Speaker 1: You're listening to playback a Variety podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Variety Awards Editor Chris Tapley. It's no easy trick to
Speaker 1: amass the kind of following My guest today has his
Speaker 1: many films from Shaun of the Dead to Scott Pilgrim
Speaker 1: Versus the World, have carved their own spot in modern
Speaker 1: cinema and attracted a number of movie goers who will
Speaker 1: gladly line up for whatever he has next in store.
Speaker 1: The reason, I think is that there is a clear
Speaker 1: voice involved, and that too, is no easy trick. Edgar
Speaker 1: Right is here to talk about that, his new movie,
Speaker 1: Baby Driver, and a whole lot more. Edgar, thanks for
Speaker 1: coming on today. Thanks for having me. Chris. I say
Speaker 1: that having a clear voice as a filmmaker is no
Speaker 1: easy trick because it's kind of I think it's something
Speaker 1: that you have to work at. You have to fail,
Speaker 1: you have to stumble, you have to hone it, you know,
Speaker 1: so it kind of takes screwing up to find your
Speaker 1: way in my opinion. Uh so I kind of wanted
Speaker 1: to start there, let's talk about your failures. No no, no,
Speaker 1: but but actually early on, just when you were kind
Speaker 1: of trying to find your voice, maybe before you made
Speaker 1: a feature. Can you recall any of those early pitfalls
Speaker 1: that started to point you in the right direction? Well,
Speaker 1: funny enough, I mean, I did you know, Like, um,
Speaker 1: I felt like I sort of stumbled out of the
Speaker 1: gates straight away because although I feel quite much more
Speaker 1: fondly about it now, but I made a film when
Speaker 1: I was twenty years old. The Shot of the Dead
Speaker 1: is not my debut. And I made a film when
Speaker 1: I was twenty which was actually reviewed in Variety, which
Speaker 1: was actually when it was reviewed in Variety, I felt like, oh,
Speaker 1: this means it's like a profit film. It was called
Speaker 1: a Fit for the Fingers, and it was like a goofy,
Speaker 1: like zero budget western that I made on sixteen mill
Speaker 1: on the budget of like twenty grand, you know, the
Speaker 1: same as like a low budget music video. Shot an
Speaker 1: entire feature on that I say in feature in inverted comments,
Speaker 1: because it is seventy eight minutes long, and even at
Speaker 1: seventy eight minutes, it's kind of pad out, padded out,
Speaker 1: with a long credit sequence and a long end credit sequence.
Speaker 1: And it was actually something that one of the there's
Speaker 1: things that happened on that movie that have like sort
Speaker 1: of like you know, basically sort of dictated my working
Speaker 1: methods to the rest of my career because, um, I
Speaker 1: prior to that, I just I got my I just
Speaker 1: used to make sort of amateur movies like on Super eight.
Speaker 1: And then when I was actually sixteen, I want to
Speaker 1: I want a video camera on national TV in the UK.
Speaker 1: I want a competition through comic relief. Then when I
Speaker 1: had this video camera, I went sort of like just
Speaker 1: making movies all the time at school. But you know,
Speaker 1: I was like the sort of when I was doing
Speaker 1: my own movies, I was like shooting them. I was operating,
Speaker 1: you know, and never that great at light lighting or not.
Speaker 1: You know, sort of like but I was basically like
Speaker 1: the only person behind the camera. It was like sort
Speaker 1: of directing it, shooting it, sometimes holding the boom at
Speaker 1: the same time, um, and then actually doing my foot
Speaker 1: And I went to our college and then sort of
Speaker 1: got this meager amount of money together. Although when you're
Speaker 1: twenty years old, twenty grand is a lot of money. Um,
Speaker 1: so you've got this money together to make a sixty
Speaker 1: mail feature. But you know, it was the first time
Speaker 1: I really working with the crew and first time sort
Speaker 1: of delegating the sort of some of the artistic um
Speaker 1: work at other people, and it was just just sort
Speaker 1: of real lesson in terms of like working with a
Speaker 1: crew and also just having to sort of get your
Speaker 1: vision across to other crew members. And you know, it
Speaker 1: was a movie that we made. I was shot in
Speaker 1: the summer of ninety four. We had no video assist
Speaker 1: and we had no dailies. I think we had dailies
Speaker 1: once in the entire shoot because we couldn't afford it
Speaker 1: completely fine blind. So sometimes when you get into the
Speaker 1: edit suite and it's like, oh, every take is soft, okay,
Speaker 1: so I guess this shot is not in the movie,
Speaker 1: or like there's some like action shot, there's like one
Speaker 1: take of it. And at one point, actually it was
Speaker 1: so low budget that I became the assistant editor on
Speaker 1: my own movie because we couldn't people were just working
Speaker 1: for nothing, and I was there every day, so I
Speaker 1: was like, well, why don't I be the assistant editor?
Speaker 1: And then you know it would be things like you'd like.
Speaker 1: I moved to London to edit the movie and and
Speaker 1: the editor was actually um we I say we edited
Speaker 1: at PYM with studios. UM. Now that sounds kind of
Speaker 1: fancy to be editing at Pima Studios with your first movie.
Speaker 1: But the reality of it was this, and we were
Speaker 1: not there legally. We were there sort of like sneaking
Speaker 1: in and like editing in a broom cupboard, like somebody
Speaker 1: in the post production department let us have this broom covered.
Speaker 1: And my editor was actually sleeping there at night, so
Speaker 1: come like nine o'clock when the security guards were going around,
Speaker 1: he'd get in edit, sleep overnight and have like a
Speaker 1: torch in a book, and I'd see him again in
Speaker 1: the morning. And he'd like to do that five nights
Speaker 1: a week. So he was pretty crazy and it was
Speaker 1: like a I mean, so the thing that I really
Speaker 1: love with that movie is that I basically ended the movie.
Speaker 1: I just didn't have enough coverage. I didn't, you know.
Speaker 1: The assembly edit of the movie and the assemble editor
Speaker 1: is when you put every scene at it's maximum length
Speaker 1: that it could possibly be with every take. So most
Speaker 1: films like as as for example, say for example like
Speaker 1: Hot Fust, the assembly edit would probably be like two
Speaker 1: and three quarter hours long, like a good forty five
Speaker 1: minutes longer than the finished film, and then you cut
Speaker 1: it down. But that the assembly edit of this Finger
Speaker 1: is at its longest possible that it could possibly be
Speaker 1: with seventy two minutes long. And then I realized we
Speaker 1: had a problem, and like, and I remember, like, I
Speaker 1: drove my producer, a guy called Daniel Faguero, was so
Speaker 1: mad at me because I called our one investor, who
Speaker 1: was a local newspaper editor who you've seen some of
Speaker 1: my amateur movies, and gave me twenty grand to lose
Speaker 1: on it. He had money to lose on the tax loss,
Speaker 1: and then my film was the tax loss. Um. I
Speaker 1: called him up and I told him exactly what I
Speaker 1: thought of the film, my own film, you know. So
Speaker 1: I completely freaked out the investor cause I said, I
Speaker 1: think it's not good enough. I don't think it's kind
Speaker 1: of like you know, like it's it's it's too short.
Speaker 1: We should shoot some more stuff. I think it's a disaster.
Speaker 1: And when the producer found out that, I called the
Speaker 1: investor and said that, he was so furious at me.
Speaker 1: But then it's completely backfired on me because then the investor,
Speaker 1: whose name is Mike, came to London. He was he
Speaker 1: was from my hometown in Somerset, and he came to
Speaker 1: London where we moved to edit the movie, so you know, well,
Speaker 1: this is this is what happened. This is where it
Speaker 1: really backfired on me. The investor watched the movie and
Speaker 1: he says, I think it's great. So then I was like,
Speaker 1: screwed it, Like no reshoots, no additional material, got to
Speaker 1: try and make it wherever I have. The thing that
Speaker 1: it did teach me that it was like, gotta have coverage,
Speaker 1: over shoot, yeah, I mean over shoot or just make
Speaker 1: sure you can't pace anything if you don't have the shots.
Speaker 1: You know, and I do a lot of setups in
Speaker 1: my movie, but I don't but there's very rarely and
Speaker 1: if you ask anybody who works in the movie, there's
Speaker 1: very few shots that are not in the movie. It's
Speaker 1: not like I'm shooting fifteen cameras and you know, you
Speaker 1: figure it all out in the edit. It's like usually
Speaker 1: like one or two cameras. Sometimes in an action scene,
Speaker 1: maybe three or four, but that's it. Pretty much every
Speaker 1: setup is in there. There's really like a lesson alert
Speaker 1: on the first film is that you cannot pace a
Speaker 1: film if you don't have the shots. And I was
Speaker 1: left with this kind of rough cut which I had
Speaker 1: to release because I had nothing else to cut two.
Speaker 1: I had no way of pacing it up, and I
Speaker 1: think I've kind of overcompensated for ever since. Well that's good.
Speaker 1: You gotta take something away from that. And it sounds
Speaker 1: like it was fine the way, and I'm sure you
Speaker 1: had a blast making the movie. Some terrible reviews for
Speaker 1: that movie. Empire gave it one star. All the variety
Speaker 1: variety of it was pretty good. Thank you, Variety said, right,
Speaker 1: shows promise, so thank you Variety. Here and here twenty
Speaker 1: two years later to make good on that promise. Bruce
Speaker 1: Campbell was here one time and he was talking about
Speaker 1: the review for I guess he was talking about Evil
Speaker 1: Dead and he was like, you know, to them making
Speaker 1: it was getting in variety, like oh, we wanted to
Speaker 1: get into variety. And then they reviewed the movie and
Speaker 1: it was a pan and he was like, oh, really
Speaker 1: want to be in variety. But talking about that voice, um,
Speaker 1: do you find that you have to fight to maintain
Speaker 1: that voice? I mean, I think you've had great production
Speaker 1: partners on your films, but you still wonder when you
Speaker 1: have a voice so specific, so so clear, if it's
Speaker 1: something that the artist has to fight for a lot. Well,
Speaker 1: I think anything any any like original movie or anything
Speaker 1: that's like, you know, not previous I p or like
Speaker 1: it's not a franchise or something. If you're making any
Speaker 1: kind of original movie, just the very act of getting
Speaker 1: it made is like just about persistence of vision, because
Speaker 1: there's no like, um, you know, it's not any no
Speaker 1: original film is in the release calendar. It's like something
Speaker 1: that's like you know all this, you know, everybody's hoping
Speaker 1: it might be good. And I think I've been lucky
Speaker 1: in the like, um, you know, I've been I've stuck
Speaker 1: with pretty much the same producers throughout. Um, I mean,
Speaker 1: Nira Park is my producer I've worked with since Spaced,
Speaker 1: and then Eric Fowner has produced four of my five movies,
Speaker 1: you know, and and for the most part, like there's
Speaker 1: been some kind of continuity and four movies with the Universal.
Speaker 1: This one is with like try Starr and MRC. But
Speaker 1: like I have the same producers. That's always great. So
Speaker 1: having like sort of you know, Nira and Eric as
Speaker 1: a team is obviously incredibly important. And I think it's
Speaker 1: just about what those guys do is kind of protect
Speaker 1: your process. If there's a sort of way that you
Speaker 1: work that's not like other directors then they're there to
Speaker 1: kind of protect that. I mean, it still means that
Speaker 1: you always have to sort of even like six films in,
Speaker 1: you still have to defend parts of what you do.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, this is the way I want to
Speaker 1: do it, and this is how I do it, and
Speaker 1: this is the way that I work. Um, but I
Speaker 1: think anything any you know, I think I've been really
Speaker 1: inspired actually by other directors who I feel like sort
Speaker 1: of um, you know, sort of double down on their
Speaker 1: own style or they're just, like I said, a persistence division.
Speaker 1: I feel like that with Quentin Tarantino and Where's Anderson especially,
Speaker 1: I always felt with like Were's Anderson like sort of
Speaker 1: this sort of like this, you know, it's something that
Speaker 1: he can he can see this thing, and he's going
Speaker 1: to keep sort of powering along with it. And then
Speaker 1: you know, like I think eight. I don't know what
Speaker 1: grand Brida Pesto tells his seventh film or a film
Speaker 1: or sure, but like as biggest it, you know, and
Speaker 1: and seemingly, if you just looked at title and synopsis alone,
Speaker 1: seemingly the most esoteric and idiotsyncratic and it's like massive
Speaker 1: worldwide hit. So I find those things incredibly inspiring, and
Speaker 1: I find like sort of you know, and in funny enough,
Speaker 1: I worked on Grindhouse with I did a tiny part
Speaker 1: of that with like don't my Finest seventy five seconds.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's interesting on that because that was
Speaker 1: I knew, you know, sort of got to know Acquintin
Speaker 1: very well at that point and seeing him, you know,
Speaker 1: take responsibility for its failure and also recover from it
Speaker 1: and then kind of rather than sort of retreat and
Speaker 1: do something safe, actually kind of then make one of
Speaker 1: his most ambitious films. And that incredibly inspiring. Is that
Speaker 1: sort of this is the thing, like, you know, rather
Speaker 1: than kind of like sort of retreat from it, is
Speaker 1: actually saying, oh, I'm actually going to like sort of
Speaker 1: now now I'm going to like sort of attempt my
Speaker 1: most ambitious movie, Lori's Bustards. So I think that's the
Speaker 1: thing with a sort of anybody making the original films,
Speaker 1: you know, I really changed my sort of attitude to
Speaker 1: sort of them, And never on in social media, I
Speaker 1: never ever talked about um anymore. I never talked about
Speaker 1: films being bad UM because I think once you start
Speaker 1: to sort of make them, you realize that nobody sets
Speaker 1: out to make a bad movie and that you know,
Speaker 1: and and it was a little bit of empathy goes
Speaker 1: a long way. Yeah, I mean it's just it's just, um,
Speaker 1: especially with any original movie, it's like sort of like
Speaker 1: I think, you know, you're always rooting for them because
Speaker 1: like when those things kind of like sort of breakthrough,
Speaker 1: it's it's, um, you know, it's good for the soul,
Speaker 1: and it's also good for the future of cinema, you know. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: your movies tend to be, you know, modestly budgeted. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I want to talk about Scott Pilgrim, which was
Speaker 1: and maybe combined all of your other movies combined, maybe
Speaker 1: this movie cost about what those costs together. It was
Speaker 1: like something eighty million, big budget, big scale. Um, it
Speaker 1: didn't work at the box office for whatever reason. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've post mortem to this thing to death,
Speaker 1: But I did want to talk about a little bit because,
Speaker 1: as you consume, I'm kind of curious about lessons learned
Speaker 1: along the way. So what have you taken from that experience? Sense, Well,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a weird one that because you know,
Speaker 1: the only real thing to take away from it, I'm
Speaker 1: very proud of the movie. There's a couple of things
Speaker 1: that I change about the movie, but not much, and
Speaker 1: I definitely wouldn't change anything about it with the way
Speaker 1: that it looks or sounds or feels. I think actually
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that I'm like sort proudest
Speaker 1: of is that he was like a studio movie that
Speaker 1: kind of that doesn't really look and feel like anything else.
Speaker 1: I think that sort of the topest thing with that
Speaker 1: is actually where you just in the marketing and I
Speaker 1: don't mean, and I'm going to be very clear about this,
Speaker 1: is like even just being on the press tour for
Speaker 1: that movie, you're sort of like aware that, like if
Speaker 1: a film is difficult to distill into one sentence, you know,
Speaker 1: like when you watch a film in a hotel and
Speaker 1: it's got like the one sentence that describes the movie,
Speaker 1: and it's the sort of the film, but it's kind
Speaker 1: of like most simplistic description, one sentence synopsis the TV
Speaker 1: guide blur, yeah, exactly, and Scott Pilgrim can never comfortably
Speaker 1: fit into that. And I always remember doing the press
Speaker 1: tour for that movie, and at the start of the
Speaker 1: press tour, you know, people would say, so, how would
Speaker 1: you describe Scott Pilgram And I said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like an action and fantasy, romance, martial arts comedy.
Speaker 1: And I could always feel the more i'd say that,
Speaker 1: I could always feel in my head that once I
Speaker 1: said two genres were like a buzzer was going off,
Speaker 1: and then by the end of the press tour, I
Speaker 1: was just saying it's an action company because I think
Speaker 1: and so people are somewhat confused about what exactly is.
Speaker 1: So it's that's it's that thing that I think. It's
Speaker 1: unfortunately like a sort of slightly in nature of the
Speaker 1: businesses that um, you know, like people want people want
Speaker 1: something fresh. People don't don't want the same old thing,
Speaker 1: but they want to be somewhat kind of like grounded
Speaker 1: in something that they recognize. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: there was one thing. I mean, it didn't really affect
Speaker 1: the writing of Baby Driver, but it was something that
Speaker 1: when it came to the marketing, you think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: the good thing here is that we have like lots
Speaker 1: of marketable elements and then the sort of the stylization
Speaker 1: and the stuff that's a bit more cutting edge and
Speaker 1: original is like is um, you know that they are
Speaker 1: they are like complimenting each other where I think with
Speaker 1: sort of Scott Pilgrim. You know, when they cut a
Speaker 1: trailer together and I thought, actually the trainer was really good,
Speaker 1: I got to say, but you could sort of tell
Speaker 1: that some people would watch that and say, oh my god,
Speaker 1: best film ever, and other people are like, what is
Speaker 1: that Like audience is saying, and a multiplex seeing that
Speaker 1: trailing guys, I don't understand what this is. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's interesting though. What's funny is that I think people
Speaker 1: over the years I always want me to throw marketing
Speaker 1: under the bus, which I always refused to do. And
Speaker 1: one of the reasons for that is that Michael Moses
Speaker 1: a universal I know that it was like his you know,
Speaker 1: he regularly said, he guess this is one of the
Speaker 1: favorite films I've ever worked on it. He was them.
Speaker 1: We talked on the Carma car and I mean they
Speaker 1: were they were trying, they were trying some interesting things
Speaker 1: with them. Well, he sent me this really funny email.
Speaker 1: And the Monday morning after it came out, Um, he
Speaker 1: sent me this email and it just said It had
Speaker 1: just three words long. It just said yeah, it said years,
Speaker 1: not days, which I was very happy with because I
Speaker 1: thought I felt the same way. And I mean it's
Speaker 1: if it's a you know, um, I mean the thing
Speaker 1: about it that's nice, I guess is that like and
Speaker 1: it's funny. I remember Ron Meyer did that speech. Remember
Speaker 1: when Ron Meyer did this speech at like a film
Speaker 1: festival where he savaged the Universal Slate. You remember that? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And somebody sent me a link to the story. I
Speaker 1: think it was on like in Variety even said Ron
Speaker 1: Mayer savages Universal Slate. As somebody said, if you read this,
Speaker 1: And as soon as I saw the link, I was
Speaker 1: like sweating. I said, oh God, like um, and then
Speaker 1: what was funny? And I don't really want to mention
Speaker 1: what the other films are because some of my friends
Speaker 1: directed them. But he's sort of savage, like a bunch
Speaker 1: of movies said, Oh, this movie is like mediocre, this
Speaker 1: movie last too much, this movie was terrible, didn't deserve
Speaker 1: to do well, he said, Scott Pilgrim, that was a
Speaker 1: good film that deserves to do better. And I was thinking,
Speaker 1: oh my god, and I email would like run Mayer
Speaker 1: and I said thank you for thank you for letting
Speaker 1: me off the hook. And I said something I said
Speaker 1: hopefully in thirty years time, it would have done enough
Speaker 1: midnight screenings that it will be in the black. It
Speaker 1: has been. I mean, it has the measure of something
Speaker 1: that in terms of being like a catalog title for
Speaker 1: the studio, is how many times has it been reissued
Speaker 1: on Blu ray in different special editions? And the answer
Speaker 1: is a lot of times. So maybe at some point
Speaker 1: in the future Scott Pilgrim will be you know, like
Speaker 1: Rocky Horror or something will be one of those films.
Speaker 1: It's like Scott pil was in the black in two
Speaker 1: thousand and thirty seven. Movies like that have a life
Speaker 1: that the for extends it's box office life. So yeah, right,
Speaker 1: that's not something obviously on our business side. That's not
Speaker 1: something to aspire to because when nobody sets out to make,
Speaker 1: you don't set out to make sort of you wanted
Speaker 1: to do well, you know, straight the back, but you
Speaker 1: realize that how many of your favorite films you look
Speaker 1: back and you think, oh, I guess, like the Thing
Speaker 1: didn't do that well. You know that the Blade Around
Speaker 1: I didn't do that well. So like, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not paying my Scott Pilgrim and Blade Around It on
Speaker 1: the same sort of pedestal. But it is that thing
Speaker 1: where you sort of realize that like when you sometimes
Speaker 1: actually a lot of films when I was growing up
Speaker 1: that I really loved, you know that you have no
Speaker 1: idea how they did, do you know what I mean? Um,
Speaker 1: And I don't know, So I'm I'm, I'm, you know,
Speaker 1: like sort of I don't know if it taught me anything.
Speaker 1: It's just the sort of that you need to um
Speaker 1: for some audiences need to be a bit more grounded. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, you came out of that experience and into
Speaker 1: what would become another you know, I guess harrowing might
Speaker 1: be the word. Experience with Marvel and ant Man and
Speaker 1: trying to make that work with Marvel. You've been working
Speaker 1: on that before the rowing. It made the wrong word
Speaker 1: being on heroin or something that's the wrong word. But
Speaker 1: you know, just looking back at that experience with Marvel
Speaker 1: with some distance, do you feel like still there was
Speaker 1: absolutely no way forward together on that project? Well? I
Speaker 1: think the thing is is that, like I well, also
Speaker 1: I did make another film in between actually, and you
Speaker 1: know I made the World's Ending between Scott Pilgrim and
Speaker 1: an air man or rather not a man. So um,
Speaker 1: I think the thing that is the most diplomatic, you
Speaker 1: know answer is that, you know, I wanted to make
Speaker 1: a Marvel movie, but I don't think they really wanted
Speaker 1: to make a right movie, or you know, I think
Speaker 1: the thing is what kind of happened, and it was
Speaker 1: it was a really heartbreaking decision um to have to
Speaker 1: walk away after having worked on it for so longs
Speaker 1: me and Joe Cornish in some form, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's funny like so people say, oh, they've been working
Speaker 1: on it for eight years, and that was somewhat true.
Speaker 1: But in that time I had made three movies, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't like I was working on a full time.
Speaker 1: But after the World's End, I did work on it
Speaker 1: for like a year. I was going to make the movie,
Speaker 1: but then you know, I was the writer director on it,
Speaker 1: and then they wanted to do a draft without me,
Speaker 1: And you know, having written all my other movies, that's
Speaker 1: kind of like it's like a tough thing to kind
Speaker 1: of move forward thinking. And you know, if I do
Speaker 1: one of these movies, I would like to be the
Speaker 1: writer director. Being suddenly becoming like a director for higher
Speaker 1: on it, you're sort of less emotionally invested and you know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of sort of you know, you start to
Speaker 1: wonder why you're they're really I mean, the good thing
Speaker 1: that came out of it is that like I got
Speaker 1: to kind of like move on to this, which is
Speaker 1: a script that I had already written. And the maybe
Speaker 1: one of the irony is about it is I had
Speaker 1: thought in the back of my head, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: you know, if the Marvel movie does well, maybe I
Speaker 1: have enough muscle to get Baby Driver made. And so
Speaker 1: it's I running. I guess I didn't make that movie
Speaker 1: and I got Baby Driving made ran with the studio,
Speaker 1: which is I think the original movie is very rare.
Speaker 1: And the other important thing for me is the people,
Speaker 1: you know, like almost the entirety of my crew who
Speaker 1: are going to do that movie sort of left in solidarity. Um,
Speaker 1: and so it's really important to me to get another
Speaker 1: film going so I could kind of re employ them all.
Speaker 1: So the funny thing about Baby Driver is it it
Speaker 1: pretty much features all the h O d s who
Speaker 1: were going to do the other movie with me, department
Speaker 1: for heads, department, head to department, and a variety listeners.
Speaker 1: I understand that one uh and then the last question
Speaker 1: along these lines I don't mean to be labor this,
Speaker 1: but I just what I'm trying to do here is
Speaker 1: is make it clear where your headspace is. When you
Speaker 1: came into Baby Driver, which is my favorite movie you've made,
Speaker 1: Oh thank you. So just to lift your spirits a
Speaker 1: little there, it's kind of turned to a real buma.
Speaker 1: But just out of curiosity with with your experience on
Speaker 1: Aunt Man in Scott Pilgrim, have you become at all
Speaker 1: trigger shy about scale of that sort? Um? I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I mean I think something that like um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I think the thing is is
Speaker 1: always I mean I take a point of pride. I mean,
Speaker 1: even with something like Scott Pilgrim, which is like at
Speaker 1: a more expensive movie, is um with the funny thing
Speaker 1: is I think it looks more expensive than it actually was.
Speaker 1: You know, it was expensive, but I think it looks
Speaker 1: even more expensive than that. And I think that's true
Speaker 1: of like you know, Hot Fuzz, which costs like fifteen million,
Speaker 1: but people like you speak to people in this Hollywood
Speaker 1: even the other day. I did a tenth anniversary screening
Speaker 1: of that with Jordan Peele moderator ten years ten years ago,
Speaker 1: I did a tenth anniversary at the Vista with Jordan
Speaker 1: Peele moderating, and he was like, how do you make
Speaker 1: that for fifteen million? And I'm start of looking at
Speaker 1: it saying, I don't know. I mean, I guess it's
Speaker 1: just like I mean, I think that's the true of
Speaker 1: most of them. Should the Dead cost four million, maybe
Speaker 1: four million pounds, it's like six million dollars and two
Speaker 1: thousand four money Hot First cost fifteen. Um World's Inn
Speaker 1: costs like twenty seven you know, um and your baby Driver.
Speaker 1: I probably even the variety. I shouldn't disclose the budget,
Speaker 1: but I would say it looks twice as expensive as
Speaker 1: it was, So I always say that as a point
Speaker 1: of pride. That's that's the important thing to me, is
Speaker 1: it's not I'd rather I think the thing is also
Speaker 1: once you get into like movies that cost two hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars, I think there's an enormous amount of waste
Speaker 1: going on, and I think, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: sort of problems with those with some of those movies
Speaker 1: is that they kind of shoot so much stuff that
Speaker 1: they don't use, and do so many of the effects
Speaker 1: that they don't use that you get into sort of
Speaker 1: wasteful territory and much more like the big budget directors
Speaker 1: who are sort of very exact like Chris Nolan, I think,
Speaker 1: sort of like knows exactly where he wants to shoot,
Speaker 1: how he wants to do it, how much he wants
Speaker 1: to do in camera, and pulls off things like you know,
Speaker 1: sort of a budget you know that is is really impressive,
Speaker 1: even if it's on a big scale. So I think
Speaker 1: with something like Baby Driver is actually something where it
Speaker 1: was when I first handed in the screenplay, um, you know,
Speaker 1: line producer looked at it and said, this is an
Speaker 1: eight day shoot, and then during that process is like,
Speaker 1: could you do it in seventy days? And then it's
Speaker 1: like and there's like and I think, so the World's
Speaker 1: End was like a sixty day shoot, and I said,
Speaker 1: I can't do it for any less than sixty and
Speaker 1: I ended up doing in fifty seven, so I had
Speaker 1: to and I ended up like putting some of my
Speaker 1: feedback into it to pay for like two or three
Speaker 1: days of filming, because it's things like and you've seen
Speaker 1: the film, so it's like, you know, there's pressure to
Speaker 1: sort of make cuts and save money, and it's like
Speaker 1: you should cut the foot chase out and I'm like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I can't cut the foot chase out. I swear it's
Speaker 1: going to be your favorite bit of the movie. So
Speaker 1: I ended up paying for some of the foot chase,
Speaker 1: and it is my favorite in the movie. Like I said,
Speaker 1: that's my favorite. You've done sofore, I thought it was
Speaker 1: just an exciting uh just it felt like you were
Speaker 1: having a blast making the movie. And I think that
Speaker 1: kind of thing shows in movies, where the filmmakers just
Speaker 1: were delighting and putting it together. Well, it's the irony
Speaker 1: about that is like, is it is like sort of
Speaker 1: like a a real I mean, it's funny to sort
Speaker 1: of make a movie that's like sort of a it
Speaker 1: is a passion project. And usually is that people when
Speaker 1: they make a passion project, is something that's like sort
Speaker 1: of you know, very uncommercial in terms of its subject matter.
Speaker 1: But this is like a sort of you know, bank robbery,
Speaker 1: highest car chase kind of movie. But it is literally
Speaker 1: like my two passions of like film and music coming together.
Speaker 1: I always been a huge music fan, and you know,
Speaker 1: some people see this film as a bit of a
Speaker 1: departure from the other ones. And the irony is is
Speaker 1: that I've had the idea for this one longer than
Speaker 1: like space, you wanted to do this for decades, I guess, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, but here's the thing, twenty two years ago.
Speaker 1: So the German. The idea is when I heard the
Speaker 1: first track that's in the movie, which is Bellbottoms by
Speaker 1: the John Spencer Blues expression. So I'm twenty one years old,
Speaker 1: I'm living in North London. I'm sort of commuting by
Speaker 1: bus to Pine my studios to illegally edit my first movie.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm listening to that song and I'm visualizing like
Speaker 1: a car chase. I mean literally, I would listen to
Speaker 1: the song and say, this is a great car chase
Speaker 1: in a film. But you know, I'm twenty one. I
Speaker 1: haven't really made a proper movie. Um, I don't have
Speaker 1: any money like so, I don't have any muscle like
Speaker 1: I've got a variety of review and that's it. Um
Speaker 1: uh more. I probably should have liked so I think
Speaker 1: on the on the basis of the variety saying I promising, promising,
Speaker 1: I should have just come out and taken meetings. But
Speaker 1: I did on a business card. I know I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't I thought about that because I think of
Speaker 1: most people, some people would like go and like sort
Speaker 1: of like do a bunch of general meetings on the
Speaker 1: basis of that, but I didn't actually come out to
Speaker 1: Hollywood for another, like, you know, five years. Anyway, the
Speaker 1: point I was making was that like I've just been
Speaker 1: sort of building up to doing this film, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't until like ten years ago. In fact, there's a
Speaker 1: Variety article about the announcement a Baby Driver from two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, because I signed a two picture deal
Speaker 1: with Working Title in two thousand and seven after Hot
Speaker 1: Firs and the two things like mentioned as The World's
Speaker 1: End and Baby Driver. So the first time I'd ever
Speaker 1: like mentioned it allowed to Eric Fowner and Ira Park
Speaker 1: was maybe ten years ago and I said, I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I have this idea for this movie called Baby Driver.
Speaker 1: And they said what's that And I said, it's like
Speaker 1: a car chase film, driven by music. It's like an
Speaker 1: and they said, oh, that sounds good, and every phone
Speaker 1: had just straight I said, I want to see you
Speaker 1: do a car film. I said, yeah, it would be
Speaker 1: like my dream to do like a car movie, but
Speaker 1: it's a calmly be powered by music. And he goes
Speaker 1: what is that a fact? He said, let me write
Speaker 1: it down cut to literally like two thousand and eleven. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't finish the screen play until I
Speaker 1: was done with Scott Pilgrim. And so that's actually why
Speaker 1: I like did in that interim is the rather than
Speaker 1: after Scott Pilgrim. I wrote The World's Emiss Simon and
Speaker 1: I wrote Baby Driving on my own, So I had
Speaker 1: that screenplay a version of it, um. And I think
Speaker 1: it's also just the building up the confidence to actually
Speaker 1: kind of do it. I mean I couldn't have I
Speaker 1: don't think I could have made that movie ten years ago. Well,
Speaker 1: I was actually gonna say it's it's it seems to
Speaker 1: be potentially your most logistically complex movie you've made. That
Speaker 1: could be false, given you know some of the stuff
Speaker 1: that's going on in Scott Pilgrim. But I just definitely
Speaker 1: on a location basis for sure, because like so if
Speaker 1: it's everything is in camera and everything is on the okay,
Speaker 1: practical effects and stunt work, I mean, you're working within
Speaker 1: a genre that you know goes back the ways that
Speaker 1: you love Walter Hill all of that. How did you
Speaker 1: seek to innovate in that realm when it came to
Speaker 1: the stunt work. How did you want to put a
Speaker 1: different version of the stuff that you love on screen?
Speaker 1: I guess, well, I guess the music is part of
Speaker 1: the music. I mean, I mean also the music is
Speaker 1: driving the entire movie. And then and then in terms
Speaker 1: of the actual action itself, because it's first of all
Speaker 1: choreographed you know, to music and sometimes you know, so
Speaker 1: the movie is basically you're it's it's very subjective in
Speaker 1: that you're seeing the kind of story through Antelot's eyes
Speaker 1: and you're sort of hearing it through his ears as well.
Speaker 1: So I think that's the sort of the real innovation
Speaker 1: in terms of everything is like on be except when
Speaker 1: it's not. When things like when things go wrong and
Speaker 1: you're suddenly deprived of the music, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a it's an alarming thing in the movie because
Speaker 1: like the character needs music and after a while that
Speaker 1: the audience do too. Um. The actual shooting of the action,
Speaker 1: I think we just wanted to sort of i mean
Speaker 1: fly in the face of like the c g I
Speaker 1: green screen sort of school and just trying to do
Speaker 1: it all for real, which is just to really very
Speaker 1: complicated and shooting in a busy city like Atlanta and
Speaker 1: actually shooting car chase footage on the I A D
Speaker 1: five is a herculean task, which you know, and to
Speaker 1: name check all the great artisans it would you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's obviously just a team effort between stunts and
Speaker 1: and camera, but locations like the Locations Department, like Doug
Speaker 1: Dresser and Kyle Hinshaw who were like the sort of like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, our location guys just worked miracles, but basically
Speaker 1: like Dug Dresser who was like a location manager. So
Speaker 1: I made this big proclamation when we went to Atlanta,
Speaker 1: as I said, I did this big proclamation. I said,
Speaker 1: if we can't get a major freeway, there's no movie.
Speaker 1: Because usually when you go to Atlanta, like because it's
Speaker 1: one of the tax break cities, they always kind of
Speaker 1: send you out to this country freeway. He said, oh,
Speaker 1: you can use this one. Everybody's used this one, and
Speaker 1: usually when it's location mentions saying this is the one
Speaker 1: that people use, I say, well, I don't want to
Speaker 1: use that one. I want to use something new. I
Speaker 1: don't want to use the country freeway because it looks
Speaker 1: like smoking in the band. It looks like they got
Speaker 1: away already. We actually had a thing with the with
Speaker 1: the location department is whenever we would see this kind
Speaker 1: of leafy freeway. And I know, by the way, it
Speaker 1: was important to me to shoot Atlanta for Atlanta. The
Speaker 1: script was written in Los Angeles because I was living
Speaker 1: here when I wrote it, and then I rewrote it
Speaker 1: for Atlanta, and I thought, I really want to see
Speaker 1: like the sort of concrete urban built up Atlanta and
Speaker 1: not really see any of the green, leafy Georgia because
Speaker 1: it's somehow like lowered the stakes of the movie. So
Speaker 1: once the entire movie up until like the final like
Speaker 1: ten minutes is in like a concrete, gray Atlanta, and
Speaker 1: I would say to the locations department, because every time
Speaker 1: they send me out to that country freeway, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: this is like smoking the bandit. And then there's another
Speaker 1: bit when I was film from one called Charky's Machine,
Speaker 1: which he directed, which is all in downtown Atlanta. So
Speaker 1: my mentor to the location is the altman would be,
Speaker 1: We've got to think more Sharky's are less smokies. And
Speaker 1: and then basically like that dresser would always like say
Speaker 1: when he had locations, you guys, we can we've got
Speaker 1: some good sharky locations. You know, there's a thing of
Speaker 1: more sharky, less smoky. That's good. The last thing here
Speaker 1: before I let you go, just on that music point.
Speaker 1: Is music typically a way into an idea for you?
Speaker 1: Is it? Is it generally? Because I know it is
Speaker 1: for me when I'm writing creative stuff, It's like it's
Speaker 1: almost always a song that gets me there. Yeah, is
Speaker 1: that the way it's for you? Yeah? I mean I
Speaker 1: think that's where me and the main character and baby
Speaker 1: Driver are the same as that we're completely motivated by music.
Speaker 1: So I like, I mean, this is a universal thing
Speaker 1: that people use a music as an escape or as
Speaker 1: motivation or you know too sort of inspiration, and that's
Speaker 1: no different. I mean, I like I have to you know,
Speaker 1: I had to drive to music. I have to walk
Speaker 1: to music. I have to work out to music. You know,
Speaker 1: I have to clean the house to music. But specifically,
Speaker 1: when I'm right saying, I have to have the right
Speaker 1: kind of music to write. So I know if you
Speaker 1: do this when you're writing, is that I can't listen
Speaker 1: to anything with lyrics when I'm writing unless I know
Speaker 1: the song so well. But like, you know, if I'm
Speaker 1: like done in every movie, it's like sort of you know,
Speaker 1: I was writing Shown of Dead, Me and Simon would
Speaker 1: listen to horror scores the entire time when we were
Speaker 1: learning Hot Fuzz, we would listen to sort of like
Speaker 1: sort of action and cop music all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: I was writing this, I would. But then when I
Speaker 1: was writing this, I would. I had the songs planned
Speaker 1: out before I even wrote a word. Um and as
Speaker 1: far back as like two thousand and eight when I
Speaker 1: first first took the advanced with the Baby Driver, the
Speaker 1: first thing I did, bizarrely with a then music editor
Speaker 1: now OSK, a winning composer Stephen Price. Like I met
Speaker 1: him through that in two thousand when I saw his
Speaker 1: name and the credit, Well, this is what happened, is
Speaker 1: like Steve Price was I said, I said, I've got
Speaker 1: these songs. I had about eight of the songs, which
Speaker 1: are the big set pieces, and I said, I need
Speaker 1: a music edit to help me break them down because
Speaker 1: I didn't read music. And Nick Angel, who's a music
Speaker 1: supervisor on Hot Fust, recommended Stephen Price. So I met
Speaker 1: him go on like a house on fire, and so
Speaker 1: I still have his pds that he broke down all
Speaker 1: those songs for me, and then when I started writing
Speaker 1: the film proper, I wouldn't like write a scene unless
Speaker 1: I had the right song, because I kind of sit
Speaker 1: there and think, Okay, this is a dyna scene where
Speaker 1: Baby and debor at me for the first time, and
Speaker 1: it's gonna be something dreamy, and they're literally looking through
Speaker 1: my iTunes and it's like, oh, this speech boys track,
Speaker 1: this is great. Okay, this song is like two and
Speaker 1: a half minutes long, so the scene should be two
Speaker 1: and a half pages long. So I went through in
Speaker 1: a very like so precise, like sort of methodical way
Speaker 1: of trying to sort of like make the scenes fit
Speaker 1: with the songs. So it was like a big It
Speaker 1: was a you know, like a huge endeavor. And also
Speaker 1: the thing is there's a lot of people Quintani and
Speaker 1: included say never put songs in the script u as
Speaker 1: you're setting yourself up to kind of like get taken
Speaker 1: to the cleaners. But I had to write them in
Speaker 1: because there was no other way of getting um, the
Speaker 1: sense of it across to like actors or a studio.
Speaker 1: So the screenplay for Baby Driver, right from the first draft,
Speaker 1: had all the songs written into it um, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, like a sort of a dangerous game to play,
Speaker 1: but like we're very lucky and that an amazing I'm
Speaker 1: going to give a shout out to Kirsten Lane, our
Speaker 1: clearance person who managed to clear thirty five tracks. It's
Speaker 1: I mean, it's amazing. So it's like props to her.
Speaker 1: We've got to get you out of here. You're busy,
Speaker 1: man um. The movie is called Baby Driver. The release
Speaker 1: date is June, June, go see it, Go buy the soundtrack.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy the double vinyl. Yeah, I'm gonna buy
Speaker 1: the vinyl two. And uh, like I said, it's my
Speaker 1: favorite movie. You did to congratulations, Thanks Chris, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate that. So you're just starting your day or did
Speaker 1: you just get off? You know? So what is it
Speaker 1: you do? I'm a driver? Oh like a so fur
Speaker 1: anyone i'd know? What's your name? Baby? Your name's baby, baby, Baby,
Speaker 1: it's the one you say, listen to the music all
Speaker 1: the time. Mental mental meaning slow? Was he slow? No?
Speaker 1: He had an accident when he was a kid. Still
Speaker 1: has a hum and the drum plays music to drown about.
Speaker 1: And that's what makes him the best. One more job
Speaker 1: and I'm done one more job and we're straight. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think I need to give you this speech
Speaker 1: of all what happened When you're saying no, how I
Speaker 1: can break your legs and tell everyone you love because
Speaker 1: you already know that. Danane. Yeah, the moment you're kissed, feeling,
Speaker 1: there's a moment you're catching blue and you're waitress girlfriend.
Speaker 1: She's cute. Let's keep it that way. I want us
Speaker 1: to have Western never stopped anyway. I'm in baby by
Speaker 1: one of these days. Babies, you're gonna get blood on
Speaker 1: your hands. First. The musical baby used to get out
Speaker 1: of here. I have to end that. Are we in
Speaker 1: bed together now? Baby, baby stock, said Michael Myers. This
Speaker 1: is Mike Mayers. It should be the Halloween mass. This
Speaker 1: is Halloween Mass. No, the killer dude from Halloween. You
Speaker 1: mean Jason? No, Baby, you tell me who dust you're
Speaker 1: good girl's lover? Yes, I do. That's too bad.