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F&TV Peter D Marshall Interview- Veteran First AD & TV Director- Part 1 · FILM&TVREVIEW.COM

• 0:24
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• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hello there and welcome to our special film and TV review inside the interview episode.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dave's guest is Peter D. Marshall, who's Chris Bands more than five decades in film and he's worked as a television director, a feature film assistant director and first unit director
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: producer, he's an educator, an electron of the industry.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: A pre-christ-directed episode of television drama classics, including John Moose, Wance of Faith, Wise Guy, 21 Jump Street, and he's been the first director or features such as Dona the Dead.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Letters of the Fall, Happy Gilmour, the Fly Two, even.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's worked with some of the industry's best known directors, including John Wu, as mentioned, a Vaxlider, a Philip Noise, Edzelwick, and alongside some acting legends to be, including what Peter Tull, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Feeman, John Travolta, Michel Five for Mel Gibson, Goldie Horn, and Adam Sandler, and even Brad.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: but it's quite a list.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's also directed and produced more than 50 hours of documentary in educational programming and is a long time directing instructor.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's also an all-fuck and he's written about making the magic happen.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: They are an craft of film directing which is a great textbook on the craft of directing which I have perused and it is quite a
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Peter, welcome, excuse the lengthy intro, but it has been quite a prolific career, even to some I was quite a challenge, but we're because, does start when we start, I mean, you're Canadians and to give us some context, I'm growing up there, I mean, what kind of influenced you growing up with directors or films or features?
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've got you interested in the first place.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think I just go all the way.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm from Canada.
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that I really got interested in film when I was about 16 or 17 years old ended up just very quickly went to, I was in a little city called Regina middle of Canada and ended up going to Toronto to the,
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: film school and then I out of film school and some started in 1973 and just try to work your way through the industry and ended up doing a lot of documentaries and you know you have to make a living and doing a lot of documentaries and industrial films and commercials and then
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got a chance to work as a second AD on a TV series and I became a first AD and then I did a lot of first AD TV series and to movies and then I started directing and that's kind of you interview other people like that the kind of similar right you started to do something and then you sort of work your way up and
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I got involved in teaching.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's kind of the, was that that was like a one minute bio there that, to added.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think almost every director somewhere is influenced me and not just the ones I worked with.
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think Sergio Leone, because once a Podimental West is my most favorite film.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: of all time.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Of all the other films I like.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've seen it 12, 14 times.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a masterpiece.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's everything I like to style.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, Sergio Leone, I really really love.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think Clint Eastwood, I've never worked with him, but I like his style.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like one take to take move on, very quiet.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have the camera, his camera operator, who he's had for years, is a friend of mine out of Toronto.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I know a lot that Clint did, and I think also, I guess I have to say John Woog, because I worked with John Woog, I did a pilot for him, and then I did the TV series with him.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I learned how to shoot action from one of the masters.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: In John Moos, it's like from a film point of view for the director, kind of set back in his phone Mondays, kind of set the sort of pattern
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I guess those are the top three.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, well, yeah, classic choices, they're brilliant.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you spend more than 25 years as a assistant director.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you're handling basically scenes shooting, logistics, set schedule, background, an extra crew traffic, but not any just any film, but on some kind of huge set piece movies.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: But what do you think makes a great AD, you know,
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think, you know, I think what are the key things is basically you have to be organized.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay?
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the quality, you know, because you have to be organized person in real life and in your work life.
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because, right?
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think you, but you also have to, like any of the positions director DP, you know, AD, any of those positions.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: You need to, you can't just walk on to have a year experience and do a big movie.
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: You need to years of experience of being on set.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I started as a second AD on a TV series and then into a first AD on Canadian and then I just built up over a period of time.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I believe it's, you know, starting with your television TV series.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: low budget films, independent films, this is where we learn our craft.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's you learn about the politics of the business.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be talking a little bit, you know, I'll mention politics a lot.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Practice our craft, perfect our art, and working on low budget films and TV series, you know, it's basically you have a chance to move through the ranks.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, so you have an art department or a painter, then they do a assistant, and then they can become a production designer, maybe 10 or 15 years down the road.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's a, it's a big apprentice program.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think you can say that.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And also, you know, there's
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm basically going to just to simplify things.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's television and movies.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And within each of those, there's a lot of variations.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think this is a simple area.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is that episodic television is one of the, I find one of the better places to learn your craft.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's fast-paced, long hours, less shooting days, than the big movies, features, and commercials.
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's basically the way I went, I think, I put easy in quotation marks here, but it's a bit easier to sort of go from television because it's fast-paced, small films or series where there could be five-day shoots or six-day shoots, whatever, to move into features.
• 8:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's still
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we have a lot more, you know, 40 years ago, it was episodic television, now we have all sorts of things happening here.
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think also one of the reasons that's important is, you know, to understand the differences and also the similarities between television and film.
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the two words that I mentioned is called industry politics.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: small P politics, right?
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that's that's important to understand.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the first decision-director, basically, organizes the schedule, you run the set, as a matter of fact, there's the talk, I call the triumver, and the top three roles of organizing a communication on a set are of course the director.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: the director photography and the first assistant director.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those are the top three positions on any TV show, any movie, anything.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not including producers and all of that.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a whole other area.
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the actual people that are standing on set working and from there everything happens, right?
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I always find that on a feature film, the first assistant director works for the director with the producers.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when I get hired to do a movie, I get hired by the director and that producer is really don't have any saying like that.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So basically on a feature film, the first lady works for the director with the producer.
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And on a TV series,
• 10:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: The first AD works with the director for the producers.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So television is a producer's medium.
• 10:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you understand automatically the politics are completely different, right?
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you're the first AD, I get hired as a form of producers to do TV series.
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when the directors come, I can tell them to cut shots.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can tell them to do stuff because I'm running the set for the producers in television.
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so you do have a lot of power within that, within that system, but on the other side, you get hired by a movie director, you're the AD and producers come to you, he's got to cut the shot.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You go tell the director because I'm not.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you have that balance.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you really have to be in that sort of place where you're sort of juggling a little bit.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: There must already be a lot of trust already between the director and you already established, because you know each other well beforehand, because if that's kind of just to get a bit more intimate and then you have to be more on the same page of
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: dramatically where this scene is going.
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is that right?
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, how does it you're talking to the movie and a movie?
• 11:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, let's go more in a movie because that was of course a different idea.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think while I think it's also the the director is looking for the the part because it's the triumph rate, right?
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the you know the director, the the director, the DP and the AD, those are the three major, major functions.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: All the other ones are there, production designer and editor, but you're the ones that are basically running the show
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the director, you know, they want to do the shots, work with the DP, work with the actors, but you need someone who has a strength to be able to organize everything, because you have to do or the first day of these job is essentially in a movie or any even on TV, anything is you take a script and you say we have five days to shoot this or we have three months to shoot this.
• 12:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every day my job was to break the script down and say, what scenes do we do on day one?
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: day two, day three, how many and how long is it going to take to do each thing?
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You just need 20 years of experience to figure all that out, right?
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's a massive job, and so your job is to be able to come in and be able to do that.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, it's really that how much shooting, how many shooting dates you just like math?
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you've got 100 page script and you've got 50 days to shoot, that's two pages a day.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, roughly, that's what you start, right?
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You say, okay, some days you're going to have a big battle scene.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So now you have half a page a day.
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: right because it only because you can't do that.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So another day you've got to do three pages a day to make up for that.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's basically math like that.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But so essentially the director breaks down the character objectives and the scene objectives and the AD then takes the whole script and creates a shooting schedule from it and figures up the budgeted days and again what the shoot
• 13:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: how many people do we need, and then all the logistics that go with that?
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: You've kind of mentioned in your book because you're going to find five types of directors, and everyone kind of fits in their spectrum world.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Those are more proficient in performances, more of the technical or armed craft focus, which areas, but where did you find your area?
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or do you have to be a jack of war trades in reality?
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I know you basically have to be a jack of all trades to use to use that.
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, let's just look at sort of, I sort of divide it into sort of five categories of a director.
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's more, but I mean, these are just general things, right?
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So one of the things I did and you're looking at what I started in the book, but also before
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: What I talk about is, is you go into an industry, so you're a car mechanic and you fix cars for 40 years and someone says can you do a manual on fixing cars?
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, so much of it is just in eighth, like you do this, you do this, but how to tell somebody, right, in a normal language.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: is key.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So as a teacher in China, we call Liao Shur, which is instructor professor, you have to break everything down and make it simpler.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I've managed to do that over the last 23 years because I've done workshops and things.
• 15:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So basically what I broke down into say five basically types of director, obviously there's more, but this is an overview.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this is basically someone who's a young film student just learning the process.
• 15:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: They have a basic theoretical knowledge, a lot of students that go to universities.
• 15:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's been three, four years getting master's degree in film and maybe on a shoot one film, right?
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's all the theory.
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what's and theory is what you need, but very little practical on set experience.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then number two is what I call kind of the new Bprofessional Director, who has some film production experience that could be an actor, a producer, a first AD, let me, I went first AD to director, a stunt coordinator, editor, DP, like all of these people could be spend five years or 25 years in the industry working on films and then say I want a chance to direct.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they will come in and know a lot of different things.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: They will understand shooting schedule.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: They'll understand, you know, but they may have never worked with actors before.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, this is sort of where I came in, sort of that sort of film professional director, because I was a first AD for a long time and then started directing big TV series.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's a very good example of I started.
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Number three is what I call a skilled technical director.
• 16:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this is an experienced director who focuses primarily on the technical aspects of film production.
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: They may not really know how to communicate with an actor.
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: They spend most of their time with the camera.
• 17:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as an AD, I've seen this many, many times.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: The directors come in and they're bone bone bone, we do with this, but the actors are kind of left to do their own thing.
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you have kind of the opposite side of that, which I call a performance director, is really one who understands story.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're good performance with actors.
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: They could be right.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: They could have already been an actor, but they have little act.
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: They just don't really understand all the technical aspects of filmmaking.
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think in my roles as a first AD, doing television series, TV movies and some low-end from features, I've worked with all kinds of these people.
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then number five is I call them the art and craft director, the skill person that has the balance of everything.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right, they understand story structure and and seen analysis, they understand blocking the understand shots, the understand, you know, and they understand the whole process and I think you just look at parts to change you look at all the the actors now.
• 18:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, Nolan, you know, they have to understand all the technical stuff as well.
• 18:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: They may not, they don't have to operate the camera, but they understand that what the difference between you 25 million and what a 50 million can do for a close-up one a person.
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that's really what it is.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that if I had to put myself in a category, okay, because if I wrote this, then I have to be there somewhere, I would obviously say number five, but if Martin's crazy is five A, I'm five C or five D, because I still got lots to learn.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I understand all of the stuff, but I'm not at that level yet.
• 18:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'll say I'm a five C.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: If it's crazy and they're all five days.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you have a lot of quite a few directors.
• 18:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: But do you learn from...
• 18:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have to work around each individual's directives need, I'm not sure.
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because I said, you've got quite a spectrum of skill sets with different directors.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you tell us, or in your experience, what's how it's worked?
• 19:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't need just from your, your kind of place.
• 19:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So from an 80 point of view, yeah, for an 80 point.
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you're a very good question.
• 19:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It goes from one, it goes 180 degrees.
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Directors mostly on television is a TV first AD you tend to do this a lot because a lot of times what'll happen you'll get the TV directors coming in and they'll do show and then after a year or two years certain people on the crew will get a chance to directly this is exactly what happened to me on on wise guy I started wise guy was a big big show in the 80s I mean I don't think it was nominated
• 19:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: and it was a really popular show.
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I got a chance to start direct.
• 20:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I directed two episodes of Wiseguy.
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I came from almost doing a couple little Canadian TV shows to do one of the videos.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was on network television, but I had already been there.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was the teamwork.
• 20:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody knew each other.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I knew the actors and everybody was there to help each other out.
• 20:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I managed to do that.
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think also what I've seen is, feature directors coming in to do TV that are really experienced.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: But don't understand that we only have seven days to shoot, not 25.
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you're always right, you know, and so they're always trying to help people out.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the AD position and the DP position are both the two people that have to help the directors.
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: If needed, right, because of the fast pace.
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, feature films, you know, you're, you're, you're bigger, you have two, three months to shoot.
• 20:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, and, you know, you can, oh, if you don't get the scene, we can roll it over to tomorrow,
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know in television you have eight days, seven days, whatever it is.
• 21:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the pace is really fast.
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I've worked with directors that literally, I think I work with one director, I think it was one of the wise guys shows.
• 21:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this was the days before all the internet.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was the 80s and I get he the strictor came in and he he prepped because we prep for seven days we go Scouting locations and we cast and so you got to know the director because the other shows shooting all right you have seven days shoots seven days So he he had all the not he had all the language.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: She was great and the first day on set.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to block a scene and he just Faded the block.
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: He didn't know what to do and Within an hour I was helping block the DP, but you have to be professional.
• 21:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's the director
• 21:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: right and so phone calls to the producer this again there's no internet nothing in the 80s so they found out later he took all these different resumes that weren't his and submitted it and they said oh okay you can you do the show so he basically fell apart on the day one but to respect a position because we certainly didn't respect the man but we had to respect the position of the director so we all helped I helped and work and you do that the actors we all got together and we got seven days
• 22:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I did a movie, AD, or as a TV movie, so it's like four or four weeks shoot, and the director was the same.
• 22:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: He had done one big movie, but he came in on the, like, and prep was great, you know, you're driving, you're getting, he knew what he wanted, and the first day of shooting, it was like, okay, blockings up, and he didn't know what to do.
• 22:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And after two, three days, the producers,
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had to do the blocking.
• 22:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was the first AD, we got another AD in, we bumped into that.
• 22:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I had to basically figure out how blocked to see because I was a direct, they knew I was a TV director, I had done already over 20 shows and stuff like that.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I know what to do.
• 22:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, but the politics, you see, there's that politics all the time.
• 23:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, and so he knew it was going on, but the DP and so I would be brought into the first AD, and my second AD around the set, the other first AD, you know, I went off, and I went to the other location and figured out how to block it, came back, and it was pretty strange.
• 23:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And all the producers were flying and the executives were flying in from Los Angeles and New York.
• 23:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a pretty big man, but we did it, you know.
• 23:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that you just pull it together.
• 23:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you get directors that come in, that's just wow, like you're just so lucky to work with this person.
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have one person I worked with Bobby Roth.
• 23:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's done like 80, 90 TV movies, and he's done all the big series, like President Brake and all of this.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's actually a good friend of mine.
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was his first AD on three TV movies.
• 23:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: He shot a lot of Vancouver.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he's a good friend, but he's just like,
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: a great director right and knows all this stuff and knows how to work with actors and knows all the technical and and he gets along with the crew and and so you there's a big balance like that.
• 24:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So again that industry politics every every industry has his politics right so yeah you manage to switch between TV, episodic direction and of course the system directing,
• 24:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, for what your perspectives define does trick up most of the lectures.
• 24:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you mentioned a few examples there, but is that common thing that you must have observed them switching between the mediums and cells?
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: But what have it should they bring with them or what you find doesn't translate in your experience or that you've seen doesn't translate well?
• 24:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, is that a common problem?
• 24:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just you're talking as a director, right?
• 24:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, as a director, as a director, as a director, and back and forth.
• 24:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, they're very, very different animals, and I think that you, you know, if you're a director of a movie, then you're pretty well the boss, right?
• 25:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you, it's your show, and you work, and everybody works for you.
• 25:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: The producers are there.
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: The studio has control, you know, it's a balance.
• 25:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, and I think also that, you know, on the television side, television is I'm not going to say it's harder than movies because that's not true, but it's a little bit harder than movies because your time frame is so compact that if you do, you know, a seven-day shoot.
• 25:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have seven days to prep seven days to shoot.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you have weekends in between.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the thing is, you have to do, you could be doing, okay, so let's just do math, you know, on a TV series, you have maybe, let's just say a 60, 60 page script, okay, because it's a one hour program.
• 25:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you have, you know, five or six days to do it.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, what's the math?
• 25:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have to do how many, eight, nine pages a day, right,
• 26:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you may have to move to the two locations a day.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You start there, you pack, you move, you pack again.
• 26:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a real animal house.
• 26:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you just have to really everything and just fast-fast-fast-set.
• 26:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: They call it a sausage factory, right, to be able to do.
• 26:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not talking about Game of Thrones and those are, those are, those are,
• 26:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: feature film TV stuff, episodic, right?
• 26:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can't compare those.
• 26:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just talking the normal that you watch on your television, British television, American television, right?
• 26:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: They all have maybe different days, but that's the difference of a feature is that you have just used normal numbers, and I said before, so let's say you've got two months of prep, because the normal features I worked on, and this is pretty average even today.
• 26:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: but you have about eight weeks prep and two months prep and about three months two and a half to three months shooting.
• 26:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you have 40, 50 days of shooting.
• 27:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those are kind of the average, these are kind of the average movies that are shot.
• 27:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't mean the big Hollywood blockbusters, those are all different, different, ilk.
• 27:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you divide it into, if you've got,
• 27:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you divide it into something that the math, it's just you do the math, and you end up usually around two pages a day as average.
• 27:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just using average numbers here.
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: to do a movie, and like I said, some days you're doing maybe three pages a day because you're doing two things.
• 27:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's all dialogue between two people.
• 27:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: You could shoe all that up, but then next day you're doing toe shots and driving around and blowing things up or battle scenes that take you down to half a page a day, right?
• 27:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you have to think about when you watch a movie,
• 27:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: that all of this has to fit within the budget.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the budget is movable.
• 27:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: right so if you have you know how much money do you have for the art department how much money do you have for for cast how much money do you have for special effects it's all that budgeting that has to happen so it's basically math right it's division it's division I've never said that before it's actually division if divide the pages into the days and that's what you have to do
• 28:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, I mean, you've worked on some features as an AD, which, and not just any ones, but some of some big set pieces, um, like, as it's first unit, I'm guessing, and the AD, but particularly, uh, zombie crowds and World War II battle front scenes like Legends of the Four, um, if it's a weekend.
• 28:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you just give us maybe how are your experience on that?
• 28:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because, you know, I mean, big scenes, what are two scenes in letters in the fall?
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Huge of big crowds.
• 29:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that does sound a lot just to call down here.
• 29:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you're coordinating sets, thousands of extras, and you've got to get Brad Pitt in the shot.
• 29:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, how was that?
• 29:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, and how did you start that?
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because it's
• 29:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'll tell a story, and this is a story, okay, so sit back.
• 29:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have to tell the story because it's this how, so I was by wife at the time was she's doing wardrobe on on on the edge of its movie in Calgary, right, so she was there.
• 29:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was doing Lucas talking now in Vancouver.
• 29:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had my kids.
• 29:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had finished the movie and I said, okay, Kate still shooting the movie and the Ezwick's movie, so I thought, okay, so legend of the fall.
• 29:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I drove out.
• 29:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I threw the mountains and we got there and we and so we're going to surprise Kate, you know, I was coming and we went up to the house.
• 30:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's
• 30:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I have the Mayan and Andrew and we were walking there were young and the team shows I parked he said well they're on the other side of the house so that's where the shooting right now so I said okay so we're walking around this is just a film story we're walking around as we just saw on the corner bang banged into Anthony Hopkins he was coming around the corner
• 30:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: and we literally ran into each other, and I'm going, ah, that's that thing, and I just work with big Hollywood, like it doesn't matter if you work with them for four months, that's third year old, but here's this guy.
• 30:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I couldn't, I did, I was speechless, isn't it?
• 30:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, hi.
• 30:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he goes, who was Eastwood?
• 30:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I said, well, I'm Kate Perpunch of, oh, I love Kate, and that, you know, all this stuff, and Megan and Andrew, and anyway, so he goes away.
• 30:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I go to set was like, okay, banged into Anthony Hopkins.
• 30:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so, you know, so a couple days later I got a call from one of the producers and because we're going to stay up there for a while.
• 30:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I went to the office that Peter, we have a second unit that has to happen.
• 31:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: and we have all of these things to pick up and are you available to do it?
• 31:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I go, yeah, sure, yeah, I got second unit.
• 31:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can do stuff and they didn't really mention the big battles, they sort of said the battle scene.
• 31:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I did, I have not read the script, but I had, there's all these other horses and they had like tons of second unit where you got to do insert on a raft to just horses going by.
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's a lot of stuff.
• 31:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I flew back to Vancouver, grabbed my stuff, came back, and got into the office.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And about an hour later, they call me into the office.
• 31:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this is what I call the O by the way.
• 31:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think we all have these.
• 31:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: O by the way, your job spec is this, but O by the way, you have to do this.
• 31:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think we all go through them.
• 31:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they said, Peter, could you organize and prep the big battle scene for us?
• 31:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I go, okay.
• 31:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I had read the script, and there was just this huge chunk.
• 32:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, okay, and he said,
• 32:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's about like the two weeks to do that big set.
• 32:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, okay, so I had two weeks, and with the military, they had a military advisor, because it was actually the battle scene in that movie was that they were Canadian, it was a Canadian battle.
• 32:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: because the Americans weren't in.
• 32:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the whole story of Brad and what's his name come up, they wanted to join, get into the war because their father was in the war.
• 32:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of what the story was.
• 32:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's all a battle, it's all that Canadian soldiers.
• 32:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so I had two, I had two weeks to prep.
• 32:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So basically, so we started prepping and it was like,
• 32:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: going down to this massive battlefield where they had already plowed the scene they they made it all up.
• 32:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there was roughly going to be 800 extras, about 25 special effects people that do all the explosions and everything.
• 33:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was over 20 stunt performers, so they do all the
• 33:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: all of those things.
• 33:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we, we just, we had, and I remember we had this big plywood with the battle scene on it, and we would, I can't remember the military fighters' name now, but we would
• 33:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: We would go to wherever the set was with Zirq, and he would show us what he wanted.
• 33:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: We want the guys here, we want the guy, okay, fine.
• 33:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then we would go and do it.
• 33:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that took a couple of weeks and finally, it was the last day or so that we were, you can never ever be ready to do something like this.
• 33:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But so we had, so, and we had, oh, we had 200 soldiers.
• 33:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: extras, but they were basically officers and sergeants and stuff like that.
• 33:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we had them to rehearse the scenes with, but we now we had, and so we did all that, and the day the night we were going to shoot.
• 34:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was like, because all the scenes took place at night, and we were shooting in the summer.
• 34:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was like, I think you couldn't shoot before 10 o'clock, and then it's 4 or 5 o'clock.
• 34:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was the sun was coming up.
• 34:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: See, I had a small window.
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we had to work out during the day.
• 34:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had 800 other,
• 34:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: 700, just all the other extras, we had to get them marks them all down took an hour from them all, marks down, get into the trenches.
• 34:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I had to stand up on the trench with them, okay, go, first, because that would be three waves, one, two, or two, whatever, Ed wanted, right?
• 34:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we had to practice all of that.
• 34:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so finally, Ed, the producers and the first AD of the show, didn't do anything.
• 34:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: He said, Peter, it's all your show tonight.
• 34:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't do anything.
• 34:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: But so basically we had we just stood there and and Ed was on the hill and he said, okay, well, show me what you got.
• 35:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so and in the meantime, all that stuff we had worked out with the stunt coordinators and we had worked it out with the special effects guy, nobody gets hurt.
• 35:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was already done a few days ahead of time.
• 35:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'd say, okay, action in this first wave would come out.
• 35:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: They'd all jump up and cross over.
• 35:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think we've all seen real more one things.
• 35:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I waited five seconds, take a then, okay, another in the second wave came out, nothing.
• 35:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so everybody charged and there's no explosion.
• 35:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was in the daytime.
• 35:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was just rehearsing.
• 35:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so everybody, we got everybody back and said, okay, I think we need to do it a little quicker.
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, all right.
• 35:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So then it's like first wave and then I cut it down.
• 35:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Second wave, okay, fine.
• 35:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody was happy, right?
• 35:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, so we're and and all the extras we worked all day with them.
• 35:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're going to work all night as well.
• 35:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's almost 24 hours, you know, 20 hours of work, but
• 35:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: But they all knew like we're all the little explosions or little things in the air ramps that are all in the dirt and they had little flags there and they all knew where these were and then the stunt guys knew where they were all going to fall.
• 36:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had rehearsed all that already for a couple days.
• 36:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So anyways, everybody, it took an hour and a half to get 800 people all back to the trench, sent the tents for,
• 36:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Supper, okay.
• 36:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So this is where the story gets interesting.
• 36:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So during a supper, it started to rain.
• 36:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
• 36:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It started to rain and it was a big downpour.
• 36:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So
• 36:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay, so I finished the dinner, I got a van, I went out to the field, as by myself there's locations out there, but I just, I couldn't, I walked down a lat, I couldn't, I couldn't get up, like it was all slippery now, buddy and slippery, and I couldn't, I couldn't get up the ladders, I couldn't, I just, I couldn't.
• 36:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So finally, lunch was, you know, everybody came back.
• 36:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: All the extras, all the actors and extras were back at the holding.
• 37:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the key word here is an hour and a half.
• 37:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: As soon as I say go, it's an hour and a half to get the last extra in the far trench.
• 37:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I have a 90 minutes, you see what I'm saying.
• 37:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So to get everybody back, because they'll have to come down, march all the way down.
• 37:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the key thing here, and this is again,
• 37:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the role of the AD versus, you know, everybody else, but you're also in charge of safety and the West and England and all of that, not so much in China, but the AD can stop the show, like it's this is bad, we have to stop, right?
• 37:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I knew that I was now the safety set safety supervisor, so they were producers and drug of said, okay, so it was still light, it was still a bit light.
• 37:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we waited and the ground, the sun was up, and I'm from Alberta, this is Calgary, so I said well, it rained very heavy than it stopped, so it's only top level.
• 38:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So hopefully it'll couple hours, okay.
• 38:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So anyways, it started getting dark and everything, and there are producers now, we're getting anxious because they have 800 extras, you know, today they're paying for.
• 38:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was like, I had to do this, I had to walk, I walked a trench again, but it's about an hour and a half later and I got on the ladder and I got down, I got up and I said, okay, it's an hour and a half.
• 38:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I call now, I'd say an hour and a half.
• 38:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I wasn't sure.
• 38:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I was walking back, you have to visualize this.
• 38:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the biggest thing I have ever done in my career.
• 38:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like this is the huge, right, mega, right?
• 38:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: This isn't like two people fighting in a room, right?
• 38:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I was walking along the trench all the way back.
• 38:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I saw Ed's wig,
• 38:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: and two or three producers that deep everybody is standing there waiting for me to say, can we go?
• 39:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't know what, I wasn't, I didn't know what I was going to say.
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just, so I walked up to them and I just stopped and it was silence for, I'm being very dramatic here, but there was silence for a couple of moments.
• 39:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I just said,
• 39:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess it's that famous line somewhere I said, let's go, right?
• 39:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: So boom, the second 80, okay, let's go, everybody, let's get the action done, yeah.
• 39:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So an hour and a half later, you see, because that was my safety valve and the sun was going down and that was getting dark.
• 39:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, and then basically the hour and a half later it, I had everybody in the trench, 800 extras, we had all Brad Pitt and Aiden Quinn and Thomas and they're all in everything was there, the cameras are ready, special effects are ready.
• 39:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was basically, okay, so there we go.
• 39:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I, and I was running set that night.
• 40:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that standing on the hilltop, looking down on the, the whole field.
• 40:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we had none of us had seen what was actually gonna happen because it was all daytime, it was all, you know.
• 40:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now all the extras knew they had to take flags away.
• 40:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had two ambulances, stand by, we had first stage standing by.
• 40:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just remember standing with the military advisor, and I had like there was six to eight cameras.
• 40:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: All masters and crane shots, and I had to run.
• 40:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you sort of, okay, everybody roll camera.
• 40:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I had to hear each camera in my radio.
• 40:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Camera one, good camera, you have to go all the way through.
• 40:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: For instance, I got a slot, you stop, right?
• 40:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So then it's like, okay, go hot, no, it's go hot, but you do you go hot to the effects guys, they set the primers, they got everything ready, and then I'd roll the cameras, and then I'm sitting there, cameras are rolling, and I go, oh my God, and I just went,
• 41:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: action and the whole world blew up.
• 41:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's that opening sequence where just the flares the bomb soldiers running through and you didn't even know what to look at.
• 41:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like four or five football fields, right?
• 41:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So anyways then then we cut cut cut cut cut cut because all the there is nine rows of like about almost like a hundred people each and each officer had a radio.
• 41:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they would so I would say
• 41:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, number like whatever we have to do that first.
• 41:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, there's not nobody.
• 41:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: They got took a couple of people hospital, but they were back.
• 41:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: They got something their eyes.
• 41:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: They nobody really got seriously injured.
• 41:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so then we just did all the big wide shots and all of that for the first night.
• 41:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And after that, after that, I was, because I was actually the first deity of the second unit, and so the second unit, we came in after that, and we worked two weeks, we worked with Edwood, and Edwood said as Brad up in everything, and then we would look and we would put air-arms, you know, we would put stunt people behind the actors so that you have all these stuff.
• 42:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that was basically the biggest story, the biggest thing I've ever done.
• 42:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: You must have put a huge drink off to it's on that one.
• 42:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, I think there was two or three, but it was it was like five on the morning So I think it was a long story, but you have to put all the elements together Yeah, I think the main question is maybe ten years five maybe five years before that I don't know if I could do that.
• 42:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's all the experience I've had directing 18 I was doing big helicopter blowing things up guns.
• 42:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I did all of that already.
• 42:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: like normal film stuff.
• 42:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's just, you just know how to, I think we just call it break it down.
• 42:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: You break this, you just break it down into its smallest element.
• 42:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think anybody that's listening to this,
• 42:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: is if you're into it want to be in the film and it's at all.
• 43:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is about taking, it's like a recipe for cake, right?
• 43:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have to take all the ingredients and it has to start you put this and you put this and you just don't have a cake.
• 43:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's, so it was the biggest thing I ever done.
• 43:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was amazing and you know, so it was pretty cool.
• 43:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what's kind of impressed you with the directions that you've worked with.
• 43:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you've worked with Zack Snyder, when he's debut with Dawn of the Dead, but I was reading you already had a kind of good, good, solid script with.
• 43:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: from James God, I think, on that one.
• 43:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: By getting big scenes, what was your experience without a white and prist you about these day beauty?
• 43:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think this is a good question because I was, again, and I think it's also for your listeners, like some people, they may not be all in the film industry, some people are, but I'm also telling not just stories, but connections here.
• 43:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this is a connection that I want to talk about feeding into this is that it's who you know,
• 44:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: who you've maybe done wrong to and who you've done right to in the any business but film business especially.
• 44:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was in Toronto at the time I had finished a finished a movie and I was back in Toronto, I was living in Toronto for three years.
• 44:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I got a call from a production manager in Toronto and he said, hey Peter I got because we put our names on a list like the I'm in the Union, the Director's Guild Canada, right?
• 44:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: or, and so my name is says available.
• 44:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 44:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they check my resume and all that kind of stuff we said, well, are you available, you know, in the next couple of months to do?
• 44:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I said, yeah, I don't have any show I just finished one.
• 44:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You said, well, do you want to come and interview for Dr. Calz-Aksnider who I didn't know?
• 44:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what you normally do is, okay, find semi-threat.
• 44:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: So because we look at something and sometimes we'd say no because of the script.
• 44:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't want to do it or we don't like maybe the director's something, whatever.
• 44:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the same as the script and I go, oh wow, don't know the dead.
• 45:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the remake of the zombie movie and I know this would be cool.
• 45:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I had no idea, I didn't know who Zach was.
• 45:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't find any information.
• 45:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I went into
• 45:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know it.
• 45:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was all before in it.
• 45:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't find a who he was.
• 45:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So anyways, I finally went to the meeting the next day with a producer.
• 45:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we talked and we, you know, in blah, blah, and he said, okay, you know, and someone then said, okay, you know, if you want to drive your car, then go, oh, well, that's pretty fast.
• 45:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: He said, and we negotiate the rates and, you know, normal.
• 45:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so after I kind of signed, I said, well, by the way, how did you find out about me?
• 45:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: He said, oh, the, at least I said,
• 45:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, then I was sorry, then I had to interview, sorry, I had to the came in, I had an interview as Zach, you have to go to the director first, right?
• 45:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I talked with Zach, blah, blah, blah, blah, and but I didn't really know much about him and then I heard he was a commercial director and then I started looking and he was a big, one of the biggest commercial directors in the world at that point, I mean he was like everything, right?
• 46:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, fine.
• 46:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So after I signed and everything because Zach said he's the guy, so then I signed.
• 46:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, well, how did you guys find out of me?
• 46:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So all the DP is the same the DP recommended you.
• 46:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I go, he did it.
• 46:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was the same DP on the butterfly effect.
• 46:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just finished a little while ago on in Vancouver.
• 46:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the concept is that I worked with the DP a year to before on butterfly effect in Vancouver.
• 46:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Two years later, he gets hired by Zack.
• 46:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: to do his moon dawn in the dead in Toronto I happened to be there and the first thing he said if I think will the producer quoted he said hey there's an Indian Canada because these are Americans right he said there's an Indian Canada and Peter Marshall if he's available you get the DP told Zach
• 46:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think there was only one or two people.
• 46:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what I'm saying is, I didn't know that until after I got hired.
• 47:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that's really important that you just, you just, you just, you don't burn your bridges.
• 47:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can blow them up on a road or one thing.
• 47:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I was, yeah, but I was very impressed with Zach.
• 47:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I knew he was a commercial.
• 47:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And all the time, we'd be on the set.
• 47:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: We'd be re-heard, we'd be in the truck, scouting locations, and some company wants them to direct us a $2 million dollar commercial.
• 47:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: He said, oh, I'm doing a movie.
• 47:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't fall, it all the time.
• 47:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he knew anyone, he knew shortcuts.
• 47:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: He didn't waste a lot of time and set all of that stuff.
• 47:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was great to work with him, no yelling, no screaming.
• 47:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: We all got along great, so it was really good.
• 47:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have to tell you a story because you've got anything else you want here, right?
• 47:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this is actually pretty critical story.
• 47:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: We shot in Toronto in Canada.
• 47:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: We shot the Don of the Dead in Toronto.
• 48:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: A big mall.
• 48:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because they looked all over America and Canada to find a mall.
• 48:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: A big mall that wasn't going to be destroyed, but was empty or something.
• 48:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So anyways, there's this mall just an hour and not the trunk.
• 48:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's why they picked that.
• 48:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we were shooting out at the mall.
• 48:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: We shot a lot of all around Toronto, but this one day, this 2004 summer, really, really thought, we were shooting in the mall.
• 48:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we have all our trailers outside.
• 48:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have an AD room.
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so all the trailers are all powered on generators.
• 48:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it doesn't matter.
• 48:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: doing I was just after lunch.
• 48:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I was doing the the times for the actors for next day I can give the second AD because I have to figure out this is what we shoot tomorrow and the second AD brings everybody in.
• 48:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm sitting there and there was a little flicker.
• 48:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay fine.
• 48:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I pick up my I pick up my board and I walk into the set.
• 48:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I walk into the set and there's shooting away because we have all our own power.
• 49:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: and give this thing and also the producer Peter did you hear something on the rig?
• 49:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you something going on?
• 49:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is it?
• 49:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: He said there's a power, this was the huge power outage, north, New York State, north, and all of Toronto area, all the power went out for millions of people.
• 49:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm talking millions of people, it was north of New York,
• 49:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: and so and we were still shooting was like it was summer so it was five or six or something.
• 49:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So anyways the second AD I put on set and they were still shooting and so the producer's production and we all started talking and we went
• 49:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a power outage.
• 49:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're an hour from downtown Toronto, and if there's no power, there's no streetlights.
• 49:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like we got a wrap and get everybody out of here, right?
• 49:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So basically what happened was we pulled the plug.
• 49:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a film expression.
• 49:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: We stopped shooting.
• 49:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we revamped and said, well, go to where our standby set, we couldn't come back here, we go to this other set.
• 50:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that all got worked out.
• 50:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the basic story here is I'm an hour away from Toronto and we start driving home now.
• 50:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And its sun is coming down and there's no street lights and there's some civilians out in helping cars go by.
• 50:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm down the expressway.
• 50:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: and I'm coming down there's Toronto and there's no lights and it's dark and I'm driving into a city with no lights and I'm doing a zombie movie.
• 50:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: that's what's the same thing, what's it like.
• 50:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just like I'm doing a zombie movie and I'm going into the biggest city in Canada is trauma and there's no lights and everything went dark.
• 50:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was staying in a 22 floors I had to walk up until the apartment but it was like it was so funny.
• 50:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it took a couple of days but that's what happens, you know?
• 50:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Stuff happens
• 51:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a film story.
• 51:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm a good one.
• 51:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Another direct to you work with.
• 51:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have to mention it is because we have John Moon once a fifth of the television series.
• 51:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you did the pilot for a couple months with Moon and then you worked as a creative consultant.
• 51:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you got to spend time with Will on his project.
• 51:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: What did you both have been mind for the series and how did it come about?
• 51:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, we were in Vancouver working on a movie and I got a call to interview with John Luke.
• 51:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: They were scouting locations because we did the pilot in Vancouver because was John was once a thief, it was a pilot in Gochon, who?
• 51:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't quite know at that point who he was.
• 51:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right because I just got a call and I said okay because he had did he was he did a couple He did a couple of the Hong Kong movies, but I didn't watch the I like so I didn't really know who he was So I started I picked up a couple movies and I was go I believe
• 52:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: like those films and I said yeah yeah okay so I came in I did the interview and got the job and then we shot in Vancouver we shot the pilot in Vancouver so I was John's AD so I spent
• 52:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: to a couple months with him.
• 52:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So crap and shoot.
• 52:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So he's great guy.
• 52:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I was great and we really got along well and there was a lot of times because John is not used to, this is one of his first, I can't remember if he did a movie in LA because he did some LA movies but I'm not sure.
• 52:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it was before this,
• 52:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he was never used to people saying no, right?
• 52:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But safety-wise, because I said no a couple times, because it's like you're like Canada, you're not in Hong Kong where you can throw 25 Chinese guys off a ramp and four of them get hurt.
• 52:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like we can't do that.
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we got anyways long story short.
• 52:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: We got along famously and about a month or so later a couple of month whatever it was.
• 52:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I knew that one and to do a pilot this was a pilot for TV series to shoot in Toronto and I got a call and they flew me to Los Angeles and I have a big meeting with all the producers and John and networks and everything and so they wanted me on as not a first AD but they wanted John wanted me to direct some episodes.
• 53:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And also they wanted me to be like a producer, which I really was, but when I went back into Toronto and just under the whatever the umbrella was, they couldn't call me a producer, so I was a creative consultant, but I was basically the producer or on-set producer.
• 53:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have a lot of impact on all the top stuff.
• 53:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So your question is I really didn't do any of that top level stuff.
• 53:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: right because I but I was basically the onset guy.
• 53:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my role was I did the Bible that the show we every show we we called this a Bible I put all their John loose stuff together and all of that and then I directed six episodes and I was the basically onset producer for all the rest of the show with all the other directors coming in.
• 54:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that was basically my role.
• 54:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he's famously for such a signature style and then with this series it's like almost east meets west kind of like directing style or your and directing style.
• 54:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's just something that you were able to emphasize because they see his name there and they're thinking I'm expecting maybe he's style of show or and the direction of the action or that but how did you balance that with your own directing style because you did directly a few of those episodes?
• 54:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well I think if we look
• 54:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: his hand-to-hand combat and all the guys flying through the air like all that style.
• 54:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a movie, and we're doing a TV series, and so you have to cut a half of that out.
• 54:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: The first of all, time, money, logistics, you can't do a lot of that.
• 54:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think it was like poetry emotion, we kind of called everything.
• 54:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the show basically, I think we kind of said, well, there's lots of bullets, but there's no blood spill.
• 55:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's sort of what the thing was, right?
• 55:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was sort of slow motion, here I have to quote, slow motion horizontal dive while dodging bullets plus airport sounds.
• 55:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it was basically sort of a campy comedy a little bit, the three actors and we had
• 55:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we made it all work and we had a lot of fights, we had a lot at the choreograph.
• 55:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a lot of action.
• 55:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like I said, because I was already worked on a lot of movies as an AD, I knew all about stunts and all of that.
• 55:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And also working with John Wu, I think on the pilot, we kind of knew what we wanted to do, but it was a TV version.
• 55:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: of, you know, his Hong Kong stuff.
• 55:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was, it was, it was great fun.
• 55:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had a lot of fun, but I think that we, we did the best we can.
• 55:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I John liked the series, you know, it wasn't, you know, he never directed anything.
• 56:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think he ever can.
• 56:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think he came to set once.
• 56:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it was, the style was what the producers, not with me.
• 56:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't a producer, right?
• 56:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was the idea in the show, but basically I was sort of the guy to come in and run to set.
• 56:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: that's was my job and that's fine.
• 56:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was perfect.
• 56:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: All they other stuff above the line, I'm a below the line guy.
• 56:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm fine.
• 56:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I didn't really have any, like we all went through all the productions and everything in the scripts and then my responsibility was on set to make sure things and then if it wasn't I would phone or talk to somebody and then each director would come in but they had their own style.
• 56:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And episodic television is you have your characters and you have your show, but each one has a little bit of style.
• 56:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's not like a John Wu style.
• 56:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have certain things we need to do in there, but some directors have a little bit of maybe more close-ups and other ones maybe more white shots, other people have different ways of doing things.
• 57:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it was all, but the producers picked the directors.
• 57:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: right like the other episodic director these guys were all like big-time episodic directors in Canada so so that's pretty typical of television
• 57:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: But was still under the John Wu, was still there.
• 57:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I would be on set because I do everything for the last from working with John to what the producers wanted.
• 57:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so my job was essentially, I've watched the blocking, I've be on set.
• 57:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I'd say, oh, yeah, we can do that.
• 57:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or if I had, or I'd say, you know what?
• 57:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: To the director, I said, you know, we can't really do that because this is something here that is, you know, about the show.
• 57:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was very, it didn't have to do it.
• 57:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: but I had to do that.
• 57:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I directed myself.
• 57:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I knew sort of all the stuff.
• 57:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that was sort of John was once a thief.
• 57:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: What's your style?
• 57:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Would you say you'll call it more like
• 57:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: comfortable wave dialogue scenes rather than kind of like Lewis, which will let's the body language do the work.
• 58:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm, I'll go on the side of actor's director.
• 58:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love performers.
• 58:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess a little history too.
• 58:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: My wife and then my another long term were both actors.
• 58:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I started to grow up.
• 58:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: My daughter is actor.
• 58:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So,
• 58:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just, I just had, I love working with actors and I had an act for it, working with them and a mannerism.
• 58:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think more, I mean, I know all the technical stuff because I had to as an ED, I was, you know, so, and I was on so many sets, I knew sort of how everything worked and everything, but I guess my priority to answer your question is,
• 58:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's for me it's about the acting and I got and I had, you know, how to work with the actors and that was my love and that was my priority.
• 58:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I had to also pick shots, block the scene, do this, do that, scotly, yeah, you had to do all of it.
• 58:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that, you know, some directors are not, I think we just talked about this earlier, but, you know, some directors are more technically minded.
• 59:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: rather than acting and vice versa.
• 59:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm kind of, I'm kind of both.
• 59:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm in, I guess I had enough experience that I can talk all the language of D.P.
• 59:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know the shots, I know my editing, I know all the stuff because episodic television you have to know all that.
• 59:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I guess the question there is if it's about the actors or helping the actors or keeping the actors safe, that was my job.
• 59:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: right?
• 59:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's the problem?
• 59:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's going on?
• 59:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's where I put my priority.
• 59:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: Join us for part two for our exclusive insider chat with Peter Marshall.
• 59:46
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• 59:52
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• 59:56
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