Latest / Half the Picture / #35 - EDDIE HAMILTON

Transcript

#35 - EDDIE HAMILTON · Half the Picture

• 0:00
  Tom has a full gym, uh, wherever he's staying.
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  He has one particular gym machine that's incredibly challenging to work your legs and your arms,
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  and he was like, Eddie, go and, go and have a go on that machine.
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  My arms were so tired, I couldn't even lift a fork using my other hand to try and like,
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  lift it up to my mouth. And he was just having a little giggle to himself in the corner,
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  because he knew that that was what he was like when he started using the machine.
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  So, Eddie, welcome to Half the Picture. How are you doing today?
• 0:37
  Great, Billy. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
• 0:39
  Happy to share all the stories with you and talk about movies and things that we love.
• 0:44
  Fantastic. Well, as I was saying to you before we started rolling, I've been a fan of yours for
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  the years. I'm editing is kind of where I started. I studied editing and your films that you
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  worked on and your editing techniques and cutting style was something that I studied pretty closely.
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  And so, yeah, it's an absolute pleasure to have your work.
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  There's plenty of movies that nobody's seen as well. Like, when I was starting out, I did
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  like a lot of low-budget movies, you know, so I appreciate your kind words. But, you know,
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  anyone in the film industry has always got these entries on IMDB where you're a bit like, wow,
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  just there's a lot there which no one's ever heard of. But that's just how it is when you're working
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  your way slowly up the greasy pole. You know, you do a lot of stuff and no one wants to make a bad film,
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  but sometimes, you know, the movies don't work out as well as you hope. But actually, you end up
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  working just as hard on the ones that don't work as well as the ones that do because that's how it is.
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  Sure, sure. And I guess you're paying your dues at that period. Exactly.
• 1:41
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And working on stuff and then eventually you work your way up and get that
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  big break. Exactly. I guess the mainstream movie making. I mean, looking back at your
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  extraordinary career and all the amazing films you've worked on, I mean, just to give people an idea,
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  you know, you worked with Matthew Vaughan on kickass and the Kingsman movies and then
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  Kristen McCquarrie on the Mission Impossible movies, Rognation Onwoods, and Top Gun Maverick.
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  I mean, you've cut so many of the sort of biggest movies at the last 15 or so years. And to kick off
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  with, I guess I just wanted to ask as an opener like, what is a film editor and what makes a good
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  film editor? Okay. Film editing is the best job. Okay. I love it. If you think about the logistics
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  of a film set, you may have up to 500 people working on a film set to create the magic between
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  action and cut. And they will have been working for months to get a set ready and to light it and
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  to get all the actors dressed and to figure out the special effects on set and the rain or the fog
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  or whatever's needed. And then action cut, the camera, the cards are taken out, the camera,
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  the sound is recorded. And then all that work from 500 people goes to one person who's the film
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  editor. So when you're making a movie, quite often it will start out with a writer who is obviously
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  one person. And then maybe you'll get a director and a producer involved three people. And then
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  the creative process balloons out to like 500 people. And then eventually comes back down just to
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  one person who's the editor. So it is an enormous position of privilege and responsibility because
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  you know, the crew will film. And then the next day, I will get all the footage. And I'll normally
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  start looking at it quite early in the morning. But you're the first person on the planet to watch
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  it all. And to see the film coming to life through your fingertips and on the timeline of the
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  computer that you're working on. Before even the director gets to see it, you can start to feel
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  the life of the film and the characters and the interactions and the emotion that you're creating.
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  Whatever emotion it is that you're trying to create with the audience. And editors are emotional
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  visual storytellers, right? That's the only thing the audience gives a shit about is am I feeling
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  anything at this point? So my job as the editor is to take the audience's hand while the opening
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  logos are running and carry them through every moment emotionally, every nuance through the film
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  and making sure that the emotional flow of the movie is as smooth as possible. And everything that
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  we're trying to communicate to the audience is communicated successfully. And it doesn't start
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  like that. It starts out lumpy and too long and unfocused and confusing. Every film starts out like
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  this. And you have to work at it a lot over many weeks and months before you start to kind of
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  really feel the an effortless, smooth story being told. And people really have no idea about
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  the stress and the emotional sort of intensity of editing a film because the editing room is a
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  place of extreme creative safety where you and the director and maybe the producer or whoever
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  can work and fail a lot because ultimately you start off failing a lot and you kind of fix
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  things and you fail less every day until when you finish the movie there's no failure in it and
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  you've fixed everything and it's all working perfectly. But the creative process of embracing
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  failure and knowing that the first assembly will be the worst thing that you've ever seen
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  and understanding that if you want to enable creativity in people is to allow them to fail in
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  safety. There's the whole thing in Pixar where they say we just encourage people to fail early
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  and fail often so that we understand what is going to work and it's the same with editing.
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  There's going to be a lot of failure before things start to work and creatively that is a very
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  it can be a hotbed of creative discussion and disagreement
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  but because it's a private space it allows you to communicate with trust and friendship and
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  honesty and try stuff out with your collaborators, your creative collaborators on the film
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  and it would make for a great reality TV show because people fall out a lot and there's lots of
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  kind of heated arguments and discussions but it's kind of the reason why there aren't really
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  many behind-the-scenes documentaries about editing films because it would be a little unvarnished
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  for a lot of people and then by the time you get to the premiere everyone's friends again you know
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  and you don't want any scuttlebutt about editing discussion to kind of filter out
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  into the world because many people are very keen to hear that the film isn't going well or
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  that people are disagreeing because it'll you know make clicks on the you know on websites or whatever
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  and so you know we all agree that everything that is discussed only takes place within the four
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  walls of the editing room and that we will have very honest discussions the best idea wins the best
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  version of the movie wins it's not about ego it's about making sure that the best version of the
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  movie that can exist that has been shot in the raw footage kind of gets out there you know
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  everyone's best work being being shown but really it's it's just about creating the correct emotion
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  that's all I'm focused on is emotional visual storytelling making sure that the shot
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  compositions and the choices of where to cut inform the story as well as you know the line
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  readings and things like that but you know how how you start a scene whether you start on a close-up
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  or a wide shot and when you choose to cut to the person listening or cut to the person talking
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  and how you use coverage when there's multiple characters or how you create stakes and energy in
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  an action sequence you know all of that stuff is kind of what I'm thinking about but
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  everything it comes down to the the emotional content of what the audience is experiencing in
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  that second of the movie you know and making sure that it's a fluid smooth emotional journey from
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  beginning to end and it's very satisfying when you eventually get there but it does take a very
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  long time on these big movies it's like two years of work yeah for each film yeah so it sounds
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  like what makes a good editor is having your finger on the pulse of the heart of the story yeah heart
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  of the story I think the other thing about what makes a good editor is great communication
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  with your team of assistant editors with the music department with the visual effects department
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  that's so important on these big movies where you know the visual effects production
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  management is extremely closely monitored on a day-to-day basis you know how many shots have
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  they got to get completed to a photorealistic standard in the time that they have and making sure
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  when I'm working with the director I'm constantly communicating with the the VFX team how to
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  motivate your team of assistant editors so that they are fresh and excited to work and can contribute
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  creatively that's really important I think being a movie lover is critical being enthusiastic I
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  think one of the most one of the reasons why I've been working with Tom Cruise since 2014 is because
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  I'm relentlessly enthusiastic regardless of how challenging the creative situations are that
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  we find ourselves in and you know the the worst day on a film set is better than the best day in
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  almost every other job you know it's it's an incredible privilege to be working telling stories
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  for a living and it can get very very intense and hard and the hours can be very long indeed
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  sometimes but if you stay enthusiastic and committed and focused that's so important
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  and I think gratitude is important like saying thank you to everybody and making sure that
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  you know everybody who works on the film is you know appreciated from whatever they do you know
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  but yeah I think enthusiasm is critical and loving movies and knowing movies and being
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  and being passionate about the fact that you're involved in making something that millions of people
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  might see which is such a privilege and so exciting you know and what I dreamed of doing since I was
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  eight you know yeah well I wanted to ask about that because I know you started you were a film fan
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  from a very early age and then got into editing I mean when did you know you wanted to break into
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  filmmaking I would say well basically when I saw Star Wars was when I was eight years old it was
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  I think it was on TV in 1980 it was on ITV so it had adverts in it but I remember watching it and I
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  remember being so extraordinarily impressed and amazed that anything like this could exist and
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  that I could see it with my own eyes and spaceships and robots and creatures and it was just
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  mind blowing for an eight-year-old to see that and I didn't get taken to the movies much by my
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  parents because the nearest cinema was quite a drive away but we had a beatermax video tape recorder
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  so I would watch Star Wars over and over again and I remember the first time I got to the end
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  of the movie at the certain the metal ceremony and the John Williams music is playing and then
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  there's that circular wipe and it says written and directed by George Lucas in the blue font and
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  I remember seeing that and at eight years old thinking that's some that's a human being's name and
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  so maybe people make films maybe they don't just exist on the TV as if by magic you know people
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  actually create them and so I saw all these names going by on the end credits as I was in the
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  after-glow of the movie because I was so excited by what I'd seen and I was watching a 14 inch 4 by
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  three pan and scan version of the movie you know on mono sound and but I remember thinking okay so
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  all these people worked on the movie and I want to do that and so from the age of eight I was
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  obsessed with anything to do with filmmaking and I tried to watch as many films as I could on TV
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  beg my parents to take me to cinema my friends parents I would listen to film soundtracks I would
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  you know go to the library and get cassette or a record or whatever I would get books out from the
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  library of of anything to do with filmmaking and I would read them over and over again and learn
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  about you know how films are made and lenses and film stock and I was obsessed with industrial
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  light and magic visual effects and I learned about map paintings and models and photochemical
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  compositing and you know motion control photography and you know stop motion animation and all that
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  stuff that they did for those movies which created the magic that I was experiencing and then eventually
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  when DVDs came out watching all the behind the scenes but I really only discovered editing when I was
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  about 17 16 or 17 when I hooked two VHS machines up and then I would copy clips from one to another
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  which is the equivalent of a kid today on their phone shooting stuff and doing it on cap cut on
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  their phone you know in the back of the car they filmed something at the beach with their parents
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  and on the way home in the back of the car they might be putting it together on their phone on
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  cap cut but it's um that for me was really where I where hours would fly by in the creative process
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  and people who are listening to this or watching this who are aspiring editors or who are editors
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  will recognize that flow state that you can get into when you're editing where hours just fly
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  by because you're so intensely focused on the the precise kind of frame that you're cutting on
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  and the emotional impact that that has when you've got these two shots that you're cutting together
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  and then the overall shape of the story that you're building whether it's a 10 second story or a
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  30 second story or a five minute story whatever it is but that and the power of adding sound effects
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  and music and creating something emotional for an audience is intoxicating you know so that's
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  kind of how I discovered it absolutely that was my first contact of it as well it can it gets
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  in your blood a bit doesn't it when you first sort of dive into that yeah it's enormously time
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  consuming like when you start out doing it you you you may do a minute in an hour and you're so
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  proud of it but you've only done a minute you know and you just think wow is it really taking me
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  that long but on a big movie it takes way longer you know there's a there's a there's one day on
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  Top Gun Maverick I remember I've told this story before but there was so much coverage for the
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  third act trench run sequence you know and I remember there was one day where I did three seconds
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  in the morning and four seconds in the afternoon so I did seven seconds on a Friday and but I had
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  thousands of options to choose from to get down to that seven seconds and it is almost identical
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  in the movie to how I built it on that day but I remember thinking I'm never going to finish if
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  this is how long it's going to take me just to do seven seconds of this sequence you know but that
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  just gives you an idea and my my kids have have kind of grown up with me playing the same one
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  minute of a movie over and over and like adjusting the nuances of one line of dialogue or one word
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  or one syllable and they're like dad why are you here why are you playing this again and again
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  I'm like what it is different every time but it's just different by one percent and we're just trying
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  to dial in the the perfect line delivery for this moment but they're quite used to it now and they
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  understand that that's the process and neither of them are interested because I think they're they're
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  like this is not for me why would you spend hours and hours doing this you know but I love it and
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  I still love it so yeah it's great and but what's funny is that like because as you say you started
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  your interest in film started when you were around eight years old then 17 you discovered editing
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  but I want to say you just you studied psychology at university I did study psychology mainly because
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  there were no undergraduate really there weren't really any undergraduate film courses when I went
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  to university in 1991 before all of you were born and yeah and however at UCL they had a very
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  very active film and TV society and they made a lot of student TV and a lot of student films and
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  there was a group of very passionate filmmakers from all kinds of different degree courses who would
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  meet every day and make student films and TV and that is actually what I did so I joined the film
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  society on my first day and I spent probably eight hours a day every day making films and TV and two
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  hours a day studying psychology like the absolute bare minimum that I could do to go to my lectures
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  write the essays and pass to get a two one it was very interesting degree but I loved movies but
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  and also I was in London so I was able to go to the cinema a lot and go to the national film
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  theatre and go to the print charts and just watch tons and tons of movies and see stuff projected
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  that I'd only ever seen on a VHS tape or only ever read about because a lot of things you couldn't
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  get on video back then you know you could only see certain movies in the cinema yeah and it was
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  great and I've basically lived in London you know ever since then because also it's that's
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  be honest the centre of the filmmaking community in the UK and if you want to work in the film
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  industry you have to really be in London if you want to find your way onto these kind of bigger
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  movies so I didn't I did psychology but really I was still doing a lot of film and TV and lots of
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  editing and making short films and all kinds of things we were doing but you know learning a lot
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  along the way and making friends with people who I'm still in touch with now making those connections
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  yeah but what's interesting to me though about that the fact that you studied psychology was that
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  linking that back to something you said near the start about the atmosphere and the environment
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  of an editing room and your dealing with with with with egos and creatives and it's quite a sort of
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  fertile environment but there's a lot of energy in there like do you think there's any crossover
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  between having to be a good psychologist I think probably yeah I mean I'm kind of in touch with
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  my feminine side shall we say and I I am I hope I'm sensitive communicator which you need to be
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  when you're working you know in an editing room and working with people who are who have a lot
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  of stake you know creatively personally professionally financially um you know producers directors
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  writers actors um and you know remaining calm and just figuring the problem out is um is important
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  you know and not not Michael Khan has this great expression where he says don't let them see you
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  sweat you know and whenever someone comes into my cutting room whenever they come up to me on set
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  how's it going I was like fantastic great and I always say that because you don't want anyone to
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  have a sense that things aren't kind of coming together well you know and and I can be very honest
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  with an experienced producer or a director and I can say like there's an issue with this scene or
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  with that scene um or we we need this extra pickup or we need this or we need that or um you know
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  I'm not sure about this wardrobe choice you know what do you think or this hair how this person
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  this actors hair looks so you need to be sensitive to all those things but um yeah I think there's
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  probably you know the best editors are also quite personable you know but the other thing is I never
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  grumble you know I don't understand why people grumble and a lot of editors do grumble but it's
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  just such a privilege to do what we do and so I just kind of get my head down and get on with it
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  and I'm grateful to be employed frankly you know and it must be an exciting environment because you say
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  some of the people you've worked with like like Tom Cruise and Christopher McCwary who are like
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  Titans yeah and and and and seemed to me to have so much energy and ideas like you were saying
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  you're about about cruise like you know the enthusiasm that comes off from him I mean and that
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  must be sort of filling up the cutting room yeah it's interesting I from from when I started
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  making tea as a runner to getting a call to work on mission impossible road nation was 20 years
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  so just to give people an idea of how long I was you know slowly climbing up the ladder of the
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  industry um working on you know a lot of short films and features for free so I would pay my bills
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  by doing two days a week at the Paramount Comedy Channel editing promos um and being paid as a
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  freelance editor and then five days a week I'd work for free on other people's movies and TV
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  well short films it was really in features low very low budget features but learning learning
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  learning learning all the time and then getting a chance to work with Matthew Vaughan in 2001 that
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  was a big break when I did a film called Mean Machine and but that was an incredible opportunity
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  because I heard that they were looking for an editor and I knew somebody who knew somebody who knew
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  him so I had like a third-hand connection which is and so I called my friend and I said can you
• 22:51
  call your friend and ask that person to call Matthew and say there's this young editor who really
• 22:56
  wants to work with him and somehow they did do that and then a week later I got to meet Matthew and
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  I said can I I'd love to work on your film um I'll sleep on the floor of the cutting room I don't
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  care this is just the most incredible opportunity and he said all right have a crack at the first
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  um start at the beginning of this movie and do as much as you can in two weeks and then I'll come
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  in and watch what you've done and see if if it's kind of working for me and um so I did and I
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  worked around the clock I did almost sleep there because I was working till midnight every night and
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  I managed to do about 40 minutes of the movie in two weeks wow it's quite a lot um and he came in
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  I remember he was a Tuesday lunchtime in 2001 probably like August maybe in 2001
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  because I remember we were in the edit on nine on me machine when we when 9-11 happened
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  and the world stopped and I remember we all kind of like we were watching the TV um when the twin
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  towers came down but Matthew came in and he was married to Claudia Schiffer at the time he still
• 24:09
  is married to what am I saying but Claudia Schiffer came in and I remember going oh holy smokes
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  serious a list of action anyway he walked in with her and they watched them they watched the
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  40 minutes that I'd done so I sat down I said right press play on the spacebar when you want to
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  you know press the spacebar when you want to start and I'll I'll wait down the corridor and so I had
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  a very nervous 40 minutes where I could hear the film playing in the room and I was busy kind of
• 24:34
  having a cup of tea and drink eating a sandwich and then you know and so nervous because a lot
• 24:39
  this was a major you know inflection point in my career if this went well you know and there's a
• 24:47
  thing about luck is preparation meets opportunity right so I had prepared by teaching myself how to
• 24:53
  edit and and then this opportunity had come along and so I I had two weeks to kind of create my own
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  luck there you know and find myself and then but Matt what was great is Matthew came out he's like
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  it's really good I've got a few notes but I see exactly what you're doing it's great just keep
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  just keep going so that worked out and then and I'm still friends with Matthew you know we're working
• 25:15
  together on something now you know and it's you know 25 years later you know and so
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  and and that led on to kickass and X-Men first class working with Lee Smith you know
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  Lee who was between inception and the Dark Knight rises on his sort of Christopher Nolan journey
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  so he'd just done inception masterpiece and was about to do the Dark Knight rises but he had seven
• 25:42
  months in between and he came in and did X-Men first class and I was fortunate enough to work with him
• 25:48
  and he was kind enough to give me the shared editing credit on the film and but I good did get to
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  learn a lot from Lee about how to work on these gigantic movies and how to run a big feature film
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  cutting room and how to communicate with the head of a studio because Tom Rothman who was running
• 26:07
  20th Century Fox at the time and he would come in quite a lot and the one thing that Lee would
• 26:12
  always do was he would just be very honest with him about what he was seeing about the quality of
• 26:17
  the footage and the quality of the performances and that's all the the head of the studio wants to hear
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  is an honest appraisal he doesn't want anything to be sugar coated you know this is working this
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  is not working this is how we're going to fix this and yeah so that and being in the room and
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  watching those conversations happen with somebody who who's now my age basically Lee was my age
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  when he was doing X-Men back then which was in 2010 2011 we did that and again it was incredibly
• 26:52
  quick we did the whole thing in seven months and that or no nine months it was seven months of
• 26:56
  filming and nine months of editing so the movie was out in theaters two months after we finished
• 27:02
  filming which is extraordinary when you look back but Lee is brilliant at his job and we had the
• 27:07
  resources from 20th Century Fox to do it and you know when you have a release date to hit that one
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  of your jobs is you do not miss the release date as the editor of the movie and if you need help
• 27:19
  ask for help if you're falling behind you know because they'll happily put another editor
• 27:23
  on to help you in order for the films to be ready on time yeah that was very very interesting and
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  and then going on to do after that going on to do Kingsman the first Kingsman the Secret Service
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  then doing mission impossible and then doing the second Kingsman and then I was kind of with Tom
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  Cruz then after that until we've just finished you know final reckoning last year so I was with Tom
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  working kind of pretty much nonstop for about 10 years and got to know him very well and
• 27:57
  you know some of the time when we were filming on these movies we would I would be living with Tom
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  Cruz and Chris McCory in a kind of rented house somewhere in the world where we were filming
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  and the reason is they would want me there at breakfast listening to what they were discussing
• 28:17
  about what they were going to film that day traveling to work with them listening to the discussions
• 28:22
  that were happening being in meetings during the day as they're filming so I'm aware of how things
• 28:28
  were evolving and then traveling back and having dinner so I can hear their thoughts on what they
• 28:33
  have done that day and what they liked and what they want to put in the movie so I would get this
• 28:39
  incredible head start on understanding what their intentions were and how their intentions had
• 28:45
  changed because you have to kind of be light on your feet and be able to work with a fluid mindset
• 28:53
  because things do change all the time and ideas come up and you know there's a problem with the
• 28:59
  weather or someone gets injured or some prop isn't ready or the camera breaks and you need to pivot
• 29:05
  and do something you know there's all kinds of things that go wrong or mean that you know the crew
• 29:12
  has to you know change pivot in the middle of the day and do something else and so having that
• 29:19
  mindset or developing that mindset is quite healthy it's a bit stressful sometimes but you just have
• 29:26
  to lean into the fact that you work with the knowledge that you have and do the best that you can with
• 29:31
  everything that you've got on the day but it comes with just maturity and having done it for years
• 29:36
  and having built a relationship with someone like Chris McCory and with Tom Cruise so you can
• 29:43
  communicate honestly and frankly with each other with the knowledge that you just want the best film
• 29:49
  at the end of the day you know yeah yeah and because as you say like because I've heard the
• 29:55
  anecdote before about how you and McEw and Cruz will be sharing kind of I want to say it was a
• 30:00
  cottage in South Africa right when you were shooting mission impossible and you'd be having those
• 30:04
  conversations like you're on set a lot as I know that sometimes yeah I can be it's not it's not actually
• 30:10
  very productive in my opinion to be on set because you really should have more of an air of a like
• 30:19
  you need some independent point of view on the footage maybe it's slightly different with an action
• 30:25
  sequence but certainly in a dialogue scene but also there is so much to go through and I start early
• 30:31
  in the morning like you know I get in the car at 20 past six and I start watching footage on my
• 30:36
  laptop and skimming through the daily so by 7 a.m. I've kind of watched the days or at least skimmed
• 30:42
  through them depending on how much there is and then I'm in the cutting room and I start work and
• 30:47
  you know I'm working from seven till seven in the evening or nine in the evening or whatever it's
• 30:52
  you know long long days and and and I'm working flat out to kind of stay on top of everything
• 31:00
  that they're filming and that's just the reality of wanting to work on these big movies and do
• 31:07
  a world-class job with what you're doing you know I never take shortcuts I always watch everything
• 31:12
  I'm very thorough with how I break down footage how I make selects roles and you know I always
• 31:20
  stack up options on the timeline for things so if the director or producer comes in and says
• 31:25
  what other options have we got you know I can show other things that I've found for that sort of two
• 31:30
  or three seconds of story and and when people see that you go that extra mile and you really dig in
• 31:38
  and look deeply at the footage they know that they're in safe hands editorially you know which pays
• 31:44
  off in the long run yeah the very first time I met Tom Cruise I remember we were working on
• 31:52
  Mission Impossible Rogue Nation and they were being filming on location they went to Vienna
• 31:58
  then they went to Morocco we were probably about nearly halfway through product the third to halfway
• 32:04
  through the the shoot and Tom comes into the cutting room my sister knocks on the dog I said he
• 32:09
  Tom Cruise is here to see you so I'm like oh my word it's Maverick he's actually coming in it's
• 32:14
  you know Ethan Hunt and Maverick and he's coming into the but he was really nice and was just like
• 32:20
  Eddie great to meet you thank you for doing this I'm so pleased you're here and he would say
• 32:24
  and then he said look the cruise a bit cruise a bit tired and morale a bit low and we just want to
• 32:29
  put together a little sizzle reel to show them of some of the cool stuff we've been doing our location
• 32:34
  can you do that I was like absolutely Tom no problem of course I can do that and when would it be
• 32:40
  ready he said and I said well look it's three o'clock today so if you come in it why don't you say
• 32:45
  come in at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon and I'll show you a first pass and and we can see how you
• 32:49
  feel about it so he said I'll be back with McHugh tomorrow at three o'clock and so it was a very
• 32:54
  short like it was one minute but again like the lay the Tom Cruise lays a focus and the enthusiasm
• 33:00
  and the gratitude which he's all about the gratitude and so I remember thinking right this is
• 33:07
  quite a big gauntlet that's been thrown down here I better not mess this up however the secret weapon
• 33:12
  of any editor on a movie is that about halfway through production a producer will come in and see
• 33:18
  you and say Morales a bit low the cruise a bit tied can you please put together a sizzle reel
• 33:22
  so in the back of your mind any good editor anyone watching this should be thinking about halfway
• 33:28
  through I need to really have ideas about what to put in a sizzle reel or have done one already
• 33:34
  so that then when the producer walks in you don't say you've done it but you go what have you got
• 33:40
  in mind and you just you let them talk to you about the things and then you can adjust what you've
• 33:44
  done or you've done it already and then you don't have to sweat it out but I had an idea
• 33:49
  of what I would do for that sizzle reel and so I and I had the idea about what music to use and
• 33:56
  stuff so I in my mind it wasn't I'd already done a lot of thinking about it and kind of creative
• 34:04
  you know cooking should we say and so I was able to start at three and I went through to like
• 34:11
  10 pm and I had done like a rough first part of this whole sizzle reel there's only a couple of
• 34:18
  minutes long and then the next day I came in early and I worked all day ignore I skimmed through
• 34:23
  the days but I didn't assemble anything and then I finished the sizzle reel and I thought again
• 34:28
  this is another big inflection point you know where Tom Cruise has asked me to do something and I
• 34:32
  cannot let him down and I don't want to let him down and I don't want to let the director down
• 34:37
  and I haven't worked with Chris and Cory before it's a you know it's a big deal and and this is my
• 34:42
  first major movie that I've done on my own quite frankly you know of this scale and so anyway he
• 34:49
  comes in with McCue with Chris the next day and and I press play and they watch it and they're like
• 34:55
  huh it's pretty good we've done some good stuff in this movie there's some cool shit here this
• 34:59
  is great so I was like okay and Tom was like this is awesome well done that's really great work
• 35:05
  just swap out of that shot in the middle for something else and swap those two shots over at the
• 35:09
  end and then we'll show the crew on the set in an hour and I was like fantastic okay I've passed
• 35:15
  this test but you feel it when when you're in these points in your career where there's an
• 35:21
  a list are asking you to do something and you're like this is going to be really important that you
• 35:27
  know it's one of the things I always tell my assistants is when will something be ready and
• 35:34
  you please make sure that you give me an accurate ETA with enough time to check your work before
• 35:39
  you give it to me because I'll be basing my creative day around getting that thing from you at the
• 35:44
  time you tell me that I'll have it and it's the same with with with a movie star if you say
• 35:50
  something will be ready by this time it better be ready because you don't want to waste their time
• 35:54
  and you want to be a team player and deliver great work and you know being accurate with the
• 36:01
  estimates of how long things take is very important in that regard but it worked out fine and they
• 36:08
  were on this big set with these video massive video screens so they were able to run it and it
• 36:14
  was great and everyone was happy and you know that was a great feeling you know whenever you do that
• 36:19
  but yeah you anytime you're working on something the producer will always ask you for a scissor
• 36:25
  reel about halfway through so you should make sure you've got got an idea or even got one ready
• 36:31
  yeah have it in your back pocket exactly yeah and why is Tom like as a as a producer because I've
• 36:36
  heard so many stories over the years about him as a how he works not only as a movie star and as
• 36:41
  an actor but as a producer because he has such a keen interest in every animal every aspect of
• 36:46
  the filmmaking process and I'm out and as it sounds like he is in the editing room quite a
• 36:51
  lot yeah he is what's he like to work with as a producer he knows everyone's job on the set
• 36:58
  and in some cases maybe better than they do you know because he has been working in the industry
• 37:03
  for so long over 40 years and he's been a student of movies all that time and he's studied films
• 37:10
  and he's studied filmmaking he's studied cameras and lenses and lighting you know he's active with
• 37:15
  the greatest actors in the world you name them he's worked with them you know Paul Newman and
• 37:21
  Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman and you know everybody it's it's just an a list that everybody
• 37:27
  and when you listen to him talk about collaborating with these other amazing actors and how he
• 37:34
  was able to influence them in the creative process and how what they taught him you know it's amazing
• 37:40
  to be in be around somebody who has that much experience with visual storytelling at a really
• 37:47
  elite level you know and has worked with so many great DPs and directors and script writers and
• 37:53
  composers and I mean but you know the first film he produced was Mission Impossible which came out
• 38:00
  in 1996 the first one and he wanted it to have an international appeal he wants to film in Europe
• 38:06
  and he wants to cast you know European actors so you know Jean Reno and Emmanuel Bayard and filming
• 38:14
  in you know parts of Europe and in London to give it a kind of international feel the movie
• 38:20
  so all of that was his idea you know he's very actively involved in
• 38:26
  cast in wardrobe in locations in designing the stunts and designing the training regime for
• 38:32
  the stunts because a lot of them he's doing them himself you know so he worked very closely with
• 38:37
  his stunt team and it's always all the stunts are done on a gradient you know starting with baby
• 38:42
  steps he never takes all the risks are managed as best as they can you know he's aware of the risks
• 38:49
  and he's planned for everything down to like taping shoelaces down you know when he's jumping off
• 38:54
  something just in case a shoelace gets caught things like that all the everything that they can
• 39:00
  possibly predict they've tried to mitigate for so in the edit room he again he knows the process
• 39:07
  he he understands that things start off long and confusing and get better and better he trusts
• 39:13
  the the screening process he's he's very um particular about subjective point of view in storytelling
• 39:22
  which is critical which is when you have a single protagonist movie and when you're working
• 39:29
  on a film with Tom Cruise in the lead usually that's a single protagonist movie you know if he's
• 39:35
  playing Maverick or if he's playing Ethan Hunt whatever so you you are following the emotional
• 39:40
  journey you know the transformational journey of that character through the movie not that not
• 39:47
  you know in Magnolia or something obviously he's a supporting character or in you know
• 39:54
  uh what's the one with Robert Downey Jr um choppy thunder yeah choppy thunder where he's
• 40:00
  deliberately coming in to to play that agent character with the fat fingers and doing the dancing
• 40:06
  and stuff yeah but when he's a leading man you know it's important he takes that responsibility
• 40:12
  very seriously and he has to the audience has to subjectively be in his point of view as much as
• 40:20
  they can through the movie to feel the emotions that that character is feeling and and share their
• 40:27
  thoughts as they have them in the film that's really what we're trying to do so that you totally
• 40:32
  connect with the emotional journey of the character and you understand what's at stake for them and
• 40:38
  you feel everything that they're feeling as they're feeling it you know that's that's really the
• 40:43
  secret to getting you to lean into a movie when it's a single protagonist movie like that and most
• 40:49
  stories are the transformational journey of a human being you know um and he he's very particular
• 40:56
  about that and how to create that with editorial choices you know and how to lean into it with music
• 41:04
  and sound design subjective sound design and things like that um but he does collaborate with
• 41:13
  really great filmmakers and Christopher McCory is a really terrific visual storyteller he's
• 41:18
  gotten an an encyclopedic knowledge of movies the way that all these big directors have and he
• 41:26
  has incredibly nuanced instincts for strong angles and how to light and how to create emotion
• 41:35
  with the character and a lens choice and all that stuff which is audiences feel immediately when
• 41:43
  they see an image in a movie but they don't understand why they're feeling it or how the director
• 41:47
  has created that emotional feeling whereas Tom and Tom Cruise and Chris McCory really understand it
• 41:53
  they understand it at a at a genetic level and and I'm in awe of what they can do sometimes Chris
• 42:00
  will come in and we'll be working on a scene and he will say you know what we should do
• 42:05
  let's throw this out and try this instead and it's way better and I would never have thought of that
• 42:10
  with a year of just sitting thinking on my own and we'll throw a scene out and we'll try something
• 42:15
  else and and we'll build another version of the scene in an hour or two hours and it's just it's
• 42:22
  astonishing Tom Cruise is there every day in post-production and if he's not there in person he will call
• 42:28
  the editing room usually in the afternoon and get a detailed breakdown of exactly what we've been
• 42:34
  doing through that day and and Chris takes great takes time to explain and because Tom was there
• 42:41
  on set he knows all the coverage and he's he understands the ideas that we're pitching and things
• 42:48
  that we're trying that oh yeah that'll work that'll work that's great and and what will if if Tom
• 42:53
  has an idea like how does he communicate with you as an editor is he a technical communicator is he
• 42:58
  when it comes to talking about the editing process or is he more emotional no it's just about how
• 43:01
  he's feeling it's like I'm not feeling this I need to feel more of this that's all it is which is
• 43:07
  the best kind of note really and occasionally he can be specific but usually it's just I want to
• 43:14
  feel more of this I'm not in Ethan's point of view I'm not in Maverick's point of view I need to feel
• 43:20
  what Maverick's feeling that's kind of what he's saying things like that okay because there's that
• 43:25
  story that came out recently on Star Wars Starfighter I believe which Cruise visited the set he sort
• 43:30
  of chopper down about he has a personal chopper and he came on the set for a visit and then he
• 43:36
  picked up a camera and started shooting helping to shoot one of the action scenes and I was I was
• 43:41
  thinking like does he ever do that in the editor and does he jump ever jump in on an editor he doesn't
• 43:45
  know he doesn't really certain jobs are extraordinarily technical and it's quite easy to really
• 43:51
  mess things up if you press the wrong button and editing is one of those jobs and it's the same with
• 43:57
  you know if you see a lighting engineer on a set and they're controlling you know 200 lights
• 44:02
  with an iPad you can mess that up and and he wouldn't try and sew a costume you know there is
• 44:08
  expert tailors who work on the clothes and you know music editing is so specific and visual effects
• 44:15
  is incredibly but he's always just talking emotionally about stuff I think he was probably just
• 44:22
  having a bit of fun that day and just so you know the helicopter that he's flying in Mission
• 44:27
  possible fallout is his own helicopter so when you see that black air bus helicopter that he's flying
• 44:33
  that is his own helicopter that he flies around now still in London wow but the reason he does that
• 44:38
  is to keep his hours up as a pilot because if you don't fly you lose your license so the reason he
• 44:45
  likes to fly is helicopter so quite often he will go to Battersea heliport in the morning and fly
• 44:52
  his helicopter to the set or to the location and then fly back in the evening so he's done you know
• 44:57
  an hour's worth of flying or 45 minutes of flying because every pilot's hours are monitored very
• 45:05
  closely to make sure that they are flying enough to maintain their license you know and Tom takes
• 45:12
  that very seriously he's an incredibly safe pilot I flown and he's a you know an astonishing
• 45:19
  stunt pilot in obviously a fixed-wing aircraft but also helicopters as you've seen in Mission
• 45:26
  Impossible fallout so dangerous some of the stunts he's doing in New Zealand there but you know he
• 45:32
  really takes the safety very seriously and he double checks everything before the helicopter takes
• 45:38
  off so you feel very safe when you're flying with him you know and have you flown with him?
• 45:43
  Yeah many times yeah yeah many times I remember you know just when Haley Atwell was cast in Mission
• 45:49
  Impossible he was like do you guys want to lift back to London and I was like absolutely fine so
• 45:54
  I was sat next to Haley Atwell and back at a helicopter and he's like hey Haley where's your
• 46:00
  parents live and she's like well I don't know they're not in London but my grandlives down there
• 46:04
  and Wimbledon and he's like great we'll fly by and have a look at your grandson you know and so
• 46:08
  did a little fly by over Haley Atwell's grandmother's house and you know it's nuts when you're flying
• 46:16
  in a helicopter with Tom Cruise but you know in Norway I flown with him and in Africa and
• 46:21
  and he you know it's very joyful because he he as a he's like a spiritual aviator you know he loves
• 46:30
  flying because he loves feeling free you know he loves experiencing the world from a point of
• 46:40
  view which is very privileged and unusual and like a bird's eye view you know so when you talk to
• 46:46
  pilots that that sense of freedom that you get when you fly a plane or a helicopter especially
• 46:51
  early on when you're learning and it's just it's it's like fresh air you know it's soul food
• 46:59
  and so it's a huge privilege to fly with him but yeah he's he's a I mean a world class aviator pilot
• 47:08
  so there's no you know it's a privilege and and you know he's I mean he's also incredibly generous
• 47:15
  I will say um we when we were in South Africa I think it was in 2022 my daughter who was
• 47:25
  maybe 16 at the time came to visit me and um he was like I own a great to see you welcome to
• 47:33
  the set so happy that you're here do you do you want to have a lesson in my helicopter do my
• 47:37
  pilot to take you up and have a helicopter lesson and she's like 16 or 17 years old this girl
• 47:43
  and so she gets to go up and I go in the back and the pilots like this is what you do put your
• 47:48
  feet on the pedals and here's the thing and this is the collective and this is what you do
• 47:51
  and so and she's got her like Ray Ban aviators on and she looks amazing she's and she kind of like
• 47:57
  looks back at me she's holding the stick for the pilot and I've got this great photo of her
• 48:02
  but he's very generous like that in that he's he's so grateful to your family that you that he's
• 48:09
  that you've come that they've allowed you to come and work on the movie because you know they're
• 48:14
  not seeing you for months at a time when you go and work on a film like that so whenever they come
• 48:18
  and visit the set he's incredibly grateful and he's like do you guys want to ride in the helicopter
• 48:22
  or do you want to do this or do that and so she got to have an incredible experience you know
• 48:27
  and flew his helicopter for like six or seven minutes over the plains of South Africa with a pilot
• 48:33
  next to it but it was genuinely flying a helicopter is if you're going straight it's actually
• 48:39
  fairly easy to fly hovering is really hard and and turning it's not it's not too difficult but
• 48:45
  you know landing is really hard and taking off is really hard so they all do all that but then
• 48:49
  and then you're fine but she got you know that's just purely because Tom's so generous you know
• 48:54
  as a collaborator yeah something that you said there about how when you guys were forming in
• 49:00
  South Africa I believe it was dead reckoning and yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you shared
• 49:05
  yeah you shared that cottage with Tom and Chris and you would have those conversations about what
• 49:09
  you're going to shoot that day yeah like I'm just curious to ask more about that because what I
• 49:13
  can't imagine what those two would be like not only as collaborative as creatively but just as
• 49:17
  roommates yeah no they're they're not it's housemates really but we're just talking about movies and
• 49:22
  and what about you know what they're trying to do and different story ideas and and we were we were
• 49:29
  also like Top Gun haven't come out and we were still working on bits and pieces for Top Gun
• 49:34
  Maverick then as well at the weekends we would you know be be working on little behind the scenes
• 49:40
  pieces or you know I remember doing like helping work on the video the Lady Gaga video for Top Gun
• 49:47
  and choosing bits of the movie to put in the the video that's online and things like that so we
• 49:53
  would be doing other stuff and I remember Tom has a full gym wherever he's staying and I don't
• 50:06
  really I'm not as intensely gym focused as he is but he goes to the gym a lot he's in phenomenal
• 50:13
  physical shape he's unbelievably fit he's kind of a limbic athlete level fit and quite often
• 50:20
  but and he has he has one particular gym machine that's incredibly challenging to work your legs
• 50:27
  and your arms and he was like Eddie go and go and have a go on that machine you know on a on a
• 50:32
  on a Thursday night or whatever after we got back or maybe it was a Sunday morning one day
• 50:36
  so I did it for about half an hour and I came out and I could my arms were so tired I couldn't even
• 50:42
  lift a fork right and so I was kind of like doing this I was I was lifting the fork and using my
• 50:47
  other hand to try and like lift it up to my mouth and and he was just having a little giggle to
• 50:52
  himself in the corner because he knew that that's what he was like when he started using the machine
• 50:57
  but he was you know it was it was just a bit of fun and and he he has his family around him and
• 51:04
  but we're just mostly we're just talking about the story of the film and occasionally I'll say
• 51:11
  what was it like working with Stephen Spielberg on minority report you know because
• 51:15
  clutch just like tell me the stories as a fan you know and and he loves telling those stories you
• 51:19
  know and and reflecting on the things that he learnt and you know how he improved as a as a
• 51:27
  storyteller by collaborating with these different people it's it's it's great do you remember like
• 51:34
  particularly memorable like as a film fan yourself I mean I mean and if I mean if I was there
• 51:39
  yeah yeah yeah I wouldn't be able to help myself asking about Kubrick and I was wide shut off
• 51:43
  yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly do you remember any memorable stories he would tell you about
• 51:47
  you know the movies he's made he would always talk about when he was in taps and how he
• 51:53
  had a tiny part but he was so committed and so enthusiastic and so interested to learn that the
• 52:03
  director kind of took him under his wing and Harold Becker was the director of taps and showed him
• 52:10
  you know how a film worked and things like on top gun he wanted to be a producer I think he
• 52:17
  wanted to be a producer no well he wanted to be more involved in in the in the kind of production
• 52:24
  decisions on top gun with Jerry Bruckheimer and was really keen to ride with the the blue angels
• 52:31
  who were the equivalent of the red arrows here and got to ride with them as part of his training
• 52:36
  and stuff like that I mean it's just it was just talking about when he did Rain Man Rain Man
• 52:44
  right was the number one movie of the year when it came out and it won best picture and
• 52:49
  and he would tell me quite a lot how him and Dustin Hoffman would be rewriting script pages and
• 52:55
  trying out different ideas and sometimes they would just swap the characters around in the scene
• 53:00
  and you know you play Rain Man and I'll play you know and and how they how they found that movie in
• 53:08
  the edit and stuff was very very interesting and can you imagine a film like that being the number one
• 53:13
  movie of the year nowadays it's astonishing the difference I know how how the world has changed
• 53:20
  you know but I think yeah I think Tom Cruise was just he was just such a gigantic movie start
• 53:27
  then because it was often top gunna come out and you know ferocious like amazing hair
• 53:33
  you know that he had and things like that you know it's always a good yeah he's always had
• 53:37
  really good hair exactly yeah no it's so it's yeah it's it's just a huge privilege to be to
• 53:42
  collaborate with him you know and plus you know he knows that I love it he knows that I'm really
• 53:51
  committed I think about the audience technically I work really hard to stay abreast of everything
• 53:57
  and to be you know I try and be like I get up every morning I'm thinking how can I be the best
• 54:03
  in the world at this thing which is incredibly subjective who can decide who the best in the
• 54:08
  world is but it's not a bad thing to aim for you know and I remember doing that even when I was
• 54:14
  you know when I started out making tea I was like I've just got to be the best at this
• 54:18
  and I've got to learn faster and I've got to learn everything and I've got to I've got to
• 54:24
  just have everything at my fingertips so when I get an opportunity I can do it and I can do it
• 54:29
  really fast you know that's the thing is is being able to edit as fast as someone can speak
• 54:36
  behind you if a director or a producer is talking and they're saying try this try this try this
• 54:41
  and by the time they finish speaking you can five seconds later you press play and it's done
• 54:46
  that's really what you should be aiming for as you're kind of editorial skill my friend Evan
• 54:52
  Schiff was the editor on Frankenstein and he had worked as an assistant editor on Hell by 2 with
• 55:00
  Guillermo Dottoro but never as an editor with him and he got the job on Frankenstein and Guillermo's
• 55:06
  what he liked to do is he liked to work for two to three hours before call on the scenes from
• 55:14
  the day before so Evan would have to have an aversion of all the scenes done and then at like
• 55:23
  five in the morning and then all four in the morning and then Guillermo Dottoro would come in
• 55:27
  and sit with him and work with him for two to three hours before they started filming that day
• 55:32
  so that he can have all the scenes from the previous day edited and that was very very intense
• 55:37
  for Evan and he had to work insanely hard and quite often the crew Guillermo would invite the crew
• 55:44
  to sit in with Evan he was like if anyone wants to watch editing you guys can all come tomorrow at
• 55:49
  five a.m. and sit in the edit room before we get and the next day there was like 12 crew members
• 55:54
  there keen to sit in the trailer and work wow and so they got to see how fast Evan had to do
• 55:59
  stuff and rebuild the scenes and find different shots and trim and cut and extend and put music in
• 56:05
  and stuff and and really got a new perspective on just what an editor does because no one on the
• 56:14
  crew knows what an editor does you know really because they they just roll from production to
• 56:19
  production you know on on set and they don't get to spend that much time in editorial and it's
• 56:25
  months after they finished filming that we're that we're working on the film but yeah so you do
• 56:31
  have to be fast technically fast as well you know and I think Tom and McHugh value that
• 56:38
  nerdiness that I have as well you know because they share it yeah they share it but they know that
• 56:44
  I'm like a real nerd technically and computer wise you know and I always quite enjoyed working
• 56:51
  with computers but being you know it's like playing a musical instrument when you're editing
• 56:58
  you know and that's the instrument that I've chosen to kind of be good at I guess I've I must be
• 57:05
  it I mean well I don't know how many 80,000 hours or 100,000 hours or where it is that I've done
• 57:10
  now you know of of editing so it's all second nature and very fast and the muscle memory is really
• 57:18
  great now so yeah I don't really think about it when I'm doing it you just do it and with the
• 57:23
  so so looking back through the your back catalog I mean so many great films so many great sequences
• 57:29
  more to the point and you've you've edited so many brilliant action sequences and you even sort
• 57:34
  of touched on a couple of them there like the helicopter chase and initiative fallout which I
• 57:38
  think arguably might be has it is a contender for best telecopter action sequence in cinema yeah
• 57:43
  it's contender very possibly yeah possibly yeah and I think and then there's just a couple I'd
• 57:47
  I wrote down here a couple of sort of sequences that you've edited over years and just sort of
• 57:50
  if you would mind like taking us down through your maybe your memories of cutting them and your
• 57:54
  process so going back to your working relationship with Matthew Vaughan Kingsman yeah so I mean there
• 58:00
  are so many great fight scenes in Kingsman action scenes like the scene between Colin Firth and the
• 58:05
  the kind of the local hoods in the pub yeah do you remember your yeah so that so that scene and
• 58:11
  the church fight have both been stunt-fist by a a fight designical Brad Allen oh great genius
• 58:19
  fight designer who sadly is no longer with us but he would stunt-fist these sequences and that
• 58:27
  means he would film them on a video camera and kind of build a version of the scene so that Matthew
• 58:32
  would approve it and for that scene in the pub and for the scene in the church I was there on
• 58:39
  the set and I was cutting the video tap and Brad was directing because he had designed the scenes
• 58:48
  and Matthew was happy to delegate you know and give give him Colin Firth for for a week I think
• 58:54
  it was about five days to shoot the pub fight and about 12 days to shoot the the church fight if
• 59:01
  I remember rightly but um we were on the set and we didn't need Taran Egerton that much so Taran
• 59:09
  could go and film other stuff and there was certain angles where you see Taran in the wide shots
• 59:14
  behind but there's a lot of the kind of ultra slow-mo coverage and the very specific little details
• 59:20
  on the umbrella and things like that where we didn't need Taran but Colin was there for all of
• 59:26
  that you know he insisted on doing everything and was in very very very good physical shape
• 59:32
  and I think that all that design and the kind of you know the exact timing of the the fight scene
• 59:43
  you know I remember building it every day as they were shooting it and there was a template
• 59:48
  that the stunt team had already designed so it wasn't all my ideas you know I was building off
• 59:53
  the back of what they had designed and and the stunt the stunt vis edit that they had um it did
• 1:00:01
  evolve and refine and get and get improved you know when we got the music on it and stuff um
• 1:00:08
  but I remember I was like if we can pull this off it will just be very satisfying and great fun
• 1:00:15
  for the audience to watch this and to see what the umbrella can do and all the different
• 1:00:19
  Kingsman gadgets with his watch and the handcuffs and all that fun stuff you know um
• 1:00:26
  you know the magnetic handcuffs that he fires at the bar things like that um and you know
• 1:00:32
  that that scene always worked pretty much you know I remember us working on the manners make
• 1:00:38
  if man bit a lot you know when he walks over and locks the door we shot that so many times with
• 1:00:43
  so many different options to get the reflections you know because he uses that he's looking at
• 1:00:48
  reflection in the sign you know the guys behind him and things like that and like lining up when
• 1:00:53
  he's going to do the thing with the beer glass I will say that at the end when Exy goes back at the
• 1:00:59
  very end of Kingsman and does the same thing that was a pickup because we did not have that in the
• 1:01:03
  original script and the the audience wanted to see Exy go back and deal with the bully you know who
• 1:01:11
  who was with his mum and and kind of dress up and take the bully out and so that was a pickup
• 1:01:18
  and they rebuilt the set of the pub to go back and shoot that ending with Exy doing the same move with
• 1:01:23
  the with the umbrella and the beer glass and again but it is so satisfying and totally works at
• 1:01:28
  the end of the film you know um and then the church fight was in a real church in all the shots
• 1:01:37
  it was a military base and and we were there but the thing about that scene is it was all shot out of
• 1:01:43
  order it was shot based on how many crowd they needed for each shot so we would do smaller shots and
• 1:01:50
  then there would be one day we would do all the bit the shots where we would need all the crowd
• 1:01:54
  and it was about 24 pieces that fight all stitched together and I think we cut out about four or
• 1:02:02
  five pieces which were even more intensely violent than what you see but the audience was like
• 1:02:09
  it's too much it's too much so even then it was too much and so but what we did is originally it was
• 1:02:16
  designed as one shot but actually we cut away to Sam Jackson watching and Exy watching and so we
• 1:02:22
  were able to kind of take bits out of the fight and and hide you know remove pieces that we didn't
• 1:02:28
  but originally it was just going to be Colin doing the whole thing in one shot but the it's not
• 1:02:35
  emotional you know seeing Exy reacts to it is very emotional and seeing how Valentine is reacting
• 1:02:43
  you know Sam Jackson is reacting to his plans exceeding or failing it's very important
• 1:02:49
  you know to the audience is emotionally engagement which is why we ended up cutting away to them
• 1:02:53
  when we did um but again it was and this is before obviously you know now in extraction two they
• 1:03:02
  have a 22 minute one which is way more ambitious than what we did in Kingsman but at the time
• 1:03:08
  I remember it being you know whenever we would get to that point in the movie the audience would
• 1:03:13
  just sit there and stun silence at the end because it was quite extraordinary watching Colin
• 1:03:19
  Firth do that stuff you know but it was all to be to credit to Matthew Vaughn it was always idea
• 1:03:25
  the idea the the the concept of taking the star of Bridget Jones and putting him in an action movie
• 1:03:33
  and kicking ass you know was was Matthew's idea along with Mark Miller they worked on it together
• 1:03:40
  you know Mark Miller who wrote the comic book yeah but it all you know it it like a lot of things
• 1:03:48
  starts out longer and gets tighter and more exciting and then you know and you do and there was
• 1:03:53
  some stuff that with Michael Cain that we ended up cutting out there was one scene in Kingsman
• 1:03:58
  where we were going to flash back to Michael Cain as you know from the 60s you know in his
• 1:04:06
  Alfie days but they didn't have the the aging technology quite done then because it was 2014
• 1:04:13
  when we did it and there was one visual effects company who thought they could do it and we film
• 1:04:18
  the whole scene with Michael Cain where he was going to be de-aged but it didn't work out and so we
• 1:04:23
  ended up cutting the scene but of course you know you watched Guardians 2 and you see Kurt Russell
• 1:04:29
  I mean it's it's flawless he looks like 1982 Kurt Russell from the thing doesn't he it's it's
• 1:04:36
  I remember seeing that and thinking my word they've really cracked it you know in films like that
• 1:04:40
  but we hadn't done it so some of Michael Cain scenes got cut out of the first Kingsman
• 1:04:46
  but it all worked you know what we needed you know all worked fine yeah I'm kind of surprised to
• 1:04:52
  hear the church right scene was even more violent I know I know so I have it on a hard drive
• 1:04:56
  somewhere the kind of unedited full length version it was only like 12 or 15 seconds more you know
• 1:05:04
  but there was stuff where yeah there was stuff where the audience was like no that's too much you
• 1:05:09
  know and Matthew likes to push things because he likes to give audiences a reason to see the movie
• 1:05:16
  which is you won't believe what you see in this film you know and to get characters to say and do
• 1:05:23
  things which are quite outrageous which are talk which people talk about at the end of the movie
• 1:05:27
  but it's what differentiates a movie from a TV show is the fact that you can do things in movies
• 1:05:33
  that are really extraordinary and people are like you have to see this it's not you just have to
• 1:05:40
  see it you know and you could never get away with that on a TV show I mean maybe you could now but you
• 1:05:46
  know um yeah back then I remember and and it was very exciting because it was this British action
• 1:05:53
  movie when we tested the film in America it tested incredibly well and then when we released it
• 1:05:59
  on Valentine's Day I I was astonished you know it opened to like 45 million dollars or something
• 1:06:04
  which was astonishingly high for this kind of movie and then went on to do like 450 million worldwide
• 1:06:11
  which you know I think it surprised even the guys at 20th century Fox that it was that popular
• 1:06:18
  but there's something about the Britishness of these movies which has a worldwide appeal you know
• 1:06:24
  the kind of British aristocracy you know and people still go to the Kingsman shop on Savile Road they've
• 1:06:30
  left the brass plaque up the the actual shop is called Huntsman but they've left the Kingsman plaque
• 1:06:36
  up outside so people can go and take photos with it and stuff and there's hundreds of people every day
• 1:06:42
  who go and get selfies with the Kingsman plaque still you know it's a shame they didn't like convert
• 1:06:47
  the basement of the shop to sell Kingsman spy gadgets because it would be a hugely entertaining
• 1:06:54
  day out to go and like check out the cigarette lighters and the the cufflinks and the umbrellas
• 1:06:59
  and the watches and all that stuff you know would just be so much fun to to sell in a real shop
• 1:07:05
  but anyway there we go alas alas yeah all right we actually a recently we had Jack Davenport the
• 1:07:10
  actor on the podcast who is in Kingsman he is in a scene and he yeah yeah yeah and he was telling me
• 1:07:15
  a story about how he would be she felt rehearsing his scene his fight scene where he goes to rescue
• 1:07:20
  Mark Hamill and yes and he would be rehearsing in like a big sort of soundstage and down the other
• 1:07:25
  end Colin Firth was rehearsing his fight scenes yeah and they were meet up in the middle at lunch
• 1:07:29
  they would both say what are we the us two sort of kind of fairly middle-aged he very English bloke
• 1:07:34
  doing in this sort of massive action yeah he was there were both kind of laughing about it
• 1:07:38
  no I know but it was yeah he was great he wasn't in the movie for very long was he Jack Davenport but
• 1:07:43
  you know he did that scene and yeah I remember that was in the shallow at the beginning yeah he
• 1:07:48
  was terrific really nice really like a very incredibly kind professional gentleman you know
• 1:07:59
  when I work when I met him yeah absolutely so that's Kingsman as a sequence and then the next one
• 1:08:04
  I got written down is as we've already mentioned the mission impossible fallout helicopter chase yeah
• 1:08:09
  as I say contender I think for best helicopter chase and screen yeah and action set piece I mean
• 1:08:16
  I can't even imagine the shooting but the editing of that yeah the angles the amount of footage
• 1:08:20
  I mean what was that like to come they they shot if I remember rightly they shot the helicopter
• 1:08:28
  chase over 15 days in New Zealand and there was about I want to say like 80 hours of footage that
• 1:08:36
  came out of that and I the trick is 80 hours for what is nine minutes and 50 seconds in the film
• 1:08:48
  so it's quite a shooting ratio and it kind of got my honestly got my editing muscles ready for
• 1:08:55
  doing top guns straight after where the shooting ratio was way higher than that you know 800 hours
• 1:09:01
  for two hours two hours and 20 minutes of movie or whatever it was bonkers but so they shot it
• 1:09:07
  in New Zealand they shot it with small digital cameras the rest of the movie was shot on 35 mil
• 1:09:13
  but the helicopter chase was shot digitally mainly because they needed the cameras to kind of run
• 1:09:20
  for 40 minutes you know because film cameras can run for 10 minutes and and they could they weren't
• 1:09:27
  they were light enough to not affect the aerodynamics of the helicopter too much and but I remember
• 1:09:36
  seeing all this footage coming in and just thinking my word this is going to take a while to go
• 1:09:39
  through so what I did is there wasn't a gigantic mad rush to assemble it all so I would break it
• 1:09:48
  down but what I would do is so I started breaking it down on the plane back from from New Zealand I
• 1:09:54
  remember sitting with my laptop on the you know it's like a 28 hour flight back so I remember
• 1:09:59
  working on my laptop for a very long time just slowly starting to go through the footage
• 1:10:04
  and they would they would usually have two cameras going sometimes three but mostly two cameras
• 1:10:09
  going so there'd be two cameras inside the helicopter or two cameras mounted in Tom's helicopter
• 1:10:14
  and then another like an air-to-wear filming and sometimes they would have ground cameras as well
• 1:10:20
  but not very often and so I spent what I did was I worked I got home and then I would
• 1:10:30
  I would watch helicopter dailies for the air in 20 minutes that it would take me to get from home
• 1:10:36
  to leaves and studios or you were filming and so every morning I'd get in the car at 20 past six
• 1:10:42
  and I'd work for an hour and a half going through helicopter footage on the way there and then
• 1:10:46
  I would work for an hour and a half on the way back going through helicopter footage and then
• 1:10:50
  during the day I would just work on what they'd filmed the day before the actual movie footage and
• 1:10:58
  it took me about four months to go through just the helicopter footage doing it in the mornings and
• 1:11:03
  in the evenings and then at four months to build to go through the footage and build a first
• 1:11:08
  assembly of the sequence and a lot of it with these scenes is you don't quite know what you're going
• 1:11:16
  to get so you're actually just looking to see what the most dynamic stuff is and then you're
• 1:11:21
  incorporating those shots so and you're putting in all the kind of seven out of 10 shots and the
• 1:11:27
  eight out of 10 shots knowing that eventually when you compress the seven out of 10 and the eight
• 1:11:33
  of 10 shots just pop out of the timeline because they're not as good and you end up with just nine
• 1:11:37
  out of 10 and 10 out of 10 and then you end up with all like most of the nine out of 10 shots get
• 1:11:43
  ejected from the timeline and you just end with the 10 out of 10 shots but there is
• 1:11:49
  you know some of the sequences would start out you know like the very famous one is the one
• 1:11:56
  right near the beginning where you know Ethan does the kind of death spiral down into the valley
• 1:12:02
  and the Henry Cavill's firing gun and he's got the the detonator around his neck and Ethan is
• 1:12:08
  just speeding down this valley in the helicopter and the first assembly of that scene was about a
• 1:12:13
  minute and 40 seconds I remember I had 15 hours of dailies and I got it down to a minute and 40
• 1:12:19
  seconds and it was it was the best stuff in this in out of the 15 hours I was like Chris you can
• 1:12:26
  watch the 15 hours or this is a minute and 40 and then we got it down to 40 seconds for the first
• 1:12:32
  preview that we did and then in the movie it's 11 seconds so 15 hours down to 11 seconds
• 1:12:40
  and and that's just the yeah I mean that's not even the 10 out of 10 shots that's like 10% out
• 1:12:46
  of the 10 out of 10 shots I mean you got so tight by the end but you're feeling your way through it
• 1:12:52
  when you're building those big third acts set pieces and you're into cutting with you know
• 1:12:57
  Ilsa and Benji fighting Lane and you're into cutting with you know it's Luther and Julia
• 1:13:04
  do you know defusing the bomb so you've got like you're into cutting with all these different
• 1:13:09
  stories and you're trying to keep the banter alive you know when Ethan first gets in the helicopter
• 1:13:15
  he's like how's it going if you've found the bomb yet and and where are you Ethan I'm in a
• 1:13:20
  helicopter and they're like what you can fly a helicopter what are you doing in a helicopter
• 1:13:24
  you know he's like don't worry about me I'll figure it out you know and all that kind of fun
• 1:13:28
  team banter that you watch a mission impossible movie for you know we're trying to incorporate
• 1:13:34
  and then you're and then you're and then Ethan's out of radio range and they're just having to
• 1:13:38
  trust that he's going to do it so you've got that great stuff of Benji going don't worry he will do
• 1:13:43
  it he will do it and you know that he's climbing up a mountain at the things on the top and how is
• 1:13:48
  he ever going to get there and he's only got like five seconds left to pull the detonator out
• 1:13:52
  and but that the the helicopter sequence if you watch the first assembly it was long and really
• 1:14:03
  boring right but it was the it was just the process you just start and it's long and boring and
• 1:14:09
  then slowly it gets tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter and and we ended up putting quite a
• 1:14:15
  bit of music on the helicopter chase because helicopters don't sound that interesting over
• 1:14:22
  prolonged periods of time so we did use quite a bit of music but I remember that stuff
• 1:14:28
  you know when Ethan's got the payload and he's like trying to line it up above and like drop it
• 1:14:33
  on Henry Cavill's helicopter remember when they filmed that they did that for real they literally
• 1:14:38
  had a payload dangling down and they had another helicopter I was just nuts but they were they filmed
• 1:14:45
  it over several days because the weather wasn't right and they went and Chris McCrory wanted to
• 1:14:50
  get the sign exactly the right place in the sky so it reflected off the water and so you you know
• 1:14:56
  it's it's my massively time consuming to do this stuff and it just took months of refining
• 1:15:03
  all of these scenes and then the and the other thing about that sequence is when the detonator
• 1:15:09
  starts counting down it's 15 minutes right and so you know that the end of the movie is the
• 1:15:17
  movie is going to wrap up within 15 minutes but in the in the actual runtime of the movie it's
• 1:15:23
  22 minutes okay and so it's a bit of a cheat but we are aware of that and then McEw in one of the
• 1:15:29
  test screenings Chris said do you know what we should probably make it say 20 minutes so it's
• 1:15:33
  less of a cheat for the audience so it's an actual reflection of how long is left in the movie
• 1:15:38
  I said my prediction is the audience will kick up a fuss that it's 20 minutes
• 1:15:45
  and they'll say it's too long and I'll go through and I'll change all the shots like I'll change
• 1:15:50
  the 40 shots which to have a time so that it's updated and we planned it out for 20 minutes
• 1:15:56
  and sure enough we screened the movie and everyone went 20 minutes is way too long it's just
• 1:16:00
  it's it goes on forever and then we just changed the time of back to 15 minutes and then everyone
• 1:16:06
  thought it was perfect so it was just the fact that we were telling them that it was 20 minutes
• 1:16:11
  when you're hitting the two hour mark in a movie and you're telling people there's 20 minutes
• 1:16:15
  to go they're a bit like okay this is but 15 minutes is just like a psychological it's fine
• 1:16:21
  we can we can hold our bladder for another 15 minutes that that was a little story about that scene
• 1:16:27
  but yeah and I just remember it taking forever and slowly refining it over months and months
• 1:16:37
  of editing and the other thing that happened if you remember on Fallout is that Tom Cruise broke his
• 1:16:42
  ankle jumping between two buildings yeah so we had eight weeks where he was recovering where we
• 1:16:48
  could just edit the film and we were able to look at it and figure out a lot of things and a lot
• 1:16:54
  of the third act was built in that hiatus when Tom had hurt his ankle and was recovering
• 1:17:00
  was healing so that was that was actually quite beneficial in some ways that we we had that time
• 1:17:08
  to to confront the movie and figure out what was working one of the things that we discovered
• 1:17:15
  I think this is in the directors commentary but when you first meet Vanessa Kirby as the white
• 1:17:21
  widow in Fallout she's in that nightclub you know like Ethan and Ilsa go they walk down that kind
• 1:17:27
  of mirrored hallway and they walk into this little kind of private nightclub area where the white
• 1:17:32
  widow is singing and yeah originally she was singing a song and we had a whole musical number there
• 1:17:40
  and but it it was just too long and and it was a great way to introduce her but it was just too
• 1:17:45
  long so then we made this whole speech about her mum and we incorporated the fact that she was the
• 1:17:54
  you know the mother of the character from the first movie you know played I'm trying to remember
• 1:17:59
  she was called oh god I'm I'm my mission impossible trivia is failing me I know you mean
• 1:18:07
  though yeah yeah yeah max that's right the characters called max in the first movie and so if
• 1:18:12
  you're a fan you realize oh it's her daughter you know so but all that dialogue was added afterwards
• 1:18:18
  she's actually singing a song through that whole scene so we we made it and we played a lot of it
• 1:18:23
  on Tom looking you know walking around and watching and so we we we replaced the song with ADR
• 1:18:31
  from her and dramatically shortened it so that Tom got over to the bar and she kind of walked up
• 1:18:36
  to him much quicker that that was one little anecdote I remember there was so many of those things
• 1:18:41
  where we we discover it and changes get made and but ultimately the it all worked so it was fine
• 1:18:47
  yeah the film is the film isn't exactly as a view because I recently actually finished I show
• 1:18:53
  I show my girlfriend to have never seen the mission possible films any of them I show I we watch
• 1:18:57
  them all holy smokes that is quite a commitment yeah over the course for about two weeks and she
• 1:19:02
  absolutely loved them and fall out I remember when we got to fall out because what that's my favorite
• 1:19:05
  and I'm just so excited to show her yeah and as you say like all these fascinating hearing all these
• 1:19:09
  stories did she think the bomb had gone off at the beginning at you did she believe it you mean
• 1:19:13
  when he's in the when they they've got the guy in the guy yeah and and you see the guy on the news
• 1:19:17
  and he's talking about the holy sites that have been bombed yeah yeah yeah you've got all blitz I
• 1:19:22
  know it's very very it's a brilliant mouse trap scene that isn't it yeah it's a hell of a way to
• 1:19:27
  open the movie it's so mission impossible and it's it's so contained because it's just four people
• 1:19:33
  in a room and yet the stakes are so high and it's so clever the way they get the guy to unlock his
• 1:19:38
  phone yeah and it's so satisfying when the walls fall back and you're like oh well done we're in
• 1:19:43
  a mission impossible possible movie they they've got the guy yeah and Tom's always like he always
• 1:19:49
  wants to he always wants the the characters to feel the burn he was like I want to feel the guy
• 1:19:55
  feeling that Ethan and the team have outwitted him so you know we make sure that you see him reacting
• 1:20:01
  and like feeling like oh shit he's just screwed himself yeah by unlocking his phone and he thought
• 1:20:06
  he was totally on top of the situation and had everything oh it's just so good yeah I love it yeah
• 1:20:11
  yeah it works so brilliantly and then when we got to helicopter chase sequence she was like no
• 1:20:15
  no what the fuck why I know and he did all he did it all he flew all of it it's nuts
• 1:20:23
  because the because the drop when he's climbing that that opened the helicopter he drops I know
• 1:20:27
  it was a real job that was not please 100% he did that no no he planned for it and he's
• 1:20:31
  wearing yeah he's wearing a safety cable right which is painted out but it's only one cable
• 1:20:36
  and he can seriously injure himself you know but yeah and then he did the massive climb up you
• 1:20:42
  know he did that whole thing and again you're waiting for the light to be just right because the way
• 1:20:45
  the sun is is and the sky and he's got the two helicopters and it's just tiny Ethan hunt like
• 1:20:50
  climbing up the rope and then you've got the great humor at the top where he reappears and the guys
• 1:20:55
  like what and he punches him and then he has to kind of get through the pilot out as well you know
• 1:21:02
  oh my word yeah and as an editor like how do you stay kind of when you're editing those
• 1:21:06
  sequences like how do you stay kind of sane because like you're you're working with footage that
• 1:21:11
  is obviously costing millions of dollars to get yeah and then you're and you're the guy who is
• 1:21:16
  there saying like we we've got it or we haven't yeah that shot isn't working we need to do it again
• 1:21:20
  yeah and like and as you say the editor has a huge amount of power yeah because you know he the
• 1:21:25
  editor isn't is the one person in arguably who doesn't have to be on the set who can make huge
• 1:21:30
  changes after the fact yeah and the editing room I mean how do you stay I think that you you
• 1:21:37
  the the the the the millions of dollars thing the first few times you're confronted with those
• 1:21:42
  decisions it's quite overwhelming but I'd seen Lee Smith do things like that on X-Men first class
• 1:21:49
  where he would just put the film first and go we need to do this again it's not right and of course
• 1:21:53
  it is cheaper to do it again then when the sets there and when the actors are there then to come
• 1:21:58
  back you know six months later and do it and there were several times on fallout I remember where
• 1:22:02
  I would say I don't think we've got this yet and we need these pickups and things like that yeah I
• 1:22:08
  I guess you just put the film first and and the more you do it the more you trust your spidey
• 1:22:15
  sense about these things you know so I do really trust my senses now and if I feel something isn't
• 1:22:23
  right I will feel pretty confident in putting my hand up and saying this is not telling the
• 1:22:27
  story that we we need it to tell or it looks flat and dull and you need to do it with better light
• 1:22:33
  you know and the scene in Top Gun Maverick you know the iconic shot where he's riding the motorbike
• 1:22:38
  next to the F-18 you know they did that I want to say five times because the weather the sun
• 1:22:45
  wasn't right or it was overcast or the the position of the jet wasn't you know and when they
• 1:22:51
  eventually dialed it in and got it and the sun was just right in that magic hour place and the
• 1:22:55
  plane flies through and it's just perfect everyone was like we got it but it took like many attempts
• 1:23:02
  until we got the perfect Top Gun shot so the helicopter chase kind of teased me up quite nicely
• 1:23:06
  for the next sequences I wanted to ask you about which is and we've mentioned Top Gun Maverick
• 1:23:10
  quite a few times in this conversation already but like those bombing rungs run sequences which
• 1:23:15
  are just extraordinary yeah and Tom is in the jet flying the jet yeah which is still unbelievable to
• 1:23:20
  me when I watch it back and as you say the Herculean task of sifting through all that foot yeah
• 1:23:25
  I mean what was the process like for cutting those sequences I remember it's unbelievably time
• 1:23:31
  consuming I mean because you're looking at you're looking at I mean some days they had so many
• 1:23:38
  cameras running I mean maybe like 18 cameras running because they would have six cameras inside
• 1:23:43
  on Tom and six cameras inside on you know any of the other actors whether it's you know rooster
• 1:23:50
  or payback or fanboy or phoenix or bobble whatever and then and then they would have exterior cameras
• 1:23:57
  the cameras like locked onto the planes you know on the belly of the plane and stuff and then they
• 1:24:01
  would have air to air cameras and you can only plan so much you're only going to get what you're
• 1:24:07
  going to get but I remember just to build so even so from the moment they take off from the aircraft
• 1:24:15
  carrier to the moment that Ethan is Ethan Maverick is shot down right and and you end on that shot
• 1:24:22
  of Miles Teller the kind of long shot where he's like what do I do what do I do the cameras just
• 1:24:27
  pushing in on him and he's thinking do I go and you know he's been given orders to fly back to the
• 1:24:32
  carrier or he's like do I go and save Mav that took me about three months to build a first
• 1:24:39
  pass of that scene working every day and that that was one so I remember the bit where I did seven
• 1:24:48
  seconds was where rooster okay so basically they they have to climb up and then they invert and they
• 1:24:54
  kind of do a dive over the down into the into the you know where they're doing the drop
• 1:25:00
  and so they have to they climb up they invert over and they go around I remember I had that
• 1:25:05
  covered from quite a few different angles and I had to make sure that Maverick and Phoenix's
• 1:25:10
  version felt different to rooster and paybacks version you know so I was like how do I do this
• 1:25:18
  to make it so it's different for both characters and and doesn't feel like the same thing happening
• 1:25:24
  twice so it's like what how do you do that and then the the I remember the bit just before
• 1:25:32
  where where Maverick and Phoenix are going up when they do when they do the they're kind of they
• 1:25:38
  pull and they they're climbing up to go into the bowl for the first time and there's all that snow
• 1:25:43
  like firing up flying up into Phoenix's face that was originally a location that was for a whole
• 1:25:50
  different part of the sequence but whenever I put it elsewhere in the scene it just felt redundant
• 1:25:55
  and long and so I was like we should just remove the bit where they're actually climbing up and
• 1:26:01
  just use this bit with all the snow because it's really dynamic all the snow flying up you know and
• 1:26:07
  put it there instead and when once we did that that kind of unlocked quite a lot of the the pace
• 1:26:12
  of that scene so it didn't outstay it's welcome because obviously it was way longer it was like
• 1:26:16
  twice as long and boring you know it was just very boring but the other thing about
• 1:26:21
  about Top Gun Maverick is the cameras inside the plane don't move when you're looking at a pilot
• 1:26:27
  they're locked off cameras in the original Top Gun they were filmed they filmed all of that
• 1:26:32
  on rear projection stages so Tony Scott could move the cameras around the cockpit when they're
• 1:26:38
  talking and when they're fighting because they weren't actually in the air and so I would try
• 1:26:45
  the only way to create visual energy is to have the horizon moving behind them the whole time
• 1:26:51
  so they have to be moving the plane quite dramatically to get that light shift across their face
• 1:26:56
  so I was finding all the bits where the horizon would move and just putting them throughout the
• 1:27:01
  sequence regardless of what the actual geography was in that terrain so I was just trying to make it
• 1:27:06
  exciting to watch and the other thing which is interesting is the planes do not the real F18s
• 1:27:16
  did not have any munitions attached they didn't have any bombs or missiles attached at all so in
• 1:27:22
  every single shot where you see the bombs they're added with CG which is every shot of the planes
• 1:27:27
  basically and so when the bombs drop their CG and when they go into the hole and things like that
• 1:27:32
  and then the explosion but you know the high G pull up I remember then they actually did pull
• 1:27:39
  like eight or nine G's when they were doing that and then when they're doing you know when you see
• 1:27:43
  their faces that's that was pretty nuts the other thing that's quite fun as a tiny detail is when
• 1:27:51
  Maverick pulls back on his stick there's a paddle just in front that he pulls with his fingers
• 1:27:55
  right and sort of uses both hands to pull back and the paddle F18 pilots are not are never allowed
• 1:28:02
  to pull that paddle because if you pull it and you pull the stick back it will allow the F18 to
• 1:28:07
  pull more G's than its airframe can handle so it will it may break the plane basically which is what
• 1:28:14
  Maverick what what he does when he's doing the you know when he does the dry run in the desert to
• 1:28:20
  prove that it can be done he pulls the paddle and then pulls the stick back and when you watch
• 1:28:25
  the film with real F18 pilots they're so thrilled that someone gets to pull the paddle because
• 1:28:30
  they're never allowed to do it because they they would be in serious trouble if they pulled it
• 1:28:36
  because they would be breaking the plane but it's what you would actually do in that situation
• 1:28:42
  and then when they pop out of the top and the surface to where missiles start firing at them
• 1:28:48
  obviously there are no surface to where missiles there everything is CG so all those missiles
• 1:28:53
  are CG so your but the planes are real and the terrain is real so you're you're trying to imagine
• 1:29:00
  the shot that you're creating by you know by putting in so quite often I'd be running shots in
• 1:29:06
  reverse or doing all kinds of things and then say to the VFX team right put the gun turret there
• 1:29:11
  and the missiles have got to fly up and then the jets have got to and then the scene afterwards
• 1:29:17
  where all the surface to where missiles are flying up behind them and it's like you know
• 1:29:22
  they're they're pulling all they're rejecting all their flares you know dagger one defending
• 1:29:27
  dagger three defending all that stuff there were no flares so they were all having to imagine it
• 1:29:34
  and there were no surface to where missiles so every shot we were trying to kind of build like
• 1:29:39
  where would the missile be how far away is it what are the flares doing and you would just find
• 1:29:44
  the most dynamic shots of jets doing evasive maneuvers and build a sequence and then we discovered
• 1:29:50
  that and it wasn't scripted in the script it just said you know the daggers pull up and surface
• 1:29:56
  to where missiles fire at them and they they take evasive maneuvers to avoid them so there wasn't
• 1:30:01
  all the dialogue chat that's there where Mavericks going rooster you know payback and he's talking
• 1:30:07
  to the guys and he's trying to get them to to evade you know and it's all we're trying to put it in
• 1:30:13
  Mavericks point of view a lot of it so he's shouting and trying to protect his the other pilots
• 1:30:20
  and I remember there's a really great shot quite late in that scene which is a big wide
• 1:30:25
  where you see the four jets and all these explosions around them and there's a cacophony of voices
• 1:30:31
  and everyone's talking over each other and they're all shouting and I remember I was doing that
• 1:30:37
  scene in lockdown in my in my home edit suite in South London and we had recorded
• 1:30:46
  each pilot saying about 70 different things and the pilots and the the wizards you know the guys
• 1:30:55
  behind saying about 70 different things and I remember spending an entire morning going through
• 1:31:00
  all these lines of dialogue and lining them all up to create this kind of chaos and panic as
• 1:31:05
  they're all talking over each other over this big wide shot and my wife coming up and saying what
• 1:31:10
  have you been doing this morning and I play to that four seconds I was like look all these voices
• 1:31:15
  that I've done and they're all like so exciting and I you know it was so many choices that I had to
• 1:31:20
  make to get all these lines to line up and make sense and she was like okay well done darling
• 1:31:26
  all right I'll see you in a bit it just took forever and you're using your imagination a lot
• 1:31:31
  because you're like also for the for the f14 fight at the end you know when the f14 is fighting
• 1:31:37
  the su 57 there's no f14s that actually fly so Tom Cruise was actually flying an f18 or he wasn't
• 1:31:49
  flying he was in the backseat but you know they him and him and rooster so Maverick and rooster were
• 1:31:54
  in an f18 and visual effects made it re-skinned it to look like an f14 inside in every single
• 1:32:01
  shot so they put the the bunny ears for the ejection handles in but so you would never know that
• 1:32:07
  they're not but and then the exterior shots we were using l39 stunt jets to so and then one of
• 1:32:18
  them would be a su 57 and one of them would be an f14 so you're taking these two black planes
• 1:32:23
  which look nothing like what you want them to be and you're having to imagine that you know they're
• 1:32:28
  doing the different maneuvers and this is going to be an f14 this is going to be a su 57 so there's
• 1:32:33
  a lot of imagination and visual effects work that has to happen before you start to even see the scene
• 1:32:39
  come together you know and again it was just months and months of work and there were there were
• 1:32:44
  other editors who came on to help me in that film Christopher Levinson came on to help and Steve
• 1:32:50
  Mirioni came on as well to help me for several months while I was I was so overwhelmed with footage
• 1:32:56
  for the end of the movie that you know Stephen came on and kind of worked on the beginning of the
• 1:33:00
  film a little bit and some of those scenes in the middle to really help help me with just the work
• 1:33:06
  load of of dailies that the were to get through very time consuming and slow and it started out
• 1:33:12
  long and boring and slowly got tighter and tighter the other thing about that scene musically is we
• 1:33:19
  have this dreaded this kind of dark pulsing kind of music playing when they take off from the
• 1:33:25
  from the from the aircraft carrier and then when they blast into enemy territory there is there no
• 1:33:31
  music playing for the whole of that trench run scene until the surface to a missile fires at rooster
• 1:33:40
  and you start and the music starts to tell you that rooster might get hit and then of course
• 1:33:45
  maverick does the cobra maneuver and does his flares and gets hit and so the music is you know we
• 1:33:52
  made the decision quite late on to just lift out all the music there and just play it with sound
• 1:33:57
  effects only but it means the music has a lot more impact when it does come in and then really the
• 1:34:02
  only time we do full on music sound effects and dialogue is for the very last fight where
• 1:34:08
  you know mavericks having to take on the the suit 57 in the you know in that kind of and yeah even
• 1:34:16
  and then and then they fly out over the sea and then the last one turns up and then they're flying
• 1:34:20
  up to the sun and you think it's all over and then hangman comes in to save the day you know so
• 1:34:26
  yeah it was it was just months and months and months of work you know and Stephen Mirrioni went on to
• 1:34:32
  do f1 with jokers in ski which was the same just you know crazy amount of footage to figure out
• 1:34:39
  how to tell the story of those f1 car races so we kind of share the pain a little bit there
• 1:34:45
  if if we ever meet each other we're like oh yeah that was quite tough you know well I was going
• 1:34:50
  to ask like would you say that's the hardest sequence you've ever had to wed it or what will
• 1:34:53
  top gun is the hardest film I've ever done by many orders of magnitude I don't think I'll ever do
• 1:34:58
  something harder I think you know the biplane sequence at the end of final reckoning was a lot
• 1:35:05
  of work was very very hard but it wasn't there was a bit like the sequence itself had a linear story
• 1:35:12
  that we were telling whereas in top gun I could use the shots and put them anywhere in the scene
• 1:35:17
  to tell any bit of story that I wanted so it was just much more of a complex jigsaw and to get the
• 1:35:22
  tone of top gun right was so difficult like the movie didn't work for months and months and months
• 1:35:28
  and months and only really came together at the end when we finally figured out you know when we
• 1:35:33
  got the song from Lady Gaga and we started figuring out the score and getting everything to work
• 1:35:38
  better it was so difficult I can't tell you and also we couldn't test the film because we were in
• 1:35:44
  lockdown so we didn't know if it worked we were just going on our best guess of what it should be
• 1:35:50
  but luckily you know everyone liked the movie so I can't believe it really I remember thinking
• 1:35:58
  because I'd seen it you know 700 times and I had no idea if it worked I do actually there was one
• 1:36:05
  story where so in the in the desert trench run you know where Maverick proves to the other rookies
• 1:36:12
  that it can be done right the other top gun pilots and that scene I remember feeling pretty good
• 1:36:19
  about and we were still working on the music for it but when we first started the sound mix for
• 1:36:28
  that and I remember Chris Bird and the sound mixer the dialogue and effects mixer who oh no dialogue
• 1:36:33
  and music mixer who was working who I'd work with on Fallout he we were at Twickenham film studios
• 1:36:40
  I was in a room next to the sound stage where they were mixing and there was a knock on my door
• 1:36:46
  and Chris came in and he was just like his eyes were wide and he was breathing and he was like I've
• 1:36:52
  just seen the trench run scene where Maverick shows it can be done I've never seen anything like that
• 1:36:57
  in my life it is amazing and I had seen it 700 times so I have no clue but I remember thinking
• 1:37:04
  okay if he's feeling that and he watches a lot of stuff being a sound mixer on a movie you know
• 1:37:09
  then we're in good shape and again everyone seems to love that scene as well you know so yeah
• 1:37:15
  it's a strawberry one yeah it's great oh yeah the other thing about the the end of the movie
• 1:37:20
  the big run in the snow at the end of the movie is for ages I only had interior shots
• 1:37:26
  so they shot all the interior shots first and I had no exterior shots of the jets so I would quite
• 1:37:31
  often get two model jets on sticks and film them with my iPhone just to have something to cut
• 1:37:37
  into the sequence so you'll be watching the actual pilots flying and then you would cut and you
• 1:37:43
  would just see these two model jets on the iPhone being I was just bonkers and then months later
• 1:37:49
  they filmed the exterior shots and so you know then I would start to kind of plonk him and build oh it's
• 1:37:56
  just it's such a puzzle it's just a monumental puzzle it's not all you are figuring it out
• 1:38:04
  in the edit literally you're figuring it out live you know it's the heart like it was so hard
• 1:38:09
  I can't tell you it's just you know couldn't believe it getting an Oscar nomination was amazing for
• 1:38:15
  that you know and yeah I felt bad like I couldn't share it with the other two editors who helped
• 1:38:22
  me on the movie but you know I was yeah it was just those movies never get nominated for Oscars
• 1:38:30
  those kind of crowd-pleasing movies it's very rare that they get you know none of the Harry Potter's
• 1:38:35
  got nominated none of the Avengers movies got nominated and they are amazing Infinity War and End
• 1:38:41
  Game are amazing masterpieces of editing should have gotten Oscar nomination for editing didn't
• 1:38:47
  Black Panther did obviously because Black Panther was the only one that seemed to break through
• 1:38:51
  with the academy but so when you work on these films you never expect to get any awards recognition
• 1:38:57
  so it's astonishing that some of us did on the top gun you know nuts but I'm you know it was
• 1:39:04
  such a privilege to be part of it yeah it was crazy yeah and the proof is in the pudding I mean
• 1:39:12
  it's not any it's a brilliantly made film and a beautifully edited film and it all works all
• 1:39:16
  meshes yeah amazingly it all came together somehow yeah I mean you've worked
• 1:39:22
  of so many amazing people any over your career on that film Kaczynski and Cruz and then Macquarie
• 1:39:26
  and Vaughn I mean is there anyone out there and you're obviously clearly such a film fan I mean
• 1:39:30
  is there anyone out there who you'd love to work with James Cameron Peter Jackson Steven Spill
• 1:39:36
  you know just the three greatest living visuals I like Oliver Stone I love as well like I'd
• 1:39:41
  love to work with Oliver Stone but yeah let's just aim for the top right I think honestly I don't
• 1:39:47
  know I mean I think the the odds of working with any of them are kind of vanishing me small because
• 1:39:52
  they have everybody they want to do but Peter Jackson's doing two new Lord of the Rings films
• 1:39:57
  yes so who knows what could happen there you know I don't know who they've got to edit those
• 1:40:02
  movies but that would be fun to be in middle earth my word that's how we'd be insane to work with
• 1:40:07
  that team yeah and and start and being a Star Wars fan as well yeah of course here's so if you
• 1:40:14
  really want here's here's an amazing story for you so when I was doing that trench run scene
• 1:40:21
  on top gun I had an enormous amount of new respect for you know Marcy Lucas and Richard Chu and
• 1:40:30
  Paul Hirsch you edited Star Wars especially that final battle in Star Wars where they didn't have
• 1:40:35
  anything because they were cutting it on film but I went to see I went I had lunch with Paul Hirsch
• 1:40:41
  who had done two mission impossible movies as well right so I had done two missions and I was
• 1:40:46
  doing top gun and so I was able to talk to him about doing Star Wars I was like how did you do
• 1:40:51
  that he said well George Lucas got a 16 millimeter camera and would film World War Two movies
• 1:40:58
  off the TV and would blow up the 16 mil to 35 and snip out the bits where there was dog fighting
• 1:41:09
  and we would use those shots in the trench run sequence of Star Wars to indicate where the X wings
• 1:41:16
  and the tie fighters were and where the Y wings were and all that stuff and I was like what I
• 1:41:22
  would give to see that version of the scene with those shots cut in because I've got such respect
• 1:41:29
  for what they did and here I am with my model F 18s with it doing the same thing many years
• 1:41:35
  that 40 50 years later you know and they said yeah I don't think anyone's got a copy of that
• 1:41:42
  but anyway when we were at Skywalker Ranch doing one of our sound mixes on Top Gun Maverick
• 1:41:48
  Ben Bert who was the sound designer on Star Wars he's still there working and I went up to him
• 1:41:56
  at breakfast one day and bought him breakfast and chatted him up and was like Ben massive Star Wars fan
• 1:42:03
  please can you tell me some stories or can I ask you some questions about and he gave me a copy
• 1:42:09
  of his book called The Sound of Star Wars which is amazing when he talks about how he makes
• 1:42:13
  every sound effect in that film but I got to meet and sit down with Ben Bert and after like
• 1:42:19
  four or five days of me buying him breakfast and being like a huge fan genuinely because I
• 1:42:24
  you know I had such admiration for what he did and he was the picture editor on the Star Wars
• 1:42:30
  prequel as well as the sound designer and I said to him can I come up to your studio and see some
• 1:42:38
  of the stuff he's like all right come up come up and he says here's a treat for you and he gives
• 1:42:42
  me his original 1975 script of Star Wars with his handwritten notes in the margin and he's like this
• 1:42:49
  is the scuba master I used to record Darth Vader's breathing and this is the and I was just you know
• 1:42:57
  and and all kinds of props he's got like up in his studio and I said okay Ben there's a story
• 1:43:06
  about the trench run in Star Wars where there's footage of these World War II dogfight movies
• 1:43:12
  which they use to cut in and it doesn't exist anywhere and I would love to see that and he went
• 1:43:19
  do you know what I did in lockdown he's like I have found the original print with that in and I
• 1:43:24
  digitized it and I made a split screen and I have it on my laptop if you'd like to see it and I was
• 1:43:30
  like hell yes what I like to see this and he knew because he'd seen bits of top gun on the sound
• 1:43:36
  stage where we were where we were sound mixing and he knew what this would mean to me as a fan of
• 1:43:41
  Star Wars and having been working on that exact sequence in Top Gun Maverick so he's like okay here
• 1:43:48
  we go and he gets his MacBook out and he calls up the file and there's a perfect split screen of
• 1:43:52
  Star Wars and then a work print with all this dogfighting cut in and I'm trembling with excitement
• 1:44:00
  because this I've dreamed I've read about this since I was eight or nine years old and it's so
• 1:44:04
  exciting and I met Paul Hirsch and I talked to him about it and Ferris Bueller is one of my favorite
• 1:44:09
  movies and Paul Hirsch edited that and and you know a lot of the editorial discoveries are his
• 1:44:16
  and the music choices and stuff were a lot was to do with him on that movie so massive respect
• 1:44:21
  for Paul Hirsch and he didn't even have a copy of it so there I am and so I'm sat down in Ben
• 1:44:27
  Bert's office at Skywalker Ranch and he opens his laptop and presses play and then I get to watch
• 1:44:32
  a split screen which no one else will see because he's like that's never going on YouTube and he's
• 1:44:37
  like you're done but I got to watch the whole of the like 12 minutes of the trench run sequence
• 1:44:42
  and it's astonishing the shots are exactly the same as these dogfight movies it's like there's
• 1:44:48
  an X-wing and they're doing exactly the same move so ILM was basically copying these shots using
• 1:44:54
  the the motion control model photography in 1976 and 1977 when they were doing this oh the other
• 1:45:00
  cool thing about that is I did get to work with John Dykstra on X-Men first class who designed the
• 1:45:05
  motion control camera that filmed the the Star Wars models it was called the Dykstra Flex the
• 1:45:10
  system that they built and it basically ran off a pocket calculator as far as I could tell but he
• 1:45:17
  was the visual effects supervisor on X-Men first class and the first day I met him a Matthew said
• 1:45:23
  I'm thinking of hiring John Dykstra to do this I was like oh yes hire him and so we were working
• 1:45:29
  so hard on the movie I never really got to ask him any Star Wars questions but he at the end when
• 1:45:35
  we finished X-Men he was like let's go and have lunch and you can ask me any question you want about
• 1:45:40
  ILM and Star Wars and if you haven't seen that show light and magic if you've seen that on Disney
• 1:45:44
  Plus I've heard of it yes you must watch it it's so good it's about these Mavericks who created all
• 1:45:50
  these visual effects starting with Star Wars and John Dykstra is interviewed in it but I I got to
• 1:45:56
  spend like four hours chatting with John and asked him all my Star Wars questions and at the end he
• 1:46:01
  gave me a slice of the original Death Star model that he had in a box he was like here's a gift for
• 1:46:07
  you and so obviously as a Star Wars fan that's just a piece of you know proper movie history
• 1:46:13
  that I've got sat in my study you know my cutting room wow um anyway those are my little Star Wars
• 1:46:19
  stories yeah and I also when I was at Skywalker Ranch I managed to get a tour around the Lucas
• 1:46:25
  film archives which is incredibly rare but I basically just sweet talk the people and they knew
• 1:46:32
  what a fan I was and I got to have 15 minutes in the archives where there's that very famous photo
• 1:46:38
  of George Lucas from 1983 when he's in the archives surrounded by all these Star Wars props
• 1:46:43
  so I got to go in and see the arc of the covenant and the all the the big star destroyer models
• 1:46:51
  and the destroyed Death Star and the the artisans and the three POs and Jabba the Heart and
• 1:46:57
  the the Shankara stones from Temple of Doom in the Bullwhip and the Hat and all the map paintings
• 1:47:02
  from Star Wars it was amazing like 15 minutes I'll never forget they take your phone away when
• 1:47:07
  you go in and there was someone there making sure you're not like destroying something but yeah
• 1:47:12
  that was that was an amazing privilege so such a treat anyway wow what hey I mean I've
• 1:47:18
  witted on long enough have a time yeah no it's been fantastic to people out there in podcast land
• 1:47:22
  I'm sorry that I've witted on there we go but these are some great stories to share they really
• 1:47:26
  are yeah thank you so much for sharing them I mean that's such I think that's such a nice note
• 1:47:30
  it sort of you know brings it full circle back to you know you started of Star Wars
• 1:47:33
  yes that's true and then now here you are obviously editing these incredible films
• 1:47:37
  living that dream of being of being a filmmaker and being an editor in yeah tying it all back
• 1:47:41
  to Star Wars yeah absolutely for me anyway yeah that was it wonderful or thank you so much for
• 1:47:45
  coming on after pitch ready this was such a pleasure just to sit back in here you regalus
• 1:47:50
  with your stories and to hear about your process as well because you know we're I'm personally such
• 1:47:54
  a fan and an admirer of yours and yeah what can I say thanks so much for coming on the
• 1:47:58
  yeah you're welcome thanks for having me
• 1:48:09
  hey everyone thanks so much for listening to my chat with Eddie Hamilton remember to like and
• 1:48:14
  subscribe to the podcast see you there for me some episode and stay tuned for more exciting
• 1:48:18
  interviews and guests coming soon on half the picture