All language subtitles for Zathura. A Space Adventure (2005)_track6_eng

We should introduce ourselves.

There it is. l'm Jon Favreau,
the director of the movie.

I'm Peter Billingsley,
one of the producers on the movie.

And Peter and l have worked together
on the show Dinner for Five.

Peter was a co-producer on Made.
He did a cameo for me in Elf.

That's right. And Jon just worked
with us on The Break-Up, in Chicago.

-As an actor. Which Peter produced.
-As an actor.

There it is. So these credits, let me
not take credit for these great credits.

These were done
by a fellow named Kyle Cooper.

We had storyboarded
these things...

...but essentially,
he cut the film together...

...and he did his own little shoot.

And a lot of this stuff he did in-house,
in his title company, on computers.

There was a lot of back-and-forth,
so there was a lot of input.

But l have to say that,
you know, this is really a--

Kyle's got a cool history.
He did the credits for Se7en.

-That whole opening title sequence.
-Like, Spider-Man.

The Marvel Spider-Man stuff.

The Marvel logo, which was
really impressive to me as well.

Which had a real cool comic-book,
nostalgic feel.

What's the camera that we shot--?
Or that he shot this with? lt's the--

It's a tiny, tiny camera
that goes around the--

-Those macro lenses.
-Yeah.

It's a bunch of macrophotography
here on this stuff.

And he also shot
the cover of the game board.

Now, what's cool, look at the little
illustrations that Phil Saunders did.

He's one of the artists that worked
with us, who designed this.

If you look at these illustrations,
these drawings all....

If you've seen the movie
and then you see the opening...

...all those illustrations are events that
actually take place during the movie.

So it's sort of like a visual overture.

Then we go inside
and there are the gears.

And he built this out of
some gears and stuff he had.

This wasn't actually in it.

-This was never in the movie.
-Joe Bauer, I worked with him before.

John Debney. l worked with
both of them before on Elf.

Dan Lebental
I worked with on Elfas well.

And Mike Riva did a great job.
First time l worked with him.

Guillermo Navarro did a great job.
First time l worked with him.

One of the reasons we hired him was
we kept watching Devil's Backbone...

...which he did
with Guillermo del Toro.

And we thought, "What a great movie
that centers around kids...

...and has a nice spooky, dark feel...

...but doesn't feel
like a kids' movie at all."

And so we decided to use him.

He did a fine job.

Chris Van Allsburg wrote this book,
as well as Jumanji and Polar Express.

And David Koepp and John Kamps.

It was their script that I read
that drew me to the project.

And l just found out
that David came onboard...

...and this was meant to be
one of his--

One of the things was that
this was not gonna be marketed...

...as a sequel to Jumanji. This was
going to be a stand-alone project.

That slowly evolved
away from that...

...as the date drew closer
to release the film.

When I was originally
sent the script...

...l was told it had nothing to do
with Jumanji.

Obviously, there are
a lot of similarities...

...because of the board game
and everything like that.

But as we got closer
and closer to release date...

...it was
a very competitive marketplace.

The studio decided to begin to
incorporate the title of the other film.

-As "the world of Jumanji"?
-Yeah, something.

At first it was gonna be
"a Jumanji adventure"...

...which I felt sounded like a sequel,
which sort of bummed me out.

If you have a sequel and don't have
any of the people in the original...

...none of the same characters are
cast, it tends to be a little misleading.

So "from the world of Jumanji,"
at least it made it seem related to it...

...but we weren't ripping off Jumanji.
So it was a sort of a fine line to walk.

That car right there is a Comet,
'64 Comet.

Same year as the car
from Swingers.

-The first movie l wrote.
-We are in Pasadena, California here.

That's Pasadena. You'll see later,
at the end of the movie, we faked this.

Because we reshot the ending
based on what we'd shot.

We shot in order, but one thing
we did shoot out of order...

...was the very ending of the movie
because we were at this location.

So we shot the kids
at the beginning and the end.

But we changed it,
what the ending was...

...because of what we had shot.

It didn't make sense,
what we had originally shot.

And so we came back. You'll see there
are some shots later where we fake it.

Now we're on a stage.

That line, "You're such a dick," was
a pretty big line for us in the movie.

Trying to set the tone
of what was to come, so to speak.

Just trying to, I think, send a message
that it wasn't a pandering movie.

Just a kiddie movie.
And we wanted it to seem like--

So the compromise
was this line here.

Yeah. He says,
"You shouldn't use that language."

-Kind ofjustifies using it.
-We got the PG. lt wasn't a problem.

I was like-- I would always say:

"Hey, in E. T. he called
his brother 'penis breath."'

To which Amy Pascal said,
"Times have changed."

But it would get a big laugh
in the theaters...

...and it would really perk up
the adults in the crowd.

But it's amazing
how sensitive people are...

...to even that much language
in a PG movie.

It was a flashpoint line.
But it's good, I'm glad it's in the movie.

-lt was good.
-We did it in one take.

And Jonah's mom was like,
"When did he say that?"...

...when she saw the cut of the movie.
I was like--

It was very clearly-- It sort of set up
the whole dynamic here.

These are great sets that were built.

I'm very proud, as well, of what
it looks like outside the windows.

I have a real pet peeve
about how fake translights look...

...and fake backings on stages.

I came up through independent film,
which is usually shot on location...

...and l hate when it looks like
you're shooting on a set.

And l'm very proud of what Mike Riva
and Guillermo were able to do...

...in making this look real
and feel real.

Plus, the building of the house,
the construction.

It's an old Greene & Greene
in Pasadena...

...and they literally built it with lathe
and plaster, as opposed to drywall.

They took the detail--

You'll see as we go around the house
in these next shots.

It was really a gorgeous house
that was built.

And this was not what the house
looked like in Pasadena, by the way.

The front matched,
everything else was invented...

...based on tear sheets
and books of architecture and stuff.

We really wanted the house
to feel like something.

And feel old and feel like
it had some character.

Look at that great stained glass.

And all these details were picked out
of different famous houses...

...even the fireplace
and the fixtures there.

But it's not furnished very well...

...because we wanted it to look
like Dad just moved in.

So part of the fun was making a house
that, as it came apart, would be really--

-Somewhat tragic...
-lt would be really tragic.

-...to watch.
-lt would really break your heart.

There's Tim Robbins,
who did a great job.

-He worked two weeks on the movie?
-Yep.

Two weeks. He was our first choice.
We chased him down.

-And we had--
-We almost closed the deal with him...

...and then he switched agencies
right in the middle, which was tough.

Look how good the translights look
back there. See, we blew it out.

That's a trick,
all you future directors:

Pump a lot of light and put some--

There are some real plants out there,
and we had fans blowing them around.

I think it does a good job.

We had to shoot
the ending of the movie...

...all of it, early with Tim because,
obviously, after destroying the house...

...you can't go back
and rebuild it for the end.

So we had Tim for the beginning
and the end to bookend the movie.

Yeah, when he comes back in.

And that's a luxury.
Look at Jonah's hair.

-This is a fun game to play.
-Yeah.

It's supposed to be the same day...

...but his hair looks like
a greased-down rocker...

...who was on an all-night bender
in this scene.

Then it's all fluffy later in the movie.
His hair gets all fluffy.

The next scene, he looks like he's up
for a parole hearing and he's....

He just took some spit to a comb.

This is the first thing we shot,
the first scene we shot on-stage.

I think it's the first thing
we shot at all.

Because then we went out after
a few days and shot the outside stuff.

Only two days outside, then we wound
up being 94 days interior on the stage.

But this was our first day of shooting,
right here.

Well, Josh was a--
Josh is the bigger one.

Josh Hutcherson, he plays Walter.

He was a real, real pro. He had....

I mean, it was just like....

You'd think he was working
for 30 years.

Knew his lines.

His parents were astute about the way
the set works and all that stuff.

And he brought a tremendous
professionalism to the set.

And Jonah,
this was only his second movie...

...but he had just a wonderful--
I thought, a wonderful quality.

And he was a real discovery.
And he really carried the film.

Both these kids, together,
complemented each other well.

It was very helpful to Jonah, I think,
too, just as a good role model...

...for someone who's done a lot.

Yeah. See, he sort of--
He learned a lot from Josh.

And it was fun too, we had
Peter Billingsley, who, of course...

...was a child star
when he was a kid, with...

...Christmas Story and Dirt Bike Kid
and Messy Marvin and all that stuff.

So it was kind of cool to have
that resource for the parents to go to.

Because Peter was like this....
He's like, "I turned out all right."

"If l can do it, your kids will be fine.
Don't worry."

"I didn't end up an addict."

"If you have any concerns,
you can come to me."

Because you had good parents, and,
unfortunately, a lot of child stars--

-l shot that little thing right here.
-Oh, did you?

-Shot the inserts?
-l did.

We had, by the end of it--
I have a big thing for--

After coming from independent films,
where you don't have money...

...when it gets close to the end,
instead of asking for more days...

...we start pulling splinter units
together and ask for more cameras...

...and l'll send off the people
who we're working with...

...to shoot little splinter units to get
either coverage or inserts...

...or shots that we haven't gotten
so that we don't go over budget.

And it seems like a big thing.
It actually saves you a lot of money.

But when you come to the set
and there's three or four units going--

-At one point, we had five units going.
-Did we?

Then you hook up a monitor bank
for Jon so he can see them...

...and radio back,
"Approve this. Look at this."

And then sometimes he can't.

-You just shoot and you go.
-You just do it.

If it's wrong, you do it again.
You're still on the stage.

But it's very hard to crank up again.
I hate reshooting.

I like to always do everything
in the midst of a--

In the midst of production.
That was a good line.

-Gets a big laugh in Hollywood.
-lt gets a big laugh always, yeah.

That was my favorite there.
"I liked the house." "So did Mom."

--and I know it's a little creaky....

It tells a lot about the audience.

Here comes Lisa.

Now, this bit, originally,
wasn't in the movie.

I think in the book,
there was just the two kids.

There was a concern that it seemed
irresponsible to leave kids alone.

And so they put a sister upstairs
who was sleeping.

-And then we froze her.
-You had to rationally justify...

...how she wouldn't
wake up during this.

You didn't wanna be, "She's sleeping
through her music," which is--

That's what it was. She was
sleeping with the headphones on.

I was like, "With the gravity
and all that? Doesn't make--"

And so when we were still working
with Kamps and Koepp...

...before Koepp went off to do...

...what was it, War of the Worlds?

Decided to freeze her.

This gets a big laugh.
This is even quoted in--

This is quoted. Yeah.

We did-- This came out of rehearsals.
This was after everybody moved on.

A lot of the dialogue stuff,
I like to work with the actors...

...and find what's working
in rehearsals.

I'm pretty comfortable with dialogue
stuff, and I always like to make it fit.

-Okay?
-l'm not deaf.

I always like to make it fit their....

The chemistry of the actors,
and so we have a rehearsal period...

...where we sit around a table...

...and just read through the script
a number of times...

...and l adjust the dialogue to fit
the voices of the actors that we hired...

...instead of making the actors
sound like the script.

And, in particular, Kristen,
who's such a great actress herself.

She's not, like, a TV actress.
She was in Panic Room.

-And she's so good...
-Yeah.

...and has so much guts
to what she does.

-So you really wanna tailor it for her.
-And they had originally really--

She was the last person hired.

Really pressured me
not to hire her...

...because she didn't have a
quote-unquote "comedy background."

But, to me, the hard thing is to get
the emotional reality out of a moment.

You really want somebody
who you enjoy watching...

...and somebody who keeps
everything believable and real.

If you're more emotionally invested,
you get more laughs.

I've always found that
to be the case.

There's my SpongeBob moment.
My son, Max, loves it.

He loved it and we put it in.

He was very proud of that moment
being in there. He's 4.

I was watching that.

And there's our SportsCenter. That
was a tricky thing to get too, wasn't it?

Yeah. There's a lot
of separate licensing for that.

-Yeah.
-Music, MLB....

It was something David Koepp
and John Kamps had in there.

It really....

But it shows the juxtaposition
of the two guys pretty effectively.

I don't know how.

I'm hungry.
What do you know how to make?

Water.

So we ended up hiring Kristen,
remember? We had a table read.

The first time we had the cast together
before-- And she wasn't hired yet.

And everybody was, like--

They were sending me tapes of sitcom
actresses from Nickelodeon shows.

I was like, "Guys, we don't want...."

You don't want somebody who could
ham up a joke and roll their eyes.

You want somebody
who's gonna be real.

A lot of what we developed
out of the script dialogue-wise...

...you remember, Pete,
was, you know, the jokey stuff.

I like laughs, but l don't like laughs at
the expense of the reality of a moment.

And it's so easy to have
the kids commenting on things...

...in an action-hero kind of way,
you know.

But it blows the reality and the wonder
and the magic of the movie.

If they don't believe they're in peril,
the audience won't believe it.

Yeah, if they're commenting,
"Man, Dad just sanded the floors."

That was after the meteor shower.
That was a big line.

There were a lot ofjokes like that,
where they comment on it...

...in a way that you know isn't real,
that sort of takes you out of it a bit.

And there is a certain safety net
that you have from it being a game...

...but l don't think the kids
should be aware of that safety net.

As an audience, you know they're
not gonna get killed in this movie.

But you wanna make them feel like
they're in peril, draw the audience in.

You wanna have them believe
like they might die.

And if they don't, then l don't think
you have an effective drama.

I'm becoming a visual filmmaker.
See that shot, Pete?

That was lovely, that really told it.

Nice cut,
with a little light in the eyes.

Remember how hard
we worked to get the eyes?

That's right.

-The thing opens up.
-And surprise.

-There you are.
-l said l was sorry.

This dumbwaiter was--
This was a laundry chute, originally...

...and we developed it
into a dumbwaiter.

-We built--
-They were gonna hang ropes...

...down the laundry chute.

It was more of a suburban
Northeastern house...

...when it was written originally.
It was set, originally, in a more...

...suburban setting.
This, we made it--

But this one's operable, and went--
Then we built a big long one...

...for the end, for when
he sails down for a stunt one.

Look at that cool--
It looks pretty cool.

-Looks very real.
-Navarro's really good at this kind of....

This kind of stuff.
And, look, we built this little thing.

How do you communicate
all this stuff visually?

This was a very big step for me,
this movie, to tell a story visually.

And l was very lucky to have
Guillermo Navarro and Mike Riva...

...who, in partnership, helped me tell
the story, visually, that I wanted to tell.

Here's the basement we built.

Very rare to have a basement
in California...

...but it was a big plot point
in the script, so we--

That's one of the reasons
we arrived at a Pasadena home...

...because many of them
do have basements.

And l gave guidance
to Mike Riva, notes.

What happens is they present you
with some plans...

...and then
they start dressing the set...

...and you start calling out materials
and things you wanna see...

...like those asbestos...

...you know, plenums up there,
and duct work.

Just to have it feel a certain age.
And the spiderwebs and the cobwebs.

As l went back and forth
with Riva, talking about...

...exactly what l wanted in here,
and as it came together...

...my Dad came to the set.

And he was like,
"My God, this is my old basement."

It was the house-- lt was very similar
to the basement that I moved to...

...after my mother passed away.
My folks were split up...

...and l moved in
to my Dad's house.

He had an old house
in College Point, Queens.

And this basement looks a lot like
a bigger version of that basement.

-With a big furnace.
-So much so that he recognized it.

And when you subconsciously
make choices as a filmmaker...

...you don't realize that you're
drawing from your old experiences.

You feel like you're
just being creative...

...but really it's coming out of--
Usually from old memories.

There's the lighting cue that Peter
didn't like, but l like so much.

The light comes up as we push in.

This was a script difference too,
in how the game was found.

Right, it started off with the astronaut
sticking it in a game closet.

A game closet. That was
the opening tease of the movie.

The astronaut was shoving it in.

We had discussed
that it should come...

...as the result
of their strife, basically...

...as that it was sort of
a symbol to try to repair...

...what needed to be fixed
between them.

So coming on the heels of him
putting him down the dumbwaiter...

...he finds this game,
which presents itself...

...which has either been there or not,
or he hasn't noticed it.

But it's at a time
when they obviously need it.

We felt it worked better for the story.

To be discovered
out of their conflict.

Right. As opposed to the motivation
being the astronaut trying...

...to fix what he had undone,
it was more about--

-Which we imply later anyway.
-Right.

We had more--
I'm a student of the whole...

...Joseph Campbell, mythic-journey
way of looking at things...

...and there's definitely
something primal...

...about discovering this device...

...in sort of the darkest depths
of that place of conflict...

...in the cave under the house.

And what that basement
will represent later...

...and being sort of the flame in the
basement and the whole....

What's Zathura?

That whole evil setting that he's--

What's really powerful about it
is that it's where he's scared of...

...even before anything bad happens.
There's that cool little--

So he has to walk through that
to conquer his ultimate fears.

Right. Right.

Not that anybody gets it.
I mean, it is a kiddie movie, but....

-But it is good to lay the--
-Are you saying it's a kiddie movie?

It's a kiddie movie,
but it is good to sort of--

-lt's a family adventure.
-Family action-adventure, excuse me.

-There you go.
-But it is good to-- You gotta....

The more you pay attention
to that stuff...

...the less you have to pay attention to
details. lt lets people get caught up.

I mean, look at Wizard of Oz.
It makes no sense.

But there's something that
mythically makes sense about it...

...and you accept all of these leaps
you have to make.

And because we paid so much attention
to the characters' emotional journey...

...people didn't really dwell
on the inconsistencies...

...that came up over things like the--

-That's Pete's knuckles.
-l was cracking my knuckles. Sorry.

The inconsistencies with
the couch flying through space.

-Or burning.
-l mean, burning in space.

-Or air. Or hearing sound in space.
-Gravity.

Geeks on the chat boards
love to pick me apart for....

Read this for me.

"Meteor shower."

-Here it is.
-Here we go.

-Start the effects.
-We went back and forth on this.

-Sony lmageworks...
-What noise it would make.

-...in three, two, one.
-There it is.

Remember the sound?
How much discussion there was...

...about how much sound
it would make?

-Just a little:
-And trying to get the sound...

-...of hitting a piece of paper correct.
-Like a popping.

Here it is. Now, this is our first use
of the shaker set, coming up.

This whole house shook. See? Look at
the books going in the background.

Normally you would just shake it in
post or just shake the camera, but....

Yeah. "Grandma." Like that one.

Nice offensive humor.

-This is all practical. Stuff blowing up.
-The kids are there, flinching.

-And we were exploding things.
-Jon Belyeu, remember?

He was like, "Yeah, you're safe.
Everybody's safe there." And--

-S**t's flying all over the place and--
-Keep it PG, man.

Yeah. Sorry. You're right.

There was a lot of problems with Sony.
That was gonna be an iPod. They said:

"Under no circumstances
could this be an iPod.

It has to be a Sony MP3 player."

Sony is very serious about putting
non-Sony products in movies.

But they don't make
noise-reducing headphones...

...which we needed to justify how she
wouldn't hear, so Bose won out there.

That was the story point, at least.

We went around the horn
on this stuff a lot...

...with how much flames would be
on the floor, and smoke trails.

-A lot were added later.
-A lot of impacts were practical hits.

Come on. Get in, get in.

This was done fairly early.
There's our Uglydoll.

This was done early
because it was in our first trailer.

So they always rush to get the stuff
done for the trailer.

But this is a good mixture of real stuff
and fake stuff added in.

The smoke is fake, the smoke trails,
and the glowing embers were fake...

...but the debris popping up was real
and the shaking was real.

-And the SportsCenterwas real.
-Had a nice spark to it there.

Jon Belyeu dropped
a big huge cement--

-We did that twice, remember?
-From the roof of the stage.

-And then we did it again.
-We did it twice to get it.

The first time we did it,
everybody would be dead in the room.

Remember, they were
supposed to stand in front of it?

It was green screen, it was in front
of them. We actually changed that.

That little pop. That was
a little CG pop on a real meteor.

You saw the shot
of the gerbil in the fireplace.

We really thought the gerbil
was gonna be something more...

...with a great payoff, than it was,
but it never really--

-lt was. People got the gerbil.
-Only one or two people get the payoff.

So let's see,
there's the smoking embers.

Then we added that smoke.

And we had to address why the sister
wasn't killed in her bedroom...

...so we said it just hit
the living room.

And this stuff is-- The tone of this
little moment was very much like...

-...how it was in the original script.
-Yes.

Sort of a little stilted, a little cool,
I kind of dug it.

But it seems a little out of place
because it's almost like...

...a Pinter play,
them going back and forth.

But l think it was really simple
and nice, l liked it a lot.

This reveal was one of the first shots
we turned over to Sony lmageworks...

...as you have to, even in production,
turn over a lot of your shots...

...so they can start working on them
because of the movie's release date.

-They have to be finished.
-Here's the Close Encounters homage.

We went all the way to the end on this.
This was the last shot finished.

First shot turned over,
last shot finished.

It took that long to get there with it,
till Jon was happy with it.

There, a little
Close Encounters moment...

...of the door opening
and the light coming through.

Now, this-- Yeah, this shot
that Pete was just talking about.

It took a while to get there. Because I'm
not a fan of CG-- Straight-up CG stuff.

-Which this is, obviously, entirely.
-That part was.

And Ken Ralston
actually helped out.

Now, what's interesting with this shot
is they're standing in the model.

Only a little bit around them is real.

Those steps are from the miniature,
and then there are CG rocks in front.

So we knew if we could
sell this miniature...

...we could sell the miniature
for the rest of the movie.

And so it was very important
to start incorporating...

...the miniature version of the house.
I was not confident.

And there's the real house.

I was not confident that the miniature
would sell as well as it did.

Because when you see it not in the
great lighting-- There's our CG Saturn.

I think it works, because you only
show the CG Saturn a little bit.

But this is by far
the most CG that's in the film.

Even the black hole,
you have so many more models.

-Yeah.
-Practical pieces blowing around.

But it's hard to open the door,
reveal something, say, "It's CG"...

...and show something
nobody's seen before.

Now, there's the model house.
And this was on a motion-control rig.

We put a little card of them...

...and all that in the windows,
that's miniature.

Then that's CG background
and CG Saturn.

It has much more of that Wizard of Oz
feel in the way the house is flying.

Like a practical house
that feels tactile...

...as opposed to a digital house,
which we could have done.

Right.

-Jonah got a haircut. Space 'do.
-There's Jonah's hair look number two.

We justified it, saying that lack
of gravity has an effect on his hair.

Yeah, but, really, don't hop around
from the chapters too much.

It's not gonna stand up.

Here's a little mistake
that we love to keep.

She really decked him in the nose
and he's almost laughing there.

But, look, she's a pro, she kept it
together. She whacked him good.

And what's the emergency?

She's so good here.
And they're good here too.

-We can't get back to Earth.
-Shut up!

Here it is.

Oh, no.

It kind of works.

You kind of buy it, right, that she
wouldn't know? Maybe, maybe not.

It's a hard moment we worked on for
a while, of what they would really do.

Lisa, open up.

A lot of discussion was about
what would really happen.

I mean, how real could you make it
under the circumstances?

And her commitment
really helps here.

--and stay out of my face.

But it's an emergency.

-ls the house on fire?
-No.

-ls anyone hurt?
-No, but--

Then leave.

About this point, every 1 3-year-old boy
should be falling in love with her...

...because she's just giving them
such a hard time...

...and she's so pretty, and she's like
the powerful woman running the house.

-The older sister.
-The older sister.

Now, this was-- Jon just sort of
let Jonah go here with this.

-They were going at it.
-This isn't scripted.

It was like, "Wind up and go
and describe what's happening."

-And I kept doing takes of this.
-So all this stuff he does--

And then just sort of pieced all the best
stuff together, but it feels very real.

And, see, we always have her
to cut away to, which is--

When you have a cutaway like that,
it's very easy to let people improvise.

And Dan Lebental, the director,
is very good at this type of stuff.

-Editor.
-What did l say?

-"Director." That's you.
-Oh, yeah. That's a Freudian slip.

We'll talk about that one later.

-Yeah, our editor.
-l know where your head is.

He was-- He's very good at that.

And we had met
on Very Bad Things...

...which he was editor of
and l was an actor in.

And l was very impressed with how
he pulled together improvised stuff.

Di,ner for Five,
he pulled stuff together.

He cut the first two seasons
of Dinner for Five.

-That's right. And then Elf, he did.
-That's right.

Which was his first, like,
mainstream, friendly comedy.

But he's very talented at this stuff.

So l always like
to encourage improvisation...

...to help make moments seem
more real when possible...

...especially with kids.

Here's a cool effect.

So we actually frosted the door and
went between a shot of the frosted--

The wax-frosted door
and the clean door...

...and just moved a CG card,
as they say.

We just did a wipe.
That's real smoke.

Dry ice smoke we blew
under the door.

Help.

So everything's sort of practical
so far here. Not a lot of CG.

And we froze-- We tented the
whole set here, the whole bathroom.

-That's right.
-And we pumped it--

That's all wax, sprayed on.

Same guys who did
Day After Tomorrow.

I thought the frost looked cool there.
Like a frosted-over old refrigerator.

And....

And we frosted the room so they could
see their breath and really feel cold.

If you see their breath, that's actually--
And the mist is actually from the frost.

She's frozen in cryonic sleep.

From humidifiers
and air conditioners.

And l was in there,
we were all in our coats.

It was a nice break, it was fun.

After being on-stage for 94 days
of the same thing, it's nice to...

-Yeah, to change things up.
-...mix it up, so we changed seasons.

Now, Stan Winston, his guys...

...designed this thing. That's actually
a statue made from a casting.

This, if you look in London,
you will not be able to find this shot.

We had to cut that
because it's duplicatable action.

-They're worried kids are gonna start--
-Replicating that.

Which is very difficult to do,
by the way. As we found.

-Hairspray doesn't do that anymore.
-That ingredient's not in aerosol cans.

Because a lot of people
did duplicate the action.

-ls that why they did it?
-l always did it as a kid.

-So it's probably a good thing.
-Don't say that. Don't do it, kids.

I'm saying to you right now,
it's dangerous.

And, by the way, that kid wasn't
really doing that on the set.

That was a CG flame
that was added.

-He just...
-That was not done.

...pantomimed it
and the flame was added.

There's a light that went on
for interactive light.

Kids, he did not do it,
you shouldn't do it.

No, absolutely not.

So there's our little CG window,
little star CG.

And behind Jonah,
that's a real window...

...with a velvet and pinpricks
and light behind it.

We should talk about
Avy Kaufman too.

-Yeah. She helped us find these kids.
-She was really great.

It came up on a Dinner for Five
with Kevin Smith...

...when Jon was asking him
who he cast--

No, first Kevin asked me how I found
the girl Mak Vega for Made.

Because he was looking
for the Jersey Girl girl.

Then later l asked him how it went.

He used Avy and he said, "lf you ever
have to find a kid, she's the best."

And she's found-- I don't wanna say
Haley Joel Osment. l think she did.

-l can't remember the names.
-From Bobby Fischer, the kid.

-Just an amazing track record.
-She knows all the kids.

And she's a great casting director
in her own right.

-She did four movies this year.
-Has a great eye...

-...for what you want.
-Not just kids.

-Absolutely.
-She was wonderful.

Was really instrumental
in finding Josh and Jonah.

Now, that's a CG shadow, because
we couldn't get the real shadow.

-After trying practically.
-We tried practical.

-Then Jon yielded to the CG shadow.
-Which was the way to go anyway.

Some things, it's perfect for.

And here comes the baby-bot.

This was designed by Stan Winston.
Shane was under the stairs.

There's actually--
CG was used to remove rods...

...and the slits that were used
to operate the puppet.

But otherwise, this is just a puppet
operated through remote control...

-Practical little model.
-...and rods under the floor.

At least l got one.

-And that's Frank Oz's voice.
-This was a big one too.

There was a lot of discussion
about the voice of the robot.

-A lot of problems.
-Discussion about the "beyotch."

A lot of anxiety as well. Was there?

-Yeah. It was--
-No, it was never--

It was on the list of the things that
you have to watch for the PG rating.

Right. But they never said anything
about it. We were just worried.

The only two bad words in it
is "dick" and he says "beyotch."

And it's amazing that people
have, like, reacted:

"The language was harsh at times."

Some parents. Others are like,
"What are they talking about?"

This is on the DVD extras,
which is a cool thing to watch...

-...the pan-up of the actor in the suit.
-Right.

The top suit piece
and the legs and the arms are added.

But, again,
it was integrating the practical--

It was using the practical
and integrating the CG to augment...

...as opposed to
take the center stage of a shot.

Those were real flames
shooting out...

-...of the feet and back.
-l shot that.

-Which one? The feet?
-The feet.

That was a splinter unit, we had to get
shots. So I just ran over and got shots.

This was yours.
This was your shot, right?

-Yeah.
-This reveal?

Pete did that. That was a good shot.

Was that--? The POV was yours
or the other one? The POV was yours.

The moving POV that came
around from the couch.

-From behind the couch.
-We needed it.

-ln the cutting room.
-That's the great thing about Dan...

...and Jon's history.
Dan will just catch stuff early.

And when you're editing during
the process, which all films do...

...he's able to call and say,
"We need a POV of this robot."

And since we were on a lot, we
could run over there, look at it and....

So you just can make
a decision quickly.

So look at this shot. See, now,
the legs are CG, the feet are real...

...and the body
and the arms are real.

So they were a man's legs--
Now, that's all real.

See, each shot it's different.
That's everything real...

...is real in that shot,
with a remote-control head.

But the stuff with him running
around was just a chest piece.

So we kept the chest the same,
and then l wanted the feet real...

...so that it would interact
with the ground properly.

I always don't like how fake--

They always look like
weightless marionettes.

So if forced the robot to have
real laws of physics associated with it.

And they would paint in the legs.
It was a lot of trouble.

Stan Winston Studios did a CG test
for us originally. It worked very well.

It took a while for Sony Imageworks
to get up to speed with that...

-...and find a way to do it.
-Practical on that side of Walter...

...but CG on the other side.

-Of what? The arm?
-Of the claw.

And once they got up to speed,
some of their best work in this movie...

-...was the robot running.
-This is real, except for sparks.

-That was real, yeah.
-Even the sparks on it?

Jon Belyeu built a big, old,
very dangerous thing. That's CG.

-Yeah, him flying out.
-So that's a real torso.

Real torso right here
and fake legs.

Jon Belyeu blew up everything.

This was an afterthought, remember?
We added that bit.

It was a fun movie
to be on the set of...

...because nearly every day
you're exploding something...

...or demolishing something,
it was--

-Here's the robot slipping.
-lt's pretty fun.

-Remember, we liked it?
-Kept that.

And it's the bam-bot smashing
through the window.

We flipped the couch.

It was pretty-- lt was pretty....

Yeah, it was scary.
Every day, something--

There was always a speech saying,
"Let's get our heads in this."

-There was a lot of safety speeches.
-Because that was real stuff smashing.

That's a CG robot, by the way,
going through. lt integrated very well.

I like the flames.
The flames are real, on the floor.

It gives it a real T2 look or whatever.
A little Terminator.

So as you can see, the set's
been gnarled up quite a bit here.

So you can't really go back and--

We really had to shoot in order
because of that.

And you degrade the set
as it's needed.

It's also a challenge.
You do have to cover yourself well...

...because to go backwards
and get shots is a difficult thing.

-Very hard.
-You have to rebuild portions of sets.

Although we had two sets now,
because the next scene...

...is the Tsouris-3 gravity thing
on the gimbal.

And we would use that gimbal set.

We'd always match it, but sometimes
we were able to grab shots...

...before we smashed it up.

Because if something smashed up
on one set...

...we would have to go
to the other set and do it.

-Jon's homage to Westerns.
-To what? ls it?

-Sergio Leone?
-Yeah, a little bit. Just for a moment.

We talked about doing more,
but it never was really done.

Like, shots of the eyes.
But, again, it sort of betrayed....

-The reality of the moment.
-The drama of what was happening.

And you don't wanna get
too stylized and fun with stuff.

Now, so this is our first shot
in the tilting set.

Jonah was actually standing in a set
that was tilting as we were going.

And that thing was scary, man.
It made a lot of weird noises.

It was terrifying to look at.

It was scarier from the outside
than the inside.

-Yeah, I agree.
-lt was so huge.

But see all the books falling
and everything--?

This whole set was tilting. The kids,
we painted out their safety harnesses.

There were, like, wires
underneath them...

...preventing them, in case they fell,
from falling out.

If you anchor the camera
to something that moves...

...the horizon doesn't change, and it
doesn't look like the house is tilting...

...but the environment is affected,
so that's why everything is flying.

So the camera is just bolted down
on the set. You tilt the set...

...it doesn't look like it's tilting,
but everything moves.

-lt was--
-lt was an idea Jon had early.

From an old Ernie Kovacs bit.

It was done for comedy.
Here we're doing it for the excitement.

There's our miniature house
with a CG planet behind it.

Here comes our robot,
in the tilted set also.

This was a little unwieldy.

Yeah, this was really difficult to do.

And this begins
Jonah's wirework too.

We had two different guys.
We had John Alexander...

...who was very elegant with
his movement and had good balance...

...and then we had a stuntman
who was just a tank...

...who could also wear the suit
and just run through things.

It was a good combination.

Was just happy to go anywhere
you pointed him.

So all of this stuff with him stumbling
and everything...

...you wouldn't have gotten
that with a CG robot.

The fact that it was
a dude in a suit...

...it sort of forced him to be awkward
in a real way, an unpredictable way.

That's what we call it on a set,
"a dude in a suit."

-Here's Jonah hanging.
-You would call for that...

...as opposed to the molds.
How many robots were there, five?

-There's a lot. Yeah.
-Of all different types.

And that little-- There was
this little handsaw that did work.

The falling.

That was a real-- Him falling--
Jonah. --was him on a rotisserie.

That we had to cut together.

One thing that was cut
that was a gag we always loved...

...was when Jonah's
pressed against the glass here...

...the scene was to continue and a lamp
was supposed to fly and burst out.

-We even shot, I think, some--
-A plate for it.

-Yeah, and then it just never worked.
-The timing didn't work.

This was an afterthought,
sending Lisa down the stairs.

It was an opportunity for a laugh.

We were like, "How would we get
Lisa downstairs?"

Stan Winston's like,
"Just drop her down there."

"You probably get one take.
Just go."

I love Jonah's reaction here.
Watch this, how he gets all scared.

I love that, man. l live for that.

It's those little moments
that help sell it.

Is she okay?

This is their first time seeing
the Lisa statue for real.

-Somehow, we shot the upstairs later.
-That's right.

We were jumping back and forth
a bit on this...

...because there was a different set
for upstairs.

And it was eerie looking at her, man,
because it looked like her.

It just looked remarkably like her.

She did not like that.
Kristen did not like--

She was a little wigged out by it.

Because they painted it
to match her exactly.

And here we go down the stairs.
This was yet another set.

Right? This was the staircase set.

There had to be a practical element
you could see at the top of the stairs...

...as opposed to the basement.
When we're in it, it was its own set.

Here it's just a little piece
of the ceiling and the wall.

This was the stage that, when the wall
flies off at the end of the movie...

...for the black hole...

...we cleared this set out.

This set was behind the green screen
and that wall flew out and...

-...ripped through the green screen.
-Crushed a set about 40 feet away.

Thank God we cleared out the people
as a result of the safety meeting...

...because sometimes it is no joke.

We were doing a lot of aggressive
stuff, and it does get dangerous.

It was-- lt was pretty--

There were wires that were on there,
but you always don't take chances.

There were wires that were supposed
to let it only fly a few inches.

-And they popped immediately.
-And it just flew across the room.

Here's a little added character
after you saw some stuff.

-He got more screen time.
-Yeah.

That was a little rod puppet
that was shot at, l think, 1 2 frames.

Again, we tried to keep it practical.

This is the scene where they weren't
acting like she was cold enough...

...so l put ice down their pants.

-Remember that?
-Yes, I do.

But l put ice down my own pants too,
just to make it all right.

-Just to make it okay.
-l don't know if it helped.

It gave them a story.

It made them struggle a little.

Nothing like
some ice down the trousers.

Iwo Jima shot.

She looks like
a saint in a Catholic....

There's a certain-- There's some
religious overtones here, l'm sure.

I don't wanna be here
when she wakes up.

Look at how Jonah's looking at her.
I love that. He had some face, huh?

He was pretty fascinated with it.

Are you crazy?
That thing's messed up.

He's a character, that kid.

The whole thing with Jonah was he did
a movie called Around the Bend.

He had to work, like, a month on it.

It was an independent film.
He worked half of the shoot, a month.

And the parents heard,
"Oh, this movie's--"

He lived in New York.
"This thing is gonna work."

I'm not playing.

It started shooting in the summer.
Didn't we start in the summer?

They said, "lt'd be good,
before he goes back to school."

He got the part, they didn't realize
he had to work six months on this.

And he was living on the set.

His parents aren't showbiz parents,
they didn't know the whole acting drill.

But the kid wanted to do it, man,
and he was good.

-He's really gifted.
-He was good.

It's because of their hours. You can
only work so many hours a day...

-...so it stretches over a lot of days.
-Stretches out a long time.

And he spent--
What would Dax say?

-He spent, like, a third of his life, or--
-Thirty percent of his life.

Something crazy.

-Not only that--
-Because he's 6 years old.

-He grew an inch and he lost teeth.
-That's right.

That was another thing that was very--
I think was very smart...

...was we cast their teeth,
their mouths...

...before we started shooting
in case they lost teeth.

And, at one point, l think
Jonah was missing four teeth.

-Two on top, two on bottom.
-So they had multiple flippers...

...top and bottom flippers in.

So overnight we would get
a flipper plate made.

We had a dentist on call constantly.

Andrea Corson. My dentist, actually.

-Joya's friend.
-Yep.

She came through. And we never
missed a day of shooting.

Because you hustle and you spend
a few grand to get all that stuff done...

...but a day of shooting
is like $1 50,000.

So by not missing a day of shooting,
you're saving a lot of money.

Here comes another
Spielberg-inspired...

...reveal of the light.

I looked at Close Encounters
a couple times before this.

And so much was done through light
because they didn't have CGl then.

So much was done through sound
and light and shaking...

...and movement of cameras.
We really tried to borrow from that.

And, again, this is practical light
and we just sort of build a track...

...and put a light on it and move it.
So it's just, logic applies here.

How you think you should do
the scene. As opposed to using...

...all sorts of new tricks, you just
put a light on a track and move it.

A little light, a little smoke.
And it works, man.

It works.

And now we started shaking the set
and the glasses started falling out.

The tiles start falling off the wall.

And there's our first reveal
through the window.

You get a glimpse
of the miniature ship.

The miniature Zorgon ship.
It was about, what, 8 feet long?

-The actual ship? Yeah.
-The actual ship.

-About 8 feet long.
-lt was 1 0th scale.

And the first reveal is coming up...

...here.

From the outside we do
this big boom up and....

Or boom down. I forget.

Now, this shot was
the shot l was most worried about.

Because if you bought the ship
in this shot here, this boom up....

If you bought the shot here, you
would buy it when you saw it outside.

-lt was all models there.
-A miniature house and miniature ship.

And we used darkness a lot
to help disguise it.

And l don't know
if any of you out there listening...

...have been to the Museum
of Natural History in New York...

...but there was a display...

...of a squid fighting a sperm whale
in one of the cases.

It was the scariest thing to me
growing up...

...because, through the glass,
it was so dark and murky...

...that you could barely make out
the eye of the squid and the....

You know, the tentacles of the squid
and the eye of the whale.

Probably, with the lights on,
the thing would look like nothing.

But l was so scared of that thing...

...because it was so dark,
and l talked to Joe Bauer...

...and the people who were involved,
and l was like, "As we light it...

...let's always keep it right on the edge
of not being able to see it."

And then-- You know, illuminate it
with explosions and things...

...but the less you see it,
the more it's in your imagination.

That was a rule of thumb
for the Zorgons as well later...

...for the Zorgons themselves.

And l just think it's--

To me, it's the thing l'm most excited
about in the movie...

...is this miniature work...

...and the way it's integrated with
the CG debris and the CG explosions.

I think this was done by
Digital Dimension, a smaller house.

They did a great job
with the CG augmentation.

And they were the ones who designed
the star field in the back.

-What the actual look of space was.
-What the look of space was.

What the heck does that mean?

It's funny, because you work
with a big house like Sony...

...and you work with a small house
like Digital Dimension...

...and a lot of times
the smaller houses hustle more...

...and, you know,
they get a little more inspired...

...and they really set the pace.

And Sony was keeping up
with them at times.

So it was an interesting mix.

The CGl special effects...

...that whole world
is changing now.

It used to be that you had ILM
and lmageworks...

...and a couple of-- Rhythm & Hues,
some of the bigger houses doing it all.

Now there are a lot
of little houses popping up.

-Very competitive, have great artists.
-Really talented.

A lot of guys who left larger houses
and will fight for work. They're great.

You don't have that big overhead
and stuff. I found that on Elfas well.

We worked with Rhythm & Hues,
they did a great job...

...but the smaller houses,
sometimes they fight a little harder...

...and work a little harder
to prove themselves.

And they don't have
that big overhead to deal with.

So it's interesting to watch how
the business is changing so much.

"Rest on--"

"Rest on standing AstroTurf."

The kids fighting.
Here comes the big reveal of Dax.

-This was done with, actually--
-This was a tough shot to do.

Yeah. This was actually
Dax's stunt double...

...on a rotisserie in his back.

We hit him up against the glass.

-That was a CG...
-ln the reflection.

...reflection that was done by putting
a camera, actually, next to it.

-You couldn't have a real reflection.
-Getting the element and comping it in.

I love this moment.

Just a little bit of humor.

A little tension,
then a little release of laughter.

It kind of doesn't blow the reality,
but it's, like, unexpected.

This was all-- l was just feeding them
lines here, remember?

We were just trying different lines,
then we'd try cutting it different ways.

That smoke is so great.
And there he is.

Again, it's a stuntman on the rotisserie,
then there's a handoff, basically.

-All real. None of this is CG.
-Yeah. This is the stuntman...

...gets pushed all the way in here
off the rotisserie...

-...to where he steps.
-We remove the rig.

There's a rod that comes out
of his back.

So that was all. . ..

With the real star field too.
That was the star-field backing.

The smoke, and the kids' reactions
are so great.

And the music, Debney's music.

Here he is, walking. There's a costume
built by Laura Jean Shannon...

...who we met on Made.

-That's right.
-She worked with us on Made and Elf.

She designed Will's costume in Elf
and the whole thing.

All the elves' costumes.

-And your elf costume.
-That's right.

And we really wanted it to look like
a combination of an old diving suit...

...and a New York City Fire
Department firefighter's uniform.

Were the two paradigms
that we were going off of.

Especially when he took the top off.
And we wanted it...

...so he had, like, cargo pants
and a T-shirt.

And it would look like a fireman
who took his stuff off.

And she got it. Because the first
designs were really high-tech.

You go to outside contractors,
and the actual guys who built this...

...are the same guys who built
my spacesuit from Deep Impact.

I was an actor.

And they tend to go high-tech.
They tend to go with what's real.

We wanted to go with something
a little more--

Those blues are
from Chesley Bonestell...

...the paintings we were looking at.
Has a real vintage look to it.

It doesn't look real. lt looks like
something from old sci-fi.

But it feels like it fits in the world
that's been created...

...of the ships with fins,
and the sort of 1 950s version...

...of what we thought space was.

And what the aerodynamics might be
in space...

...and all the mechanical elements
on the suit.

If you look at old sci-fi,
before we were in space...

...they had a much different take
on things.

And we sort of wanted
to preserve that.

There's the shaker set, the house.
You can see, everything's moving.

-lt affected their performances.
-lt was just basically on a joystick.

And at a moment's cue,
it would be fired up.

You had issues with dialogue
because it was loud...

...but you could just crank the joystick
and just rock the set.

This is interesting.
We had trouble clearing things.

They wouldn't let us use
a macaroni-and-cheese brand...

...because kids were cooking it.
All the different brands were worried.

But the charcoal--
The lighter-fluid company was like:

-"Oh, yeah, show it."
-"Absolutely."

We're like,
"We light the couch up with it."

-"Oh, yeah. lt's okay."
-"No worries."

They said that we're using it
specifically for what it's designed for:

As a starter for a fire.

So it's up to you
what you wanna burn with it.

-That was cool.
-As long as you're not drinking it.

Yeah, that's right.
There's all the lights.

We had to communicate that the lights
were going off in the house...

...and the lights turning off...

...would then make the house
somehow invisible to the Zorgons.

Who just basically see heat.

-Which l guess sort of makes sense.
-Heat seeker.

I guess that sells right there.

A lot of discussion--
There's the bicycle floating around.

We kept adding the bicycle in
to set up the little dropping bicycle...

...at the end, a little payoff.

I always liked it floating around
like an electron in orbit.

It's very interesting watching--

Oh, here's another sequence
that's trimmed out for the UK version.

This is duplicatable action here.

Even though Kingsford was--

-They didn't mind. American company.
-Excited.

Don't try this at home also, kids.

No, you don't-- Because
this will happen, it's not good.

Don't do it.
Unless your house is in space.

But this will set your house on fire
and you will be in grave danger...

...so do not try this at home.

This was under
controlled circumstances...

...with people
with fire extinguishers around.

-And basically we had built--
-And a fireproof couch.

It's a fireproof couch, so that
you can do multiple takes with it.

And there that couch would drop,
remember?

-We did a handoff.
-lt dropped and went to a handoff.

That's a miniature house,
by the way.

And those are all miniatures.
And there's a couch on a--

You'll see in the bonus materials--
Yeah. lt shows how we did this shot.

I was impressed
with that piece they put together.

Yeah, it really helps tell the story...

...of a lot of different teams
working together--

To make this work.

And, again, this is what Jon
had talked about, where maybe...

...okay, things shouldn't
theoretically burn in space...

...but with the emotion
of what's going on...

...there were decisions made of:

"If they're breathing, there's air,
so things can burn."

-So you sort of set the rules.
-We made our own rules.

Then they go flying out the roof later
and don't explode too...

-...when they rescue Walter.
-Or implode, l guess.

Like in Outland.

No, there's no pressure,
so you pop.

You ever see Outland?
It's a pretty good movie.

-Dax was a great choice for this too.
-Yeah.

As we had gone through....

You sort of have your traditional lists.
This role was a pretty pivotal role...

...because he comes in at a time
when you want him in the film.

You've spent a lot of time
with the kids.

And there's an energy that the movie
takes on when Dax winds up coming in.

We had a great meeting with him,
and he made a lot of sense.

The way it was written originally
was a little drier.

-Not drier, but a little....
-More heroic, kind of.

Yeah, and the humor was
a little-- Just not our style.

We brought his voice. l always like
to let somebody bring their voice...

...to something, especially
when they're doing comedy.

And so we kept within
the parameters of the plot.

But we knew we wanted somebody
that you kind of didn't know...

...if he was a safe guy or not,
with kind of like a....

You know, not--

The kids didn't know whether they
liked him, but he was being helpful.

But it was almost like
you're inviting a soldier into....

The American GIs into
the French chalet in the countryside...

...during World War ll.

It's like, you're happy
that they're there...

...the samurai, but you wanna hide
your daughter too.

So it's sort of that sad situation,
that strange balance of:

"He's helpful, but is he a problem?"
And keep it a little ambiguous.

And, of course,
Walter is reacting to him...

...where he knows there's something
he don't like about him.

Well, it's because it's him.

You're always most critical
of yourself.

So he's sensing something
he doesn't like.

The little brother is drawn to him,
feels like he likes him for some reason.

-Because of that energy.
-Nicer version of Walter.

We're starting to-- A more advanced,
evolved version of his brother.

So we're trying to set up here,
without flagging it too much...

...the twist that comes at the end,
that they're the same person.

So the logic is that, just so that--
To set it sort of straight.

The short version is...

...they played the game. They found
the game in the basement, played it...

...Walter wished his brother away,
then he couldn't take any more turns...

...and was trapped in space for
1 5 years, which he mentions before...

...and figures out a way to go through,
he says here, "a time sphincter."

He goes through black holes.

We've established the reality
of wormholes and black holes.

Of course, it's done here,
you know....

I tried to make a joke out of it,
so that people wouldn't see it coming--

That's the biggest piece of information
in terms ofjustifying the logic.

Is that, "l traveled through
a time sphincter."

So he traveled through time
to get there.

The idea was that
he was kicking around space...

...surviving Zorgons and things...

...and he eventually learned
the secret of traveling through time.

And in traveling through time,
he was able to come back--

-Before the wish had happened.
-Before the wish happened, to help--

-Change the course of events.
-To change the course of the game.

So he doesn't wish himself away,
which he succeeds in doing.

At the pivotal moment
of the shooting star.

-Here's another little moment.
-The first moment was--

They have the same card.
So there's one clue.

The first was when he pulls off the
thing, says, "Blow out the pilot light."

He says, "Go downstairs and blow out
the furnace." Well, how does he know?

-Because he lived in the house.
-That's kind of--

But the fun thing about it is...

...it seems like it's logical, but, again,
it's something that he knew.

-Here's one--
-So there's delicate ones.

We also have him finding
the matches, which we trimmed out.

Not much was cut out of this movie,
by the way.

"Whose brother are you,
his or mine?"

That was a little play on words.

And he really has to think
about it for a minute.

I'm just gonna go.
I feel like a third wheel anyways.

I mean, you guys are such a tight,
unified team here.

Dax doing his thing.

I gotta tell you,
the house looks fantastic.

This is the first somewhat serious role
Dax has done too, which was nice.

He was very funny in Without a Paddle
and, of course, in Punk'd.

But here was an-- He was a guy
from the Groundlings too.

Will Ferrell was from there.
I was from Second City.

I trained there and lmprov Olympic.
Vince trained at lmprov Olympic.

I tend to like to work with people
who have an improv background...

...because they bring a lot of ideas
and they don't look at it...

...precious like an actor would.

And, in particular, working with
the kids, he was great...

...because he could have
a lot of fun with them...

-...and throw them some curveballs.
-Yeah.

And be able to work on his feet.
And they were great too...

-They went with it.
-...as you've seen.

And so a lot of good things
came from it.

So l just liked that.

But when you work with somebody
with a background in improvisation...

...a lot of times they don't have
the comfort zone in being sincere.

If they're not being irreverent
or getting laughs, they're--

Yeah, l know how to play the game.

They don't know for sure
that they're gonna be compelling.

So there was a lot of trust it took.

But l think that, certainly,
what people have observed about it...

...and a lot of the critics wrote that
he did a really good job in that.

And l think he was happy about that
because there were times...

...when it's easier to be funny
but he played it sincerely...

...and took it seriously.

And you don't wanna
come off looking stupid.

Sometimes you look stupid
when you're sincere.

-That's right.
-lf the movie is cloying.

But l think that, tonally,
the movie kind of works well.

Here's them fighting. This could be
me and Vince in Made.

-Or Swingers.
-lt's an homage to Swingers and Made.

Two inmates
screaming at each other.

I liked that kind of humor.
The audiences hated it.

-People would hate--
-We worked a lot on this scene...

-...through previews--
-There was a lot more screaming.

I miss it. I do miss it.

There's a version
where there's a lot more yelling.

-Audiences would get a little fed up.
-They're like, "Enough."

People would write on the cards,
"The kids are yelling at each other."

"Why are they screaming
at each other so much?"

"I'm sick of them
yelling at each other."

Jeez, it won't stop! Please.

Okay, let's play the game.

Fine.

Won't stop spinning.

So l guess
what we're implying here...

...is that the game,
because he moved the piece...

...it's like you're tilting a pinball
machine. There's the yellow card.

Sort of a soccer homage.

Does it mean me?

-lt's an homage?
-l guess so.

To the lovely sport of soccer
that we love so much.

That Jon and I are such fans of.

-He's yanked out.
-So here's our big old--

That was the Riddick rig, used
on The Chronicles of Riddick...

...another financially
successful film.

Maybe it was the rig.

It was the rig we used.

Okay. Now, wasn't this originally
a different scene? And it was--

What was that? There was something
else. Was it the gravity ball was here?

-There was a-- He throws the--
-He's gonna--

He throws the lamp up. The lamp
goes and hits him in the head.

It was much more elaborate.

It was outside, there was a whole
zero-G thing, but we had no money.

So this was an area where we--

So this is something
where it was like:

"I got an idea, let's have it
all happen off camera."

Like Luke Skywalker underwater
in the trash compactor.

Right.

As long as when they come
out of it, they're really selling it.

Remember how Luke Skywalker
came out from underwater.

Yeah. When that thing was--
That little one-eyed--

And just to play off of Jonah
possibly losing his brother.

So he helped sell it here...

...and the music sells it
and the shots sell it, the angles.

And then
when they smash through...

...and land on the ground, it looks
like they've been through a lot.

And this was the practical tank
that blew smoke.

And it was just throwing them up
through a hole...

...and bringing them back down
off wire rigs.

-Yeah. There was a wire--
-So it was really done with--

Sped it up a little bit. But it was
Mike Justus, who was Dax's double.

And Reid, who is our stunt coordinator
Tommy Harper's son...

...who doubled for Walter,
who is a young stuntman. A stunt kid.

-And then here we cut to the actors.
-Cut back to them.

You okay?

We're approaching the low point.

Now, here, Dax, in keeping
with the whole brother trajectory--

The astronaut as Walter.

--in this scene, all he's trying to do
is trying to get them not to argue.

Because he knows
this is the moment...

...when the wishing star
is coming back.

The shooting star is gonna come.

If he's angry enough, he will wish
for something he shouldn't wish for.

So he's just trying to say,
"Hey, get out of your....

Don't get emotional. It's not so bad.
It was fun, going up there.

Let's pull it together."

And then he gets the gold card.

And what's kind of interesting is...

...he thinks he didn't do the job...

...and that's why
he goes running up the stairs.

He thinks he wished
his brother away.

But in the heat of the moment
he ended up wishing for a football.

Probably as a result
of the influence of Dax...

...coming back
through the time sphincter...

...was able to, in that moment,
influence him just enough.

I love how seriously we're taking this.
But we had to take it seriously.

-There was hours of discussion.
-The time sphincter. I like that.

-That is your biggest--
-l'm very proud to have coined that.

I will take credit for it. So if
"time sphincter" is ever used again....

Here comes our sister back, with
just a little bit of frost in her eyebrows.

We should clarify that five turns--

A lot of people have asked about it.
--is five complete turns.

Which still, I think, barely adds up,
or maybe it does.

I think our math is right on, but....

Call Dan Lebental
and he will explain it to you.

Feel free to send him letters.

If he's wrong, you can tell him
how many turns it actually is.

Tenacious D out there.

K.G.

Here we go.
He's happy, very competitive.

-Good roll.
-Good roll?

Oh, he's a runaway train now, huh?

I meant great.

-And there we go.
-He knows. It's gold.

Best card in the whole game.

The gold card. We wanted it to look
like the old Willy Wonka magic ticket.

That was the thing l told the....

You can see the reflection on his face
when the card turns there.

Russell Bobbitt, our prop guy,
who built the game.

The game was designed, by the way--
The actual game was....

It was a board game in the script.

Like in Jumanji, where it's just dice.

Not even like Jumanji, because
just cards popped out of the side.

And it wasn't magical at all. There it is.
The game ends up in the living room.

Danny.

And then we wanted
to switch it to a tin toy.

So Mike and l had meetings.
Mike Riva and l had meetings.

Then when we hired Phil Saunders,
he started coming up with drawings...

...of how to make it
a windup tin toy...

...that also could function
as a board game...

...where two ships could compete.

And so we did research,
what the old toys looked like.

It looked like one of those
old horse games--

-The horseracing games.
-The horses were on the track.

-l like the look of--
-Like a lot of Japanese books.

Do you remember the game
in Seabiscuit?

There's a little game with little
steel balls that he's playing with...

...that used to belong to his son,
that Jeff Bridges was playing with.

That had kind of a cool look that
I mentioned, and we looked at that.

Eventually we arrived at the design
of that sort of stamped-out steel...

...like, Japanese postwar tin toy.

And then he designed the box.

So Phil Saunders
actually did the artwork.

But after many meetings and
discussions about how many spaces...

...and turns, the bridge and that--
I think it's in the extras too...

...they talk about the design
of the game.

And then we landed on this toy
that just, like, was so compelling...

...that we could actually shoot
the opening sequence of it.

Tell me what you wished for.

And l think it's just really,
really cool.

I have one of those dummy props
at my house...

...that my 4-year-old loves
to stare at.

Here we are. We go in.
He thinks he's wished away.

He thinks he didn't do his job.

This gets a big laugh because it's
relieving a lot of the tension, l think.

It just shows you that it's not always
the funniest joke.

Laughter comes
when you relieve...

...the stress or anxiety
in an audience.

We had a lot of stress and anxiety.

We were hoping-- Saying, "I hope
Brett Favre has a good year."

Because he says
it's signed by Brett Favre.

Originally we were trying
to get him--

Walter was gonna be wearing
a U.S.A. basketball jersey.

But we couldn't get it cleared
or it didn't look good or something.

It was good thing, because
that was the year they imploded.

Brett was kind enough
to sign a bunch of balls for us.

And it's actually his signature.
That's the real thing.

-Brett Favre football.
-But it isn't good that we didn't...?

We said, "How many do you need?"
We were like, "Send us 1 2."

-He was like, "Come on, guys."
-"These will wind up on eBay."

-He said, "l'll give you three."
-Here, Dax did a good scene here.

We needed additional coverage
of the close-ups of the kids...

...and we came and shot this while
we were shooting another scene...

...to help really emotionally
sell the scene.

We don't have shots that are as tight
as the ones coming up.

But, again, our editor Dan was--

And hadn't shot them originally.
As the scene was evolving, he said:

"You really wanna be on them
and you really wanna be in on them."

This is the one time
where we wanna get tight.

I don't like overuse of close-ups,
but if you hold back a lot...

...when you get really tight,
it means a lot.

So this is what we shot originally.

This size coverage
and l think an additional size in.

-And then we added this.
-And then we got into this stuff.

And this and the shot
of Danny coming up.

And that was shot by Ueli Steiger.

-And this here.
-Did a great job.

He had a great team too.

That was when we had two units.

We should list all our DPs,
because only Guillermo was credited.

We had Enrique, Ueli and Guillermo,
all working at the same time.

Which is amazing,
the caliber of people that we had.

Yeah, they were all
really, really good.

So gracious to come
and do secondary units...

...and complementary units with us.

But any one of them
in their own right.

And they all have done features.

But sometimes DPs will pick up
some extra work like that...

...and you're very lucky
when you get DPs of that caliber.

Now, this scene was
a really interesting scene...

...because it was later cited
by a lot of people...

...from the studio as a scene
that totally gave away...

...that he was the brother.

-Right.
-But what we would always say is:

"The first time you read the script,
did you see it coming?"

If you didn't, you gotta go on that.
Once you know the information...

...you then get overly critical
as you're working on it.

Now that you know it, you can say:

"Well, this gives too much,
this gives too much."

And it was really difficult.

You gotta have enough that it
doesn't seem out of the blue...

...but you also want it to be not
so much that you see it totally coming.

And it was a really tough scene
to do.

We wound up shooting a bunch
of different ways and times...

...so we figured, "Let's just have
the stuff in case it's too much.

-We have to have less or more."
-This is a great model shot here...

...with them glued in.

This wasn't a shot originally that--
They weren't supposed to be in this.

It was something we added them--

You added that shot
because there was no--

Unfortunately, we didn't shoot properly
a point of view of the living room.

-lt was, it's just didn't look that good.
-Right, so the reverse of--

-The pullback was the big reveal.
-That became the reveal...

-...explaining what happened.
-l really like that shot.

It looks good, and we have
the bike in the foreground.

And then here's the fun part.
Kids getting to wreck their house.

This is sort of like
a 1 0-year-old fantasy movie.

It's everything you wanna do
when you're 1 0.

This just happened on the set.
This wasn't in the script.

He couldn't break that damn broom.
It's hard to break a broom.

And it was all cut up.

Russell cut this stuff.
"Why are we doing this?" l like that.

-He just loves to participate.
-Here comes the sister.

To me, this stuff's funny.
And it's because--

It's funny because she's playing
it totally straight...

...and just totally buying
into the whole thing.

Boy, it's nice when she comes back
in the movie.

When you're stuck in one house
with a few characters...

...you really appreciate the energies
of the characters.

Five characters, which is pretty rare
for a movie of this size...

...and budget, to only have
five characters in the movie.

Look at that thing going. Perfect.
I love that fire.

Just looks big enough
to be dangerous.

She's like, "What are you doing?!"

Lisa's back.

And they hug her.

You're okay. You're okay, Lisa.

Get off me! Get off me!
Try and find the fire extinguisher!

-No, Lisa, wait. No, Lisa, wait.
-No, Lisa, no.

-Stop! Lisa, don't.
-The Zorgons are attracted to fire.

Lisa, stop.

Here it is. Very heroic moment.

That's them again. This isn't scripted
stuff. This is them just going at it.

Here comes Dax. l think this is
improvised too, what Dax did here.

He did eight takes and just
threw different tags at each one.

It's like an improv game.
You just keep coming in.

Don't give him time to think.
Just keep the camera rolling:

"Keep coming in,
keep saying a line and leaving."

He'd run out and we'd say,
"Run back in and say something else."

With improv, what's funny is that...

...once you stop really thinking
about what you're saying...

...you just start saying things
off the top of your head...

...and it's coming from
some weird subconscious place.

The funniest stuff tends
to come from there.

You know how hard it is to do
what she's doing there?

-To sell that?
-That's the worst.

To sell that you're realizing everything,
you don't know what's going on.

-The Zorgons.
-What's a Zorgon?

It was a very tough scene for her.
She did a great job.

Here comes our shaker set.

There's a good piece on the harpoons
in the extras. They're real.

Yeah. Those are real harpoons.
Those were dangerous things.

There was a lot of ways
to get hurt on this movie.

And thank heavens
nothing went wrong. Nobody got hurt.

Nobody got hurt.
It kept me up at night.

That gimbal set kept me up at night.

Because any time anything would
go a little bit wrong or...

...something unpredictable happened,
I wouldn't sleep the next night.

This is the only time we break reality
in the movie for this stylized--

I don't think it's breaking reality.
It's how she sees it.

-l think it's her moment.
-Yeah.

It's very subjective to her.

-lt's a fun, stylized thing.
-Yeah. It's a little bit of a joke, but....

Move, move, move.

We're not commenting on it
as filmmakers...

...as much as she's experiencing it
through that.

-l think it maintains its subjectivity.
-l think it works very well.

I like this shot a lot, the models.

-This was an added shot...
-Yes.

...Joe came up with
that were very clever--

That was a great idea, just to really
help explain what was going on.

-The geography.
-Docking.

-Because you can get a little lost.
-That the hole--

That the basement has the hole
and there's one on the roof.

And look at them
like leeches on the house.

-Helps sell it.
-These are all models.

And the debris is CGI
and the space is CGl behind them.

I think it was a very good marriage
of the two technologies.

Old school, new school.

And here we are
in the laundry room.

I need you guys to hide in here.

And the walkie-talkies.

It's broken,
but it's not really broken.

-What does that say thematically?
-l don't know.

I think you had
some subconscious journey--

Communication is broken,
now it's fixed.

Or the thing
that he thought was--

-The thing that started--
-He thought was broken.

What started
the conflict is he broke his--

Has been fixed by the astronaut.

He broke the antenna.
It was like this unfixable thing.

It shows that all these big conflicts
come, usually, from something...

-Very simple.
-...very small and very fixable.

Here she is.
"He has gorgeous eyes."

This was-- We were walking
a fine line here.

-Because she is his brother.
-Girl falling in love with her brother.

And if you watch Dax,
he's the best here...

...because he's so uncomfortable
with her affection. And if you know--

He knows that she's his sister.

-You see why he's really not into it.
-He's freaked out.

First you think because
she's younger than him.

That was also tricky, to find the age
of who to play the astronaut.

What the age was where you'd accept
a crush, where it wouldn't be weird.

Did he get the game?

And Dax was sort of the oldest--
Because Dax was in his late 20s.

Yeah, he's pushing it as far as
you can go before it gets creepy.

We were looking at 1 8-year-olds too,
but they didn't have that sort of--

-l don't know, it was tough.
-Experience, or the swagger.

Yeah, he was sort of in between.

With the life-years
that just come through with Dax.

But you would believe that he was
away for 1 5 years.

Here is fun. This is a fun little bit.

All this. Me doing my low-rent...

...M. Night Shyamalan-type
directing...

...between all this stuff.

It's hard to do what he does, man.

I tried a little bit here.
I never did this before.

Push in, and it's scary,
and the music and the....

They're relieved. l don't know
if it works. I think it does.

It works for what it is.

I think you did a great job, Jon.

But maybe you stick
to the funnies next time.

Should I? lt's good to do this.
See, that's the thing as a director.

When you do the funnies, all you're
doing is you have people talking.

-l love making people laugh.
-This was a leap.

-This was a big leap for you.
-lt was hard. A lot of it was--

Look at this. l love the funnies anyway.
My favorite's always the funnies.

Look at how uncomfortable he is.

He doesn't like her touching him.
It's his sister.

What?

The dumbwaiter is across
from the furnace.

I like the funnies, but for directing,
you can only do so much with them.

You make people laugh
and tell a good story...

...and maybe you can make people
feel something, and that is fun.

But if you wanna get to use
the toys and stuff, it's hard to do it.

-That's right.
-With--

You can't do the miniature work
and this stuff.

I guess you could in, like--
What was that movie?

Evolution?
Galaxy Quest was actually good.

-Was really good.
-Really effectively done with both.

But it's hard-- Like, Ghostbusters,
I think, is at its best. You get both.

Or Blues Brothers or something like
that, where you have a big movie...

-...and it all supports the comedy.
-lt's there to serve the story.

But usually it's not.
Usually there's not a lot of effects...

...or fun toys to use as a director.

There he is, all sad. What a face.

Now, this scene here,
I made them do, like, 20 takes of this.

Lo and behold, the first take, where
he came in before I directed him...

-...was the best.
-Just his instincts alone.

-Just his instincts.
-Goes to show you, Jon.

It does.

-He does have terrific instincts.
-He was great.

He was always best
in the earlier takes.

Jonah was just spot-on, and a
photographic memory Jonah had too.

That's right.

I was like-- I told his parents,
I was like, "You know, he wasn't....

He didn't know which scene
we were doing today.

Did you go over the wrong scene
with him?" And she was like:

"We never go over the scenes
with him."

It turns out, he only read the script
once before the reading.

And he knew every scene.

We're like, "That thing we give you,
called the call sheet?"

-He's like, "That's what that is."
-The parents didn't know.

-Which was sweet.
-They were hanging out by the pool.

They didn't know, and he already
had it committed to memory.

What's the point in studying it?

And Josh's parents were the opposite.
They were there every day, involved.

And Jonah's parents would--
The van would pick him up.

It'd pick him up,
he'd show up with the driver.

He was like a little pro.

Different approaches.

Well, that's the other dumbwaiter...

...we had built,
which was a life-sized one.

Little push-in on this.

This was the real trick.
How do you light these guys...

...so they look scary, so you can see,
but not too much that it looks like...?

-A puppet.
-Yeah. Like a foam head...

...which is essentially what it is.

-lt's a foam head.
-She helps sell it.

-What a face on her too, huh?
-And he helps sell it here.

Yeah.

She is-- This one....

I mean, all these actors
are gonna be....

I predict Tim Robbins
someday will win the Oscar.

-Wow, that's bold.
-Oh, he did already.

Guys, why did you stop?

This was his follow-up
to his Academy Award performance.

We got him first out of the gate.

-This was his--
-Hot off the Oscar.

Remember, after Mystic River,
the next thing he decided to do was...

-...Zathura.
-His very next project.

He said, "This is what--
I finally hit that level."

Guys, come on.

Here, now we drop the kid here
in the shaft.

Look at that, boy.

-We drop him.
-He loved it.

We blew a fan on him.

He loved it. He was like,
"Let's do it again."

But always the first take
whenever we did something like that.

You could talk a kid or a person
through it a million times.

It's like saying,
"You'll go on a roller coaster...

...it's gonna drop,
gonna be a little scary."

-They're like, "Okay."
-First time they go.

The first time,
until you get used to it--

Problem was,
you always get used to it.

And you'd lose
that first honest reaction.

So Jon would oftentimes
revert to things...

-...like blowing air horns at the kids.
-That got old fast.

-They even got used to that.
-Yeah.

-But you do things--
-lt just annoyed the crew.

The crew wasn't thrilled
with that one.

-We got rid of the air horn pretty fast.
-He'd sneak up behind them and blow.

I wouldn't sneak up behind them.
I would be behind the camera.

I wouldn't get up in their eardrum.

I'm not implying you blew their ears
out, but you'd certainly surprise them.

It was to be a surprise.
It was a loud noise.

An air horn's a loud noise.
But it usually...

-...scared the boom operator.
-They freaked out.

Poor Mark. We had to warn him,
"Take off your headphones."

-Never worked.
-Mark Ulano, sound mixer.

It did for Jonah a couple times.
He almost started crying one time.

-No, he didn't.
-Okay. I was making that up.

Don't make a joke like that.
People will think you're serious.

They're kids. People will hate me.

Jonah didn't cry.
Jonah made me cry.

Jonah made Josh cry.
Jonah made everybody cry.

In 94 days, we watched him grow up
before our eyes.

-Tongues are added here.
-Yeah, the tongues are CG tongues.

And these are suits
that were built by Winston.

And out the back of the neck,
over the shoulder blades...

...there was a head sticking out
from the guy wearing the suit.

You can see this detail in the extras.
There's a piece on this.

To help disguise the anatomy.

Here's an example of
just multiple units that had to work...

...to get a lot of this stuff
where we had--

This was towards the end.
Again, shooting in order.

-This is Lou. Lou shot this.
-Yes.

Lou D'Esposito, our executive
producer, shot this stuff.

Our line and exec producer
shot some of that stuff.

He was good.
He did a lot of stuff like that.

That was the oversized keyhole.

The oversized keyhole
that we built for the shot.

-lt's the size of a--
-Times-20 keyhole...

...you put up against a lens
and shoot it.

But that shot that we had there
with him walking up to the rope...

...when we did not have that shot
in the movie, the movie was too scary.

The less of the Zorgons you showed,
the scarier they seemed...

...which was an old lesson you learned
from Alien and from Jaws.

The less you show, the scarier it is.
The more you show...

...the more comfortable
the audience is with them.

Because they're not as scary
if they're not...

...hidden by darkness
and colored by your imagination.

Now, this piece here, in the script,
do you remember what was there?

What he saw?

-Them eating.
-They were eating bones.

-They were eating. Eating bones.
-Carcasses.

-Sheep bones.
-Or these space-goat things.

But they weren't space goats
in the script, in the ship.

But they were eating
something there.

They were tearing something apart
and eating meat there.

And we actually rigged some of
the puppets-- And we shot it.

And we've got stuff that--
You'll see them eating fur and bones.

Like, swallowing meat, which--
It didn't look-- lt just looked awful...

...because it looked like something
we just bought at the butcher shop.

But it seemed out of place in this.
People were like, "What's going on?"

-Yeah, it got a little dark.
-And we had to cut it.

That was what was in the script, and
that's why I added the goats in here.

Because they were eating
something outside, so l said they--

-Oh, that's right.
-So we added the space goats--

-As a food supply.
-This whole sequence wasn't in.

This was sort of all ambiguous.

He was running through, like...

...air-conditioning vents
or something, remember?

And we sort of arrived at this,
storyboarded it and talked about it.

Basically they just set up
this conveyor system to burn stuff...

...as fuel for their ship.

So they just are raiding the house
and burning stuff.

He's shoveling it in
to keep the flame going.

That was in the script,
that they would burn things.

As a fuel source.

Then we had the thing with the game.
Look at that furnace, it's so great.

That's very Wizard of Oz too.

That was all real.
Riva built this whole thing.

You can see the dolly track,
these curved bars, it's so well done.

It's very hidden on the ground...

...but it looks really cool,
so you can actually do that.

His head pops up
and sees the game, timing that.

And there's the glow-in-the-dark poo
that was really glowing.

Now, that is the space-goat poop,
not Zorgon poop.

A lot of people are confused by that.

Nothing like a....

Why? Because Zorgons
don't go on the floor?

-No, but that--
-They use facilities?

People think the Zorgons,
it's from them. Look at that.

The eyes pop out.

It's not a goat. lt's not a goat.

"Not a goat. Not a goat."

It's not a goat.

Those goats, all we did is add the eyes.
They look like space goats anyway.

Remember, they were on the set?
That set smelled that day.

-Emus, were they? No, not emus.
-No, they're goats.

No, they're some
special kind of goat.

-lt was a smelly day.
-There's a dude in a suit.

We actually shot the flame separate.
It would have melted the suit.

-So that's composited in.
-lt's green screen over his shoulder.

Looking down.

Jonah did a good job in this scene.

There-- Here's the noise, the goats.

See, that's why the goats
sort ofjustifies why he didn't--

That's right, because he let them out
when he popped the chain.

It's pretty cool, the Zorgon shot.
Look at the armor.

All the Zorgon stuff, we had armor.
We had the paintings--

The Frank Frazetta
John Carter ofMars paintings up...

...long before it was ever announced
that that was gonna be a movie.

Rodriguez was attached. l remember,
midway through, they announced it.

And l'm attached to direct it,
so we'll see by the time this comes out.

Either it's a movie gonna be
happening or another sad story...

...in the 75-year development
of that project.

Here's them fighting.
What was happening there?

-lt was something else?
-They're fighting over scraps again.

-Yeah, they were eating.
-There was aggressive eating going on.

That was very disconcerting.

And here he is.
I'm particularly proud of this little....

Using the glow-in-the-dark poop...

-As the trail.
-...as the trail, the way he's discovered.

Look, a little tip right here.
Look at that.

That was added.
That was augmented with the CG.

Guys, pull me up.

A little improvised line of his.

They got goats--

Dramatic performance there
from the Zorgon.

Had a real knife. Remember, that was
a real sword that could cut through?

-Yeah.
-This is a very good little bit.

These types of movies,
they take so much work...

...to make all the little pieces fit.
It's like a big puzzle. You gotta...

...shape all the little puzzle pieces,
make them all fit together.

It takes so long to even see them
because you just shoot on the set...

...then all the work has to go into it,
it all finally crystallizes.

And if it doesn't work, you really don't
have a lot of leeway and latitude.

We were very lucky
that it came together so well.

But l could see why they end up
reshooting a lot of movies like these.

Where you use CG.
The thing is, you're committing.

-These are all puppets. These are all--
-You can't go to CG.

Sometimes we would shoot plates
as backup, but it wasn't as though...

-No.
-...we had green screen everywhere.

This was a $65 million movie too.
It wasn't like we had a lot of dough to--

Which sounds like a lot,
but in Hollywood terms...

-...that's not an insane amount.
-lt's below average.

It's a below-average movie, especially
considering what we were out against.

We came out a week before
Harry Potter 4...

...which, the budget
was in the high 200s.

They've announced it was over 200.
I've heard it was like 270, 280.

Just to make the movie.

And we were a week after
Chicken Little, which was...

...a lot more than ours too.
We were right between these big hits.

-Before Narnia and Kong.
-Right.

So we were in the holiday
marketplace with a movie that cost...

...a third to a quarter of what the films
we were competing against were.

And not to mention, you know....

Use the card.

Not to mention the promotion
that was done for those films.

So it was a very tricky situation
to be in for us.

But we were very grateful,
we got very good reviews.

And the exit polls were good.
Everybody really liked the movie.

So if you're seeing this movie
for the first time on DVD....

I think most people probably,
hopefully--

It reminds me
of another Sony movie I did.

My first movie was Rudy,
and it wasn't seen a lot out there.

A Christmas Story was totally
that same type of movie.

Was that your first movie?

-Not my first, but my first big one.
-First big one?

But everybody's seen
Christmas Story.

Then it had a life on video.
A lot of these movies do now.

And Swingers made, l think,
4 million in theaters.

And everybody's seen it.

So, what's nice about these DVDs...

...and why we put
so much time and effort into it...

...is this is where
most people see it.

Even with a successful film.

Even with Elf, it made over
$1 70 million in theaters.

Most people hadn't really seen it
until it came out on video.

Look at that. See that explosion?

You know who did our pyrotechnics?
The same guy who did...

...the pyrotechnics
for the original Star Wars movies.

-That's right.
-So that's the same stuff...

...that blew up the Death Star...

...before they changed it
to the CG Death Star.

-Look at that. That was pretty cool.
-That worked out well.

That was a motion-control rig. We shot
it with the kids, and then with the--

With the lizard, without
and with a dummy lizard.

-A dummy we hit with a real--
-You could whack it.

That Jon Belyeu hooked up the tracks
and sent a real piano down the stairs.

I wanted that piano,
but it didn't work out well.

-We had a little--
-There was a big cut scene there.

Where they were falling through
the floorboards.

-lt wasn't necessary.
-We were running out of time.

Running out of time shooting,
and at the end, you wanna get done.

It was, like, three shots.
It wasn't much of a scene.

Here's one of the few surviving jokes
from the original script coming up.

-lt always gets a laugh. Here it is.
-That sort of--

-What is it?
-"l'm not even gonna comment on that."

That's it. This Danny joke.

This was very much the tone
of the humor in the movie...

...as we originally read it,
and then it got a little--

As we said,
when there's too much...

...it breaks the reality of the tension
of what's happening.

But there, it is kind ofjustified.
You've earned the right to say it.

He really has performed awfully
in the game.

-Every card has not worked out.
-You get away with one.

But it's true.
I buy that he would say that.

That's the whole thing. You gotta talk
yourself into the fact that you buy it.

This little bit....

-Boy, this was tricky.
-This was John Kamps' contribution...

...l've been told by the writers.

This little twist
of Walter being the brother.

I mean, the astronaut being Walter.

But when we saw the script,
do you remember what happened?

What showed up when he wished?

It was an 1 8-year-old Danny.

So the question was,
what should Danny be wearing...

...if he's been gone for 1 8 years?

And so should it be his clothes?

-A bigger version of his Uglydoll shirt?
-Right.

Or should it be a spacesuit?
That didn't make sense.

What they came up with,
he was naked.

-So we were gonna have him naked.
-Reach for a curtain to cover himself.

Remember, the black hole at the end,
they didn't morph together.

-They were all in the space.
-Right.

So they would all be flies.
You'd have a naked 1 8-year-old guy...

-lt just felt a little weird.
-...you never met before.

We were gonna ask Vince
to play him.

I was gonna ask Vince do a cameo
in the movie as the naked brother.

That would have worked out.
He would've taken that.

-ln a heartbeat.
-He would have.

He would've done it in a second.
But we decided to have it be--

You know, how l came up with this
was watching Close Encounters.

And when the guys...

...from the old World War lI planes
that were captured...

...that disappeared,
they came back...

...wearing their old clothes,
the age they were abducted.

That's sort of part of the mythology
of space abductions, or space travel...

...or things like that, is that you....
When you're drawn out...

...you're returned back in the state
that you were in.

This is the clean Danny
and dirty Danny.

So you have him as though it was
before he went on the Zorgon ship.

And this is-- What was his name?
Connor? Conrad? Who's the kid?

Conrad, who was just really a stand-in
and sort of a body double.

Someone that we used for
the extra hours in a day to shoot.

After Jonah was wrapped,
we'd use him for hand inserts.

-But that's his back.
-Really looked remarkably like him.

This is a split
done on green screen.

That's a split,
but if you look at the overs...

...these, that's not a split.
That's the double. That's Conrad.

The double on one side,
then we put him on the other side.

Look at how good Jonah is here,
playing it as two different characters.

He looks, like, much more innocent
on the other side.

If you look at his performance there,
he really sold it.

And so the idea was when they touch,
then they just zip into each other.

And so a lot of work was done...

...first by Imageworks
and later by Digital Dimension...

...to make that
little morph thing happen.

That was one of the things that took--
We turned this over....

Oh, God, it took months and months
and months, and we never got it right.

-Here, he's supposed to be an older--
-ln the background, by the way--

You'll see what we had to do-- Sorry.
But just what we did to Dax's eyes.

-We had to change his eye color.
-Change his eye color.

Because it's really a time when you're
gonna notice and you'll be comparing...

...obviously, as it's now revealed
that he's an older version of him.

The rest of the movie,
he's got different eye color.

-We knocked it down--
-At times when it mattered.

Here's this. And he's--
That was a nice little moment there.

And here's our morph.

Which looks good and doesn't
look like the Snoop Dogg video...

...which we didn't want it
to look like.

There's a dog on the shelf. That's Fritz,
from all Chris Van Allsburg books.

And there's the one little star
that goes in at the end.

A little bit like Close Encounters.

Remember the little light that chases
the other lights in Close Encounters?

-Jon likes to keep stuff in the movies.
-l try to do it.

Here's another thing,
another reference to a film...

...coming up right now.

The Christmas Story leg lamp...

-Oh, that's right. That's right.
-...is coming up shortly.

Which you may have seen
in the other shot.

-They're on sale.
-There it is, right there.

There's the Christmas Story
leg lamp.

So the dad had bought one
and he just has it there.

I was very specific
about having that in there.

I love these shots, by the way.
This is one of my favorite shots.

I really like how the--
Those exteriors with the model.

I just love it...

...and will look for opportunities
to do it again in the future.

And that's CGI debris that lmageworks
did, had the house coming apart.

We went past it quick, but that bathtub,
we actually dropped in from the ceiling.

It just, again, was the real stuff
to get the performances out of them.

Didn't we flip that out?
We didn't flip it out when we--

-That one? No. That's coming up.
-When the wall comes off.

Yeah, it gets sucked out.
And that thing propelled pretty far too.

That was good.
He blew the stove across the room.

That was a nice stove too.

That's what happens in movies, man.
It's a little freaky.

Now, all of this, l must say
that Kent and everybody from PLF...

...came up with the design of
the choreography of these CG shots.

Even the shots that weren't CG,
they came up with.

It was handed over to both....

What was it called?
Cinema Production-- CPS?

Cinema Productions Services,
the miniatures.

So all the motion-control
miniature stuff...

...and the CGl stuff
that was done by Imageworks...

...was all previs'd by PLF,
Pixel Liberation Front...

...who l worked with on Elf
as well.

A lot of that design work was done
long before we ever shot.

Which we had to do because we had
to commit to shooting miniatures.

And you don't have a lot of room to
move things around like with CGl.

So you look at it on a computer screen,
you approve the shot...

...and then execute it
in the miniature environment.

There's not a lot of going back.

Instead of rendering,
like you would with CG...

...you actually shoot it on the stage.

Here's another harpoon.
Very careful to block the window.

You added something on that
Zathura shot too, right? On the ball?

Yeah, a little smoke.

So it sort of mimicked
this black hole notion here.

So that's CG debris,
models going into it...

...and that fire was actually
a flame element that Joe shot, right?

And wirework with her.
She went pretty far away.

-She did.
-Then she was shrunk beyond that.

And that was up on the elevated set.
So she was up about 30 feet.

That thing really went too.
That thing flew across the set.

That's right, l remember that.
It was fun, you gotta admit.

-lt was great.
-Great to take the kids and say:

"Okay, now watch this.
This is what you're about to see."

And the added shot coming up
is cool, how the roof comes off...

-...which was, again, just another--
-That was miniatures too.

-On a rolling-pin rotisserie thing.
-ln post, just coming up with...

-...cool shots.
-We added this. We did a pullback.

They always were gonna do that shot,
but we added the pullback...

-...from the actual plate of the kids.
-Which really helped sell it.

This was the notion.
The house gets reduced to...

...basically, a postage stamp
was the description of what it was...

...as it's drawn to the black hole.

And then you had to pretty much...

...coming up here, after Walter goes,
you gotta quickly get into Danny...

...because you don't wanna spend
time with Danny without his brother.

And this was shot....
There's the little lighting change.

-lt turns orange for a second.
-We get away with it.

Jonah looks a tiny bit younger here
than he just did, but with the dirt--

-And thinner.
-Yeah, he's about 1 5 pounds lighter.

After he's gotten
into the craft service.

As l did on my first movie...

-...if you watch Rudy.
-We've all made that mistake.

-Free food!
-Once.

Subconsciously, you think it's gonna
be taken away, so you keep eating.

Like you're in prison.

Look how pristine the house looks.
Of course, we didn't repair it.

-lt's from the early days of shooting.
-Early shooting.

Now, if you watch them
playing catch outside...

...you'll see that, certain shots,
Jonah very clearly...

...looks much heavier.

There's the Bullitt poster
that I've been asked about.

I thought it would be cool
if he had a car-- Cool car.

As a car guy,
he's into car movies too.

I didn't know it would be featured
in so many shots.

It becomes the subtext of the film.

There's the gerbil joke.

And they're shaking him,
shaking him.

-We're home!
-We did it. We're home.

And they're celebrating.
Dad's home.

Dad, it was so awesome.
There was this game...

-...it sent us to outer space.
-There was a black hole.

This is one of the first days.

Look how young he looks there,
and there's the haircut again.

-Haircut number four.
-Early haircut.

Sounds like a lot of fun.

It wasn't as early as the other one,
where he's all greased down.

Like he just got out of solitary.

He was trying to comb it back
for the parole board.

This is a green screen.
We added them playing catch.

They're in the Sony parking lot,
comped in front of the house.

-And right here.
-Chubby Jonah. That's also in the lot.

That's the guest parking lot of Sony.
We laid sod and put some oleanders...

...and some, like, white tissue in there
to make it look like a yard.

-They did a good job.
-There too. We pulled the house.

That was in the parking lot.

That was a fake pillar, and now
we're back to the original shoot.

-No, this is still the old one.
-Not yet.

This is all old.
And then, any of the--

This is the later one.
This is the reshoot.

Then, as soon as
the sister comes in--

-Now we're back in the old one.
-Which was shot months earlier.

-Months.
-Here's new...

...and then her side is original.

-And then this shot's--
-That one's new, then we connect to--

-Now, this is old.
-That's old.

-And it looks pretty good.
-lt really matched.

Originally it was just them sort of
diatribing about what had happened...

...and trying to sum it up verbally.

And it was cooler to bookend it
with them having catch...

...because that was sort of
what they were unable to do.

And l think that's how
the book actually ends as well.

There's Frank Oz too.

Let me mention, Frank Oz
came in as a favor to me...

...and recorded the voice of the robot.
And did a great job.

I was the robot for a while there.

So he-- l was recast by Frank Oz.

And this song that's playing
is a great song. lt's a....

-lt's a....
-Famous song.

It's a Paul Simon song.

And Paul Simon-- We took the movie
for Paul Simon to see...

...because he was looking to write
an original song for a movie...

...as he did for Thornberrys,
Wild Thornberrys.

Did a great song for that,
and l'm a huge fan.

And we're both from
the same neighborhood in Queens.

And we were gonna
show him the movie...

...and we brought it out and showed he
and his brother. They loved the movie.

And then it got to the end, he says,
"Well, that works really well.

-l can't do better than that."
-Not motivated to write.

He says, "That works great."
I said, "I know, but you gotta--"

I was all excited. He said, "I'll try.
I'll try to write something."

And we waited and waited and waited.
And finally he was like:

"I-- You know. That's--"

They gave us a good deal
on the song.

But he couldn't do a better job
than this one to fit into the movie.

I have to say, it works really well.
I'm kind of happy in a weird way.

Because it was
a favorite of mine.

You had had that song in your head
for a long time too.

We had that song on the set,
do you remember?

We had that burned onto a disc
to get the timing of when the bike fell.

So that wasn't something
that came up in post.

That was something
I originally had in my mind.

We couldn't afford it at the time.

We didn't have it in the budget,
but I had it on the set.

But sometimes the money comes up
later if you save money shooting.

Endless, endless credit sequence.

That's the only thing l don't like about
movies nowadays, is there's so many--

But you have to reward those
that worked hard.

So many people. I know.

-This isn't as long as some sequences.
-No, this isn't.

But see how they divide it up
and make it all long?

-And everybody get-- You know.
-A lot of negative space in there.

-Everybody gets a credit now.
-And the one thing-- l'll say it now.

--is a lot of movies have
a lot of writers working on them.

And because you have everybody
who did anything...

...on the visual effects,
craft service--

Everybody gets a credit who's worked
on a movie. I think that's fair.

There are a lot of movies where
the writers are not credited...

...because they're-- The WGA,
the guild does not assign them credit.

-l think that it's kind of a bummer.
-lt's pretty ridiculous.

Even if it wasn't a main title...

-...there should be additional credits.
-Something that acknowledges--

That they did some work.

Frank Darabont's like,
"I've worked on so many movies.

Everybody gets credit
on the movie."

Like the second-assistant
craft-service person gets--

Or people who work on--
PAs and stuff. And l think it's fun.

But there's nothing that even
acknowledges people's contributions.

That's one.... That's one thing
I hope changes eventually.

And here's the Miniature crew.

But it was-- I gotta tell you,
it was a fun movie to work on.

Very smooth, and l really grew
a great deal on this one...

...and hope to do movies
that use the techniques I learned.

You know, this was my film school
in a lot of ways.

You know, I came up working on,
you know, first, Swingers...

...and then later, on Made,
and then later, on--

-Elfwas the first tease of this stuff.
-Elf, as a director, doing this.

And then to be actually doing
an effects-driven film...

...which I think this constitutes--

And so many people pointed out
how much they liked it...

...so it wasn't just that we were trying
to do something that we liked.

But it's something that actually
made the movie play better.

And l hope that...

...the trend continues to not just use
CGl, but to actually use these old--

Fortunately, a lot of people
commented on it, people noticed it.

It drew them back to the early
Amblin movies of the '80s.

They have that feel of movies
they liked.

A lot is attributed to the technologies
used, the way things were done...

...the approach made in
the photography, lighting...

...shots and miniatures. Hopefully
people will draw back against it.

-There were a lot of older guys that--
-l think we're out of movie.

-We're out of movie.
-And now we're done.

-Well, thank you.
-Bye-bye.

Bye. Thanks for listening.