Geekscape

Geekscape 26: Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

It's an ADD spectacular! Guest Co-host: Special FX Master Scott Stokdyk from the Spider-Man films! Gilmore and FunnelFish take on the hosting duties! And more! - Review: Hostel 2 Trailers: 30 Days of Night and I Am Legend! News: Rob Zombie's Halloween gets a poster! Gilmore's trip to Fangoria and a personal preview for Hatchet! Comics: Scott loves Giant Robot magazine! Video Games: Not so much this week... BUT you DO get the first installment of Ask Laura featuring Mr. Penguin! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Broadcast on:: 12 Jun 2007
Audio Format:: other

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Forget the frustration of picking commerce platforms when you switch your business to Shopify. The global commerce platform that supercharges your selling, wherever you sell. With Shopify, you'll harness the same intuitive features, trusted apps, and powerful analytics used by the world's leading brands. Sign up today for your $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/tech, all lowercase. That's Shopify.com/tech. This episode is brought to you by Microsoft Azure. Turn your ideas into reality with an Azure-free account. Get everything you need to develop apps across cloud and hybrid environments, scale workloads, create cloud-connected mobile experiences, and so much more. Discover what you can create with popular services free for 12 months. Learn more at azure.com. That's azure.com and sign up for a free account to start building in the cloud today. Hey, what's up guys? You guys are watching episode 26 of Geekscape. We've got tons of stuff, including Ask Laura, a sit-down with Scott Stockdike of the Spider-Man films, and two goofballs Tweedledy and Tweedledun giving you all the news and reviews that you need for the next episode of Geekscape. You suck ass. We've got tons of stuff coming up, including Ask Laura. Scott Stockdike of the Spider-Man 3 films, and Tweedledy and Tweedledun giving you all the reviews of Hostile 2. That's good! He missed the first time. Not bad! We've got the balloon. Hey guys, this is John Gura from the forums. We're here for a walk for the other dogs. I'm here with Hank. We just finished our 2 mile walk. And this is episode 26 of Geekscape. Hey guys, welcome to episode 26 of Geekscape. We are at the halfway mark. I'm Brian Gilmore. I'm Ben, Funnelfish Dunn. And we're going to walk you through the week in movies, comic books, video games, and any other geek related stuff. But first, before we do that, we need to mention our sponsor, that's netriver.net. That's your one stop shop for all your internet needs. We are powered 100% by Netriver. And if right now, if you enter the promotional code GILMORE, you get 10% off all your hosting needs. Alright, now that's out of the way. And what did we do last Thursday, Ben? Why do you take the... Okay, anyway, I don't know why he took that down. But there was some, just so you know how, like, I'm not the only creep here. And I'm not even a creep. Okay, but Ben here has a big yield sign that has the word "hump" written on it. It was right above his, and that's a likely story, but it was... Anyway... Let's get going. Let's get going. Right above his bed. "Hump" to encourage any ladies... The girls need to know what they're on here. Guys, I'm trying to get through you guys alone and doing this show. That's obscene. And if you need a sign like that to show you what that's for over there, you're in a lot of trouble. Alright, we can put the laser gun down. You are a child. Alright, can we do a show? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what did we... Get behind the camera. Get behind the camera director. Don't do that. So what did we... You're killing me. Okay, just talk about "Hossle" too. Alright. Good job on the sponsor, alright. Good job not messing up the English language you've been speaking for the last 20 seconds. Now do the damage. Alright, just get behind the camera. I'm sorry if I blew out your ears. He was done. So we saw "Hossle" too on Thursday. "Hossle" too. It was my first premiere, and it was actually really fun. We had all the cast and crew and director Eli Roth there, and it was fun. You know, whenever the credits came up, everyone was like, "Yay!" And it was okay, but... It's the only thing in my opinion that made this movie worth anything. Right. And we really tried not to talk about it on the way out. It was difficult because I had just... Oh, just for what did you think? Me? Personally, okay. I thought it was better than "Hossle 1", but that was only because "Hossle" wasn't that great to begin with. Why is that not saying much to begin with? Right. "Hossle 1" sucked. I mean, I for one... What you got to understand is that Ben and I are actually horror movie fans. We like horror movies, and we like our fair share, and we like our "and whores" for Ben. And we really do like, I mean, gore, anything else that we might... Like, what are some gory movies that you like? Give me an example. Well, you know, I like all the classics, the zombie movie is "Night of the Living Dead". Right. But I mean, I also enjoy exploitation films, which is mostly what Eli Roth is trying to do, or tried to do. Right. And I just don't think that he comes off very genuine in it. No. "Hossle 1", sorry. "Hossle 1" had a bunch of points where it was like, okay, you know, this is going to end up being a revenge film. This is going to end up having a lot of the same exploitation/revenge things that he's going for. Right. But this one seemed a lot more... I don't want to say campy, but a little more polished in Hollywood. Well, it seemed more by the book. He took the points that made "Hossle 1" in, I guess, some people's opinions good and showed them again. The two points that I really hated is the fact, you know, "Hossle 1", I'll give it this. Lots of titties, lots of gore, and that's the two things that... What about titties? Well, a lot more than this one. That's true, there was more titties. Oh, but who did we get? Who did we get? Who's titties do we get to see? That's true. This is not worth it, but it's worth like an internet YouTuber, porno-tuber, X-X-2, I don't know. Anyway, but when you went and saw Princess Darius, which I know a lot of you did, did you think that the best friend would end up upside down and naked getting her backslash by a scythe? No, you didn't, and that's one thing I will give Eli raw. This is... I don't know if you guys know, it's Heather Madarazzo, and she's this girl who basically is... She was in "The Adventures of Pete and Pete" when she was little. That too, and she plays a lot of really kind of like Nickelodeon-esque Disney-ish character, and she comes in this movie and you think, I thought, spoilers by the way, spoilers all over the place ahead of time. Good thing we told them. That's good. We're good people. John will fix it in. No, he won't. And so she gets completely naked, hung upside down, the only major nudity in the film by the way. And her back gets slashed plenty of times as the blood goes down on this woman who is completely naked, masturbating, bathing in the blood of this Disney-type... Yeah, and that was the coolest part of the movie. That was the only part where I'm like, okay, he's actually going to be doing what he said he's going to be doing. And to say that, the fact that all the mentions in the commercials and everything, with the most shocking ending you'll ever see people, you'd have to learn not to believe these commercials because... Because especially in the first movie, remember in the first movie it's like, "Oh, people are fucking puking, and people are passing out, paramedics are called the theaters." Blah, blah, blah. Are you sure you're not thinking of the '50s? No, no, no, no. This was for the first hostel. They did have a bunch of, yeah, they had had a bunch of that kind of press. Week sauce. And it was totally weak. Give me, saw, one, two, or three. Give me half of any one of those movies instead of both hostels combined. Those actually just delivered. They don't try to be like, great films. Well, it's the same thing like when I first saw, you know, Eli's first movie. Eli, you know, because we're best friends. When I first saw cabin fever, I liked it because, you know, he was bringing back that style that was completely lost in like the '90s. And people stopped making these just slasher film for slasher film's sake, and it was funny, it was campy. And then he comes back with hostel, which is like, he suffered the end-night Shyamalan syndrome. He got a hit or a semi-hit, and then he started getting all this praise, so he started masturbating on screen. And it just keeps getting worse and worse. I mean, I just don't really think. I mean, one movie that I think is actually going to deliver like that, which I kind of want to, I want to reach out to the producers. I want to see if we can get them on or something. I mean, it's a movie called Hatchet. It's coming out in September. And I went to the Fangoria scream, or whatever, the horse, or whatever. Oh yeah, talk about that. And that was awesome. It was really great. I want to thank Taya for that, by the way, if you're watching. You're the best. Oh, and thank you, Taya, for the tickets to the screening as well. Yeah, she's our contact at Lionsgate, and I think we're going to send her a basket or something, because she's just helped us not send her a fruit basket. So I went to this Fangoria festival. Good luck getting either of you guys at a basket. Your fruits. Oh, see, I got what he was going for there. Yeah, the fruit basket. Yeah, the fruit basket, because our knees are touching. But I went to the Fangoria festival, or whatever, and they screened about five minutes of this movie called Hatchet. And it's basically, it takes place in a swamp, and it's Robert England is in it. He plays a minor role. Oh, God, his name's Danny something. The guy, Candyman. Oh, right. I don't know what his name is. He's in a final destination as the-- Right, so Captain Cannamans in it. And basically, I'm just going to run you through one scene of it. This is amazing. What happens is that this guy-- It's Tony Todd. Tony Todd. Thank you. I just want to mention that it took him that long to think of it, too. He computed it. But he computed it. It's now over because we're in the 90s. And so basically, there's a bunch of people running around in the swamp. There's an old guy and an old woman who were kind of lagging behind because the old guy broke his leg or something like that. And then there's this huge-- Rawr, like Berserker Guy that comes out with a hatchet and he starts chasing the old people. The young, attractive people get away. But the old people are kind of left behind. And what he does is he grabs his hatchet and he-- Rawr! Rawr! He digs into this part of his body. And you see it go just repeatedly. And he's like, oh, and it's not CG. And it's not-- it's really great makeup. Rawr! And it's ripping off. And then this part of his-- and it's completely ripping off. And then we place the rage here on my team. I'm actually really great at charades, but that's for another day. And you see a shot of them running and then you see him running towards them. And you see he finishes just ripping the guy in half. And then-- You're kind of just going off here. Right, I'm sorry. But that's just an example of something I want to see. Because this right now-- I mean, hostile, like what you're seeing. Eli Roth-- Eli Roth at-- I saw him at the Fangoria thing. And he said that he wanted-- he did a panel there. And he said he wanted to make the scariest ride at the park. He wanted to basically one up-- not one up, but sort of meet the part of Rob Zombie, who I think is the best thing that's happened to American Horror in like the last 15 years. And also he wanted to do the ads directing the Saw as he said they stepped it up. Right. They have their little gore in society. The splat pack. The splat pack, yeah. And they really-- they haven't-- and he didn't. He didn't do that at all. No, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah. He really missed. He missed. Right, I just think he missed it. Basically, all the characters in the movie are caricatures. They're not characters. They're not characters. You don't care about them. And spoiler alert right now. If you want to know the ending-- Shut up. You don't want to know the ending. You don't want to know the ending. You know what, give them something if they weren't seeing. I mean, it's worth like, like, internetting the last ten minutes of the movie. No, no, no. You wouldn't want to do that. That's, uh, that's pirating. Hey, guys. M.P.A. to wrap up "Hustle 2." You mentioned the Rob Zombie Halloween poster. Yeah. Or the Halloween. Have you guys seen the poster for it? I haven't seen the poster for it. Oh, they released it. I'm going to put it on the screen right now. How do you like being interrupted like this? This is awesome. It's okay. I would hate it if someone constantly did this to me. I think, uh, this is the-- You're probably very, very known to this outfit at all. Let's talk trailers. Let's talk trailers. Yeah. So speaking of, um, guys who take concepts and, um-- Ruin them? And not ruin them, but just, I mean, don't do what I feel that they should have done with them. Which one would go first? I don't want to talk about 30 days of night. Okay. Okay. Because I loved the concept. 30 days of night is originally a graphic novel by Steve Niles. And, uh, Steve Niles is basically, you know, he basically writes something about, uh, you know, every once a year for 30 days, uh, somewhere in Alaska, it's complete night for-- A lot of Alaska. Right. And so-- Right. And so, you know, it's a great idea. It's like night for 30 days. Some vampires, uh, find out about it. They're like, "Holy shit, we should do this. Let's eat. Let's have a 30 day buffet." And it's about the people in that town trying to, uh, trying to survive. Right. And, you know, I saw the trailer yesterday. I watched that. Um, and I was-- I was impressed by it. I'm going to go see this film because I-- Let me just tell you, I've never read the book. I know-- I do know what the-- I do know what the, uh, the style is. Because I've seen the cover and I've-- of the different books throughout the years. But, um, I think that they-- the little shots that they show to the vampires, it looks like they got it right. Um, the-- Why? I mean-- Because they have, like, the multiple tees and they're-- Because they're all with the hell that's going on in their face. Right, right. Uh, the only thing that really, you know, it had me go in this trailer and then-- Josh Hartnett shows up. I have no problem with Josh Hartnett. I have a problem with Josh Hartnett trying to act, like, in any kind of role besides a romantic comedy. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know, the only reason I liked that film was because it didn't have too much of Josh Hartnett. It was more of an ensemble film. I have no problem. I have no problem with Josh Hartnett. I have no problem with Josh Hartnett. I have a problem with Josh Hartnett trying to act, like, in any kind of role besides a romantic comedy. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know, the only reason I liked that film was because it didn't have too much of Josh Hartnett. I think Josh Hartnett would be in mind. Really? Yeah. He's, like, a dreamboat and I think he's one of those guys and it's just like, "I kind of like to see him on screen." But, um, anyways, the reason I didn't-- I'm not looking forward to 30 days of night is that I read the first graphic novel. And they have a bunch of sequels which I haven't even bothered with. Um, is that, I mean, just the graphic novel in of itself was a great concept. I love the concept and, I mean, the overall points of the story are great. Um, but I just really don't think that, I mean, the dialogue, I mean, just-- You know what? Mostly everything about it. Let's just say it this way. You're going to go see the film. I'm going to go see the movie. You're going to go see the film. All right. So the next one. Also, um, might maybe a vampire? Maybe a vampire film? Maybe a vampire film? I don't know yet. You can't tell? No, definitely a vampire film. What? Okay. So we're talking-- It's a vampire book. It is a vampire book. Have you read the book? Yes. It's called "I Am Legend." Will Smith. I know, I know, but he was at some point going to play the best friend, I remember. Oh, I don't know. They haven't really announced anything. I shout out to the outside of his house all the time. I'm Neville! Neville! Uh, you know, the thing is, like, I read-- I started reading this book actually because of, uh, Geekscape, you know, the recommendation on one of the old forums. I read it, and it was amazing. And then I started seeing all this stuff. Nope. It's my favorite book. Is that your favorite book of all? Yeah, it's great. It's been one of my top recommended books as well because-- It's short and he doesn't have to read much. Yeah, actually. It's great. Like, it's real-- and we all know John's attention span and he loves that conversation. That's right. He can't stay behind the camera for more than 15 minutes. And Doggy goes to the fair. Doggy goes to the fair. Those are my two. Yeah, and I hear they're making that one with Will Smith. That would be nice. Yeah. I really enjoy the Clifford movie. Yes. Anyway. Um, keep going. Underdog. That's what I hate. I-- Underdog? Have you guys seen the thing for the live action Underdog movie? Yes. What do you think? Um, I'll give it a shot because there's no CG. F that shit. Yes, there is. There's a lot of CG. There's a lot of CG. Doggy's a flying dog. The dog is not CG. The dog is a beaver. They hired a flying dog. So listen. You'll find out what we think of Underdog on the episode we're reviewing because I'm going to go see it. That's right. And I am too. What's I am legend. Okay, so I am legend. The basic storyline is the world is gone. It's all vampires except for this one man who is played by Will Smith in this movie. Now, in the original, in the book, is just that. It's about his survival with these, you know, with a world that's dead. Um, and everyone's, everyone's trying to kill him because that's what vampires do, I guess. But watching this trailer, it says nothing. Nothing about vampires. The book wasn't so much about vampires. Well, the book. I mean, the book was more so about his survival. The book is about vampires. As much as the comic Walking Dead, which you guys should read, is about zombies. Absolutely. It's really a book that basically surrounded around the horror survival genre in which you have this one guy. And he walks you to, I mean, he makes big pits in the ground in which he burns all the dead vampires that he kills. And because he goes out throughout the day, he collects all the supplies he needs. And his best friend is constantly outside shouting his name, "Novel, calm down!" And, you know, he's like trying to taunt him back into it and some of it is told in flashbacks. Right. But, and so I don't really, I mean, the concept is there that he's the last man on earth trying to survive. But they haven't done the vampires thing. And I think they're going to do with that what Spider-Man 3 did with Venom. Yeah, release it later. I get that. But right now it might as well just be a, they might as well just renamed it. Say, say it's based on I Am Legend, but just make it into, you know what? Oh, it's man on earth. Yeah. It was originally called that, actually. It's working title with something like The Last Man on Earth. But it was written by Richard Matt Masterson? Yeah, Matt Masterson. And, you know, the only other movie I've seen based on his book was Star of Echoes, which also they couldn't, apparently they couldn't take that basic concept and work with it. Well, well, they did adapt. I Am Legend once as the Omega man in the 70s with Charlton Hester. Really? Right. Best line from that movie is when he's trying to make a vaccine out of his own blood. And he looks at the vial full of his blood and goes, "That baby is 100% Anglo-Saxon." Oh, yeah. Oh. Charlton Hesteron. You guys are doing a really good job. That's awesome. Right. So now we have a few other things that we need to get to now. Yeah. Now, aren't they? Who do we have? Let me just take... Talking to my nipples, John. Early in the week, I went over to Sony and hung out with Scott Stockthike. He was a special effects super on all the Spider-Man movies. Awesome. And did a little interview with him. You guys, thank you so much for filling in. No. Whatever. You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you guys for being here. Happy year with us on Geekscape. It's awesome. So, go over to Sony. We love you. Thanks so much, dudes. Hey, what's up, guys? We're here at Sony Image Works. With Scott Stockthike, he's a super effects supervisor from the Spider-Man films. Why don't you introduce yourself to tell our audience to Geekscape us a little bit about what you do in the process of working on the Spider-Man films, which we all saw multiple times. Sure. As visual effects supervisor, I'm in at the very start of the project when they're writing the script, writing boards. They're working with storyboard artists, and I basically break down stuff, think about how to do stuff, and then I get into the shooting of the movie, and we go on location and with them when they shoot plates, when they shoot first unit and second unit, and then I come back and the third part of my job is in post, and that's where we put everything together and finish the movie. Mm-hmm. And, like, on the process of this film, like everybody talks about Spider-Man 3 and how it had more action than the first two. Yeah. As you're reading the script, I mean, this is a longer film, too, this is 30 minutes longer than the longer ones. And as you're reading the script, are you just thinking, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, like, I don't want to do it, like, this is going to be impossible, this is going to be too expensive." Because, you know, people accuse the Spider-Man films of, you know, I was talking to somebody yesterday and they were like, "Oh, it'd be so great to have an unlimited budget." I'm like, "Wait, this is still a business. You can't have an unlimited budget. You still have to bring things in on time under budget or at, you know, budget or a little bit over." What leeway do you have to throw things in to, like, the writing and say, "Listen, this may be impossible. This may not be something we can do in time." You know, it's interesting because our job used to be more about saying what you can't do. And now it's just about telling people how much time and how much it costs to do. Because more and more, anything's possible. So it's like, can they shoot things in time? Can they edit it down to get the cost? And, I mean, actually like Sam Raimi is very, very good, he's a very good businessman and he's a producer, he produces movies and TV. So he knows budget issues and we give him information and he actually makes kind of more of the decisions about what's in and what's out more just based on budget and time than whether you can do it or not. Right. Because I mean the windows, like when the movie is announced, the window for the release is set. Yeah. You know, like movies nowadays, it's all, I mean, now with the blockbuster, you know, people fight and they put their flag in the ground and they say, "Listen, we have July 4th weekend or, you know, we have the 2009, you know, May and Spider-Man's going to be good with that Memorial Day weekend." Right. You know, that's Spidey's weekend and everybody knows when a Spider-Man movie comes out. That's the weekend and so with that goal in mind, it's his job to throw things in or out of the script and you throw in the input to make sure you... Right. And then, I mean, it's my job just to figure out how to get it done in time and that's what it always comes down to at the end. How much hair did you lose on each film? Like, did you start out with a giant afro on Spider-Man 1 and then as like it went in, did it just start falling out or getting pulled out? Well, I've been working for seven years on Spider-Man movies and I've aged the equivalent of maybe 15 years to accelerate it, aging. And like, I could just see that like with something like Green Goblin, you're like, "Okay, cool. Guy in a suit." Yeah. Yeah. With Doc, you're like, "Okay, you hear that they're doing the majority of the arms with puppets." Right. And you're like, "Oh, no, no, no. Not my freaking problem." Right. That's a little bit of your problem. And then when they say, "Sam and Venom, you're just like F you guys." Like, you picked the two guys who were the most heavily computer animated. Yeah. It's a whole other level. And I mean, it's not just, I mean, it's not just how to execute them. It's like how to get them to work in the story. And one of just the crazy things is we got further and further into production, Sam just was visualizing the final battle scene, right? And he was planning it and he just wanted to make it something really intense. As you guys were already shooting other pieces of the film. As we were shooting. So he really, the way he likes to work is he creates the beginning, the start, the origin of the character early in the process. So it's like in the first one where Peter Parker just first wakes up and has his powers. He figured that early. On the second one where Doc Ock gets in the fusion action and it comes back and he gets everybody in the hospital. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Those are the first things he concentrates on. And then by the end, he wants like the end to be just the biggest thing, right? So he pretty much figures that out later in the process. And all as we were going along, shooting, getting ready, and he was figuring out this end sequence, he kept threatening us, like the horrible hundred are coming. And he's like, every time he saw us, he would just kind of like hint that there was this big thing coming and, you know, we get bits and pieces and get pulled into that process. But the first thing he, like, sometimes he just like will go with his brother and just write and just like they'll go in his garage. He's almost punishing you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's kind of seeing the limits of your sanity by saying, okay, how much more can we heap on Scott? Right. And I mean, on the first two films, you had John Dijkstra with you. Yes. Yeah. And on this one, it's you. It was just-- You're running the show. That's right. And you won an Oscar for number two. It did. Right. Where do you keep it? In the kitchen. Really? Yeah. I don't have a trophy room or I thought the mantle was a little too cliche. So I just keep it, we would spend most of our time in the kitchen. You want to see it all the time? You hear stories about people keeping like their Oscars and like the bathroom. Yeah. You know? I would have mine like engraved on the front of a car. A hood ornament? Like a hood ornament. I mean, I don't ever see-- I mean, you've seen gay by Don. Yeah. I don't foresee an Oscar actually being in my future. I want the popcorn. I know. That's the one I want. I want the Gilded popcorn from the MTV Movie Awards. That's the one I want. And maybe like a Scream Award. Yeah. Like, I think those would be really cool. Those would mean a lot to me because they're like the fan ones. You know, I mean, it's all-- it's like-- it's nice to get that recognition. And I mean, it's basically just a token of recognition of like your peers and the people working with it. Freaking out. And you did a good job at the Oscars. Actually, the crazy thing was just like-- it was very surreal, like just being there. And it seems big on TV, but it's actually when you're there and you see like Clint Eastwood like 10 feet away from you, it seems very small at that moment too. So-- and actually the thing that really happened to me was it was a very visual experience. And I mean, visual effects person. So it's like-- it happened. It's like the sound just kind of blocked out. And I didn't hear anything that John Dykstra was saying and the acceptance piece. I just looked around and saw everybody. Yeah. Do you think it could have been spider powers? You know, like spider sense? You know? I think it slowed down. I wish I could have had those to slow down like the post production, but I don't have them. It's just you against the wall and you're either going to make it or not. I mean, it's like-- the thing is it's like there's like over 200 people here at ImageWorks who are like seasoned pros basically who have been through this before. So it's not like I'm just flying by myself. That's a cool thing. And the spider-- the creation of the same man sequence, that's the one you hear everybody talk about the loves. That's the best sequence in the movie. It's the most beautiful one. How hard was it to make that sequence? I mean, it was-- what goes into making a sequence like that? Because I kind of know how you guys do some of the plate shots where like the fight with Doc Ock on the top of the subway. You guys before the acro shooting of the film, you guys went to Chicago and shot plates for the Doc Ock fight. And are those just plates on a subway train with a green screen and you fight the-- and then you get it and you start putting it together? Yeah. Well, I mean, we build things in pieces now. So it's like you have some ground rules. It's kind of the same way. It's kind of the same way. Yeah. I mean, you have ground rules of like for the train thing, it's like most of the shots were green screen with the plate behind it, but then you get exceptions. And the exceptions turn into like how do you solve this? It's got to be all CG. It's some weird combination of live action and CG. All our sand shots were all the exceptions, you know? There wasn't like one global way to do everything. And the birth of Sandman was just like the most intense thing. It's the most intense thing I've ever seen. Going back to like Holliman days, it's like, you know, when there was a transforming human and that was like-- So you can play seven degrees with you. That's true. Well, we can do seven degrees with you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. You were going to say something actually pretty nice and-- No, I mean-- I'm a jerk. It's just the thing that's hard, I mean, the thing that's hard in my business nowadays, it's like there's all these all CG movies, you know? And so doing an all CG shot, even if it looks photoreal, isn't the hardest thing anymore. So nowadays it's like the combination of effects work and character animation work. So sand particles and an underlying performance. That's kind of the hardest thing now. I mean, that was hard back when we did it on Holliman, but-- Because it was Kevin Bacon acting. Because it was-- That's what you're saying? Yeah, actually it's like-- I actually think he's a fine actor. I think he said it was hard because Kevin Bacon acts like, "Damn, I got to make him act well." If there was another actor-- It'd be easier if he was just dancing. No, it's because it's like, I mean, well, it's like the gorilla was not Kevin Bacon, but it was like a performance of somebody struggling and you had layer, I mean, you had a layer of muscles pulling away that were tied to that performance of the gorilla struggling. And then this way, it's like we had Thomas Hayden Church's performance and him rising up and going through all these like-- And he did the whole thing himself, and then you guys slowly replaced him with the enemy. Well, I don't know anything. You know that. Yeah. Here's the thing, shot by shot it was different. So the end shot, he gave us just a brilliant performance in camera and we tried to do creative ways to blend to that. The first shot, you know, he shot video with Sam Raimi and Spencer Cooker, animation director there, like was there to like help guide it, but at the end of the day, it was created completely in the computer using that as reference. So our animators, you know, went through, blocked it out, and then we added layer and layer and layer on top of it. It's crazy, and you guys actually shot references with sand. Yeah. I mean, I always like to shoot reference, so. And what does that entail? It's basically we get the camera crew out there and the-- Just the day at the beach, it wasn't a day at the beach. Just the day at the beach, we'd play in the sand. Well, actually, I mean, you know, they build the sets and it gets led by the DP and we shoot it. And that was actually for like the birth when we're getting the bowl and the piles of sand. We definitely got a lot of real footage there. There's another shoot we did. So there is real sand footage in that sequence. I actually have to think and mentally go through shot by shot. How many shots made up that one sequence? Because it's one shot in the movie when you think of-- it's one shot as an audience member of the first shot. There's a two minute shot at the very start, which is just one shot, all computer generated. And then there's, I don't know, like five or six other shots, maybe even ten. It's kind of a blur right now. That were some combination of like, some of them I think we used background plates and just did a CG foreground. But at some point, like the lines kind of blur because philosophically I like to mix live action bam right next to CG and even within a shot, like crazy combinations. So there's no like rule of thumb, you know? And how much like on something like the subway sequence or some of the stuff you do with Green Goblin, how much of it do you get to direct, you know what I mean? Because Sam does his direct thing. Yeah. He's the director. But, you know, he takes things from storyboard artists. He takes things from the actors, at what point are you making shots as well and saying, you know, it'd be really cool if, you know, like the fight with Harry in this film, when they're in the air. You know, there's a lot of CGI in that. How much of it are you throwing ideas out and actually doing some of the choreography and some of the directing? You know, it's interesting because, you know, there's such a thin margin of air on this that it's like, I actually don't have the liberty to like go away and design a whole sequence and use a bunch of people to do that and bring it back and Sam says, I hate this. So, it's mostly like, it's mostly a pretty linear process where there's a script and I may talk about the script with Sam, but then he goes to a storyboard artist and previous artists and I make suggestions while they're working on it, but it's like, it's rare that I would like design a whole shot from scratch. You might add like a little flourish or something like that. Right. I did design a whole shot from scratch. It's like, it could just end up on the cutting room floor and there's, you know, thousands of dollars wasted, so. When you're sitting in a theater watching the film and like a flourish comes up, and the audience goes, "Oh, that was fucking cool. You know, do you ever go as my idea?" What are some of the things that you can say, you know, because it's a group project and there's a director to the film. If you can say like, what are some of the things that you're proud of contributing to like the Spider-Man movies, you know, little flourishes that are in there? Wow. Just badass ideas that you had. You know, it's so hard to come up with like individual ones. I don't know that I could, wow, I wasn't really ready for that kind of thing. No, I understand. I was like, off the top of my head, I would hate to like point out something and then, "Oh yeah, you know what, the store board artist actually went out of birth to that." You do like a rip off arts. Yeah. It's like, you know, it's like, there's certain things where it's like what in the bell tower where all the goos falling down. You know, it's like onset Spencer Cooker, we're there, and he's the animation director, and we were there like talking about like where, I mean, we stuck tape on Topher Grace's face with like fishing line, and we had the make up people like pulling the fishing line to like pull out their, it's like those kind of discussions on set while you're shooting this stuff. I mean, that's incredibly rewarding to me, just like to see that go through the process. So it's like at the end of the day. Were you just messing with Topher Grace at that point? No, wait, wait, you're sticking now, that's not the final shot? You see it in the final shot, so it's like- Absolutely, and then, but at what point were you like up to eight? My back in film school, because you got tape on a fishing line, and you're just trying to get his skin to pull, you know, you're just trying to get that pull so you can put a little bit of goo on there, and that's the old school that Sam Raimi comes from, and it's like the thing you got to know about Sam too is like anytime something's thrown at the actor on set, chances are Sam did it, like he loves to get behind camera and just throw his own debris, and I'll say to the first AD, you know, it's like, is there anybody here who could really like get these bricks thrown at our actor just right? Is there anyone in the first AD? He's like, "Well, yeah, Sam, why don't you do it?" It's as Sam goes in there and does it, and it's like, you know, that's like, Sam can push that, but I honestly, I mean, I can't push that, you know. Is he fun to work with? Yeah, he's great to work with, he's like, he keeps it funny all the time. It's like, you see his personality in his movies, like all those little like, you know, end jokes and kind of thing, and that's that stuff. Yeah, yeah. Now, a lot of people, you know, myself included, watch Spider-Man 3, and we think, "Oh man, like, you know, it's the third one in the series." There's that whole sequence, which there was in one computer graphic shot, where Peter turns bad, you know, and that gets a lot of criticism and- Oh, which one? The one where he's fighting- He's emo, he's walking down the street. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And this one just seemed like it just didn't reach the height of the first two. You know, people started saying, "Well, you know, they seem tired with it. They seem this or that." I myself saw the movie and I said, "Well, it's a little bit mixed, tonally." You know, how much of that do you guys look at and say, "Okay, maybe this is the end of the franchise. Maybe we should just call it a trilogy." And how much of that do you guys look at and say, "You know what? You should be kick-ass to come back and tell these guys not only because I don't see it on X3 level." You know, I don't see it on the level of Batman and Robin, where you either have to reinvent it or put it on the burn. I see that you guys could probably do another Spider-Man movie two years from now, have it released to three years from now, with the same crew, and so have that kind of energy. I think so. I mean, here's the thing. Sam is always trying to improve his movies and it's like, that was one of the great fantastic things that I was able to watch from the start of the movie to the end of the movie. He is always just trying to make it a better movie and it's like, you know, if it were up to him, he would have had another six months to just finally get everything nailed down exactly like he wanted it. Part of it is just, you know, the logistics of it is a business and you have to release here. And it's like, I just think it was an incredibly ambitious movie to take on like two of the biggest effects characters and get the stories to work. And I mean, I actually was amazed that Sam was able to pull that off like he did. So, I mean, I think there's like plenty of like character ways to go. I think there's like a huge, a huge roster of like, other cool villains to go with. Electroph? Yeah. I mean, the lizard would be fun. The lizard would be fun. I mean, you guys have... The lizard would be a vulture. There's like, there's black cat. There's like... Who's your favorite Spider-Man villain? Um, were you a big Spider-Man fan? Like growing up as a kid? I mean, you and I have known each other. Yeah. I know you're a big geek. Yeah. You know, I'm a huge geek. Yeah. You know. I mean, how much were you in the comic books before this? I mean, I was in the comic book since, I mean, since I was very little. I, I mean, I got into trouble and I mean, I remember vividly vivid experiences in the fourth grade. I mean, I remember the teacher. I remember the situation where it's like a friend brought in Spider-Man comic books as reading in the class for weeks on end and... This is obvious. You're wanting to get caught at that point. Yeah. I think, and I did get caught and it's like, I don't remember getting into that much trouble weirdly, but you know, I mean, that's when I started and I mean... It's because the guy next to you had a porno man. You know. In fourth grade, I don't remember. But yeah, so it's like, I'm like in the Secret Wars, you know, when he gets the black suit. Absolutely. Yeah. It's like that was a big deal, right? And it's like, I've fallen out of it a little bit like, you know, after high school, you know? But I mean, I still like, I see my son getting into it now and it's like it sparks that, you know, desire to like, I mean, I've got my old collection, like, hermetically sealed, you know. Absolutely. To give to my son when he turns. And he won't rip them off. Yeah. I mean, is that just one of your nightmares that you'll come home and it'll just be pieces of your comic books everywhere and you'll realize that he got into the stash? Right. It could be the green goblin and he gets into your stash. But I mean, I don't know that. No, I have to give him like the trainer comic books, the ones that he can tear and I don't care, right? Right. So. Right. The reprints and Marvel presents those things. Yeah. And what kind of, I mean, do you still read books? Do you still do video games? Do you still, what kind of stuff are you into as a geek? You know, it's like, it's kind of crazy just because working so much, it like, my geeking out as it work. And then let's like, when I'm not working out, it's like a lot about my family. But the things I do, it's like, I mean, I'm very into giant robot and I like the store and I like what they've got going on there in the magazine. I'm very into like photography and like kind of my thing is sushi, like I love sushi and I love photography. A lot of what I've done is like just take like photographic series of sushi chefs. So I mean, that's kind of, you can be that kind of geek. Yeah. It's okay. I'm a sushi geek. Yeah. I mean, do you have the giant robot type toys? Like all over the place? I don't, but it's like, I appreciate them and actually what I like a lot of the cultural stuff that they get into, like some of the music that they review and some of the movies, you know, like a lot of the Japanese movies I've gotten into watching, you know, like the Japanese horror movies. So. And I mean, Sam does some of those understand it, you know, he does things like the grudge and things like that. And you know, as a, would you ever be interested in taking on the directing yourself and doing a film as a director or are you having too much fun with the computer and the visual effects stuff? Yeah. You know, it's interesting because so many visual effects people, that is their goal and they do get into it. I mean, you know, it's a fine line at a certain point, but I see where that line is and I see how hard it is to go over that line. So it's not something that I'm really pushing for now. I mean, it asks me in 10 years, but right now, I mean, I just love the execution of visual effects, you know, and I would hate to like get too far away from that. So how did you start out? Like how, like some of the people that watch the show, they're, they're into the photo shop, they're into computer animation, they're artists, they're sketch artists, comic artists. How do you segue from being somebody in your bedroom on a computer sketch table? How do you segue that into a career? Like what was your first gig? Did you go to film school? Like what are some of the things you did? Yeah. I mean, I, in college, I, you know, I was interested in architecture and engineering and computer graphics and, you know, video games and comics, right? Well, what were some of your favorite video games? I mean, this is back and like, I'm going to just totally date myself, right? You can say Ultima, aren't you? Well, it's like Wizardry and like Apple II, Ultima. Oh, shit. Yeah. That gets there. It's like, was that it? Yeah. Those are on three and a half inch floppy, aren't they? Yeah. Well, no, I mean, they were like five. Those are five. Oh, wow. It's at least they weren't on like, you know, the cassette tape. Wow. And your first computer animations were done with Turtle. We had the point that-- Like the logo? The logo. Yeah. But I mean, I was into like the early Apple II stuff. So it's like, I mean, it was really hard for me to like give up my old system in college and get rid of it because it's taking up too much space, but it's like, you know, all the old, yeah, I mean, early, the early like Steve Jobs origins. It's like, you know, Wozniak, it's-- I was into that stuff, you know? That's cool. And did you know that you wanted to go into a computer? At what point did you say, okay, I would like to pursue a job and-- Well, that's the thing. It's like, I thought that stuff was so cool and I didn't see any way I could make a living doing it. I mean, and so I studied engineering and it's like, you know, there's so many engineering jobs in the world. Even now, compared to visual effects jobs, but at the time, it's like there were like, you know, maybe hundreds of people, and I don't even know exactly, but only hundreds of people in the world doing computer graphics and making a living off of it. So I went into engineering and I was doing engineering and I was like, you know, we're going with this. How do I talk about it? What? You talk about Mortal Kombat. You know I'm going with this. Okay. So I took classes, bottom line, I took classes at the American Film Institute, the UCLA Extension, got a really crappy demo reel together and-- Computer graphics. Yeah, it's like, that would be, I'd be embarrassed to look at it nowadays, but-- We're playing it right now. You can't track it down, I know where the bodies are buried, like, cut back like you're burning it in the, yeah. So, and basically, I got my foot in the door at a place called MotionWorks and I got in as system administrator and programmer of like a digital and campaign system, you know, where they like to line pencil drawings and convert it to like digital frame by frame. I think they used it like on page master. You were excited, right? From Golly. Oh, I was ecstatic. It was like-- I was like, I mean, they're doing this McKellie Culkin movie on page master. It's like Christopher Lloyd's in it, it's going to be great, it's going to make a billion dollars. It's like a movie that you go pay my-- Wait, one of our viewers on our forums at Geekscape.net, Geekscape.net, he wrote, "We're saying what, so your best bargain bin finds and this dude was bragging about how you found the page master for like $5 and we're like, wait, did they give you $5?" Well, that's, I mean, those were the movies that like the system I was working on actually was used on those and I came in like laid and ended up like just debugging some stuff on it but it was enough to just get me in the door. And what happened there is like I started just staying late and learning the animation software which at the time was Prisms which turned into Houdini which is used a lot in effects animation now and a couple animators quit and it's like they're going to hire some new people and I was like, wait, you know what, it's like I've done this stuff at night, here it is. Oh, you brought it? That'll agree. It's like I could do it and do my programming and do system administration so you don't have to hire somebody new, I'll do it all. And so they gave me a gig and that's where I got enough to do a couple like very like basic commercials and moral combat. Well it was one of those moral combat straight to video, computer animated. Yeah and I mean the thing at the time was combining 2D and 3D because like I mean beauty and the beast had done it in this giant ballroom sequence and you know everyone was catching on that it's like instead of just hand drawing everything you can do 3D and combine the two so that's what we did. Wow and then at one point do you start doing the work on Stuart Little and I mean you and John Dijkstra both worked on Stuart Little as well and did he get you the Spider-Man gig or did you guys both work on this roof? What happened is that I got a job at another company MetroLite and I got a real film credit for John Wu what was a broken arrow? Broken arrow. Yeah and I mean I was a big John Wu fan so it's like yeah you can't be, you can't have like gotten into film in the early 90s and not watched like The Killer. And so it's just like to be in the same room you know have my shot reviewed by him that was like, what shot was yours? Well there was in Broken Arrow there was some like underground explosions, just some wide shots. The end of the movie. You know the ground kind of rippled down and you know I just did like little like enhancement like just the smallest visual effect stuff on it but at the time for me is like you know I made it. Did he tell you any Van Dam stories from his time on Hard Target? Which I say to be his best American film. I love that film. Wow. Well I actually don't think it's great but as far as John Wu movies go I feel like Hard Target's is. You know actually that's America. I was just reacting because I think it's actually Bob Maroski the editor of Spider-Man edited that movie. Wow. I heard a Van Dam story and I know a guy who edited a couple movies for Van Dam, Lionheart and a couple of that and supposedly he would come in to the assistant editor at night and the assistant editor would be working and Van Dam would be like, take this put it there, take this put it there, take this put it there and then do this this this. And the assistant editor would get so many directions so at once he wouldn't remember any of it. And then Van Dam would leave for the night, go out and party and he'd come back in the morning drunk and be like, show it to me and the guy would play it for him and it would be stuff that the assistant editor put together and he'd be like, I'm a freaking genius, I'm a freaking genius, it's great and it's perfect. And I mean how much did you pick up from John Dreykstra, do you tell you any two block of stories? Because he worked on Star Wars. Yeah. He'd tell you anything. I mean how much did you pull out of his head? Wow how much could I really reveal? No, I mean he just tells me stories about how just crazy but crazy fun it was during the Star Wars days. Cause everybody was a Bohemian. Yeah, well they were just making everything up and they were shooting all day. You know I mean they were working 24 hours a day doing one thing during the day, one thing during the night and all everybody from the studio was always coming by like just checking to make sure that they'd actually have ten million dollar investment. Right. We got to make sure it returns. So now you're making stuff that's like what a three hundred million dollar bill? I don't even know. The first Star Wars was ten million dollars but for Fox it's huge. Yeah I mean in that day so it's like you know just the fact that like it's always down to the wire. No matter where you are it's always down to the wire and just I mean he I mean he lived through some crazy times. And that hasn't changed in your experience. You know it's like it's more professional nowadays than what he told us. You unionized. Yeah. You get overtime. Well yeah I mean it's like after you know ten years of like big mainstream teaching movies it's like people have figured out you know the artists who do the work are kind of the most important thing and it's like if you burn those people out. You can't do the movies so and it's like I mean people have experience so it's just like everything like the professionalism has gone up not I mean. So you're more of a professional geek now? Yeah. Advice to any of the listeners that want to get into computer motion graphics that's sort of thing. Yeah basically just know that you're going to have to do a lot of bad stuff before you do the good stuff and no offense to moral combat straight to video fans. No offense to fans of the page master. Yeah. Although you know I like Broken Arrow. Yeah I mean you know it's like I think there was some really great stuff done on that and my contribution to that you know and it was a couple like it was the better of my earlier work so I'm not actually bagging on that work I'm just saying it's like a lot of even tests I did for my demo reel and stuff it's like you have to just I mean you have to like go through layers and layers of just like learning what you're good at and what you're not good at you know so it's a good process. That's all it is. And so is there going to be a Spider-Man 4? I know about as much as you do really I mean the studio officially has said yes and the whole writer. Yeah. And we'll say would you love to come back if so. Yeah I'd do it given the opportunity I'd definitely do it I mean I may you know depending on the schedule I may go into another movie you know it's like who knows so I just like I have a lot of fun for seven years and sure I lost a lot of hair but it's like we're going to have a fight Stiltman you're like you know what call me about number five I'm not interested in Spider-Man versus Stiltman or the Terrible Tanker or you know yeah what of the lame is better just the Gibbon is back yeah well thanks so much for being with us man. Thanks a lot. You know good luck teaching your kid to Terrible Books but yeah you know we got tons of suggestions at Geekscape.net we're on the forums all the time if you guys have suggestions for books that you think Scott would love to introduce to his kid there's all sorts of stuff now and you guys can post them there thank you guys thank you so much. Sure yeah. You know it's fun it's fun to talk about this stuff with you and get to know that even if you're a geek you know a lot of geeks think that you know it's cool to be at home playing World of Warcraft all night and not have a job but you can segue your geek dumb into the professional world as evidence here right. That's right. You're successful. Love proof. Living proof of a professional geek man my life's a mess. Why don't you ask Laura straight from the Geekscape.net forums. P asks good manners are good grooming. Good manners good grooming can be taught. Share masks to clean sheets really seal the deal? Yes totally. Also calls them what it asks in the movie the thing do you think that Kurt Russell is a badass or is it only an escape from York. He's super badass in the thing he's even badass in the Elvis movie where they rob a bank. Jonathan asks would you ever leave me for big yanks? No he's got a baby in a girlfriend. See you next week everybody Mr. Penguin out. (singing) (music)