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232: Remembering Ray · Movie Meltdown

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, you bozos out there, this is Stephen Chiodo, and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: you're listening to Movie Meltdown.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: It's showtime.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: The following feature has been rated R by the Motion
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Picture Association of America.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Our nuclear reactor.
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: Pumping out one million kilowatts of power.
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: Provide more cooling in the containment chamber.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: What's up and welcome to movie meltdown i am brian
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and look we're with your favorite person ever mr eric
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: chu hi there you guys have missed him don't lie
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I sure have.
• 1:33
  Speaker 6: You've missed you. You've missed being on this show, I'm sure.
• 1:37
  Speaker 7: Oh, yeah, that's what I meant.
• 1:39
  Speaker 6: That's what I thought.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: So we had you on last year, and it was
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: quite entertaining, we'll put it that way. And I think,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: you know, we bonded, and you were so broken up
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: that you weren't around me. You had to come back
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: this year. I mean, it's been sad for you, I'm sure.
• 1:57
  Speaker 7: Yes, I am broken up.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: So much so that you did a really desperate thing
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And we were discussing this a couple weeks ago. You
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: did a very un-geeky thing. Since last we talked to you,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you got married.
• 2:07
  Speaker 7: What are you thinking?
• 2:08
  Speaker 6: I mean, married?
• 2:10
  Speaker 7: Well, you turned me down. I mean, I was broken up.
• 2:15
  Speaker 7: I thought we needed somebody to fill the void.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I can see where that would drive you to, you know,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: have to find someone.
• 2:22
  Speaker 7: All these people out there are just... Believing that we
• 2:25
  Speaker 7: have some sort of bromance going.
• 2:28
  Speaker 6: I don't use that word.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: But in all actuality, yes, you did. Far from me.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: She's actually a very lovely woman.
• 2:36
  Speaker 6: So, congratulations to you.
• 2:38
  Speaker 7: She's very understanding.
• 2:40
  Speaker 6: That's good.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, she's married a hardcore geek, as we know. So,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's probably tough for her, if nothing else.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Does she put up well with... I mean, she's probably
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: not a super geek. She's not into all this stuff.
• 2:55
  Speaker 7: No, she put up with it quite well. We went
• 2:58
  Speaker 7: to a Halloween party and had her dress up as
• 3:01
  Speaker 7: a sexy space vixen. And she was holding a leash. Nice. Yeah.
• 3:10
  Speaker 7: It was tied around my neck, and I was playing
• 3:12
  Speaker 7: the super geek with the tape around the glasses and
• 3:15
  Speaker 7: slicked back hair.
• 3:18
  Speaker 6: So this is just a regular Tuesday for you.
• 3:20
  Speaker 7: I don't know if she actually understood what the whole
• 3:22
  Speaker 7: concept was, but she played along. She quite enjoyed it.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: She does like dragging you around by a leash, I'm sure.
• 3:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 3:30
  Speaker 7: And we didn't take that off until we got home.
• 3:33
  Speaker 6: So you're safe. That's your story.
• 3:36
  Speaker 8: Anyway.
• 3:36
  Speaker 7: I'm sticking to it.
• 3:38
  Speaker 6: So, we're glad to have you back here. Thank you.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: We're also glad to work in your very special artwork
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: into the movie Meltdown Universe.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 3:49
  Speaker 7: I'd show them off to you right now, but... No, no.
• 3:53
  Speaker 7: This is not descriptive radio.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I was talking about the fabulous poster that you put
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: together for it.
• 3:58
  Speaker 9: Oh, that.
• 3:59
  Speaker 7: Oh, that. I was trying to block that out of my... Yeah,
• 4:01
  Speaker 7: everybody is.
• 4:04
  Speaker 7: For those of you who haven't seen it, it's quite
• 4:06
  Speaker 7: a piece of work.
• 4:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it is a piece of work. Yeah.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, I thank you and damn you for both of these.
• 4:16
  Speaker 7: You know, it's like H.R.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Giger.
• 4:18
  Speaker 7: It's both frightening and beautiful at the same time.
• 4:20
  Speaker 6: He is one of my favorites.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, I do sort of appreciate it on that
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: level that, yeah, I am now part of a Giger-esque
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: looking thing, and I have you to thank for it.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 4:32
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 4:34
  Speaker 6: Oh, wow.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, we are here at the Wonderfest. And I
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: think you brought it up. We were trying to decide
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: what we should discuss this time around.
• 4:43
  Speaker 7: Last time it was Tim Burton.
• 4:46
  Speaker 6: Your favorite, Mr. Tim Burton.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, God. And your favorite of his movies, Dark Shadows.
• 4:56
  Speaker 7: We haven't recovered from that either. Two hours of flak brooding...
• 5:03
  Speaker 7: Gothic darkness.
• 5:05
  Speaker 6: I will ask you this. Have you seen Frankenweenie?
• 5:09
  Speaker 7: No, I haven't for some strange reason. But I will admit,
• 5:15
  Speaker 7: Tim Burton used to be a really good director. I
• 5:19
  Speaker 7: think he was at his best when he was doing
• 5:21
  Speaker 7: his short films. And Frankenweenie, Vincent, I think there were
• 5:26
  Speaker 7: a couple more other ones out there.
• 5:28
  Speaker 6: Those were the big ones, really, in the early days.
• 5:30
  Speaker 7: But I mean, his ideas seem to sustain... Well, for
• 5:34
  Speaker 7: a short subject, when he gets to full features, I
• 5:38
  Speaker 7: think he kind of runs out of steam. He's not
• 5:41
  Speaker 7: really much more than a stylist, in my opinion.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I would think, and again, I'd almost totally given up
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: hope on him.
• 5:48
  Speaker 6: With the dark shadows.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: But since then, I did go and see Frankenweenie.
• 5:53
  Speaker 7: And how was that?
• 5:54
  Speaker 6: I was impressed.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Like, I have to say, like, I didn't know if
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I could come back to liking. Like, it was very
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: hard for me to admit.
• 6:00
  Speaker 7: Did he actually direct that movie?
• 6:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah, he directed it. I was surprised, too.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: He usually passes that stuff off to other people.
• 6:07
  Speaker 7: But, yeah, he actually came back.
• 6:09
  Speaker 6: Henry Selick, I think.
• 6:09
  Speaker 7: I mean, Tim Burton's name is plastered all over Nightmare
• 6:12
  Speaker 7: Before Christmas.
• 6:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's not his. Which I always kind of gave
• 6:15
  Speaker 6: him shit for that. I was just like, everybody. gives
• 6:18
  Speaker 6: me so much.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Credit presented by tim burton yeah i was like well
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: i can present things it doesn't mean i did the
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: painstaking hours of you know uh stop motion animation so
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: yeah but but i have to say he he came
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: back with frank and weenie and like i i love
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: the movie but it's funny that he went backwards like
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: he he sort of went with the live action.
• 6:36
  Speaker 6: One and then turned it into stop motion and.
• 6:38
  Speaker 7: Maybe he should just stick with stop motion i think
• 6:41
  Speaker 7: he's bad with actors i think.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: It's gotten worse over the years, I have to say.
• 6:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's definitely gotten worse.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: But this one, to be a little countering what you
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: said earlier, I think, because, again, I thought it worked
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: so well as that, like, hour-long little short film that
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: they did. But he expanded it, and he added a
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: whole new aspect to that second half, and it kind
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: of works.
• 7:01
  Speaker 6: It was pretty good, so.
• 7:02
  Speaker 9: I have to say.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 7:04
  Speaker 7: The other one that worked quite well that has nothing
• 7:06
  Speaker 7: to do with Tim Burton is Paranorman, if you've seen that.
• 7:11
  Speaker 6: That one I haven't.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I opted for one and didn't get to see the other,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: so I still haven't seen Paranorman. And we are now
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: being joined by our new member, our third party here.
• 7:20
  Speaker 10: Hello.
• 7:21
  Speaker 6: Introduce yourself.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: Introduce myself. I am Lee Stringer.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: I'm a Pisces.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Well we already had a little weird uh thing going
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: on between us so what are your turn-ons go ahead.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: Oh no i'll i'm not i'm not answer that one
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: because this is being recorded on a on a zoom
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: so i'm gonna stay clear.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: It's going out onto the world everybody's gonna know yeah
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: so um yeah i guess before we wanted to do
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: our little our topic but just to give people a
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: little history on you i guess tell them uh what
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: some basics you know highlights of what you've done and
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: where they've seen your work because i'm sure they've all seen.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: It okay okay um well uh as far as as
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: far as work i mean uh i kind of uh
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: the first professional thing that you know legitimate professional thing
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: that i got hired for um was star trek voyager
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: yeah that was a at the at the last two
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: seasons of star trek voyager and then uh there's a
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: bunch of other stuff in between but i went on
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: to then firefly Which is only a year unfortunately half
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: a season for everybody and then two years on Battlestar
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: Galactica for the the miniseries and the first season And
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: then I got to work with Gerry Anderson on his
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: last TV show which is called the new Captain Scarlet
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: Then I actually taught at a school for a couple
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: of years So I kind of took a bit a
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: break and then then I headed off to Singapore to
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: work on Star Wars the Clone Wars and And then
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: I was in, again, other projects around. Then I went
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: to Finland two years ago to work on a movie
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: called Iron Sky, which is a sci-fi parody. And then
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: last year I was in Thailand working on a new
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: animated show for Lego. So I've kind of run the
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: gambit of all sorts of bits and pieces.
• 9:10
  Speaker 6: And these are all, I guess, what categories?
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: CG effects or visual effects?
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: That's the weird thing that I've actually, I guess, fortunate
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: in being able to do. I've actually kind of flip-flopped
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: between live-action visual effects and children's animated CG TV. So
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: it's kind of weird. It's weird how what you do
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: actually translates back and forward between the two. You might
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: not think that working on a live action movie would
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: have the same sort of skill set, but it does actually.
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: There's quite a lot that translates back and forth.
• 9:43
  Speaker 7: Actually, I kind of wanted to ask, you worked on
• 9:46
  Speaker 7: the new Captain Scarlet with Gerry Anderson. How was he
• 9:49
  Speaker 7: feeling about having started with puppets and then now having
• 9:54
  Speaker 7: to translate to CG?
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: Oh, no, no. He loved it. He hated the puppets.
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, literally, he called them those damn bastards. Seriously,
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: he's completely world-renowned for puppets and whatever, but for him,
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: it was just a means to create the stories. And
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: it was a way that the studios were like, oh, yeah,
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: you're the guy who does puppets. Okay, you can do
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: this show. And he's like, I did the puppets because...
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: I was, you know, there was somebody who had a job,
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: you know, in the 1950s, you know, that needed somebody
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: to do a show with puppets. And I went, okay,
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: I can do puppets.
• 10:26
  Speaker 11: All right.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: And I did the puppets. And then it's like, oh,
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: then he become the puppet guy. And he, he actually didn't,
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: he never wanted to be the puppet guy. It was just,
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: that was what he kind of stumbled into. And, uh, no,
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: he wanted to do more, much, much more live action.
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: That was really his thing. He wanted to do live
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: action features was actually what he really wanted to do. Um,
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: he got to do a couple, I think, or at
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: least one really. you know, but he did get in
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: the seventies to do, uh, live action TV. So no, no,
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: he was, he was, he didn't, he wasn't lamenting about
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: going back to the puppets because as well, you know,
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: if you want to know about, you know, what it's like,
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: I've not really worked with puppets per se, but, um,
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: talk to, you know, the, the South Park guys, Trey
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: Park and Matt Stone, um, you know, they did their
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: essentially a homage to Thunderbirds, um, which is, uh, you know, um,
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: Team America, World Police, you know, that's, it's totally.
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: The Chiodo brothers did the.
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: And the thing was, though, that they, I think, I
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: don't know exactly, but I think Team America took them
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: about three times as long to make as they actually
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: had figured out it would take because they didn't really
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: appreciate how long it would take with the puppets. So, no,
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: so Jerry was actually, he was loving the fact that,
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: you know, he could do motion capture and animation and
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: didn't have to deal with puppets.
• 11:41
  Speaker 6: And I did just watch Iron Sky.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: And that's probably the most impressive thing is the visual effects.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: You guys were working on a pretty limited budget, weren't you?
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: It was a very limited budget. The final film had
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: just over 800 visual effects shots. Now, to give you
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: a perspective, up until about 10 or so years ago,
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: a big movie, a big Hollywood movie might have 200
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: or 300 effect shots. Yeah. um you know amazingly low
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: compared to that you know um then actually uh uncle
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: george lucas kind of messed that all up with episode
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: one actually.
• 12:20
  Speaker 6: Because a lot with episode.
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: Well yeah but i mean but that was actually one
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: of the first films i think that had 1500 effect
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: shots and that was one of the first films that
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: just because he owns a visual effects house he is
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: like i want every shot to have a visual effect
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: so of course he can because he owns the place
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: that makes him so And now, you know, I don't
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: know the actual numbers, but when you look at Iron
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: Man 3 or Avengers or whatever, I mean, we're talking 2,000
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: plus visual effects shots in a movie. So, Iron Sky
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: had 800, which, you know, nowadays is a modest amount.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: be honest. But even 10 years ago, that was an
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: unheard of amount of visual effects.
• 12:58
  Speaker 7: For a low budget film.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Right.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: So for a low budget film, now the visual effects
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: for that film, I don't know the actual amount, the number,
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: but I heard a number of around half a million
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: dollars was what they had to that. Now, again, when
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: you've got something like a modern film that's got 2,000 effects,
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: Avengers or whatever, they've got budgets for VFX in the 50, 60...
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: million plus, and probably some of them are heading towards
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: the $ 100 million, and half their budget is probably on
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: visual effects, but that's what, three quarters of the film
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: is visual effects, so yeah. And on Iron Sky we
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: had roughly an average of about 20 people for less than,
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: probably about less than a year, definitely less than a year,
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: they had roughly 20 people and half a million dollars
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: to do Yeah, 800 visual effects shots.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: For as good as it looks, too. I've seen a
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: lot of bad visual effects, and they're not in that movie.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: They turned out really good.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. There's only one VFX shot in that, and
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: then there's one compositing shot. When I saw it in
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: the theater, I went, oh, I wish we could have
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: done that one again. That one didn't quite look as... Because, again,
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: one of the biggest problems when you've got a low-budget
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: film is you actually... You don't get to go look
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: at it in a theater and really check everything. You're
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: literally looking on your computer screen. And unfortunately, even a
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: big computer screen is nowhere near as big as a
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: 60-foot screen. Suddenly you see something on a 60-foot screen
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: and that one shot where you go, oh, that didn't
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: quite look as good as it did on the monitor.
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: But really, to be honest, I only saw two shots
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: in the whole movie where I went. Yeah, I wish
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: we could have done a tweak on that with a
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: little bit of extra polish.
• 14:39
  Speaker 6: It looks good.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Well, both of you have sort of worked in the
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: newer version of that.
• 14:44
  Speaker 6: I mean, we have talked about that with you.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: You've worked in animation and you've worked in visual effects
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and a little bit of CG as time's gone on. So, Eric,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: you threw out there that we should sort of, in
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: light of his passing, kind of look at stop-motion animation
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and then, I guess, overall Ray Harryhausen. So, to get
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: your take on it, having worked in the The newer
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: end of the art form going all the way back
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: to the original form.
• 15:09
  Speaker 7: Well, I've always had a soft spot for stop-motion animation.
• 15:13
  Speaker 7: In fact, any kind of where you use puppets or
• 15:20
  Speaker 7: something physical. It's the problem that I find with having
• 15:24
  Speaker 7: to do stuff recently with CG is that even though
• 15:29
  Speaker 7: a shot can look perfect, somewhere in the back of
• 15:31
  Speaker 7: my head, I know it's not real, and it never
• 15:33
  Speaker 7: really existed. Whereas with a puppet, you know that it
• 15:38
  Speaker 7: may not fool you as being something that is life-size
• 15:42
  Speaker 7: or twice life-size. You may still subconsciously see that it's
• 15:47
  Speaker 7: maybe only a tabletop model, but it's real. It's physical.
• 15:51
  Speaker 7: It's physical. And I recently just looked at some clips
• 15:56
  Speaker 7: from the Golden Voyage of Sinbad, the What was that
• 15:59
  Speaker 7: statue with all the arms? And it still has some
• 16:05
  Speaker 7: sort of, I don't know, emotional connection where I can
• 16:08
  Speaker 7: still 100% believe that this thing is there and that
• 16:13
  Speaker 7: it's a real threat. Whereas when I'm looking at, say,
• 16:17
  Speaker 7: something from Transformers or What's any of the other big budget?
• 16:22
  Speaker 7: Take your pick.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Everything out there.
• 16:26
  Speaker 7: I fail to engage with it. And I don't know why.
• 16:30
  Speaker 7: It certainly looks very impressive. It certainly looks very realistic.
• 16:34
  Speaker 7: But I know it's not real. So I've always loved
• 16:40
  Speaker 7: stop motion. And even though it's... Or puppets. When I
• 16:46
  Speaker 7: was watching things like Captain Scarlet as a kid, But yeah,
• 16:51
  Speaker 7: you watch the show, the depth of field and there's
• 16:57
  Speaker 7: scale problems. But as a kid, it's like watching toys move.
• 17:02
  Speaker 7: And that's the magical part about it. And I think
• 17:05
  Speaker 7: that's something that I wish would come back. I'm kind
• 17:09
  Speaker 7: of really tired of seeing flawless CG and would like
• 17:14
  Speaker 7: to see something with like wires and seams and something
• 17:21
  Speaker 7: that's tactile again. And I think kids would really gravitate
• 17:24
  Speaker 7: towards something like that.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: One of the interesting and sort of slightly ironic things
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: going back to, and again, I didn't work on Team America,
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: but they actually CG'd in strings and wires on a
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: bunch of the shots because There were some times when
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: they couldn't see the strings, and so they actually did
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: put some in to make it.
• 17:51
  Speaker 6: I guess it defeats the purpose without seeing the strings.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: It sort of did, but yeah. I always thought that
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: was a pretty.
• 17:56
  Speaker 7: But that's the charm of marionettes and puppets.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: You're talking about also being taken with it as a child,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: and it's funny how much almost all of the things
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: that kids got attached to, like those holiday specials, were
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: all stop-motion animation.
• 18:11
  Speaker 6: The classics that now even kids.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: now are growing up with are still like the Rudolph and.
• 18:18
  Speaker 6: Any of those holiday specials.
• 18:19
  Speaker 7: Well, I noticed that Rankin-Bass, they had a stop-motion version
• 18:24
  Speaker 7: of Frosty the Snowman, but they also produced a cell-animated
• 18:29
  Speaker 7: version of it, and people only remember the stop-motion one.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Going into also as a child and being taken with it,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I guess as far as the Harryhausen thing, what was.
• 18:39
  Speaker 6: The first monster of his that you saw?
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Either.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Both.
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: I don't remember exactly which was the first one. Yeah.
• 18:52
  Speaker 7: That took me to the Golden Voyage.
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was probably either Seventh Voyage or Golden Voyage. But,
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, but like everybody from sort of our,
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: my generation, you know, it was Jason and the Argonauts,
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: which was the one that, you know, because it's like,
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: you know, jerry anderson had a huge body of of
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: different shows and stuff like that but it was like
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: thunderbirds that was the one that had the the magic
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: as it were for some reason and the same with
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: ray harriers i mean all of his stuff was phenomenal
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: but you know there was something about jason the argonauts
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: and i don't know if it was just the the
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: the skeletons i mean but that you know for me
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: it's definitive i mean there's just you know yeah and
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: even now i just watched it again the other day
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: because when he died i was like okay guess what
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: i'm watching tonight you know you have to do it
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: um but.
• 19:39
  Speaker 7: Which was the like the peak of his I think I.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: Think Jason probably was the peak you know and it
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: wasn't because I mean he kept doing stuff long after
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: that but that was where he had reached the level
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: where he maintained that level for a long time. And
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: I did go see Clash of the Titans. That was
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: probably the only one that I actually saw of his
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: when I saw it as it were when it came out.
• 20:05
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I saw it in the theater.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that was before, I mean, you know, Jason the
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Argonauts was made two years before I was born, you know, so,
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: you know, I only ever saw that stuff. But I
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: think also for me, Jason the Argonauts was one of
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: the first things that I remember recording off of TV
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: with a VHS, you know, because, you know, it was
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: coming on TV and we'd just got a VHS and I,
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: you know, I think I had my one tape, you know,
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: and I put it onto extended long play so I
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: could get six hours on one tape or something. And
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: I remember you know, Jason, the Argonauts was one of
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: the first films that I remember recording off of TV
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: and watch being able to watch it over and over
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: and again, because that was unheard of.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: That might be the high point for him also, just
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: cause it's so complex a scene like the skeletons, because they're,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, they look so good anyway, but it's not
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: like you're dealing with one, which most of them are
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: one monster. It's like seven different. And he's got the
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: whole battle planned out and then he's got them, you know,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: he's replacing them and putting them in.
• 21:01
  Speaker 6: It's, It's such a complex scene.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: It's amazing. The thing that I think– I mean everybody
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: from our generation but maybe newer people to Ray Harrison
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: don't quite appreciate is that he was– like 95% of
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: his stuff was just him. I mean almost– I mean
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: he was there when they were filming the stuff so
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: that they could plan it out beforehand. you know, probably
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: was helping choreograph the fight scenes, and then he was
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: building the armatures, he was building the models, he was
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: animating the models, he was effectively re-filming the models and
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: lighting the models, you know, with the rear projection of
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: the live action put behind them. So, I mean, that
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: was the thing that's insane in a way. And a
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: lot of people, until you really sort of like step
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: back and think about it, he was a one-man machine.
• 21:50
  Speaker 6: Nowadays, you look at the credits.
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: Look at the credits on a movie. I mean, I
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: just went to see Star Trek. I got dozens of
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: friends who worked on the new Star Trek movie, and
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: I managed to spot like three or four of them
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: in the credits last night. But there was hundreds of
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: people involved in the post-production of that. Hundreds and hundreds.
• 22:09
  Speaker 6: Go back and look at his, and it's one credit.
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: Stop motion animation by Harryhausen.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: There's nobody else.
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: It's amazing, yeah.
• 22:18
  Speaker 7: Yeah, basically he handled the whole thing himself. And that's
• 22:22
  Speaker 7: an incredible feat. And I think people don't realize, maybe
• 22:25
  Speaker 7: they don't understand how stop motion is done, but it's
• 22:27
  Speaker 7: a very isolated, lonely job. You're sitting there by yourself,
• 22:32
  Speaker 7: moving that puppet one frame at a time. And 24
• 22:36
  Speaker 7: frames in one second of animation. And when you get
• 22:41
  Speaker 7: something as complex as the skeleton fight or... You know,
• 22:47
  Speaker 7: Kali with all her arms, and it's mind-boggling that he
• 22:56
  Speaker 7: was able to keep all of that straight in his head.
• 22:59
  Speaker 7: And not go crazy.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: I think part of the reason why he was actually
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: able to do that is because he didn't have the
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: internet and Facebook. Nowadays, anybody, you know, he'd.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Be like, okay, move a frame. Oh, Twitter.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: Wait, wait, sorry, somebody sent me a text message.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Hold on a second.
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: You know, it was like, you know.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I got to go microwave my pizza and then I'll
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: come back and finish this scene.
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: That could be it. I mean, it was a very
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: different time.
• 23:20
  Speaker 7: It was.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: You had less distractions. I mean, nowadays it is, you know,
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, the thing for me is like, you know,
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: I don't if I'm working at home, especially this is
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: often too many distractions and, you know, and sometimes you
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: just have to just, you know, turn off. And once
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: I get into that, you know, once you, you start,
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: you know, fixating on whatever it is you're doing and
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: suddenly three hours can go by and you don't realize it.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: But then there's other times where, you know, you spend
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: three hours doing nothing. Can you like, okay, what did
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: I just do for the last three?
• 23:45
  Speaker 7: Well, it's great that, uh, you know, uh, after having
• 23:48
  Speaker 7: spent so many hours isolated and alone and, uh, in
• 23:52
  Speaker 7: those later years that people do appreciate his, his work. And, um,
• 23:56
  Speaker 7: And I imagine there's a lot of people that have
• 24:00
  Speaker 7: the same sort of drive in their passions, but they
• 24:04
  Speaker 7: don't ever get recognized.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: No, no. And he at least had the, you know,
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: he had his retirement, as it were. I mean, he had,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: you know, I mean, he was, what was he, 80?
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: I don't know how old he was. No, 90, I
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: think he was. I think he was 90 plus, you know. So,
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: and I think he retired. I don't think he retired
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: until he was like 65, 70. So, he had a
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: good 20 years. And, you know, I went to, you know,
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: I met him a couple of times. In fact, the
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: first time I met him was actually, it was a
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: very interesting year because it was the year that I
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: thought stop motion was dead. And that was 1993. 1993,
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: you know, Jurassic Park came out.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that killed it for most people.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: I'm like, stop motion is over. But what people forget
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: is also 1993 was the year The Nightmare Before Christmas
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: came out.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: And I went, Well, stop.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: Motion is definitely not dead. And then I got to
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: meet Ray just after those. And he was fascinated by both.
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: Because obviously he was great friends with Phil Tippett, who
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: was one of the main people on Jurassic Park doing
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: the actual animation. And they wanted to maybe do that
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: stop motion. But I thought that was a... And he
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: got to see that sort of transition from new technology
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: to old technology. The thing other people forget about as
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: well is that, again, like Jerry Anderson using the puppets,
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: I'm sure if Ray Harryhausen was Phil Tippett, and Phil
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: Tippett is, he would have made that transition. And if
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: he was coming of age now and coming into the industry,
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: he would be essentially a computer. But luckily there are
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: still companies that are using stop motion and stuff. The
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: thing I always tell people as well with the whole digital,
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: everything's going digital, everybody's doing CGI and whatever, you know,
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: it will come around again because, you know, and we're
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: actually already starting to see it where people are actually
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: going back and starting to use miniatures again and models again.
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: It's kind of like, you know, DJs who go, you know,
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: come back to vinyl, you know, in a way, you know,
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: because it's like, and it's not just the whole hipster thing. Oh,
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: I'm using vinyl, aren't I? It's like, no, no, no.
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: There's a certain sound is, you know, slightly different and
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: there's a little bit, you know, and so people go
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: back to miniatures and models because there is something, you know,
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: and For me, it's like I just did a movie
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: last year where they had a teddy bear, a teddy
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: bear who came to life.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Was this Ted?
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: No, it wasn't Ted. No, no, no. Sorry. This was
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: a very low-budget film. Yeah, it was called Renee, was
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: the movie. But it had some flashbacks to when she
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: was a kid, and she had this very vivid imagination,
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: and they wanted to show– She had like paintings on
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: her wall that came alive and she would see things
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: and just in her imagination. So I wanted to visualize
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: her imagination and they had it where her teddy bear
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: would come alive and kind of didn't talk to her,
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: but it would kind of like, you know, do things.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: And they wanted, you know, the producers wanted to do
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: a CGI. And I was just like, no, we're not
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: going to do CGI. And they were like, wow, you know,
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: they can do really good. I said, hey, fur is still,
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: you know, it's still very, very difficult to do hair
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: and fur. Hair is pretty much there, but fur... You know,
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: it's still very, it's one of those ones that's still very,
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: very difficult to do. So I said, look, I said,
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: even the big guys have trouble doing fur. They really do.
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: It's a tough, it is a tough one. So I said, look,
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: we've got no, very low budget here. I said, we
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: make a puppet. We hire a puppeteer. He'll actually puppeteer it.
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: But what we'll do is, you know, he'll have, you know,
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: we'll use sticks and we'll use hands. We'll put green
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: screen on the sticks and on the hand of the puppeteer,
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: you know, the arm of the puppeteer. He can puppeteer it.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: And then I'll remove the puppeteer digitally, but we'll get
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: a real teddy bear that's actually moving and can react.
• 27:47
  Speaker 6: It feels real.
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: It feels real. And it does. I mean, and the
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: final result, it looks like a teddy bear that comes
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: alive because it is, as you say, there's a physical
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: presence there.
• 27:56
  Speaker 7: I think they used the same technique in the AI,
• 27:58
  Speaker 7: didn't they?
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: In AI for Teddy, yes, that was actually, yes, it was.
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: And he looked really good. It's been a while since
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: I've seen that, but yeah.
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: He looked good. But that was also done by Stan
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: Winston Studios, which are like the masters of that field.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: And the Teddy in AI probably had a bigger budget
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: than the entire movie that I worked on, but it's
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: a small independent. But small independents sometimes are actually the more,
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: sometimes a lot of fun. Like Iron Sky, it was
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: a smaller independent.
• 28:24
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: When you don't have money and the resources, it sometimes
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: makes you more inventive and creative.
• 28:31
  Speaker 7: I don't think you could do Iron Sky as a
• 28:33
  Speaker 7: big-budget movie anyways.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: No, it wouldn't.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: The subject matter would just never be accepted. And trying
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: to do a sci-fi comedy is very difficult.
• 28:44
  Speaker 6: To me, there is a little of it.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Like you were saying, it's... them like like the return
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: to vinyl and it's people just trying to be.
• 28:50
  Speaker 7: Cool i hear the gramophone is coming.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Back i think well i think a little of it
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: is that like you do get that that novelty thing
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: at the beginning but the thing is i think then
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: everybody else sees it and like you get those few
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: people they're just like oh it's just kind of a
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: cool thing because nobody else is doing it so it
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: is a little bit of a novelty but like i
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: think it's kind of the same thing with like visual
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: effects like as far as like blood and gore it's
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: like It went for years and everything went to CG.
• 29:14
  Speaker 6: And like now all of a sudden it's like you
• 29:15
  Speaker 6: look at the Evil Dead movie they just made.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: And it's all practical effects again. And it's like everybody
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: showed up and they were like, oh, wow, that was cool.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Even if they didn't like the movie, they were like,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: but those visual effects, like that was gross. Like I
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: really like that. And it's like you get that real feeling.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: And I think it also brings that whole new group
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: of people in that are just.
• 29:33
  Speaker 6: Like, oh, yeah, I think, we should do that.
• 29:36
  Speaker 7: All those techniques are perfectly valid. I think you just
• 29:40
  Speaker 7: have to take each shot and decide what's the best
• 29:43
  Speaker 7: way to approach it and which is the best way
• 29:46
  Speaker 7: to attack it within the budget that you have and
• 29:49
  Speaker 7: what's the most effective.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: You're talking about makeup effects and stuff. I mean, obviously
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: that's one where those guys lost a lot of work
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: to CGI.
• 29:57
  Speaker 13: Right.
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: But as you say, it finally is coming back. I mean,
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: Walking Dead is also a really good example. And what
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: they've done, I mean, obviously one of the producers is
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: Gregory Cotero, who's one of the main makeup guys. But
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: that's good. That's a good thing. But what they're doing
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: is they're doing quite a lot of CGI as well.
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: But they're blending it. And they're doing what you should do,
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: which is to use the right thing for the right
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: time and the right place. And it's like, okay, we
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: do this much with makeup. And then we go, okay, well, when...
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: the woman actually swings a sword and the head gets
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: chopped off. We can't quite do that with makeup.
• 30:29
  Speaker 6: We still like that extra. We shouldn't do this.
• 30:33
  Speaker 7: Yeah, we won't.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: You know, so that's when we, you know.
• 30:37
  Speaker 7: That one, however, was asking for a raise. I think
• 30:40
  Speaker 7: we can get rid of that.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, get rid of them. So, you know, that's where
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: you CG and you blend the two together, you know.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: Another good example that could have been, I don't want
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: to say could have been done better, but, you know,
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: was the essential, the prequel slash remake of The Thing
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: that came out a couple of years ago. There was
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: a lot of flack over that because they did nearly
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: all of the creature effects as CG and everybody was like, well,
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: why didn't you, you could have done it, most of
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: it with practical and then done some CG and I
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: think it would have actually looked better. And that would
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: have been my approach.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: I think I heard the answer and it was they
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: didn't have the budget and mostly the time. Like they,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: by the time they, greenlit that project, they had like
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: six months to get the effects done. And they're just like,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: we can't make things, you know, we can't build models.
• 31:28
  Speaker 7: Well, if you look at the behind the scenes, a
• 31:30
  Speaker 7: lot of it was practical. A lot of it was animatronics.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:33
  Speaker 7: But, uh, I, I guess the, my, my, my guess
• 31:36
  Speaker 7: is that the, the producers lost confidence in it and
• 31:40
  Speaker 7: just wanted to.
• 31:41
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 31:42
  Speaker 6: Yeah, they still built, like, the bodies.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I think it was mostly tentacles and, like, all the
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: extra stuff they added in, yeah.
• 31:47
  Speaker 7: But I think that was only one of the many
• 31:50
  Speaker 7: problems with that movie.
• 31:51
  Speaker 6: It had some issues, yeah. As we've discussed on a
• 31:55
  Speaker 6: previous episode.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Ah, okay.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, I mean, as far as, like, Harryhausen, I think,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: like you were saying, he did sort of find him himself.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: You know, as he retired, he, like, I think a
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: little bit of it was sort of out of bitterness.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Like he was watching that changing of the, of the
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: guard almost.
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: And like he, but he was pretty much retired by
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: that point.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: And, and then he just worn out.
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: Maybe.
• 32:21
  Speaker 6: I mean, that's a lot of, that's a lot of
• 32:22
  Speaker 6: work he'd done.
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, but I think when I first met Ray
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: the first time, I think he had to have been
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: 60 plus, you know, at that point, you know, and
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: I was only meeting him for the first time. So,
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: you know, I think he was pretty much, you know,
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: moving into retirement, whether it was willful or not, you know,
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: willingly or not, but you know, But then, you know,
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, every time I'd see him several times after that,
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: I could see him when he got his Hollywood star,
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: you know. And, I mean, he's just surrounded by, you know, fans.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: And I think he, you know, he had the opportunity
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: to realize that, you know, he was an influence. I mean,
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: you know, especially, I mean, you know, if I went,
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: you know, you go to see, you see Monsters, Inc.,
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: the movie Monsters, Inc., Pixar, which is, you know, And
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: the restaurant in Monsters, Inc. is called Harryhausen's. Now, he
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: has to have seen that. He has to know that.
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, you have to know that you're appreciated and
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: renowned and known and respected when the top animation film
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: in the world, a company in the world, who's making
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: the best animated movies there are, and you're there as
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: like a key kind of cameo nicely cameoed where you
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: know it's not just you know slapping in your face
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: or whatever it's not a parody comedy it's a homage
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: cameo and you know right there and he has to
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: have known that that was there he has to have
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: seen he probably visited Pixar and they probably all just
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: you know groveled.
• 33:47
  Speaker 7: Over I don't think he would have any problem with
• 33:50
  Speaker 7: that I think that even though technology has moved beyond
• 33:54
  Speaker 7: that he will always be known as the king of
• 33:57
  Speaker 7: what he did.
• 33:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah And I think you're right.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: I think he did know it because as he got older,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: he also did a little more of those appearances and
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: he came here. And when he came here, he was
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: in that room next door and like that line was
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: through this hotel and out the door. And like I've
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: been coming to this thing like half my life and
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I've never seen a line like that.
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: Nobody knows that.
• 34:18
  Speaker 7: Not even for me.
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: Definitely, you had like two people today.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: But like even when Romero was here, like they brought in,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: but they were hardcore, come on. They were looking for
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: that poster with my head on it, but, but yeah, they,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, they, they brought in a lot of huge
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: people and it's like, I've never seen a line that.
• 34:33
  Speaker 6: Touched the Harryhausen line. It was, it was just huge.
• 34:36
  Speaker 9: Yes.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:37
  Speaker 7: And then he's humble.
• 34:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: And was so, was so glad that like, again, I
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: think that was at the beginning when he started doing that.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if he knew people were going
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: to show up. He's like, I'm not, you know, I'm
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: not the guy on the screen. I'm not a big star,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: but like.
• 34:50
  Speaker 6: In their world, it was, and they all showed up.
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: I'm more interested in going to see stuff and meeting
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: behind-the-scenes people. I mean, I don't generally go to see
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: actors every so often. I mean, I'll give you a
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: good example about sort of humble and fans. Ricardo Montalban,
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: who played, you know, taking on the new Trek, he
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: played the original Khan in the other one, and, you know,
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: He was just, it was weird because, you know, he
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: did several TV shows and films and whatever. But he was,
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: you know, he was Khan and he was kind of
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: this larger than life kind of character, you know, on screen.
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: And so I remember maybe 10 years ago, you know,
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: when the, I think it was when the Ratha Khan
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: DVD came out. He was doing a signing in Los
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: Angeles and I was there. And there was a bunch
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: of us from work. We were like, Mantaban is going
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: to be, we're like, let's go. You know, it's Mantaban.
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: It's like, you know. And, uh, and he, I don't
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: think he'd ever, you know, been to like a Star
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: Trek convention and, and, you know, so I don't think
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: he'd ever done any of that. He just wasn't, doesn't
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: want his thing, you know, but he did this. And
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: there was this huge, as you say, like for Harryhausen,
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: it was, you know, there was this massive line and
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: we were like halfway down and by the time I
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: got to it and he was just. you know, he
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: was sort of in awe. He was just like, you know,
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: my God. And then he was like, curse my father
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: for giving me this name. You know, it was, it
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: was hilarious. He was funny.
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: He wished his was Eric.
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. He was like, but you know, but he was,
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: he was, he was, he was humble, but he was,
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: you know, and we were like, thank you for coming out.
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: And he's like, no, he was like, thank you for
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: coming out. And we were just like, you know, and
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: you know, And that was only maybe a few years
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: as well before he died as well. And I don't,
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: I think, I think, you know, he knew he was
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: a big name. You know, he's quite a larger than
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: life character, I'm sure, off screen and on. But I
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: don't think he ever did too many events with sort
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: of the, us the little people, as it were, you know.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: But he seemed very genuinely, like, amazed that there was
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: this huge line of people came out to see him.
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: And I don't think he was expecting that or anything
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: like that.
• 36:50
  Speaker 6: It's always good when people have that level of humility, too.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely.
• 36:54
  Speaker 7: I really wouldn't mind if my name was Ricardo Montalban, actually.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: If you want to trade, but then you have to
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: be dead now. So we get Ricardo back, but you
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: can have his name. It's complicated.
• 37:04
  Speaker 7: I don't want Hervé Velichez, though.
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: Are you sure? That guy was pretty cool.
• 37:08
  Speaker 7: That's a long name.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I think that's kind of the basics on
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: our discussion for now. But anytime you guys want to
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: come back, we've already suckered Eric in. Do you have
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: stuff coming out that you want to tell people about?
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: Projects-wise?
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: Well, basically, the project was done last year where I
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: actually got to be moving into episodic directing, which is
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: something I tried to move into a while ago, but
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: it took a while.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: It's hard to get somebody to hire you as a director.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: You go, yeah, I can direct that.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: And they're like, yeah, sure you can.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: All right, whatever.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: But no, last year, most of last year was spent
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: working for Lego. And everybody loves Lego. They really do.
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: And they have a new product line that just came
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: out a couple of months ago called The Legend of Chima.
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: And they've probably seen it. Well, they're doing a 20-episode
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: TV show, which I believe the first two episodes have
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: already aired. I was the CG supervisor on the first
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: four episodes because they needed somebody with experience to actually
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: get it kicked off and help them out with that.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: And then I was either director or co-director with another
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: director on seven episodes this year. So, yeah, look out
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: for Legends of Chima. It's a fun show.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I'm still addicted to the Monster Fighters series, but that's
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the actual physical ones.
• 38:26
  Speaker 6: Those are awesome.
• 38:27
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: But I will have to check the new ones out
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: too and look for the show. Eric, do you have
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: anything coming up you want to tell people?
• 38:36
  Speaker 7: Yeah. There was a script that I wrote a few
• 38:42
  Speaker 7: years back and it looks like that we've got funding
• 38:48
  Speaker 7: in place and if all goes well, I'll be co-directing
• 38:51
  Speaker 7: it in September.
• 38:53
  Speaker 6: And you're flying me into Star.
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 38:57
  Speaker 7: It's a pornographic film Like all of your others, don't lie.
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: You need a turtle boy. Or a fluffer.
• 39:07
  Speaker 7: Fluffer, that's it.
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: I don't know if I'm on board for this anymore.
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: I'm checking my contract. Wait a minute.
• 39:13
  Speaker 7: No, and basically it is a horror comedy. And it's
• 39:21
  Speaker 7: my first project that, as far as live action goes,
• 39:24
  Speaker 7: that I'll be sort of dipping my feet into direction.
• 39:28
  Speaker 7: And it'll be extremely micro, micro low budget. But, you know,
• 39:34
  Speaker 7: as far as these things go, they're very, very difficult
• 39:37
  Speaker 7: to get film projects off the ground if you are
• 39:40
  Speaker 7: not the big studio. So if nothing else, it'll be fun.
• 39:44
  Speaker 7: It'll be interesting. And I think we'll have a lot
• 39:48
  Speaker 7: of fun doing it. And if I had to describe it,
• 39:54
  Speaker 7: I think it would be something along the lines of Piranha.
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 39:58
  Speaker 6: The new Piranha or the original Piranha? Somewhere in the middle.
• 40:02
  Speaker 7: The Joe Dante one with the stop motion.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Then here we go.
• 40:04
  Speaker 7: Full circle.
• 40:05
  Speaker 6: Back to the stop motion.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: And the running theme is everybody wants to direct. We're
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: both moving into directing now.
• 40:11
  Speaker 7: Well, we're old enough now. I think we've graduated.
• 40:14
  Speaker 6: Up to directing.
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: It's actually one of the corniest things in L.A. There's
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: two things in L.A. When you live in L.A., A,
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: everybody's got a script. And I mean, you hear about
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: people saying this, and until it happens again, I've had
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: people just come up, you know, and I'm like, I
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: do visual effects. And they're like, yeah, but I've got
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: this script. Do you think you could read it for me?
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: And I'm like... I can, but I'm not going to
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: be able to do much with it. I'm not a producer.
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: I'm not, you know, I stay away from that stuff.
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: And then there's the other one, which is, you know,
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: I've always wanted to direct, which a lot of people say,
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: but I, yeah, it's, I have always wanted to direct.
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: I really have. And I mean, it is some, and
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: actually a lot of visual effects people do, have made
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: the transition. There are quite a few that have made
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: the transition or wanted to make the transition and, It's
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: a difficult transition to make, but when you're doing visual effects,
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: a lot of times you have to kind of be
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: a mini director, because when you're doing sequences, a lot
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: of times you're creating a sequence, the same as a
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: director is creating a scene. A lot of times you
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: have to create a scene out of nothing. And so you,
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: I know it sounds like a corny thing to say,
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: I want to be a director. But in a way,
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: visual effects is actually quite a good training area for
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: doing visual effects.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: You're still kind of directing it in your head.
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: In a way, you have to, yeah.
• 41:33
  Speaker 7: I started out doing storyboards, and storyboards is kind of
• 41:36
  Speaker 7: like being a director on paper. But yeah, a lot
• 41:39
  Speaker 7: of visual effects people have moved on to directing to
• 41:43
  Speaker 7: a certain extent. I think Phil Tippett did Starship Troopers 3? 2? 2? 2?
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: And Matthew Gratzner is now doing a Western, I believe.
• 41:56
  Speaker 7: For those of you who don't know, he's the one
• 41:58
  Speaker 7: who did all the miniatures for the big budget movies
• 42:01
  Speaker 7: like The Dark Knight. He's done lots of stuff. And
• 42:09
  Speaker 7: James Cameron started out as a.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: Visual effects guy.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely.
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: He was a model maker.
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: Working in the prop department.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, that's a perfect example of
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: And actually, it's kind of cool because although he's, you know, he's,
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: I've never worked with him. I've met him, but I've
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: never worked with him, you know, and I've heard many
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: stories from different people, but for the most part, he
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: seems to be a little bit more accommodating and chatty
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: with the effects people because that's where he came from.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: So when I met him, you know, it was a
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: good time and a place to meet him because I'd
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: just won an award and it was in my hand
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: and he's like, oh, what did you win that for?
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, visual effects, oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: you know, so that was a pretty, you know, and
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: I'm like, You know, he hadn't done, I think he'd
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: done Titanic at that point, but it obviously was before Avatar. But, yeah, no,
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: Aliens is one of my, you know, I didn't tell him,
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: like everybody, you know, one of my favorites. So, yeah,
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: it's a little, like, I don't kind of get tongue-tied
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: when I'm talking to famous people, but, you know, in
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: your head you're going, don't say something stupid, don't say
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: something stupid, don't say something stupid.
• 43:11
  Speaker 7: Yeah, so it's... Oh, God, that was stupid. Yes, I know.
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so... But no, I mean, yeah, there have been
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: a lot of people, you know, but it is a
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: difficult transition to make. It definitely is.
• 43:23
  Speaker 6: There's hope for all of us.
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: The main thing is, you know, the hardest thing is
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: just go out and do it. When it boils down
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: to it, everybody wants to be a director, but not
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: many people actually do it.
• 43:35
  Speaker 7: And I think that's true for anything in life. You
• 43:38
  Speaker 7: just have to do it.
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of people are like, oh, how did
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: you get into this?
• 43:42
  Speaker 7: And this show was brought to you by Nike.
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: I will take their check gladly.
• 43:46
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, no, if you want to be a director,
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: go direct.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: And at this point you can. I mean, it's different
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: than even 20 years ago. You can do everything by
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: yourself at this point.
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: I can direct with my phone. I could direct a
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: movie with my phone right now.
• 44:00
  Speaker 7: They're happy people that have done features shot on their iPhones.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: On their phone.
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, and that's the crazy thing now. I mean,
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: to be honest, one of the things when I was
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: growing up was there was this definite frustration that I
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: didn't have... camera that I could do something or I
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: didn't have, you know, whatever gear and that, you know,
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: a lot of people always use that as an excuse.
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, a good example of the whole thing with
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: equipment and gear sort of maybe holding people back and
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: then finding ways is Robert Rodriguez. If you read his book,
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: you know, he went to college. He didn't want to
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: go to college. He didn't care about the college. But
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: by going to this, I can't remember which college it was,
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: probably somewhere in San Antonio or Austin or somewhere like that, Texas.
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: He got access to all the equipment of the school.
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: And that was the only thing he was interested in.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: He didn't care about going to the college for the class.
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: He just wanted access to their, he could borrow the
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: cameras and the lights on the weekends and go out
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: and make Desperado, which is the film that he did. Sorry,
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: not Desperado, El Mariachi. Desperado was the remake.
• 44:57
  Speaker 6: Sort of the same thing.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: Sort of the same thing. It was the big budget
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: remake afterwards. But El Mariachi was made because he basically
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: borrowed the gear from his school. But nowadays, yeah, anybody
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: who says, oh, I can do it because I don't
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: have the, whatever, it's like, no, no, no, that's gone now.
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: It's not even.
• 45:15
  Speaker 7: And I think for those of you who haven't read
• 45:17
  Speaker 7: his book, it's Rebel Without a Crew. It's actually quite fascinating.
• 45:21
  Speaker 7: It's a really good read. It's a lot of fun.
• 45:25
  Speaker 7: And I think I learned more from reading that than
• 45:28
  Speaker 7: I would have from any other filmmaking textbook.
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, people describe it as a film school in
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: a book.
• 45:33
  Speaker 7: Yeah, without getting technical. But, I mean, it does outlay
• 45:37
  Speaker 7: the trials and tribulations that you would go through in
• 45:40
  Speaker 7: getting a film. And it is. It is a real
• 45:44
  Speaker 7: chore to put a film together. I don't think people
• 45:48
  Speaker 7: realize just how much effort and how much work. And
• 45:51
  Speaker 7: it is disappointing when a film doesn't work out, but
• 45:53
  Speaker 7: you have to realize there are so many people behind
• 45:55
  Speaker 7: it that really did their best to make that film.
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: And the main thing, as I say, it all boils
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: down to is if you want to do it, do
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: it and finish it and put it out. Even if
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: you put it on YouTube, it doesn't matter. That, it's,
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: you know, if it's actually a story with a narrative
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: with a beginning and a middle and an end and
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: it tells us, you know, it doesn't matter if it's
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: two minutes long or two hours long, it doesn't matter.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: Doing that and, you know, as opposed to like, you know,
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: filming your cat or filming someone on a skateboard or whatever,
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: but actually doing something with a narrative, putting it, finishing it,
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: putting it online.
• 46:28
  Speaker 7: It doesn't matter if it's CG or sock puppets.
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: Exactly. It doesn't matter.
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: Stop motion animation.
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: It is. But it's doing it, finishing it, putting it
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: out there. Okay, and then doing another one and learning
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: from what you did on the first one and moving
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: on to the next one.
• 46:44
  Speaker 9: Definitely.
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: So it's a call to action. Everybody go make a movie.
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: Go do it.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you to both of you for being here.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Before you leave, I've got a script I want to keep.
• 47:26
  Speaker 10: Popcorn freshly popped and buttered.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: Look good?
• 47:30
  Speaker 8: Sure, it looks good and it tastes even better.
• 47:33
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• 47:36
  Speaker 3: Journey to a magical time when heroes and demons battle
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: for the golden treasures and the human spoils of forgotten kingdoms.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: Thrilled at the story of a legendary superhero who fights
• 47:48
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• 47:50
  Speaker 3: he loves from the world's most powerful sorcerer. This is
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: Sinbad's greatest adventure. The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. The sadistic
• 48:01
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• 48:04
  Speaker 3: tiny doll. Only Sinbad can save her. See the living skeleton,
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: the attack of the two-headed bird, the dance of the
• 48:12
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• 48:16
  Speaker 3: and the fire-breathing dragon. See The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: in the breathtaking motion picture miracle of Dinarama. The Seventh
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: Voyage of Sinbad from Columbia Pictures, rated G, general audiences.
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: Hey kids, it's Brian.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: So you're listening to this episode, and it sounds pretty good, right?
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: That's because we're using our new mics from the Doo-Wop Shop.
• 48:40
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• 48:48
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• 48:52
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• 48:57
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  Speaker 9: They also do.
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• 49:48
  Speaker 6: So again, that is doo-wop.com. Go there.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: They'll have whatever you need. They certainly did with us
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: for the mic. So yeah, go to doo-wop.com and check
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: it out.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Dave, I do not get superheroes. Oh my god, I
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: don't get you. What don't you get?
• 50:04
  Speaker 8: Towerbot here. Well, the meatbags were going to say that
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  Speaker 8: if you're a geek and like podcasts, then you could
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  Speaker 8: try Tower of Technobabble at www.toweroftechnobabble.com. Then this started.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Well, it's up to you.
• 50:21
  Speaker 8: I'm gonna get my taser and put a stop to this.
• 50:24
  Speaker 8: Towerbot out.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, monkeys. It's knock time.
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  Speaker 12: It's part of your problem, you know, you haven't seen
• 51:35
  Speaker 12: enough movies.
• 51:36
  Speaker 9: All of life's riddles are answered in the movies.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: And now, on with the show.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: So we're back here with Ben and Dave from Tower
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: of Technobabble. Hi.
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: And this is our special episode.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: We're discussing stop motion animation and specifically Ray Harryhausen. So
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: do you have any thoughts or memories of your times
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: with Ray? Even if it was just watching him at home.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's how most people experienced him.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: Well, honestly, I always found it hard to hang out
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: with Ray because he would move a little bit, and
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: then you have to stop, and then you have to
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, and then you move again for a
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: little bit, and then you have to stop.
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: It was a lifestyle choice with him.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: It totally was.
• 52:41
  Speaker 14: If you're telling a story, you lose track of where
• 52:43
  Speaker 14: you were.
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: I know.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: That's why you can't leave. You have to sleep there
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: next to the model. So, once again, you have to
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: sleep there next to Ray.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: Going to get a.
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: Don't ever.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: That was creepy. Taking out the trash, the simplest task,
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: turned into two-week affairs with that guy.
• 52:59
  Speaker 14: Yes, but you're taking out the trash with Medusa.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: Wait, one of the snakes are wrong. Medusa took longer
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: because he had extra limbs. That's true.
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: Appendages, if you will.
• 53:12
  Speaker 14: Okay, you're taking out the trash with a skeleton.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: Medusa totally had extensions. No, that was real fun.
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: It's uncalled for.
• 53:21
  Speaker 14: You'll rip that weave right out of her.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: Marisa is going to hear this and she's going to
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: come kick your ass and or turn it to stone.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: One or the other.
• 53:28
  Speaker 14: And the gravel.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Did you guys see the new Titan Tower?
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: No.
• 53:35
  Speaker 6: I'm pretty sure he had nothing to do with that one.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: So I have not seen it. I am such a
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: big fan of the original Clash of the Titans. And
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: I've gotten over where I'm not quite as bad about, oh,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: it's a remake.
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: I hate it.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: I've gotten to where there are a lot of good remakes,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: and I'm trying to approach them all as their own
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: thing now.
• 53:52
  Speaker 6: But that one just looked bad was my problem. It's
• 53:54
  Speaker 6: not that it was a remake.
• 53:55
  Speaker 14: It wasn't good.
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: It just looked like a bad CG-filled mess.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: It wasn't good.
• 54:01
  Speaker 14: Who was the guy who was in Avatar that Sam,
• 54:05
  Speaker 14: he was the star of Avatar, Terminator 4.
• 54:09
  Speaker 6: He was the big thing for a minute and a half.
• 54:11
  Speaker 14: He was in three major movies almost simultaneously, and then
• 54:15
  Speaker 14: he just disappeared. Because none of those.
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: Movies were very good.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: I think because he was computer generated and the computer
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: got turned off.
• 54:23
  Speaker 14: And they couldn't pay the electric bill.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: And we're done with you, Sam.
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: So, I don't know. Are you stop motion fans of
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: the old school?
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I have CGI fatigue like you would not believe.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: I love seeing something physical. I love seeing strings.
• 54:42
  Speaker 15: Love it.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Love it. And, you know, I think just the whole
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: fact that there are conventions like this, just the amount
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: of love that's given to that old school sci-fi effects,
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: special effects. I mean, people used to think, you know,
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: that years from now they would be laughing at it
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: because you can see the strings and shit. And it's just.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: It isn't that you can see the strings. The important
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: thing is that people are still looking at it.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: You know, there's just something about it. The amount of love,
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: the amount of imagination that you had to have to
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: figure out a way to make something look the way
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: it did or behave the way it did.
• 55:22
  Speaker 14: Well, and just your brain knows, well, it's getting to
• 55:25
  Speaker 14: the point now where it's hard to tell, but your
• 55:26
  Speaker 14: brain knows when something's real or something's not, the physics
• 55:28
  Speaker 14: of it, the weight of it, the gravity of it.
• 55:30
  Speaker 14: I mean, even if it's a model ship, it's real,
• 55:33
  Speaker 14: it exists, it, you have some sense of its matter.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: You know and i've always said that about most special
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: effects like even just practical effects you know like giant
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: monsters like i always said that with uh like to
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: me the best example was like the alien series it's
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: like alien is creepy anyway because there's a giant thing
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: sitting there and then you get to like the alien
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: and you've got a guy in a suit and and, like,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: they're physically in the room in Aliens. Like, you can
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: still feel them, like, crawling across the ceiling there, you know,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: ready to kill everybody in the room. By the time
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: you get to three, and the little, like, cartoon Jaguar
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: aliens jumping around, I'm like, it's cool. Like, it's interesting
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: the way that they progress the technology, but it's not
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: the same. Like, I still prefer it physically being in
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: the room. I think it's important and makes a difference.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know if this is a rumor or if
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: this actually happened. Didn't oh crap gandalf didn't gandalf throw
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: away a fit because he was trying to act on
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: a blue screen and there was no one else ian
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: mckellen he kind of had a he had a movie
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: meltdown if you will because he had nothing to work
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: with and.
• 56:44
  Speaker 14: He well that's got to be that's got to be
• 56:46
  Speaker 14: difficult so when you're trying to show any kind of
• 56:49
  Speaker 14: emotion to something it's just not there or if it's
• 56:51
  Speaker 14: a ball and a stick so you know you're looking
• 56:53
  Speaker 14: at something but But.
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: They were always kind of doing that. Like, that's the thing.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: Like, looking back at the stop motion stuff, like, they
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: kind of, and that's what amazes me is that they
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: could figure that out then. Like, when Harryhausen was doing it,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: they still had to figure out, like, I was watching, like,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: a behind the scenes thing. And they had, like, the
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: skeleton fight. They had these numbered guys that came in.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: and mimicked the exact fight, how it.
• 57:18
  Speaker 6: Was going to go.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, I never knew that.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: And then, well, so they do that first, then they
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: actually shoot it, and the guys mimic what they just
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: did with that person, and that person isn't there anymore.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: They're just pretending with air. They don't even get a
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: ping pong ball at that point. They just have to
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: remember how the fight was supposed to go. And then
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: at that point, Harryhausen's probably already been animating for months, years,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: and he has to go back in and work those
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: together and make those two look like a real.
• 57:45
  Speaker 6: image, and they always did. That's what's amazing.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: He didn't even have that much to work with like
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: they do now, and made it look amazing.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: Suck it up, Gandalf. Come on.
• 57:56
  Speaker 6: Man up.
• 57:56
  Speaker 14: I appreciate those guys who did that, because can you
• 57:58
  Speaker 14: imagine the mindset of somebody who does that kind of animation?
• 58:01
  Speaker 14: I saw this thing where they were doing the walkers
• 58:03
  Speaker 14: in Empire Strikes Back, and they were on a stage,
• 58:06
  Speaker 14: and basically they were under the stage, they set the scene,
• 58:10
  Speaker 14: then there's like trap doors, and And so they wouldn't
• 58:14
  Speaker 14: have to go around the stage. They could just kind
• 58:15
  Speaker 14: of come up right next to it, move it ever
• 58:17
  Speaker 14: so slightly, then duck back down, take the picture, come
• 58:19
  Speaker 14: back up. That's got to be exhausting.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Those pictures are amazing to see, too, because it's this
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: little landscape of Hoth and this big dude's head sticking
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: up out of the bottom of it.
• 58:29
  Speaker 6: I love seeing that kind of stuff.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: I think I also like it, too, because it gave
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: you limits. And, you know, Lucas, when he was first
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: going on about having CGI, back before Phantom Menace came out,
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: he was saying how, now I can do anything. You
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: need limits. Yeah, that idea. Limits really focus you into
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: being creative and being clever and keep you from just
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: going overboard.
• 58:53
  Speaker 6: It definitely makes you more creative.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: Like, when you hit that wall, you're just like, you
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: can either, okay, I can't do this at all, or
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: you have to find a way to do it.
• 59:02
  Speaker 6: And, like, that's... When you get super creative and super.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Artistic sometimes in the stuff that comes out of those
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: decisions that you're forced to make.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: Make so are we are we actually doing a a
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: recording now or are we yes or were we just
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: talking because i just i just had a uh cosplay
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: question i just had a cause cosplay question you know
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: we were talking about people We just had a Poison
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: Ivy walk by. A very nice Poison Ivy, I might add.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: We got the Stormtroopers walking around. There was a Gorn.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Why doesn't anyone ever cosplay as the guy wearing the
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: ping pong ball CGI suit? That'd be a great cosplay thing, man.
• 59:44
  Speaker 14: People are wondering, are they filming this right now?
• 59:45
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 59:46
  Speaker 6: Be hardcore.
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: This is a guy walking around in a black gimp
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: suit with ping pong balls glued all over him.
• 59:52
  Speaker 14: Is there going to be like a rancor through here
• 59:53
  Speaker 14: when I see this on film?
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 59:55
  Speaker 6: I think we've picked out your costume.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: Know what I'm doing for all week.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: So next time I think we see, that's what you're.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: Going to do.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: Because technically, I can be anything. Because whoever films me,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: they'll turn me. They could turn me into me. I
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: could be.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 14: I'll have your reference spots.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 6: Oh, no.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: Ghostbusters, forget it. I'm going as a reference.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 14: They're turning into you, only slightly taller or smaller.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: And we all just had our picture taken down at
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: the dewback.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 6: Like you do.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: And as we were talking, the dewback is actually a puppet. And,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: you know, you get a couple guys in there and
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: you can walk, walking around and move its head. It
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: made me think, is this a Trojan dewback? Is this
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: how the Imperials infiltrated, you know?
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 14: Yeah, two guys come in behind them.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: There wasn't much in Tatooine to want to take, really.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: It was quite a wasteland, really.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Well, the plan was just its tryout phases, you know?
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 14: Maybe they were liberating the slaves.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: That's how they got into Uncle Owen's farm.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 6: They're so good with the slaves on their planet.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 14: Yes, maybe the slaves were sneaking out. They were escaping
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 14: through the dewback.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: Jedis.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 6: Wait, it's the Dubac Railroad?
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 6: The Underground Dubac?
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 14: Since the Jedi's weren't going to do crap all to
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 14: help them.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 6: Underground Dubac's my new band name.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: I'm just waiting for the Lost in Space robot across
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: from us to actually start moving. I just feel like
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: it's probably been a costume this entire time and the
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: guy's just been standing there waiting.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: The guy goes, ha ha, your show's lame.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: Danger, danger.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: Now, I always confuse the Lost in Space robot with
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: the one from Forbidden Planet. Which is which robot?
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 6: That's Robbie the robot.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: That's Robbie's Forbidden Planet. It's Forbidden Planet.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 9: Okay.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 6: This one's just robot. Actually, he has, like, a numbered name.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: Lost in Space robot didn't have a name?
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 6: They just called him robot on the show. He has,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 6: what does it say on that package over there?
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: He's got a model number that he's, like, referred to as.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: But on the show, they called him robot.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: Now, I'm not talking out of school here that, like,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: Was there some sort of a copyright issue? Like, did
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: one steal from the other? Forbidden Planet was first, so
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: I suppose.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 6: But to me, Robbie looks very different.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, the arms are a little similar, but body-wise
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: and definitely the head is a very different.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing the Forbidden Planet one was better able to
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: pick up women, right?
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: As you do.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 6: If you're going by the poster, yes. But no, Robbie has, like, legs, too. He, like,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 6: sort of walks.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: I thought that they both had treads. I thought they
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: both had treads. Oh, okay.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 14: He's like Towerbot's great-granddad.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah. And as we're looking at the Lost in
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: Space robot, there's lots of lights going off and buttons.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: I don't see any USB ports on that thing.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 14: It's in the back.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: It's in the back, okay.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 6: You don't need to see where that is.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 14: You shouldn't probe.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 6: It's not polite. So, I don't know. Any other specific
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: Harryhausen-based stuff?
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't have mocked him if I knew that
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: we were recording.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 6: Isn't that how this always works?
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 14: This is a gentle mocking. The mic is always live.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 14: The gun is always loaded.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 6: That's how the rule works. The people on the show
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 6: learned that in a hard way.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: I thought there was like a little red light that
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: would come on and tell me, don't mock an icon.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 14: There's no little red light when the gun's loaded either.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: You know, I have to admit, because I grew up
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: without cable, I haven't seen a lot of the classic Harryhausen,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: like the Sinbad and all that. But I've always really
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: wanted to see the one with the sea monster one.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: Have you guys seen that? I can't even think what
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: it's called. Something like it came from 20 or something
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: like that. Have you seen that?
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: That one, I know, again, it's like his is the
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: main clip. So it's like, again, I don't know if
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: I've seen the entire movie. I've seen his version of it,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: like his scene... Many times over.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: The good part?
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 6: And was just kind of watching it.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: So the whole movie isn't just that monster?
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 6: That's the thing.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I've watched the entire movie now
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: that I think about it. So many of the other
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: ones I have, like the Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: like all that stuff I grew up watching.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 6: But I don't remember seeing that.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: Okay. Which of those two has the skeleton soldiers in it?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 6: Jason and the Argonauts.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: Did that one come first? Because one's a sequel, right?
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: I think it's Sinbad.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 6: I think it mixed it up.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: I think Sinbad was first, then Jason and the Argonauts,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: and then later they did more of the Sinbad moves.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Because they did at least three different Sinbad.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to have to Google that to figure
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: that out. And Clash of the Titans was his last one, right?
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think after that he was just kind of done.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 6: I mean, he was around until, you.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 9: Know, a year.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 14: I think after that it was probably the effects were
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 14: starting to move in a different direction.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah, from what I heard, he was not happy.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Like, he really was just not pleased with the way
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: that things were going and how everything was being run
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: by computers.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 14: Well, I think about that when, you know, models started
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 14: going out. It's like there was these people who were
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 14: just insanely talented things. at wonderfest it's kind of the
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 14: same thing yeah it's like there's this whole arm of
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 14: movie making that just kind of went away and to
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 14: movie's detriment i think.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah i mean again there's such a love for it
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: in the fans you know these kind of fans and
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: and people listening to the show are probably you know
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: it's it's a certain level of movie geek that like
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: it recognizes how you know like important that was and
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: how like painstaking that was and And there is something
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: to it that you don't get out of the CG
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: or anything that gets sort of processed through the computer now.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: And you know, the one sort of sci-fi genre that
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: probably would have looked great with stop motion is Transformers.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, that would have been perfect.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 14: That would have killed three stop motion anime.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: I already did that when I did my Super 8
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: movies when I was a kid. And I had my Transformers.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: I had Soundwave Transforming.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 6: It was pretty awesome.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and stop motion and Transformers were made to be together.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: And the CGI just.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 14: Well, it would have stopped them from being so damn
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 14: complex that you can't see what's going on, too.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 6: Not if Michael Bay had anything to do. I can
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 6: find a way to still make this complicated.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: You're saying that you didn't have your Soundwave have a
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: patriotic slow motion explosion when you were doing this?
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: It did, but there was also the reflection of the
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: American flag in his cassette tape deck area.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: How many cassettes did you have?
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 6: At least four.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: I had the Jaguar Panther thing.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, he was the best. I never had that one.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 6: He was the cool one.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 5: That was my.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 6: I had the.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: I think I had the bird that it came with,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: and I think I had one of the other ones.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 6: And then the little guy that was like the miniature version.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: I had the little... I can't remember which one because
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: the name, it was either Frenzy or... What was the
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: guy that would make the earthquakes? Earthquake? Could be. I
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: can't remember.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: But.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: It was like a purple and a blue one. And
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: on TV, the names were switched from what it was
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: in the package. So I can never remember which one
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: that I had. And I had one of the birds
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: and I had a bat. did they make a bat
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: yeah it was one of the later ones like a
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: set that turned into a bat and here's the thing
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: he didn't exactly fit into a sound.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: Wave you sure this wasn't like a knockoff no no
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: it was totally it was.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 6: Like go bot you were jamming into your.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: Sound so what i did like he was a little
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: bit too wide so i went into my dad's garage
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: and i got some of his automotive sandpaper and i
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: started sort of making the cassette a little bit narrower.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 6: That's why people should watch their children.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: I think my dad was really excited. He's like, oh,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: my son's going into the garage. He's going into the toolbox.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: He's actually getting some tools. Oh, my God. He's going
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: to learn to fix the car. What's he doing to
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: his toy? Oh, God.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 6: I did have a boy. I have no son.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 7: Oh, no way.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: I will tell you. I sanded that sucker down, and
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: that bat fit in the sound wave.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: I'll tell you that right now.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 6: I need to go find this bat now.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 14: Man.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: Kids, Google it and write into Old Uncle Conduit and
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: tell me exactly what transformer did I have, okay? Wait
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: a minute. I'm the repeater. You're the conduit.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, are you telling them to
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: email him?
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I don't have Facebook. I don't have Facebook,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: so contact Conduit.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 6: Conduit's the only responsible one.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: Tell Conduit to tell Brian.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 14: I'll know if it'll break Ben's heart or not.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 6: We have to filter all stuff through Ben. He's a
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 6: delicate flower.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 14: I will vet all information going to the repeater.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 6: It's for the best, really.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 9: Oh, Lord.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 6: So I think if we've gotten our stop motion out there,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 6: in the middle of that somewhere.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: You know, I've actually thought a good movie meltdown episode
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: for us to do together would be Wizard of Oz.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: Because when you think about it, it's one of the
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: first sci-fi movies ever made. and the model work the
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: I actually was I hadn't seen it in a long
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: time and I can't remember where I was, but it
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: was actually on a big screen TV. I'd never seen
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: it on a big screen TV. When I was a kid,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: it was always on our little 19-inch thing. And seeing
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: it on this big 56-inch screen, I was just noticing
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: how the backdrops were painted and how you could actually
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: kind of see how things were done. And it was neat.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: I just never really stopped to think about how they
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: made it in the.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 9: What was it, the 30s?
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah, 39.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 14: I'd have to see it again. I haven't seen it
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 14: in forever.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: It's still impressive on a lot of levels. Have you
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: guys done one on Wizard of.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: Not, no.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: Or is it sort of like a sacred cow? I
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: feel like.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: That with so many of them, but I'm like, to me,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: they're all up for grabs as long as we haven't
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: already done it. But it's funny when people pick, because
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: then I'll just kind of... sometimes let other people pick
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: it and they seem like they pick a big one
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: like that but they.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 6: Do it kind of half-heartedly. If you're not going to
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 6: put all... This is the only time we're going to
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 6: cover this. You need to cover everything.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's... Maybe it's one of these movies that's so
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: big you almost need to pick a specific topic for
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: it like like looking at wizard of oz with a
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: sci-fi effect frame of mind.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: Again we can do not like a full movie discussion
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: but do that as one of the other just like
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: general topic type discussions so they could be looking at
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: you know either that movie or just you know classic movie.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 14: Clever girl.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: The velociraptor just walked by and actually opened the door.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 14: Only three people were killed back there.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: It's amazing.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: Do you think a velociraptor can use a litter box,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: or do they have to take it outside for walkies?
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 14: They don't care.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 6: They do whatever they want.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 14: They crap where they feel like crapping.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 6: I think that does it. Otherwise, that about does it.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 6: We will return next week. Same geek time, same geek feed.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 6: Thanks for listening.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 15: Rain As of today I can't say things will ever
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 15: be the same And that could be a shame.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 11: Cause though I think I know Another lonely exile when
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 11: I see one.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 15: And you appear to be one.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: Still in there.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 16: Playing it down.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 13: Cause I could really.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 17: Be found if you've got a two-spin I'm playing it
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 17: cool but it's terribly.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 10: Cruel cause I ought to be.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 13: There Ray Ray.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 15: What can I say? You don't know me And.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 13: It's just wishful thinking.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 15: To keep myself from sinking And.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 13: Hence, no evidence.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 15: To support any theory I have handy That you could
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 15: understand me And.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 16: So I'm playing it.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 10: Down Cause I could really be found.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 13: If you've got it to spare.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 16: I'm playing it cool But it's terribly cruel Cause.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 15: I ought to be there Cause you're.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 6: As bad off as me.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 13: Rain, can we repay ourselves for days that we've.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 15: Lost our indecision? With one of recognition If so, then
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 15: here I go Cause.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 11: Some things you know.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 15: And some you just believe in I hope it comes
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 15: out even.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 11: I'm playing it.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 13: Down cause I could really be.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 15: Fine If you've got it to spare.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 10: It's terribly cruel, cause I ought to be there I ought.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: To be there I.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 10: Ought to be there.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 4: Wow, you got that DJ voice.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 7: I've done this before.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: K-Hits Live 104.2. You can do the George. You got
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 4: the little George swagger there.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 7: The George swagger? What's the George swagger? Oh, my. Oh, my.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: There you go.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 9: This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 9: edited by The Oddity Studios, with opening music performed by
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 9: The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 9: the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: Talk hard!