Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
Speaker 1: which we talk with some of the brightest minds working
Speaker 1: in media today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety. Last month,
Speaker 1: I shared the stage with Jon Favreau at varieties Annual
Speaker 1: Entertainment and Technology Summit in Los Angeles. And while there's
Speaker 1: plenty to say about his career as an actor, producer,
Speaker 1: and writer, in this conversation, we focused on his work
Speaker 1: as a director, specifically his innovations and visual effects, from
Speaker 1: The Lion King to his upcoming Disney Plus series The Mandalorian,
Speaker 1: the latest from the Star Wars franchise. Here's an edited
Speaker 1: recording of our conversation. We're going to talk today at
Speaker 1: the Entertainment and Tech Summit about, as I said, really
Speaker 1: pioneering work you've done in recent years with regard to
Speaker 1: visual effects. UM, you know, think back to uh we saw.
Speaker 1: I think when you directed The Jungle Book. I think
Speaker 1: it was what you did with motion capture. You were
Speaker 1: just kind of starting to really play with the tools
Speaker 1: of the trade. But you took it to a whole
Speaker 1: new level this year with Lion King, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: a bit about that animation and of course uh you've
Speaker 1: got upcoming on Disney, plus the new Star Wars series
Speaker 1: and the Loureans. Right, so let's start there. Because you
Speaker 1: were at D twenty three, the big Disney fan convention
Speaker 1: just a few weeks ago, introducing that. What was it
Speaker 1: like to get out in front of really the super
Speaker 1: fans with something you've been sort of white hiding close
Speaker 1: to the vest for a while. It's I've had an
Speaker 1: interesting relationship with the fans part of how the industry
Speaker 1: has has changed, whether it was Comic Con or D
Speaker 1: twenty three or now Star Wars celebration. It's a really interesting,
Speaker 1: wonderful opportunity for on the one hand, to present your
Speaker 1: message almost like a political grassroots kind of way, like
Speaker 1: going to your fan base and saying, here's what we're
Speaker 1: up to. And because of social media, that that resonates
Speaker 1: outward and I think a lot of the successive Iron
Speaker 1: Man could be attributed to that core group that echoed
Speaker 1: out from Comic Con. But it's also a wonderful opportunity
Speaker 1: to actually get a relationship within the case of those
Speaker 1: those uh events. I think at the twenty three there's
Speaker 1: like seven people in the audience, so you get this
Speaker 1: wave of energy back at you and at your cast
Speaker 1: and then the people who are working on the project.
Speaker 1: Generally you show that about a year or only the
Speaker 1: first look, and so it really puts wind in your
Speaker 1: sales and he gets the whole team to get excited
Speaker 1: that we're working on something, as you said, in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: But but you get this really uh sincere authentic feedback
Speaker 1: directly from the people, and that energy is something that
Speaker 1: really carries you forward. Is there a pressure though, that
Speaker 1: comes with not just serving a fan base that has
Speaker 1: very high expectations, but you're you know, this is Star
Speaker 1: Wars and this is also the really going to be
Speaker 1: the big show for a new streaming service and Disney Plus.
Speaker 1: Are there are like additional pressures that come with all that.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's always I don't look down, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't that doesn't like I don't know how far up
Speaker 1: the tight rope is. I know that if you engage
Speaker 1: with the people around you and if you can delight
Speaker 1: if you're a fan, and you could delight yourself, and
Speaker 1: then you have a core group of people who are
Speaker 1: really invested in the outcome, whether it's people on your
Speaker 1: team and your family or or the first layer of
Speaker 1: audience that is highly engaged. I think the lesson from
Speaker 1: Marvel was start with that group and and work your
Speaker 1: way out, as opposed to trying to average things down
Speaker 1: and make it appealing to the least common denominator denominator
Speaker 1: of your audience. I think in this very vocal this
Speaker 1: time of very vocal audiences, you see that they're very
Speaker 1: reactive to material. Used to be, you know, if you
Speaker 1: marketed a movie, well, you could get a big weekend
Speaker 1: out of it, even if the movie wasn't great. Nowadays
Speaker 1: you could see those numbers dip because everybody's talking to
Speaker 1: one another on social media, so the audience is becoming
Speaker 1: a big part of the conversation. And so I think
Speaker 1: it's incumbent upon us, and I think it's always good
Speaker 1: to do so anyway, to just make sure that you
Speaker 1: respect the audience and engage with them, and then they'll
Speaker 1: if you've done a good job, they'll they'll help signal
Speaker 1: boost you and and and and take it to the
Speaker 1: next level. It's not unlike politics in many ways, oddly
Speaker 1: the way that you have to engage because it's it's
Speaker 1: many tiered, but the first tier has to be the
Speaker 1: people who are already there. Well, looking ahead at the Mandalorian,
Speaker 1: you know, I think people now come to expect a
Speaker 1: John Favreau project is going to have it's they're gonna
Speaker 1: have the visual wow of The Jungle Book, the Lion King.
Speaker 1: What in the Mandalorians do you think people will impressed
Speaker 1: with and explain sort of the technology that you're using
Speaker 1: to deliver that visual pop. Well, I think that that
Speaker 1: that you know, you always have to talk about technology
Speaker 1: with its marriage to storytelling at least that's the nexus
Speaker 1: point that that I think is is the crux of
Speaker 1: the whole thing, because whether it's a story you're telling
Speaker 1: on the screen or a story you're telling through selling
Speaker 1: this new technology and presenting it to people. As Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs would, our our entryway into new technologies and innovations
Speaker 1: is always the story that we're telling through that innovation.
Speaker 1: And in the case of what I do, it's very
Speaker 1: a very clean version of it because you're actually telling
Speaker 1: a story to people. It's not just a story in
Speaker 1: marketing or not just a story in publicity, but it's
Speaker 1: a story that they're going to see depicted, and the
Speaker 1: technology is something that has to serve that story and
Speaker 1: interact with it, inspire it. So in the case of
Speaker 1: Star Wars, and each of these is a different puzzle,
Speaker 1: you know. With with Lyon King, we had a different
Speaker 1: set of parameters and used a different set of technologies
Speaker 1: than we do for Star Wars. For Star Wars, the
Speaker 1: parameters were, how do you make it feel like Star Wars?
Speaker 1: How do you how can I tell a story set
Speaker 1: in this particular time which is for those of you know,
Speaker 1: Star Wars after Return of the Jedi, after the Empire falls,
Speaker 1: what's this gritty world? I was always interested in what
Speaker 1: inspired George Lucas originally, which were samurai films and westerns,
Speaker 1: and how do I find a time period and a
Speaker 1: waited to pick that in a in a manner and
Speaker 1: a scale that is evocative of the material and the
Speaker 1: stories that inspired George originally. And so part of what
Speaker 1: we're doing too, you know, we have to work within
Speaker 1: the parameters of what the streaming services and so in
Speaker 1: many ways it follows the structure of a television show
Speaker 1: in that you don't have endless post production, you don't
Speaker 1: have endless budget, and it's really was served by the
Speaker 1: scale of the original, which isn't the big, huge blockbuster
Speaker 1: movies that that we see on the big screen all
Speaker 1: the time. The original Star Wars were a bit more
Speaker 1: intimate and character driven, and so we are using technology
Speaker 1: that's makes best use of that scale. And part of
Speaker 1: what we're exploring is is using game engine real time rendering,
Speaker 1: because with all the compositing that we're doing, we could
Speaker 1: either do it in camera using video walls. Were were
Speaker 1: the first production to actually take advantage of innovations that
Speaker 1: have been taking place. In this case, we're working with
Speaker 1: I l M and with Epic Unreal Engine, with Magnopus,
Speaker 1: a lot of people that I've worked with before on
Speaker 1: other projects, and we try to create a new way
Speaker 1: to use this real time rendering where you can actually
Speaker 1: do in camera effects on video walls with camera tracking
Speaker 1: and parallax. Uh that want to work for for Lying
Speaker 1: King Bequesse, that's jungles and animals and fur here it's
Speaker 1: hard surfaces, spaceships, planets, you know, uh sand So it
Speaker 1: has to do with what the capabilities of the technology are.
Speaker 1: But underlying, you know, we used a game engine to
Speaker 1: make Lion King. We use Unity and we work with
Speaker 1: MPC and so what I'm finding is that by taking
Speaker 1: advantage of all these innovations and working and collaborating with
Speaker 1: all these different companies. UH, it's great for the project
Speaker 1: because you get all of this new learning and all
Speaker 1: of this enthusiasm to try to be innovative, and and
Speaker 1: it ends up serving the audience well because it's is
Speaker 1: beautiful um end product that they wouldn't have otherwise gotten.
Speaker 1: And then the companies that collaborate with are happy because
Speaker 1: whatever we innovate there, they then branch off and innovate further.
Speaker 1: And so just coming from those two projects, MPC has
Speaker 1: a virtual camera suite that they do we worked with,
Speaker 1: Epic now has built into their new system, UH, a
Speaker 1: filmmaking system that takes advantage of parallax and camera position
Speaker 1: that they're going to be launching. I l M has
Speaker 1: stagecraft that they've refined, which is something that started with
Speaker 1: George all the way back and and I believe the
Speaker 1: Prequels that is also an in camera way to do
Speaker 1: real time render. And Magnopus as a company that's branched
Speaker 1: off and is innovative in that space as well. So
Speaker 1: all of these companies that that we work with then
Speaker 1: can bring this culture, which is basically storyteller and creative,
Speaker 1: friendly use of technology in a way that takes advantage
Speaker 1: of the traditions of cinema and not disrupting them completely,
Speaker 1: and then hopefully that echoes out and creates further innovation
Speaker 1: as other filmmakers collaborate and work with that technology. And
Speaker 1: that collaboration I think was key to this new organization
Speaker 1: or initiative that you've developed called Golem Creation. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: talk a bit about what you were tempted to do
Speaker 1: with this new entity. Well, I found I thought I
Speaker 1: was being drawn to all sorts of disparate projects because
Speaker 1: if you look at my list of things I'm working on,
Speaker 1: I have a stop motion Christmas special that I'm working
Speaker 1: on with the guys who I did stop motion for Elf,
Speaker 1: the Kyota Brothers. I have a VR project with a
Speaker 1: company called Weaver called Gnomes and Goblins that we've been
Speaker 1: working on for for for I think five years, getting
Speaker 1: ready to launch a bigger product of that, Mandalorian, which
Speaker 1: is using in camera effects and real time render, Lion King,
Speaker 1: which is basically creating a multiplayer v our filmmaking game
Speaker 1: that we created the whole movie in, and then short
Speaker 1: form pieces. So there's there's this whole weird array, and
Speaker 1: I realized that all of them have something in common
Speaker 1: that they're all about the nextus point of innovative technologies
Speaker 1: and developing new technologies to serve storytelling and the filmmaking community,
Speaker 1: and whether it's innovating based on new production techniques that
Speaker 1: we're developing or innovating based on technology associated with new
Speaker 1: platforms and distribution. There is a way for filmmaking and
Speaker 1: technology to continue the dance that they've been in for
Speaker 1: hundred years that have created uh breakthroughs for both. And
Speaker 1: at this point in my career, I created Golem Golem
Speaker 1: Creations because it seems to be more of a catch
Speaker 1: all for the technological side of filmmaking as opposed to
Speaker 1: having a production company where we're pouring over scripts and
Speaker 1: trying to find new things to develop and trying to scale.
Speaker 1: The company is very small, and it's all about collaborating
Speaker 1: with other companies and other filmmakers and and creating content myself.
Speaker 1: That is exciting because it's not just telling a story,
Speaker 1: but it's also innovating and shaping the course of the
Speaker 1: way the industry moves. I mean, it's interesting when you're
Speaker 1: saying that you're working on projects that the implications of
Speaker 1: which really have these reverberations for the rest of the industries,
Speaker 1: certainly because disruption is often and can be negative. But
Speaker 1: but there's an opportunity with each innovation. And I think
Speaker 1: that it's always been seen is a zero sum game.
Speaker 1: And for a long time, you used to work with
Speaker 1: your crew on a movie that were like the production
Speaker 1: designers and the cinematographers, and then you'd have the visual
Speaker 1: effects supervisor and they would kind of be fighting the
Speaker 1: zero sum game and it odds with one another, and
Speaker 1: slowly I found people from both sides of the aisle
Speaker 1: that were excited by the opportunities that the other presented.
Speaker 1: And then you when you start to realize that that
Speaker 1: collaborating not only helps the innovations be more effective, but
Speaker 1: it also allows for us to preserve the skill set
Speaker 1: and push it forward. Of you know, work with calab Deschanel.
Speaker 1: Kale Deschanel, amazing cinematographer, never did an effects driven movie
Speaker 1: in his life. We hired him to do Lion King.
Speaker 1: We built a tool set by which he could operate cameras,
Speaker 1: set lights, have dolly track, have a whole live action
Speaker 1: crew around him and basically take what would have been
Speaker 1: a completely animated movie and bring in the human element
Speaker 1: to help set cameras in the layout phase. So if
Speaker 1: you visited this that of the Lion King, there would
Speaker 1: have been if you came in the beginning I was
Speaker 1: working with animators, it would have looked like a Pixar movie.
Speaker 1: We did layout, we did character animation, everything was in
Speaker 1: their animatic storyboards. But if you came during our production period,
Speaker 1: you would have seen an a D team, Dolly Grips,
Speaker 1: a crane um, Caleb Deschanel on the wheels. You would
Speaker 1: have seen a script supervisor, full crew running with the
Speaker 1: cadence of a real production. Now, if that was left
Speaker 1: to its own devices, it would have been the people
Speaker 1: who were coding all of this new technology would have
Speaker 1: been setting the lights, moving the cameras, doing what you
Speaker 1: do in pre vis. But you benefit from having the
Speaker 1: skill set of these people who have spent their entire
Speaker 1: lives developing this art and this craft. And so what
Speaker 1: happens is the people from the film world start learning
Speaker 1: about the technology, start requesting things like, Hey, I would
Speaker 1: you know I wish I could have an analog focus
Speaker 1: pulling knob so that my camera assistant could could control
Speaker 1: when we rack focus, and so he brings in a
Speaker 1: piece of equipment. They take the weekend and code that
Speaker 1: next thing. You know, there's a tool that pulls focus
Speaker 1: with a focus puller, as opposed to somebody just changing
Speaker 1: parameters with a keyboard. At the same time, he's teaching
Speaker 1: them how to light, because you light a video game
Speaker 1: different than you light a movie. And so now you
Speaker 1: have this wealth of experience that's being passed down from
Speaker 1: Caleb to the people who are setting lights at the
Speaker 1: boxes on the perimeter of the stage. And also as
Speaker 1: a director, I can now interact with this whole creative
Speaker 1: chain of command that I'm used to from my whole career.
Speaker 1: And we could scout together in VR so that I
Speaker 1: don't have to stand over somebody's shoulder and tell them
Speaker 1: where I want the Dolly track and what I want
Speaker 1: the shot to be. We could walk around and look
Speaker 1: around and say, hey, this is a good background, this
Speaker 1: is a good angle, and you have this iterative creative
Speaker 1: process that preserves the way I came up as a director.
Speaker 1: And now that that film has been successful, we've created
Speaker 1: a paradigm where if other people say, how did Lion
Speaker 1: came it, They're going to be inheriting that whole infrastructure
Speaker 1: as opposed to using that same technology, it could have
Speaker 1: looked like a video game design studio, which is totally different.
Speaker 1: Disruption doesn't have to be so disruptive when you plan
Speaker 1: according What I also thought could be disruptive, though, was
Speaker 1: the very technology that you employed in The Lion King,
Speaker 1: where you've got photo realistic animation. I'm sitting there watching
Speaker 1: this incredible picture, thinking is this the beginning of a
Speaker 1: slippery slope or even a movie populated entirely by humans
Speaker 1: could be created in an animated sense using these technologies. Look,
Speaker 1: I think the implications go much further than that. Like
Speaker 1: a movie, whether it's an animated human or not animated human,
Speaker 1: is I'm worried about a you know, deep fake, I'm
Speaker 1: worried about I'm worried about a news flash, not a
Speaker 1: movie as much. But I think that part of what's
Speaker 1: interesting about this is is it shows us where the
Speaker 1: technology is and it requires human vigilance, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's always that's That's That's also the story of the Golem,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, the golem can could rampage the
Speaker 1: countryside or could protect the village. We have to make
Speaker 1: sure that we engage with technology in a way that
Speaker 1: serves humanity, and the best way to do it is
Speaker 1: to is to be mindful, collaborative and aware. Um. What
Speaker 1: I like to do as far as just answering your
Speaker 1: your question about the implications in the film industry is
Speaker 1: to infuse you know, these are just tools. Lion King
Speaker 1: is the most handmade movie I've ever worked on. Every
Speaker 1: frame was poured over by artists, the actors. We we
Speaker 1: filmed the actors for reference, to get their performances, to
Speaker 1: get improv overlapping. At the end of the day, the
Speaker 1: animators interpolate that performance into animals. But there will be
Speaker 1: at some point the ability to completely track people in
Speaker 1: and have a digital version of it. I would contend
Speaker 1: that part of what we the biggest thing we connect
Speaker 1: with as humans as other human behavior, and so a
Speaker 1: computer is not generating it from scratch. They're simply making
Speaker 1: it look better and more convincing. But at its core,
Speaker 1: if you didn't have Billy Eichner and Seth Rogan improving
Speaker 1: and coming back and banging around, I don't think that
Speaker 1: that would have been an entertaining the team on I
Speaker 1: Pumba would not have been entertaining characters. By the same token,
Speaker 1: every environment that's been designed to hold a mirror up
Speaker 1: to nature that wasn't just created by a computer, that
Speaker 1: was created by hundreds of artists. And so you have
Speaker 1: this collaboration where people are having to create every single
Speaker 1: aspect of it. You don't inherit anything by going out
Speaker 1: into into nature and setting a camera. You have to
Speaker 1: create everything that you photograph. So I think that it
Speaker 1: is good to be cautious and understand what the implications
Speaker 1: of technology represent. But I think that there is a
Speaker 1: way to have it, uh boost the opportunities of creativity
Speaker 1: because your imagination is no longer fettered in the same
Speaker 1: way by the shortcomings of of what you can achieve
Speaker 1: in film. So I think that it's there. There are
Speaker 1: two sides to that coin, and and that's that's honestly
Speaker 1: why I want to focus on this so much now
Speaker 1: because I feel I'm in a in a in a
Speaker 1: unique position to help inform that conversation. I think it's
Speaker 1: an important conversation and do you but you know, to
Speaker 1: take it where too deep fake territory? Are you even
Speaker 1: thinking about that level in terms of what society can
Speaker 1: protect with that kind of footage. Well, it's the same
Speaker 1: people innovating for all these things, and so technology when
Speaker 1: you understand what AI is doing and how things are
Speaker 1: how how there's machine learning and I'm glad that they
Speaker 1: have deep fake videos on on on YouTube. I want
Speaker 1: people to understand it in a way where it's not
Speaker 1: so charged, so they could say, oh, wow, that's what
Speaker 1: that's what technology is capable of. And we all know
Speaker 1: more as law, it's just going to get more, And
Speaker 1: so we have to ask some questions of ourselves as
Speaker 1: a society and as a culture of how do we
Speaker 1: I don't think the Ostrich method of sticking your head
Speaker 1: in the ground is going to save you know, anybody
Speaker 1: from from the challenges of the future. I think that
Speaker 1: we have to have um we have to engage with
Speaker 1: it in a way that is thoughtful and in a
Speaker 1: way that takes into consideration where we think things are going.
Speaker 1: And but does that imply that you could possibly like
Speaker 1: it seems to me that technology does what technology does,
Speaker 1: So are there really any safeguards an industry or an
Speaker 1: internet company could put on this to control the situation.
Speaker 1: I think you have to explain. I'm not an expert
Speaker 1: in this area, so I can only speculate as you would.
Speaker 1: But what I would say is that focusing your attention
Speaker 1: on things that are potentially problematic is a good is
Speaker 1: a good step. And I think that when people are
Speaker 1: unaware or ignore the trends that are happening is when
Speaker 1: you get caught off balance. And what gives me, what's
Speaker 1: encouraging to me, is that the people who are behind
Speaker 1: all of this, it's just it's people and and and
Speaker 1: and and there are a lot of people who share
Speaker 1: common values and I and I don't think it's for
Speaker 1: a lack of concern or a lack of being motivated
Speaker 1: to make the world a better place moving forward. Uh,
Speaker 1: But I think that, you know, there's sort of this
Speaker 1: balancing act that we have to find where where where
Speaker 1: you're not ringing an alarm belt and freaking everybody out
Speaker 1: just to get their attention. You know, you don't want
Speaker 1: the car alarm going off all the time, otherwise you
Speaker 1: can't hear the car alarm anymore. But by the same token,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be um optimistic without having uh,
Speaker 1: just trusting that things are going to work out in
Speaker 1: a positive way. I think the you know, the challenge
Speaker 1: of our time is to find a way to to
Speaker 1: to benefit from all the wonderful aspects that technology has
Speaker 1: to offer. And I think that if you look at
Speaker 1: trends over time, it's a net gain like we we
Speaker 1: have even in just our lifetime seen just by any
Speaker 1: measure of of you know, the the positive positive limitation
Speaker 1: of you know, the elimination of suffering, the health benefits,
Speaker 1: life expectancy, people being pulled up out of poverty like
Speaker 1: technology can help. There's there's no argument that technology can
Speaker 1: be a net gain. The question is how do we
Speaker 1: how do we protect against unintended consequences and innovation And
Speaker 1: that's and that's the story of every fable surround ending
Speaker 1: innovations and technology. There's always the Sorcerer's Apprentice story of
Speaker 1: the mops getting too many buckets of water. You know,
Speaker 1: that's what it is, that's Frankenstein. That's the goal of
Speaker 1: So I think the trick is how do you how
Speaker 1: do you engage with it? You know, it's what do
Speaker 1: they say with first lesson in surfing, you don't turn
Speaker 1: your back to the water. You don't turn your back
Speaker 1: to the sea, have a healthy respect for these about
Speaker 1: what's going on. Uh, but let's get like minded people
Speaker 1: to engage with it in a way where we maximize
Speaker 1: the upside and and minimize the downside. You got on
Speaker 1: this innovation track by working in virtual reality, and you
Speaker 1: talked about getting back to the Gnomes and Goblins. Uh.
Speaker 1: Is the virtual reality market where you think it needs
Speaker 1: to be in terms of you know, pouring your energies
Speaker 1: in a VR project. Yeah, well, I don't know how
Speaker 1: to time the market like that's not the way. I
Speaker 1: don't know that. I would have thought that v would
Speaker 1: have had more consumer adoption earlier based on the early
Speaker 1: developments that I saw in early development kits for like
Speaker 1: the Vibe and the experience I had when I first
Speaker 1: put it on. There are challenges in the adoption in
Speaker 1: the in the in the consumer marketplace that you know,
Speaker 1: if you look at the curve, it's just a slower curve.
Speaker 1: I know that technology is not going away. With all
Speaker 1: of this great consumer facing hardware that came out and
Speaker 1: everything that I learned working on Nomes and Goblins that
Speaker 1: allowed us to create these platforms in a more industrial
Speaker 1: capacity to make Lion King and to make the Mandalorian
Speaker 1: and you know, based on what the shortcomings were with
Speaker 1: the systems that we used on Jungle Book, which we're
Speaker 1: essentially inheriting from Jim Cameron Avatar. From Avatar, so you
Speaker 1: had motion. A lot of the same people were working
Speaker 1: on both those movies as motion capture, it's motion builder,
Speaker 1: it's it's a very specific market for a set of
Speaker 1: tools that are expensive and there's not a lot of
Speaker 1: incentive for innovation. All of a sudden, all these game
Speaker 1: engines pop on the scene. I'm working of that pick
Speaker 1: on the first season the Mandalorian, and they they have
Speaker 1: Fortnite like they have they have revenue streams that are
Speaker 1: um you know, that are very robust, and so that
Speaker 1: allows for a much more you know, uh, enthusiastic engagement
Speaker 1: when it comes to R and D. Same thing with Unity,
Speaker 1: you know, working with them on on The Lion King,
Speaker 1: and they have you know, they're in gaming, so you're
Speaker 1: not dealing with people who are just dealing with a
Speaker 1: handful of filmmakers who are doing motion capture. Now we're
Speaker 1: having all this great hardware and VR hardware and and
Speaker 1: and opted tracks, all these things that you could buy
Speaker 1: you know, off the shelf as a consumer. And that
Speaker 1: was the big breakthrough in video made game video cards
Speaker 1: that allowed for a refresh rate that was fast enough
Speaker 1: to drive a full stage of video walls for the
Speaker 1: Star Wars project. That wouldn't have been possible five years ago.
Speaker 1: So it's seeing what those breakthroughs are. You could use
Speaker 1: them for storytelling uh and and how to again allow
Speaker 1: be aware of what's coming up and finding ways to
Speaker 1: see how all those things can interact uh and and
Speaker 1: distribution models are changing too in audience habits, and I
Speaker 1: think that you know, that's also you know, the positive
Speaker 1: side of um you know, all these these breakthroughs because
Speaker 1: you can make very specific programming. I've been trying to
Speaker 1: make a stop motion Christmas special since Elf. The business
Speaker 1: model wasn't there now all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 1: because of Netflix, I can or I could do a
Speaker 1: cooking show, like there's nothing technical about a cooking show.
Speaker 1: I love cooking with Roy Choy. We there's an audience
Speaker 1: for that on that platform because you could seek out
Speaker 1: exactly what you want now and so you have narrow
Speaker 1: casting too, and so I think it creates a much
Speaker 1: richer environment for storytellers, and the barriers of entry are
Speaker 1: just dropping dramatically. I worked with Donald Glover. He started
Speaker 1: off basically creating his own stories on on YouTube and
Speaker 1: that slowly evolved into a very dynamic, impressive career of
Speaker 1: being in a writer's room doing stand up music. But
Speaker 1: it all came from the the lowering of the barrier
Speaker 1: ventrly the gate the disappearance of gatekeepers. So you're gonna
Speaker 1: have this democratization of creativity that that technology also has
Speaker 1: has been offering us. Um it sounds like you're at
Speaker 1: the bleeding edge of of a pretty big trend in
Speaker 1: terms of and I think it's somewhat democratization fueled lots
Speaker 1: of new tools improving what you're able to do on
Speaker 1: a screen. So is what you're is what you're doing,
Speaker 1: paving the way, you think, for sort of this new
Speaker 1: generation to come and and make movies in a way
Speaker 1: that is very different than was done ten years ago.
Speaker 1: I think that would be overstating it. I think what
Speaker 1: the goal here is to just say make a decision saying, hey,
Speaker 1: let's engage with this, Let's see what the opportunities are here,
Speaker 1: Let's see how we could not how we could preserve
Speaker 1: what's good about how we came up and and and
Speaker 1: pay honor to the traditions that that we came up
Speaker 1: through um in filmmaking. And let's invite like minded people
Speaker 1: to collaborate together, because ultimately it's going to be the
Speaker 1: human factor that that shapes our path into the future.
Speaker 1: And and it's the people who are innovating in these
Speaker 1: areas and creating these new tools or showing us how
Speaker 1: to use them that's going to determine what we inherit
Speaker 1: and what the future holds. And you know, uh, I
Speaker 1: think that it's part of my responsibility. Two, I've been
Speaker 1: I've been lucky enough to have a wonderful career telling
Speaker 1: stories and having innovations that other people have developed for
Speaker 1: me to enjoy, and for me to then pass some
Speaker 1: of that onto the next generation, and for me to
Speaker 1: help preserve what those who came before me are concerned about.
Speaker 1: I think there's some thing that's very fulfilling in that
Speaker 1: for me, and hopefully in getting like minded people who
Speaker 1: are cautiously optimistic about the future to come together and
Speaker 1: be at the forefront of those innovations. Makes gives me
Speaker 1: comfort in in the uncertainty that always you always face
Speaker 1: whenever you're at a at a point of you know,
Speaker 1: of transition. It sounds like a good note to end on. John,
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming in and talking about it. To thank you,
Speaker 1: this has been another episode of Strictly Business. Tune in
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