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Transcript

Kirk Thatcher's Amazing Stories · Movie Meltdown

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hi, this is Warren Peterson.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: And you're listening to Movie Meltdown.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Movie Meltdown.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: It's showtime.
• 0:28
  Speaker 5: The following feature has been rated R by the Motion
• 0:31
  Speaker 5: Picture Association of America.
• 0:33
  Speaker 6: It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million.
• 0:42
  Speaker 5: Kilowatts of power. What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I'm Brian.
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: Hi, I'm Misty.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: And we're coming to you live from the outskirts of Wonderfest.
• 1:16
  Speaker 6: Hey, Wonderfest.
• 1:17
  Speaker 7: Misty, how's it going?
• 1:38
  Speaker 8: That's going pretty good.
• 1:40
  Speaker 7: And usually we'll talk about some sort of geeky things now.
• 1:45
  Speaker 8: Geeky things? Us crazy dogs.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:48
  Speaker 7: Or at least stuff we've seen.
• 1:49
  Speaker 8: We've seen things? Yeah, I didn't watch anything.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: What about you?
• 1:52
  Speaker 8: Did you watch things?
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: I did.
• 1:57
  Speaker 8: You sound confused.
• 1:58
  Speaker 7: I watched one on the Netflix and it was a random, again,
• 2:02
  Speaker 7: sometimes you like spin the wheel and be like, huh,
• 2:05
  Speaker 7: what's that? And then you go, okay, this sounds sort
• 2:07
  Speaker 7: of interesting. And I did that recently with a time
• 2:10
  Speaker 7: travel movie. And it was awesome. And it was like,
• 2:13
  Speaker 7: that one was great. So I'm like, all right, there's
• 2:16
  Speaker 7: another one that came up. And I was like, okay,
• 2:21
  Speaker 7: what roped me in? And it's not her fault because
• 2:25
  Speaker 7: I specifically went in. And I'm like, hey, Zoe Bell.
• 2:28
  Speaker 7: I like Zoe Bell.
• 2:30
  Speaker 8: She can do some pretty awesome things.
• 2:32
  Speaker 7: She's very cool. And this was a time travel movies.
• 2:35
  Speaker 7: I'm like, these are all good things.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 2:37
  Speaker 8: What could possibly go wrong?
• 2:39
  Speaker 7: It's called Paradox. And it's that's the thing. It's one
• 2:43
  Speaker 7: of those. It's frustrating because I feel like the story
• 2:46
  Speaker 7: is not badly put together. Like, surprisingly, for a low
• 2:50
  Speaker 7: budget thing, the writer actually sat down and they got
• 2:54
  Speaker 7: themselves the cork board. And the strings and the pins. Oh, Lord. Like,
• 2:58
  Speaker 7: it really, like, it all, like, the weird stuff that
• 3:00
  Speaker 7: happens in the time travel aspect of it all makes
• 3:04
  Speaker 7: sense at the end. Like, if you watch it, it
• 3:06
  Speaker 7: does tie itself back together and all, but it doesn't
• 3:08
  Speaker 7: leave tons of loose ends. It isn't just, like, they
• 3:11
  Speaker 7: go down one road and then abandon that and move on. Like,
• 3:14
  Speaker 7: it all ties together and is well done. Now, here's
• 3:16
  Speaker 7: the thing. Zoey Bell's fine in it. The other people,
• 3:21
  Speaker 7: I've never seen in anything before. And then you know why. Like,
• 3:24
  Speaker 7: it's like, She does fine, but I'm like, have you
• 3:28
  Speaker 7: acted in anything before? It just feels very off and amateur.
• 3:34
  Speaker 7: It's just all of the other people involved. It's like,
• 3:37
  Speaker 7: this is why. The special effects also come into question
• 3:42
  Speaker 7: towards the end. Again, it's a bigger scope than they
• 3:46
  Speaker 7: have budget for. So I kind of allow for that.
• 3:49
  Speaker 7: There's a close-up CG shot that is a straight-up cartoon. But,
• 3:53
  Speaker 7: you know, like that's the one I will forgive. I'm like, well,
• 3:56
  Speaker 7: you're telling a big sci-fi type of story that usually
• 4:00
  Speaker 7: takes a budget. You don't have one. I can let
• 4:02
  Speaker 7: that slide where you need to take that extra money
• 4:04
  Speaker 7: that you didn't spend on CG and special effects is
• 4:07
  Speaker 7: put it in the hiring other actors because you got
• 4:11
  Speaker 7: the one that had the name. You did the, you know,
• 4:13
  Speaker 7: the selling your pitch to somebody down the line. But
• 4:16
  Speaker 7: then you needed to bring in an extra grade or
• 4:19
  Speaker 7: two up on the rest of the cast because I
• 4:20
  Speaker 7: was not thrilled with the rest of those actors. Because
• 4:23
  Speaker 7: it even had little moments. And I'm like, in a
• 4:25
  Speaker 7: better movie, that little gimmick that you're using there would
• 4:28
  Speaker 7: be an interesting character treat with somebody that has character.
• 4:32
  Speaker 7: But these people don't have any characters. So it's like
• 4:35
  Speaker 7: the writing tried to throw these little aspects in. And
• 4:38
  Speaker 7: it's kind of iffy the way that's done. And then
• 4:41
  Speaker 7: on top of that, the actors just do not deliver.
• 4:43
  Speaker 7: So it's watchable if you like sci-fi. If you like
• 4:47
  Speaker 7: the time travel thing, I'd say it's worth watching just
• 4:50
  Speaker 7: to see what they do with it. be prepared to
• 4:53
  Speaker 7: not be thrilled with some performances and special effects.
• 4:58
  Speaker 8: I think I'm going to skip on to whatever movie
• 4:59
  Speaker 8: is next on my Netflix queue.
• 5:02
  Speaker 9: It's watchable.
• 5:02
  Speaker 7: I didn't even give it a horrible starred review because
• 5:05
  Speaker 7: I'm like, I didn't hate it. There's plenty of things
• 5:07
  Speaker 7: out there I hate worse. It's very serviceable as a
• 5:11
  Speaker 7: low-budget movie goes.
• 5:12
  Speaker 8: It's no hashtag horror.
• 5:15
  Speaker 7: It's no hashtag horror. Have you watched that yet?
• 5:17
  Speaker 9: Nope.
• 5:17
  Speaker 8: It's on the Netflix. You best watch it. Whatever it's
• 5:20
  Speaker 8: all about, it is later because I probably will Because
• 5:22
  Speaker 8: that's now the new cornerstone or the new bar for
• 5:26
  Speaker 8: shitty movies. Or movies that I just want to punch
• 5:30
  Speaker 8: is that movie. So you should watch it so that
• 5:32
  Speaker 8: when I reference it, you'll be like, oh, yeah.
• 5:36
  Speaker 9: I probably will.
• 5:37
  Speaker 7: If I get around to it. It's not that I
• 5:38
  Speaker 7: won't watch just about anything. It's just whether or not
• 5:40
  Speaker 7: I have time. And then this last week, I watched
• 5:45
  Speaker 7: The Vich.
• 5:46
  Speaker 8: The Vich.
• 5:47
  Speaker 7: They wrote it that way? Damn it. I mean, they
• 5:49
  Speaker 7: got to know smartasses like me are going to continually
• 5:51
  Speaker 7: call it The Vich.
• 5:52
  Speaker 8: So it's I don't think I would like it from
• 5:56
  Speaker 8: what I've heard. I've heard it's kind of slowish.
• 5:58
  Speaker 7: It is slow. Well, I mean, it takes place in
• 6:01
  Speaker 7: that time. And those people and like those people have
• 6:04
  Speaker 7: nothing else but this little farm by themselves and their family.
• 6:08
  Speaker 7: And that's it. Like and it is one of those
• 6:10
  Speaker 7: like like they do a decent job like. There's a
• 6:14
  Speaker 7: weird little aspect between the brother and sister.
• 6:16
  Speaker 8: Like, weird kind of? Kind of.
• 6:18
  Speaker 7: But, like, it's one of those, like, you feel bad. Like,
• 6:21
  Speaker 7: the brother's hitting that point, you know? He's, like, he's
• 6:23
  Speaker 7: hitting the summer where, oh, things seem different now. And, like,
• 6:27
  Speaker 7: the only other person around him, like, they don't live
• 6:31
  Speaker 7: even in a village. Like, they are off by themselves.
• 6:33
  Speaker 7: The only other person... around his age, is his sister.
• 6:37
  Speaker 7: So it's like, I'm like, it's not his fault. It's
• 6:39
  Speaker 7: his damn parents' fault if they take him to a
• 6:40
  Speaker 7: city where he could meet some girls and be interested
• 6:44
  Speaker 7: in girls that he's supposed to be interested in. So
• 6:46
  Speaker 7: they really, they don't go very far down that road,
• 6:48
  Speaker 7: but they play it enough that I'm like, I'm not
• 6:50
  Speaker 7: even sure.
• 6:51
  Speaker 8: Just to make it a little creepy. Just to, yeah.
• 6:52
  Speaker 7: It's like, I'm not even sure where they were going
• 6:54
  Speaker 7: because I kind of expected them to follow through on
• 6:56
  Speaker 7: that plot line and like see a little something that
• 6:58
  Speaker 7: kind of comes out of it.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: At least like.
• 7:00
  Speaker 8: I don't want to see what comes out of that.
• 7:01
  Speaker 7: Not that angle. I'm just saying like character development wise,
• 7:05
  Speaker 7: it's like maybe that's why some things are happening or
• 7:07
  Speaker 7: maybe he feels, you know, weird and guilty or she's.
• 7:10
  Speaker 7: appalled by it but like we really don't even get
• 7:12
  Speaker 7: that far down the road it's just like that weird
• 7:14
  Speaker 7: little aspect comes in yeah it's like they kind of
• 7:16
  Speaker 7: just sort of throw it out there and it's a
• 7:19
  Speaker 7: thing and then other things happen and we don't really
• 7:22
  Speaker 7: get a chance to address that so i don't know
• 7:23
  Speaker 7: i thought that was a weird aspect that i'm like
• 7:26
  Speaker 7: again i'm like i felt bad for the brother i'm
• 7:27
  Speaker 7: like it's not his fault and she's cute what do
• 7:30
  Speaker 7: you She's odd looking.
• 7:31
  Speaker 8: She's a model. As long as she's cute, that makes
• 7:33
  Speaker 8: it okay.
• 7:33
  Speaker 7: I think so. It's interesting looking. And then I looked
• 7:38
  Speaker 7: it up. She's a model. So it's Anya Taylor-Joy is
• 7:42
  Speaker 7: her name. She is kind of the find of the movie.
• 7:44
  Speaker 7: The parents do a decent job, but they're just kind
• 7:46
  Speaker 7: of old-timey people, and they're doing their thing. She ends
• 7:51
  Speaker 7: up sort of focusing on her, and she does sort
• 7:54
  Speaker 7: of own the movie, so... It takes a turn at
• 7:57
  Speaker 7: the last third or so. Is she a witch? It's
• 8:02
  Speaker 7: not what I saw coming.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: Is she a.
• 8:04
  Speaker 7: Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv So, yeah, it's just, it's one of those, like,
• 8:27
  Speaker 7: I started writing my own ending, and by the end
• 8:29
  Speaker 7: I was like, maybe I need to go make this movie,
• 8:31
  Speaker 7: because I kind of like the way my, I think
• 8:33
  Speaker 7: my ending becomes a little more like.
• 8:35
  Speaker 8: A movie?
• 8:37
  Speaker 7: Well, probably more American, yay, I want it to end
• 8:39
  Speaker 7: this way, where that one ends a little more arthouse. So, yeah,
• 8:45
  Speaker 7: I'm like, well, I guess I'm just going to have
• 8:46
  Speaker 7: to make my Vovich movie now.
• 8:48
  Speaker 8: Again at arthouse, you lost me again.
• 8:49
  Speaker 7: I have to, I have to. It looks nice.
• 8:53
  Speaker 8: I am too lowbrow for highbrow.
• 8:54
  Speaker 7: There's a creepy goat in it. You like creepy goats, right?
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: No, I don't.
• 8:57
  Speaker 8: I like baby goats and miniature goats, like dwarf goats.
• 9:00
  Speaker 8: Is it a miniature dwarf goat? Because I'd be all
• 9:02
  Speaker 8: about that.
• 9:02
  Speaker 7: Yeah, he's kind of a normal-sized goat.
• 9:04
  Speaker 8: Remember the goats we saw at the fair that one
• 9:06
  Speaker 8: year at the freak show? They were like tiny little
• 9:08
  Speaker 8: midget dwarf goats, and they were the cutest thing ever,
• 9:10
  Speaker 8: and I wanted to shove one in my pocket and
• 9:12
  Speaker 8: sneak out.
• 9:13
  Speaker 7: Because it was that tiny.
• 9:14
  Speaker 8: It was itty-bitty. I've had cats that are bigger than that.
• 9:19
  Speaker 7: Oh, crazy miniature goats.
• 9:21
  Speaker 8: Goats creep me out now, kind of, really. They smell.
• 9:24
  Speaker 7: He's pretty creepy, though. They work in this goat character.
• 9:27
  Speaker 7: He's got more character than some of those two little
• 9:29
  Speaker 7: other kids in there. Family is lame. But, yeah, it's interesting,
• 9:33
  Speaker 7: and it's funny. It does kind of, like, start to
• 9:36
  Speaker 7: weave its way into the pop culture because after I
• 9:39
  Speaker 7: saw it, one of the people that I'm friends with
• 9:42
  Speaker 7: on Facebook was doing a drawing of the goat, and, like,
• 9:45
  Speaker 7: it's a creepy drawing of the goat. I'm like, that's cool.
• 9:49
  Speaker 7: It's already worked its way in.
• 9:50
  Speaker 8: Those drawings of goats are pretty creepy.
• 9:52
  Speaker 7: Goats are pretty creepy. That's their thing, man. That's why
• 9:56
  Speaker 7: they hang out with Satan and whatnot.
• 9:57
  Speaker 8: Exactly.
• 9:59
  Speaker 7: But yeah, so it's definitely worth seeing if you like
• 10:03
  Speaker 7: that type of stuff. I don't know that you'll be... Again,
• 10:06
  Speaker 7: I think it's one of those that's just kind of...
• 10:08
  Speaker 7: It's all or nothing on the way it ends.
• 10:10
  Speaker 8: I don't think I'll like it. I'm going to skip
• 10:11
  Speaker 8: this one.
• 10:11
  Speaker 7: I'm still kind of on the fence. Like, I see
• 10:13
  Speaker 7: why it's a decent ending, but I want to write
• 10:17
  Speaker 7: my dumb American ending.
• 10:19
  Speaker 8: Go for it. your super 16 camera out 16 millimeters
• 10:26
  Speaker 8: that the guy was talking about that we watched earlier
• 10:29
  Speaker 8: that I'm not knowing what I'm talking about now because
• 10:31
  Speaker 8: you all have no idea what I'm talking about.
• 10:33
  Speaker 7: A camera.
• 10:34
  Speaker 8: A camera.
• 10:35
  Speaker 7: They use a camera and they shoot movies.
• 10:37
  Speaker 8: You can do that.
• 10:39
  Speaker 7: If you can get the budget because as I've previously
• 10:42
  Speaker 7: mentioned low budgets lead to troubles. It can be good.
• 10:48
  Speaker 7: I've seen stuff made for super cheap that's awesome but
• 10:51
  Speaker 7: Sometimes that's where the problems lie.
• 10:54
  Speaker 8: If a movie looks cheap, I'm just like, oh, no.
• 10:56
  Speaker 7: That's what I'm saying. It does hinder you as telling
• 11:00
  Speaker 7: your story. Aside from Clerks.
• 11:01
  Speaker 8: Clerks was okay, but anything that I look at and
• 11:03
  Speaker 8: it looks cheap, I'm like, no, you just need to
• 11:05
  Speaker 8: stop right now because I am not feeling this.
• 11:08
  Speaker 7: It's hard to make it come off as a movie
• 11:11
  Speaker 7: if it feels slapped together.
• 11:14
  Speaker 8: Anything that looks cheap or like it's in the 60s
• 11:15
  Speaker 8: or 70s.
• 11:17
  Speaker 7: I keep telling you those are good movies.
• 11:19
  Speaker 8: I can't get past the way it looks.
• 11:20
  Speaker 7: Those are like some of my favorite movies. That's like
• 11:23
  Speaker 7: such an awesome era.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: Especially 70s.
• 11:25
  Speaker 7: 60s, it's changing. Slowly changing. Late 60s gets closer to
• 11:30
  Speaker 7: the 70s. But 70s, man, gloves are off. Things are crazy.
• 11:35
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I didn't watch anything else. I've been slacking. Got
• 11:38
  Speaker 8: caught up on the season finale of Supernatural. That's about
• 11:42
  Speaker 8: all I got.
• 11:44
  Speaker 7: Every time I see the commercial come on, I'm like, God,
• 11:46
  Speaker 7: that show's still on?
• 11:47
  Speaker 8: I know, me too, and I watch it regularly.
• 11:49
  Speaker 7: I like those guys and all, but aren't they cashing
• 11:52
  Speaker 7: retirement checks by now or something? How long have they
• 11:54
  Speaker 7: been driving around looking for ghosts and demons?
• 11:56
  Speaker 8: This is like their 11th season that they just wrapped up,
• 11:58
  Speaker 8: I think. How are there any demons left?
• 12:01
  Speaker 7: You'd think by now.
• 12:02
  Speaker 8: They've been hunting demons for 11 fucking years. I mean, seriously. Anyways,
• 12:06
  Speaker 8: there's just certain characters that I'm just like, oh, make
• 12:08
  Speaker 8: them stop already, and they make the most annoying characters regulars.
• 12:12
  Speaker 7: They've got to fill a lot of episodes now.
• 12:14
  Speaker 8: Crowley. Seriously, I don't like Crowley. His mom. Why do
• 12:19
  Speaker 8: you need the king of hell's mom to show up?
• 12:23
  Speaker 10: What?
• 12:23
  Speaker 7: They've got a lot of episodes to fill.
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: Rowena.
• 12:27
  Speaker 8: That's her name. Crowley's mom, Rowena. The most annoying character
• 12:31
  Speaker 8: in the history of characters. First of all, she's a
• 12:34
  Speaker 8: soulless jinter. That's not helping her case at all. She
• 12:38
  Speaker 8: has an accent. You know me in accents.
• 12:41
  Speaker 7: But you don't follow through with any of these things.
• 12:44
  Speaker 8: That's on the accent. I don't like Scottish accents, but
• 12:46
  Speaker 8: I like British accents. But only certain British accents. I
• 12:48
  Speaker 8: don't like certain dialects of it.
• 12:49
  Speaker 7: And then every once in a while, you'll like a redhead.
• 12:52
  Speaker 7: You're a weird character.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: You know that.
• 12:54
  Speaker 8: Which redhead do I like?
• 12:56
  Speaker 7: How about Alicia Vitt?
• 12:58
  Speaker 8: That was a long time ago.
• 12:59
  Speaker 7: That's what I'm saying, though.
• 13:00
  Speaker 8: Every once in a while, one breaks through. That was
• 13:01
  Speaker 8: before my aversion to redheads. So I think she wins.
• 13:05
  Speaker 8: I'll give you Karen Gillan, though.
• 13:07
  Speaker 9: See?
• 13:07
  Speaker 7: She's super awesome.
• 13:09
  Speaker 8: But she's not like a ginger ginger. She's like just
• 13:11
  Speaker 8: a redhead. There's a difference. We're not going to get
• 13:15
  Speaker 8: into it. But there is a difference between redheads and gingers.
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: She's a redhead.
• 13:21
  Speaker 7: She loves everyone.
• 13:22
  Speaker 9: Don't buy this crazy talk.
• 13:24
  Speaker 8: Bitch, please. Ain't nobody out there buying that shit. Quit
• 13:27
  Speaker 8: trying to peddle it.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 13:32
  Speaker 7: I say right now we take a break. And then
• 13:34
  Speaker 7: when we come back, we will talk with this week's guest.
• 13:37
  Speaker 10: Yay.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: Yay.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: In the shadows Cheer the gallows.
• 13:52
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• 16:03
  Speaker 7: This is PJ Souls and you are totally listening to
• 16:06
  Speaker 7: Movie Meltdown.
• 16:15
  Speaker 8: It's part of your problem, you know.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: You haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: answered in the movies. And now, on with the show.
• 16:56
  Speaker 7: And now we're going to talk with Kirk Thatcher. Now,
• 16:58
  Speaker 7: if you aren't familiar with Kirk, well, I'm sure you've
• 17:00
  Speaker 7: seen some examples of his work. Mostly because he's done
• 17:04
  Speaker 7: it all. He's been a writer, director, producer, effects man,
• 17:07
  Speaker 7: creature creator, puppeteer, personal assistant. You name it, Kirk has
• 17:11
  Speaker 7: done it. And as I found out, as he recounts
• 17:14
  Speaker 7: just some of his stories... He's led what I'd say
• 17:17
  Speaker 7: is one of the most interesting lives in the entertainment industry.
• 17:21
  Speaker 7: But maybe that's my opinion. Maybe that's just me. I'd
• 17:25
  Speaker 7: say you listen and decide for yourself. This is Kirk Thatcher. So,
• 17:37
  Speaker 7: you were actually born in Los Angeles?
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, born in Los Angeles, Santa Monica.
• 17:42
  Speaker 7: And do you... Again, sometimes I was one of the
• 17:46
  Speaker 7: guys earlier I was talking to just had seen you
• 17:49
  Speaker 7: talk earlier and was thinking like if he had, because
• 17:53
  Speaker 7: he was from here, and he was like if he
• 17:54
  Speaker 7: had placement, if he had access to it, he thought
• 17:57
  Speaker 7: he would have a better shot at it. Do you
• 17:59
  Speaker 7: think if he would have lived somewhere else, you still
• 18:01
  Speaker 7: would have ended up doing what you do? Or did
• 18:03
  Speaker 7: that help a lot?
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: Well, I think it's a good question, and I've said this.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Growing up in L.A., particularly the age group I'm in,
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: you kind of knew that you could make, I had
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: neighbors and friends and people. I went to school. These
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: parents worked in the film industry. I didn't know anyone
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: who made monsters or even spaceships or, but I met a,
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: a friend of mine in junior high. His dad knew
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: the head of special effects at Disney. And, um, we
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: met him. Danny Lee was his name. He'd done the,
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: the squid for 20,000 leagues. So, you know, he just
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: knew it was a possible job. It's funny. Cause I
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: have friends from all over the country that have moved
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: to LA or that I meet on, you know, traveling
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: around and, uh, and they say, yeah, I grew up
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: in Pennsylvania. I grew up in Idaho. I grew up
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: in Kentucky. And, you know, they would say, I want
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: to work in movies and their friends or family would go, yeah,
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: it's crazy. It's not a real job and it isn't
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: a real job, but you can see, you know, people
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: who do do it. Uh, my next door neighbors, the
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: last friends I grew up with, their dad had his
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: own little production company in Burbank, like three offices with
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: little movie. I was, and he cut movie trailers. He
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: was a composer, but he built his own little post-production facility.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: but he'd worked at Disney. In fact, he met his wife.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: My friend's mom was a secretary there to Walt and, uh,
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: and he was a composer. He actually knew the, um,
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: the brothers, the Sherman brothers. And then they knew him
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: as I was talking to, uh, the last remaining Sherman
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: brother a few months ago. And, and we were talking
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: about his name was Jaime Mendoza Nava and he was
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: a composer. And so, yeah, it was, it was a,
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: not a crazy pipe dream.
• 19:33
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: My parents tried to talk me out of it. My grandmother, uh,
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: my step-grandmother, she married my grandfather when I guess I
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: was a year old, had been a screenwriter. She was
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: the first woman screenwriter in the Writers Guild, Virginia Kellogg.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: And so... we never talked. I didn't really know that
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: until I was an adult. She was just my grandmother,
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: and she was very sophisticated and smoked cigarettes and... you know,
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: seemed like she was a woman of, of, you know,
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: woman of the world. Yeah. She literally, she had dated
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: J Paul Getty. She knew the Hearst family. Uh, and
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: she was very, very, which, and she married my grandfather
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: cause I think she finally won. I think she'd been
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: married three times, twice at least I know, but she
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: wanted a nice guy who would just settle down in
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: her retirement. And that was my grandfather's a lovely, sweet guy. But, um,
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: she told my mom, talk him out of it, just
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: do everything you can to convince him. But I started
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: working at Lucasfilm at 18 and she said, well, If
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: he can pull that hat trick off, then he's got
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: what it takes because you have to have that sort
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: of monomaniacal drive. And, you know, I didn't date. I
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: didn't date really until when I was working at Lucasfilm.
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: I think I had one girlfriend and I spent my weekends,
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: you know, other people are dating and having fun going
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: to the beach. I was making models and monsters and.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: So but that's what I want to do. Nobody put
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: a gun to my head. My brother was out surfing
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: and dating girls and having a loser. Yeah, I know. Well,
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: and I didn't have the looks for it. I had
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: bad skin and greasy hair. And so and I but
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: I didn't care. It's like I kind of felt bad
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: because I get crushes on girls. But I was like, oh, well,
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: I've got monsters and movies and, you know, sculpting and
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: modeling and drawing. There's so many things I wanted to do,
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: which is what I love about filmmaking is.
• 21:13
  Speaker 7: It's everything.
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: All the arts.
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: From visual dance, dance, music, movement, directing, lighting, anything, any
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: of the visual, any of the arts, really not even
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: just visual writing. It's all compressed into one medium.
• 21:26
  Speaker 7: I've always, I've always said that.
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:28
  Speaker 7: Everybody wants to like compare books to movies and all that.
• 21:31
  Speaker 7: I'm like, yeah, they're all impressive in their own right.
• 21:33
  Speaker 7: But I'm like, film is like almost the only one
• 21:36
  Speaker 7: that combines everything. And you have to coordinate it between hundreds,
• 21:40
  Speaker 7: thousands of people depending on the size of the production.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: It's amazing. That's the up and the downside. You know, people,
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: the auteur theory, the people that one guy makes a
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: movie is complete fantasy. I mean, unless you're an animator
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: and you're doing it at home or, you know, at
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: some studio. Aside from that, you know, you're working with
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: a bunch of people and, you know, the Spielbergs and
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: the Lucases and the Camerons. have crews of 200, 300
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: top notch people they've handpicked to make them look good.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: And then, you know, it's payback. If you work on
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: a camera and you work on avatar, you're going to
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: have a, you won't have trouble finding work.
• 22:15
  Speaker 7: Not so much.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: So yeah, it's a, it's an industry that involves pretty
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: much every creative aspect. I think I don't, I can't
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: think of one that it doesn't.
• 22:25
  Speaker 7: Well that early, I mean, by the time you were,
• 22:28
  Speaker 7: you know, 18 already doing that stuff.
• 22:30
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 22:30
  Speaker 7: I think you even referenced how much earlier, like how
• 22:33
  Speaker 7: early was it that you were making that stuff?
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: I started about 10, 11, 12. I mean, buying model kits,
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: you know, eight, nine, 10 drawings since I was three
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: or four reading science fiction fantasy since I could read.
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: And I was a good, I was a, my mom
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: was a teacher. So she made sure my brother and
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: I read and could read. I was reading at four
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: and five. Um, and I remember her telling me when
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: I was adult, they tested, you know, they do these
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: tests in third and fourth grade and I was reading
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: college level. And it was because I read science fiction.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: There was big thoughts and big ideas and big words. And,
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: you know, I was curious. It was just my natural
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: curiosity about the world. I love science and I love
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: science fiction, you know, because it was all learning about stuff.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: And then I loved making my own creature, you know,
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: reading about real creatures and making up my own.
• 23:15
  Speaker 7: How did you start? Were you doing latex that early
• 23:18
  Speaker 7: on or what was the first way?
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: Well, originally it was just clay and, you know, model
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: kits where it was all kind of pre-built, you know, pre-made.
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: You just glue it together and paint it. And then
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: I started probably in my late, later teens maybe 15
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: 16 uh buying latex i remember my birthday present was
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: always to go to a company called bjb i think
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: plastics and go buy like a gallon of urethane or
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: you know a gallon of latex plaster.
• 23:44
  Speaker 7: Again a little easier exit that was mine i remember
• 23:47
  Speaker 7: being interested in it but not knowing how to do
• 23:49
  Speaker 7: it at all so every year at halloween it was
• 23:50
  Speaker 7: just like what do i need when i get some
• 23:52
  Speaker 7: because that was the only time a year you could
• 23:54
  Speaker 7: get it in the rest of the world so It's
• 23:56
  Speaker 7: like I'm buying up makeup kits and then messing with
• 23:58
  Speaker 7: them and doing them wrong.
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: This is back in the 70s. There wasn't any creature
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: maker shop. Now there's shops that sell it. So you
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: had to have a car and your mom or you
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: had to drive to an industrial supply to get the cement,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: the plaster, which was a hydrocal or ultracal. Then you
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: had to go to a dental supply to get the
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: release agents and the dental acrylic. And then you had
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: to go to some weird prop house or something to
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: get the latex or send away for it. Then the
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: urethane you got from BJB and Santa Monica. So you
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: would spend two days just getting all the stuff and
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: then destroy your garage sink, not realizing you're not supposed
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: to pour it. Half-cured plaster down a sink.
• 24:38
  Speaker 7: Oops.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: Luckily, it wasn't the one with the garbage disposal.
• 24:42
  Speaker 7: Well, when you get into ILM, it's... I mean, again,
• 24:46
  Speaker 7: you were a kid of that era.
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:48
  Speaker 7: That had to be a dream come true. I mean,
• 24:50
  Speaker 7: you were from... Because you came in at the third one, right?
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: It was all for Jedi.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:54
  Speaker 7: So, I mean, that's... You'd experience the amazing phenomenon that
• 24:58
  Speaker 7: was Star Wars, follow up with Empire, and then you're
• 25:01
  Speaker 7: in the middle of it.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: Well, part of it was you've heard the term monster
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: kid that Bob Burns... coined, well, all the guys who were,
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: you know, the core of ILM started it, were only
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: about 10 years older than I was.
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: And I was so, like, one and a half, I'm
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: the end of the baby boom, beginning of Gen X,
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: I'm kind of like one leg in both.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: Because, like, I like, you know, Crosby, Stills, and Nash,
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: and I like the Ramones, so.
• 25:23
  Speaker 7: That's good.
• 25:23
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. Now I look like Crosby, and I listen
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: to the Ramones. But, so, they were all monster kids,
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: and so it was funny, because I was the only
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: kid I knew who was like me. Yeah. And, there
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: were no mag, you know, Cinefantastic, there were movie magazines
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: and there was one thing called Cinemagic, which came out
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: once a year. Yeah. Put out by a guy, I
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: think in Delaware or Baltimore.
• 25:45
  Speaker 7: I remember finding those at the comic shop and like.
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: It was huge for me. Yeah. And, and so that was,
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: and I'd met Johnny Chambers who had a little shop
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: in Burbank through, I think, you know, I'd go to
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: these conventions and meet people and said, Oh, you know,
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: you should meet John Chambers. I'm like, well, how do
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: I meet him? And Craig Reardon was lovely, lovely to me. Uh,
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: I found him through Cinemagic, And I literally just looked
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: his number up. I called information and said, do you
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: have a Craig Ridden? And he luckily was living in
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: LA in the Valley. And I got his number and
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: I think I just cold called him and said, hi,
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: I read your article and, you know, cinema, cinema magic.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: And I, back then again, monster making, it wasn't a
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: big thing. There weren't conventions and, and, you know, Rick
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: Baker had just done Kong and, you know, so he
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: was the only guy Dick Smith and Rick Baker were
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: the two names.
• 26:29
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: And Tom Savini was just starting to come about. Um,
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: So Craig was really helpful and gave me like names
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: and addresses of places that sold stuff. And then he,
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: I forgot how I got John Chambers. Oh, you know
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: what it was? I went to the universal makeup show
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: and talked to Keith, Vern Langdon and Keith Crary. And, uh, they,
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: I think told me about John. That was in the 75, 76.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: They had a monster makeup show and I read famous
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: monsters and Forry Ackerman. So all that stuff was in LA.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: So it was crazy. But there was bookstores in Hollywood
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: that sold, you know, the one makeup book. And you
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: can go to 4A Ackerman's and see there's King Kong's armature.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: And there's, you know, there's the makeup from the Morlocks
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: and from Time Machine. So, again, it was weird. Like
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: I said, all of my jobs have been odd jobs.
• 27:18
  Speaker 7: And L.A.
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: Is an odd town that, you know, because it's an
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: industry town and that was the industry. Go back to
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: your first question. It seemed doable and you could at
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: least look at things.
• 27:27
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: Kids growing up elsewhere.
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: It was a complete, I mean, now with the internet, anyone, anywhere,
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: you know, I have people contacting me from Italy and
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: Croatia and Romania, you know, showing me their sculptures and
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: they're like amazing because they can now see, you know,
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: that was the thing about, so anyway, ILM was filled
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: with all these monster kids. They're about eight to 10
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: years older than I was. So I felt like, oh
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: my God, I've died and gone to heaven. I'm not
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: the weirdo.
• 27:49
  Speaker 7: That's the thing. It's like, that's the difference now. It's like,
• 27:52
  Speaker 7: Even when I was a kid, it was like I
• 27:54
  Speaker 7: was kind of alone in my school. It's like the
• 27:57
  Speaker 7: dorky things I liked rarely did other people get into.
• 27:59
  Speaker 7: And I think now we have that weird internet connection
• 28:02
  Speaker 7: that people don't feel alone. You don't feel like the
• 28:04
  Speaker 7: outsider in the world anymore.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: And there's these shows, Face Off and Creature Shop Challenge.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: And now I've got kid 12-year-old girls asking me and
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: their parents going, hey, would you come and talk at
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: my daughter's school?
• 28:16
  Speaker 7: Which is awesome, really.
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but I mean it's so ubiquitous. And so there
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: for the taking, just Google it. So part of that
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: is you don't need the drive that we had to
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: find it. You just literally type in a word or
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: two and you find it. You still have to drive
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: to do it.
• 28:33
  Speaker 7: Now you're fighting against a million other people.
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: Well, that's the problem now, especially with practical creature effects.
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: There's a million people learning how to do it, and
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: the college is teaching it, and there's less jobs than
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: there was.
• 28:44
  Speaker 7: They're just throwing them out into the workplace, and there
• 28:46
  Speaker 7: are no jobs.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: There's no jobs, yeah. So we're going to have a
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: lot of.
• 28:50
  Speaker 7: People starting more schools is what I hear.
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: Accountants and bus drivers who can sculpt, yeah.
• 28:53
  Speaker 7: Everybody just, oh, well, I'm starting my own makeup school.
• 28:56
  Speaker 7: And then they bring more. It's like just perpetually getting
• 28:58
  Speaker 7: worse and worse.
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: Well, that's the joke. When the industry dies, then the
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: people make a living teaching it to people who won't
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: make a living doing it. And not to discourage anybody,
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: but it's just, you know, I also was the right
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: age to grow up and work in the heyday of
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: makeup effects. You know, starting with Jedi and Dark Crystal
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: and those things going all the way through about the mid-90s. Gremlins,
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: you know, and I got to work on a lot
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: of them. Gremlins 1 and 2 and Star Trek's and
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: the E.T. and the E.T. and the Star Trek's and
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: I'm sounding old. So it was also timing. You know,
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: if you're a kid now, if you're 19 years old now,
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: I don't know what, you know, they're just not making
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: a lot of, you know, there's some TV shows that
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: have makeup effects.
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: And there's, you know, a few movies, but it's just
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: not the heyday where there were like 12 shops in L.A.
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: And every guy who worked for Rick Baker went off
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: and started their own shop and, you know, and did
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: two movies. It wasn't like sat with the throttle of
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: their thumbs. They were busy. So it's like computer graphics
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: now where there's everyone and their brother starting a CG shop. And,
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: you know, all racing to the bottom to undercut each other.
• 30:02
  Speaker 7: Yeah. And then again, the audience has gotten to the
• 30:05
  Speaker 7: point they don't care anymore. It either has to be
• 30:07
  Speaker 7: top quality or they don't want anything to do with
• 30:09
  Speaker 7: it or they laugh at anything that's less than.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 30:11
  Speaker 7: So it's such a, it's such a like, you're almost
• 30:14
  Speaker 7: losing the whole, you know, it's a losing proposition either way, really.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: Well, no one says my dad said beats digging ditches.
• 30:22
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I suppose.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: But it's, you know, the good thing about all of
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: this is it's inspired people to be creative. Because we
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: don't have arts training in our schools anymore. And because
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: of all the information on the internet, you can learn
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: how to oil paint, sculpt, make a movie, make a monster,
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: animate something. And it's all free. There's training in schools.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: But if you just want to dabble in it to
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: find out if you like it, you can find out.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: I learned ZBrush by watching free videos on YouTube. And
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: then finally took a class, but I knew enough to
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: know that I was interested in it. As opposed to,
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: I'm going to spend $ 400 or whatever it is, $ 500
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: on a piece of software that wow i don't it's
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: i don't like it i.
• 30:57
  Speaker 7: So i felt that with the arts in general like
• 31:00
  Speaker 7: it always seems weird doing tons of schooling for the
• 31:03
  Speaker 7: arts it's like you can get the basics like you
• 31:06
  Speaker 7: have to figure out what you want to do maybe
• 31:07
  Speaker 7: but the people that just spend years and years pumping
• 31:10
  Speaker 7: money into artistic training when i'm like you either do
• 31:14
  Speaker 7: it or you don't you have to kind of create
• 31:16
  Speaker 7: what is you're gonna do and.
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: The arts is a weird yeah i mean weird bill
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: stout was uh I just dropped a name there. William Stout,
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: the artist.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: You can wave to him. He has a great thing
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: on his blog about the industry and working in it
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: and what he tells people. Like he said, he's not bitter.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: It's just true. It's a tough business. But he says,
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: one of his quotes is, don't go to film school.
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: He was talking about film specifically. Go be a PA
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: on any movie, TV show you can get on. You
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: will learn more in a year of that than you
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: will in four years of film school. And you'll save
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: 80 grand. if you're lucky. And that's the truth. Now,
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: if you want to learn to be a computer programmer,
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: you have to go to school or at least buy
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: some books.
• 31:59
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: Well, if you want to be a lawyer, a doctor,
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: there's things you have to.
• 32:01
  Speaker 7: Go to school for. There's a handful of things you
• 32:03
  Speaker 7: should do a good amount of schooling.
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: Yes, you should learn from other people.
• 32:04
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: But being an artist, you know, is usually trying to
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: think outside of the box. Now, there's artists and there's
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: technicians and it's a very gray area between the two.
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: And I think, you know, half of the jobs are
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: technician jobs. And you need to have an eye. You
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: need to be an artist in that way. But a
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: lot of it, you know, being a grip and being
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: a lighting guy, unless you're the head lighting guy, you're
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: moving lights and rolling dollies around. But even a dolly grip, which,
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: you know, is sort of made fun of. But those
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: guys are artists. Like, you have a bad dolly. Trust me,
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: if you've got a non-union dolly grip who doesn't know
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: how to feather a dolly into a shot, I've had this.
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: I've had this on a couple of projects. And you're
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: just trying to do a nice dolly shot, follow the actors.
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: On take eight, you know, the actor's ready to punch
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: the guy because he just can't. you know, hit a
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: mark and he overshoots the mark or he's later. And
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: the real guys feather it and feel they're watching. They're
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: not just rolling a dolly.
• 32:56
  Speaker 7: They understand the process.
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: I'm not, I do not denigrate any of the technical
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: arts in film because you need to be an artist
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: in that tech, in that technique. But, um, I think
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: a lot of people, I guess, you know, go in thinking, well,
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: I'm going to be, you know, I'm going to be
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: Steven Spielberg or I'm going to be, and, and there's
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: a lot of, uh, technique you have to know too.
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: You can't just have passion.
• 33:18
  Speaker 7: Yeah. At that point, you're thrown in the middle of ILM.
• 33:23
  Speaker 7: You're telling the story of you almost being the Rancor.
• 33:26
  Speaker 7: That's a huge... For Star Wars.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: Fans, that's a huge thing. It's a big thing. Literally
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: a big thing. Well, just to the point we were
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: just discussing, working at ILM on Return of the Jedi,
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: that time was the biggest movie being made, was talk
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: about film school, and I learned I learned everything. And
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: I just, because I was a low man on the
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: totem pole, it's funny. I said, there's two people that
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: get all access on movie sets, the PA and the producers.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: And the PA is because he's bringing, bringing the producers,
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: whatever the producer asked for, whether it's the coffee or
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: the script or whatever. And the producer's there because they're
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: paying for it. And so, you know, and obviously the director,
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: but so if you start as a PA and people
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: are like, Oh, I mean, I've had people, meet me
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: in their 30s and say i want to work in
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: film and say we'll get a pa job and i
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: go i i've got a two-bedroom apartment and a wife
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: or a kid i can't live for you know i
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: said you're gonna get paid well it was four now
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: it's like five six hundred dollars a week like oh
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: wow i can't how i can't live on that and
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: i said well then i don't know.
• 34:26
  Speaker 7: How to help you really want to get into the
• 34:27
  Speaker 7: film business you need to.
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: Go write a hit script or have a family member
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: who will support you because so it's great to start
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: when you're young and just learn by doing you know
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: and if you have Obviously, by the time you're 18, 19,
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: if you've got any skill or predilection or interest in
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: any of the arts that are involved in film, you'll
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: know it. And you can say, I can be an
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: art department PA. I can be a sound department PA.
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: I can be in post-production PA. I like editing. I
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: like craft services, whatever. You probably have some skill you're
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: aware of. So play to your strengths or whatever. You know,
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: or marry a rich person.
• 35:00
  Speaker 7: I keep looking for that one. I don't know where
• 35:02
  Speaker 7: this old rich woman.
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: Where are the rich girls who like nerds?
• 35:06
  Speaker 7: Wants to support me. I don't know. I'm up for it.
• 35:10
  Speaker 7: I have a lot of ideas. I'm trying to get
• 35:12
  Speaker 7: out there to people. I just need funding, damn it.
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: You and every other guy in Starbucks.
• 35:15
  Speaker 7: Yeah, true.
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: In L.A. And I guess Kentucky, too.
• 35:19
  Speaker 7: Everywhere at this point, yeah.
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, everyone wants to be a filmmaker. And you can now. Anyway,
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: the rancor, as you asked. I digress. I do that
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: a lot. I'm a digressive. George wanted to, so, you know,
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: the Rancor was not shot live, obviously. They shot all
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: the background plates and they shot Luke fighting, basically. I mean,
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: Mark worked to a big cardboard kind of cutout of
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: what it would look like based on Joe's drawing or
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: Phil's mechanics.
• 35:49
  Speaker 7: It's like pre-CG. There's no ball on a stick. How's
• 35:52
  Speaker 7: he going to know how to act? Yeah, exactly.
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: So they gave him something to look at and probably,
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: you know, like Ray Harryhausen did with his movies.
• 35:57
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: And shot all the plates with Mark acting to the
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: big hand, I guess, we made. And then we had
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: to figure out how to do it. And it was
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: supposed to be, I think, originally a stop-motion puppet, because
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: that's how Phil designed it. And even the maquette he
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: designed was about the stop-motion puppet size. And George said,
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: and I remember when we were in the screening room
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: at the time, he said, no, I think you guys
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: should try it as a guy in a suit. We
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: all thought originally, I think he was joking, but. He
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: was serious. He said, you know, show those Japanese guys
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: how to do Godzilla right. And Phil's like, but it's
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: not really designed to be a guy in the suit. Like,
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: the arms are really long, the head's stubby and heavy,
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: and the legs are short. George is like, well, you know,
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: I think you guys can do it. You know, don't
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: sell yourself short. So we went, well, that's a crazy idea.
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: But we tried it, and we built the suit and
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: built a giant cave set, you know, to make it
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: look like he was big. And we even, Tony McVeigh
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: sculpted about a two-foot-tall statue Gamorrean guard and built a
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: little costume for it. And I had to mold it
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: and cast it in gelatin. So you could tear its
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: head off and kind of bite into an arm and
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: have it wiggling around. And, uh, it was built for
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: a stunt man. It was about five, eight and very,
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: you know, physical, good, good physical shape, but it was
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: just too heavy for him. So they crammed me in
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: and I was six one and cause I could carry it.
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: It was a very heavy suit and I was young
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: and healthy. And also it was just front heavy. So
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: it was really hard to wear and not just fall over.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: And also, the way it was operated was you had
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: to wear about a 12 to 15-pound monitor strapped to
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: your chest.
• 37:29
  Speaker 7: Ah, the good old days.
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was about one and a half times as
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: long as a shoebox and about one and a half
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: times as wide. So it was a big square rectangle
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: with about a four-inch screen, and you're watching a black-and-white
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: image of what the camera's seeing flipped. So your left
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: hand worked the creature's left hand, your right hand worked
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: the head and the jaw. So you're basically flying blind,
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: flipped around, and you're supposed to act. Like a monster.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: And your legs are bent in half because you're trying
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: to kind of crouch. So it was almost impossible. But,
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: you know, movies are made in little cuts. So we
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: tried it. We did the whole thing. And Dennis and
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: Ken shot it. And we smoked the set. And it
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: was a bit of a debacle. And my joke was
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: that Phil picked me to wear the suit because he
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: knew I wouldn't do a good job. I'm not a
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: suit performer. But I don't think anyone, like I said,
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: Andy Serkis could have worn it and probably not. it
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: just wasn't made to be a suit. I mean, even
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: when we made a suit to be the creature, it
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: just was not a great design.
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: So we tried it and George saw it and was like, yeah, okay,
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: you're right. So how are you going to do it?
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: And I, and I don't know why Phil decided to
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: do it as a rod puppet, you know, real time
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: or over with an overcranked camera. I wasn't there for
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: when he made that decision. Cause I thought it was
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: going to be, I think we all thought it was
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: gonna be stop motion, but maybe he and Dennis discussed
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: and said, Hey, maybe I get more realistic movement. So they,
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: They shot it like 90, 120 frames a second. And
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: whatever the multiple of 24 is, it's 96 and 48.
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: It ended up looking really.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: Good, though.
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it looked amazing. I look better in stop
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: motion because it's not.
• 39:02
  Speaker 7: You know, it's not jittery. It doesn't feel stop motion-y.
• 39:04
  Speaker 7: It does feel a.
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: Little more real. No, it's amazing. And there's like five
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: guys operating it because it had all these cables in
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: the hands and fingers and rods. And it was a,
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: it was a, you know, kind of breaking ground. Uh,
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: I think some of the stuff they'd learned from the dragon, from, uh,
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: dragon heart, although that wasn't, no, that was a stop
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: motion puppet, but they did a Chris Whaless had mill
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: made a head for the closeups. So anyway, that's how
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: rancor was finally done. But I was like, you know,
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: I said, I wanted to call my biography, the boy
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: in the Rancor suit.
• 39:34
  Speaker 7: Rancor guinea pig. Test this out. See if this works. Well, yeah, you're,
• 39:39
  Speaker 7: you were at that point in the room with George,
• 39:42
  Speaker 7: you're watching this unfold while he's still, you know, hands
• 39:45
  Speaker 7: on kind of doing most of it at that point.
• 39:48
  Speaker 7: I mean, there obviously were limitations. Whether or not it
• 39:51
  Speaker 7: was physical, you guys piecing it together to make it
• 39:54
  Speaker 7: look good, or was there somebody at the other end going,
• 39:57
  Speaker 7: you can't do that? There must have been, because they
• 39:58
  Speaker 7: were cutting the budget by Jedi. I don't think he
• 40:01
  Speaker 7: had as much money as he did Empire.
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: It was George's money at that point, so I don't know.
• 40:07
  Speaker 7: I feel like the studio wasn't backing him, though, at
• 40:09
  Speaker 7: that point. And they should have been. He made them
• 40:11
  Speaker 7: a fortune.
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: But George, I think, wanted control. If you control the money,
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: you have the control. I think George, you know, he
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: doesn't like to waste money. I remember... This is a
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: funny story I've told a few times. Kit West built
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: a robotic tentacle for the Sarlacc. We were in Yuma, Arizona.
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: And it was this huge, crazy-looking contraption that ran like
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: on a Chevy engine. It was like a Chevy V8
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: because he needed the torque to pull the cables because
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: the thing was like 12 feet long. And it was
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: this wonky little or big tentacle that kind of moved
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: really herky-jerky. It looked like a badly animated Ray Harryhausen tentacle.
• 40:41
  Speaker 7: In real world.
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: And he spent a lot of money to build this and...
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: And I remember I was there on set on the day,
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: you know, we weren't shooting, but George is like, Kit's like,
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: Kit had this, you know, he's Australian or British, but
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: big guy, looked like a, you know, a bit of
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: a brawler, but great guy, great physical effects guy. And
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: he built this thing. And he said, oh, George, I'm
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: going to show you how it works. It's not perfect yet, but,
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: you know, we'll figure it out. So he sets it
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: up and it's literally, this engine's running, this thing's going,
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: you know, um, clunking around and george is looking at
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: it and we're all like kind of like oh wow
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: that's this looks really yeah so supposed to come up
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: and wrap around i guess lando's leg and so george
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: went well why don't you just why don't we just
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: do the old movie trick where we get a rubber
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: tentacle wrap around his leg and then shoot it in
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: reverse yeah and kit's like well yeah i don't know
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: i suppose you can do that but i think we'll
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: get this working and that's ultimately what we did and
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: then george i remember asking kit well how much money
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: did you spend on that.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: It was a bit embarrassing. I felt bad for him. And,
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: you know, he didn't get fired or anything.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: But.
• 41:43
  Speaker 7: It just seems like he worked better when he had
• 41:46
  Speaker 7: those limitations. Because that became all the criticism of 1
• 41:49
  Speaker 7: through 3, is that he had nobody telling him no.
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: I can't say what.
• 41:53
  Speaker 7: He totally bankrolled those three and did what he wanted.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of directors or producers have that.
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: When they have a hit, Actually, if you look at
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: most directors and TV producers, once they have their hit
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: where they're not given full reign and they're given all
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: the money and all the things they want, it tends
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: to get bloated and sloppy because nobody's saying no.
• 42:11
  Speaker 7: I've said that for years about Tim Burton. I think
• 42:13
  Speaker 7: he made some of the most brilliant movies ever, and
• 42:15
  Speaker 7: now I don't want to see most of his stuff.
• 42:17
  Speaker 7: There's been a few. Frankenweenie was good.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree, but it's hard to tell somebody, especially
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: when you had a hit movie and you didn't own
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: points on it. You made a lot of people, a
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: lot of other people, a lot of money, and they
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: finally go, okay, you're a moneymaker. We'll give you a
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: lot of money. Then you kind of want to indulge
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: yourself because you weren't allowed to.
• 42:32
  Speaker 7: And then they get the points on that end. Now
• 42:34
  Speaker 7: finally they can cash in. So I guess it encourages
• 42:38
  Speaker 7: you to make big, giant movies.
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: It's an astute observation, and I've noticed it. Same thing.
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: I've worked with directors, and then they get a big-budget movie,
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: and they get everything they want, and they're kind of bloated.
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: I mean, look at Peter Jackson. King Kong was amazing,
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: but you needed to cut half. I mean, here I'm
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: telling you, Peter Jackson should cut a movie, but it
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: was about 20, 30 minutes too long.
• 42:56
  Speaker 7: I've said it on this show. I was like, forgot
• 42:58
  Speaker 7: how to edit. All of them.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: Because he didn't have to.
• 43:00
  Speaker 7: He didn't used to. I mean, you look at his
• 43:02
  Speaker 7: movies when he started, they were 90 minutes at best.
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: Nobody makes three hour movies except Peter Jackson and Jim
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: Cameron because they have huge hits and they can. And
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: there's something to that. You know, that nobody's saying no.
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: And again, I think King Kong's an amazing movie.
• 43:16
  Speaker 7: It's got great stuff.
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: Peter Jackson never hears this. I'm a huge fan.
• 43:19
  Speaker 7: That whole wandering through the water part, I'm like, that goes.
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: On so long. Yeah, there's just scenes that are too long.
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: But anyway, and you can say the same in The
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: Lord of the Rings. I've seen the director's cuts, and
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: there's stuff in there that's awesome.
• 43:29
  Speaker 7: There's good stuff, but it's too long.
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: You know, make it a miniseries, yeah. It's way too long. Yeah,
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: that is a very good observation. Luckily, I've never had
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: that horrible, horrible dilemma of being given too much money.
• 43:38
  Speaker 8: I agree.
• 43:39
  Speaker 7: I guess because I brought this up and go in
• 43:41
  Speaker 7: the other direction on a recent episode because we keep
• 43:43
  Speaker 7: seeing superhero movies. They're almost cramming too much in there.
• 43:46
  Speaker 7: So is it one? Because that's what I've said. I
• 43:48
  Speaker 7: was like Age of Ultron probably should have been a miniseries.
• 43:50
  Speaker 7: Like it should have been a Netflix series because they
• 43:52
  Speaker 7: crammed way too much story in there. Do you think
• 43:55
  Speaker 7: again now that those lines are blurring?
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: I have a big theory about this. I think it
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: comes from working with the Muppets. And Star Wars. I
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: think movies now, because TV and Blu-ray and streaming, movies
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: have become the circus again. It's a spectacle. Oh, yeah.
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: You didn't go to the circus to see a great story.
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: You go to the circus to see an elephant jump
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: through a hoop of fire or see tigers run around
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: or clowns jump off ceilings and land 100 feet in
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: a bucket of water. And it wasn't for subtle, nuanced
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: commentary on the human condition. It was like, I want
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: to see crazy shit. So that's why they're spending $ 150,
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: $ 200 million on this movie. I think Deadpool is a
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: perfect example of what you're saying, the other direction. They
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: didn't give him a lot of money. Deadpool was considered
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: this tiny little branched. He was never a cartoon series.
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: He was a small thing loved by fans, diehard fans.
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: But I always say what my mom would have heard
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: of him. She knew Spider-Man, Captain America, maybe Thor. Never
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: heard of Deadpool. But because of that, they kind of
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: let it fly on the radar. They didn't hammer it
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: with notes and say, oh, you know, your hero's not likable.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: He can't be a potty mouth. Your female lead can't
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: be a hooker. I mean, that's crazy. She's got to
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: be likable and cute. She can't be kind of raw.
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: She's got to look like the girl next door. So
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: they let him make this great movie with raunchy, funny.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: You know, some people hate it. I thought it was
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: great because it was like, oh, wow. a comic movie
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: doesn't talk down to me and not that Joss Whedon
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: or anyone's Avengers movies.
• 45:19
  Speaker 7: It's just a different style. It's a different direction.
• 45:21
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: Even made fun of, Hey, you know, this is the
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: only two X-Men you can afford when he went to, uh,
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: you know, Xavier's school.
• 45:28
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: Which is a great joke. Um, but I think that's
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: the thing is if you give, like you said, you
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: give some people, I'm really curious to see the Warcraft
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: movie by the time you guys hear this is probably out.
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: But I'm curious to see if that's bloated or, cause
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: I like Duncan Jones is great.
• 45:41
  Speaker 7: He's a great director.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:42
  Speaker 7: But again, like look at moon versus what that is.
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: That's exactly what I'm saying. He made moon for what?
• 45:48
  Speaker 7: 180 degrees.
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: $ 3 million.
• 45:50
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: And now they gave him 300 million or whatever.
• 45:52
  Speaker 7: And like no effects. It's just a guy in a
• 45:54
  Speaker 7: room half the time.
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: You know, there's some old school model effects.
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 45:57
  Speaker 7: There's some good moon, you know, shots, but I'm like,
• 45:59
  Speaker 7: it's not effect heavy.
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: And basically three actors. Oh my God.
• 46:03
  Speaker 7: Warcraft is going to be, it's just so much to
• 46:05
  Speaker 7: even think about dealing with.
• 46:07
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: So I'll be curious to see that. And so all
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: of you in the future will be able to call
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: me or send me emails and say, Hey, it sucked. Or,
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: Oh my God, it was awesome. It looks amazing. But anyway,
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: it is a spectacle. Like I'm going to go see it.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: Even if the critics come out and say it was
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: a terrible movie, I'm still going to see it because
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: it looks amazing.
• 46:24
  Speaker 7: That's what it's... Yeah, we've become... That's.
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: What I mean. I don't go to the circus to
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: get a good story. I go to see elephants do tricks.
• 46:29
  Speaker 7: I was like, we're going back to William Castle. Like,
• 46:31
  Speaker 7: we now... It became... That's why 3D took off, because
• 46:33
  Speaker 7: you can't have that. Now, they're trying to make the
• 46:35
  Speaker 7: TVs better, but essentially, I don't even like most of what...
• 46:38
  Speaker 7: Unless it's shot to be in 3D, you don't need
• 46:40
  Speaker 7: to watch it in 3D, but... Even then, it's like
• 46:43
  Speaker 7: they started doing the super deluxe theaters and you can
• 46:48
  Speaker 7: get dinner while you're there. It's making an entire event
• 46:51
  Speaker 7: just to give them something different than why wouldn't I
• 46:54
  Speaker 7: just watch this on DVD.
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: There's this whole movement now, I forgot what it's called,
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: but to bring Day and Date to your home. You
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: can pay, and they want to charge like $ 60.
• 47:02
  Speaker 7: Yeah, they've done a few test runs on it.
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: You pay $ 60 and you can watch Lord of the
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: Rings on the first day it airs in your home.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: Why you'd want to see an epic movie like that
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: at home or at home and then why would you
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: want to see you know a train wreck a little
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: rom-com or a raunchy comedy at home for 60 dollars
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: you can see it for 10 of the matinee or
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: depending on where you live in the country five.
• 47:22
  Speaker 7: Bucks unless it's an event right it's an event.
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: Movie but you want to see that in a big
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: theater with a great sound system so you know it's
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: one of those things that i know half the directors
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: are who are big name directors are for it and
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: say this is going to save the business because we'll
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: make more money And others are like, you're going to
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: kill the movie.
• 47:37
  Speaker 7: The only version I've heard where it almost makes financial
• 47:40
  Speaker 7: sense is if you have a big family. And you're like, well,
• 47:43
  Speaker 7: I have 60 bucks. It's cheaper than.
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: How many American families are more than four kids?
• 47:46
  Speaker 7: Not anymore, but we're all too poor.
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: Maybe in Utah.
• 47:50
  Speaker 7: Back in the day when you had eight kids.
• 47:51
  Speaker 10: At a time.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: Mormons will embrace it.
• 47:55
  Speaker 7: That doesn't have much.
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: Not that there's anything wrong with the Church of Latter-day Saints.
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: I have very good friends who are Mormons. And I
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: pick on the Mormons because I love the Mormons.
• 48:03
  Speaker 7: It's just a generational thing. Cause I know two people
• 48:06
  Speaker 7: from like a generation back and like their family has
• 48:09
  Speaker 7: eight kids.
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: Their family has six kids. Nobody has that now. My
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: family in Chicago, my uncle and, uh, I guess, yeah,
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: they're my aunt and uncle. They had a 13 kids.
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: Or my great aunt.
• 48:22
  Speaker 7: Or if you do, you get a reality TV show. Yeah.
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah. That was common back in the forties. Um, All
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: the way up to 50s, I think. Anyway, now we're
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: talking about family size.
• 48:33
  Speaker 7: Well, okay, back to working with impressive directors early on.
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: The mushrooms are kicking in, man. Who are you?
• 48:41
  Speaker 7: You and a 12-year-old David Fincher. All right, I'm slightly exaggerating,
• 48:44
  Speaker 7: but those pictures, he's ridiculous.
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: I know, he looked young. People thought I was my age. Anyway,
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: Dave is blessed with good genes.
• 48:56
  Speaker 9: He looks.
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: He was always good looking and smart. I was the
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: idiot sidekick. He was smart and funny and cool. He
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: was just cool. You're going to.
• 49:03
  Speaker 7: Be hanging around somebody. That's not a bad person to
• 49:06
  Speaker 7: get stuck with.
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was the wingman. I was the comedy relief.
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: He got the girls and the jobs and I was like, okay,
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: I'll help out. But he's a lovely guy. very super smart.
• 49:14
  Speaker 7: But even and very funny it's funny bringing up the
• 49:17
  Speaker 7: the music videos earlier when you're talking i do remember
• 49:19
  Speaker 7: that music video i watched it on mtv many.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: A time they even interviewed us they there's a little
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: document i mean like a two-minute documentary where they talked
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: about you know rick springfield's new rock video with technicians
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: from george lucas's facility and you know we were nobody
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: said with the two youngest guys who had nothing to
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: do so we started doing that and then dave you
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: know obviously turned into david fincher and i worked for
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: the muppets.
• 49:39
  Speaker 7: But watching it, it still has kind of his look.
• 49:43
  Speaker 7: So how is it that he, that young, had already
• 49:46
  Speaker 7: honed it?
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: Because you have taste.
• 49:47
  Speaker 7: I mean, you were around him. Did it seem like
• 49:49
  Speaker 7: he already had that much stuff worked out already from
• 49:52
  Speaker 7: the get-go?
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. He knew what he wanted.
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: He was a very smart guy. He knew more about
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: filmmaking and cameras than most of the guys twice his age.
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: which pissed a lot of people off when he was
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: in his early twenties. Cause he would tell people, no,
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: let's do this. And they're like, who do you think
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: you are? And he's like, I'm just a guy. No,
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: he wasn't 20 years.
• 50:11
  Speaker 7: You'll know what I'm saying.
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: He wasn't like that. I think he had a reputation
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: for being that way because he did know more than
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: they did. And they hated that. And so like, this
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: is a little jerk, but no, he's just a smart
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: guy and he didn't suffer fools. Um, you know, and
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: neither does a lot of people. I am a fool,
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: so I have to suffer. Um, but no, he's amazing.
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: And he was born amazing. He was just always a
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: cool guy. And, and, And I was really fortunate to
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: be friends with him and to do videos with him
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: and watch him work. And yeah, we had a lot
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: of fun and killed a lot of brain cells. Not
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: the usual way with drugs or alcohol, but just by
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: working 18-hour days. I think Bop to Drop we shot
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: in a day. And it was like two weeks of pre-production.
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: It was a day of shooting with the actors and
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: I think a day of shooting models and creature stuff.
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: But it was just killer. I remember working 18-hour days
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: and going to sleep and dreaming of work. I've never had...
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: It's the only time in my life.
• 51:03
  Speaker 7: You're never away.
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: I'm a pretty mellow person. I'm not a type A.
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: And it's the only time in my life I've had
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: a panic attack. Because weeks and weeks of only getting
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: four hours sleep and you start dreaming, it's literally like
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: a stress-induced... But luckily... So we did Bob's You Drop.
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: And then I think I took like two weeks off
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: and went back to my home in LA and just
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: laid in bed. And then we did a bunch of
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: videos for Rick Springfield. We did a whole... concept video
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: album was one of the first, I don't think they
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: did a lot of them, but the whole idea was
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: an album where every song had a video and you
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: could buy the VHS tape at that point. And so
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: we did like five videos for him and all different
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: stuff and created fake concert footage. And, and Rick was
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: a lovely, he was a very easy guy to work
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: with and he was Australian and kind of relaxed and
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: had a good sense of humor. Uh, so we had
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: fun and just kind of did all sorts of crazy stuff. Um,
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: there's a, another cameo. So I got to be the
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: creature in that one. Bob to drop. And there's a
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: Springfield video, um, uh, kind of about Armageddon. I'm trying
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: to remember the.
• 52:05
  Speaker 7: Name of it.
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: It was the eighties.
• 52:06
  Speaker 8: I mean, it was, most things were about Armageddon.
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I hate you. I'm just, you know, how many
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: megatons is the question we're asking? Um, and I got
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: to play a clown, uh, and like this tweaked kid
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: show where, um, Rick is playing like a Mr. Rogers.
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: It was like a parody of Mr. Rogers. And he's
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: holding up signs saying like Armageddon fallout, you know, like
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: teaching kids words. And I'm, I think we called me
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: homie the clown, homo the clown. And I'm there with, like,
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: nuclear missiles and blowing stuff up and just acting like
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: a total idiot. But we had fun. And those were
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: fun because there weren't network notes. It was like, yeah, okay, guys,
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: here's 20 grand. Knock yourselves out. So that was fun
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: and very, very creative. You know, you could kind of
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: do whatever you want as long as Rick Springfield liked it,
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: his label. I think they thought Rick was happy. And
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: so we'd pitch him these IDs and he'd go, okay. Yeah,
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: a couple he didn't like and we changed them. But
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: it was fun. And it was great working with your friends.
• 52:59
  Speaker 7: Yeah, it was a very, again, people make fun of
• 53:03
  Speaker 7: MTV now because it's so dated, but I'm like, it
• 53:05
  Speaker 7: was possibly the most influential between the mid 80s and
• 53:10
  Speaker 7: the mid 90s. Like the 80s, it influenced music and
• 53:14
  Speaker 7: filmmaking so much. And then like the 90s, It changed
• 53:18
  Speaker 7: reality television. It changed the fact that animation got taken
• 53:21
  Speaker 7: seriously by grown-ups.
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: It was the driving force of Western culture.
• 53:25
  Speaker 7: It was everything in that point. And now it's just
• 53:27
  Speaker 7: kind of a joke.
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, now it's run its course. Like I said, there's
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: no M on MTV anymore.
• 53:34
  Speaker 7: YouTube killed the MTV star.
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, that's it. And you're absolutely right. The internet came,
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: and you can watch anything at any time.
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, I said the person I wouldn't want a
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: job as a programming executive because nobody cares what time
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: it's on. And now with Netflix, they dump it all
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: and you watch it all that day or that night
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: or that weekend or stretch it out over two years.
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: It doesn't matter as long as you watch it.
• 53:54
  Speaker 7: You know, Blackwood telling me what to watch next.
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
• 53:57
  Speaker 7: I'll watch whatever the hell.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, those guys.
• 54:00
  Speaker 7: Well, then you mentioned I Hate You. I mean, one
• 54:03
  Speaker 7: of the most– we're kind of jumping around. But, I mean,
• 54:06
  Speaker 7: does it feel like that? You've got so many things
• 54:08
  Speaker 7: that are kind of time-wise– grouped together pretty close but
• 54:11
  Speaker 7: they're all amazing I.
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: Did a lot before I hit 30 yeah I know
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: it's like I hit 30 and then just started working
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: for the Muppets for like you know at.
• 54:18
  Speaker 7: That point you're hanging out with Leonard Nimoy and then Muppets.
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: You know these are amazing things Lucas and Gremlins to
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: Fincher and Videos and Nimoy and Henson and all and
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: I you know I was all that before I was
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: 28 by the time I was 28 and then created
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: my own helped create a TV not my own but
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: was influential in creating a TV series by the time
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: I was 29 Yeah. No, 30. No, it launched in 90. Yeah.
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: I was 28 years old when dinosaurs started.
• 54:47
  Speaker 8: I know.
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: And I was just like, man, I sucked it. Cause
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: David Fincher had already directed like a feature. Yeah.
• 54:52
  Speaker 7: Alien three. Nobody likes that one.
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: I know. Well, that's not his fault. It looks amazing.
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: It's a great, it looks amazing, but they killed him
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: on the story and they ran ramshackle over him. I
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: remember I went going to the screening and seeing him
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: afterwards and he was pale and he's like, I'm never
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: going to work again.
• 55:07
  Speaker 7: It's still a good concept, I think. They messed with
• 55:10
  Speaker 7: it too much.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: The script was insane. The original script he was given
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: was a wooden planet made by monks that lived on
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: the inside. Literally made of wood. It was insane.
• 55:18
  Speaker 7: That seems fine.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: So he tried his best, but he learned a valuable lesson,
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: I guess.
• 55:24
  Speaker 7: But yeah, then you worked on Star Trek III and
• 55:27
  Speaker 7: then became the assistant.
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: I worked on II at ILM and III at ILM
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: doing creature stuff. I worked with Dave Sassala and Ken Ralston.
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: on the ear bug and the big ear that ear
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: bug crawls in and out of on Chekhov. Dave Sassola
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: did that, and then Ken designed the ear bug. And
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: then in three, I did the, with Dave, the worms,
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: the bacteria that came from Spock's coffin. And then I
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: puppeteered the dog. I helped cast and put together the
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: Klingon dog, and then I puppeteered him on set for
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: a few days, which was not a good, I was
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: crammed under a chair with my arm, my right arm
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: sticking out, You know, the circulation getting cut off and
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: kind of just having a monitor to watch. But it
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: was fun.
• 56:11
  Speaker 7: Klingon dogs. You don't see enough Klingon dogs.
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. He's the only time he's ever. I think
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: they should do a pack of them in the next movie.
• 56:17
  Speaker 7: Why aren't they out on that planet? They're stranded there.
• 56:19
  Speaker 7: Why don't Klingon dogs take them out?
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: Why not do a pack of Klingon wolf lizards?
• 56:23
  Speaker 7: I can hear McCoy complaining about it right now.
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: Damn it, Jim. I'm a doctor, not a veterinarian. This
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: thing's half lizard. So, yeah, I did that. And so
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: I'd been on set with Leonard, but I didn't really
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: talk to him. except when I was strangling Christopher Lloyd
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: with a worm.
• 56:39
  Speaker 7: We've all wanted to do that at some point.
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: We're covered in Methacel. It was funny. We were wearing,
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: there's a picture in Cinefax of me covered in a
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: Tyvek suit. I look like I'm going to do cleanup
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: at a nuclear facility because there's so much snot. Methacel,
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: which is a plant product, you mix with water and
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: it becomes basically clear goo. And you can make it
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: as runny as hair gel or as thick as, you
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: can stick a fork in it. So we'd mixed up
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: a big five-gallon bucket oven and we're just drenched in it.
• 57:03
  Speaker 7: Slinging it on her.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: Every creature guy knows Methacel. It's kind of the most
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: expensive version of KY jelly. For a dare once at Lucasfilm,
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: I was, I mean at ILM, I was challenged for,
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: I think, like 20, 40 bucks to stick my head
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: in a bucket of Methacel. Which, of course, I did.
• 57:21
  Speaker 7: You didn't hesitate a second.
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: No, I go, $ 20?
• 57:24
  Speaker 7: Gosh.
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I learned breathe out when you stick your head
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: in a bucket of Methacel. Don't inhale.
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: No, it's fine. I knew cause I'd been a swimmer.
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: I knew just exhale on the, when you hit the water. Um,
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: so yeah. So then Star Trek, what happened was I
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: moved back to LA. I worked on gremlins for the
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: first four or five months helping Chris, way to set
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: up the shop, mall shop, paint shop, design the paint job,
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: their eyes. And then moved back to LA and, um,
• 57:51
  Speaker 4: started going to UCLA to learn computer graphics because I
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: saw that's going to take over the effects business because, uh,
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: Pixar at that point was still just a George Lucas
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: owned entity. And, uh, they'd done some shots on Trek three. And, uh,
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: and I knew the guys cause I would go hang
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: out and just see what they wanted artists to play
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: with their paint program. So I'd go over there and
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: basically it was very early version of, you know, paint
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: shop or Photoshop, uh, and, and play with this, you know,
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: multimillion dollar, million dollar system they'd be developing. Um, Because
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: they just wanted artists to see how they interface with it.
• 58:30
  Speaker 7: Figure out how to use it, basically.
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: Or just how artists think, because they were programmers. So
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: I went, this is going to be big. So I
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: went back, took some computer animation at UCLA, and then
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: Leonard Nimoy's office called UCLA and said, we're looking for
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: an assistant for Leonard who knows special effects, knows filmmaking,
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: and will kind of help him through the movie. And
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: I was like tailor-made for the job. Leonard told me
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: he met with three other guys. One was an SC
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: film graduate. Someone was from Columbia or New York. And
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: I literally just left ILM, I think, less than a year.
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: I knew everybody there. I knew special effects. I knew
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: production design. I'd been a production designer for David Fincher.
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: so my resume was like literally tailor made for the
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: job and Leonard and I hit it off just got
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: along with him very well so I got the job
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: and like I've said in other interviews I basically started
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: on the second draft of the script Mearson and Krikus
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: had written the first draft which was kind of written
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: for Eddie Murphy and Trek fans know all this And
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: I came in when Nick Meyer was brought in to
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: do the rewrite with Harv Bennett. So they took some
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: of the basic precepts. And then the idea that Leonard
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: liked was there was something in the modern day that
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: had been lost in the future. And to kind of
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: show like conservation is smart. And originally it was like
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: a scavenger hunt for like all these different elements and things.
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: They were trying to rebuild the dilithium crystals. And it
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: was kind of a caper. And they wanted it to
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: be fun. And Leonard wanted to be about the crew.
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: But he said, what if it's a thing? What if
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: it's a, you know, again, Leonard's done this in interviews,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: so I won't belabor it, but that's what the script
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: was being written when I started with him. And so
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: I got to do a movie from, you know, Jedi.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: I got to see how a giant, you know, biggest
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: movie at the time be made. And then Star Trek,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: I got to see how a franchise film made with
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: people work together was made, but literally from the script
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: because Jedi, I never read the script. We weren't allowed to.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: That was obviously such a top secret thing. So we
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: didn't know. We just knew the Ewoks are in the
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: forest and here's what they're doing today. And, you know,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: this is, All we knew was there was a party
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: in Java's house or Java's place. And then, you know,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: we show up in the desert. I mean, I didn't know.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, oh, this is his... I thought it
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: was going to be a building. And it's a big spaceship, sandbarge. So,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: you know, you could find out when you showed up
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: on the set. For us, because we were just creature
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: grunts and weren't privy to the script. So on Trek,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: I knew everything. And that's how I got the punk
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: bit was I read the script and I had said,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: to Leonard, you know, this punk scene's fun. I would
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: like to play that part. And he, he said, seriously?
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: I said, yeah, I was in a band and I
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: know how to look like a punk. I had short
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: orange hair and I, you know, ripped clothes and I'd
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: gone through a little punk phase. And so I kind
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: of knew what that meant. I mean, I wasn't an angry,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: disaffected youth, but, and he said, well, let me think
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: about it. And so I did a drawing, which I
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: started to show. I found the drawing last week. He
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: scanned it. So I'm showing it at these talks. where
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: you see where I kind of designed what I'd look like.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: And it's pretty close to what I ended up looking like. Um, and, uh, said,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: this is what I look like and you won't be sorry. And,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: you know, I'll really do it up. And he's looked
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: at it and he's like, you're going to do that
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: to your hair. I'm like, yeah, I had it before.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: He's like, all right, well, let me think about it.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: So he thought about it and I didn't ask him again.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: It was like a week later. Cause I didn't want
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: to belabor it. He was my boss. He was, you know,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: like a friend. I didn't want to be like one
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: of those jerks. What did you decide to decide? Cause
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: I can't stand people like that. I didn't want to
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: be one. but he was eating me up a little bit,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: but I was like, Nope, I'm just going to stick
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: with work and being his assistant and helping him make
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: a good movie. And so after about a week or so,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: we had our, you know, end of the day kind
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: of chat. And I was, remember I was leaving his
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: offices literally at the door. He has a sense of drama,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: doesn't he? I just thought about that. And he goes, Oh,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: by the way, that, um, you know, this deep birds on,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: by the way, the, uh, that, you know, that you
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: want to do. I'm like, Oh yeah. He's like, yeah,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: you can do it. I'm like, literally like yes yeah
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: i did a fist pump yes and like thank you
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: you won't regret it put together the costume i still
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: own that in fact i'm thinking of selling the costume
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: because it's i'm told people pay good money for.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 7: It if anybody's interested yeah who's.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: Interested contact me i i own it not paramount i
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: put it together i went i said i'm gonna go
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: do this it's the only thing they provided were the
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: shoes which is funny because the one thing you never
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: see is my shoes.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 7: What's weird is when you look like that you look
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 7: like a guy i used to work Like almost exactly.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 7: And he was in a band. So it was one
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 7: shade away. I was like, it's always weird watching that
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 7: thing because I'm like, you're so close to that guy.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: I stole his look.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 7: Yeah, many a band member out there probably had that
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 7: going on. Every town had that guy.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: Had that guy. So yeah, and then the song came
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: about because everyone asked about, not everyone knows that I
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: wrote and sang the song. So in the shot when
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: we were shooting it, there was no music. There was
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: no sound because we didn't want to screw up the dialogue.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: So I'm just bopping my head to a beat in
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: my head. The editor later told me, our editor said, yeah,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: you have a lousy sense of rhythm. I'm like, dude,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: I'm on a bouncing bus trying to keep a rhythm
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: bouncing in my head.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 7: Did you have that rhythm for the song yet?
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: No, there was no... I didn't know I was writing
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: the song. We just shot the scene and they were
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: going to put something in later. And so then when post-production...
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: The editor, you know, puts in music and he said,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: you know, we need a punk song. And the studio's like, oh,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: we have deals because Paramount had a music group. And
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: so they had deals with like Duran Duran or, you know,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: something that was kind of new wave and not punk
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: at all. Like I'm talking like Fear, Dead Kennedys, Ramones,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: that stuff that I thought was punk. And I told Leonard,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: I said, look, I can write. I'm kind of shocked
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: at the. the cojones I had, because all the stuff
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: I did. And it was never out of like, I'm
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: the bee's knees. It was more like, I just want
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: to do this. I think it would be fun.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 7: You're there. You're like, if you need a song, I
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 7: can write you a song.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: That's basically what happened. I said, I can write you
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: a song tonight that would be a better punk song
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: than any of those bands, and it would be a
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: real punk song. He's like, all right, well, do it.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: Let me hear what you do. So I literally wrote
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: it in a night and went to Mark Mangini, who
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: was the sound editor, who I knew from Gremlins. and
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: we'd become good friends, and he was sound editor, designer on,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: not editor, sorry, sound designer on Star Trek, so we'd
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: known each other for a couple years at that point,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: and I said, hey, you know, Leonard wants to do this,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: and Mark played guitar, he said, oh, awesome, got into it,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: and he wrote just a, you know, it's like a
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: four guitar riff, and I'd written the song, like the melody,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: I should say, and the lyrics, and so I told
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: him it goes like this, and he's like, what if it's,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: you know, we worked it out, I mean, the The
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 4: whole thing of punk is it's not belabored and it's
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: usually three or four chords.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 7: It's pretty direct, too.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: It's pretty direct.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 7: And it tells you what it's all about.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: Well, and exactly. And so I knew the movie, you know,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: I obviously knew what the script was about. It was
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: about this, you know, that we were headed for dystopia.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: The end of the 20th century wasn't dystopia.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 7: I think we kind of got there.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we were, you know, and there was, you know,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: the whole threat of nuclear war. I mean, that was real.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: That was real at the time. I grew up with that. I,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: you know, so that was literally my generation's.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 7: We discussed that before. I think that's why Generation X
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 7: turned out as... slack assed as they are is because
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 7: they didn't plan for the future because there probably was.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: That one we're probably going to get nuked I mean
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: I remember that TV series about you know LA or
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: New York getting nuked and watching everyone's hair fall out
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: and die and you're like why why why yeah the
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: day after yeah I watched that I remember freaking out
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: I mean I was like well I'm not crying but
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: I read Hiroshima in like fourth grade and I was
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: like I couldn't sleep because we lived near Van Nuys
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: Airport and my mom finally told me because I was
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: like she's like why are you sleeping I'm like I
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: hear the planes she's like oh honey we're near Van
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: Nuys Airport I know, but I don't know which one's
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: going to drop the bomb.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 7: I think it is a legit thing. Like, I think
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 7: it affected... No, it was a real fear. Because I
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 7: don't think kids today worry about that, guys. I mean,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 7: we have new horrible things to worry about.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: After 9-11, you've got now Crazy Guy with a Suitcase.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 7: It's a different fear, but... It's still there.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's a different version, but it's the same
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: kind of thing where you just... That was kind of
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: a given that we were all probably going to die
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: in a nuclear blast.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: And so that's what that song was about. Two things about,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: you know, literally the line is how the only, you know,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: the sins of the fathers being dumped on us, the sons,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: the only choice we're given is how many megatons. And
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: that was real and a real angst. And it was also,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: I said, what's the, if you distill punk down to
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: its basic, basic thing, what is it? It's like, I
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 4: hate you. I hate you. Wherever it's aimed at. Authority
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: or mom, the waiter, whatever.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 7: I hear companies.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: Listeners. I said, well, that has to be the hook.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: I hate you. And then it was all about, yeah,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: just the angst and the disaffected youth. You know, most
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: punks were angry about something. I wasn't. I sort of
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: wrote it as a parody. There was a band called
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: the Toy Dolls. They wrote funny. And even the Ramones,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: some of their own stuff, you know, being on the
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: brat with a baseball bat. That's sort of like, this
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: is ridiculous. They're not really promoting. You know, the mothers
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: were here and go, my goodness, they're saying they should
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: beat children with bats. It's like, yeah, it's kind of
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: the joke. I mean, now I want to sniff some glue.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: Turns out they all did sniff glue. None of them
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: made past 52. There's a reason.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 7: The band's not touring anymore.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's sad. I think Marky just passed away.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: There's none left.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 7: Of the original lineup.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the original lineup.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 7: I told PJ Souls she's an honoring member. She's the only...
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 7: She gets to carry on the legacy now.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Joey Ramone. Funny thing, Rob Bottin told me a
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: great story about Joey Ramone. Rob Bottin, the makeup effects guy,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: he worked on Rock and Roll High School in his
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: first movies. He was the big lab rat. Rob made it.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: I think he wore the costume. He was saying, Joey
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: Ramone talk like this. And he said he was so
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: out of his mind. I don't know if it was
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: glue or whatever. But a great character actor. What's his name? Paul.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: I'll think of it in a second. But he plays
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: a character, Mr. Magruder or Magruber. And Joey can only
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 4: say the scene was, oh, look, it's Mr.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 7: Magruber.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: And Joey can only come out. Oh, look, it's Mr.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 8: Maglube. Oh, Mr.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 5: Maglube.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: He said most of the scenes he's doing sitting down
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: because he couldn't stand up. Anyway, that I digress. Paul Bartel. Sorry,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: Paul Bartel.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 7: Oh yeah. Yeah.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: It was great.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 7: It was the director, but a bunch of other movies.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 7: He made some really cool movies.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: Actor director. I guess I'm somewhat like him. He's done
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: a lot of stuff in writing, directing, acting.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: Um, and I'm, I'm, and I'm portly and I have
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: a beard, but I have more hair. Uh, Why are
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: we talking about that?
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 7: We spiraled off many, many times.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: So that was it. It was to be in sync
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: with the movie. And Leonard got that. I said those
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: lyrics are about that line, judging by the pollution content
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: of the atmosphere, I'd say we've landed in the late
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: 20th century. And it's like, judging by the angst from
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: the jerks on the bus, I would say we're in
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: the late 20th century. So the song was fun. I've
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: had bands play it. I'm told there's bands that do
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 4: cover versions of i haven't gotten a nickel from that
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: i i think i got 250 dollars 500 bucks when
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: and then i got another 500 about four years ago
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: when they uh bought the rights for me to do
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: the cd release and i didn't even pursue residuals because
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: once it's out on a cd it's on it's on.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 7: Youtube you're not getting anything from that point on i.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: Didn't do it for the money anyway but the notoriety
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: has been great so yeah so that and the edge
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: of etiquette people have asked where that came from was
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: that my band's name and uh the edge of etiquette
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: was ralph winter's nickname for me because i would go
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: to meetings as leonard leonard does his proxy technical meetings
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: not like leonard wasn't slacking he just wanted to focus
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: on the important stuff yeah so i'd go to meetings
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: that the director's always copied on because they wanted to
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: know and And he would tell me, you know, you've
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: got to– this is what I want or this is–
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: make sure this happens. And so I'd do it. But
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: I would be me. I'd make jokes and not off
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: color but, you know, close to the line. And the
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: term edge of etiquette was Ralph Winters saying, you know,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: you walk the edge of etiquette. And so he gave
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: me that kind of nickname. Oh, here comes the edge
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 4: of etiquette. Because I would say stuff to like the
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: heads of the studio in meetings. Just jokingly.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 7: But not so jokingly. But it was never mean.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: I wasn't snarky. I was just more like, you know,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 4: most people are like, oh, my God, you said that
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: in a meeting with, you know, Don Steele. I'm like, yeah,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: I don't care. I'm Leonard Nimoy's guy. He can fire
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: me tomorrow. It's sort of like literally the role of
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: the court jester, like the guy who has the, you
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: can't really fire him. I mean, if I did, nothing
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 4: would change. I wouldn't get $ 400 a week. I had
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: to live back with my parents to take that job
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: because the pay was so low. But, again, I would
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: have done it for free. Um, if I could eat
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: table scraps in the commissary. Uh, so yeah, so I
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: would say it cause I had nothing to lose. Ralph,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: you know, had been on two, three pictures at that point.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: He had a big career. I had no career to lose. Um,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: so that's where the nickname came from. So I decided
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: as an inside joke to call it the edge of
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: etiquette and that's where that came from. One hit wonder.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 7: You were the, you know, kind of right hand man
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 7: to Leonard at that point.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: I was.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 10: How.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 7: I mean, he's also directing that movie. Like he's sort
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 7: of the star of it. He's directing it. Like how
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 7: hard was it for him to juggle all that stuff?
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: Well, that's why he wanted an assistant. Two things that happened.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 4: He felt on three that he'd been railroaded with the effects,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 4: like that he didn't know when people were saying something,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: because it was a big effects picture.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: Much more than four in some ways. Uh, he thought
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: people were telling him stuff that maybe wasn't true or
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: maybe their schedule. You can't do that. And he, Because
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: he wasn't an effects guy. And so he wanted someone, A,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: for that reason, who knew effects. But B, for exactly that.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: He had to direct and act in it. And so
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 4: this was a tough job. We do a take. And,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: you know, we had video tap at that point. But
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: it wasn't really recorded very well. It was black and
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: white and kind of fuzzy.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 7: Cheesy little screens on black and white under the tint.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And so he would, you know, do a scene
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: as Spock. And then he'd ask me how did that go.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: And I'd be like, geez, man, how do I answer that? Like,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: you were great. I totally believed you were Spock. But,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: you know, it was more like eyeline or technical stuff.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: And I'd say, you know, I felt right, which is, again,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: I was 23, 24.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 7: Half directing Star Trek IV. No, nothing.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: I would never make that. No, let her do it
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: this way. Stricken from the record. Not at all. Just,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 4: you know, it was another pair of eyes. And it
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: was very, I mean, it's really as I got older
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: and directed, I realized what that meant. I mean, he
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: really did trust me.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: And his interview, when I first interviewed, he didn't ask me, like,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: Tell me about special effects. He asked me, what do
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: you think is a good movie? He wanted to know
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: my taste.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 7: I trust that more with most people, yeah. Right.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: It's sort of like, you know, it was a first
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: date kind of thing where it's like, what do you like?
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: What makes you laugh?
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 7: Rom-coms are great.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: Get out.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't say I like punk rock.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: I did tell him I like Star Trek.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 7: You can't go too far wrong.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I didn't geek out too much.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: So.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: was hard you know it he has to watch takes
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: and then get out of his director hat and put
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: on his actor hat and um i think that was
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: the other like i said the other reason why i
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: was there to you know and he would say something
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: like make sure on the dolly shot like they're you
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: know in the medium shot when i say that line
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: or when so-and-so says the line and so i would
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: i said yeah you know you they hit the mark
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: and i mean and the dp was right there too
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: yeah yeah but i think leonard wasn't looking for like
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: was it in focus it was like did it feel
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: right and and so He trusted me as much as
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: that to ask that. Again, I wasn't making any decisions,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: but I was a sounding board. And Jim Henson had
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: worked that way too. I think what's nice about guys
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: who are that secure in who they are and what
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 4: their job is, they want just a fresh perspective. And
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: very often, I'm their age now. I'm a year older now,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: but last year I was the age Leonard was when
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 4: he hired me. And I meet 23-year-olds, and some of
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: them are really brilliant. And I would love to have
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 4: them be an assistant where I pay them peanuts. Here's
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 4: $ 400 a week, kid. Give me your ideas. And so
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 4: I think not that I was– I mean obviously I
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: had some skill or he wouldn't have hired me, but
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: I got it. And then I also really appreciated that
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: he did do that.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 7: He did trust me. He had faith in you.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: He had faith in me, yeah. And he told me
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: once that I was a genius and that– That really resonated.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: I didn't tell anyone that until this year. I started
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: saying it because I'm.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 7: Now it's on your business card.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: Tired of being shy, yeah. Leonard Nimoy said I'm a genius. Genius, yeah.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: Leonard Nimoy. That's Wile E. Coyote. Super genius.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 9: Super genius.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: But he was lovely and we had a great time
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 4: and it was a lot of fun. He was very warm.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 4: We laughed a lot, which I tend to hopefully do
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: because I like to laugh and I like people around
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 4: me laughing. And, you know, the crew, they all knew
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: each other and there weren't really, you know, if there
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: were any little... Somebody asked me if Leonard and Bill
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: Shatner had a rivalry. I'm like, no, not at all.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: I never saw it. Leonard never talked about it. He's like, oh,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 4: Bill's Bill, and they were friends.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 7: Bill has weird moments, it seems.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: No, he never.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 7: We run into him at these things. I think it's
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 7: just like dealing with different situations. Yeah, and people expect.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 7: He's got a lot of people that have expectations about him.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 4: I remember we went to the screening of Star Trek IV.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 4: We had a test screening in Arizona, and... People don't
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: know what it was. I think some word fan had
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: leaked out. But it wasn't stacked with fans. But after
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: the screening, this is one of my jobs. I would
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: walk in front of Leonard anywhere where there was crowds.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 4: And Don Steele called me the flying wedge. Because I
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: would be his point man. And he would walk right
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 4: behind me. So we'd pick up Brisk Pace. And he
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 4: would walk behind me. And I would just beeline through. Because, again,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: I'm 6'1. I've got 15-inch shoulders. And not that it
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: was intimidating. But you're just going, oh, get out of
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: the way. And then by the time they saw Leonard Nimoy...
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: It was like he's passed. So I was doing that
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 4: and he had to go to the men's room and
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 4: we were at a multiplex. So it wasn't a screening room.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 4: It was just a theater that they said, you know,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: when you go to the mall and they say you
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: want to see a screening. So this was one of
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 4: those screenings. So we're going to the multiplex and I'm
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 4: buzzing into the restroom and like seven kids, teenage boys
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 4: are following him. And I, so I would just, you know,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: take him to the door. He'd go in and I
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: saw them and they're beelining. I'm like, guys, you all
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 4: have to use the bathroom at the same time.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 4: I said, look, if you want to go in one
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: at a time, that's cool, but you're not all going
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: to go in to see Leonard Nimoy in the restroom.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 7: That's kind of creepy, by the way.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they giggle. Well, you know, look, I was a
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: teenage boy. I was like, oh, I'm going to see
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: Spock's wiener. I'm sure that's what they were saying, but
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 4: I prevented that.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 7: Thank you.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 4: We all appreciate it. Thank God there weren't cell phones, right? No,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 4: but that's, I mean, Leonard has a million stories and
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: I experienced some of just how crazy people are. So,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: When you're someone of that stature of a Leonard or
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 4: a Bill Shatner, I will give them a wide berth
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: as to when they're a little cranky or because people
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: are just jerks. I mean, a lot.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's jerky behavior to go watch a guy
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: pee or watch him go to the bathroom. I can
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: say it.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 7: I mean, that's I play sequel as much blame on
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 7: the crowds and the fans. And even at these sometimes
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 7: I'm like, I like our fan base, but sometimes there's
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 7: some people that have. personal issues and personal space issues
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 7: and are kind of awkward and probably don't leave the
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 7: house that much. And I make fun of them cause
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 7: I'm one of them, but I think it is one
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 7: of those. There's just, they're socially awkward a lot of
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 7: times and they don't get the rules of, you know,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 7: social interaction.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: These are teenage boys.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 7: So they were just, and they also, they never have
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 7: social graces. They're teenage boys.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 4: It's scientifically proven that teenage boys are idiots.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 8: Literally.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 4: They don't have any sort of sense filter. They really
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 4: have no filter. Which is why they have a much
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 4: higher death rate than teenage girls.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 7: Insurance rates are higher.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: Exactly, because they just do dumb things. They're like, hey,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 4: watch this. I wonder what happened. Hey, let's go see
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 4: someone in the bathroom. Anyway, that's an odd story I
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: haven't told in a while. So that was part of
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 4: my career, too, is being his bodyguard, or at least
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: his bathroom guard.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 7: Yeah, that's the personal assistant. You take care of all those.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 7: He trusted me with his bathroom.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 4: You watched the door.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 7: I'll be back in a minute.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 4: I would watch the door.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 7: Well, then I did at least want to get to Jim.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 7: You mentioned kind of the comparison.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 4: Jim Cameron?
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 7: Well, Henson.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 4: Jim Doohan?
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Jim Henson. I know, we're running out of time. Well, actually,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 4: we should do that as another interview. We'll do Star
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: Wars and Star Trek and we'll do Henson as another interview.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 7: Do a cliffhanger.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 7: Tune in next time.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 4: Stay tuned next time where I'll tell you all about
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: Jim Henson.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 7: Jim Henson. I can do that.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 4: And his world of neat stuff. That's what we were
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: going to call the Jim Henson Hour originally. Jim Henson's
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 4: world of neat stuff.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 7: That sounds like something Jim would come up with.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 4: That's what he would say. So next time, tune in.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 4: Send money.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 7: Well, just to wrap up, what do you have? I'm
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 7: sure you have 40 things in the works. Well, yeah,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 7: we can play. Let's make a deal. If you can
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 7: name the two things I have on the bar.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 4: It's a row of Tic Tacs.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 7: What do you want to tell people that you've got
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 7: in the works?
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 4: I'm always trying to sell. I've got a number of
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 4: TV shows from comedy to weird kind of sci-fi things.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 4: So I'm always pitching those. I can't really talk about
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 4: them because I haven't sold them.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 7: That's the rule. I don't want to give all of these.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 4: Genius idea away um i'm always working with the muppets
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 4: uh at disney right now i'm developing a web series
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 4: for one of the characters that's about all i can say.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 7: Has it gotten better i mean you really well no
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 7: i mean like i it had to have changed a
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 7: little bit when i thought it was really smart on
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 7: his part to turn it over to disney because He
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 7: knew he could trust, you know, that company in particular
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 7: takes care of its own and it would have been
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 7: a good place. He didn't want somebody doing something horrible
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 7: with his character. You're absolutely right. Has it been, I mean, again,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 7: I feel like they're a super smart company and they
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 7: know exactly what they're doing. But I didn't know if it,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 7: you know, you kind of saw the tail end of
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 7: the old way. And then the Disney way.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 4: The perfect world would be the old way with Disney's money.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 7: We're all looking for that as well. And a rich woman.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 4: Or man. Or just rich family.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 7: I'm up for that too.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 4: Jim, Leonard, those guys are few and far between. Creative
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 4: people who don't have egos, but they're not trying to
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 4: prove anything. Like I said earlier, they're really comfortable with
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: hiring someone younger and go, hey, that's a great idea.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 4: Let's do that. As opposed to It's my idea now.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 4: Because they get it.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 7: It's creating the best thing.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: And something like that that's run, you know, Star Trek
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 4: was Gene Roddenberry and then moved on to Hart Bennett
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 4: and then J.J. But those things work well because it's,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 4: you know, I said the buck stops here. There's one
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 4: creative vision. And usually they're a creative vision that employs
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 4: a bunch of other creative visions and they all work together.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 4: It's a captain of a ship. It's not the guy
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 4: rowing the boat. You know, an auteur is a guy
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 4: rowing a boat by himself. A captain of a ship
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 4: is a guy with 100 people making sure that giant
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 4: amazing vehicle gets across the ocean and does what it's
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 4: supposed to do. So good creative franchises are run like that.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 4: You have a captain with a vision, and he hires
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 4: people who are better at their task than he is,
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 4: and you all work towards that. So anytime that a
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 4: big studio has that, Like, look at Pixar. John Lasseter,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 4: agree with him or disagree with him, he has a
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 4: vision and he hires people that get along with him. And,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 4: you know, some people are frustrated. They're like, well, he
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 4: doesn't do different movies. Yeah, because he's John Lasseter and
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 4: this is what he does. It's like Walt Disney didn't
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 4: make R-rated animated films. That doesn't mean he's a jerk.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 4: You know, John Lasseter makes Cars movies because he likes Cars. Okay, great.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 4: Don't like them. Don't see them.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 7: There's another one coming out next year. I'm sure you'll
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 7: like that one.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 4: Not everybody can't be everything to all people, as Abraham
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 4: Lincoln said. But what you don't get with a big corporation...
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 4: is that vision you get a corporate vision which is
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: sell sell sell make product and it's not always you
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 4: know they rarely say no to something they think will
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 4: make a lot of money and disney's a great place
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 4: to work i mean they hire as a creative franchise
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 4: they are the number one biggest I mean, for everything,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 4: theme parks and cruise ships and TV shows.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 7: I think the TV shows are pretty impressive. They're better
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 7: than what's on a lot of network shows right now.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 4: It's funny because I'm not a businessman by any sense
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 4: of the word. And I was talking about Bob Iger saying,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: I don't know if he's a genius or just like
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: he's a genius to buy up all the competition. He
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 4: bought the best comic book company. He bought the best
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 4: animation company. um to me as an artist you're like
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 4: well that's that's not clever that's just oh i'm not
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 4: going to be picasso i'm just going to be rich
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 4: and hire picasso and say paint my paintings and you
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 4: now you're picasso but i mean he's made disney literally
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 4: the unstoppable juggernaut i said all they have to do
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 4: is buy star trek and they kind of own every
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 4: major franchise um so they're great to work with because
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 4: they do you know make stuff and they pay people
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 4: you know they're they're they're they're corporate side is the
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 4: hard part the business affairs the you know making the
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 4: deals and the contracts and and all that is always
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 4: frustrating for me as an artist i know other artists
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 4: and everyone has their disney oh my gosh the disney
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 4: lawyers beat me up or it took me nine months
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 4: to get paid and everyone has those stories and that's
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 4: you know the bad part of it um because when
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 4: you're working with a company that's run by one guy
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 4: you usually can go to that one guy and go
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 4: hey jim i didn't get paid hey are we gonna
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 4: do this you know and you don't have sort of
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 4: a giant corporation and and Disney has their fingers in
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 4: so many pies, it's hard to get a straight answer,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 4: not because people are lying or jerks, because they don't know,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 4: because there's some guy in another division that's above them.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 4: I mean, you look at the tree structure, and you
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 4: go down about three levels, and there's like 400 people,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 4: and they're all senior executive vice presidents in charge of something.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 7: They're all trying to do the same thing at the
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 7: same time in different directions.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 4: So that part's frustrating when you're used to a smaller
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: creative vision.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 7: Then it put that creative vision in your head. And
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 7: you're just like, now I have to, you know, where
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 7: they're banking it, now somebody has to have the creative
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 7: vision and that gets kind of handed to you?
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 4: Well, on a project-by-project basis, yeah, this thing I'm doing
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 4: right now, this web thing, was my idea and it's
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 4: with one of the characters I helped create back in
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 4: the day and was very involved with. And so it's
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 4: fun for me because I get to write and to
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: co-write them with Jim Lewis and direct them. So, you know,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 4: but it's a small little fish. You know, they don't
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: let me touch them. So whenever they don't have money
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 4: or time, they come to me. I'm supposed to do
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 4: like 42 pages in two days. You know, the TV
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 4: series they just did was four pages a day.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 7: Back to shooting that music video. Yeah, I know. Knock
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 7: us out in one day.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. So that's always my joke is like, when
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 4: they don't have time or money, they come to me.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 4: So when you have a lot of money, I can
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: save you some of that. But it's fun to do
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 4: these things because they're not overthought and they're not expected
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 4: to sell a product. They're just supposed to be entertaining,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 4: which is what the Muppets are, I think, really good at. Yeah,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 4: that's the good part is you do get to be
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 4: king of your own little project until someone doesn't like
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 4: it or whatever. But that's just being creative in Hollywood.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 4: I could sit around and make my own movies with
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 4: my jokes and my characters and I thought about it.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 7: And fund it out of your pocket.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, doing Kickstarter. Yeah, which is an option. But, you know,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 4: if you want to make a living, you've got to
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 4: kind of play with the big boys.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 4: So, you know, everyone likes the bad mouth of the
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 4: boss or the big company. And I have to be
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 4: more circumspect because I've shot my mouth off before, usually
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 4: for a joke. But I really– there's amazing people at Disney.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 4: And Tom Staggs, I was very sad to see go
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 4: because I had a relationship. I worked with him and
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 4: I was just like very excited to see him take over.
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 4: and Iger I've known since ABC. He was the exec
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 4: at Disney, I mean at ABC when we did Dinosaurs.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 4: And he's a nice guy. You know, I don't know
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 4: him as well. I didn't work with him directly like
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 4: I did with Tom Staggs. So, you know, these are
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: the guys who Tom Staggs was being groomed to run
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 4: the company or so they said. Lovely guy, super smart,
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 4: super creative, like got it. And I'm like, wow, this
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 4: is awesome. So, you know, that's the guy calling the shots.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 4: And Iger obviously knows what he's doing with all the
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 4: things he's purchased with Marvel and then letting Marvel make
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 4: Marvel movies and Bought Pixar and let Pixar make Pixar movies.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 4: And they said, we'll just fund it. And Star Wars,
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 4: and they're making Star Wars movies more than George Lucas did.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: So how do you badmouth that?
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 7: Again, I keep waiting for when they all kept buying
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 7: this up. It seemed like trouble. And then each step,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 7: I'm like, wow, these new run of Marvel movies are
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 7: really good. They kind of know what they're doing. And
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 7: then when they got Star Wars, I was like, you
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 7: know what? It's a good idea.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 4: They reinvigorated.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 7: Because they know what they're doing.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 4: Well, and they hire like Jon Favreau and Joss Whedon.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 4: They hire proven creative entities and kind of let them,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't say give them free reign, but give them
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 4: a long rope to hang themselves with.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 7: And bring in guys like you that know what they're doing.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 4: Bring in guys like me, yeah. I'd love to get
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 4: up in the Jon Favreau. I love Jon Favreau's movies.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 4: I met him once. He's a lovely guy. I would
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 4: love to move into Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon territory. So
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 4: send those cards.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 7: We can do, yeah.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 4: I don't know if it will happen with the Muppet
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: web video. But anyway, all right.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 4: My voice is running out.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 7: Anything else?
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 4: So I'm doing that. Just my own TV shows and movies,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 4: but I can't... I might do a Kickstarter. I don't
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 4: know when this is going to be. When do you.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 7: Within a few weeks. Again, there was so much this weekend.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 7: It'll be pieced together.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 4: I'm getting a Facebook... I have a Facebook page, both
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 4: as personal and as director. So I always update things there.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 4: And I'm launching a website in the next couple of weeks.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 4: It'll just be kirkarthatcher.com. And there'll be stuff there.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 5: Cool.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 7: We'll put the link in the episode here and tell
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 7: people to go check it out.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 4: You can see a lot of the pictures I talk
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 4: about from these projects. I've talked about writing a book, actually.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 4: Boy in the Rancor Suit or something like that.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 7: Yeah, again, you've got one or two stories. You probably
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 7: should get those down.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 4: Stop telling them and start writing. Anyway, thanks, man. This
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 4: was fun.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 7: All right, this was great. Thanks for coming.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 4: Keep listening. Remember, send PayPal. PayPal money, not to him,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 4: to me, Kirk Thatcher.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 7: You can send some my way, too.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 4: No, no, no. I need all the money.
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 7: After you send me, then you can send him some.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 4: I'm going to talk like Pepe de Pran, okay? I
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 4: need all the monies.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: I do like Pepe.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 7: He's a nice addition over the years.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 4: I work all night, I work all day to pay
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 4: the bills I.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: Have to pay.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 10: Ain't it sad?
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 8: And still there never seems to be a single penny
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 8: left for me.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 7: That's too bad.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 4: In my dreams I have a plan If I got
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 4: me a wealthy.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: Man I wouldn't have to.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 10: Work at all I'd fool around and have.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: A ball Money, money, money Must be funny In the
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: rich man's world Money, money.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 10: Money.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 7: Alright, so we're wrapping up here at the old Wonderfest, Misty.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 7: It's been a wonderful time, has it not?
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 8: It has been wonderful.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 7: Wonderfest, wonderful. Wonderfestival. See how that goes? Yeah. And you
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 7: too should come have a wonderful time at Wonderfest. So
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 7: go to wonderfest.com and find out what they have in
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 7: store for us all next year.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 8: This girl's wearing piggy slippers.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 7: And she's out in the world.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 8: She's not in her bedroom. Why aren't you Instagramming that shit?
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 7: Do I have to? Then I'd have to look at it.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 7: And they have matching backpacks. Granted, they're probably freebies.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 8: Their shirts match, too.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 7: This couple is special. I don't know how they walk
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 7: around like that.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 8: I want to know what convention they apparently went to
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 8: where they seemed to have matching free shit because I'm
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 8: all about that.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 7: I'm not surprised by that.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 7: So we're going to wrap it up here at Wonderfest
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 7: this week. But go to wonderfest.com and find out what's
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 7: in store for us next year.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 8: Awesome things.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 7: And be there.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 8: Hell yeah.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 7: So thank you to them for letting us be part
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 7: of the action this year.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 8: And all the preceding years that we have.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 7: That's true. We've been here for, again, we're just roped into.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 8: I think it's at least 15 years, if not 16 years.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 7: It's been a couple more than that for me.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 8: Well, mine was whatever year they had Romero was my first.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 7: Was it the first?
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 8: I don't remember now.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 7: I'm going to have to go through. There is a
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 7: list on the Wonderfest website, which is wonderfest.com. And you
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 7: can go back and see previous guests. So I've been
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 7: meaning to go back and track down exactly what the
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 7: dividing year was for you. And then I think I
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 7: was like two years before that.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 8: Was Ken Faree here the same year?
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 7: That's what I'm saying. If it was the year before,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 7: then that was the first year.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 8: And Tom Savini.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 8: Before Boyfriend was mad at him for owing him $ 4
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 8: or something.
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 7: He showed his money. So yeah, we'll have to go
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 7: to wonderfest.com and go back and look at the archives
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 7: there and see what all we had. Memories from years past.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 7: Misty watercolor memories.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 8: Oh, Lord, shut your.
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 4: See, I worked.
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 9: That in there.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 8: Shut your face. That was bad. I mean, there have been...
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 8: They have had... Over the years, they have had quite
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 8: some actually big-name celebrities.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 7: Pretty cool stuff.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 8: You know, it's kind of whatever they can get it. But,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 8: I mean, Anne Francis was here. George Romero. Last year,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 8: they had.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 7: Greg Nicotero.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 8: Exactly. Who was one of the main traumatizers of my childhood.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 7: Julie Adams. That was awesome.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 8: Carolyn, was it Carolyn?
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 7: Carolyn Moreau, yeah.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 8: Bunches of other people.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 7: They always have good guests, and, like, again, everybody is so, like,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 7: actual career-based people. It's not just some, you know, even,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 7: you know, they get a decent amount of actors, but it's, like,
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 7: more impressive sometimes when you look at, like, the other
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 7: people on the list.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 8: More effects people or people who are behind the scenes.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 7: There are people that, and that's some of whom I've
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 7: talked to this week and I'm going to, you know,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 7: have episodes coming up talking to them. It's like, they're
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 7: so steeped in, you know, just filmmaking and Hollywood and
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 7: like so much so that they do totally different things
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 7: and you can look down their IMDB and it's just like,
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 7: here they're doing miniature effects. Here they did sketches for the,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 7: you know, doing.
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 8: Here they made a shark.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 7: And, yeah, well, I mean, just, but even people, like,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 7: it's just, like, here I'm directing something. Here I did
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 7: a second unit before that. Before that, I was doing
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 7: effects over here, and then I was making puppets here. And, like,
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 7: it's just, they're so versatile and, like, have such a, just,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 7: I think it's that work ethic that you have to
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 7: have if you're trying to survive in Hollywood. It's just, like.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 7: what else is there? All right, I can do that.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 7: Like if they're just talented enough, they just step up
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 7: to the plate and they're like, what do you got
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 7: for me? All right, let's do it. And like, those
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 7: are the kinds of people in my press that, that
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 7: they show up and then they have these stories of like,
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 7: I worked on this and I worked on this. And
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 7: you're like, these are amazing stories. And like, you don't
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 7: always get those from the, definitely not the big names,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 7: but even some of the actors like don't bring that
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 7: to the table. Sometimes they're just like, I don't know.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 7: I showed up, they cast me, whatever. Like sometimes they
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 7: have no passion about theirs where like, These guys that
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 7: are on set 24-7 sometimes just killing themselves to make
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 7: the effects and props and all this other stuff. They've
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 7: got the stories. That's where you get the real story.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 8: It seems like it's definitely more of a personal feeling
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 8: than a lot of the other conventions.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 7: Yeah, you can kind of just hang out with them
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 7: at the table and chit-chat with them and it's not
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 7: really like a here, sign this and get out of
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 7: the way. It's just like everybody has more of a
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 7: hang out and talk and tell stories, and it's a
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 7: way more relaxed atmosphere. So, wonderfest.com, make yourself part of
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 7: that fun right now.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 8: Come join our family, but not my actual family, because
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 8: I don't like them.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 7: I think mine's tired of me, but what are you
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 7: going to do? That's why I go out into the
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 7: world and find conventions and pester other movie geeks. My
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 7: extended family.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 2: Yay.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 7: Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next time,
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 7: same geek feed.
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 9: Thanks for listening.
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 8: Just where is our future? The things we've done and said.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 10: Let's just push the button. We'd be better off dead.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 10: Cause I hate you. And I berate you. And I
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 10: can't wait to get to you. The sins of all
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 10: our fathers be dumped on us as sons.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 8: The only choice we're given is.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 10: How many megatons.
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: And I.
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 10: But where is our future? The things we've done is bad.
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 10: Life is supposed to.
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 7: I hate you, and I berate.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 10: You, and I can't wait to get to you.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 7: The sins of all the fathers, presumption of a son,
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 7: the only choice we're given.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 4: Is how many megatons.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 8: It's getting to the point where there's just certain characters.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 7: There's a bug in my ear.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 4: The mushrooms are kicking in, man. Who are you?
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 8: There it is. There's the bug that was in my ear.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 8: Not making it up.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 4: Rowena.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 8: That's her name.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 4: The bug.
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 3: This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown. Produced and
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 3: edited by The Oddity Studios. With the opening music performed
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 3: by The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 3: support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 5: Talk hard!