Daniel Stafford-Clark - Director of Photography

Joining me this week, Daniel Stafford-Clark

Daniel grew up in a filmmaking household (his father is a producer, and his mother worked with my dad on Honey magazine) and since he could pick up a video camera has been shooting with any family members and friends he could enroll.

 He has worked as a director of photography since 2009 when he graduated from the UK’s National Film and Television School. As well as working extensively in commercials he’s shot a number of acclaimed television series including Catastrophe, Industry, Extraordinary and Big Mood which has just been released.  He’s also shot a couple of award-winning features.  

He’s worked with Disney+, Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO as well as Channel 4 and the BBC in the UK.  He has a passion for photography that is immersive, emotionally powerful and always in the service of the storytelling.

Daniel's Instagram

Daniel's Website

My letterboxd:

My film Reel Terror:

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Your Life and Film. I'm your host, Ted Bennett. Joining me this week, Daniel Stafford Clark. Daniel is a uh DOP. He's been working in the industry for a long, long time. You'll have seen his work on Extraordinary, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, Big Mood. I worked with Daniel in 2014 on a short film called Some Candid Observations. That's where I met him. We had some recording issues on the original recording, and we we missed the last two questions. So we went back and re-recorded. Hence why there's a bit of a sound difference. But uh you won't notice, you probably will. We start this episode talking about original shows and studios not relying on uh you know tired IPs. Uh so yeah, enjoy. Even things like Extraordinary, which uh I didn't realise you'd shot until when I was watching it, and I was like, ah, I know that name. So it was a really nice surprise. But even that, it's like, well done, you've done a superhero thing that is unique, like good, like keep just doing things that aren't established IPs. Let's try something new.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Yeah, I mean that's why I've been following the backrooms in obsession, uh, like many, many people. But uh yeah, I think it's it's great that two films that although with backrooms it's it's obviously like been a YouTube series and a phenomenon for a while on the internet, but in terms of the film world, it's completely new and yeah, has been seen by many, many people, a lot of whom are young, which is also a really good thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

I think young people back in the cinema is nice as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yeah, it's tapped into a younger generation, very obviously super young filmmakers as well. I think this is all good, and we need more of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

We need more people uh like yourself that worked in a cinema and then got to see their own things in the cinema.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Yeah, that is when that does occasionally happen, that is quite a nice experience.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

I remember you uh telling me that before uh some candid observations. Like, I think you saw like one of your old managers or something while you were like, well, my film that I shot is playing here and I worked here, and I remember you sort of being like it feels good.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

I still yeah, there are still some people working at the BFI who I I know, and um no, it's always nice to see them, and uh in the least gloaty way possible. I'm just like, oh, yeah, I'm back for the film, it's great.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

There is always that nice thing. I think it just you want them to be just as happy like that things are happening, not not that it's like look at me doing so well. It's like just things are happening, like that's good, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Well, to be honest, I think those that that still work there work there because it's probably the best job in the world. Uh it might be my best ever job. Oh, really? Just getting to watch films in a more uncomplicated time in my life. It was pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

So when I I was a Cineworld, I would I didn't have the luxury of BFI.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Did they let you sit in for the films?

SPEAKER_00 3:11

I was a projectionist, so well, yeah, very much then. I I was there a lot watching the films. I I would say that it does mean I've seen Mamma Mia a lot. So yeah, you'd occasionally get an extended run that you just sort of had to crit your teeth and I was baffled by you could go to the Asda down the road and buy the DVD of Mamma Mia for a pound more than watching it at the cinema while it was still playing. And I just I couldn't I was like, geez, people just go buy it. Let's let's put something else on, just go buy it, just go away.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Hey, you're meant to be promoting the cinematic experience, but yeah, I I mean look, I haven't seen Mamma Mia, so I'm not hugely qualified to ask, but I imagine it would be a good film to see in it in the cinema if you've especially if it's one of those screenings where you know it's a bit rowdy, everybody's singing along.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Or the the the ball bouncing along the lyrics at the bottom was by the time it got to the end.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

So exactly. That is uh that's not not gonna happen in quite the same way in your living room or on your laptop. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

That's true. I think I haven't yet the only time I'll ever watch a film on laptop or iPad is when I'm traveling and it's sort of like, oh, I want to watch a film, but I'm gonna be very specific about what I want to watch and all that kind of stuff. I I I still I I can't understand people, I know time and space, whatever, but watching films on the laptop at home, I'm just like, what do you do? Come on, commit, commit to a better setup, try and do something.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Yeah, I I guess some similar uh I mean part part of one good side of my job is that when I'm not working, I can go to the cinema. Uh I've got I've got a kid, so I've got a window of time when he's at school, and I can take myself to a matinee screening, uh, which is great. And I always, I mean, it's my favourite time to go. I'm the best time. I much prefer going early in the day, um, with hardly anybody else there. I know that's that's not very communal, but just sort of you know being in a massive cinema screen with like a couple of retirees and maybe some a stoner student or two. Yeah. Um yeah, and that that's a great way to see a film. I think for some reason a TV series I f I find more acceptable on a laptop or an iPad. Uh I can't explain that. Uh and when I watch films at home, I because of said being a parent circumstances, I often have to break them up into chunks to get through them.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Uh a lot of friends who are parents said that this was the perfect time to watch uh foreign films because they'd have to watch things with subtitles on anyway, so they didn't wake the child up during midnight feedings. So they're like, I'm just gonna watch a foreign film because it I I need the subtitles anyway. And I was like, that's a great way of just consuming like a film that you wouldn't normally be like, oh, I'm not really in the mood, I'm a bit tired, I don't know if I've got the time or the energy for that. So they're like, I'll just watch it now. And it was like, yeah, do that, do that more.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Yeah, look, any anything that again gets people watching films. Yeah. Um, yeah, I'd like there are quite a few friends of mine who for some reason find the idea of watching a film is like a bigger a bigger deal in their life and more complicated than putting on a TV show. I'd never really understood that. For me, a TV show feels like because it's it's a longer commitment, you know, um you're watching six, eight, ten, however many episodes, whereas a film it comes and goes, it's neat, it's contained, uh, it's its own world. Yeah. So it's hopefully 90 minutes of joy. Bash film TV too much. I I've I work in it a lot, and it's obviously really uh excelled in the last well, since the Sopranos, I guess. Um give me a good old-fashioned film any day of the week.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

100%, 100%. Um But you are doing are you still doing like shorts? You still you've done a feature or two, haven't you?

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Yeah, here and there. I I mean I I shot some features a long time ago, and they were definitely at the micro budget end. Uh so not working on features currently would definitely like to. It's quite a quite a distinct world though, and a sort of small pool of DPs tend to do a lot of the interesting independent features. So, what I think I would need is a director I've worked with previously getting a feature and uh pushing me through, basically. That's how you break into that world.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

I remember like joking with some people a few years ago that in the UK independent like film world, there's about five DPs.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Like it's yeah, I mean there really are a few who who just hoover it all up and they're very good at what they do. Um so I can see why they're hired a lot, but yeah, it's just just like anything in pretty much probably any job in the world, uh it's hard to move from one room to another, and it's you've got to you've got to be a little wary of being pigeonholed, I guess. Uh it's not it's not as not so much as a director, I think as a DP you can you can have a more varied IMDB, but I do think making good choices there are some DPs who have held out, made really good choices, and it hasn't done their careers any harm.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

I think it's the um you all strive for that career of like the Roger Deacons where you know it's shot by a master, but it doesn't look necessarily the same as everything else he's done. So you know, it's it's almost like Alex Garland for me as a director. It's sort of like he can do whatever he likes, really. He can play in any genre and it kind of works. It doesn't, you know it's an Alex Garland film, but it's not necessarily like Spielberg, you can go like, well, that's Janis's shots, that's how he likes it, that's how he does everything. Like, that's a Spielberg film. But with like Deacons and things, you can sort of go like, well, it looked beautiful and it's shot perfectly for that film. And I think that's the the hope you always get as like a creative, is that it's like, no, no, no, if I only wanted to do one specific thing, like I probably wouldn't be doing this. I want to do everything. I want to shoot, I want to shoot in the darkest of darks and the brightest of brights. I want to try colour palettes, I want to try compositions, I want to try like different things, and I want to be like applauded for that as a as a spectrum.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

But I'd say your decisions I would agree.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Your decisions to shoot things, I think they that you fall into that, I'd say. I think nothing none of your work looks the same, but also not so um magnificently different that you're like, are you sure that person shot it? It's like there is a a warmth to a lot of your work, which I really like, but it it doesn't necessarily I don't I don't look at like extraordinary and be like, yes, that is the exact same as the short I worked on with you. Like, you know what I mean? It's like that it you can see that there is um a skill and expertise in the framing, but it doesn't necessarily, it's not your specific, like that's his shot, you know, and I think that's that's a better place to be.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah, well, yeah, thanks for those kind words. Um yeah, I think I I really like to approach each new project as its own thing and try to sort of bond with the with the with the film, uh get to know it and get it to tell me a bit what it is. Um I think that's that's definitely an important part of the creative process, and I think also just the different collaborations you have, you know, especially with a DP and director, it will it will be different every time the way you collaborate, and that will obviously have have an effect. I think that yeah, there are just enough things out there that that will naturally have you seeking uh the world that is appropriate for that film. But I think conversely, at the same time, there'll be aspects of your taste and your personality and just like the way that you've learned to to do certain things that will kind of come through without you having to force it too much. I think there will be a bit of you in there. Uh you don't you don't necessarily need to make make it uh front and center, but it is it's funny actually because I went to the NFTS. Uh we were taught by Brian Tefano, uh amazing cinematographer, uh shot train spotting Billy Elliott amongst a lot of stuff, a very good teacher. He was very much of the belief that the the DP sort of needs to be able to fit the project and that you need to be versatile and adaptable. But there seems to be, in the last, I don't know, five years or so with us going into this kind of social media uh AI age that we found ourselves in, there's a school of thought that a DP actually does need to stand out and have something about them that is like a brand, which yeah, I mean I get it, and there are there are some DPs who've really done well off of that, I think. Uh but yeah, it just feels quite, like you say, kind of limiting, like uh, and also just I don't know if it would come particularly naturally.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Well, that there's certain roles in uh filmmaking, which is like, well, you can't get more behind the camera than the DP. Like that person clearly doesn't want to be in front of that camera because they're the first line of defense behind it. So to make that person almost a brand, it's like you've not understood. Like this person is about showing the product, not themselves. And I think there's a lack of confidence when certain filmmakers have to be a bit more like, but check out my personality. It's like, yeah, but what about your creative output? Like, that's that's the thing that matters as a broader spectrum. And if you're not as confident about like your own abilities, you might be a bit more confident. It's like, but I can throw my personality out there, and people are like that, I can make sure that they like that, and then you know, the work can come a line and follow in that. It's like, no, no, no, no, let's let's get the work right, and then you know, hopefully you're not an arsehole.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

I would agree with you, but I do think there are there are people making decisions who uh don't come at it from maybe the same perspective.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Well, I heard that that horrible thing that Sir Sheronan didn't get a job once because her Instagram followers weren't as high as the other actress.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Well, there you go. If you've got if if you've got someone who's got a load of Instagram followers, you've got sort of a baked-in audience, haven't you? Uh I mean, yeah, I try to to. I mean, it it's look, I'm that's not that's not me, it's not it's not how I'm gonna play it. So I'm I'm just gonna keep doing things the way I I do them. Um and hopefully, yeah, you know, you get to a certain point. It's not even I'm not saying that I'm sort of high up some kind of hierarchy of DPs or anything like that, but you've sort of been doing it long enough that I think the work speaks for itself, hopefully.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Also, you you have been doing it like for a long time. There is that says that does say volumes because there I know people who have tried to do it and they've done it for a couple of years, and then they either couldn't afford to keep doing it as sporadically until they got their break, or they couldn't get the work sort of honed enough that they were always hired for the next job, or there was just something about them that they just couldn't do it. Whereas you you know, I know you've been a working DP for at least over ten years now. So like that in itself is sort of like right. So there's there's clearly something there. There's there's the thing that proves that this person is has the abilities to stick it out and do the good work because they are continually hired.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yeah, no, I I think uh because I I don't think there's a DP or anybody involved for that uh matter in filmmaking who doesn't have moments where it gets a bit quiet or they start to wonder if anybody remembers who they are. But I think as I do it for longer, I've learnt to sort of hang in there and weather the the storm.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

And yeah, maybe it is just having a few years under my belt, I don't know, but yeah, it's it feels less existential, maybe than I I did a talk at a school uh recently, and one of the kids was sort of asking, like, what's what's the what's the one bit of advice you'd give? And I was just like, whoever can wait the longest will get the work.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Yeah, I think that and even I think when you're trying to the break through, it's like if you hang around and make a nuisance of yourself for long enough and you're determined. If you keep raising your hand and forget about me, yeah. Yeah, I think things will generally happen. Uh I've I mean I've seen that that happen time and time again. Uh yeah, it's like a sort of determination and just just being about when the when the breaks come and also just um yeah, just in the early in your early days meeting people, knowing people, meet you know, meeting as many people as you can, just being out in the world. Uh I think I was sort of it was from a time when I was younger that it people generally socialized more, I think. And uh there was quite a big network of of friends and acquaintances in London. Uh you know, we we would hang out through work, through partying, through shooting low budget stuff, and that sort of begets other other friendships. And a lot of my breaks came through those early friendships and and relationships and you sort of working your way up together as well. You know, you've got you've got a friend who who gets a break, they try and put you in for something. Maybe that time they want to hire a bigger DP, but that friend still still keeps on pushing to get you on, you know. Relationships are that's very important. I think it's a bit more difficult maybe for younger people nowadays, as we know everything's more expensive. Yeah, uh living in London is more expensive, going out is more expensive, making films is more expensive, so it's just harder, I think, to be surrounded by potential collaborators. It's yeah and it's probably harder through a screen, I imagine, to make those kind of connections and relationships.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yes, I think it is, because all the best connections I have made have been through me attending a festival or something and then striking up a conversation because there's like you can afford to sort of, you know, like, oh, I can't get a gist through the screen whether you're being flippant or whether you're being silly, or if that's your personality, or whether that's how you play it. Whereas in person you can be a bit more like you can read the whole body, not just the torso up, and you can be like, okay, they seem you know, but I mean I don't know if you're engaging, you're engaging with each other, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Just just yeah. I mean, I imagine even just the physics of the the neurons in the air between you shifting, you know, it it comes down to that. Uh so I think yeah, it's I've I have I've spoken to a few sort of younger um DPs in the making, and um that does seem like that's that's one of the the harder things to do than maybe it used to be to to make those early connections.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Well, I had to make the it was quite a difficult career decision, but not a difficult personal decision, was to leave London. Because it was if I leave London, I can afford to keep doing filmmaking because I don't have to constantly push and push and push. But if I leave London, I also have to work a lot fucking harder to maintain relationships, to make new relationships, to put myself out there, attend a lot more things in the Midland, because I'm up in Tropshire now. Like you've really got to push yourself to sort of be like, right, gotta put myself into the art community here. I have to turn up and I have to be at every gallery and I have to make sure I say all the nice, pleasant things that you know, you just gotta do those things. And it's taken a couple of years, but like I've built up a good community here now. But there is that thing of like, if I leave London, there is hundreds of people that I have the ability to speak to about the work. Come up to Shropshire, there might be half a dozen, but they might be more they're in a similar situation. They can afford to make it, they might be like, well, I'm not in London, so I've not got the network. And it's like, oh, well then let's start the network, let's get going, let's let's actually do a thing. And it was a it was a leap, but I'm pleased I made it.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Yeah, I mean that sounds like a really positive thing, to be honest. Uh, and that is something that I think has majorly improved. Uh since I started out, there are more regional hubs and there's a lot more energy in places out outside of London. I guess for us, Londoners, it it makes it more competitive, but you've got like Belfast, you've got Cardiff, you've got Manchester, Liverpool, there are places that are busy and really have their own scenes. And I think that that sounds like maybe it's starting to brew as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

I think a lot of people are starting to realise that London isn't the only hub. And if you're not grinding in another job trying to keep one, a roof over your head, and then also a creative dream alive, if you don't have to worry about it in that way, you can just work normal hours and keep a uh you know creative outlook going, it's like, oh, well then I'll keep doing that. And I think YouTube does prove that you can build your own audiences no matter where you are. You know, if you put if you're producing good sort of uh work, it doesn't matter where you're from, it doesn't matter who you are, you'll you'll you'll get it out there.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Well, I suspect after Backrooms and Obsession and a few other hits in the last few years, YouTube is now there's gonna be a feeding frenzy of studio types trying to scour YouTube for the next uh Kane Parsons.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

But I better I better push all of my shorts through YouTube now.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Yeah, you need to get them uh and about. They'll be scouting.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

I maybe or they'll have algorithms doing it for them. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah. I don't think there's any I don't know. Um so you're a native Londoner, born and bred?

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Yes, yes. So that was obviously an advantage with the whole uh being in London thing, is I had a base somewhere, I had a parents' house, uh, and then bought a flat in my mid-20s when that was a bit more possible to do with along alongside my brother. So I I always had a base in London. Um and living at home uh while I worked at the BFI South Bank, gave me the freedom, financial freedom, to do low budget, no budget stuff to get a reel together, which I then applied to the NFTS with and sort of went from there.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Oh nice. So I applied to the NFTS with my um with the film I made at uni and didn't even get an interview and you know all that, and I was very disheartened, and then a lot of people said, like, oh, they always reject you first because they want to see if you'll come back next year, and I'm like, that feels like a con to me, I don't like that. And I just never went back to like I would have loved to have gone to NFTS, but I I never uh reapplied. But then with my most recent short, I did think like I'm tempted to apply with this short just to see if like is it more that they just see if they if they accept you, and then if they do, you'll be like, actually, I'm fine. Actually, I don't want you, is what I was gonna say.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Yeah, um, yeah. I mean NFTS has got quite a big kind of reputation about uh the whole selection process. I I mean I'm I'm very much a film school brat. That's kind of that was my path. In uh before I went to NFTS, I was at LCP and I did the film and video course there, and NFTS was always spoken about in kind of hushed tones as this thing that you're never gonna get into, but maybe occasionally someone did get into.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Um yeah, I mean I know a fair few people have come into it. Yeah, well, I mean, people obviously do get in. Um and I got very lucky getting in, actually, I think um I get you know, I got into the interview with the real, that's one thing, but I feel like I just sort of said the right things in the interview, and that got me into the workshop. And then in the workshop, I got very lucky again in that when when I was applying there were six students for each department. I think there are now twelve. Yes. Maybe even more, or is it twelve twelve? It was twelve when I applied, so it might be more now. Um so there were six. Uh and after the selection workshop, I was the seventh, so I I hadn't gotten in. But they got me to keep coming to observe some of the first and second years doing their workshops, and I I went to uh about sort of three weeks worth of these workshops, and then they took me aside and said, We're gonna try something here, we're gonna offer you a seventh place, so to be an additional person in a cinematography group. Uh it's it's gonna be a bit experimental, but would you like to give it a try? And I did. Obviously. I got in somehow, was it was very lucky. Um obviously for the rest is history, it was uh it w it was a really it was a great course and it was a breakthrough.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

But there you go, it's it was a moment of luck and uh serendipity.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Was um James Howlett, who did the director for Candid Observations. Was he an FTS? I know because it feels like not at the time I was. Because it feels like anyone who did Hollyoaks and East Enders probably was N FTS.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

You know, just because it was one of those like Yeah they'll hive it's a it's a root in, isn't it, for directors, but not not when I was there.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

I don't know if subsequently, but not when I was there.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Uh Chichilia, who produced it, yeah. She well, she went to the London Film School with Olivier, uh the two of them running part Bill Pictures. But she produced a lot of NFTS student shorts in that period. Right. And she she is quite well connected with like quite a lot of us who were NFTS. In fact, uh, true story, I met my partner on her direct her her directorial debut on Chichilia's first ever shot that she directed. Um that was 15 years ago. So yeah, it's it's again this kind of tight-knit film community thing, like just and a lot of us are still really good friends. So that was a good a good network there of people who are all just yeah, we all get on really well and we've sort of risen up together. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Oh nice. I haven't spoken to uh Shelia for quite a while. Uh but it's nice to know that is she still going, she's still working, she's still doing.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean partville. So the last thing that got released that they produced was oh dear, I'm terrible with names. Romantic comedy that came out this year. Finding Emily. Oh, okay. So they produced that with I think working title involved. And some others, but that was a part Phil Pictures production.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Are you from a um artistic or creative family yourself?

SPEAKER_01 29:48

My dad was a producer now now retired. Uh but he worked in TV, film and commercials. He started off actually in advertising and in on the agency start side, then he started produ then he moved into producing TV commercials, then he moved into films. In fact, he may have produced Roger Deacon's first film credit, if not his first, one of his very early film credits. Nice. Stormy Monday. Uh Mike Figgis directed. And then he moved into TV, and that's where he sort of really found himself his feet and uh found a success. He he produced uh an early Nauties bleak house that had Jillian Anderson in it. Oh yeah that was very beloved, and that sort of that was his sort of crowning achievement. But yeah, he he was in the film industry. Uh he in fact as a result I ended up going to primary school in Soho because he would take me into Soho. Uh I was at a day nursery in Soho and then the Soho Prime Soho Parish Primary School recruited from this day nursery, and I found myself yeah, the primary school in Soho. Madness.

unknown 31:14

Madness.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Fun times.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

This was the eighties as well. This was the eighties as well, when Soho was very uh spicy. Yeah. Vibrant. So it was quite uh, yeah. I just thought, you know, everybody was very friendly. That's what I thought as a kid walking into school.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

That's how you should feel. And uh do you reckon you'll uh encourage a f a career in media to your children?

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Um yeah, I've got a son, he's five and a half. He I would certainly want him to see that it's a possibility, because I think a big barrier for a lot of people getting into film is that they don't think it's something they can do. Yeah. They think it's something that other people do. Uh, and that was a big barrier that I didn't face because I could see my dad doing it. It felt like, well, yeah, this is something I can do, of course I can do it. My dad's doing it. So I think if I can if in my my son can see that in me and that's what he decides he wants to do, then that's great. But to be honest, I hope maybe also that if he were to go in a different direction and do something creative, it would have the same impact that he could see that there is a possibility of a creative job. Assuming it doesn't get decimated by artificial intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

I'm sure I'm sure there'll be a moment where it will, but it'll come back. I think I think there is going to be a point where the money guys quote unquote win. Like there will be a point where it'll be it'll be a bit like um self-checkouts, that they're starting to roll self-checkouts back because they're like, you know, there's too much theft. And it's like, oh, a big faceless company that no one likes and cares about. You trust us to scan our own shopping. And you're surprised that we'll steal from you. Like, I don't personally. But it's that like so they're gonna be like, oh, we'll put people back on the tills. It was like, oh, okay, yeah, cool. Good idea. Good idea. Put put people back into jobs, yeah, good idea. And I think AI is gonna do a similar thing. I think there's gonna be a point where there's gonna be a lot of rubbish produced, and then they're gonna be like, no one seems to be interested in art anymore, and we can't make any money on it. We'll stop bothering then, and then people will be like, now we can come back in.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

I hope. Yeah, well, it seems to be an ongoing battle. Uh, and again, to go back to backrooms, but just because it's very zeitgeisty at the moment, that does feel in itself like a pushback against AI somehow. Uh but yeah, you're right, there are you know, people with money who think they they know all the answers to as to how to make more money, and then this is throughout history they've been proven that actually it's a human connection that people want. It's not just big explosions and robots and dystopian cities, it's like something that reflects themselves.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Amongst all of that, amongst all of the biggest. Amongst all the explosions. But like you can tell when it like I was talking to uh Ashton Hertz, who's an executive producer for VFX things, she did Dune and Batman and things, and she was saying on one film she worked on, it was one, I think it was one of the Guardians of the Galaxies, um there's a bit where Chris Pratt has to eat uh an alien fruit, and the original footage is green screen and him biting a tennis ball, and she just sort of said like they couldn't have got a dragon fruit, like uh it looks alien enough. Like w most people aren't gonna know what a dragon fruit looks like anyway, so there's an alien piece of fruit, and if someone takes a bite and a bit dribbles down their chin, they're gonna react, they're gonna do a thing, there's gonna be an imperfection that they're gonna have to clear something off their face, which then gives you something tangible. That's oh yes, that's that's me eating a piece of fruit, yes. Whereas if you go there's nothing.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

And and the eye knows that's mimicry, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

That's that's what it boils down to, I think. Uh it's AI has gotten it's gotten very slick. Sure. Uh it's gotten kind of well, photorealistic, but it feels like an imitation of life still, no matter how slick it looks. And there's something about that that I think makes it feel very disposable. Like I think there are some interesting creative things being done with AI. There's a guy called Gossip Goblin, for instance.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

I don't know if you know him, but he makes old folky horror.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Sort of. He's he's kind of pivoted in a few different directions. I think what he's doing is really cool and creative, but it's something different to like filmmaking to me. Like it it almost feels more, I don't know, uh, sort of inst art installation-y, uh, but I don't come away from it thinking, oh my god, that is the best AI film I've seen. I'm gonna go and talk to everybody about it at dinner, I'm gonna re-watch it in two years' time, yeah, I'm gonna buy the screenplay, and you know, it it sort of begins and ends there, and I can appreciate it for being creative, but it doesn't, it lacks a connection that makes makes it like leave a dent in my soul.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

My my dad always says it about, you know, he'll go to the portrait gallery. He'd go every day if he could, but you go to the you go to the portrait gallery, and then and he says, you know, you go you you walk up to a painting that's 500 years old and you see a brush stroke, and you can see the intensity it was it was made with, you can see the direction it was made in, and you can see it, and you go, that's 500 years ago. Someone stood as close as I am right now and created that piece of artwork, and I am here now looking at that exact same piece of artwork, and I can see the um artifacts of it. That is what AI completely lacks. There's none of that. You you it is so it's a piece of glass, and you look at it and you go, hmm. Because there's no depth, there's nothing to it. There's none of it.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

There's not a there's not a sort of a process, a story in the process. Um yeah, I I think that's it. You you can sort of appreciate it on a on a level, uh, and it can be a tool, absolutely. But of course, as in and of itself, have I seen anything that's moving? I have I haven't. It's just a fact. And I I can't think of anybody who you know, you I'm on all of the Instagram sort of AI accounts and stuff just to to to sort of see what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

And I've never seen someone in the comments say, This really moves me, it's made me feel something. It's always like, this is so cool, watch out, Hollywood, it's you're gonna be Yeah. There's a lot of that kind of talk, tough talk, kind of macho, macho talk.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Very little like I've connected with this, or it's made me feel something, or yeah, I've I don't think I've seen anything that really it does feel very much with that that macho tough talk and with the money men driving it, it's people who aren't creative by nature. You you know, you can hone a skill and you can you can create and still be rubbish. But there are people who just um can't can't create, they just can't do it. I I can't learn an instrument, it'll never happen. But I think there's there's people that get almost a little bit bitter, like, oh I can't do it, that makes me sad, that makes me irritated, so I'm pleased someone else can just do it, because then now I can. Like I I I always felt it having worked corporate jobs, that the money guys couldn't do anything creative, and they hated that they had to ask someone to do something for them. So when our AI is in there, they can be like, well, I can create all of this, and I can get just I can type something in and I can have whatever I want. And I'm like, sure you can. You can have whatever you want, but it's not good. And they're like, but I can do it now. And it's like that that doesn't make you creative. Like, is that what you're trying to do? And I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

It's not the act of doing it for the sake of doing it. It's yeah, what what are you what are you getting out of doing it?

SPEAKER_00 40:06

You know, I think that's another thing. I don't think they realise that being creative isn't um a choice necessarily. Like being creative is I have to draw something, I have to paint something, I have to create a piece of music, I have to cook something from scratch, and I have to use my own ingredients and try and make something else. It's I've got to uh grow my my the plants in my garden to be a certain way so that the colours work all together. It's not something that you um actively seek out, it's something that your brain has to do. And I think, you know, like I said, like my brain doesn't understand numbers. I can't do maths. It's just something that my brain, I can do basic arithmetic, but like my brain will just go like, no, if I see equations, my brain just goes like, well, that's not for us, so don't worry about that. And I think it's a similar thing. I think people who aren't creative think that there's a complete choice in the matter. And it's like, no, no, sorry, there is no choice in the matter. Like, I'll see something, I'll think it looks like something else, I'll then have to go draw that to get it out of my brain, because if I don't draw it, it'll drive me mad and I'll think about it for too long, and then I'll think, oh, that looks a little bit like something else. Then I'll go have to research something else, and it's a whole network, and it's none of it is through choice. It's just it is.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Yeah, I guess it sort of taps into this whole obsession with optimizing and and hacking and gaming and everything, like this idea that creativity can hack it, can optimize it, and that just completely misses the point. It's um I did I read a really interesting article, and I'll I'll butcher what it said if I'm not careful. Please do. Um, but it was about a sort of uh basically that in modern life things that you would expect to do do as an end unto themselves because the end the end is is what gives it meaning uh going for a walk through a forest, being outside. Uh in our age of optimization, it's it will make me fitter, it will de-stress me. It's like breaking down the benefits, like like a kind of bullet, like an AI chat GPT bullet point, as opposed to just the end in a in and of itself.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

I feel good after a walk. There's no reason to analyze it. Yeah, I just feel good.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

Because I just want to be out, I just want to walk. Like uh yeah, we're so obsessed with uh just optimizing everything, our time, the way we're creative.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

And it misses something. Uh and yeah, AI feels very much of that philosophy, I think. Or no look, AI again, I'm I don't want to I'm overshooting here. It's a tool that can be used in many ways, but the idea that AI is yeah, just like a hack to just making a film. Uh yeah, it just feels of this very Silicon Valley-esque philosophy.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

It feels very much just like um tech talk, like what's the silver bullet? You know, how can we absolutely what what's the silver bullet to making this work? And it's like you don't have to win this. You know, like half finished, you still learnt a lot. Like you don't have to finish something, it doesn't have to be like say optimized, it doesn't have to be perfect. Doesn't have to be all these things. Getting halfway there, you've learnt enough to know whether you're going to continue or not. And then that in itself is perfectly fine. You know, like I've got I wanted to recreate the Jaws poster by painting it. This has been sat in my office for about three months now. I'm not going to finish it. But in my head, it was like, I'm going to draw it. And I drilled all out and I got all the font right. And I was like, cool. That's yeah. Because it wouldn't have been perfect in my mind. It wouldn't have done all these things, and then it would have annoyed me because I had to finish it. I have to post it. I have to do all these things. And it's like, no, just gonna draw and then go, alright, cool. I'll come back to that.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

Yeah, yeah. I mean fulfillment just from the act of doing totally.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Totally. Lovely. Well, that's very philosophical. And let's get into silly questions. Um so being, you know, a London uh London-born kid, Soho as well, you're you're in the centre with your dad being in film and television, I assume there was some not curation in what you watched when you were younger, but what was the first film you saw at the cinema?

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Yeah, the first film I had to sort of do a bit of brainscrap to to get to this one. I'm pretty sure it was a view to um a View to a Kill. James Bond film, Grace Jones, Christopher Walken. Yeah. Um the one with the the Eiffel Tower. I must have been not quite old enough for it. This was the 80s though, and I think people parents just did what, you know, they did what they wanted, and the kids sort of I think it was horror and porn or you know, sex stuff.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Parents were like, you're not watching that. But action, gore, violence, bah. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm pretty sure it was a view to a kill, and uh it's it's a weird, it's a weird James Bond film. Uh, but at the time I thought it was all very cool. And it may it may have been this film. I mean, my dad's has been known to exaggerate in his anecdotes, but he always tells a story of when I was very little kid. He I was sitting next to him in my seat, he'd turn around to watch the film, and then when he looked back, the seat had folded back up, and just my head was popping out the top, but I was still just watching. So obviously something connected there, and uh yeah, it I did what I'm then led to just watching a lot of films from the local VHS shop again in the 80s, it was before even Blockbuster. We had a a local VHS shop that was uh run by Tony and Maria, who West Side Story characters, uh namesakes. And uh yeah, I just used to go in there and rent a lot of films to the extent that they used to illegally burn me, my favourites. Oh I don't know if you burn a VHS or they would they would No, you copy it, copy it, made make copies for me. And video banks there. Yeah to like Yeah, I I didn't I didn't know how I they did it, but they would give me like black boxes and inside would be like a copy of this film I've been renting out over and over again. And they let me use the toilet in the back as well. That was like an executive privilege.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

That does feel you know you've made it in like a coffee shop that's like quite bespoke and they don't have like a customer toilet. When you go, like, do you mind if I use the loo? And they're like, Yeah, fine, you're like, I'm one of the good customers.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

Yeah, I can remember even as a kid feeling a bit like chucked with myself that I could use their toilet. Uh and I used to want to rent all of the video nasty horror films with the scary-looking stuff on the back. Wasn't allowed to. But although there were a couple of uh I had my both my parents worked, so I had uh nannies as a kid, and there were a few nannies I think I managed to convince to rent me very inappropriate kind of horror films that I then subsequently really scared myself with and you know ruined it for your life.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

Standard stuff. Stand of play. Stand of play. No, um no, that's good stuff. I think that there was a moment recently I interviewed Graham Humphreys who did all the posters for like Evil Dead, but for the video box art and things.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Uh yeah, I love that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

Yeah, that's very good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 48:55

Very much, yeah, takes me back to a time.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

And I had to move on. And I wasn't always watching. Yeah. I had to move a load of things because I was like, I don't want him to think I'm some weird super fan, but these were a couple of things that I grew up with. So obviously they mean a lot to me, and then like to speak to him, I was like, this is cool.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

I mean they were they were alluring those kind of films, weren't they?

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Oh god, but at certain things.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

I mean a lot of them have just lost to time as well. I mean there were things that God, I don't know if anybody watched sitting there. Amongst the classics, amongst the people dead, and Creep Show, was it? There's Creep Show, which is wonderful. Who really wanted to watch, couldn't, wasn't allowed. House wanted to watch, wasn't allowed to creep.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

Oh, that was Bill Morrison, who did the front the post of a house. And Bill Morrison now does the Simpsons comic.

SPEAKER_01 49:47

Ah.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

And it's the same guy.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

Like like you said, it's uh having a variety of creative.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

I then told a friend of mine who I was like, I really want I would like could like he's got some original artwork. And you know, when you sort of hang out with people who have that kind of stuff in your head, you start thinking, like, well, I wouldn't mind a little little something summon. Uh what could I get? You know, and I thought, like, well, I won't go too far. And I was like, the house poster with the finger on the doorbell. I'd love that. I'd love that. So I looked at that. It's a severed hand. It's a severed hand floating pressing.

SPEAKER_01 50:21

That is, I mean, you've unlocked some core memories just there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

You're welcome. And I and I I tracked it down. I was like, all right, so it was Bill Morrison who painted it, okay. And then I said to Charlie the next time I saw him, I was like, ah, it's done by a guy called Bill Morrison. And he was like, Bill. As in Simpson's Bill. And I was like, I I don't know. And he's like, I'm seeing him at the weekend, I'll ask him. And I was like, wait, what are you on about? What are you on about? And then he goes, like, yeah, yeah, that was Bill who did it, but he uh gave it to a friend years ago. And I was like, oh. Well, I was like, that's wonderful that I found out so quickly, but so upsetting that it's just never going to be. What could have been. Um so you mentioned having certain videos that you watched over and over and over again. Uh what were they? What were films that you watched over and over again as a kid?

SPEAKER_01 51:11

My most watched over and over and over again film as a kid was Raiders of the Lost Art. Um specifically, the opening sequence, which I would watch three or four times before school. Lovely. And again, it's like I don't know how appropriate it was for me to be watching, like I wouldn't show it to my kids just.

SPEAKER_00 51:37

Alfred Melina with a fucking spike through the mouth, it's that's not for kids. Yeah, yeah. Um I don't.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

I I do I was given and I'm saving it until my son's a little bit older. I was given the uh Tatooini Oh nice uh the you know, the bar.

SPEAKER_00 51:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

The bar.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

Moss I you can I it's up on my shelf up there, you can get um the Indiana Jones one, which has the falling, like slamming door, the vine, the idol, and the ball rolling. It's all one sort of all the traps. All the traps. All your favourite traps in one.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

I do love Lego for that. They're very they really know what they're doing. Um I would love that. But yeah, I was obsessed with the opening of Raiders of the Lost Art, watched it over and over again, watched the whole film as well quite a lot, but particularly the opening sequence, and sort of knew all the music off by heart, and I would I'd roam around in the in the in the garden, in the sort of undergrowth of the garden or or of the local park, just like imagining that I was in the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Uh think I might have told a few friends that I'd hung out with Indiana Jones, you know, on the weekend. That's what I'm saying. Make myself believe it. So yeah, I would say that was probably the most watched. There were there were many films though that got repeat viewings. Clash of the Titans was one I watched a lot as a kid. Um and then yeah, we again it's the age of VHS, so everything would get really worn out. Uh, and some stuff was like filmed off the TV, so there would be these like adverts from the 80s that you would memorize as much of as the films.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

I love that. I love finding an old video that I've recorded off the telly because I still have a VHS player. Um, in fact, I bought a VHS the other day, which is uh Journey Through Time Shrewsbury, which is the town I live in, because I was like, this is just gonna have some wonderful footage from the 30s, 40s, and 50s of Shrewsbury. And it's like that is that's gonna be wonderful and very niche, very niche. That's the second version of this kind of thing I've got. I do I get quite into something. Um but the old ads and things like that, I love seeing like that in itself has its own historical marker for me. Certain, you know, chocolate ads or cigarette ads that they used to be able to do, or whatever. It was just like I would love those old ads back when they cared about ads, and yeah, catching them, I love them.

SPEAKER_01 54:27

And then it would all become part of the kind of pat patter of the of the film, like you you would just remember the sequence in which they came and some of the copies we'd recorded over other stuff, so like stuff would fizz in briefly from like a previous recording and then fizz away again. Uh, and you'd remember all of those kind of glitchy moments. Yeah. Uh so yeah, there was something very uh so psychedelic, I guess, about being a kid, and it yeah, to this day I'm I'm quite into that kind of analogue feeling. Uh in in music as well. I mean, I listened to tape cassettes at Wortman, and again that sort of tape-hissy sound. I'd just not not even a side hustle, but something I do for fun is I make I produce make and produce music, but a a lot of it has kind of uh a bit of a fizzy analogy kind of edge to it, and it must be like yeah, just being a kid in that time. The terrible fidelity actually becoming like the desired sound seek.

SPEAKER_00 55:37

Yeah, but it's you know, with some of my VHS, I've got um my VHS in Evil Dead, which is down here somewhere. Like I I won't buy a 4K of it. I won't, because I don't want it in 4K, I want it in Video.

SPEAKER_01 55:54

Like Yes, sometimes the the remasters, you know, rapidly scanned Ubershark can take take away something, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:03

You're gonna show a lot of crimes if you if you make Evil Dead 4K. It's gonna be like, ugh, that's not scary, that's quite dreadful.

SPEAKER_01 56:10

I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

Also with Evil Dead I I want Evil Dead to feel like I shouldn't be watching it. You know, I want it to be like, what's this? What's this horrible bit of nastiness? That's all over. Yeah. And you know, you ask, What's that? Oh, you can't have that, you're not allowed that. And I'm like, Yeah. Well, I have to have it now.

SPEAKER_01 56:30

So yeah, I'm 18, you don't look 18.

SPEAKER_00 56:33

Well, how would you know?

SPEAKER_01 56:34

Um Exactly. And then there was actually there was a big breakthrough when my dad came back from the States with a video player that could play American videos. Oh nice. And in the 80s again, so 80s going into the 90s, for some reason, Americans would release films way earlier in the cinema than in the UK, and the BHS would come out sometimes before it had even come out in the cinema in the UK. So you'd have these like holy grail videos that were hot off the hot off the press. And there was something about I guess it's the whole NTSC PAL thing, but the colours of the American videos were a bit different. Obviously, there's a different frame rate going on, but they felt they had a very distinct feel all of their own. Yes. And had American adverts, which again sort of burnt into my mind these like adverts for Pizza Hut with kids playing baseball and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

Yeah, and you're like, that looks like whatever this Americana is, I want some of that, you know?

SPEAKER_01 57:41

In those days, late 80s, early 90s, America was a desirable thing, a desirable life style.

SPEAKER_00 57:51

100%. Venice Beach at any point in the last 50 years would have been rad. That's that's as in like California, like that to me sounds perfect.

SPEAKER_01 58:00

Yeah. But I have a or like that kind of 80s New York, you know.

SPEAKER_00 58:04

Oh I'm walking here.

SPEAKER_01 58:06

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 58:07

From the films, from all the movies. Not like Larry Clark's 80s New York, but still. Yeah, maybe not so much. So much as that. Um I have a a Laserdisc player, and it's a similar situation where it's slightly better than VHS, it's not as good as DVD, but it's a multi-region. So getting American laser discs or Japanese laser discs, and then seeing the trailers for films that either never made it over here or just weren't that big of a deal, or they were the Japanese trailers of American films, oh I could watch those. I used to be able to just watch trailers, you know, for days.

SPEAKER_01 58:45

This is one of the things I've sort of thought about with with you know the internet and content coming from so many different directions, like we've lost that side of things that the the adverts or the the things that you've taped over, or the the fact that it's uh a laser disc from another country, all of that becoming part of the experience itself. I think now that there's so many different ways to access everything, there's there's a little bit of that part of it is has gone. Um yeah. I I was thinking about it specifically, actually, this is a slightly random reference. Uh there was a World Cup Italian 90 video of like every goal in Italian 90, and the guy doing the voiceover had a very specific way of doing it. He he wasn't commentating the match, he was talking like in the in the past. Oh it was like and the music was very specific, and it was like a kind of weirdly like a film unto itself. Whereas now, if you were to watch all the goals of this World Cup coming up, you would get a hundred different interpretations of it. It would like the the 1990 World Cup for me is has such a specific feeling to it because of things like that, because you've got this one video copy you had with the the guy doing his weird past tense commentary with really really odd music, but that gives it such a strong identity.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:28

Yeah. I think it's it lost things digital I don't like to use the word content, but like the digital content does mean that it loses a specific identity because it's not just one way of telling it, which is good, don't get me wrong, it's always it's good to have multiple variations so we can all see how things are actually made. But when you are given like this is this is it, this is the Brit Awards 1994, these are the music videos, that's it. And you go like, oh okay, and that's that. Whereas now you YouTube 1994 music videos, listen for the rest of your life, probably. And it's like, oh I like that you got something in that accessibility a bit. And I as you can see I still have an extensive physical media collection that goes all the way around the room, and it it goes from 8mm film all the way up to 4K. Like it's and I have very specific films for very specific formats.

unknown 1:01:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

And having things, you know, a box set. I I have two or three copies of Evil Dead as a box set because of documentaries that you could only get on specific things. And I'm sure if I got on YouTube, they're all there.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:42

The the funny extras and the menu screens you get on DVDs again are sort of like an art form into themselves.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:49

The Wayneswold one being like a public access like cable TV like station, and you chose down, it was like excellent, excellent. That's what I want. I want to feel like everyone's cared up until this point, and then the filmmakers cared, and then I care.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:04

It's like that's yeah, it's it's like it's like a curated experience, but I mean in the case of the BHS where the things you'd recorded over fizz in and out, it's curated by the galaxy rather than you know, I don't know, yeah, but it just it gives you a very specific uh way of accessing the memories of those things, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:32

Yeah. So we mentioned House, we've mentioned some other video nasty things, but what was the first 18-rated film you saw, and how old were you?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

I had to think about this question, and there were there were films that I sort of caught, you know, like the first half of. Like there was there were my parents had some friends, we would go and see them quite a lot. They had a son who was five years older than me. Uh we're talking like mid-late 80s here. He was just about old enough that he was watching Predator, he was he was watching Robocop. I wasn't supposed to be watching these films, but he would like show me the first half an hour of them. Uh, and then we would get caught and he'd get told off and it wouldn't stop. Uh but that was kudos in the playground to have seen any of those films, to be able to go into the playground as a seven-year-old, eight-year-old and be like, yeah, I watched the first one. Yeah, I've seen it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:38

Yeah, I've seen it. What of it?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:40

It turned out And not be not not be lying, because you know, we'd all apparently seen Nightmare on Elm Street, for instance. None of us had seen Nightmare in Elm Street.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:49

But but if you're afraid with Indiana Jones, you wouldn't lie.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:52

So yeah. Um so I don't know if that counts though. Uh and then along those sort of lines, I remember catching some of Twin Peaks at the same house just through the door, uh being terrified, like Bob walking towards the camera. Some really scary stuff. Again, maybe maybe doesn't quite count because it's it was fragments. So the first thing that I definitively like watched all the way through I think when I was about 11 or 12, over at a friend's house, there were probably like 10 of us, and we we watched Silence of the Lambs. Very intense. Very psychological. No, it was uh I mean it yeah, it left a different kind of uh impression on me than a Robocop or a Predator. Yeah, it was a pretty intense thing to be watching at that age. Uh but I think that would that would be it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:59

Not a bad one, you know what I mean? Like that's a good 18 to sort of be like, yep, that's the first grown-ups film for me. Like it was very grown up, very grown up.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:12

Bloody hell. I don't know. I think yeah, it took a while for me to kind of uh to get over that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:19

Also, as a kid, I remember things like Silence of the Lambs and Exorcist was a big one that we weren't allowed to watch. There was definitely a series of films which you actually felt a little bit like um you were obviously you were scared because they were scary, but you were also feeling like, oh, I shouldn't watch this, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:41

Oh yeah, and you like I think The Shining was another one of those. Yeah. And uh yeah, you sort of feel like when you've when you've watched it, you've sort of you've turned from a boy into a man. It's like a sort of a coming of age thing. Although I again I remember I was. A little bit older, but not much older. And I'd watch The Shining. I'd tick that box, but I was left to babysit my younger brother, and not very nice thing to do, but I made him watch The Shining as a a very young kid, and then he he ran upstairs because it's getting really scary, and I just turned the volume up so that you could hear it up the stairs. Well done. And then apparently, along the similar lines, I made him watch it the day before he had an entrance exam at the secondary school, and he he then couldn't sleep that night and buggered it up. So yeah, I mean, not a great older brother in some respects. Although I was exposing him to some good films.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:52

What was the first film you watched that you felt grown up? Would that be Science of the World?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:57

Well, I don't I think again I was thinking about this question. I think the there was a film that profoundly changed like sort of changed the way that I saw films, it would be Blade Runner, which I must have seen when I was in my you know sort of mid-late teens, and it was the first film where I became really aware of the fact it was crafted by people, uh that it was this thing that it wasn't just a a story that I was taking at face value, it was it was a piece of art that had been created by very talented people and that spoke to me on a on a number of different levels, showed me a world that I could kind of get lost in. Posed questions about humanity, it sort of it opened up like a kind of higher consciousness, as you know, it was that sort of step uh into seeing that like filmmaking was could be quite a serious thought-provoking and incredibly immersive thing made made by humans. And I mean, I can remember I used to take showers with the lights off and pretend that I was in Los Angeles in 2019. Nice. Just to sort of like try and get grab a piece of that sort of blade runner feeling, but I then subsequently just did like every time I'd have a dissertation or an essay, I just picked Blade Runner and I I became a sort of like an academic expert on Blade Runner, not not on any other subject ever, but I could make it sound like I was very smart when it came to Blade Runner.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:48

Did you go to the secret cinema of Blade Runner?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:51

No, regrettably I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:53

So they were selling uh the umbrellas with the light up stems, and in the middle of the warehouse, every thirty minutes there was a rainstorm. So actual, you know, ra actual rain, but it was in the courtyard where the food is, so you would be eating noodles two, two, four, yeah in the rain with these neon umbrellas. I could have lived there. It was perfect.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:20

Yeah, that I mean I really missed a trick.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:24

Yeah, I really did.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:25

I'd spent a large part of my life trying to like trick myself into thinking I was in Blade Runner as a grown adult, so I had the perfect opportunity there. I didn't take it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:36

I loved it as well. They give you a role when you buy your ticket, and you're either a you know, a blade runner or you're um just like a worker. Like you and depending on how much you pay for your ticket is whether you're a high roller or not, and I just bought the cheapest money-based ticket. So I was a worker, and you know, they encourage you to come dressed up and everything, so I wore like a boiler suit and like a cap, you know, proper lazy version of it. But then you go to the um like the snake pit lounge, and if if you went to the front door, the b the bouncer would be like, nah nah nah, not none of your you're not allowed in here, none of your kind, and you'd be like, ah, come on, and then someone would like sidle up to you and be like, I can get you in round the back, and it's like and they're like, Yeah, and then they take you round the back, and then you go through the back door into the like the club, and it's like, oh, this place is excellent. And it was this that kind of stuff's great, perfect, smoky, sepier tone. Everything was yellow, and it was so good. Like, uh honestly, it was so good.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:39

I mean sorry to yeah, when that kind of thing's done, done well. Um slightly different, but I did manage to catch uh the punch drunk, the the drowned man, it was very David Lynchian, basically, and I'm a big big Lynch fan, and again, it's just sort of tickled. It really t yeah, it's not it's not like trademark Lynch, uh it but clearly very influenced by and yeah, really, you know, it rubbed the part of me, of my soul.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:13

I would love to do um a cyberpunk film, but not a lot more grounded, it's very much in that blade-runny thing where it is just it's the future and it's a bit shit. Like that's it. Like I would love to do something like that. Have you seen that short? And the Cyberpunk crossover. That could be fun. That could be very fun. Um, did you see the YouTube series about the guy who created a miniature like cityscape and then he comped himself in, so it looks like a full cyberpunk city, but it's just all like I'll find it and I'll send it to you. But it's really good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:56

Yeah, no, I would that would I would geek out on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:59

What film holds a special place in your heart?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:02

Well, there's a big question. There there are quite a few. I yeah, I had to think about this. I've what did I land on? I think I in my notes I'd written down Clash of the Titans, but I feel like I kind of semi-covered that already, but it was a film, it is a film that you know holds a special place in my heart. And you know, as my cinematic tastes have developed, you could say, uh, and there are some more expected choices that would be knocking around the kind of higher echelons of like my favourite films. I think Clash of the Titans is one where that would be a little curveball you wouldn't necess necessarily expect. Um I think it's it's really good. I mean it's I don't know if you've seen it, you probably have. I'm I'm talking about the original, by the way, not the one. Yeah, not the uh no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:02

I was gonna make a joke and be like the Liam Neeson one, yes. No, um the the 80s one.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:09

The 80s one. It's it's got just a really odd atmosphere. Like I do quite like that kind of sword and sandy, like Jason the Argonauts is another film I really like. That Harryhausen Sinbad. But of all those films, it's sort of it's venturing into that dark 80s fantasy territory. I guess it it's one of the later kind of Harryhausen films, and we we've gotten to that point where, for whatever reason, these dark, quite dark fantasy films were coming out. So it's got this just a quite a doomy atmosphere compared to like when I think of Jason the Argonauts, I think it's being quite upbeat because he's in quite a good mood and sort of lots of plummy English accents. Uh but yeah, so Clash of the Titans has this strange atmosphere. Um it's got one of the best sequences I think ever filmed, which is the Medusa the Medusa beheading sequence, which I've always just said that if I became a a film tutor, I would have my students study that sequence because I I think it's sort of cinematic perfection. Okay, I think the way the tension is built, the way that the music is used, the the lighting, just everything about it creates an atmosphere and a tension. It's just expertly an expert sequence. It's not it's not a perfect film throughout. I mean there's some occasional quite dodgy performances and it's a product of its time.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:00

But yeah, it holds a special place in my art.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:04

Nice. I think being able to distinguish one of the finest scenes in cinema, in your opinion, also being attached to a film that is not out and out perfect, I think that's really good. I think being able to take um an element. I always think if there's one moment in any in any film I watch, if there's one moment that made me feel something other than boredom, it's done its job, you know. So there'll be films which I'm like, that was a piece of shit, that film. But the way that this person looked and they did a turn and the light hit them perfectly, perfect. That was perfect. And it was just like, and I like finding that moment in every film where I'm like, there it is, there's the bit I like. And I think it's good. It's good that you can, you know, acknowledge that. I would say my scene that I think is perfect is in a perfect film, and it's the Alfred Molina scene in Boogie Knights. I think that builds up perfect tension.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:04

Yeah. Is that the scene with the drug deal gone wrong?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:10

And there's the small Indian boy just lighting firecrackers and letting them off. Yes, it's just like what the fuck is that? It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:19

Fantastic scene. I mean, yeah, Paul Thomas Anderson is not exactly breaking to say breaking uh new ground here, but yeah, he you know, he's one of the best. And I think There Will Be Blood would be my sort of top, my top Paul Thomas Anderson film that I, you know, I put it in my sort of top five ever. Nice. So you could say it holds a special place in my heart, but I thought it would just be a bit too obvious. I wanted to pull something out a bit more.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:49

I would say it's not an obvious Paul Thomas Anderson.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:53

Would you not?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:54

I would have thought it's one of his most critically acclaimed and I'd say Magnolia is the one that everyone would sort of pitch as like that's the one. I enjoy Boogie Nights more, but Magnolia is the better film. And I think I would have always thought that everyone would say, like, oh, punch drunk's my favourite, but Magnolia's the best. So for you to say, like, there will be blood, I think that's not a to say that's your favourite Paul Thomas Anderson, I'd be like, Yeah, that's a completely valid answer. But to then say, like, that's his his best one, I'd be like, oh, okay, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:30

Well, I mean, look, taste is completely subjective, but uh I mean one thing that happens with my favourite Paul Thomas Anderson films is that often the first time I've watched them I'll I'll not necessarily connect with them as much as subsequent viewings, and then I'll like every time I I watch it, something new will try to. By that trick, inherent vice should be my favourite. Yeah, that's to be honest, that is the one Paul Thomas Anderson film that I really just over my head did not do anything for me. Uh The Master, I I went and watched the big fan of that. The 70 mil preview when it came out, and I was like, uh yeah, it's alright, I guess. Watched it subsequently, became a big fan. But I think There Will Be Blood. It sort of it found itself. It came out in that year, you know, the legendary year was a banger of a year. No Country for Old Men ballad of Jesse James, and I think initially No Country for Old Men was was in the lead, you know, after watching them for the first time. And I still think, you know, No Country for Old Men is a great film. Yeah. But there will be blood gradually with repeat watchings, it's just sort of leapt leapt above for me. Yes, I'd agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:01

Like I No Country when I when I f when it first came out feels. I I don't it feels like a high-end burger and chips. Whereas There will be blood is a steak. They're both delicious, they're both perfect. They're both exactly what you want. Exactly. But then sometimes burger don't cut it and you've got to get that steak.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:28

You can get a loaded hot dog with uh Jesse James.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:32

Then you've got everything with jalapeno's in the dark. This sounds like a pretty good uh pretty good meal film combo going on here. Um I recently got all of the Paul Thomas Amundson's in there, sort of they're the best like quality for what they are, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:48

So I plan on doing a marathon. All of them. Gonna do all of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:54

Wow. I mean, how long would that take? A long time. Each one of them's probably three hours. Exactly. Running time.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:01

I think hard eight is the shortest, so start start small, and then then go straight into a three-hour Magnolia, a three hour boogie nights.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:11

Would it be chronological, or would you what how would you do it? What would be the order?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:16

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:17

I was gonna Maybe from your least favourite first, or maybe you should end on your least favourite to see if you get that Paul Thomas Anderson effect of suddenly discovering you love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:28

There's two I haven't seen, which is Phantom Thread and Licorice Pizza.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:32

Phantom Thread is a classic. First time I watched it, was like, it's good, it's not as best, and then kind of got better and better with subsequent viewings, and now yeah, I think it's really good. A lot of people's pizza! I like I like, I don't love Fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:51

I like. Okay. Maybe I start with Inherent Vice, then Licorice Pizza just to see how it is, then I'll give myself a little nourishment with Magnolia, then I'll go back into Hard Eight, then I'll come back to Boogie Nights, then give it some punch drunk, then Phantom, then one battle. And then there will be blood just to send you off to sleep. Uh so what's your controversial opinion on a famous film?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:20

Controversial opinion, um, and I know you agree with me on this, uh, is that Chris Nolan is hugely overrated, not a genius, his films are pretty tedious.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:34

I think uh You're a lot harsher than you were the first time.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:38

He has actually he's made a couple of decent films, and you know what, I'll probably watch the Odyssey at the IMAX just because it's big and for a sense of spectacle.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:50

I think when it comes to if you are a cinematographer or if you are an actor, I think you can watch a Nolan film without that feeling of like, oh, this is a Nolan film. You can watch it with like, well, this is what 300 bloody million will get you. This is you're allowed to shoot however you.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:14

Van Heutemer is an absolutely stellar cinematographer. It's my criticism with Nolan is more a sort of intellectual intellectuality, is that even a word, that s surrounds him and he sort of his yeah, just his very serious uh pretentious approach um that seems to get a lot of people excited but leaves me very cold. And I think Inception is the the guiltiest of his films for me of of that. And one of the main reasons I have a real issue with it is because it's a film about dreams that doesn't just doesn't feel like any kind of dream that I've ever had. It feels like uh it feels well, maybe some of those like fever dreams where you just dream in like maths. Oh, I hate those. It's like the worst part of the thing. Oh no, they're terrible. It just doesn't feel like dreams, and like to me that's a test of you as a filmmaker, like your ability to convey dreams because it's sort of they sort of they capture a lot of what I love about cinema and the ambiguity and the poetry. I just don't see that in his images. I think his images really that poetry and they're very pose-based.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:39

Yeah, and even in things like Living in Oblivion, the Steve Bessemi film, where they're trying to do a they do a better dream than they do a better fake dream sequence than that, and it's just sort of like come on. Like this it like you said, it's not a dream that I've ever had. Like there might be times where in a dream, I think the closest he ever gets is when Leo's running down the car like the alleyway and it starts to get narrower. That is the only part that is slightly dreamlike. Everything else is just like Well, this is just an action film.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:14

This isn't Yeah, yeah, I just he seems to be at the top of a lot of people's lists. And uh bad filmmaker to say, he's just not exceptional. And he's he thinks he's the best ever. And and his fans. And a lot of other people who give him money do, and his fans do. And I just think could you give that amount of money to someone else, please?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:42

Right. Uh and especially when you know Insomnia is a remake, like Paprika, well, uh Inception is a remake of Ike Paprika, Batman Adaptations. Like, every time his brother wrote something, they were cons considered the slightly better films. But then as soon as his brother left like working together, I feel like there has been a distinct lack of quality in his storytelling, and he's just getting away with it. And yeah, part of it is you know, a moment of jealousy because as a filmmaker, I would love to be able to go, what about this bullshit? And someone goes, 100 million, and I go, Thank you very much. But I do feel like there needs to be some level of um accountability. Like I remember someone saying to me once, you can be the director and the producer, the writer director, the writer-producer, but you can't be all three because you need someone to go, hold on, that's bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:43

Spielberg might have uh something to say about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:46

His little friend here might disagree, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:50

But then again, I I haven't seen the latest Spielberg film disclosure day, but it looks like Spielberg doing a spoof of a Spielberg film. It's it's dreadful.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:02

And maybe he needed a producer, a writer, and a director to be on that job. I found a review, I went to see it at the cinema. Uh, because I am one of those few people that to this day has been like, Spielberg, even now he's the greatest, the greatest, I love him. And other people are like, I think he's like, No, no, no, he's amazing. And I watched Disclosure Day and I was like, I think it's time for him to retire.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:23

Like Well, it's it's I can't even remember whether the uh by the way, there's a guy cleaning the windows behind me, uh, which you might hear in the podcast, but you might be a bit disconcerted. I did see some like ab sailing ropes. He uh yeah, he just comes and does it like every month or so. Yeah, okay, so I can't remember if we talked about we probably did talk about Backrooms and Obsession, but actually since we've redone the having another go at it, I've watched Obsession in the cinema. And I think there's there's some kind of uh cosmic timing thing that Spielberg's film has come out around the same time as Backrooms and Obsession. Neither of which are perfect films, but sure. Obsession is really good, uh but it's more that it absolutely captures a zeitgeist and Spielberg's film couldn't be further away. Well, I I'm saying this, I haven't seen it, so it's not totally going off what other people have said and the trailer, but it feels like there is something to it that there's like Had Disclosure Day come out twenty years earlier, uh it would be one of the best blockbusters ever made.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:39

But it is 20 years too old. Like, it's just it doesn't make sense. As in one review I read, which like I said, I'll send it to you. Um someone said it's uh the big bad guy is in his HQ, which is full of monitors, and everyone's wearing black jumpsuits and Earpieces, and you're just like, yeah, that's that's such comical bad guy behaviour that now that wouldn't be the case. It would just be someone on their computer from a dis undisclosed location. Like it would be the Gene Hackman in you know was it enemy of the state? That would be more likely the person with all the secrets.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:21

And it just doesn't be Elon Musk in a UFC match with uh Jeff Bezos or something like that. Well, remember, remember he Musk he was gonna fight uh Zuckerberg.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:34

Zuckerberg, yeah. And then Zuckerberg got absolutely yoked, and then Musk was like, I'm joking.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:43

Yeah. Uh Nolan, overrated. Um Nolan overrated. Spielberg, that wasn't even meant to be part of the question, but is he overrated? I think he's just his finger is just not on the pulse. I still he probably is still a great filmmaker. I bet he can block a scene like like he was when he was 20. He can fit 25 different frames into one lovely long.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:06

One beautiful movement. His follow focus guy must be fucking on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:12

Yeah, I mean you gotta well, funny enough, Chris Nolan notoriously, well, because I'm not gonna throw shade on the focus pillars here, but he shot on notoriously diff difficult formats for focus pillars, and he has quite a lot of soft shots in his films. Which if you're in an IMAX, it's quite unforgiving. And maybe again, if I'm gonna blame anyone for that, it'd be Chris Nolan. Would it be the focus pillar? Well, you could blame blame the focus pillar, but there is a limit to what a human is capable of. Well, you could blame the DP. Uh be Wally Fister in the earlier films. Um, but yeah, maybe it's a joint blame. I'm gonna blame Nolan and Fister.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:01

I think as I've I think I said in this uh earlier, like, if we all do well, we all did well. If it all goes to shit, it was my fault. Like it it's Nolan's fault for allowing that to be accepted, regardless of whether Wally didn't catch it during Nolan shouldn't have allowed it, like an environment that allowed soft focus.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:24

Yeah, I would imagine Nolan is up on his formats, he's up on his stops. Yeah. He I'm sure he would have been part of that decision. Uh well, format 100%. I mean, that's partly what he's known for, isn't he?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:40

He's the I'm gonna shoot on the biggest film camera whether it needs IMAX footage. Exactly. Um because nothing good has been shot on 16 mil, alright? Nothing good.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:56

Well, yeah, that makes me. You know what? Um another this this is not even a controversial opinion, I think. Everybody shares this opinion. Um I'm having a name block here, but director of Pi. Oh, Darren Aronofsky. Darren Aronovsky. What the fuck has happened there? Oh my god. So Pi, 16 mil. Proper indie on the streets, sweat, blood, tears. Beautiful. And now he's making like AI films. Really?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:31

Yeah, really? And like The Fountain, such an interesting piece. Requiem, wonderful. The wrestler, like I really enjoy the wrestler, but it didn't need to be an Aronofsky joint. And then Noah making a big old blockbuster with like Russell Crowe, and you just think like, my guy, what happened?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:54

Like, have you seen the AI films that he released? Oh, he's already released them.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:00

Oh, I haven't seen those, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:02

Um, yeah, he's made these like AI films to coincide with like Independence Day, I think. Don't quote me on that, uh, and various other things, at least sort of historical documentary narrative, obviously not documentary because they're made with AI and they are just dog shit. They're so bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:22

I I mean, did you watch Caught Stealing? No. Not so good. Not so well, I believe I said to Kurty, my partner, like, if this was made by if this was someone's second or third film, I'd have been like, ooh, there's some promise here. There's definitely like this is going places. It's a bit, it's got its moments, it doesn't quite work, but there's going places. You tell me it's made by Darren Aronofsky, I'm just like, why? What how? How did he make that? Did he put his name on it to help a younger director get in the business? Like, what's going on? Like, I don't understand. Um it's a sad state of affairs.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:04

I've also Black Swan is just such a brilliant intense film shot shot on Super 16. Uh yeah, I don't know what happened to that guy, but he's I think he's probably invested in some kind of AI tech, hasn't he? That's like like if there's a few of those guys out there who have put money into AI 24 and suddenly, suddenly we're being told that's the future, get on get on, get on it, or you'll be late.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:31

And it's now cool. It's cool now, everyone. Don't worry about it. And it's like, uh, it's not cool. I don't want it. In fact, I've looked at buying a 16mm camera in the last few weeks because I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna I'm gonna learn how to do it and I'm gonna get it right, and it's gonna cost more money, but I'm gonna try. And then I saw the prices, then I thought maybe I'll be right back.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:53

Yeah, if if you'd done that like I don't know how eight years ago you would have just it would have been.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:02

I would have been picking up Aeroflex. Like that. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:06

Well also an annoyance when it comes to that. I was I thought, well, okay, I have a Super 8 camera, maybe I'll just shoot some stuff on Super 8. It costs the exact same to process and develop Super 8 or Super 16 or just 16 film. Like it's a hundred quid for ten minutes, doesn't matter. Yeah, like it's brutal.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:25

It's brutal.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:27

Um, yeah. It's is it an investment?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:31

Depends whether the film's good.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:33

It depends. Um that's the thing. If I've if I'm churning out clerks, you know, if I'm churning out Pi, if I'm churning out, you know, uh she's gotta have it. If I'm doing one of those beautiful independent 90s films on 16 mil and it gets the career going, totally worth it. Hmm. Is is it gonna work though? Probably not.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:55

You need to follow the lead of Mark Jenkins and uh process your own process your own stock. Yeah, his clockwork bollocks like 16. Exactly. Just whack it in a in a little chemical bar under your staircase.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:11

Actually, that's not bad because I've developed I've developed like stills. I I'm sure I could just develop my own. I don't know. Why why don't I just develop my own?

SPEAKER_01 1:35:20

This is how you do it. Stick to black and white.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:25

Black and white. Um, but yeah, you could do that. He did a Mark Jenkins did a AMA on Reddit recently, and my friend asked him, you know, can you recommend any good horrors? And last summer and Big Wednesday were what Jenkins suggested. And I was like, Big Wednesday. What's Big Wednesday? I don't I don't know it. John Milliast surfing film. Oh right. With Gary Boosty in it. Not scary. And it's just, well, with Boosty in it, it's always a horror. But it it was just like that's such an odd. I love I mean it makes sense a Cornish bloke would pick a surfing film, but so weird.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:06

Yeah, I I think Mark Jenkins sees the world in quite a unique way.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:11

Yes. Maybe that's he is one of the few fortunate filmmakers who seems to be not I mean you use the word getting away with it, but not because he's like taking the person anyway, but he seems the closest thing to a lynch at the moment where it's like, I'm just gonna do whatever I want, and it's gonna probably get some claim, like some critical acclaim. Yeah, but I'm just gonna keep doing it. And I wouldn't be surprised if he threw out a an elephant man or a dune just to sort of bring in some extra cash to then.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:44

I mean, he's completely done everything himself up to now. I'm sure there have been a few people dangling projects in front of him that he's just not interested in. But yeah, it would be interesting to see how it would go if he if he jumped on board.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:00

Would you ever want to try and shoot like an Enus main or like would you ever want to try and do that look?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:07

Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Um yeah, I mean something completely different. Uh thinking in a completely different way, uh, sort of having to sort of step back from everything you know and and the freedom of in a way. Yeah, the freedom of shooting MOS as well would be really Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um and great locations, I love Cornwall. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:40

Uh for the listener, can you I don't remember what the M stands for in MOS. Do you remember what the M stands for MOS? MIT outsound. There we go. I don't know why I I don't know why I'd forget the word mit when I knew out sound for the next two words. So yeah. Well done, Ted. Um I though from watching a lot of Hong Kong cinema, the idea of shooting silently and just dubbing all the sounds in, like that has Italian cinema historically as well, yeah. I think that adds such a wonderful sort of layer to your filmmaking. It's it's a little French new wave by being like, no, no, no, you're watching a film because this sound obviously doesn't match up, but that doesn't matter. Like you're gonna enjoy it, it's gonna be great. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:31

I think it's one of those things where you if if the filmmaker is good, it's like you make an agreement with a filmmaker that you're just going with the vibe. Yeah. Uh and yes, I think it can be used in a in a in a really interesting way as a device itself. Okay, well then there we go. I'll get some black and white eight. I mean, I am a DP, so but actually, you know what? As a DP, I really appreciate sound and I'm very aware of what a difference it makes. I do not look down on sound at all.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:04

I think I think you have to in the same way that uh with a comic book, if you can do sequential imaging without the words and it still conveys the story, then it's a good story, you know, and that's down to the visuals. But then adding the words, adding the sounds, adding the flavours, that only enhances, it doesn't take away it can take away, but it it's not ruining the look. It's like no no no, if you're adding a little diegetic sound in there, if you're adding a little something else in there just to make that image come a bit more to life, like it's lovely.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:43

It's all part of the the recipe of cinema, which you know it is a beautiful marriage of visual, sound, edit, uh performance, all of the coming together to create to create something new.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:01

It's magical. I'm glad we ended on a controversial one with a positive message. Yes. So there we go. Praise sound. And what have you been watching recently?

SPEAKER_01 1:40:13

Um well, I watched obsession a couple of days ago, and yeah, I was impressed, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:19

Nice for Did you see Milk and Cereal, his first one?

SPEAKER_01 1:40:22

No, I was gonna say first-time filmmaker, but he technically he made that film on for YouTube, didn't he?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:28

But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:28

And he he'd done a lot of sketches. Uh you could really see that his background was different from your average horror director. I don't know if you've seen the film.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:38

I haven't yet, I will.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:40

I don't want to s I don't want to spoil anything either, but there's I think definitely you can see that he brought something different to how horror is conveyed with his background in comedy, and it there is very much a comedy to the film, but it rides a really this line where it it it sort of dances with the uncanny, uh awkward, disturbing side of of comedy. Uh but yeah, it's just for you know a very solid all-round effort, and um the Lee performance I cannot remember her name. Uh so I think it it's and I wouldn't know how to pronounce it. Her first name is spelled I N D E. Could it be N D? I think it's that. We might have to edit this if it's not. Uh she was phenomenal in it. Um, what a performance. And yeah, it's you can just see that there's there's something very now about it. Like I say, it's not it's not a perfect film, uh, but in a way, would you want it to be a perfect film? I mean, like Blair Witch Project wasn't a perfect film. Um you kind of want these bolts out of the blue to to be a bit imperfect. They feel kind of real and un unmessed with, like they've sort of come come out of the swamp of of like independent uh just artistic graft, the will to to make something and and a sort of audience that maybe hadn't hadn't been appreciated before, that lifted it up, along with backrooms, that will now, of course, now I imagine every studio exec will be desperate to get the next obsession or backrooms, and there'll be a lot of money being thrown around. Again, I'm not I can't remember if we talked about this earlier in the podcast, or if we did mention this, apologize.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:39

We did mention this, and it I I I have a fear that it's going to push it too far and there's going to be a lot of dross. But then again, there will always be too much dross, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:54

But you imagine there'll be a few interesting uh filmmakers who will who'll sort of get through the through the door before it closes. Um yeah, it feels a bit like you know, Blair Witch Project or Sex Size and Videotape in the 90s. One of those films that just sort of changes up the industry and no one quite knows exactly what the magic formula is apart from the filmmakers themselves. So you have to trust, you have to give them the money and trust them to do it again.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:23

Well, I think it's the much like the 50s uh leaving that and going into the Hollywood Renaissance, it's big studios having to admit that, oh, we don't know what the audience wants anymore, let's give it to this next generation and let them try. And then you get, you know, all the Hollywood Renaissance films, and then you get Spielberg, and then you get all the blockbusters where the studios are like, let's make more money, and they go, Oh, we haven't got it again, and it goes into um the American independence in the 90s. And I hope that the MCU and Marvel and all that kind of stuff is I think I hope it's been proved that it's like there was a time and a place, and everyone loved them, but maybe they don't love them anymore, and maybe we should give some money to these younger filmmakers who don't they almost they they don't think the audience is dumb, so they respect the audience.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:21

Yeah, they they know how to speak to their people. Um and it's like they've got their own intimacy with their audience. Yeah. And you can't fabricate that. No, no, no, you can't. So yeah, it's it's cool, it's exciting. I mean, I'm a very I'm a millennial, so I might be washed away by a flood of of young filmmakers, but um no, look, we we need to make space for the next generation, and I've always always I've I think in the last as as our our age group sort of got a bit older, we got into positions of of being able to gatekeep stuff, there's been a lot of our culture just sort of force fed back to younger people, and I think we really needed something new to happen culturally, and I'm so I'm very glad.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:17

I'm very pleased. I'm very pleased that we're losing the uh as South Park coined it, the member berries, you know, just it's all that nostalgia, it's all the fetishization of the 80s and 90s, and it's like what's a place for that, but it should be the dominant culture. Well, I think He-Man is the most the the film He-Man that just came out seems to be the most prevalent thing. It's like, who's that for? Because four-year-olds I haven't gone to see it. I haven't seen it. Like, I'm and I won't.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:49

I was too young for it really when it came out, but I I was a big He-Man fan as a kid, I have to confess.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:56

And you didn't see it. Come on, that's you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:59

No, because Yeah, I just I don't need to just constantly have my childhood sort of dug up. Rehashed. And reanimated. No. No, just the nostalgia's there already. I can I can tap into that. Um and you know what? Actually, Stranger Things, I think the earlier seasons kind of they rode the line really nicely in that it was incredibly nostalgic, but it also did have its own sensibility and sort of it wasn't you couldn't put your finger on what it was bringing back to life. It was a a bit E.T., yeah, a bit John Carpenter, it was a bit Goonies, it was a bit of all these different sort of things. And something a bit kind of modern as well. Yeah. So it can, I think it can be done, although I think Stranger Things very much played itself out.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:01

Uh but it should have ended at four. And when friends I have friends who haven't seen any of it, and they're like, Oh, now it's finished, I'm gonna watch all of it. And I was like, fine, don't watch five, because actually four ends. Like, you don't really need any more afterward. And they're they were always like, I'll watch all of it though. And it's like you're gonna be disappointed.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:22

And the episodes get so long in the later seasons. I mean uh and they have that thing of the kids not being kids anymore. I mean, they're all in their sort of like mid-twenties, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:35

Grown adults who are pretending to be 15. I mean, that is one of Hollywood's favourite things to do, isn't it? It's like that's truly an 80s film when you've got a 20-year-old and then a 15-year-old.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:47

Oh man. Yeah. I mean, it's almost nostalgic, isn't it? It's almost.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:53

It's almost. Um well, thank you for coming back and re-recording. Yeah. It's a shame we lost it. You're the audience, you don't know what you missed. It was a half an hour of gold.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:06

Yeah, what did we what did we discuss? I mean, Chris Nolan.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:11

Nolan. Lynch. There was a bit of Lynch, but I think in the controversial opinion, I think you you eased into the Nolan uh hate. You eased into that a lot slowly. I tested the waters this time.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:29

I was emboldened and understood. Yeah, it's not hate. That would be unfair and too strong a word. It's just sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:40

Um I feel like everybody seeing something that I just don't see and I'm not interested in seeing. I have no interest in the Odyssey, I won't go see it. Um the only reason I saw Oppenheimer was because there was an IMAX day at Cineworld and it was a fiver for an IMAX ticket. Oh right. And I was like, yeah, sure, go for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:02

I mean, I didn't I haven't seen Oppenheimer. I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:05

You don't know. Barbie, yeah, I was there for Barbie. I watched Barbie, I was disappointed that Ken's story was better in Barbie.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:15

Yeah, you know what? I think it was a it was a sort of positive thing to to to happen with cinema, but I do think it could have been more than it was. Yes. It didn't quite fulfil the potential.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:32

No, I think Francis H. Just a little bit too lightweight. Yeah. Francis H is a better Greta Gerwig film. Oh yeah, I mean Francis H is is a very good film.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:43

It's a very good film.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:44

I still haven't seen Ladybird.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:47

It is it's good. I I mean I I would definitely prefer Francis H. But Francis H she wrote, didn't she? Yeah. It was directed by um. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:00

Um I say Noah like he's a buddy of mine, Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:03

Noah, your mate. You know Noah. Gonna see him at the pub tonight. Did you ever see Greta Gerwig in any of those mumble core films? Like that was a big well, a big small, a small independent movement uh in the noughties probably would have been uh of these like American independent films made for no money, kind of a bit almost like dogma-esque, yeah, you know, like shot on location, handy-heldy, shot on film. She was in quite a few of them, that was her great.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:38

I definitely saw her I'd seen her in something before Francis H, but I cannot remember what.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:44

Yeah, it's worth checking out, Mumblecore. I mean, it's very much a moment in time, but it's yeah, it's if you're into sort of like micro genres. I am take a look. Yeah, and she came out of that that world.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:04

Okay, nice. Alright, well, I'll add that to the watch list. It's always good to add things to the watch list. Um, but thank you for coming on, Daniel. And uh is there anything you want to push, promote, say?

SPEAKER_01 1:51:18

Um what would I like to promote? I well, I had two shows come out this year. Um I think they're both very good. Uh I tr I don't I directed, I did not direct. I shot the last two episodes of the series of How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, which is the the new Lisa McGee TV show uh on Netflix. It's a kind of uh mystery comedy thrillery mashup, uh really good fun. So check it out. Uh that was with the direct director Ratch Nasuri. Uh so shout out to her. We had a really great time on that, I think. Um, and the other shout-out would be for the second series of Big Mood, which also came out uh in April. And that is a a dramedy. Don't don't kill me for saying that word, uh, but it best it does best describe the show. Uh starring Nicola Cochlin and uh Lydia West, directed by Rebecca Rasher and written by Camilla Whitehill. Um, and that is also really worth a watch. It's if you're of a millennial generation in particular, I think it it will speak to you about friendship uh and growing growing older and that's it really.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:58

Oh lovely.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:59

That wasn't the uh smoothest.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:04

Maybe you can uh smooth it up in in post. Yeah, I'll add some background noise as well to make it really fancy. Um well yeah, I'll uh I'll uh I'll link all those things in there and I'll put your Instagram and your website and everything on the thing so everyone can check out your other works. Thank you. Um but yes, thank you very much for coming on. Thank you for having me. And uh having me twice. Exactly. You're the first person to be on twice. And uh yeah, uh speak to you soon. All right, thanks, Ted. Bye bye. See ya.