The Walk with J.D. Amato

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check But I don't think of it this way I never even say this word

[00:00:35] Death, La Maw Yes, okay, I said it once or maybe three times just now But watch, I will not say it again Instead, I use the opposite word Podcast For me to walk on the wire This is podcast Say La Podcast So picture me, it's 1974

[00:01:01] New York City and I am in love with two buildings We shouldn't have stopped him, I know why we didn't Or as everyone in the world will call them The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center They call to me, these towers, they store something inside of me

[00:01:16] And they inspire me a dream My dream is to hang a high wire between these twin towers And walk on it Of course this is impossible, not to mention illegal So why attempt the impossible? Why follow your dream? But I cannot answer this question Why? Not with words

[00:01:34] But I can show you how it happened And so we must go back in time Across the ocean because my love affair With these beautiful towers did not begin in New York No, no, no, no, in case you couldn't tell I'm not from here

[00:01:50] No, my story begins in another one of the world's most beautiful cities I guess I should have told you guys To just read the whole script while we did the episode Save podcasts Philip, are you okay with that? Yeah, I mean I've got the script up right now

[00:02:07] If you want to just do it Philip, I have one question for you You're talking about dreams, you know Your dreaming of your great dream How do you know that you're in a dream? Like how do you distinguish between being in a dream

[00:02:20] And being in the real world? Like do you have anything that might help you with that? You know, like any kind of object or implement I'm seeing that you're looking something up right now And I'm just gonna kinda keep talking

[00:02:34] Until you've gotten whatever it is you're looking for Some type of mass It's like a thing that's tangible you can touch What does it say? A totem, a small object Potentially heavy Something you can have on you at all time That's been more unique than that

[00:02:55] Like this is a loaded die But you can't touch it Exterior Paris street day Close on our brain puddle JD, that was a great bit by me I set him up for his great bit You're messing with this great bit This is so good See, you see

[00:03:16] JD, you see only I know the balance And weight of this particular loaded die That way when you look at your totem You know beyond a doubt You are not in someone else's dream Thank you Griffin can do a great Joseph Gordon Leavitt

[00:03:34] Talking about the die in the inception I would just want to call it out Sorry, I didn't know one of Griffin's Impressions in his back pocket was a Joseph Gordon Leavitt inception I apologize for stepping in It's my number one JD, all I have to say is that

[00:03:52] You're clear, I don't know Even though you invented the slogan You may not be a committed blankie You might not You might not love movies as much as we thought You might not want to blanket or thank it It's just difficult to know All I have to say

[00:04:08] I mean Sploosh, a single bicycle wheel Splashes through the puddle Rides the fine, petite, 20-ish Wearing a ratty black clothes Rides a unicycle through the narrow streets Just imagine Robert Zavec is sitting down To a typewriter and being like Alright, sploosh Oh no

[00:04:30] Or he can't find the word So he's doing that thing where he's like Googling He's like what's the word for water Splanch Splinch Sploosh So what's the word you said the other night What's the word Sploosh Yeah, sploosh, thank you

[00:04:50] See for me I think he found sploosh immediately And then he called out for his wife and he went Honey, and she went yeah And he leaned back and he went I have a good feeling about this one This one's definitely going to make

[00:05:02] More than one black hat We'll talk about it We'll talk about it Look, I mean let's just say it This is the time This is the place to talk the walk It happens only once a year But now Is that a rule?

[00:05:22] It can only be once a year? We can't double talk the walk No, a walk can only be talked once a year And I think where it lands Within the year is fungible Though it seems to have been in a similar corridor The last couple of years

[00:05:36] Right, usually as the leaves are turning That tends to be when we talk the walk On a tumble walk, but this is a winter walk This is the last episode of 2020 On main feed or on patreon And this is the one week

[00:05:48] That we usually don't release an episode We're usually dark The week between Christmas And New Years, but There were some schedule shifts And we looked at it and we said The only way the walk can be talked in 2020 Is if we slip it in this last second

[00:06:04] And that was the priority It was, I would also point out I mean people are home I don't know, like It's a good gear to maybe just not take the week Give people something at the end of the year Sorry JD, go ahead

[00:06:18] Well I was going to say this is also the longest gap Between my parents on blank check Ever Well, hmm Are you including the patreon episodes Or are you talking main feed only? I think regardless No, that's very interesting I'm very happy to announce

[00:06:36] That by Google, when I google your name The blank check wiki is the third hit Hell yeah It is, that's very true And so the last time you were with us According to the blank check wiki Was November 11th 2019 Right, for the last walk talk

[00:06:54] Yeah, that's more than a year More than a year Even when you go by When we're recording this it's more than a year Yeah, let alone, yeah Wow, it's been a long Half time, one might say Alright so, let's catch up December 2019 Not bad, I'll say that month

[00:07:14] I think was okay, right? Let me look at my calendar But I feel like there was no big Thing going on, I don't know Looks like I saw tequila mockingbird On Broadway So that's fun, right? Ed Harris I actually have Yeah, there was holiday parties

[00:07:34] The Rise of Skywalker came out Sure That was fun I like how it did I think we should turn this into Sort of because this is the last episode of a year This should turn into like a year end retrospective Where we just

[00:07:50] Each take turns going through our calendars and being like Oh, yeah, I had that meeting Yeah, that was a good meeting I do feel like my calendar Is gonna get a little less thrilling at some point Yeah, I'm not sure exactly when The difficulty for me might be

[00:08:04] Differentiating between the separate Months of this last year At a certain point, yeah But anyway JD, sorry, sorry I interrupted you Oh, okay, well you said it's been a while Since you've been on the show And I'm here and I have to be back Hell yeah

[00:08:22] I haven't seen David or Ben in person I've had a little Social distance street hang Or two with our friend Griffin One, I think one Yeah, just one You biked into the city and gave me a delayed birthday present Which I don't know

[00:08:38] You want me to say it or you want to say it You can say it I forgot to wear it but you gave me Like an employee uniform from Chuck E. Cheese The shirt And a visor And a wallet, were there two different shirts?

[00:08:52] I think it was quite a few items It was two different eras of the official uniform Of Chuck E. Cheese I think 180s, 190s It's like a little time travel There's a section on the Wikipedia For episode versus movie length Where they've calculated the ratios

[00:09:10] And my neighbor Torterow Is fourth in that The episode is one hour and five minutes longer Than the movie itself Wow, sorry Carry on It's not a hefty movie It's not that long We're just going to have to go really long Which is, you know Fine

[00:09:32] Sure, it's very hefty Disgustingly hefty Let's say exactly what's happening here We've already announced that we're talking the walk 2020 But this of course Is blank check with Griffin and David I'm Griffin I'm David Real slow on the queue there Who had massive success early on in their career

[00:09:52] Given the series of blank checks to make whatever crazy Passion projects they want And sometimes those checks clear And sometimes they walk baby This is a mini-series on the films of Robert Zemeckis Bobby Z We're talking the walk with J.D. Amato So this started with Obviously 2018

[00:10:14] We did an episode on Billy Lynn's half time walk That was J.D.'s Five-timer club episode actually Right, that was you getting the robe And And I feel like the bit Sort of organically generated of What if we try to make this feel like it's an event

[00:10:30] Like And every year we have to do this So then there was that question of Do we every year do a new episode on Billy Lynn's Half time walk Do we find another thing to do And then naturally last year Gemini Man was coming out

[00:10:46] It felt like a time to revisit some of the high frame rate 3D talks we had had that episode So we took a walk A farewell to frames And A great episode But it was an odd sort of like off-form What's the third walk going to be

[00:11:02] How do we continue this Is it only going to be about Ang Lee and high frame rate Because it feels like those two things aren't going to keep Being so evergreen for this podcast And then Robert Zemeckis Wins March Madness Served up on a platter there

[00:11:16] Here you go an episode on a movie called The Walk Which itself uses a lot of wild technological Sort of Toys And just to give some context too To new listeners is that I work In film and television myself And I have a particular affinity for The process

[00:11:36] Of making films and All the work and thought And beauty and consideration And I go into the technical prowess And the craft prowess that makes films And so one of the things I like doing Is coming on dear old blank check And really appreciating

[00:11:52] The work that goes into making movies And That started with, you know A bunch of movies but Billy Lynn's long half-time walk Was sort of the thing that launched all this And I will say my experience With The Walk was it was not a movie

[00:12:06] That was really on my radar Remember when it came out It was not a movie that really grabbed me Back when it came out And when you guys said Oh this will have to be The Walk this year

[00:12:18] I was sort of like am I just doing this episode Because it has the word The Walk in it? Like I would say that's 90% But I mean this is I would say this is a bit of a JD But anyway look But

[00:12:34] Not a movie you had an affinity for Right, yeah this is not a movie a passion Or per se, yes But then as I started unfolding the leaves And I rewatched The Walk And I realized You had seen it

[00:12:48] I had seen it but I didn't really remember it It was one of those movies that I just It didn't grab me immediately when I saw I think because there's a lot of stuff going on in my life at the time But now when I rewatched it

[00:13:00] And then I started folding back how they made it And what went into it Suddenly I realized For this episode I think The Walk is one of the most Overachieving films when it comes to Visual effects that perhaps has been made And I think the work and process

[00:13:18] That went into The Walk Is absolutely amazing and astounding And people do not recognize it Because I think it's attached To a film that for whatever reason didn't grab The zeitgeist at the time But I think film fans If you are a true film fan

[00:13:34] And it is worth going back Listening to this episode where we're going to dive into What makes this movie so special From a visual effects standpoint And appreciating what this film did Which is actually phenomenal Impressive Amazing and next level in ways

[00:13:50] That I didn't even realize until I started doing my research for this episode You texted me I feel like a couple weeks ago and said I think I finally figured out what my take is I think I finally figured out the shape of the episode

[00:14:02] And then for the last couple of days You have been texting David and I And saying you guys aren't ready Yeah, you would be like We're going to talk The Walk And I was like, yeah, good We confirmed a time, this is exciting I'm into it

[00:14:18] And you're like, no, you don't understand It's one of those where I'm like Yes, I don't understand There's no conflict here I agree that I don't understand Not even attempting to understand Okay, wait, JD's holding something up JD's got a bell in his hand Go

[00:14:36] The first word is simple It's barely a clue It's the thing we start doing at just about two The name of a render that blazed this film trail Betrays the friend's promise That makes them pro-bail Okay, JD's ringing What I would call a Christmas bell Whistling

[00:14:58] Spoken a riddle and whistled Okay And that down because I'm already Trying to retain the specific language Well, the listeners at home, they can stop it They can rewind Anyways, I don't really know what you guys are talking about Um But The special effects in this film

[00:15:18] Are some of the most Beautiful visual effects And what it took for them to make them And I don't think people realize in watching this movie How much of the movie Is visual effects Is live action assets And I feel like this is

[00:15:34] Perhaps the high watermark of modern Zemeckis In his What I think it would be like is a Thankless and Brave effort Where he took his machete And went into the jungles of the uncanny valley And was like

[00:15:50] I'm gonna go in here and I'm gonna climb my way out And I feel like The Walk From a technological visual effects standpoint Is the first film where he emerges From the uncanny valley Triumphant And says look at what we can do With visual effects

[00:16:06] And I can get into more of it But I just want to set the table that The visual effects in this film are stunning They are beautiful It is they go Beyond the call in every single capacity And I can't wait to get into it with you guys

[00:16:22] I will say I don't think you're The only person There's a very Small but committed fan base for this Film. Would you agree with me Griffin? It's not big at all But I remember when it came out there were a few critics

[00:16:38] Who were like I think that movie is quietly incredible The general take was obviously Well It has this very dazzling sequence But it's very padded and why did he make it And what's the sex All the critiques were there There was people who were kind of

[00:16:56] Whatever it worked for It transfixed them The visual effects obviously were a big part of that Look there are Died in the wall Zemeckis Otorus and I feel like especially they've come around In the last five or six years Who really try to investigate the later work

[00:17:12] And find redeeming qualities in them There was certainly that contention with this movie What I was surprised by Is I was looking at the Wikipedia And this movie was 83% On Rotten Tomatoes It actually generally got positive reviews Which I remember it being Kind of negatively received

[00:17:30] But I think there was just very little Actual Excitement for it outside of major Outlets I think the reviews though And there were some that were like rave levels But there were a lot that were just like look The sequence The main sequence itself is so dazzling

[00:17:48] That I can't That's sort of edged fresh If you're going to go Rotten Tomatoes Just because of the highs Even with all the caveats My walk away from the movie was very similar To what a lot of the reviews seem to say

[00:18:02] Which is just like I don't know if this thing works But like inarguably The 20 minutes Where he's walking Especially if you see an IMAX 3D Are unbelievable and they kind of single-handedly Justify the movie existing Now I remember from my first time

[00:18:18] In theaters I just want to say Being like really turned off By the rest of the movie until it got to the walk And being like that's like stinky poo-poo Until the last That 20 minute stretch Interesting. Wait, did you turn to anyone

[00:18:32] And maybe hold your nose and go like Ugh During the movie? I saw the movie by myself I did turn to many people And tried to get them to lock eyes with me So I could do the, ooh, stinky poo-poo What I'm doing right now Is I'm imagining

[00:18:48] We're hearing the audio of what Griffin just said And then suddenly it becomes A little distant and we see that It's playing off of a laptop In Robert Zemeckis' office And Griffin sitting in a chair across from him In an interview

[00:19:02] Trying to get a role next to Mechafilm He's like He's queued up several exhibits And this is like exhibit, you know, queue Like he's like no, no, we're not done by the way There's a few more episodes We haven't even gotten them all with me yet

[00:19:16] I already tried and failed I have nothing to lose anymore Oh my gosh But I'll say this, in re-watching it I was A little less harsh on it In that I went, I don't think this is good Rather than I think this is horrible

[00:19:32] I was sort of a little more complacent With it outside of Maybe the first 30 minutes which are the hardest To swallow I watched it at home but I watched it on 3D TV, 3D Blu-ray So I still got the sequence in that

[00:19:50] Sort of glory and I do think that's still Pretty stunning It's a bizarre movie Here's the thing that I think is interesting Is you guys talked a lot About movies that shouldn't exist Or movies that don't exist And that's essentially Usually what that actually amounts to

[00:20:08] Is it's movies that come and go And the way that it worked on them Was really passionate about them And so there's no lasting embers Of passion that any could read It was just sort of like a marketing move And I think this feels like a movie

[00:20:22] That you would think would be a movie Oh, it's a movie that is sort of Telling the story of this thing That a documentary came out about before And you might think that's a movie That shouldn't exist But I think what was interesting is

[00:20:36] It's not a movie that didn't exist To figure out what it is Why there is this burning ember And what it comes down to I believe is the visual effects But to speak to your point And I think this is going to be

[00:20:50] A larger session about this movie Of what works and what doesn't work about it To some people I think it is largely a successful movie Especially at what it's trying to achieve The story that it's telling is that Particularly, I think it's A tough story to tell

[00:21:06] Because it's someone who wants something And sort of gets it And there are obstacles But they aren't obstacles that require Too much Of putting No Themselves on the line They're physical obstacles Yeah So I think that's hard to tell From a storytelling perspective

[00:21:30] And I think this film does about Just as good as a job as you can do In a creative way And I think the big critique that you get about it And I can see Griffin taking a big breath Is the film is really split up

[00:21:42] Into two hour sections The first hour which is all set up Which is that's the hour that Most people are like Can we get through this And then that second hour which is like The heist It's so fun And it's so captivating

[00:22:00] And I think there is this feeling That I've seen out there That I definitely Felt myself when I was watching When I was sort of like can we get through this first hour So I can get to the fun stuff

[00:22:12] And the sort of question I want to pose Is do you think you would have as much fun In that second hour without the first hour And I don't know the answer to it And posing that is a question Yes, look here's the thing

[00:22:24] This is one of those movies for me where I watch it And I go like I wish this didn't have To A two hour movie It should be a 75 minute movie But that's even the thing of You're like 20 years ago this could have been

[00:22:40] Oh, Robert Zemeckis is doing A 30 million dollar IMAX movie That is 60 minutes long You know? And it was just designed to be Sort of like an experiential Thing This movie is sort of torn between Working as a You know narrative scripted retelling Of this famous story

[00:23:04] Which has been famously retold In an Oscar winning documentary That was very popular Only a handful of years earlier And being this sort of technical Showcase this sort of visceral Experiential thing And I think it threads one needle far better Than the other and to

[00:23:22] For that reason it ends up JD Like what you're saying feeling kind of like Different movies smushed together Sure but I'm intrigued By JD's what JD's putting forward Which is and I want to add Onto this I want to say a few things One I saw this film

[00:23:38] At the AMC Lincoln Square IMAX Theater for it was the opening film Of the New York Film Festival if you remember Humble breath I think never Been more terrified in my entire Life to see a film and I'm saying That with no hyperbole whatsoever

[00:23:54] I was in a state of Moderate Panic sitting down What do you mean? And like I am really afraid of heights And falling and airplane You know like I feel like this is fairly well known Right? And we're going into A movie no one has seen

[00:24:12] This is the press screening before the premiere We're in the IMAX Theater Which as you know there's no escape Like unless you're Unless you snag those really nice seats right in the back I'm sure you know what I'm talking about You know there's no aisle

[00:24:26] You're stuck there right? I'm with my peers Who I want to think of Me as like You know a Not a big ol' Freddy cat? Exactly Yeah like a grown person Who behaves himself And everyone's like And this thing sort of seems stupid but Like I hear

[00:24:48] It's gonna be cool Like the walk itself will be cool You know there's height and it's just that thing Where I'm like I don't know if I'm gonna be able to handle this Like I don't know what this is Gonna look like

[00:25:00] You're having the feeling that I had When Griffin took me to 4DX Sure You were just like I don't want to be I don't want to lose control in that way Where I'm like surrendering myself to a chair That will punch and spray And so on and

[00:25:16] So that influenced My viewing the first time because by the end I was just like I did it I got out of that thing alive And I truly was Freaking out during the big sequence Which I think is very good Like the walk itself So there's that

[00:25:34] That's one aspect of it The second aspect that I just, the other thing I wanted to say Before I lose it and just to Reinforce what JD is saying I think this film has The worst opening of a film Ever A few movies have a lot of more

[00:25:50] Disaster Hold on one second No film starts lower And maybe as JD is sort of Possibly arguing like You know, maybe that's It's almost thematic but I think it starts over black and we hear a voice A voice with a slight French accent Eager and full of energy

[00:26:10] A voice full of passion, full of fury This is Philippe Petit That is the question people ask me most When I rewatched For what? When I rewatched this film Last night with my wife Forky of course She had the question that I think a lot of people had

[00:26:30] I think this was a common question in 2015 which was Why makes this movie? No, no, no That's a question but no Why does it start with Him standing In the Statue of Liberty Talking to the camera in a French accent It's just A simple question There's no answer

[00:26:52] I don't know who sat down I imagine Robert Zemeckis like maybe he pulls up a chair Backwards, you know, just something fun Before the pitch and he's like Here's how I imagine the first minute of the movie Joseph Gordon Leavitt Wearing some spooky contact lenses

[00:27:06] With a mushroom haircut Balances on Statue of Liberty And then talks right at the camera for 10 minutes In a God-awful accent Do you think that's like a good energizing start to a movie? P.S. The movie is over two hours long I'm just saying I'm just saying maybe

[00:27:24] JD's right, maybe it's There's a purpose to that But it's the worst opening to a movie ever Yeah, I mean look I'm a Zemeckis fan A Zemeckis apologist even Me too, me too Despite the fact that it generally got positive reviews And even a few raves

[00:27:42] It did not feel like there was a ton of excitement For this movie and there's that thing That inevitably happens with like A A movie that is sort of designed To be an Oscar play Especially one with a big budget Happening at a studio level

[00:27:58] Not an indie film, you know This is Tristar Sony, right But one coming in with this much sort of Expectation Especially from a major director If it doesn't immediately become An Oscar frontrunner It's sort of is like deflated Even if some people like it

[00:28:18] Yes, you don't want to get goldfinched Right, you know where it's like You don't want to get goldfinched The goldfinch and everyone's like The whatfinch and it's like Don't worry about it, we got another Oscar movie coming in three weeks Just forget we ever said anything about goldfinches

[00:28:32] Okay, we want to be a real studio over here Right, but I'm like a dude Always rooting for Zemeckis I went to see this not IMAX But in 3D probably like a weekday matinee And that opening hits And I just remember immediately feeling like Fuck

[00:28:48] It's impossible for this movie To be a masterpiece from the first Frame they've already missed up so wildly That the movie could Recover but it's never gonna Totally work I wish he turned around and he said Oh, I didn't see you there It feels like

[00:29:06] And it feels like fucking Pierre Escargot In the bathtub Saying oh-ho-ho And teaching you how to say my cheese smells bad Or whatever, you know Here's what I would say I think you guys are right That it's a strange ending

[00:29:22] I think the thing that's hard about the first Not ending, the first hour Is that it is It's giving a lot of exposition That ultimately doesn't We don't necessarily need as an audience At least it doesn't feel like we need The guy takes 10 minutes to say

[00:29:40] I wanted to walk between the twin towers Without really telling me why he wanted to walk Between the twin towers and the only real question Is why the fuck did this guy want to do This fucking thing that's so crazy

[00:29:50] And like I don't think that Zemeckis can answer that I don't think that James Marsh's film really You know, like that is sort of the Unknowable, you know, appeal of it Right? But at the same time The guy is talking for 10 minutes As Griffin did

[00:30:04] The dream, my dream of this Okay, yeah, I get it, you wanted to do the thing That I already know you did Well here's what I And this is wild speculation Because I have read the script And Zemeckis Did a full Previz animatic of this movie

[00:30:22] After he wrote it So the script and Previz that he pitched and the final movie Are almost identical, there's very few Difference as far as I could tell Have you watched the entire previz? I have not watched the entire previz Okay But I know a lot about it

[00:30:39] And My instinct As to why that opening might exist May come from the fact That if you start on sploosh The tire goes through the puddle And we're in Paris and all that stuff Oh, it's a cordian Take free it please, yes, yes That is

[00:30:59] It takes us about 45 minutes To ever get to New York And if you're seeing this movie You're tuning in to see these beautiful images They've crafted of New York And the World Trade Centers And all this stuff My instinct is that this is a way

[00:31:15] To prime the audience of Hey, this is what you're gonna see later This beautiful sort of stuff But first let us go back in time And tell the story And then we'll come back to here Now, whether that's successful as an opening

[00:31:29] Obviously you guys have strong opinions too And I don't necessarily disagree I do think it's very Goofy, but It's hokey That would be the nice way to put it I say But I think that leads to another discussion That I want to have Which is, you know Zemeckis

[00:31:50] When I think about Zemeckis's career He is a director That I am so aware of But if you had to have me Force me to explain what it is He was trying to say in his films I don't know if I could necessarily come up

[00:32:04] With a consistent through line As to what he's trying to say In the same way that you can With a lot of other directors And that's not necessarily a criticism That actually might be a strength Because it means that he's not just saying

[00:32:18] Of the things that does unite all of them Is that he lets things go pretty big And I know we can sort of get into the plot Of the movie a little bit But for example there's the stoner character That has a freak out at a certain point

[00:32:30] And it's like a very big performance That feels Out of back to the future Or something where it's like This is a little more of a cartoon Than it is real And I think sometimes that can be A thing that makes The blackest triangle hard to

[00:32:48] You know, piece the pieces together on I mean there's I want to just dive in the deep end On this because I feel like Can't talk about this movie without talking About this aspect I think a lot of the failings of This movie come from

[00:33:04] The inability to capture Philip Petey In a way that feels like A recognizable human being Sure A person who people would want to follow Which is crucial Right, and if I can just follow this for a little bit I think it's a failure of Gordon Levin's performance

[00:33:24] But I also think it's a failure of Zemeckis' screenplay But it's one of those things where like Men on a Wire was one of those Kind of crossover documentary Successes that feels like It breached a little bit beyond The audience of people who usually go see

[00:33:38] Documentaries because there was this thing Of like you gotta see this It's so engaging, it's so entertaining The story is unbelievable This guy is unreal And I put that in that category of Free solo had a similar kind of thing And searching for Sugarman

[00:33:54] Where these are like really inspiring Human interest stories With these guys you couldn't write a character like this No, you couldn't find an actor To play a character like this These guys are just so fully themselves And Philip Petey in particular Is just like this over the top

[00:34:10] Like Puck like kind of like You know, he's Got this real weird Like there's something very Childlike and sort of Menacing about him but also very Innocent, romantic but then he has This hard edge and he's so opinionated And part of it is just like

[00:34:28] Watching this guy tell his Own story was so Engaging that you're like I don't know if I want to see anyone else Tell his story and even Had a book based on this Experience which this movie is directly Based off of and I'm like

[00:34:44] I don't even know if I want to read the book Part of it is seeing his physicality And his voice and everything He's just such a unique person And there is just that weird X factor Of like in Man on Wire Man on Wire

[00:34:58] He says like you know I just looked at these buildings And I said I must walk that I must put my wire there And you're like that makes no sense to me Complete sense to this guy Like he is so possessed He is so single-minded

[00:35:12] He is so on his own wavelength that when you watch him You completely understand why He had no doubts and you also Understand why a certain type of person Would be attracted to him Follow him to the ends of the earth Put themselves you know in harm's

[00:35:26] Way in order to help him realize The dream It's really hard to recapture that In a fictional movie Because he's a guy on paper that doesn't make any sense And I think One of the things that happened And I don't know

[00:35:42] What is going through the heads of any of the people who made this So I can't project onto that But I can say that the movie seems More fascinated with the act itself Than with the people behind it But In order to tell a quote-on-quote

[00:35:56] Movie in that the sort of Hollywood sense You have to have this main character That feels like the movie is actually less interested In Petite as a character Rather than as Petite as an actor who does a thing that Has this beauty representation to it

[00:36:14] That because all of the resources and imagery And beauty of the film is centered around The action and the act and what that represents And I think the images are so strong And beautiful of that But the film doesn't feel as fascinated

[00:36:26] With who he is as a person because You don't see that come out in Performance or how it's shot Or how it's told Let's get through all this character stuff So we can really get to what this film is about Which is the beauty of this action

[00:36:40] And what it visually represents Right And it's like I don't know I found some quote from Zemeckis talking about Why he really took to this story And that he didn't know it had really happened Despite obviously being alive at the time That he read a children's book adaptation

[00:36:58] And then at the end of the book Realized that it was a real thing And then started digging into it And then obviously When Man on Wire came out And made the story so big and was successful And won an Oscar and everything

[00:37:12] Then there was some sort of juice behind the idea Of doing a new version of it The Zemeckis quote is He said to me it had everything that you want In a movie, it had an interesting character Who's driven and obsessed and passionate

[00:37:24] It had all this caper stuff He was an outlaw, there was suspense And then he did this death defying thing But the problem is What's interesting about this guy Is that he's driven, obsessed and passionate There is no deeper answer there You know?

[00:37:40] There's nothing in the story of what made him decide To do this It's just an impulse I must do it The carnival stuff Right, no Like a tradition Essentially, everything in his life Up until him landing in New York And putting the team together Is not super interesting

[00:38:02] And you're like Zemeckis could have done an Ocean's 11 thing here Where page 5 is him landing in New York You know? I agree But he does all this No, what are you gonna say? I don't know if this is true or not

[00:38:18] Because I don't know how much he cared about Man on Wire But obviously Man on Wire was Was an Oscar winning movie Man on Wire also has a Heist movie structure Right? Like it's sort of It has those recreations

[00:38:32] It's kind of trying to do like a kind of Mini budget like 70s thing Right? Like And so maybe he was worried Like I can't just do a high, you know Like I don't know He's a hokey guy as JD is saying And so Sploosh

[00:38:48] Like I can see him just being like But I agree with you Griffin This might be better served By him getting off the plane to start the movie We can flash back for 5 minutes You know? That's the other factor I want to get into

[00:39:04] And JD, I apologize if we're front loading a lot of our big Theses for this movie first because we assume You're gonna run the table in the rest of the episode Yeah, I feel like we're just like Look, I have a few things I want to say

[00:39:14] Okay, he's gonna bring that bell out again And like I don't know what that's about Is there gonna be a scavenger hunt? Do I have to leave My apartment for this episode? Um, I feel like A, that's a way in which They were uniquely fucked by

[00:39:28] Man on Wire Is that Man on Wire is not just a successful documentary But that is half Uh, uh, recreation Restaging So half of the movie is watching These sort of dramatic recreations of everything That are really fucking well done They're like really

[00:39:46] They feel like you're watching somehow Documentary footage from the night They cast the young people well It's not overplayed It feels pretty verite And there's real tension the way those sequences are constructed And then you have Philippe Petit in narration And in cutaways

[00:40:02] Talking straight down the barrel of the lens To you, the audience Explaining what was going through his head So it is somewhat bizarre that this movie almost exactly copies The structure of that That you started out with narrator Philippe Petit Looking at the audience

[00:40:16] Walking you through all these recreations That you're seeing Except it's two levels of Artifice Versus Man on Wire where it's like Real guy storytelling and then Artifice And the Artifice is a lot more Naturalistic than what we're seeing in this movie Um, but that's

[00:40:32] That's another aspect of it is Like you talk about the hoakiness of Zemeckis And I'm pretty interested in like This Marwin and Forrest Gump As like three movies of a piece, right? Where two of them are based on documentaries One of them is based on a book

[00:40:48] But in all three cases he's sort of taking a more Complicated story And reducing it to the most Inspirational aspects Which is what he likes to do To sand off the rough unsavory edges Of these characters It's bizarre to me Because it's Zemeckis That he doesn't try to

[00:41:08] Build some more Emotional backstory for Philip Petit You know? Like it feels like that's the Hollywood thing That Zemeckis would do is like come up with some Larger emotional explanation Make this more of a love story Make it more of a whatever

[00:41:24] But it really just is kind of him doing Like It's Zemeckis making a movie about Like a Christopher Nolan protagonist Right, it's Zemeckis making a movie about A guy who's just kind of like A heat seeking missile Which is an odd choice for him

[00:41:40] Because he's so usually drawn to Very emotional And emotionally driven protagonists Right And I think what's difficult and I could The little that I do know about What went into the attempted selling of this movie Is What you're saying about Philip Petit Is what's so interesting is that

[00:42:02] He says this thing that sort of has no I just had to put a wire there A storytelling standpoint Is really hard to portray That without the The magic of Reality there to bolster That and so I do think what Zemeckis

[00:42:18] Sort of did is he sort of did a quick sort of Here's a Bunch of data points of This person's upbringing That hopefully connect To let you understand why This person might be this way And I think it's what's hard Is that they're not really They're not scenes

[00:42:38] Or context that's providing you with Much Actual support for his actions It's just sort of like a character Study of these things that might have Sort of been swirling in his head But none of it is one to one related to

[00:42:52] What he's doing because what he's doing is such An act of passion over logic He's chosen this thing because he's obsessed With it and those of us who have Done things like that in our lives You know when you do some of its irrational

[00:43:04] Or passion over logic you can't explain Why you're just pulled to it And from a filmmaking standpoint that's really hard to To Communicate especially in a Hollywood way Like example Do you remember the 3D Like arcade near the audio boom studios Yes VR world

[00:43:24] They had one of the simulations, VR world They had one of the simulations where you would walk a plank Yeah And they had fans even set up So once you got to like halfway Across this plank They would engage and obviously you're seeing

[00:43:38] Like being at the top of the world Trade center. I took mushrooms and did that You just do things like that sometimes No I don't I screamed and went Ah! Ah! And there was just children around It was embarrassing Are you telling that story to argue

[00:43:56] That you are the kind of just driven That JD is describing Yeah sometimes you just gotta take mushrooms And go to a VR world Ben sort of saying he's sort of like a Philippe Petit And that he took mushrooms and went to a VR Arcade

[00:44:10] And inspired the entire city I'm sure Philippe Petit would be like Ah! I said look at you! Ah! What a grand coup! Yeah Ben's on the digital plank being like Oh! The coup is over! They know dude There are these guys like Fincher And you know Kubrick

[00:44:30] And Nolan Who have all made movies about Seemingly kind of emotionless Just like obsessive Protagonist in pursuit of a perfect thing But it takes a certain kind Of obsessive mind To do it And so Mech is has too much of the kind of like

[00:44:48] Crowd pleasing like I want to make a movie That touches people kind of thing And the thing That just feels for me like such It's kind of the key To Zemeckis adapting this story Is everyone I know who saw a man on wire Would say like

[00:45:06] And can you believe that thing where when he gets off The wire he sleeps with those women There's that moment that everyone talks about Which is like he has this woman Annie Who's like his lover who's been with him for years Who puts herself at legal risk

[00:45:18] Who works so hard on this And then he gets off the wire, he gets arrested At a jail these groupies come up to him And they're like do you want to have a foursome with us And he's like absolutely and in the documentary

[00:45:28] You see some silly like Benny Hill Style recreation of him jumping in bed With these ladies and he goes like Yes, you know I mean I felt bad for Annie But you know here are these women You know I had to sleep with them I am French

[00:45:42] What can I do? And the whole audience Of the landmark sunshine is like No but then they cut To her and she's just like I was very hurt Like I was incredibly hurt And that's the end of their relationship And this movie makes the end of their relationship

[00:45:56] I was in New Yorker now And she did not have what it took to stay in New York Like they make it just this sort of decision That she's like I don't have the same passion That you do and you leave out the part

[00:46:06] That he did this fucked up thing The second he got off the wire It sort of reminds me of when Ben Stumbled off the VR plank into a group Of 8th graders and was like do you know Where the foursome is and then

[00:46:18] Then Ben's face got put on A wall at VR world And he wasn't allowed in and And then Ben hired a lawyer And tried to sue his way back in Because he said he needed the VR equipment To quote unquote hack the banks Yes

[00:46:35] That's the exact point I'm trying to make JV The thing with like I love Free Solo which I think is a better Documentary than The Man on Wire Although I like Man on Wire And that movie to me Drills down a little more To the Alex Honnold experience

[00:46:53] The experience of You know these types of people Because it is a little more Focused on like one yes Here's this person who does this thing That you know most people just won't understand Right he climbs this rock And if you know does one thing wrong

[00:47:09] He will die like it's just complete Yes no like No one would ever know But there's the appreciate What he's doing is a craft And it digs into what Is so incredible about the craft for him Which Man on Wire does with the balancing

[00:47:25] I feel like it's been years since I saw it But then it's also about Free Solo is about like the experience Of knowing him and loving him Through the eyes of his girlfriend Well that's the key is that Free Solo Is like right she's almost the lead character

[00:47:39] Of that movie yes And that to me is so fascinating Like it's not just that yes here's this person Who does this thing you don't understand But that the of course there are people Who he matters to you know And Man on Wire has a little of that

[00:47:53] And it has Annie and all that But like at the end of the day he's like I am Mr. Mischa's pick-lit You know I vanish into the clouds Aha you know like he's a personification Of delight But I think that is what you're tapping

[00:48:07] Into is the magic of documentary Because in documentary You let your camera search for that truth And as an audience member You are experiencing that truth come across At the same time the filmmaker is In narrative that exploration of Truth has to be done

[00:48:23] In a different sort of Dance pattern with the filmmaker And with the subject Whereas in documentary you're observing it And you're getting that primary source And so you can sort of You can observe These sort of befuddling Paradoxical characters And try to discern

[00:48:43] Why they are what they are Imagine and I bet someone will try to do it Is gonna try to make a free solo Movie and I think that will have The exact same struggles as something Like this because it's It's hard to It's hard to create narrative justifications

[00:48:59] For a character that's driven by things That are so inside themselves That they don't even realize what they are I will say the only difference Is no accent required That's the only advantage Here's the other thing I think is important

[00:49:13] You would say that but fucking Gordon Leavitt did an accent For Snowden so he'll find a way to do An accent for anybody Wait does he have to play Honnold? Is this like the rule now? Well I think that

[00:49:25] The other thing I want to say about free solo is this Is that as a kid I liked Free Solo the most because of Java the hut and Salacious Crumb And Ewons But when Solo gets captured That movie It ends on more of a downer

[00:49:41] But I think that there's a lot of good stuff in there J.D. David smacking himself in the head This is another key difference Another key difference is that free solo Is a fly on the wall Documentary in the way that you're saying

[00:49:57] J.D. where like these things are Happening unfolding in real time In front of the camera and you're coming to The same realization as the filmmakers And on wire is largely Like a one man show It's like this guy looking at you

[00:50:11] And telling the story and so much of the movie Is the kind of unreliable narrator question Of like is this guy for real? Like he feels like a bullshit artist Can he really be this magical Where he just claims he looked and he thought

[00:50:23] My wire has to go there Is there nothing more going on with this guy So you're watching half a guy telling you His interpretation of what happened And you're watching half Of the variations pretty much You know? I mean the smallest sliver

[00:50:37] Of the movie is other people talking About what happened He really dominates the narrative Which it works if you're questioning The guy and going like Is this guy for real or is he a bullshit artist I guess the proof is in that

[00:50:51] It actually happened and here's the footage But still it's hard to believe That everything was this whimsical That he took off his clothes And started dancing around looking for the wire Sort of shit. But then when you have an actor Playing the guy Who feels like he's

[00:51:07] Not really on the level Like he can't be real. It adds another Level of disconnect Especially when I feel like Gordon Leavitt Is forefronting The obsessive tendencies of this guy Rather than the sort of Impish charm of this guy Which you need some of that fucking charm

[00:51:25] And he's like very Serious in this outside of maybe Just the opening 20 minutes This is A larger question And it's maybe not one that is Solvable today. But it is That George Zosof Gordon Leavitt Was I think a very charming actor For a lot of his career

[00:51:45] Especially when he Starts to emerge again Post third rock from the sun Like oh like that guy From things I hate about you And he's like he's very talented Well he took a couple years off and then he had That year that was like mysterious skin

[00:52:01] Brick both at sunnets at the same time Now he's the new leading man The new young guy. And like he played A lot of serious parts Right you know in like The look out and stuff He tooks a lot of it but then you've got 500 days of summer

[00:52:17] You've got Inception Dark Knight Rises, you have Premium Rush Looper like Loopers maybe sort of him getting too serious I guess it's a brief span Where he does Love these intense Busy Acting roles where he's going to Do something you know he's going to

[00:52:37] Have a look or an accent or a Physical thing you know like So maybe that's partly what is Hampering him And like the apotheosis Of this as you say Gryffin is Snowden Where I'm like I guess this guy's doing a Snowden impression I wasn't looking for that

[00:52:55] Like it's one of those things Right it's like he's going way too hard The Stonervoice he sounds like Kermit the Frog And everyone's response is You could have just sounded like you No one would have docked you points for that

[00:53:07] And this is one of those cases where like He trained with the real Philippe Petit For months he became fluent in French Like he did fucking everything I mean there was the The Jessica Gordon Leavitt thing that just is like It's the whole story

[00:53:21] And he's like cool can I do the entirety Of make him laugh from singing in the rain And they were like we only have a week of rehearsals And he's like don't worry I'll spend Four months preparing for it Like that was his story that they asked him

[00:53:33] Over the summer would you want to host in the fall And he was like I will build The walls in my backyard so I can Do the practice of running up the Walls and doing the backflip and everyone Saw it and they were like I guess that's impressive

[00:53:45] Right it was like It was cute to a point It was like yeah he's trying really hard But right there was something Kind of annoying About it this is I guess the Joseph Gordon Leavitt paradox but I do like him in a lot of movies

[00:54:01] I do too he does now vanish I think he's very good in The trial of the Chicago 7 But that's because he's playing a twerp Here's my hot take Sort of well deployed there Yes what's your hot take I like Joseph Gordon Leavitt

[00:54:17] If only because he seems like he's enjoying himself on screen And while yes That sometimes can take me out of it And sometimes I can be like I don't know I for the most part Revel in seeing someone That seems to be enjoying doing their job

[00:54:35] And diving into it without Any level of cynicism or Sort of like I don't know If I want to be doing this like he feels Like so fully in Whenever he's doing stuff And he's so in that sometimes it takes you out But he really seems to be

[00:54:51] Enjoying it which I want to say I appreciate because there's a lot of actors Especially these days where it's like Um Oh my way to act is to not act Sort of just like stay above it and outside this

[00:55:03] And I like that he's got this sort of like And it may be a very passe way of acting Where he's like I'm gonna get into it I'm gonna do the work I'm gonna like Have fun becoming the best And it's like a Tete that I can become

[00:55:15] And for whatever reason that tickles this part Of me that sort of enjoys that in this sort of like Weird old Hollywood way But I get how it can run people the wrong way He's like a dork and he's a drama nerd

[00:55:25] Like it's that thing of just like I want to show you how quickly I got off book You know? I forgot about 50-50 He's good in that I think he's really good in 50-50 Yeah that's sort of a movie that I feel like Whatever is not

[00:55:39] You know, discussed a lot but it's a solid Movie and he's very good in it But that's sometimes where he doesn't track Where you're like 50-50, okay he's proven now That he can do this kind of thing And then I think he's really bad in the night before

[00:55:51] Which is like him and Rogan again Same director Like very similar vein I've not seen the night before He's just like really over the top Really over cranked and unnatural in that And it's like there's not It's hard to identify like

[00:56:07] Oh he's always good playing this kind of thing And the trouble is this kind of thing He has tendencies that you can identify That are like these are the bad performances Versus the good performances But it doesn't feel like there's a consistent algorithm

[00:56:19] To like he's better with these types Of directors or these types of characters Or this kind of genres I do much like you JD I can never really Hold it against him because I do appreciate That he clearly cares so much That he really like

[00:56:35] Feels like a guy Who is honored to be a movie actor Is going to do 110% Do everything he can To try to serve the movie the best he can But sometimes I feel like It doesn't feel like he takes it for granted Absolutely not

[00:56:51] Sometimes I feel like some of that energy is misplaced Like he just He applies it to the wrong areas Sometimes forced through the trees problems with him We forgot to mention Don John I'm sorry that's crucial to all Joseph Gordon Levitt Discussion as well because it was like

[00:57:07] Basically at the height of his fame Because that's the year after Dark Knight Rises And Looper and Premium Rush and Lincoln He's great in Looper Yeah he's good in Looper I like Looper and I like him in Looper But the year after that he's like

[00:57:21] And here's my writer director Debut About like a guy Who loves the gym and jerking off Like This is what you had Like you know kind of like In your back pocket like this was The passion project My body, my pad, my ride, my family

[00:57:41] My church, my boys, my girls And my porn I also wanted to ask And I'm assuming the answer is no Go ahead, sorry You want me to say that? Say it Sploosh baby I'm just assuming I have not seen it That no one has seen The hijacking drama

[00:58:03] 7500 that just kind of quietly Dropped on Amazon like last This year? No, I mean he Essentially Snowden was his last movie in 2016 and then he had three movies On streaming this year. He had the hijacking Movie He had Project Power on Netflix And Trial of Chicago 7

[00:58:21] But those were like his first three movies In four years essentially Right anyway it's an interest I mean I think he can bounce back Like star star but as a guy You know I'd like him to bounce back It's kind of wild watching him in Chicago 7

[00:58:37] Where they're like you're this like Wiz kid, DA You know? Who's like Rising through the ranks And there's that scene Where they were running into the park with his daughters And you're like it's just Gordon Leavitt Really old enough to have two daughters this age

[00:58:53] And then you look it up and you're like fuck he's 39 That's also just a function Of like you know he was on television when I was a child Right. Like and I'm old now What I'm saying He's still boyish and you're like

[00:59:05] What is the next ten years of Gordon Leavitt Rolls gonna look like? Can I say this though? Yes Oh no here comes the bell Next Next is a word that Whitney did Miss in vertigo westworld But not Muran in the abyss If Travis B. Welker pulled

[00:59:26] A prank on this word It's change would at least be beautifully Heard Are we supposed to acknowledge this? Acknowledge what? What are you talking about? Huh? So JD We've been talking for about an hour I wanted to get into the visual effects Because I do think those are

[00:59:50] We've been talking the walk for about an hour correct? We've been talking the walk That's right Talk about that because I do That's the biggest component of this movie And it's the thing you're obviously the most intrigued by So let me tell you the story Of

[01:00:06] The walk visual effects as far as I know it And what I think is so fantastic And what makes this movie Such an overachievement And so amazing Number one just to set the stage I want to say Visual effects themselves have gone through a huge evolution

[01:00:24] Obviously in the past 20 years From being something that's used To only do the fantastical To being something that's used to be utilitarian And I think there was an era In the mid-2000s Where there was a lot of VFX used To solve production problems

[01:00:40] But it was used simply as a Stop gap between a problem and a solution And I feel that The walk is A film That uses it not only To solve the problem of A literal impossible shooting scenario But then elevates

[01:00:59] Its visual effects to the point where they are So beautiful And they are not Direct Replicas of reality They are heightening reality to something that is Photographic and beautiful And painterly In a way that is really hard For most films to do And so that's the context

[01:01:21] But what makes it really amazing Is the story visual effects So, Robertson MacKess While he was doing A Christmas Carol I believe was The most boring movie ever made I don't think I've seen it He had made a full Pre-vis Animatic of this film

[01:01:45] And was taking it around To different studios Pitching it saying here's the movie that I want to make And when it came time In his pitch to say What amount of money he wanted for it The number that was in the air Was $35 million

[01:02:01] Which if you are not A film geek, $35 million Is not a lot of money That is the amount of money That in the 90s was spent on A rom-com And Robertson MacKess Is hoping to make a film That is a period piece Of special effects Extravaganza

[01:02:23] That takes place entirely in an impossible VFX scenario And even just from perspective Trial of the Chicago 7 Is a movie that costs $35 million And almost exclusively takes place in that one core room Yeah And so he was literally Apparently laughed out of the room

[01:02:41] At multiple studios where they're like It's impossible You're either going to end up spending Going to get made or just going to be A not worthwhile endeavor The only company that humored him Was TriStar Who then said, alright, why don't you go do it

[01:02:57] And that's when he turned around And pulled together his VFX team His VFX team was people that He had pulled From other projects they had worked on And most notably Someone who sort of piqued my interest Was his VFX supervisor, this guy Kevin Bailey And

[01:03:15] Approached Kevin Bailey and was like, hey, here's what we want to do And the budget for the film is $35 million And Kevin I think his vibe was like Wait, that's like the effects budget And he's like, no, that's the whole movie

[01:03:29] The effects budget is like in the teens of millions Which If you look at the effects budgets for films That have as many shots As much screen time of VFX as this It is more than $35 million A $50 million budget line for VFX And this whole film is $35 million

[01:03:47] Can I just interject with two things quickly, JV? Yes Just to contextualize for our listeners This is this weird era of TriStar that we've Oddly covered a couple of times now Where Tom Rothman leaves Fox, moves over And says like, I'm going to run

[01:04:01] The sort of adult, au-tour-driven Arm of Sony Not Sony classics But not the big blockbuster films And the four that they make right off the bat In the order I'm forgetting are this Ricky in the flash Billy Lin's long half-time walk And what's

[01:04:19] There's a fourth big one that I'm forgetting Money monster Money monster But it was like kind of big 90s movie stars Au-tours Old kind of like An earlier era of adult High budget You know, mid-high budget

[01:04:37] They were all sort of like, can you make these things for $35 to $50? But Prestige studio movies That all flopped I think it's worth pointing out that Zemeckis In between the Christmas Carol and this made Flight, which is also A, I mean it's not maybe as

[01:04:53] Complicated in movies as this but it has obviously An incredibly dramatic plane crash sequence And that cost $31 million Yes, and Flight was the same team That worked on this, the VFX team And that was a Paramount Movie, but whatever The only other thing I want to say

[01:05:11] I have from reliable sources Who worked at Sony and TriStar at the time I don't know if you heard this in your research, JD What I have heard from people From when he was pitching the movie Is that his original intention was to have

[01:05:27] Philip Petey play himself and be de-aged Because he thought no one could play him Interesting I did not hear that Kind of right, I mean Not maybe the de-aging But you know The sources that I have that did not come up

[01:05:43] And I think it would have come up But What they did, because Zemeckis this time had gone Fully through Bushwack through the uncanny valley You know blazing Trails for the rest of filmmakers by Making these full CG bizarre technical Just like we're going to try this

[01:06:05] The tech might not be fully here But we're just going to go for it He is now a master of workflow And he trusts the people around him And when they say, okay we can do this But we've got to do it in very specific ways

[01:06:17] He's like I'm fully on board, let's go with it So the way that they shot this Movie was absolutely Bonkers Magoo nuts Bonkers Magoo You can look it up online For the Most of the film Almost every shot has CGI in it Because they shot this almost entirely

[01:06:39] In Montreal and so almost every Location is totally Reestablished to be wherever that they're supposed To be at the time and when you watch The movie you really Cannot tell that And they do a phenomenal job of just Piecing together all these locations

[01:06:55] This is one of those films where essentially Unless they're like touching something Or sitting on something, it's probably CGI Everything more than like Six feet beyond the actors of CGI Backgrounds And so for The Big finale that takes place In the Twin Towers

[01:07:15] That was the crux of how are we going to shoot this thing So what they ended up doing Is They pre-vised Number one, they took All, they went into archives And got together all the old blueprints Of the World Trade Center and painstaking Went through and pieced together

[01:07:33] Every nut and bolt and brick And everything they could find of it And then they also went through The archives and took all these scans And photos that they could find of the materials And tried to replicate those Not only did they do that

[01:07:47] But all the blocks surrounding The World Trade Center, they put together A team of a handful of people Not that many people and designated them They used to take over a section of blocks And go, hey Here's maps, here's blueprints Here's photos of the blocks

[01:08:03] Recreate these down to the like AC units, to the fans on top To the type of doors They went through and did that And When it came time to shoot all the stuff On the wire Itself, they were like Okay, how do we do this

[01:08:21] Like because we need to have All these factors, we can't do this all CGI Just not gonna feel what it needs to be So what they landed on is like Okay, we're just going to Make the tops of the World Trade Centers And put those in a studio

[01:08:35] And those will be the only things that we have that are real But then the studios they could get They could actually only make a small corner Of each of the tops of the buildings Because of just the size The budget, what they had

[01:08:47] So they built these small weird corners And then they shot in simulcam Which is a sort of a system Where they have their pre-vis models Loaded up into cameras And then they have this tracking data That they're getting from their cameras

[01:09:01] So that Zemeckis could sort of see roughly Where the horizon lines and buildings were In the digital space And then they shot all of these plates For their live action stuff In this entirely green universe With just these two little Pieces of the World Trade Center

[01:09:17] And absolutely everything else That was done completely digitally And the painstaking detail That they went into With a team that was maybe Like, I think it ended up being like Five supervisors and then like All the teams that worked underneath those supervisors Is absolutely insane And an example

[01:09:37] Of like the types of problems they were running into Right, so normally when you shoot Live action integrated with digital stuff You want to have your live action plates Be your source material if you're lighting Right, so let's say You want to put a Whatever

[01:09:53] A digital Mario in the middle of Times Square You're going to take footage of Times Square And you're going to take This lighting image Classically Using this technique created by this guy Paul DeBevic Where you take these HDRI photos Of a mirror sphere At different brackets

[01:10:15] With the brightness of the different lights Then you stitch that together So you can see, okay this is how powerful these light sources are On this mirror sphere Then you inversely project that Onto a theoretical sphere Around your digital set And you project the image there

[01:10:31] And then you shoot light rays through it So that that image is lighting your digital Thing So then like you have Mario in there And he's being lit by the digital information Of the light But he gets a mushroom and he gets bigger Yeah, different lighting

[01:10:47] Exactly, he gets a mushroom And then he walks into the VR experience And starts screaming stuff And trying to grab eighth graders And then Mario, his face is on the wall right next to Ben Absolutely But the thing that you can probably glean Is

[01:11:03] In the walk, the entire universe Is digital and the only live action elements Are Joseph Gordon Levitt walking across this wire Which by the way That's one of those factoids That's in every sort of like EPK About the thing is that Joseph Gordon Levitt

[01:11:17] Did a lot of the wire walking himself He learned how to wire walk And then in the wire walking segments That he couldn't achieve They had a stunt person and they did facial replacement But what's so hard Is that They needed to then Light

[01:11:35] They needed to create all their lighting scenarios in advance And then have Mario Swolsky do his Lighting for each of the setups And then go into the digital world And then try to match those while also making it Absolutely accurate to like

[01:11:49] The degree of sun where everything is in New York City And the amount of work that that takes To get that right Is so outrageous But when you watch this movie It is so beautiful And so painterly That you don't even

[01:12:05] Consider the fact that all of that stuff Is absolutely fake You have that feeling of On the wire vertigo Not to mention they're rendering this all In like super high resolution Stereostopic for all the iMac stuff Which is as I've talked about In the Billy Lin stuff

[01:12:23] So much work to get that stuff so perfect And I can find Almost no shots in This movie where it feels Hack together or overly digital It feels like it is I keep saying painterly because it has This quality to it that is so beautiful

[01:12:39] Hello, this is Griffin From the future You might remember In the War of the Worlds episode JD recorded A little Addendum From the future About how he wanted to say That Tim Robbins' performance was good But he felt bullied by us

[01:13:07] Because we had shit on the performance that much And so he backed off But he felt like he was being dishonest to himself So he recorded himself Saying that Well saying pretty much what I just explained to you And then Ben placed that into the audio later

[01:13:23] And this is gonna seem like it was a planned bit But it wasn't It's actually just a happenstance But I think the walk looks bad And JD came in so loaded Talking about how impressive The visual effects of the movie are And how people misunderstand that he was

[01:13:53] Going Zemeckis for this heightened Storybook aesthetic That it's not a favoring realism And I think it's impressive That the effects were done on such a limited budget And I regret not Asking JD questions about how It was done on such a limited budget

[01:14:15] Because that's the one thing I do find impressive But I Even though I conceptually like what they're going for I don't actually like the way it looks Other than the walk itself But when they're on street level I think it looks kind of ugly Um I regret not

[01:14:38] I don't know if I regret not pushing back on it I mean who cares But I definitely was so disarmed By the weird JD bell riddle thing Which I guess depending on where this is placed In the episode Won't have been resolved yet But it was like JD

[01:14:59] It felt like JD was being weirdly normal And not doing a lot of his chaotic bits Other than that one thing Which was so disarming That I felt like I was sort of Not on edge the whole episode But like confused Like I was like 25% of my attention

[01:15:22] Was spent trying to figure out what was going on I didn't mount the argument for why I think the movie looks bad But also it's not much of an argument It's just I don't think it looks good Respect it Don't like it aesthetically Asthetically

[01:15:39] One of 8000 words I always mispronounce on this show But it's the one that I probably use the most Of all the words I butcher Um Okay back to the episode It's very good looking Wolchie is obviously a great cinematographer And it's beautifully It looks beautiful

[01:16:01] Like it does not look cheesy in the way that it feels sometimes But I feel like you get into this weird territory where like All of what you're talking about JD Right we're used to this sort of technology applied to our biggest Highest budget film

[01:16:19] Like the Marvel movies are largely made this way now I always joke that they're all shot in like parking lots in Atlanta But they are shot in these sort of green screen spaces where like Aside from the chair they're sitting on

[01:16:30] The walls of the apartment might be CGI'd Let alone the outdoor spaces Let alone the planets you know All of it right And I think with films of that size and that scope Where it's all like eye candy And you have fully CGI characters And action sequences

[01:16:49] And so many things that could never be done in real life People accept the sort of heightened artificiality of all of that What they might not register much The way you're talking about with the walk

[01:16:59] Is that like the most, but now things in those movies are also CGI You know when the Hulk's eating at a diner We know that the Hulk's CGI But maybe you don't realize that that diner set Is only 5% constructed or whatever the fuck right

[01:17:13] And then there's something like the Mandalorian Where I feel like they've made this big breakthrough Because of having these hyper high resolution screens With these fully rendered backgrounds That all the actors are acting against So they have a sort of grounding of environment

[01:17:29] Even though there's very little tactile environment around them But also I think when I watch the Mandalorian The thing I'm always so impressed with Is how well lit I think that show is Because so often the failing of these types of things

[01:17:43] As you're saying JD is that it's You're required to get the right lighting down In a green screen space to have the background Look correct once you comp it in later Which is very tricky, involves a lot of math and science advance

[01:17:57] Which you can speak to much more intelligently than me But something like the Mandalorian I feel like is doing all that work Having a better reference because there's literally A screen behind them with the background But what they're going for is a lot more naturalistic

[01:18:12] They're trying to make it look like it's more naturalistic And Zemeckis is going for this very extreme stylization here That I feel like audiences will buy if it's 300 And it's cranked to that degree Or it's Marvel and everything is fucking wackadoo

[01:18:26] But when they see a movie like this That ostensibly takes place in real cities And no one has superpowers I feel like there's this immediate revulsion people have To like why does this look so plasticky? Well, and also there's just the weird things

[01:18:39] Like Joseph Gordon Levitt having blue contact lenses That contribute so much more to the unreality Than anything else we're talking about And it should be the other way around So can I do a quick little film school of things Since you've robbed the Mandalorian? Okay

[01:18:55] No, I meant that I meant that with more enthusiasm than I Sounded I was adjusting my position And I feel like it came out as a sigh Well maybe let's get a clean take Let's try it again David Yeah, let's do it again Alright

[01:19:10] So would you like me to do a brief little film school Now that you've robbed the Mandalorian? Okay Wait David, that still sounded That really Let's move on No, no, we need one more We're no longer interested in film school You're losing my attention

[01:19:27] David, we need one more Just one more and put some stank on it please And then we can go on And can you do it in a bit of a French accent? If you'd like I could do a little bit of film school

[01:19:38] Now that you've mentioned the Mandalorian Okay Yeah, alright He sounds intrigued Sploosh baby Zoopie zoopie zoop So Griffin what you're talking about Is what's referred to as a light stage And it actually harkens back to something that This person who I think all the blankies

[01:19:57] And you guys should actually dive into Is really interesting Helped craft some of the technology Behind this guy Paul DeBevic And I've mentioned Paul DeBevic before Because he was one of the people that Worked on the technology of Reflectance sphere and what's called

[01:20:12] Image based lighting which is when you basically Do that thing with the mirror ball Talking about where you're using images to Pick up lighting on stuff Now, when you think about a movie like Jurassic Park Jurassic Park was one of the first films

[01:20:26] That people were like whoa that stuff looks like real Like I can't tell the difference from the CGI Which that sort of I feel like has been Exaggerated because if you go back and watch Jurassic Park It looks good still but you're like Yeah that's CGI like

[01:20:38] Let's not act like that's not Very that era CGI Also people forget how few Shots there are of the dinosaurs in that Movie. Yes And what they actually ended up Doing is this was before sort of Image based lighting was a ubiquitous thing

[01:20:54] And so they shot the scenes In real life and then The people in their VFX Department had to just go through And just tweak digital Lights over and over again to be like Does this look good? Maybe this looks good.

[01:21:08] What if we put another light here? And it's just like Painstaking, insanely Expensive, timely process So you're saying it was essentially trial and error It was trial and error going like let's move This thing here. Alright let's let it Render for a week. Well nope

[01:21:22] That didn't look like we wanted to work. Alright let's try It again. Let's move this light here And da da da And it ends up looking great because they had Experts in the world working on Jurassic Park But that is not a repeatable process

[01:21:34] So what Paul DeBevich did With and a lot of people were doing Some of the similar stuff at the same time Was created this idea of a light stage Which is how can you mimic Real life lighting scenarios Um Onto digital items and also

[01:21:50] Do the inverse where you take digital lighting scenarios And have those impact Real life actors And so we've already talked about image Based lighting and there's a lot of ways that that has Evolved over the years that have to do with The different types of light

[01:22:04] And how light plays off of different Colors and materials And um how that can Influence things that in VFX are called BRDFs A bi-directional Bi-directional Reflective Uh I don't I don't know what the rest of the words are Wow embarrassing I don't know what things

[01:22:28] Um and so the way light stages work Is Basically He created this cage That you remember those like balls that you'd see it like The learning center remember that Remember that store that was like It had like mist on a computer

[01:22:44] And then like books and then like maybe one or two puzzles The learning center And they had those things that are like the like Weird plastic orbs that could go small And then you pull them out and they become big

[01:22:54] So you took like something like one of those And put all these little LEDs and they are RGB LEDs that you could Increase the values of red, blue and green Um on the different lights which Theoretically can represent the full Lighting spectrum and now Using that

[01:23:12] He could take digital lighting scenarios And put an actor In there and then Essentially Adjust those lights using all the data from The computer to then light the sources That way. Now It started looking really good and you could Replicate, you know You could basically do

[01:23:32] Digital stuff on live action Live action on digital but then you could use that as a bridge So let's say an actor couldn't be In a location you could Take all of the image Based lighting data of a location Store that data bring

[01:23:46] An actor into one of these light stages Input that data in digital things Create this light stage information and then Project all that data onto the person So that you could basically put someone Somewhere that they weren't able to make it to the shoot for

[01:23:58] And so a lot of people were using this for Doing facial replacement Or like The movie gravity was Almost shot entirely using These light stages. Like I don't know if people Realize gravity Almost the only things That are real in gravity for the most part

[01:24:16] Are the actor's faces Everything else especially when they're in space is CGI The suits are fake The helmets are fake. I mean people don't understand Right, the degree Once she gets inside the ship and takes her suits off For those couple of short sequences But other than that

[01:24:32] Everything but her face is CGI So then for gravity what they End up doing is they took this idea of light stage That kept developing and instead of A bunch of LEDs they had Tons of them and instead of just red blue

[01:24:44] And green they actually increased it to have The full color spectrum of like cyan Magenta all this stuff and then Beyond that they started getting into LED panels Where you actually take video screens And you build Boxes of video screens And what gravity did that was absolutely fascinating

[01:25:00] You should look this up if you haven't seen how they did this Is they had Imagine like the type of like Robotic arms that you use To make cars, right They had the camera on one And then they had the performer in another And then they would

[01:25:16] Record all their animation And all the camera movement of the animation In gravity and then Output that data to these robots Project the renderings Of the digital space onto These LED panels that are around the actor So that the light of the LED panel was

[01:25:34] Lighting them and then program The camera movement into both The and not all the It's not like they're moving the camera They do because they wanted the The panels to fully encapsulate the performer They removed one little panel

[01:25:48] And all they would do is they'd have the camera move Backwards and forwards And then all of the lateral movement would be done By spinning the actor On this little thing So they're basically stuck in this weird gyroscope That is letting them Match their face movements

[01:26:04] To the movements that are in their digital space And it's absolutely brilliant to see And when you watch gravity you don't realize Which work has gone into that So anyways the Mandalorian They took that even further and they built these gigantic Light stages using full Like LED walls

[01:26:20] That then they could just shoot all this stuff And have all of the actual natural lighting Lighting the characters And that's why it looks so natural Is because it is the Actual natural lighting being projected through These light stages and it's absolutely beautiful And it's cool

[01:26:36] Yeah, really cool And I think that's this too I believe that's the first movie Is set in space where Nolan was like Rather than have these guys Acting it's a green screen And it's bright and it's not Atmospheric Let's surround them with blackness And stars and like

[01:26:56] You know, that'll be cool And Prometheus used that too But it's different because The main lighting is coming from The spaceship interiors And having the computer And what's so cool with this Is how do you shoot that And then also Cut out the Actors that they're not overlapped

[01:27:18] With the background Like you know, you do the green screen Well they use infrared light And you can basically Put infrared light behind The actor and put off These flashes and infrared cameras That then creates a black and white mat And make a custom travel mat

[01:27:36] Of whatever you're shooting It's really brilliant stuff And they also get Really interesting skin and lighting data Of actors Essentially by projecting Different colors and types of lights And then seeing how the shadows And all that play of these different colors And then taking that data

[01:27:56] And that's what's making Modern digital actors Their skin looks so real Subsurface scattering That has to do with on your skin Oil and then there's the different layers Of your skin that absorb light When light goes into your skin it bounces around And it actually changes its polarity

[01:28:14] And all this stuff And so by getting all this data That's the reason why modern Facial replacement stuff looks so real When if you look back at like the Scorpion King It all looks like weird plastic Kendall faces being put on actors

[01:28:30] I don't know, Scorpion King looks like a Scorpion King to me Guy with Scorpion There's that famous I know what you're talking about I just wanted to shout out the Scorpion King Thinking of the shot JD And the bottom half of his body is a

[01:28:46] Scorpion and the top half is a king So sounds pretty 10 out of 10 Perfect for me I mean the Scorpion King sequence In The Mummy Returns Which maybe we'll talk about one day I suppose we could do Old Stevie Summers You've been pitching for

[01:29:02] Several years in a row to make one of our Winter's Summers Exactly I mean it just I remember in the theater being like Did they not like Send the right Movie? Like did they Did they send like an unfinished Version of the movie by mistake Like I

[01:29:24] Rarely have had an experience like that Yes, yes And where they've talked about We weren't done They have kind of basically copped to like We did what we could Have you guys ever seen a movie that wasn't Finished? Like a movie that was

[01:29:40] Like put out in early release And they later put out A new version of it that was like better Well cats Well sure cats Cats that kept doing patches But I also talked about this on the episode Which I call life of pie And like an unfinished form

[01:29:58] Which was really bizarre Right, I mean I've been shown Whatever is being described to me Is like early cuts Like maybe the color correction isn't done But I have never been shown something Like what Griffin is describing where it is There's a lot left

[01:30:14] It is not in a form ready for Wide audiences yet I saw a very funny rough cut Of a big action movie that's coming out Is it the one we know you've seen Or a different one? Yes, it's the one you know I've seen We won't say it

[01:30:28] It was very funny because it was like Fully just like some scenes were just like Cubes bumping into each other Yeah That's gonna make the final cut I mean there's a whole cube sequence clearly When you watch it like that It makes you realize how embarrassing it is

[01:30:44] To be an actor Like just how vulnerable you are Because your performance looks stupid until The effects are finally done Have you ever seen the behind the scenes Things like Supergirl Or one of the CW shows? Yes It's so funny I always recommend people watch like the

[01:31:02] Star Wars making of I love to think about Harrison Ford And Carrie Fisher and folks running around Those cardboard sets And just thinking like god This thing is bullshit I can't believe we're doing this stupid movie There's no way they were doing that

[01:31:18] And thinking like oh this will definitely Work I have full confidence in this guy But I think that sort of like Investment of belief becomes even Harder the less Tangible stuff there is around you 100% It's like being on a shitty set with like

[01:31:36] A David Prouse saying Darth Vader Dialogue like this is like one thing It's another thing to be doing like Tennis ball with like a Second AD reading dialogue And trying to be like A little bit more of a Different kind of person to be in the Friendship Well

[01:31:56] I think you need to be A psycho and Not in a real way but like In the Joseph Gordon Levitt way where You're like well this guy is just Different. This guy is just weirdo Do you think you could ever be an actor David? Nope

[01:32:12] What do you think the extent When I was a teenager it's like yeah, I'm not doubting you you're the one doubting you no I mean now I Could probably play a person that is a stock type in a movie

[01:32:28] I feel like that probably would give me a little more of a comfort zone You know what I mean if I'm like playing a shopkeep or you know like a cat taxi, right?

[01:32:37] You know what I mean because then it's like okay. Well this guy is this is the movies essentially doing a bit with this guy Anyway, right give me a right. Give me a roll that you think you could do I have one

[01:32:48] I want to throw out JD. Okay, okay Do you think you could have played one of the New York cops on the roof in the wall? I don't know those guys are big with the subtle tea that we're seeing from those guys in that movie with

[01:33:04] I know that everyone's walking here, but you should stop walking here. Oh Hey, I think here's another pitch from the walk. Yeah David I think you could have played the elevator operator. Oh, yeah That guy actually, you know what? Well for what?

[01:33:26] Shout out to James Badge Dale who's just gonna get a bunch of shout outs on this podcast because he's in a lot of these movies He's in flight to right, you know Who I really enjoy is the sequel?

[01:33:36] Yeah, yeah, he's really he's the best performance in the movie And I like that sequence because it is pretty it's one of the only Sequences of the heist that involves personal interaction and I love that Philippe petite is not like okay

[01:33:53] I will handle Zeus I can convince him and said he's like I'm going to go sit here like a big baby You get me Look, I'm sorry buddy. Oh, he's Sicilian, you know like he has to go make a human connection

[01:34:09] I'm gonna roll up and be in this poster Container until you know let me out when you need me James Badge Dale has like Six lines ten lines the whole movie every one of them are there's so good

[01:34:24] He's he brings so much reality to the yes to the movie in a way. That's really fun He's kind of the only person in the movie who's playing like a recognizable human being agree with that Weirdly the second most grounded performance in this movie is probably Ben Kingsley

[01:34:42] Yeah, just because he said the Ben Kingsley's at least playing someone who's like a little unnerved by Philippe So he's kind of like Yeah, you know fatherly and concerned The Ben Kingsley thing is weird because I think his accent is also terrible

[01:34:57] But it's the example of like somehow he's getting at the right energy for the character that you'll forgive the accent versus Gordon Levitt where the accent is bad and also the energies off put it His accent is crazy because Kingsley is no slouch with accents. He has done

[01:35:13] Dozens of accents. He's also very talented actor This accent is more in the Connery zone where you're like I guess he just talks like this and I'm just not gonna think

[01:35:22] Right, no one's just not really trying to write this feels like they they asked him if he wanted to be in a two days before They started filming it does it does but he's good. I mean, it's human. Yeah. Yeah, he's good

[01:35:34] I mean David do you think you could pull off the elevator operator? No, I mean, I think that would be bad. I think I could try I mean your read for the cop just now was great. I

[01:35:46] Think what about my read was a little underplayed for how Zemeckis wanted them pitched though I you know, but on the day Bobby could massage you give you a couple cups of coffee He could get you there

[01:35:58] You'd want a little more mustard on it. That's all I know the elevator operator No, that's like a guy because that guy is like a guy from now Because there are guys in New York who are unchanged from 1970 whatever

[01:36:11] Who are still in charge of elevators and such and still want to talk about the jets or whatever, you know And like right Ben like you know, there's just still that guy and like Is that guy? You know that guy's great construction

[01:36:25] There was the free elevator operator guy and you had to run on his schedule You get it. He's got a clipboard and he's got he's got the two days And I don't think the lever at yeah, okay David. I'm I'm getting your lines for you Mmm

[01:36:42] That guy's also he's got to play tension like that scene is a little bit of a pressure cooker It's a good scene. That's like one of the good scenes. That's not the walk that I'm really kind of into

[01:36:53] I'm just saying the cop it's an easier role to play because all you got to do is wave your arms and yell Hey, oh my god This guy's on a freaking wire. I could have done this stoner so much better

[01:37:06] I would have just shown up and been confused Here wait, I'll do can I they would have spent a couple hours so bring you up before you were ready to film

[01:37:16] I think I think maybe Ben has to allow you. Oh, no, there you go. Yeah, there we go. Okay okay Griffin you'll be JP. Oh, wow, that's exciting. That's a good role and are you gonna be petite?

[01:37:30] Yeah, I'll be petite obviously just in terms of acting talent. Yeah, sure All right, should I read stage direction is that how yeah Okay interior Construction elevator day the elevator is a course construction lift a simple box with ragged ply walls and no ceiling What floor?

[01:37:52] petite looks up and sees writing on the elevator wall car number three zero one one zero Let's see what floor what floor? Well, here we are 110 Jimmy stops and turns slowly to petite What 110 there's nothing up there. That's just the mechanical floor

[01:38:15] Yes, that's perfect because we need to be close to the roof with the roof why the roof Jimmy gives JPS suspicious look. Ah, yeah, we The teats begins talking a mile a minute

[01:38:33] We have the pieces for the antenna and the antenna mast and all the components for the electrified security fence and the insulators that Have been stored before any of us the wiring can be started and then is we coordinate with the initial sizing of the conduit

[01:38:43] Pour and that can't happen till we measure the Now JP jumps and begins ranting on the top of petite You know before any the wiring for the aerial system can even be initiate not to mention the project is four months behind schedule and the Jimmy cuts them off

[01:38:59] Whatever watch your fingers And I'm gonna say that turned into something of a JD acting showcase. It was a big JD showcase Well, I don't know if you've seen me in the tick or Vinyl no, no

[01:39:17] Wait a second. No, these are not your credit. You're officer Kropke. I think is your biggest role today, right? It is that's the only role that I've ever had officer Kropke West Side Story I know your credits, baby. Don't try to slip one pass me

[01:39:32] That's that's the role that you get if you can't sing. Can you not sing JD? What do you think you think I'm a good singer David based on based on my talented Based on my nasally Chicago accent. Do you think I could sing I

[01:39:46] Mean I wasn't thinking hard about it, but you're a talented guy You're a bit of a jack-of-all-trades You got all kinds of you know who strings to your bow as they might say, maybe you can sing

[01:39:57] I don't know David are you challenging me to a sing-off right now? Definitely not Davey you want to get into a sing-off with JD on Mike. You guys are gonna sing walk this way No, no, no, we're not doing that Walk this way also right

[01:40:28] Do the bell finger something come on And the bell is out Andre and a Stained opposite of day did the next word on screen Kind of first you could say While George dreamed to do this on the face of a man

[01:40:53] Neil did it for real or perhaps just with Stan How many of those do you have and I don't ask that Nanny just just is a logistical question I got a re-control. Don't worry about it

[01:41:09] I think that's a Pixar thing Andre and Wally B was the first Pixar short film and the George Lucas on Pixar originally I'm trying to parse these as much as I can in real time without taking notes But I decided it just yeah happen

[01:41:24] And right of course, and we don't know but so okay the what I feel like we are done Ish talking about the plots or what the walk like the movie apart. We didn't even get into the plot What plot what are you talking about? World Trade Center

[01:41:42] Okay, I feel like the walk sequence is the only thing we might want to talk about more I can't think of anything else in this Movie that is really worthy of intense discussion Okay, here's here's how I think we can get

[01:41:58] Since you are banning me from talking about the plot of this not at all not at all encouraging not a band I challenge you to talk about the plot of this movie is almost

[01:42:12] Here's here's what I contend just give me a give me a number between one and ten And I'll tell you what that page of the script is about and we'll do that ten Is it a ten page script?

[01:42:27] No, I'm just saying we'll do one to ten ten to twenty twenty and we can sort of like dip our little stick in you I think it's great that you have the script to the walk

[01:42:36] But it's not like you know some major scoop like these things are obtainable It used to be that guy on Prince Street who just sold screenplays remember that guy. Yeah, I rolled yeah

[01:42:51] Oh boy, David. I'm just trying to bring some levity to this dang show. All right clearly. I am having no fun at all No, it's just like The here's the only thing I really remember from the first half of the movie

[01:43:03] Is it that you remember that Papa Rudy at the mean give us a strong man stands below waving his fist at teen Patam while clutching a cold cigarette. No, it's the scene where

[01:43:14] It's the scene where he I guess he does his first wire walk over the pond or whatever right in France And the wine knows the why knows are like hey fuck you, you know, it's like that's Ben's role

[01:43:27] Ben's the drunken French fisherman who's like why is this guy walking on a wire? I just want to sit here and drink my wine but Philippe is

[01:43:38] Narrating for us as he does throughout the fucking movie and he's like sure and then they are they got talking and they are making fun Of me and you need absolute concentration when you are walking like and he gets angry

[01:43:49] And it is hysterically funny. It is not he does not seem like someone who's actually angry But it is just very funny to see Joseph Gordon-Levin try to be angry In this Really strange performance that's all that's my only that I just wanted to say that that's fun

[01:44:07] Yeah, oh I mean My favorite part of sorry. This is not even there's nothing funny That is not it just tickles me

[01:44:21] It just tickles me my favorite part is that you know when the fishermen go click click click a series of stills the boat let a very drunk Fishman another boatload whistle and cheer another fisherman catches a big carp no one pays any attention for teeth performance

[01:44:33] All right, stop it screenwriting is Such a strange thing because it's not really an art form like you would never oh my gosh David Sims of the Atlantic David cancel him cancel him Cancel him let the man finish Is dead Yes, I'm calling me Roland Barthes

[01:44:56] No in just that like you would rarely sit down to read a screenplay after a film had been made right like you know That would be a bit of an odd exercise to sort of

[01:45:10] You know it's it's it's a blueprint and it's this incredible tool and it can be so crucial to a great movie But it is sort of it's a it's a part of a movie right like the movie is sure is the product that's all

[01:45:23] It's just so yeah, no I get you're saying I mean it's it is a What's wild about it is that it's an art form that is? Sort of washed away by the tides of

[01:45:36] The the greater art form that eventually gets made it is an art form that is means to an end There is an art to doing it specifically and there's separate arts to like yes

[01:45:45] How to make a script readable how to make a script that would prepare one to make a great film How to make a script that someone would buy like all these things are different sort of skill sets in terms of how you make

[01:45:56] The pages flow, but at the end of the day it means to an end and what's so hard about it is there's no real way for the average viewer or Moviegoer to actually understand or appreciate

[01:46:12] Whether a screenplay is good or not because obviously yeah, you know there's the old adage that you know You make the mill the film whatever 25 times blah blah blah blah and So you never know okay?

[01:46:26] The screenplay might have been totally different and or the tone might have been changed by the director or scenes might have been Cut or things might have happened because of production or you don't know what notes came in or what you know

[01:46:36] The inverse I mean there are great movies that came out of screenplays that were incoherent Yeah, and it's a there's that sort of thing that kind of bugs me that once in a while someone get their hands on a screenplay and

[01:46:50] Post excerpts from it and be like God like this sounds awful You know what I mean like feel like that happens with movies of the past with like look at this plot description

[01:46:58] Look at this character description like this and it's like yeah, that is kind of you know Cheap or pithy or whatever, but like it's also designed to grab the attention of someone with money The product is the idea like you know what you're seeing is really what matters

[01:47:14] Right I mean sometimes you're trying to describe things in a way that make the people who control the purse strings open them up and Sometimes just trying to write things in a way that is easily digestible because you're submitting a script

[01:47:26] Which the lowest level assistant to a producer is gonna read and it's gonna be one of six scripts They read that day like there's so many weird kind of strategic Arts that go into screenwriting

[01:47:41] And here's actually a great example not with screenwriting but with VFX that is a perfect example of this is When they're doing the first teaser trailer of The Walk Basically TriStar was like

[01:47:54] You have to let us just determine what this is gonna be because we're gonna sell this thing Like we're gonna get people out for this and so they actually were put in direct communication the VFX team

[01:48:05] Who had already been doing all this work and they'd already shot the movie and The style and aesthetic of the movie is all about this sort of cloudy misty day that petite does this thing

[01:48:16] And they they crafted this really beautiful again painterly look that's all about sort of like Overtones sort of I remember and it also the trailer began with the The shot of like going up the World Trade Center, right like up the ridges the sort of fame

[01:48:32] And so like there was also which we haven't talked about much that sort of spooky Thing to it but it's like oh, it's recreating this building that so many people will remember Yes, I wish you definitely talk about that But what was it what was interesting was that?

[01:48:49] TriStar was basically like okay You guys have to make it really sunny and like this sort of like light dappled beautiful New York City That's what people want to see and they were like Well, we shot all this to be like this cloudy moody sort of intimidating

[01:49:07] Beautiful version of that sort of like that feeling of being on top of a mountain where it's both intimidating and beautiful And they were like okay And so they gave them the like light dappled New York, but all the live-action footage was lit to make

[01:49:22] Jordan Gordon Leavitt look like he's in this sort of like cloudy atmospheric thing and apparently Is it Tim Rothman Tom Rothman a Tom? Yeah, Tom Rothman called them up specifically and was like What are you guys doing? This is a disaster

[01:49:41] This is so bad. You guys are like we're in so much like this is not a good start to our relationship Because it just didn't match and they had to go listen We took your idea we hear you

[01:49:56] We know you think that that's what people want to see you have to trust us when we tell you We know how to make this look cool, and they're like give us two weeks

[01:50:03] And they rendered a version of it that looks like the final film and trust I was like oh wow Yeah, this is beautiful We should have we should have just told asked you what do from the beginning and like that's a great example of

[01:50:15] Sometimes what people think they want Whether it's a screenplay or an animatic or whatever isn't actually what they want Or they don't know that there's something better out there And that's one of the hard prop parts of making movies

[01:50:28] You have to get all these people on board with these things that they might not be able to visualize or see I also feel like I mean in doing all these amicus movies in a row the the mocap ones in particular

[01:50:38] We've been talking a lot about 3d and the weird like You know a supercharged rise and fall of 3d as like a new modern trend and there was

[01:50:50] Obviously this period where everything was being put into 3d every animated movie every blockbuster was being converted or being like kind of hastily shot in 3d, but I feel like the walk comes at the tail end Billy Lynn is the absolute last case of this of like

[01:51:07] Once a year there would be a movie that critics would say this is actually an artistic use of 3d You need to see it if you're gonna see it

[01:51:16] You should see it in 3d on the biggest screen in the way like gravity was the perfect confluence of everyone being like This film is rip-or-wrapping like popcorn entertainment. It's also very sort of like Canny and sort of like brilliantly constructed the 3d is done with real intent

[01:51:34] That is how this film is meant to be seen. I feel you know, obviously life of pie was a similar thing Avatar's the most obvious example of it Yeah, but there were all these cases of like it being both. It's like oh, it's well reviewed

[01:51:48] It's taken seriously as a movie it gets Oscar nominations or wins It's also a big hit and I think they thought the walk could be a budget Version of that which is why their marketing was so based around like look at the fucking buildings

[01:52:04] In the sky because they were trying to sell this idea of like you won't believe how this thing fucking looks More than really selling the story. It's not just the 3d

[01:52:12] There's a movie once a year griff and I'm sure you like where it's like not being sold as a genre or a franchise or a star-driven movie even but it's like this is the unique visual spectacle of the year, right?

[01:52:27] Like that there's some like there's just nothing like it We can't describe it, you know that and like that's that was Billy Lynn of course like that's a lot of

[01:52:35] But for a couple years there that was 3d was obviously a heart and parcel with 3d. Yes, absolutely in the 2000 what if I told you this was a post conversion 3d is it really? This was not native stereoscopic Wow, and they took such care in affinity

[01:52:54] Towards making it not only because one of the things that they talk about is Their goal in this film with all the special effects including the 3d was not about photo realism

[01:53:06] It was about imbuing and communicating the feeling of being up that high in New York, and they're like Color certain things are not actually Photo real to how New York is but they feel more like New York than if we did it photo real and

[01:53:22] The the 3d conversion was one of those things where they were like they broke a lot of rules of physics and The literal reality because they realized they had to make it feel like it was high up and had that feeling of vertigo more than they

[01:53:37] Had to actually communicate Literally what it's like at that height, but that's what I took a They took a helicopter ride To just not only take reference photos and things like that But to just experience that feeling of height from that exact point in the sky

[01:53:54] So that they could use that as a reference for that how they needed all the 3d conversion and all their shots up high to feel Which I think is so interesting and beautiful, but you and I contend

[01:54:05] JD we both agree that core line is the best use of modern 3d And it's similar to what they do in this movie, which is using depth in a very Expressionistic way And it's it like watching this for as much as I don't really like this movie on

[01:54:24] Whole I look at elements like that and I'm just like man It's a fucking bummer that 3d got like choked You know that that it got overplayed and watered down and people are so burned out on it because you watch this and you're like

[01:54:40] Even if the movie doesn't work in totality Everything that works in it is because it is thinking with an added dimension of storytelling It's not just a little sort of like bonus feature on it. They're really using depth as an additional tool in their storytelling language Now, okay

[01:55:01] The next thing that I saw Am I allowed to can I what do you want to talk about cuz I want to talk about the twin towers But that's what I was good. That's what I was gonna bring up next

[01:55:12] But first I want to do this. Oh, here's the bell David looks so excited Drop PW's ladies phonetic E Add the thing you might use to catch a hummingbird or kitty The diners owner in mainframe and this might seem crazy

[01:55:33] Sits take on Beal, but make it more lazy so So couldn't parse that one kitty by the way incredible um The twin towers are in this movie the World Trade Center and

[01:55:51] It's this this is just I mean I may be even repeating myself. I believe this is basically what my review said but like It's so spooky and evocative to see them right and those shots where you're like going up them and

[01:56:05] Like my parents work downtown like I remember, you know the World Trade Center Very well and I remember the first time I went back there after 9 11 and like it was so bright all of a sudden because the sun was Visible like which was so eerie

[01:56:19] Yeah, it's an incredible thing to think about. I think they did a very good job Yeah, replicating it, you know yet But then also there's like the thing where Philip P T just like and I my ID card says forever

[01:56:32] And I'm like you're taking me out of how spooky and strange this is and that's how I feel about so much of this movie

[01:56:39] It's like when he is on the wire and it's so tranquil and it's so frightening at the same time and you're like, oh my god This is like incredible to think about and then he's like

[01:56:51] Narrating and the cops are like hey forget about it. I'm like stop taking me out of this Zemeckis Like you've created something that is so Wonderful to look at and think about and you're ruining it almost every second it's happening see it Makes sense

[01:57:07] Yeah, absolutely, but I had I had the almost exact opposite reaction is that I actually felt like this was One of my favorite post 9 11 depictions of the trade towers that I've seen Because I know you mean yeah because I didn't feel like they languished in the oh

[01:57:31] And then they came down like it didn't end in like a title card that was like in 2001 like you know what I mean like it and it didn't even have that like you know

[01:57:42] I feel like movies have done the thing for so long where they have this sort of like false imagery of 9 11 where it's like a cloud or a shadow sort of imbues the idea of the smoke from that day and they have these hints of the

[01:57:56] Ominous nature and I feel like what I actually liked was that it didn't feel like it relished so much in the 9-11-ness of the towers It felt like it was celebrating them as these entities and

[01:58:09] Actually, I felt the opposite way from that ending line of when he's like and the thing said forever And like I thought it was about to be this ending thing that was like

[01:58:17] But of course I couldn't you know whatever and the fact that it just left it at this sort of like Optimistic like oh I could go back forever kind of thing

[01:58:25] For some reason that it worked on me and I was sort of like oh thank God that they didn't go down this life Inremembrance of the mighty twin towers, you know, it kind of chokes me up despite myself

[01:58:39] But I think it's despite myself. I think it's a bit of a corny one. I don't know I don't know maybe I should just give myself over to it. This is my question with so many of these sincere works

[01:58:49] Yeah, sometimes of course they totally work on me and I love how sincere they are and other times with the walk for example I'm just like I Think this is this is too so like whatever, you know, you're not emotionally connecting to this

[01:59:02] I don't know. I mean we've also talked about like Zomacus starts to fall into similar traps that late Spielberg does where it's just like There's so much on the line the expectations are so high budgets are high He doesn't fully trust the audience. He can't totally let go

[01:59:18] He needs to always slather some additional shit on there whether it's like the the extra endings Whether it's the overly expository dialogue whether it's like really broad comedy There's always this feeling of just like I want to make sure I have them in the palm of my hands

[01:59:35] Yeah, and I feel like this movie is Subtle for Zomacus especially the last 20 minutes. I feel like for Zomacus plays subtler Because there are things that you could have hit over the head that I don't feel like he does and I

[01:59:52] Agree that it it does tend towards being very broad and very on the nose and a little saccharin at times But if I found myself able to give myself over to it and just sort of enjoy it

[02:00:05] And I find it it's not that you know, I wouldn't say that I love this movie It was one of my favorite movies or movies gonna stick with me forever but it's a movie that I actually enjoyed watching especially when that second hour kicks up and

[02:00:17] If I just sort of give myself over to it Which I think is the power of Joseph Gordon Levitt too is I'm like well if he's enjoying this

[02:00:23] I might as well enjoy it sheer will right you have to get on board with him because right. He's having so much fun Yeah, right. It's I feel like I feel like Joseph Gordon Levitt is the Robert Zomacus of actors and vice versa

[02:00:37] That's a big take that's a big take JD. I have I have a question for you Not in terms of uvra, but in terms of no, I know you're talking about energy. Yeah Hit record Bobby JD Have you seen Allied? I

[02:00:56] Have not so Allied will be our next episode. I'm a big ally fan We've been building up to this one for a while. I have not rewatched it David saw it didn't like it at the time

[02:01:06] I'm hoping that he will be converted on this episode and that I will still like it on rewatch as much as I did the first time But a lot of what you're saying

[02:01:15] There is also a strange irony the fact that I saw it days after Donald Trump's election and I will be watching it again Day, you know, whatever days weeks after Joseph Biden's election. Sure, right? But anyway, sure

[02:01:27] Allied is the movie right after this for Zomacus and it's far and away my favorite of late periods of mech It's but a lot of the things you are saying in defense of this movie

[02:01:37] Which I watched for the second time tonight and still fundamentally doesn't work for me overall right despite my passion for elements of it Allied works for me in all those levels and part of what I like about Allied is the weird

[02:01:51] Stylized unreality of the visuals which I know turned a lot of people off that Allied is also very CGI Very sort of like painterly which I think is him sort of doing a digital version of Like heightened rear projection matte painting sort of like 1940s drama visuals

[02:02:11] And those techniques But I think that film is has a little more confidence Of tone because it's like we know what we're doing. It's an adult story. It's a smaller story It's got an easier emotional spine to it I

[02:02:28] Still think this is this weird like it's such an odd transition for him out of The three Mocap movies in a row plus the two mocap movies he produced through his production company at that time

[02:02:41] Plus the other ones he had in development that were going to happen before Disney ended their deal He kind of like returns to live action in this weird zone and he like makes flight

[02:02:53] Which is hard are he makes this movie which is like, you know a remake of a documentary But kind of more an adult-minded thing. It's also Soft PG this that's what I was gonna say PG right

[02:03:06] It's both like sort of designed to be a highbrow adult popcorn movie, but also is totally family friendly It's like very much a visual spectacle 3d like fucking I candy movie and then he goes back to Allied which is like

[02:03:22] I feel like his most sober adult movie in a lot of ways even if you don't think it works And then Marwin is just like The worst traits of all three movies rolled into one

[02:03:34] Combined with the mocap stuff. I guess there's two things I want to say here one is that This movie sort of represents what my hope for big directors a lot of times Ends up being like I think we've talked about those Tim Burton

[02:03:49] We're like my dream is that Tim Burton would just make like a ten million dollar movie He made one big eyes no one respected him. Yeah, I know but something I

[02:03:58] That was the bummer is like oh, we did it and it didn't quite didn't do it for me, but I Just want I like when big directors take all that they've learned and do something that forces them to work within a box and

[02:04:11] Then see what comes out of that and I think some really interesting stuff has come out of the walk And that's the second part of this I want to say is You know, I think so much of

[02:04:23] the discourse of you know film these days is like, you know down to the rotten tomatoes of it all was a good or is it bad and

[02:04:31] For me, I think the thing that I keep trying to impart especially when I come on blank check is that even a movie that if you don't love it in totality If there's some sort of passion behind it

[02:04:41] That's what's beautiful and interesting about the process and there that's the sort of the glimmering horton Here's a who is like someone shouting like hey look at this we poured some passion into it

[02:04:52] and for the walk I think it really comes in the form of the sort of The visual story that they're telling in that last hour and Throughout and how they approach things and how they problem solve and I think that's what's really beautiful

[02:05:05] And so, you know, I just want to make sure that in doing all this that it's I Don't think it's worth pigeonholing to me of like do I love this movie? Do I hate this movie? It's like there's stuff. I like there's stuff that I don't like

[02:05:18] But I think there's a lot of beautiful things and I wish more people would find in the movies that maybe they Don't love the one or two things that they can see is that sort of passion bubbling over But that's that's that's me from someone who makes stuff

[02:05:36] Hoping that that's how people can engage with it but I feel like David and I have talked about this a lot and like David your day job is as a critic your

[02:05:43] Responsibility is like people read your reviews to try to decide whether or not they should see this movie, right? Like ostensibly the idea is sure. Yeah. Yeah, there are other there are other aspects

[02:05:55] Well famously famously you boiled on every movie to whether it's a quote a nut or a butt Yes, the classic Simsie and Nutter but Great now that's a thing Nutter but all right Well we finish your thought I have something to say but finish your thought group

[02:06:14] But also David prepare prepare determine whether this is a nut or a butt in the end Yeah, you got to give it another but rating at the end of the episode And if there's something in between another but you got to figure out what that is

[02:06:25] Maybe it's another butter Look David what I was gonna say is my buddy Jesse Jesse Ryan Knight Good guy One time said to me like the thing I like about your guys podcast is it and And you and I talked about this David like a lot of times

[02:06:44] We only figure out what's working on the podcast when other people say things to us and we're like Oh, that is a thing we should double down on you know that we haven't been doing consciously

[02:06:53] But he said this thing to me who was like it's not really until I started listening to podcasts that I realized There's something good in every movie Right. Yes. No, I would like that we would have a sort of generosity

[02:07:04] Yes, right that like even movies we should only be like that one performances good or that score slaps And in the same way I feel like when we talk about our favorite movies We will highlight the things that like don't work in them

[02:07:14] Even if we think what they're ostensibly perfect films But I do think that's like a big part of what we try to do with this show and then sometimes I'll see people be like oh, they're such easy lays they like everything and it's like well

[02:07:27] I mean we don't end the episode with a ten point rating And I feel like a lot of times if I actually assigned a number score to movies people would be surprised What my actual rating is relative to how I talk about it on the show?

[02:07:39] But it's like I don't think our goal here is to say like nutter, but You know, this isn't the Atlantic. That's not a requisite I think our goal here is to like talk about movies in the way that JD is saying from different perspectives

[02:07:53] David being a critic and me working on stuff and our guests whether they're filmmakers or writers or what have you To try to like find the things that are interesting about the movie and why it was made and how it was made all that stuff

[02:08:05] Well, you said I just find that a lot more interesting than just saying like this movie blows or it rules Although we certainly do both of those things at times And don't forget that Ben also compares the movies to is how they resonate with his traumatic childhood

[02:08:18] Yeah, a key detail. I mean Ben Ben is but I'm Ben is the emotional entry point of the show Ben is really the protagonist. He's the audience surrogate character

[02:08:27] I take it you didn't watch the walk, correct? I did I actually listen out of three years of doing these This is the first time I walked the walk Wow, right. You never right fair enough. I wouldn't Billy Lynn with a fucking

[02:08:44] Never saw length pole this guy used Yeah, but if you took if you took mushrooms and saw in 120 I I think you would like right you would have walked out of your clothes and Ended up in like a Sony office building

[02:09:01] I mean Ben Ben saw Gemini man with us high frame Ray 3d and your response. Yeah, that makes sense You were a lover of 40x. I say it's the future cinema, but absolutely

[02:09:12] Should I say the thing I was gonna say it's now reacting to something 20 minutes ago. Okay. Yeah, say it Just please something you guys were talking about, you know billion years ago Reminded me that I did interview Robert Zemeckis. I'm sure I've discussed before

[02:09:27] For the film Allied for our interview. Oh for our for Allied for Allied He was a tough interview. He was ornery. I didn't have a lot of time with him And it was sort of earlier in my time at the Atlantic before I was just kind of like

[02:09:41] Now I would just be like I only will talk to him for a while or not at all Like no thing, you know what I mean like is it? Yeah, you don't get anywhere if you only talk for like 15

[02:09:49] 20 minutes like it's just you know, you're just one of a million people they talked to but I did ask him What you Griffin is saying like I was like your last film was so joyful and upbeat and

[02:10:02] Lovely in terms of celebrating this guy. Why is this an Allied is so dark and Downcast and much more like, you know shades of gray and he did cite Something that I I like to think about a lot when I'm thinking about filmographies and we should you know

[02:10:17] We you know that the classic Truffaut quote He's his response is you know Truffaut says every filmmaker's decision to make a film is always a reaction to the film They just made right like right and that does that does

[02:10:30] He's he and he was like I don't know if I do that But maybe I do that and like but that does feel like what Zemeckis does right like more than anything Yeah, trying to figure this guy out. He is either

[02:10:42] Encouraged or did you know discouraged by the last thing he made and like swerving or leaning in That's and this thing that I've cited many times that he says in interviews. I I thrive on Tension and combativeness creatively

[02:10:58] And I struggle when people trust that they think I can pull something off So there is that hyper reactionary thing to him of like what you're saying JD coming in and saying like I'm gonna do this Story this way at this budget is very much

[02:11:13] I think him trying to create circumstances where he will have tension and Executives don't trust him because he'd rather that than people going like you're Robert Zemeckis. You know what you're doing hands off

[02:11:25] Yeah, absolutely. I would like to play the box office game, but JD is getting his bell This is a perfect time for it. I would say this we transition to the box Okay, he's whistling the bell has been wrong

[02:11:37] Yeah, I know you're eager and don't want to wait, but I have bad news. We did lock the gate You now have the spot but how to get in it requires reflection, but not fong or blend

[02:11:52] It's simple indeed and requires no honor just the first two words spoken by Brian Connors With that you'll be in dancing like Ellen Shaw shanking yourself out of a shuf ton heaven I mean I there's moments there where I was like, oh maybe and then yeah, no

[02:12:14] And then they would it would lose me immediately JD are we supposed to be solving something or is this something that our listeners are supposed to solve? I Don't know that's so interesting you bring that. I don't know what you're referring to

[02:12:28] Yeah, what are you guys talking about? I have no idea what you're talking about, but maybe you could check your email. Oh Boy, okay. I'm seeing that there's an email. Okay Should I read aloud what the subject line is?

[02:12:41] Uh open the email open the email the email the email line is envelope. Oh attachment a PDF Can I read this? I'd love I'd love Griffin to read this. Oh my god So there is a drawing It's a it's a crumpled up piece of paper

[02:13:06] It's a crumpled up piece of paper. It's been scandint And there's a little stick man with a big belly It looks a little bit like a snowman one could say right and It's sort of blank expressionless face. Yes, you know, he's got yes it says

[02:13:25] Misty blankie no R. It doesn't say mr. Blankie. It says misty blankie misty blankie You could have stopped me. I gave you all the clues I Recorded a secret hour-long interview with Kevin

[02:13:44] Bailey VFX supervisor for the walk the only way to access it is via the clues left in your podcast XO XO Gossip man now. Now that's the part I like is is XO XO gossip man. I think it's been too long

[02:14:01] I was waiting for society to address that balance. It's Kevin Bailey. Is that how you pronounce that? I just want to make sure he his name is yes, right? Yes

[02:14:11] So basically as I started doing my research for the walk like I said it was not a film that I had much I stumbled upon a bunch of interviews with Kevin Bailey the VFX supervisor for the walk and his passion and his expertise was really interesting and

[02:14:30] He was a sort of Horton here's a who that I heard sort of chirping that I was like, okay There's something here and when I started diving I uncovered His career which is so fascinating and interesting and we don't get into it too much in the interview

[02:14:45] So I will I'll talk about it here he was a high school student who sort of convinced his high school to buy him some like, you know computer graphics equipment him and his best friend and they made a little demo of these sort of like

[02:15:03] spaceships racing through their school representing the sophomore class the junior class the senior class the freshman class and They did such a good job and pushed their what they had to the limits that Lucasfilm actually invited them to come tour

[02:15:21] The Skywalker Ranch his first-ever credit is phantom menace pre-visualization slash effects artists That's his first credit much like that's where our podcast started David. So Griffin here's the after He graduated high school

[02:15:38] Lucasfilm hired him and his best friend out of high school to instead of go to college Just go straight to Lucasfilm and work on the phantom menace which they did and then from there He became this person the VFX world who sort of Jumped from place to place

[02:15:55] He went to a place called the orphanage and then he went to frame store and then from there or not frame store image movers And then from there he founded something called atomic fiction

[02:16:05] And if you look he is a person who he has touched or had a hand in Some of the best VFX that has been done in the past, you know 20 years and I'm seeing all the films All the films that I think are the high watermark

[02:16:20] He sort of was a part of or had something to do with or oftentimes was the VFX supervisor on So something what movies sin city is on here. Yeah, JD. What are some movies you like? Um the Caribbean movies he had

[02:16:34] Right our world's end is the best-looking one Superman I mean at the time what they were doing was absolutely next level stuff He's worked on a lot of the zemeckis films and a lot of the mech is projects as the mech is sort of like

[02:16:46] Attempted all this crazy stuff. He has worked on every single zemeckis since Christmas carol Including mards needs moms as a you know, it's a mech is producer movie He worked on flight allied walk Marwin and witches yeah

[02:17:01] And it was just really interesting. And so I reached out to him as basically like hey Can we record a secret podcast and he was like, I don't know what that is but yes and We had a lovely conversation. We got deep into a bunch of details

[02:17:15] And he's a really fascinating guy and I think one of the fun things that if you're a listener of this show Um, if when you watch a movie and you like something that was done in the movie I highly recommend trying to figure out who

[02:17:29] Who was the reason that that happened and remembering them and following their career a little bit? And I think kevin bailey is a name that you guys should remember and keep an eye on

[02:17:40] Because I find that when he has his hand in special effects whether the movies turn out good or not He has done something interesting with how he's approached the special effects And beyond that something that he's done that's really interesting that I think is fascinating is

[02:17:52] famously in the film world there's a lot of issues with VFX studios not being financially viable and His whole thing is about trying to create financially viable vfx studios and finding Creative ways to solve problems to make things viable

[02:18:10] And one of the things that he created that the walk was like sort of one of the first deployments of and so was um flight Was uh this system called conductor that his team created which is fascinating And to briefly go into that basically in the vfx world

[02:18:28] famously if you want to You do all this crazy work that requires all this calculation And then what you do is you have a render farm Which is basically like a warehouse full of hard drives that are doing all of the processing of all of your data

[02:18:42] and those render farms are wildly expensive and huge and like There's certain things that only places like ilm can do and that is their biggest overhead is they're paying millions of dollars To just do upkeep on these render farms that mostly just sit idle

[02:18:58] And so he created this software called conductor that I think is really interesting which is uh It cloud sources Um rendering and so he uses google their collective sort of cloud processing system and leases processors to to render single frames

[02:19:19] So it'll be like he's gonna write. He's gonna lease a million processors To render a single frame for 45 minutes And the cost of doing that is

[02:19:30] Way way less than if you just had to upkeep this thing that you're only using at the end of production when you're rendering stuff and he's done a lot of stuff that has to do with

[02:19:38] Changing workflows and figuring out interesting ways to do stuff and he is really interesting I love his work. My conversation with him was fantastic and oh This this is not something I knew before it was truly just as I did research

[02:19:50] And I saw him talking getting into what he believed and what he thought was Interesting and cool and the way he brought stuff. I was just like I've got to talk to this guy

[02:19:59] And I I sent him an email and he was kind enough to give me time in between his other Robert Semeckis project that he's currently working on and Just to be clear. I emailed ben ahead at time to make sure this is okay

[02:20:12] So I just want to ask two questions to clarify one Yes, you have recorded a one hour podcast episode by yourself in coordination with ben That is currently being hosted somewhere mysteriously

[02:20:27] that people will have to use the four riddles five riddles that you have read aloud in this episode to Ascertain was five. Yes. Was it five? Yes, there's five riddles. Okay. Okay, but it's you're telling me by the time this episode comes out

[02:20:43] It will be housed on the internet somewhere Yes, it is on the internet and everything you need to find it is contained within the clues in this episode Can I Hear it or must I solve the clues? Okay. I I respect it just asking

[02:20:58] I mean, it's up to ben I would happily send it to you guys if you just wanted to hear it to hear the conversation No, no, I don't think you should No, I can figure it out myself or let the reddit figure it out and maybe

[02:21:11] Piggy back off that or whatever however it is going to go We literally recorded it the same morning as we were as today This morning Kevin was we're supposed to record yesterday But Robert Zemeckis called him in to Santa Barbara to his office

[02:21:27] And so he had to drive to Santa Barbara yesterday. Wow, so he was like can we do it tomorrow at 8 a.m So we recorded it this morning. He was so kind of me kiss so many times. You could have been like no

[02:21:38] I'm it's Thanksgiving week and I'm making a movie And this is a secret podcast But instead he was like, let's make let's figure it out. Maybe we do it now Maybe we did it so he was the nicest guy and his work blows me away

[02:21:52] And I just we have to get him on now. Well, whatever. I'll listen. Well, I'm gonna listen I want to go is on in a way. Yeah He's on in a way He's never been further from being on the podcast chad Second question of clarification

[02:22:10] Is gossip man the t-shirt? Yes, that has to be that has to be interesting. I know or I'd Or it could also be that snowman guy. No, no, no, no, this is the t-shirt as I imagine it

[02:22:24] It's the snowman guy exactly as you drew him. So it's not yeah copyright infringement on the post It's that man. Yeah hit film the snowman um And then it just says wait, I need to call it up to get this exactly right

[02:22:38] It just says you could have stopped me. I gave you all the clues xoxo gossip man, right? Like that's I think he has to say I think he has to say misty blankie. I'm sorry misty blankie. I'm just saying

[02:22:49] You could have stopped me. I gave out a more procedural I recorded a secret hour long, you know, like that doesn't need to be on the t-shirt But I you need everything else I've got two pictures of two other things that I'd like included on the shirt. Okay

[02:23:04] One Is the word sploosh And two is philly petite's entire intro speech at the beginning All right, okay. Okay. Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second No griffin don't because remember printing on the back of a shirt is a whole economic proposition that I believe

[02:23:25] It's a lot more expensive. I'm aware. I didn't say back. I don't say back You could fit this on the front baby. No, but I'm saying look. I'm just saying look. I love bits I love I love what you're pointing out here. I'm just saying

[02:23:38] This I'm looking at this letter. This thing is dynamite. We we can't fuck around right now We're sitting on a cash cow Okay, okay, and just this image with uh, you know, it's the way the couple lines are moved

[02:23:54] But that's why David part of the world on fire I'm that's why part of me is part of me is questioning if we're if we're If we're playing with fire by removing the lines

[02:24:06] Um, yeah, uh, I know come on. We got to remove you know just just clean it because like look The snowman poster that's a movie no one has seen anyone who's seen it does not remember it That poster is burned into everyone's minds for eternity, correct?

[02:24:24] Correct. It was sparse. It was effective Hey, it's Griffin again from the future. Um So that we had a whole extended like riff here Uh brainstorming what the merch for talking the walk would be including looking at a catalog of things that uh

[02:24:44] Uh night owls the the print Manufacturing company we we were working with these days could Uh produce and could print things on so we were like talking about like oh, should we make bell keychains with talking the walk on it?

[02:24:59] I say we I was pitching a lot of dumb things Um, I think it wasn't very interesting. I've implored bent to cut it down So this is a band-aid piece to cut that whole thing down

[02:25:11] All you need to know is uh, the name of the show is blank check Now all you need to know is that uh, we're just selling the one item It's gonna be the shirt of the letter the misty blanky shirt Anyway back to the episode

[02:25:27] October 2nd 2015 is when this film came out in 450 theaters like it was a I max only release maybe right right right. It was an I max only first week and they were trying the ghost pro thing

[02:25:41] Right, uh, I know we showed route. How much did this movie make Griffin? In total domestic Like one black cat to do seven eight It got to 10 It beat black hat It made 10 domestic it made 61 worldwide. It was not a hit although no as JD has noted

[02:26:01] It was not an incredibly expensive movie, but still I think it was disappointing Yes, sure Yes, all right, but the walk opens at number 11. It is not going to feature into the box office game number one

[02:26:13] A good movie a big original fun. Oh not original. It's an adaptation of a book, but a big fun hit Uh sort of adventure movie for everyone to enjoy best picture nominee It's an adventure movie. Is it the martian? It's the martian. Yes, there you go. Yeah

[02:26:31] You got it. That's the that is the funniest movie of the year. It's so fun It's the first really last five years It's a laugh riot obviously our sides were all split upon Upon exiting the theater from the martian, but the martian is the one where it's the

[02:26:46] It's the bunch of little aliens that come to earth and they sort of have foul mouths And they have to fix their spaceship and get back No, oh that's space invaders. Sorry Space invaders I think made slightly less of a cultural impact than the martian

[02:27:01] Why is space invaders? Come up like four times in this mini series Space invaders was a movie that I watched several times the kid and it is a weird one

[02:27:13] It's one of those like early 90s disney movies where they were just like, yeah, I don't know. What are you doing over there? Fine, we'll put it out weirdly I somehow stumbled upon the director of space invaders on twitter and he's got like

[02:27:26] 200 followers and like tweets a lot and i'm like you're the director of space invaders Because he should be in a mansion somewhere He directed angus and that star wars movie that's never gotten completed Yeah, patrick re johnson. I'm obsessed with this guy Ben have you seen space invaders?

[02:27:44] I have not Ben this is movie is so up. It's A weird movie about foul mouthed aliens that crash land on earth and after like And it's it's it's one of those movies from like the 90s that

[02:27:57] It really landed between being a kid's movie and like a weird teenager movie and it's I just remember being disconcerted as a kid But still watching it like three times because like I was so mystified by the alien creatures I'm looking at it now. Wow. Yeah, this is

[02:28:15] Really strange Um, I'll check it out I think you should take some sort of substance that's Safe and relaxing that opens your brain and then Just watch the heck out of space invaders

[02:28:28] And report back to us. Maybe maybe tag that on this episode just your sort of your sort of take on space invaders I think this is long enough. We'll make it 20. We'll make it a rezy for next year. Okay

[02:28:42] Uh number two at the box office. It's a sequel. It's a film we've covered on this show It's a sequel. It's a film we've covered on this show. What number is it a two? Two It's a two same director as the one. Yep

[02:28:58] So we've covered three and the director made that two and we've covered that as well And is it done now or do we think there's gonna be another? Oh, there's gonna be another There's gonna be another? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah

[02:29:11] So this is a two. There's been a three. There's gonna be a four. You can't wait It's not Oh, oh, it's horticentra inia 2 There you go HT 2 we checked in we checked in Um

[02:29:27] That's sony as well. So sony is two big 3d movies and theaters at the same time Well big is a word that you could use for one of those movies and another one is a movie that's uh not succeeding with audiences

[02:29:39] But whatever number three of the box office um Let's see. It's expanding this week and it's doing fairly well It's a drama like a crime You know very dark very intense thriller drama

[02:29:59] Uh expanding doing well big director, but he's kind of emerging with this movie. I would say As an otter type the emergence. Is it saccharia? It's saccharia. I mean like is it the emergence? No, obviously He's made kind of movies before it

[02:30:16] But like it's kind of right. It's kind of where people are like, I guess we take him seriously officially right like People forget that that prisoners was like a big hit Prisoners was like a solid sized hit, but it was kind of disdained. I don't know

[02:30:32] Yeah, I feel like it was not critic. I love that movie I feel like it was not very critically respected But that's a movie that like opened to number one at with 20 million dollars

[02:30:42] Right, right because it had stars. You know, it's about prisoners. What if there's a prisoner number four Wow, we've really covered a lot of this box office number four is a film we've covered. It's a comedy a A light meatballs

[02:30:54] Meatballs three. It's not meatballs three, which I believe is not a movie Okay, and it's not a james l brooks and it's not a cameron crow. Is it the intern? No Meatballs three is a movie by the way. I'm so sorry. Uh, it is the intern

[02:31:08] I think meatballs three features and it's the one that features the alien that gets stuck at camp Why do you only want to invoke alien comedies?

[02:31:19] Wait, Ben. Have you seen that one? There's a scene where the alien gets stuck at camp and he smokes weed and he goes Oh, when he pumps into the air That's a good bit Meatballs is one of those

[02:31:33] One of those franchises that like just turned into soft core porn the longer it went on right like Meatballs three is the first one rated r and it just like four is just like a directive video skin flick, right? Like it just kept It's weird

[02:31:46] Yeah, four is cori feldman and jack nance aka eraser head two legends Yeah, uh number five is It's a it's the middle entry in a trilogy It's easily I wouldn't I don't know about easily it. I think it's the best of the three

[02:32:03] This is a trilogy that I feel like is already forgotten Uh scorch trials It's the the scorch trials. Yes, it's the scorch trials. We face the scorch trials every blank check episode is a scorch trial in and of itself

[02:32:18] Right, wouldn't you say I just I know that one because weirdly as you said we've covered a lot of movies and every time This this sort of box office period comes up. You always describe it the same way

[02:32:30] Well forgotten trilogy. It's the best one of the three. I'm a broken record. What can I say rosa? Salazar outstanding in the scorch trials love her in that movie Ben, it's good, right I don't know. Ben's looking at the meatballs thing. I said that clip from

[02:32:47] From meatballs to of the alien with the weed. Okay, so this is from two. Okay, so we do need to clarify It's from two. Okay Uh, oh my god, I just didn't think the alien was gonna look like that

[02:33:03] That's a real space invader if I've ever seen one. Oh shit Uh, so we're done Well, I mean, well, I mean We're done with the main part of the podcast right this episode is done, but the journey is just beginning for many and well because I mean

[02:33:25] One of these episodes is never done until we end on David's classic Ender The nutter butt scale Is this a nut or is it a butt? Is it another a butt, david for one for one? I'm very excited to listen to whatever

[02:33:42] Is out there jd. I say this sincerely Thank you. It was it was actually really fun and I appreciated Ben giving me the thumbs up to do it and uh

[02:33:53] Kevin is so kind to have given me his time and some as someone who just I just spent a lot of time talking to people who worked on Manc all the craft people it is always I find really interesting and fun to talk to those

[02:34:05] People because they are at the top of their craft. They're very smart, but they don't get interviewed as much So they have lots to say like usually like you know, it's just there's a lot, you know, anyway

[02:34:16] Um, is am I supposed to give me I made him give me an exclusive at the end of the interview too Something that's never been said about the film Well, all right. Wow am I to rate whether The episode is a nut or a butt

[02:34:33] Oh, I mean classic I'd love to do it how you've always done it which is Ben performs the theme song Griffin does this sort of the vo setup to it that really builds it up and then you deliver the nut or but

[02:34:48] Yeah, so let's just do the usual you ready to go boys. Just the usual start the song David's gonna say if this movie is another It's a nut Okay That was good, right?

[02:35:17] So I guess for future reference the thing we need to establish is whether nut or but is better We'll figure that out later. Okay. Well, so then let me let me end the show then I guess, right?

[02:35:30] I say do it. There's nothing else that I have well JD. Thank you for being here. Thank you for talking the walk Thank you for launching a mystery that will keep people Uh occupied over the holidays Thank you Uh, and uh, thank you all for listening

[02:35:47] Through this weird wacky year and we'll be back Next year next week with the more Zemeckis finishing that out and and we're gonna cover the uh Wonder Woman and Tenet Two movies. We thought we were gonna have seen in theaters months ago

[02:36:06] David saw one of them months ago, but now we'll finally be able to talk about now that they're available at home Under safe circumstances So at this point in time when we're recording, we don't know exactly when we're gonna release those but uh

[02:36:19] Stay tuned on social media and stuff like that. We'll communicate it to you further But know that those are coming in 2020 long one along with the rest of Zemeckis Hi, it's Gryffindor in the future again a comedy rule of threes, uh, but also just um

[02:36:35] I there there are three things I fucked up that I need to uh offer addendums to in this episode So here's the final order of what you can expect at the beginning of 2021 First week of january The first episode is gonna be Wonder Woman 1984 main feed Okay, then

[02:36:56] So that's that's dropping the midnight, you know, uh Saturday january 2nd to January 3rd, okay and the following weekend Midnight on the 9th into the 10th is going to be Tenet and then We're going to allied

[02:37:18] We're picking up on Zemeckis. We're finishing it off with those last two Uh, I don't know if that's awkward We were going back and forth on things but it just felt like everyone's gonna watch Tenet and

[02:37:32] Wonder Woman over the holidays why might not strike while the iron's hot Especially since people are losing their gosh darn minds over Wonder Woman Uh, I can't remember the last time people were this uh,

[02:37:44] Incensed about a movie so it feels like maybe we shouldn't wait two weeks to release that episode Okay, um, I hope you've liked this episode, uh I think it's good But also, I mean it's it's like at this point the talking the walk thing is like a bit

[02:38:04] Like a bit about A movie that people don't really care about being treated Like its episode was a huge event And then we didn't know how to repeat it for the second year

[02:38:16] And the walk the walking the talk or whatever we did last year ended up, I think turning out Really well and being a little more, um emotionally resonant than we expected and then that kind of fucked us because then we're just like

[02:38:31] Now there's like an actual expectation and this is like the big episode of the year And it's just talking about a movie that was not very successful um I'm excited to hear the the the bonus app the jd uh

[02:38:47] Did maybe that maybe cumulatively if you put the two together then it will feel like A massive event Uh worthy of of the walk title the walk franchise um He's offered to send

[02:39:03] Me the file and I said I don't want to I want the experience of doing the work to actually find the thing myself but I know in actuality. I probably am just going to wait two hours if even that for someone

[02:39:21] On the subreddit to crack it and then just link it that way, but I just felt like I shouldn't cheat At least let someone else do the work Okay, uh, I don't I don't know how to go back to the episode now, but um

[02:39:34] And thanks to lean monk emory for our theme song and joe bow and pat rounds for artwork Go to blankies dot red to come for some real nerdy shit and go to the blank check Shopify page and as always

[02:39:49] Why that is the question people ask me most pourquoi why for what why do you walk on the wire? Why do you attempt fate? Why do you risk death, but I don't think of it this way. I never even say this word death la more

[02:40:03] Yes, oh, okay. I said that once or maybe three times just now But watch I will not say it again instead. I use the opposite word life for me to walk on the wire This is life Say love me Hi everybody, it's JD Don't tell griffin or david

[02:40:25] Um, but i'm sticking back into the podcast I realized that I was so excited to talk about the walk that we didn't do any of the bits Just fine because I think a lot of people are annoyed by the bits

[02:40:34] But I think some people like them so I forget to just squeeze them in here Um, so here they are Hi, i'm jd. Amato and I love movies blanket. Thank it. Uh, i'm jd. Vance and I love gooby hank it make it

[02:40:46] That was a new one. Uh david gripping england dislington dislington Uh david you gripping new york. Did you know spider-man? That was a new one that I was going to workshop. I think it'd be funnier david could react to it because it's like

[02:40:57] The whole point is that it's sort of stupid and Yeah, hi that that one probably shouldn't have been on this list. Um It's a stormy report uh keiko topsy barthabare is the third tallest famous actor beating bar

[02:41:12] Out barthabare the number four slot the older barthabare is taller than the younger barthabare by eight and a half inches valine um hack my mark um Uh, I think that's most of them to be honest

[02:41:25] Um, but now I just sort of have the podcast and I can sort of do whatever I want And david and griffin don't know What do I want to say? Well, this was a rough year personally for being honest personally. I had a rough end of 2018

[02:41:41] Uh, and then 2019 are sort of healing from 2018 And then 2020 was going to be the year that I sort of got back on the horse and obviously 2021 sideways um, but what it made me realize is there's a lot of

[02:41:57] Things in my life that were consistent that I really relied on and didn't realize it And those little consistent things now that they're gone made me appreciate the small consistent things that I still had one of those was blank check, um

[02:42:12] And even though it's just something as small as a podcast I think that can have a big impact on so many other things had to change So I'm sure it hasn't been easy to make their show during the pandemic. I'm sure it's very stressful

[02:42:23] Um, so I guess I'll just thank the blank check team everyone who's ever touched blank check and its community for loving movies during this wild year um I think 2021 is going to be the year that like roger banister blank check breaks the four hour barrier

[02:42:42] Some people say it's not possible, but I think they can do it. I believe it's my heart um But anyways, thank you blank check And in 2021 if it's safe and this pandemic has passed and there is enough Vaccines for everyone. Let's all go to the movies

[02:43:02] All right, that's it blanket. Thank you. Hank it make it Oh also Please fight for Jacques Taty mini series Thank you. All right, that's it. Is that it? I think that's it Uh I love labyrinth. Okay. Goodbye