Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This podcast is a collaboration between costart and Touchstone Productions and the dads from the Crypt podcast killed Mister Chunley. Geez, Fred, you make it sound so ugly.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: You killed Mister Chung? Yes.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Okay, okay, I killed him. Just hold that door open.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Gaston.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Fred, where are you?
[00:00:31] Speaker B: We've got cutlery customers.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: He'll be right out there.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Irma.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Fred, get a grip.
It's a dog eat dog world out there and we're all just different flavors of Alpa. They don't keep the door open long. No spoil hello and welcome to another episode of the how not to make a movie podcast. I'm Alan Katz. Gil will join us shortly. Have I mentioned before what a joy it was making and working on tales from the crypt? It was. I can tell you that nothing any of us ever did since was quite like that experience. It really was a show that changed television. And that's because tales from the crypt changed HBO before crypt. Back in the 1990s, the feature film world and the tv world were two separate things. One could, like a Robin Williams or a Tom hangs go from tv into features, but if you were going from movies into tv, that meant your career was dying.
The first two original series at HBO, first and ten, and dream on, were basically regular tv shows, but with tits and the word fuck thrown in. Then crypt executive producers Joel Silver, Dick Donner, Walter Hill, and Bob Zemeckis approached HBO with an idea to do little horror movies every week as a tv show, all based on a classic comic book from the 1950s. John Cassier, the voice of the Crypt Keeper, tells a story. In fact, he told it on this podcast about the cast and crew screening of the first three episodes just before the show premiered. Some crew guys sitting in the second row, having just seen the first episode, were talking amongst themselves, waiting for the second episode. Wow. Says one. Thats great tv. It's not tv, says the crew guy next to him. It's HBO. The two HBO executives in the row ahead suddenly turn and look back. They just heard HBO's new ad slogan and HBO's new way of seeing itself.
When it comes to how Crypt saw itself, one of the key people responsible was John Leonetti, who was director of photography on eleven episodes, including some of the very best. In fact. John Leonetti DP'd season one, episode one, the very first crypt episode ever, Walter Hill is amazing. The man who was deaf after Crypt, John made a name for himself as both a DP and a director of horror, including his work on conjuring as DP and on its follow up, Annabelle as its director.
As you'll also hear, John grew up living and breathing the movies. Cameras especially. His family's been in the movie business almost from its start. Before opening a hugely successful equipment and camera rental house, John's dad, Frank Leonetti, was a gaffer at MGM. He worked on movies like the wizard of Oz and singing in the rain. Ironically, among the episodes John DP'd is one called Strung along, which starred Donnell O'Connor, one of the stars of singing in the ring. You see how it always came full circle and crypt.
John Leonetti is not just a tales from the crypt alum. He's a guy from a movie legacy family and he's got lots of stories to tell. Here's John. So this is a reunion of sorts. I know actually, John, you and I were just talking. We actually spoke briefly about a. I introduced you to my friend Tom Sullivan about coming aboard to co direct.
I had a mad idea after it was set up at a place called Crusader and then when that fell apart, I had this mad idea. What if Tom directed the blind guy directed his own movie and I know the perfect person to just fit so nicely with Tom. And actually when we all talked, I think you and Tom did very well together. Tom's and lovely person. It's very hard to not like Tom, but you guys seem to have a real special connection.
Alas, a great idea. Like so many that went well, you.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Know, you throw so many out there and some of them, you know, hang and some of them just disappear. And that's our business, you know, and that's part of, you know, the mystique of it or whatever, I don't know.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: But the mystique of shit sliding down a wall.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Even more than spaghetti. You're right.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: You are not just some odd filmmaker here and there, John. You're like a legacy guy. The Leonettis are a film industry family. Your dad Frankenhein was a gaffer on films like the wizard of Oz and singing in the rain.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, amazing man. A visionary, God rest his soul. He lived to be 98. I want to say he passed away maybe, gosh, 1520 years ago. Well, he was a visionary behind the camera, moving the business from stage to location. And that was his big deal in terms of being a great gaffer. I mean, the guy was really smart. He graduated from high school when he was 15.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Where did he grow up? What part of the world?
[00:06:06] Speaker B: He grew up in Utah. Provo, Utah. He was born, he was, you know, like basically they were the only catholic Italian Italians around all these Mormons. So my dad was an incredible athlete.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: What business was your family in that they chose to be the sole Catholics in Provo?
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Well, my grandfather, he was an interesting character.
I'm not sure the business he was running there, if you know what I mean.
And so I'm not sure if.
I mean, he was involved in something. I don't even really know. My dad would never really tell me, but I just know that my dad lived there, grew up there, and like, he was an incredible baseball player. Played baseball, but they wouldn't let him wear a uniform because he was italian and not Mormon, Catholic, and not, not, and, you know, not Mormon. He didn't give a shit. He just played ball because he was awesome and he enjoyed it. And actually, it's baseball that when they, they moved to LA, they opened up a bar and restaurant. That's where I met my mom from Oklahoma in LA, down near downtown LA, years ago, of course.
And he was an elect electrical engineer by school, in trade ish, but very young. And he randomly played baseball again near Fox Studios. And these guys who were electricians at Fox asked him if he wanted to get in the business, and that's how he got in the business. So baseball has been like a thread was a thread for him, and then, gosh, it was just amazing, you know, he, yeah, he was a gap, incredible gaffer, and that's, that goes on forever.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: But now let me, let me just jump in here. Now, for people who don't know what a gaffer does, what is a gaffer on a film?
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Well, you know, you know, it's a gaffe is something that you can use to like, you know, sort of snag things, I guess, but. Or you can coordinate things, really. The gaffer is in charge of affecting the lighting that the cinematographer really, you know, desires, if you will. That being said, there's different cinematographers that are stronger or weaker in lighting, and there's gaffers that are also, you know, that that can help them or they're just more tools. Well, my father was more than just a tool. He was definitely amazing at it. And also, what's interesting about my dad is he was really good using both sides of his brain. He was very, very smart, very analytical, very technical, yet he was also very creative.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Would you say that he understood light the way that a DP or a cinematographer?
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Yeah, big time. He did. Oh, yeah. Well. Well, he was the highest paid gaffer in Hollywood in his day. He was the premier dude in that, and I think I probably learned more about lighting across the dinner table in some ways, but I also learned about it because. For other reasons. But he was very good at teaching. Matter of fact, in the fifties, he created this light. It's called the master light with a guy named Jack Beckett. And the master light was a par globe. It literally was a car head car lamp bulb. That's what they were. They were par bulbs. And so he figured out with his electrical engineering smarts, whatever savvy, that if you took a thousand watt par globe and instead of running it at 120 watts, you run it, you put it on a transformer, knowing that you can boost the voltage up to 250 watts. Okay? Now the life of the bulb is less, but the output of that light was equivalent, pumped up to ten, 1000 watt master light. Par was as much light at 100ft as a ten k, a 10,000 watt light.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: Okay. But the cable was much smaller and the light was much smaller. Now, it didn't have a Fresnel, it wasn't as evenly spread, but it was awesome. And that's just an example of his ability to kind of figure out how to go from the heavy cable and the big lights at the studio and make stuff portable to go out on location. And then from there, he just built this business. Ultimately, when I was a little boy, you know, by the time I was six, you know, that was in the mid fifties. I was born in 56. So I was crawling on cable when I was six years old, you know, I was living at the shop and I mean, I got more stories about that. I'm actually writing my memoirs about everything. And there's a lot that back shop and what I learned in that shop. People called it Leonidas School of Cinematography, I'm sure.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: I mean, because the company that your dad started was a huge. I mean, equipment was the lighting equipment.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Lighting grip, camera, sound generators, production company.
I mean, I've got a chair right there.
It's Katherine Hepburn's chair from a movie. First union movie I ever worked on. My dad was a gaffer. I was a second assistant getting the slate. Okay. And matter of fact, I pretty much had the slate from every movie I've worked on since I was 15, which was when I worked on my first movie. I was 15, I was 18 on this one. And our shop had supplied the chairs. So low director's chair, you know, the shorter one, not the high one. And it's Katherine Hepburn's chair. And after the movie, I knew that was what, you know, what an awesome experience I had working with her on that movie.
And I said, dad, can I have the chair? So I've got it right here.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool, cool, cool.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Super cool.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: It's growing up literally, with, this is what you talked about. That's what you talked about over dinner. Well, of course, you know, that's. It is living and breathing. It's the lifeblood. This is. And that. This was the family business.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Totally. You know, literally, you know, I'm a water boy. I love the ocean. I love to surf, you know, and live in San Clemente now, that's probably. That is why. But neither here nor there.
I remember that, you know, from, like, six until I was 13, I would, you know, whenever I got a chance, I would go to the beach. And the year before I was 13, I rode my bike to the beach. We were, like, 5 miles away, west LA or whatever, or take the bus, and I went to the beach every day of the summer until I was 13. And that was it. Everything changed during the summer, even after school and on Saturdays, you know, after I was, you know. Anyway, I was at that shop, and I started working at that shop when I was 13. And I haven't stopped working in the. Really in the business since.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Like we said, your father had a cinematographer, or DP's appreciation of light, for sure. And that changes everything, because it's not, as you described, what you can do by amping up the power that you put through one particular kind of bulb. Okay. You'll shorten the life of the bulb. Hey, look at the different kind of light you can create.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: And suddenly. Yeah. It's like a painter. It's like Monet seeing the cathedral of Chartres the way that he sees it in the light now. In the light now. In the light now. And it's always changing. And that you can see the light that sets you apart from most people.
[00:14:26] Speaker B: Well, you know, that is true.
It's funny because, look, I went. I grew up in the business. I worked in the business.
I got in the union when I was 18. Youngest, if you can imagine, at that time, probably.
And I put myself.
Well, the last two years of college, I literally paid for all room and board, all tuition at UCSB, and.
And I still had enough money left over with. For drugs and to give them to my friends. Okay, so what kind of drugs were you into? Oh, well, then, yeah. Oh, well, what's ironic is I was kind of a goody two shoes through grade school. I literally want to almost became a priest. I literally almost joined the seminary. I went to the loyal high school jesuit high school. You know, I went to 13 years of catholic school. Matter of fact, I wanted to be the first american pope when I was a little kid. Literally. That was crazy shit. But I'm just telling you.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: But that's good to have ambition. Well, of course. Yeah.
[00:15:39] Speaker A: No, your brother Matt also, you know. God, you.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: Oh, well, he. We went through the same thing. He's 15 years older than me.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: And, you know, he's. He was an excellent cinematographer.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Poltergeist, yo. Yeah, poltergeist. I was an assistant on that movie, you know, fast times at Ridgemont High.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Weird science, commando.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: I was all those. Yeah.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: And then all the movies that your brother did with Walter.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is true. Which. Which is how I ended up doing tales from the crib.
[00:16:13] Speaker A: Right. There you go.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: That's what took his family. Yeah.
Because we were doing.
I want to say it was another 48 hours, if my memory is right.
And Walter asked Matt if he wanted to do it, and I think because it was non union, he.
And that was. I don't know if that was the only reason. I mean, he loved Walter, don't get me wrong, but that was, I think, maybe the reason. And so he said, I think he may have asked Walter before he even brought it up to me. He goes, well, what about John?
And Walter just went, whoa.
Because, mind you, previous to that, I had shot second unit for them. Okay. And Walter knew my abilities.
I can tell you Walter Hill stories.
One really cool story about Johnny Hansen that I kind of, like, opened. Even opened his mind to his style. And. Because I was, whatever. But bottom line is, I'll never forget this.
Walter looked at me, he goes, are you man enough, kid?
And I looked him, and I said, yes, sir.
And then I met you. Crazy cats. Literally, excuse the expression, use the pun. And.
And there. That's how it happened. You know how I got started with y'all.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: What now? You were on crip before we were, actually.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Yeah, you. You were. You preceded us. That's right. You were there for the very first season and the second season. And then. And we'll come back to that. But when we went on at the beginning of the third season. And that's when I think you were off shooting the mask.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: That's correct. And I would come back and do an episode, maybe, or shoot bones. The wraparound. Yeah.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: And then you were back for season four. You did none but the lonely heart. What's cooking?
[00:18:30] Speaker B: New arrival.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: Maniac at large.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: Strung along.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: So you did some of the seminal episodes of season four. When you came back to the tales from the crypt fold.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: That's right. I loved it. That opportunity to shoot the mask was insane. And, I mean, that was giant for my career, and it was the funnest. I considered tails my roots a bit. It was the coolest training ground. I guess you could call for me as a young, very young cinematographer who was fairly creative and actually was even at that point, I think, capable of directing. But that wasn't, in my view at the time, you know, and. And I think I got a sense of storytelling in tales about how, you know, when you take something like ip, well, you know, comic books, like tales was dark comic book, I guess you could say.
Very much so.
And you could create these stories that were these anthologies. You could have as much creative freedom in how you made it look, how you lit it. Yet I realized, and I think everybody who did it realized it still had to be real, feel real and realistic. Even though, you know, like, I experimented with so many colors, like congo blue, you know, this dark gel, it's crazy colors on tails. I use it in the man who was death.
I used it in other episodes.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: And Walter is such a visual poet.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: That episode captures so much of. And he's a particular kind of poet. I think no one has a better appreciation for dive bars and titty bars quite like Walter.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: This is true.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: There's an appreciation of what life looks like from the lowest depths, staring up.
And you captured that episode has, man, we are literally at the bottom of the. Underneath the bottom of the barrel. That's what we feel like the world looks like in that first episode.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it was fucking gritty. You know, you try and take inspiration from your IP or from the, you know, the script and the IP fact that it was a comic book allowed us to be bold with, like I say, with color and imagery, yet still had to be so fucking grounded. But especially in horror, the more realistic it is, the more believable it is, and then the scarier it is, period. So I somehow figured that out entails that still have this broad palette of creativity.
Walter never used a fucking 14 millimeter lens, I don't think, ever. The dynamic dynamism of a moving, a wide angle lens close and the feeling of that and the weirdness of that, yet the energy of that, even if it moves slow because your parallax just fucks with your brain.
Walter even experimented on that and. And I can't remember.
I want to say that was after Johnny Hansen.
It must have it was because I was an operator on Johnny Hansen. That's right. So. And that's where I introduced Walter to the wide angle lens on that. That's this like, story maybe you want me to tell that. I will or not.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: But go for it. Go for it.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Go for it. Walter's mo, long lenses, baby. His wide lens was a 50, the widest ever. And he'd always, and he'd go up to shit 1200 millimeters. But, you know, he, and he'd shoot.
Every scene was with multiple cameras. Action scene. That is, of course, you know, dialogue was with at least two, which is great, whatever. But it was all long lenses. And he was into slow motion a bit. And just, you know, subtle slow motion and even just like 30 frames sometimes. But 60 was like one of his faves and this and that. But the thing of it is, we had this coin and stamp star robbery in Johnny Hansen. And it was so random how it happened. You know, we did the whole thing where you pull up outside. You know, I'm handheld in the back of the car, you know, in this mustang ripping down, having a blast as a camera or whatever. And there's multiple cameras, you know, as these guys arrive and they decide to blast in and rob this fucking thing. And we were going to shoot, it's where they come in first, come through the door and they, they smash all these, all the, you know, the, the jewel, the, the jewelry, if you will.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: And, and he had like five cameras. He wanted to set up this and that. Well, randomly, I had a wide angle lens, like a 14 randomly on the camera. And I don't know why. Maybe I was checking the flange on it. Because the flange checking the flange was assistant. I was an assistant before that. And maybe we were checking the flange. I can't remember. But you check it with a wide lens because that's more critical than a long lens. But that's what minor technical bullshit. But anyway, he was just sitting in the front. And the assistant at the time, Mike Weldon, was kind of looking at it. And there's like the door was two double doors with bars on it. And he said, john, this looks pretty cool. And I go, that does look cool. And it just, bam. It just hit me. So I thought, shit. Hmm. Because I loved handheld operating. I was actually okay at it. And, and I.
Why the hell do we want to do this with just five cameras? Why don't you let me just take this camera with this 14 and let these guys come in and let them get in my face and push me. And when they go down, I'll whip down, break off. I'll put, you know, I had gloves on and shit, so the glass flies anyway. Can I just do it all in one?
Can we just try doing it all in one in this section, please? He looks at me, he goes, hmm.
He goes, okay. And if I don't like it, I'll reshoot it. And I said, dude, no, I'm not going to be responsible for that shit. I said, you know, it's like I, but I wanted to do it. And he let me do it. If you look at the movie it's in, it's dynamic as hell, and it's great. And and so. But that's when he learned about a 14 millimeter lens. Not that he didn't know about it before, I'm sure, but I I think it helped change his style.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Actually, he had never thought to, since he was never the idea. What? It's not that the idea came from someone else. He just said, because it's not how he was thinking. It was not how he was visualizing. And then he suddenly saw it. He went, my God, that's genius.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Well, I don't know if it's genius or not, but the thing of it is, as a director, because I'm a.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: Director, but it adds something. It adds something that wasn't there before.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Oh, totally.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: It makes it better.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: Okay, well, yeah, I mean, but, you know, as a director, you have to be, in my opinion, the best idea wins. You're just the one that decides what that is. In my opinion. That's another one of my sort of approaches as a director. I don't care if it's craft service. It has a good idea, you know, great.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: You know, but anyway, that sounds suspiciously Zemeckis.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Oh, Zemeckis. You know, I never worked with them, but that would be Zemeckis. He's what a gem. He is. So is Walter, by the way. Oh my God. You couldn't work for a nicer, cooler, amazing man.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: Among the other directors you worked with was the guy sitting here. You were the director of photography on what's cooking.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Oh, yes.
[00:26:51] Speaker C: How could you work with a schmuck like that?
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Oh, it was so fun. We had so much fun. Oh my God. Oh my God.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: And that kind of goes to the thrust of what you were talking about, you know, making it look there's a certain reality that you want to capture, and that was a show about cannibalism.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Yes, it was.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: And we, there were a couple of shots that were really to sell it. There was the buttstank shot that I think was one of the most audacious things we ever did on the grip.
[00:27:21] Speaker B: Talk about meatloaf. Oh, my God. You know, that was so fun. I mean, and, you know, Gil did a great job. I. You know, I helped. Helped him out a little bit, but my.
[00:27:33] Speaker C: Helped me out a lot. A bit. I mean, I told John this story, I think we were talking a few weeks back, and to see if he even remembered it, but I remembered it very vividly that I was having a little trouble figuring out, like, what's the first shot? How do I get into the show? I know when Alan and I were writing, we were talking about music, and I. I was thinking, I love the idea of early Louis Armstrong. I love Louis Armstrong, but early Louis Armstrong would be the way to go with the music. And I had that in my head, but I didn't know how to start the show. And I'm like, you know, how do we. How do we get into the show? I mean, and I'm looking at the stove and I'm looking at the oven, and. And John just looked at me and said, well, come over here. Take a look from over here. If we put the light on the stove and you hear swish and it goes blue, and then the other, the other and the other. And then we pan over here and then dolly around here. What do you think of that? And I was like, shit, why didn't I think of that? That was perfect. That was just perfect. And that's the kind of collaboration, you know, you really want with a DP where there's such trust between the two of you that he can say whatever he feels like, and I can say whatever I feel like. But, you know, he saved my bacon many times in that. In that episode.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: Appropriately so for that episode.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: Well, I don't. I wouldn't say I saved your bacon. I think that what was.
[00:28:57] Speaker C: I would.
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Well, that's fair enough. But you know what?
[00:29:01] Speaker A: You still have that saved bacon somewhere, don't you, Gil?
[00:29:04] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: You saved the saved bacon.
[00:29:07] Speaker B: That's it.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: You also got to work with Frankenheimer on maniac. Oh, my gosh.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: I. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And you know what?
That was giant for me, that opportunity. It was random, because, you know, God rest his soul. I love that man.
You know, he's a tough son of a bitch. Okay? And that's after he quit drinking. I didn't know him when he was drinking. Oh, my God.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: He had a demon or two.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Yeah, well, yes. And, you know, he became. He was so loyal. He.
I mean, I'll never forget this. At the end of the episode, he came up to me and it was four in the morning last night, and I'm putting my meters back in my bag. I'm kneeling on the ground, and he looms over me, you know, the way he would like, use his finger and go, you know, and he goes, John, this is not four in the morning talk.
You're going to do my next show. You're doing my next show. And I looked up, I go, yes, sir, you know, I'll never forget it. And I did everything he did after that for a while. And he, you know, I. Then we went on and did two movies, you know, for HBO, against the wall, the burning season one. One he got an Emmy. For the other one we got the gut, the Golden Globe with the best thing on television that year. And that also with tails, helped set up HBO as a company in terms of their, their movie structure. I mean, it's amazing what our, you know, came out of our, all of our collaborations. But I gotta back up for a second, though, because, you know, I'll never forget this because Gil and Frankie. Oh, my God, they were in the office and they called me in and I'm just. How old was I? Shit, 21? Two. I don't know. I was pretty young.
And I sit down and I introduced to John.
And the whole episode we built on stage, the library set. And it was two story.
Part of it was two story where her office was upstairs and blah, blah, blah. You know, John was.
Used a steadicam all the time before that. And after that, it was. He loved it, and rightfully so. Boy, did he know how to use that fucking thing. But anyway, we couldn't afford our show, couldn't afford a steady cam. So we talked about. And he said, look, this is what I want to do. I want to be able to move this camera all over this fucking thing. And I would have this other shot with a crane. I want to move along the floor and come up the stairs. Ultimately, what we did is we. We made the whole floor a dance floor, you know, out of plywood. We painted it so it was smooth and we could Dolly. I'll never forget him asking me in front of Gil, can you do this? Can you pull this off?
And again, I looked at him and I said, thought for a minute.
Yes, sir. And walked out. And I remember either Frankenheimer or Gil told me this. I can't remember cause I did multiple things with John after that.
He said either. I think Gil told me this. He said.
He said, either this kid is full of shit, or he knows what the hell he's doing. And obviously, at the end of the episode, at least he thought I knew something. So I'll never forget that. I mean, oh, my God, I learned so much from him as a director.
I've gotten. Gotten into this whole core and thriller thing, which I love doing. But my two mentors are Frankenheimer and Hitchcock when I do anything like this, and that's who I tap, if you will.
[00:33:09] Speaker C: Good choices. Excellent choices.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: Well, not bad. They were pretty talented guys and, you know, just have an essence of their. Their abilities through, you know, with. Is just so cool, you know.
[00:33:21] Speaker A: You also got to work with Elliot Silverstein.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: I did. That's right. That's right.
[00:33:25] Speaker A: On well cooked hams, which was an undertaking with Billy Zane and Martin what's his name?
[00:33:38] Speaker B: You know, I don't remember. I remember doing the episode. Of course. I don't. I remember Billy was an intense guy. Right? Very intense guy. And, you know, I think we did okay. I don't know if I was.
I don't honestly remember that much of doing that episode is near as much as, like, the one with Frank and I were with Gil for some reason, but he was. Elliot was a. He was. He was a cool guy. He was kind of an intense guy from what I remember. Right? Am I right?
[00:34:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: Elliot was one of those directors who he. He saw the whole thing in his head.
It was all cut already. And so he knew what he needed, and he knew what he didn't. And he. And he wanted what he wanted and the stuff he didn't. He just didn't want to waste his time and our time or the money. So he was. He was. On the one hand, he could be economical, but on the other hand, because he knew specifically what he wanted. Oh, my God. He could make you crazy. Just trying to get what the fuck.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: He wanted to achieve it. That's right. That's right. Yeah, he did.
[00:34:43] Speaker C: He made me crazy.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: I remember now, but it's. For some reason that just doesn't stick in my mind. But I totally. I mean, what a.
[00:34:52] Speaker C: Because he was. He was basically a real sweetheart.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:56] Speaker C: He had this visual. He had this visual intention of what he wanted to do. Knew exactly what it was.
Didn't want to be argumentative, didn't want to get into fights, but he would. To protect his, you know, what he saw. But then when you said to him, John, that's the feature version. We're doing a five day television version. So we're not going to see from here to India. We're only going to see from here a half a block to the left.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: That's right. That's right.
I mean, you know, he was obviously an extremely experienced television director, you know, and he did movies as well, I think. But.
[00:35:33] Speaker C: But he did Capaloo and he did a man called horse.
[00:35:37] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
I mean, that's right. But he had that. Well, maybe it's even old school feature making. I mean, let's face it, Hitchcock had the whole movie done in his head before he ever started, ever. That's what he did.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the. For a lot of them, that was the style. They.
Yeah, they, they really did see it.
[00:35:59] Speaker B: Well, on that note, honestly, thinking now about Elliot and now you guys bring all that back and John, I mean, when I direct now, I do what's called my output and I wait until about two weeks of prep. These are movies. Two weeks of prep are left.
Are you doing it? When I've directed television, actually, I find the time, but basically it's like a storyboard without pictures. It's the whole movie cut. I mean, I've written out. I write out every cut scene. I visualize because I'm very visual, and I do that for every damn movie. And I hand it to the first ad, I hand it to the producers, I hand it to everybody before we start shooting. Now, that doesn't mean, you know, that's only what you're going to do. But I will say, like on Annabelle, the movie I directed, which did okay, I'd say 75% of that movie is exactly my output, and 25% are just cool things that happen when you're shooting, when you're that prepared. Actually, the phrase have more creative freedom. Yeah, right.
[00:37:19] Speaker C: It really does.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: Well, you know what, you need to get to tell the story. And then, hey, if you've got time for icing on the cake, take the icing. Sure, of course.
[00:37:29] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah, no, it's true.
[00:37:31] Speaker A: But.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: But in that. Okay, relating to, you know, Hitchcock's or Eliot's, you know, way of making movies and shows, you know, I love that, actually, because I hate waste. I'm actually super efficient and even was as a cinematographer. But, you know, it's, it's really interesting because, but on the other side of the coin, another thing about it I've learned, especially as a director, is cover your ass, Cya in terms of cuts. Get as many get as many cuts that do.
Just run another camera and if it's one moment, get it, get it, you know, and then you have, you don't want to go back later. You want to have, you know, but that's just another aspect of it.
[00:38:28] Speaker A: There's just the basic responsibilities of telling the story.
[00:38:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: You know, if there's, hey, you know, you could, you could do worse than shooting master coverage. Master coverage. It might not be terribly interesting, but you'll tell the story well.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: That's true. You know.
[00:38:45] Speaker A: You know, hey, a little flair here and there. It's nice. And the transitions at the end of the day, Napster came for us all. I think in terms of all of our jobs, really everything is peer to peer. So when I say anyone can direct, what I mean is everyone is directing now.
And the technology got to the place where there are people who produce stuff that appears entirely on YouTube or YouTube channels and they're making lots and lots of money.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:39:18] Speaker A: And they never have to listen to what a studio boss ever says. They're the, the story making world has.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: Changed and that's good. I support that, by the way.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: Hey, there's, there's nothing we can do. We, we can, we can fight it all we like. We're, we're, uh, it was the story of Caligula fighting the tides.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: Right?
[00:39:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. Yeah, yeah, that'll work.
After tales from the crypt.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:48] Speaker A: You hooked up with James Wan?
[00:39:51] Speaker B: I did.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: And you guys had a couple of productive years together?
[00:39:57] Speaker B: We did. We did.
You know, that was so fun, that collaboration.
James is a nice man. Nice guy, really, you know, very smart. And I was a universal boy. I called myself, I shot, I'd shot like Scorpion King and I don't know, a few other movies there. And I guess the studio kind of liked me and thought I was, you know, experienced enough yet sort of still young enough and creative enough that maybe James might like me and that are in a collaboration with me. And the first movie we did was dead Silence. And, you know, I had a blast. He's the master of, or in many ways of our time right now or what?
[00:40:56] Speaker A: Can I ask you, can I stop here for 1 second?
[00:40:59] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: All right. Horror.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:02] Speaker A: Was growing up, was horror your thing?
[00:41:06] Speaker B: No.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: Or did horror become your thing? Because, hey, you're good at making it.
[00:41:11] Speaker B: You know, it started obviously with tails.
You know what I've learned about horror? And it's again started with tails. And definitely with every single horror movie I've been involved in in any capacity, but especially as a cinematographer and as a director, even more.
In horror, you get, everybody has their tool bag. You get to use a lot more tools in your tool bag in horror than you do in other genres. In my opinion.
It's not looked upon that way as, as classy maybe, of, as the other genres, drama, even comedy, whatever, but you actually get to, I don't want to say experiment more, but your job is a little different because in horror, you want to get under the audience's skin. And if you can, and if you could, you do that and you enlist them into the characters and then you can really fuck with them, basically, and use the tools that you learn in horror to learn how to make people sit on the edge of their seat or make the hair on the back of their neck or their arms go up or jump or I, whatever it takes. Crafting, real crafting, okay? And it's core. And thrillers are very interlocked or very similar, actually. So going back again to tails, I think, I don't know. I got the opportunity and I had no clue that I was any good at that or at all. I didn't know. I just thought it was a really cool opportunity. And I guess my sense of being able to literally go from using like a wide angle lens and these wild colors to, you know, literally, you know, available light and a handheld camera that could be so powerful or something that can be so literally stylized and, and, you know, but the point is there's so many tools in the tool bag that you, you have to use from, you know, lighting, camera, horse. Gotta get, you got to get them in the audience invested in telling a story and the script and the characters and then sound, oh, my God, sound, you know, it's a, it's. Sound is giant in horror. And, and honestly, if you're using too much score and horror, you're, you're moving, you're, you're, you've got a pretty, not a great piece, in my opinion, if you need the sound, you know, score to make the, the movie scarier, actually, now I'm, if you use it properly, it's awesome. But the point is, there's so many facets. Facets of all of what we do is as filmmakers and to tell a story. And I think horror uses maybe more than any of them because it even incorporates action as well.
[00:44:45] Speaker A: But imagine doing a movie where sound is the thing that the monster will hear.
[00:44:51] Speaker B: That's correct.
[00:44:52] Speaker A: And so sound suddenly be all.
Suddenly you can amplify little sound and every little sound becomes an object of terror.
[00:45:01] Speaker B: That's right. Oh, yeah. No, you know, it's so true.
There's actually a project that I'm involved in presently that 85% of the movie or 90 takes place in a car with a woman inside a car and she's trapped, and a guy with a radio is just fucking with her the whole time, the whole movie. Okay. And, you know, you, so then you start thinking about that. How do you, how do you approach that? How do you tell that story with a woman in a car for that. For the whole movie? Okay. And then, you know, do you want initially what I thought, for example, is, okay, so once she's in this car in the opening of the movie, it's normal. And some, this, like, this really gnarly shit cop pulls her over, and then I forces her to get out of the car, you know, makes her pass out, bangs her head on the hood a couple of times. She wakes up in this car and until the very, very end, almost, she's in this thing. And, and so one option is once you're in there, you never leave the car. You never, ever take the camera outside the car. And, but, and so you never cut outside for a transition shot. You don't even, I mean, that's a bold way to do it. Now, mind you, I would shoot those shots because you may want to have those, but when you respect the sound and to your point, the sound inside that car is very different than the sound outside the car. And the, in the story, it's raining a lot, you know, and so what the, you know, even the sound on the roof and even when you know me, I would like, stop it sometimes and have it start again. So, you know, you're the pitter patter and, you know, whatever. Sound, sound, sound. I mean, it's so fucking important.
It's so cool. And again, I think it's horror. This is the thriller. This one's not horror. There's not supernatural at all. But I believe that in horror, you get to use all those tools and it's so fun.
I'd love to just do a drama. I'm a SAP too.
And if I get that opportunity, I will. Um, of course. But it's just so fun to do. And working with James, who is a master at crafting scares back to him, which he brought up, was just a, you know, giant thing for me. And I helped him too. I mean, you know, I think.
[00:47:37] Speaker A: And, well, it's got, it has to look a certain way or it's not going to succeed. And I think what, you have an amazing eye. You've always had just a tremendous. I had a great sense of camera and moving the camera and just you, you understand, you understand light, of course.
[00:47:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that, I do that part.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: So, you know, Annabelle is a great looking movie.
[00:48:02] Speaker B: You know, it's not bad actually. It's actually a really good movie. And we, you know, I think we shot that movie in 22 days and then we did some additional photography, ended up at the 26. I think we, it's, we was in it. We made the movie for ultimately I think 6 million.
[00:48:21] Speaker A: But I mean, the conjuring, which you were, you were just the DP.
That's a, it's a great looking, well.
[00:48:29] Speaker B: That'S, that's a phenomenal movie.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: Great looking movie. That's, that's the highest grossing horror franchise that's started. The highest grossing horror franchise. It's made over $2 billion.
[00:48:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I know.
Yeah. And by the way, nothing to sneeze at. I think that is maybe, maybe my best, if not definitely some of my best work as a cinematographer. On the contrary. And that's a whole other discussion on why I feel that way. But um, that was, it takes you back to tails in a way. And being on how much we did on stage, you know, and we didn't go on location a lot from what I remember. And, you know, learning to do that and tell stories that way. And, you know, the fact that that whole interior of that movie, which, well, which is a lot of that movie in that house, I mean, so much, we built it on stage and matched it. I built it like a 280 degree psych at the real location that we found on the black river or this farmhouse.
And then we blended the two.
And James, James's idea, it was brilliant how we first go into the house and how we combine the exterior and the interior with the, just two simple green screens with a steadicam shot. We built that set. And I'm so, it's so cool just to get the room just a hair bigger than what they normally would be. We never pulled a wall. I never pulled a ceiling piece. I had ceiling pieces, but we didn't even have walls to pull. We didn't build it that way. We built it like a. So we were forced to shoot within it. Okay. And then I had the lighting set up. And this is one thing that's good for everybody and anybody who does any movie, but much less horror, especially for the actors, for the director, for everybody.
The baby or the, the baby of conjuring. Or the, I mean, the conjuring, the inspiration for conjuring and how it was executed was done on insidious one, which we shot in continuity. That's a great idea, but what does that entail? And actually, at first, you're going to go, oh, shit, you have to light the whole house. You don't light a room. You don't shoot out a room. You don't shoot out a situation.
You don't do that. Like, so many movies are made that way.
So what you have to learn to do, aside from having the lighting so fucking natural and real and all that, using practicals and blah, blah, blah, what a cool challenge that is.
But to have it be able to go move the camera anywhere in that house at any time and being able to switch from night to day in like five minutes on the conjuring, we had it set up on the dimmer panel. Literally, we could change the date from day to night in five minutes. The whole house, the whole stage.
[00:51:52] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:51:54] Speaker B: I mean, so it's like, you should.
[00:51:58] Speaker A: Have shot several movies that way. Well, right there on that set.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: Like, oh my God. Yeah.
I mean, it, well, it makes sense. It actually is more efficient.
It, and, but you just, but again, it's all about prepost, you know, people, prep is, the preparation is the key to success. And God bless, you know, people want to cut prep short, you know, and it's the stupidest thing you can do, in my, in my opinion. It'll save you so much later. So the reason I'm saying that is, for example, this is really cool.
On insidious one, we did that movie for nothing. I did it for nothing. I did it for nothing. For James. It was a million dollar budget. Okay? Now that being said, I worked out a deal with, with Jason Blum and ultimately everybody got a piece of the movie and we got paid at the end. I mean, you never hear that shit, right? Ever. Okay.
[00:53:00] Speaker A: You, you actually saw.
[00:53:02] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I got like 70 grand for the movie or maybe. Yeah. And I made sure my key grip got more. He threw his equipment in and he got, you know, he did it for nothing. Danny Riley at the time, and I think he got 80. I want to make sure he got more than me. But the point is, through, you know, his equipment all, you know. But what we did was we shot that movie in one camera, one camera in 20 days, and we shot it in continuity, but we, we prepped it for six weeks.
Okay?
[00:53:42] Speaker A: That made it possible, Jeff.
[00:53:44] Speaker B: And that's what made it possible. And it made it so amazing. It's a win win, win win. I mean, these are just things I've learned you guys over the years, you know, from, with and from, you know, working with all these wonderful people. I've been so blessed, you know, including you guys, you know, to work with.
[00:54:01] Speaker A: Well, the feelings were always incredibly mutual, John.
[00:54:05] Speaker B: Well, that's sweet. Thank you.
[00:54:08] Speaker A: And I feel like this is. We've scratched the surface of. And as you said, there were so many stories to talk about, about so many of the artists that you've worked with and for. So we're going to have you back, John.
[00:54:22] Speaker B: Okay. Well, sure. I know I probably talked too much.
[00:54:25] Speaker A: No, that was the point of the.
[00:54:26] Speaker B: Exercise on these things, right?
[00:54:29] Speaker A: The last thing anybody wants to hears either of these two schnorrs talk. So it might as well be you.
[00:54:33] Speaker B: Well, I got a lot to say.
[00:54:36] Speaker A: Yes, you do.
[00:54:37] Speaker B: Literally now, 50 years, Israel. Literally. I've been in this business over, you know, really and truly.
[00:54:44] Speaker A: You. You have been on many, many, many film sets.
Like I said, I thank you so much for sitting in with us on for this episode. Mike said, we must have you back. We scratch the surface. There's so many other things to talk about, which we will.
Thank you, everyone, as always, and we will see you next time.
The how not to make a movie podcast is executive produced by me, Alan Katz, by Gil Adler, and by Jason Stein. Our artwork was done by the amazing Jody Webster and Jason. Jody, along with Mando, are for all the hosts of the fun and informative dads from the Crypt podcast. Call them for what my old pal the Crypt keeper would have called terrible Crypto.
