You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
Episode number three point thirty eight. Love All, Trust a Few,
Do Wrong to none. William Shakespeare broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in
Hollywood when we really should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof
Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how
to make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble
host Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.
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So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered by professional readers, head
on over to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Well today, guys, you are in
for a treat. I have on the show today legendary film director John Badham.
John has made decade defining features like Saturday Night Fever and eighties blockbusters like
Wargames, Short Circuit and Stakeout, and not to mention nineties hits like Bird
on a Wire with Mel Gibson, The Hard Way, and Point of No
Return, just to name a few. John is also the author of two
amazing books on directing called John Badham on Directing and I'll Be in My Trailer
The Creative Wars between Directors and Actors. And he's also a tenured film professor
at Chapman University here in Los Angeles. John is a wealth of knowledge and
experience when it comes to directing, and he's been doing it for close to
fifty years. I know that sounds like a lot John, I'm sorry,
but it's almost five decades of directing and working with actors and telling stories and
working at the highest levels of Hollywood, and I was just such a thrill
to sit down and pick John's brain in this episode. So if you guys
are interested in directing, this episode is just plum full of knowledge bombs about
directing, about storytelling, about working with actors, all sorts of amazing tips.
I learned a lot, and I really want to thank John again to
take time out of his busy schedule to jump on this episode and talk to
the tribe. So, without any further ado, please enjoy my conversation with
John Badham. I like to welcome to the show, the legendary John Batham.
How you doing, sir, Thank you so much for doing the show.
Oh, this is great fun to be here. I'm glad to talk
to you. You are you basically were my youth. I grew up in
the eighties and the nineties watching your movies and it is an absolute thrill to
have you on the show. Well, thank you. I'm having fun being
here, all right. So, first off, how did you get started
in the film business. I actually was a theater major at Yale, and
I was in the Yale Drama School also, so I got interested in film
and sort of thought foolishly that I could just show up in California and start
to get involved in it, you know, I mean I had a master's
degree in directing. It was in theater when people would say, well,
who would you like to do? Say I want to direct? Oh great,
what have you directed? Well? Place, place, Get out of
here. So what are that? No matter what decades you were you were
born in there's always naive day the trade. And and so I, you
know, I hung in there, kept looking for a job, and finally
landed something in the mail room at Universal and and you know, by then
I thought this is a big deal. Actually got a job delivering mail on
the lot. Of course those she used to be on the lot absolutely.
And I walk into the mail room and there's twelve guys there, four of
them with master's degrees, including me at eight with bachelor's degrees, and and
in the hot California summer sun, were stepping mail up and down the hill.
So but but the idea was that you would kind of find your way
out of there. You'd find a department on the lot that wanted to train
some people. And it was a busy, busy time at Universal where they
had twenty four hours of television plus all of their movies. So the lot
was just rocking, and opportunities were, you know, popping up right and
left. I eventually found a home in the casting office as a trainee casting
director, and there's that's where I started to work with the with real directors
and real producers and and who you know, listen to me when I started
talking about wanting to direct, so and you got into television firstman, So
I got into television first because I was working with it with a great television
producer, William Sackheim, who let me start directing small things like literally inserts
close up on the cigar in the ashtray, you know, close up on
the telephone being dialed, but to go from there into actually having real people
in the shot and then whole scenes. And finally, when we started a
series called The Senator with Hal Holbrook, he and and his other producer David
Levinson, said yes, you can direct number seven of this series, which
was just great. I mean, we know, what an opportunity. Wow,
how many and how many years were you hustling to get to that opportunity,
so that I think that's about six years. I think five or six
years before I got to that place, and I thought, oh my god,
it's so late. Oh I'm just going to be ancient. But you
know, thank goodness, it worked out all right. And then that got
me another another film which which actually won me an Emmy nomination, another episode
of the same show, and and and that that little stamp of approval,
that Emmy nomination, that it kept me busy for years and years. Yeah,
you were doing a lot of what they used to call tell TV movies
or movies of the week. I segued into ten TV movies, which were
just all over the place. There had to be half a dozen every week.
Oh they were every week, were producing them, and so they were
like little movies and and be shot in say fifteen days. That was like
great fifteen days because by comparison, the hour shows were being shot in six
days, right, uh, and these were only like thirty minutes longer.
So you had it was it was you were you were being spoiled. So
oh my god, this is brat and you got to do, you know,
more interesting stuff and some some action things, and and and people.
You know, it might take you seriously when you start looking for a movie
as opposed to having just done our television nice No, So how did you
get involved with Saturday Night Fever? I had gotten to do a movie with
Richard Pryor and James Earl Jones and Billy D Williams about the history of Negro
baseball with the unlikely an unwieldy title of the Bingo Long Traveling All Stars and
Motor Kings's okay, But it was a comedy and uh and was great fun
that we shot uh in ballparks all over Georgia and uh and it had a
lot of music and and and dancing in it. It was a co production
with Motown and Universal. Uh and that actually led to led It led to
me ginning up with with Motown to buy the rights to the Broadway musical The
Whiz and for for Universal and and for Motown, we'll be right back after
a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. And so
I was working on that with my with my then partner Rob Cohen, when
when Universal and Motown decided that for little twelve year old Dorothy we should have
the noted twelve year old Diana Ross Right play the part. And I said,
guys, I mean, this is a great opportunity. She's a fabulous
actress, singer, dancer, I mean, what name it. But she's
you know, whatever age she is, I don't know, you know,
late twenties, early thirties, probably late twenties. And and and Dorothy you
know, is literally INDI l Frank Boum books is six years old, which
explains why there's cowardly lyons and ten men and strong uh you know, scarecrows,
all kind of the imagination of a child. So wouldn't it be nice
if we could find somebody that was really young that could play this. And
I'm sure nobody's ever going to have heard of her because we're going to discover
well that got into a big thing. And finally, finally we parted ways
on that. I said, well, you guys understand this because I don't
know what to say to her on the speege. How do you in direct
with Dorothy who's thirty. This scares the but Jesus out of me. I
mean, you've got a vision that that doesn't match. Well, it's happened
that the Robert Stigwood Organization had we're producing Greece and another musical with the Beg's
was going to be called Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I've heard of
the album, and and you've heard of the album and and and they flew
me to New York and and and wanted me to talk with him about doing
Sergeant Pepper, which I there was no greater fan of that album than me.
But the but the script that they wanted to do, I just didn't
get it. I was like, what it? It just didn't quite didn't
quite gel in my mind. And and I, as politely as I could,
you know, refused, you know, and said thank you very much,
but I I just I don't get it. And but two weeks later,
uh, the the then director of what was called Tribal Rights of the
news, Saturday Night doesn't have the seam ring to it, does it?
Not quite? But if we look at the New York magazine article that it
was based on, that was the title, and nobody had come up with
anything better except for calling it Saturday Night. And that was immediately confused with
Saturday Night Live. So they said, well, we'll just put a pin
in it and deal with this later. So anyway, the director of that
film had a disagreement with Robert Stigwood, who was not a human being to
ever disagree with because he was a tough old Australian. He wasn't that old
either, But to me at the time, I think, oh my god,
this guy's old. He might be forty years old. I wish I
werefore he So suddenly I'm like the next guy to be called on the list.
And I read this script and I had one hundred and two fever with
from the flu in la at the time, and in the one hour that
it took me to read the script, I was cured. It was like
Jesus came and laid his hand on me and said, your cured. Your
fever is gone. Your fever is gone because you've read this great script and
it broke your fever. That's great. I'll tell you it was fabulous.
And that was a Monday morning. By by Thursday morning, I was standing
in New York starting to interview actors and talked to my new crew and told
that I had two weeks before we start shooting. This is probably where having
done all those TV movies of the Week, and everything paid off because unlike
any normal human being, I didn't fall down in panic and have a heart
attack because you were used to it. Yeah, I go, okay,
two weeks, what's the catch? Uh So, Now, as far as
the casting of Travolta, of John Travolta was, he he was just the
guy on Welcome Back Conner at that time. He hadn't done Grease yet,
right, that's right. And he had been already signed to do Grease because
from the Welcome Back Cotter and from a TV movie called The Boy in the
Plastic Bubble God. I remember that movie to you, and if I remember
properly, I think he was in the Broadway Company of Greece. So so
he had he had that experience. So the Stigwood organization signed John to three
a three picture deal, got it, and Greece was to be the big
one one to be found. And then somebody came up with this New York
magazine article and said, how about this, that we could do this while
we're waiting to start Greece because they had to wait for Olivia Newton. John
had a very tough concert schedule at the time, and she said, well,
I've got available from May to September or something like that. So they
said, okay, between January and May, when we get Olivia Newton John,
this is where we'll plug in this little movie called called Tribal Rights of
the New Saturday Night. It was very much almost like an indie movie,
and you did have a budget, but the way it was shot, I
remember it so vividly, was very kind of in the streets and kind of
gritty. And it was not a polished Hollywood movie by any stretch. No,
And and it was part of the point was to make it as gritty
as we could. I mean, never having been in Brooklyn in my life,
I said, well, what if I were an English documentarian coming here,
I would just you know, open my eyes and shoot everything that looks
good and and and one of the appeals of the magazine article was the kind
of gritty realism of this disco and the people and that that were in it.
During the time I was prepping the very brief time, every every night
I would go to some different disco in the middle of the night. There
were yuppy discos, there were gay discos, there were lesbian discos there,
you know, any any kind of preference you could think of, there was
a disco for it. And and I quickly realized that that this little kind
of hole in the wall disco in Brooklyn was very special. It was just
you know, kind of lower middle class kids who were coming there, and
you didn't really see any adults, and it was just the neighborhood. It
was the neighborhood disco. And I remember, I remember those guys grow because
I grew up in New York and I remember that time. And I remember,
you know, cousins of mine. You know that that couldn't rupt two
cents together. But when they got their clothes for not you know, Saturday
night, you know, they were peacocky all over the place. Oh yeah,
and and and so so it was clear that that we didn't want to
go and glitz this up right, that it was not the kind of musical
that that say, Greece was certainly going to be, which was much on
a different, much more fun, romantic kind of scale. Sure, and
and this should have a real grittiness to it. And the script itself,
you know, had more uh profane language and racism and sexism, and you
know, really reflected the culture of those neighborhoods. Uh, which which I
would have proven to me every day because I would be talking to people on
the street and extras and learn, you know, learning about the culture as
we were going and finding out that, if anything, are our depiction of
it was a bit mild. Wow. Now, now, how was it?
You know, obviously when you guys were directing it, Yeah, I
was. I remember we were talking off air about your assistant director, Alan
Wertheim, who was a good friend of mine. We'll be right back after
a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. He told
me a story that I think it was you or someone handed him the soundtrack
to the movie and he took it home and he listened to it and he's
like, this is never going to go anywhere. And his wife was the
one that told him, you're an idiot. And then obviously it became this
phenomenon. How what was it like being in the center of that storm?
I mean, because you had directed literally a phenomenon. I mean, you
couldn't go anywhere in the world without hearing that music and seeing those images that
you shot. Yes, I mean the reaction to the soundtrack. Alan's experience
wasn't you know it wasn't unusual. They gave me a you know, a
little tape cassette with the beg's demos on it, which is probably what I
gave to Alan, right, and and they were there were rough demos.
And I think Paramount had listened to it and said, well, this is
not even real disco, right, And and I and I think others,
you know, we were dubious about it. But Robert Stigwood was a real
champion. And he said, five songs on this cassette, three of them
are number one hits at least, which I thought, Wow, that's pretty
that's pretty arrogant. You know, how do you know what's going to be
a number one hit? Right? Uh? He was wrong, of course.
There were four number one hits someday and I don't know what happened to
the fifth one, but it was probably number two. It was probably number
two. That's that's right now. When you I mean but as a director,
I mean, we all as directors hope to be involved with the project
that gets this kind of attention. What was it like getting the spotlight thrown
on you? I'm assuming some opportunities opened up after the movie. Yes,
of course, the first the Hollywood. First reaction was to poop hoood,
of course, because they had just they were just totally shocked by all of
the negative parts of it, you know, especially the language and the sexism.
And I actually got fired from a movie the day after we ran at
the big Hollywood screening. Picture got put in turnaround seven point thirty in the
morning, I'm going to New York to the New York opening, and I
get a phone call, you know, telling me that the show I was
working on is now in turnaround because the head of the studio saw the movie
last night and doesn't want anything to do with the director. Who would you
know, produce that till the box off as comes in. And yeah,
the box office came, but they never changed their mind. Yeah, that
movie eventually got made, but not not with me. Sure, so yes,
it was crazy. The opening night in Los Angeles, as I was
coming back from New York, I drove by the Village Theater in Westwood just
to you know, take a look see what the marquee looked like. And
I see a line at the box office. This is about ten thirty at
night that our plane got in and and I drive around the block and the
line keeps going and going and going, goes all the way around the block
of this big theater. And this is for the twelve o'clock show. Wow.
And I walked into the walked into the lobby and all the paramount execs
were standing in there, grown men, jumping up and down like little kids.
All these aw was dollar signs of course, and of course went on
to be an extremely huge it. It did. The little neighborhood theater near
me in Studio City had it in their theater for six months. Wow.
Back when you could do that, you could do that? That was like,
I mean, we were kind of following Star Wars in a lot of
markets and were replacing Star Wars because I knew that as I was checking theaters,
they'd usually not have a print of Saturday Night Fever yet, but they
would put up the you know, a reel of Star Wars, and I'd
look at it and check the sound and so on. Wow. Now,
let me ask you a question when you approach how do you approach directing a
scene in general, Like when you're going to go into a scene, what
is your thought process? What is your in your process in general? Well,
there's usually about a dozen questions that I that I have to ask,
which is, what's what's different at what have we learned? What's different at
the end of the scene? From the beginning? You know, what?
What were the characters in the scene? What did what did they want?
What does one character want and what does the other character want. Let's say
there's two people in the scene. Hopefully they're opposed to each other. They're
not just all agreeing. You know, there's a there's there's some kind of
conflict. So I'm always looking for, you know, where's the conflict in
here? What's interesting? What what in the course of the conflict causes something
to change from the beginning to the end of the scene. You know,
I ask whose point of view is this scene? Is it this character or
this character? You know, are we rooting for for anybody in particular?
And then and then finally I'm asking, Okay, these guys have goals.
A guy a guy wants to take a girl out for coffee, and she
doesn't know if she likes this guy or not, so that his goal is
to talk her into going for coffee, and her goal is, you know,
to kind of politely slide out of it, you know, and you
know, there can be a fun scene there, you know. And how
does he go about it? Is he is he aggressive like a you know,
a real macho guy would be. Or is he a kind of nerdy
guy who's kind of embarrassed, but he's really excited about this girl and he
really wants to, you know, take her, so he overcomes his shyness.
So so as you just start to pull it apart. Asking these different
questions, you you pretty quick develop a point of view on the scene.
Very cool. Now what do you do when you're not getting the performance you
want out of an actor? Well, usually I'm trying to help them and
sit, you know, go and say, now, what are you playing
here? What are you trying to get? What's your goal here? And
and usually a lot of the problem is that they haven't focused on that.
They say, well, you know, when I was a kid, my
dad used to you know, yell at me, and it made me wet
my bed. And I said, no, I don't want to hear this.
I want to know what are you doing right now? Well, I,
you know, and I've got to focus them on what they're trying to
do. And I and I'm really tough about making them come up with the
answer. I can go, and it's easy for me to go and tell
them. Now, you know, persuade this girl, you know, charm
her into going. I can do that. But the more I can make
I can help an actor come up with stuff themselves, the you know,
the better they're going to be. That makes perfect sense. Now, do
you have any advice for dealing with difficult actors or difficult department heads on a
set, which I'm sure you've had to deal with at one point or another
in your life. Absolutely every every department and and a cameraman, let's say,
comes up to me and I say, here, here, here's the
shot I was thinking about doing, and and he goes, well, I
don't know, I don't, I don't I don't like that that shot.
There's uh, there's a lot of ways to deal with this, which is,
no, this is what we're going to do, and you know,
let's let's make it work that way, and you can get into a big
argument, or the guy goes, oh, okay, all right, fine,
which is the last time you'll ever get any you know, good creative
contribution from that camera in and or it's just going to be, you know,
a war between the two of you for the rest of the shoot.
I look at the guy and go, oh, that's interesting. Tell me
about it, tell me what do you think. And he says, well,
you know this that, And the next thing he said, Oh great,
tell me more I had. I never thought of it that way,
And even if it's the worst idea in the world, we'll be right back
after a word from our sponsor out back to the show. That's why,
you know, saying something like I never thought of it that way is not
judgmental. It's just kind of letting him expound on it in the course of
that, And it could work this way with an actor, with a costume
designer, with an editor. In the course of that, I'm learning what
point of view that that person has on what we're talking about, and I'm
and I'm hearing them, and I'm also getting them, giving them a chance
to kind of vent whatever feelings they have, and I'm not overriding them.
And it doesn't mean that I'm letting him push me over either. I'm just
I'm just listening and doing what what some people call active listening, where you're
just kind of feeding Oh, that's interesting. So you think that that this
this shot is into the back light and you can't you can't light, you
can't compensate for that. Yeah, well that's kind of what I was thinking.
So what do you think? What do you think we should do?
How would you do it? So with an actor, if an actor says
well, I think I should be over here and I think should try this,
I go, well, let's try it. My answer to them is
usually yes, let's go. Let's try it, because I know that if
I let that person try it, that their sense of professionalism and their creative
instincts as an actor, it's going to start to ring alarm bells when it
doesn't work when they try it, when they say, oh, to be
over here, because the scenes scenes have a dramatic logic that it's hard to
buck right and if you go and you try some weird adaptation to the scene,
it'll tell you, no, this doesn't feel right. But the actor,
having tried it first of all, is more willing to try it your
way, and you know, say well, let's do it both ways,
or he'll actually realize that it's you know, that his idea didn't work,
or miracle of miracles, it's a great idea and only by trying it,
did you say, oh my god, I would have missed an opportunity here
right by me. And I've had that happen any number of times, where
an actor comes up with an idea and I go, oh no, it's
side my head. I try to follow this little method that I just outlined
for you and go, oh my god, oh oh, that's great,
we would have missed something here. Well, thank you Bill to the actor
now. But that I mean, there's not a lot you can do.
On the other hand, with actors that are, you know, showing up
a drunk or high sure or just basically unprofessional, really untalented, that you
you made a mistake in casting, and that's that's when more radical solutions are
called for, Like you know, can you can you change? Can you
change the actor? If you can't, how do you how do you disguise
them? You know, hide them behind other people, shoot over their shoulder?
Uh? Two, Yeah, there's there's a little tricks here, and
it's away from them. But let me ask you something though, And I've
had this happen to me on set, and I'm sure it's happened to you,
not recently probably, but when you were first starting out where actors and
department ads as well, but more experienced actors will test you on the first
day to see if they're safe with you. And is that true? Absolutely,
of course yeah, And how do you deal and how do you deal
with that? And so I'm it's it's tricky because you know, I'm trying
to pay attention. I'm trying to be prepared, but I'm also trying to
be interested in what they're bringing to it. If if I look like I'm
paying more attention to the camera and the lenses than their performance, that they're
going to register that right away, you know, because you get to the
end of a scene and call cut and the camera operator goes no good.
The actor immediately thinks that's about them, that they're no good, whereas actually
the camera operator saw a coffee cup on the ground in the background and it
shouldn't have been there, right, So I'm always paying attention to the actor
and going over to I go over to every actor after every take, and
just even if it just pat them on the shoulder or nod my head or
your thumbs up, or say you're on a good path, or give them
a little direction, they know I'm paying attention because I'm trying to, you
know, build some trust, and building trust with an actor is, as
you say, very difficult. I started six point thirty in the morning,
going in the makeup trailer, saying, you know, good morning to them
as they're in the chair, and how are you thinking about today's work and
are there any problems I can help you with things like that, just to
start building building trust before we ever get on the stage. It's a lot
to do with psychology as well on that on the set, and that's something
they don't teach you at film school. They don't teach you the psychology of
the film set. Well, I try to where I teach at Chapman.
Sure. Uh, And that's that's a big part of it. And at
the risk of plugging my own stuff, my two books are dealing you know,
dealing with with problematic actors and building trust. What are the name of
the books? Please plug away? Okay, Well, John Bathamon directing.
Uh, it wasn't my idea for that title, but okay, and and
and and my first book which is called I'll Be in My Trailer, which
is something you often hear from, you know, from an actor. You're
having an argument with I'll be in my trailer, call my agent all my
age. Yes, that could be, that could be the sequel exactly.
Well, we'll make you to put links to those books in the in the
show notes of the of the show. Now you've worked with I mean over
the course of your career. I mean the the amount of different legends and
movie stars and and just talent is amazing. If you look over the scope
of your career, how do you direct a movie star? How do you
direct a legend? You know, as a younger director coming up, what
what do you or even if if you're on the same too, like you
know that there's different egos involved, there's different personas involved. How do you,
like, how do you direct a Mel Gibson and a Goldie hawn In
burn on a wire when both of them were arguably at the peak of their
stardom. They were in that area of the peak of their stardom, they
were giant movie stars. How do you how do you direct people like that?
Well? Uh, I think it's it's hard because because they're intimidating uh
people, They're they're bringing so much experience uh to to the set, and
and they they deserve respect they've earned the respect and and and I think they
become your creative partners. To treat them in any other way it was a
big, big mistake. And we sat with with Goldie on and with mel
for uh quite a while several times during the preparation of that of that movie,
you know, listening to their thoughts about the characters and the scenes and
what works and and both of them are very very smart people with with good
insights. And my my partner Rob Cohen and I, you know, spend
a lot of time listening carefully, uh to what they had to say and
taking taking advantage of it. It's it's not the kind of thing where it's
a one man a one man show like well, I can't think of think
of a good example where where it's all about the director. But but here,
you know, as you know in many star driven vehicles, you know,
you want their chemistry. You want to create a chemistry and foster a
chemistry between them, and and it's a comedy also, so uh, you're
looking for them to come to work in this in as happy and and and
uh and up a mood as possible, because that's going to reflect in all
of your scenes and if people are not happy. That really reflects I mean,
you can tell it. We as an audience can go We'll be right
back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.
There's no chemistry here, Oh my god, We've seen I've seen movies like
that with big movie stars you could just tell had absolutely no chemistry and had
no business being on the screen together, or that they hated each other off
see each other. Yeah, they hate each other. And you can tell
it. It just smells from from the screen, and it and and and
it smells the opposite way too. When there is that chemistry, when there
is that enjoyment, it spills right off the screen. Of course. Now,
of course, now when you've directed some uh just amazing action films in
the course of your career, in your opinion, what makes a good action
sequence, Well, uh, generally there has to there has to be something
where you're really involved the character, the main the main characters have really strong
opposing goals and and something becomes action when normal conversation just doesn't make it anymore.
You you know, it's gotten to the point where people have to get
into a fight, they have to do a chase, you know, so
words don't happen anymore, but they're people pressing their goals. And the trick
is, now, if you're if you're in, let's just say something as
simple as a car chase. What are the things that happened during that chase,
the different events that happen that start to get more and more exciting and
build. It can't just be the stage coach comes by, and then the
Indians are chasing it, and they come by. Then the stage coach comes
by, then the Indians come by. It's things have to be happening.
The Indians have to be trying to stop the stage coach and uh jumping onto
the lead horses to stop it, and the and the the guy up on
top of the stage coach is trying to shoot the guy who jumped on the
horses, right, And so you get through that. Now you've got to
come up with something that's even bigger and uh and keep keep a good action
sequence alive with with one one event after another. So when you look at
the great classic scenes that by one I'm describing is from John Ford's Stage Coach,
Uh, you know you can jump ahead to bullet or the French connection,
and and and see, Oh my god, we are so concerned about
the jeopardy that Gene Ackman is in chasing this subway tray under underneath the l
We're frightened to death because we know how scary that is, and and and
and he's almost hitting other people. But we wanted to catch up with that
subway train that's getting away. And I heard its specificly, Brian. Oh
no, I've studied that sequence, and from what I've read and heard that
they were really driving at like seventy miles an hour during that situation, like
it was a real thing. I mean, I know they had stunned people
and stuff like that, but it wasn't like they blocked off blocks and blocks
and blocks. I heard that they were like just really driving and yeah,
it was very scary, right, Yeah, they were Bill Bill Hickman,
who was the driver on that. You know, they'd go out at six
in the morning and just take off and oh my god, it's terrifying.
And you could get it on screen, and you got it on and you
got it on film. It was amazing that sequence. Anyone listening, if
you have not seen The French Connection, please stop listening to this podcast and
go watch the French connection. Now what any advice on working with younger or
less experienced casts, He's it's the same whether it's whether it's children or or
young adults. I mean with with children that the biggest trick is casting it
right in the first place. I mean, that's that's easy to say.
But if you haven't cast it right in the first place. With a child
who's got an imagination, who's relaxed, who's not intimidated, and who will
listen to you, you're you're in terrible trouble. But if you've got a
child that hasn't has an imagination, you can almost turn them loose. I
had a conversation with Robert Mulligan, who directed to Kill a Mockingbird, And
I said, how did you deal with these children? And and he said,
I cast them right in the first place. I just kind of put
them in situations and and and give them a little idea of what was happening
in the scene, and just let them go and and and their their imagination
took over. So of course he spent uh, Bob Mulligan and Alan Pecula
spent over six months trying to find those children in the first place, right,
you know, they they looked and looked and looked all over the country.
So that's, you know, part of the thing. You it's easy
if you can, if you can get Mel Gibson to come and be in
your movie, or you know, a big star, you know, most
of the work is being done for you by that person. Right. Yeah,
So I forgot who said it, but was it casting as ninety percent
of directing or something along those lines. Well, I think it was Elijah
Kazan Uh, Who's who said it? And and my question always was,
yeah, now how do you get that other ten percent? And you get
something? But tell us about that thing? Now. I wanted to ask
you about one of my favorite movies that you've done, A short Circuit.
How did you direct that robot on set? How did that work? I
mean, the technical aspects of that must have been. You must have pulled
your hair out, because I'm assuming it didn't work. All the time we
had. Most movie stars have some kind of a nice trailer. Number five
had an eighteen wheeler that was all his. It was filled with different versions
of him, big versions, little versions, versions that went left, versions
that went right, puppeteered versions, miniature versions to drop off Bridges and a
full time twenty four to seven, a special effects crew that kept him running.
I mean, he was our uh star, our Eddie Murphy. Uh
he was our comedy guy, the star. And Steve Gutenberg and Alie Sheety
God bless their hearts. Uh knew that and knew they knew where their place
was in the movie. That's okay. You know, we're here to support
Number five. Uh. And and I made everybody treat him like we had
Eddie Murphy. You know, I'd go on the set in the morning when
when the guys would bring him out, I'd go over and give him,
give him a hug, and start talking to him because we always had one
puppeteer that was the voice of Number five, and and so he would be
talking back. And you know, it's it's real easy with with creatures like
that to begin to believe they're real. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure.
When if you were talking to Frank Oz on the set of Empire Strikes
Back, eventually you just started looking at Yoda like it's Yoda. Yeah,
It's it's Yoda. And and you know, thank goodness, we didn't have
any huge mechanical breakdowns because the guys were so worked so hard to make sure
he was operating all the time and doing crazy impossible things like he looks at
a grasshopper in one scene and watches the grasshopper jump, and then a full
size, six foot tall Number five starts hopping like a grasshopper. I saw
that. And that was before visual like high end visual effects. Oh listen,
this is all mechanical, yeah, visual effects, special effects. Yeah,
it was knocked out. How he flipped a coin like like, oh
yeah, I remember, like James Cagney right, flipping a coin, and
and that was all stuff we had to do for real because there was no
CGI, right, It was all all practical. You could do simple match
shots and and very simple things like put in a sunset or something like that.
But to do what we do today, no way, not even close.
And I remember when that came out that was a monster hit as well.
That was another big hit when it came out. I'd loved it.
I love that movie. It was I have I have Number five, a
small version of Number five in my office. See that's awesome. Now one
other movie that you did that I want to talk to you about. How
did you approach directing a remake of a movie like lethem Nikita, with the
movie point in no return, How does the director approach a remake of somebody
else's work. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
now back to the show. And how do you put your own twist on
it and be faithful to the original material. I've always wanted to know how
you were able to bring it, bring it to life. I so loved
lefem Nikita when I saw it, and it was in a very small theater
in Los Angeles. Uh. And and you know, I know that it's
often hard to get people to go and see subtitled movies, and and I
and I walked out of that and I said to my wife, you know
this, this would make a great American version. Uh. You know,
it's such an amazing story. And I just don't think, you know,
anybody's going to see it because we're seeing it in this nice little theater.
But you know, it was a little multiplex with fourteen theaters, and it
was in the smallest one of the fourteen. And I think I think during
off hours that theatre doubled as a phone booth. My brother observed it.
He's seen he'd seen more people in the seven eleven at three in the morning.
Right then, we're in this movie theater. So I also said to
her, if I'm thinking of this at the point this in the theater,
somebody else has got this idea, and somebody owns this. I bet somebody
has already bought this. Sure enough, Warner Brothers had bought it, or
Luke Bisson to direct an American version of it, an American version, and
he was going to come over and do an American version of it, and
and I and I shrugged my shoulders and went, well, too late.
I should have been earlier. And then Lucassan woke up one day and went,
I got other things to do. I've already done this. I don't
need to do this again. And that's somebody else. So then they they
came to me. And now our goal is how can we do an adaptation
of it without making, you know, with making something that is more American
than and uh fresh and and keep the spirit of it. It's kind of
difficult, but that's what we We went to writers uh who were character writers,
not not plot writer, and and that, and I thought it's all
going to be about her character. And and how that how that works for
us because we've got a very strong story here. We don't need more plot.
What we need is people, you know, characters that that we can
identify with. And that was that was our approach. And and it came
up with the idea of using for the soundtrack, using Nina Simone as as
a touchstone for her. Uh that that her songs and her kind of female
rebellion that Nina Simone sang about was was something that would that would be interesting
in helping, you know, helping this character. So you actually brought it
to life because of your love for it, right that was And I lobbied
hard, you know, to get that to get that job because I did
really really love it and and loved the character and loved all the characters.
It was such a great story, it was such a unique fresh worried when
it came out, it was it was monumental Luke and Luke is an amazing
director as well. Absolutely absolutely, I mean it's this time. I'm a
big big fan of his and and and I'm sure I was vilified in France
having you know, how dare you how dare you touch this? How dare
how dare I touch it? And I just I just told the French press.
I said, well, please talk to Luke Passon. He's the guy
that sold it to us, exactly. He Luke's the one that sold it.
We we just went and then very politely asked you know what you know?
Can we make a version of this? And he said sure. Now
I have a couple of questions left. Out of all the films that you
have made, do you have a favorite one? Well, it's it's hard
to say, because there's good things and bad things in everything, and you
know, I think about the good things and then WinCE at the bad ones
and the mistakes and things I could have told me all done better, And
sometimes it takes twenty five or thirty years before I go, oh no,
I just figured out how to do that now. All right, So you
now teach a Chapman University, what is the biggest lesson you try to teach
your students That It's not about the equipment. It's about the human beings.
It's not about the kind of fancy camera moves that it's easy to learn how
to do. It's about what is going on with the characters here. What's
the story? If you don't get that right, then all the rest matters
for nothing. With young with young directors, that the first thing you can
learn, the easy thing to learn is how the equipment works and and and
you can get it in your hands and it'll pretty much do what you wanted
to do. Uh. Human beings, on the other hand, are uh,
you don't They don't do what you want them to do. The ideas
and and they have they have creative thoughts and and you have to learn how
to deal with that and that that frightens uh young directors no end. And
a lot of our our job is trying to teach them how to work with
actors and and you know, learning how to how to get the best performance
out of them. In addition to uh, you know how how to work
with with screenwriters and and you know, make make stories work as well as
they can they can do. Now, what advice would you give a filmmaker
wanting to break into the business today? Is there something else that you'd like
to do? Why? For God's sakes, why why would you want to
do this? I mean, I have I have a class of twenty three
students right now who are all shooting their first short five minute films, okay
and uh and and they're start they're starting to learn a lot of the the
difficult parts of filmmaking that have nothing to do with filmmaking, uh, getting
getting permits, finding actors, budget, all kinds of things that they you
know, you don't think about when you're thinking about, you know, glamorous
filmmaking. But they're having they're having to learn. It's a it's a very
tough upward uh struggle, as as you know, and that almost has an
automatic self sorting uh factor to it, where people start dropping by the wayside
when they look, I don't have the energy, or that I don't care
about it enough to do it, or I'm not very good at this.
A lot of times we find people uh thinking they want to direct and then
realizing they don't like interfacing with with human beings as much, but they love
putting the film together or they love shooting, uh, you know, being
a cinematographer. Right, So they find other things that they that they really
enjoy doing and and that they're good at, and then they and they can
make a make a career there. Because God knows, we have enough opportunities
now with all of the television networks and channels and cable channels. Oh yes,
it's so uh insane. It's so great compared to say television of twenty
years ago, when you had four networks and that was it. That was
the only place you could go. But now, gosh, all over the
place. So there is opportunity, which is fabulous. And for those who
are, you know, making good films in film school, you know they'll
they'll get to break through. The cream does rise to the top, as
they say, absolutely, and if you were you know nowadays, if you're
talented, and let's say you're in a minority group or you're a woman,
you've got a leg up. It's a great time for them because people are
taking their them much more seriously and they're getting many more opportunities. Right,
we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor out back to the show,
My My. I had a manager, a talent manager come to one
of my classes to talk to them about it. And he looked around the
class of uh twelve people and he said, I can tell you who's going
to be the big talents in this in this room right now. I've only
been in this room for five minutes and he points to the two women.
So he said, I'm not joking. He said that you know you you
guys, will you know this is great. You're going to get an extra
an extra little break here, and then long long overdue too. Absolutely absolutely,
Now, what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn,
whether in the film business or in life. Oh, my gosh, it's
a tough question. I think I'm still learning it, so I don't know
what it is. Fair enough, fair enough? And then three of your
favorite films of all time? Oh, okay, No Country for Old Men,
What a great movie. Oh love that movie. Citizen Kane. Uh
huh, huh what, Yeah, I've heard, I've heard of it.
Yes, you've heard of You've heard you've heard of it. I've seen it
many times. It's wonderful. And The Godfather, number number one or number
two? Can I lump them together? You literally another person, another guest
at the exact same thing. I'm like, I'm just gonna lump one and
two together because of the same movie. They're together. They should be,
so, absolutely, John, these are movies. These are movies that have
the I'm only gonna watch a scene test, which is you're flipping through the
channels and and you come across something a scene on Godfather Too, and you
say, oh, I'm only gonna watch a scene. Three hours later you
realize you've watched both the purchase. Yes, yes, it definitely has that.
It definitely passes that test. John, I want to thank you so
so much for being on the show and sharing your knowledge and experience with the
indie film Muzzle tribe. I really truly appreciate it. It's been an honor.
Oh well, thank you. It's fun to talk to you. Said,
good makes me think, thanks my friend. All Right, as promised,
John dropped some major knowledge bombs on the tribe today. So John,
again, thank you so so much for being on the show. It was
an absolute honor speaking to you, my friend. And if you want links
to any of his books or some amazing videos that I have in the show
notes, head over to Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Forward Slash three thirty six.
Thank you so much for listening, guys, As always, keep on
writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to
the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.