Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to what Future. I'm Josh. Whoa whoa,
Speaker 1: whoa whoa? What? Josh, what's going on with your audio?
Speaker 1: It's funny you should ask that. Um. Funny and also rude.
Speaker 1: Actually um, But that's okay. I'm gonna let that slide.
Speaker 1: I am recording this portion of the podcast from a
Speaker 1: hotel room just outside of San Francisco, which sounds like
Speaker 1: when you say somethings just outside of a major city,
Speaker 1: sounds like you're doing like a drug deal, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing a drug deal. Maybe explain that one.
Speaker 1: I don't know, just just outside of Like, why aren't
Speaker 1: I in San Francisco? Right? You know, I guess I'd
Speaker 1: more likely to do a drug deal in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: you know. Maybe I don't know. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: comment on the crime in San Francisco or anything. Okay, No,
Speaker 1: I'm not Gavin Newsom. I don't know what's going on there.
Speaker 1: But anyhow, I'm in a hotel. I'm traveling during what
Speaker 1: is a very unusual week I think in the world.
Speaker 1: But I mean is every isn't every week unusual? Now?
Speaker 1: Am I nostalgic for a time that never existed. Do
Speaker 1: I imagine an era where the weeks would go by
Speaker 1: and you wouldn't know anything about what the president was doing,
Speaker 1: or what was happening in politics, or if there were
Speaker 1: wars in the world, or like what the billionaires were
Speaker 1: doing with you know, their money, or what kind of
Speaker 1: horrible crimes are being committed or atrocities in other countries?
Speaker 1: Like Am I nostalgic? First off? Is it nostalgia? I
Speaker 1: don't even know. Do I perceive of this thing having
Speaker 1: existed that never really existed? I mean, all of these
Speaker 1: things were always happening, but you didn't always have to
Speaker 1: know about And now it feels like there's a moral
Speaker 1: requirement to know, right, I do think it's a little
Speaker 1: bit the lack of information that we used to have.
Speaker 1: But anyhow, so I'm traveling, and when you're traveling and
Speaker 1: I'm alone, I think you have a lot of time
Speaker 1: to ponder. By the way, this is all my explanation
Speaker 1: of why my audio sounds bad. I just want to
Speaker 1: remind the listener out there that we would be talking
Speaker 1: about something it's way more interesting. I think if Lyrah
Speaker 1: hadn't called me out um rudely and sensitively called out
Speaker 1: my audio changes. Look, it's just who I am. I'm
Speaker 1: a really rude person. No, I can't, I can't it.
Speaker 1: I understand you're just not nice. It's fine, but you
Speaker 1: know so, so I've had a lot of time to
Speaker 1: think that. I've been thinking about, um, the way that
Speaker 1: we travel now, which feels like, you know, sometimes it's
Speaker 1: not just physical travel, but it's this kind of like
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, you know, at the at
Speaker 1: the risk of beating uh. First off, beating a dead
Speaker 1: horror is kind of a rude expression. I do once
Speaker 1: in a while catch myself when I say, because you know,
Speaker 1: I say, it's like Zelda, my daughter, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that does sound really rude and mean. Anyhow, not to
Speaker 1: beat the dead horse. But obviously Twitter is is on
Speaker 1: my mind a lot because once the Twitter stuff really
Speaker 1: started getting bad, and I do think a lot of
Speaker 1: people are kind of backing away from Twitter. It feels,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are a lot of people who are,
Speaker 1: you know, rage quitting it, but also just kind of
Speaker 1: going like, I'm not going to spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time with this now. I don't I don't like to
Speaker 1: rage quick things, so I'm going to kind of hang
Speaker 1: on and just see where it goes. You know, I
Speaker 1: just want to kind of sit on the sidelines and
Speaker 1: watch it burn like the little girl in that meme picture.
Speaker 1: Meme picture. That's the most old I've ever sounded. Just
Speaker 1: then we can put a put a mark down, write
Speaker 1: it down on the calendar mid November. Josh to Pulsky
Speaker 1: sounds as old as he's ever sounded when he says
Speaker 1: the words meme picture. Anyhow, over the last few weeks
Speaker 1: I've been I've been experimenting with this social network called
Speaker 1: masted On, which is not new. It's it's been around
Speaker 1: for several years. Have you heard of mastered on. No. Conceptually,
Speaker 1: the way it functions and looks is you know you,
Speaker 1: if you looked at it, you'd say, okay, that's kind
Speaker 1: of like Twitter, but it is um You can have
Speaker 1: your own Twitter with its own sort of rules and regulations,
Speaker 1: and that your personal like lyras Lyra's masted On instance,
Speaker 1: can be part of. It's part of this thing called
Speaker 1: the feed averse, like the Federated Universe of masted on
Speaker 1: instances or mastered on servers or whatever. This is already
Speaker 1: sounding completely insane right, like, totally makes no sense. No
Speaker 1: normal person wants this, no normal person needs this, No
Speaker 1: normal sounds next level Internet like the Internet I'm not
Speaker 1: ready for. Well, it's it's actually interesting because it is.
Speaker 1: And I wrote a little bit about this on this
Speaker 1: masted On thing about how you know, there's this whole movement,
Speaker 1: this web three point no movement, which is is concerned with, uh,
Speaker 1: decentralizing the Internet. Meaning the way the Internet works now
Speaker 1: is essentially this top down creation. Right, We've turned it
Speaker 1: into this place where every part of the Internet you
Speaker 1: go to, or every part of the Internet you use,
Speaker 1: is essentially owned and operated by some massive corporation that
Speaker 1: sets its own sort of rules and regulations and has
Speaker 1: its own policies and can kind of do whatever it
Speaker 1: wants with the users. Right. So Google and Facebook and
Speaker 1: Twitter and you know, Amazon and whoever. Right. But what's
Speaker 1: interesting is this master died on network operates very much
Speaker 1: like an expression of this idea that maybe the Internet
Speaker 1: shouldn't be all of these super huge, shared, single size spaces,
Speaker 1: but it should be you can connect spaces together. And
Speaker 1: by the way, this is kind of how the Internet
Speaker 1: used to be. Things could be connected together, but they
Speaker 1: were not necessarily beholden to a single way of doing things.
Speaker 1: And so what Masteredon is, interestingly is like maybe a
Speaker 1: better expression than any crypto thing I've ever seen, or
Speaker 1: any n f T or any of this stuff that
Speaker 1: people talk about and pitch on on on social networks
Speaker 1: as the future where it's like, oh, yeah, okay, I
Speaker 1: can kind of see how this works because I want
Speaker 1: to give the person who runs the this whatever instance
Speaker 1: of Mastodon gives them control, but it also gives the
Speaker 1: individual a lot of control. And in fact, Mastodon is
Speaker 1: built in many ways by the l g B t
Speaker 1: Q plus community, by transactivists, by people who have really
Speaker 1: been you know, beat up on sort of mainstream social networks,
Speaker 1: people who are not the mainstream sort of you know,
Speaker 1: American middle American user or whatever. And so they've built
Speaker 1: mastered On with this idea of consent, giving you control
Speaker 1: and consent over what you can see, over what can
Speaker 1: be shared over you know, how information is sort of presented,
Speaker 1: and and and and and it takes into account all
Speaker 1: sorts of things that a lot of like older social
Speaker 1: networks have been very slow and taken into account, like
Speaker 1: having content warnings or you know, keeping photos blurred until
Speaker 1: the user actually wants to see them, or even having
Speaker 1: you know, written descriptions for photos for people who are
Speaker 1: have you know, site issues or whatever. And so I
Speaker 1: think it's just an interesting and it is an interesting
Speaker 1: model that where Twitter is like Twitter basically created tools
Speaker 1: that would allow people to harass other people on mass
Speaker 1: and they did nothing to prevent it. Like Twitter is
Speaker 1: basically custom designed to allow for these like sort of
Speaker 1: insane mobbing techniques where you can retweet somebody and show
Speaker 1: it to a bunch of people who have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with it, and all of those people can kind
Speaker 1: of pile on, whereas something like masted On is built
Speaker 1: like to do kind of the opposite. It is not
Speaker 1: meant to like have things go viral necessarily or expose
Speaker 1: this sort of one message or moment to like as
Speaker 1: many people as possible, and what you can do with
Speaker 1: that with that individual moment is much more about like
Speaker 1: what you consent to versus sort of what the system
Speaker 1: pushes you into. And so I'm not saying that massodon
Speaker 1: is the future of social media. Maybe you know TikTok
Speaker 1: is the future, although you know, I just looked at
Speaker 1: TikTok recently and I have to say, what I saw
Speaker 1: there was very worrying for humanity. In my opinion. That's
Speaker 1: just one old guy's opinion. One one guy who said,
Speaker 1: meme page, talking here, meme picture, whatever it is. I said,
Speaker 1: but you know, I think it's interesting that there's some
Speaker 1: new ideas still to explore, and it kind of gives
Speaker 1: me a little again, I feel I feel like all
Speaker 1: the time, I'm like, oh, I'm so surprised to discover
Speaker 1: that maybe I don't feel as hopeless as I thought
Speaker 1: I did about some of the things that are happening.
Speaker 1: But I do think Massodon is an interesting sort of
Speaker 1: experiment in what if we thought differently about how we
Speaker 1: should arrange people and how we should arrange social networks.
Speaker 1: And and frankly, like, one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: continued to remain extremely interested in technology even when it's
Speaker 1: kind of abusing me is that, you know, it feels
Speaker 1: like there still is something there that we haven't seen yet,
Speaker 1: that we haven't experienced yet, that we hadn't even thought
Speaker 1: of yet, you know. And if you if you'd have
Speaker 1: told me that I would even be entertaining a new
Speaker 1: sort of framework for a social network, I don't know
Speaker 1: A year ago, I'd be like, no, I don't think
Speaker 1: that will ever happen again. And so, you know, I
Speaker 1: am kind of impressed with technology's ability to to surprise.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the conversation we had last week
Speaker 1: with the CEO of mid Journey is a great example
Speaker 1: of another technology that has surprised me and impressed me
Speaker 1: and excited me about the future and anyhow, So all
Speaker 1: of this this has all been on my mind, and
Speaker 1: as I've been traveling and alone with my thoughts, just
Speaker 1: sitting in a dark room, one loan tier streaming down
Speaker 1: my cheek, just thinking and being with my brain. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it reminded me of a of a conversation
Speaker 1: we had recently, which I think, you know, is very relevant.
Speaker 1: And I've been thinking a lot about with the director
Speaker 1: and producer Vincenzo Natali, who's you know, currently helming The Peripheral,
Speaker 1: which is a show about virtual reality and the future
Speaker 1: of technology and like really wild stuff based on a
Speaker 1: book written by William Gibson. And as I've been alone
Speaker 1: with all of these thoughts about shifting from place to
Speaker 1: place and what technology can actually do for us, and
Speaker 1: also what is frightening about it, I felt like it's
Speaker 1: a good time too to have that conversation. So here's
Speaker 1: my conversation with Vincen's natally and obviously the audio is
Speaker 1: gonna sound way better than this does. Vincenzo, thank you
Speaker 1: for joining me today. I'm really pretty shade it. I
Speaker 1: have a question for you, which is, what did you
Speaker 1: have for breakfast today? Well, I'm a healthy breakfast person.
Speaker 1: I would like to say, yes, I had to brand
Speaker 1: and route. That sounds healthy. Yeah it is, and then
Speaker 1: the rest of the day it all goes to hell. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and what about sleep? Do you get a lot
Speaker 1: of sleep? Are you a good sleeper? I am? Yeah, really,
Speaker 1: I like to do a health check with when anybody
Speaker 1: who comes on the show. I just want to get
Speaker 1: a sense of like how they're feeling, like what their
Speaker 1: wellness levels are, that sort of thing. Well, there's a
Speaker 1: million other reasons I could drop dead at any seconds. Okay,
Speaker 1: but sleep and breakfast at taking care of we're in
Speaker 1: a good place. You're like, I had a great, very
Speaker 1: healthy breakfast and I just sorted a ton of cocaine,
Speaker 1: So anything can happen. It's exactly everything in moderation. You're
Speaker 1: a director, a producer, a writer. You wear many hats,
Speaker 1: but you do seem to be interested in horror to
Speaker 1: some extent or at least. Uh well, actually, would you
Speaker 1: call it horror? Would you call the some of the
Speaker 1: things you do horror? Oh? Yes, I have no problem
Speaker 1: with that label. Okay, good, you're not like no, But
Speaker 1: what is it about the genre? Like how did you
Speaker 1: come to that genre? And what is it that excites
Speaker 1: you about it? And how do you stay excited about it?
Speaker 1: And there's like three different questions, but let's start with
Speaker 1: how you got there. Well, people have been asking me
Speaker 1: that a lot recently. It's hard for me to answer
Speaker 1: that because my earliest memories include horror. I've always been
Speaker 1: drawn to it and in life or or film, well both,
Speaker 1: I guess not not horrific events in your life. No,
Speaker 1: although I'm convinced that, you know, an attraction to horror
Speaker 1: is sort of an awareness or a reaction to the
Speaker 1: horror that exists in our lives, so that you know,
Speaker 1: it's a kind of sensitivity. Joe Hill very wisely said
Speaker 1: that people who create horror content are not satistic, there empathetic,
Speaker 1: And I feel like if you have a lot of
Speaker 1: empathy for other people and your sensitive to the world
Speaker 1: around you. Probably you have a taste for horror because
Speaker 1: the world can be pretty horrifying. Yeah, so so maybe
Speaker 1: that's why I really don't know if ever gets into
Speaker 1: self psychoanalysis, I'm sure no. I like, I like, that's
Speaker 1: hopefully you have a breakthrough on this show. That's what
Speaker 1: I would like to have happened. So I'm just you know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I'm just not that interesting. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything particularly distinctive about me, And
Speaker 1: that's part of the reason I'm drawn to fantasy. In
Speaker 1: anything that I make, I would never want to document
Speaker 1: my life because I would just put people to sleep instantly.
Speaker 1: My external life is not very interesting. Maybe the internal
Speaker 1: one is a little more interesting. But I, you know,
Speaker 1: horror to me, it's all kind of one thing. Horror,
Speaker 1: fantasy and science fiction are a way of approaching the
Speaker 1: real world in an indirect way, and and you know,
Speaker 1: it's partially an escape, but I think it's more about
Speaker 1: like digging under the surface of things and so on
Speaker 1: some level, probably unconscious level. That is part of the
Speaker 1: reason that I am drawn to it. Um part of
Speaker 1: it is, you know, I just grew up in a
Speaker 1: kind of middle class environment and you know, in a
Speaker 1: very safe city Toronto, you know, an apartment complex, very clean,
Speaker 1: very you know. I think there was just maybe a
Speaker 1: desire to escape from that. And but horror specifically, I
Speaker 1: think it's it's deeper than that. I think I actually
Speaker 1: believe that there might be genetic code for like a
Speaker 1: horror gene that is responsible for what draws people to horror,
Speaker 1: because I see it in my kid who connected with
Speaker 1: this stuff, and I have not encouraged it whatsoever. I
Speaker 1: am just feel like it's hereditary. You don't think you
Speaker 1: don't think there's just like a kind of within your world,
Speaker 1: there's I mean, presumably you've got a lot of projects
Speaker 1: going on that are I mean, you're around this stuff
Speaker 1: all the time. You don't think it's just like by
Speaker 1: osmosis from just the conversations or the things you're working on.
Speaker 1: You think it's just an inherent He was so young
Speaker 1: when he is drawn to it, it it would have he
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly have been affected by anything that I can
Speaker 1: certainly would have seen that. So no, it's some I
Speaker 1: actually think there's like a protein sequence that that makes
Speaker 1: you I don't know this is just a silly conjecture
Speaker 1: on my part, but I think we have you know,
Speaker 1: our taste certainly has to be determined by our genetic makeup,
Speaker 1: So why not horror? I mean, it's interesting. I feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of the things you've done, or at
Speaker 1: least certainly some of the things you've done, are interested in,
Speaker 1: like how the body works and how the mind works.
Speaker 1: And what's funny that your explanation for why someone would
Speaker 1: like horror, perhaps why you like it, is something that's
Speaker 1: like just genetically built in. I mean, I think there's
Speaker 1: something to it. By the way, I'm sure there's a
Speaker 1: study out there that either proves or disproves this concept,
Speaker 1: but I do, I do think it is an extreme thing.
Speaker 1: Like I know people, and I'm sure you know these
Speaker 1: these people who don't like to be scared when they
Speaker 1: watch a movie, don't like to experience like what a
Speaker 1: horror movie does, or even what a thriller does. And
Speaker 1: it's a very strong, it feels like a very binary
Speaker 1: sort of reaction. It's either like you really like it
Speaker 1: and you enjoy it and there's just something about it
Speaker 1: you can do over and over again, or you really
Speaker 1: dislike it and I found that, like, there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are like I like a little
Speaker 1: bit of horror, but not too much. So maybe there's
Speaker 1: something to it, you know, maybe we need to do
Speaker 1: some study. Maybe we need to do a study. Um,
Speaker 1: I almost don't want to know, that's the thing, Like,
Speaker 1: I think I would rather not too deep in a way.
Speaker 1: Here's a great plot for a film. It's a group
Speaker 1: of scientists are studying whether or not we're genetically predisposed
Speaker 1: to be scared and like it, I don't know. And
Speaker 1: then you take it from there, You've got it. That's
Speaker 1: a that's a free idea. So okay. So, but was
Speaker 1: there a movie or something for you when you were
Speaker 1: a kid you was like, this is the thing. Was
Speaker 1: there a artistic entry point for you, or like a
Speaker 1: piece of work that you were like, this is the
Speaker 1: thing that I want to do. Well. My first vivid
Speaker 1: memory of seeing a movie, and it probably wasn't the
Speaker 1: first time I saw, but the one that kind of
Speaker 1: really affected me, And this is where I'm dating myself
Speaker 1: is I saw The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, which is
Speaker 1: a Ray Harry Housing film in a theater. It's one
Speaker 1: of his best films, I think, and it has these
Speaker 1: magnificent creatures, and that it's got a centaur that's also
Speaker 1: a cyclops, and it's got multi armed callie uh statue
Speaker 1: that comes to life, and that that really affected me.
Speaker 1: I think it was just really transported by that that's
Speaker 1: not a horror film, although their horror aspects to it,
Speaker 1: And it's really beautiful, you know, and and of course
Speaker 1: it's all handmade. And it's one of his later films,
Speaker 1: the Seventh Voyage of in Bed, and I guess Jason
Speaker 1: and the Argonauts are kind of the gold standard for
Speaker 1: Ray harry House, but but this one is the one
Speaker 1: that I really connected to it as Tom Baker in it,
Speaker 1: who became doctor who. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, it's a really
Speaker 1: lovely fantasy film. But there's just something about those creatures
Speaker 1: that really affected me. And I definitely went through my
Speaker 1: Ray harry Housing period later on when I started to
Speaker 1: get interested in making films, like I kind of wanted
Speaker 1: to be Ray harry House. So I guess the question
Speaker 1: I have there is was it the creatures themselves, like
Speaker 1: the concept of the creatures, or was it the the
Speaker 1: technical piece of it, like that these were things were
Speaker 1: created for film, and they were done in a very
Speaker 1: specific sort of artistic way. Oh no, I was so young.
Speaker 1: I was probably four years old. No, no, no, it
Speaker 1: was it was purely seeing creatures coming to life. It
Speaker 1: was just thrilling to me. And at a young age,
Speaker 1: I was very interested in Greek mythology, and I think
Speaker 1: mythological concepts have always been fascinating to me and have
Speaker 1: stayed with me in some respect. I feel like all
Speaker 1: my films are have that mythological basis. It just touches
Speaker 1: a nerve, you know, these things are so deep in us.
Speaker 1: I really I kind of believe in the collective unconsciousness.
Speaker 1: I believe that, and there's a commonality between all of
Speaker 1: us globally whereby certain images or certain ideas resonate. And
Speaker 1: then a horror genre in particular does that because it's
Speaker 1: dealing with things that are existential. Comedy doesn't necessarily travel
Speaker 1: well between cultures, but horror does. It doesn't really know
Speaker 1: any kind of cultural boundaries, and I think it's because
Speaker 1: it's tapping into them. You know, obviously, that very very
Speaker 1: basic instinct that we all have for survival, right, it
Speaker 1: taps into literally into our fight or flight responses. Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you are scared of like a jump
Speaker 1: scare or something that's really horrific in a movie, you're
Speaker 1: having some version of it that you'd be having if
Speaker 1: that thing was happening to you in real life. Like
Speaker 1: if you see like a horrific creature coming towards you,
Speaker 1: no matter where you are, no matter what you've seen
Speaker 1: previously or how you you know what culture you've been raised,
Speaker 1: and you have an instinctive sort of you know, reaction.
Speaker 1: I wonder, I mean, does horror work in some way
Speaker 1: because it's such a foundational sort of response from people.
Speaker 1: Do you think is that why it's such a resilient genre. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I think that it uses the tools of cinema
Speaker 1: more than other genres, which is also why it's exciting
Speaker 1: to make horror, because as a director, you prove your
Speaker 1: metal through your ability to create an atmosphere and seduce
Speaker 1: people into a space, and that requires command over camera
Speaker 1: and music and editing more than I think any other genre.
Speaker 1: And if you look into the history of cinema, horror
Speaker 1: has been with us since the beginning, you know, the
Speaker 1: earliest and probably some of those memorable silent films like
Speaker 1: Nonsparato are horror films, and there's just something inherently comfortable
Speaker 1: about that genre and cinema because cinema is an immersive
Speaker 1: experience and it's it's an experience that happens in real
Speaker 1: time for the audience, and I think horror also benefits
Speaker 1: from those tenets. The more you feel like and the
Speaker 1: more you can be transported it into that screen, the
Speaker 1: more successful it tends to be. Yeah, it is kind
Speaker 1: of a dominating art form and people say it's hard
Speaker 1: to look away, but it is. It is in some
Speaker 1: ways dominates like the senses in a way that a
Speaker 1: lot of other film just simply can't or doesn't maybe
Speaker 1: say film, but you know, this is like across a
Speaker 1: lot of different media. At this point, I want to a
Speaker 1: a Cube. I don't know if it's your first film
Speaker 1: that you directed. Is that the first thing you directed
Speaker 1: or would I mean assume you had done stuff like
Speaker 1: students stuff or something before that. Oh, I've been making
Speaker 1: you know, short films since I was eleven, but Cube
Speaker 1: was my first future film. Now I remember Cube came
Speaker 1: out what seven? Is that correct? Yeah? Depending on where
Speaker 1: you live. My recollection is I encountered Cube like on Blockbuster.
Speaker 1: I feel like Cube is maybe one of the first
Speaker 1: films that and I don't know if this will sound
Speaker 1: insalting or not, hopefully not, but it's one of the
Speaker 1: first movies I remember seeing in blockbustering going like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if this was ever in a theater anywhere
Speaker 1: near where I lived. I'm from Pittsburgh, so it's very
Speaker 1: possible maybe Cube was in major cities that did not
Speaker 1: hit Pittsburgh, PA. But I remember being a fairly important
Speaker 1: movie in the sense that everybody was talking about it,
Speaker 1: and it was one of those things that seemed to
Speaker 1: appear out of nowhere and captured some I don't know, zekeguy,
Speaker 1: some moment of anxiety and paranoia that was happening at
Speaker 1: that time. Because you just if you had to sum
Speaker 1: up for somebody who has no idea what Cube is,
Speaker 1: how would you describe it? Uh? Well, Cube is the
Speaker 1: story of six strangers who wake up in a maze
Speaker 1: of identical cubic rooms with no food or water. All
Speaker 1: they have the their minds, their bodies, and the clothes
Speaker 1: on their back, and they have to find a way
Speaker 1: out before they die of thirst starvation. But the extra
Speaker 1: wrinkle in all of this is that some rooms have
Speaker 1: booby traps in them, deadly booby traps, right, And ultimately
Speaker 1: what they come to realize is that they are in
Speaker 1: fact inside a mathematical puzzle, and that the solution to survival,
Speaker 1: or at least part of it, is decoding that solution.
Speaker 1: But to do that they have to work together. I
Speaker 1: wrote it with my lifelong friend Andre Bagelic, were roommates
Speaker 1: at the time, and I think the writing process for
Speaker 1: us was almost like archaeology. It kind of felt like
Speaker 1: we had stumbled on something. I knew almost right away
Speaker 1: that this was a great idea, and and like a
Speaker 1: lot of great ideas, I feel like I almost can't
Speaker 1: take responsibility for it. I think it's just something I
Speaker 1: came across, and gradually as we started write this thing,
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, an ancient building that was
Speaker 1: beneath the sand, and we were kind of slowly unearthened. Really,
Speaker 1: what we were doing is we discovering what Cartesian spaces
Speaker 1: the mathematical dunce is. Math is pretty cool. Math became
Speaker 1: very cool, could be used to kill, to kill, and
Speaker 1: to survive, And but I think I think, what at
Speaker 1: the core of it, what makes Cube resonate is just
Speaker 1: that basic idea that we are dropped into this world
Speaker 1: in our actual lives with no plan, and we have
Speaker 1: to find a way, and we need to do with
Speaker 1: other people. We have to negotiate our path together, and
Speaker 1: survival is dependent on being able to do it together,
Speaker 1: trying to survive together. And then at this moment, I
Speaker 1: don't feel overly optimistic about our ability to work together
Speaker 1: and therefore to survive. It's uh, tell me about it anyway.
Speaker 1: I think that's sort of a timeless theme, and so
Speaker 1: you know, it resonated, then it resonates now. I think
Speaker 1: maybe at that time it seemed extra special because there
Speaker 1: just weren't any to be honest, there were no other
Speaker 1: movies like that. Like I really feel like again that
Speaker 1: we just kind of found this amazing thing. And it
Speaker 1: was also I remember, you know, the process of trying
Speaker 1: to get it made was challenging because people have just
Speaker 1: kept saying, well, the short film, and you can't make
Speaker 1: a whole movie in one room, and and since Cube,
Speaker 1: and not not because of Cube, but you know, in
Speaker 1: the years that have passed, for a variety of reasons,
Speaker 1: there is a whole genre. There's multiple sub genres that
Speaker 1: take place in single space set right, No, I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's a whole industry now the cube has spond
Speaker 1: From a budgetary perspective, I would imagine like you're like,
Speaker 1: it's going to be in a box. Basically you're gonna
Speaker 1: be in a like a just an empty room. That
Speaker 1: feels like a win on the on the budget side
Speaker 1: of things, but it's sort of also kind of waiting
Speaker 1: for Godot sort of no exit. I would imagine some
Speaker 1: of these things would have influenced that the creation of it,
Speaker 1: Like where it's like a bunch of people in a
Speaker 1: place where they don't fully understand, the viewer doesn't fully understand,
Speaker 1: and everybody's trying to make sense of it, and along
Speaker 1: the way we learn, you know, terrible and shocking things
Speaker 1: about all of the players. It's a technology movie in
Speaker 1: some way, right, Like the place that people are grappling
Speaker 1: with Like you said, it's sort of this math problem.
Speaker 1: There is a an outside force that is very technical
Speaker 1: in nature that needs to be grappled with. How much
Speaker 1: is technology for you? Like an important piece of the
Speaker 1: puzzle of no pun intended with cub but the you know,
Speaker 1: a piece of the puzzle when you're putting together and
Speaker 1: when you're thinking about some of these ideas for your
Speaker 1: for your films and for the stuff that you're working on,
Speaker 1: your TV stuff. Well, I think that we're children of technology,
Speaker 1: you know, especially, and I think I predate you, but
Speaker 1: you know, my generation and beyond we were a meshed
Speaker 1: with our technology to the point where we can't really
Speaker 1: distinguish between the two and and Cube. I remember very
Speaker 1: consciously early on in creating Cube, I was thinking, this
Speaker 1: is Dante's Inferno, but it's the contemporary version of that.
Speaker 1: You know, these people were not in in a world
Speaker 1: of brimstone and treacle, and um, we're not underground. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're in a very sterile, man made technological space. So
Speaker 1: these people are in the belly of a technological beast.
Speaker 1: And I think more than ever, we probably all feel
Speaker 1: that way right now. You know, I'm communicating to with
Speaker 1: my iPad. You're in a cube, we're in little boxes.
Speaker 1: I would love to know how to escape this particular
Speaker 1: zoom cube or whatever that modern reality has placed us in. Sorry,
Speaker 1: Josh's not gonna happen. Yeah, I know we're stuck here,
Speaker 1: and I think that's it, you know, you, you wonder, well,
Speaker 1: are we at service to the technology? Because it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like the technologies that service to us. It feels
Speaker 1: like it is its own organism, that it's intentions, whatever
Speaker 1: mysterious intentions they have, are superseding those of its creators
Speaker 1: to some degree. And I mean, I guess it goes
Speaker 1: back to Mary Shelley right and Frankenstein. But there is,
Speaker 1: unquestionably it's like increasingly intimate relationship that humans have with
Speaker 1: their technology, to the point where I really do feel like,
Speaker 1: as we all do, I'm sure we're kind of merging
Speaker 1: with it. And it's you know, it's both empowering and incredible,
Speaker 1: Like this this little device that we're working on. I
Speaker 1: have no other computer that I use. I only use
Speaker 1: it to write and I can draw on it. You
Speaker 1: only use an iPad. I now only use an iPad.
Speaker 1: It's solid state. I can't break it easily. It's very lightweight.
Speaker 1: Can I ask a dumb question, I have a dumb question.
Speaker 1: Do you use the the twelve point nine inch I
Speaker 1: pad or the smaller eleven inch I I use that
Speaker 1: pad pro so I draw on it. I just is it?
Speaker 1: But is it? It's the biggest one though, because I
Speaker 1: just got one. I'm just curious to know what the
Speaker 1: what a professional like yourself is using. You've got the
Speaker 1: biggest one, right, yes, bigger is that are in my opinion,
Speaker 1: I draw with it, do you, and you don't find
Speaker 1: it to be unwieldy. Just this is a total aside,
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with what we're talking about. But
Speaker 1: you think the size is fine. You like that, as
Speaker 1: I say, I draw on it, like for me, i'd
Speaker 1: like it. I'd like a bigger one if they made them,
Speaker 1: because I'm using a pen on it, a bigger iPad,
Speaker 1: like I'm trying to imagine a larger iPad that would
Speaker 1: just be like a desk that you carry around, well,
Speaker 1: you know, bring it on. I say, okay, interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: I love it because it's very but it's very late weight.
Speaker 1: It's much lighter than a you know, desk that will
Speaker 1: certain in a desktop or you know, even a notebook.
Speaker 1: And yeah, sorry, I completely got you off what you're saying.
Speaker 1: But I was just so curious because you mentioned before
Speaker 1: and I was gonna ask you that you run an iPad.
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you, but you were you were
Speaker 1: talking about this, the fact that this is the only
Speaker 1: device you use for for everything. Yeah, and it's so empowering.
Speaker 1: Like I did, I've finished a graphic novel that I
Speaker 1: did entirely on my iPad. I did a I'm embarrassed
Speaker 1: to admit this that I did an album of musically
Speaker 1: that I did on my iPad, which is even more
Speaker 1: extraordinary because I have no musical ability and you use
Speaker 1: garage band, and I used garage band, and I found
Speaker 1: I could do all these things. It was like, you know,
Speaker 1: being able to suddenly speak a language that I can
Speaker 1: never speak before. Um, and I don't think my music
Speaker 1: is very good, by the way, I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: just what you made, because I actually used to produce
Speaker 1: music for a living, and so one of the things
Speaker 1: I do love to do as a kind of recreational
Speaker 1: activity is sit on either with my iPad or on
Speaker 1: my laptop and work on random music just because it's
Speaker 1: like it's just relaxing to me, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: something I don't have to do for work anymore, and
Speaker 1: so it's become fun. But you're basically saying you're not
Speaker 1: a musician, you know, by nature or whatever, but you've
Speaker 1: created what you would would you just describe as an
Speaker 1: album's worth of material. I would love to hear it.
Speaker 1: I mean I would just if you could you further
Speaker 1: to that, Sorry, jobs, I don't mean to interrupt, but
Speaker 1: further to that, for a mere forty dollars or something
Speaker 1: a year, I was able to upload it onto every
Speaker 1: music streaming service there is. I could go listen to
Speaker 1: it right now. Is that what you're saying? Ye, go
Speaker 1: into band camp or iTunes everything? Is it under your name? Ye?
Speaker 1: Just under my name? And I like how you're like,
Speaker 1: i'bout a musician. I you know, I don't really just
Speaker 1: sort of like just messing around. But also it's on
Speaker 1: Spotify right now if you want to listen to it,
Speaker 1: I mean, we have. We're gonna play some of it.
Speaker 1: I will, We're definitely gonna play some vic I'm dying
Speaker 1: to hear what it sounds like. How would you describe
Speaker 1: it before I even listen to What is the genre? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: I'll probably falls into ambient, you know, like it's it's
Speaker 1: not terribly melodic. And this is just me goofing around.
Speaker 1: Like what I loved about doing it was I have
Speaker 1: no pretensions of being good and and ironically I feel
Speaker 1: like that made me more creative, Whereas when I draw,
Speaker 1: I'm not a great artist, but I'm good enough that
Speaker 1: I tried really hard to be good. But when I
Speaker 1: was making the music, it was just fun. I was
Speaker 1: just like a monkey with finger paint, and I was
Speaker 1: so I was continually surprised at like, oh, that's better
Speaker 1: than I thought it would be. And if you listen
Speaker 1: to the album, it's very silly and playful and goofy
Speaker 1: in a way. You spent your life thinking, boy, I
Speaker 1: wish I could make an album. That's something He's been
Speaker 1: a far off dreamer. Was it just one day you
Speaker 1: were like, oh, I have garage band on here, I
Speaker 1: might as well screw around with it. Actually, what it is,
Speaker 1: I'm a nervous flyer. I used to be very uncomfortable
Speaker 1: in an airplane and and I find there is nothing
Speaker 1: more engaging and distracting um and and it makes time
Speaker 1: fly faster than when I'm doing music. I just I
Speaker 1: just completely lose myself and it so the whole album
Speaker 1: was recorded on airplanes. No, that's I'm I'm a terrible flyer.
Speaker 1: I take xanax. I mean that's my My solution is
Speaker 1: I literally medicate myself and I get on planes because
Speaker 1: I'm so convinced that I'm going to die for me,
Speaker 1: it's definitely one of the few situations where I don't
Speaker 1: have any control over anything. And so I'm sure, as
Speaker 1: you know, as a like a producer and director, you're
Speaker 1: probably used to having a lot of control over things,
Speaker 1: so maybe there's a similarity there. But um, yeah, music making,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. I have made some music on planes, but
Speaker 1: I've never thought of it as a alternative to or
Speaker 1: in a in addition to medicating myself so I don't
Speaker 1: lose my mind. Maybe that that would be a good
Speaker 1: convenient It could, I could. Maybe I'll make an ambient album,
Speaker 1: you know, who knows. Maybe that's how I break into
Speaker 1: the into the low key music genre. This is so interesting.
Speaker 1: The films are there's a lot of technology and you're like, whoa,
Speaker 1: this is really funked up. This is a bad technology
Speaker 1: is very bad for us in some ways, or this
Speaker 1: technology is being used in a really bad way, but
Speaker 1: in your actual life you like it and you're finding
Speaker 1: new uses for it that you feel really good about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just it. It's it's not simple. I think we
Speaker 1: have a complex relationship with our technology, and I see
Speaker 1: a lot of what's negative about it and a lot
Speaker 1: of what's really scary about it. You know, there's this
Speaker 1: thing called mid Journey I've been working with, which is
Speaker 1: this artificial intelligence program. You probably know that the paints.
Speaker 1: And I just created a look book for my next
Speaker 1: movie entirely with mid Journey, which again is incredibly cheap
Speaker 1: to use. It costs by thirty or forty dollars a month.
Speaker 1: And I did I don't know, thirty or forty paintings
Speaker 1: to basically create the look of my film. And I
Speaker 1: did you know, I did some additional photoshop type work
Speaker 1: on it, but it did about eight of the work
Speaker 1: for me. In you're mentioning this, sorry, go ahead, finish
Speaker 1: your point that I have a couple of things. Oh no, no,
Speaker 1: but it's just so it's it's thrilling. It's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's doing artwork that is beyond my level
Speaker 1: as an artist. And if I had to pay someone
Speaker 1: to do this, this would cost me thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars and it would take a really long time.
Speaker 1: I did this sort of part time for a month,
Speaker 1: you know, like a few hours every day, for a
Speaker 1: month and it cost me thirty bucks and the results
Speaker 1: are kind of amazing, and not only because the quality
Speaker 1: the arts good, but also because depending on the prompts
Speaker 1: you use and the way it works is you just
Speaker 1: write in a few words and then it it interprets
Speaker 1: that as an image. It's very creative. I would write
Speaker 1: something kind of not to dictate what I wanted, but
Speaker 1: to sort of discover like it was it was suggesting
Speaker 1: images from my movie. It wasn't just taking my dictation.
Speaker 1: So in that regard, I suddenly could see the end
Speaker 1: of my role in this industry. You mean you could
Speaker 1: see the end of like what you do, like that
Speaker 1: coming to an end. Yeah, I see it. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it's going to happen based on what mid Journey does.
Speaker 1: It's not a big extrapolation to imagine how would do
Speaker 1: the same thing with words and with screenplays, especially screenplay,
Speaker 1: because screenplays are very structure oriented, you know, not like
Speaker 1: writing a novel, which is has a very kind of
Speaker 1: intimate personal point of view. But let's face it, in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: most screenplays are just a mash up of a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of other screenplays anyway, So how much of belief.
Speaker 1: Is it to imagine a machine that could take everything,
Speaker 1: every screen cleet it's ever written. And then if you
Speaker 1: wrote a prompt like say pilot for Buddy Cop Show
Speaker 1: where African American female cop teams up with alien and
Speaker 1: both fall in love with robot, sixty pages, comedy, action,
Speaker 1: fast paced, and then in five minutes, it's going to
Speaker 1: give you not one, but like four versions of your prompt.
Speaker 1: And then you'll take those four versions and you'll read
Speaker 1: them and you'll go, oh, I like that, and that
Speaker 1: maybe I'll take this piece from there and you'll either
Speaker 1: say we'll do it again, or you the writer will
Speaker 1: then cobble edit what it's produced, much in the way
Speaker 1: that I would edit these paintings that it would give
Speaker 1: me and then maybe right over it or you know,
Speaker 1: like add your layer to it, and it would permit
Speaker 1: you to write like a hundred scripts a year. And
Speaker 1: does this scare you or does this excite you? As
Speaker 1: a person who's doing that stuff, You're like into it?
Speaker 1: It's both right. I'm so happy and excited that you
Speaker 1: mentioned mid Journey for a couple of reasons. First off,
Speaker 1: we interviewed the CEO of Mid Journey, A couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago, who is a fascinating dude. But also the
Speaker 1: art for this I dropped a link in the chat.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you have access to the chat here.
Speaker 1: Oh there, I can see it enough. Yeah, gorgeous. So
Speaker 1: this art, this art idea with mid Journey, you have
Speaker 1: a similar level of excitement that I had, which to
Speaker 1: me and I've said this, I probably now said this
Speaker 1: on the podcast a few times a few different episodes.
Speaker 1: Um it, it was like the most amazing thing I've
Speaker 1: ever seen a machine do. I've ever seen a computer do,
Speaker 1: because it felt like I could see a dream almost
Speaker 1: anything you can think of. It could depict like my
Speaker 1: brain can't visualize like quite that way. Maybe yours is
Speaker 1: better at I mean, you're you're working obviously an extremely
Speaker 1: visual medium. But to see a thing that is a
Speaker 1: string of words that I understand, the philosophical, intellectual concept
Speaker 1: of that string of words. To see that string of
Speaker 1: words be turned into image, and not just the image,
Speaker 1: but really fucking good, really interesting art was like pretty
Speaker 1: mind blowing to me. And it seems like you had
Speaker 1: a similar reaction. But there are a lot of people,
Speaker 1: especially people in your world, who are artists and creators
Speaker 1: and directors and writers who are really really freaked out
Speaker 1: about it, because I mean I could have paid an
Speaker 1: artist to do this art right totally, but I didn't.
Speaker 1: You know, I paid thirty dollars above a bid journey,
Speaker 1: and I think it's like an amazing piece of art.
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, this is so beautiful. I it's hard
Speaker 1: to believe I had anything to do with it. So
Speaker 1: how far off do you think we are from? Like,
Speaker 1: you know, you being replaced as a screenwriter and possibly
Speaker 1: a director. Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not knowledgeable enough to say, but I do feel
Speaker 1: like I was a charter to Mountained, I'd be fucking terrified,
Speaker 1: or even a lawyer, like those jobs are going away.
Speaker 1: There's no way. It's interesting you go, you go to
Speaker 1: the opposite end of the spectrum because the people who
Speaker 1: are upset about AI stuff like this right now are
Speaker 1: largely artists working artists, And I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: there's going to be a clear drop off. And I've
Speaker 1: had people sort of a don't really mentioned to me
Speaker 1: that they've they've seen their work dropping off already from
Speaker 1: people just you know, doing this AI stuff. The only
Speaker 1: thing is and I can only speak about now and
Speaker 1: then my crazy conjecture of what the future might be.
Speaker 1: But right now, yes, the Journey is amazing, and I
Speaker 1: don't know, there's Dali and there's other ones. It's great
Speaker 1: if you just want to, like, if you have a
Speaker 1: wide bandwidth of what you want. If you want something specific,
Speaker 1: it's not very good. You need an artist to come
Speaker 1: in and you know, if you have a logo or
Speaker 1: specific image you want, if you want some crazy album
Speaker 1: cover art, the Journey is your tool for sure, because
Speaker 1: it's crazy. It is crazy, like crazy is the wrong word.
Speaker 1: It has a kind of alien which I love, like
Speaker 1: alien quality to the way it creates images. But it's
Speaker 1: very difficult to control and it still has limitations. It's
Speaker 1: not good with human faces, right. I think in one
Speaker 1: year from now that will be, Yeah, it will be
Speaker 1: way better at that, and then in five years from
Speaker 1: now it will be able to perfectly create anything you
Speaker 1: can tell it to do. I mean, but that's just it.
Speaker 1: So right now, where it is, like a lot of
Speaker 1: these technologies, is it what will do for artists is
Speaker 1: it will allow them to produce more work basket, right,
Speaker 1: you know, because it will do a lot of the
Speaker 1: heavy lifting, Like if you have a city background you
Speaker 1: need or some thing that's like very time consuming, and
Speaker 1: it could produce that for you, and then you could
Speaker 1: paint on top of that, or you can do things
Speaker 1: with it. It's an augmentation. Yeah, I tend to agree,
Speaker 1: and I think it's like photoshop. I mean in the
Speaker 1: sense that there are things photoshop does for artists as
Speaker 1: an example, or garage band for you, for instance, you
Speaker 1: clearly have an artistic sensibility about the music you want
Speaker 1: to make, but there are parts of it you can't
Speaker 1: do on your own, right, I mean, and so so
Speaker 1: garag band is there to kind of fill in some
Speaker 1: creative gaps or some experience gaps for you. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I agree with the AI stuff, but I
Speaker 1: think it's also scary just because we're not used to
Speaker 1: seeing creative output from a machine. Like yes, you tell it,
Speaker 1: I want to mountain in c G. I like, it
Speaker 1: will make a mountain and you go, all right, well,
Speaker 1: it kind of randomize the surfaces of that mountain. So
Speaker 1: that sort of makes sense to me. This is like
Speaker 1: much more specific kind of creativity, and I think that's
Speaker 1: where it kind of freaks people out. It feels like
Speaker 1: it's creating something on purpose. Oh utterly. It doesn't now
Speaker 1: take a huge leap to imagine. No, this thing is
Speaker 1: sentiment and you know that's like a slippery word. But
Speaker 1: it's not just like, you know, a random machine that's
Speaker 1: putting things together. It's going to have an opinion, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's going to have a perspective. Now that might not
Speaker 1: be a human perspective, or it might be just a
Speaker 1: kind of synthetic imitation of a human perspective, but it's
Speaker 1: going to have a perspective. It's going to be something
Speaker 1: that you sort of have to negotiate with. It's not
Speaker 1: going to just be paint by numbers machine. And so
Speaker 1: I think that's where it gets unsettling. It's like, oh okay,
Speaker 1: and that's where I started to go, well, yes, at
Speaker 1: some point there, you're not going to need the director anymore,
Speaker 1: because you're going to say Alfred Hitchcock meets um Jacques
Speaker 1: Tati style with James Cameron's lighting or something like, and
Speaker 1: then it will just make a movie for you. Yes,
Speaker 1: So here's the unsettling part. You get to realize, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just cobbling from things that exist. Right, See how
Speaker 1: original am I like? That starts to very advanced a
Speaker 1: I basically right, Well, we like to think that we're
Speaker 1: more than that, right, that we have souls, that we
Speaker 1: are expressing something that is entirely unique to us. But
Speaker 1: especially in the film world, I don't want to speak
Speaker 1: about other artists. You know, film is so technical and
Speaker 1: it's such a It is a medium that needs to
Speaker 1: speak to many, many men people, And so I think
Speaker 1: a lot of filmmakers, not saying all of them, but
Speaker 1: a lot of filmmakers are really taking what they've absorbed
Speaker 1: from other filmmakers and then putting the through the filter
Speaker 1: of who they are and expressing that. And when you
Speaker 1: start to realize that's the AI like, there's really maybe
Speaker 1: there's not so much difference between well, I think there
Speaker 1: may still be some use for humans. I have not
Speaker 1: even gotten to the peripheral, which I want to talk about.
Speaker 1: You're a producer. You directed what the first two episodes
Speaker 1: of the show? Is that right? I directed episodes one, two,
Speaker 1: and five, and six, and I have a wonderful directing
Speaker 1: partner like Riley who did the other ones. So this
Speaker 1: is your I mean, this is kind of your baby,
Speaker 1: and it is based on a women Gibson book. I
Speaker 1: will admit I've only watched the first episode and I
Speaker 1: haven't read the book. And I am a lifelong William
Speaker 1: Gibson fan, and I have there are a few books
Speaker 1: of the last you know, I dont a decade or
Speaker 1: so that I have. I have missed, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I should I read the book first and then watch,
Speaker 1: And then the trailer was so compelling, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna watch it. I'm just gonna bite the bullet.
Speaker 1: And it's dealing with sort of this concept of obviously
Speaker 1: with virtual reality, like a much more advanced virtual reality.
Speaker 1: There's a really interesting undercurrent about healthcare in the country
Speaker 1: where like a pill costs like a thousand dollars or something.
Speaker 1: And it's also kind of like exploring this this like
Speaker 1: alternate reality or like metaverse reality that you know, I
Speaker 1: mean the metaverse. I don't know how much like faith
Speaker 1: or stock we put in the concept now, But do
Speaker 1: you feel like this is reflective of this moment? Is
Speaker 1: this a mirror to the world as it is now?
Speaker 1: Or is this total fantasy? Oh no, it's not a
Speaker 1: little fantasy. I mean the book was written in and then,
Speaker 1: in typical Gibson fashion, the world has kind of grown
Speaker 1: into the book. It was pretty trump like when he
Speaker 1: wrote this thing, and but he was basically writing about America.
Speaker 1: That was I had walked a little further down the
Speaker 1: Trump road, because there's a near future south eastern United
Speaker 1: States location that kind of is that's where we made
Speaker 1: our our primary character, Flynn Fisher. And there is a
Speaker 1: concept in the book and it's kind of a spoiler
Speaker 1: for the series. But because we're talking about okay, well,
Speaker 1: but that is not the chilling part of the story. Okay, okay, good.
Speaker 1: The chilling part of the story is something else, Like
Speaker 1: we've known about this for a long time, you could
Speaker 1: see it coming. But the way he articulates it, I
Speaker 1: am positive, is the most correct and plausible depiction of
Speaker 1: what is in our near future, and it is utterly terrifying. God.
Speaker 1: As the years have gone by, it has been born out,
Speaker 1: you know, the subsequent whatever. It is eight years since
Speaker 1: the book was published, So I don't think you can
Speaker 1: watch it without getting a little bit like queasy because
Speaker 1: you're like, uh, is this going to happen? On some level?
Speaker 1: If you read the book, what it is is a satire.
Speaker 1: There was at some point a few years ago a
Speaker 1: story that you were working on a film version of Neuromancer?
Speaker 1: Are you still working on that? Is that a real thing?
Speaker 1: Is there? You're not working on it? Can you talk
Speaker 1: about that? It all right? Now? Oh? I can talk
Speaker 1: about my version of Roman? Say yeah, I know. That
Speaker 1: was my introduction to getting to know Mr Gibson, who
Speaker 1: is one of the great not only one of the
Speaker 1: great novelists, but one of the great people I've met
Speaker 1: in my life. He's just a lovely, lovely human being
Speaker 1: and of course brilliant um And I had the good
Speaker 1: fortune of getting my greedy, grubby little fingers on Neuromancer
Speaker 1: and writing a screenplay based on the book, which I,
Speaker 1: to be perfectly honest, feeling is one of the best
Speaker 1: things I had written, which of course is because the
Speaker 1: books so good, But but it really felt like I
Speaker 1: cracked the book, and you know, creatively, on every level
Speaker 1: of all the stuff that was done, it was just great.
Speaker 1: That The problem was it's like a million dollars cyberpunk
Speaker 1: film and I'm not James Cameron. Wait, does that mean
Speaker 1: that you can't direct it? Or people don't want to
Speaker 1: give you the money, Like what is the at that time?
Speaker 1: Now we're talking twelve years ago. You know, I had
Speaker 1: some heavy hitting producers who attached themselves to it, and
Speaker 1: they just couldn't convince the studios for various reasons. Warner
Speaker 1: Brothers said, it's too much like the Matrix. Of course
Speaker 1: the Matrix lifted. I wonder why, right, But I always
Speaker 1: felt like, yes, that's true. The Matrix took a lot
Speaker 1: from Romance, including the word the Matrix, but the heart
Speaker 1: of the book is very different, and it was dealing
Speaker 1: actually dealing with artificial intelligence that I felt had been
Speaker 1: explored at that time. I think it's so funny that
Speaker 1: they would say that to me. It's like that part
Speaker 1: of it is such a not an important component in
Speaker 1: many ways, like the Matrix in Neuromancer is so not
Speaker 1: the story, you know, like it is the story about
Speaker 1: humanity and those people, and like, you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of also the heist. It's like a heist book, which no, no,
Speaker 1: that's you. You you nailed it. The most thrilling bit
Speaker 1: is the heist, which is like such an unbelievable sequence
Speaker 1: of events and like yeah, like that feels like it
Speaker 1: should be a film or something, you know, like you
Speaker 1: with Neuromancer, I sincerely hope someone makes Romancer from the
Speaker 1: bottom of my heart, but if someone offered it to
Speaker 1: me right now, I'm not sure I would take it
Speaker 1: because that was written forty years ago, whereas the peripheral
Speaker 1: to me, for me is much more exciting because it
Speaker 1: is so much about this time. It is speaking directly
Speaker 1: to this kind of precipitous moment that we are standing on,
Speaker 1: you know, where I just feel like we're on a
Speaker 1: razor's edge and I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And I don't think Neuromancer, for all of its greatness,
Speaker 1: is about that because it was written a long time ago.
Speaker 1: It is increasingly and I mean this has been on
Speaker 1: my mind a lot lately that the things to really
Speaker 1: be freaked out by are no longer like these very abstract,
Speaker 1: you know, far away fears. They're like things that are
Speaker 1: just around the corner. And and you can draw a
Speaker 1: pretty clear line from like this moment in time to
Speaker 1: something like that happening. And yeah, I mean I get it.
Speaker 1: Working in a space, it's so much more topical, or
Speaker 1: feel so much more connected to this moment. Makes sense,
Speaker 1: though I do think based on what I've seen of
Speaker 1: your work, I feel like you would do a pretty
Speaker 1: kick ask job with Neuromancer. This has been such an
Speaker 1: amazing conversation, Vincenzo. Thank you so much, Like really enjoyed this.
Speaker 1: Like we touched on so many things that I am
Speaker 1: so interested in. There was some insight, there was some surprise,
Speaker 1: there was some unexpected moments. So thank you so much
Speaker 1: for doing this. You got to come back and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe when you're finally doing Neuromancer, you can come back
Speaker 1: and we can talk about thank you. It's such a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thinks thank you. And that is vincenz It talently his
Speaker 1: music that you're listening to right now from his album
Speaker 1: he produced on his big iPad. And I have to
Speaker 1: say pretty good. Yeah, I actually, and I'm not saying
Speaker 1: this just because like he's a great guest and a
Speaker 1: nice guy. I actually when I heard this, I was like,
Speaker 1: what is this is really good? And and and so
Speaker 1: you know, you had another example of technology helping and healing.
Speaker 1: I would say, not in that order. I have become
Speaker 1: addicted to mid journey. Uh that sounds unhealthy. Well, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean I'm saying addiction is good. I
Speaker 1: love mid Journey. I made so many images that I
Speaker 1: ran through my free trial and I want to keep going.
Speaker 1: Did you subscribe? I haven't yet. I mean, this happened
Speaker 1: last night, but I just think it's so interesting that
Speaker 1: he's been using it. You've been using it, I've joined
Speaker 1: the subreddit, you're getting deep on it. And well they
Speaker 1: also just released a new version. Actually the day at
Speaker 1: we I think put out our our show with David
Speaker 1: the CEO. There's a new version of that's even better.
Speaker 1: And it really is unbelievably good at at creating like
Speaker 1: very very almost photo realistic or photo realistic images, amongst
Speaker 1: other things. Yeah, I honestly think it's so fascinating that
Speaker 1: Vincenzo feels so weirdly sort of I don't know, he's
Speaker 1: like optimistic about the fact that it could replace him
Speaker 1: in a way, or not optimistic but sort of accepting.
Speaker 1: I do feel like there's a limit to its power
Speaker 1: right now. It's applications are pretty straightforward. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: for me not having to create beautiful artwork for our
Speaker 1: show every week. Although I suppose I could mean, I
Speaker 1: suppose I could be doing new artwork every week. I
Speaker 1: haven't returned to it that much, though, the other day
Speaker 1: Zelda was like, can we play with the thing that
Speaker 1: made George Washington dancing with like Alsa from Frozen or whatever,
Speaker 1: And so you know, it could be the next generation
Speaker 1: is going to really pick it up. But I think
Speaker 1: that it is kind of addictive in the sense that
Speaker 1: once you start doing it and you realize you can
Speaker 1: almost put anything into it, and you have no idea
Speaker 1: what you're going to get, but every result is in
Speaker 1: some way interesting. It is a little bit like a
Speaker 1: dopamine hit, you know. As we distance ourselves from social networks,
Speaker 1: maybe the next like addictive behavior is just creation and
Speaker 1: maybe that's an amazing new and better place for us
Speaker 1: to get to. Maybe everybody's gonna become addicted to creating things.
Speaker 1: I hope you're right. Well, look, I think that's a
Speaker 1: great place to end it on a high note, on
Speaker 1: a positive, hopeful note. That is our show for this week.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with more what Future, and
Speaker 1: that's always I wish you and your family the very
Speaker 1: best