Special Report: Doc Meets World (2026)

Oh he is, folks, It's show die. People say good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater, they want clod sodas, hop, popcorn, and no monsters. In the Projection Booth, everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring. Got it off?

Hey, folks, Welcome to a special episode of The Projection Booth. I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, I'm talking with Chris Levetus and Zane Rubin all about their twenty twenty six documentary, doc Meets World. It is a documentary about Boy meets World, or more precisely, what the three leads of Boy Meets World are up to these days, and kind of looking back at what it was like being on a hit TV show. I definitely did not watch Boy Meets World other than a offhand reference in Hackers.

I kind of don't even know the show that much, but it's perfect. This documentary actually takes me in and shows me around and lets me know why people still talk about Boy Meets World. So I hope you enjoy this, and I hope you enjoy the film. Track it down. It just played at Tribeca.

Thanks so much, and enjoy this interview. Zane and Chris, thank you so much for your time today. I'm so curious. How do you guys know each other? We met ten years ago.

Chris had seen some of the films that I had directed and he liked them and he wanted to collaborate together. And then he's produced a lot of things that I've directed, and edited a lot of things that I've directed, and we've also written a few scripts together. And then with this project, we directed one little short together. This kind of just very happened naturally in terms of something that we did together. It was just basically we went out and we started shooting stuff and we both had ideas and then yeah, we were in it together.

How did Doc Mets World come together? I've known writer for about twenty years. We've collaborated on short films and scripts, music videos, and we always knew at some point we wanted to work on a feature together. And over that twenty year period, the one thing we really didn't talk about much was Boy Meets World were at all. It's not something that he seemed super excited to engage with.

Enough for me, I didn't watch the show growing up. So when he decided to start a podcast about Boy meets World. It was obviously a dramatic term, and when it went on the road with it, it was just everything was happening very quickly, and writer Will and Danielle were like, we're having all these incredible interactions fans. We're not going to remember any of it because it's just so much of it happening. It really deserves to be documented.

So writer asked Zaane and I if we'd be willing to go to New York and shoot some footage scene. Were you a fan of the show growing up? I was, Yeah. I when there was one year when I refused to go to seventh grade, which wasn't completely uncommon for me not going to school, and I think I spent that entire year watching all of The Boymi's World on TVO and just really plowed my way through. I did not think it was a productive time in my life, but it turned out to potentially be the most productive, So you never know, I was a fan.

I didn't watch it probably again really after that, after like seventh grade, but I definitely seen all of it, like probably a couple times. And I think when you're really young, stuff like that, when the TV I watched when I was young. I really remember. I remember it far more deeply than I remember something than I probably watched a couple of weeks ago, to be quite frank. So it was still all there, all the information.

I just wasn't actively accessing it. And then when we started doing this, we went to their live shows and stuff, which is filled with all these sketches and references. I'd be like, oh, I know that reference, Like I know what they're talking about. I get all this stuff, And so it was very easy for me to sink into the fandom and kind of catch up really quick because I actually already knew all the reference points. So maybe it's a good thing.

Tell kids to skip school and binge watch, binge watch, never know what it'll come in Handy. Did you go to many of the shows before you guys decided to start shooting or was it pretty much first show we've got the cameras. We hadn't been to any shows when we started shooting, and it was sold to us as we just hang out and we were like okay, But we actually showed up in New York with our cameras planning to shoot the SHO show, and then when we got there we found out. In order to shoot the stage, you had to pay like twenty thousand dollars to the unions, So we were like, oh, okay, I guess we're not going to be doing that. And then we had to have Chris and I a little pow wow and be like, okay, what are we actually doing?

But we're like, okay, well, we already have all these cameras, so let's just shoot everything we could possibly shoot, except for the stage, which was meet and greats several lunches to the point that they were like, please stop filming a seating and we were like, no, we're gonna do it, and we're going to dinner. Also behind the scenes in the green room walk and talks. At one point I was like, I'm gonna just run ount and talk to some fans if they're willing to talk to me. And now, honestly, that stuff all ended up being extremely interesting. And then by the time we got to the point where we were allowed to shoot the shows, which was like probably like a year later, and the show had actually gotten better and evolved born, so it ended up working out for the best.

Yeah, that whole idea of hanging out that kind of sounded like what they were told that the pre show should be, but just that level of no, no, we have to write this, we have to rehearse this. I really appreciated that adherence to the craft. Yeah, it was super surprising to us, and it was awesome to see them put together this whole show and see how much attention went into it because we didn't expect that. We were like, we're like, wait, what are you guys talking about. You're doing a sketch, Like, yeah, yeah, we do some sketches.

I was like, there's multiple sketches. Yeah, we do a few sketches, and there's like a dance. It's fine. I was like, Okay, that's a lot more involved than what I thought it was. I thought you guys were literally just gonna talk.

Yeah, like we were sending a guy out to go get a wig. I was like, there's wigs involved. This is very exciting, like very fun like kid theater, but adults doing it. There's a very playfulness in the way that they put things together. And because they are talented people who grew up on screen and that muscles, they're very sharp in that way, and the must has been very worked.

They are able to kind of just do things very quickly like that, and it's good. Whereas I'm sure if it was certain other people putting together what you're going to do that night two and a half hours beforehand, maybe wouldn't have gone so well. But I think because of their background and their training and how well they know each other, they're able to adapt really quickly. They really presented the whole live show as something they just made up on the fly and they just improvised on stage. But we discovered they're really into creating something.

But for them, they never think of it as work. That's why they're like, oh no, we don't prepare it all, even though all day long they're preparing in a way that just amuses themselves. They just they're just like they're they're just like, oh, they're just they're just having fun. How many people are on your crew when you're doing this. Most of the two of us.

A couple times, if it was if we were shooting a show or something, we had a sound person and a PA. It weren't shooting a show, it was just the two of us. And how is this working logistically? Because you guys are going all of these different places. How many shows did you actually attend.

We actually only attended five shows and we were only allowed to shoot the last show in Salt Lake City, But that ended up being the blessing in some ways because Writer was saying, Oh, we did this show at iHeart that you guys can use, which was it was a proof of concept show, which we eventually at a certain point we looked at that and it was interesting and as far as it was the show that we were actually documenting, it had evolved so far. Their timing was so much better, they were so much more relaxed, and they had figured out just so many little bits that were that they had come back, and it called back. To how do you help engender that feeling of safety for them so that they're able to open up so much in front of these cameras.

Chris is known Writer for like twenty years. I've known Writer for about ten. Obviously that builds a certain amount of trust. And then honestly he told the other two was like, they're cool, it's fine. And that's how Writer spoke with a really good friend of his, Todd Goldberg, who's an author and actually Writer met when he was a teacher.

It was Writer's teacher and he and writer, they go deep immediately, So it was a real privilege to just be present for their conversation because Todd really gets in there and he gave us some just material that I think that even if Sane and I were talking with writer, that writer may not have necessarily gone that deep. But Todd was he really excavated a writer's soul. Thanks Todd, But yeah, I felt like a therapy session. It pretty much was. Afterwards, I was like, do you think I could get an hour with Todd?

Would do I have to pay? Or I'm most like, honestly, it was like, I'd love to get ninety minutes with Todd. It seems pretty life changing. Has Ainy said, you watched the show? Christy said he didn't watch the show.

I also didn't watch the show. So how much of a concern was that for you guys when you're putting this together, as far as making it something that an outsider like me can actually get in here and not have to know the inside baseball, not get the references that you're getting. Zane, Honestly, the combination of him never having seen it and me having seen all of it was probably a perfect combination. Now Furthermore, I think the whole time, we were trying to make it as accessible to people who really didn't know the show that well, because we knew fans are gonna like it, They're gonna watch it just because if you're a fan of something, you want more of that thing, and we knew we probably had those people, So trying to expand it to people who had mainly only heard of the show was something we were trying really hard to do.

And if you knew how long that first seven minutes of the movie had been worked on to set things up more than any other part of. The movie, Contextualizing this so that people who aren't familiar with them or the show was probably the hardest thing. Who is doing the editing with you guys? Or is it just you two? It was mostly just Chris Alex.

Obviously, our producer helped out a lot, but Chris edited the whole thing. We had an assistant editor who helped us technically, but yeah, it's mostly just Chris and I. He was in charge of the actual editing and I was in charge of basically all of the finding, all the archival stuff. Yeah, whenever we would get to a certain point where I was like, oh, I really need a shot of hopefully like writer opening or Sean opening a door, or will As with squirrels or some reference or was Danielle the inception of the dance where she's putting I would just ask zaying, what can we use here that's going to reflect what's actually happening in their life? Now that'll create we'll have a nice juxtaposition with something that happened on the show, and hopefully there's some interesting connective tissue there.

It was really satisfying when you got one that matched up. Oh my god, But there was so much of I'd be like, I'd show Chris five clips and he'd be like, none of them are right, and I'd be like, damn it. There is something so magical about cutting to someone in their forties to them as a teenager. Every time you can have that sort of that that edit, there's just something really compelling about it. And how long did this project take overall?

Once you got that phone call of hey, we're doing this thing to obviously you've got your premiere? Is it your premiere coming up at Tribeca? Yeah, it was about three years. That's pretty intense to be able to craft this in three years. Do you think it should have taken longer?

It feels like it took longer just with all of the information they have backed in here like. You, we'll click that. Have you had a chance to see this with smaller audiences yet? Did you test it out with people or fans or anything. We test it with friends for notes.

That's it though, Yeah, very informative. I want to say our producer Alex hosted probably five screenings or so, and just being in the room and feeling the wall speak to you, you really get a much, very very helpful to figure out pacing issues and also of course just to make sure we're being clear in terms of our intent. So yeah, we did screen it a number of times, and after every one of those there would be fifty or sixty little notes that we would then go back in and reweave some things together and make some adjustment structurally or just basically. But again, it really came down to those first ten minutes, really trying to create a context so that everyone understands who these people are and why it's worth going on a journey with them.

Every time it was like, wow, if these first ten minutes aren't perfect, it doesn't even matter if the rest of the movie's perfect, because it the way it sets the tone is it completely changes the person's viewing experience. So it was like the more we worked on those first ten minutes, the better those screenings got where things were set up properly and they went in with the proper mind, and then the screenings would go better as a whole. And I need touch about how you divied up the editing process. But when you guys are actually shooting, is there like I'm going to be always doing this and the other person's always going to be doing that or did you just jump in whenever you need it to. Chris is much better at on the fly camera operating, which is something we learned.

It was more complicated if both of us were shooting at the same time for like walking talks, because then we would just be in each other's shot. So then at a certain point I was just like, you do that. And then for stuff like if we were at lunch or something, I would always be like I was just in charge of getting Danielle and Chris was usually going between the two guys. So those were like two things we knew innately. And then with the kind of personal interviews like Danielle with her Is that her mother that she's talking with?

Right? Who's shooting those or is it just a combination. I was shooting Danielle and he was shooting her mom, and then we had a camera rolling that was unmanned. Anytime we were with writer Will and Danielle, they just talk and they just don't feel the camera at all. They're exactly how they are off camera as they are on.

I don't I really don't think honestly, they don't even really take into account that the camera's rolling. But with people like Danielle's mom, who did not grow up on camera, it's a little different. So we probably have a solid forty five minutes of them playing Maltese gin before they actually get into the conversation, because we just needed Daniel's mom to acclimate and to forget that the camera was there, so that would take a bit more time. The three people that we used, Todd, Jen, Daniel's mom, and Andrea, none of them are actors. They were all great.

We took it slow with them and we let them ease their way in. But honestly, they left all those and being like, oh my god, that went so well they're not actors, but they did very very well on camera. Because we've all had experience with people being on camera who were like that person's not comfortable being on camera, we were very lucky we did not have that at all. They were all awesome. I never would have guessed that, And yeah, everybody seems very very at ease, So bravo to you for especially putting Danielle's mom at ease.

Yeah, she was great. She was so that we loved her, and she let us come to her house. She had a very beautiful home, very clean. Congratulations on doc Meets World. I'm super excited for you guys to be able to have your premiere and hopefully be able to take this around and show it to so many people because it is such a wonderful documentary.

That's really also nice to hear from someone who's not even a fan of the show. That means a lot. Thank you so much, y'all. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you.

S