The School (Kitisenrannan koulu), Sodankylä, Midnight Sun Film Festival, 14 June 2012.
Q: WHAT WAS THE FIRST MOVIE YOU SAW?
A: Snow White or Cinderella.
I was an avid reader of comics, and Carl Barks was among the most intelligent of their creators.
I was a Saturday matinee addict.
My dad was a golf professional. He taught golf in country clubs.
I begged him to take me to see Tarantula, but he ended up watching it alone, because I was so scared that I escaped to the lobby, and the staff had to notify my dad that "this kid can't take it".
We lived mostly in New Jersey and the environs. We didn't go that far. New Jersey people tend to stick around. But one summer we went to Florida, and from our place a window opened to a drive-in theatre, where they played White Christmas. I loved Danny Kaye, The Court Jester.
Q: LESSONS IN THE CINEMA, LESSONS AT SCHOOL?
In essays on literature I often failed because I had seen the movie which was different from the book, for example The Body Snatcher by R.L. Stevenson.
I changed school a lot, got bullied. The bullies were big. It was ok with mathematics. Because of polio I had to take one year off school.
College is not about learning but about how to get along.
Education is important, and it is not getting the attention it deserves.
There used to be ten cartoons before the feature. As a kid I saw the cartoons, not the feature, which had adults, and women. The higher up the female actors were on the cast list, the more likely it was that I skipped the feature. Except films like It Came from Outer Space in 3D.
I became a movie addict. At school I was the only kid who spent every weekend at the movies.
Q: 3D
I have been active in arranging screenings of all existing 3D prints from the 1950s. 95% of the 3D movies of the 1950s I have seen. The technology was not as good as today, the dual print projection system with its projector jiggles is not completely steady. Digital 3D is completely steady. Avatar, Hugo, it's superior as a process. Dial M for Murder is one of the best 3D movies ever. Although the technology now is superior I'm not sure that the use has been surpassed. In the 1950s the use of 3D was getting better. People learned from their mistakes. Creature from the Black Lagoon was very good in 3D with planes your eyes can adjust to.
Q: JACK ARNOLD
He was a journeyman contract director assigned to studio projects. He toed the line and found his niche in science fiction. He was efficient in staging and made his movies on time. There were others like him, but his films were better. He became more famous with tv comedy like Gilligan's Island. But The Incredible Shrinking Man was his best, very existentialist, made with very little money, inspiring for me. From what you have make the best movie you can is my credo.
Q OM: JACK ARNOLD'S POLITICAL VIEWS
Jack Arnold saw science fiction little differently during the cold war. His were benign creatures, more like ET already, pacifist, as in Space Children. It was difficult to stand up to your personal view in a studio film, to slip in the messages, to get personal material in the margins.
Q: AT WHAT POINT DID YOU DECIDE TO MAKE FILMS
I was to become a cartoonist, which was "not an art". Yet storyboards resemble comic books, and film frames cartoon strips. I started as an editor, but editing is solitary. When I started to direct I discovered that I really enjoyed it at the set, taking ideas, and all of a sudden I was a director.
I was an EC kid. Horror comics of the 1950s were deemed too scary: the ghouls, the zombies. MAD started as a comics magazine, and I became an ardent fan. There was a healthy disrespect for authority.
Q: ABOUT ROGER CORMAN THERE ARE MANY STORIES...
... all true. His figure is that of such a patrician, clean cut, educated. He was a boon for people of my generation. Most movies then were union movies. Corman produced movies for drive-ins, for grindhouses, with as little money as possible, and he found a roster of amazing talent, "the Corman school", who are now the pillars of the industry. His motto: "if you make a good movie you don't have to work for me anymore". Studios weren't blind, and they discovered Coppola, Bogdanovich, actors like Tommy Lee Jones. There was a whole lot of people in a little space.
Q: EDITING THE MOVIE ORGY
With Jon Davison we put together a 7 hour compilation of everything that was funny from 16 mm prints, chopped up.
I was working in Corman's trailer department. We were getting the dailies and making dupes of them for trailers. If the movie didn't work we changed the title, changed the trailer, and the same movie was shown again in grindhouses.
The Movie Orgy belongs to the 1960s, to the era of happenings.
We rented a Batman serial of 1943 with 15 chapters, 6 hours, silly, dumb, funny, cheating with the cliffhangers. We rented them, mixed up the reels and organized crazy events.
In The Movie Orgy we had 5-6 stories mixed up, with even some of the same actors showing up in different pictures. It was anti-military, this was the era of the Vietnam war. The Movie Orgy became very popular, and it was sponsored by Schlitz beer. It lasted quite a while, but then Schlitz started to propose things like introducing The Flintstones.
Q: EVEN RICHARD NIXON'S CHECKERS SPEECH WAS INCLUDED
Yes, and military commercials, announcements from draft boards
Q: ROGER CORMAN
I was a fan of his movies, and probably the only one from the Corman school who knew and admired his movies before I worked with him. We got along. I didn't drive. When I brought him my first trailer I dropped the reels into a manhole and was late for the screening in L.A. "If I were you I wouldn't be late for a screening": that was as angry as he gets. There was a women in prison movie, I made some changes, and the movie made money. "Who's the kid?" he asked.
The films could be ambitious for the budget, for movies done quickly. You had to learn the shortcuts, how to set up a dolly track, avoid reverse shots. The time between "action" and "cut" is what matters. The worst thing that could happen was a slow cameraman. We exposed a lot of film in a day.
Q: APPRENTICESHIP AS AN ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
There were no assistant directors in Corman's movies.
Excerpt: PIRANHA
The opening shot is the worst I have ever shot.
Q: HOW WAS IT? Cold and dark. But I enjoyed this. Q: THIS WAS TEN YEARS AFTER THE MOVIE ORGY. I made a lot of trailers in between. Q: CHILDHOOD, TOYS. All movies are political. My movies tend to be social. Of course, the screenwriter was John Sayles. Q: CHILDHOOD. I have not grown up. Directors can be children, and act like babies. It's important never to lose the childhood perspective, the sense of wonder. My credo: I never make a movie I wouldn't go to see. I was offered to direct The Flintstones (again The Flintstones), but I didn't want to do it. As for the producer, you need to cast the director.
Q: YOU TAKE THE CONCEPT OF GENRE SERIOUSLY
I like genre films. There is a lot of room for commentary. It is often more effective in a genre picture than in a picture with an overt message. It is better to slip it into the story. The march of the dead soldiers...
Q: ... FROM J'ACCUSE
Yes. They call it hommage, but it's stealing. It was not really conscious.
Q: DO YOU ADVISE FILM STUDENTS TO SEE A LOT OF MOVIES
No. With modern technology it is now easy to make movies. Honest, compelling movies about one's own lives.
Q: VIETNAM
During WWII a lot of movies were made with war propaganda. The Vietnam war was more controversial, nobody wanted to touch it with exceptions such as A Yank in Viet-Nam. Then, there was The Green Berets by John Wayne. Later it was discussed more critically in movies such as Go Tell the Spartans, but even previously indirectly in films such as Ulzana's Raid. But usually, audiences stayed away.
EXCERPT: THE HOWLING
Rob Bottin created the special make-up effects. Now it is all done with computers. The Howling was very well received and even noticed by Steven Spielberg who sent me the script of Gremlins. It started as an Amblin project with not too much money, but then it became a studio picture with a budget of 10 million dollars. I also got to direct a Twilight Zone episode.
Those were B pictures with an A budget. Now all A movies are B movies, serials, comics, cheap stuff, that is now mainstream. Forthcoming is another remake of The Lone Ranger, coasting on memories of memories.
Independent movies are often about family, about dysfunctional families. All very insular.
Q: YOUR FAVOURITE 1930S HORROR MOVIES
It changes daily. Bride of Frankenstein, Island of Lost Souls, The Black Cat. In the original Dracula the slow motion is creepy. The Browning version is heavily cut. In the Spanish version the actor is no Dracula. You get to see more of the sets in the Spanish version.
Q: HOLLYWOOD
I have been pretty much outside, not part of the inner circle, but I have done that a bit, too. Hollywood is not even a place anymore, movies are almost never shot there. The studio lots are mostly burned and bulldozed. The business is completely different. It has been quite a sea change.
I'd like to work more, but the whole business has changed. Now they raise money with your name. The productions are packaged and developed with no pay. Directors have to audition to movies. That is what you need to do if you want to make the movie.
Q: COMEDY
In the 1950s comedy you literally didn't know where it was going to go. Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Abbott & Costello, Bob Hope breaking the fourth wall, The Court Jester. Even Bob Hope had anarchy, addressing the camera, it was very stimulating. Hellzapoppin'. Frank Tashlin started as a cartoonist, directed Martin & Lewis and Jerry Lewis solo. The Martin & Lewis tv shows had even more anarchy than their movies. That was a variety act developed in nightclubs and brought then to live tv, doing shtick, ad libbing, running over schedule. Sometimes they actually had to cut the sketch. In the comedy there was the contrast of the straight-laced and tweaking everything.
Q: STRAIGHT-LACED / ANARCHIC IS A MAJOR DYNAMICS IN YOUR MOVIES
The 'Burbs is about suburbia, and David Lynch is working in that area. A lot is unconscious in movies.
Q: A MOVIE IS AN ATTEMPT TO PUT YOUR PSYCHE ON THE SCREEN
I turn down movies I don't believe in. You have to keep your personality.
To Be Or Not To Be is a black wartime comedy on a serious subject.
Q: YOU ARE A MOVIE COLLECTOR
In the 1960s there were a lot of 16 mm prints in circulation. I started with The Gamma People. The collection grew into 750 films, and I shared a vault. That was the pre-video era. Now it is a critical time to keep projectors, bulbs, and spare parts. We are doomed to stockpiling bulbs. A lot of films such as Ski Patrol only exist on 16 mm. Studios don't know where to find films. And there are the orphan films. Studios have been routinely destroying films. They thought they were a thing of the moment.
Q: HOW DO YOU SELECT MOVIES TO YOUR COLLECTION
Some of them are my favourite movies which I can see 10, 15, 16 times. I screen them to different groups of friends. We band together, we trade. Movies in my collection include Holiday, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Red River, Rio Bravo, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Mario Bava movies, and Italian Westerns.
My website Trailers from Hell! is a mini-film school about movies you didn't know exist.
With the digital revolution there is access to more than ever. The trick is nobody knows what they are. It's a double edged sword.
EXCERPT: GREMLINS (the meta-cinematic scene with the gremlins taking over the projection booth)
That was a very difficult scene. They said the audience would walk out, but it got the biggest laugh. "We just don't understand you".
Q (FROM NOW ON OM ALONE): MATINEE
It was about the William Castle thing. Q: MORE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. The room is filled with my stuff when I was a kid. It is pretty accurate, true to the day. Also the scene with the usherettes, the monster movies, the 1962 atmosphere, the Cuban missile crisis. The film-maker was someone like William Castle. The music is terrific.
Q: SCRIPT TO SCREEN
I used to have John Sayles on the set for the movies he wrote, and he wrote a couple of new scenes.
But nowadays, "if it ain't on the page, it's not on the stage".
Q: WERE YOU HAPPY? Matinee is not really my childhood. I had polio and had to stay in bed for a long time. I had just one brother, and when I took him to a monster movie he ran away in terror. He was too young to see The Curse of the Werewolf. Later he opened a restaurant. New Jersey people tend to stay. It's good for the Sopranos. There used to live a gangster down the road. When cars rode past we used to think, "who's in the trunk?". Lots of guys got subpoenaed.
Q: YOU HAVE NEVER DONE A CRIME FILM
I love The Asphalt Jungle, The Killing. Most of a director's projects don't get made. Multiply the movies on a director's filmography by three. Those didn't get made. Sometimes a production is cancelled within two weeks before the shooting date.
Q: MOST MISSED? The Termite Terrace about Chuck Jones and his circle. Never write a movie with cartoon characters, because then you are bound to the studio which owns them.
A great project would be about Roger Corman making The Trip, but he is too smart to allow that.
Q: LOONEY TUNES BACK IN ACTION
Chuck Jones was a friend of mine. That production was difficult, complicated and expensive. It took one and a half years to make, one year for editing. In post-production the producers were no longer happy with the jokes. In animation voices cue the movement, and dialogue is hard to replace. We did whatever we could, losing faith, changing many things, shooting new stuff. "We have to protect ourselves" they said. It was a headache. Going to the studio every morning to argue, that's not the way to do comedy. Movies get literally made by committee. "If they use my suggestion, I'll get a bonus". Q: IT HAS THE BEST USE OF THE TASMANIAN DEVIL. Endangered in Australia. Q: THERE IS A DEPTH OF FEELING. Courtesy of a good voice actor
Q: WHAT NEXT?
Who's got the money? It's all about the money. You need five films you are working on. I'm working on five films right now, deals for movies which may never get made.
EXCERPT: MATINEE
POSTSCRIPT: DESERT ISLAND MOVIE. AFTER THE MORNING DISCUSSION WE ASKED JOE DANTE SEPARATELY THE TRADITIONAL FINAL QUESTION ABOUT THE DESERT ISLAND MOVIE.
Once Upon a Time in the West
Q: WHAT WAS THE FIRST MOVIE YOU SAW?
A: Snow White or Cinderella.
I was an avid reader of comics, and Carl Barks was among the most intelligent of their creators.
I was a Saturday matinee addict.
My dad was a golf professional. He taught golf in country clubs.
I begged him to take me to see Tarantula, but he ended up watching it alone, because I was so scared that I escaped to the lobby, and the staff had to notify my dad that "this kid can't take it".
We lived mostly in New Jersey and the environs. We didn't go that far. New Jersey people tend to stick around. But one summer we went to Florida, and from our place a window opened to a drive-in theatre, where they played White Christmas. I loved Danny Kaye, The Court Jester.
Q: LESSONS IN THE CINEMA, LESSONS AT SCHOOL?
In essays on literature I often failed because I had seen the movie which was different from the book, for example The Body Snatcher by R.L. Stevenson.
I changed school a lot, got bullied. The bullies were big. It was ok with mathematics. Because of polio I had to take one year off school.
College is not about learning but about how to get along.
Education is important, and it is not getting the attention it deserves.
There used to be ten cartoons before the feature. As a kid I saw the cartoons, not the feature, which had adults, and women. The higher up the female actors were on the cast list, the more likely it was that I skipped the feature. Except films like It Came from Outer Space in 3D.
I became a movie addict. At school I was the only kid who spent every weekend at the movies.
Q: 3D
I have been active in arranging screenings of all existing 3D prints from the 1950s. 95% of the 3D movies of the 1950s I have seen. The technology was not as good as today, the dual print projection system with its projector jiggles is not completely steady. Digital 3D is completely steady. Avatar, Hugo, it's superior as a process. Dial M for Murder is one of the best 3D movies ever. Although the technology now is superior I'm not sure that the use has been surpassed. In the 1950s the use of 3D was getting better. People learned from their mistakes. Creature from the Black Lagoon was very good in 3D with planes your eyes can adjust to.
Q: JACK ARNOLD
He was a journeyman contract director assigned to studio projects. He toed the line and found his niche in science fiction. He was efficient in staging and made his movies on time. There were others like him, but his films were better. He became more famous with tv comedy like Gilligan's Island. But The Incredible Shrinking Man was his best, very existentialist, made with very little money, inspiring for me. From what you have make the best movie you can is my credo.
Q OM: JACK ARNOLD'S POLITICAL VIEWS
Jack Arnold saw science fiction little differently during the cold war. His were benign creatures, more like ET already, pacifist, as in Space Children. It was difficult to stand up to your personal view in a studio film, to slip in the messages, to get personal material in the margins.
Q: AT WHAT POINT DID YOU DECIDE TO MAKE FILMS
I was to become a cartoonist, which was "not an art". Yet storyboards resemble comic books, and film frames cartoon strips. I started as an editor, but editing is solitary. When I started to direct I discovered that I really enjoyed it at the set, taking ideas, and all of a sudden I was a director.
I was an EC kid. Horror comics of the 1950s were deemed too scary: the ghouls, the zombies. MAD started as a comics magazine, and I became an ardent fan. There was a healthy disrespect for authority.
Q: ABOUT ROGER CORMAN THERE ARE MANY STORIES...
... all true. His figure is that of such a patrician, clean cut, educated. He was a boon for people of my generation. Most movies then were union movies. Corman produced movies for drive-ins, for grindhouses, with as little money as possible, and he found a roster of amazing talent, "the Corman school", who are now the pillars of the industry. His motto: "if you make a good movie you don't have to work for me anymore". Studios weren't blind, and they discovered Coppola, Bogdanovich, actors like Tommy Lee Jones. There was a whole lot of people in a little space.
Q: EDITING THE MOVIE ORGY
With Jon Davison we put together a 7 hour compilation of everything that was funny from 16 mm prints, chopped up.
I was working in Corman's trailer department. We were getting the dailies and making dupes of them for trailers. If the movie didn't work we changed the title, changed the trailer, and the same movie was shown again in grindhouses.
The Movie Orgy belongs to the 1960s, to the era of happenings.
We rented a Batman serial of 1943 with 15 chapters, 6 hours, silly, dumb, funny, cheating with the cliffhangers. We rented them, mixed up the reels and organized crazy events.
In The Movie Orgy we had 5-6 stories mixed up, with even some of the same actors showing up in different pictures. It was anti-military, this was the era of the Vietnam war. The Movie Orgy became very popular, and it was sponsored by Schlitz beer. It lasted quite a while, but then Schlitz started to propose things like introducing The Flintstones.
Q: EVEN RICHARD NIXON'S CHECKERS SPEECH WAS INCLUDED
Yes, and military commercials, announcements from draft boards
Q: ROGER CORMAN
I was a fan of his movies, and probably the only one from the Corman school who knew and admired his movies before I worked with him. We got along. I didn't drive. When I brought him my first trailer I dropped the reels into a manhole and was late for the screening in L.A. "If I were you I wouldn't be late for a screening": that was as angry as he gets. There was a women in prison movie, I made some changes, and the movie made money. "Who's the kid?" he asked.
The films could be ambitious for the budget, for movies done quickly. You had to learn the shortcuts, how to set up a dolly track, avoid reverse shots. The time between "action" and "cut" is what matters. The worst thing that could happen was a slow cameraman. We exposed a lot of film in a day.
Q: APPRENTICESHIP AS AN ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
There were no assistant directors in Corman's movies.
Excerpt: PIRANHA
The opening shot is the worst I have ever shot.
Q: HOW WAS IT? Cold and dark. But I enjoyed this. Q: THIS WAS TEN YEARS AFTER THE MOVIE ORGY. I made a lot of trailers in between. Q: CHILDHOOD, TOYS. All movies are political. My movies tend to be social. Of course, the screenwriter was John Sayles. Q: CHILDHOOD. I have not grown up. Directors can be children, and act like babies. It's important never to lose the childhood perspective, the sense of wonder. My credo: I never make a movie I wouldn't go to see. I was offered to direct The Flintstones (again The Flintstones), but I didn't want to do it. As for the producer, you need to cast the director.
Q: YOU TAKE THE CONCEPT OF GENRE SERIOUSLY
I like genre films. There is a lot of room for commentary. It is often more effective in a genre picture than in a picture with an overt message. It is better to slip it into the story. The march of the dead soldiers...
Q: ... FROM J'ACCUSE
Yes. They call it hommage, but it's stealing. It was not really conscious.
Q: DO YOU ADVISE FILM STUDENTS TO SEE A LOT OF MOVIES
No. With modern technology it is now easy to make movies. Honest, compelling movies about one's own lives.
Q: VIETNAM
During WWII a lot of movies were made with war propaganda. The Vietnam war was more controversial, nobody wanted to touch it with exceptions such as A Yank in Viet-Nam. Then, there was The Green Berets by John Wayne. Later it was discussed more critically in movies such as Go Tell the Spartans, but even previously indirectly in films such as Ulzana's Raid. But usually, audiences stayed away.
EXCERPT: THE HOWLING
Rob Bottin created the special make-up effects. Now it is all done with computers. The Howling was very well received and even noticed by Steven Spielberg who sent me the script of Gremlins. It started as an Amblin project with not too much money, but then it became a studio picture with a budget of 10 million dollars. I also got to direct a Twilight Zone episode.
Those were B pictures with an A budget. Now all A movies are B movies, serials, comics, cheap stuff, that is now mainstream. Forthcoming is another remake of The Lone Ranger, coasting on memories of memories.
Independent movies are often about family, about dysfunctional families. All very insular.
Q: YOUR FAVOURITE 1930S HORROR MOVIES
It changes daily. Bride of Frankenstein, Island of Lost Souls, The Black Cat. In the original Dracula the slow motion is creepy. The Browning version is heavily cut. In the Spanish version the actor is no Dracula. You get to see more of the sets in the Spanish version.
Q: HOLLYWOOD
I have been pretty much outside, not part of the inner circle, but I have done that a bit, too. Hollywood is not even a place anymore, movies are almost never shot there. The studio lots are mostly burned and bulldozed. The business is completely different. It has been quite a sea change.
I'd like to work more, but the whole business has changed. Now they raise money with your name. The productions are packaged and developed with no pay. Directors have to audition to movies. That is what you need to do if you want to make the movie.
Q: COMEDY
In the 1950s comedy you literally didn't know where it was going to go. Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Abbott & Costello, Bob Hope breaking the fourth wall, The Court Jester. Even Bob Hope had anarchy, addressing the camera, it was very stimulating. Hellzapoppin'. Frank Tashlin started as a cartoonist, directed Martin & Lewis and Jerry Lewis solo. The Martin & Lewis tv shows had even more anarchy than their movies. That was a variety act developed in nightclubs and brought then to live tv, doing shtick, ad libbing, running over schedule. Sometimes they actually had to cut the sketch. In the comedy there was the contrast of the straight-laced and tweaking everything.
Q: STRAIGHT-LACED / ANARCHIC IS A MAJOR DYNAMICS IN YOUR MOVIES
The 'Burbs is about suburbia, and David Lynch is working in that area. A lot is unconscious in movies.
Q: A MOVIE IS AN ATTEMPT TO PUT YOUR PSYCHE ON THE SCREEN
I turn down movies I don't believe in. You have to keep your personality.
To Be Or Not To Be is a black wartime comedy on a serious subject.
Q: YOU ARE A MOVIE COLLECTOR
In the 1960s there were a lot of 16 mm prints in circulation. I started with The Gamma People. The collection grew into 750 films, and I shared a vault. That was the pre-video era. Now it is a critical time to keep projectors, bulbs, and spare parts. We are doomed to stockpiling bulbs. A lot of films such as Ski Patrol only exist on 16 mm. Studios don't know where to find films. And there are the orphan films. Studios have been routinely destroying films. They thought they were a thing of the moment.
Q: HOW DO YOU SELECT MOVIES TO YOUR COLLECTION
Some of them are my favourite movies which I can see 10, 15, 16 times. I screen them to different groups of friends. We band together, we trade. Movies in my collection include Holiday, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Red River, Rio Bravo, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Mario Bava movies, and Italian Westerns.
My website Trailers from Hell! is a mini-film school about movies you didn't know exist.
With the digital revolution there is access to more than ever. The trick is nobody knows what they are. It's a double edged sword.
EXCERPT: GREMLINS (the meta-cinematic scene with the gremlins taking over the projection booth)
That was a very difficult scene. They said the audience would walk out, but it got the biggest laugh. "We just don't understand you".
Q (FROM NOW ON OM ALONE): MATINEE
It was about the William Castle thing. Q: MORE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. The room is filled with my stuff when I was a kid. It is pretty accurate, true to the day. Also the scene with the usherettes, the monster movies, the 1962 atmosphere, the Cuban missile crisis. The film-maker was someone like William Castle. The music is terrific.
Q: SCRIPT TO SCREEN
I used to have John Sayles on the set for the movies he wrote, and he wrote a couple of new scenes.
But nowadays, "if it ain't on the page, it's not on the stage".
Q: WERE YOU HAPPY? Matinee is not really my childhood. I had polio and had to stay in bed for a long time. I had just one brother, and when I took him to a monster movie he ran away in terror. He was too young to see The Curse of the Werewolf. Later he opened a restaurant. New Jersey people tend to stay. It's good for the Sopranos. There used to live a gangster down the road. When cars rode past we used to think, "who's in the trunk?". Lots of guys got subpoenaed.
Q: YOU HAVE NEVER DONE A CRIME FILM
I love The Asphalt Jungle, The Killing. Most of a director's projects don't get made. Multiply the movies on a director's filmography by three. Those didn't get made. Sometimes a production is cancelled within two weeks before the shooting date.
Q: MOST MISSED? The Termite Terrace about Chuck Jones and his circle. Never write a movie with cartoon characters, because then you are bound to the studio which owns them.
A great project would be about Roger Corman making The Trip, but he is too smart to allow that.
Q: LOONEY TUNES BACK IN ACTION
Chuck Jones was a friend of mine. That production was difficult, complicated and expensive. It took one and a half years to make, one year for editing. In post-production the producers were no longer happy with the jokes. In animation voices cue the movement, and dialogue is hard to replace. We did whatever we could, losing faith, changing many things, shooting new stuff. "We have to protect ourselves" they said. It was a headache. Going to the studio every morning to argue, that's not the way to do comedy. Movies get literally made by committee. "If they use my suggestion, I'll get a bonus". Q: IT HAS THE BEST USE OF THE TASMANIAN DEVIL. Endangered in Australia. Q: THERE IS A DEPTH OF FEELING. Courtesy of a good voice actor
Q: WHAT NEXT?
Who's got the money? It's all about the money. You need five films you are working on. I'm working on five films right now, deals for movies which may never get made.
EXCERPT: MATINEE
POSTSCRIPT: DESERT ISLAND MOVIE. AFTER THE MORNING DISCUSSION WE ASKED JOE DANTE SEPARATELY THE TRADITIONAL FINAL QUESTION ABOUT THE DESERT ISLAND MOVIE.
Once Upon a Time in the West
No comments:
Post a Comment