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Transcript

Kim Smith and John Goodson · Movie Meltdown

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hi, this is Horne Peterson, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Movie Meltdown.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: This episode is rated M for Misty. Yes, that's right,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: this is a Misty episode, so it will be laced
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: with profanity even more than usual. If you're not comfortable
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: with this level of profanity, perhaps this isn't the episode
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: for you. But we have many other episodes to choose
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: from that do not feature Misty and will probably be
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: far less offensive. Okay, maybe. With that having been said.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: On with the show.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: It's showtime.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power.
• 1:22
  Speaker 5: Provide more cooling in the containment chambers. The point is,
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: how do you know the fairy isn't a crazy glue sniffer?
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: Build a model airplane, says the little fairy.
• 1:32
  Speaker 6: Well, we're not buying it.
• 1:43
  Speaker 7: What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I am Brian.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: I am Misty.
• 1:46
  Speaker 7: And we are back.
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: We are.
• 1:48
  Speaker 7: Our favorite stop. Wonderfest.
• 1:51
  Speaker 8: They have fantastic carpet in here, by the way.
• 1:53
  Speaker 7: Actually, I like the hallway carpet. It's almost like a
• 1:56
  Speaker 7: three-dimensional thing. It's almost got an odd shadow effect going on.
• 2:01
  Speaker 7: This one's fun, too. This one's cool, but I like the...
• 2:04
  Speaker 7: It's almost like an optical illusion going on in the hallway,
• 2:07
  Speaker 7: so you're distracted and running into people while you're staring
• 2:10
  Speaker 7: at the floor.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: It's trippy, yeah.
• 2:12
  Speaker 7: So, yes, here we are once again. Live video recording
• 2:15
  Speaker 7: from Wonderfest.
• 2:16
  Speaker 8: I have that record player over there, by the way.
• 2:19
  Speaker 7: Not the old school radio looking thing.
• 2:21
  Speaker 8: I have the brown closet, the one at the end.
• 2:23
  Speaker 8: It's a record player.
• 2:25
  Speaker 7: Do you use it for all your DJing?
• 2:27
  Speaker 8: No, but I do play records on it.
• 2:28
  Speaker 6: Scratchings.
• 2:29
  Speaker 8: Don't scratch my records.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: Come on. Oh, man.
• 2:31
  Speaker 7: You're down with like the vintage vinyl. You don't want
• 2:33
  Speaker 7: to bust the moves. Well, before we get into the
• 2:39
  Speaker 7: rest of the activities, Misty, have you seen any movies lately?
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: We did.
• 2:45
  Speaker 8: Me and the boyfriend watched a movie last night, which
• 2:48
  Speaker 8: I kind of regret.
• 2:49
  Speaker 7: This sounds good already.
• 2:51
  Speaker 8: It was awful and a little bit confusing and very disappointing.
• 2:54
  Speaker 8: Because I've always said to myself, damn it, Michael Fassbender.
• 2:57
  Speaker 8: Make movies that I'll watch. Make action movies. Make video
• 3:01
  Speaker 8: game movies. Make horror movies. Make alien movies.
• 3:04
  Speaker 7: You don't like his artsy movies?
• 3:05
  Speaker 8: I do not. Even when he gets naked. Not enough
• 3:08
  Speaker 8: for me to.
• 3:09
  Speaker 7: He's a fine actor and has been in some very
• 3:13
  Speaker 7: well-made films.
• 3:14
  Speaker 8: Assassin's Creed is not one of those films.
• 3:17
  Speaker 7: So y'all loved it.
• 3:19
  Speaker 8: It was just like, they were like, I guess they
• 3:21
  Speaker 8: just assumed that everybody who was going to watch the
• 3:23
  Speaker 8: movie has spent 150 hours playing the video game.
• 3:27
  Speaker 7: Sure.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Am I bitten?
• 3:29
  Speaker 8: So I had no idea what was going on 98%
• 3:31
  Speaker 8: of the time.
• 3:32
  Speaker 7: So they don't really explain these things to you?
• 3:33
  Speaker 8: They kind of do, but it's kind of just like,
• 3:35
  Speaker 8: they throw it at you, and then they kind of
• 3:37
  Speaker 8: maybe every once in a while reference what's going on.
• 3:40
  Speaker 8: Because I spent a good, like, the first, like, 20 minutes,
• 3:43
  Speaker 8: I'm like, I have no idea.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: What's going on.
• 3:45
  Speaker 8: And boyfriend's like, yeah, I don't know either. Then another
• 3:48
  Speaker 8: 40 minutes into it, he's like, I still have no
• 3:49
  Speaker 8: idea what's going on.
• 3:52
  Speaker 7: This sounds like fun.
• 3:52
  Speaker 8: And even when you know what's going on, you're still like,
• 3:56
  Speaker 8: what the fuck's going on? I mean, the basic premise is,
• 3:59
  Speaker 8: or whatever, back in the day, a long time ago.
• 4:03
  Speaker 7: In Assassin times.
• 4:04
  Speaker 8: Assassin times. There was this relic that the assassins were
• 4:10
  Speaker 8: trying to protect.
• 4:11
  Speaker 7: The apple of Sodom.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: No.
• 4:16
  Speaker 8: The apple of Eden. It's supposed to have the root
• 4:19
  Speaker 8: of all men's sins or whatever. And if they can
• 4:21
  Speaker 8: get the atom, or the apple, then they can eradicate
• 4:25
  Speaker 8: free will. The Templars. The Templars want to get... Wow,
• 4:29
  Speaker 8: I actually remembered that part. The Templars want to get
• 4:31
  Speaker 8: the atom, or the apple. I keep calling it the atom.
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: What the fuck?
• 4:35
  Speaker 8: They want to get the apple so that they can
• 4:36
  Speaker 8: eradicate free will so that they will no longer be
• 4:38
  Speaker 8: able to have the assassins. And they will no longer
• 4:40
  Speaker 8: have any violence and war and all that stuff.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 4:45
  Speaker 8: So they want world peace, but at the price of
• 4:47
  Speaker 8: free will.
• 4:49
  Speaker 7: This is complicated already.
• 4:50
  Speaker 8: So the assassins, they're pretty much trying to be like, hey, no, whoa,
• 4:55
  Speaker 8: no apple for you. So fast forward to modern times,
• 4:59
  Speaker 8: they still want the damn apple. And of course, there's
• 5:02
  Speaker 8: no like regular assassins going about anymore. So they have
• 5:05
  Speaker 8: to track down like the ancestors of the people that
• 5:09
  Speaker 8: were the assassins, like 120, whatever, how many years ago. Anyways,
• 5:14
  Speaker 8: they tracked down Michael Fassbender, who, as an ancestor of
• 5:18
  Speaker 8: the assassins, apparently has a proclivity to violence and killing people.
• 5:21
  Speaker 9: Sure.
• 5:22
  Speaker 7: Like we all have deep within us.
• 5:24
  Speaker 8: Of course. But anyways, they find him when he's on
• 5:27
  Speaker 8: death row for killing a pimp. Which I'm like, I'm
• 5:29
  Speaker 8: pretty sure he killed a pimp. You're probably not going
• 5:31
  Speaker 8: to end up on death row. It's not very realistic.
• 5:32
  Speaker 8: They're probably going to.
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: Give you a medal.
• 5:35
  Speaker 7: Oh, Lord.
• 5:36
  Speaker 8: Anyways, so they... Not really. They sneak him on out
• 5:40
  Speaker 8: of being dead or whatever. And they put him in
• 5:43
  Speaker 8: this program where apparently they do this like regression thing
• 5:45
  Speaker 8: where they try to lock in the DNA and they
• 5:48
  Speaker 8: can trace back the whatever. And then try to figure
• 5:52
  Speaker 8: out what the assassins did with the apple so they
• 5:56
  Speaker 8: can track it down.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 5:59
  Speaker 8: That's pretty much it.
• 5:59
  Speaker 7: That's as much as you got out of it.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: All righty.
• 6:03
  Speaker 7: Put that high up on your list.
• 6:05
  Speaker 8: Things to never watch.
• 6:07
  Speaker 7: Things you should run out and see right away.
• 6:10
  Speaker 8: It was just so convoluted. They had some decent actors
• 6:13
  Speaker 8: in there. I mean, fucking hell, they had Jeremy Irons.
• 6:17
  Speaker 8: I had to spend a good portion of the movie
• 6:18
  Speaker 8: trying to explain to Boyfriend who Jeremy Irons is because
• 6:21
  Speaker 8: he's never seen a Die Hard movie.
• 6:22
  Speaker 7: I was going to say, the villain from Die Hard
• 6:25
  Speaker 7: with a Vengeance?
• 6:26
  Speaker 8: He was like, because he's never seen a Die Hard movie.
• 6:30
  Speaker 7: We have discussed that, I believe. We're going to have
• 6:33
  Speaker 7: to remedy that at some point.
• 6:35
  Speaker 8: He's not seen that. He won't watch Lolita.
• 6:38
  Speaker 10: The remake.
• 6:38
  Speaker 7: What is wrong with him?
• 6:39
  Speaker 8: Many, many things.
• 6:40
  Speaker 7: That's true.
• 6:41
  Speaker 8: But I was just like, he's Scar from The Lion King.
• 6:46
  Speaker 8: He's like, oh.
• 6:47
  Speaker 7: He's the best part of The Lion King. I don't
• 6:48
  Speaker 7: love that movie, but Scar is pretty awesome, actually.
• 6:51
  Speaker 8: I mean, it was just like, did somebody have some
• 6:56
  Speaker 8: dirt on all these people?
• 6:58
  Speaker 9: Maybe.
• 6:59
  Speaker 8: It was just so, half of it just felt like
• 7:02
  Speaker 8: you're watching a cut scene from a video game.
• 7:04
  Speaker 7: A lot of these movies are starting to fall into
• 7:06
  Speaker 7: that category.
• 7:08
  Speaker 8: It was just, it wasn't awesome. I'll give it, it
• 7:12
  Speaker 8: was not fantastic.
• 7:14
  Speaker 7: And I guess you didn't run out and see Alien. Mm-mm.
• 7:18
  Speaker 7: There's some Fassbender there, is there not? Mm-hmm. And a
• 7:22
  Speaker 7: little extra Fassbender and some Fassbender action going on. And
• 7:27
  Speaker 7: we've decided there's probably going to be some Fassbender fan
• 7:30
  Speaker 7: fiction being written now, so. I think you'll want to
• 7:33
  Speaker 7: get in on this.
• 7:34
  Speaker 8: I have no problem with that. I will watch it.
• 7:36
  Speaker 8: I still love Michael Fassbender and his big old sharky mouth.
• 7:40
  Speaker 8: I don't even know what it is. It's that shark.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: It's his teeth.
• 7:44
  Speaker 7: You like his teeth, do you? I do.
• 7:46
  Speaker 8: I like his big sharky grin. It fascinates me.
• 7:50
  Speaker 7: You're a fascinating specimen yourself.
• 7:54
  Speaker 8: Only on my weird proclivity tour. I keep saying proclivity.
• 7:57
  Speaker 8: I actually know what that word means.
• 8:00
  Speaker 7: Lord, Elba.
• 8:02
  Speaker 8: It's been a long day. But yeah, I'm fascinated with
• 8:06
  Speaker 8: him and his teeth.
• 8:08
  Speaker 6: Interesting.
• 8:09
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: He looks like a shark.
• 8:12
  Speaker 7: You're very special.
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 8:14
  Speaker 8: Do you not watch anything? Are we not talking about Riverdale?
• 8:17
  Speaker 6: We can.
• 8:17
  Speaker 7: We can.
• 8:19
  Speaker 8: They wrapped up the season finale.
• 8:21
  Speaker 7: I didn't know if you talked about the show.
• 8:24
  Speaker 8: I know we talked about it when it first came on,
• 8:26
  Speaker 8: and I didn't know if we needed to bring it
• 8:28
  Speaker 8: around town.
• 8:29
  Speaker 7: I don't want to avoid the spoiler areas. Again, I
• 8:35
  Speaker 7: love this show so much. Riverdale is just... It doesn't
• 8:38
  Speaker 7: pretend to be anything other than exactly what you want
• 8:41
  Speaker 7: it to be. So when it leans into its soap
• 8:43
  Speaker 7: opera roots, it's just like, oh, my God, it is
• 8:46
  Speaker 7: so good at it.
• 8:47
  Speaker 8: Oh, it's so fun. From beginning to end, the mystery
• 8:50
  Speaker 8: was good.
• 8:51
  Speaker 7: Mystery still, it's gotten very complex and yet still kind
• 8:55
  Speaker 7: of has a nice through line. I'm on board with it.
• 8:57
  Speaker 8: Because, I mean, they wrapped up the main story.
• 9:02
  Speaker 7: Sort of, but in the way, threw open six other
• 9:04
  Speaker 7: doors and just like, oh wait, now we gotta figure
• 9:06
  Speaker 7: out what all is going on over here now. So
• 9:09
  Speaker 7: it did its job well. Again, I was wondering if
• 9:12
  Speaker 7: they were gonna get to it that quick. I felt
• 9:14
  Speaker 7: like it was one of those, maybe they're gonna push
• 9:17
  Speaker 7: it off a season or more if they wanna drag
• 9:19
  Speaker 7: it out and add all kinds of new complications and
• 9:22
  Speaker 7: Then give us the payoff of who the big murderer involved.
• 9:26
  Speaker 7: But no, they wrapped it up in this first season.
• 9:27
  Speaker 8: I was like, I was surprised that they got through
• 9:29
  Speaker 8: the murderer before the end episode.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:32
  Speaker 8: Because usually they say that for the last, but it
• 9:34
  Speaker 8: was like the second to last episode. And they were like, well, shit,
• 9:38
  Speaker 8: here's your.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: Killer right here.
• 9:39
  Speaker 8: And I'm like, whoa, really? And I'm like, oh my God.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know.
• 9:42
  Speaker 7: I thought that was an odd choice. But again, like
• 9:44
  Speaker 7: points to them for taking those weird turns that you
• 9:47
  Speaker 7: don't see coming. That's awesome.
• 9:48
  Speaker 8: And could they have cast this any better?
• 9:50
  Speaker 7: I don't think so. And it's funny that there is
• 9:55
  Speaker 7: thought going on behind it, and I don't think I'd
• 9:57
  Speaker 7: heard that, but supposedly the, I guess, producers, or whoever
• 10:00
  Speaker 7: was putting this together the fact that we have all
• 10:04
  Speaker 7: these people playing the adults the the grown-ups in the
• 10:08
  Speaker 7: scenario it's like obviously you know you watch these kind
• 10:10
  Speaker 7: of shows you're gonna latch on to the kids it's
• 10:11
  Speaker 7: coming from their perspective so you're gonna be on their
• 10:14
  Speaker 7: side but the fact that we have all these adults
• 10:18
  Speaker 7: that we saw as teenagers on stuff. So we've got
• 10:23
  Speaker 7: teenagers from Twin Peaks and 90210 and every John Hughes
• 10:27
  Speaker 7: movie and Scream. So it's like we watch all these
• 10:29
  Speaker 7: people that we saw.
• 10:30
  Speaker 8: Let's take a second to talk about Molly Ringwald's face.
• 10:32
  Speaker 7: All right, go ahead.
• 10:33
  Speaker 8: Can we do that?
• 10:34
  Speaker 7: Feel free to.
• 10:34
  Speaker 8: What the fuck happened to it?
• 10:36
  Speaker 7: She's not 16 anymore?
• 10:38
  Speaker 8: I think it's more to it than that. I think
• 10:41
  Speaker 8: she has gone the route of some really bad plastic surgery.
• 10:44
  Speaker 9: Craziness.
• 10:45
  Speaker 8: And she didn't sound like Molly Ringwald anymore.
• 10:49
  Speaker 7: Time goes on. I mean, it is weird. I'd heard
• 10:53
  Speaker 7: the week before that's who their big reveal was going
• 10:54
  Speaker 7: to be. They already leaked it out of the press.
• 10:57
  Speaker 7: But it was weird. She came in. I was like,
• 11:00
  Speaker 7: is that Molly Ringwald? It just looks a little strange.
• 11:02
  Speaker 8: If I hadn't known that it was Molly Ringwald, I
• 11:04
  Speaker 8: would not have known that it was Molly Ringwald.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: It's very strange.
• 11:07
  Speaker 7: But again, all of that was actually consciously thought about.
• 11:12
  Speaker 7: And they're like, well, as you get into the story,
• 11:16
  Speaker 7: the grownups also have all these stories and they also
• 11:20
  Speaker 7: have these stories that date back to being a teenager.
• 11:22
  Speaker 7: So we want you to kind of come in again.
• 11:24
  Speaker 7: They're using like this outside world angle to bring in.
• 11:29
  Speaker 7: So you have a little sympathy for these characters that
• 11:31
  Speaker 7: if they were just random people that they chose to
• 11:33
  Speaker 7: be the grownups, you'd be like, Oh, grownups are stupid.
• 11:35
  Speaker 7: I like these kids, but we know there's these weird
• 11:38
  Speaker 7: complex stories in the grownup end of it that date
• 11:40
  Speaker 7: back 20, 25 years. So it's like now all of
• 11:42
  Speaker 7: a sudden you're like, Oh, well, maybe there's a reason why. Like,
• 11:46
  Speaker 7: it gives you a little in that you're like, well.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: Luke Perry's pretty cool.
• 11:49
  Speaker 7: I want to be on his side. So it gives
• 11:51
  Speaker 7: you this little, like, reason to care about these characters
• 11:55
  Speaker 7: a little more. And I was like, that's kind of genius. Like,
• 11:57
  Speaker 7: to use the outside world programming part of it to
• 12:01
  Speaker 7: put together aspects of your writing, that's kind of cool, actually.
• 12:05
  Speaker 8: And how gorgeous is Mad Genomic? Whose name I can't
• 12:08
  Speaker 8: actually say correctly.
• 12:10
  Speaker 7: Either way, pretty damn hot. It is surprising. Not everybody
• 12:15
  Speaker 7: holds up that well. I'm not naming any names, but
• 12:17
  Speaker 7: I'm just like, damn. She is gorgeous. And I don't know. Veronica, Betty,
• 12:26
  Speaker 7: I can't make up my mind either. Every week I'm
• 12:28
  Speaker 7: just like, but they're both so damn hot.
• 12:30
  Speaker 8: I'm more Betty.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: I am.
• 12:32
  Speaker 7: I kind of am. But every once in a while, Veronica,
• 12:35
  Speaker 7: I'm like, oh, okay. No, I see it. It works
• 12:38
  Speaker 7: both ways.
• 12:38
  Speaker 8: Are you thinking the dance-off? Because that's what I was thinking.
• 12:41
  Speaker 7: Oh, I mean the hot tub scene for both of them.
• 12:43
  Speaker 8: I was thinking the dance off between a redhead bitch.
• 12:47
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 12:47
  Speaker 8: Who I still adore. She is such a bitch.
• 12:49
  Speaker 7: Again, like that's when it is soapy at its best.
• 12:52
  Speaker 7: I'm just like, oh, she is villainous. Like she is
• 12:55
  Speaker 7: the black widow of this show. She is so good
• 12:58
  Speaker 7: at doing her job. And yet once again, like you
• 13:00
  Speaker 7: don't just write her off as a cartoon villain. Like
• 13:03
  Speaker 7: you're like every couple of weeks, you're like, man, she's
• 13:06
  Speaker 7: so bitchy. I hate her. And then all of a
• 13:07
  Speaker 7: sudden you're like, Well, she's got a lot of shit
• 13:10
  Speaker 7: going on in her life, too. Like there's reason she's
• 13:12
  Speaker 7: this messed up and dysfunctional. So, again, it's decent writing
• 13:16
  Speaker 7: for as pulpy and fun as it is. Like it's
• 13:19
  Speaker 7: also rooted in some decent drama that's woven into a
• 13:22
  Speaker 7: ridiculous comic book story. So I don't know. I'm surprised
• 13:27
  Speaker 7: how well it's come together.
• 13:28
  Speaker 8: I was just surprised that it was so dark. I
• 13:30
  Speaker 8: wasn't familiar with the comic books at all. So I'm
• 13:33
  Speaker 8: assuming there's nothing.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: Minorly.
• 13:34
  Speaker 7: But again, it's not near.
• 13:36
  Speaker 8: They probably didn't have any murders in the comic books.
• 13:38
  Speaker 7: As they went on, they got very. There's a lot
• 13:41
  Speaker 7: of weird offshoots and reboots and different series. And like
• 13:44
  Speaker 7: it does get very strange the further in and the
• 13:47
  Speaker 7: more modernized it becomes over the years. But if you
• 13:49
  Speaker 7: go back to the early days, I don't think it
• 13:51
  Speaker 7: was quite like this on any level.
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 13:56
  Speaker 8: I didn't watch anything else.
• 13:58
  Speaker 7: I'd say now we should go talk to this week's guest.
• 14:35
  Speaker 11: Let's all go to the lobby Let's all go to
• 14:39
  Speaker 11: the lobby Let's all go to the lobby To get
• 14:44
  Speaker 11: ourselves a treat Delicious things to.
• 14:48
  Speaker 10: Eat The popcorn can't be beat The sparkling drinks are
• 14:54
  Speaker 10: just dandy The chocolate bars and the candy So let's
• 14:59
  Speaker 10: all go to the lobby To get ourselves a treat
• 15:04
  Speaker 10: Let's all go to the lobby To get ourselves a.
• 15:10
  Speaker 6: Treat To some, it was the fulfillment of a dream.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: To others, it was an instrument of destruction.
• 15:21
  Speaker 6: A creation that could change the course of history. It
• 15:24
  Speaker 6: was stolen from my factory. we tell the president.
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: Tell me exactly why this merchandise so important to the
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: feds it's.
• 15:39
  Speaker 6: A rocket a rocket wow what's the matter i don't
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: know something under the seat oh my what are you
• 15:46
  Speaker 6: gonna hear what are you supposed to is a bomb
• 15:48
  Speaker 6: or something no i wouldn't touch that.
• 15:50
  Speaker 8: If i were you how do i look like a
• 15:58
  Speaker 8: hood ornament stand clear.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: What was that.
• 16:14
  Speaker 6: Big gopher.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Are you trying to kill yourself I.
• 16:24
  Speaker 9: Like it On that rocket Eddie Well next week.
• 16:28
  Speaker 7: Not tomorrow now keep your eyes open for this dame
• 16:31
  Speaker 7: Jenny's in trouble They're working for a Nazi agent.
• 16:34
  Speaker 6: With an army equipped with these you could rule the.
• 16:36
  Speaker 8: World You touch one here on her head, I swear I'll...
• 16:43
  Speaker 8: Shoot him!
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: We've got the girl.
• 16:45
  Speaker 9: The rocket will come to us.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: I love her, Peeve.
• 16:47
  Speaker 10: Does she know that?
• 16:50
  Speaker 9: She's gonna find out.
• 16:54
  Speaker 7: Let him have it!
• 16:56
  Speaker 8: Hand over the rocket!
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: The Rocketeer.
• 17:00
  Speaker 7: Go get him, kid.
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: Woke up this morning feeling low. Where my loved one
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: used to live, she ain't there no more. Poor me.
• 17:20
  Speaker 7: Why such bad luck fall on me?
• 17:23
  Speaker 10: Poor me.
• 17:30
  Speaker 7: I'm living in misery.
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: Hey, Jacqueline.
• 17:37
  Speaker 8: Hi.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: Guess what?
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: What?
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: We're broke. Yeah, we definitely, I'm pulling up, turning my
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: pockets out right now.
• 17:45
  Speaker 10: Nothing.
• 17:46
  Speaker 7: That's what I'm saying. I do that every week. And yet,
• 17:49
  Speaker 7: I'm trying to produce this show for you guys listening
• 17:51
  Speaker 7: right now.
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: Freeloaders.
• 17:54
  Speaker 7: I'm just saying, you know, if you want to keep
• 17:57
  Speaker 7: this thing rolling, it'd be kind of awesome if you'd
• 18:00
  Speaker 7: go to our Patreon page and like kick in like, seriously,
• 18:03
  Speaker 7: like two bucks. I mean, you're going to do like
• 18:05
  Speaker 7: Netflix for like $ 9.
• 18:06
  Speaker 8: 99.
• 18:06
  Speaker 7: Yeah. And you're probably not going to watch it all
• 18:10
  Speaker 7: month like I do.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you need our commentary to figure out what to
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: watch on Netflix. I think so.
• 18:17
  Speaker 7: It's like a companion piece to all your Amazons and
• 18:20
  Speaker 7: Netflixes and all of these things. So just think how
• 18:24
  Speaker 7: much you don't make use of your other streaming services.
• 18:27
  Speaker 7: But every week we're loading up a whole new episode
• 18:29
  Speaker 7: of us going in-depth more than you may want. About
• 18:34
  Speaker 7: whatever movie we've decided. Or bringing in some awesome guests.
• 18:37
  Speaker 7: So I'm just saying. Two bucks.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: It's not so bad.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: Two dollars.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: You won't even notice it. And you'll look at your
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: bank statement and be like.
• 18:44
  Speaker 6: Two dollars.
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah.
• 18:46
  Speaker 7: I'm supporting an artist that I like. That's all.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: That's all I ask for.
• 18:50
  Speaker 7: Trying to keep this thing rolling. And all we need
• 18:53
  Speaker 7: is your assistance. So go to patreon.com slash movie meltdown.
• 18:58
  Speaker 7: Or if you can't remember all that, go to moviemeltdown.com.
• 19:00
  Speaker 7: The link is right there at the top of the homepage.
• 19:02
  Speaker 7: That's all you need to do.
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: I contribute more than $ 2 a month.
• 19:06
  Speaker 7: Because you're awesome like that. Why don't you be awesome
• 19:09
  Speaker 7: like Jacqueline? I'm just saying.
• 19:11
  Speaker 8: I mean, really though.
• 19:12
  Speaker 7: I mean, you can't be that awesome, obviously. But you
• 19:15
  Speaker 7: can get closer. You can climb the ladder a little bit.
• 19:19
  Speaker 7: Just saying. Patreon, go support us.
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: Fall down on my knees and pray she'd come back
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: home for me. Why is her bad luck falling on me?
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: For me.
• 19:54
  Speaker 8: This is Carol Bauman, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Movie Meltdown.
• 20:16
  Speaker 7: This week we have not one, but two impressive special guests.
• 20:20
  Speaker 7: They're both model makers and digital effects artists, and both
• 20:23
  Speaker 7: have spent many years working in industrial light and magic. Yes,
• 20:27
  Speaker 7: in just a moment I'll be talking with Kim Smith
• 20:29
  Speaker 7: and John Goodson. Now Kim started at Industrial Light and
• 20:32
  Speaker 7: Magic back in 1988, where she worked as a model
• 20:35
  Speaker 7: maker on over 50 feature films and 25 commercials. She
• 20:38
  Speaker 7: spent 15 years in the ILM model shop on paint
• 20:41
  Speaker 7: and detailing support, and then moved into their digital paint
• 20:44
  Speaker 7: department in 2002 with a stint in the Star Wars
• 20:47
  Speaker 7: Episode II art department. She left ILM in 2007 to
• 20:51
  Speaker 7: work for Image Movers Digital, a Disney Animation subsidiary, and
• 20:55
  Speaker 7: Digital Domain, another digital effects company, from early 2011 to
• 20:59
  Speaker 7: late 2012. Then she came to Creature Art and Mechanics
• 21:02
  Speaker 7: in 2013, which became Pulse Evolution in 2014, And needless
• 21:07
  Speaker 7: to say, over the years, she's accumulated a lot of
• 21:10
  Speaker 7: movie credits. Now, John Goodson coincidentally also joined Industrial Light
• 21:14
  Speaker 7: and Magic in 1988, and over the years has served
• 21:16
  Speaker 7: as chief model maker, model project supervisor, art director, designer,
• 21:20
  Speaker 7: and concept modeler. His credits include the Academy Award-winning Pirates
• 21:24
  Speaker 7: of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest, Transformers Star Trek VI
• 21:28
  Speaker 7: through VIII, Back to the Future II, The Abyss, Ghostbusters II,
• 21:31
  Speaker 7: and the Star Wars prequels. Now, John is still currently
• 21:34
  Speaker 7: working at ILM, and over the years, he too has
• 21:37
  Speaker 7: racked up an amazing number of film credits. And one
• 21:40
  Speaker 7: of the bigger, more recent projects that both Kim and
• 21:42
  Speaker 7: John have worked on is that in 2016, they were
• 21:45
  Speaker 7: both involved with a team that were brought together to
• 21:47
  Speaker 7: restore the original filming model of the Starship Enterprise for
• 21:51
  Speaker 7: the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. It was a
• 21:54
  Speaker 7: huge and seemingly meticulous project, and we're going to find
• 21:57
  Speaker 7: out a few details about that before we're done. But first,
• 22:00
  Speaker 7: I want to hear how they both got started on
• 22:02
  Speaker 7: the technical side of filmmaking. So let's do that right
• 22:05
  Speaker 7: now as we talk with Kim Smith and John Goodson.
• 22:15
  Speaker 7: So I try to start early on, and I guess
• 22:19
  Speaker 7: with both of you. It'll be kind of good to
• 22:20
  Speaker 7: have sort of tag team here, and you can take
• 22:23
  Speaker 7: each question as you want. But I always try to
• 22:26
  Speaker 7: start early and see what your interests are like as kids,
• 22:29
  Speaker 7: and then how that sort of manifests itself into where
• 22:32
  Speaker 7: you are professionally. So I guess for both of you,
• 22:36
  Speaker 7: were you interested in the arts that early on? Yes.
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: Both of my parents were artists, actually. My dad was
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: a really successful illustrator, and my mom had been a
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: successful artist.
• 22:48
  Speaker 7: That's rare, successful artist. I know a lot of artists,
• 22:52
  Speaker 7: but successful artist is hard.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: She gave it up to have You need to get
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: married and have kids and so on. And then later on,
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: she went back to it. So she's been painting up
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: a storm for 20-some years now.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: So, yeah. So I was steeped in the art world
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: from the time I was very little. You didn't know
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: any better, really.
• 23:14
  Speaker 7: You were just, this is what people do.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: This is what people do. This is what I do.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: And I liked doing sculpting. My father was primarily a painter.
• 23:24
  Speaker 8: And.
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: I found that I really like sculpting also, and it
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: was probably partly, I would imagine that I just didn't
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: want to be a total chip off the old block.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: It was some sort of rebellion.
• 23:36
  Speaker 7: Do a different dad.
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I liked working in 3D.
• 23:39
  Speaker 7: I mean, early on, was it just like starting with clay,
• 23:42
  Speaker 7: like really basic sculpting, or were you already doing like
• 23:45
  Speaker 7: model making, or what type of?
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: I was working in paper mache of all things, first off. Yeah,
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: it was actually a great material to work in, and
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: I feel like going back to it, too.
• 23:56
  Speaker 7: I've pulled out some old pee. I'm like, oh, this
• 23:58
  Speaker 7: is falling apart now. I didn't coat it enough, I suppose.
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: It's not very permanent.
• 24:02
  Speaker 7: Not really.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: But I like working clay also. And, you know, as
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: an adult, I wound up working in bronze, too. I
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: like working in wax a lot.
• 24:12
  Speaker 8: Interesting.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:14
  Speaker 7: The wax museums are making a comeback.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: I wasn't so much a model maker when I was little.
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: I did make model stuff, miniatures for my my collection
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: of horses, because I was into horses when I was little.
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: I was a horseback rider. So I would make paddocks
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: and all kinds of farm equipment for them. I also enjoyed,
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: I remember Halloween was a big deal for me. I
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: liked making these kind of very detailed spooky sets.
• 24:45
  Speaker 7: Probably everybody in this building all weekend. I share stories
• 24:49
  Speaker 7: with so many of the guys that run this, and
• 24:51
  Speaker 7: I'll be talking to Dave, and we'll be like, our
• 24:53
  Speaker 7: weird Halloween stories. It's like the one time a year
• 24:56
  Speaker 7: when kids like us, we're all like, oh, it's finally around.
• 24:59
  Speaker 7: I can be myself and nobody calls me a weirdo.
• 25:02
  Speaker 7: So yeah, I think we all kind of like are
• 25:04
  Speaker 7: drawn to that October time when we can indulge our
• 25:08
  Speaker 7: weird activities. But yeah, I guess with you, were you
• 25:14
  Speaker 7: early on?
• 25:14
  Speaker 8: Mm-hmm.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: You know, it's funny. What came to mind when you
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: started that question was I remember my mother and the
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: wax fruit. And it was interesting because my mom painted,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: and it was something she dabbled in. And she was
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: doing various things that were creative, but she was just
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: doing it as a hobby thing. But I remember the
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: wax fruit because she was making that, and she dropped
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: a fake apple into the pot of hot wax, which
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: splashed all over all of us that were in the kitchen.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: So that made an impression.
• 25:42
  Speaker 7: Scarred by a remark.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Well, it was interesting, though, because something as simple as that,
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: seeing her work with that kind of material, I think,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: because I was like three or four or something like that,
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: but it didn't make that sort of investigation, made it
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: seem pretty natural that she was into painting and doing
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: that sort of thing.
• 25:59
  Speaker 7: It just made me think, does anybody do wax food anymore?
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: I don't think so.
• 26:03
  Speaker 7: We might have to explain what it is to people.
• 26:06
  Speaker 7: It's true.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: I don't know what the core was, but there was
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: something that was an apple-shaped object that was being dipped
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: in red wax when everything went wrong.
• 26:14
  Speaker 7: It seems more complicated than it needs to be. You
• 26:16
  Speaker 7: just get an apple, right?
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: It does, longevity-wise. But it's funny how that's the first
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: thing that popped in my head was that damn wax incident.
• 26:25
  Speaker 7: Again, scarred for life, literally.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: Or inspired for life, maybe. Just because it made me
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: kind of think that sort of exploration was okay.
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: And it's a weird creative project. You're like, oh, that's
• 26:37
  Speaker 7: something you can do. It throws those switches when you're little.
• 26:41
  Speaker 7: That's why I love hearing these stories.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was funny. That's the first thing that popped
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: in my head. But, you know, my dad was a doctor,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: so he was organically very technical, but he was not
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: technical with machinery and that sort of thing. It's interesting.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: He'd have to call somebody to change a tire, you know,
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: that sort of thing. But, I mean, it fascinated me
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: that he could be a surgeon. But he really wasn't
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: comfortable with the machinery part. Interesting. But, yeah, and I
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: think I just, you know, I gravitated towards the sci-fi
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: stuff from a really young age. Lost in Space.
• 27:07
  Speaker 8: Oh, yeah.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: I saw the episode of The Derelict when I was three.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: and that really made an impression. It scared me, but
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: at the same time I was totally intrigued with the
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: model spaceship on TV, and my idea was if I
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: could get the TV apart, I could get the model
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: out of the television. And fortunately I didn't do that,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: or I wouldn't be here to talk to you.
• 27:22
  Speaker 7: Yeah, well, you'd find out.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Three-year-old electrocuted in horrible wax and TV incident.
• 27:29
  Speaker 7: Just be another, you know, really make its mark on you.
• 27:33
  Speaker 7: I lost this hand, so I have to sculpt with
• 27:35
  Speaker 7: the other one now. Poking a screwdriver in the back
• 27:39
  Speaker 7: trying to find it. But I guess, yeah, I mean,
• 27:42
  Speaker 7: as you went on, did it become sort of like
• 27:46
  Speaker 7: high school-based stuff, just getting into the art department kind
• 27:49
  Speaker 7: of idea?
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: You know, when I was five, there was a kid
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: who was older, and we were living on an Air
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: Force base, and this kid took this model airplane, and
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: he smashed it. I can't remember what he smashed it with, but,
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, he obliterated it.
• 28:02
  Speaker 7: So that kid in every neighborhood was lighting their argument
• 28:05
  Speaker 7: on fire.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Well, he fortunately smashed it, like with a brick or something.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: And I took all the pieces. And I didn't have
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: the wings. And I used the brown cardboard out of
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Mars bars. Those were the wings. And I put the
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: body back together again, sort of. So that was the
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: first thing I can remember building that was a model kit.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: And it was an atrocious mess.
• 28:22
  Speaker 7: It's kind of a Dr. Frankenstein.
• 28:24
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 28:24
  Speaker 7: I can rebuild this.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: From the parts.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: But that was that first moment. That's the first time
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: I ever played with trying to build a model kit.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: And that was about five.
• 28:32
  Speaker 7: And ironically, how so many of those big models eventually
• 28:35
  Speaker 7: got made, it was stealing pieces from other models and
• 28:38
  Speaker 7: putting them on a spaceship somewhere. Those early ones, yeah.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: No more Mars bars parts, though.
• 28:44
  Speaker 7: That's way better than my Star Wars cool van that I...
• 28:48
  Speaker 7: Do you remember they made that run in the 70s
• 28:50
  Speaker 7: that was like... They were like the traditional 70s van,
• 28:54
  Speaker 7: but it had a weird moon roof on the top. Yeah,
• 28:57
  Speaker 7: that was, I think, maybe my first model, and it was...
• 29:00
  Speaker 7: It was a snap together, and I probably messed it up.
• 29:03
  Speaker 7: I never took well to the modeling. I was always
• 29:06
  Speaker 7: interested in them, but it never went.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: Well for me. I burned a lot of them.
• 29:10
  Speaker 7: I know there's an A-Wing somewhere I tried to paint,
• 29:13
  Speaker 7: and I'm like, this paint looks terrible. I can't do
• 29:16
  Speaker 7: straight lines. It saved my life. So as you get, again, into,
• 29:21
  Speaker 7: I guess, as you're heading towards high school, at what
• 29:23
  Speaker 7: point does it occur to you, oh, this could be
• 29:26
  Speaker 7: a career path? At what point does it start becoming
• 29:28
  Speaker 7: a professional idea for you?
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: Well, I came to it a little bit by accident,
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: but it occurred to me as you were just speaking
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: that having experienced a lot of... The idea of a
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: picture in a frame is very much like a movie,
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: of course. You have an image that's isolated from what's
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: around it. It's something that you look into and you admire.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: When I was in high school, I used to love
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: going to the Museum of Natural History in New York
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: and drawing the animals and the dioramas. And the dioramas
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: themselves were amazing. The art that went into the backdrops
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: for the dioramas of the Museum of Natural History, they're
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: just works of art. They're masterpieces. And it was that
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: whole idea of looking through a frame into another world, basically.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: And I continued with that idea sometimes in my own artwork,
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: whether it's prints or paintings or whatever. And then I
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: got interested in theater also, the idea of designing for theater,
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: theater sets. So probably eventually landing in the film industry
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: was not a big stretch. I think I took to
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: it just fine.
• 30:51
  Speaker 7: But you weren't gunning for it?
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: I was not gunning for it. I wasn't. No, I
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: wasn't gunning for it. I wound up, well, when I
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: moved to L.A. many years ago, I thought that combining
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: my interest in sculpting animals and fantasy, it would make
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: sense for me to apply to Disney. And I called
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: there and they said, we don't hire women to sculpt.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: we only have male sculptors here.
• 31:22
  Speaker 7: And I said, okay.
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: So I went and I worked at Sotheby's for a
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: while because I have an art background. And somebody lured
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: me to work for another model company, model making company,
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: did fully realized models for theme parks, art directors models
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: for theme parks. And so I had several years of
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: experience making these really intricate models fully working models of
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: the theme parks that were going to be built. So
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: that's where I got a lot of my model-making experience.
• 31:56
  Speaker 7: The little tabletop demos that.
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: They did to get funding or something?
• 31:59
  Speaker 7: Well, they were pretty big.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: Some of them, I mean, were 10 feet long, or
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: maybe not quite 10, but 8 feet long. And they
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: might be a building sort of cut in half. You
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: could open up, and it would be fully realized on
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: either side of it. And it could be photographed. It
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: was big enough so it could actually be photographed using
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: a sort of snorkel lens to look real.
• 32:21
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, those things have to get made for presentations.
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, it showed what it was going to look like,
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: and we could photograph it. It absolutely looked full-size because
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: you could use a special lens for it, get in there.
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: And so that's where I got my experience. Interesting.
• 32:37
  Speaker 7: I guess trade-off.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Well, it was funny because the other thing that was
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: really influential was watching Star Trek when I was about
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: five or six, and I think it was being broadcast
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: at that point. That would have been 68, 69. And
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: our next door neighbor was a fighter pilot because we
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: were living on an Air Force base, and he got
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: me watching the show, and somebody got me a copy
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: of the making of Star Trek book. And that was
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: a eureka moment where I realized this stuff is fake,
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: and this is really cool. I mean, everything. It was
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: so fascinating to me they would have to invent all
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: of this stuff because they're in a world that doesn't exist,
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: and I was totally intrigued with that. So at a
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: young age, I realized it wasn't real. And when Star
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: Wars came along, that was a place to start focusing.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: It's a whole new, yeah. Yeah, and I started writing
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: letters and, you know, how can I come and work there?
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: And they would write me back and say, thanks for
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: your inquiry. Don't write us anymore.
• 33:23
  Speaker 7: How old were you at this point?
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: I think I was 14, you know. But they were
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: nice letters, but they were letters of, yeah, don't write
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: us anymore.
• 33:31
  Speaker 7: The letters of a 14-year-old.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:33
  Speaker 7: Really, really, really, really, really want to come there.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: But I had a friend I went to high school
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: with and we both had said, you know, if either
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: one of us makes it to ILM, you got to
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: call the other guy. And I don't know, four or
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: five years later, he called me. That was in 86,
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: I think. And it was during Star Trek four. Went
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: out to visit ILM, spent five weeks sleeping on his
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: couch and going in on the different shoots and stuff.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: And that got me an introduction to a number of
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: people there. And one of them was a guy named
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: Greg Jean who was working on Batteries Not Included. And
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: Greg said, go finish school. Because I had another year
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: and a half of college. He said, go finish school.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: This is going to be here when you get back.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Then come out here. So I followed Greg's advice, which
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: was good. Yes, that's cool. Came back out and got
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: hired for a week. And then that turned into two weeks.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: And then it's been 29 years now.
• 34:16
  Speaker 7: I mean, talking to different people, especially in the technical
• 34:20
  Speaker 7: end of it, it always seems like it takes a
• 34:23
  Speaker 7: different path. And that's kind of why I like hearing them.
• 34:25
  Speaker 7: But at the same time, I guess if you're a
• 34:29
  Speaker 7: kid and you're listening, I want to ask you guys,
• 34:32
  Speaker 7: is there a path to get to working in the
• 34:35
  Speaker 7: technical end of the film industry? Especially at this point,
• 34:39
  Speaker 7: things have changed so much even since when you started.
• 34:42
  Speaker 7: Is there even a direct path to get to that?
• 34:45
  Speaker 7: Or do you just keep trying these things until you
• 34:48
  Speaker 7: get to the place you want to be?
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: When you say technical, are you talking about making practical models?
• 34:54
  Speaker 7: I guess all of it, but I mean mostly I
• 34:57
  Speaker 7: guess from your experience. But it's like the technical end
• 34:59
  Speaker 7: of working behind the scenes and either model making or
• 35:02
  Speaker 7: just filmmaking in general.
• 35:04
  Speaker 9: It's such a.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: Weird path now.
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: Well, we probably both– John can speak for himself really,
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: but I think we both kind of agree that right
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: now you can't depend on being able to make practical
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: models in the movies and support yourself.
• 35:16
  Speaker 7: I know.
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: I don't think anywhere in the world, really, because so
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: much has gone to digital work. But you can certainly
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: have fun with it. I mean, you can do it
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: for yourself, and it's a very good thing to do,
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: to actually make something. And if you were to choose
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: the route of doing digital models, where most film work
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: is right now, you would still learn about how something
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: is put together, how something is created. physically made so
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: that you would understand it when you built the digital model. Unfortunately, also,
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: most of the digital work is going offshore. So even that,
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: in the United States, it's getting hard to keep a job.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: Well, it's funny. I mean, the part about practical model making,
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: there still is some demand for it in art departments,
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: but that's pretty limited. You're on the pre-production end, and
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: it's going to be, and it's always been as long
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: as I've been doing it and we've been doing it.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: You're going from show to show. I mean, I always
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: think of it like the circus. It's like, what's the
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: next town we're going to, you know? Is there a
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: next town? And so it's always like that. But I
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: think there's less of that sort of art department work
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: that's very specialized and it's a pretty small group of people.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: And the digital stuff, in some ways, there's more of
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: a path to it than there used to be because
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: when I, you know, back when I'm writing Lucasfilm and,
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: you know, whenever it was, 77, 78.
• 36:35
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: The only thing I could come up with is you
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: look in the back of the art of books and people's,
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: they had a little bios on some folks and you know,
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: there were a lot of people industrial or industrial design
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: or architecture. So that was kind of the only thing
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: I could find that really gave me kind of a path.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: So I went to a product design at NC state
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: and hoping that would help lead to this. But now
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: there are schools out there that teach visual effects. Yeah,
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: lots and lots of that.
• 37:00
  Speaker 7: Almost more schools than there are jobs.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: Well, that's what I was going to say is you've
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: got them churning out people constantly.
• 37:05
  Speaker 7: It's the same thing with the effects. Highly possible for
• 37:07
  Speaker 7: them also.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You've got schools where you can go learn it,
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: but whether there's an actual career out there, unless you're
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: willing to travel.
• 37:14
  Speaker 7: That's what's crazy is that weird makeup effects thing that
• 37:16
  Speaker 7: kicked back in in the last 10 years. And I'm like,
• 37:19
  Speaker 7: it's almost... fun for the viewers at home. But I'm like,
• 37:22
  Speaker 7: you realize how many of these jobs aren't available now.
• 37:25
  Speaker 7: And then all those schools started opening up when it
• 37:28
  Speaker 7: became its own cable show and everything. And now it's like,
• 37:30
  Speaker 7: everybody that comes out there is like, wait, okay, now
• 37:33
  Speaker 7: what do I do?
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 37:34
  Speaker 10: Exactly.
• 37:34
  Speaker 7: So it's, yeah, it's, it's all kind of falling into that,
• 37:38
  Speaker 7: I guess. And you mentioned the different paths now that
• 37:41
  Speaker 7: you have digital, you are both people that have started
• 37:44
  Speaker 7: in the physical world, making things and moved into digital and,
• 37:48
  Speaker 7: I guess, was it just necessity? Like, could you just
• 37:52
  Speaker 7: fight it and still be trying to do the other one?
• 37:55
  Speaker 9: Or did you want to?
• 37:56
  Speaker 7: We wouldn't be eating. We'd be very, very, very skinny.
• 37:58
  Speaker 7: Did you embrace the digital? Like, were you excited by
• 38:01
  Speaker 7: the idea when it came out? Or was it like, oh,
• 38:04
  Speaker 7: what is this?
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: I was excited about it when I was ready to
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: leave the model shop. I was in the model shop for,
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I think I was in the model
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: shop for almost 16 years, something like that. And I
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: knew when it was time to go. And I was
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: just saying earlier today, I was working on Peter Pan,
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: the movie Peter Pan, on stage, and episode three was
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: ramping up. And I got a call on stage saying,
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: are you interested in working digitally on episode three? And
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: he said, yes. And they had a meeting that afternoon,
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: and they called over and said, come in to the
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: art department tomorrow so I it was basically stepping off
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: the stage one day on on Peter Pan and stepping
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: into training for the digital production.
• 39:03
  Speaker 7: Was it an easy process not again you were so.
• 39:06
  Speaker 8: It was not in the real.
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: World it was not an easy process it was it
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: was a it was a completely vertical climb for us um.
• 39:16
  Speaker 7: Maybe more so than just a kid coming in cold.
• 39:19
  Speaker 7: Like you had so much real world experience dealing with
• 39:22
  Speaker 7: physical things.
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: Well, it sounds like, I mean, since John and I
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: had been talking about this earlier today, some of the
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: semantics of terminology in the digital world, it's the same words,
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: pretty much different meaning in a sense. Like the word
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: scene means something different. I mean, you can relate it
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: if you really know you can relate it, but we
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: have so much of that built into our practical knowledge.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: But our automatic response is to understand it as a
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: scene in a practical world, not a scene in a
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: digital world. And the scene is something different. I had
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: to get used to the idea of using the word scene,
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: using the word asset, using the word camera in the
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: way that it was intended digitally.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: Well, it's funny because I sit with a guy, Howie Weed,
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: who was the Wampa in the Empire Strikes Back Special Edition.
• 40:13
  Speaker 6: Nice.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: And he was Vigo in Ghostbusters when Dan Aykroyd gets possessed.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: Dan Aykroyd didn't want to wear the makeup, so Howie
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: did it. And Howie was a creature guy. He worked
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: on Gremlins and Enemy Mine, and he was a rubber
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: monster guy. And then he and I started doing miniatures
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: together because he could make molds. And we were doing
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: that work together. And so we were doing that kind
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: of on the side. He was a creature maker. I
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: was a model maker. And then over time, it became apparent.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: It was like if you want to eat, you better
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: learn how to do something different because the practical work
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: was being eroded. And it's a strange thing to be
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: in an industry and watch it go from being a
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: practical photochemical world to an all-digital world. And the end
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: result is the same. You're getting these images on screen,
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: but the tool set and everything is totally different. And Howie,
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: the other day, he said, well, you were born to
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: do this. It's just what you want to do. And
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: I said, no, no, no, you don't get it. This
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: was not the destination. This is an evolution. Because I
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: didn't start off to wind up sitting in an office
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: at two computers. That wasn't the plan. It just went
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: that way. And it's fascinating to me to look at
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: it now and see we're still doing the same thing,
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: but just a really different approach to it.
• 41:12
  Speaker 7: That's something that's occurred to me a lot lately because everybody,
• 41:15
  Speaker 7: like all of the changes that have kicked in these
• 41:17
  Speaker 7: last 15, 20 years, when I'm like the film industry
• 41:21
  Speaker 7: as a whole hasn't changed. And it does not care
• 41:24
  Speaker 7: about any of these things that we nitpick about. I mean,
• 41:26
  Speaker 7: you look back at like from adding sound, oh my God,
• 41:29
  Speaker 7: the whole system is going to fall apart to going
• 41:31
  Speaker 7: to color, to fighting against TV being introduced, like each
• 41:34
  Speaker 7: step of the way, the industry just kept on rolling
• 41:37
  Speaker 7: and adjusted as it needed to adjust. And it's going
• 41:39
  Speaker 7: to keep making the movies it needs to make. And
• 41:41
  Speaker 7: all the players have to go, Oh wait, now what
• 41:44
  Speaker 7: do we do? And like, that's why you had, you know,
• 41:46
  Speaker 7: stars that were huge silent stars that just died as
• 41:49
  Speaker 7: soon as sound got in. It's like that same thing
• 41:51
  Speaker 7: keeps kicking in every 20 years. It's like something changes massively.
• 41:56
  Speaker 7: but the film industry doesn't care and keeps on moving.
• 41:59
  Speaker 7: And it's, it's the rest of us trying to catch
• 42:01
  Speaker 7: up and, and make a living.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: And they're always trying, they're always trying to reinvent the
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: theatrical experience to keep people coming in for something they can't.
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: They have to, because I mean, everybody's got a home
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: theater and all that. And you know, look at the
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: TVs we can all buy, you.
• 42:13
  Speaker 7: Know, and sometimes better.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:15
  Speaker 7: And no one's texting next to you except your partner.
• 42:18
  Speaker 7: And you smack her. What did I say? So I
• 42:23
  Speaker 7: guess as, as you were, talking about that, I was
• 42:26
  Speaker 7: trying to decide also the, cause you were talking about
• 42:28
  Speaker 7: the specifics and just the terminology. I think that's another
• 42:32
  Speaker 7: thing that from the outside is so baffling for people.
• 42:36
  Speaker 7: So I don't know, as far as like the different
• 42:38
  Speaker 7: things that you've done, I guess for people that really
• 42:41
  Speaker 7: don't know, like how many other than like model making,
• 42:44
  Speaker 7: but all these other distinctions that you guys get roped
• 42:47
  Speaker 7: into doing over the years, I guess, what are some
• 42:49
  Speaker 7: of the different aspects that you deal with? And then,
• 42:52
  Speaker 7: how they differ from each other, because there will be
• 42:54
  Speaker 7: so many different titles, and you're still the same person
• 42:58
  Speaker 7: coming in with the same background, but you just readapt
• 43:00
  Speaker 7: to do different things, I assume.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: Are you talking about both practically and digitally?
• 43:05
  Speaker 7: Definitely practically. Again, I'm still living in model making in
• 43:09
  Speaker 7: my head. But I think those used to really confuse people.
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: What different skills we would have to have?
• 43:15
  Speaker 7: Well, and different like titles for each thing. So people
• 43:17
  Speaker 7: were getting, you know, these specific little jobs to do
• 43:21
  Speaker 7: that were all part of the big thing.
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: We didn't worry. I mean, titles weren't so much a
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: big deal, I don't think, in the model shop. And
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: what was interesting, we talked about where, you know, how
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: people were inspired to go into model making. Some people
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: came at it very intentionally, like Bill and John. Some
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: people came into it sort of obliquely, like Lorne Peterson
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: and Charlie Bailey and maybe Steve Gawley, who also liked
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: to make models. But a lot of them had backgrounds
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: as industrial designers. One of our best people in the
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: shop was Ira Keeler, who was a pattern maker for
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: Boeing for years. Wooden pattern maker. And he made beautiful things.
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: So some people kind of fell into it. Some people
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: were there intentionally. But I think we all kind of
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: hoped to when it came time to doing something different.
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: We did have titles. For example, some people were more creature-oriented,
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: maybe a little bit more rubber monster-oriented, and some people
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: were carpenters or something like that. But all those skills
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: would come into play. Even if you were a creature
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: person could— could put their skills sometimes to doing hard
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: surface model making. There would be something that they knew
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: that would come in handy when making a spaceship. I mean,
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: it was kind of amazing just kind of culling information
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: from everybody that was in the shop. People could make
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: contributions and things that would not seem to be an
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: obvious fit for them.
• 44:58
  Speaker 7: I was also in trying to, I guess mostly in
• 45:01
  Speaker 7: that era of still physical and probably miniatures and whatever,
• 45:06
  Speaker 7: What do they start with? Like, are you physically starting
• 45:10
  Speaker 7: from scratch creating everything as you're, like, building a spaceship
• 45:13
  Speaker 7: or a miniature set? Do you physically create everything on there?
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: No, it's different every time. I mean, sometimes you can
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: start off with something. Space Cowboys, I remember we bought
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: a commercially made space shuttle that was about six feet
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: long as a starting point, you know. And then we
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: had to modify that to make it into a shooting
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: model with an armature and wiring and all that stuff
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: and all the details. But it was always different. And
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: that was the interesting thing is you're doing prototyping. But
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: it pretty much had to work. I mean, you could
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: do some testing and stuff. But it was basically a
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: very elaborate prototype. And that was kind of the beauty
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: of the job was that it was a lot about
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: problem solving. And so someone would come with some really
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: unusual issue. You know, we want a 737 to crash
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: in a rice paddy at night. The left wing is
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: going to hit first. It's going to pirouette. The tail
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: is going to come off. And then the cockpit is
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: going to land right here. And it's like, okay, we'll
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: give you a bid. you know, but it's like, exactly. But,
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: and obviously there was funny cause Conair came in with
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: a map like that for a plane crash. And I'm like, wow,
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: it was very specific exactly what had to happen exactly
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: at this moment, that moment. And we'd give them a
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: number and I was always like, wow. And Steve Golly,
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: I always loved this. His, his thing was, he called
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: it swag for scientific wild ass guests, you know, but
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: it did come down to that. It was a leap
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: of faith a lot of times because you hadn't done
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: something like that before. You could build on the experiences
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: you had before with different projects and But a lot
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: of times you were dealing with a unique situation. And again,
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: that was the cool part about the job. And it
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: was also sometimes the really stressful part.
• 46:37
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 46:37
  Speaker 7: I mean, that's why I think it's sort of boggling
• 46:40
  Speaker 7: for most people on the other side that are just
• 46:42
  Speaker 7: like you're creating not only an entirely different world, but
• 46:45
  Speaker 7: sometimes worlds that don't exist that are an entirely new
• 46:48
  Speaker 7: thing that doesn't even follow the rules of our world.
• 46:52
  Speaker 7: And you're starting with potentially nothing. So I think it
• 46:55
  Speaker 7: is like.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 46:57
  Speaker 7: It's kind of hard for people to wrap their heads
• 46:59
  Speaker 7: around just what all you have to do. And probably
• 47:02
  Speaker 7: don't think about it that much because it's too much
• 47:04
  Speaker 7: to worry about.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you look at the length of the credit
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: lists on films now. All those people are doing something.
• 47:10
  Speaker 7: It's almost as long as the movie. It's a 15-minute
• 47:14
  Speaker 7: run after some of the movies now. One of the
• 47:17
  Speaker 7: ones I was going to go into, and this is something, again,
• 47:20
  Speaker 7: I think this is because everybody's so... We all grew
• 47:23
  Speaker 7: up as such, you know, big movie geeks and like
• 47:25
  Speaker 7: we attached ourselves to these properties. So once you enter
• 47:29
  Speaker 7: into the professional end of it, how, and again, I'm
• 47:32
  Speaker 7: almost using quotes, how responsible do you feel for the
• 47:36
  Speaker 7: end result? Like you can look at it and go, oh,
• 47:38
  Speaker 7: that thing that I built looks great. I don't really
• 47:41
  Speaker 7: like this movie. Like, do you ever sometimes have to
• 47:42
  Speaker 7: be like, I wish I liked the movie more? Yeah.
• 47:47
  Speaker 7: It's just a job and you show up and do
• 47:49
  Speaker 7: your part.
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:50
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: Because often the objects that we make are beautiful, but
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: the movie is not. At least not to us, anyway.
• 47:58
  Speaker 7: So many moving parts.
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, right.
• 48:01
  Speaker 7: So yeah, I think sometimes that would be hard to
• 48:03
  Speaker 7: detach yourself from.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: Well, it's funny because I always look at it, I
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: always try to find what I call the hook on
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: every project. There's got to be something I can find
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: in there that I find interesting. And sometimes it's really
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: big and juicy sometimes. Sometimes it's a little thin. But
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: it's something you can invest yourself in. And it's interesting
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: because one of the things that we do a lot
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: is research. You start looking at all these things. And
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: I always think it's an interesting aspect of it anyway
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: because it's something you've never paid attention to. It's like
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: a door handle. It's like, well, we're going to have
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: this door handle in there. And you start realizing, if
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: I count the number of different door handles I see today,
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: it'll be 64. And they're all going to be slightly different. Yeah,
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: and it's something I never paid attention to before. And
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: suddenly you become this expert on doorknobs. or a B-25
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: bomber or whatever it is that the project has to it.
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: So it's interesting. There's that part of it. And then
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: the end result, I mean, there are a hell of
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: a lot of steps between where we are and the
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: end result. So it's kind of like, you know, it's
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: hit and miss.
• 49:00
  Speaker 7: It is interesting that they're just, as we said, that
• 49:03
  Speaker 7: many lists of people at the end of this thing
• 49:06
  Speaker 7: and everybody's doing their part. And hopefully doing a great job.
• 49:09
  Speaker 7: And then in the end, it still may become this big,
• 49:11
  Speaker 7: crazy mess.
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: I don't think anybody really ever blames us for that.
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: we don't usually get the blame for that just.
• 49:18
  Speaker 7: Pause like the 400th person nope that one they totally ruined.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: This thing I was going to say something because John
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: brought up something that is also really important to me,
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: and I know at least a couple other people it's
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: important to is doing the research on the projects that
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: we're doing. That's one of the big incentives to do it, actually.
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: That's one of the things that keeps making it fresh,
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: not just the problem solving, but learning more about the
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: subject that you're dealing with.
• 49:45
  Speaker 7: I think, again, that's something that really early on just
• 49:48
  Speaker 7: attracted me even as just a movie fan. If you're into.
• 49:53
  Speaker 7: Stamp collecting or whatever like that's it it's your little
• 49:56
  Speaker 7: window and that's all you can do but film you
• 49:58
  Speaker 7: can be into the overall process but at the same
• 50:00
  Speaker 7: time you can pick your specific movies and each movie
• 50:03
  Speaker 7: kind of opens up this door to a new area
• 50:05
  Speaker 7: and you're like oh this is about bike racing and
• 50:08
  Speaker 7: so for a minute i've got this little snippet of
• 50:10
  Speaker 7: information about this world that i didn't know anything about
• 50:12
  Speaker 7: and then you'll pick a different this is about you
• 50:14
  Speaker 7: know you personal shoppers you get these weird little windows
• 50:19
  Speaker 7: that open up and you kind of learn a little bit.
• 50:21
  Speaker 7: It may not be accurate information, but you at least
• 50:24
  Speaker 7: get this little window into different worlds with each movie
• 50:27
  Speaker 7: that you pick. I think just even as a viewer,
• 50:29
  Speaker 7: it offers kind of a little bit of that. You
• 50:32
  Speaker 7: don't get quite the full-on research, but it gives you
• 50:34
  Speaker 7: that little shot in there. If you are interested, maybe
• 50:38
  Speaker 7: you'll go read a little more about this or learn
• 50:40
  Speaker 7: something else about it. I think film in general has
• 50:42
  Speaker 7: such a wide area that you can kind of throw
• 50:45
  Speaker 7: yourself into and you're drawn to whatever you're drawn to.
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: It conveys information in a way that there isn't really
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: another medium. You can draw and you can paint and
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: you do all those things, but filmmaking, it was interesting.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Somebody was giving an example. It was something like a
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: guy riding a bicycle and there's this field of wheat
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: and the camera's drifting through the wheat following him on
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: the bike. How else can you tell that?
• 51:05
  Speaker 7: I've said that and I will get in that argument
• 51:08
  Speaker 7: all the time of people that want to compare books
• 51:11
  Speaker 7: to movies and I'm like, first of all, they're entirely
• 51:13
  Speaker 7: different mediums. You can't. And there are things that one
• 51:17
  Speaker 7: can do and not the other, but film is so
• 51:19
  Speaker 7: complex that like, it's the only way that some of
• 51:23
  Speaker 7: these things can, where at least books, it leaves such
• 51:25
  Speaker 7: a weird gray area of like you're filling in the blank.
• 51:28
  Speaker 7: So it doesn't even have to do some of the
• 51:30
  Speaker 7: work on screen. Everything has to be represented. You have
• 51:33
  Speaker 7: to find a way. Sometimes you guys have to find
• 51:36
  Speaker 7: a way to make that physically represented in the scene.
• 51:39
  Speaker 7: And that's, that's a lot harder. I feel like, and
• 51:42
  Speaker 7: people don't realize that sometimes again, I feel like I
• 51:46
  Speaker 7: defend film so much from that angle that I'm like,
• 51:49
  Speaker 7: it's just a different world that trying to physically create
• 51:52
  Speaker 7: every thing that needs to be represented on the screen
• 51:55
  Speaker 7: where most other art forms don't have to do that. Your,
• 51:57
  Speaker 7: your creative brain has to fill in the blanks, but
• 52:00
  Speaker 7: you can't cheat that way in filmmaking. It's all on
• 52:03
  Speaker 7: the screen.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: Sometimes I feel like we're the worst offender in terms
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: of people's imagination, because when you, I always think about
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: when people used to sit and listen to the radio
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: and they'd all sit around intently sort of looking at
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: the radio, but they're their own art director and cinematographer.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: They're generating all that in their own heads. We fill
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: in all the blanks for you. Don't think about anything.
• 52:20
  Speaker 7: It can go both ways. I always kind of take
• 52:22
  Speaker 7: it the other way. It's like it's so much more
• 52:24
  Speaker 7: invested in it this way. But, yeah, it's kind of
• 52:27
  Speaker 7: that same thing.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: It's a double-edged sword.
• 52:29
  Speaker 7: Maybe we used to have really imaginative people, and now
• 52:32
  Speaker 7: I kind of wonder looking at kids now because they're
• 52:34
  Speaker 7: so distracted with everything that I'm not sure what's going
• 52:37
  Speaker 7: to happen in this next wave of kids coming up next.
• 52:41
  Speaker 7: I worry sometimes. Well, there are a few specific stories
• 52:45
  Speaker 7: out there. I guess I was going to let you
• 52:46
  Speaker 7: guys pick at least a project or something, maybe one
• 52:49
  Speaker 7: that you haven't had, that hasn't gotten as much attention,
• 52:52
  Speaker 7: just something that you found really interesting that you've done.
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: Well, somebody asked the other day what was one of
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: the more memorable events in the course of doing model making,
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: and I think that the Rocketeer sapling was, like, I
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: think it's one of my favorite ones to pick on
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: because it's pretty momentous. John and I can tell that together.
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: He's actually a little better at telling that story. But
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: we built this. Do you remember how long a Zeppelin?
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: 33 feet.
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: 33-foot-long Zeppelin. And it took us six months to make it.
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: I think it took eight months.
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: Eight months to make it.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: Why don't you tell the rest of the story? Because
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: he's better. He remembers the details better than I do.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: Well, it was a replica of the Hindenburg, but it
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: was called the Luxembourg. And they had laser cut out
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: of quarter-inch apple ply plywood. all the internal structure for it.
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: So it was very intricate. And it's interesting because if
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: you look at the Hindenburg, if you look at a
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: side elevation drawing of it, it's like the first five sections,
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: which look like there may be 15 feet long. They're
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: all the same length. You get to the next block
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: and they're all slightly different for like the next eight
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: and the next eight are a little different. And it's all,
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: it's all a little bit unique all the way through.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: And so they laser cut all that stuff, put it together.
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: And one of the things they did that was kind
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: of iffy was they didn't usually with pyro because pyro
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: is somewhat, non-scientific. They're going to blow it up, but
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: it's a question of how big or how it blows up.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: And I always think pyro is like a science experiment
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: because sometimes it's surprising what you get out the other end.
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: But we usually built three of things if we're going
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: to blow them up, just so you have some coverage
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: in case it doesn't work.
• 54:27
  Speaker 7: A backup for the backup.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And they opted in this instance to just build
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: one because it was such an investment to do it.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: And So it was the laser cut plywood with all
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: the internal bracing and stuff like that. And it kind
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: of went together like one of those wooden dinosaurs you
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: can buy where it's all flat when you put it together.
• 54:42
  Speaker 7: Slots and other slots.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: But you get a three-dimensional Zeppelin skeleton. Then over that,
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: it was a layer of black cheesecloth. Then over that,
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: it was a layer of black fishnet. And then on
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: top of that was a material called Solartex. And this
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: was a synthetic polyester fabric. And it was really neat stuff.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: It had an adhesive backing to it and Unfortunately, right
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: as we were about to do this, the first Gulf
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: War started. And when it did, all the solar techs
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: vanished from the planet. The military soaked it up. So
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: we're like, ah, ah, you know, having to scour the
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: earth to find enough to do this thing. And it
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: was funny because you'd have a guy, you'd roll out
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: about 35 feet of it. And it was about two
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: feet wide. And there'd be a guy standing either end
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: holding this. And there was a clear protective film over
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: the adhesive side. And somebody would, third person would have
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: to strip that off. And so as you're walking, pulling
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: this stuff off, you're building up one hell of a
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: big static charge. So the guy at the other end
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: knows it's coming. Because when you get down there, you
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: just reach out and get about an inch from it,
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: and you see this bolt of electricity. Bang, hit him,
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: you know? So it took us about a week to
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: cover it, and then I painted it. It took me
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: about another week to paint it. I've got a Binx
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: automotive spray gun. I'm running down a scaffolding next to
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: this thing, blasting it, you know?
• 55:47
  Speaker 7: This is a lot of work for something that's going
• 55:48
  Speaker 7: to go up in flames.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: A lot of work. And then it was going to
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: blow up, and it was really important how it blew up,
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: because the rocketeer and his girlfriend are running from this
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: bad guy on top of the Zeppelin. As they're running
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: from the nose towards the tail, there's a series of
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: explosions that are following them. So in the model, they
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: were going to have 10 bombs that would blow up
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: in sequence, starting at the nose, working their way to
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: the tail. And we took this thing out to an
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: abandoned Air Force base where we could film on the runway.
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: We had a nice unobstructed skyline. And it sat on
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: a little trolley. And there were six slots in the
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: bottom of it that were each about four inches by
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: about 22 inches. And these were open. And that's where
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: the trolley connected. Once they put it on the cables
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: they were going to lift it up with, we needed
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: to seal those. But we had to do it with
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: this iron-on material. So you literally have to take an
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: iron that's plugged in, iron it on, hit it with
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: a heat gun to get it to shrink in place.
• 56:41
  Speaker 7: There's a lot of heat being thrown at this thing, too.
• 56:43
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: Well, before we break for lunch, we asked the power guy,
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: I said, before you guys load the explosives in it,
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: can we patch the bottom? He's like, oh, yeah, no problem.
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: No problem at all. So we break for lunch. It
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: was a night shoot, so lunch or dinner or whatever
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: it was, it was like 2 a.m.
• 56:55
  Speaker 7: Yeah, whatever you call that.
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: Well, we come back, and it's 25 feet in the air,
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: and it's got 10 black powder and kerosene bombs in it,
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: and it's still got six big gaping holes in the
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: bottom of it. So we're like, well, what are we
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: going to do? And they're like, well, you're going to
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: go up in this. You're going to have to go
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: up and seal them up. So we're going to go
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: up in cherry pickers, and the pyro guys got us
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: these Nomex suits that cover everything but your face and
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: your hands so that when the explosion happens, we'll... We
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: won't have a head or hands, but the rest of
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: you will be okay.
• 57:22
  Speaker 7: You can hear the Looney Tunes theme, right, man?
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: This is Wile E.
• 57:26
  Speaker 7: Coyote material going on.
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we're getting ready to get in the cherry pickers,
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: and the pyro guy comes over. He goes, well, if
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: you see a flash, there's a five-second delay between the
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: flash and the explosion. And the guy driving the cherry
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: pickers says to me, he goes, well, if you see
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: a flash, there's a five-second delay on the cherry picker.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: We're not going anywhere. I'm like, well, what are we
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: going to do?
• 57:41
  Speaker 7: Guard your face.
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: They said, I guess we jump out. I'm like, it's
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: going to blow up and fall on us. And he's like, eh.
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: So we get in the cherry picker. And I'm in
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: one with Dave Herron and Charlie Bailey's in one with
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: somebody else. And we're doing it. And there's a picture
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: of me in Cinefix magazine, like, really terrified looking doing this. Oh, God,
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: here it goes. And there's kerosene running out of the holes.
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: But we get up there. We get it all ironed
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: up in place. Everything's good. Nothing explodes. And it takes
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: a few more hours to get everything prepped and all
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: the lights set. And we've got, I don't know, four,
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: maybe six high-speed cameras on this thing. And so the
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: stage manager comes out and he goes, here's what's going
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: to happen. We're going to get all the fans going
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: for the wind. We're going to get all the lights on.
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: We're going to get the cameras all up to speed.
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: And then I'm going to wave this flag and it's
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: going to be action. And then it's going to start
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: with explosion one at the nose. We're going to go one, two, three, four,
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: until we get to 10 at the tail. And when
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: we get to 10, the guy's going to have fire
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: charge that cuts the cables and it's going to drop
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: out of frame.
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 58:35
  Speaker 7: In theory, yes.
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: So get everything ready. Get everything going. The fans are going.
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: The cameras are going. Action, speed, blah, you know, go.
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: and instead of one through 10, it goes one and
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: 10 and the guy cuts the cables and it drops
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: out of frame and it blew up partly on the
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: way and then on the ground, but it has dropped
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: out of frame. Now it's not visible. The only thing
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: on camera are pieces and fire going up. And in
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: about 15 seconds it was gone. It was just this
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: pile of burnt rubble. And I was standing next to
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: one of the stagehands who was actually at the Hindenburg
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: with his mother because his dad was on it. Dickie Dover. And, uh,
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: said to Dickie, I was like, is that what's supposed
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: to happen? He goes, I don't think so. I don't
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: think so. And that was it. It was gone. There's
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: no more models. So there was a second one that
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: was built. I think the movie was coming out in
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: something like eight weeks. So there was a second one built.
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: There were three shifts around the clock, which was really cool.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: It was like having magic elves. You'd come in in
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: the morning, and there'd be all this stuff that was done.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: And in six weeks' time, they built a second one.
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: They took it out, they shot it, and that's what's
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: in the movie. Oh, my God. But, yeah, that was
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: an exciting evening. That was unscheduled entertainment of the wrong kind.
• 59:41
  Speaker 7: Death defying the whole process.
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: I can think of one of my favorite times. One
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: of my favorite events working in movies was on Pirates,
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: Curse of the Black Pearl. We had built, for the
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: first Pirates, it was going to be probably one of
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: the last hurrahs of making, maybe the last year or
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: two years that we were making really cool models for movies.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: And we had a tank, I think it was like 26,000
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: gallons or something that we had built especially to work
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: on Pirates. And we had made several models. but I
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: think they were like 28 feet long, sort of on average. Yeah,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: that's a miniature. We had a version of the Interceptor
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: that we had built, and also, of course, there was
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: the original Black Pearl. So they were going to do
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: a stormy night shot, and... They had called in about
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: every possible special effects machine that you could have. They
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: had a rainmaker. We had three airplane propellers. There were
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: big water dumps at one end. There were cams that
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: would move the water underwater in waves. We had 10K
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: lights ranged around the tank to provide some light for them.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: We had everything going. There was smoke. And I don't
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: remember how, we must have had a 30-person crew out
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: there that night. Do you remember? It was something like that.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: It was a lot of people. And John Knoll was
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: in charge. And I just remember, oh, we also had
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: a light gag. We had this huge globe that was suspended,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: that was lit from the inside, and it was hanging
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: out of frame, of course. And it was a night
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: that felt very old-timey because everything was being operated by humans.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: The interceptor itself actually had no belly. It was operated by,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: it was on a track, and it had gimbals in
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: it so that the stagehands could operate it with cables off,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: outside the tanks. So we had, all of a sudden,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: we had all these people, like, Just, you know, blowing
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: smoke and raining. And the stagehands were cranking the ships.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: It was bang, bang, back and forth. And there was
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: water sloshing out of the tanks so that we were
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: all standing with a bunch of 10Ks in about two
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: inches of water all around the tank. I don't know
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: why we were not electrocuted that night. But it was
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: an incredible, incredible night. And there were people standing on
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: cars outside the fence watching what we were doing. And
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: there were people phoning into the local radio stations because
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: they had seen the glowing orb hanging over them. People
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: driving across Richmond Bridge could see the glowing orb, and
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: they thought that there was a UFO out there.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 7: I knew it was ILM all along. Conspiracies are true.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was really a very exciting evening, and I
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: was really glad to be part of it. It was
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: a beautiful shot.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 7: In most of these, you've referenced and cross-referenced the stories,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 7: so I guess you've worked together a lot as time's
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 7: gone on?
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 7: Is that a good thing or not?
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: It was a good thing. We worked together as partners
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: for a long time. We were both married, and eventually,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: when we were both married, we became partners in life, too. Sometimes.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 7: I know people that work together and it does not
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 7: go well.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: We've worked on a lot of stuff.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 7: Maybe because you already had that pre-built into your relationship
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 7: before you were a couple. Yeah, that may be part
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 7: of it.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: We had a few tiffs over model stuff, but very
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: few actually considering.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 8: Don't you think?
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I just think you're very tolerant because our house
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: looks like a model museum inside.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 7: I would assume it is at this point.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: It basically is.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: We actually need to have a special building that's just
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: for a movie.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: We're just going to get a Planet Hollywood sign, put
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: it over the door.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 8: And then move out.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 7: You can probably pick one up.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: We can move into the restaurant. There we go.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 7: I need storage, but that's just for my files of
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 7: my own stuff. I don't even have good models involved.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 7: Just junk that I keep buying that are usually movie-based.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 7: I keep finding more. Like, why do I have boxes
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 7: of this? why do I need more Beetlejuice action figures?
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: You have to have them.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 7: You do.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: That's why you're here.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 7: I keep trying to tell people. I'm like, no, this
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 7: is important.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: I need this.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 7: I can't tell you why. Don't make me think. Well,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 7: then I guess to round out here, you've been doing
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 7: a lot of discussion about the Enterprise lately. So I
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 7: guess tell people what all that entailed and the process
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 7: you had to kind of go through. And then it
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 7: was for eventually the Smithsonian, wasn't it?
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: For the Smithsonian. John was on the advisory committee for
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: it early on. They had a group of, what, eight people,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: I think. And maybe it was more.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: I think it was eight or nine.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: Something like that. And the funny thing about it, I mean,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: John will tell a large story, but my impression of it,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: when I finally got to see it in pieces, which was,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: I guess, December of 2015, was that they'd actually had,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: they'd known they were going to be doing renovation on
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: this thing for years, actually, at that point. And I'm going,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking, it's still dirty, and it's just in pieces.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: And they had just taken it apart, like, since June
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: or July, I think, something like that. And I said,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: so they'd known it was going on for this long.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: They had done some x-rays. They borrowed the National Zoo's
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: x-ray machine that they use for elephants and things. And
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 4: they brought it over and x-rayed it. And they'd had Dr. Buck,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: who's a very well-known paint specialist, come and do core
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: sample analysis of it. And they'd done that kind of thing.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: And there was one of their machinists was beefing up
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: the secondary hull on it to strengthen it because it
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 4: needed help. But they actually, for considering how long they'd
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: known they were doing this didn't seem like a whole
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: lot had been done and there was a whole lot
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: more to do before I think originally they wanted to
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: have it done by February or have our side of
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: it done by February so that they could put the
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: electronics in it but that extended to April April is
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: when we.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 7: Came I think that's when they brought you guys.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: We brought in in April.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 7: We don't want to clean this thing.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: But we were kind of shocked at how much there
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: was going to have to be done between December and
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: the time that we were projected to come on to
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: the project.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 7: I've seen this listed as a thing that was going on.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 7: Just to clarify, I guess, for me and everyone. Is
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 7: it the original TV Enterprise? It was the one that
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 7: they originally used in the 60s series.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was 11 feet 2 inches long, and it
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: weighs a couple hundred pounds. And it's the one used
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: for the series. And then they also had a three-foot
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: model that was solid wood that didn't light up. And
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: this one initially didn't light up when they first built
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: it for the initial pilot. And it went through a
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: couple of different iterations. Eventually, they wound up... the nacelles
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: the fronts of the engines were just solid wood painted
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: red yeah and they had a spike on them and
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: the bridge was taller there were a lot of a
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: lot of things that were that were in the initial
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: pilot that thing got altered and they sawed off those
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: wooden domes they replaced them with uh acrylic domes with
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: a lighting effect inside of them they retrofit the whole
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: model so the windows would light up and everything but
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: it was only on one side.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 7: So that was all originally they'd slowly started to modify
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 7: as they went.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: With the initial pilot, you know, it didn't light up and,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: you know, it was just a blank thing. It was,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: you know, then they, they did a second pilot. And
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: then when that got greenlit, they made more iterations to
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: it for the, when it went to series. And then
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: over time, any of these kinds of models, once they
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: go out on stage, they have this whole other life
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: where for this particular shot, they've got to weather this
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: or change that. Or, you know, there was, and it's
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: interesting because it is only painted on one side. And
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: their thinking was they had additional decals so they could
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: change the markings, reverse them backwards on that same side.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: And then you would film that, and you would flop
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: the film. So you could get left and right out
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: of the same model, but you'd have to spend all
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: the money to do it. But ultimately, I think in
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: the episode Mirror, Mirror, what they did was they actually
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: taped a piece of gray paper over the numbers, the
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: NCC-1701 on the engine. They put gray paper up there
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: with them reversed, filmed that, and flopped the image. But
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: if you look at it, you can tell it's a
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: piece of gray paper. But it's also one of the
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: neat things about film. was that you could do that.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: You could economize by only building the one side of it,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: and you could get both sides of it if you're.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 7: Willing to do the work. Again, it's people thinking on
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 7: a grander scale and putting these together.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: Well, on a cheaper scale.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 7: When you realize budget constrictions.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: You're like, God, what do we do now? And we
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: did it on the movie Alive. We did, we crashed the,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: it was an F-27, Fokker F-27 that we crashed where
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: the soccer players were in the plane accident in the Andes.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: And the airplane, we built it so that the right
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: wing would shear off. So it had a special tearaway section.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: And then we had the tail so it would break away.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: And then it was supported out of the left wing
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: that went to a tower that was on a dolly track.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: So we filmed it where we smashed off the tail
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: on the right wing. We put another wing on, same thing.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: We left the tail off, and then we took all
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: the graphics off and we reversed them, same trick as Enterprise.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: Crashed the same wing and flopped the film, and we
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: got the left wing and the right wing out of
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: the same rig. So, you know, it's just a way
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: to save money.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 7: But then Enterprise, I guess, what all did you have
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 7: to do? What steps were involved to get it ready
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 7: for the Smithsonian?
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 4: They did the work to get it ready for us, actually,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 4: is what they did. I mean, you did a lot
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: of advising.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: Well, we had the whole advisory group and everybody was,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: they would ask for input at various points along the way.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: And one of the things that's really different for us
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: is they're working in museum time, which is different than
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: production time.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 7: Oh, yeah.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: And so to us, it looks like slow motion, but
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: they're also spending a lot of time on research and
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: they're trying to dial in exactly every detail, which is
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: kind of hard for me to get my head wrapped around.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: It's something I've become more accustomed to because I'm dealing
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: with more museum stuff.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: But it was a very different mindset. And so, you know,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: to us, it looked like slow motion, but in reality
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: for them, They're going through all the steps that are
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: necessary to get them to that point. And they did
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: the majority of the preparation work to get the model
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: structurally repaired and then put a base coat on it
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: so that when we came in, we were dealing with things.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: We replaced the navigation dish up under the front, produced
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: new domes for the bridge and the counterpart underneath with
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: a little phaser weapon on that, and then the lighting
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: effects and the new nacelle covers for the engines. and
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: the graphics. But, you know, there were different parts of
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: our advisory team that were involved in all that. So
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: people like Rick Sternbach and Gary Kerr. And Gary Kerr,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: he was kind of our advisor who knows every technical
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: nuance of that ship. He has studied it his entire life. And,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, down to the most intricate details. And it
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: was interesting because the lettering, the NCC-1701s that are on
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: the engines and they're on the bottom of the saucer,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: they were altered between the pilot and production version. And
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: so there are subtle differences between, I think, the sevens
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: and the ones. And Gary knew exactly which one. The
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: one on the left side of the saucer on the
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: bottom is the one from the pilot, but the one
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: next to it is the one from the, you know.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 7: It's crazy.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: He knows all of those details. And so he was
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: the most indispensable member of the team in terms of
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: being able to kind of guide all of us in
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: the right direction. And the other thing that's really nice
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: about the Enterprise is, People have been watching Star Trek
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: for 50 years. There's a lot of documentation. And so
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: there was a huge database of stuff. And the Smithsonian
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: put out an appeal to the public for any photographs
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: they had. And at one point in 1974, the model
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: was on display. I think it's at Golden West College
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: in the Los Angeles area. A guy had an association
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: with Paramount. They were doing some kind of a science day.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: And he was able to borrow the 11-foot model and
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: get the lighting and everything to operate. He had to
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: replace Christmas light bulbs in the engines and stuff. But
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: he got it all illuminated. and there were a handful
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: of slides that were taken of it, and those were invaluable.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 7: But they just lent it out? They didn't even send
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 7: someone with him?
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 4: I don't know the particular reason. I think that they
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: were talking, I mean, that at the time, it didn't
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: have the, it wasn't, As much of an icon as
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: it is now. It didn't have the following. And so
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: it wasn't thought of in the same way. And even
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: the Smithsonian didn't think of it. I mean, it was
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: just kind of this thing they had.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 7: I wasn't even thinking of it as a historical piece.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 7: I'm just thinking of it from production value of just like,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 7: don't break that. We need it.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: I think once the series ended, they were kind of
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: done with it. And if you think about it, the
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: series ran for three seasons.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 7: It wasn't super successful in its run.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 6: No.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: I mean, the ratings really plunged in the third season.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: So it was a failed science fiction series. We look
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: at it now in hindsight, you know, and Star Wars
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: came out, and then suddenly we got Star Trek, the
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: motion picture. And they were gearing up a new TV series,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: and they shifted gears and made it into a feature. But,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: you know, now we've got, what is it, 13 or
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: 14 movies probably. We've got Star Trek. We've got Star
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: Trek The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise. We've
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: got a new one coming. We've got 50 years of
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: Star Trek. But at the time, you know, the model
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: was given to the Smithsonian in 1974. None of that
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: had happened. All you had was a failed sci-fi TV
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: series at that point.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 7: Lucky it just didn't get broken into pieces and used
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 7: in other... Yeah, exactly. Roger Corman, it's in the background
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 7: of a movie he was making at the time.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: Well, so much movie history, so many of those kinds
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: of things have disappeared because of that very thing. They
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: weren't valued or they were recycled.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 7: They're just throwing them out. That's so many stories I've
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 7: heard here. The studio was done with it. It was
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 7: in the dumpster out back.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: Get rid of it. Bury it. Burn it. And it's funny,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: Irwin Allen had a rule that He wouldn't build a
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: prop unless he thought he could reuse it at least
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: three times.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: That's a lot of those, too, for the low-budget stuff.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 7: You'll see it pop up. Or Lost in Space was
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 7: a good example. You'll see movie props pop up on
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 7: Lost in Space all the time.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: Well, it's funny. Gary Kerr found the episode The Derelict,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: which had this big, weird alien spacecraft that was a
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: sphere with these kind of points on either end of
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: it that opened up. Well, that thing got taken and
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: got recycled as set dressing. And so you can see
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: it on set. So you can see how big. That
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: thing was huge. But it's really interesting. I mean, it
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: went from being the miniature spacecraft that was in a
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: couple episodes to big set dressing piece. And who knows
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: what life it had beyond that. Because, you know, the
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: studio probably had it for other things.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 7: I kind of like that. It is like its own world.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 7: And you will see it pop up in the background
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 7: of other sci-fi. So I like that the sci-fi props
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 7: have their own little life. And I'm sure that's a
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 7: Pixar movie waiting to be made.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: Oh, it could be.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: One thing that was really interesting was that being a
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 4: TV model or shooting model was something that was a
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 4: little bit outside their normal experience in doing restoration. And
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: to us, it was another shooting model. And so we
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 4: looked at it and probably immediately mentally went to work
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: on what we would like to do to it to
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 4: make it better without trepidation.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 7: And they were like, ah, we don't know.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: Well, we heard you guys.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 7: That's what we brought you here for.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: There were a lot of discussions on how to handle
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 4: certain things. So that was, I found that kind of interesting.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 4: It was something that we were just sort of all
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: ready to get to work. There were still discussions to
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 4: be had about how to actually handle those things and
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 4: whether they should be done that.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 8: Way or not.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 7: I'm assuming a lot of discussions.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 7: Well, I guess in general, what do you have? I
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 7: would say a new project, probably multiple new projects in
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 7: the works. Is it stuff that you tell people about
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 7: or in your situation, is it best to wait till
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 7: they happen? Is it one of those things you're telling people, Hey,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 7: I'm working on this. Or do they like tell you,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 7: just wait a while till we see how this turns out.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 7: I mean, cause you're in such a different perspective than
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 7: like where they're doing promotion for the movie. You're so
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 7: far ahead.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: Of the game.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 4: Are you talking about what we're doing?
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 7: Just upcoming projects and stuff like that.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 4: Like what we get paid to do, like as employees?
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 7: Just stuff coming up that you're working on or potentially
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 7: going to be working on, just if there are some people.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 4: You need to look for? I can usually talk about
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: what I'm working on.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 4: Well, actually, technically, maybe I shouldn't talk about that.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 8: I know.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe we shouldn't talk about that.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of the same thing with ILM. It's like, yeah,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: technically we're not supposed to talk about what we're doing.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 7: That's why, yeah, normally I throw that up because people
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 7: want to promote stuff that's coming out in like six weeks.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 7: But with you guys, you're so far ahead of the
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 7: curve on what's happening.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: Sometimes we're years away and it's still kind of sacred.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the other thing that's weird too is that
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: now everything has code names.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: And so it gets so confusing because it's like somebody,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: you know, we're looking, we have a digital basically backlot.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: And so somebody's like, have we got helicopters? Where do
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: we get helicopters from? And somebody will be like, old G.I. Joe.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: And we're like, well, what the hell was G.I. Joe called?
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: Nobody can remember the name. And then somebody will go, oh,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: Long Branch. You know, that's what it was. But nobody's
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: written down a list. So it makes it really hard
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: to keep up with what's what.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 7: So you just tell everybody your code name. We're working
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 7: on a boy's life.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 9: Yeah, that's what it's called.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know who comes up with those names either.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 7: All right. Well, unless you have anything to put out
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 7: there for people or you have upcoming appearances you want
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 7: to tell people or. I assume that's on the fly, too.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: Mostly I'm locked in an office where I can't even
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: tell there's daylight. So, you know, it's like they don't
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: let us out that often, you know.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 7: Well, yeah, I guess if you have something coming up,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 7: come look for you guys out on the road there,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 7: maybe doing appearances, and come and see one of your
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 7: talks and listen to your stories.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: It's been really fun to be here. Yeah.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 7: Thank you for being on the show.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 6: Thank you.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 7: Misty, have you had fun times today at Wonderfest?
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 8: I have had fun and or exciting times all day.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 7: You saw many things?
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 8: I saw many things. I didn't personally, but somebody found
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 8: for me a squished penny out in the parking lot,
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 8: which is very, very strange.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 7: Only because you were telling the story of your epic
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 7: road trip where you got how many squished pennies?
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 8: I lost count. There was like five book fulls involved.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 7: Book fulls the books hold like a million the books
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 7: hold like 36 don't exaggerate a lot of squished pennies
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 7: let's be realistic here you have a.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 8: Problem i didn't fill the winchester mystery book one up
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 8: though so that's not really i thought i didn't fill
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 8: it it's.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 7: Okay but we were standing out in the parking lot
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 7: of this very convention and we were discussing all your
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 7: squished pennies that you got And I have to say,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 7: I don't know that I've ever just looked down and
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 7: found a squished penny. I've looked down and run across
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 7: a penny on the floor or the ground many a
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 7: time in my life, but I don't think I've ever
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 7: just accidentally stumbled upon a squished penny from somewhere.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 8: Also more strange, we had also been talking about the
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 8: location in Around About Legs. We were talking about Disney.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 7: Yeah, we were talking about different road trips, and the
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 7: person we were talking to was talking about having gone
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 7: to Disney, and maybe I'll go back, whatever, but seriously, like,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 7: Five minutes before, we were just discussing Disney and going there.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 7: And where is the Squishpenny from?
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 8: The Magic Kingdom.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 7: Mm-hmm. That crazy train ride roller coaster is what the
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 7: Squishpenny commemorates. So that's just very odd, if you ask me.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 8: Yeah, there's a lot of weirdness going on there.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 7: Because, I mean... I immediately assumed you were able to
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 7: manifest things with your thoughts and talking about it. So
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 7: I was talking about having a million dollars, having a
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 7: million dollars. But so far, it has not just appeared
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 7: in front of me.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: So.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 7: It's not working right.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 8: It was the magic combination of all three in that
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 8: one spot that was like, I forgot we went to
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 8: the mystery spot.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 6: Oh my God.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 7: Which mystery spot?
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 8: The mystery spot in Santa Cruz, California.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 7: What goes on there?
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 8: A vortex of time and mysterious things.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 7: That sounds crazy.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 8: You've never heard of the mystery spot?
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 7: I don't know.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 8: It's one of those places where things that should grow
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 8: up go down and Like all the trees grow straight
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 8: except for the vortex of the mystery spot where they
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 8: all grow out away from it.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 10: Hmm.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 7: Is this in Gravity Falls?
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 8: I don't know. I've never seen Gravity Falls.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 3: God, that show's awesome.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 7: I keep getting sucked into it. I'm just like, man,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 7: it's so well written for a cartoon. But anyway, moving on.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 7: What is yours? What other crazy things go on in
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 7: your mystery spot?
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 8: The mystery spot?
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 8: Well, like I said, it's one of those where she'll
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 8: get a level out and she'll show you that the
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 8: thing is leveled. But then when you look at it,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 8: it looks like it's not level. It should go one way,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 8: but then she'll put a ball or water, and it'll
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 8: go the opposite.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 7: Way and go uphill.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 9: Magic.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 4: It is. It's spoopy.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 7: Craziness.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 8: It's just there's all kinds of, like, weird shit that
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 8: happens in the mystery spot, and it is glorious, and
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 8: we almost killed some people.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 7: That sounds about right.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 8: Tandem bikes on windy, twisty roads are not a great idea.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: Don't.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 8: I didn't hit anybody, and I wasn't driving.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 7: They let you two on a tandem bike?
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 8: No. There was tandem bike people in front of us.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 7: And you clotheslined them.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 8: No. It was a very windy road that goes like this.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 4: Woo, woo, woo.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 8: And there's cars. And when you're stuck behind somebody on
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 8: a tandem bike and you go to try to pass
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 8: them and a car comes flying around that corner and
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 8: you have to jerk back over and the jackass behind
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 8: you has been riding your ass for the past three
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 8: and a half miles, loses their goddamn minds and honks
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 8: at you. And I'm like, dude, do you want us
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 8: to run these people over? Which they probably did because
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 8: they were in a fucking hurry like nobody's business.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 7: Maybe so.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: So, yes.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 4: Mystery spot.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 8: Santa Cruz.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 4: California.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 8: Alright.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 7: There's your wrap up people.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 8: They gave me a free bumper sticker and I was
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 8: super excited.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 7: That having been said. Otherwise that about does it. We
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 7: will return next time. Same geek feed. Thanks for listening.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 5: Bye. Any old time you want me, I am yours.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 4: For just the asking, darling, any old time you.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 5: Need me, I'll be there.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 10: With love that's lasting, darling, all through.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 4: The years we'll stand together, sharing the tears and stormy weather.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 6: And the sunshine.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 8: We'll be yours.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 5: And mine.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 7: Any old time you're blue You'll have our love To
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 7: chase away.
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 6: The blues And any old thing you.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 8: Do I'll see you through So just.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 4: Remember that I am waiting there If ever.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 8: You want me I'll be.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 4: Near © BF-WATCH TV 2021.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: So I'm going back to what was the initial question?
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 3: I was just listening to what you were saying.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 4: Are you saying I'm straying off the subject?
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, no. It's been long enough. I've strayed
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: off the subject.
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 8: I'm meeting a Jolly Rancher.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 7: Oh, we've noticed.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 9: This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 9: edited by the Audity Studios, with opening music performed by
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 9: the Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 9: the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 6: Talk hard!
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 7: This program is a proud member of the Battleship Pretension Fleet.