Ashton Hertz - DoP - Exec Producer

Joining me this week, Ashton Hertz

Ashton is a senior creative producer, photographer and videographer based in London, England with over 12 years experience, working across film, brand and experiential projects. I know Ashton through a mutual friend, we have known of each other for about 10 years but this is the first time we have had a proper chat. 

Tom Cruise BFI interview

Ashton's Instagram

Ashton's Website

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My film Reel Terror:

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to Your Life and Film. I'm your host, Ted Bennett, joining me this week. Ashton Hertz. Ashton is a senior creative producer, photographer, videographer. She's worked in the industry for over 12 years. I know Ashton through a mutual friend, and we've known of each other for for about 10 years. But I'd say this is the first time we've ever had a proper sit-down chat, and uh it was joyous. She makes some good choices, and we both geek out on films for a bit. It's a nice one. So uh yeah, enjoy. So yeah, so what are you working on currently? Have you got anything that you're at the moment?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

So I went freelance about a year and a bit ago, so it's been a bit of a mix of stuff. Um after that kind of nine-month contract, I'm taking a slight break, but then I'm doing some personal stuff. So I'm shooting a short film next week, um, which should be good. And then doing some like photo shoot stuff.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

So is that your first short narrative?

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Uh no, I've done some bits before, but this is like kind of uh a bigger a bigger like practical job. It's kind of like the uh kind of the gist of it is around like you know, kind of like inner demons kind of thing. And there's the I ha I'm working with someone that's like a prop like makeup artist. She's done like a whole like full outfit like for this creature kind of thing. So yeah, it should be good. It's just getting timings right with you know, s the studio studio, the set, sorry, yeah, and like all the makeup that's involved with that kind of like prosthetics and stuff like that. So it should be good. We'll see. And then what are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_03 1:37

You're gonna do like festivals afterwards with it?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Potentially, yeah. There's a couple of things because it's kind of very focused on like girlhood and kind of growing up in the 2000s and stuff like that. So there's a couple different exhibitions that are coming up at the minute so that we're gonna thinking of kind of more get because it's it's quite short, it's gonna be like two, three minutes, just kind of doing like snippets and seeing where that goes. Okay. Yeah, go from there.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

So I um I'm a judge for a film short film festival in North Carolina. Um when it's done, like send it over and I'll like get Mark to sort of be like, hey Mark, like get this going, and then you know, it'll be fun. I had my film showed there a couple of years ago and it was uh a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

So yeah, like I went, it's so random.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Oh, like it can I've never been to North Carolina, but Wilmington, North Carolina, I have been to and I loved it. It was like the first place in the US where my short got shown. So like I had my premiere there, and then it turns out Wilmington's where they shot like blue velvet, uh they shot all of Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill, like everything used to get shot in Wilmington, and then it went over to Atlanta, and now it's coming back to Wilmington.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

So much in Atlanta. All the Marvel stuff is there, or was there at least when I was doing Marvel stuff, but yeah, yeah, crazy.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

It's weird how it's like these little towns that you don't expect, you know, like oh, this is where everything is shot. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Do you know why? Tax tax reasons.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Tax breaks, yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Lovely tax breaks. That's what a lot of European stuff is all being filmed in Malta.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Because uh in Malta, there used to be a big casino and gambling kind of thing, and there used to be like tax write-offs for that, and then it got too a bit too mafioso, so they've turned into the film industry.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

Which is not mafioso at all.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah, it's good like famously very not corrupt. Yeah, and there you get the films get 50% tax rebate if on their entire project if they shoot in Malta. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Fucking shoot some shit in Malta.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

I know, right? Just basically do it for free.

SPEAKER_03 3:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

I mean at a state at a certain point.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

At a certain point. No, uh, we've got a short like in the works, like and I it's set in a therapist office. And um during my therapy session the other week, I was saying to my guy, I was like, uh, it's a short, you know, set in a therapy office. And I just looked around and I looked at him with eyes raised, and he went, You can if you want.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

And I was like, Yes! Free set. Yeah. Slow in, be like, I've been with you for four years.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

Surely that's paid for some of this.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

100%. That's commitment.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

But it's good, it's good, it's good. All right, that'll be fun. It'd be fun to do a like so I guess for the listener, they don't know what you did. Um, you've hinted at doing stuff for Marvel. Uh I remember you told me you used to put the uh flash effect at the tip of the gun for Fast and the Furious films.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Yeah, that was that was a good muzzle flashes, adding them in. I remember um so yeah, basically I've kind of done a bit of a bit of a really roundabout career kind of through art department and VFX and you know, the whole the whole nine yards in that sense. And uh when I worked in kind of more traditional VFX pipelines, it was very much like sitting in calls with people in LA being like, cool, well, we're doing the new Fast and Furious, and you know, we want the game and the movie to tie in. And the ride currently uh currently has you know not enough guns, and we need more bombs in it. And it's like okay, taking the notes, like okay, more bombs. And then kind of like you know, you get the I think with a lot of jobs and stuff, you have like the kind of stress of certain things, and it's like kind of taking a step back sometimes. I'm like, this is so silly. But yeah, so uh more recently, kind of doing a lot of art department stuff and then motion graphics in films, whether that's like kind of in set builds and then in VFX as well, and kind of a bit of a mix of the two.

SPEAKER_03 6:00

And because correct me if I'm wrong, you did the um like the map on the table in June, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we did that.

SPEAKER_03 6:10

That's good stuff as well. Like there's something about all of those bits which I'm when when people sort of say like VFX and all that kind of stuff, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's actually the really smaller things that I'm always like, oh, but yeah, actually they're the more interesting bits because someone's had to fully figure out the mapping of something, and then a ship coming in, and you're like, oh yeah, someone's had to design that, draw that in, and yeah, so good.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Yeah, it's interesting because I think it's like when you VFX can be such a a blanket kind of term, and you know, there's so many studios and so many people doing different things, but you know, there's there's kind of the compositing level of VFX, which is the main thing, like with people when people talk about AI, doing jobs and stuff like that. That's kind of the thing that's like it's integrated into every program now. But there's a huge part of it, which is just more design-led, and working like the Dune project was a good example of that. And it's like, you know, we were I worked directly with Denis Villeneuve, um, and then kind of you know, seeing what he what he didn't like and then what he did like, and kind of you know, I worked with a designer in the studio I was at at the time, who was a huge Dune fan, and then he ended up kind of you know letting people go off on a tangent a little bit, and he like created a whole Harkin alphabet that that never existed, and like all these kind of intricates like that you wouldn't really know, but like the director knows, yeah, and you know, like if if you really kind of zoom in on it, like you'll it makes sense. It's that it's attention to detail on that kind of thing that like yeah, really does make a difference.

SPEAKER_03 7:41

It's that silly thing of like in Futurama, there's a whole different alphabet, and it's yeah, you can translate it and then you can read it, and if you can read it, there are actually like little funny in jokes, and you're just like, I love that all of you gave a shit. And like I translated the alphabet at one point so I could read a few of the jokes. And it's just those little things where it's like, I love that this isn't an art like a throwaway, like, oh, that kind of looks like kanji, that'll do. It's like, no, no, no, like let's let's actually do this, and yeah, I love all that. But it's I I I met the storyboard artist for um Deadpool versus Wolverine or whatever the last one is.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yeah, yeah, whichever one.

SPEAKER_03 8:18

Yeah, whichever that one was. And uh we were watching, we were like at a screening of Throne of Blood in Austin, and like we were just chatting away, and he was telling me that like all those um variations of Wolverine, he said they came from him because he likes the comics. So when Sean Levy was just like, oh, we'll just have like different variations of Wolverine, he was like, Oh, so kind of like uh this from Weapon X or this from Days of Fitch Past. He was like, Um, I don't know those, so you put them in. So he drew like this is this would be a cool scene, and like this could be a cool scene, and then that's what got translated into the film itself. And I thought that's it's so good when it's someone who cares manages to get their like little two cents in, and then they're like a bit in. There we go, let's use that. Yeah, it's great, it's great.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Yeah, I think, yeah. I mean, I worked on uh, and this was a kind of a project that was pre-production, so it was a lot of stuff we built on set, and then in post as well, and it kind of went over the the two parts of COVID. We started pre-COVID and then lockdown happened, so it was a bit of a nightmare in the end. But um, this is one that the Batman, the Matt Reeves one.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Oh, nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

And I we were doing I we did the Batcave set, and then you know, we did a whole set for uh Gotham PD, which is never which we didn't make the cut, uh, because the final film was like four hours long, and that was like really delivered to a four-hour cut. And Warner Brothers were like, this can't, like, not everything has to stay.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

But and there are certain things like that. Like, I know, like, you know, we I would get called in to go on set and sit with the production designer and Matt Reeves and be like, just watch YouTube videos of like really specific local TV from like New York 1 TV or like LA news channels from like the 2000s to make the fake news that was in the Batman.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

And fun fact, the newscasters that are in the movie are actual newscasters from those local TV stations because he wanted it to be like oh that's like people that are like, yeah. So it's like all but but like we had to make a full TV set within the within the movie that was like a functioning TV set, and it's like all like fake weather, and it's all these places that you wouldn't really recognize, but it's like you know, the ticker tape and stuff. Yeah, yeah. I love all that.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

I love all that and and like when when I was um making my last short, like I sat down with my guys, my actors, and they sort of said, you know, like uh let's talk, and like I just sort of asked like little background histories and like what was the first film you went to as a kid, you know, like and all that as a character. And then like none of it's gonna get used in the film, but if I know you know it, then like you're if you deviate from the script in any way, or if you do a look, you know it's a look because of a memory that isn't real, and it's like I we we don't need everyone to know that we know, we just need you to know, and then because you believe it, it becomes so much more real. And it's the same. Like if you've got like this little film TV thing, if someone looks and goes, like, I think I know that newscaster, you're gonna go, Yeah. Oh shit, wait, oh oh, is this a news? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

It's it's so good. Yeah, I do you know what a good example of that, I went to the um Wes Anderson exhibition that they have at the Design Museum in London, and obviously Wes Anderson's quite known for his like attention to detail. And there was a bit that I saw for in Rushmore, uh, the inside of Jason Schwartzman's jacket that he wears kind of throughout the movie.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Apparently there was like internal patches and things for different clubs that he was meant to be a part of, and only Jason ever knew that that was a thing, but it was like a really key thing that he made sure was a part of, you know, so he had it for his internal character, but no one actually ever sees it. And I think it's a thing, you know, especially with like onset graphics and stuff, uh which can be seen as kind of like you know, set dressing or fluff a little bit. It really does help, like I think, an actor to get the best kind of if they feel immersed in their situation, rather than like, you know, Guardians of the Galaxy was all green screen. It was like no set build, nothing. I, you know, worked on Avenue 5, which is a TV show, or Mondo and Nich TV show, and they built it was three floors of a spaceship. So when the actors went in and they were on like, you know, the bridge of the ship, they actually felt like they were on a spaceship because all the screens worked and they were able to kind of do everything and like mess around with the keyboards, and it gets a better it's uh it's only beneficial for everybody in the long run.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

100%. Yeah, 100%. Sorry, it sounds like a fucking rocket ship taken off outside. Um yeah, like I I remember when I was a kid watching them like the behind the scenes of Attack of the Clones, and it was like Sam Jackson asking George Lucas, like, how big is it and where's it coming from? And then he's acting and doing it, and I'm just like that doesn't that doesn't work. Like, I want to see someone genuinely shocked. I want to see someone like that I think the fact that in Alien no one knew that the chestburster scene was gonna happen, so their reaction is real, and I don't know if that is true, but that's the story that goes out there, and you're like, Well, that's the genuine reaction, whereas now, oh, they're just gonna pretend like something's square and they're gonna fall back in this thing, and you're gonna be like, Oh no. But yeah, if a bit of blood hits you and you're not expecting it, you're gonna go, you know what I mean? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

And it I think, yeah, it needs it, it needs it. It that's the classic one where I mean, just one of my favorite movies is Texas Chainsaw, and that's a kind of another thing, if it was real or not, who knows? But like the scene when they're at the dining table, and like when they cut her hand and they were using weren't getting the right reaction, and then the director took off the tape and actually cut her hand, and that's what like the really freaking out reaction.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

I'm like, it's bad, it's bad, it is good, but but it is good, it wasn't a forgotten piece, like everyone knows that.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

No, I I I I was thinking that about what was it, like Sean Penn was talking about, you know, like oh Sean Penn's really problematic and stuff, and it's like, yeah, but if he was a normal guy, you wouldn't get a Sean Penn performance. So sometimes you've got to have the weirdos to make it right.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

A hundred percent. There's a re Tom Cruise is far and away my favourite actor, and I think it's because he's a bit of a nutcase. And if he wasn't, if he was very normal, that would be boring.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

He'd just be too safe, and there'd be nothing to it. Yeah, I I'm glad you're a fan of Tom Cruise because I love Tom Cruise. I I hope we're we're we're post this Tom Cruise's uh a weird lunatic, and I hope we're all back in back in the realm of like Tom Cruise is one of the biggest champions of cinema. I love him.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

He's so good. Yeah, he's amazing. His interview he did it the I was really sad to miss out on tickets, but he did an interview for at the BFI from when it was like the last mission possible that came out, and you they posted it on their YouTube channel, and it's amazing. I recommend everybody watch it. He's just he loves everything about making movies so much, he's so passionate about everything. And there's a whole bit that he does about when he went to the pitch to work it on um Magnolia with Paul Thomas Anderson that's amazing. So definitely, definitely watch it. Definitely watch it.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

And and so topical, like Magnolia, with like all of the fucking Manosphere stuff that I know it's it's still still relevant. That film, it's so good.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

It's an amazing, amazing movie. I yeah, I told somebody to watch it for the first time, you know, a couple weeks ago, and they were like, What? Like no, just it's it rains frogs.

SPEAKER_03 16:11

Just lock in, it's fine, just like like I watched it um what was I watched it like last year, I think, and my buddy my buddy has a like a cinema in his house. Yeah, so like we we watched it on a big screen, first time I'd seen it on a big screen, and there was just that like afterwards just being so content with like like I just had a big meal. I was like, oh yeah, that's that's a fucking film. That's a fucking film. That's almost perfect.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

How they make it. That's how they fucking make it.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

And I get really annoyed now. Like, I don't think like I'm look- I the reason I'm looking over there is um I'll I'll show you because no one ever believes me. No, they do. Um I'm currently like I've only got a couple away, but I'm getting all of Paul Thomas Anderson films like so I can then sit through and watch them all again. I just need punched up and one battle.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

Um and I just like he doesn't he's so good. He's so good because he doesn't appeal to the 25-year-old general market. He appeals to the adult, and there aren't adult films made anymore. Like every film is to just like can a 15-year-old like it and can a 50-year-old like it? Yeah, that's all we need. Exactly. And you're like, what about a lovely drama? You know, what about a bit of like a Mike Nichols film where it's like they don't, they're not, they're not it it's a it could be a 12, but they're not interested in a 12-year-old audience. It's just no, I mean it's it's rare.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

I was thinking of this the other day, and I it's like it's rare to see a rated R, I mean that's American, but like uh 18, yeah, I guess it is over here, film anymore. And people will the directors or you know, studios or whoever will often cut things out to make it more palatable for most audiences. The Batman, the the one I worked on, was meant to be an 18. He had written it to it was a lot darker when the original script and everything like that, and a lot of what Warner Brothers cut was to make it so it was more accessible. But I think in doing that, you know, one, it kind of dumbs down everything, uh and it just makes it so like you know, you kind of lose I'm not saying the Batman has wider meaning or anything, but it loses a bit of the kind of what makes it special. Um it's it's interesting. I think oh sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

No, no, you go, you go, go.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

No, I I was I worked on not the very last one, but dead recording part one, uh, Mission Possible. And he's never gonna hear this, but uh uh Christopher Quarry is the director, and he is a special character in the sense that he's like the audience are idiots. The audience don't know what they want to see, so I have to you have to kind of show them what they want. And I personally think that that's kind of what a what a sad way to live and to make your craft in a way that you're just kind of doing it for the sake of doing it. Like, you know, it's you know, I get what he means in the sense that like you it's for something something that's so global that is played in every country all over the world, you want to make it so it's everyone, whatever language it is, it doesn't have to be localized or anything like that. Fine. But also there's a level of that of like people aren't if you bait if you call if you make people idiots and they're gonna be idiotic. Like, do you know what I mean? Give people a chance a little bit to kind of make their own.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

I it's that that wonderful men in black line, people are dumb, but an individual is smart. It's like exactly so. If you want to say an audience is stupid, yeah, sure, an audience as a whole just wants to graze on popcorn and be like entertained, but each and every single one of them is going to be taking in their own individual experience from watching that film. Exactly. So if person A didn't get the subtle nuance, but they loved the big explosion, but then person like B loved that subtle nuance, then they've both enjoyed it for different reasons, and that's the beauty of art. Like it's yeah, but then again, the difference between films and movies and art and cinema, it's like Yeah, are you watching a film because it's just enjoyment, or are you watching it because you want a piece of cinema?

SPEAKER_00 20:49

And it's like, well Yeah, exactly. You know, but I think and it can be both, so that's a thing. It can be both, yeah. I think a lot of people are well, I think a lot of studios in 2026, because of all the strikes that we've had and everything that's happened with all the madness in the past like two years, they are playing it safe to a point that things will become very boring very quickly.

SPEAKER_03 21:19

So sanitized that you are so sanitized, paint by numbers and not even enjoyable. It's not like at the end you go, oh, a penguin. You go like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I saw this was a penguin from the fucking first thing. Come on.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Exactly. And it's you know, there's the classic thing in like media marketing where it's you know people will not like something because that they've but they already know what the IP is and they'll go to see it anyways, rather than an uh a new story or something like that. And I think, you know, it's in the end they're just gonna lose money and it will be to the Indies to kind of take everything back over.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

Well I am hoping that we get there again. Because it's it's the it's my favorite two periods of Hollywood cinema are the Hollywood Renaissance in the 60s and 70s and then the 90s like Hollywood independence, and that's when the studio pushed it a bit too far, and some other people were like, I got some stories. Give me a tenth of that budget, and I'll give you a story. And then you get fucking gold, and I'm just like, Where where are we almost there again? Like, I thought we were getting that way. I thought we were with horror. I thought we were almost there with horror, but it feels like the studios have grabbed onto horror and now we're in a bit of trouble. I don't know if we're going the right way.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

With sinners being the Oscars and things like that, and like even with I was surprised to see I can't remember the actress's name, so forgive me, but um the she was up for best supporting actress for weapons.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

Oh yeah, um Amy Magnon?

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Yes, sure. Colour, color, color so bad with names. Um and you know, I think it's good, but also it's like is that it's this the this is the now what we're kind of I don't know, it feels a bit like oh you guys love the substance and we didn't do anything for that, but like here, how about this kind of thing? Like I didn't think weapons was alright, it wasn't making it. It was fine. It was fine.

SPEAKER_03 23:25

It was it was fine. I was bored. Like I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

All right, so I went to watch it in the summer because I had broken my ankle and I had nothing else to do.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Uh so yeah, it was enjoyable for that, but there was like random AK-47. I was like, are you trying to do like what point are you trying to make? Is this meant to be about school shootings?

SPEAKER_03 23:50

Like for if you said um we didn't always know what we were doing, we were just shooting.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

And no shit. Yeah, like that.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

And I'm like, is this news to fucking anyone, my guy?

SPEAKER_00 24:03

No, yeah. Fucking hell.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

And also, how can you give us the barbarian and then give us this and be like I know I'm just gonna and then people always figure it out, guys. I hate it. It also annoys me where it's like, buddy, you're not so in with the studios that you can fuck around yet. And if you burn them, other filmmakers are gonna get burned in the future. Like if you just wing it and see. It's like, no, no, no, no. Like Cameron can wing it, fucking man can wing it, Spielberg can wing it, but you people that have money to burn, right? Like Russo brothers, let them wing it. Like, but you fucking lock it in, man. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Yeah, that's uh I saw something uh kind of in that same vein yesterday or today that there's gonna be a long legs 2 coming out, and I'm like, for what reason?

SPEAKER_03 24:57

Yeah, why there's no fucking meaning, yeah. One and done works, man.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Oh god, anyways.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

Also, I wasn't that big of a fan of long legs.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

I the first two minutes I was like, yes, this is great. And then I was like, oh, okay. The trailer is fine.

SPEAKER_03 25:18

Trailer, I was like, give it to me.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Title sequence, title sequence was beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

As soon as we got into that film, I was like, oh.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

And I love a weird cage.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

Like there's nothing better than a weird cage, but yeah, like this was unnecessarily just I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

I don't even know how they're gonna do a second of that.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

Like, it's in the same world, they say. They say so it's not a sequel, but it's in the same world, and you're like, Right, well, it's enough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

We have enough worlds. We have enough worlds.

SPEAKER_03 25:49

We've got like don't have to make a franchise on every fucking thing.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Jeez Louise drives me mad.

SPEAKER_03 25:58

I will say one last one last uh bitch fest about something. Um I don't understand how Sinners won best original screenplay when it's from Dust or Dawn.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

It is basically yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

You know what I'm saying? Like I think it's good that Brian Kugler won it because it'll now encourage more studios to finance films written by you know people of colour.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah. But it's not the original fucking story. I this is so when that movie came out, and I was like, I was like, oh, like the way that they marketed it, and I kind of get what they were doing with like kind of like keeping it, you know, a bit secret, yeah. Like what the the what the thing was, but then I was like, oh everyone's like this has never been done before. I was like, Yeah, it has. It has, and fucking well. And I was like, it's it's not a bad movie, but I was like, I don't think like I think you know, let's let's not let's not get ahead of ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Let's not let's not give it 16 Oscar nominations because it's not that film. All right?

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Hey, what the Oscars do is I I make no peace with.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

Yeah, yeah, genuine. I mean, I wouldn't care about the uh how how I say it is I don't care about the East Grinstead Regional Fireplace Awards. So why should I care about the Oscars? That's got nothing to do with me, that's got nothing to do with me.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

It's not my place.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

It's not my place. So there's been some good uh you know, from from the people you've mentioned already, I I can tell that we're in good company here for films and stuff. But what was the first film that you saw uh at the cinema? Or the theatre, as you would say.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

The theatre. Um do you know what? I was thinking about this, and it is movies, movies, cinema, has been such a intrinsic part of my life from before I can remember. So it is I know I went to the movie theater when I was very, very young. So I can't I know there's something that I'm probably missing. The one that I think is the most impactful that I do remember was of course the 1995 classic The Lion King. Um that was life life-changing. Life-changing for me. My I remember my mom crying at the intro.

SPEAKER_03 28:17

I cried and my grandmother said, What are you crying for?

SPEAKER_00 28:21

It's emotional. I was like, the dad's dead. It's sad as shit. Too much. Uh yeah, that one I remember, I remember it's like everything kind of in my life at that time. Like it like was so kind of overtake this everything, which you know, which is I think like A24 are doing that well now that it's like the really integrating movie merch into everything. I remember very, you know, vividly seeing it and then wanting to be in the Lion King, everything about it. I remember very much there was uh one of my parents' friends who I had a crush on and I was five, like getting got me a Lion King backpack and I was in love. Like beautiful, great, amazing movie. But yeah, it's it's always it's always the ones that stick with you.

SPEAKER_03 29:11

I also like the thing when you were saying about um like wanting to be sort of in it and everything, like in that world and everything. And I and I remember that as a kid, like I we left um the 101 Dalmatians remake, and I remember like leaving that being like, yeah, I'm that's happening, but I'm here, so we're in the same world, and like I wonder if I could I could see Ponga, like I wonder if I could see the dog, like I wonder if I see him and I meet him. And it's I loved that that moment from leaving the screen to like getting in the car and going home, where that's slowly just drifting away, but for those moments, you're like, I'm still there, I'm still enjoying it.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Yeah, still like this is gonna be my personality for the next seven to ten days. Yeah, like and it's gonna be. I will. Yes, exactly. Yeah, a lot of the Disney ones that had uh that was a big one for me growing up, but so have you have you since gone to uh the Serengeti? I have not, I haven't. Okay, can't say that committed. No, not that committed. I did so this is a bit of a random. My mom is an animal behaviorist, and and she used to work on in Napa Valley in California. There was uh a um wildlife park that I used to work on there with my mom when I was like 11, 12. Sick called Safari West, and my mom was researching lemurs and Okapi, which are a type of antelope. And and that was the closest I got.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

But yeah, that's not not ever been to uh to an actual you know lion encounter.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Yeah, they I tell you what, they teach you quite a lot of Swahili in that film, just through like just through general the songs, the names, you like you know more Swahili than you think, so you'd you you'd sit right in there, you'd be fine.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

I'd get along great, yeah. And you know what? Me and the the wildlife probably like this.

SPEAKER_03 31:13

You know how to deal with them.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 31:17

Um so you mentioned like Disney films and things. Like what was the film that you watched over and over again as a kid?

SPEAKER_00 31:25

I mean, so I was very much, you know, my parents were quite young, so I had a lot of their kind of old VHS tapes um when I was growing up. And so there was a lot of I was thinking about this recently. I weirdly re-watched a lot of movies from the 70s and a lot of like the old, old Disney. Um, you know, I had my like my mom's original Cinderella and like my granny still has like the original Pocahontas like blister case VHS, and I was like, that's probably worth something.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

However, even though I was you know obsessed with all of these kind of things, the one movie that I broke the tape uh because I watched it so many times every day, and this is a bit rogue, but it's uh Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. And if you haven't watched that movie, it is brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 32:24

I love that fucking film. It's so good. It's so good.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

I got very drunk recently and made my husband watch it with me, and I was like, no, but wait, he turns into a robot. No, no, no, it's sick, it's sick, it's sick. You should watch it. It's really good.

SPEAKER_03 32:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

I I watched that film to death. I had my parents had to buy another one. And it's just so good. Everything about it, I think it weirdly, I think, like, you know, in terms of what I like to make as like art-wise, I see so many influences in that in the weird claymation kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

I was gonna mention the claymation. I love the claymation stuff.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

The weird people that are like the super fans that are like their faces are kind of melting, as like a five, six, like four or five-year-old kind of a random movie to like and it's kind of terrifying in a lot of bits, but like, yeah, love that. Great movie.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

When we were kids, we had that, and we also had this video about Ardman animation, but like it would have the um sledgehammer music video that they did. Yeah, and like I watched a lot of that as a kid because it was just like, oh cool, I'll put these on. And like, because of that, like claymation to me is such an art form that I'm like, I I respect it too much that I I could never do it because I've seen only the greats, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, uh that's the thing. It's like the amount of I am very much a neurodivergent person that would get so frustrated on trying to make something like that that for like four years. I did a um music video where we did kind of not claymation, but stop motion. And we did it over two days, and it was fine, but no, not in the I had to I had to take coffee breaks online. Yeah. It's a lot, it's a lot of patience that is needed for that. So yeah, I respect I respect the craft very much.

SPEAKER_03 34:26

And in a similar sort of like neurodivergent way, like my brain operates on one of two, which is either hyperfocus and we're gonna have to learn about this exclusively, or what do you mean I can't do this perfectly from day one?

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah, oh 100%.

SPEAKER_03 34:42

And it's like, but I'm I'm artistic and I can create. What do you mean I can't do this?

SPEAKER_00 34:47

And if I can't, then it sucks. And it's the that it's that its problem, not me.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

It's a stupid process. I wanted to learn I wanted to learn guitar. And someone said to me, like, it was cursing my partner. She was like, what like where do you want to go with that? And I was like, well, if I can be as good as Keith Richards within about six months, I'll be happy.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Six. Yeah, point.

SPEAKER_03 35:07

She was like, sorry, you want to be as good as Keith Richards in six months. I was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll just practice every day.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

That's a if anything, that's a healthy timeline. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 35:19

And uh I'm I'm not I'm not. I'm no I've had I've had guitars for over decade now, and I'm still no good at it.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Do you know what? It's the moment hasn't come yet. You need the it needs to be the moment of perfect inspiration.

SPEAKER_03 35:33

I'll pick up that guitar and I'll be like maybe sick.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

Yeah, just like and now Wonderwall.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

I think if I played Wonder Wall, Kirsty would just be like, you can fuck off, mate. Yeah, just done. Yeah, considering I think she said yesterday she was like, I don't want to work, I just want to sunbathe and listen to the is it Napalm Death and Melvins did like a joint album or something?

SPEAKER_00 35:57

They did, they just shared drum kit.

SPEAKER_03 35:59

She's like, I just want to listen to that and sunbathe. And I was just like, Yeah, Wonder Wall's not the one for you.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Same. I mean, hey, Woman After My Own Heart.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

Well, there we go. With um with Moonwalker. So were you a Michael Jackson fan growing up?

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Huge, gigantic, it's so weird that like it just didn't seem like you'd be a fan of anyone else at that age.

SPEAKER_03 36:24

You're just like, no, I like Michael Jackson. He's so good.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

I liked Michael Jackson to the point like I bought, I remember I had all his cassette tapes. God, I'm really showing my age. All his cassette tapes, like I was obsessed, obsessed, obsess. I made my like thriller, I had I love thriller, but then when I was four, I was also scared of the zombies. So I would listen to it, but I would hide under the tape. That's like a family thing. It's like, oh, she'd hide under the table, but she made us play it four night times on the clean. I know what I like, but yeah, brilliant. And then it's it's kind of you know, there's a new Michael Jackson movie coming out. I'm not gonna go watch it and for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, I've seen some of the people that are going to watch it and are just crying, and I'm like, okay, let's get over ourselves. Yeah, let's let's stop. And also, it looks like half AI, but like the makeup looks so bad. Yes, it's really rough.

SPEAKER_03 37:22

Like so whenever I've seen stills, I'm always just a bit like that's not real, is it?

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Like it's uh the variety Instagram shared like a side by side of like my this is Michael Jackson and this is how it is in the movie. And I'm like, that's not a good comparison.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

Yeah, you're like, I can tell which one's Michael.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Yeah, it's like this isn't if this is meant to sell it, it's not doing a good job. But yeah, so more power to him. But when um I'll say I'll stick with Moonwalker.

SPEAKER_03 37:50

We had uh I think we had the video of Thriller, like a villa video of Thriller. So I was very early shown that video a lot as well. Um and apparently that's like my mum and dad's song because it was on the radio the dad my the night the night my dad asked my mum out, like he was painting or something, he was he said like oh do you want to go out? Because they lived uh he they lived in like a three-story house, and um mum moved in below him, and like I tell you what, it's the Bennett boy way, like Kirsty is is an old neighbour, and my brother's wife I think was either a neighbour or he worked with us, like proximity like us Bennett boys don't want to go too far away, you know. We're like you, you're alright, you'll be that works. Um so like dad dad asked mum out, and then like she said yes, and then he has this chair that he he had, and there's paint flicks on it, and because that was when dad said, like, do you want to go out? She said yes, he had a little like dance to Thriller and flicked his paintbrush, and there's like mum. Oh wow. So dad's like so thriller's kind of our song. And when we were like watched the video, I was like, This is excellent, but this is terrifying, like the yeah, real real scary stuff.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

But then finding out the extended cut as well, when it's like the full thing, the full thing.

SPEAKER_03 39:13

But then that for me led into like the whole Rick Baker and you know, Landis and like finding out about American Werewolf and being like, Yes, yeah, oh, this this fucking makes sense, you know.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Yeah, I think it's it's funny. I mean, like I've been uh you know a movie obsessive forever, and I think weirdly the Michael Jackson thing kind of makes sense. All his music videos were little movies, he made short films.

SPEAKER_03 39:41

Scorsese did like any, or is he in bad?

SPEAKER_00 39:45

No, he did he directed that, and then the one there's remember the times with Eddie Murphy in it when they're all in Egypt, and it's like that's super long as well. Like they're all mental, like they're crazy. So I'm like, it makes sense a narrative-driven music video, great.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

But I also think we were from um a period in time where music videos were still big money, so like blur, yes, universal being the whole like uh clockwork orange and things, and you're just like I I think one of the other videos we had was the Brit Awards 1994, and it was all the music videos for the like four things that won. So I watched that all the time, but then when you think about that, there's like a lot of really good music videos from the 90s that obviously dictated how I then looked at film and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Yeah, I think that I mean that was a huge thing for me. I was, you know, definitely my parents are the MTV generation, and um my a lot of what I would watch, kind of a bit older than you know, when Michael Jackson stuff, but there was a TV show, I don't know if they had it over here, on VH1 called Pop Up Video, and it really tied into my needing to know everything about everything. It'd be a music video, and it would have bubbles that would pop up, and it'd be like facts about the music video or about the artist, and I was obsessed with it. It was great, it was like, what more could you want? But yeah, I mean, music videos, I like that was kind of the always kind of a route I wanted to take as a career as well. It's like if you look at the Michelle Gondry or the Spike Jones or Chris Cunningham and all their music videos, which are like so cinematic and how they went into making movies after that, it's like that's that's the dream.

SPEAKER_03 41:31

The complete works of Michelle Gondry.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

I had the Chris Cunningham and the Spike Jones one of that for a long time because fuck yeah, they were good. The Chris Cunningham one. I love Oh god.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

I love him, I love him so much. Like I once went to uh he did it was very random, and he was obviously on some type of illegal substances. It was at the roundhouse. This must have been at least like 12 years ago. He was doing a VJ set, so he was just it was uh it was obviously the roundhouse, so there were screens fully in the round, and it was Chris Cunningham sat on a beanbag playing and like DJing his songs, like music videos that he did.

SPEAKER_03 42:14

Oh, doing doing uh Justin Bieber, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Basically, yeah, but he was just like keted out of his head and sort of like depressed, depressed millionaire. But there was like uh the rubber johnny video, and it was all the lasers were like coming out of all the different screens, and I was like, This is madness. That was great. I love all that.

SPEAKER_03 42:35

He he did some absolutely stunning stuff, and again, it's at that like they just no one realizes how much time and money and effort goes into making something that looks like it was not, you know?

SPEAKER_00 42:48

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

That that PlayStation ad with the girl just looks like the alien, yeah. It should just be a DV camera and nothing else. It's like no, no, a lot of work into that.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

I mean, all of Apex Friends music videos and all of that kind of stuff. It's just yeah, it's brilliant. I love it so much.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

Did he do um Come on My Selector by Square Pusher?

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Yes, yeah, yeah. He did that, he did the Bjork one, um, obviously like Come to Daddy, all that. He did something of something else that uh you wouldn't expect, but yeah, there's some really, really good ones. Obviously, all the Sony ones are amazing. But yeah, I mean it's like David Lynch did a lot of commercials back in the day as well, like and they're really weird.

SPEAKER_03 43:31

The the one he did where he's holding a Barbie's head really tight and it's asking does she want to go for a coffee with him? And it's for his own coffee brand. I fucking love that one. Legend so good. It's like you're just watching it and you're like, okay, this is I do want a cup of coffee now, but fuck me.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

Yeah, for some reason, I'm really, really feeling like a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_03 43:53

I could, I could take a cup of coffee and go massacre a Barbie. I don't understand. We've mentioned You mentioned some uh spooky bits coming in from the thriller video. About what was the first R-rated film you saw and how old were you?

SPEAKER_00 44:08

So right. I was I was I I I was thought about this. It's a good question because I think I mentioned my parents were very young when they had me, and this was the 90s. So put those two things together, that means they didn't understand. Well, they did understand, but they didn't have the same kind of didn't matter as much. Exactly. And probably to a fault, like they used to get called into my school a lot when I was growing up, being like, like, are you this is not appropriate. And so I have I had so basically that's to say I never was not allowed to see R movies. I remember that I thought so the one that I was my favorite, and this was it when I was in first grade, so it's probably about six or seven years old, was Jerry Maguire. Uh and okay, Jerry Maguire, loved Jerry Maguire. Rewatched it recently with my stepdads, and first two seconds he's fucking someone up against the wall. And I was like, I was like, no wonder you guys got called in. Like my it was like, right, like you know, they're probably thinking like Pocahontas or like I don't know, like one of the Disney movies. It's like the thing in like first grade. It's like your favorite color, your favorite book, your favorite movie, Jerry Maguire. And like, and I wrote it everywhere, and my teacher called in, and they're like, That's not to show a six-year-old.

SPEAKER_03 45:34

That's not a kid's film at all. There's a kid in it.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

Loved it.

SPEAKER_03 45:37

But that's it.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

That's it. Loved it. It's I hey, you know what? I just wanted people, I knew from a young age I wanted someone to show me the money.

SPEAKER_03 45:46

And I it makes sense if like you love Tom Cruise from that period of Tom Cruise as well, you know. Like, that's a good era.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 45:58

I mean, hey, I I only watched Vanilla Sky for like the first time last year or something. Fucking.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

I love that movie so much.

SPEAKER_03 46:04

So good.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

So that era from like from like after Cocktail to like before he when he started doing like the third mission, up to like the third mission possible.

SPEAKER_03 46:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Before Jack Reacher or any of that, I mean even that. That period, the golden era, like late 90s, 2000s, like born on the 4th of July, amazing. Rainman, like Rain Man, amazing. Uh Vanilla Sky, amazing. Magnolia, amazing. The firm, amazing. Uh obviously, he was in Tropic Thunder random. Like, it's just like so good. I'm so excited for Digger that's coming out.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

So good. It's gonna be so good.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

I saw it. I saw his little thing that he posted on Instagram and I squealed. Like I was like, I just want him to do something that's not like Mission Impossible 10.

SPEAKER_03 46:54

Because he's so much better than that. Like so good. I fucking love the Mission Impossible films, right? Sure. Yes. Like they're great fun. Ghost Protocol. I'll put on Ghost Protocol any day and happily sit through the whole thing with a grin on my face. But give me a Tom Cruise film where he's not doing the Tom Cruise thing. Yes. You know? And I'm I'm gonna lie.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

All the way there. Even do you know what? So I worked on Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One. And I it was a bit of a like long project. It was a bit kind of arduous. But I didn't watch it when I couldn't watch it when it came out. I think I was flying back to the States um for the premiere. And I ended up watching it later on on a plane. And I was like, this is like adult Looney Tunes. This is silly. This is crazy. I was giggling and kicking my feet the entire time. I was like, this is so stupid. I was like, I love it. It's like ridiculous. And I was like, yes, I know. Like the director was like, the audience just like ridiculous. But I was like, this is like let's just like let's we're not trying to make like usual suspects. Let's just like it's okay.

SPEAKER_03 48:04

We're having it. It's okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

Like, yeah, it's yeah, great, great stuff.

SPEAKER_03 48:10

He still allows the audience, and I'm gonna say Tom does, not Chris. Like Tom still seems to allow the audience that um cinema logic is still allowed, you know? Yeah. Like a lot of films are trying to be so hyper real and hyper whatever that cop logic in film now has to be like, well, a cop wouldn't do that, so that's that's nonsense. Whereas in another film, a cop can be an idiot, yet the head of the department, so he can't be an idiot. You know what I mean? There's well, yeah, I'm not gonna get into that. But it's that sort of you know what I mean? It's like there's very much that like cop logic was allowed them to have almost superhuman abilities to read someone while also not being able to have a social interaction with their own wife or son.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

And it's like Yeah, they only hang out with cops. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 48:54

And whereas like when Tom makes a film, it's like, oh, you're still you're still giving me like movie logic, which is fun. If you make it too real, I I'll watch the fucking news, I'll watch a documentary, but Exactly I want I want film logic here.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:11

The fact that the mummy is the only mess in 30 years, nearly.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Yeah. Even have you seen Rock of Ages?

SPEAKER_03 49:20

I haven't, but it's rid it is take it as it is.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

Exactly. Take it as it is, I'm sure it's no one else is taking it seriously. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:31

It's a like someone said to me about like uh the Bohemian Rhapsody film, they were like, uh, it wasn't great, but if you play Queen loud enough, everyone's gonna have a good time. And when when it's like, right, so Rock of Ages doesn't have to be good. You're just playing bangers loud enough.

SPEAKER_00 49:46

Exactly. Like that's it. We'll get there.

unknown 49:51

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

So um what was it about Jerry Maguire that I do you know what? I I don't know what it was. I think it was I just I uh like something about Tom Cruise just gets it just gets me every time. I think you know, I think it was that kind of that same era of like liar liar and this like you know, the these kind of like people like I don't know, there's something uh maybe I connect with uh a deadbeat like nice, yeah. There's just something about it that it's just like it's it they're they're a type of story that I think and I don't know why as a six-year-old, but it's like you can kind of get away with this kind of like everything will be fine in the end. There's nothing nothing harmful is gonna happen. And it's very much like, you know, yeah, with the kid in it and kind of stuff like that. Probably that's probably right part of the reason why I liked it at the time. Probably saw myself in that kid and like, you know, getting really good reports. I do, like, like you know, try to.

SPEAKER_03 51:03

For the audience who can't see, uh Ashton's got like quite a short, spiky blonde haircut, glasses.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

Very, very tight. I kind of look like Stuart Little.

SPEAKER_03 51:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Quite a square head.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, I don't know. I think there's there's that kind of era of movies from the early nine like the 90s that they don't really even make anymore. Kind of like the romantic comedy, which is very like you're gonna go in and get a good story and it's all gonna be wrapped up, and it's not gonna be, you know, kind of like an episode of Gossip Girl. Like it's not gonna be everything will be like done at the end, and it's nothing har hard harmful is gonna happen, so it's quite nice having those kind of like left of left of you know reality kind of kind of films.

SPEAKER_03 51:53

Films like You Got Mail, I love You Got Mail, yes, um a 90s thriller. I fucking you a nineties thriller is all I ever want because it's like, oh, I'm gonna get uh normal person, it's all gonna bit shit, there's a big thing they have to solve, everyone's happy at the end, and I'm going to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:16

And I miss those films. I miss that they they just don't make them anymore.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

And also, and I am a big proponent of this, bring back 90-minute movies. Bring them back. Not everything needs to be three hours a day.

SPEAKER_03 52:29

Oh my god. Give me a tight 90 all day. A 30 million tight 90.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

Honestly. That's all I want. I dream of the day. I just I can't, I can't deal with this, like, you know, well, okay, it's it's I I who what I can't remember what movie it was. It was something that was like straight to Netflix, but it was like a big director. And it's like, it's two two and a half hours. And I went, for what?

SPEAKER_03 52:53

I was like, I I can show you an hour that can get cut straight off the bat. Right.

SPEAKER_00 53:00

It's just it's too much. Like, I know it's like, you know, everyone talks about because there's like TikTok and social media, there's like an attention deficit kind of thing. Yes, sure, but uh three hours is l is long. It's a long time. It's a long time. There is not I there I don't think there is much value in that extra like hour.

SPEAKER_03 53:24

But really if the story doesn't need three hours.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Well a lot of times it doesn't.

SPEAKER_03 53:29

It ri uh uh if a story can't be told in 90 minutes, then don't tell it.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

Then don't tell it.

SPEAKER_03 53:35

Like make it two, make it two fucking films, but give me an ending.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Wait until it's finished.

SPEAKER_03 53:39

Yeah, wait till the film is finished, fill finish the story and then cut it a little bit, and give me the a bridge to the like it's I just I know that there's also a thing about um cinema tickets costing too much so people don't feel like they're getting their money's worth for 90 minutes, which is ridiculous because it's like if you read a short story but like but like if you watched an episode of TV, did you enjoy it for 30 minutes? Right. Yes. So we'll sit mad. Like if you enjoyed it, uh that's that's the thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

My brother you go on, sorry. No, no, no, I don't know what I was doing.

SPEAKER_03 54:16

Um my brother and I were gonna write this feature, like sci-fi feature, and at the beginning before it, he goes like, How long do we want this? And I just responded, Tight 90, and he was like, Thank fuck for that. Yeah because he was just like that's tight night is all I ever want.

SPEAKER_00 54:31

Just it's ev it's everything. Like I will actively go and you know if there's new if there's something on Netflix that's I can you know I I am more likely to I don't watch a lot of TV series. It's too much of a commitment. I've got I've got shit that I need to do. I don't want to watch five seasons of and I this I know this is blasphemy, and if my husband can hear me in the other room, he's gonna say my husband really likes to re-watch the sopranos every year. That's a lot of chat. That is like ten hours of people yapping. That's a lot. Give me uh a jawbreaker, which is 90 minutes, and it's colorful and fun, and I'm like, oh, I feel in like I feel like I've looked like gained something off of that rather than night like 10 hours of depression. It's just I'll I'll look for I'll I'll look for that.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

Are you talking about the Julie Benz jawbreaker?

SPEAKER_00 55:27

The yeah, 19 the 90 one.

SPEAKER_03 55:29

About the the girl band.

SPEAKER_00 55:32

About the no, the movie with the when they put the jawbreaker they kill her their friend.

SPEAKER_03 55:36

Then no. You were talking about something that was like a very light-hearted, like poppy. Doesn't matter. Um, I know what you mean though. Like uh I've said that tight nighty thing so often now that uh whenever we were like Kirsty and I like let's watch a film, she'll ask the runtime, and if it's below it, she'll be like, oh tight nighty, and like point to me like and I was like, Yeah, I'll watch it. I would assume two tight nineties than one three hour.

SPEAKER_00 56:03

Yes, yes. I think it's you know, I I would watch I would watch anything that's 90 minutes. I will be hard pressed to watch. You need to convince me if it's a three-hour movie.

SPEAKER_03 56:15

Yeah, like whenever I see anything new so bad. It does sound bad. But I watch a lot of films, right?

SPEAKER_02 56:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:24

So and so if if it's like, well, there's this new thing for that's going on for two and a half hours, I'm like, why? Why am I watching two and a half hours? Because there's older films I haven't seen before that I know are more culturally more important, and they're 90 minutes long.

unknown 56:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:41

Like I'd rather I know I'm probably gonna like.

SPEAKER_03 56:44

I'd sooner watch Bill Duke's deep cover for the first time than watch whatever fucking three-hour bullshit they're saying is important.

SPEAKER_00 56:54

Yeah. Well, this is it.

SPEAKER_03 56:55

I mean one battle after another was sick though.

SPEAKER_00 56:58

I still haven't seen it. I don't know. I still haven't seen it. I've heard I've heard amazing things. But kind of on that point, and I think you know, there's people saying it's the attention economy, like people don't have the time. I recently watched, I'm a big David Lynch fan, but I'd never seen the short story. Straight story. That's what it's called. Straight story.

SPEAKER_01 57:18

Yeah, straight story.

SPEAKER_00 57:20

I cried the entire movie, and nothing fucking happens. That is a movie where nothing happens, and I was like, this is beautiful, this is amazing. It's so nice. So I think it's that's a thing, it's quality over quantity.

SPEAKER_03 57:32

Like and how long is straight story 107.

SPEAKER_00 57:40

Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_03 57:41

There it is. Yeah, so I think this might be my favorite. Like this or Wild at Heart. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:50

Yeah. It's so good. I like I hadn't I hadn't watched it before because I was like, oh, it's you know quite different. And then yeah, amazing, amazing, amazing. I love him.

SPEAKER_03 58:01

Um I rewatched uh Maholland Drive the other day. And like I had to like I didn't realise how much I don't like the first half. Like the second half is a much more interesting film. Yeah. And and I was just I was sat there like, oh, I I I'm fucking annoyed. I'm annoyed at this first half of this film. And then like afterwards, like I think I had a nap, because I've seen the film enough. I had a nap during it. And I said afterwards to Kirstie, I was like, I think I like that film as much as I used to. And she was like, Well, maybe it's because you snoozed through it. And I was like, No, I know the film.

SPEAKER_02 58:46

No.

SPEAKER_03 58:46

And she was like, No, no, you don't. And I was like, Do you know what the film's about? She was like, I tried to figure it out. I was like, right, here's what the film's about. And she was like, Oh, and I was like, as long as you know that.

SPEAKER_00 58:57

If you want to, hey, if you want a confusing lynch, Lost Highway, uh to the point that I watched it and I was like, Did I miss something? Did we watch like a corrupt version or something? And then and then went on IMDb afterwards, and it was like the plot unexplicably changes halfway through. And it's like, oh okay.

SPEAKER_03 59:15

I was going through a breakup once, and my buddy was like, Come around and we'll watch a film. And he put on Lost Highway. And like halfway halfway through, I was like, I gotta go, mate. I this is uh I'd rather be I'd rather be sad about that. I can't watch this.

SPEAKER_00 59:29

Too much, too much, man. It's not something can't watch it on a hangover, like no, this is not one of those films.

SPEAKER_03 59:35

No, no, no chance, but yeah, that's some good stuff. Tight 90s, I'm glad you're a tight night fan.

SPEAKER_02 59:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:42

Um what was the first film you watched that you thought was grown up?

SPEAKER_00 59:48

So I think you know, bearing in mind that I have watched, I've seen, you know, those adult movies at all points. I do remember when the first movie I went and I asked, there was an R that I got a permission slip. Don't know if you remember that, to go to the movie theaters from my mom. Had to get a written note for my mom because I was like 12 or 13 to go see something. And I was like, I am such an adult.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:18

I'm allowed.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

And I'm allowed. And it was once upon a time in Mexico and random.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:25

Again, not one I thought that would be on the list. I love how every every film you've mentioned, I'm just like I haven't had it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

There it is, it's on the list. Yeah, I went, I remember it was I was still in California at the time. Um, and I got I went, I had a friend with me. Don't know who the friend is, um, but I had to get a yeah, it was like uh you had to get a permission slip from a parent from a parent or guardian to say like a written note being like they're allowed to see this movie. The person the behind the admissions thing probably was like, I don't have written that. You know what I mean? Like well, that was the thing for my friend, whoever it was that I took with me, their parent would be like absolutely not, you can't go see an an 18 at 13.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:13

Um his eyes are taken out, and you're like, they're in a bag.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:18

My mom was like, you've seen worse.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:23

You've seen El Mariachi and Desperado, you need to know how this resolves.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:26

You have to know the ending. Um so yeah, I think I think sitting in the movie theater being like, I'm getting away with something right now. Like I am such a it felt very like independent, kind of like, oh, like a desperado, if you will. A desperado, yeah. That is that is definitely the one.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:47

Yeah, that does feel like a a a quite a grown-up moment for sitting and watching a film that you're like, yeah, I've been it's okay. I'm allowed.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:54

Yeah, and like, yeah, it's just like, don't worry, guys.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:58

I'm getting my own popcorn. It's okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:00

Yeah, hey.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:01

Will you watch my drink? I'm just going to the toilet.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:05

But yeah, I mean, that's I mean, yeah, I it's terms of like themes, but it's not really any more adult than anything I would have ever seen, I guess. But like I think it's the act of like going to a movie theater by yourself and being like, oh, there's only there's only grown-ups here.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:22

I'm trying to think what the first film I went to the cinema on my own was. Or no. No, I don't I don't remember like obviously you went to the movies with like you go with your mum and dad, or you'd go with a friend and their parents.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:39

And then there was an age where you started to go to the cinema like with just your friends. And I I you know, that was like Raimi's Spider-Man was one that I remember going to see the movie Friends. Uh Blade Trinity, like I go into that one, you know, like But I can't remember what the first one that I went to the cinema on my own was. Shame. Shame, that'd be good. I used to keep all the cinema stubs in my wallet. Really? I had them for so long and I loved them. And I think the only ones I still have. They're in my Clerks Animated Region 1 DVD. I have the ticket stub for Clerks 2 the two times I saw it. So amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:20

That's it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:21

My name's in the credits, so he listed all of his MySpace friends, and Teddy was me. And I was just like, Hey!

SPEAKER_00 1:03:30

I've made it! That's it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:32

Kevin Smith had to write my name. No, he didn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

Personally, he personally wrote all the credits.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:39

He was like, I'm not gonna write anyone's but Ted's. I get Ted's name in.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:43

Guys, move over. Ted?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:46

What can you get Ted's name in? His films were ones that really like one of my first film pilgrimages. I went to uh Leonardo, New Jersey, and I bought the same nail zippo that he uses in Dogma. Like I've I've been to the original Quick Stop. Like it's yeah, I went when I was 16.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:07

Like That's wow, that's commitment.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:10

Yeah, like I I it's a shame that most of the places I've been around the world have been for pilgrimages that have nothing to do with like what they're known for. I went to Norway recently and we went to Vos, which is where the water is from. And my mate was like, I knew, I knew you were going for a reason as stupid as that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:32

Gotta commit.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:33

It's not the only reason I went.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:35

Yeah. There's other things.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:38

I once went to Paris just because I wanted to get a very specific cigarette that you can't buy over here.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:43

And is it the chocolate ones? No, elephants.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:48

I wish. No, it was the jetans. And like you couldn't buy jetans over here. And um me and Kirstie had just started going out, and we saw that it was like a really cheap Eurostar like train.

unknown 1:04:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:00

So I was like, Oh, I want I'm gonna go over and buy some cigarettes. Uh, do you want to come with me? And she was like, Yeah, go on then, like, you know, what of it? So we went over and I went to like the first tabac I saw, and I was like, pack a gitans, please, got the chitans. We went to a cafe, I had a cup of coffee, and I just smoked this chitin. And then Kessy was like, So what are we doing now? I was like, I don't care, you do what you like. I literally just came for this cigarette. She was like, Really? And I was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. We go, do what you like now.

unknown 1:05:29

I don't care.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:29

So yeah, I'm I'm a big fan of uh committing to a bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

Hey like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:37

Go on, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:38

No, I've do you know what? I was like, I I realize this. I mean committing to a bit in the sense, but I was sat in my bedroom at home and I was kind of looked around. I've got a Nigerian, I think it's Nigerian poster of Royal Ted and Mounds that I need to get framed.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:53

Lovely.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:53

I was looking at other things I have up. And then I was like, since I was about nine years old, my When I was nine years old, I had my move my my room was themed around movies. And I had like a fake film strip and I had things printed out. I had loads of like posters everywhere. I'd had I had a shrine to Colin Farrell, loads of sign photos from him. And I and I looked I looked around the room and I was like, okay, I've got like the Polish alien poster and I've got a thing that I worked on of La Haine, and I've got this, and I was like, hey, I was like 36, 10, I guess, things. I guess I've that's that's I know what I am, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:36

I mean my office that I'm currently in. You could mistake this for my childhood bedroom at any period of time. Yeah. It's movie posters, it's Teen Dreamin' Churtles toys and DVDs. Like that's off. No, I mean, like, I've got my framed original Mulrats poster, like it's it's those things that it's I I really locked in as a kid. Like I used to go to the um the video rental store like in the village up the road from us, and every Saturday or Sunday I'd say, like, can I have the old posters? And he'd be like, Yep, sure. And I'd get a stack of old film like the posters that for the film that came out, and they're like, Okay, we're not advertising that anymore. And then I would wallpaper my walls with these sort of like they were sort of like a They're huge, A1 or something, the really big ones. Not the really big ones, they were like A2. They weren't like they weren't huge, but they were big enough. And I would just like wallpaper my walls with them. And whenever I was like, Oh, I got a new one, I like this one more than that one, so that one would come off. Yeah. And then only through age I've decided to just frame the ones I like the most.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:42

Well that's that's called growth. Yeah, that's my version of growth is getting offshoot posters of movies that I like from different countries. Oh, I do Ghana, Ghana or Poland, apparently.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:58

The Thai uh I almost bought the other day uh the Thai version of the police story, the Jackie Chan film. Like because it was it's so great. It's painted and it's dope. Like I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:12

There's there's a wild at uh Polish version of Wild at Heart that I really want to get, but it's it's on it, it's on a website, it's on a European website, and my my parents, my mom lives in France, and it can only get shipped to your EU countries. And I was like, would you send this to my house?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:28

Please or take yourself over to Paris just to get the yes, yeah, yeah. It's all about committing to the it is, yeah. No, I I I I I like that you uh you appreciate a good film poster from somewhere else. Yeah. There's someone about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:44

There's someone about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:45

Also, are you a big are you a big Wes Anderson fan then?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:49

Um like he would I wouldn't say top three directors, but like I do uh really appreciate him. I kind of like followed him for a long time. Um some of the stuff he's done recently, like Phoenician scheme and any of that I haven't seen. And like the some of the he I have like I there's some stuff like all his older ones where it was a bit more uh DIY run and gun, like love.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:16

I'd say like Grand Budapest was the the sort of like that's the peak of what he does. Yeah, yeah. And now everything else just feels very paint by numbers by him.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:25

A little bit, yeah. I mean, I saw um Moonrise Kingdom at the movie theaters with my dad in in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hilarious, which is all the movie theaters in the Midwest are huge, like, and this isn't like a luxury thing, this is just a dietary thing for nice. They're all gigantic, easy, lazy boys that recline every chair because you couldn't have a normal size seat.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:54

No, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:54

So whereas I'm in this thing where I'm like being endeveloped, watching Moonrise Kingdom, where it's like a m a movie within a play within a TV show, and my dad, who was bless him, like you know, he's not trying to keep up. He's he he likes weird things, but also he's just you know uh like not an art house guy. But like we came out, and he was like, okay, so like I was like, I don't know what happened either if it makes me feel any better. And it's like they all stand up, and there's like these kind of like Dutch angles, and it was like, the limit does not exist. That's from Bean Girls, but like they basically says, you know, all these weird lines, and I was like, I hey, it's very much, you know, apparently uh if you're an actor on a Wes Anderson film, you get paid nothing. Goose egg, because it's meant to be like a theater troupe that is working together, and I was like, in a in a way, I like that, but it also gets to a point where it's like, okay, dude, you're making a lot of money.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:53

But like that's the thing. If you're not making any money either, then we're fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:58

Then fine. If we're all in this together and it's just like the you know, stop motion people or like the set deck and like things like that, okay, cool. But like I get the theatre troop thing, and I quite like that as a dynamic to make a film.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:13

But like, let's whenever I hire like um actors, like I kind of tell them that it's like I tell them how much I'll make on this thing, and I'll be like, you're either gonna match what I make, or like none, neither of us are getting paid. Like, yeah, that's it. Yeah. And like, yeah, yeah, I I I just feel like that's that's how we gotta play this.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:36

Like 100%. It can't be like, yeah, well, it's like the environment kind of thing, like it's you do it for the love of the craft, but it's like also I don't know. I I hey, hey, do you know what? I'm not on a film, so I can't.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:52

Yeah, that's fair no one's paying me 40,000 to go make a film.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:56

So exactly. So I can kind of shut up a little bit. I guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:00

Do you do you have any film tattoos?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:03

Because I see some I do. I do. On my leg, I have a Mars Attack's tattoo. Um, yeah. Nice. I think I think that's it. I do have a lot, I do have a lot of tattoos, and so I do sometimes forget, but yeah, Mars Attax is the one. I have an uh Headless Horseman, which is like a like a sleepy hollow thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:29

That could be could be, I mean, it doesn't look like it's a book, but sure. It's a book, but I I it's you know, if I want it to be Willem Dafoe, maybe it could be. Um Christopher Walken. Is it? Yeah, it is Christopher Walken, just looks really bad. Looking so bad, he looks like Willem Dafoe. Yeah, uh, but no, just Mar just the Mars Attacks one really nice, nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:54

I uh the reason I ask is because I have a Wes Anderson tattoo.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:58

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:59

I have the same one Bill Murray has in The Life Aquatic, where it's Jacqueline crossed out and deep search with an anchor. I have that on the on the back of my leg.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:09

So that is very good.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:11

Oh, I tell a lie. I do actually have another one. I have on my sternum, I have I have a tattoo that a character has in a movie. So the movie is Silence of the Lambs, the character is Buffalo Bill. Buffalo Bill has on his hands this like a cross like here, and it says love on it, and I had that on my sternum. I also I have that. Yeah, it is good.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:36

I always wanted the uh the King Kong that Eric Banner has in Chopper. That like a strip. I've always wanted that on my stomach, and I still might. Like I might go get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:46

Why not?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:47

Uh I also have the Ikera pill.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:50

Nice. That's good.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:51

That's good. It's a two film. Is that there any those? And I got a book. Yeah. I was just trying to think, like, oh, I guess I got a T-Rex skull. That kind of counts as.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:05

Did I get that? I mean if we it could all be, everything could be something.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:10

Yeah, exactly. Could be anything I want it to be. Exactly. So uh what film holds a special place in your heart?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:21

I mean, what film doesn't? It's it's you know, I there's the kind of the letterbox top four versions, and then I'm then I was thinking about it a bit more. And I think I'm gonna have to go with The Matrix. And the reason I say that, I it's one of my favorite movies, it always will be, but it's always one that it's like you know, sometimes you have a favorite song, and it's kind of like such a given that it's a favorite song that you don't even think about it as much. Yes, and that's a matrix for me, and I have to watch it at least once you know the original first one.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:54

Yeah, yeah. And I rewatched it uh a couple of weeks ago. I watched that, the Animatrix, then two and three, and I don't know how the first one could be almost any better. Like, it's so perfect, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:11

It's ideal. The I'm really loved, like aesthetically, it's so very pleasing. I think a lot of the the grade on that is just I preferred the blue.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:23

I preferred the blue to the green that they went, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:25

Yeah, I like I think the story is I know they kind of went into this, you know, this world, and I think two and beyond are great for what they are, as like a separate thing. But I like how in the real world the first one is.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:39

As an as an aside for why it has a special I reason to for being in my heart, I remember the first time I watched it very, very vividly.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:48

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:49

I was staying at uh this is in the foothills in Northern California, one of my best friends growing up. Her family had a log cabin in the woods, and she had three sisters, and her dad, I don't remember why, again, young, weird parents in Northern California, grew up in a hippie town.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:10

Um we went to the cabin for something, and we were all kind of huddled together on like the top, like they had like a mezzanine, and we were watching The Matrix, and then I fell asleep before he like at like kind of around the time when he takes a blue pill and he gets like sucked in. And then we woke up in the middle of the night to loads of bats in the log cabin, and I remember being I was like, I'm in the matrix. I was like, this is the matrix, and it stuck with me for the rest of my life. I think it wouldn't have been like it's such a weird, like, why were we in the log cabin watching The Matrix? Like, I don't remember anything leading up to it, but because there was this weird thing where we had loads of bats everywhere and the TV had like gone to static and it like kind of like in the ring kind of thing. Like all of that, it's really stuck in my head. I just love I love that movie so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:00

Fact, like it's I mean, that is a great way of watching that film.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:04

It's such a good film, though. Like it's so good, it's like Peak Keanu.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:08

Like it's a there aren't that many cyberpunk films, like, and I like the genre of cyberpunk I really fucking like. I love dirty knackered technology, like there's just something about it I just fucking cannot get enough of it. And there aren't enough of those films.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:25

I agree. I that's kind of a a dream of mine is to kind of make, I think, you know, uh, there was a I was having this conversation with a friend of mine um a couple weeks ago. Like if there was a movie that exists, like not everything needs to be remade, but there are certain stories that got made originally, and I think they got if they got made poorly, what would you want to redo?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:48

And my one is another Keanu Reeves movie, Johnny Pneumonic. I don't know if you've ever seen that.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:54

Uh uh, Robert Longos. That I fucking love that show.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:58

I love it, but I was like, this in like It's here.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:01

It's in the collection, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:04

Just reading off. I'm not actually no original thought. I'm just reading things.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:08

I really like peeping dumb.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:13

Um and I think there's something about it, and there's something about like I just would love a second version of it. Just to be to be because I think with some of the way that technology is the technology is done in it, and some some of the acting is very like Power Rangers vibes. I think it's great. I love it, don't get me wrong. But another one of my biggest influences is Terry Gilliam, and I'm like, if if this was done in like Brazil, that kind of environment, it would be so good.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:45

Fucking good.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:46

It would be so good.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:47

Though did I'm like, I did you play Cyberpunk the game?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:52

No, I did not.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:53

So that is very similar to Johnny Mnemonic as like a concept.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:58

Is it?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:00

Nice. Like I need to I need to get on that.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:02

I've played that game about three times because I fucking like it's just because that's the only time I can get in that world.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:08

I know. Well, that's a thing, and it's like there's a lot of those movies back in that like I've re- I watched Hackers for the first time recently, and didn't realize how much I don't know, like music-wise, it's a bit of a side note. I've you've heard of the band called Death Grips. They have a song called Hackers, and then I was listening to it and I was like, they're just quoting the movie. Like, I didn't realize until like I was in the gym and I was like, oh, they're just saying it's saying bits from the movie. I was like, I thought this was like quite an original song, it's not.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:39

Um that's on um Money Store, is it? No.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:45

It's on that album, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:47

Yes, yeah, one of my you know, fellow Sacramento bands. But oh, are they from Saka? They are they're from Sacramento, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:53

I like Icy Footage is a great song on that album.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:56

Yeah, I mean, love it. I I I'm predicting it. This is 2026, Death Grips are coming back. I think and then I said that and I think I saw something that they're actually.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:05

I'd say that I'm pretty sure they did an album, like they were doing an album, or they started talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:09

Yeah, I said it and then it came out, and I was like, I need to manifest, keep manifesting things that happened in music. I was like, I bet Trash Talk are coming back, and then they're playing an outbreak. But I was like, I guess I have a I have a honed-in sixth cents for bands from my hometown. Nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:25

Like so Death Grips, uh talking about uh woman of your own heart, like Death Grips uh Kirsty uh introduced me to the Death Grips. So Yeah. Yeah, nice. You two would probably get on. I'd say you'd get on, but Kirsty also doesn't ever like to interact with anyone.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:42

Well, hey, again, same.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:46

Like every time, like it's like, oh, I I think I'd get on really well with Kirsty. I'm like, I'm sure you would, but she'd never ever want to hang out. She just wants to sit at home and just get on with her own thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:56

Same. All right, speaking of games, I recently just bought uh the new Nintendo Switch. Oh, nice because purely because I wanted to play the Pokemon, the like Amazon Pokemon thing, Pocopia. And I was like, fuck it, I'm an adult, and I've just been doing I've had was taking a break from work to do photo shoots and the short film and stuff like that. And I say it is also it's also work, but like less paid, less contracting.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:28

I've just been playing that fucking game. I was like, I don't want to have to go and interact with anybody, but that's like that's fine. I have a month still, so I'll get it done.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:38

There are certain games that Kirsty like she has to like I'm not allowed to play them, all right? And I'm like, you can play whatever you like. She's like, do not let me play Viva Pinata again because I will get too locked in of just like yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:50

And it's like too much. It's like, yeah, the the Nintendo Switch tells you how many hours you've played the game if you want to feel really bad about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:02

I don't ever need to know that.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:04

And you can also, your friends that you had, if you connect and you have friends on there, and like you can see when they're online, tells you how long they played certain games. I looked at my friend, my friend Ben, his Animal Crossing is upwards of 400 hours, and I was like, you need to get a life.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:20

I think it'd be like rookie numbers, Ben.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:22

And I was like, come on, mate, go outside.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:25

Like you know you can take that thing outside, you could do both.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:29

It's portable, it is portable.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:31

It's like the one girl, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:33

Yeah, on the grass, yeah. And weed grass.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:36

So, what's your controversial opinion on a famous film? I have also tweaked that question a little bit for people who are in the in the industry, where if there's like a an industry controversial opinion you're sort of not happy about, which I think we've the tight 90 over two and a half hours.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:51

Tight 90, yeah. I have a lot of controversial opinions. When you work when you work in any industry after like over a decade, you get a lot of controversial opinions.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:01

My big one for industry is people need to chill out with the fucking wages.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:06

Chill out, chill out with wages. I think there's, you know, okay, there's a lot of soapbox minutes. I think I think there's a whole thing of like at the moment, they're trying to do everything by AI. So they're trying to like not get human to do it, which is gonna crash and burn.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:26

Or they're going to try and do it the cheapest way possible so it looks shit and then fix it in po fix it in post. I hate I hate. I might work in the VFX industry a lot, but I hate fix it in post.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:41

Uh shit going in, shit coming out.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:43

That's like let's I think there's such a the people have moved so far away from practical and it shows to the point that on Guardians of the Galaxy, I have a beef with that movie, the there's a there's a there's a bit where what's his face, Chris Pratt, pulls down a fruit from a tree and bites into it. Now, I worked at the studio that did that in post. It's on a green screen, he's biting a tennis ball. Buy a dragon fruit, buy any fruit that like 90% of the American population don't know anything beyond a mango. Like you can get weird-looking fruit and veg all over the place. Why are we making someone bite a tennis ball? And then and then like what that's just it's it's doing stuff just for the sake of not doing it like to save a couple bucks like when you're on set. I don't get it.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:43

The reason things like Jurassic Park still look fucking exquisite is because most of it is real animatronic dinosaurs.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:52

It's real dinosaurs, it's real dinosaurs, real dinosaurs, actually.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:55

And then they just they just enhance it slightly with some post. The matrix, like it's all wire work, exactly. So, like, yeah, people are doing that, and you can tell when someone's doing a thing, you're like, oh fuck, that's impressive. But as soon as they go, like, right, well, pretend to jump, and then we'll just we'll just draw that all in. And it's like yeah, but I can tell when I'm watching, like, it it's not there.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:22

It's even so there's like it's gotten to the point where you know, obviously, muzzle flashes, things like that, okay, like for health and safety. Yeah, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:32

I got nothing against those, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:33

That's fine. We don't all want to do an L at Baldwin and kill somebody. Like, I get it. Like try not to. Just try once a week. Just try. Just once a week, I try and I try and do that.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:44

You gotta ice it out.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:46

Yeah. Um, but we're getting to the point where they're not using squibs, they're not doing blood splatters, they're not doing anything, anything. So it's like and and I think like I think a good example, and this is TV, it's slightly different, but like, and there seems to be more budget in TV. All of the acting in Stranger Things, Stranger Things was good when it first came out because it was more practical, and it was a bit more, you know, like you has obviously you were kids and you saw like a actual reaction, but everything is grey and everything's on fucking green screen, and there's a there's a good time to use a green screen, and then there's a time when it's just oh, it's just easier to do. Like, it's because I don't want to pay for you know uh someone to build something. It's just I don't even it gets ridiculous. Like I was working on a TV show that isn't c hasn't come out yet, so I can't say they they what they've done is they've cut the art department budget from let's say 100k to like 10 grand, and they're like, we also just like what can you do as like a package deal and like because we don't want to have to build anything, they're also shooting in Bulgaria, so it's super cheap. Yeah, because they but they're like we don't want to hire anybody, we don't want to hire anybody. We want to see what we can do with the fewest amount of people as possible, with the sh like cheapest amount as possible, but over a 10 episode series. So it's like what you're losing, like okay, if you're using something that has a big IP and you know that people are gonna watch it, and there's also really committed fans of like from the book or from the movie or you know, whatever, so you know there's gonna be an onward investment.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:30

Like everyone's expecting the neuromancer coming out. So there's clearly people who give a shit about this world.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:39

Like world building, and it's world building in a sense where it's not just kind of slapdashed on at the end where the actors have just are just kind of like roaming around oh, I don't know. Like it's it's uh yeah, I think it's it's a really really ridiculous thing. But also on this same show, I Was the I've worked with the production designer before, and I was like, okay, like we've had a lot of like pre-production stuff and chats and blah blah blah. Like, when is stuff gonna be what are we gonna get going? Did not sign off any money for the art department, so any set built, no set build, nothing until four weeks before shooting. So of course it's gonna look shit. Like why they were like, oh yeah, like we want to keep the money in the bank as long as possible. It's like okay, because for them they're like crazy. But because they own these big cloud servers and stuff like that, now I'm getting into a whole like tinboard hat thing, but like there's there they invest in these things where it's like, well, we can sell our cloud servers to to BFX companies to get money back, but it's like, but we won't have any money to do it. It's just like it's like, oh, like we're presenting you uh the classic Andy Wilson thing. Here's a turd, and like I'll just put some glitter on it in the end, and it's like people won't notice the difference. No, no, no. And it's like, well, they will.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:04

They fucking will.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:04

People know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:06

People aren't stupid, like this is it. And that that thing as well, of like, well, it's for Amazon, so you're not gonna say no to us, are you? And it's like, well, I fucking will. Well, yeah, like I fucking will say no to you, you can. Like, I'm not having that. But yeah, I I I do get irritated when it is people like Amazon or Netflix kind of just go like, Well, just come do it for us. And it's like, well, how much are we gonna get paid? Yeah, uh, you're gonna do something for with our logo, that's gonna get you loads of work. It's like, well, is it? Because if it's through you, I'm currently not getting paid through you, so how long's that gonna go? And no one gives a fuck. No one gives a fuck who you worked for if the thing wasn't good.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:46

Well, this is it. And it's like, and that's the thing, it's like if they don't want to put the I think when you have these big monopolies, and this is kind of a lot to do with that paramount Warner Brothers merger.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:00

I've worked on par I've worked on Paramount stuff and I've worked on Warner Brothers stuff. And getting anything signed up, it's these huge conglomerates that are so far removed from the actual process of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:15

That that's why things get so diluted, and then it's like, oh well, I don't want to pay five grand for this thing because it doesn't make sense to me because of whatever. And it's like, you know, but it's kind of like what I was saying before. It's like I can only hope that the way of the next couple years goes to even A24 is becoming a big thing, but at least they're kind of taking keeping some level of like integrity, but getting those more indie or smaller studios that can actually have a bit of an eye on the process, taking things, keeping things more practical, and only using you know, these kind of there's there's the tools that are like becoming a bit more AI and everything, not focusing so much on them so that it becomes everything becomes you know, vanilla and kind of whitewashed and exactly the same. I think that's a thing. And it's like a lot of studios are I'm really going out of tension, a lot of studios are instead of focusing on craft and like say how you would see in like a village like the cobbler and the butcher are going out of business to these big these big you know Tesco or whatever kind of thing. I think there's a value in keeping these kind of like I my best friend, her dad, is a plaster worker and he builds sets for Ridley Scott all the time, and he still kind of does something like that, and it's like you know, Wes Anderson again, he does a lot of like claymation and all invests a lot in the art department, and I think that's kind of the auteur kind of thing, yeah. Where instead of this kind of just generic throwing things out, investing more in the actual uh people that are really good at what exactly specifically what they do and the kind of you know great, like I'm trying to think of the word I'm trying to think of failing, like people that are uh just like professionals in what they do instead of being kind of generalists and people trying to throw people that are generalists at everything and then go, oh, whatever. What's happening now is because they have done that and kind of try to generalize everything, companies like Legendary are using their bat catalogs and saying, How can we make new movies with the least amount of human interaction as possible? So there's one person who uses all the B footage that were like B camera footage or whatever, or like all this stuff from that's like not under a license anymore, and cre use AI tools to create new movies out of that. That's like how instead of investing in people that can actually do j their jobs well, because you are also a human, like don't you want to see other humans work and work with other humans that are great at their what they do? That's the thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:00

That's where I think it goes a bit wrong, is that it's people who aren't creative who have got the money and they uh they're always jealous of creative people, and you know 100%, whatever. It may they might not be, but I fucking think that they're like, Well, I can never be creative, I wish I could. So now I've got an AI tool, which means I don't need you. And it's like right, good luck.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:22

Yeah, go for it. There's two make your shit. Exactly. Well, exactly. And it's like it's garbage. They're like, well, now I can make I can say, you know, put in like a car chase in the style of blah blah. And it's like that what what are you trying to prove? I don't understand what it's what is it, what do I what am I gaining from that?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:44

Yeah. There's nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:45

What are you trying to say with it? And it's really funny that you say that though not cre non-creative people like loving it. The two people that I know that are the biggest advocates of AI are exactly that, that are just like really kind, try to it's people that try to like well, you you and you get it a lot, like I'm sure you've experienced it, that people that are like want to be near what they think is something great.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:11

And so it's like, well, now that I can get a robot to do it, then I mean that's the future. Why not? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:19

I I had a CEO when I I so I used to be a graphic designer for uh like the marketing department of a financial services company, right? So miserable but lovely better dollar. And the CEO came to me towards like the last two, three years of me working there, and he was like, Have you looked into AI? And I was like, Right, I've looked into it, John, uh, and I I don't like it, man. And he was like, maybe you could incorporate into some of your work. And I went, I'll tell you what, John. If you start using AI, I get the sack. So I'm not going to look into ways for you to fire me. If you want to look into AI and you decide you no longer meet need me, that's your business. Yeah. But I'm not gonna find replacements for myself. Yeah, he's like, oh no, that's I just thought there was a way you could automate. And I was like, Do you know how I can automate? By becoming better at my job, by doing more of it. Yeah, exactly. And don't get me wrong, there are processes like digital processes that have meant that you know, like my friend Charlie loves to draw on digital, like because like he's a professional artist, but he draws digitally because he's like, Oh, actually, I quite like that undo button. That undo button's quite nice. Yeah, but when it becomes a complete like take over, don't even worry.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:40

Like, that's the thing. Like, I for like photo stuff that I have to do, like I like I had to do something for Vice like a year ago, and the editor didn't really know what he wanted, and it was like kind of like if I didn't have the Photoshop, like kind of the the yeah, it's like the AI rotoscoping thing that's built in, I would have been trying to figure out what this man wanted for six months because he was like, Oh, I don't know, maybe something like this, and if I can do something really like that helps me, then go and do something properly.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:10

That yeah, I'll now go do that correctly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:12

Yeah, exactly. Now, but like it's just like, oh, I want to watch a move, like there's AI models and there's an AI actors. There's an AI model agency that's cut recently come out and reached out to me and asked if I want to do a test shoot with an AI model, and I went, no, thank you. What does that even mean? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:36:29

What what the fuck do you mean by that? Like, I tell you, like, put them in this scenario, yeah, back off. Like, I I'm pleased you turned that down because like I turned it down, turned her down. I turned down the job the metro once because yeah, like it was a fine like film journalist job, and someone's like, Do you want this job? And I was like, Nah, I'm alright. And they were like, but it's from the Metro. I'm like, exactly. Like it's fucking Rupert Murdoch, man. I'm not gonna work for Murdoch. Like I've got more fucking credibility than that. And people are like, You're an idiot. I'm like, cool. Think I'm an idiot then. Like, I'd rather be thought of as an idiot than work for fucking scum. Yeah, and like it's the same deal with like AI. If someone said to me, like, could you do this in AI, it's like, um, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:16

Like, I'd rather not get paid like than do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:19

Rough. It's pretty rough.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:22

We should do a Johnny mnemonic type film.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:25

Exactly. And then I you know what? I know some great plaster makers that can build an entire set. He uh, my friend's dad, he did all the like um what did he work on? Labyrinth, like he's been obviously been around for ages. He's done like a lot of big movies and like all he built all the like loads of stuff for the original Ant-Man and stuff like that. He did the Coliseum for Gladiator for the last one. Um so yeah, get him involved.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:52

Yeah, man. Let's totally let's totally do this. Because I've been desperate to do a cyberpunk film, but I just I can never figure out how to do a cyberpunk on a small budget for me, if that makes sense. So I keep thinking, like, oh, do I do a scene? Do I just do like the guy coming into the office, or do we do you know what I mean? Like, do I just try and give it some flavor? But yeah, I can never figure out how I want it.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:14

Yeah, I think what's kind of good in the sense of kind of like now that 2000s technology has become really cheap, kind of like uh leaning into that. I went on vintage the other day, and don't know why it came up for me, and I merely bought them. You know, the iPod shuffles. Someone was selling two iP two iPod shuffles for 20 quid, and they're like, could be as fun as hair clips, and they work, they were functioning. And I was like, I was like, 'cause I you could build something. I think there's something about a lot of the dead technology from like just at just from Apple or like all of the old burner phones and stuff like that, then people are just like, yeah, fuck it. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:55

The idea of like a computer, like a little you know, car computer that they have in like cyberpunk films, and if the old iPod like circle was how you navigated the screen.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:09

Come on.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:10

Easy.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:11

And I love like um building props and stuff. Like I whenever I go into somewhere like the range or like any of those kind of like house household y places, I one I always look around the kids' toys because I'm like, right, what gun could get turned into like quite a fun, like like cyberpunky like blaster thing, and I'll send some photos over to you for some things I've done with that before. Or just like looking at just like homeware things. I mean, like, what isn't that? Like, yeah, what could that be? Could that be like if you put an iPad in the back of that, is that now a weird monitor, but it's actually like a dish drying thing, and it's like I mean what's the underside of that look like? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:53

A a lot of the like screen graphic stuff that I was working on, I worked on on like uh Batman and everything, it's it is they're just iPads and then they just have housing around them.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:04

And it's because and it's just like it's because they can just play back constantly and it's just like it's easy and fine. And it's yeah, I went through a phase last year of trying to make of making loads of pepper's ghosts or like little tiny ones around the house. And it's like there's a type of rock you can use, like it's called like selenite or something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:24

Um that you put it if you put like a phone and you put that on top of it, instead of having to like do the plastic, yeah, it will just automatically shoot it up. It like away. Yeah. And you just had to put like a dome over it. Shh, it's quite cool. Yeah. Instead of the thing with the thing that's can be annoying with a pepper's ghost is getting the angle of like whatever you're reflecting it off, right? But with this like type of stone, it just automatically refracts it and have a little thing. It's cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:52

Like, I love all those sort of like practical in science fiction things. I wanted to do a zero gravity scene um on like a spaceship once, and I was looking at how you do that thing where you uh play a specific bass frequency, and then through your shutter, it looks like the water is globules like instant big thing. And I thought, like, oh great, so you shoot it and then you turn on the base, and then that makes it look like the water's like in zero gravity. And I was like, that's how I do it, you know. And I thought that's I at no point did I think like, oh well, I'll just have them turn on the tap and it'll be like I'll put CGI and it was like, no, no, no, how can we practically practically I don't want to do it, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:33

Exactly that. That's a thing, like this short that I'm doing next week. It's um very much like that's a thing, it's like all the uh the it's all like there's gonna be like a whole like creature kind of transformation with like the hands and the nails and everything like that. And like the only thing that I think we're gonna be doing in like what me. I I am gonna be doing is just like kind of at like adding texture to the footage because even like I'm getting some lenses to do like um what's it called? Split diapeter, yeah, where it's like doing that instead of like you know, having like some weird CG thing. I was like, I'd rather just get it in camera and then you see what it looks like. 100%. And they were like, the people that I'm working with is like, you can do that? I thought you'd have to use AI to do that. And I was like, I don't know. No, no, things have existed, funnily enough.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:25

And I could try and cut it myself.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:27

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:29

There's so many things I would rather do, like break an old camera lens before I'd use CGAI nonsense. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's do something like that. That'd be right. Um what did we land on for your controversial opinion?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:44

I don't know, I was waxing lyrical. I think my other uh my other one controversial opinion is that, and this is much more short and sweet, is that the Avatar movies suck. I don't like Avatar.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:56

I mean, I think we were raised to watch uh Fern Gully, and it's the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:02

Exactly. Yeah, well also, and also it's just like I don't know, when it came out and they were like, James Cameron did this over ten years, and I was like, he didn't have to. No, I was like, it sucks. The movie sucks. That first one was. The story doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:15

No, no, no, the story makes no sense. And I hate as well that it takes America like we could never I say we America could never see themselves as the villains unless there is a cute looking alien that it's like, oh, how can they destroy and just what do you mean they're going in there and drilling all their it's like, yeah, what do you think that means, deckhead? Yeah, yeah. It's so stupid. Like the first one, I didn't mind it, 2009, 3D. Like, I love 3D stuff when it first came out. Like Beowulf was the first time I saw something coming up my face, and I was like, Dope. Um Gasper Noe's love being a 3D porno. Yeah, magnificent.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:56

What else do you need?

SPEAKER_03 1:43:57

Yeah, exactly. Um go watch that in 4DX, that'd be a bit much. But uh Jesus Christ. Uh there was uh yeah, like I I watched that Avatar film and I thought like this is fine, I enjoyed this, you know, it's okay. But then didn't watch it for years. And then when the the second one came out, whenever I was like, Oh, I'll rewatch the first one. I rewatched like half of it, and I was like, I don't give a shit, I don't care.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:27

Terrible.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:27

And then when I watched I went to watch The Way of Water or something, and I think I got halfway and I was like, I'm fine. Like, I don't like I I don't need any more. This is the same fucking film and it's bullshit. And the fact that there's like been another one since then, I'm just like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:42

There's gonna be another two after this one.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:45

Apparently not, because he was like, Oh, no one cares, and you're sitting there too long, and like they take two. He's like, I'm thinking about maybe how I can make these shorter and for less money, and it was like, Why wasn't that your first fucking thought, man?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:01

An AI TV show is gonna like yeah, hey, so yeah, those movies suck, and everybody that thinks they're good is just doing it to goon over the blue people that are in it, they're just they're just horny for the blue guys.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:19

If you want to be, you know, goon squad in it for them, go for it. But like that's fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:24

Do that in the price of your own house. I'm not gonna yuck you young. No, don't get me involved at all at all.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:30

And like Jim Cameron, you're better than this, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:33

Like I know it's you're better than this. Yeah, yeah. It's just it's crap.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:40

It's absolutely stupid. Um okay, uh, what have you been watching recently?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:48

Recently, I had been watching a ton of early 2000s, kind of like teen coming of age movies, just kind of for research.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:59

For prep for my the short I'm doing next week, but also for the for the love of the game. Yeah. Um, yeah, like what Meet and Girls yesterday. Nice. Yeah, Jawbreaker, I was saying, the one with like um the one where they kill their friend in like the first like ten minutes.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:22

I have to double check this because I might not be thinking about the right film.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:25

Uh oh, it's great. It's very dark. It's very, very dark. It's kind of it's heather's adjacent, but it is the film I'm thinking. But the I don't oh yeah. I don't know what you mean by the band.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:39

Oh, no. I was thinking Josie and the Pussycats when I said the band.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:42

Oh, yeah. But yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:44

Julie Benz is in jawbreaks.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:46

Yes. Yes.

unknown 1:46:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:47

And I love Rosemary.

unknown 1:46:49

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:49

Yeah, Rosemary Allen's amazing in it. Everything about it, music's good, lighting's good. It was when it's when they still had graders, apparently, because they didn't grade anything anymore. The lighting in Mean Girls, I watched yesterday, is phenomenal. Like the way that movie was lit, and I was like, I was trying, I was really analyzing it and kind of trying to break it down. And it's like, okay, like the colors are so rich in in this, and it's like, yes, there's like, and you can kind of tell there's more like vibrant scenes and stuff like that in a lot of the k the costume design. But I was like, the skin tones, like everything about it is so like just lovely to look at, and they just I everything I've seen recently is like they forgot to put the Lud on. And I'm just so sick of it. I was like, I want high contrast. I love I love a high contrast movie, and there's something about it. First of all, 90 minutes, great. We know we've discovered that. Timmy Meadows is hilarious, yes, like it's just the the the col like I think there's um kind of I don't know, things from that era can kind of it's a bit campy throwaway. Yeah, but I think there's a lot of there's more artistry that's gone into something like Mean Girls as a comedy movie that's meant for it came out in 2004. I was very much demographic, I was 14 in 2004.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:16

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:16

It was very much for people, like, yeah, and like and I don't think I watched it when it first came out, but like it's just it hold it holds up comedically, like Tina Faye, amazing writer, but I think visually speaking, it's there's there's something that in the way that they're investing in good lighting, in the costume design, in the grade, and then kind of like all of those kind of factors kind of roll in to make it look amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:42

I haven't watched the new mean girls, and I don't plan on it. But that was like I've seen a sidewise like a comparison, and I was like, that looks like it's just either it's it's been lit weirdly, and it's not been graded properly. It looks like they've just gone, oh, like whatever. I was like, I know that somebody's getting paid for this, but I was like, I don't, it's this kind of wanting things to be hyper-real to make it more realistic, but it makes it ugly, and it isn't as engaging. Like I would rather it be can't be contrasty John Waters kind of esque, yeah. You know, high, high, high like color, high intensity.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:20

It's a film, it's not real life. I'm not watching a documentary. Like, make it a film.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:27

It's everything looks like, and I found that so I I grew up a bit in France, and uh that was kind of the we didn't really there were soap operas in the States, but I didn't really watch them, and there's the things that I remember. It was like kind of like when I came home from school in France, there was a couple soap operas based in like the south of France, whatever they're big T. And that there's something I call soap opera lighting, and they light from every angle.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:51

So there's like flood lighting and like everything like that. One to make it easier to shoot, and two to make it more realistic, kind of like Eastender. Eastender is it's like depression lighting, like That's like poverty poverty lining in everybody's house. But if you compare Mean Girls from 2024, whenever the hell it came out, and an episode of E Senders, it's gonna look the fucking same. And I was like, what are we doing? I was like, I don't want it to look like I'm watching a soap opera or I'm watching something that's like daytime TV and everything looks like that now. I have not seen punchy colours in anything that's come out in the past six years. Maybe everything everywhere all at once, but that was a bit more like fantastical.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:31

That almost felt like it was doing it intentionally, not exactly for like, oh, this is a film. It's like no no no and punch it up. This is a comic book film almost.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:41

And that's the thing, it's like even in like super bad, like the lighting's amazing in it. And it's it's yes, it's a comedy film, but it's like it doesn't de take away the value of it. I think there was there was something uh Happy Gilmore 2 came out.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:57

Love the first movie. Love the first movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:58

Love the first one.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:00

Second one, I'm screaming at the screen. I was like, why horrible?

SPEAKER_03 1:51:05

I didn't get very far into that second one.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:07

Oh my god, it was so bad. It was so bad. And but it's the same, it's the same thing. It's like because we want it to feel realistic, and it's like comedy movies and like light-hearted movies can also feel cinematic. I was like, I don't know why we have to like take it away.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:24

The new Naked Gun did it very well. Have you seen that? Okay. No. It's one, it is very funny, and two, like, it it gives you old comedy logic for film. So none of it's realistic, it's all very silly. And you're just like, oh, perfect. And yeah, they light dark scenes with a lot of light. So it's like, good, yes, there has to be some depth in this. You have to like if your character is running down the street, hide that huge fucking spotlight behind a tree so that there's a nice wet down on the floor and you can see something that they're running to. Don't just make it dark, because that's not what I'm watching.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:05

Like I yeah. But even with things being dark, like turn the light on, guys. Like I've the amount of sh shit that I've watched recently. I have a MacBook Pro that I watch a lot of stuff from because it's got a good screen, and I watch stuff on there to check because I'm like, I know the colour correction on here is right.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:26

And also, I can't see anything. I can't see anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:28

Can't see shit.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:29

Why I can't see anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:32

Give me some light to give me some light. Because you can't be running around in a fucking basement pitch black, and me to go, Oh yeah, yeah, cool. Yeah, that's right. Great. And the descent, it's set in a fucking cave, and I see more.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:50

I know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:51

So what are you what are you saying here? Drives me mad. Like it really annoys me that they don't uh light things correctly anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:00

Like, make the children think there's you know, there's enough there's enough YouTube stars. Make the children become gaffers again. Make the children get integrating.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:11

Like like give me a day for night. Like, or a night for day shot. Like, I love a night for day shot. If why is why is there a shadow at nighttime? Why does it fucking matter?

SPEAKER_00 1:53:21

No, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:22

I can s I can see what you're doing. It's nighttime short.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:26

Yeah, it's fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:27

I love that bluey tint for midnight.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:31

It's great. Yeah, it's uh that's that's that is uh yeah. So yes, anyways, I'm watching a lot of early 2000s movies. I think on the docket ahead of uh the rest of them, I think because for this short that I'm doing, it's very 2000s inspired.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:49

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:50

Um so it's gonna be very high contrast, it is going to be lit properly, it is going to be graded properly.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:58

Are you gonna get like ARI 650s or 350s like tungsten lights? Or are you gonna try are you gonna do it LED?

SPEAKER_00 1:54:05

No, I don't want to do LED. I'm gonna try to get a lot of things. So you're gonna try and get some tungstens, yeah. Yeah, uh we we're getting tungstens. I mean, the sh sh I say the set, it's in basically because there was not a high a huge budget, I was talking to the the girl that's come up with the store the story is also the prop maker, and like she does the all this SFX makeup. And there's kind of a conversation that we had. She was like, Would you rather be on a set or in like an actual location? And I said, if you find somebody, because it's all meant to be about like collecting and like people's like rooms when you know, especially in the 2000s, when you have those rooms covered in posters and you have shit everywhere, and it's like I don't know what you're on about. But do you know what I mean? And I was like, it will it's it's bet it's more viable to me visually, if I'm watching something, and it's realistic if you're in a location that has all that shit instead of going and like trying to retroactively add that in.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:07

You can set dress it all you want, but if something is bedded in, if something is like that's lived in years of lived in, like we struck in my short Real Terror. There was like the house at the beginning, it was a friend of mine. Um his uncle passed away, and like I was like, Oh my god, that's so sad. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:28

And he showed me some photos, and I was like, Can I just of the dead uncle or no no the dead uncle?

SPEAKER_03 1:55:34

Of like the house, because the uncle, like he'd pretty much not thrown a newspaper away since the 80s, so there were stacks of newspapers everywhere, nothing had been updated. The kitchen was like an old like hob, but it was still like the old kitchen from the 50s, but not in like a nice way, like a knackered broken, nothing was working, things were just peeling, stuff was not working. Like instead of fixing the clock, another clock got put next to it.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:02

Yeah, like it's that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:04

And I was just like, please, before you clean this up, can I shoot my short here? And then I'll help you, I'll help you clean it afterwards. Like I'll I'll I had a truck at the time. I was like, I'll do trips to the tip with you. Like I don't like but can I mean and we shot the beginning, and like it works so well because it was it was a recluse like a man who'd lived on his own for so long and collected, and my main like my my secondary character was an old man who'd lived on his own and collected.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:35

And it was like it makes such a difference.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:37

This is it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, exactly that. So luckily, we found somebody in West London. I should know where I'm going, um, that is a obsessed, like her room is pink, pink to like a crazy point, yeah, but like covered in shit, and then she has rails closed, so she's like one of those like um like not Harajuku, but like she's like has a uh Lolita girl? Kind yeah, kind of, but like a really Japanese focus. So it's like Hello Kitty stuff everywhere, and like posting shit everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:15

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:16

And like, and like and just like stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, loads of like trinkets and shit that you like like piled in. I'm just looking at my office like yeah, yeah, like if so it's almost like this is amazing, this is perfect, but lighting it, like she's basically in a flat that has like windows everywhere, so but there's curtains, so I'm gonna kind of use them, soft them out, and then kind of light underneath, kind of like iCarly or something like Hannah Montana lighting. Yeah, um, and then yeah, just make it really foggy in there. So yeah, it should be good, and then have like a little gravity.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:48

I will say, like, whenever uh I turn up to a set and like there's the fog machine, I'm like, well done, you've understood.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:55

I so I think people don't use fog.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:58

I'm like, you want to get smoking then. I do not want to.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:01

I do not I don't want a crisp image. Oh yeah, yeah. Like I don't want it. Like fog. I know. I went to the to the person that's hiring kit. I was like, okay, here's kind of the things I need. I was like, can you get a fog machine? I was like, it is like and it's a nice to have because I have like canned atmosphere, if not, but like I'd really appreciate it. And she was like, okay, why? And I was like, you'll see. Just believe me.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:28

Like, I bought a fog machine before I bought like some lights, like not like some lights, but it was one of those, like, I gotta get the fog machine. I've got to get that.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:36

Yeah, I've been I've been debating getting uh you can get handheld ones, handheld pocket ones. And because there's a lot of like, do you know the movie Mandy? Pan House Cons Cosmotos. There's a lot of photos that I want to do. I live near Epping Forest, which is a big forest in uh I there's a lot of photos that I want to do. There's a music video that I've been asked to do that will be there's a lot of like abandoned churches and stuff in there that I want to do with like really harsh red lighting, but I was like, it only works if I have handheld fog. I don't want to be like plugging in. But it's like it's like this big, and it's like you put it in and it kind of looks like a vape. Like it's really heavy fog. They're kind of expensive, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:16

I've got what have I got? I've got my I've got like an old like um like DJ's one with a football.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:23

Yeah, classic.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:24

And then I found um, you know, the like the heavy fog, so it sits lower. Yeah. I had that, yeah, and then just using like a fucking light board just to like waft it up a little bit, and it was so like as soon as you put that in, like I don't think um the guys that we're working on with, like, they're not like one of them's a theatre tech, so he understood. Yeah, but the other guy he doesn't redo stuff like this. So when I was like, I'm gonna put this fog in, he was like, Oh, that's gonna like but and I was like, No, no, no, no, give it a sec. And then it's like just waft it, waft, waft it, and then just tapping it a little bit more, like, right now that's quite heavy. There we go, that's it perfectly. And he was like, I did not realize. I was like, Yeah, yeah, mate, that's how you and do you know what? That's the Michael Jackson effect, full circle, full circle, and thank you very much, off we go.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:15

Nice, nice, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:18

All right, perfect. Well, thank you very much for coming on. It's been wonderful talking to you. I know that we have technically known of each other for over 10 years, but it's nice to have actually had a proper chat.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:28

Yeah, it's always good. It's been great.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:31

And uh let's definitely make a cyberpunk film, man.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:33

100%. I'm getting I'm getting the iPad shuffles, i iPod shuffles at the ready. Done. Sick.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:40

Um, so yeah, thank you very much. Uh, do you want to do a shout out for anything? Any uh your website?

SPEAKER_00 2:00:45

Uh yeah, I mean I'm uploading loads of weird and sometimes wonderful stuff on my Instagram all the time. That's probably the best place at uh Ashton.hertz. It's just classic, classic. Classic, classic name, classic handle. It works. And but yeah, I'll be uploading. I'm doing a couple shorts this year, so we'll be uploading stuff there kind of all the time.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:07

There we go. Everyone check it out. Uh I'll put it all in the uh description so you can always find it through there and just link it. But thank you very much. It's been wonderful talking to you.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:18

And you thank you.