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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:02 Hi, everyone, and welcome back to "The Process."
00:07 On today's episode, we have "Poor Things" filmmaker
00:10 Yorgos Lanthimos with cinematographer Robbie Ryan.
00:13 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:16 Hello, Robbie.
00:22 Hello, Yorgos.
00:23 How come you're not in LA with me?
00:26 Well, I've got a day job.
00:29 So I'm doing something else.
00:31 All right.
00:31 I'm in Mallorca today.
00:35 It's quite a bit later than where you are.
00:37 So if I'm a bit sleepy, it's not because I'm not interested.
00:43 All right.
00:43 Let's-- let's start from the beginning.
00:47 So do you remember when you read "Poor Things,"
00:52 have I told you anything about it before,
00:54 or you just read and then we talked about it?
00:59 I think you told me in Venice--
01:01 do you remember we were screening "The Favourite,"
01:04 and I was asking you what you're doing next,
01:06 and you were kind of--
01:07 it was in your mind then to kind of move on
01:11 to doing "Poor Things," and you're going,
01:12 I think I'm going to do a film about a woman who wakes up
01:15 with her baby's brain in her head.
01:16 So I remember going, that sounds like a good idea.
01:21 Yeah.
01:22 That was a-- then you said-- that was like 20--
01:24 when was that, 2018?
01:25 So I don't think about it until 2019,
01:29 because I was in America at the time, I think.
01:31 And I remember the way you send scripts is by internet,
01:35 and you kind of have a--
01:37 it's like "Mission Impossible."
01:38 The clock starts ticking.
01:40 I know you can--
01:41 I know I can go and get it again,
01:43 but I just always feel like, OK, I'm going to read the script.
01:46 And yeah, I remember reading that.
01:49 And I remember writing it all down in a book, actually,
01:53 all the scenes, because it was easier for me
01:56 to remember it that way.
01:58 And I remember, after doing-- writing down all the scenes
02:02 and going, OK, that seems like a bit more--
02:04 that's quite mad.
02:05 That's mad, mad.
02:05 Then I remember doing a second strip where how many slaps
02:10 were in the film.
02:11 [LAUGHTER]
02:13 It was quite a high--
02:14 It was quite a high slap count.
02:16 Wasn't all the slaps.
02:18 I remember a script had a high slap count.
02:21 And then--
02:22 And did you read the novel as well?
02:25 Yeah, I think-- you told me not to,
02:27 but I think I snuck off and I bought the novel and I read it.
02:31 And I enjoyed that one.
02:32 I told that to everyone, and only Emma
02:35 has listened to me on that.
02:37 She's never read the book still.
02:40 She says she's never read it still.
02:41 But that-- she hasn't read it, yeah.
02:45 But that's because we took a different approach
02:48 with the script than the novel.
02:51 So I didn't want people to get confused early on.
02:56 And did I-- so in my mind, it was always
03:01 going to be a film in a studio, building sets,
03:05 and doing lighting for the first time.
03:10 Did that surprise you after you read the script
03:14 that we were going to do it that way?
03:15 Or had I told you before?
03:18 I'm just asking you to remind me how it went down.
03:20 I'm reminding myself as well.
03:21 I think it kind of really dawned on me when we went into doing--
03:24 remember we met in St. Martin's, and then I kind of saw
03:29 all the stuff that James and Shona were kind of--
03:33 they'd done a bit already, and then this
03:35 was kind of like where they were at.
03:36 And I just remember going--
03:38 I just-- I kind of found it overwhelming as to how that
03:42 was all going to be achieved.
03:44 And I just like went along with it.
03:45 And then I kind of maybe was in a bit of denial
03:49 that it was going to be quite like it was.
03:51 But I remember we went in, and we did the test day
03:55 in the first time we shot some tests.
03:57 And that was--
03:58 I was going, oh, wow, this is really--
04:00 this is-- I still can't quite get it in my head,
04:02 but this is going to be all done in a studio for real.
04:04 And I have no clue how it's going to be done.
04:09 Yeah, it was a while from the first time
04:12 we did the first test in London.
04:14 It took a while until we actually
04:16 shot more tests in Budapest, where
04:19 we ended up making the film.
04:22 It was April, wasn't it?
04:23 We started those in around March, April,
04:26 and then it was not until September, October,
04:29 we started-- well, September--
04:31 August, September, we did some more tests.
04:32 I think so.
04:33 Was it-- or was it even longer than that?
04:35 Yeah, probably.
04:37 And OK, let's talk about tests.
04:41 We did a lot of tests.
04:42 And I'm not good at those, am I, Jorgos?
04:45 Yeah.
04:46 I remember doing it, and you go, you
04:48 haven't done it at all the way I wanted to do it.
04:51 So that's just coming back to me now.
04:53 Well, it's complicated.
04:54 We have to say--
04:56 We did it again in Anne, and I got it wrong again, didn't I?
05:00 Tests aren't my forte.
05:02 You're better.
05:02 Aren't your strong suit.
05:04 But it's also complicated, because we're testing lenses.
05:08 We're testing film stocks.
05:11 We're testing formats, which we started doing all together
05:17 in the beginning, like in the initial tests.
05:20 But then it just had to become a test for each thing,
05:24 because then it became-- because otherwise it
05:26 became too complicated.
05:28 So--
05:28 Yeah.
05:29 Well, it felt like the tests for the first time in April--
05:34 let's say April-- were kind of just
05:37 to make the Ektachrome idea as well,
05:39 see where that was going to go.
05:40 And that was then decided upon there,
05:45 I think, that we would try it out.
05:47 And that was-- but then it was for you
05:51 to see the ship and stuff and the back projection.
05:54 That was a big part of those tests.
05:56 And I just remember that was--
06:00 looking back when we went to the grade
06:02 and looked at the Ektachrome, that was kind of--
06:05 that was a starting point that we kind of went
06:08 on that journey with that.
06:09 But I just remember a lot of lenses, a lot of cameras.
06:13 And then we did it all again in Budapest.
06:17 Yeah.
06:18 With lovely man from Jekyll.
06:20 Things changed--
06:22 They did.
06:23 --in the meantime.
06:25 And did we test black and white the first time around?
06:29 I don't think we tested black and white in the first tests.
06:34 No, I just shot some stills in black and white,
06:37 and we looked at that.
06:39 I remember it being a really messy test
06:42 because it was just so much-- it was a tiny studio,
06:44 and it was just--
06:46 it was full of gear.
06:47 And it just-- it felt like maybe we were trying too much.
06:51 But I don't remember any black and white.
06:54 That would have made it even more difficult.
06:56 But what-- so how did we--
07:00 how did we end up on the lenses that we're going to test?
07:04 When we ended up in Budapest and started
07:09 doing more specific tests about lenses
07:12 and we knew we wanted to shoot ectochrome,
07:16 we had the idea for the patchfalls.
07:18 You remember?
07:18 That was a big thing.
07:20 That was a big thing.
07:21 And that was kind of like trying to find--
07:22 because you wanted that-- the very shallow--
07:25 sorry, the very open aperture lens.
07:28 That was a Leica lens, I think, the 0.95.
07:31 That was sort of the beginning of that.
07:33 And then you're sort of-- you go, oh,
07:34 let's try these patchfalls.
07:36 And it was also the zoom gate.
07:38 Do you remember?
07:39 That was a part of the process.
07:41 We tested a lot of zooms.
07:44 Basically, it's optically impossible to get
07:47 the zoom lens you wanted.
07:48 But we went there, and we got--
07:51 We tried to modify lenses.
07:54 Remember those tests?
07:55 Talk about that.
07:56 Yes, I do.
07:56 No, no, I do remember that.
07:57 I remember we got in touch with--
07:59 because we were going through Ari in Budapest,
08:03 we were able to get in touch with this great technician,
08:06 Manfred Jan, who turns out that he was a very keen--
08:10 he loved that we were trying all this stuff out.
08:13 And he got so excited that he came and visited us
08:15 in Budapest.
08:16 And he brought his 765 camera with him.
08:18 Do you remember that?
08:19 So he kind of was really, really excited.
08:23 And we then saw that--
08:25 we kind of fed off of his excitement.
08:27 We said, Manfred, you've got to find a zoom lens.
08:31 It has to go from--
08:33 let's say it would give you 12 mil,
08:35 but if you can get a 10, it would be better.
08:37 But it's got to go from 10 to 12 mil to 200 or 180.
08:43 And he was so kind of like, yeah, yeah.
08:46 I've tried this.
08:47 And he basically had done some tests before.
08:49 And they have a thing called an aspheron,
08:53 which is you suddenly stick on the front of the zoom, which
08:56 in the--
08:57 it kind of does the opposite of what something like a doubler
08:59 would do.
09:00 It widens it.
09:01 But the downside of an aspheron on the front of a zoom
09:05 means it doesn't go as long.
09:06 So you might get a bit wider, but it
09:07 doesn't go very much longer.
09:09 So I think it kind of got to a 14 mil to 80 or something,
09:13 wasn't it?
09:14 It was like-- it was an 18 to 100 mil that
09:16 ends up being a 14 to an 80.
09:18 So you didn't win.
09:19 It was an impossible task.
09:21 It would have existed if it was possible.
09:24 So I remember-- I remember to kind of--
09:26 the code of that story was we went through every other zoom
09:28 was going.
09:29 And I remember-- I really remember vividly sort of saying
09:31 to you, you're not going to like this one.
09:33 This one's-- this one's really sharp.
09:36 It's master prime.
09:37 You don't like-- you know, there's
09:38 something about master primes you don't love.
09:40 You know, I don't know why I said that,
09:42 because you do like a sharp image.
09:43 So I don't really know where--
09:44 I was-- I was confusing it, as usual.
09:47 But it's a massive big zoom lens that's a 16.5 to 110.
09:53 And then we looked back at all the stuff,
09:55 and that was the one that we liked.
09:57 You like-- you said, that looks pretty good.
09:59 And it was good, wasn't it?
10:01 It was.
10:01 It was very-- like a workhorse.
10:04 We did a lot of zooming.
10:07 And what films did we look at?
10:10 We looked at Fassbinder films for--
10:13 especially the Michael Bauhaus ones
10:15 for the zooming and the tracking and--
10:18 Yeah.
10:19 --you know, those kind of things.
10:20 And I should do that in a-- with--
10:21 what's that one you showed us?
10:22 Yeah, there was one we watched more than others.
10:24 I can't remember the name.
10:25 But it was-- yeah, they are amazing,
10:27 like the zooming in them.
10:29 And it wasn't Fassbinder doing the operating on those.
10:33 No, it was Michael Bauhaus.
10:35 Was it him operating, though?
10:36 I don't know, you know.
10:37 I think so, yeah.
10:39 You always see pictures of Fassbinder on the camera,
10:41 like, oh, doing the zooms.
10:42 Well--
10:43 [LAUGHS]
10:44 Maybe that was--
10:45 He was doing the rehearsal.
10:46 But I think it was Michael Bauhaus that was--
10:47 Yeah, those zooms were--
10:49 but we did look at those a lot.
10:50 And yeah, I don't know if we matched them.
10:53 But we certainly got inspired by them.
10:55 So yeah, then I guess it was-- the rest of it
11:01 was the lighting of it, really.
11:02 The Petzvals, I guess, we had a bit of an issue with those
11:06 as far as I made a bit of a boo-boo with testing
11:10 with one set of Petzvals.
11:12 And they got sent away.
11:14 And then I was like, oh, yeah, we'll get-- just
11:15 get another set of Petzvals.
11:16 You go, what are you talking about?
11:18 Those are going to be totally different.
11:19 And they were totally--
11:20 [LAUGHS]
11:20 They were perfect, yeah.
11:22 I remember ringing the guy in TLS in Leicester and going,
11:26 you've got to sort this out.
11:27 You've got to get us another-- you've
11:29 got to sort of detune a set of lenses
11:31 and get it to us on time.
11:32 Like, this is three days before the shoot or something.
11:35 It was nervous.
11:37 But I don't know.
11:39 What's your thoughts on the final film?
11:41 Because there is a mixture of the ones
11:43 we kind of used the first time in the test,
11:46 where they're in that scene where she smashes the glass.
11:50 So that was the original Petzvals.
11:53 And they are very funky.
11:56 And then the ones we ended up using most of the time
11:58 had this sort of center focus, but everything else
12:01 going wide or blurry out in the back.
12:04 So in a way, you really did like the first one still,
12:08 didn't you?
12:08 Yeah, I did.
12:09 But I think in the end, it's part of that--
12:13 the part of the process where you're
12:16 going into so much detail.
12:17 And then in the end, how you actually
12:21 use it while you're filming, it just becomes this other thing.
12:25 And it's not as important as you thought that it would be.
12:29 Because there's so many different scenes
12:31 and different conditions.
12:32 And they react differently, like lenses or light or film stocks.
12:37 I think we thought that we got a hang of Exochrome or whatever.
12:41 And then we discovered that if you scan it this way,
12:45 then there's all this other information.
12:47 And if you scan it this way--
12:50 so in the end, you can test as much as you like.
12:54 But unless you actually start filming the thing,
12:58 it's never going to be--
12:59 you're never going to have all the information.
13:01 It's never going to be the same.
13:03 So I think in the end, you could interchange those lenses.
13:11 And then who would have known?
13:13 Only us, and if even so, it wouldn't be that.
13:17 It would be hard to tell.
13:20 I guess we should talk about what everybody
13:22 likes to talk about as the first question about the lenses.
13:25 And that's the wide lenses.
13:28 Everybody goes, talk to me about these wide lenses.
13:30 But we did use the 4 mil, which was an interesting new lens
13:34 in that wide aspect.
13:35 Yeah, this time around, I guess we
13:38 built on what we were doing with the favorite.
13:40 That was the idea.
13:42 And it kind of felt that the right film that we would
13:45 continue that down that path.
13:49 Because we've now made another film,
13:51 "And," which is totally different to the two films.
13:56 Still found-- I was hard--
13:59 that was just because that's hard to find
14:00 a wide anamorphic lens.
14:03 Well, that's not true, I think.
14:04 I think we consciously decided that we wanted to do something
14:09 different with "And."
14:10 After we kind of went through the whole wide angle,
14:17 fisheye kind of world, which fitted those films
14:23 and those projects.
14:24 And from the favorite to "Poor Things,"
14:27 we decided to push things further.
14:30 And I remember us having tested that wide angle lens that
14:36 created that circle in the middle with a black hole
14:39 around during the favorite.
14:41 And we thought it was too much.
14:44 And then we didn't end up using it.
14:46 And so now when we started testing lenses for "Poor
14:51 Things," we're like, what happened to that lens?
14:53 We couldn't even remember what the millimeter was
14:56 or what that lens was.
14:58 We never found it again.
15:00 So you came up with the idea of using a 16 millimeter
15:03 lens on 35, the 4 millimeter.
15:07 And it's a weird lens, isn't it?
15:11 Because it distorts, but it kind of gives you that vignette.
15:15 But it's not super bendy.
15:17 It's obviously kind of got a strange deep focus
15:22 that makes you kind of almost feel
15:24 like you could step into it.
15:25 And it worked.
15:27 I remember you were just like, this is kind of cool.
15:32 It was.
15:33 I really liked it when I saw the first test, especially
15:37 in those sets.
15:38 And the costumes and the atmosphere,
15:41 it just added so much to it.
15:43 But I didn't expect us to use it as much as we did in the end.
15:47 Like, it seemed-- we used it quite a bit.
15:52 Yeah, a lot.
15:54 I guess what we could talk about is the way
15:58 we built the language of how we shoot things from film to film,
16:03 but how we started in "Poor Things."
16:07 And there's a lot of things that we know and others
16:09 that we don't know and we'll learn as we go.
16:14 So how we tried to start shortlisting in "Poor Things,"
16:21 but it didn't last long, did it?
16:23 That was because you were sort of pressured by people above--
16:26 not above, but people who were thinking,
16:28 well, there's a lot of technical departments
16:30 would benefit from a storyboard or a shortlist.
16:36 You did do it in a favor a little bit.
16:37 I remember when we were in prep, you were writing
16:39 little drawings.
16:41 And that is what we should have done,
16:42 is just get you to do a very basic sketch.
16:46 And that could have been given to a lot of people.
16:48 But I just remember the storyboard guy coming in.
16:51 You started obsessing on the storyboard.
16:53 So it's like, this isn't quite exactly right.
16:57 It just took forever.
16:58 And I could see the guy just sort of thought
17:02 he had a hang on it.
17:02 And then he just wobbled.
17:03 And it just-- it was unnecessary.
17:06 And then it wasn't like some of the boards he did
17:09 didn't come out in the final bit.
17:10 And it became very confusing.
17:14 No, but I mean, the shortlisting for me and for us,
17:17 I think, in working together and how we did it in the favor,
17:21 it's more like trying to develop a language of what
17:28 are the ideas behind filming each scene.
17:32 So how are we going to do it?
17:33 What kind of shots do we want to do?
17:35 It's not necessarily to share it with other people.
17:39 And it kind of puts down a certain kind of grammar
17:45 that we can use.
17:46 But in the beginning, I mean, we don't really
17:51 know what we're talking about.
17:54 We have all these in theory, all these things about these shots.
17:57 And then you go there on the day.
17:59 And of course, everything changes.
18:02 I think we sat down in that room.
18:03 And I'd write down in a notebook what you were saying.
18:06 I was like, oh, this could be good.
18:07 We'll do a zoom here.
18:08 And then we'll do that.
18:09 And then it basically was the same in every scene.
18:11 So it was like, OK, I think we're just
18:15 going to go at it like normal.
18:16 And we'll generally go scene by scene when we're filming it
18:20 and figure it out.
18:21 And you had an idea.
18:24 I always say you got the lenses down
18:26 to a kind of finite amount.
18:28 So that was a big step in deciding on how
18:33 we're going to have a language.
18:34 And there's only so many ways you
18:37 could do with those lenses, I think,
18:39 without getting out of control.
18:41 And I think that was where the decisions were made.
18:44 Yeah.
18:45 And there was this other part of the process in poor things.
18:49 Like we thought that we're going to use a lot,
18:51 but we didn't in the end.
18:52 Remember that we had all these 3D models of the sets?
18:55 And we're thinking that we're going to go and do
18:58 screen grabs of various shots.
19:02 Yeah.
19:04 But that program was amazing, wasn't it?
19:07 Like the--
19:08 What's it called?
19:09 Unreal Blender or something?
19:11 Unreal Engine and Blender.
19:13 They're two different programs.
19:15 And Jonas and Antonio were great.
19:18 That was a great room to go into every day
19:19 and just see how the whole world was shaping up.
19:22 But that was mainly done for the ship.
19:24 And I remember it being very concentrated
19:27 on the ship in Alexandria, but not necessarily
19:29 so many of the other places.
19:31 Paris, not so much.
19:33 But did that help?
19:34 Like, because it's obviously it's your--
19:36 well, not obviously, but it is the film
19:39 with most sets and most lights that you've ever done.
19:42 And myself as well.
19:44 Gotcha.
19:45 I think that helps.
19:47 Yeah, how did you plan the lighting?
19:51 Did the Unreal thing help?
19:54 Or was it like plans and sketches?
19:57 No, I would get plans off James and Shona--
20:00 or James and Adam, actually.
20:02 Adam Mackin, he was the art director.
20:05 And he would be really kind and just go, oh, yeah,
20:08 here's as many plans as you wish.
20:12 And I'd just get one that was most basic.
20:14 And then I'd go, OK, I'd go in and I'd set--
20:17 I'd get onto my iPad.
20:19 And I'd just literally start--
20:20 I got really good at like, oh, I can duplicate this light
20:24 if I press this button.
20:25 And I'd be, be, be, be, be.
20:26 I just duplicated about 600 times.
20:29 And then it would work.
20:32 And yeah, then I would send those notes
20:34 to the riggers and the gaffers.
20:38 And they would then--
20:40 they were like always ahead of the game.
20:41 They'd be prepping all that stuff.
20:43 And I'd go in.
20:44 The great thing was we were in Arrigo Studios,
20:46 where you could walk in from one set to the other.
20:48 And you could see it being developed.
20:51 And you could talk about it.
20:52 And I always say that the toughest set for me--
20:55 I don't know if it was for you-- but was the Lisbon set,
20:57 because it wasn't close by.
20:59 And we had to do those long two-hour trips
21:01 to get to just even see that set.
21:04 And I always found that it was a complicated set anyway,
21:08 because it was going to be sunshine and bigger light
21:11 as far as an output.
21:13 And I found it was the difficult set, to be honest.
21:16 Whereas in Arrigo, you could just go in and watch it
21:20 develop and have it a bit more planned.
21:25 And I think, yeah, I drew a lot of drawings
21:28 with lots of lights.
21:28 And then I'd try and get them accepted
21:31 by all the other heads of departments
21:33 as far as production to let me do it.
21:36 And yeah, Lisbon was an expensive one.
21:40 Well, Lisbon for me as well was the most difficult one.
21:43 You think it was because it was far away or nothing?
21:46 That wasn't the point.
21:47 No, with me it had nothing to do with that.
21:51 With me it had to do with that it was the set that
21:54 needed most of extras, which was a tricky thing to organize
22:01 and create in a believable manner.
22:04 And believable, but also non-believable,
22:07 the same way that the film strikes
22:09 this balance of artificiality and realism
22:14 and also the fact that it's ironic, but the fact it was--
22:20 it's a huge set, Lisbon.
22:24 But at the same time, for what we needed to do,
22:27 it wasn't that big.
22:28 Like the fact that she needed to get lost and walk around,
22:32 it's huge as a set goes, but it's not an actual city
22:36 to get lost in.
22:38 So it was a bit of a head fuck as well
22:43 to figure out what her route would be
22:47 and how we would follow her and how we would film that
22:50 and making it seem like this was actually a place that she
22:57 would get lost in.
23:01 Yeah, I know what you mean.
23:03 There was a few little alleyways that we
23:05 were using a couple of times in different bits
23:07 that hopefully nobody would notice.
23:10 I know it felt like an amazing, amazing place to walk around,
23:14 but to photograph just seemed to be a little bit more
23:18 of a challenge.
23:19 I still kind of don't know why, but I just
23:22 think maybe it was what we were needing to do
23:28 was sort of at odds with what the set was in a way,
23:30 because the set just sort of became a bit overwhelming
23:33 as a theme park.
23:33 Like James always calls that one the theme park in the way
23:37 that not being so necessary for what we were trying to do.
23:42 And we had to kind of-- we were at odds
23:43 with each other about that.
23:44 I don't really know.
23:45 It was a tough one.
23:46 And I prefer to move on from that one.
23:52 Talk about something nice.
23:54 What was your favorite one?
23:55 What was your favorite set?
23:56 Favorite set?
23:57 I think Paris was my favorite set,
23:58 because it felt sort of like everything--
24:02 it was more containable, I don't know.
24:04 But it just felt like the snow helped a lot,
24:06 because it felt the most real indoor set for being
24:11 an outdoor set, if you know what I mean.
24:12 And the brothel, the bordello or brothel,
24:15 was just so beautifully made.
24:17 And it was sort of a bit later in the process
24:20 when it was near our end of our shoot, I guess.
24:22 And just that one, I just loved walking onto every day.
24:27 And it's kind of ironic, again, that we spent--
24:30 like, how much of the film is in bedrooms?
24:32 I think it's nearly 50% of the film.
24:36 I think-- but I kind of think that's the genius of it
24:38 in a lot of ways, that all of these--
24:40 most of the storytelling happens in bedrooms.
24:43 But you get this sort of beautiful kind of moment
24:47 where you're outside in the world briefly,
24:49 and then you kind of go somewhere else.
24:51 But that is the tease that works very well as kind of making
24:55 you imagine a bigger world out there.
24:57 I don't know.
24:58 Yeah.
24:59 I quite like the ship, I have to say.
25:02 We're looking back at photographs of that today,
25:04 because I was sending some pictures to the American
25:07 Cinematographer Magazine.
25:08 And it's amazing, that ship.
25:10 Yeah.
25:12 I don't know.
25:13 It's such a beautiful piece of art
25:16 to see that you get lost in that.
25:20 And it wasn't the easiest set.
25:22 I remember that not being the easiest set to work in, though,
25:25 because of the LED video wall and trying to light the deck.
25:31 I just have a bit of--
25:32 I like-- for some reason in my mind,
25:34 it's the sets that didn't have any major issues are the ones
25:38 I remember liking better.
25:40 But I remember my head being frazzled by the LED wall
25:45 and shooting on 100 Ektachrome, 100 ASA Ektachrome on a deck
25:50 where you had to have a lot of light to light that,
25:53 but then don't have any of the spill on the LED wall.
25:56 So you got the best out of the LED wall.
25:57 And I still get the shakes just thinking about that.
26:02 [LAUGHTER]
26:05 Inside was amazing.
26:07 Although the grip did not like--
26:10 I tell her the grip did not-- right from the get-go,
26:12 he was giving out about the corridors with the--
26:15 where she walks down to go into the other rooms.
26:17 Yeah.
26:18 Because they are ribbed.
26:19 It was like wooden, sort of very, very art-directed,
26:23 but not at all practical.
26:25 And from the beginning, that was his bugbear.
26:27 Even in the production meeting, I
26:29 think he was going on about that.
26:30 And I was like, it'll be all right.
26:31 It'll be OK.
26:32 And then we got to the set.
26:34 I was like, why is this so bumpy?
26:37 Well, he was right.
26:38 But I mean--
26:38 Yeah, he was damn right.
26:39 I should listen to him.
26:40 It did look good, though.
26:42 Both departments were right.
26:44 But what can you do?
26:45 Yeah.
26:47 When did the idea of VistaVision came into play?
26:50 And are we going to shoot something
26:52 in VistaVision in the future, is my question to you.
26:56 This is a very good question.
26:59 Well, let me go back to your first part of that question.
27:01 I remember I was filming the hybrid--
27:04 I was in a kind of animal park filming the little test we
27:10 did for the hybrid animals.
27:12 And you kind of go, why don't we shoot VistaVision?
27:15 I go, VistaVision?
27:17 I thought that was widescreen.
27:18 And you go, no, it's 166.
27:20 And I was like, is it?
27:22 And then I started getting all into it and reading up about it
27:25 and discovered this one camera, the Bocam,
27:29 from a company called Geofilm.
27:32 And yeah, they had it.
27:34 It was like a really basic camera, wasn't it?
27:37 And it kind of-- it shot VistaVision, which is--
27:41 I just cannot figure out why that never
27:44 stayed as a good format.
27:45 I think it just kind of timed out wrong as a format,
27:47 because Cinerama came in at the same time.
27:51 And that one-- or sorry, CinemaScope, not Cinerama.
27:54 CinemaScope came in and competed with it.
27:57 And just sort of like, because CinemaScope was that bit wider
28:01 and maybe a little bit easier to get to a widescreen sort
28:05 of aspect because of the way the anamorphic lenses squeezed
28:08 the image and all that, that made VistaVision just
28:11 fall off a cliff.
28:12 But like as a standard aspect ratio,
28:19 VistaVision is kind of the most beautiful format in a way,
28:22 because it's so--
28:24 the way it's still-- like the way 35 mil stills sort of--
28:28 I know you shoot on big format and all that, but 35 mil stills
28:34 is a beautiful sort of size.
28:36 And it works.
28:38 But then why VistaVision didn't continue that is just
28:45 because the technology didn't--
28:46 they didn't develop the cameras.
28:48 So we struggled trying to find the right camera.
28:51 And the only one we could get was this Bocam, which
28:55 is like a tractor, basically.
28:57 And you were like--
28:58 you were excited, and then you went, right, no,
29:00 I'm not having that.
29:01 [LAUGHTER]
29:03 I'm not going to shoot anything with this if I can't do sync
29:07 sound.
29:07 So it landed in us kind of deciding
29:11 on just trying it out for the reanimation sequence,
29:14 because there was no sync sound there.
29:16 And I love it.
29:18 I think it looks amazing.
29:19 And it mixes with the 35 mil very well.
29:24 But to answer your second part of your question, yes.
29:27 [LAUGHTER]
29:29 We should.
29:31 We should, absolutely.
29:32 But I just don't know.
29:34 I'm still-- I'm hoping to go to LA in the next month or so
29:37 to kind of chase that guy up.
29:38 And actually, after this, I'm going to ring up that guy
29:41 and talk to him again.
29:42 But that camera sounds a bit worrisome as well.
29:47 But you never know.
29:49 Let's do it.
29:50 Let's try it for sure.
29:51 It seems like maybe the next one possibly could--
29:54 Maybe the next one.
29:55 We're thinking about it.
29:56 Yeah, yeah.
29:58 We have something in the works that we can't talk about.
30:01 But--
30:01 [CLEARS THROAT]
30:02 It might be--
30:04 Yeah, like, I think--
30:05 I'll get onto your mind about it anyway.
30:07 Great.
30:08 Well, it was good catching up, Robbie.
30:10 And yeah, thanks, everybody, for watching.
30:13 And see you later.
30:16 Bye.
30:16 Bye.
30:17 [MUSIC PLAYING]
30:20 (upbeat music)