Speaker 1: Welcome to this bonus episode of the Film You Mentories podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Jamie Benning, your host and the creator of this show.
Speaker 1: This time, I'm joined once again by author and filmmaker
Speaker 1: John Walsh, whose latest book, The Art and Making of
Speaker 1: Gladiator two, takes us inside Ridley Scott's long awaited sequel.
Speaker 1: So John and I talk about how the book came together,
Speaker 1: what it was like working so closely with Paramount and
Speaker 1: Scott Free, and how he balanced the art, photography and
Speaker 1: behind the scenes stories from such a massive production. So
Speaker 1: here's my conversation with John Walsh about his Gladiator two book,
Speaker 1: and I'll be back at the end for a tiny
Speaker 1: bit of jabbering on John. It's great to have you
Speaker 1: back on the podcast. I mean, this collection of books
Speaker 1: of yours is growing bigger and bigger year on year,
Speaker 1: month on month, it seems. I mean, I think we
Speaker 1: first spoke about Escape from New York, and then hone
Speaker 1: and maybe now you've made this book about Gladiator too,
Speaker 1: the Art and the Making of Gladiator two. Have you
Speaker 1: now got to a point where studios are approaching you
Speaker 1: or did you approach them? How did this book come about?
Speaker 2: No, you guess that right, Hi, Jamie. Great to be
Speaker 2: back on. Thank you. They approached me so they said,
Speaker 2: we want someone to do this book. We think you're
Speaker 2: the guy. And I was like, really, who's recommended me.
Speaker 2: It's a new publisher, Abrams, and I'd been recommended for it,
Speaker 2: partially by my previous commissioned editor at Tyson Simon Ward,
Speaker 2: who's now Ian Fleming Publications, and so he kind of
Speaker 2: spoke up for me. And it was a departure for
Speaker 2: me because of course it's a book about a new film,
Speaker 2: a film that hadn't been released, that wasn't finished when
Speaker 2: I started writing it, And of course all of the
Speaker 2: people are alive, and there is thousands of images. All
Speaker 2: the things I complain about before, Oh they're all dead
Speaker 2: and there's no decent photos. Now is the opposite. There
Speaker 2: was more people than I could interview in the time
Speaker 2: I had, and thousands and thousands I think it was
Speaker 2: like thirty thousand images that I was preview to some of.
Speaker 2: But of course it's all a very lockdown process because
Speaker 2: I'm an external person, and although I signed an MDA
Speaker 2: for the script and images and so on, stuff had
Speaker 2: to be shared on a need to know basis, So
Speaker 2: it was very much how you'd imagine I five might
Speaker 2: operate with a newbie in the office. But it was
Speaker 2: great fun, very exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because, as you said, the books you've previously done
Speaker 1: are all about films where you know, we've had decades
Speaker 1: potentially to think about them, and you know people have
Speaker 1: passed away and you've been lucky enough to get some
Speaker 1: of those people before they passed away. But this is
Speaker 1: a different tone entirely. How did you sort of approach
Speaker 1: that tone? Because you're doing a couple of jobs here.
Speaker 1: You're not only trying to tell the story this making
Speaker 1: of but you're also trying to kind of publicize the
Speaker 1: film in some way as well. You have to sort
Speaker 1: of Did you find yourself having to fit in with
Speaker 1: a with a tone and a style that was sent
Speaker 1: to you by the studio?
Speaker 2: No, not really. I think they'd looked at my previous
Speaker 2: book and thought can you do something like that? And
Speaker 2: with previous films, if you take The wicker Man as
Speaker 2: a good example, there were lots of unanswered questions over
Speaker 2: fifty years that were conflicting about was it really cuts
Speaker 2: by Michael Deey and Barry Spiking's a British line or
Speaker 2: did Christopher Ee gets it wrongly got it wrong? You know,
Speaker 2: we were able to put to bed some of the myths.
Speaker 2: There are no myths around this film because it hadn't
Speaker 2: opened and it was a switch and studio. So Paramount
Speaker 2: Pictures have gladiated too, and Universal Pictures, who were entirely
Speaker 2: separate company, had the first film, Gladiator, back in two thousands.
Speaker 2: I think one of the first things I did was
Speaker 2: to start to take a look at something they never
Speaker 2: asked me to look at, but was a chapter called
Speaker 2: The Road to Rome, where I kind of walked through
Speaker 2: all of the other scenarios the film could have been.
Speaker 2: And there are some right interesting variations on sort of
Speaker 2: time travel, on having Russell Crowe return as a ghost
Speaker 2: walking through different time periods, so all of that was
Speaker 2: kind of covered but had to be verified and with
Speaker 2: the folks there at a Paramount, and of course Ridley
Speaker 2: Scott is a producer on this picture, so he wasn't
Speaker 2: a gun for hire, so everything had to be go
Speaker 2: through Abrams and Paramounts and to Sir Ridley Scott's production
Speaker 2: company Scott Free and sort of back again. And there
Speaker 2: are different producers and different writers involved, so I think
Speaker 2: it was very important to get the architecture of the
Speaker 2: history correct because it was going into a book, and
Speaker 2: I think there was a lot of scrutiny about that,
Speaker 2: and particularly because it's the official book of the film,
Speaker 2: so once it's in, it becomes law, as it were.
Speaker 2: So that was something that they didn't ask for. And
Speaker 2: I try to bring that to all these books, something extra,
Speaker 2: something that perhaps will surprise people when they look through it.
Speaker 2: But of course for me, it was new. It was
Speaker 2: a new area because it's although it's my eighth book,
Speaker 2: it was very new. People were around, they kind of
Speaker 2: could speak to me. I was given lots of interviews
Speaker 2: that were done on set. I had to track people
Speaker 2: down myself who they hadn't interviewed, and then I was
Speaker 2: able to enhance what they gave me with new questions.
Speaker 2: But as you'll find with something like this, there are
Speaker 2: areas that you can't really ask about. So if you
Speaker 2: imagine your perfect dinner party with maybe Stanley Kubrick at
Speaker 2: one end of the table, Alfred Hitchcock and so on,
Speaker 2: and Charlie Chaplin, the questions you ask these these wonderful people,
Speaker 2: you're not really in that position with all of these
Speaker 2: folks to ask them about other films and other projects.
Speaker 2: It's although it didn't stop me because I am rather
Speaker 2: cheeky like that. And in the case of Sir Ridley
Speaker 2: Scott's my next book, which is now nearly finished, he
Speaker 2: had a kind of a there was some connecting DNA
Speaker 2: as it were, so I couldn't let the opportunity go
Speaker 2: without confirming a story regarding that no very different from me.
Speaker 2: And I must say, Jamie, since we last spoke, you've
Speaker 2: you've done your Return of the Jedi arnofficial timeline as well,
Speaker 2: so you're in the book club, you're in the authors Club.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we got it out there. It's still
Speaker 1: selling a few copies every month, which is which is great.
Speaker 1: You know, a couple of years on, I think now
Speaker 1: nearly but yeah, no, I I'm always amazed when I
Speaker 1: see that you've got another book coming out. You seem
Speaker 1: to be able to do these at such a pace.
Speaker 1: But given the scale of this production and being brought
Speaker 1: on kind of early, what were the first steps you
Speaker 1: took in kind of shaping the book. Because you've got
Speaker 1: to think logistically, you've got to think editorially, you've got
Speaker 1: to think in terms of design, Where did you begin?
Speaker 2: Well, I kind of thought about, why has it taken
Speaker 2: twenty five years? Is there a story there? Yes, when
Speaker 2: they did start shooting, they stopped because of the various
Speaker 2: Hollywood strikes that there had been. How did that affect things?
Speaker 2: Can I talk about that?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: The financial impact of that. I'm always a kind of
Speaker 2: a stats person, you know, how much does something cost,
Speaker 2: how much did something make? So I was able to
Speaker 2: have access to that information as well, So rather than
Speaker 2: it just being people talking in an what's called an
Speaker 2: ePK on electronic press kit and for people listening who
Speaker 2: don't know what that is, and I know you know, Jamie,
Speaker 2: it's where interviews are done on set where everyone says
Speaker 2: had a great time and had distributed amongst daytime television
Speaker 2: where they can cut them up into their various programs,
Speaker 2: have interviews with the grace and the good, but very
Speaker 2: much saying a similar sort of thing. I was quite
Speaker 2: keen myself that the book was more than that, and
Speaker 2: I certainly think it is. And I know Abrams wanted
Speaker 2: to do something that was quite sort of landmark and
Speaker 2: special as well, and that certainly came through in the design.
Speaker 2: It's massive it's a weapon. I've got this thing behind
Speaker 2: me on an easel, but I've got a massive fat
Speaker 2: head and it's even bigger than that, and it's like wow,
Speaker 2: and it's really it's thicker than an Argos catalog from
Speaker 2: the eighties, and that's pretty good measure. So there was
Speaker 2: a lot of investments in terms of the book and
Speaker 2: in terms of the production of the book. So I
Speaker 2: think for me, they wanted something which was deliverable, and
Speaker 2: with previous books, I've always made sure I'd delivered on
Speaker 2: time and on budget. We've never missed either of those
Speaker 2: two things. And this had to hit beats, you know,
Speaker 2: the film was coming out. We wanted to be in
Speaker 2: a position where we could talk about everything in the
Speaker 2: book because other recent making of books, I think on
Speaker 2: one of the Star Wars films didn't reveal that was it,
Speaker 2: Palpa time was back on the third Star Wars movie,
Speaker 2: the JJ Brams one, what was that the Rise of
Speaker 2: Skywalker the third one. Yeah, So I think in some
Speaker 2: of the making of books there they didn't mention the
Speaker 2: Emperor was back. And we kind of thought, well, we
Speaker 2: want to make sure we can mention everything please, and
Speaker 2: so we did. But it was interesting. I wasn't sort
Speaker 2: of sent the script in the traditional way or the
Speaker 2: photos in the traditional way. I had to watch them
Speaker 2: on a on a secure server and read things over
Speaker 2: and over. So I wanted pull quotes from the actors again,
Speaker 2: something I suggested. I had to read the script many
Speaker 2: many times over. But the script itself was on the
Speaker 2: time limits, so I had to get the reading of
Speaker 2: it done. I think by the was it first of
Speaker 2: June last year, So I had to make sure I
Speaker 2: memorize and copy it out what I needed. So it
Speaker 2: was a very different way of working. And of course,
Speaker 2: like all these projects, people have a point of view,
Speaker 2: so the truth is kind of subjective to some extent.
Speaker 2: I mean, facts never are, but people's experiences. I had
Speaker 2: a great time and someone else was I had a
Speaker 2: terrible time, and they're on the They're on the same boat,
Speaker 2: So how do you differentiate those stories? But of course,
Speaker 2: I suppose the biggest change for me was it's a major,
Speaker 2: major studio picture, possibly the biggest film of last year.
Speaker 2: So if there were controversies, how do you get into them?
Speaker 2: How do you document them? Are you burning your own
Speaker 2: bridge by doing that? So it's it's it's kind of
Speaker 2: it was. It was a tricky balancing act. And of
Speaker 2: course the book would go back to Abrams, who I
Speaker 2: was very pleased enjoyed what they read, then back to Paramount,
Speaker 2: back to sir really Scott's people, and so it would
Speaker 2: come back with, you know, with notes as you'd expect,
Speaker 2: but all of them were terribly constructive and everyone liked
Speaker 2: what was happening, and it all moved at quite a pace.
Speaker 2: And I was enormously flattered to be asked because they
Speaker 2: could have asked anyone and they chose me, which was,
Speaker 2: you know, rather special. I was very pleased.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was pleased to see your name on it,
Speaker 1: because you kindly sent me a copy of the book
Speaker 1: and I thought I didn't order this and opened it
Speaker 1: up and I was like, oh, it's John brilliant, amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's yeah, it is a big leap for you,
Speaker 1: and one one that you've worked hard to read, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad you have. You know, but in a book
Speaker 1: like this, you know you want to, as you say,
Speaker 1: you want to document what went on at the time
Speaker 1: in the making of this movie whilst it's being made.
Speaker 1: So how do you go about kind of making sure
Speaker 1: that it isn't just a surface level art book with
Speaker 1: just pictures in it that you've got, you know, the
Speaker 1: stories and the descriptions of what went on to back
Speaker 1: up that kind of process and intention for the movie.
Speaker 2: Well, you've got the if you like, the witness statements,
Speaker 2: so the people who were present in what they saw,
Speaker 2: which was what you can imagine. But then you have
Speaker 2: the background stories. So Denzel Washington, for example, the director
Speaker 2: he's most worked with in his career is Tony Scott,
Speaker 2: Sir Ridley Scott's brother. He's worked on him. I think
Speaker 2: it was on thirteen or fourteen films, it says in
Speaker 2: the book. And so there's a whole section on Tony
Speaker 2: Scott and the films and the relationship between Tony and Ridley.
Speaker 2: And of course Tony made his directorial debut with The Hunger,
Speaker 2: which is a marvelous vampire film if people haven't seen that,
Speaker 2: it's Catherine Denerve and David Bowie as well, and it's
Speaker 2: really a wonderful film. Considers the sort of an art
Speaker 2: house film at the time, it's i think been reassessed
Speaker 2: in recent years. He went straight from that to do
Speaker 2: films like Top Gun and Beverly Hill's Cop two and
Speaker 2: so on, and had and Days of Thunder, and he
Speaker 2: had a marvelous, marvelous career and teamed with Denzel Washington.
Speaker 2: Of course, Ridley teamed with him on other films as well,
Speaker 2: like American Gangster, and so getting some of the background
Speaker 2: there and the sort of connective DNA between Tony and
Speaker 2: Ridley and Tony Ridley and Denzel is kind of fascinating.
Speaker 2: So I did that in all the departments. When you're
Speaker 2: speaking to the production designer, when I was speaking to
Speaker 2: the art directors, the directors of photography, they all had
Speaker 2: history with with Ridley, and the visual effects as well,
Speaker 2: you know, with a whole section in the book separating
Speaker 2: visual from special effects. I'm a bit of a geek
Speaker 2: when it comes to all that stuff. While we're awsk
Speaker 2: you down industrial licen magic asking him about that. But
Speaker 2: always the shadow of the other film, you know, always
Speaker 2: the shadow of Gladiator, And so often my questions would
Speaker 2: refer back to, well, did you try and do that.
Speaker 2: I've heard you try to do that on the first film.
Speaker 2: Why not? What happened? Why have we got it now
Speaker 2: in this film? So there were quite a few technical
Speaker 2: aspects of Gladiator two that were achieved this time around
Speaker 2: that couldn't be achieved originally. And that sort of thing
Speaker 2: fascinates me. You know what could have been and what
Speaker 2: should have been. And there is already now talk of
Speaker 2: a Gladiator three, and as a there's a concept in
Speaker 2: mind for and I'm more than happy to go out
Speaker 2: to Morocco. I'll wear a massive hat, I'll have a
Speaker 2: tin foil umbrella and fac to fifty so I'm already
Speaker 2: prepping my emergency bag.
Speaker 1: I think what you always managed to do in your
Speaker 1: books is you know, you have that technical description, you
Speaker 1: know within certain departments, within certain interviews that you've you know,
Speaker 1: people that you've spoken to, but they're always very accessible
Speaker 1: your books. Did you find with this, given that you
Speaker 1: had such a plethora of information kind of thrown at you,
Speaker 1: with all these images and all these interviews, that that
Speaker 1: balance was difficult to find? Or is that something that
Speaker 1: comes easy to you now?
Speaker 2: I kind of knew going in it was going to
Speaker 2: be a different sort of creature, and that it was
Speaker 2: going to be so fresh in people's minds that people
Speaker 2: would for base them have very similar points of view.
Speaker 2: So I try to sort of pick and choose which
Speaker 2: ones I put in the final book, because you don't
Speaker 2: want everyone saying the same thing, all the witnesses saying
Speaker 2: giving the same testimony, So trying to find a voice
Speaker 2: for each aspect in each department was crucial. A lot
Speaker 2: of times that crossed over the way in which Arthur Max,
Speaker 2: the production designer, would create his sets. Knowing how John
Speaker 2: matheson paints with golden lights meant that there was lots
Speaker 2: of crossover there. So I was kind of interested in
Speaker 2: those areas where departments crossed over. I haven't been able
Speaker 2: to do that before and other books because there's been
Speaker 2: no one really around to ask, you know, I couldn't
Speaker 2: ask people on The wicker Man or The Third Man
Speaker 2: or Conan about camera loading and about who did you
Speaker 2: know were responsibilities shared in departments when people were sick
Speaker 2: and you know what happened on emergency days. So there
Speaker 2: was the advantage of that. Luckily, with the fosos, the
Speaker 2: thousands and thousands of photos, Abrams and their team got
Speaker 2: on board. The design team there kind of looked at
Speaker 2: things much more closely. But what not to include is
Speaker 2: so so difficult. How many pages of the book I
Speaker 2: have to have a cheeky look. I can't remember. It's
Speaker 2: it's my longest book so far. It's two forty pages,
Speaker 2: which were a big hardback kind of coffee table book.
Speaker 2: Is it's quite out there. But even then we could
Speaker 2: have done twice the size of a book. And there
Speaker 2: are aspects of the film that I didn't have access
Speaker 2: to at the time because the book had to go
Speaker 2: to print. So the kind of animated title sequence, all
Speaker 2: the poster variants, stuff with the music, the deleted scenes,
Speaker 2: what could have been a gladiator too that wasn't, who
Speaker 2: was nearly cast and who wasn't. We could do a
Speaker 2: special edition book. So I've said to Abrams, if they
Speaker 2: want to go back again and revise in updates and
Speaker 2: charge people rather chiefly for the book again with a
Speaker 2: little sash on the side saying new material added, then
Speaker 2: there are areas we could add to I mean that
Speaker 2: goes through all the books, I think, but I think
Speaker 2: here it was crucial to recognize what I did before,
Speaker 2: but take advantage of the fact that people are here
Speaker 2: now and we can ask them the details. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'd really like to ask people what they had for
Speaker 2: breakfast and what they had in the case rom There
Speaker 2: wasn't enough space in the book for all of that.
Speaker 2: But when you can ask that, why wouldn't you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely, And you know in this day and age
Speaker 1: where we've got you know, videos online almost immediately showing
Speaker 1: us behind the scenes stuff like the UPK stuff you're
Speaker 1: talking about, and potentially documentaries on Blu ray releases. Where
Speaker 1: do you see the role of a physical book like
Speaker 1: this in today's film culture.
Speaker 2: Well, I think a book like this has to sit alongside.
Speaker 2: So most of my books have had a release to
Speaker 2: some extent with Studio Canal, perhaps with The Third Man,
Speaker 2: The Wicker Man, Escape from New York, and Flash Gordon.
Speaker 2: They all had. In the case of some of those,
Speaker 2: they had mini versions of my books in their four
Speaker 2: K releases, which I was always a bit anxious about
Speaker 2: because I thought, well, if they've seen a little mini taster,
Speaker 2: they might not bother with the book. But it's very
Speaker 2: much a companion piece, so it's recognizing that there might
Speaker 2: be some overlap. But really, I think the trick for
Speaker 2: these books is to find images the studios don't have,
Speaker 2: and find things to say that are not in commentaries,
Speaker 2: that are not in DVD extras, Because I think if
Speaker 2: you just collated what already been talked about and have
Speaker 2: nothing new to say and have no new way of
Speaker 2: presenting it, then people would think, you know, I'll listen
Speaker 2: to the director's commentary and I'll have a flick through
Speaker 2: the gallery on the Blu ray set. That'll cover it.
Speaker 2: I don't need John Walsh's book, you know, Untidying my House,
Speaker 2: but we need to make sure that we have something
Speaker 2: new to say. So in the case of say the
Speaker 2: wicker Man, we were trying to debunk a myth that
Speaker 2: had been gone around for fifty years much I think
Speaker 2: to the horror as some of the fans who held
Speaker 2: on to that myth. But it was nice to kind
Speaker 2: of straighten out the truth there. So I think with
Speaker 2: all these books it's crucial to offer up good value
Speaker 2: and good penmanship and good photography, of course, but also
Speaker 2: if you have something new to say, and it doesn't
Speaker 2: have to be new for the sake of it or
Speaker 2: controversial for the sake of it. But I think finding
Speaker 2: new information out we did it on all of the
Speaker 2: books so far, and certainly on Gladiator too. The images
Speaker 2: that were released to the press were not the ones
Speaker 2: that were in the book. A lot of that was
Speaker 2: held back for Abram's, bip Parra Amount and Scott Free
Speaker 2: because they wanted the book to have its own, as
Speaker 2: it were, presentation, own marquee potential. So people have said
Speaker 2: to me, saw the film, I've read your book. I
Speaker 2: went back and watched the film again because actually it
Speaker 2: gave me a greater appreciation because the film goes by
Speaker 2: in quite a kind of a hectic hour two and
Speaker 2: a half hours. I saw it in Imax when it
Speaker 2: was finally finished, finished, and I was like, wow, that
Speaker 2: was incredible. But my book took me ages. Why did
Speaker 2: the film go so quickly? So you kind of need
Speaker 2: to slow down. The book, I think slows you down
Speaker 2: into looking and examining more closely what happened. And you know,
Speaker 2: there are people who are bigger fans of maybe the
Speaker 2: first film than they are of the second, and actually
Speaker 2: some of the other way around. You know, if you've
Speaker 2: only seen Gladiator two, remembering there's a twenty five year
Speaker 2: gap between the two films, so people who were fans
Speaker 2: of maybe the Marvel universe, they might see this film,
Speaker 2: see young Paun Moscow who was brilliant and say, ah,
Speaker 2: this is Gladiator for me. They seen the original film
Speaker 2: and go, oh, okay, that's okay. The fer Gladiator too.
Speaker 2: So it has been interesting how it's divided amongst age
Speaker 2: lines to some extent, and the same with you know,
Speaker 2: most films where there's a I mean, there are people
Speaker 2: who prefer The Phantom Menace. Yeah, so the original stars
Speaker 2: and you know, I mean, there's nothing to take away
Speaker 2: from the Phantom Menace, but you know, lots of people
Speaker 2: in their top tens wouldn't put it in necessarily the
Speaker 2: first or second place.
Speaker 1: But who knows, very much a generational thing, as you say, yes,
Speaker 1: I guess with you know, having all those thirty thousand
Speaker 1: images or whatever it was, there was a temptation sometimes
Speaker 1: to show the sort of iterative nature of the framing
Speaker 1: and you know, the effects layered on top, and the
Speaker 1: production design and the sextension and all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: which to some aspect is in the book. But it
Speaker 1: must have been very difficult to kind of rain yourself
Speaker 1: in and not go to a thousand pages. Because a
Speaker 1: film like this is so visually low you kind of
Speaker 1: want to, you know, give it as much credit as
Speaker 1: you possibly can in a book like this, and I
Speaker 1: think you have done that but again difficult to find
Speaker 1: that balance, I'm sure. And was there ever a version
Speaker 1: of this book where you where it was three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty pages and you had to kind of rein
Speaker 1: it in or did you kind of always were you
Speaker 1: always aware of that ceiling and once you hit it,
Speaker 1: you were then adding and deleting. From that stage, I think.
Speaker 2: We realized going in what the limitations would be on
Speaker 2: my first standalone film book, Flash Gordon. I ended up
Speaker 2: writing nearly twice the size of the book that was
Speaker 2: asked for, and so it made a lot more work
Speaker 2: for everyone later down the line. So I was kind
Speaker 2: of fairly I was wide eyed but realistic about what
Speaker 2: was going to be achieved. But I did know that
Speaker 2: the brief that was coming back there was never a
Speaker 2: specific brief, but the intentions that we got back from
Speaker 2: Sir Ridley Scott's was that it needed to be a
Speaker 2: coffee table art book. So if we think of coffee
Speaker 2: table art books, you know, if you're picking up a
Speaker 2: David Hockney book, for example, you know a selection of
Speaker 2: images would be chosen in their very best quality, as
Speaker 2: large as possible to illustrate a certain period of his art.
Speaker 2: And so that's perhaps the way we took this. You know,
Speaker 2: what were the very best images that most represent the
Speaker 2: construction of the coliseum or the production arts for the
Speaker 2: flooding with the shark sequence. But yeah, I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: like a kid in the toy shop. We could have
Speaker 2: done two books. We could have done a double the
Speaker 2: size book. I'm even talking to you now about revisiting
Speaker 2: the book, opening it up and putting more things in.
Speaker 2: So it's recognizing from the brief what they need from me,
Speaker 2: and also the experience from the other books, making sure
Speaker 2: that you know what I've learned I'm bringing with me
Speaker 2: because they want that guy who did all those books
Speaker 2: to do something for them which is contemporary, but also
Speaker 2: with an eye to those books which have all sold
Speaker 2: sort of magnificently.
Speaker 1: Well, I do like that you've given space for those images.
Speaker 1: There's nothing that winds me up more in this type
Speaker 1: of book where there's an image you really want to
Speaker 1: see up close and it's like a postage stamp, you know. Luckily,
Speaker 1: of course, you had the benefit of this very recent
Speaker 1: archive that have been created, as opposed to digging into
Speaker 1: a historical archive where maybe image quality isn't so good.
Speaker 1: But I think, you know, there are sections in the
Speaker 1: book where you just linger for so long because there's
Speaker 1: just so much imagery kind of being thrown at you,
Speaker 1: but always backed up you with your writing, which I enjoy.
Speaker 1: And it feels like in some ways it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's part oral history, even though it's a recent oral history,
Speaker 1: it's part design book. It's filling these two kind of
Speaker 1: different categories of book. But I think it does it,
Speaker 1: does it really well. There's not a question there. That's
Speaker 1: just purely a statement.
Speaker 2: No, thank you. I appreciate that, Jamie, thank you.
Speaker 1: Are you beginning to see yourself as a bit more
Speaker 1: of a visual historian now? Then, now that you know
Speaker 1: you've got an act that you've had access to an
Speaker 1: archive of this size, and you've been working with the
Speaker 1: publisher to kind of whittle it down to the to
Speaker 1: the images that are the best choice for the book
Speaker 1: and the brief that you had. I mean, is this
Speaker 1: something you'd love to go on to do further be
Speaker 1: more of a visual historian?
Speaker 2: I guess. I mean it's much like the documentary work
Speaker 2: I used to do for TV. You'd find the best
Speaker 2: clips that most illustrates something, or you'd recreate something to
Speaker 2: show the point in a way that's most effective, or animation.
Speaker 2: You know, I did animation on a homeless series which
Speaker 2: was thought to be controversial at the time. It was rotoscoping,
Speaker 2: and it was a homeless series about children for the BBC,
Speaker 2: and I remember the BBC being very anxious about using
Speaker 2: animation with children in a series about children living in
Speaker 2: shelter accommodation, because it might have seemed to be flippant
Speaker 2: and so on, but it was the best way to
Speaker 2: illustrate that in that series. And so film is a
Speaker 2: visual medium. When we think about how we doom scroll
Speaker 2: as people call this on our phones, were kind of
Speaker 2: we're looking instantly at images and it's the image that
Speaker 2: will draw us to the post and we might read
Speaker 2: them beneath it. So it is taking that on board.
Speaker 2: And I'm very aware that the image sells the page
Speaker 2: and therefore sells the book. So if it's unseen and
Speaker 2: it's your favorite film, never seen those shots before, that's
Speaker 2: going to do it for you. So a brief description,
Speaker 2: a respectful caption without saying the obvious, and learning to
Speaker 2: pair the text back so that it does say what
Speaker 2: it needs to, but without too much of my voice,
Speaker 2: and I learned on the early books that if I
Speaker 2: get that out of the way in the introduction, I
Speaker 2: can say what I think that's done, so we don't
Speaker 2: need to hear from me again. Right, Let's get on
Speaker 2: with the people who made this film and what went
Speaker 2: wrong or what went right and so on, so you
Speaker 2: can get your little confession out of the way in
Speaker 2: the intro and do your fanboy thing that you need
Speaker 2: to do if you're a fan of that film and
Speaker 2: so on. But I think the visuals here are key
Speaker 2: because when these pages are put on Amazon, publishers will
Speaker 2: choose those pages which best sell the book. So it
Speaker 2: is definitely a visual medium in terms of these books
Speaker 2: and selling them. I'm looking at doing other things as well.
Speaker 2: There's a possibility of a novel on the horizon as well,
Speaker 2: which I'm kind of excited about. But really a lot
Speaker 2: of this writing I've been doing for years for TV
Speaker 2: without being properly paid for, because when you're pitching stuff
Speaker 2: and a commissioner needs to see sort of an outline
Speaker 2: for four or five pages or ten pages, you're busy
Speaker 2: typing it away sending it in for pitch, and either
Speaker 2: the pitch happens or doesn't because of what you've written.
Speaker 2: But you don't get retrospectively paid for that. If a
Speaker 2: Green Lights comes on, you get commissioned. So I've kind
Speaker 2: of been doing it for a long time for free.
Speaker 2: So it's nice to do it, be recognized, to be paid,
Speaker 2: and have it within hard back covers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like you've got your your feet in
Speaker 1: a lot of different camps here. You know, you're you're
Speaker 1: a documentary maker, like you said, you worked in animation
Speaker 1: and television, and we've got this visual feast of a book.
Speaker 1: Now we've got your other books that are more kind
Speaker 1: of historical leaning. You're talking about a novel as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, you just don't seem to stop, John, You're
Speaker 1: you're very shark like, just driving forward all times, thinking
Speaker 1: of the next step.
Speaker 2: Thanks. Yeah, I see it as that.
Speaker 1: Is there another project on the on the r for
Speaker 1: you that is in an area that you've not dipped
Speaker 1: your toe into.
Speaker 2: Yes. So my next book, which is now mostly finished,
Speaker 2: is on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So after doing a
Speaker 2: book on the biggest budget film ever in my series
Speaker 2: of books, to the smallest budget film of the series
Speaker 2: of books, that I've done so Toby Hooper is nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy four. Texas Chainsaw Massacre will be coming out next year.
Speaker 2: I think it's already available to pre order on Amazon
Speaker 2: and everywhere else, all the various bookshops. And that's been
Speaker 2: fascinating because Ridley showed a print of that film to
Speaker 2: the crew just before we started choosing Alien in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy nine to give them an idea of the claustrophobia,
Speaker 2: the person under attack and the handheld cameras and what
Speaker 2: was achievable. Of course, Texas Chainsaw was shot on sixteen
Speaker 2: millimeter and has a kind of absolutely hair curlingly crazy
Speaker 2: backstory that we which I was super pleased I was
Speaker 2: able to actually guess properly involved with and untangle because
Speaker 2: the fans, I think have been waiting for the story
Speaker 2: on that more than the wicker Man. So that's kind
Speaker 2: of done and dusted, the manuscript just waiting for final
Speaker 2: sign off. I'm going to be working with the art
Speaker 2: department that Tyson Books and the layout assist for that,
Speaker 2: and that's going to be going off to print at
Speaker 2: the end of this year out next So it's kind
Speaker 2: of a big slasher horror film, and one that the
Speaker 2: Variety is called the best horror film of all time controversially.
Speaker 1: And was that something you pitched or is that something
Speaker 1: that they came to you with the idea of?
Speaker 2: And they came to me Tyson said to me, do
Speaker 2: you fancy doing this? I said, yep, okay, we'll do that.
Speaker 2: So I think it's been a kind of an even
Speaker 2: split of what I've pitched and what's come to me.
Speaker 2: And sometimes you know you're doing a book and they'll
Speaker 2: come to you and say what about this, and you
Speaker 2: haven't had the headspace to think of a new book
Speaker 2: for yourself, and then this comes along and you think, oh, actually, yes,
Speaker 2: if we can, if it's no holes barred. And I
Speaker 2: did say this to the folk folks at the license
Speaker 2: or who owned Texas Chainsaw and to Titan Books, I said,
Speaker 2: dam can we go no holds barred? Because the real
Speaker 2: story of how this film was made is actually a
Speaker 2: real shocker And they said yeah. I was like you sure,
Speaker 2: They said yes, passed, Yeah, yeah, And I can briefly
Speaker 2: preview it with you and tell you what the shocking
Speaker 2: story is if you'd like to hear it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go on. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So when the film was finished, so shocking was the
Speaker 2: content and the material They didn't They didn't have a
Speaker 2: distributor in place, and normally when you're making a film,
Speaker 2: even in the independent film, you'll have a distributor ready
Speaker 2: to do something with it, to strike a few prints,
Speaker 2: to get it in a few theaters, and to get
Speaker 2: the ball rolling. So they took it round to all
Speaker 2: of the major studios, all of whom said no, most
Speaker 2: of whom wouldn't watch it because they knew what it
Speaker 2: was about. And so they did find one distributor called Brianston,
Speaker 2: which sounds fairly innocuous, but Brianston mostly distributed films in
Speaker 2: adult theaters, which meant pornography cinemas. And that's if you
Speaker 2: like the good news compared to what the bad news is.
Speaker 2: Brianston was run by the proper, real life solid gold mafia, right,
Speaker 2: so it became a real problem moving forward for people
Speaker 2: to get a share of the film. And in the book,
Speaker 2: we've tracked down the son of the owner of Brianston,
Speaker 2: Chris Cephro who runs Trickle Treat Studios now does fabulous
Speaker 2: masks and toys and games based on classic horror franchises,
Speaker 2: and we've really unraveled that whole story of what happened,
Speaker 2: how it happened, and what the ramifications are today of
Speaker 2: a film that was owned and run by the mafia
Speaker 2: who went to prison. All of that's in the book
Speaker 2: The British Border Film Census. Here we spoke to them
Speaker 2: about what happened, and everyone who survived spoke to me
Speaker 2: for it. So Kim Henkle, who co wrote it with
Speaker 2: Toby Hooper and produced it, Terry McMinn, who's the girl
Speaker 2: who's hung up on the meats hook and spoke to her,
Speaker 2: and of course the guys who still are alive from
Speaker 2: the minibus. So that was that was quite something. To
Speaker 2: find enough images for that book in high resolution was
Speaker 2: kind of tricky, and luckily we came across a stash
Speaker 2: of amazing images that have never been published before. Surrie
Speaker 2: Surprise of my Little Mantra. So that's that's going to
Speaker 2: be one I think that will excite people. It's going
Speaker 2: to be launched at Comic On next year, so there's
Speaker 2: going to be a bit of an announcement to go
Speaker 2: with the book at Comic co On. So that's going
Speaker 2: to be in July and in the books available at
Speaker 2: Comic Con, but mostly in the shops from the first
Speaker 2: of September. But yes, it's going to be a busy
Speaker 2: sort of twenty twenty six and I'm speaking to a
Speaker 2: third publisher now about another book, so I'm spreading my favors.
Speaker 1: That sounds amazing. It sounds that it's like ripe for
Speaker 1: a documentary as well, that you just put on these
Speaker 1: threads and get deeper and deeper into the mysteries of
Speaker 1: that movie. That's fantastic. Well, listen, John, I always liked
Speaker 1: talking to you. I was appreciate your time and come
Speaker 1: on come back on the podcast any time you like.
Speaker 2: I'd love to come back for Texas Chainsaw and shock
Speaker 2: you all with what we found.
Speaker 1: That was John Walsh talking about his latest book, The
Speaker 1: Art and Making a Gladiator Too, which is available now
Speaker 1: from Abram's Books. I'll leave a link in the show notes.
Speaker 1: You can also hear my previous conversations with John about
Speaker 1: Escape from New York and The Wickerman in earlier episodes
Speaker 1: of this podcast. As always, if you enjoy these chats,
Speaker 1: please share the podcast and leave a rating or review
Speaker 1: either on YouTube, leave a comment, maybe subscribe to the
Speaker 1: YouTube channel, or go on Apple Podcasts and leave a review.
Speaker 1: It really helps others find the show. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: and I'll be back soon with another full episode of
Speaker 1: the film. You mentor this podcast