Speaker 1: 0:15

Hi. This is Omid Ashtari and Natasha McElhone. Our guest this week is William Sargent. He co-founded Framestore in 1986 and led its rise from an award-winning commercials production house to a world-renowned film and digital studio. During three decades, the company has worked on all the Harry Potter films and the JK Rowling, Fantastic Beasts, Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy, Paul King's Paddington, Doctor Strange, Christopher Robin, Blade Runner 2049, and Marvel's Avengers series.

Speaker 2: 0:49

William and his team have won all major creative awards, including three Oscars, British Academy, Primetime Emmys, DNDAD, Royal Television Society and, most recently, over 100 awards for the newest format, virtual reality. Equally at home in Hollywood and government. He was Permanent Secretary of Regulatory Reform at the Cabinet Office and Board Director of HM Treasury. He's currently a governor at Europe's largest arts complex, Southbank Centre, the UK Government's Innovation Agency, Trinity College, Dublin's Provost Council and the London Mayor's Business Council.

Speaker 1: 1:25

William is a Fellow for the Royal Society of Arts, member of BAFTA and the Academy Awards. He received a CBE in 2004 and was knighted by the Queen in 2008.

Speaker 2: 1:36

We will talk about Rear projection.

Speaker 1: 1:39

Stop motion animation, alfonso Huaron's Gravity. How music videos started the UK film industry.

Speaker 3: 1:46

George Lucas's vision of multi-platform storytelling. How car manufacturing robots help in filmmaking, tennis balls and fluorescent tape. How to create dinosaurs the next decade of filmmaking let's roll.

Speaker 1: 2:04

Hi, this is Omid Ashtari and Natasha McElhone, and with us today we have.

Speaker 4: 2:09

William Sargent.

Speaker 2: 2:11

William, such a pleasure to have you. Thank you. We will be talking about visual and special effects today and, before we get to your company, framestore and modern visual effects, I thought it would be great to create some context and take our listeners on a tour of what came before. Special effects have been part of film since the 1890s, actually, indeed. Are there any milestone movies or techniques that you feel stand out as achievements?

Speaker 4: 2:38

Well, my all-time favorite one is Napoleon by Abel Gantz, which I think was 1924, which I think is the ultimate in that and hopefully it's going to be shown again soon. Eight hours long, wow. When it finishes he's only done the Battle of Italy. In fact, after eight hours, done with an orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra did it a few years ago with the Barbican and the visual effects in it are astonishing. It's all practical, all clever thinking things through and all that sort of stuff. So that's the one. Obviously there's the iconics Harry Weyheisen and the Millies brothers and all that sort of stuff. But as a great experience and as unbelievably clever camera work and visual effects, napoleon Okay.

Speaker 1: 3:24

I might ask you something. This is a dim memory from possibly even 30 years ago, where I saw sunrise on the south bank, which I think is from the 1920s. I don't know what this method is called, but it was kind of like a superimposed image where he's sitting as the farmer, dreaming about the woman that the city woman who's trying to seduce him away from his wife and his memory. What, how he's they're helping to tell the audience the story, or what his internal monologue is, is by having an image of the woman in sort of transplanted on top of him and then, yeah, removed and it comes in and out and in and out would that be classified as a special absolutely?

Speaker 4: 4:03

yeah, I mean, there's many, several ways of doing it. You could, for example, have taken the film and then run it back again and added in other bits, so that's one technique. Or you could use rear screen projection, in which you'd have had literally rear screen projection and projected behind them onto a screen behind them. So he was in an artificial setup and that may have been the way. I'm not familiar with how they did that particular one, but yeah, I mean, or just editing, I mean, that's all that's what I'm saying is, in those days, going back to, you know, up to the 60s and 70s, there's an awful lot of clever, practical stuff. Hence the word special effects as opposed to visual effects. Visual tends to be in the digital space and special tends to be in the physical, which is laboratories, chemicals, running films back again and re-exposing them yeah, things like that.

Speaker 2: 4:51

We did so much fun research for this one. The history of all this is so fascinating.

Speaker 4: 4:56

You know more than I do I have to say, because you know I focused on the present rather than the past.

Speaker 2: 4:59

No, absolutely, we will get to the present 100% and you've seen a lot of the present evolve actually as a matter of fact. But it's such a fun thing to look at this because there is a lot of ingenuity. And when we talk about rear projection, just to give the listeners a little bit more of a sense James Bond, sean Connery, driving with his car.

Speaker 4: 5:18

All rear projection.

Speaker 2: 5:19

That's always rear projection that's like the thing that comes to mind when I think.

Speaker 4: 5:22

And of course I got clever and clever because of course, as the technology got better and cameras better and all this stuff, the projection got more and more ambitious about what they tried to do. I mean traditional people sitting in cars, obviously bouncing along sort of with a, with a projection going on behind them of a street in naples or something like that, you know we still do some of that yeah, oh yeah, that's so nice, it's right, it still uses techniques.

Speaker 4: 5:41

I mean you, you look at something like Barbie and that you know, and things like that. There's nothing wrong. I mean, those techniques are still used. When you break down a script, you're thinking how are we going to do this? And then you go well, we could do this, we could do that, we could shoot it for real, we could actually blow up that bridge or we could do this, we could do a bit of rear projection. That's, techniques for 100 years are still completely valid.

Speaker 2: 6:02

Right, so yeah, and we actually have filmmakers, even nowadays, that are trying to be purists.

Speaker 4: 6:08

Oh, christopher Nolan will keep you going for a few hours on the subject. You know what I mean. And he's this sort of, as you know, film, as opposed to digital and models. I mean, yeah, I mean you know most of his film. All his films are fundamentally using the old models. I mean you know Star Wars, you know the model of the battleships, and that Christopher Nolan's films are all big, 10-foot high models and they get blown up. Looks pretty impressive. He's very fond of it. And, as I say, those techniques are completely valid Because, don't forget, there's budget, there's time. When you're doing work in film, it's about how much money have I got? How many, you know, can I afford this actor? Can I afford to build a set? Can I not afford to build a set? If I can't afford to build a set, then why not just build a window and forget about building the house? So it's all about practical and creativity is about problem solving and constraints.

Speaker 4: 6:58

Yeah, constraints and actually, the more constraints the better. Yeah, I completely agree. The low budget things that I've done have always been the most fun and the most creative. Yeah, exactly, and that's why Britain and the British craftspeople are adored by particularly American directors, because, first of all, that's all they want to do. They want to be the carpenter or the lighting person. In America everybody wants to be the director, because the job that they're doing is just a stepping stone to becoming the director one day. Whereas in the UK you have families, you go on a set, you've got the grandfather, the father and the son in the carpentry department Stunts in particular, you have that thing and as a result, of course, they've seen it all, done it all, and when something breaks down, they go yeah, just get a bit of wood and a bit of sellotape and put that together, because they're just practical than that. It's not a big deal, and you don't get that in many other parts of the world.

Speaker 2: 7:46

Interesting the notion of mastery of a craft and being content with that.

Speaker 4: 7:51

It's about being proud of actually the. This is what I do and I do it really well and I get better every day. And, by the way, I've learned from my father because I've been on set with him from the age of 16. And then, by the way, he learned from his father. You know what I mean. This is a very special part of the UK industry.

Speaker 1: 8:06

Yeah. I mean, you'll have seen this yeah.

Speaker 4: 8:09

You look at the, you know you literally think hang on a second, he looks like him and he looks like him.

Speaker 1: 8:13

You find out that they're you know.

Speaker 4: 8:18

It's true in camera departments too done the digital space yet I mean because they were too young, but the fact that you do it, you've got fathers and sons now already in companies, but on the set it goes back generations and the bit that always I love. If you look at the credits stuntmen there were two families, the Powells, and I can't remember who the others are and literally, if you look at the 50 people, 30 of them will have the same surname. I mean it's astonishing, you know, but the stunt. And then the others are physical effects, the Korbols. There are three Korbol brothers and, what's interesting, there is no one's ever done this.

Speaker 4: 8:53

They have won, I think, the most Oscars of anybody on the planet, really, yeah, I'll tell you why. Because they're physical effects, right, and every Oscar for visual effects has to have one physical effects person. So you got four people you can nominate and the physical effects chapter is a lot of votes, so if you don't put a physical effects person on it, you lose their votes. Interesting, right. And so the cobalt's, the three brothers. Basically they do every single movie in the UK between the three of them and therefore they get nominated for at least three of the five Oscars every year, and if they don't win, it's a most unusual occasion. So therefore, going back 20 years, Explain physical effects.

Speaker 2: 9:36

What does that mean?

Speaker 4: 9:37

Blowing things up smoke.

Speaker 1: 9:40

Rain even.

Speaker 4: 9:42

Rain is physical effects. Cars, that's a physical. Car chases is physical effects Basically. Yeah, you know, cars, that's a physical, your car chases, which, of course, are digital these days. But you know, yeah, so physical effects is what it says, right, physical, physical atoms in the space On the set normally I mean models are physical effects. Yeah, you know where you're physically doing.

Speaker 2: 10:06

So yeah, it means physical Gotcha. I'm going to throw out some maybe movie names or directors that moved the special effects world forward for a little bit, and then we can do a quick fire round you probably know more than I do I think you probably know a lot. Let's talk about King Kong.

Speaker 4: 10:19

Well, that's sort of models and animatronics, stop motion. You know which I mean to this day? Obviously Nick Park, aardman and things like that. So again a technique that's been around 100 years, that you know, wallace and Gromit.

Speaker 2: 10:34

And it's still being used exactly, oh, completely yeah.

Speaker 4: 10:36

I mean, a certain person is needed to do that, because the idea I mean when you see Nick Park, who's obviously the sweetest man on the planet, but, like you know, it's a frame- it's a frame of time.

Speaker 1: 10:46

It's just the patience.

Speaker 4: 10:48

It is mind-blowing.

Speaker 1: 10:49

The diligence yeah.

Speaker 4: 10:50

I mean, we have such admiration for people like him, and him in particular. We know Ardman and the guys there really well, but it's, it's an art form.

Speaker 2: 10:58

Film is how many frames per second? 60? No, no, 24. Sorry, 24.

Speaker 4: 11:02

Games are 60, sorry, 24 and 25. Television and film is 24 and 25 frames a second, so 25.

Speaker 2: 11:07

So if you want to do stop motion, you really need to do 25 moments for every second.

Speaker 4: 11:12

Yeah, I mean, you can choose to be lazy and sort of let, three frames are the same thing, but then of course, if you're looking for the full motion and all of that, you know, yeah, and that's an example of practicality, because of course you would then choose to not do 25 frames a second, you would be going you know what? Let's just have a moon the guy's gazing at the moon for three seconds, so I've just got to do one shot. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, Whereas when you're doing the emotional, the eyebrows got to go up and down. Yeah, literally, you've got to do that and you've got to move. You know, you literally go in there, you move it, you click, you move it, click.

Speaker 1: 11:49

I mean it's a certain mindset. I was just thinking about how film. We'll talk about film first, because TV, I guess, is more recent. But the people went to the movies to kind of see their dreams projected on a screen and rather than it be a solitary experience, of dreaming that we all have. There's something about a shared collective experience of watching something that's like a sort of dreamscape, but on a screen with other people.

Speaker 1: 12:16

That's magical and that's transformative. And when we were talking yesterday about special effects, the whole situation that we're in now, where most movies that are incredibly popular contain a lot of this, and the irony is, as an actor, when, let's say, a sci-fi movie or TV show is being pitched to you, the seduction is always you know, yeah, there's going to be lots of CGI, lots of green screen, but really it's about the relationships between the people. That's why we want you to come on board and it's completely played down.

Speaker 4: 12:48

No, they're completely right. Sorry, let's get this right. They are right. All we're doing is supporting the storytelling and the story.

Speaker 1: 12:57

But what I think is interesting is what audiences are going for is actually the effects, because for actors there's I mean, I'm speaking very broadly, but one is deterred by something where there's a lot of green screen and cgi, because you just feel you're not necessary, you're not needed, your skill set isn't really going to be utilized. Um, you're mostly going to be standing around waiting for the geniuses to tell the story.

Speaker 4: 13:28

Let me counter that one. I made a film a decade ago called Gravity, Sandra Bullock.

Speaker 1: 13:34

Oh, we brought it up earlier that little arthouse film.

Speaker 4: 13:37

And it was considered by Warner's to be an arthouse movie by an arthouse director, hence the budget was one third of a normal movie. And then we had to reverse engineer how we were going to make it. But you know, Sandra was in a light box, 10 foot by 10 foot, right with us, projecting. The images were spinning behind her and around her, but her acting was mind boggling.

Speaker 1: 13:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, she was in that box for days after days after days. You know what I mean.

Speaker 4: 14:02

She was in that box for days after days after days, you know what I mean, but I'm sure when Alfonso pitched it to her, you know it is about her and it is about the performance.

Speaker 1: 14:14

I think that film is different and was recognized as being different, as being you were in someone's mind to a large degree, and he's an extraordinary filmmaker who works with character and story mostly. So.

Speaker 4: 14:31

I think that's possibly…. Let me take you back to Notting Hill, so what we call the seasonal walk, which is when he's obviously young. Yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4: 14:40

He's obviously sort of an idiot moved on and sort of passed on the girl, so to speak you know what I mean and is moping up Portobello. Originally it says, you know him starting to walk and then caption one year later. You need to do a little bit of everything and my partner sort of persuaded when the producer was out of the room, the director, that we could actually do something quite more interesting than just doing a caption saying one year later, and he's at the end of that, and so as he walks down, you go through the whole one year.

Speaker 1: 15:18

It's my all-time favorite shot. I remember it's beautiful.

Speaker 4: 15:21

And people don't even think of it as a visual effect shot. It's beautiful and people don't even think of it as a visual effect shot. But things like, for example, the lady at the front who you see occasionally alongside him as he's walking, she's not pregnant at the beginning of the walk. Then eventually she's pregnant and then eventually, right at the end, she's got the baby in her arms and you get the seasons, the autumn, and that is just seamless. Nobody in the cinema goes. I'm watching.

Speaker 1: 15:43

That's a special effect.

Speaker 4: 15:44

Yeah, of course I'm sure Hugh didn't think, oh yes, because it wasn't green screen. So what I'm trying to say is that you know the Marvel movies when they work, it's story and character. The visual effects is just underpinning the experience in that. And so for the actors, yes, they are. You know, we did a film called Guardians of the Galaxy in which obviously some of the big characters are CG Groot.

Speaker 4: 16:15

It's interesting that I think that people have found a way now from the acting side and the combination has come much closer, without it being, I hope, artificial, because with pre-visualization, which we now do, we can we privilege that, pre-visualize the whole scene, and so, as the actor, you're able to look at the screen and go, oh, I see. So that because you're seeing your role, but you're seeing everything else that actually we've, we're going to build around you, and so you're no longer going into a situation where it's like, well, just stand there and there's a tennis ball at the end of the rod and can you just fall in love with this tennis ball right, it's actually you can now see, tennis ball is good.

Speaker 1: 16:55

I think it's when it's a strip of tape.

Speaker 4: 16:58

Oh well, okay.

Speaker 3: 17:00

Tennis ball is at least spherical. So you can fall in love with a tennis ball without a strip of tape.

Speaker 1: 17:05

Sometimes I draw a face on the strip of tape and that helps I mean, you know, Natasha's drawing her line somewhere and the tennis ball is it, so it doesn't mean to disagree with you. No, I love it. That's what we're here for. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 17:18

We love these conversations. I'm going to throw in a name George Lucas. He did a lot in this space with Star Wars.

Speaker 4: 17:27

Oh, he's sort of who we are and who our community is. You trace it back to George very much and you trace more than that back to George. You trace the division that we run our business under. That storytelling is about now different platforms that we deliver on an iPhone and an iMac, on an immersive experience, and so forth, and George is yet, and everyone's aspiring to that next world, which will be there in 10 years' time. But you forget that actually, george really created that, because you know you go to a computer game that's about an obscure planet that you flew by in one of the episodes. You get a comic, you get a book, you get a computer game. He created this world and what was curious is that nobody really followed him behind. So we've had this big gap of, I think, another 40 years, and now we're all talking about multiverses and different types of worlds and enjoying the characters in different places and that. But George, not only did he do visual effects, as in the next generation, but he did the next generation of consuming content and stories.

Speaker 2: 18:27

Interesting. Yeah, I never thought of him of that, but yeah, I remember Lucas Games was actually a unit that he had created.

Speaker 4: 18:34

It just follows Because he was the one person who owned the entire business and could do his thing and that he let the story go. And it's not about just a straight line about the film and they will make a game of the film story go. And it's not about just a straight line about what the film and they will make a game of the film. It's like well, they'll go and find the story which is an obscure bit of the film or character in the film and go why does this character come from?

Speaker 4: 18:51

and then follow that, develop it other line right, and that's what the magic of the next decade that we have and that's why, if you take it as an actor um, at present everybody in filmmaking, apart from us, is a as in.

Speaker 4: 19:05

You know, they work in the film, they do X number of weeks and then they move on to the next film and that. But of course, what will happen is that that role that you create will now go into different places and different times and so forth, including what's controversial, being cyber-scanned and going back to when you were young and maybe when you're old. So the actor and the acting experience because the actor carries a story normally is going to take you to places where, in theory, you could do 10 years of something. So it's not about doing sequels, you know, and being contracted for sequels, but it's about, well, if we decided to get on a computer game, it would be great if we could have you, you know, to be part of that, et cetera, et cetera. In the same 10 years' time, the acting experience and earning opportunities for it will be very different from where it was 10 years ago.

Speaker 4: 19:53

And obviously we had the trauma of the strike last year of which this was part of the aspect correctly so in terms of earnings, but unfortunately, no one ever spoke about the vision about where it could go. Where it's going, yeah, you know what I mean, and obviously it's about making sure that when it does go there, that….

Speaker 1: 20:14

Yeah, there's some checks and balances in place.

Speaker 4: 20:16

Yeah, some protection. This is a very exciting time.

Speaker 1: 20:19

I just wanted to ask you how did you get into this side of the film industry? What was it? What was your earliest memory?

Speaker 4: 20:28

Oh, well, like everybody, you're into film. And you can't really be in our industry in any aspect without having an interest in film. So that's the first thing I wanted to be a writer. I actually started as a writer. That was my passion. What age are we now? We're talking about 10, 11, 12. Wow, Okay. So at school came back.

Speaker 4: 20:49

I was raised in Brazil and came back to Ireland, and so I'm in the boarding school and so your imagination, you know what you have to. Part of being in the boarding school is you know you're on your own and you know, you obviously have friends, but the point is your.

Speaker 4: 21:00

your world is the world that you create yourself from that, and so that takes you to imagination and so forth and writing, and I was passionate about writing, loved writing. I discovered my Irish heritage. You know WB Gates and Sean O'Casey and you know I just was like, wow, this is a whole world that I didn't know when I was being raised in Ireland Samuel Beckett and all this you know, and, as I pointed out at dinner parties when I came to London, all the great literature of the UK in the last 200 years is Irish From this tiny island, oscar.

Speaker 4: 21:31

Wilde you know, so it's quite boring at dinner parties for that reason. And so that's what I wanted to do was to write. But I very quickly realized that you know, if you're writing screen work, you know someone's got to get it onto a screen. And so I also didn't want to study a creative subject, I wanted to study business. So I went to Trinity in Dublin to study business, knowing that I wanted to be a writer and so forth and that, and so it naturally led me. So everything I've done since in terms of evolving creative businesses, world-class creatives, and with that part of me I've enabled the making of the films enabled. So I've produced as well, and in Dublin I had a business in the music industry, and so I've had a love affair with creative people, great artists.

Speaker 1: 22:21

So facilitating.

Speaker 4: 22:23

I perceive myself as a facilitator and an enabler. That's all I do, and other people do the you know?

Speaker 1: 22:30

And what was the moment where you thought, well, I'm going to be more effective as a facilitator and a sort of provider of these services, rather than actually putting pen to paper and sitting and writing a script?

Speaker 4: 22:40

I think the day we decided to found Framestore, which was November I can't remember the exact- date 1985.

Speaker 4: 22:47

We started in March 86, but actually it was at a dinner where I was bored with my friends and partner at the time moaning about their jobs and saying, guys, you're fabulous at what you do, but why don't we just set up and I was writing at the time, so I had the time to set to go around raising funds and so forth and I was writing at the time, so I had the time to set to go around raising funds and so forth. So I think the day we started Framestore I think 2nd of March 86, was when I sort of felt, yeah, this is this is your calling.

Speaker 4: 23:14

Well, the calling had already happened, because I'd been in the music business and so forth, but that was the point at which we started something new and we were the first people to use computers.

Speaker 1: 23:22

I was going to say no one else was providing this. No, not exactly that.

Speaker 4: 23:26

The technology that we used was being used for editing. Ironically Well, you guys had the same technology in that, and we had the vision of using it for animation, which it wasn't designed for we had a vision of using it for animation, which it wasn't designed for, and we did a Culture Club video in which we took films like Claudia Cardinale and Bridget Bardo and so forth and cut them out of the films that they were in and put them in the set with Boy George. Do you remember that? I?

Speaker 1: 23:50

remember that God Loves Woman, I think is the name. I remember that. That's crazy.

Speaker 4: 23:55

The first song that failed. So they had like eight number ones and then we spent a fortune making this particular one and sadly the song didn't do well. But the video was pioneering. It was like and they were dancing on the set. You know we had them dancing on the stage with Boy George. You know that was the first show we did. It was a Sunday, second of March was a Sunday and we actually started working on the Sunday on that video. That was our first ever job.

Speaker 2: 24:16

Wow, you know, give us a sense of the landscape at that time. What else was going on?

Speaker 4: 24:22

We are now talking about 86.

Speaker 4: 24:24

I'm talking about recessions. We started a business in what was considered to be a lunatic time to start, because things weren't in good shape. The UK didn't really have a film industry Right the way we have now, which is the positive, because everybody had to work in advertising and they had to work in pop promos. Pop promos was the action Working Title. Started then Tim and Eric started then as a pop promo company, steve Barron and Limelight and all that. So the UK. So pop promos MTV founded, I think, the year before, two years before that.

Speaker 2: 24:54

Right.

Speaker 4: 24:55

And they were spending a million dollars on a pop promo. I mean, you know, the Culture Club won. We did David Bowie, michael Jackson, madonnas, all that sort of stuff. They were talking about like half a million to a million dollar budgets for launching because MTV was like made you, so to speak, on that. So that was the young directors. All the people then became big directors in the next 20 years. All started as music videos directors. You could make two videos a week literally.

Speaker 4: 25:21

In those days the film wasn't I don't recall it being as vibrant in terms of storytelling. I'm trying to remember the films around at the time, but the industry in the UK was a hand-to-mouth. You know you get a commercial once a month and you might get a music video for top of the table. As you know, you get a commercial once a month and you might get a music video for Top and Tapenny. And then as a cameraman, for example and the actor certainly didn't have the amount of, you know, television was the BBC and ITV, which was obviously not ITV, it was Granada and on the weekend and that might make the occasional drama.

Speaker 1: 25:50

I guess there was quite a lot of independent films going on I'm just thinking back to then with sort of merchant ivory and ken loach films might leave.

Speaker 4: 25:58

oh yeah, all of those they were, but you were talking about films made literally on a shoe for yeah, yeah and and you had channel four just started, I think, hadn't it, and so I think that was the.

Speaker 4: 26:08

That was really the bit that underpinned the innovation and in independent filmmaking was channel four. They did film on for Ford, remember. Yeah, david Rose, I think, was the man, and so the UK was a very nimble. You know both storytelling as well as craft and that, and you know you made a living, but quite often just about, unless you were like major and that, and you had people living in the UK like Kubrick obviously lived, you know, out of London, not far away, making his movies and so forth, and everything was physical and chemicals. You had labs and our skills were done by stop motion and lab technology stuff and that. So it was a sector that was probably pick a figure 3%, 4%, 5% of what it is today.

Speaker 2: 27:01

Take us to the major beats then how did this evolve?

Speaker 4: 27:04

In terms of what happened then.

Speaker 2: 27:05

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4: 27:07

Well, as I said, we at the time and we're talking about the 80s were world-class in advertising, so many of the most. We would win every award at Cannes, at the big international event. So the UK directors, if you remember Ridley Scott was doing commercials, hugh Hudson, alan Parker, then you had David Putnam who was a producer. They all worked at advertising agencies and then they all spun off, they all did their first advertising, their first film as working for an advertising agency, and suddenly it became big money. Advertising became big money and big budgets, and that and the uk was like the dominant player in the world. We won everything, we did the biggest things and so forth, and then, underneath that was the pop promo. So the two things that really set in stone the UK was that pop promo culture. There's Eric and Tim and the whole community, limelight and all that, and then the advertising guys, and then, if you remember, riddy Scott then went into.

Speaker 4: 28:09

I'm trying to remember whose first film was, but they all made their first films on a shoestring, but they could, though, because they were making so much money and the people that worked with them, like the camera people, and that made so much money that when they said, by the way, guys, we're going to take three months off and you're going to work for me and you're going to get paid one tenth of what I usually pay you, but we're going to make a movie and of course, everybody wanted to make a feature. We all aspired. If you think about it, there was this, you know, the idea of working on a feature film in the mid-80s in the UK was like, oh my God, that would be like, that would be so cool, you know. And so when someone was actually making a feature film, I mean I remember a film I was in Dublin, I remember, you know, going to film. It'd be interesting to see. If you know this film called Swalk S-W-A-L-K.

Speaker 1: 28:49

Sue with a Loving Kiss. Exactly right, and I think that was Alan.

Speaker 4: 28:56

Parker, wasn't it? I think it was Alan Parker and that. And so you had these guys who were making a living doing something else, desperate to make a feature film, and then would finally get something together and they'd made them. And so, slowly but surely, from the early 80s through to the late 80s, the transition happened when, first of all, the UK was world class in, say, promos and advertising and then the indie movies started to crack and working title who wanted working title wanted to make movies. Pop promos was just the way you made a living, so to speak. That. And then they made one with Daniel Day Lewis um, my laundrette my beautiful laundrette.

Speaker 4: 29:28

You know an amazing film, and so there was a whole series of those milestones in the mid-80s.

Speaker 1: 29:32

I was thinking, and I guess there probably was some, I must have been some CGI in Thelma and Louise. That's the first Ridley Scott film I saw, if there was, and I don't know, it probably would have been rear screen projection and things like that. It may or may not, just because of all the car. Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 4: 29:49

I think we did early on quite often I certainly won't name any names we did a lot of, so we say corrections on actors. You know zits and things like that. You know there was a lot of digital things where you had to fix things, a boom and shot or that or the costume being wrong.

Speaker 1: 30:10

Yeah, yeah, actually talking about, was it matte painting? What was it? That was an art form back in the day, wasn't it? Oh yes, matte painting is actually a stunning art form.

Speaker 4: 30:21

So obviously that's where. So, for example, you are taking a shot of a beach, say, for example, and in the background you want a gigantic castle. So you obviously paint these, and these artists were amazing. You paint what you wanted to be seen and you'd have it shaped around the beach and that, and then you'd put that in front of the camera and then you'd film through it. So the two combined. But see, that's physical.

Speaker 1: 30:48

It was physical, but I can't remember the movie. It was about leprechauns. Oh, the Dark Crystal Willy Wonka.

Speaker 1: 30:53

No, no, no, no, something to do with. It was in oh the Dark. Crystal Willy Wonka. No, no, no, no, something to do with. It was in the 60s and the guy, the matte painter, who was very famous. Apparently it was so good, the leprechauns were so brilliantly done that they didn't get nominated in the category because no one thought that there was any special effects yeah well, you see, for us, can you imagine the frustration he made it? He's just they talk about the joins or something, that there were just no joints and that's.

Speaker 4: 31:28

You see, we are known and take huge pride in in what we call visual invisible effects. Yeah, right, and in many ways I mean obviously with these days, with you know Marvels and big space films, and that you know there's visual. You look at something and you get it right and when they're bad you realize that they're bad, they should be invisible, but whatever. But you know the whole thing's artificial, but actually a significant amount of the work still to this day. I mean, we did 34 movies last year, you know, and not all of them were whiz bangs and so forth, and a lot of it's invisible, right, and it's visible at one end where you're going. You're painting out the double yellow lines in Notting Hill on the wherever Paddington's been filmed.

Speaker 4: 32:05

We're getting rid of in the old days, the aerials on people's houses right. So that's one form of visual effects on that, what I call production effects really in many ways, because it's an alternative to people used to have to go and bribe people to take the aerial down from the house and be like ooh that'll cost me

Speaker 4: 32:22

500 quid to take that down in here and then people like us would come along and go yeah, we can just paint it out, but equally, you've got a situation. There was a thing we did for the exterior paint company and we did this ad and we would show it to people as part of our most proud. We did a show reel and so you show this. Now We'd show this, and directors would go, okay, I get that, you know, so on, and we'd say, well, so it was a Did you have to show them before and after to know the working world?

Speaker 4: 32:53

It was a guy, a lighthouse keeper, standing in front of a lighthouse in the middle of a storm saying this paint is amazing. He was like look, you know, and it was like 30 seconds anything, whatever, and he could just took him somewhere and he stuck him on a you know in an island somewhere and he filmed it and whatever, not a single thing was real right. And then we dropped in the lighthouse, then we dropped in the house next to it, then we dropped in the hill over there, then we did this and that and finally we dropped in the rain and the storm and so literally the entire thing, and people used to go and we used to literally show this at the end of a showreel because people say, yeah, okay, I love all the other stuff.

Speaker 4: 33:28

I can see all that. It's really amazing. You guys do great work, but like what's this thing that you showed at the end and we go well, so you're showing them the seamlessness we were showing them the seamlessness.

Speaker 2: 33:40

Let me take you to the 90s. I remember movies like Terminator Jim Cameron.

Speaker 4: 33:46

Yeah, big monster.

Speaker 2: 33:48

And Jurassic Park, for instance, right.

Speaker 4: 33:50

Seven minutes only.

Speaker 2: 33:51

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 4: 33:53

And then we did Walking with Dinosaurs yeah, three hours.

Speaker 2: 33:56

Oh, you did that. Yeah, oh, wow, okay, great, tell us a little bit about it.

Speaker 4: 34:01

Well, jurassic Park had come out not long before. In fact, the young Sherlock, if you remember, was actually the one before that Spielberg did which people thought of, as quite often people refer to it as the first digital visual effects type thing right in the city. Seconds digital visual effects type thing, right, but it's zitty seconds. So the first one really that people look at as a big milestone. Forget about Star Wars, because a lot of that was sort of physical, so to speak, and there was no digital in the early Star Wars. The Jurassic Park was a big deal. It's either seven or eight minutes, but it's not a lot Anyway. So a chap called Tim Haynes, a producer at the BBC, had this idea of making a wildlife genre type dinosaur series, but science, totally science-based, right, and primetime BBC One, whatever. And so, of course, because one of our competitors in San Francisco, george's company, ilm, had done that, off he goes and says great, and they quote him a price. That's just like we're talking about science programs here at the BBC.

Speaker 1: 35:01

You're talking 40,000 pounds an hour anyway.

Speaker 4: 35:06

To cut a long story short, he ended up on our doorstep and that and my partner, who sadly passed away a few weeks ago, mike Mike Mill, sort of took him in and sat down and we worked out how to do it on a British budget as opposed to a Hollywood budget for the BBC, and as a proof of concept, because nobody believed we could do it, we, together with BBC, they put in a bit of money and then we put in a lot of time. We did a 90 second pilot of just dinosaurs in the wild, just to to see if you can pull off this. Because the idea is wildlife shows are like visual effects are like second. Second Part of the technique is to have lots of techniques within the shot, but they're all different and so your brain gives up trying to work out oh, that's a matte painting, oh that's a back projection, that's a whatever. So you mix all the techniques quite often within the one shot and so the brain just stops thinking okay, I'll just believe it, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 36:00

So that's part of the skill.

Speaker 4: 36:03

Whereas with wildlife programs you don't have fast cuts, you don't have like cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, which is visual effects is quite important to be able to cut away. Cut this, cut that. So that way wildlife is like yeah, we're looking at this line for like five minutes and it's just moseying around, takes a pee, goes a bit further, you know, licks his partner, whatever it is, and you know so. To do cgi on and to make something about dinosaurs, which obviously don't exist, but to do in a wildlife format, to pretend that the guy or girl camera person's been sitting in this field for like months waiting for this shot, that's like a whole amazing thing.

Speaker 2: 36:38

So what's involved with that? Who's who gets? So we, we have people who create the models, we have people who animate the stuff, all CGI In CGI, I mean, I'm talking about Well, the first thing you had to do was you had to work out what is a dinosaur.

Speaker 4: 36:50

Don't forget, they don't exist. So the first thing we did was, in our cinema in Fitzrovia, we got six of the world's top paleontologists in a room for a camera it was a week or two weeks from now and questioned them.

Speaker 1: 37:02

How much fun was that.

Speaker 4: 37:05

And the beauty of it was so six of the best, most important academics in the world on the subject and we stick them in the cinema and we got all our guys as the audience and going what about this? How do they move? How tall are they? How fast do they move? What color? Don't forget, there's no color reference for dinosaurs.

Speaker 1: 37:22

We just assume they're greenish, right Okay?

Speaker 4: 37:25

And so that's part of the achievement. So that's the first thing. Every paleontologist has disagreed with one another. So the first thing that happened is you had the six top specialists in the world who didn't agree on blue. Is blue as in? Well, they open their mouths like six inches? No, they don't. If they open their foot, uh, no, they don't. You know their necks, for example. There's I can't remember the names of the dinosaurs, but there's one that everyone assumes is up there getting the stuff out of the tree.

Speaker 1: 37:49

Well, we worked out the brontosaurus.

Speaker 4: 37:52

Yeah, your son will definitely be able to tell you all the is we worked out that he couldn't have done that because if you look at the bone structure, they can't lift an X. So we were setting out to create the models, the CG models, and said, well, hang on a sec, if you take and we had obviously the bones we said, well, you can't lift a head beyond that because, look, if you have that bone structure. And so basically what's happened is that the world of paleontologists has basically adapted to our series as a result. So the world of knowledge, now number one, and then things like the colors. So we say, well, there's no colors. So off we go to London Zoo and various other places and we look at a monkey. I can't remember what the monkey is, but you know the one that's got the multicolored bum.

Speaker 1: 38:32

Mm-hmm, yeah Right.

Speaker 4: 38:35

The baboon yeah, but the point is you look at that and you go well, why couldn't a dinosaur have had a multicolored bum, you know? And so suddenly the artists, you know the painters and the illustrators, and that go well, I quite fancy sticking like a little purple stripe on this particular guy or girl. You know what I mean. So we did the paleontology where, and so we'd go off to do things like with elephants at London Zoo and look at how they move and that.

Speaker 4: 39:04

So we extrapolated from the current world backwards, and et cetera, et cetera. Because, in the absence of paleontologists being able to brief us, we thought, well okay, well fine, we've got the thing.

Speaker 1: 39:11

And we obviously went back to them and said well, this is what we think we're doing. Is this viable? Yeah, yeah. And what's fascinating about that specifically is that I guess paleontologists wouldn't necessarily had a reason to go through how they moved, whereas that's all you're interested in. You've got to animate, but isn't that You've? Got to do it yeah.

Speaker 4: 39:29

So when we came back and showed them the thing, at the end they were in tears Wow. Because they all said to a man and woman you know, you've just bought my world. I never thought in my lifetime that I would actually see these guys alive in that. And they all said well, you've now changed the science or the learning of dinosaurs.

Speaker 1: 39:53

Well, you looked at it from another perspective. I was going to say, I'm sure also as animators at that stage, the way that you're studying body language and how people move is completely different to everyone else.

Speaker 4: 40:05

And everything we do, if we're creating aliens in an environment like that, it's all based on physics. You know one of my partners, tim Weber, who did gravity. He's a first in physics from Oxford. You know everything we do is about the physics. You know one of my partners, tim Weber, who did Gravity. He's a first in physics from Oxford. You know, everything we do is about the physics. If we, you know, we did a, I mean a dog. The film was now flying at 200 miles an hour.

Speaker 2: 40:25

A little puppy with four fingers right yeah.

Speaker 4: 40:30

And it was a superhero dog. You look at that and you go okay, so what happens if a dog's flying at 200? You know, the jaws are going. You know whatever and that and so and of course, we're creating all the hairs. So the hair is like on Golden Compass, for example. You know, I can't remember there were six billion hairs on the polar bear, all of them rendered right, and so you have control of every aspect of that. And so then you're applying the physics no-transcript.

Speaker 1: 40:58

I was thinking about Paddington Bear. Do you study bears?

Speaker 4: 41:02

Oh, obsessively.

Speaker 1: 41:03

Yeah, obsessively.

Speaker 4: 41:05

Which kind Paddington took us nine months to decide on his height. I mean, that's pretty much you'll be pleased because in the next few months you'll be seeing the next one. I know I'm waiting.

Speaker 1: 41:21

I'm not leaving the country.

Speaker 4: 41:23

Well, I was really pissed off because they admitted to tell me that we were filming in Machu Picchu, which of course is now closed, and I was like hang on a sec, guys. Like I found out four weeks after the, if I'd have known that I'd have been carrying the bags. So, but no, this next one is very exciting, is it phenomenal? Very exciting, yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:46

Well, you already know that Machu Picchu feature.

Speaker 4: 41:48

So you're first. I've given away. I've given away.

Speaker 2: 41:53

Yeah, so we talked about the 90s. Tell us about the state of the art. Where are we now with CGI and with Framestore? Tell us a little bit about where you're at with the company obviously interlinked, so to speak.

Speaker 4: 42:03

In that, um, I mean the the thing that we do with directors and anybody studios, because quite often we're working on the project before the studio's appointed a director. Um, because we do a lot of early conceptual work and that it means we don't necessarily work in the movie because, a we might not have the capacity and, b the director might wish to work somebody else. But the point is we do a lot of early stuff in that and the point is that you get the writer and the director to write what they want to write, just like guys In the old days they'd come in and say show us your visual reel and then we'll go away and write to the existing art form.

Speaker 4: 42:38

And we say no, no, no, just, please don't do that, Just do whatever you want to do, and then we'll look at it and go, okay, how are we going to do this and whatever, and so the potential has always been infinitesimal.

Speaker 4: 42:53

Number one, secondly, it is about supporting the story. All that we do is supports the story, which, in turn, supports the, the, the creative community on it, whether it be actors, right, you know directors and camera people, that they're quite often the three people that we're engaged with and turning out the performance or the look or whatever, and that. So, so where we are is that if you've got time and money and ambition, you know you can go to the moon, so to speak, which obviously everybody has many times. But I suppose the analogy which I'm beginning to use with people, because we're talking about augmented reality at the moment and virtual reality and all those types of things and that and we're also talking about which people are talking about, obviously, ai, artificial intelligence we tend to call it machine learning rather than AI which we've been using already for 15 years, which is the irony of the situation.

Speaker 4: 43:50

So we are very much an applied technology company which is applied to the creative process, in this case filmmaking, and we tend to invent the application rather than the technology, if that makes sense. So in Gravity we were using robots from car manufacturing because that gave us the precision that we needed to get close up to the sound room at speed and things like that. You know what I mean. You mean the cameras yeah, to move the cameras, but the precision we needed we basically Tim identified that the car industry had this type of technology.

Speaker 1: 44:28

Because it could get closer or because it would be smoother.

Speaker 4: 44:30

It would be smoother, it would get closer, it would be quicker, it would be very precise and all this stuff and that, and so now everybody uses it, but they didn't. So that's an example of you're looking around thinking what can I use to do what I'm trying to do? So so really, so how many?

Speaker 1: 44:46

just so, how many techniques do you think your company is responsible for having innovated?

Speaker 4: 44:51

well, we've done that we all use. Well, the last time I looked, which was three years ago, because I was asked the question and we, we had done 56 innovations at that point. Right, and they're not all technology Like. They are how you produce something, how you organize something as well. And so from the very beginning, we've had a reputation and it's not that we pursue it and that, but of doing things, finding new ways of solving it. All these things are solving a problem.

Speaker 4: 45:20

You know what I mean A money problem problem, time problem, a um, a technique problem, whatever, um and so yeah, so it doesn't net from what you've said.

Speaker 1: 45:28

It doesn't sound like you do work within constraints. You say, okay, we'll find a way to make this possible well, the constraints.

Speaker 4: 45:35

The visual that I use is if you have a box and you're going to say, whatever number boxes in the wall, it's one, two, three, four, it's eight, isn't it whatever? And they're all the constraints, and you define them One's the price, one's money, one's the you know the ability of the capital person, one's time, whatever. And then you're basically going, right, you know, this is what I want to do. Then you go, okay, I can't do that, I can't do that. Okay, fine, well, can I move that wall? So, basically, what you're doing is you're trying to say, well, can I move a wall in order to achieve that right? And in computer games, which you'll be familiar with, which I've been in as well for many years, you've got a fixed pot. So the developers, the programmers, are the stars in computer games, right, because they are trying to get more features out of a fixed box.

Speaker 4: 46:18

The PlayStation will be out for like seven years, and so you can't. There's a new version every year that can do more right, but you have to innovate and become more ambitious, and if you could put, you got to put. You can only put so many digits in, but the secret is using less digits to do more things.

Speaker 4: 46:33

So, the clever programmers can do a feature with less than another program is not so clever, right? And so we all have constraints that we use and yeah, so I'm not trying to be trite about saying it's open-ended, but it's really down to the ambition of people. And if you go back to desktop publishing, and when the Mac came out and you could do a magazine, everybody said, oh, that's it, the end of the magazine world. Because what happens is that, therefore, people like running a cricket club could now do a newsletter instead of having to pay 20 grand to a printer and a designer company and so forth.

Speaker 4: 47:11

They just sit in themselves and do that and so basically the bottom end moves up because they can do more. But of course the top end moves up and so it evolves over. So there isn't a technology that suddenly makes everybody obsolescent. It's like it evolves, sometimes very quickly and sometimes very slowly, but it evolves.

Speaker 2: 47:28

I like that point and I think it goes back to what you were saying about the writer's strike earlier, because there was no story that was the positive story of how all this can evolve. We're only talking about the fear-based stuff, and rightfully so. Obviously, there are fears that are warranted, that need to be addressed, but at the same time, you need to have that story, and I love how you're talking about this, because really we need to tell the stories how these technologies can actually evolve and empower everybody.

Speaker 4: 47:57

We are very clear that AI is a very positive thing from our point of view. Now, it may not be positive for some individuals in the company or elsewhere, and that, and therefore our obligation is to train them, to retrain them to whatever. But from our point of view and you may or may not have heard me, because I'm certainly in government circles at the moment, I'm bashing down the doors at DCMS and Treasury and hope you, dsit, which is the technology department, which is the UK, has the opportunity to lead the world in this space. Absolutely Right, and it's now Right and people hear the message. But the question is how are we going to do this? Okay, so for me, this is very positive. It it creates jobs, but it also costs jobs. Yeah, but then every industrial revolution that's come along has done this.

Speaker 4: 48:45

Um, you take, take our company. We've probably got at least 50 job titles today that we didn't have three years ago. I mean the job titles and the ones you see on movies, the, you know. You sort of go okay, what's that guy do, what's that girl do, and you know it's. It's a dataler, for example, is the most basic of them. They came out about five, six years ago. It's about capturing the data and wrangling the data. It's not a junior role, but it's a role just capturing the data of what's happening on set. What's the next chapter looking like? Well, we put out and listeners can look it up a film called Flight. Well, we put out and listeners can look it up a film called Flight, which is F-L-I-T-E, and it was something that we did, some real-time image making, which is what a computer console a computer game is.

Speaker 2: 49:30

Yes, video games are real-time. It's real-time rendered yeah.

Speaker 4: 49:33

And obviously Epic created a thing called Unreal Engine, which many of the games are made with. Yes, and we have set out to bring that into the filmmaking pipeline, because what we do is not real time. Right, we will make an image and then we'll send it off to be processed by our computers and then it comes back and and then we change it, then we go off again and comes back and so forth. Now, um, so we are, we have set out to to bring that unreal engine technology into film pipeline, because film is 16 times more digits, for example, than a television image. Okay, so it's very power hungry and all that, sorry, processing hungry.

Speaker 4: 50:10

And if you can turn around and do this in real time, you do several things. You can sit with the director and go okay, we'll do this, that and the other, and you go great, well, there it is. What do you think? So the moment we go, okay, we'll do this, that and the other, and you go, great, well, there it is. What do you think? So, the moment we go, come back tomorrow and we'll show you, we'll show you Right.

Speaker 2: 50:25

So this helps with immediacy.

Speaker 4: 50:26

Exactly so people talk about AI as being the big thing, impacting the industry negatively, which we don't agree with, but forgetting about real time is equally an exciting opportunity, which is equally revolutionary Now. Opportunity which is equally revolutionary Now. Put the two together and you've got a place that's going to be very different in five to ten years' time. Right, both are exciting, but both are threats. But the opportunities that they create if you're able to evolve and absorb and develop are mind-boggling.

Speaker 2: 50:55

Could you envision If you go and look at?

Speaker 4: 50:59

If you go on on youtube, not only is the 12 minute film on there, but also three or four films about the making of so, for example, we did one from the actress point of view, so there's a little two minute of the actress talking about the experience. Let me take you back 10 years and gravity basically changed the way films are made. So today films are made with led screens and so forth. So we pioneer that. That's how we make films today. Everybody makes that. Six months ago, we launched Flight, which is our vision of the next decade how films are going to get made. So if you want to know about don't ask me the question just go and look at the movie. Go and look at Flight and the associated movies and that and that's the best answer I can give- you perfect.

Speaker 2: 51:38

Yeah, we'll get all the listeners to to have a look at that. And what do you feel about ar vr in that world? What, uh, do we? Is there a world where you see something like uh, a choose your own adventure movie merging with gaming? Is there some?

Speaker 4: 51:55

like all of that? The answers, I don't know. I am desperate to find. You know, tim Haynes, with Walking with Dinosaurs, transformed what we did. We did Gulliver's Travels and, if you remember, a miniseries for NBC which again was also revolutionary, but in each case it was an individual. You know, duncan Kenworthy, who made Notting Hill and various other things For us, david Heyman, for example, and Harry Potter Made in Notting Hill and various other things For us, david Heyman, for example, and Harry Potter.

Speaker 4: 52:21

So we have had people in our lives, on the client side, who have basically enabled us and then we've enabled them. It's a partnership, right, okay, there is someone out there, a director, who's going to deliver a story across different media. I call them platforms. So, for example, the feature film, the two to three-hour feature film, will not necessarily be the starting line. It might be an immersive experience. It might be a theme park experience, as they did with Pirates of the Caribbean, for example, or whatever. Right, where you start the story, follow things. Which is why I said earlier in this talk Lucas, will they look back and go? Actually, lucas did this before anybody else thought about this. Yeah, platforms. And so it's so exciting because you will then experience things.

Speaker 4: 53:06

I'll give you an example. With augmented, we spent the last five years working with Apple on Vision Pro Wow, finally we can talk about it. And with augmented reality and things like that, you will not have your 60-inch screen on the wall. You can just watch the movie with the headset and pin it to wherever you want to pin it. So you'll be watching movies straight, two-dimensional movies that way. But of course, we can come along let's say, the Matrix is a good example. We can come along now and do visual effects which are specific for that. So now you're sitting there with the bullets going past your ears, right, okay? And so we won't do that for the whole movie, but during key scenes we will immerse you in that. So you'd be watching a two-dimensional screen, like you do at the moment, but we can take you into that. So the dinosaur, for example, being the other example. At the moment, you know it's cut off, you know that, whereas next time you have to fold it all the way up above your head.

Speaker 2: 54:03

Right yeah.

Speaker 4: 54:04

If you go to, if you've been or the listeners have been to the Sphere in Las Vegas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's mind-blowing.

Speaker 2: 54:09

Yeah, mind-blowing.

Speaker 4: 54:09

Yeah, but that's the example that you said.

Speaker 4: 54:14

You look up and you see it, I loved it and we're doing projects for the sphere at the moment. Oh wow, and so, basically, the planes, the barriers not that they're going, because they never were there, other than the technology couldn't do it, so to speak, at that point. So yeah, so stories are going to go to many places, but the bit I'm very excited about is that the directors out there, who's going to deliver the VR experience, the game experience, they'll carry the story like Hitchcock. Hitchcock used to carry the story and he'd only film what he needed so he could prevent the studios recutting the movie because he didn't give them enough material to recut.

Speaker 2: 54:51

Yeah, right. And Spielberg's the same.

Speaker 4: 54:54

Spielberg has the entire movie in his mind and he's already editing.

Speaker 4: 54:57

I remember when we did War Horse with him. I movie in his mind and he's already editing, he. I remember when we did warhorse with him, I I saw him on the last day of the shoot. He was doing a shoot down the country and he had edited it up to the pre the film, up to the previous evening shoot. Wow, mind boggling. So, so, so, therefore, there's someone out there who, like spielberg and lucas, who can see this going forward. They're ready, they're obviously they must already exist, because they can't, you know, otherwise it would be 20 years before they're old enough. So someone's out there at the moment who will be the first person who will be delivering a story across different platforms, who I'm desperate to find.

Speaker 4: 55:29

Oh yeah, I can't wait for that one and, like I say, it was Lucas in 1977 and Alfonso Cuaron obviously with Gravity and things like that. So these people are out there and also the producers are out there because, as I say, David Heyman and Duncan Kenworthy are two of the people who have really been, who have enabled and had the vision themselves to support the innovation in the first place. That must never be overlooked.

Speaker 2: 55:56

Yeah, it's about the creative talent that uses the new technology to just make something new happen, right?

Speaker 1: 56:02

and all we're doing is supporting them fascinating thanks this has been fascinating and I could sit and talk to you for three hours, because there's never time on set to speak to people on your side of the team, because I'm always running into costume or hair and makeup or learning my lines or rehearsing or practicing a stunt badly, so it's really really lovely to be able to drill into your world for an hour. Thank you so much for coming.

Speaker 4: 56:31

You're welcome. It's been a pleasure. Bye.