S3E55: NOT Lost In Translation

[00:00:00] Speaker A: This podcast is a collaboration between Costard and Touchstone Productions and the Dads from the Crypt podcast. Four relaxing times make it Suntory time. [00:00:26] Speaker B: Foreign. [00:00:34] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to another episode of the how not to Make a Movie podcast. I'm Alan Katz. When human beings began crisscrossing the globe, they took more than just strange and exotic products with them from place to place. They took stories too. And despite sometimes vast cultural differences, very, very often those stories translated perfectly well. Different cultures might appreciate stories differently or for different reasons, but the essence of those stories translated and translates just fine across international borders. Great stories do not get lost in translation. In this episode, we're going to talk about cinematic storytelling as an international language, which really it is. Early movie makers like Edwin Porter and D.W. griffiths, they more or less invented cinematic language using close ups and cutaways. Even film editing itself were afterthoughts to initial idea of rolling film through a movie camera. But once all of those afterthoughts became real time thoughts, filmmaking became the most powerful human creation of all. And anyone who can master the language, well, it's kind of like having a magical power. Christian Xu, our guest today, has that magical power most of the time. He applies his considerable storytelling prowess to the commercial world. The trick there is to mesh up product story with a potential buyer's story. If a buyer can see the advertised product as part of their life, see their story and the product story being meshed together, they're much more likely to buy. Christian is German, but he's based in Malaysia and his clients all over the world. Clients who value Christians ability to use storytelling to make their products and services more relatable, more accessible, more of a story that buyers just gotta hear that translates into their life. Kind of like this episode here's Christian storytelling is your stock in trade. You are not just a storyteller, but someone who can teach storytelling. [00:02:52] Speaker B: I try my best. [00:02:54] Speaker A: Can you think of the first story that grabbed you when you were a kid? [00:03:00] Speaker B: I don't know exactly the story, but I was reading a lot of books when I was a kid. So you know when you read a book and you are like drawing the story that you're reading into your own pictures kind of thing. So I, I would say let me. [00:03:20] Speaker A: Let me refine the search. All right. Can you remember the first story you ever wrote? [00:03:27] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:33] Speaker A: I know the first story I ever wrote. I know how old I was. I was in fifth grade. I know when I did it and I don't know what compelled me to do it, but I did it as a school project. It was not, it was outside the bounds of what they were asking for. It was much more than was asked for. [00:03:53] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:54] Speaker A: And I don't know what compelled me to vomit this, to imagine this whole thing to, and then just to write it all in the longhand, as we all had to back in the day. And yet I don't know that I could have gone on without having done that. I, I, like I said, I was in fifth grade, so eight or nine. [00:04:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:21] Speaker A: How, how old were you? [00:04:25] Speaker B: I think I might have been, it might have been even early. If not mistaken, third or fourth grade. [00:04:33] Speaker A: You Prodigy. [00:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah. We needed to write a story about one beautiful day in our life. And so I closed my eyes because there was not any memory I had, or maybe I didn't want to share that. So I just closed my eyes and I was seeing myself on a, on a green grass, like some kind of huge garden with a lot of flowers. And I've been jumping over fences to go always further and further. And I've seen this and then I've just written it down. I started to write it down. The task was one, a four page step, standard page, I think. [00:05:30] Speaker A: How many did you fill? [00:05:32] Speaker B: I think six or seven. But then only I was realizing that I might push the, pushed it to a limit where I thought like, okay, maybe I should finally come to the end now. [00:05:49] Speaker A: Well, one of the things about being a, a young artist is that, you know, we, we don't fully understand. It's just the talent. There's no discipline to it whatsoever. And yeah, there is a. I, I, as a young writer, I would, A sentence, I would start with a sentence. Yes, I had no story in my head, but I'd write this terrific sentence and another couple of good sentences. And then, yeah, the sentence, whatever idea was behind the sentences kind of ran out of steam. And that's, that was the end of it. And so lots of voice, but nothing, no storytelling knowledge that would take that voice, do something with it. [00:06:39] Speaker B: Zero. Just like imagination, at least for me back then when I was that young, just imagination. I was just thinking about, yeah, what I want to do. And then I was writing that down. What, what, what I would do in this situation. What I want to have a look at what I want to experience. Yeah. And then just writing it down from the, from the green meadows, I went to the forest and find, found these hunting houses where they, where they lean out, you know, to shoot some animals, that, that kind of thing. And from there went on and trees and cave and it was not like maybe it didn't make sense, but it was fun to go that way. Especially because when I was writing, I was thinking, oh, yeah. And then I was including that. I had another idea, another way of doing that and including that into that story. Like endless. I been able to go on endless. But of course that's not the point of a story. [00:07:52] Speaker A: Although, you know, I would be willing to bet that you also experienced for the first time in your life, that remarkable experience when you write. You become transported to that place about which you are writing. [00:08:10] Speaker B: Yes. [00:08:10] Speaker A: And that world becomes as real as the one you exited to get into that world. [00:08:16] Speaker B: It does. My imagination was always huge when I was a child. I mean, same like today. I didn't actually change much, but it has become more realistic. Back then it was all magical and big and huge. And there was no limit. Not even the sky was the limit. No problem. Just go beyond that. But of course, today, with experience and, and being more an adult, it, it, yeah, it's. I limit it. [00:08:53] Speaker A: Can I suggest the word disciplined? [00:08:56] Speaker B: Yeah, that fits pretty well. [00:08:59] Speaker A: I mean, that really is what education does it. [00:09:04] Speaker B: Yes. [00:09:05] Speaker A: You begin to discipline yourself because of what you're comparing yourself to. And suddenly you begin to, to understand not just your art, but the craft required to. You know, as I think of it, being a creative person. [00:09:25] Speaker B: Yes. [00:09:26] Speaker A: We all have this prism inside our heads. And life enters that prism through our eyes, our ears, our senses, and it refracts. And that refracted thing is our art. [00:09:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:43] Speaker A: And I, I know, I, I, I, I think I can point to the moment in my education when I've for the first time understood the craft of storytelling. I, I was, I went to college at a place called Vassar College. I was a drama major. And among the requirements were a bunch of classes in dramatic literature, of course. And one of the professors, well, the dramatic literature professor at the time was a, a wonderful guy named Everett Springshort, who was one of the world authorities on Strindberg and Ibsen and his lecture on ghosts. On Ibsen's ghosts. Was he. You know, it's, it's about Mrs. Alving who has. She's been forced to marry a man who had syphilis. And she's had a son, Oswald. And the play is about really comes to the day when Oswald comes home to die. And it's all about the sins of the father being visited upon the son. And he, in his lecture, we had all read it, so we all knew what it was. But he deconstructed and he took Us back really to the emotional moments and when he brought us to the moment at the end of the play when Oswald is dying and Mrs. Olwen wheels him down downstage and he's looking to the back of the theater and she's standing behind him so he cannot see her. And he's saying, oh, look at the sunset, Mother. Isn't it beautiful? Isn't it lovely? And of course, the sun that's setting ironically is this one. And as he got to the end of the lecture, I suddenly understood what a story could do if you set it up, tended to it, and paid it off just so. And I think for the first time I understood story. Not that I could duplicate it or create it, but I understood it as, as a goal that you should have when you sit down and you start typing or editing or cutting, you know, electronics. [00:12:21] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [00:12:22] Speaker A: Whatever, whatever the, the medium is that with which you are composing a story. [00:12:28] Speaker B: Yes. [00:12:29] Speaker A: Yeah. There's, there's a way to. Damn. There's a way to do it. [00:12:35] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:12:36] Speaker A: I, I, I just confess to mind. What, what? Did you have such, such a moment yourself, Christian? [00:12:48] Speaker B: Not, not that I remember a certain moment like, like I mentioned already, I've been always very imaginative. In my head, throughout my childhood, I was like, I don't know, some would say fantasizing. I was in my own world, kind of. And, and always I, I've been seeing this world for, for me, it was very clear. There are like, like two worlds. In one world, I can do whatever I want, and in the other world, I need to go to school. I need to help my parents bring out the rubbish, you know, but, but I, I've been, I, yeah, I always like to be more in my imaginative world. Like I told you, I read a lot of books when I was young and even before. [00:13:42] Speaker A: What kind of books did you read now? You are German. [00:13:46] Speaker B: Yes. [00:13:47] Speaker A: And this is a rich culture with a long cultural past filled with all kinds of iconic stories and images. Was, was that lot of what you read? [00:14:02] Speaker B: In fact, not when I was 12 or 13. I found Stephen King's books and I started to, to read this. I started with the, the, the biggest one, I guess, is that was your. [00:14:19] Speaker A: Culture, the culture of Stephen King, actually. Yes. That, that's awesome. That, that's awesome. Great. [00:14:26] Speaker B: I mean, I, I, I, I been reading like, let's say, but they are not very sophisticated or very special. They are just like crime stories and four friends or three friends doing this, doing that, and suddenly being in a situation. Okay, but Stephen King was a Different level because he's using 10 pages literally to describe one character. And I've been diving into this and I remember as if it was yesterday. It took me around 11 days to finish. It got over thousand pages and it's a lot to read, but I couldn't stop. I was reading until 3am in the night. Next day I needed to go to school. You know, reading under the blanket like that so nobody will see the light, you know, of the light of the torch light that I was using and those kind of things. I was so drawn to this. And from there I. I read many, many Stephen King books. I read the whole Dark Tower series. Christine. Yeah. Like Cemetery of the Pets. Pet Cemetery. I'm not sure how it. I mean, I read it in German, obviously, so I'm. I'm not 100% familiar with the English titles, but. Yeah. From. From. [00:15:57] Speaker A: Have you read them? Have you read them only in German? Have you ever read them in English? [00:16:02] Speaker B: It. I read in English, yeah. When I was older. I've been reading it in English. [00:16:08] Speaker A: And actually, could you tell a difference between the two? What was the. Did you feel like it was faithful, that all the. The German translations were faithful, or could you not tell? [00:16:23] Speaker B: Okay. The German language is bigger than the English language. You will have. For. [00:16:28] Speaker A: For. [00:16:29] Speaker B: For one English word, you will have three or four German words that all mean something else that like, kind of mean the same. But if you want to express this kind of feeling, you will use a different word. So the English version, of course, is the original. I like the original. Nowadays I only watch TV shows and series only I watch them in the original language mostly is English. So. Yeah. But in, I would say the German version. Okay. For me, being a German was more nice to read because I could tell the difference between a word that is. Yeah. Have a different meaning, a slightly different meaning in German, but in English it would be the same word. So, yeah, I may say like this. When I was older, a little bit, I read Harry Potter both in English and in German. English I like better, for example. But that might also depend on the translation. Sometimes the translation is super, super good. And sometimes. [00:17:42] Speaker A: Yeah, well, language is very important to me in storytelling. The fact that I write in English, I feel this tremendous connection to the language, to the words, really and truly. When I was in college, I studied French. I said French for school and most of my academic life, I studied French. [00:18:13] Speaker B: Okay. [00:18:14] Speaker A: And I understood French. I could speak French. I had the damnedest time writing in French because I could not. I. Oh, I have always been A writer really, from when I was a little kid. And so I, I really, I think in, in English sentence structure, I, I, I'm wedded to the language and I just, I think in, in English, I think in it and going to try to write in French, I just, I could not think in the language, so it was always badly translated, you know, mauled. When I was in college, I had a professor named Dilsa Lipschutz who explained to me what my problem was. And I was grateful to, to know it wasn't just me being stupid, it was to a degree, but that the two languages are very, very different. Of course, one being, you know, the Romance language, French. [00:19:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:10] Speaker A: Which is an entirely different structure. But even by its nature, she said it's an analytical language. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:17] Speaker A: English, which is based very largely on German by its nature, and this is true of German are descriptive languages. [00:19:26] Speaker B: Yes. [00:19:28] Speaker A: In English, because of the, the structure of a sentence, the boy was tall and, and heavy and pallid. And I can load up the adjectives after the noun. [00:19:45] Speaker B: Yes. [00:19:46] Speaker A: Whereas in French and every other Romance language, the adjective goes before the noun. And so you're kind of limited. And so there's just the whole way that you go to describe things. It, it changes everything. And so, yes, I understood it in the abstract. What my problem was, I could do nothing about it in the real world. [00:20:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:11] Speaker A: But like I said, German and English being very similar in many, many ways because English flowed in large part from the Germanic tribes that, that invaded. [00:20:24] Speaker B: Yes. [00:20:24] Speaker A: England. And when I asked early about culture and its connection to your storytelling. All right, so you, yeah. Stephen King was, was your Bible? [00:20:39] Speaker B: More or less. Yes. [00:20:43] Speaker A: But being really still coming, I assume your, your family has been in Germany for a while. [00:20:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:55] Speaker A: How. I guess you've, you, you, you, you've been there since, since you, you, you kicked the Romans out of, out of Italy. Yeah. [00:21:08] Speaker B: The, the Romans visited us and build a few churches and so on. [00:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:21:15] Speaker B: Before that, before the Romans came, actually, the ancestors, the Alamanic, the Celts, they were there already. So. Yeah, pretty pretty much. Long, long history. [00:21:29] Speaker A: That's, that's a whole other story unto itself. But this, this has something to do with your storytelling origins. Let's say you're, you cannot help having a German worldview. I, I know my worldview is American. My American worldview just got turned upside down on its head. Has everything that's going on in the world and what's happening now in Germany. Do you find your, your sense of culture being impacted? [00:22:17] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. Full stop. Yes, but what you need to know is I'm German, but I'm actually living in Malaysia. But my, my clients are mostly in Europe. Mostly, most of them are in Germany, but they are also in the uk, in France, in Spain, in Italy. So I'm traveling a lot, I'm seeing a lot. [00:22:42] Speaker A: You're Malaysia based, huh? [00:22:45] Speaker B: Yeah. One month I'm in Germany, another month I'm back home in Malaysia. And it's, it's mixing up like this all the time. I'm literally flying between the two continents six to eight times a year. [00:23:00] Speaker A: Malaysia? Why, why are you based in Malaysia? [00:23:03] Speaker B: My wife is Malaysian Chinese. So what to do? [00:23:06] Speaker A: Perfect. Hey, hey, hey. That is the perfect, perfect answer. That must be a fascinating place to live. [00:23:14] Speaker B: Yes. And that's why when you say impacted by culture, hell yes. I see so much differences and so many different approaches also to storytelling. Cultures, culture differences, culture clashes all the time. And, and this is also what's fascinating me then I always fly via Dubai. So I'm also spending time in Dubai. I have friends there, company there. So I'm, I'm like, yeah, this kind of person always traveling that part of the world which is actually the opposite side of the U.S. if not mistaken, this, this kind of route is what I basically take all the time. And then of course my clients, my clients really range from. They are based in Italy, producing mostly for Italian and European market. They are based in, in the uk, producing globally. They are based in Denmark, in Sweden, in Germany, of course in France. So when it comes to storytelling, I try my best to first of all understand who is this video? No matter what, it's a feature, it's a featurette, it's a commercial, it's a short clip, it's just social media content. For who is this for who is going to see this? Who's the target group and what this target group is supposed to do after that. Do they just need to feel good and happy or do they need to click a button? That's a big difference. So I, I, I try to figure that out at the beginning. My clients in Malaysia, totally different approach. We have a very diverse mix of ethnicities in Malaysia. We have Malay, we have 30 Chinese, 20 Indian and a few mixed. So who is, who is the video going to target? Because you are, you are basically you are producing a video differently for a Muslim than for a Christian or for a Buddhist or for a Hindu. Different depending on the topic, of course, depending on the product. For this, for this target group, number A or yeah, letter a works kind of 8. The plan A works for them, plan B or plan C works. And this is what you need to find out, what I have to find out at the earliest moment. And then I need to decide, okay, am I able to, to make it work out? Yeah. All right, then, then we can proceed. So this is, this is when, when we're talking about culture that, that's, that's quite diverse. [00:26:16] Speaker A: As you storytell across cultures, what would you say are the common threads of storytelling across all the, all the cultures across which you storytell? [00:26:28] Speaker B: Okay, not a nice one. Is fear. [00:26:33] Speaker A: Fear. [00:26:34] Speaker B: Fear will work in any language in any country. But what also works is dreams. If you don't name the dream, but you leave it open to imagination, that will literally work in every culture. Because maybe the guy in Dubai who is driving three range overs and having four houses is dreaming of the fifth house while that little boy in India is dreaming about having a mom and dad. You know, dreams, if you leave them open for imagination, they will work globally, they will work for everyone. As long as you don't fill the black box that is over the audience's head, you are fine to go. But of course there are huge differences. I mean, in the west, for just to give you an example, in the west, the color green is usually fitted with wellness, health, nature, spa, kind of in country. [00:27:48] Speaker A: In California, the. The color green also means marijuana is for sale. [00:27:52] Speaker B: Oh, okay, okay. That, that is not working in any Muslim country because green is the color of Islam. So if you see green, it has to do with religion. Totally different approach, totally different concept. A big, let's say a piece of water or like, like a, like piece of. Actually you can step in if you do it wrong. [00:28:25] Speaker A: Oh, oh, indeed. And all the more reason for cultural sensitivity. [00:28:32] Speaker B: Cross cultural very much. Yes. [00:28:37] Speaker A: What. As you work with your clients, what exactly is the service as a storyteller that you are providing? [00:28:48] Speaker B: Okay, actually my. Most of my clients call me or give. Get. Sending me an email if they need to sell something and they don't know how or they don't know how to approach it. So I'm starting with storytelling at the first place. I need to talk. Like I said before, I need to ask them questions. I need to ask, okay, what is in your head? What do you want? Who is the target group? What is the product to whom we are selling? All right. After all of this is clear and of course I need to ask, do you have any storyline already? What worked for you in the past? What haven't worked for you? I need to Know all of this. After I know that, then I will sit down and think about the market, about all that I know. And I will come up with usually two to three ideas. Basically Rough, rough ideas. Then I will present them and they will say yes or no. 99% they say yes. Lucky me. So they choose one or two or all. So I better. Yeah, the more the better. And then I will produce that as a film because those storytelling that I do is cinematic storytelling. So we are talking about video clips, social media content, broadcast commercials. If nowadays it has become rare because the clients I have, they don't advertise on TV because the products or the target group is not watching TV now basically the products are simply too expensive. Is super luxury niche for what they do that. They go on social media, they go on YouTube, they, they. Yeah, they bring the whole film on their website and target. [00:30:43] Speaker A: So this is completely targeted to the, to the people who would buy. [00:30:47] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:30:47] Speaker A: And you're cutting out all the people who would have no interest. Really. Window shopping at best. Yes, understood. So really what you're doing, the product has a story. [00:31:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:06] Speaker A: And yes, I guess the person, the target, the buyer also has a story. And the task really is to wed the product story to the buyer's story so that they see that buyer meets product by buyer, buys product by buyer, lives happily ever after with product. [00:31:30] Speaker B: Yes, there could be one story, but it's again, it's a little bit more diverse because. Okay, let me give you two examples. Two of my clients. One is Macintosh Labs actually from the us A very niche but popular, high end producer of very nice hi fi equipment. We're talking about an amplifier for $10,000 and more. And then there is another company called Bang and Olufsen. It's a luxury. You heard about them. Okay. They are from Denmark. All right. But it couldn't be more like almost opposite the marketing and the approach of it. Macintosh Labs is a very manly brand. Everything is. You buy an amplifier and it screams for man. It really does. You have black build up. [00:32:32] Speaker A: It actually has a, it actually has a sperm count. [00:32:35] Speaker B: Yeah, cubes. It's, it's, it's really like. Oh yeah. Basically what you need is forget about telling a story, film it and put in some smoke. Maybe left and right side you put a whiskey and a cigar. There you go. [00:32:51] Speaker A: So but that is, it's, that is its story. [00:32:55] Speaker B: Yes. [00:32:56] Speaker A: And it's, it might not be a complicated story, but. [00:33:00] Speaker B: No, but, but more or less, that's it. Because buyers of this, these items are 99.9% men. And if the woman, if the wife, let them buy that, like, allow them. Allow the husband to buy that just because, like, otherwise he's going crazy. All right, let's put that into his music room and close the door. Lock the door after that and throw away the key. There you go. Enjoy your life with this device. Bang. And Olufsen, on the other hand, totally different story. Very diverse buyer group. 50. 50. 50% men, 50% women. Why? Because you can. Literally, those are objects for your house, and those are objects you can. You can. You can choose what color, what wood do you like, how it. How is the finishing of it? Does it fit to the bed? No, honey, but it fits to the wardrobe, you know, so that's why when. When it comes to storytelling about this, you need to show a home. Not just the device. The device doesn't matter. This is like, look what I got. Look what I can afford. That's one part. And the other part is this fits perfectly next to my stature and whatever ugly picture they got, you know, But. But it. It reflects their lifestyle. It. It makes them calm. It's not just a loudspeaker. It's a. It's a lifestyle object. Totally different approach, totally different storytelling. We need the women in the boat, and the woman will decide, yes, we buy on. We don't buy. The woman only decides this. The man can just say yes or no, and I want it bigger or I want it smaller. That's it. Seriously. [00:35:07] Speaker A: But it's funny. You've. It's been reduced in a. In a way to, like, many other facets of a relationship, including the. A sexual relationship, because there's. There is a dynamic of that to it. Hey, that is the art of selling it. It. It originates in the art of telling. [00:35:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:35:33] Speaker A: And that's. This is exactly what you just described. [00:35:36] Speaker B: Yeah. You know. You know, the target group for Macintosh, for example, is not only rich people, because we are talking about 10 to 20 grand for one device. And you need three or four devices to have that work together. And you still need some loudspeakers that cost the same amount, just the loudspeaker. So we're talking about. If you want to have a nice setup, we're talking about 50, 60 grand. But there are people who save for this maybe 20 years, and then they buy that because that's their dream, which. [00:36:09] Speaker A: Is the other thing. The other thing that you talked about. And you got to have your dream. [00:36:13] Speaker B: But the. [00:36:16] Speaker A: There's always a but. [00:36:17] Speaker B: Yeah, the Bang and Olufsen client is the one who. And I met a lot of them throughout my, my relationship, my business relationship with, with them. I met a lot of those clients and they are more like, honey, we need a bigger screen, we need a bigger tv. All right, then we buy the fifty thousand dollar TV from Bang and Olufsen. Sure. Because it fits very nice into the living room. You know, it's, it's a different approach. They have two boats already somewhere. I mean, if they were in the US they are in Naples or, or somewhere like that. You know, they have a, they have a nice yacht there. They have a big mansion. They are successful and they show it. They love to show it. They have three or four Rolex. Luckily they don't wear them all together, you know, at the same time. [00:37:13] Speaker A: At least they're tasteful too. [00:37:15] Speaker B: They are tasteful, definitely. Yeah. They always, the women always look very nice. They go to the salon, you know, they take care of themselves. It's important for them. But maybe also that lady never really worked in her life. That's another aspect. You know, she's staying at home, she's having her cafe with her friends and so on. And there is a Bang and Olufsen speaker and there is another one. Oh, and here's also one. So it's like, you know, it's a different, different lifestyle we are talking about. That's why they are, they are not advertising like, at least not those products. They're advertising their headphones, they're advertising the, the Beolit 20, for example. The is like a portable, portable Bluetooth loudspeaker. That's what they are advertising a little bit. But at the same time they are not advertising much because they don't need to. [00:38:16] Speaker A: Indeed. [00:38:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like Lamborghini also not advertising. The people who want to drive a Lamborghini, they go there and buy one. [00:38:23] Speaker A: They, they know the Muhammad will come to that mountain. [00:38:27] Speaker B: Yeah, indeed. [00:38:30] Speaker A: You, your, your medium is filmmaking. [00:38:34] Speaker B: Yes. [00:38:37] Speaker A: If, if we had, we'll, we'll have some subsequent conversations, Christian. Now this, this I promise you. But from a filmmaking perspective, what, what are the movies that grabbed you early and, and got you passionate about this particular medium of storytelling? [00:38:59] Speaker B: Michael, I'm not sure if I can name all of them because, because every movie got something. No matter it is a nice or not, but at the end there is always something that is told good. Maybe not the whole movie, but a certain scene or something like that. So it's not, not easy for me to tell. But okay, let me, let me tell a few. Maybe Directors. So you know already the direction for sure. Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, the Coen brothers. Amazing. Fargo, for example. It's crazy. Amazing, in my opinion. Yeah. But to be honest, what is not nice, what they did. So, yeah, it's not easy to tell. What had some impact of me was for sure, Jurassic Park 1993. I watched that pretty early, earlier than I was allowed to, but yeah, when it's coming on tv, you can't control that much. [00:40:11] Speaker A: What impressed you about it? Okay, it's almost a stupid question because come on, man, it's dinosaurs. It's dinosaurs coming to life. But, but other people did. Dinosaurs coming to life. What, what made those dinosaurs so much more? [00:40:30] Speaker B: Maybe it wasn't dinos. The dinosaurs itself. I liked the way, to be honest, I don't know the director or producer. I have no idea now who is, who, who did that. I just know John Williams did the score. That's what I know. But right now, I, I. Steven Spielberg, of course, yeah, did that. All right. But what I liked about it was that the first. Until we've seen the first dinosaur. How long was it? Half an hour, 45 minutes. Amazing storytelling. This movie is about dinosaurs and we don't see one for half of the film. But then, yeah, I just like it. I mean, the story is more or less a pretty simple one. Is a standard, standard story. A hero story, let's say, like that. The typical kind of story, but the way it is told, the way the characters are shown, it's just different. You have the evil guy that the, the chubby one, you know, who want to, who want to steal those embryos and, and, and so on. Yeah, he's like kind of meeting with some, some spy kind of guy. Then we have the, the. Actually the, the. The owner of this, of this Jurassic park, who means it plays God. And of course it doesn't work out. And we have the. Yeah, we have the crazy scientists, we have the reasonable scientists. We have the woman who is helping, want to help everyone. And, and the kids, of course, bring a different level of dramatic into this, into this movie. But yeah, like whatever can go wrong goes wrong in this. And yeah, I don't know why I like it, but it's just, it's just a. It's creating a whole kind of experience. The story is told until the end. You are not left alone. Or you don't have a sudden twist at the end that doesn't make any sense. Like, for example, in, in Knowing where Half of Knowing with, with Nicolas Cage is a great movie. And then the other half is like, okay, now it's aliens. All right. Yeah. And you're like, somehow it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel whole, wholesome, you know. [00:43:13] Speaker A: So. [00:43:14] Speaker B: Yeah. When, when, when, when it comes to storytelling, I mean, of course we also know the big studios. Sorry. That I, that I talk like that. Yeah. The big studios also sometimes say, oh, here we, we don't like the script at the end. We need to change this, we need to change that. And, and as a creative person, as a writer who, who, who literally bleed it into the script. It's the own blood, it's the own sweat. It's, it's the own. Their soul will be then cut in half, more or less, and, and left with a, with a bleeding heart. Yeah. But okay to, to, to wrap this up. Yeah, that, that was, that was my, my maybe influence. Early on Matrix, when I was a teenager, I watched that amazing film, the first one. I don't even have a specific genre that I like. If it's a good film, if it's a good story, I just like to watch it. No matter what kind of the word. [00:44:29] Speaker A: That comes to mind as you described, the things that impressed you, that, that stuck was the word epic. [00:44:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:37] Speaker A: You, you are attracted to old school epic storytelling with, hey, there are rules, you know, in order to have that beginning, middle and end. Yeah. You got to drop a piece of, you want a piece of information to pay off over here, you got to drop it over here. [00:44:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:44:52] Speaker A: Any later than that, it's going to seem like, oh man, that's too convenient. But there, there are rules of a kind because the audience understands them. But then again, I say it's like the cinematic language itself. The audience understands the cinematic language like they do the language they speak. [00:45:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think so. Because of a well made film will work no matter how crazy the story is or how it is told. As an example, Memento, Christopher Nolan, one of his first movies, if not the first one, what a movie, but totally different told to what we are used to. I mean, for sure this is not the first approach that somebody tells a story the other way around, but how it is told and in those kind of back flashes, flashbacks is different. It's, it's, it's. Yeah, it's interesting. Of course, maybe you can only watch that one or two times or maybe you need some time in between some gap until you can re. Watch it, otherwise, you know, too much. But to me it's, it's a fine way of describing it. It's a fine way of, of telling a story. And it's a, it's a unique way. So again, this is a wholesome experience. It closes, maybe late, but it's a closed story. It doesn't leave you behind frustrated. You know, when there is a movie that is based on true events. Yeah, that can leave you back frustrated. I agree. I appreciate that. If the reality is not nice, how can the movie be nice? You know, it doesn't make any sense to add, just to add something that the audience will feel oh, so nice, you know, it doesn't. Also, it doesn't need to be a happy end to be a good film. It can be a sad ending, but I want to have some kind of ending. Either it leaves you to some philosophical thoughts, to some reflection about life in general, you know, or it closes the story and everybody's happy. All right. Yeah, but it needs to, to give you something. I mean, otherwise, why you take two hours or one and a half hours and you're watching a movie, if you are leaving, yeah. You're left back frustrated. You know, like, okay, I wasted my 90 minutes. You know, that's not nice. But that happened as well in the past. [00:47:41] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, it happens all the time, but that's part of the gamble we take when we sit down to watch or listen to a story. It certainly seems like in so many ways cinema is an international storytelling language. [00:47:59] Speaker B: It is. I truly believe it is. And what I like especially, you know, I, I talked before that I live here and there and I travel a lot. I also watch sometimes, not often, but I, I, I watch TV in other countries, in other language. I don't understand Chinese a little bit from my wife. And I learned one and a half years, but my God, it's so crazy hard to learn. But of course, I can follow little bit sometimes the conversation. Okay. However, their movies are built up differently. I mean, they have a story, the story might be the same, but the approach is different. How they conduct that, they bring in a lot more drama. I don't know if you have ever watched a Spanish telenovela. A little bit. [00:48:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Crazy. Every two minutes somebody is crying, laughing, dying, giving birth. It's only like this, you know, the emotion is like a roller coaster, not like life. But I don't know why they are into that. It's very successful, so it works for the audience. All right, there you go. [00:49:21] Speaker A: Why do people like scary movies or scary stories? But hey, that could be a conversation and will be a conversation for a whole other time. Christian I I what a pleasure this has been to meeting you and having this conversation about storytelling. I I am absolutely dead on serious. We must continue this conversation in greater detail because there's I would love to I'm ending the conversation now because there are 10 different directions we could go into and each would be an hour and I Holy holy cow. Thank you so much. And yeah, thank you everyone. And thank you everyone for tuning in. We'll 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 all the hosts of the fun and informative Dads from the Crypt podcast. Follow them for what my old pal the Thriftkeeper would have called terrorific Crypt content.