mechanism a lot of us can relate to, so we tried to bring that experience into the film. The feedback we’ve gotten from viewers is that they’re crying in one moment and laughing the next. Noah made that pretty easy for us.
On that note, Noah talks about this struggle with body image and his mental health, things men don’t often talk about in private let alone on camera. Did you do pre-interviews to prep these conversations or did they evolve in the moment?
We watch it evolve in real time over the course of the film. Noah was incredibly brave to share these vulnerabilities on camera. We live in a world where many still consider these things taboo to talk about, especially for young men. But of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of people dealing with the same things behind the scenes. For someone like Noah to open up about his mental health and body image, hopefully helps others dealing with the same things to feel seen in his journey.
We see him asking questions and exploring why he feels the way he does. We never wanted to force a ‘happily ever after’ ending, or pretend like any of us had all the answers. Mental health is not always a linear path and there’s not just one way to experience it. There’s a scene towards the end of the film where Noah talks about “not curing it, but walking near it, poking it with a stick, and saying what are you?” It was a very interesting way to hear him approach it. In the feedback we’ve all been getting from people who have seen the film, I think Noah sharing his own stories has helped others start to understand what they’re going through.
There are a lot of beautiful visuals in the film like the gorgeous tracking shot in the snow that cuts to Fenway Park. I could feel the progression of the story of Noah’s life, just in that one cut. Can you walk me through your process for creating those visual metaphors?
Noah was constantly toggling between two worlds. One moment he was at the center of these epic, roaring venues on tour, and the next was a full 180º to these serene, rolling landscapes in rural Vermont. We really wanted to bring that experience into the film and show the juxtaposition between loud and quiet. Our editors were able to find moments throughout the story where we almost suck the air out of the room as Noah goes from rockstar to more introspective. The moment you mentioned going from the Green Monster to a snowy path in Vermont is one of my favorite edits in the film. It was our way to get inside his head while he’s contemplating these big questions about who he is as his lifelong dream plays out in real time. Yes, he’s at the literal peak of Fenway Park, but he’s able to look at that moment as the little kid growing up in the woods, writing songs in his bedroom.
Noah’s music is already so cinematic. He spins this poetry that lets you really feel what his life was like growing up in Vermont. In the film, we wanted to echo that sentiment and try to capture the feeling of this really special place and Noah’s complicated relationship to it. It was important to show as much of Strafford and the Upper Valley as possible. There is nowhere like it. It can be idyllic but also melancholy, and we wanted to hear from the people who live there. One of our DPs, Noah Collier, created these stunning portraits of some of the locals who live there as they speak about life in Strafford. We had the best time driving around Vermont in the snow and filming with them in these shockingly beautiful and surprising spots – like a maple syrup sugarhouse in the middle of the woods, or a literal igloo where two little girls were just hanging out when we showed up.
You’ve worked on many music projects, from Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known, to You’ve Got Gold: A Celebration of John Prine. What’s your philosophy when approaching music documentaries? How do you avoid it becoming just a concert film or a celebrity profile?
Story is king. I’m very interested in finding that point of connection that goes beyond name recognition or celebrity, that draws people in whether they’re fans of the subject or not. For Noah, he was grappling with the feeling of leaving home, and pursuing a path that’s different from his family and friends. He had reached goals he’d been dreaming about his entire life and was still facing self doubt. He let us into the parts of his life that people can see themselves in, no matter how different their lives may look on the outside. When approaching a story, I love finding the parallels between songs and our narrative, and using music in a way that drives the story forward, not just as wallpaper or a recap of the greatest hits. I think a good music film can expand on the world that an artist has created through their music, and invite fans to experience that world in a new way.
Switching gears a little… TikTok played a huge role in Noah’s rise to fame and we’re seeing the power of the creator economy in filmmaking. However, most of my film friends are not on the platform, which baffles me. Whether we like it or not, TikTok drives culture. Yes, there is a lot of nothing there, but there is also a lot of creativity. Are you keeping tabs on what’s happening in that space as it relates to potential projects?
Definitely. I’m constantly discovering interesting artists, stories, and filmmakers through TikTok. I’m a fan of anything that lowers the bar to entry for people to create something and share it with the world, and I’ve seen really fun and innovative content rise up through TikTok and social media. It’s amazing how it seems to have flipped the music industry on its head. Someone can blow up overnight, or songs can have this second or third life on the platform in ways that weren’t possible before. As we see Noah experience in the film, he never expected his song Stick Season to blow up the way it did, and deciding to write something for himself and post it ended up being one of the catalysts that changed his life.
As someone who often works in music documentaries, I also love watching how fans post and interact with artists on the platform. You can see what’s resonating with people in real time, what songs are becoming the soundtrack for people’s lives, what artists are connecting with audiences in authentic ways. When Out of Body came out, I fell in love with all of the fans who were posting their tearful reactions to the film.
As someone who recently went independent, what kind of work do you want to be doing going forward? What’s calling you as a filmmaker right now?
As I enter this new chapter, I’m staying open. I just love making things. Right now, I’m developing both documentary and narrative projects in all kinds of spaces. It’s been great meeting filmmakers I believe in and working with them to develop their stories and start to bring them to life.
In addition to producing, I’m also excited to take a step into directing. I’m writing a lot and working on developing my own voice as a storyteller. I love comedy, drama, pop culture, crime, and of course, music. Telling stories in the music world will always be a core passion of mine, and I’m really excited to explore more there. I’m also looking around at the state of our world and country, and thinking about what stories can help us see and connect with each other, or wrap our heads around what is happening.
I’m really drawn to stories about passion and ambition. I love stories that make you think, wrapped up in a package that makes you laugh. I also really want to make films where women and girls see themselves on screen in a leading role having fun. How can we flip traditional archetypes for women on their heads? We need more women-led genre, action, adventure, and comedy projects – where we get a chance to unplug from reality at the movies the same way men have been able to since the dawn of cinema.
I’m so proud of the work I’ve been a part of as a producer at RadicalMedia and I’m excited to continue working with a team that I love as an independent filmmaker.
What advice would you give to emerging filmmakers who want to work in documentaries?
Pick up the camera and start now. Don’t wait for permission or the perfect opportunity or the ideal circumstances. Just start making things. You’ll probably make a lot of bad things before you make good things, and that’s okay. That’s how you learn. People get so frozen trying to make everything perfect that they never actually make anything. But the only way to develop your voice and your skills is by doing the work. Write something in your Notes app. Shoot something on your phone. Edit it on free software. Show it to people and get feedback. Then do it again.
Filmmaking is all about collaboration, so find the people that inspire you and get you, and work with them. As producers, look for the directors you believe in and genuinely want to help bring their stories to life. And don’t be afraid to ask for help. Find mentors, ask questions, and be curious about how things work. Dave, Stacey Reiss, and Jon Kamen, among others, taught me so much about creating documentaries with impact.
Remember that there’s always a way forward. You’re going to hit obstacles. Budget problems, creative disagreements, logistical nightmares. But there’s always a solution if you’re willing to be flexible and creative. That’s what producing is all about: finding the path through.