Jon and Mary Orlin were recently interviewed by AmDocs's Leighton Ginn about the story behind the documentary Something To Entertain You.
It is part of AmDoc's Meet The Filmmaker interview series.
In the 27 minute interview we discuss:
- 00:00:33 - Overview: Who are Tony and Karen Barone?
- 00:01:51 - How the Orlins discovered the Barones' art
- 00:02:25 - The "Fly on the Wall" approach to filming
- 00:04:42 - The Barone Partnership: A team of two
- 00:05:44 - Parallel Collaborations: Filmmaker team vs. Artist team
- 00:08:29 - The Creative Process and constructive feedback
- 00:11:18 - A Joyous Story: Breaking the "Tortured Artist" trope
- 00:12:58 - Why this story clicked for veteran journalists
- 00:14:44 - Sneak Peek: The whimsical Barone house
- 00:16:57 - Connecting through the "Story Behind the Label"
- 00:19:37 - Transitioning from CNN journalism to documentary filmmaking
- 00:24:07 - Applying feature storytelling to the Barone documentary
- 00:26:33 - Final thoughts and community impact
Leighton Ginn is AmDoc's Development Director.
Here's a link to the video on YouTube:
AmDocs 2026: Jon and Mary Orlin on the talented Tony and Karen Barone in Something To Entertain You
Leighton also wrote a Substack post about the interview:
Behind the Lens: The Art of Joy and Collaboration in Something to Entertain You
You can find all of AmDoc's Filmmaker videos here.
