Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 384: Building a Hollywood Directing Career with Brad Silberling

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BPS 384: Building a Hollywood Directing Career with Brad Silberling · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network. For more
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifagpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number three eighty four.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: There's nothing more nasty than giving kids hope and then
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: snatching it away as fast as you can. Brad Silberly
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: broadcasting from a dark, windowless.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Room in Hollywood when we really should be working on
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to make your screenplay bulletproof.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: on the kind of project you are are in the
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: goals of the project you are, so we actually break
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: it down by three categories, micro budget, indie film, market,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: and studio film. There's no reason to get coverage from
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: a reader that you used to reading temp pole movies
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: when your movie is gonna be done for one hundred
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars, and we wanted to focus on that. At
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  Speaker 2: Bulletproof Script Coverage, our readers have worked with Marvel Studios, CIA, WME, NBC, HBO, Disney,
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  Speaker 2: So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered
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  Speaker 2: by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot com. Well, guys,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: I promised you a special episode and I hope I
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: deliver it with this one we have on the show today,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: writer director Brad Silberlin. Now, I've had a long love
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: affair with Brad from a distance for a long time.
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  Speaker 2: I love his films. He made films like City of Angels, Casper, Lemony, Snickets,
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  Speaker 2: and also has worked on some amazing television shows like Jane,
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  Speaker 2: The Virgin Dynasty, Charmed, La Law, NYPD, Blues, Doodiy Hauser,
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  Speaker 2: and many, many more. And I sat down with Brad
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  Speaker 2: and talked to him about his journey, what it's like
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  Speaker 2: having a mentor like Steven Spielberg in your life, and
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  Speaker 2: how he's been able to overcome a lot of the
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  Speaker 2: obstacles that this business throws in front of all of us. So,
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  Speaker 2: without any further ado, please enjoy my inspiring conversation with
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  Speaker 2: Brad Silverlin.
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  Speaker 3: I like to.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the show, Brad Siberlin. How you doing that, Brad?
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  Speaker 3: I'm excellent man. How are you?
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  Speaker 2: I'm doing great?
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  Speaker 3: Man?
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on the show. Man.
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  Speaker 2: I am humbled and honored. As I was telling you before.
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  Speaker 2: You and I met in two thousand and five at
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  Speaker 2: my first Sun Dance and you were speaking, had a
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  Speaker 2: fantastic panel, and I got a picture with you. I'll
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  Speaker 2: see if I could put it in the show notes.
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  Speaker 2: I have it in my archive somewhere. And you were
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  Speaker 2: always you. You're very kind to a young filmmaker, just
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: asking probably stupid questions, Uh.
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  Speaker 3: How do we get an agent?
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  Speaker 2: Like? You know? Like dumb probably stuff at the time,
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  Speaker 2: but you were very kind. I never forgot you, and
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  Speaker 2: I followed your career as you moved forward, and I
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  Speaker 2: just the other day I was like, you know what,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: gotta get Bright on the show to see if he's
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: to be interested in coming on the show.
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  Speaker 3: And here you are, sir, here I am direct from
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  Speaker 3: the San Fernando Valley to you.
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  Speaker 2: So how did you so? How did you get started
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  Speaker 2: in this ridiculous business that we love so much.
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  Speaker 3: I you know, I'm not alone. I was a kid
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  Speaker 3: with a camera. I was a kid with a Super
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  Speaker 3: eight camera here in the valley. And it's interesting because
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  Speaker 3: I so my dad, who passed away eight years ago.
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  Speaker 3: He was a documentary producer. He I was born in
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  Speaker 3: d C. Because he was working for the USIA, which
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: is actually our government's propaganda into arm We do Headland
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  Speaker 3: and No. He was producing documentaries during the Kennedy administration,
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  Speaker 3: and only in the sixties would logic have dictated that
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  Speaker 3: he would move from that job into network television. Don't
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: ask how they made that leap. It was a smaller
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  Speaker 3: business then. So we moved out to la in sixty
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  Speaker 3: seven and he started working at that point at ABC
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  Speaker 3: as a programming executive. So oddly enough, they thought his
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  Speaker 3: skills would translate. So he worked as a network executive
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  Speaker 3: the whole time I was growing up. But he always
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  Speaker 3: loved production, and so I took advantage of that by
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: I would go beg to be dropped off at a
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  Speaker 3: set at any point I could. From probably about age nine,
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  Speaker 3: when I was old enough to ride a bike, I
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: would steal over to Universal I'd met a really nice
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: secretary who would like slip me call sheets at a
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  Speaker 3: drive on which was a bicycle, and I would spend
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  Speaker 3: every Friday afternoon there. But I just was fascinated by
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  Speaker 3: the process. And again my dad was always coming at
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  Speaker 3: everything from a story perspective. But I'm that guy who
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: you know, I still hadn't really picked up a camera.
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  Speaker 3: I was just absorbing. And then I was there that
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  Speaker 3: first day in nineteen seventy five, first day for showing
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  Speaker 3: of Jaws. I made my dad drop me off. There
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  Speaker 3: was a we had a theater called the Plit. It
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  Speaker 3: was in Century City where ABC was, where he was working,
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  Speaker 3: and I begged him to just drop me off. It
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  Speaker 3: was like an eleven am showing and I'm sitting there alone.
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  Speaker 3: The theater was not full, even though obviously days to
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  Speaker 3: come it was going to be incredibly full, huge airplane
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  Speaker 3: kind of recliner seats. Some alone in my row, and
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  Speaker 3: I get to the attack on little Alex Kintner, the
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  Speaker 3: kid on the raft, and I'm just having a heart attack,
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  Speaker 3: and I don't know if I can make it through
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  Speaker 3: the movie, looking around to see if there's anybody there,
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  Speaker 3: but I hung in thank God. And by the time
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  Speaker 3: it was done, I had that feeling, which was who
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  Speaker 3: got to do that? Who did that? Who took me
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  Speaker 3: through that ride? That is something I will never get
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  Speaker 3: out of my system. And I went home that day
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  Speaker 3: and snuck into my dad's photography Clauset stole his He
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  Speaker 3: had a it was it was it a Minolta super
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  Speaker 3: a camera and I started shooting. So that day it
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  Speaker 3: was just like the switch was thrown. And Steven's really
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  Speaker 3: funny about this because I'm not alone. I mean, I
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  Speaker 3: can tell you the number of other filmmakers who were
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  Speaker 3: switched on in that moment by that movie. And so
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  Speaker 3: I started shooting. Yes, So I was all. I did
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  Speaker 3: two things in junior high school. In high school, I
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  Speaker 3: shot movies and I played soccer. And that was what
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: I did. And this was duper eat again, where was
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  Speaker 3: I mean? I look at everybody now with their phones
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: in which possible, and back then you're shooting three and
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  Speaker 3: a half minute cartridges. Every second counted. You had to really,
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  Speaker 3: so you're getting in the camera, you're really thinking through
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  Speaker 3: your material, you're splicing your little you know, super eight splices.
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  Speaker 3: But I so that's what I did, and I was
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  Speaker 3: very obsessed, and I did that right up through. I
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: got a lot of good advice to not do film
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  Speaker 3: as an undergrad, but to try to actually learn anything else,
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  Speaker 3: have sort of more an open humanist mind, start writing.
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  Speaker 3: And so then I went to grad school and I
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  Speaker 3: went to CLA and made you know, sc is more
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  Speaker 3: famous for its, you know, thesis final films, whatever they're called,
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  Speaker 3: but I made I made my thesis film. And I
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: was fortunate that we fought to have our first industry
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: screening because UCLA was super egalitarian and they didn't normally
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: like things like that, but we did. And so coming
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: out of that screening, I ended up going under contract.
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  Speaker 3: I went under contract Universal. There had been a woman
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  Speaker 3: there who's still a great friend, Nancy Nayer. She ran
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  Speaker 3: casting at Universal. She was there just aatrol for actors.
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  Speaker 3: She saw my film and she said, would you mind
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  Speaker 3: if I took your film back to the studio? And
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, no, please, please don't plead, please
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  Speaker 3: don't know. Can I walk you to your car? I
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: mean it was And so I got a really funny
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: set of phone calls. One was from from the TV
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  Speaker 3: group and one was from the Future Group. And again
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: at that point in time, they did not communicate. They
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: still don't often, and they basically both one to try
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: to put together some sort of deal. They hadn't really
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: done term deals for directors since like the early seventies,
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  Speaker 3: Stephen Stielbert, Richard Donner, a number of these guys actually
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  Speaker 3: basically were on term deals, and so they dusted off
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: an old term deal and they they just did like,
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  Speaker 3: he's young, he's cheap, Hopefully you know some talent, let's
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  Speaker 3: do this. And they covered everything from writing, directing, producing,
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: you know, making omelets. They they had me, but it
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  Speaker 3: was incredible. So I was prepared to start, you know,
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  Speaker 3: parking cars out of grad school, but I went under contract.
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  Speaker 3: So that meant immediately trying to figure out who's producing
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  Speaker 3: on the lot, is there television, who's making movies? And
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  Speaker 3: that became home for the first two and a half
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  Speaker 3: three years that I got started. And then ironically Steven
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Botchko and his then sort of in house director, a
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: really great guy named Greg Hobblett.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
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  Speaker 3: Saw my graduate film and they said come over here.
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  Speaker 3: And Universal was very wise because they're like, good, let
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: them go fuck up on their on their time. So
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: but I so my first three years of work were
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  Speaker 3: directing television, primarily over at Botchko's company. Then yeah, so.
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  Speaker 2: I have to ask you though, because looking through your filmography,
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  Speaker 2: you have the distinct honor of being one of the
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  Speaker 2: directors who directed an episode of the infamous Cop Rock.
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  Speaker 3: I'm one of only eleven and the original order was
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: for twelve and they killed it. Well. I remember Stephen
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  Speaker 3: coming down that set one day and he was just like, well,
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  Speaker 3: this didn't work. It was my second hour of television.
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  Speaker 3: It was crazy.
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  Speaker 2: I'd mean so for people that so people listening, if
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: you don't know what Cop Rock is, google it on
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: YouTube and watch a scene of Cop Rock. It was
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: this musical cop show, which is it is such an
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  Speaker 2: oddity in television history, you know, from such a big
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, Stephen.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: Boschko was like he was he wants the dude. He
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: was it.
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  Speaker 2: So, you know, it'd be the equivalent of I don't
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  Speaker 2: know whoever nowadays you know, big showrunner shot in the
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  Speaker 2: rhymes doing a cop cop musical and it was I
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  Speaker 2: saw so, I mean, I'd never seen a full episode
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: because I wasn't. I didn't see it when it got released,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: and I don't know whatever's on YouTube, but I just
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  Speaker 2: remember these cops just like singing about drugs and it
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: was just the weirdest thing. And when I saw it,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: I had to ask you, what was it like being
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: inside of that?
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: Here's the truth of it that so Steven had seen
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: there was a great British series called The Singing Detectives,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: and I think he was feeling his muscle and feeling
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  Speaker 3: his strength and thinking, I can do anything. Let's do that.
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  Speaker 3: The problem is Stephen didn't really and God bless him
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: who passed away a few years ago. He was an
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: amazing guy. He didn't really care about music, didn't really
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  Speaker 3: like very much. So this was the problem. And you know,
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  Speaker 3: the whole I did musicals is you only you only
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: burst out into song when you have to when when
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  Speaker 3: when basically the spirit moves and the story needs it.
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  Speaker 3: But he didn't approach it that way. The cop rock
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  Speaker 3: outlines were like normal Hill Street. It was like procedural, procedural, Uh,
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  Speaker 3: maybe a song in here. And so there's the problem.
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  Speaker 3: They were ledged in which meant that in production they
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: came very late. So it wasn't like you had this
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  Speaker 3: great chance. I mean, Steven Spielberg talks about this beautiful
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: process on one side, story about working for six months
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: even as they're doing the choreer and just say cop rock.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: You would be shown the number on the day of
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: shooting because the music had only just got into the
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  Speaker 3: choreographer who's kind of winging it, and so all the
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: actors are like the fuck and and but it was
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: recorded live. In terms of the singing, which also is
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: usually you do you know that a pre record. It
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: was crazy and and yet there there would be there
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: were numbers that kind of worked, and then there were
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: a lot of them were called groaners that were just
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: like oh no, and you just felt for these actors
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: who had to commit and you know, so it was
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: it was an exercise in insanity. And like I said,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: it was not. If somebody who just loved the musical
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: form could tried it, maybe it would work. But anyway, yeah,
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: it was good. But that was my second hour Dollarson.
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  Speaker 2: So I was like, so this is is this is
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  Speaker 2: this what I'm doing?
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: Is this is this how it right? Okay, you go
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: over there, you dance to the locker, you get your gun,
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  Speaker 3: let's do this.
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  Speaker 2: And you've never directed a musical at this point, and
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: you're like, oh god, of course, of course, because how
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: many people have really directed musicals? So that list is
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: fairly shocked, all right, And so you're there as a
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: young How old are you at this point? Twenty two three?
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: I was probably twenty five twenty yeah, I was probably
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: twenty five, twenty five years old.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Second time, my god, all right, so let me let
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: me ask you the first day, because I always love
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: asking this question the first day on the first job
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: that you got after you signed that deal with Universal,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: when you walk on set, I gotta believe you're losing
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: your mind. You're you, the imposter syndrome is running rampid.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: You're like, any moment now security is going to scort
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: me off the lot. How did you like walk on
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  Speaker 2: and like do your job with all?
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  Speaker 3: I mean?
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: I'm assuming?
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  Speaker 3: So am I correct? Well, you're right, you're assuming, and
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: your assumption would be correct. But for three they all
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: tell you two different stories. But for three things. One
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: is I you know, I even remember when I got
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: my contract. Everyone was like, oh my god, are you
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: losing your mind? And I wasn't. And it wasn't Hubris,
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: but I felt like I'd been doing what I was
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: doing for a long long time, and I trusted myself.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: I felt like, oh, okay, I've got more than just
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: the kid next door to me, my crew. Now this
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: is good. So my crew got bigger. But the single
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: biggest reason my Canadian friends are going to kill me,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: but the single biggest reason I didn't fully of that
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: was my first episode for Universal. I ended up being
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: in Toronto. They were doing a second batch of Alfred
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: Hitchcock Present, and so I finagled my way into one
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: of those, and I swear I don't know what it was,
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: but I was not intimidated by the Kine crew and
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: I was working. It was awesome. I was working with
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: Mike Connor's Mannix. He was lead, and he was couldn't
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: have been more dear and awesome, and so I just thought,
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: of course, why not me? So it that part didn't
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: really overwhelm me. I felt, fine, I'll tell you the
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: moment that you're thinking of. It was less imposture than
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: just like, how did this happen? So that's my first
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: directing job in television. My first feature directing job is
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: Casper and We're shooting in nineteen ninety four, and as
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: I've told you, I picked up a camera because of
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: Stephen Steven ended up becoming my mentor and giving me
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: my first feature job. And the first morning of our
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: shoot we were shooting in the big kitchen. There was
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: a big, long kit sequence. I was gonna end up
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: having more CG than all of Jurassic part was insane.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: He's awesome. He shows up a call to be there
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: for my first shot and would go and rehearse and
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: it's awesome. And when the time came to call action,
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: I just sat there and he's next to me and
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: I'm looking at him. I'm looking at this whole situation
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: and it's like everything just dropped on my head. I
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: was dumbfounded by the universe that this was actually the case.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: And he just looked at me and smiled and he
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: meant to say it, and I was like action and
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: it was. It was still one of the most incredible moments,
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: and it was just that thing of confluence, like how
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: did this happen? I'm grateful it happened, but yeah, so
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: in a weird way, that was my bigger moment, but
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: I did. Yeah, I had maybe unfounded, but I did
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: always have a belief that if you have the story
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: and you know what every setup is and you're there,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: the crew is going to follow you. Doesn't mean that
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: there's not going to be testing and that they're not
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: going to sit there with their arms folded. At times,
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: you get all of that. I had the DP on
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: that very first Alfred Hitchcock episode by I don't know,
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: it was like night number three, like wanting to quit
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: because I'm very hands on. I don't just say yeah,
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: let's go do a nice two shot and I'm going
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: to go get some coffee. I'm still a kid with
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: a camera. I set every shot, I I rehearse with
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: a lens in my hand. I'm just who I am.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: And this guy wasn't used to that, and it was
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: really funny. I've had that a few times, even in
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: some of my movies Where to Pay, So I now
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: my litmus test for whom I'm going to collaborate with
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: as a DP. In particular, it has to feel like
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: a friend from film school. It's not agistic. They can
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: be ninety, but it has to be that spirit We're
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: in this thing together. Ooh look what I'm seeing? What
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: are you saying ooh, look at this. But those who
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: work in such a way that it's like, I'm the
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: director of photography. You go sit in your chair, little man.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: I'm just not there. So that was that was an
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: interesting early moment for me with my confidence, but how
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: to keep a collaborator close without losing them?
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Now I heard I remember years ago when Casper came out,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Because when Casper came out, it was a fairly big
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: It was a fairly big deal because CG was just starting.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: We were the first character with dialogue CG animation. So
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: Steven had done Jurassic in ninety three and as he yeah,
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: that first morning when he came to my set in
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: the kitchen, he's like, dude, you're about to blow through
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: more shocks than we did.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: In the whole movie. And he's But then he came,
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: he came like week three and he's like, oh, man,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: if you had known what you were getting into, you
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: never would have said yes to this. And I laughed.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: He said, you're now directing these characters. There's dialogue, there's monologues,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: there's soliloquies. I just had to have the dudes turn
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: and roar, and it was a deal. It was a deal,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: and it was were There was like an early glimpse
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: of motion capture that was experimented with, but it was
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: not ready from prime time, so unfortunately I didn't have
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: that to go to. It was all here and then
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: I basically had to go with a with an old
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: school two D line animator. I had to go and
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: basically after making the movie, direct every performance in pencil
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: sketch right, then take those to ilm and go through
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: the So it was very handmade.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Now, watching some behind the scenes or an interview that
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: you did, was it true at one point that you
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: turned it down and said I can't do this, and
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: that Stephen had to literally call you off the ledge.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So we met again. It's only he could have
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: done this. We met because he happened to see some
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: television that I had directed. Not a watch ghost Show,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: but Gary David Goldberg who's passed away, and he was
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: amazing and did family ties. But then he Gary did
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: a show called Brooklyn Bridge that was really memorance remembrances
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: from his growing up in Brooklyn in the fifties and
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: I happened to direct an episode. I can say this
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: because I'm a tribe member. But Gary said, yeah, you
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: directed the least jewy episode that we did, because it
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: was an episode about this kid and his family going
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: to Abittsfield to try after this thing, and it was
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: so non jewey that it was more of an Americana episode,
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: and they ran it and it's crazy. I was just
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: thinking about this this morning. It was in Thanksgiving of
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: ninety one, so thirty years ago. Last Move, you know,
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: a month ago. They ran this episode because they needed
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: to fill the extra half hour after the first running
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: CBS did of et Sote Steven's movie ran. They needed
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: to fill a half hour. They thought, oh, this is
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: a very heartwarming, very Americana apps. So Gary called me
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: the next week and said, you're not gonna believe the
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: phone call I got and I said yeah, and he said,
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: my friend Steven Spielberg was obviously watching his own movie
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: and stayed through the commercial break and he saw your
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: show and he called me and wanted to know who
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: did it. That's how I met Steven. So I went
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: and sat down with Stephen and he happened like a
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Schwab story. He happened to see that episode and he
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: walked in his office and amble and and you know,
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: my heart's through my mouth at that point. He's the
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: most disarming, kind, warm human ever. So that goes away
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: in thirty seconds. But he didn't even let me say anything.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: He said, Okay, let me tell you about your last
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: three years. And I look at him, and he proceeds
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: to tell me exactly what I had been going through
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: as a young director under contract in television. And I'm
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: like my jaws hanging open, and he's loving it, and
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: he said, yeah, I know I because I experienced that,
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: and I saw what you did, and I could see
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: you were making a movie, but she's only a half
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: hour to make it, and I'd like to help you
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: make a longer movie. And so that, Yeah, so that's
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: what started us. Originally, he had in mind a much
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: more reasonable first movie. It was like a little Louis Mall.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: And there was a thing called The Divorce Club that
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: we were going to do that was about kids and
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: divorce kind of comedy drama was Warner Brothers. And so
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: when he went to go make Schindler's List, I was
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: starting to prep that movie, but I noticed some real
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: foot dragon from the studio about hiring my crew, and
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: so I called it. Lucy Fisher, who's great producer now
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: was the executive and I called her. I said, Lucy,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: is there are problems? She said, I think you should
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: call your friend Steve and I don't think they want
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: to make this movie. And so I called him in
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: Poland and he was like, hey, haw's it going on?
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: Your first movie. Isn't it amazing? Isn't it great? And
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: I was like, dude, it's wonderful, but I don't think
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: they want to make the movie. What that's crazy. I'll
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: call them. And he called Terry Semmel and Bob Dale
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: and he called me back two days later. He said,
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. You're right. They don't they're scared of it.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: They think it's the subject is too sensitive, and he said,
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry. I'm like,
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: don't worry about it. I'll go back to my day job.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: Thank you for trying. And that was the timing where
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: I went backack to watch go to direct one of
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: the first ten episodes of NYPD Blue. So that so
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: Steven takes credit for my marriage because I ended up
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: hearing Amy Brenneman, who was in the cast of NYPD
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: below at first eason. But then he called me and
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: he said this is months later. I was doing a
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: pilot in white for Botchko and he said, Okay. He
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: starts the call saying, Okay, this one's really going to happen.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Promise it's going to happen. We have a start date,
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: I have a release date, and the movies kind of
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: I said the movie's what He's like, He's like, can
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: you say it's Casper? And I said, Casper Mike is
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: in the Friend that goes yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: it's going to be live accent. It's gonna be CG.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: I just did these dinosaurs. You're going to be this
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: and that, and I'm dumbfounded, you know. And I said
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: to him, you know which Brad you called? Because I
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: was like, dude, I you know, I had no animation background.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: I'd done some small visual effects work in television, but
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: I dated an animator at UCLA. It's like I I
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: but I really didn't have any clothes. And he was amazing.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: He was like, no, what you do You're technically savvy.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: What you do and emotionally, what you do and what
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: this movie needs is you and so. But I didn't
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: just say yes on the call. I had to take
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: a weekend because I was overwhelmed by the prospect of
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: mass failure.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's a that's a huge that was a
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: that was a big movie.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: When I came out, huge movie ended up where we
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: knew it would be. It was like sixty five million
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: dollars at that point. This is in ninety five, and
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: I'll so I'm there in Hawaii and I'm just thinking, Okay,
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: if this movie works, Steven Spielberg presents great, great great.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: If it doesn't work, I'm like one of those direct
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: first time directors littering the beaches of Balibou who can't
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: get a second job. And so I was really anxious
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: about it. He did a very shrewd thing. What he
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: did was he sent the young producer, Colin Wilson, who
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: was going to do the movie. He sent him to
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: Why with a trunk of basically almost like illustrations from
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: my alemba about how this could work, what the modeling
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: would be like, blah blah blah blah blah. And I'm
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: just driving around to Scout my pilot with Colin the
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: whole weekend saying I said, no, this can't work, you know.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: And then it was awesome because I had a conversation
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: with with now my wife then girlfriend Amy, and she's like, Okay,
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: it's like pros and cons. Why you know what are
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: the pros. I'm like, well, it's an incredible opportunity and
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: I love the fact that the movie's actually embracing this
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: idea of loss and that there's an emotional story. But
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: and she's like, okay, so what are the cons? I'm like,
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: I could tank. And so that's when I just realized, Okay,
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: the only thing keeping me from this is fear. I
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: gotta fucking dive in. And so yeah, I called him
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: back and I said okay, let's go, and it was
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: just like lightning from there.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: That's amazing because I remember, I mean, I still remember
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: when that movie came out. I loved the movie when
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: it came out, with such a tough, heartwarming and touching film,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: but it was technically everyone was just talking about the
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: character and it was just a first real use of animation
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: as a talking characters.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: And yeah, they were go.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: So you know, it's not avatar, but without Casper, it's
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: hard to get the avatar, like you need a minute.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: It's part of the evolution. But it was so beautifully
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: even it still holds to this day. It's still hoods
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: he did.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: He I was waiting. I was waiting for the big
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: Yoda moment, and I was when I was in prep
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: to talk about the effects and about the effects work,
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: and we're getting closer and closer to shooting. I'm like
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: two weeks out and Steven still hasn't talked to me
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: about He at at one point said to me, oh, yeah,
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: I'll have the office send you a couple of tapes
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: of work sessions with ILM. You can see how I
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: gave them notes on the dinosaurs and say you'll know
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: how to do It's like, yeah, okay, great, we still
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: haven't done it. So finally I said, hey, can we
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: grab five minutes. He's like yeah, great, great, And I said, okay, well,
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: first of all, I think this affects budget doesn't really
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: reflect what it's going to be. And he looked at
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: me with that great Grannie said I wouldn't worry about it,
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: just go shoot your movie. And I was like, Okay,
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: this is the guy. This is his like close Encounters, thinking.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: That we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: I know it's gonna be will pretend it's the other number,
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: but it's really gonna be this. But more importantly, he said, again,
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: what you know how to do? You know how to
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: stage beautifully, you know how to really you know where
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: the camera goes, you know what to do to do
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: an elegant job in the live action. Don't treat this
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: any differently. You have to basically just don't try to
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: like compensate, do it just as you would, but only
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: you're gonna know where those characters are and you're gonna
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: have to communicate that. And that was exactly the right advice.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: So I stopped thinking, Wow, I have to kind of
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: put on a different filter, and I treated those four
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: ghosts just like any other character in the movie. And
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna stage with them, I'm gonna counter the camera.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: The focus shift's gonna happen, because there's the moment It
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: made me look like a madman on set, because it's
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: like orchestrating, you know, getting the crew to understand where
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: these ghosts were, how quick they were moving, getting the
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: camera operator to tilt at the right moment to an
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: empty part of the set, and then so I was
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: doing this all the time. It was it was crazy,
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: but it felt completely natural. And that movie made me
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: fearless because once you've done that, they can't throw anything
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: at you that you And also I have friends who
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: are live action directors who still have this envy of
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: going to do a big effectstrip movie right, and it's funny.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: For me, It's just another tool in the tool kit.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: I don't thirst for that, but I know how to
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: I know how to basically use those tools and how
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: to communicate with with the lighting TV, you know, lighting
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: tds and animators. And so it was like this incredible
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: two year learning curve that was invaluable. I've had the.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Pleasure of having some amazing guests on my show and
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: it doesn't cease to amaze me. I could probably count
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: twenty instances that Steven Spielberg launched their careers or helped
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: them along their career. He is one of those those
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: guiding forces in Hollywood that he doesn't get credit for
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: that he has helped so many filmmakers off the ground,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: either to start or later in their career are at
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: one point. He's always kind of the man behind the
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: curtain in a lot of ways, just giving that nudge,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: helping a little bit out here. And I've heard nothing
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: but the nicest, wonderful things about I mean, the craziest stories.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: It's amazing stories. But and I know he That's why
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: I knew that he worked with you and Casper. But
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: your story about him doesn't surprise me in the least.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it comes out of sheer love of film and
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: filmmaking and storytelling, and it's what keeps the ego out
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: of it. He just wants to push a good work along.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: You know, a couple of movies of mine that weren't
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: ones that he was involved with. He's just the best.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: I got on the City of Angels, which I did
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: over at Warner Brothers. He said, Oh, when's your first preview?
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: Can I come? And I was like, oh, yeah, let's
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: do that. That's going to freak them out. And so
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: I literally took Steven to my first you know, audience recruit.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: They didn't see him, but he wanted to come because
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: he felt so you know, proprietary, and we felt like
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: family and indeed like the studio was freaking out there
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: like oh shit, And yet it was the best because
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: he just had this reaction and then he's like, hey,
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: I carved out a day next week. You know you
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: want me to, I'll run the picture when do you want?
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: You know, do you want to hear some thoughts? I
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: was like, yeah, man, he's done that a couple of times,
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: three times on movies where he'll come and spend the day,
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: just run the picture in the cutting room again, offer
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: up thoughts and no, no, you know, no ties to
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: any of those, like here's what I see do with that?
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: What you will, I'm so proud of what you're doing,
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: blah blah blah, and that's it. Actually what is?
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: And I just heard a story of a friend of
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: mine who released a film and he's like, dude, do
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: you know I just got a letter from the producer.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: I just got a call from my producer who got
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: a letter, a handwritten letter from Steven saying Hey, I
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: saw my film and I just want to let you
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: know I really liked it.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: That was it, Like there was nothing.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: No, I don't want to do anything with you, like
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: I don't want to like I'm not and there's no
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: agenda just like I saw the movie. I thought, you
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: like to know that I liked it.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: He's like ahead of the curve because what I have found.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: I I think it was after City of Angels came out.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: One day. I remember I got a phone call and
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: I thought it was a friend playing a prank, and
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: it was Dustin Hoffman who following me, and I thought, wow,
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: somebody's doing a really weird Dustin Hoffmann invitation is this?
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: Brad was like and he he called me because he
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: had seen the film and he really really enjoyed the movie,
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: and he said, you must like actors. You like actors.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: I feel like you like actors a lot. And so
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: we talked and I finally said to him, this is
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: so kind of you to do do do this, and
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: he said, you know, I didn't for many years. I
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: didn't know it was too competitive, he said, but I'm
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: getting a holder and I like to acknowledge great work.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: And that was the most incredible thing. And then, of
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: course I took that because then I built him into
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: my next movie. But I Steven has been ahead of
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: that curve, and I think it is because he knows
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: the pain. You know, people forget his first directing job
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: for him was a nightmare, you know, the night gallery
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: sent him back to Arizona for a year and a half.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: He was like, I'm not ready to do this. So
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: he knows what it's like to get real support, he
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: knows what it's like to he always he always says
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: it to me when I made a film, a film,
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: my Nether Light Mile again with something that I'd written,
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: and he's like, it is your DNA, it's you, true
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: and true, I feel you in every frame. That is
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: what we're here to do. And so he's it's it's
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: an incredible thing. And I know, I know he knows it,
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: but I remind him of it yearly. I'm like, you know,
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: in Yiddish, like what a mitzvah it is you do
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: for your kind every every day? He and he loves movie,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: loves television. He watches everything.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: It's remarkable. And the thing I always find fascinating about
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: him is that he says like he doesn't have to
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: do anymore, like he had he could have stopped decades ago,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: you know, after et, he could have after Writerers of
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: the Lost, he didn't have to do this. But he
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: does it without agenda, without gupro quo. He's just truly
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: wants to help and wants to be and he knows.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: He knows in a.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Very humble way that he's the eight hundred pound gorilla
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: in the room. He he knows that very very well,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: and he uses that power for good.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: Well. And he'll also tell you, which is really funny.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: I remember between movies at one point he was it
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: was ambal And Television, or maybe it was DreamWorks Television
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: and they were producing one of their first TV shows.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: He was like there all the time. He's like, Hey,
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: come meet me up. I'm on the set of so
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: and so out in chats Worth. Come come hang. And
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: I was like, and I went there. I was like,
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: what are you doing? And he's like, oh, this is
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: like my methadone. He said, if I'm not actually shooting,
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: I need to be really close to it and get
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: a fix. And that's his true So he calls he
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: calls the movies he produces or the TV shows his methadone.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: And I've always thought of that because I share that
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: it's my favorite thing. I'm the best director ever. When
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: I go visit a friend set, I got no pressure.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: I'm really happy with the snacks the actors look really nice.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: I'm really he just loose, you know.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, anytime you've visit a set, you're just like, it's
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: not my it's I'm just I'm a I'm a passenger
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: on this ship. I don't have to I don't have
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: to drive. It's great.
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: I read a friend of mine is starting a movie
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: next week out in Boston. I'm going to go visit him.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: And he said, what day are you coming? And I said,
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: I think I'm coming on the blow. I goes, oh,
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: that's really funny. That's guest director day. That's amazing. And
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: so he's like, I'm like, no, no, no, no, doesn't work
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: that way, my friend.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: So one of yours you mentioned City of Angel, which
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: I absolutely adore. I watched that film every few years
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: because I absolutely adore that film. And it was obviously
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: made a remake of a masterpiece of a film, which
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: is Wings of Desire. How do you approach remaking It's
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: really a mastard piece and I'm not exaggerating. Wings of
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Desire is a master.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, Wings of Desire. So you want to go, you
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: want to go on a bad blind date, go see
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: Wings of Desire, which is how I saw that film.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: I went on a blind date and I went to
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: see Wings Desire and I was I couldn't move out
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: of my seat at the end of the movie, and
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: I looked to my left and woman that I was
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: there with clearly was just looking for popcorn remnants or
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: whatever it was, and there was like no response and
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: I couldn't. It was a really short date after that.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: You know, we'll be right back after a word from
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: our sponsor and now back to the show.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: It was poetry and it was she will just life,
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: humor and observing a nuance. So it was an incredible movie.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: The only way you make that that film when we did,
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: is you you. You can't approach it as an actual
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: remake because if it were you, what are you doing?
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: You know you can't do it. And so when I
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: got a call about the film, I was really interested.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: In My agent then said, oh, Dawn steegol producer Don
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: Steele is doing a remake of Wings a Desire, And
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: I was like what. I couldn't put those elements together. Don,
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: who's been gone down twenty years, was arguably one of
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: the most commercial movie brains as a studio head and
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: then as a producer, so I went in to meet her,
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: and what I realized, and I say this lovingly, I
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: don't know if she ever saw the original film, and
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: that's what that's what set me free. I was like, Oh, okay,
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: she's thinking of this as a high concept premise and
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: had engaged Dana Stevens, who's a wonderful writer. Dana as well,
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: was late to the Dana was not a Venders Efficionado
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: was not, so they were freed up at the initial
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: stage of development by not chasing that but by trying
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: to come up with a story. And I knew that
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: for me, if I could bring the emotional response I
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: had to Vim's film and some of the tonal play,
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: but also be able to just own it and just think, again,
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: we're not doing because it obviously wins. It desires like
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: gossamer threads. It's there's that much story. And the incredible
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: thing is so Nick Kidge and I have a real
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: instinct because I remember asking Don Steele. I said, so
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: tell me about your conversations with Vim, what has that
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: been like, And she's like, oh, oh, I haven't talked
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: to him. I was like, really, you've never engaged her.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: He goes, oh, no, I was like wow. And so
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: when Nick had signed on, he and I both were like,
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: I'd really love to get the script to Vim and
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: just sort of who knows, get any thoughts, but more
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: so just reach out and say we want there to
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: be a continuity, because we really are so indebted to
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: the initial impulse he had. And he was amazing, and
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: he read it quickly and responded, and then he ended
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: up becoming like a beautiful kind of godparent to the
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: movie from that point, or an angel, if you will,
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: or an angel, a guardian angel, a German guardian angel.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: He was great. But what he said to me and
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: Nick at that point, which was amazing, he said, this
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: is crazy. Do you know that in my original concept
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: for the movie, it was going to take place in
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: a hospital, and the female lead, of course, who's a
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: trapeze artist, was going to be a doctor. He said,
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: my dad was a surgeon. That's where I wanted it
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: to take place. We couldn't afford it. We couldn't afford
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: a location, and we couldn't afford it. That's why I
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: think about it, that's why she did trapeze Artist. We
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: put a tent up and we were like, oh my god,
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: that's the beauty of film. It's like, you can't imagine
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: that film any other way. And the you know, the
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: visual conceit a flight and all that goes no, no, no, no,
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: that was budget. You couldn't afford it. So again, so
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: them came to my first test screening with his wife,
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: and they were fantastic because I you know, the way
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: test screenings go, lights come up at the end, you
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: as the filmmakers at the studio, you leave through everybody
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: gets handed their little note cards and they fill out
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: shit and Vim and Donata his wife, were really funny
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: because they nobody knew where he was, so they were
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: like spying on people's cards and then they would come
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: running out to me, Oh, it's looking really good. They
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: like this, and they like that, and they need to
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: run back in. And so he was awesome through the
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: whole process. But again didn't expect it to be, you know,
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: a xerox copy. Appreciated that we weren't just doing that,
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: but still fel really happy to be connected to the film,
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: and that was the only way I was able to
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: do it. Otherwise it would have just been.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because you can't and you know, I had John
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: Batamon I had John Bathamon and I talked to him
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: about point in our Return. I'm like, how do you
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: take lefev Nikita and like redo it?
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: But he didn't have a guardian angel from France. He
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: was on his own.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: I d and I know what you're talking about.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, John's John's I'd love John absolutely John.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: And you've seen his book which I contributed. He's written.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: He cares so much about the craft of directing and
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: what directors go through, and he's the best.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, no question. Now, how did you how do you
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: approach taking a popular children's series and turning it into
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: a series of unfortunate events? Like how because that was
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: at that point in your career the biggest budget you've
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: ever worked with at that point.
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: Correct, Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, Foreshore, Camine, Casper, and City
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: of Angels were probably within five million dollars of each
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: other somewhere in the sixties and well, yeah, Lemony Snicket
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: by you know, over twofold, partly because Scott Rudin and
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: very solvent Felt had been in early development on trying
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: to make a movie at Paramount and they spent some money.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: They spent some money, and the studio got very scared
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: because the script it's interesting. Handler is a friend of
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: mine and Daniel Handler, who's the real Lemony Snicket, and
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: Daniel had done an adaptation, but the adaptation was like bonkers.
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: It wasn't it really wasn't honoring his own work, which
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: amazed me. And I think because he's so prolific and
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: he's so imaginative, I think he thought, why am I
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: just going to go recreate what I've done? I want
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: to go do some other stuff. So what I remember
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: asking if I could read where they had been headed,
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: and it was crazy town, but it was also very expensive.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: So that's how DreamWorks got involved was they basically decided
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: they were going to have the wrong path at Paramount
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: reached out to DreamWorks partner on the movie, and it
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: was mutually decided that they would bring on a whole
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: new filmmaking team, new script, new director. And so I
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: was in Europe. It was with Dustin Hooff and I
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: was in Europe promoting Moonlight Mile when I got a
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: call from Walter Parks, who was then running DreamWorks under
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: Steven and he said, are you familiar with these books?
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: And I said no, and he said, go get your
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: hands on them and call me back. And I went
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: to the biggest toy store hat have Leys, I think
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: it's called in London and bought the first three books
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: and was so again for me, it's like tone and character,
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: and it was so blown away by you know, the
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: essential premise of those books, which is that the kids
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: are the adults, adults are idiots, and that there's a
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: real straight look at darkness, that there's a real straight
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: look at loss and perseverance and what that means. And
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: so I was reading these and just again the sense
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: of wisdom, huge intelligence, tone. I just thought it was fantastic.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: So I called them back and I said, this is great.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: What's the situation and he said, well, when you come back,
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: come sit with me, Stephen. But if you want to
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: do this, we should do this. And so that began
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: the process. You know, there's thirteen books. At that point
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: there weren't thirteen, but it was decided that we would
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: tackle the first three. But by nuture, they are like cereals,
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: they're episodic, and for me, the biggest challenge was going
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: to be making it still feel like a three act
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: film and not just like and then we're here and
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: then we're here, which some of it is naturally still
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: that way, but that there had to be some sort
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: of little, bigger arc. So we spent a good bit
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: of time, and thankfully Handler was willing to come back
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: into the process because I didn't want to lose his voice.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: I didn't want to lose his you know, just that
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: sort of sweet and sour thing that he does. And
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: then we had But yeah, I mean, it was a
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: very expensive movie. I asked Cherry Lansing not to make
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: my life harder. But I said to her when I
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: met her, don't you want to, frankly, give him them
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: money or spending Don't you want to do it's you know,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: it's Back the Future two and three. Don't you want
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: to do two back to back and amortize the costs?
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: These sets are going to be insane.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: And now back to the show, and Sherer's awesome shares like,
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: oh no, honey, I'm very superstitious that I'm too superstitious.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: I let's let the first one come back that we'll
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: just said. I was like, okay, and I had over
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: the course of early the that you look, you pick
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: up one of those books, there's a sense of there's
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: like a sense of that everything being handmade, the illustration.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: And I wanted the film to feel like an illustration.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: And so when I started scouting and trying to kind
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: of design the film with Rick Heinrix, who's awesome, we
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: were actually going out into the real world looking for
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: Lok and we both were like, can't do it. This
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: is Night of the Hunter. We have to find a
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: way to make everything feel handmade times more two dimensional
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: than three dimensional. That means we have to control it all.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: That means we're gonna have to be on set the
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: whole time, including for exteriors. And so that's how we
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: approached it, and then gain in the studio back to
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: but yeah, it was was it was an expensive movie.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: It was. Now it's how do you direct a force
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: of nature like Jim Carrey. I mean he's he I
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: mean obviously he's very similar in energy to Robin Williams.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: You know, like this kind of pinetic energy that you
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: just like, you can't control it. All you could do
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: is corral it.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: Well, what you do It would be like if you
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: did a two hour interview and you hopefully made great
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: prompts and let that interview go and then sit down
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: together and say that's salient, that's great. This not so
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: much what I realized early with Jamble two things. What
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: people don't know about Jim Carrey. Everything seems like like
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: Robin Williams, like, oh my god. So he is a
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: preparer and he feels most grounded and safe when he's prepared.
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: So what I realized was like, Okay, how do I
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: do that and still capture all that's Jim? And what
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: I realized was I want to basically get the most
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: out of his freedom and then create. So normally, when
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: you do makeup hair wardrobe tests on a film, they're
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: no sound recorded. You just put it after up there.
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: And I had this crazy idea that I got from
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: actually John Schlesinger doing this on Midnight Cowboy, which is
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: I brought the sound mixer and I decided to interview
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: each of these potential characters that Jim was going to do,
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: meaning Jim's Olof and then Jim's you know, Stefano, and
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: then Jim is. I'd ask him about public policy, asked
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: him about his thoughts on you know, secondary education, you know,
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: on Las Vegas, and he just had a great time
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: and we were recording it and we looked at each
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: other after the first day and thought, it's all in there.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: That's amazing. It's all in there. And so what we
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: did was I I went and took from these really
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: hopefully well prompted, but great improvs. I took the best
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: of what we thought could play within the story, because
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: I did bring it around often to the kids, into
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: the situation and what he's gonna do with the money
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: and Titanic sucked. I could do better. And so what
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: you do is you it's less hemming him in and
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: more like, here's your pasture, let's go play, and I'm
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: gonna take your best moves and we're gonna bring that
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: into the story. And so that's what we did. We
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: brought all that material back into the s So the script,
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: what you have on screen is all material that derived
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: from improvs that we did well ahead of the time.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: And again, like a kid, you know, teenagers with a camera,
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: he and I responded on a really fundamental level, like pals,
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: and I realized that I had to make him feel safe,
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: but also not just pull big surprises, but that let's
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: go through let's prepare. He would know if he had
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: to work the staircase in that mansion, he knew how
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: many steps there were, how many he was going to
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: take before a gesture, and if God forbid, the night
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: before the construction crew changed the number of steps, that's
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: where he'd get thrown. Because it was like, no, I'm so,
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: I'm so, I'm a dancer, I'm so prepared. And so
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: if you know that's the animal you're dealing with, you
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: lean into it and you make him feel safe. The
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: studio got very scared. They got scared off and through
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: the process about you know, the reason kids loved those
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: books and why they love them series is because it's
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: super honest. Is it goes really dark. They got very
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: scared of that at times, and like the eleventh hour,
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: they got a little worried about count all loss makeup,
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: and I said to them, oh, we're past that point
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: and this is exactly what it's supposed to be, you know,
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: And they they but they I forget what they did.
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: And they asked the Walter Parks to see if there
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: was anything he could do, and I was like, oh,
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: this is not going to end well, because we've committed
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: it's going to get in his head and it's going
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: to blow up. And our first day of shooting, Jim
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: never got on camera because I think one of the
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: producers had gotten in his ear, like, well, maybe we
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: can have a little less darkness under the eyes. And
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: I remember saying to the producers like, that is going
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: to come at a cost. You wait, And sure enough
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: I went into Jim's trailer and he was like, wow,
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: are we are we just making a mistake? What's going on?
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: And I said, absolutely not, you are the character. This
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: is the makeup. Go home. Today was a great rehearsal
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: from putting on your makeup for three and a half hours.
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: Go home, get some sleep. We're going to start tomorrow morning.
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: Fuck then, And that's what we did.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's that's awesome. That's an awesome story, now
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: is there? You know, as directors, there's always that day,
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: And it could be at the beginning of your career,
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: could be at the end of the career. It could
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: be the middle of your career. On a day on
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: the set when the entire world is coming crashing down
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: around you and you're like, oh my god, like the
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: actor won't come out like you were saying before we started,
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: like the actor's drunk, he's getting it, he's getting a divorce,
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: we're losing the sunlight. The camera fell in the lake,
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: And every minute that goes by, it's literally thousands and
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: not hundreds of thousands of dollars go by. What was
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: that day for you? And how did you overcome that
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: obstacle that day?
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: Wow, it's so funny because I'm smiling when you're saying
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: that day, it's more like days every day.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: I asked that question often.
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: Then it was like, you mean every ah, Well, I'll
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: tell you here's a really I think. I think I'm
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: happy that I don't have a litany of them in
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: my head, partly.
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: Because listen you, the days that you think are going
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: to be a cake walk slam you like a ton
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: of bricks, and then you're like, holy fuck, how did
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: this get so hard? And then the days that you're
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: ain't anticipating hell become like joyous. So it happens throughout
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: the process. I think, as you do it, more what
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: you know. I always say, it's a shot at a time.
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: You go one shot at a time. When I would
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: in my golf cart driving myself to set on Lemony
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: Snick it we shot. I think we shot one hundred
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: and forty six days on that movie. It was amus
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: one hundred and forty six days, and I remember like
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: a third of the way into it, thinking this could
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: really become overwhelming. And I remember just driving my cart
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: with my happiest moment was like driving my golf cart
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: to the stage with my little one cup coffee, and
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: I thought, I think I'm just like a minor. I
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: go into the mine and I come out with film
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: each day. I can't even begin to think about the
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: end of this journey because it will take me out.
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: I just have to go in and really concentrate one
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: shot at a time, one performance at a time, and
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: that's how you can persevere and not get overwhelmed. I
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: over the years have gone to sit just again my
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: method done. I'll go sit with Steven on a set,
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: and it's what's always given me the joy of one
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: shot at a time, because as much as people like
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: to prepare, he prepares, but he still comes up with it.
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: It's like jazz. He comes up with it a shot
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: at a time on set, and if you do that,
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: you could be shooting ten days or one hundred days,
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: and as long as you're getting some sleep and you're
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: eating okay, and you believe in what you're doing, you
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: can get through it. The one I remember one day
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: that was pretty amazing on Lemony Snicket that is about
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: as close to what you're describing as I probably ever come.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: Where we had we were doing a sequence with Billy
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: Connolly and there's a character in the books, the incredibly
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: Deadly Viper. It's this huge viper, of course is harmless,
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: but it looks really meant. So we had a giant
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: prosthetic version of the viper created just to basically be
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: able to rehearsing for the camera operator and scale.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: And now back to the show.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: And the babies, where these were babies who were playing Sunny.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: They were fourteen months old. There were twour mintons when
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: we made the movie, and one of them on the rehearsal.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: Rehearsal though I always shoot by rehearsal, so everything's always
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: on film or digital because why not. It's like, I'm
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: not going to lose a great performance. So I don't
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: like just a came rehearsal. I always roll and it
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: gets everybody focused, and so we rolled on the rehearsal
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: and the grip, who was sort of manipulating this huge
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: fake snake, got a little too overzealous in his performance,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: and like what And the gate of this pen that
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: the snake was in was, you know, flies open, goes
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: right at the baby who's being held by the kids,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: and she and it's all it's in the movie. She
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: looks and screams bloody murder and she's toast. She's like off.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: They got to take her off the set. She was scarred.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: I still feel bad she was scarred from that for
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: the rest of the movie. Most of the rest of
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: the movie was her twin sister, who was just like
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: a joy baby. She though freaked out and at that point,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: when you're dealing with incense, you only have so many
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: minutes on set. Her sister had already worked that day.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: I had nowhere else to go. There wasn't another scene
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: we could jump into there was. It was one of
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: those where it was like and I remember, I just
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: it was that moment's like, holy shit. I turned to
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: my ad who's done every movie with me, and she's amazing,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: Michelle vinnie Is. I turned to her with this look,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: and I said, I need to take a walk. I've
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: never in my career left my set. I never leave
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: the camera. I was so overwhelmed by this wall we
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: had walked into that I literally walked out the stage
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: of this a paramount, and you know, on a big
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: movie you've got, it feels like a thousand and radios
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: all around, there's PA's, there's cranks, right, And what I
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: hear as I'm walking out of the stage and I'm
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: walking down, you know, I hear, don't let him get
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: to Melrose. Don't let them get to Melrose. They literally
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: thought I was gonna walk and never come back. And
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I didn't think about it, but
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: it was amazing.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: So I got like half way.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: Down and I took a deep breath. You know, I'm like,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: okay again. Shot at a time. It's their movie. I
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: sometimes too, in my head, I think it's their movie too,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: meaning I take it all on my head. I take
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: responsibility for everything. But everybody has come together. They want
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: to tell this very challenging story with real babies and
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: real this, and that it's their movie too. We'll figure
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: it out, you know. And the more you do it,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: and this friend of mine is starting this movie in
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: Boston next week. I was mentioning a lot of it
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: takes place at a boarding school. He just lost two
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: weeks out his primary location, like incredible primary school location,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: all the architecture because of COVID. The board of directors,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: I guess got together and we're like, no, can't do it.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: And I was on the phone with him when he
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: got the other call in the other line and he's
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: like And I checked in with him next morning, he's like,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: you know what, this is what happens. We do this
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: long enough, we kind of get unflappable, and you do.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: It's not that you don't care. You just know there's
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: going to be a solution. And as always happens in film,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: you look back and think it couldn't have been any
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: other way. So there's a faith in the process. Yeah,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: casting and recasting. No, you're absolutely right.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: There's there is that thing that you're like, oh, why
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: did I lose that? I will like the trapeze thing
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: in Wings of Desire, perfect example. I mean, he wanted
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: an hospital, but he could afford it, so we got
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: the Trapiez. It's it's it is such an insanity that
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: we do. I call it the beautiful sickness because it
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: is uh, because it is it is you know whichause
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: once you get bitten by that book, you can't get
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: rid of it ever. It really it's always inside you.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: And uh, it's beautiful. But it's I've spoken to so
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: many filmmakers over the course of my career that there's
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: an insanity to what.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: We do because what we we have, we have have
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: got to the circus. We've ran away with the circus. Yeah.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: And it's a compulsion. Yeah, And there's a comp and
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: I've had it again since I was younger this day.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: So when I was making my little Super eight films,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: lived in a neighborhood that had turned over and really
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: there were not a lot of younger families. There was
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: one kid next door to me who was younger, who's
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: the only actor I had. He was in every movie
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: that I made, and he got really smart. At one
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: point he started saying, I'm all tired today, Like you
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: hold his hand out, I have to give him five bucks,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: and you know, it's my first time dealing with unions.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: He but it was funny because he the compulsion. He
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: would look at me some days and go, oh no,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: you've got another one, because you just get bitten and
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: you want to tell another story and you want to
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: go do that thing. And I always say different with
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: different filmmakers. I can look at their movies. Paul Anderson,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: another fantastic director from the Valley. We are Valley people
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: here in La I adore and I looked at it
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: and I said, he wanted to make a movie, meaning
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: he was very excited to create a feeling. It wasn't
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: that he was sitting there chiseling out a story that
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: was just like this, and just like that. He got
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: really excited to go make a movie. And sometimes our
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: movies are that. It's like, I want to go make
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: a movie and I'm going to find enough that I
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: can care about to hang on this movie and just
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: enjoy the process. Peter Weir, who among you know the
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: Pantheon of Living directors, is one of my faves. And
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: I sought him out after castp actually because I was
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: going to go to Australia. He happened to be in
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: La and he's become this incredible again friended mentor. He
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: said a really brilliant thing about he made a movie
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: called Green Card with Depardieu and yeah, that's right, and
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: the movie flopped and just got kind of and and
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: he just had the greatest attitude and he said of it. Later,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: I realized that the audience was in the wrong place.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: They should have been with us while we were making
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: the movie, because the process was so pleasura when we
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: had such a great time, and I guess I wanted
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: them there maybe less so sitting in a theater watching
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: the movie, and I knew exactly what he meant, which is,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: you know, sometimes it's just I want to go and
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: have this great experience and so but it's all from
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: that compulsion, and part of your job, and people do
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: it with more or less success, is how do I
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: manage that compulsion and have a life. You know, it's
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: not for reason that most of these marriages go down
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: with filmmakers and other artists, and it's like, you have
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: to find a balance, and we're always working at that,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: but the bug is still always there. And you know,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: it's this I called the great harum. It's this creative
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: harum for your unsettled because you're searching for that next
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: thing to just lock into.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: And i'd imagine, you know, being someone like yourself, who's
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: had success as a as a director in your career,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: when you start getting those first big jobs, you know,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: when you're on the set of Casper and on the
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: set of City of Angels, and that I guess has
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: to amplify because the high is so much higher for
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: someone directing with all the toys in the world, like
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: on limits, nickets, that high must be pretty immense for
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: someone like yourself, as opposed to an independent filmmaker who's
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: used to make one thousand, hundred fifty thousand dollars movies.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong, it still could be a high
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: for them as well. But I can only imagine the
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: level of like height you get the car movies get released,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: you get huge audiences, You're working with the best collaborators
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: in the world. You have Steven Spielberg sitting there visiting
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: the set. I can imagine as a director you that
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: that compulsion must be even more so. I think that's
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: probably why you do so much television. That because television
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: you're constantly or as opposed to features that think.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: Forever, well, this is this is right. Pilots and I
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: love making pilots because pilots are little movies that have
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: to be done my may second, and they have to.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: They're not going to wait for the actor because they can't.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: They have to have it on their schedule. No, it's true,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: so I'll tell you. And I remember this while I
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: was shooting Casper Kevin Reynolds, who made among the other thing,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: water World. So Kevin's an old friend because he married
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: one of my oldest friends. Kevin was on the Universal
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: lot and he God, I don't know if he was
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: in post on water World or ninety five. I think
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: he was.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: I think he was imposted around that time.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: I remember he came by and I was like, you know,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: famous in water World, the first movie to ever break
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: the hundred million dollar figure on a budget. And I said, God,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: that just must be amazing and crazy and great and Chilli, we'll.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: Be right back after a word from our sponsor. And
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: now back to the show.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: When he's looked at me and he said, you know what,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: it's still all the same problems, he said, I'm still
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: fighting to make my days. I still don't have enough
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: for certain things I want to do, he said. So yes,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: it's great, he said, but don't don't have an illusion
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: that it just suddenly changes and so when you're talking
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: about the size of the movie's there too. I'll tell
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: you where. We're all in the same spot in a
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: beautiful way. The first time we walk in with that
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: first audience, we're sitting there. If the movie costs two
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: million dollars, two hundred million dollars or twenty thousand, your
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: heart is here because how are they going to receive this?
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: How are they going to laugh? Are they gonna cry?
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: That's the great equalizer, and for me is still what
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: I'm most excited about. It's one thing to sit and
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: just go make a film for myself, but it is
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: an audience experience that I crave. Nothing is better, or
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: it can be worse, but usually nothing is better. And
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: that's kind of an interesting equalizer. The rest of the
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: size is again, can be great at times. It can
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: be like I say, like, oh shit, I just got
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: to put on my mining cap because this thing.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: Is cut wood, carry water. Cut wood, carry water.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: Saturday time, cut carry water.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: Now I'm going to ask a few questions. Ask all
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: of my guests, what advice would you give a filmmaker
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: trying to break into the business today.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: Okay, so you remember that great line from Glengarry Glenn Ross.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: Always yeah, mine is always be writing, and if you
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: can't write, always be dating a writer seriously because in
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: the end it is all about content and for somebody
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: trying to break in, somebody trying to sustain. So it's
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: the Rocky story. It's like Stillune saying, yeah, you can
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: make my movie, but I'm going to star in it.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: And the only way for filmmakers to get to guarantee
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: their place unless they're coming off of, you know, John
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: watt last movie, the only way you're going to guarantee
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: your place is primacy of And this was Stephen has
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: said to me many times too. It's like that's the
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: thing when it's your baby. They may not don't want
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: to make it, but if they make it, it's only
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: going to be with you. Always be writing, always be dreaming.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: And like I say, truly, if you're not a writer,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: then find somebody to collaborate with. It's going to be
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: the I mean, I will say without a doubt, my
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: most enjoyable experiences, be the large or small, have been
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: on the films that I've written. I've done both, and
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 3: I've loved my other movies too, but the experience of it.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: I'm the most free in a weird way. I'm not
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: like I remember Dustin Hoffmann on Mulight Mile was waiting
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: to see if I was going to be like mister
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: letter perfect, and I was like, oh God, no I
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: because I've already written it. Now we can play if
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: we need to play. So But but it's that it's
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: always and the other thing too. It's like when I
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: was growing up soccer player. You know, we used to
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: watch these Pepsi training films that they would scream and
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: they were always starring Pele, of course, and Pele was
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: always basically dribbling a grapefruit on a beach in Brazil,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: and his whole thing was, anybody can do this with
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: just a grepe fruit. And I think of that all
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: the time, which is, if I have that creative, if
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: I to have to wait to pull together one hundred
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: million dollars, ten million dollars two hundred thousand, if I
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: have to wait to be creative because of other people's money,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be doomed and bitter. And so writing
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: gives me the control. There's nothing but keystrokes or a
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: piece of paper or journal that's going to stop me
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: from continue, you know, And Stephen has a great phrase Bilberg.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: He he talks about your your your your writing eye
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: and your directing eye. And he has said to me,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: you know that that the reason he knows I love
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: to write is it's my directing eye getting to play
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: but lay on the page. So that's that's the key is.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: I can't stress it enough. I every time I go
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: back to film schools and talk to young people, I'm like,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: you have to be a creator.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: Now what is the lesson that took you the longest
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: to learn, whether in the film industry or in life.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's a great question. I would say probably it's
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: it's an ongoing lesson. You can begin to equ wait
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: stubbornness with I guess integrity and stubbornness, for many go
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: hand in hand. And I can be super stubborn. When
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: I want to do something, I'm going to get it done.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: It may take two years, ten years, it may I'm
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: going to get it done. And it's funny. I have
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: three movies that I've made, each of which had that
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: about it. Light Mile I wrote a first draft of
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety three. I made it in two thousand
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: and one. Ten items are less similar picture I did
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: with Ben Kingsley Ordinary Man. By the time things got
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: together fell apart. So I'm stubborn. What I've realized is
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: that I can't be singular and stubborn, meaning of the
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: open too. I was always of the belief that I
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: have to just stay on one project. I can't be
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: distracted by others. And the challenge there is that's fine
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: if you literally are prepared to not go and do
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: something for a long period of time because there are
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: elements that are out of your control. And so I'm
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 3: both creatively staunch, but I do. It's like you can
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: jumble more plates in a successful and enjoyable way. The
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: more you do it, you get confident. So I might
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: be developing a limited series that might go, but I'm
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: also out to cast on another movie that it would
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: have been once upon a time. I would have only
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: just sat and waited for that cast come together on
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: that movie it light mile and suddenly or the money
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: to come with it. And so suddenly it was from
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: two thousand and eight to time we released the movie
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: two I Sorry ninety eight to two thousand and two
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: like almost four years. And on the one hand, like
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: Peter Weir had always said to me, make sure you
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 3: live your life. Some people just go movie to movie
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: to movie. You need to take time and read and
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: hike and listen to music and fulfill yourself. So I'm
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: I have both in me. I can wait. But I've
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: learned to not cut off other opportunities, and so that
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: initially would have been probably more of a challenge for me,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: and I have a bigger view of it now.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: And what is your What are three of your favorite
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: films of all time?
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: Oh man? Well, as every filmmaker will tell you, it's like,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: don't ask me that question, but I'm gonna tell you obviously,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: Jaws is what lit my little views. You can ask
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: that question and get a different answer every day. I'm
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: going to tell you I love again talking about Peter
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: Weir in a in a more commercial film of his.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: Uh Okay, I'm cheating. I'm giving you two. I love
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: Gallipoli and I love Witness. Witness is this remarkable movie.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: It's like this, and then I'm gonna give you it
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: only because I recently saw it again and I was like, God,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: I wish I had made that movie. I'm going to
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: even mention a Jhong Yimou movie that most people have
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: not seen and they must see it. And it's it's
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: the smallest movie he ever made. It's called not One Less.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: He made it with with non actors in a little
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: Chinese village, and it is the most breathtaking beautiful. It's
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: like not even verite because it's still beautifully controlled the
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: way he can. But it's what movies can be. And
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: I come back to it from time to time to
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 3: you know, reinvigorate me. I'm a big o Zoo fan
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: and I love I love Floating Weeds. Floating Weeds is
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 3: a movie that I come back to for tone, for
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 3: just exactly where that camera is on that fifty millimeter lens.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: So those are movies that always stay with me. But
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 3: I do have those movies that I call like, oh,
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: that's just a perfect movie that you can go back
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: to from time to time. And they can be indifferent,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: they can be all the presidents men, it can be
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: can be the verdict, it can be you know, you
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: name it. So I have a I have a you know,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: one of those revolving CD changers. It's not too fix.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly, it's constantly it's the rotation you got rotation.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: But it's just it's it's honestly, to tweak myself. It's
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: to go God, that's beauty. Every time I see something
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: that I enjoy, it makes me want to go that
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 3: day and make a movie. And that's what it is,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 3: my friend.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: I shait you coming on the show, Brad. I really do.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: It's been a wonderful conversation. I hope it's inspired a
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: few people to go out there and make a movie
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: and scared the hell out of others to not make movies.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: But I truly appreciate your time, my friend. Please continue
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: making the work that you do, and good work, so
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you, my friend.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 3: I appreciate it too. This is fun. Thanks so much.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Brad so so much for coming
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: on the show and dropping his knowledge bombs on the
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: Tribe today. Thank you again so much, Brad. If you
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: want to get links to anything we spoke about in
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: this episode, head over to the show notes at Bulletproof
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: Screenwriting dot tv Forward Slash three eighty four.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for listening, guys. As always, keep
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 3: on writing no matter what.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: Screenwriting dot tv.