103 - Nathan Crowley - Production Designer and Chris Nolan collaborator

Weirding Way Media. Welcome to episode of one hundred and three of the Film You Mentor's podcast. This is Jamie Benning here talking to you from not home, but the East of England. Knowledge to be precise. I'm up here visiting my parents.

What films have been shot here? Forty five years? And Andrew Haig's great film Avengers, Age of Ultron, I think there was some of that here, Never Let Me Go, Stardust Atonement, Die Another Day, four Metal Jacket, where the Norfolk Broads doubled as paddy fields in Asia, The Dambusters. Parts of all those films, anyway, were shot in this county, and in fact the latest film that today's guests worked on was parts of it was also shot here. More on that in a moment.

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For my guest on this second episode of May twenty twenty four, it's production designer Nathan Crowley. Now, if you don't know his name, I mean you should, but you'll definitely know and most likely love his work. I'll just list a few films here from his IMDb Behind Enemy Lines, Insomnia, Batman, Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, John Carter, The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, Dunkirk, The Greatest show Man, First Man, Wonka. Nathan is an incredibly talented artist that is able to create these amazing worlds on screen. He's also a great guy and very easy to talk with, and we had a great conversation just a couple of weeks ago.

Now i've been last week. Actually I think it was last week. It's a very fluid conversation, but we do cover some of the milestones in his career, starting with a Spielberg film and finishing up with his latest film that I mentioned above, the part of which was shot in Norfolk, with some chat about Chris Nolan films in between, of course, I mean you couldn't miss those off of his filmography. So here's my chat with production designer Nathan Crowley, and I'll be back at the end for a bit more jabbering on. Nathan, can you trace back the moment in your life when you decided I want to be involved with movies or I want to be a designer, or was there another path that you took.

Yeah, I came to it sort of very randomly and haphazardly. I can trace exactly the moment when I realized this is where I wanted to be, and that was my very first film. I got hard as a junior set designer, which is a draftsman on hook, my very first job. And I walked into what used to be the old MGM studios, which at that time were Columbia TriStar is now Sony. And I walked through the main gates and I walked past I think it was stage twenty seven or thirty, which is one of the big old MGM stages, and looked in the door and there was all this water rushing out the stage.

There was a ship the size of HMS Victory a bit having been built on that stage, and they built a tank and they were trying to float it, and there was chaos and there were people rolling around and carpenters and painters and scenics and camera people, and they realized the way the ship had welded itself to the stage floor, they couldn't get buoyancy off it, I mean, And it was just one of those sort of I realized, I just suddenly leaven my people because they were trying to do something just fantastical that you know, no one's built a ship, you know, you only get the build ation mess Victory once. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, you know, and so I realized it's like, oh wow, this is this is exciting. And I mean, I've been on a different path.

And I studied well fine arts to John Cass for a year, which is I think it's gone now on The Art school was in Augate East or White chap It was opposite whitechap Wild Gallery. And then I'd gone to Brighton Art School as part of the Polytechnic back then to study interior architecture, which is a sort of a sort of a sort of collective for three D everythin. So and I'd worked. I could always drive, my father was an architects, you know, I learned to draft. I could always get jobs in architecture firms.

But it's something I really didn't want to do. I guess I thought, after Sir John Cass, I wanted to sculpt, but was a bit concerned that I'd never make any money. So I went down to Brighton and I'd always been on this path, and I got a job out Brighton for architects and then you know, this was in the end of the eighties and then that Black Monday hit and I had I just bought myself a flat and Clapham and borrowed to the hill as one of these, you know, having got my first job and interest rates doubled and suddenly there was no work. And so I was one of those, I say, the the end of the May Thatcher era where we came out, no jobs, no money, sent the keys back to the mortgage company. I was one of those people and got on a plane.

I had friends who were in l A, and so I just went off to l A, you know, because it was because everything gone wrong, and I started working. I started illustrating for some architects there in LA. I had a lot of friends who moved there because the thing about the end of the Thatcher era, a lot of our generation had gone abroad because you know, there was there was nothing left. So that, you know, it's funny, A lot of my friends went to Australia. Australia was easier because it was they had the sort of under thirty visas.

America was harder because harder to get visas. But so I went there and I just happened to I literally went into a bar opposite Paramount Studios called Smalls, which was what used to be a famous bar. It's probably I don't know if it's still there. And bumped into a guy that was Brighton with called Joe Hodges, who and so it was like we had a drink and he said, I remember you. You used to build crazy furniture and her art school.

And he said, they're looking for drafts people up here at the on Hook. I'll see if I'm getting an interview. So he did, and I walked in and then I sort of I just hazard I didn't know you could get jobs in film. It didn't seem like, you know, growing up in London, the film seemed like like you'd have to be a member of the royal family to get in. Yeah, And I guess there was that sort of if it is word nepotistic side thing as well, where you know and rightly so you know it happens in It happens with butchers, it happens with bakers.

Why not in the film industry, but it but it is one of those industries that people are kind of desperate to get into. And I think people I've spoken to, like through the sixties seventies and eighties. I've often said, oh it was my uncle or as my father or as my grandfather or my father did a favor for somebody who worked in the industry and they brought me in as a kid. And so to get in, you know, without one of those tickets was quite something, wasn't it. Really.

Yeah. I mean, I but I didn't really know. I mean i'd sort of gone to our so and you know, I think, I just need to get a job so drastic the architects seem to be I don't want to be an architect, but I was a bit lost to be. Yeah, but we all have to work, and so I think, you know, I didn't really understand that there were there was an hard department and that you know, it was actually something that you know, they hardly before who did an array of things. And so going to LA where you know, hang out with these friends and working a bit, you know, it was very cheap in LA back then.

It was like, you know, there was no bills. Rent was cheap, so it was like a thurther price in London. So it was I mean, it's not like that anymore. And and then so it seemed like the obvious thing to do is Sonny didn't have to wear socks and and so yeah, I just fell into it. And then I when I walked into that studio, I knew immediately that I found something I want to do.

It was Norman Gale would hard me, the designer he did Brazil and the Princess Bride. Everyone's saying about so he he he was great. He said, yeah, I'll give you. They give you a shot. The good thing about America is they give everyone a chance.

You don't have to be a family member or don't have to have a connection to give you a chance. So if you fail, they kicked you out. They're very sort of blunt that way. You're only good at keep you. Do you think being a brit carried carried a bit of a cachet then as well for people like it was I always get this thing for Americans.

They think there's a certain level of sophistication of a British man or a British woman, Like in the industry. I get it all the time. You know, when I travel, people hear that accent. And well maybe not maybe not since Brexit, but do you think there was a bit of that then as well that, you know. I mean definitely, you show up and they think, you know, they think you know more than you do.

Yeah, which is often the case. The truth is that they know much more than we do. We just have this accent and we speak well, providing they can understand. Yeah, So you bring something different, don't you, because you've been brought up somewhere completely different to them, which is ultimately alien to them. Yet you still have this shared language.

So yeah, I think I think just being in that situation, sort of being thrown into a big I mean, you're on a Spielberg film day one, right, did you did you like a fish out of water? Yeah? Of course, I mean they hard me Norman Army and it's Sinkle swim culture, you know. And it's like he said, you know, the art director Tom Sanders, who ended up I worked for as he became a designer very shortly after that. He just they threw me in on tinker Bells oversized, you know.

You know, her sets had to be oversized because she was a fairy size, so we had to build everything huge, you know, so that Dell was scale. And of course I've been trained in metric and I had to switch to imperial. So I really had to, like I really had to, like I had to knuckle down and get on with it. And but it was, you know, it was definitely I think, you know, I'd always and I sort of this sort of realization has come up over me quite recently that I realized I really do I stink in three dimensions. And I always thought everyone thought and can imagine in three dimensions.

So if you're talking about our space, I can open a wall, go through it, and I can change something. I could spin around it in my head. But I had no idea for a long time that everyone didn't have the ability to change things three dimensionally in their brain. And that was that, wasn't it? And I realized that that, you know, starting in hook was like, yeah, I can see this side of the ship.

I I can see where it is. I don't have to be in front of it, you know. So it's interesting, isn't it when you have that realization that you can do things that other people can't do. Because we do kind of grow up in that school system where so everyone's roughly on a par right, there's somebody slightly better than you, somebody slightly worse than you, or maybe you're at the top. But yeah, I remember I think George Lucas said something like he was amazed the first time he met somebody who had no imagination whatsoever, Like he couldn't believe that that somebody like that existed, you know, it just kind of shocked him.

So it is a bit of a sort of an epiphany moment, isn't it, And also being able to identify it as an advantage that can then take you on this path. I mean, the next thing that appears, I think on your IMDb is Deep Space nine, which of course is a huge series. So you've gone from a spielbog movie to a huge, huge Actually yeah, I didn't get a credit for it, but I spent eleven months on bram Stoker's Dracula, did you Yea? And Norman Wow walk next door to Dante Ferretti, the designer and Coppola was just starting up bram Stoker's Dracula, and he said, he said to me, you don't know anyone here. I said nope, And he goes, I'll go and get you a job next door they're making Dracula, and he did, so I have him to really thank.

And Joe Odges, and he went to Dante, and it was hard in Dante's art department, and Dante unfortunately left the film and the other part was sort of cleared out. So in the interim I was I was put with Second Unit and Roman Copler, so we did all the Second Unit stuff. So I spent eleven months one Second Unit, which was the best, literally the best film score I could ever imagine, because it was all in camera practical effects, and so I actually learned how to make films for those eleven months. It was massively intense core. So if you remember the opening sequence says that was all all ours and all the shadows and the moving shadows and hydraulics and the outside down rats and the peppers ghosting and the wolves in the circus step and that was all we were off in Second Unit sort of.

I mean it was at the time. I had no idea how lucky I just got. And I do put it down to luck to get a job on Hook as your first film and then to go into Second Unit Bram Stokers, because I still use all those in camera effects today. So it's interesting you say the word luck because it comes into so many conversations I've had with people who've been in the film industry over the years. But it's also something about just being open to those opportunities.

Isn't it like you've arrived in this new country, you're amongst new people, some friends, you do know, You've you've found your way into this industry, and it's just I think some people just don't see opportunity. There's a conclusion I'll come to over the years that some people they may be offered the opportunity and they may turn it down because they're fearful of it. They may not even recognize it as an opportunity and seek something else out instead, you know, the store trying they're trying to leapfrog to the next stage. When really, you know, like you said, to be in a film like that, you know, in a film score with an amazing director. I mean I think of like, you know, work, imagine like I can't even imagine, like working alongside like Eco Ishioka, like the costume designer and stuff, just like one of the most iconic designers in the world, just blows your mind.

Well, I mean it was, it was. It was really an enlightened time for me because it was like I found the right place, but I'm soper stracular. They wanted to do in camera, which I didn't realize was everything to me because you know, it's it's it's it's full of tricks and it's interesting and it's more fun, you know, so and it set you on a path, hasn't it. Let's totally that that film sent me. I was terrified of France's Faul Coppola, as you would be if you were twenty three or twenty four.

Yeah, and yeah, we've had We actually had a long meeting about Megalopolis a few years ago, and it was like I felt like I closed a circle because it was like I could finally talk to him on that, you know, on an equal level. Though I'm not sure I'll never be equal, but at least I could, like I could suggest things that he hadn't thought. So it was it was a nice circle to close. But that that film, You're right, it's luck. The luck is Norman asking me, hey, do you want me to get your job?

That's where it's that's and that's where it ends, because it's like, and you're right, you have to fall into it. I mean, it's much easier that age because you've got nothing to lose, you know, so I mean you really, what's the alternatives? Go back to England and you know, get in there with John Major. Yeah yeah, I mean you made the right decision and you old Michael Botella whatever, you know, you don't want to you know, those were dark days as they were over Brexit recently. I hadn't seen those sort of dark days until recently I think in England.

But yeah, so the opportunity was there, and then you really got to get on with it. And if someone tells you go to do something, you've got to figure out how to do it. And so were you in the union straight off the bat there, like, once you've done Hook and stuff, did you manage to get in the union at that point? Yeah, Well they could only harm me because the universal lot had burned down. That was not this last time the time before, and they hired all the draftsmen, lost the union lists and so it was open.

They were accepting new new people. So I've not only got a job on Hook, but the production manager got me in the union at the same time. So the fortune of that is immense, which is I actually Local eight hundred, which it's such a good strong union, but and you know, and they paid well, which was like the other shocking thing. I still remember going to make my deal with a producer I won't tell you, and he was like, I'm just going to pay you union scale. I don't want to hear it.

Don't say a word, and I was like, I was like, yeah, I'm totally, I'm totally, I'm totally happy. Sorry, it was a big dog barking and you hear that dog. Okay, No, So I went in to see that. The producer, he was really I didn't even say a word, and he was saying, you're only going to get scale, union scale. Don't complain.

I don't want to hear a word. And I said that's what. I don't really care. I just want a job. And then they tell me how much it is and I was like really, and I think that's amazing.

It's not like earning a month in a one week. There was a month in London and I went to my friend Joe Augier's and said, I can't believe you guys get paid this month money and he goes, I don't get paid that I get paid. I guess that was scale. So I mean, I mean things have changed, unfortunately, But I did like the fact that, you know, it was a living wage. Yeah, and I think as a twenty I was probably twenty four, and she has a young person, a young man or a young person.

You can't get a living way. You'll pay your rent and your bills and have some money. You know. It sounds like you were in the sweet spot there with LA being pretty cheap at the time, work being fairly plentiful. I mean, it's it's and also just feeling that you're valued.

I mean, I've worked out for some big clients over the years, and they scrimp and save to the point where you know, I'm now thinking can I live? Can I continue to live doing what I do? Because you know, they just they now want to go to the new generation and pay them nothing, yeah, which is like it's like, come on, guys, like we can we can afford to pay young kids a decent wag. You know. So it's like, you know, I grew up as a Quaker family, so we were all quite liberal setting.

But anyway, yeah, so I was thrown into second unit and I had to produce all these sets out of whatever I could get my hands on, and so it was it was in those days. I had scene docs, so if I needed, like I needed ten poles or something, I could go down and figure out a bunch of columns I could add to from the scene doc and I go. You know, they had the old studio system, so you have the carpentry shop and the metal shop, the graphic shop all in a line. So you go place to place and you try and put a set together, and they have the drapery department. That's all gone now, but you could.

It was very good the studio system because you could go down the line in the warehouses and get what you needed and then get some crew and assembly it. And yeah, it was great. I mean literally after I think it was, they were just dismantling it in that in the next ten years. They even had a scenic department with the big rollers where they paint the packings. I mean, it was, it was.

It was kind of a magical moment where I got to experience the old Hollywood system just before it disappeared. I mean there was odd days like they'd called me and because I was second unit and say, oh, we need to do a photo shoot down on stage fifteen, okay with the actresses. Can you go down and bring some scenery. So I go and get some walls. Rips would move it because that was their job once it's been filmed and you go down there.

It was like Helman Newton was taking the photos so and he was like it was like this is man, I'm standing next to hell In and say, what do you need? Crazy? Isn't it? It's to be in those situations. And also to sort of realize that you're a part of it now, like you know, yeah, I mean I'm sure there are people like around you now who are starting out and going Jesus, Nathan Crowley he did this, he did that, you know, yeah, it was like, yeah, it was really so I'm sort of still the best thing I ever did was send the keys of my flat back to the mortgage company.

Yeah so who thought that could be a positive move? Do you know what I mean? It's like it's the thing, isn't it? Yeah? Yeah, so really, you know, the question is should I be thanking?

MANI sad? You know, let's not go there, let's not go that far? What what what is the sort of distinction between art director and you know, production designer, Because I'm actually making a documentary at the moment, and if you know, I'd like to actually invite to come and interview you at some point. I'm doing a documentary about Joe Alves, the production designer who worked on doors and close encounters for work. Joe's got this amazing archive of stuff like he's he's got everything, like even stuff before before he started, and he he sort of went up through the ranks, you know, and he was urt director and then he was production designer.

But I've never really got my hands on what the difference is or is it just a sort of renaming of the role because it started to encompass more than it did before. Yeah, so this yes, So the old term for production designer in the studio system was art director or in Cedria Gillman's day, supervising our director. And then he would had art directors under him. And so the art director used to be So if you look at old credits in the sixties, you'll see brency production signer, you'll see art director, and essentially that's the production design now. The difference now and then the assistant of art directors.

We are now the art directors. So and that that title was brought forward because I think it was mensies or someone he took on more because effects suddenly became practical effects first, and then you know, slowly films changed from the sort of studio production system of you go to stage, you go to the backlot, you know, and you revolve you Instead, you were trying to find out different ways of how to do things. You were sort of reinventing practical or sex and you had to do it in the art department. And then eventually visual efects came in and special effects and took over. I mean special efects were always there, but they they were like explosions and fires and bullets, you know.

So production design sort of became this thing. And the reason it's called production because it's this sort of over overseeing this arm of several different departments. So we undermea is set deck, props, construction, and with construction you get all the metal shops of plaster as the paint, as the SCENICX. And then we also we have to govern location. We don't run their department, but we need to be with them to decide, you know, because you'll look, you're trying to figure out the look of the whole film, which is the environment is set in or the world you're trying to create and all its themes.

You you have to run visually. All these other departments. You don't have to manage them, but you visually have to run them. And to a certain extent, I like to run visually special effects because a lot of those big rigs we build to move sets, Like if you're turning a set, I need to know. I want to know how we're going to turn it.

I want to tell them how I want it to move, or the floor moves, or you know you want to and so. And then with visual effects, you have to inform them everything should look like because you're often gone and you have to. So it's this sort of umbrella of all these departments that you know, we take on and we really have. We are responsible for the entire you know, environment, design of everything. So obviously the cinematographer and deals with all the lighting and that's a major thing, and we don't have anything to do with the costumes, but we have to interact with them.

And then the CG world is a relatively new thing, but if you're doing it in camera, you need to like you need to talk to the scenics, you need to talk to special effects, because you might have a moving back, you might have a spinning backing or you know, so everything has to be built into the set or into the location. So then if you go on location, which you do quite often often with Chris, are go and grow We grew five hundred A because of corn for Interstellar. Yeah, so I go with locations. We're go and find a farmer and then it's like, yeah, I mean you learn how to grow corn, which I think is sort of exciting because you go and sit with the farmer, you get involved in his life, and then you go to agriculture school for a week or you know, or not, and you you learn a bit and then you try and plant it and he's I mean, you're asking him to do it.

But the process of being outside and interacting with everyone is I find it exciting. You know so well, I was going to be my question. Do you prefer the control of the studio environment where you've kind of you know, you've planned it down to the nth degree, or do you like that kind of outdoors location scouting, picking a location and kind of working within the parameters of that location and maybe finding something that you wouldn't find elsewhere. Yeah, I mean I kind of like both. I think combining both is the ultimate.

Like Wicked that we just finished. I grew nine million tulips in Norfolk with a farm called Mark. Yeah, aout in Norfolk because my mum and dad are up there, are just interested to know. Yeah. It's right on the Leicester border, right right right in that that look, not nearly the Chelsea tractor area.

What's that called the Hokum. It's further north, just around. But I wanted to build it right. I shouldn't say that, but you know what I'm saying, I do I do? You know, I don't.

I'm not one of those people. Yeah, UV going, yeah, yeah it was. So we found a farmer who's a flower farmer, and he knew, he knew the film. I needed the you know, I need the end no trees because it's it's monkin Land and Munchkin Aussie and trees aren't like our trees. That's circular does in case you're wondering, and so I need no trees.

I needed to be right on the wash there, you know, And so I could have big skies and shue lips and so Mark a lot of his crown weirdly, this is what you learn a lot of his crown land. So you've got to meet the crown estates, who actually are pretty good helping out, and you've got to plant these sings and so it's a big deal, but it's also it was exciting to go through the winter and see everything grow and and the farmer Mark used to send me videos of in this horristic way weather up there, and and he of him like keeping an eye on all the tulips, I mean nine million, all different colors. So we sort of planted the whole lot and it was just and then you build the back lot, you build a Munchkin village on the back lot, and then you know, you to achieve this the stitch visual effects Pablo, who you probably know has to stitch things together.

Yeah, yeah, so actually really John Chu came up the idea of sinking the village into the landscape, which means when you're running towards it, you don't see and then you suddenly it's revealed to you, right, and that and then we could ramp back up in the back lot and we could get the reveal and then Padlo had to stitch them into the aerial and and so it was it was like, that's exciting. And I mean the question is obviously asked, like, well, why don't we do CG TU lips And it's like because it's not the same. I think the audience, the audience can touch reality and they just move differently. I think I saw one and line I like that you gave in an interview I saw yesterday. I was watching you know with CG I you were saying with CGI, we go there when we realize what we when we've worked out what we can't do, you know, if we can do it practically, we'll do it practically, which I think is great because I think you know, and I don't want to talk down the effects of tour because I know a lot of people that are very skilled in that area and do some really great work.

But at the end of the day, is just at aol, isn't it to achieve something? I mean, obviously budget comes into it, all sorts of aspects come into it, but there is something about that tangible reaching out and touching not only for the audience, but I'm sure for the for the actors on set as well, to be able to interact with their environment, and you know your work as well. I often think that one of the things that your work isn't necessarily in the public consciousness because it's supposed to disappear your work, right, Yeah, you know, you're not necessarily supposed to notice it. But one of the things it does, of course, that a lot of people don't realize to think, is that it can inform character so much.

You know, I just think immediately of like Joe Al's work, like building quint shacks suddenly and the boat, you know, making this ridiculous boat. Suddenly you know who that character is along with the performance and everything. Your your work is really foundational for so many things. And also it's kind of a sandwich, isn't it production design in a way? Yeah, i'd I'm with you.

It's like, you know, we you know. The other thing is, you know, sometimes if we're lucky, we get to create our own reality. That means, if you're doing fantasy, if you create something and that everyone believes that's reality. Now, that's what this looks like, you know. So you know, which is like take Tars in a distellar.

The robot Tars is like to find a new shape, you know. Robot design has been across the board, and so to find something that would fit his character that was very difficult. And so you know, you get to do you get to do all these wildest things, and then the actors come in. And then if you build it for real, or you build as much of it as you can, or go to a height, they get in character and they feel it and the I can see it on them. They like change in the reality.

And so if you give them like the Wizard's head, we just we just did. The puppeteered head was all. It was all puppeteered and mechanical, and it could express itself and could come out and talk to our actresses, you know, and you could scare them as well. And you know, I am oz you know it's fifteen foot jarn head through these curtains, you know, with an eye, you know, so you know, and then when they come in, they're in awe of it, and I feel like it helps them with performance. And then of course, I mean the joy of visual effects is we can now do stuff we can do or they can fill in the gaps.

So if I which is everything is at all so you know, I mean you spoke to Pablo like Pablo needs real photography to inform his visual effects. So it's like, and there lies the foundation of practical set building is if we can build enough to inform the visual effects, then it's going to look better. So the join is going to be good. If you can take the join lines up to thirty five feet on a back lot. It's tricking with that comes, of course, because the higher you go, the more expensive.

You know, there's all these factors that play in. But but yet visual effects as a tour and you're a team like visual effects, special effects, art department, construction. You know, we're all a team. We all have to get on to make it better. And it's all yeah, And I just had the fun in between one or a Wicked.

I had the funnest fantasy. I haven't done anything like these kind of films since Hook and Ram Stokers Dracula, so it was I feel like I've still returns at the beginning, which is I mean, I have no complaints about the middle thing with Chris Nolan, because we did some amazing things. Absolutely. You know you talk about tars A moment ago, I mean such a ballsy design. I mean that I remember the first time I just I saw that, and I just instantly said, that's brilliant because I had never seen it before.

And b Initially you think it makes no sense, and then you see it move and you just go, oh my god, it makes perfect sense. Because the thing is about design, I guess. I mean, I'm preaching to the converted here obviously, but you know, for me, the thing about design is not every piece of design is cohesive in our world. I look around me now and there's things that don't really work, and things that are really cool and sleek, and things that are clunky. And that's what I've always loved about your work.

It doesn't feel like it's just here's a world that feels like it was created by somebody. It feels like a world that's created by lots of people. As in the World, Yeah, exactly, it's not fut world as I call. Yeah. I was thinking, like James Klein's work in The Creator recently, like there's some really cool tech in there, and then they've got those stupid massive, big translator things that are like a giant game boy, and you kind of go, well, that's a bit well, actually, yeah, there is really shit design around, you know, and you kind of put up with it, don't you.

You know, we still haven't made a good toaster yet. Let's face it, that's funny. I never thought about that. They don't work? Yeah, yeah, who actually had a Formula one guy?

So that to me once he came up to me at hotel is a McLaren guy, and he said, he said, all this design and we can't even get a toaster to work properly. He said, Well, is faster, he said, it is faster than our car. Though that sounds like a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comment. You know what I mean. I've been reading a bit of Douglas Adams to my daughter actually, so maybe it's seemed in there.

Yeah. Really, your job is about convincing people that the characters are living in that world. Well, and we, as you said, we I call it. We have to go sidely into these films. And if you don't notice us and you accept it, then then I think we've done our job.

And now there's obviously many schools of design. Some believe you have to like show off, that's a that's an unfortunate word, be glamorous in some way, or maybe the story suits that. But you know, when I'm trying to convince someone that there's a robot and we're on the Ranger and we're about to go through a wormhole that's somewhere around Satin, I kind of you've got well and there's danger to it. I can't have a robot. Let's get to solve all your problems, you know.

So. And also, I mean one of I think one of the cleverest things that we did. And I say we because I'm always working with Chris from very early on on the design is all the spaceships we put NASA, uh you know, we put NASA colors on them, the black and wine and the tiles and they you know, all the shuffle. We made them feel like the shuffle. So you're looking at the Ranger and it's got two horns and sleek and it's wide.

It's docking with a you know, a space station, the Endurance. There's these pods that you know, there's also a clock. There's lots of themes in there, and you've got the Lander. But they're all they're all they all look like NASA because they've all got the heat tiles and the white you know, they've got that white top surface. On.

They've got NASA windows with the framing with the well to make them, you know, air tight, and so hopefully you kind of accept it. You go as an audist member, you just sort of and you just go with it. And that's ultimately what we're trying to do is it's like we've got to get you to a black hole and eventually to the tezerax. So we have to get you there. Though it feels like an evolution of what you already know, doesn't it.

It's yeah, you kind of accept it. Oh, that's where we've got to by this point. Yeah. It's also I guess the word is nostalgia. You have a memory or a nostalgia of it, and if you can tap into that as a designer, it's like it allows the audience to go with you.

And now a lot of designers don't agree with that. They want to hit you with something completely new and throw in your face and want to knock your socks off, you know, which that's the brilliant thing about design. There is no sort of right or wrong. Yeah, I mean I can understand that to a certain extent, working as a sort of gun for hire, as you know, you were saying before we were recording. You want your work to stand out to future employers, but you also have to serve the story and do that part of the job as well.

That must be a really sort of difficult balancing act. Yeah, what kind I've never never, never really felt like that. I'm always so bad this massive naive optimism. That's great, but it's like, oh, yeah, I think that started from going to LA and going into a bar and getting a job, you know, and I feel like, yeah, something will show up, and you know, I'm touch would but yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess you you know, you know, I bumped into some great directors along the way and who I've worked with, who you know, who you know I continue to work with, and it's just been it's been a pretty great journey. So hopefully there's more of it.

Yeah, but you am I right in saying that. I read somewhere that you knew of Chris Nolan when you were a kids, Like did you grow up near each other or something? Yeah. I was in Islington and he grew up in High Gad And when we first met up we had no idea he was on Vicious Road. I was down on Tampton Street, which probably means nothing to most people.

But my best friend Austin the two doors down from the Nolans. But Chris was five years younger than us, so and so we were there. We're always at Austin's house and and who wouldn't know that the kid next door who's five years younger was Chris Nolan, so we knew of his older brother. But you know, his older brother when we were teenagers like to like to thumb people, so we used to stay away from him. That's fair enough.

It's funny though that you know, you sort of came out, came out of similar stables and then you know, crossed your paths again. Well, you know, on the end of my street in Islington was the Puppet there that where Joe Wright was a baby when we were teenagers, so he was five years younger as well, and his dad used to run the Puppet theater, which was brilliant. There was a kid and he was down the road there. I mean, you know, you just don't know the things. Yeah, yeah, I remember when I first met my wife, who lived in crouch End, and I came out of for front door one morning and walked up the road and I just said morning to this guy and I thought I know him, and it was Simon Pegg.

And then I went into Budgeons and Peter Cupoldi was in there. Then I came out and Annie Lennox walked past me and it was just you know, North London. Yeah, what am I doing down south? Yeah? You're in the wrong part.

Yeah. So that that first film then where Chris was Insomnia was it? It was? Yeah, he just finished Memento and he sold it and it was being released and you know had I mean, he was getting a lot of notice. And then he took a studio, Insomnia with Warner Brothers, and then he needed a designer and I went to meet him and I got the jib.

I mean probably interviewing a few people, but we got on pretty well straight away. So and do you have an agent at that point that's kind of putting you forward for these projects? Yeah, just like a connection through someone. Know, I had an agent. She put me up for the interview, and then I just still remember vividly knocking on his apartment door.

You know, they weren't, they weren't who they are now. They were living quite you know, frugally in mid town somewhere and I knocked on his door. There's Emma and Chris. I went in and had a long chat cup of tea, and I kind of I always like doing a long preparations. I have talked to him about the ideas of this sort of this endless day you know that is Alaska.

And so yeah, we got on really well, and it's like, it's like, where do you go up? It was then we kind of connected at that meeting. It's like a joke. And he'd made the following on Vicious Road on his street. So I said, that's hysterical because I know that.

It's like I know all those houses. And yeah, so we got on and you know, and we went up to Canada. I don't think he'd ever built any bigger sets, you know. I had always I started by building big sets. So I kind of well, actually, I mean there's a we've skipped a long way to Chris Nolan, but there's a big I was.

I was, there's a big sort of build up to going to work for Tom Sanders, the designer was his art director on Brave Art and Assassins a few other films, Mission Possible too. And then I, yeah, John wu and and I we went on to Ireland on Braveheart, and that I was I was feeling like I needed to become a production designer because I kind of wanted to do my own thing, and they didn't really have any designers in Dublin and they had a lot of small films going in, so I just stayed basically in Dublin. I left LA for three years and moved to Dublin and I got to work with Barry Leederson came in, Joe Joel Schumacher, Alan Berkoler. I was only an art director on that, but he arrived with Dorran Willis and and you know, so I became a designer there and then eventually moved back to the States on a film with an Irish director, John Moore on behind him in Lines.

Yeah, and so I got to go back to ALA as a designer. So that's I mean, it was another sort of I guess it's another sort of optimistic naive move to think, oh, to stay here. What always amazing amazes me about, you know, people like you that work as production designers or visual effects supervisors is you have to sort of become experts on so many different worlds, so many different genres. What an amazing job. A lot of people go into work, and I mean I met up with some friends of mine from I haven't seen from school the other week and they're in the same jobs they're in just after they left school.

Ones in banking, ones in computing, and it hasn't really changed a great deal for either of them. But you know, the job that you do. You know, you're in different countries, you're inventing, your set designing for a Star Trek series, you're set designing for John Carpenter, and you know, it's I mean, it's it's kind of insane that you have to become an expert and all of this stuff. Is that something that you really relish? You like you you go proper deep dive headfirst straight into these these worlds and immerse yourself.

Yeah, well kind of. But it's exciting change. You know, I have a I can't really sit still. I think they have a name for that. I can I And so it's very exciting, like and maybe we could do it here.

It's like it's I find that you can get lost in the in the day and it's like, you know the things so long as you when you're younger it's nerve, it's stressful because you it seems like an impossible thing to do everything you know. And then of course what you learn as an older person is that you just tackle one thing at a time, you know, so, and then you you park things when you when you're not sure, you just park it and move on, you know. And so you kind of something that you do know yeah, yeah, or just something you want to do, and you park the stuff that's your brain can't handle, and you don't no point in sitting there spinning. But yeah, I really I love that sort of trying to connect. It's like a jarant jigs or visual jigsaw puzzle.

And it was, like I was saying earlier, the three D thing in the head where I can actually manipulate something in three D to try it without I really like. And so weirdly when three D, when we got three D programs like Maya and Modo at Rhino, it was mind blowing to me because if only something would move as fast as your head, you could spin around an object and change it. So the technology when that arrived, it was like, oh my god, because the pencil I'm already moved on the minute the pencil touches the paper, so to find the program, it's very hard to learn that could move with me and especially and they invented the three D mouse where you can spin around and navigate. It was like, oh, this is this is truly a joy.

And then of course they invented three D printing, which means I wasn't stuck in my two D computer screen. Then print and do you have three D printers around you? Net like, have you got some in your place? Now? Have you?

Yeah? I have three ultarmakers down in my basement. I used have seventeen when I was mad for it. But we used to print miniatures because it was like yeah, because it was the sprinture industry had kind of died almost by then as well, hasn't it. They weren't really middlemakers around.

Yeah. Well, I mean it's fantastic and try shapes. I think it was on the Interstellar that it was like, okay, I've learned this three D program when he's modo, which is the Zignus program. And then I went to Chris on the beginning when we were in early stages. We work in his garage which is now an art room, which is there our house.

It is slowly grown from his whole two cargo garage. And I said, I'm going to use this three D program to design this film. I really want to try it. And he said, well, I just got given this three D printer. And it was like, well, let's plug it in, let's give it a guy.

So we used to do lots of rangers. Can we find the shape of the rangers? Draw it, do it in three D? And it was like, I don't know, I have to find the right button depressed though. Sorry.

Yeah, before you had those printers, were you kind of doing like the the thing that I hear from a lot of ILM folks, which is the kit bashing thing, you know, just sort of joinings and model kits together just to get something tangible and physical, three dimensional in your hands. Yeah, that's how we did the Bamo. Bill is me and Chris in his two car garage. I used to go to toys and fill up chopping shopping trolleys of anything that seemed about right, and then we used to go down to home depot and buy ship. I always say, we can't do that anymore because everyone knows who the years, but back then it was easy.

That's how we did the BADO bill. There was no drawing of the bill until after we designed it, and then there was a drawing. So the the the actual design of it is. It was done in five models, which we call the Mark one through five. So I have a mark the Mark four and Chris has the Mark file.

I saw that. I saw one of the real ones in where was I? I was at Silverstone. I was working on the Grand Prix there and I came out of our broadcast compound and it was parked in our broadcast compound. I thought, what the heck is that doing there?

I think, yeah, just being driven around the track for a show off. No very cool, go that far? It would only go ninety ninety five maybe, yeah, but that's good enough. It's gone Chevy three fifty in it. So do you get a real thrill those from going from you know, those toys bashed together to seeing the kind of what the team has come up with and built.

You know, Yeah, I mean the bashing toys only gets you so far. Like the you end up with you know, a band saw and some plastics and you end up having to actually you get an idea and then you make you We used to make one half of it in plastics in Chris's garage and if we liked it, we then you know, you stick it into photoshop and duplicate it the other half and then you build the other half if you like it or you move on. But yeah, once you get it, one special effect arrive because they built it from the ground up. Special effects are brilliant because you're like they're engineers and it's like they look they always come in and there's lots of sort of you know, they're not as optimistic as we are, which is good, and they're like they know the reality of the situation.

Yeah. Yeah, They've got a build it from the ground up, so it takes a big it's a Chris Carbell building in this team. And I know Chris. Yeah what did he worked on one of the or know it was maybe it was Mission impossible anyway, Yeah, he's brilliant, like he can make it anything matter of fact as well, isn't he like you know done kind of Yeah? Yeah.

And my thing is like I want I always say to producers this, like whatever you do, whoever the special effects guys, make sure their last name is Calball because he has a brother Paul and Neil and I spoke to Yeah, yeah, yeah, I never worked with Neil, only Chris. But Chris they can build some stuff. So and their their workshop is very exciting because it's like crazy metal working and engineering and trying stuff and so yeah. So yeah, I mean the bad when he started building that from the ground up and we'd go and see him, and then he tested the rigs and because it has no front axle, which is which was part of the problem, and so and that the amount of suspension and the amount to keep that upright without front ankle axle was very very difficult because it because it also you know, it had to run around Chicago at high speed and also jump into the bat Cave.

So yeah, and that's all real souh. And I got to drive the Bamo bill in the early days and it was like, this is fantastic. You've got a deep voice. You know, you could do the Batman impression. I'm sure I know that's bane, isn't it.

Well you could do that instead, yeah, well we now know which side you fall on. Yeah, but I would imagine though, reading like a new Chris Nolan script having worked with him previously almost is of no advantage. To a certain to a certain level, because each film he does is just another level of complexity, whether it's in the story or in the you know, the design that he's looking for from you. I mean, that must be a hell of a challenge, it is. He's usually he's he's actually very patient and he wants but he wants you know, I get invited in very early because he's like he needs the visual input about how things should look to add because it really helps him continue, you know, refine the script.

So but yeah, usually I don't understand. The third act is usually like what interstells like, sorry, we're in the We're in a fourth dimensional configuration of a fifth dimensional world, you know, and it's like created by who you know in on the event arise. It is like what what do we do? It's like which you have to build? Yeah, yeah, yeah, which I have to build the Teza rat which is like again that's a typical one where I'm going to park that so you park out over here and deal with like you know, it's like how do you even navigate to sant you know what I mean?

Because we've got to build a spaceship with all its instruments, so you've got to think. It's like, oh, how do you navigate? But I kind of like that though, it's like, oh, oh we better figure out better speak to Kip Thorne about how how we're going to get to sant and how does that look on it on a dashboard, you know, crazy things like But also when you're scouting. I do remember I go scouting with Chris you you were alone. I do remember.

We're on a United plane and he was like he was like staring at the galley and I was thinking, what are you doing? And he goes, I'm just looking at those con trolleys they bring out and it was like I looked at them, iment oh yeah, it's like space is about story and yeah, and so all the walls we just we've got to go to a scrap now and get all the freaking trolley doors. And that's the walls. There are no walls, they're all compartments, so all cupboards. Yeah, and so but then we went up and like it's like, can we can we have a look at your trolleys and they're very suspicious, but you know that.

I think that's part of the excitement of design, is like it's a discovery and you know, and Christian's scripts are complicated. Tenant was like one of those very complicated scripts, which I'd say that was by far the most confused I've ever been because usually they, you know, play out so traditionally and you get to something complicated or a device ah, and you try to read it a few times and it sort of becomes much clearer. Tenant was It was very old because you have to see it from a point of view because if you're pushing against time, you're bringing time with you, and so therefore you are parallel with that moment in time, and it takes you a long time to understand the visuals of that insane yeah, entropy and like reversal and so you know that that that that was tricky because it sort of lives in the world of theory, not that the tens rec doesn't, but you know, we you know, it was less complicated than Tenant, even though Tenant was set not on on Earth.

Yeah, I have to say with what amazed me was like I got as a viewer, I got to certain points where I was like, oh, I get it, Okay, I get it, And just as you think you've got it, there's like another level another layer, and you're sort of thrown into this you know moment where you just think, amne am I not clever enough to watch this? I mean, that's probably what it's like reading the script for the first time for you, like where you think, okay, this makes sense and then you read the next bit. Oh no, that's you know, I'm back to square one almost. Luckily, mine naive optimism allows me to just go with it and you're just not as well. Yeah, and I'm just going to soak it up.

Some people have a long list to come in and read script has a long list of really troubling the questions trouble them. But to me, it's again, it's like you sort of go with it and it's sort of cinema is I can see that, but I can't see this bit, you know. But even like I mean, I love some of the films we've made, like The Prestige is one of my favorite, because it is it's an illusion, you know, from the minute it opens, it's like it's like it's just twists and turns and there's two of them, and they tell you that in the first ten minutes. They tell you you know that there's a twin and you know, you don't take it on board because it's very, very clever, and I love watching that film. Yeah, it's a really good film.

Again, it's sort of revealed before you, isn't it in such a sort of tantalizing way. Yeah. I think that I've read something recently if you want to be a good storyteller, like verbally, you should sort of tell the end first, like because then people are all in, you know, people lean tenant starts before it ends, before it begins, you know. So the explosion that starts twelve. Michael Kane tells you this right at the beginning of the film.

He goes, there was an explosion somewhere east in Europe and that starts twelve, So it actually it's already happened. And the prestige I love because again Michael Kaine says, are you watching closely? You know, and it's like, and you know, I find all that just marvelous. I find that just I'm talking like I'm I'm a fan, you know, that's the that's the sense I'm getting, Like that's great, because yeah, there was certainly probably a period of filmmaking where it was just kind of jobs for the for the Boys kind of thing, you know, it was, But it's it's fantastic that this sort of second generation, third fourth generation, how long it's been of movie fans that are now creating the movies that we're watching, you know, and have taken all of that stuff on board as they've grown up.

And yeah, now I think it's great to have fans working in the inside the industry because you're doing it for you as well as for us, you know. Yeah. Also, I mean, you know, I've opened a new door with these sort of musical fantasies and who would have saw that door would open? Yeah, And I'm just it's woken me up. Really, It's like it's woken me up to a design that I didn't ever think that was something that I could sort of be part of.

And I just like, we just made Wicked, the Wizard of Oz, you know, it's like, yeah, we get to do Yellow and my daughters are desperate to see it. They've seen the stage show like ten times. But that is a question then, so yeah, sorry, sorry to interrupt. I've got if I think of qure, I just say it. When you're creating like a world like Wonka and Wicked and even Batman.

There are worlds that people already have an idea of. Right, there's already in a sort of an established world there. Do you see that as sort of restrictive in a way or do you say, do you say, right, we're going all out, We're going to be different as possible, Like where where is that kind of sweet spot for you? I don't. I don't sort of think of it as like what's gone before, what we're going to do.

I think of it as like, you know, okay, this is again. It's like there's no point in like trying to compete with Gen Wilder, and I mean that's just brilliant, you know what I mean, Like I want to do that, and so we have to do our joyous, fantastical place. And the director often drives that. He says, I want this to be whimsical and I want this to I want to feel good and you know, so those kind of words really help me in the script. Obviously, else we're a lot so it's like, yeah, let's make this, Let's make this joyous and like complicated, and you know, with one Ger, it was like I want to mix Europe together, you know, because you know if you go to London and it's very Georgian and it's weirdly sort of fat.

Period is very sort of military in a weird way. It's cold, you know. And then you go to Switzerland and it feels sake, you know what I mean. So it's all the whimsical you need. But it's like, you know, it seems silly, sorry if you're Swiss, but there it feels toy townish, doesn't it.

Yeah, it feels like it's chitty chitty bang bang, you know. Yeah. So then you got and then I was like, well, behold, it was pretty good. It's got all the detail you need. So you want this sort of whimsical detail, this wondrous place where the great chocolate tears live.

But I want to feel like it's it goes back to, like I like the idea of nostalgia touching on something everyone knows. It's like we all learned to ride a bicycle, right, so you have a memory of going on down in your street and everyone in the world has that memory. Yeah, well I hope they do. And so if you can connect by the wheel turning or you know what I mean, And so how do you do that with architecture. It's like, you know, yeah, I love archways and I love shadow that they you know, so it was like, okay, I know how this should feel.

I just have to combine everything, and you know, and the thing about Wanker is you can like no one. You know, you're on a period. So people people would have fits if I like, I'm going to take the Charles Bridge, I'm going to take them land Grand Arcades, I'm going to say the Romanesque, you know, going to shove it together and for some a John Nash colonnade, you know, in front of it. You know, it's like, as you're describing colliding those worlds together, I'm sort of almost imagining a Hao Miazarki kind of ghibli world almost in the way that he takes sort of European influence in some of those like eighties nineties films like My Neighbor Toto A Kiki's Delivery Service is another one where she's on her broom flying over this town and it looks like French, Belgian, Swiss, German sort of all mashed together but has the sort of best elements of each but still feels right.

You know. That's the thing as well, isn't it is making something feel right as well and that but they all connect weirdly. I don't know how, but it seemed to. And that was that was Yeah, that was so much fun to combine it and the design challenge there was like, because you want to feel like it's sort of you know, and I know that the story is driven to the chocolateiers are evil, but you want it to feel like it has all this sort of history and you know, this great it's going to be this great, the greatest experience out of there, and of course when he gets here it's not. He's got to fix it.

And uh so yeah, I mean that was like that was a different kind of fancy because you do a period film, you know, you do like well, having said that, we made the Prestige in downtown La. Yeah, we built one set because we didn't have much money, so we did it. Well, that's not Sanctuary, used the New York bag lot and uh and then one we built one set at the sound stage, but the rest was downtown. He's had all the theaters, so you know, you're sort of tasks with giving an impression of the period. So you know, creating a wonk was to give that impression of his his you know, time that he lived in with you know, the theories that I didn't really care too much about the actual time.

It was sometime in you know, in the late forties. To me, it was irrelevant. It's just about praying this whimsical world that he had thought he wanted to be in since his childhood. Uh yeah, so you know the period thing is that again, it's about silently giving everyone a feeling that that place is his reality, you know. So, which which a long word for me, Jamie.

You know, I've watched a lot of your movies in the last couple of weeks, and I was sort of I said to my wife, I wish the real world looked like this, you know, I wish people put that much effort into design in the real world. I was going to ask you a question about I've spoken to people before who worked in production design, and they've talked about, you know, directors like John Carpenter, who would you know, the budge It would be so tight that he would say, right, I literally need a room with a door here and a door there and a window. And the production designer would say, well, what about on the reverse is well, we're not going to see that, you know. And Joe Alves famously tells this story where I think it's in Escape from New York.

If you'd have if Carpenter had panned like six inches to the left, you would have seen a cactus in the desert because they built they didn't even have a sound stage. They did build it in the desert. Do you prefer working for a director who has that vision so locked down that he tells you he know, or you have that discussion to only build what is needed, or do you prefer to sort of build a world that they can discover and improvise in build a world where I can discover I mean I think, you know, I think sure, John Carpenter, Hitchcock. Would you know it was so precise that they could do that, I don't think more than until making Yeah, the cameras used to be really heavy. Yeah yeah, so there was there was you couldn't really move them, so there was, and the lights didn't move.

But now there tools that allow us to like do anything you really want, including the lying systems. So you I like to create the world because I want to put people there and the actors there, and I think with Chris, he's very precise, but he uses the Imax camera, which is like which creates is like you've got to you've got to make sure everything's there. Plus he might want to turn around, and it's the sort of again for him, it's a voyage of discovery. Like a lot of directors, it's like, no, you know, they might want to turn around, and if they do, or they might there's so many elements like the sun might move and say, oh shit, we got to turn around, or an actor might you know, say you know, whatever he wants, say I would rather be do it this way over here, and you know there's all these variables, so you just you give them.

I like to give him a place that they don't have to think about and take that off the table. Now, sometimes with budgets you can't do that. Like on The Prestige it was difficult because you know, we only had certain angles, we had limited angles, but we had to work within because our budget was very low, twenty million below the line, which isn't a lot to do that kind of film. But you know, on the bigger films, like I mean, listen, there are always budget problems on any level of so so yeah, because you go to the budget level. You know so and that you know that is your your fine, it's your choices.

It's like you've got to sit around the table and say you're gonna have five of the seven, you know, and of course everyone wants seven of the seven. And yeah, you know this is part of the part of production design, as I think John Box used to say, you have to design the production, which means you make the choices, like you go on location because you know they serve the story and they serve your themes, and you push them to locations for certain things because you know, one they serve the story. It's two you don't want to build them because they that's not buildable or you can't do something else. So you have to help them design the film by by by showing them the way forward. So it's and also you know you do it selfishly, so you know that you have to down the road, you're going to have to make this stuff.

And you say, well, we can get out on location. Let's go and do that. You know, unless you're growing nine million cilips and then you can only film in April. That is absolutely insane. That's the thing, isn't it.

That I'm always struck by. You know, I've been a movie nerd in my life ever since I saw the making of Star Wars Age four or whatever it was, and I've always been kind of intrigued and obsessed with the lengths that you go to to achieve what you want to achieve in a movie. Like wasn't there that thing where you had to cut down like miles of road signs to fit the spaceship down the road? I mean, interstead, I mean, it's just it's just mind boggling, that's it. And like Robert Watts on Raiders of the Lost Art, you know that to remove like a thousand TV aerials because they're all in shot.

You know, you just think that I'm just not one of those people. I don't think that could see that as achievable. I just go, okay, right back, We're going to have to go somewhere else, you know. But it's born out of usually it's born out of mistake, because like the Ranger Together proportions, right, I wanted to make it certain width and unfortunately was wider than the Icelandic road on the on the low loader. We're going to move it overnight anyway, John who runs transport out there, who I've worked with many times.

Yawn. This hardy bloke was like it's like he says, oh, yeah, it's too white to go down down the road, and I go, oh, ship, how are we going to get it to the glacier? And he goes, and then he goes, I just cut the sign, you know, we'll solve that problem later. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah up put them back, you know, and yeah, yeah, I love those. It's why It's kind of why I like a lot I like a lot of the crew across the board film crew, because they're really can do people, and it's like, you know, then don't look at the negatives of that.

They look at like, well, we just give it a go. This is our this is my first space ship I've built. So weirdly, the Ranger was you know, was you know, it was like we had to build a slightly small one to get to Iceland because it had to fit into a seven four seven cargo ship in parts, so it could you know, it's we did an eighty percent one to get it out there and for crane sizes to lift it in and out of the water and onto the glacier and so you, you're If you look at the film at the back, there's this funny little boss because the actors have to step into that when the waves coming and then the door has to close, and of course at eighty percent doesn't give you the head height, so it was like there's a funny little box under it, and you know, all those kind of oddities that it's like I would probably get away with that.

So yeah, but being able to visualize as you do in three D must be such a valuable tool to sort of be on a location and imagine what you're building in your head in that place. Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's really future in your brain. Yeah, I don't. It's like so brilliant. And now now we now we have AI which I can move fast too, so but it's very two D, which is that into your world?

Oh yeah? Yeah, I mean, how do I describe how I use AI? In fact, I've got it on my screen. I use Discord and mid Journey, but I use it. The thing about design is you have to get through all the bad ideas to get to the good ones.

And we are limited in the time we have in pre production, so you can get down to get to tars. For instance, we had to go into all the humans, through the humanoid robots, and then through all the star the star wars you know, are too D two dustbin type, you know, non humanoid, all those those two parallel to find tars. Who doesn't sit in either, So we have to get through all of those, and we spend a long time like trying to design humanoid and non humanoid robots to get to the decision. It's like, oh, it can't be either. And the great thing about AI is you can now.

I feel like it's like a time machine. I can jump through that very quickly because I can experiment with stuff I don't want. It tells me all the nose and then I know when you get to the nose quicker, so you're not leapfrogging necessarily. But because my part getting to the point where you get the right thing is that you have gone through the wrong things, right. Yeah, this is speeding up that process.

But I can do it, yeah, exactly process. Yeah, because that's the worry that people have in of AI in the creative world is that it's going to take that sort of iterative process away. So the thing that you arrive at isn't going to be what you would have arrived at if you'd taken the longer process. But maybe you know, it's the difference between I mean you might you could even argue that, you know, I'm holding a pencil up here, that if you did it with an Apple pencil, that you're sort of leap frogging to certain or you're speeding up the process to a certain extent. It's like three D in the pencil, like I said earlier, Yeah, I could sketch, but it's one view and I want to see fifty views, and so I can roll around something.

AI just allows me to move through all the things I don't want to do like that. For instance, if you're designing whatever, or it's a Star Wars prequel or whatever, you know what's been before you. So you have to get over all your pre concepts and you know, all your just your gigy stuff, including all your art departments preconceived ideas of what it should be to get there. And so if we can leaprob that and then start to develop it from a further point in the in the future, what would have been the future, Because we are time crunched, you know, we get less and less time to prepare films, and so it's in, you know, and once you start building it, because you're running a big construction crew, it's very hard to maneuver it into something you want, and you know, you often end up with like that doesn't I'm disappointed at that set and I knew it was wrong when I started, but I couldn't find the right answer.

So I like, AI, it's just another tool. It's like you said earlier, it's another tool. And I don't think it's gonna solve it's not going to I honestly don't think it's gonna I think it's people are going to use it to help them, and I just feel like it's going to be another useful thing. I don't know where the film version of it is going. I mean, I do think it's a sea change.

I think it's probably more than a se I mean, I remember these ce changes. When photo Shop came in, it was like in the early nineties, it was like what is that? And can you teach it? Can you teach it to me? And then three D game in, three D printing game in you know, the effects came in.

So I think it's just it might be bigger than that all of those, and it might be a sort of sound to silent a sound moment, but I don't know yet. Who knows, right, Yeah, I mean I you know, a lot of people in my part of the industry, you know, we're editing stuff very quickly and getting it back out to where, whether it's in sport or light entertainment. And I think a lot of people initially thought that AI would jump straight in and start doing that editing for us. But one of the things I work for a company called EVS who make production servers like for replays and highlights and things. And one of the things they've just introduced, which I was at NAB for them, was frame interpolation, So turning a standard camera into like a three phase you know, one hundred and fifty frame camera or more if you send it again but in a turnaround that is quick enough to get it to air in time.

Wow, But then you end up with an inherent blur. So they're now working on a d blur for that, and it is I mean, it's incredible. You know. It's like the other day, some load of friends of mine who working multiple flew out to Abu Dhabi to work on some autonomous racing, and one of the guys, the camera guys, he's let's say, he's touching seventy doing it for a very long time. And I said, I thought they were going to replace you first, not the drivers, you know.

And it's interesting where AI is going, not necessarily in the places that you expect, but yeah, you're right, it is at all. And I think people are just worried about the sort of abuse of it, aren't they. There's a sort of I don't want to use the word snobbery, but I guess there's a certain feeling about the purity of our of that blank page age and that pencil, and having the boldness to start something, you know, from from nothing. Yeah. But I mean, but you're working in an industry where you've got to do things quickly and make money right and and make a great design at the same time.

Yeah, I mean. Weirdly, what I found is like when we've when you know, I've used it to mix illustrations of things together because I like bits of them, so I just blended them, and it gives me something that is actually our work that's blended together. There's something new and oddly the weirdest thing is is the translation, Like I feel like I need an old school art director to try because if it's it's very two dimensional and it's a feeling. The AI thing is like based on paintings and emotion and you know they're they draw down. So to translate everything that comes out of AI into something physical, you need an old school art director who understands that translation period, you know, which is you know, in a weird way, it makes our direction more important because you the old school art direction is the journey from of making something and sculpting it in three D from something that's quite sketchy, so it makes it into rather than the three D has made us very precise and exactly how I should look and with previs and all that stuff, whereas AI actually takes us back in one way and allows old school art direction to become more positive, which is a process in itself, like a great old art director and can find the set and find shape and tone by making it.

And you know that that are has lost over the years because of three D. So you know, things changes, you know, everything changes, everything in certainly my my career has changed constantly. So and this is another one, but at the same time, it's like it's also exciting. It's another exciting thing. It's like, you know, because sometimes all that ship so I won't go that way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know, I think it's always important as well when you're using AI as always to say please just in case they do take over one day and they are our masters. You know, I do. I genuinely do. On Jack GPT, I'm very very polite to it as a last question because we're I mean, goodness, we've been talking for an hour and a half. Nearly you mentioned like designing a Star Wars prequel when you're just sort of giving an example back then.

Is that on the wish list, like designing a Star Wars. Do you have a wish list? Yeah, I mean I'd like to do what is my It's funny. I always thought I want to do a James Bond and the Star Wars in my early but of course, yeah, that isn't you what you want? It's like, I really like it's like a door open, something open, like Wicked is was such a design challenge, and I would equal it to Interstellar.

I'd say Wicked and Interstellar are the biggest design challenges I've ever had, and so I find those films fascinating. So I'd like to do a science fiction. I know, I want to do fancy and science fiction. I kind of I've sort of I don't need to do. I don't think I need to do a period film.

But I say that, but then someone did something about oil running in the Mexican Revolution with standard oil. You know that would be you know, that could be really interesting. So I don't know. I guess it's I guess I'm talking about a design and story like it's. What I do know is I get older, it has to be a challenge otherwise and I need to not have done something before.

So as I always remember on Braveheart, when we were doing The Gates of York, I was an arm director and my job was to build the Gates of York and the walls, and also the Battering Ram with the help a special face because it had to be pushed and stopped, and so we built this roan battering around huge gates. I always remember Mel Gibson coming up to me and goes, Nathan, is this battering Ram going to work? And I can't remember whether I said it or thought it, and it's like, I have no idea. This is my first battering ram. I don't know.

I probably thought it because I was too scared to say that to him, but I definitely crossed my mind. It's like, no, this is the first one. A better time amazing. I mean, I think that's a perfect way to end this conversation in a way, not that I want to end it because I'm having a great time, but you know, you're you're sort of finishing with that same sort of optimism like you know, who knows what might come along next that you had when you initially started in the industry. That's amazing that it's you know, it's not driven you into the ground just yet.

No, I'm really excited. And I, like I said, I've had the most one of the most challenging design jobs I've ever had in my life just recently, and it just it woke me up much as Interstellar woke me up. Yeah, Wicked has woken me up to the sort of joy of design again. So occasually you need a nudge so you don't want to be the old fart in the garage saying, oh you need a R two one time eight ulcer to make that and that's out in I think that's that in November, isn't it. Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be.

I mean it also, you know, like you said, I have three girls and one boy, and the girls I've always wanted my wife works on me us to do a musical, and now we do it. Finally doing musicals. Amazing, I mean god, well, yeah, I advise everyone to who's listening, just to go through Nathan's list of movies on IMDb and just acknowledge the fact that there's a lot of movies you would love in there and you would regard in your top fifty of all time. You know. I think what a career you've had, and it's still super strong, and you know you're rising to new heights.

So all power to you. I think that's great. Nice doggeted, Jamie, Yeah you too. Well. I hope you enjoyed my conversation there with Nathan.

Great guy, great chat. Really did feel comfortable chat to Nathan, really easy to talk to and looking forward to speaking to him again. Hopefully we're going to be interviewing a few production designers for our Joe als Docko. We've got some good news happening on that front at the moment. Can't say anything at the moment, but we are moving on.

We are moving forward. Coming up on the podcast, I have ILM camera assistant Mary Anne Evans, ex Lucasfilm Fan Relations officer and owner of the world's largest styles collection, Steve Sandsweet VFX guru, ty rubern Ellison, costume designer Aggie Rodgers. And I'm still trying to get the big hitters ben Bert John Goodson, Joe Johnston. I'm working with the folks at Lucasfilm to try and snag them. Oh and I shouldn't forget.

I also have that three hour conversation that I recently had a couple of weeks ago with production designer Nilo Rhodis jamiro second time we've chatted. Oh my god, so many great stories in there. Just that man's had a hell of a life and career. Can't wait to get that one out to you. It's going to take some editing, though we did talk for three hours.

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Anyway, thanks for joining me and I hope you can do so. For the next episode of the Film Your Mentors podcast, Weird Getting Wave Media. Well, we used to look up in the sky and wonder at our place and the stars. Now just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.