Latest / Movie Meltdown / David Barclay: The Puppet Path

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David Barclay: The Puppet Path · Movie Meltdown

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Hi, this is Tom Kane, the voice of Yoda.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: And listening to Movie Meltdown, you are good.
• 0:23
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  Speaker 4: Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences
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  Speaker 4: and parental discretion is advised.
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  Speaker 3: Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Provide more cooling in the containment chamber.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: To your stations, we have a movie meltdown.
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: Stop it with the puppet.
• 1:11
  Speaker 6: I'm confused and I need some answers right now.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian.
• 1:25
  Speaker 5: I'm Lucy.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: And we're coming to you live via digital recording from Lexington. Yes.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: The home of the Lexington Comic and Toy Convention.
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: Which is amazing, by the way.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: It was pretty impressive this year. There was a ton
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: of people there. And a pretty ridiculous lineup of guests. Like,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: they've always done well in the past, but they've kind
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: of brought in some big guns this last year, so.
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I didn't actually make it in this year, but
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: just the scene outside of the convention was super impressive,
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: and people went for it. I mean, they super went
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: for it with the costumes and the stuff, and I
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: didn't recognize any of it, but.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: It seemed like a scene. That's because you're old and uncool.
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm old. You have me there.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. That's what I was telling one of
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  Speaker 2: our previous and future guests as we were talking a
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: little while ago at their booth. Because, yeah, they're talking
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: about constantly doing conventions and they're one of the vendors.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: And just like now that you get, we're getting such
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: a new wave of kids that are into it that
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: like 11-year-olds are coming by shopping and they're just walking
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: by and laughing at them for whatever. I'm just because
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: you're old and uncool. These 11-year-olds, no matter how old
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: you are, you're old and uncool. I mean, so to
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: any of our 11-year-old listeners, sorry. And why are you listening?
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Because we're old and uncool, so. But yeah, it's a
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: very different scene even out of the last couple years.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: It continues to bring in a totally different crowd than
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  Speaker 2: when we started doing this show. It's a weird convention
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: world we live in now.
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and it seems to grow exponentially. It seems like
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: there's so many more people.
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  Speaker 2: I keep thinking that. As we continue to get more
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: and more conventions, and I have people keep saying that
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  Speaker 2: there's too many and we're going to hit a bubble
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: and it's going to burst and we're not going to...
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  Speaker 2: And yet I keep going to these and like, I'm like,
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  Speaker 2: can you cram any more people in this building? I
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: don't know if you can. So I don't, I keep
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: thinking we're going to get to that point of no
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: return and people will be like, all right, I'm done.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: I've seen my last walking dead person. I don't need
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: to do this anymore. But yeah, here, here's tons and
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: tons of people again. So I don't know. I don't
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: understand that black is white, up is down. Cats and
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: dogs living together. I don't, I don't know what's going
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  Speaker 2: to happen to the convention world, but. It's still working
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  Speaker 2: at the moment.
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  Speaker 5: They just keep making more fans.
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  Speaker 2: I think so.
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  Speaker 5: They just keep making more weirdos.
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  Speaker 2: Well, that's true too, actually. I was discussing that with
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  Speaker 2: someone the other day. This person who shall reign nameless
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: and occasionally listens to the show, so they'll know I'm
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: making fun of them.
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: Shout out to the nameless person.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: But I don't know that he wants to be known
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: worldwide for being a fan of Tiny Tim. Who wouldn't?
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  Speaker 2: But again, for who he is... you would not expect
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: him to be into Tiny Tim. But for some reason,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: several times recently, he's pulled up, you know, tiptoe through
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  Speaker 2: the tulips and will be playing it on his phone.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm just like, what are you doing? So the
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: thing was, he's playing it and I'm watching it and
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  Speaker 2: we're both just kind of marveling at the weird wonder
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  Speaker 2: that is Tiny Tim. And I'm just like, that's the
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: thing that's strange. Like that was like, tonight show level
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  Speaker 2: of like sideshow freak like it was amazing what a
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  Speaker 2: weirdo this guy was i'm like that now fast forward
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: is every third youtube channel like it's not it's not
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  Speaker 2: like everybody is almost that level of weird now like
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  Speaker 2: you see so many kids growing up now that just
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: do their own thing and do not care what people
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  Speaker 2: think which is awesome But it leads to a very
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  Speaker 2: weird world that we now currently live in. So we're
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  Speaker 2: all becoming Tiny Tim is what I've realized.
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  Speaker 5: Side note, I saw somebody perform Tiptoe Through the Tulips
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  Speaker 5: at karaoke a few months back and it was the
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  Speaker 5: most magnificent thing I've ever witnessed.
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  Speaker 2: Did they do it in the style of?
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  Speaker 5: Heck yeah, they did it in the style of Tiny Tim.
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  Speaker 5: This guy had like pretty serious range. He also did opera.
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  Speaker 5: It was all over the place.
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  Speaker 2: That was the weird thing is I'm so used to
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  Speaker 2: hearing him do that type of voice that The thing
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: that popped up later after we'd listened to several of
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  Speaker 2: his songs on YouTube was him doing Great Balls of Fire.
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: Oh, I love it.
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  Speaker 2: And he was doing it, I guess, in his normal
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  Speaker 2: voice because it was way lower than his normal singing.
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  Speaker 2: And it was a little unnerving. I'm so not used
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  Speaker 2: to hearing that come out of that weird frame that
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: I'm just like, whoa, what's going on here? So I
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: guess YouTube that if you're really looking for some... Yeah,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: he doesn't quite do justice. As a fan of that song,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: he's not quite fiery on that one. But again, I
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: think he was just messing with people.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: It's his thing.
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  Speaker 2: So, all that aside, have you seen any movies lately? Yes.
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: Have I seen movies that I'm particularly excited about and
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: want to discuss?
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  Speaker 3: No.
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: I will say I had a surprise. A movie that
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: I fully anticipated hating. Fully anticipated to be the worst
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: movie of the year. Had no interest in seeing it
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: but had to review it for a different podcast.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I'm on board with this. But alright.
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: And granted for the first hour it was that terrible
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: movie but then all of a sudden it became a
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: really good movie and that was Red Sparrow.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Alright. I've actually heard kind of better again I didn't
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: know what to expect other than as we recently said
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: on the show it's funny that they beat Marvel to
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: their own game because they drug their feet for so
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: long to put out a Black Widow movie that now
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: they've done their own Russian ballet girl taken from birth
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: and turned into an assassin and it's the exact same
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: scenario more or less so yeah it's funny that okay
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: drag your feet all you want Marvel will make our
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  Speaker 2: own version so How was this, then?
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: It was great.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it was super fun.
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  Speaker 5: The first hour is so pulpy and awful, and your
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: heart just breaks for everybody involved. And I was like,
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: I honestly don't know if I can make it through this,
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: because it's over two hours.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm all right with pulpy. But it depends on
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: the movie.
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: No, it was just bad. But then all of a sudden,
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: everything kicked in, and it's so good, and the intrigue,
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: and the mystery, and Jeremy Irons.
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: Oh. All right.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Well, you can't go wrong with Jeremy.
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  Speaker 3: No. No.
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  Speaker 2: Speaking of weirdos.
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: And you can't go wrong with them.
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  Speaker 2: He's my favoritest of weirdos.
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  Speaker 5: So, yeah, I thought it was pretty fun.
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  Speaker 7: How about you?
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  Speaker 5: What have you seen lately that surprised you?
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: That's a, hmm. No, this one did surprise me in
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: the wrong direction, or in an unseen direction, thus the surprise.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Have you seen Suburbicon?
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure I even know what Suburbicon is.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: It just is pretty recent, even in the theaters. It
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: just hit Blu-ray, and if I'm remembering correctly, it's directed
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  Speaker 2: by Clooney.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Oh, okay.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Of the George variety.
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  Speaker 5: I just already forgot what the name of the movie was.
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  Speaker 2: That's kind of, yeah, that's kind of, I had a
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: lot of issues with it, and not even enough to
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: be angry, because I feel like there's so many parts
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: that are well-made that The performances are all fine. I
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: just get to the end and go, what were you
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: trying to do? What were you trying to say? It
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: seems like you have a purpose here. And yet I
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: feel like you never stick the landing on what this
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: thing is you're trying to say. Is that just me?
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: I think the thing is Donald Trump's bad. I think
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: that's what the movie was trying to say.
• 8:59
  Speaker 7: If so, it is.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Way roundabout because I'm just like, I don't, I don't,
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  Speaker 2: like you're trying to go down a couple of different
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: roads and it never really makes a point in any
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: of them. Like, I don't, I don't know what to
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  Speaker 2: do with it. It's just by the end, I was
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: just like, all right. It's like, I don't, I guess
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: I don't. hate it because nothing about it was out
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: and out bad in any direction performance. Even direction-wise, it
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: looked fine. I'm just like, story-wise, I'm like, what are
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: you trying to say? Because again, I thought it was
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: going to be more of, based on that trailer, it
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: looked like it was more of going with the small
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: town kind of ideal little neighborhood, and then it was
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: going to be more of like a crime moving into it,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: and then Matt Damon, Mr. Middle America white guy, is
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: going to step up and like, start doing horrible things
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: in the name of trying to save his town and
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: keep it squeaky clean they were he himself was going
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: to turn to doing violent horrible things and i'm like
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: that's actually an interesting concept and for a fun kind
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: of a movie you could you could find a way
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: to put a twist on that that's really interesting not
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: what this movie is.
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: No, I actually really appreciated that the trailer, and I
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: even feel guilty speaking about the movie now because the
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: trailer is intentionally misleading.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: I mean, it goes out of its way to create
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: a completely different movie.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Than the movie. It's a good trailer from that aspect
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: of the duping you part. I mean, that's what the
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: trailer people are there for. get people into the theater,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: regardless of what the movie you're about to see is.
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: Well, but I don't even think that that was the intention.
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: I don't think it was like, let's make this a
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: better movie. This is a crap movie. Let's try to
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: trick people into seeing it. I think it was that, no,
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: we're going to have some surprises here and we don't
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: want them to be revealed. And we want you to
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: think that you're prepared for something else when we're going
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: to do like a little switcheroo. And I thought it
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: was actually really effective. That movie was panned. so universally
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: and i actually thought it was great i think that
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: a lot of people's complaints were actually the opposite of
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: your concern which is that people found it very heavy-handed
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: and was like oh here's clooney going off the rails
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: being a lefty liberal again which by the way i
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: super love lefty liberals um but i actually thought that
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: it was so interesting i think that one concern had
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: been that he had deviated and created a subplot that
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: wasn't in the original coen brothers script And people thought
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: that that was unnecessary. I thought that it really worked
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: with the movie.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: Is this the racist subplot? Yes. Because I feel like
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: that it never delivers on. I felt like it did.
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: Because the whole point was he wouldn't have gotten away
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: with any of this stuff if there hadn't been this distraction.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Everyone was distracted.
• 11:24
  Speaker 8: I can see that.
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: And that's really what's happening in America right now. And
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: it's really uncanny that this movie was made before we
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: existed in our current climate.
• 11:32
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I just feel like that was so not really pinned
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: down as to what it was trying to do. It
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: feels like it's there the whole time. Like there is
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: obviously something he's trying to do. I guess it was that.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Hopefully it was that. That at least makes sense. But
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: then the other stuff going on is just like, it
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: seems like it's going to be more of a clever
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: plot than it is. It's so like you assume it's
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: going to be more than it is. And you get that, really?
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: That's all that they're, okay. Then I guess it's, Sleep
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: with her? Marry him? I don't know. Like, everything is
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: just still like, I want so much more than this,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: what you're delivering me.
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: It was so, I mean, honestly, I think that 20
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: years from now, we'll all look back. And this movie,
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: despite the fact that lots of people didn't see it,
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: and I completely forgot what it was even called, will
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: sort of be a time capsule that will be the
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: most emblematic movie of Trumpian America, because it covers all
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: the bases.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: And obviously it was made while Trump was running, but
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: we could not have even seen what we had coming
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: for us, and somehow this movie captures it. Also, Julianne
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: Moore playing twins. There's nothing better than two times the
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: Julianne Moore.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: That's what I was going to say. The Julianne Moore
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: performance is almost worth watching. Matt Damon does his normal
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Matt Damon thing when he's in one of those kind
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: of roles, but Julianne Moore does some good stuff, so
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: there's good elements there. It is one, even by the end,
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: that was like, I'm probably going to rewatch it at
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: some point and try to decide how I feel a
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: little more. But initial viewing, I have problems with the
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: whole balance of the plot. So that's my thing. Anything
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: else on York?
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: Gosh, I don't know. Ask me if I've seen things
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: and then I'll remember.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: I have one more that I just recently got around to. Again,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: it's been around and gotten plenty of talk in the
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: last six months or a year. But I finally saw
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: The Florida Project.
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, I loved that movie so much.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd heard so much about all of these key
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: elements going in, and then I'm like, nope, everybody's right.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: It's an amazing little snapshot of Americana that people probably
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: don't want to acknowledge is going on, but I'm like, no,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: this is a lot of people's lives, and it's pretty
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: well told and seems very unscripted, but then even on the.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: DVD it came with its own little behind the scenes
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: and so much of that stuff he is actually scripted
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: out and he's even kind of like walking the kid
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: through and like some like surprisingly it's all mapped out
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: how this story is supposed to go where it feels
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: a little off the cuff but it's yeah it's obviously
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: very planned out what is your thoughts on the ending
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: And basically the last like 90 seconds. Well, I mean,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: not really. I mean, not even we don't have to
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: go just the direction. You don't have to go into
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: the specifics of it. It just takes a really different turn.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Those last 90 seconds or so. It's very short, but
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know. That's I've heard people had issues with
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: the end before I saw it. And then I saw
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: it went, OK, I see what they're talking about. think
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: i'm somewhere in the middle like yeah it's an odd
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: turn for something that was so reality based for the
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: entire but i'm sure that's.
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: The point totally went into the world of fantasy yeah.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that is kind of the point but at
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: the same time i think it would have been fine.
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: Without it so i'm like i agree it's not.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Enough of an investment to even have it take away
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: really like it's just like oh and credits okay well
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: i'm sticking with all the other stuff that happened before
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: that so.
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I loved the movie so much that I'm willing
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: to forgive the ending. And I didn't find it that problematic.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't either. I don't even feel like it's
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: a problem. It's just different. It's very different. It kind
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: of comes out of nowhere as far as the rest
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: of the reality-based stuff. And then you're like, it's almost
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: over too quickly. You're like, wait, what are we? Oh, credit.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: So again, it's a weird artistic choice, but it certainly
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: doesn't take away from the rest of the mostly obvious,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: all of it really. Because then that's the thing, as
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: much as I want to give to just those amazingly
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: realistic performances and all of that cast but just the
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: visuals like again location scout points i mean some of
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: those things that they track down and pieced all together
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: into this little world that's probably not next to each
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: other at all but.
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: But also super might be but.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Also or yeah maybe all sitting in one spot they
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: all are real things sitting in florida somewhere right now
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: so Yeah, just finding those things and then finding a
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: way to make them look that amazing. And yet they're
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: all almost everything is running down and probably a nightmare
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: to actually exist in that world. But it looks so beautiful.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: If you're into those kind of visuals, it's such a
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: great representation of that kind of balance of beauty in
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: the weird urban environment that it is. So, yeah, I
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: was I was happy with it overall. Yeah.
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: And I loved the problem solving that they did in
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: terms of like the scene with the birds that's in
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: the trailer where Willem Dafoe is talking to them. And
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: I guess that was something in shooting that they just
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: had to deal with because this is a protected species
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: and you can't do anything about them. So they just
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: kind of did some ad libs and it wound up
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: being one of the most charming scenes of the movie.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Um i joke in there somewhere.
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: I i just i i absolutely loved it i was
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: very sad that it didn't receive an oscar nomination for
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: best picture it sounds like it kind of fell into
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: the feels.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Like it could have been in so many of those categories.
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: Oh absolutely and i and i think the part of
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: that has to do with there was a producer i
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: guess that was involved it's some allegations and kind of
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: nobody really wanted to touch the movie after that, but
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: they had to acknowledge Willem Dafoe because he's so great.
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: And I was very, I love Sam Rockwell, but I
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: would have given that, that Oscar to.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: I feel like a couple of those probably could have
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: traded out. But I don't know. It's one of those
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: that I think it may also be that marketing end
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: of it that like, if the movie was as small
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: as it is budget wise, did they also have the
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: $ 200 million to dump into it for advertising or, And
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: then an extra who knows how many million to put
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: into an Oscar campaign push that gets everybody to remember
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: to write that down and vote for that one. Yeah.
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: Don't even get me started on the Oscars this year
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: and Harry Dean Stanton.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: No, I don't. I looked immediately and was not thrilled
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: with things. So it's not cool, man.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Just saying.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Oscars.
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: Also, he didn't get a clip.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: He got a photo.
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: Whole other, whole other episode that.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: I feel like they left out a lot of people.
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, they did.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just me? A couple of people on
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: the feed were noticing that they didn't bother with Toby Hooper.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, I'm surprised they even put George Romero
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: in there. Are you? Well, I mean, does Oscars ever
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: care about horror? I mean, other than the fact that
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: this year kind of a horror movie got nominated, but
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: for the most part, horror is not on their radar.
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: Zombies are so fashionable.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Again, he's a big enough name, but almost just name value.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: I think because everyone else references him, they probably like, well, okay,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: I guess we have to put in, but. It's not
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: like they ever cared about anything else he did, which
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: even fans kind of didn't care near as much. So, yeah,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: I was at least glad to see that one. But
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: I'm like, it seemed like it was over in about
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: half the time of previous years. I was like, are
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: they just trying to piss people off now? Because every
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: year they they take a lot of heat for leaving
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: people out of it. So.
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: So everybody just needs to reference our own Dearly Departed episode.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: That's what I was thinking. I was like, yeah, obviously
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: you're missing out, so just go back and listen to the...
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: We preemptively planned that they were going to drop the
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: ball like they usually do. And also, they'll probably name
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: the wrong people to win Oscars, so you should just
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: listen to the Foiler episode. Once again, we've got you
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: covered on all counts. That's what we're here for. Picking
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: up the slack that the Academy... All right. Well, then,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: with that, I say we take our break now, and
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: we come back with this week's guest. You shake my
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: nerves and you ran on my brain. Too much loving
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: drives a man insane.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: You broke my will.
• 19:43
  Speaker 10: Oh, what a thrill.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: This grace is great for the power. Stand alone and
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: I thought it was funny. You broke my will.
• 19:55
  Speaker 6: You made my mind.
• 19:57
  Speaker 11: This love is fine.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: This grace is great.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: For the power. Kiss me, baby. Feels so good.
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: Mr. Projectionist, stop the show. Here's great news you ought
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: to know. We've just got a shipment of taste-thrilled treats,
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: all tip-top quality and delicious eats. There are hot dogs
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: and popcorn and candy galore. There's soft drinks and coffee
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: and a whole lot more. So direct your steps to
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: our refreshment stand to enjoy the finest snacks in all
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: the land.
• 20:52
  Speaker 10: You know, it's a crime.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Not to have delicious coffee like this all the time.
• 21:04
  Speaker 9: That makes me think of a particular coffee shop in
• 21:07
  Speaker 9: town because we're.
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: Not advertising, right?
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, it depends. Is it Heine Brothers?
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: It's Heine Brothers.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Because of the few good things that have happened in
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: life ever, we're now sponsored by Heine Brothers Coffee.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: Thank God, because I am sponsored by Heine Brothers Coffee
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: in general.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Well, we all should be because Heine Brothers is awesome. Actually,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: it really is. I'm drinking Heine Brothers Coffee right now.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: I am right now.
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: I'm drinking Heine Brothers Coffee.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: That's all we drink in this house.
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: This is a Heine Brothers House coffee.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Once again, you should go right now. Go get yourself
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: a bag. You can have it shipped directly to your house.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: And that Meltdown code is going to get you a
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: little discount. You got a code? Oh, yeah.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: What?
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: We got a code. So I'm proud to announce that
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Movie Meltdown is now working with Heine Brothers Coffee. Heine
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Brothers was founded in 1994. And as most of you
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: regular listeners out there know, I'm a big coffee drinker.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: And one of my very first regular coffee shops that
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: I started to hang around was that first, longest avenue
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: location that Heine Brothers opened. It's been a long road
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: and a lot of cups of coffee, but I'm glad
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: to be working with them all these years later. And
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: as we kick things off, I want to tell you
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: about the Heine Brothers coffee subscription. Wherever you are, home, work,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: or out on the road, you deserve great coffee. And
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: the Heine Brothers subscription plan gives you top quality, organic,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: fair trade coffee delivered right to your home or office automatically.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: You select the frequency, the quantity, and the variety of coffee,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: and Heine Brothers will take care of the rest, shipping included.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: So just order online at heinebrotherscoffee.com slash subscription and use
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: the offer code MELTDOWN for $ 5 off any gift subscription.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: And if you're not familiar with Heine Brothers Coffee or
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: the spelling or any of that that might make it
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: a little harder, just go to moviemeltdown.com and look on
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: the right-hand side of the page and you'll find a
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: link to take you right to heinebrotherscoffee.com. That's right, the
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Meltdown Caffeinated Movie Geeks are hooking you up, so get
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: your subscription started today.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Feed me food!
• 23:03
  Speaker 10: Take it easy, Dracula.
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: What do you think I'm carrying here, my dirty laundry?
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: Where a man-eating, talking plant gives homicide something to think about.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: It all began in this little shop.
• 23:16
  Speaker 11: Ow!
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: Damn roses!
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: Where, strange as it seems, something extraordinary happened.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: I'm afraid it isn't feeling very well today. Now, isn't
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: that bizarre? What kind of a weirdo plot does that
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: seem like?
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: Little Shop of Horrors.
• 23:33
  Speaker 8: A story about a boy.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: I've given you sunlight. I've given you rain. Looks like
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: you're not happy.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Plus, I open a vein.
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: Why did you get such a weird plan?
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: A girl. You don't make nice.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Boys when you live on skid row, Mr. Mushnick. This
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: is my date, my boyfriend.
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: A florist.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: I'm telling you, Audrey, he's not a good, clean kind
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: of boy.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: He's a professional.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: I've been saving all month for this.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: I think I need.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: A root canal.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: I'm sure I need a long, slow root canal.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: And a plant.
• 24:28
  Speaker 6: How am I supposed to keep on feeding you?
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: Yes!
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Rick Moranis.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: Ellen Green. Excuse me, what?
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: That's better.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: Vincent Gardenia, with special guest appearances by Steve Martin, John Candy,
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: and Bill Murray. It's a professionalism that I respect. Little
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: Shop of Horrors.
• 25:11
  Speaker 8: Woke up this morning, feeling low. Where my loved one
• 25:17
  Speaker 8: used to live?
• 25:18
  Speaker 10: Hey, Jacqueline.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: Hi.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Guess what?
• 25:23
  Speaker 10: What?
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: We're broke.
• 25:25
  Speaker 8: Yeah, we definitely... I'm turning my pockets out right.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 25:48
  Speaker 10: Nothing.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. I do that every week. And yet,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to produce this show for you guys listening
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Freeloaders. I'm just saying, you know, if you want to
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: keep this thing rolling, it'd be kind of awesome if
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: you'd go to our Patreon page and, like, kick in, like, seriously, like,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: two bucks. I mean, you're gonna do, like, Netflix for, like, $ 9. 99
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: and you get And you're probably not going to watch
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: it almost like I do.
• 26:15
  Speaker 12: Yeah, you need our commentary to figure out what to
• 26:18
  Speaker 12: watch on Netflix.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: I think so.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: It's like a companion piece to all your Amazons and
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Netflixes and all of these things. So just think how
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: much you don't make use of your other streaming services.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: But every week we're loading up a whole new episode
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: of us going in-depth, more than you may want, about
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: whatever movie we've decided or bringing in some awesome guests.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: So I'm just saying... Two bucks. It's not so bad.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Two dollars. You won't even notice it. And you'll look
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: at your bank statement and be like, two dollars. Oh, yeah.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: I'm supporting an artist that I like. That's all I
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: ask for. Trying to keep this thing rolling. And all
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: we need is your assistance. So go to patreon.com slash
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: movie meltdown. Or if you can't remember all that, go
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: to movie meltdown.com. The link is right there at the
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: top of the homepage. That's all you need to do.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I contribute more than two dollars a month. Because you're
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: awesome like that. Why don't you be awesome like Jacqueline?
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying. I mean, really, though. I mean, you
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: can't be that awesome, obviously.
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: But you can get closer.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: You can climb the ladder a little bit. Just saying. Patreon,
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: go support us.
• 27:26
  Speaker 8: All I do, all day long, fall down on my
• 27:31
  Speaker 8: knees and pray she come.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Back home for me.
• 27:38
  Speaker 8: Why has there been a boy on me.
• 27:48
  Speaker 10: Just where is.
• 27:49
  Speaker 8: Our future the things we've done and said let's just
• 27:51
  Speaker 8: push the button we'd be better off dead.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Cause i hate you and i berate.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: You and i can't wait to.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Hey, this is Kirk R.
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: Thatcher, the punk on the bus in Star Trek IV.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: First of all, I hate you. Secondly, you're listening to
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Movie Meltdown.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: And I eschew you.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: And I may screw you. And I hope you'll lose too.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: What's part of your problem?
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: You know, you haven't seen enough movies.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: All of life's riddles are answered in the movies. And now,
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: on with the show.
• 28:47
  Speaker 13: So I was really looking forward to talking with this
• 28:49
  Speaker 13: week's guest, specifically because he not only works in a
• 28:52
  Speaker 13: fascinating field, but also because he helped create some of
• 28:56
  Speaker 13: my favorite characters in movie history. His name is Dave Barkley,
• 29:00
  Speaker 13: and he is a master puppeteer, a man who's worked
• 29:02
  Speaker 13: with the likes of Jim Henson and George Lucas and
• 29:05
  Speaker 13: Frank Oz. And I won't run through the whole list
• 29:08
  Speaker 13: of film.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Credits, but let's just say I bet you've heard of
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: a few of the projects he's.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Worked on in the past.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: But I think I'll let him tell you about all
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: that directly as we go now to talk with Dave Barkley.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: I usually try to start at the very beginning and
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: kind of figure out how people got to where they
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: are as their career goes. So As a kid, what
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: were you interested in? Did it start off with the
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: arts or did you just kind of find your way there?
• 29:38
  Speaker 7: Well, I have a very good reason for being a
• 29:39
  Speaker 7: puppeteer my folks are puppeteers so i'm a second generation
• 29:43
  Speaker 7: puppeteer so from about age four i was puppeteering and
• 29:47
  Speaker 7: building puppets um and working with my folks so i
• 29:50
  Speaker 7: would go along and be part of their show as
• 29:52
  Speaker 7: soon as i was tall enough to reach the uh
• 29:55
  Speaker 7: the other puppets i had my own characters so Yeah,
• 29:58
  Speaker 7: puppeteered from the age of four and had my own
• 30:00
  Speaker 7: Punch and Judy shows. And so, yeah, puppetry was definitely
• 30:03
  Speaker 7: a central part of my life.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: So theirs was all just live theater show kind of
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: a thing.
• 30:08
  Speaker 7: Yes, they did sort of traditional glove puppets, a bit
• 30:12
  Speaker 7: like Mr. Rogers, I guess. But these were all original
• 30:15
  Speaker 7: characters and original stories. And they, yeah, they spent their
• 30:19
  Speaker 7: entire lives doing puppet shows for... for family audiences.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Was there a point when it occurred to you that,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: I'm assuming your friends at school, their parents didn't do this,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: did at some point it seem like, why are my
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: parents doing this?
• 30:32
  Speaker 7: Well, yeah, for the longest time it seemed like perfectly
• 30:34
  Speaker 7: normal to be a puppeteer, because that's what it was,
• 30:36
  Speaker 7: but now I realized pretty soon that I was only
• 30:39
  Speaker 7: child as well, so I didn't have brothers and sisters,
• 30:42
  Speaker 7: so I was like, okay, yeah, I'm slightly different, and
• 30:45
  Speaker 7: it's like, well, that's fine, but I also got interested
• 30:47
  Speaker 7: in prosthetic makeup as well, because they were actors originally,
• 30:51
  Speaker 7: so So that whole side of the theater and arts
• 30:55
  Speaker 7: was very fascinating to me as a kid.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Did you start going into the arts as far as
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: schooling or did you just follow the puppet path because
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: it was already laid out for you?
• 31:05
  Speaker 7: Well, I decided I didn't want to follow my folks
• 31:07
  Speaker 7: path doing live shows for kids. So I wanted to
• 31:10
  Speaker 7: get into the film and TV industry and I thought
• 31:12
  Speaker 7: the best way of doing that was to focus on
• 31:14
  Speaker 7: sculpting and get a sculpting degree. And so that was
• 31:17
  Speaker 7: my plan. But that got slightly short-circuited when I got
• 31:23
  Speaker 7: a summer job working in a toy store in London.
• 31:27
  Speaker 7: While I was away from lunch, Mark Hamill came in
• 31:31
  Speaker 7: and bought $ 1, 000 worth of the puppets I was demonstrating.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: No surprise for people that know Mark.
• 31:37
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and so the catch is that A, I didn't
• 31:40
  Speaker 7: meet Mark at that time, and B, I didn't get
• 31:42
  Speaker 7: the commission, so I was devastated.
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: But.
• 31:45
  Speaker 7: He came back to work on Empire Strikes Back and
• 31:47
  Speaker 7: got back in touch with the store that got back
• 31:49
  Speaker 7: in touch with me. I met with Mark, and he
• 31:51
  Speaker 7: commissioned me to build a Darth Vader marionette, a string puppet,
• 31:54
  Speaker 7: for his personal collection. When it was finished, he invited
• 31:57
  Speaker 7: me along to the studios, introduced me to Stuart Freeborn,
• 32:01
  Speaker 7: and a week later, I was on the Yoda team.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: We, about a year or so ago, I talked with
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Kirk Thatcher. I don't know if you crossed over a
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: lot with him.
• 32:10
  Speaker 7: Oh, not so much in the early days, but recently. Oh, yeah.
• 32:14
  Speaker 7: All the different Muppet shoots have been on. I've known
• 32:17
  Speaker 7: Kirk for years, but I don't think I, because I
• 32:19
  Speaker 7: know he was on Jedi, but I didn't actually bump
• 32:21
  Speaker 7: into him at that time.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: At some point, he was the test footage for the
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Rancor when they were going to shoot a live puppet
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: version of it.
• 32:27
  Speaker 7: That's right.
• 32:28
  Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: So then I guess, again, I was kind of trying
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: to figure out with him how it all started. So
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: once you kind of had your foot in the door
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: for Empire, because how much had they mapped out how
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Yoda was going to work? I mean, Frank Oz is,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: even at that point, pretty much a master at what
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: he was doing. Oh, yeah.
• 32:46
  Speaker 7: I mean, Frank was probably the best in the world,
• 32:48
  Speaker 7: I think. And it was a whole new style of puppetry.
• 32:52
  Speaker 7: And that took some development. Frank was very focused on
• 32:55
  Speaker 7: how he wanted to perform each moment in the film.
• 32:58
  Speaker 7: and he broke everything down. I was drafted in to
• 33:01
  Speaker 7: do the eyes. I was originally on the build crew,
• 33:03
  Speaker 7: but they needed someone to do the eyes, so I
• 33:05
  Speaker 7: came in for a day, it was originally, and Frank
• 33:08
  Speaker 7: was very happy with what I did, so I stayed
• 33:09
  Speaker 7: on that. But he would actually block it out as
• 33:11
  Speaker 7: an actor, and we would all follow him around and
• 33:14
  Speaker 7: mimic him, so we knew all the beats, we had
• 33:16
  Speaker 7: a sense of the character. Because for Frank, it's all
• 33:19
  Speaker 7: about character. And so we really got a sense of
• 33:22
  Speaker 7: Yoda's character, all of us, so that when we were puppeteering,
• 33:24
  Speaker 7: we would know how Yoda's character would approach.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Everything, so... Yoda in particular is one of the most amazing,
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: on film at least, because he really doesn't come off
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: like a puppet most of the time. You start to
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: buy him as a real living creature, which doesn't always
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: happen with puppets. What do you think was different about him?
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Because even looking at what they did in Phantom Menace
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: when they tried to do a puppet, it wasn't there.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: It just didn't have the same thing that was going
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: on in Empire.
• 33:52
  Speaker 7: No, Empire was excellent. A number of things. Stuart Freeborn's sculpture.
• 33:57
  Speaker 7: Stuart Freeborn is an absolute master. And everything he sculpted
• 34:00
  Speaker 7: had to stick on somebody's face because he was a
• 34:02
  Speaker 7: makeup artist. So everything looked like flesh that he sculpted.
• 34:06
  Speaker 7: And so Yoda looks real. That sculpture looks like real skin.
• 34:10
  Speaker 7: And in some ways, it's a simple sculpture, but it's beautifully,
• 34:14
  Speaker 7: beautifully sculpted. Very, very clever and gorgeous. I mean, I
• 34:17
  Speaker 7: think it's still one of the greatest sculptures in animatronics.
• 34:22
  Speaker 7: And so that's a big part of it. Also, the
• 34:24
  Speaker 7: lighting was an amazing... a feat of making the most
• 34:28
  Speaker 7: out of yoda because if you don't get good lighting
• 34:30
  Speaker 7: you can make the best animatronic look appalling and you
• 34:33
  Speaker 7: can make an okay animatronic look fantastic and the lighting
• 34:36
  Speaker 7: was excellent on yoda and then of course frank oz
• 34:39
  Speaker 7: who was just at the top of his game and
• 34:42
  Speaker 7: was developing a whole new style also looking to develop
• 34:45
  Speaker 7: a style for dark crystal as well so it's very
• 34:48
  Speaker 7: much an innovative time for puppetry performance and yoda was
• 34:53
  Speaker 7: really sort of um was the figurehead for all of that.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: I think the lighting may be the key, because looking at,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: once you move to Phantom Menace, it's mostly green screen.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: It's in a bright, lit room, so I think that
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: makes it kind of suffer compared to that nice environment
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: that you build in the log there is a very
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: different setting for it.
• 35:14
  Speaker 7: Yes, that's true. And also, I mean, the Phantom Menace
• 35:16
  Speaker 7: was a silicon skin. Silicon doesn't compress the same way
• 35:20
  Speaker 7: as foam latex does, which was the original skin.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: So.
• 35:23
  Speaker 7: Just by pure physics, it's not going to move the
• 35:26
  Speaker 7: same way, and it's going to reflect light in a
• 35:28
  Speaker 7: different way. So, I mean, silicon seemed to be the
• 35:31
  Speaker 7: thing that everyone was using at that time, but it
• 35:33
  Speaker 7: wasn't what was used on Yoda. So to reproduce Yoda,
• 35:37
  Speaker 7: foam latex would have been... And just Graham Freeborn, Stuart's son,
• 35:41
  Speaker 7: did a beautiful job on painting Yoda. It was just gorgeous.
• 35:44
  Speaker 7: And it wasn't airbrushed. It was actually stippled with a brush.
• 35:48
  Speaker 7: So just a regular paintbrush. But just beautifully done. So again,
• 35:52
  Speaker 7: just great artists making something just completely unique.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a moving work of art at that point.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: So then I guess next up you end up getting
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: shoved inside of Java. What part of Java did you
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: end up on?
• 36:06
  Speaker 7: Well, I ended up taking over from Frank at the
• 36:09
  Speaker 7: end of the Empire shoot because he had to go
• 36:11
  Speaker 7: to New York to do Sesame Street Live. They needed
• 36:15
  Speaker 7: someone to fill in. And he nominated me, which was amazing.
• 36:19
  Speaker 7: So that really... that was, that was amazing. And then, yeah,
• 36:23
  Speaker 7: it really was because he could have chosen any one
• 36:24
  Speaker 7: of the Muppet guys that he'd known. But again, he
• 36:26
  Speaker 7: said character, it's about character. I've been there every moment
• 36:29
  Speaker 7: of every day on the shoot. I knew exactly Yoda's character.
• 36:32
  Speaker 7: So I had the best insight as to how Yoda
• 36:35
  Speaker 7: would react to different shots. So it was, it was
• 36:38
  Speaker 7: absolutely wonderful. So, um, and then they invited me onto
• 36:41
  Speaker 7: Dark Crystal, uh, Frank and Jim. And so I was
• 36:45
  Speaker 7: the first British puppet maker on Dark Crystal and worked
• 36:47
  Speaker 7: through that. And I was, uh, In the post-production time
• 36:52
  Speaker 7: of Dark Crystal, when I had a call from Stuart
• 36:54
  Speaker 7: Freeborn asking me, would I like to be chief puppeteer
• 36:57
  Speaker 7: for Jabba? I mean, it's just like, well, okay, yeah.
• 37:00
  Speaker 7: I was actually contracted to Henson's at the time, so
• 37:03
  Speaker 7: I had to speak to Jim, and Jim said, yeah, sure,
• 37:04
  Speaker 7: as long as you finish all the work that you've
• 37:06
  Speaker 7: got up to that point, then yeah, go off and
• 37:08
  Speaker 7: do Jabba.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: I love Dark Crystal. Which characters were you in charge of,
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: like design and building, or actually puppeting, or all of it?
• 37:17
  Speaker 7: Well, yes, I came in as a puppet maker and
• 37:18
  Speaker 7: designer initially. I worked with Tim Clark and Bill Hargreaves
• 37:22
  Speaker 7: on the Mystics initially, building harnesses and performance tests, and
• 37:28
  Speaker 7: then worked closely with Lyle Conway, who was the supervisor
• 37:31
  Speaker 7: for the Skeksis, the Erskeks, and Orgra. So I was
• 37:34
  Speaker 7: basically Lyle's right-hand man.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: So....
• 37:38
  Speaker 7: Co-sculpted the Skeksis with Lyle. Lyle would sculpt one half
• 37:41
  Speaker 7: of the Skeksis and say, no, I don't want to
• 37:43
  Speaker 7: do the other one. You do the other half, Dave.
• 37:45
  Speaker 7: So I did the other half of, so yeah, I
• 37:48
  Speaker 7: did half the Skeksis, but I did the other half
• 37:50
  Speaker 7: of Lyle's original, copying it in his style, which was amazing.
• 37:53
  Speaker 7: There was my university degree in sculpture by being taught
• 37:57
  Speaker 7: by the great Lyle Conway.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's, again, everything's amazing in that, but the
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Skeksis are my favorite. I think just because they're so
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: weird and twisted and like, there's just such a weird
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: edge to them that, I love something about that. Again,
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: that's the Jim Henson vein that runs through it. It's
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: kind of family-friendly and yet got this dark vein that
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: runs through it.
• 38:16
  Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because Jim really didn't feel that his
• 38:20
  Speaker 7: focus was the Sesame Street world, which was very much younger.
• 38:24
  Speaker 7: So he definitely had that fun twist in his imagination. Definitely.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: So I guess then to get back to Jabba, so then...
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: You're kind of in charge of the whole production, or
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: are you hands-on still moving parts to it?
• 38:38
  Speaker 7: No, because I'd been working at the Henson Company on
• 38:41
  Speaker 7: Dark Crystal, I couldn't be involved in the build for Jabba.
• 38:44
  Speaker 7: So I only came in as a puppeteer. But they
• 38:47
  Speaker 7: did offer me chief puppeteers and asked me who I'd
• 38:49
  Speaker 7: like inside the cockpit of Jabba. And so I chose
• 38:53
  Speaker 7: my old friend Toby Fullpot, who... We'd worked together on
• 38:56
  Speaker 7: Dark Crystal.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: I guess you have to choose that crew really selectively
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: because you're going to be jammed right next to them
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: for who knows how long.
• 39:03
  Speaker 7: Yes, and also there was a great learning experience that
• 39:07
  Speaker 7: everybody had who'd worked on Dark Crystal because we were
• 39:10
  Speaker 7: performing animatronics that no one had attempted before and trying
• 39:13
  Speaker 7: different styles. And the whole methodology came about from how
• 39:18
  Speaker 7: to bring these characters to life. It started with Yoda,
• 39:20
  Speaker 7: and that was the foundation of all the work on
• 39:23
  Speaker 7: Dark Crystal. But Tobu was all part of that, so
• 39:26
  Speaker 7: we had a shorthand of how to approach the performance
• 39:29
  Speaker 7: of Jabba.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Again, that's so many moving parts to make that work.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: At what point is it overwhelming? Just to keep everything
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: lined up and still going on in conjunction with what's
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: going on above stage while the actors are working?
• 39:44
  Speaker 7: Yes, because Toby and I couldn't see out at all.
• 39:46
  Speaker 7: The whole thing was completely sealed inside, so we had
• 39:48
  Speaker 7: little television monitors. and earpieces, and so we felt a
• 39:53
  Speaker 7: little sensory deprived, because we couldn't really see what was
• 39:56
  Speaker 7: going on, and the director would often say, oh, Jabba,
• 39:59
  Speaker 7: look over here, and I'd have to say, sorry, I
• 40:02
  Speaker 7: don't know where here is, you know, because we couldn't see,
• 40:06
  Speaker 7: we had no idea where he was pointing to, but yeah,
• 40:11
  Speaker 7: it was fun, it was really, really fun.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: What's funny is that's also right before the digital end
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: of it, so all the equipment you're using is massive.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: I see those screens are like giant TV boxes, like
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: everything was in 1982 or whatever, so it's like the
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: fact that the audio and video that you guys had
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: to have crammed in there with you was not tiny.
• 40:30
  Speaker 7: No, no, it's the old cathode ray tube, the CRTs,
• 40:33
  Speaker 7: and it was... The monitor was... I think we had
• 40:36
  Speaker 7: something like a 4-inch, 5-inch screen, but the whole thing
• 40:39
  Speaker 7: was about at least a foot long and weighed a ton.
• 40:43
  Speaker 7: And the image was terrible, so we could almost hardly
• 40:45
  Speaker 7: see anything. So, yeah, it was fun. It was fun,
• 40:49
  Speaker 7: but it was... And that's kind of what we got
• 40:51
  Speaker 7: used to on Dark Crystal. Although I think, actually, if
• 40:53
  Speaker 7: I remember rightly, the Dark Crystal video equipment was actually
• 40:57
  Speaker 7: better than the Jedi stuff, because obviously that was really
• 40:59
  Speaker 7: important for Jim and all the Muppeteers.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: So I guess just... Continually working with Jim led to Labyrinth,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: because that's another one of those that people, I mean, everyone,
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: my co-host on the show is like obsessed with Labyrinth
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: and always has been. So you essentially got working on
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: a dog riding a dog.
• 41:17
  Speaker 7: Yes, I initially got working on Pseudonymous when I, well,
• 41:21
  Speaker 7: because basically after Dark Crystal, Jim Henson just kept myself
• 41:25
  Speaker 7: and Lyle Conway on to do all the preparation for
• 41:29
  Speaker 7: the promotion for Dark Crystal, and then research and development
• 41:32
  Speaker 7: for what became Labyrinth. So in the interim, I also
• 41:35
  Speaker 7: went off and became Sprocket the Dog on Fraggle Rock
• 41:38
  Speaker 7: for the international versions of the show. So definitely working
• 41:42
  Speaker 7: a lot for that. Sprocket always looked good too, now
• 41:44
  Speaker 7: that you mention it. Yeah, Sprocket was great fun. And
• 41:46
  Speaker 7: I loved him because he didn't actually have words. He
• 41:48
  Speaker 7: just barked. So it was a.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Very dog-like.
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: It was a really interesting performance experiment because you couldn't
• 41:55
  Speaker 7: use words. You could use, like, the Scooby-Doo kind of sounds,
• 41:58
  Speaker 7: but no words at all. It wouldn't go as far
• 42:00
  Speaker 7: as Scooby. So it was definitely just barks.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: And a lot of facial expression for a dog puppet.
• 42:05
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and so that was really nice. It was like
• 42:07
  Speaker 7: puppet mime or pantomime sort of thing, which was really fun. But, yeah,
• 42:11
  Speaker 7: so then I got working on Labyrinth after all of that.
• 42:14
  Speaker 7: And so, yeah, my first was building... early prototype versions
• 42:20
  Speaker 7: of Pseudonymous and a marionette version. Jim wanted a marionette
• 42:23
  Speaker 7: version and didn't like marionettes, didn't really understand them, but
• 42:27
  Speaker 7: really liked what I did. So he got me to
• 42:30
  Speaker 7: build a number of marionettes for Labyrinth, as well as
• 42:34
  Speaker 7: sculpting some of the goblins and that sort of thing.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: And in the Chilly Down scene, were you part of that?
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Because that, again, we've had reference on the show several
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: times as disturbing children for years. That scene in particular
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: is very strange.
• 42:47
  Speaker 7: Yeah, well, originally they were called Wild Things, and yes,
• 42:51
  Speaker 7: I was part of that team. Fari number one, in fact. Now,
• 42:55
  Speaker 7: myself and Toby Philpott worked together again on that character
• 42:59
  Speaker 7: with Kevin Clash, who later became Elmo. So, yeah, we
• 43:04
  Speaker 7: worked together on the Faris on that. And I also
• 43:06
  Speaker 7: built a full-sized, oh, it must be about three and
• 43:09
  Speaker 7: a half, maybe four foot tall, Fari marionettes to jump
• 43:13
  Speaker 7: in at a couple of times when they couldn't use the.
• 43:17
  Speaker 7: The black screen and the matching process for it. Dancing scene. Yeah, yeah.
• 43:21
  Speaker 7: So yeah, we spent a lot of time rehearsing and
• 43:23
  Speaker 7: finding out different moves and David Bowie wrote a couple
• 43:26
  Speaker 7: of versions of the song. I personally like the earlier one,
• 43:30
  Speaker 7: but it's still great, still fun.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: The question is, are you crouched down next to David
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Bowie somewhere working a puppet? Because that's a frightening place
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: to be with that costume.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 43:41
  Speaker 7: The first day of shooting, it was wonderful. He actually
• 43:46
  Speaker 7: was really wonderful. David Bowie was fantastic. But the first
• 43:48
  Speaker 7: day of shooting, he offered and took everyone out to
• 43:53
  Speaker 7: the Elstree Studios bar, because in England there's a bar
• 43:56
  Speaker 7: in the actual film studio, because it's England, and brought
• 43:59
  Speaker 7: everyone a round of drinks. And he said, I've never
• 44:02
  Speaker 7: really worn anything like this where you got this costume.
• 44:04
  Speaker 7: But hey, in for a penny sort of thing. So
• 44:06
  Speaker 7: in for a pound. But he ended in with great enthusiasm.
• 44:11
  Speaker 7: And yeah, he was really great.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: He's amazing in general. But the other one I wanted
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: to get to was I've always been kind of obsessed
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: with Little Shop of Horrors. So much so that when
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: I was doing like a print before this, we had
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: a local version of it. And I talked to all
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: three people kind of running the Audrey 2 and that show.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: And they kind of got the little baby version up
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: to the guy running the giant one and the voiceover actor.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: So I definitely wanted to see what your part was
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: in Audrey 2 for Little Shop of Horror.
• 44:39
  Speaker 7: Right, okay. Well, Audrey 2, I was in on pretty
• 44:43
  Speaker 7: much just as a puppeteer. Frank asked me, would I
• 44:48
  Speaker 7: be involved in doing the lips? Because obviously I've worked
• 44:51
  Speaker 7: with Frank a number of times now. And so I
• 44:54
  Speaker 7: was doing the lower lip for Audrey 2. But also
• 44:58
  Speaker 7: there was a section called Some Fun Now, where Rick
• 45:03
  Speaker 7: Moranis' finger is being sucked by a plant. Now, up
• 45:07
  Speaker 7: to that point, nearly every single one of the plants,
• 45:09
  Speaker 7: through necessity, were mechanical. They were cable-controlled and server-controlled mechanical plants,
• 45:15
  Speaker 7: supervised by the great Neil Scanlon. In fact, he did
• 45:17
  Speaker 7: some amazing work on that film. But one, they didn't
• 45:21
  Speaker 7: really have a hand puppet version, which Lyle thought was
• 45:25
  Speaker 7: the best way of doing the Some Fun Now sequence. So,
• 45:29
  Speaker 7: as most of the builders and the animatronic guys were
• 45:32
  Speaker 7: either engineers or sculptors, they didn't really have a lot
• 45:36
  Speaker 7: of puppet makers. And Lyle said he trusted me to
• 45:38
  Speaker 7: do it, so I came in three hours early every morning,
• 45:42
  Speaker 7: worked three hours building the Some Fun Now puppet, and
• 45:45
  Speaker 7: three hours at the end of the day, and after
• 45:46
  Speaker 7: a couple of weeks I'd completed it, and then Of course,
• 45:49
  Speaker 7: I built it around my hands, so I also got
• 45:52
  Speaker 7: to perform it. And the lovely thing about that is
• 45:54
  Speaker 7: at the end of the film, Lyle and Frank Oz
• 45:57
  Speaker 7: presented it to me, so I still have that to
• 45:59
  Speaker 7: this day.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Very nice. From that note, at that point, Frank Oz
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: has moved up to official director. How different was it,
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: I guess, working with him when he sort of had
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: to change hats, and how refocused was he as far
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: as doing the overall directing versus what he used to.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Have to do?
• 46:15
  Speaker 7: Yes, Frank was co-director for Dark Crystal, so he had
• 46:20
  Speaker 7: directed that, and he had directed, I think, Muppets Take
• 46:23
  Speaker 7: Manhattan before this. Jim directed a sequence, but Frank had
• 46:27
  Speaker 7: done that. So Frank had experience, and he really spent
• 46:31
  Speaker 7: a lot of time with Mike Ploog, an amazing comic
• 46:34
  Speaker 7: book artist who was doing storyboards at that particular point,
• 46:38
  Speaker 7: and Mike Ploog helped create the whole flavour of it
• 46:41
  Speaker 7: in storyboards, so the whole film was very carefully storyboarded.
• 46:45
  Speaker 7: So Frank had a really good plan on exactly what
• 46:47
  Speaker 7: he wanted to do, because this was all practical in-camera effects.
• 46:51
  Speaker 7: So everybody needed to know what every single shot required,
• 46:54
  Speaker 7: because everything had to be unique, often, to that shot.
• 46:59
  Speaker 7: Sometimes you'd build one vine that would do one particular
• 47:02
  Speaker 7: sort of action, and that action was just for that
• 47:05
  Speaker 7: one shot. So if you didn't know what the storyboard was,
• 47:07
  Speaker 7: you couldn't build for that storyboard. So it was a
• 47:10
  Speaker 7: huge amount of preparation, but then the amazing thing was
• 47:13
  Speaker 7: Frank was able to get the performance out of the
• 47:16
  Speaker 7: actors as well, but really knew how to coach and
• 47:21
  Speaker 7: focus the performers, the plant performers, to bring a great
• 47:25
  Speaker 7: puppet performance out of the plant.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I always thought he was kind of underrated as
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: a director. Even as he went on and dealt mostly
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: with humans, it's like he was turning in really solid
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: films that I still feel like he's just sort of
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Yoda and Miss Piggy is more of what he's known for.
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: I agree.
• 47:41
  Speaker 7: Actually, because I saw the screening of Little Chop With
• 47:45
  Speaker 7: the original ending, or what they're calling the original ending.
• 47:49
  Speaker 7: And with my son, because my son was actually born
• 47:53
  Speaker 7: while we were shooting Little Shop. So 31 years later,
• 47:57
  Speaker 7: we go and see the film when he was born.
• 47:59
  Speaker 7: And I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a
• 48:01
  Speaker 7: very well-made film. I thought it was very well-directed. And
• 48:04
  Speaker 7: it certainly deserved Oscars. But of course, at that time,
• 48:08
  Speaker 7: there weren't all the screeners. And it was kind of.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Aliens.
• 48:13
  Speaker 7: turn, you know, so, but... It's hard to compete with aliens. Yeah,
• 48:17
  Speaker 7: but I mean, animatronically-wise, I think the plant was just
• 48:21
  Speaker 7: astonishing and still holds up to this day, so.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: You were just telling the guy earlier here that it
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: was 65 people, is that what was running Audrey 2?
• 48:29
  Speaker 7: The very, the largest amount of performers was 65, yeah, because...
• 48:34
  Speaker 7: There were so many vines, there were these singing pods,
• 48:37
  Speaker 7: and there was the big plant itself. So, yeah, I mean,
• 48:41
  Speaker 7: there was a core team of about 16 that worked
• 48:43
  Speaker 7: on the smaller plants, like the Feed Me and Supper Time.
• 48:48
  Speaker 7: But as soon as you got to Mean Green Mother,
• 48:50
  Speaker 7: it just kept growing and growing. And so, frankly, yeah,
• 48:52
  Speaker 7: more singing pods, and that mean more puppeteers. So it
• 48:56
  Speaker 7: was a huge crew of just puppeteers at the end.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: It's crazy. Well, then the other thing I wanted to
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: get into was the changing technology. And you were kind
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: of right there at the forefront of that. I mean,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: working on Roger Rabbit, like you're dealing with puppetry to
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: then be covered up by animation, which then kind of
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: leads to the CG version of it. So I guess,
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: what did you think the first time you saw that
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: concept being put into play in a film?
• 49:20
  Speaker 7: Well, yeah, Roger Rabbit was an amazing experience because we
• 49:24
  Speaker 7: started off with very little anticipation of doing anything on it.
• 49:29
  Speaker 7: I had a meeting and said, well, there may be
• 49:30
  Speaker 7: a day or so work for you. And this was
• 49:34
  Speaker 7: from George Gibbs, the special effects supervisor. And so he
• 49:38
  Speaker 7: showed me a picture of a storyboard again, of the
• 49:41
  Speaker 7: octopus bartender, and said, yeah, we've got to make this work,
• 49:44
  Speaker 7: but the animators want all the tentacles to be fluid
• 49:47
  Speaker 7: and moving, so we can't have a mechanical rig to
• 49:50
  Speaker 7: hold up these things. We're not quite sure how we
• 49:53
  Speaker 7: would do it. How would you do it using puppet skills?
• 49:55
  Speaker 7: I said, oh, great. So I said, I'd do this, this, that, that, that.
• 49:59
  Speaker 7: So I explained it on the spot, and he was, wow, okay. Well,
• 50:02
  Speaker 7: here's a script. Go through the script and see what
• 50:05
  Speaker 7: you think might be useful here. to be done as
• 50:08
  Speaker 7: puppet effects rather than regular special effects. So I went
• 50:12
  Speaker 7: through the scripts and we ended up having a team
• 50:15
  Speaker 7: of 17 puppeteers at the most, a core team of
• 50:18
  Speaker 7: six for the whole movie for every single day. And
• 50:20
  Speaker 7: we were involved in nearly every single shot in the
• 50:23
  Speaker 7: whole film. And that was because we started off and
• 50:26
  Speaker 7: they liked it and then Bob Zemeckis just kept adding more.
• 50:29
  Speaker 7: I remember one day... there was a sequence we weren't
• 50:32
  Speaker 7: going to be in and he said oh are we
• 50:33
  Speaker 7: going to have a little puppet show here he said
• 50:35
  Speaker 7: right roger's going to come here he's going to open
• 50:36
  Speaker 7: the box he's going to take out this he's going
• 50:38
  Speaker 7: to do that he's going to do this going to
• 50:39
  Speaker 7: do that he's going to do that throw that over
• 50:41
  Speaker 7: there do this and go all right okay when do
• 50:42
  Speaker 7: you want that um half an hour you know so
• 50:46
  Speaker 7: and i i i stay in there designing and building
• 50:49
  Speaker 7: all the rigs in my head very quickly and i
• 50:52
  Speaker 7: go okay yeah you can do that so so and
• 50:55
  Speaker 7: then we'd all go off build all the stuff get
• 50:56
  Speaker 7: it all working and And so it was an amazing experience.
• 50:59
  Speaker 7: And Bob Zemeckis was just a genius. He really appreciated
• 51:04
  Speaker 7: every single department and had everybody really fully enthusiastic about
• 51:10
  Speaker 7: making this the best interaction of animation with live action.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: It's still kind of unparalleled, especially for that kind of animation.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Like you never see people do it because it's so hard, obviously,
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: as you know. But, I mean, it had to be
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: all blocking, right? Because, I mean, you have to plan
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: out when he's jumping around and he's got handcuffs on
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: that are real physical handcuffs and he's squirting real physical
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: water and, like, all these different gags. Like, you have
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: to plan everything down to the microsecond that it gets
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: touched by anybody. So, yeah.
• 51:41
  Speaker 7: Yeah, again, just very, very, very detailed storyboards and a
• 51:46
  Speaker 7: lot of planning and preparation and lots of tests. So
• 51:48
  Speaker 7: we did lots of video tests. can we achieve this
• 51:52
  Speaker 7: effect that they need? And so, yeah.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: I felt like that was a perfect kind of entry into, like,
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: Lost in Space, is almost that same idea, but them
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: trying to do that early CGI version of it. So
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: was that kind of the same, along the same lines?
• 52:08
  Speaker 7: Interesting, yeah. I mean, the way it started off on
• 52:10
  Speaker 7: Lost in Space is they did actually have a puppet
• 52:13
  Speaker 7: version of Glock, and we did, we filmed it, and
• 52:16
  Speaker 7: we were... who were wondering, well, why are they going
• 52:19
  Speaker 7: to film this? We were pretty certain they were going
• 52:21
  Speaker 7: to replace it, but they filmed it anyway. I guess
• 52:24
  Speaker 7: maybe to get lighting effects and get interaction with the actors.
• 52:29
  Speaker 7: But yes, that was an early sort of CG. I
• 52:33
  Speaker 7: think one thought was that there would be some puppet
• 52:35
  Speaker 7: shots and some CG shots, but In the end, the
• 52:38
  Speaker 7: CG actually changed design somewhat to the puppet, so the
• 52:42
  Speaker 7: puppet was completely eradicated.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: It's hard to mix those two. It's transferring from one
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: to the other. It looks jarring sometimes.
• 52:48
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and so after I'd finished working on the puppet performance,
• 52:55
  Speaker 7: just before then, I had an offer to go and
• 52:58
  Speaker 7: join Pixar. Myself, Mike Quinn, and Karen Prell with our company,
• 53:03
  Speaker 7: Ultimate Animates, we went out to Pixar to do a
• 53:06
  Speaker 7: little presentation about puppetry, about what we did. And they
• 53:09
  Speaker 7: offered us a role to learn sort of computer animation,
• 53:14
  Speaker 7: the Pixar way. And Mike and Karen took the offer,
• 53:19
  Speaker 7: took the job. I didn't because I still had my
• 53:21
  Speaker 7: two children at school and it didn't feel the right
• 53:23
  Speaker 7: time for me. But I thought, yeah, you know, computer
• 53:27
  Speaker 7: animation is going to be the future. It really is.
• 53:31
  Speaker 7: And we were already seeing that the puppetry work was
• 53:34
  Speaker 7: declining and CG work was growing. And after Jurassic Park,
• 53:37
  Speaker 7: of course, which was a lovely mix between the two.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they found a good way to go back and forth,
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: but it's hard to do.
• 53:44
  Speaker 7: Yeah, so I actually became a trainee animator on Lost
• 53:48
  Speaker 7: in Space and actually animated a number of the shots
• 53:51
  Speaker 7: of Blorp and did some keyframe animation for the Henson
• 53:56
  Speaker 7: Company for a couple of years, in fact.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: So I guess that's kind of where I was going.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: Where do you think... I'd say where it's going, technologically speaking,
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: but also where it has gone already. Like, it's changed
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: so much even just since 83, you know? So it's
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: like watching the way things have changed, and even to
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: the point of you working in it, up to something
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: like Where the Wild Things Are. Like, that, to me,
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: is another perfect melding of those two different activities.
• 54:21
  Speaker 7: Yes, it's interesting. I mean, I still think there's room
• 54:24
  Speaker 7: to push the boundaries, the envelopes in animatronics. Cats and
• 54:28
  Speaker 7: Dogs 2, for instance, I personally built... the mechanism and
• 54:32
  Speaker 7: did all the engineering on Mr. Tinkles. And he had
• 54:36
  Speaker 7: 40 servos driving his face, 76 miniature cables running into
• 54:41
  Speaker 7: his face. His eyelids could change shape, top and bottom.
• 54:44
  Speaker 7: And he could create all different mouth shapes. And most
• 54:46
  Speaker 7: people thought he was CG. And that was part of
• 54:49
  Speaker 7: the challenge, was right, okay, this is what CG is
• 54:51
  Speaker 7: doing with all the face. Can we now do this
• 54:54
  Speaker 7: with an animatronic? And yes, it's possible. And we did
• 54:56
  Speaker 7: it and achieved it. And that was fun. And also,
• 54:59
  Speaker 7: I mean... I think it was 94 when Mike Quinn
• 55:04
  Speaker 7: and I had our ultimate animates company in the UK.
• 55:09
  Speaker 7: We actually purchased an Indigo 2 Extreme and Softimage 3D
• 55:14
  Speaker 7: for $ 50, 000 at one computer and one software so that
• 55:19
  Speaker 7: we could develop real-time animation.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: Now a version of it probably comes on your laptop
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: when you buy.
• 55:25
  Speaker 7: Just about, just about. Yeah, pretty much well. I think,
• 55:29
  Speaker 7: if I remember rightly, the hard drive was two gigabytes.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: Which now we're carrying in our pocket. We've got a
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: little plug-in version that's much bigger than that.
• 55:38
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and that was phenomenal. My God, two gigabytes.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: What will I ever do with all that space?
• 55:44
  Speaker 7: I know, it was crazy. So yeah, now I'm running
• 55:47
  Speaker 7: a 20 terabyte drive right now for my own personal
• 55:50
  Speaker 7: motion capture movie project.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: And then I guess just... do you have specific stuff
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: that you're working on or are you looking to do
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: tons more stuff in this or, or I don't know,
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: what are your future plans as far as special effects
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: or anything in general?
• 56:04
  Speaker 7: Well, I do miss puppeteering. I love puppeteering and I
• 56:07
  Speaker 7: haven't done as much of that recently, although I have
• 56:09
  Speaker 7: had the privilege to be part of the, the Muppet team, um, assisting,
• 56:14
  Speaker 7: assisting those guys. And, uh, it was great fun doing
• 56:17
  Speaker 7: the Muppets take the Hollywood bowl in the last summer.
• 56:19
  Speaker 7: That was fantastic. So, and just great catching up with
• 56:22
  Speaker 7: old friends as well. Um, But yes, I'm currently just
• 56:26
  Speaker 7: wrapping up production on my own personal animated motion capture film.
• 56:32
  Speaker 7: And so that uses the skills of performers in the
• 56:37
  Speaker 7: motion capture. And it's based on a puppet play that
• 56:41
  Speaker 7: my parents wrote when I was six years old.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: I'll come full circle then.
• 56:45
  Speaker 7: Yeah, so this is definitely an homage to them. And
• 56:48
  Speaker 7: it's a passion project.
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: And.
• 56:50
  Speaker 7: And I'm doing it all myself. So I'm actually doing
• 56:53
  Speaker 7: all the animation, all the rendering. I've created all the
• 56:56
  Speaker 7: characters and everything. I wrote the script and directing it
• 56:58
  Speaker 7: and editing it. So my son is doing the audio
• 57:01
  Speaker 7: post-production because he's a two-time Emmy-nominated sound editor.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: Following in your footsteps. So I guess that's good that
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: you can keep it, much like the first time around,
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: you can keep it in the family and pass this
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: different version of the same, you know, performing on to
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: the next generation. So what is that called again and
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: how do people find it?
• 57:20
  Speaker 7: It's called The Ice King, or it's called Ice King,
• 57:23
  Speaker 7: A Brython's Tale. And at the moment, I'm just wrapping
• 57:27
  Speaker 7: it up. I'm probably, a friend of mine's writing the
• 57:30
  Speaker 7: score and doing a beautiful job of that. That's probably
• 57:32
  Speaker 7: going to be a few months until he's wrapped that up.
• 57:34
  Speaker 7: And then I've got to look for distribution. So I
• 57:37
  Speaker 7: don't quite know how long. In a perfect world, it'd
• 57:40
  Speaker 7: be lovely to get it on something like Netflix or
• 57:42
  Speaker 7: Hulu or something like that. But we'll see. At the
• 57:44
  Speaker 7: very least, today these days you can even self-distribute with
• 57:47
  Speaker 7: your own website so.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: World is we're living in yeah you can kickstart it
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: and fund it yourself and distribute it yourself so you
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: never know yeah.
• 57:56
  Speaker 7: Yeah so i mean if i can get distribution that
• 57:58
  Speaker 7: would be lovely but um so so that's that's my
• 58:00
  Speaker 7: plan for this year and then um i'm also doing
• 58:03
  Speaker 7: a little bit of animatronic design and supervision work and
• 58:07
  Speaker 7: mentoring for some of the uh the um theme parks
• 58:11
  Speaker 7: in california that's about as far as i can say
• 58:13
  Speaker 7: but um And they're all under NDAs, so I can't
• 58:16
  Speaker 7: say anything specific. But that's fun. That's trying to take
• 58:20
  Speaker 7: the knowledge I have of film animatronics and try to
• 58:24
  Speaker 7: raise the bar in the animatronics theme parks. And that's fun.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: Again, it's crossing back over, almost going old school, to
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: the physical puppet shows that you're used to, but finding
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: a new way to do it for a huge audience.
• 58:36
  Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah. And that's fun. It's fun. It's nice doing that.
• 58:38
  Speaker 7: And also, it's a lot of computer work now. Everything's
• 58:41
  Speaker 7: designed in the computer, so.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: social media if she will find you on or any
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: way to look for the stuff um.
• 58:47
  Speaker 7: I'm i'm terrible i'm i'm a little old school with
• 58:51
  Speaker 7: that way i understand me too i do have i
• 58:53
  Speaker 7: do have a facebook page but um and i'm i
• 58:55
  Speaker 7: will have to actually probably start because i i spend
• 58:59
  Speaker 7: every moment of my day in front of a bank
• 59:01
  Speaker 7: of computers so um going on to another computer to
• 59:05
  Speaker 7: do facebook seems to be oh they're.
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: Crazy the last thing you want to.
• 59:09
  Speaker 7: Do yeah yeah so but as soon as i'm sort
• 59:10
  Speaker 7: of wrapped up with this then i think i will
• 59:12
  Speaker 7: i'll probably you'll set up a an ice king um
• 59:14
  Speaker 7: facebook page and start twittering and stuff so.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah once it's out we'll help pass the word along
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: but but thanks for coming on and tell us about
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: that and everything else man thank you oh my pleasure Alright, well,
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: at least you didn't get to partake in most of
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: the convention goings-on this weekend because you were otherwise engaged,
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: but you did get to loiter around a hotel with
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: a very special individual.
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: The most special individual.
• 59:52
  Speaker 10: Oh, Doug.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: See previous episode because Doug Jones is phenomenal on that
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: episode as in life. That was also how I started
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: my day today as I got back to the convention
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: to start off another day. It also happened to be
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: the time when Doug was coming into his table. So
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: immediately I got face touching and hugs. And so I
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: was pulled to his bosom early this morning. And that's
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: the way you should start every day.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: I think that's the way. I don't know that he
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: could loan himself out to everyone in the world, but
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: I feel like it should be like a public service
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: that everyone gets Doug hugs first thing in the morning.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 5: Miss Laurie's a lucky gal.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know. I'm surprised she lets
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: him out into the world amongst people like us waiting
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: to like tackle him and hang out with him on
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: the carpet all day long.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: I honestly felt withdrawal after we left him. Like, I
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 5: feel like he has an addictive presence where when you
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 5: have it and then it's gone, you're like, oh.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: See, that was suggested last night because after we wrapped
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: up that previous episode and I eventually went home, but
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: there was a drive involved and like, By the time
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: we were done, I had this horrible headache. And, like,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: Misty and Jay both were like, I think you're having
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: Doug with you. He's, like, ingesting a lot of sugar.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: And then, like, you're losing your sugar high and your
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: head's starting to freak out. And, like, so I don't
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: know what the remedy is. I mean, how you can get, like,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: little Burst-O-Dug in your day to kind of keep you.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: We need to bottle it so you can just, like.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: get a shot of Doug in you and then like
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: you're good to go.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 5: That's amazing. I love that you guys had the same
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: feeling about it that I did. When you told me
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: he was coming, I was like immediately, I was like,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: oh my God, I'm going to finally have my vitamin Doug.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: Like there has been no sunshine. It has been cold
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 5: and bleak. And now I'm going to be like rejuvenated.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: Ain't no sunshine when he's gone.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: Oh, and that song was a nodding hill. It all
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: comes around.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: It all comes back together. That seems good though. Other scenes? Anyway,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: that's the previous episode. We won't go back down that road.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 5: No looking back.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: I once again checked with him. I'm like, long as
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: you're cool with me. He seemed very okay with it
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: this morning. He said he specifically does pick those. Probably
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: just to stick it to me a little bit. But
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: at the same time, I think you want to get good.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 7: That's what I said.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: I was like, well, it would be really boring if
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: we're all like, I love this movie. Right now what?
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: It helps to have a little I think he compared
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: it to a nice Siskel and Ebert thing of like,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: they both have good opinions. They're quite often very different.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: So that's all we were going for.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 10: It worked.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: So that was most of your takeaway from this. But otherwise,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: I had another pretty amazing day at the convention. So
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: hanging out with pretty cool people. Check back in with Ingrid,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: who was previous guest. Once again, refer back to the
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: Ingrid episode. She's pretty damn amazing. So she came back
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: through and I told her, I was like, anytime you
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: want to kind of hang out and roll around on
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: the floor like Doug does or whatever it is you
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: want to do in your episode, you're always encouraged to
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: come back on and pick a movie to talk about
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: or whatever we yammer on about. But yeah, so she's
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: considering it. So it was good to check in with
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: her and just see all of our old friends. We're
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: creating a weird little meltdown family as these years go on.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: So that's all I do. I kind of loiter around
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: and go from one table to the next and see
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: these people that have probably been on the show before.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: It's a good life.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: It is. I'm trying to keep it going. It's a
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: hard life to keep financed, but it's good if you
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: can get it together, which is what I'm attempting to
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: keep going. And I get a little help from people
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: that put together these conventions. So with that, a big
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: thank you to the Lexington Comic and Toy Convention to
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: see what they've got in the works for next time.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe Doug will be there then. You should come back
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: and find out.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 10: Hello.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: Just go to LexingtonComicCon.com and see what they have in
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: the works for the upcoming installments. Future years? They haven't
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: branched out into multiple times a year, but that might
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: be overwhelming because I was exhausted after yesterday's. Today's not
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: quite as bad. I wrapped up a little earlier today,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: but yesterday I packed up all the gear and it's
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: still less than it used to be back in the
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: old days, but yeah. Strapped it on my back and
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: just tooled around waiting to sit down and record with people.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: Go find our weird little cubby hole and sit there
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: and talk in it. But by the end of the day,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: I was worn out and had Doug withdraw. So it's
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: been a hell of a weekend.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 10: All right.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: I think that about does it this time. Anything else
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: to send them off with?
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: Nope.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 5: I love Doug Jones.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: That's all. See previous Doug Jones episodes. There are many,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: by the way. If you can't find them all, email me.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: I'll point you towards them. Otherwise, that about does it.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: We will return next time. Same geek feed.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 12: In those suns I know when he's gone He's not
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 12: one when he's away. He knows sunshine when he's gone.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 12: And he's always gone too long. Anytime he goes away.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: No, no, no.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 12: Wonder this time where he's gone.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 11: Wonder if he's gone to stay.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 12: Ain't no sunshine when he's gone. This house just ain't
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 12: no any time he goes.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 9: .
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 10: .
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 9: Lord, you better leave that thing alone. But ain't no sunshine, no.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 11: When he's gone home.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 10: Thank you.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 10: .
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 12: .
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 9: Lord, you better leave that thing alone.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 10: Still ain't no sunshine, no.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 11: When he's gone home Ain't no sometime When he's gone.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 12: Home Ain't no sometime Ain't.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 9: No sometime When he's gone.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: Home This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: and edited by the Oddity Studios, with the opening music
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: performed by the Empires. For more on how to sponsor
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: Talk hard!
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: This program is a proud member of the Battleship Pretension Fleet.