Director John Carpenter

In this episode of The Backlot we sit down with John Carpenter, director of horror film classics like "Halloween," "The Fog," and "Escape from New York."

–This 6 year old child with this. blank pale emotionless face and. The blackest eyes. The devils eyes. I realized that what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply.

Evil. You see what we’re talking about here is an organism that imitates other life forms and it imitates them perfectly. You people sit tight hold the fort and keep the home fires burning and if we’re not back by dawn call the president You see I take these glasses off.

She looks like a regular person doesn’t she. Put them back on. Formaldehyde face.

The president is dead you got that somebody’s had him for dinner.

Nothing scared off. Killed him. You can’t kill the boogie man.

We’re not getting out of here alive. But neither is that thing.

Death has come to your own little town. Sheriff.

You can either ignore it or you can help me to stop it.–

Eric: Hello and welcome to the Backlot. I’m Eric Conner senior instructor at New York Film Academy. This episode we bring you the man who gave us Michael Meyers Snake Plissken and an invisible Chevy Chase.

–Writer, director, composer, John Carpenter.

Eric: John Carpenter’s work covers a number of genres from the Sci-Fi romance of starman to the fantastical Big Trouble in Little China but he’s mostly considered a master of modern horror even if that was not his original plan.

John Carpenter: Well you have to understand that horror found me I didn’t find it. I got typecast into this. I got in this business to make Westerns Westerns died Westerns went away and horror found me with Halloween. What happens in Hollywood you get typecast. Oh he made that but let’s off him this it’s the same thing. They want you to do the same thing again and again and make money at it. But I made a career out of it. I’ve got to become John Carpenter. What’s wrong with that. I’m happy about it. My influences were science fiction and horror movies and westerns musicals everything. When I was growing up back in the 50s I loved movies and then I went to film school I got to watch the work of the American classic directors Orson Welles Howard Hawks John Ford and then world directors.

That’s where I really deepened my love for cinema

Eric: Mr Carpenter’s influences can be seen throughout his work including his 1976 thriller assault on Precinct 13 a spiritual homage to Howard Hawks as Rio Bravo.

–We’re out of time out of ammunition just like wells we’re out of luck and never had too much faith in anyone coming to my rescue. Maybe you’ve been associating with the wrong people I’ve been with policemen for five years. That’s enough to grow hair on a rock.

You’re going to get out of town like your boy here with you going can tell Burdett you got Wheeler you can tell him anybody else he sends he better pay him more cause they’re going to earn it.

You want that gun pick it up.

I wish you would.

Eric: Howard Hawks the thing from another world provided even more inspiration for Mr. Carpenter. He remade the film itself in 1982 but even before that. Shades of Hawk’s unstoppable boogie man can be found in Mr. Carpenter’s most famous film. Mr. Carpenter created the slasher genre with one film and teenagers have never been safe since.

–No reason no conscience no understanding and even the most rudimentary sense of life or death of good or evil right or wrong.

We had no clue we were just a bunch of kids.–

John Carpenter: Making a movie you know and make it an exploitation horror film back in those days. Indies were not arthouse films. They were really exploitation films action or horror or science fiction. They were little movies that a company could bicycle around the country from one city to another and they could actually make some money on it. No we had no idea nobody did. We were just having a good time making movies we were young had hair it was great.

Eric: Once his budgets became bigger so did his stress.

John Carpenter: The minute you move out of a small project that you control everything gets compounded if you write it and you direct it and maybe you produce it you hit up your friends and your family for the budget and you get something because you want to make a Hollywood movie or you want to make a feature film.

The minute that you start dealing with Hollywood or I say the movie business is the minute you start learning what its all about because people are putting up money to make money. So the pressure on you is to deliver some bucks for it. And I went to USC film school way back when they didn’t teach us how to deal with stress. They just assumed that you kind of bring that along with you. And nowadays when you guys get your first feature unless its a big hit. I worry for you because they don’t give you any time to mature as a filmmaker. Its one time and out its really ruthless these days. Every decision you make gets questioned unless you kind of maneuver your way through that and try to gouge out a space for yourself or make them afraid of you where they are afraid to ask you to do anything they’re afraid to come down on you. And that’s real hard to do it’s very tricky. Everybody faces this. And when you get into a cast member who wants to control your movie tell you what to do. Two weeks into a shoot because you can’t fire him because you’ve shot all of his friends and you’re —-.

— TBig Big time but it’s all fine. Don’t worry about a thing.

Somebody in this camp ain’t what he appears to be right now that maybe one or two of us by spring it could be all of us.

This thing doesn’t want to show itself it wants to hide inside an imitation you see when a man bleeds it’s just tissue. And blood from one of you things won’t obey when it’s attacked. It’ll try and survive. It’ll fight if it has to. But it’s vulnerable out in the open. If takes us over then it has no more enemies nobody left to kill it.

And then it’s won. —

Eric:30 years one reboot and even a videogame later the thing has withstood the test of time and is now viewed as a modern horror classic but it didn’t start out that way.

John Carpenter: The thing was not a commercial nor critical success when it was released it was released the summer of 82 when this same studio released E.T. and everybody wanted it up cry. They didn’t want a downbeat end of the world type deal. I think the fans turned on the film pretty severely because they thought I raped a classic the original Christian Nyby Howard Hawks picture. Anyway I didn’t recover from the disaster of that movie for quite a while. The movie’s can last. They can last beyond their initial box office release now you guys may not be aware of how many classic American films came out were bombs. Nobody liked them. And then they grew. You know. Citizen Kane wasn’t a great hit. Vertigo was condemned and was a failure. Upon its release it’s a wonderful life. That movie they show on Christmas and it tanked. Nobody wanted to see it. It was only later that it was shown on television and home video that it became popular.

So it’s really it’s really odd what happens.

Eric: The things use of practical effects continues to impress even in the modern age of green screens and CGI.

John Carpenter: In the case of the thing the creature was very ill defined in the screenplay and everybody is thinking nobody knew what to do with it. And there is an old fashioned idea I guess it goes back to Val Lewton that if you’re going to make a movie about a monster you never want to really see it. You want to keep it in the dark because it’s more effective that way.

At least that’s the thinking in kind of rich liberal middle brow Hollywood. And I made the mistake of trying something different which is to bring this thing out into the light and show it and show it going through its gyrations in front of you because of this story see the story’s about this creature this alien who can imitate anything and has throughout his travels or her travels in the universe. So when it starts imitating to survive it’s going to start looking like the other creatures that it’s imitated. And also he has no respect for the human form or body. So it’s going to rip apart. Which I thought was in the 1980s there was a big huge body culture going on in America at least maybe the world. There’s a lot of the Jane Fonda workout. Everybody got concerned about how they looked their bodies and how thin they were. It was huge. And I thought well this is a great time to be just kind of take that go —- you.

Let me let me disturb you on a basic level here about the way you look and about your body because really nobody gives a —-.

That was the thought Rob Bottin was my special effects coordinator and creator and he said it could look like anything. So let’s make stuff that looks amazing. So I had a whole raft of designers just designing art and it went from everything there was one scene it looks like a flower. Another thing of course this guy’s head comes off which is my favorite scene in the film. But we did it and the audiences went and hated it. And years later everybody is going ooh and aah but that’s the way it goes.

Eric: Though the tools have changed the process of making movies remains almost dogmatically the same.

John Carpenter: You know that’s one thing I wish had changed about the movie business that has never changed. It is a grind to make a film to make a big film. It’s a real grind in terms of technology of movie making that constantly changes and it’s a tool. You guys got to look at it like a tool.

It’s something that can further your vision of whatever you’re doing whether it’s a match shot or whether you’re imagining some creature that’s impossible. Or whether you’re imagining some world that you want to explore. The technology at your disposal now is unlike anything that’s ever been before it’s great you guys are lucky you’re also lucky that you can buy or rent or get a hold of inexpensive equipment and you could do it on digital and make your own damn movie. So we didn’t have that when I was young. And you guys can watch movies and you can watch old films you can watch them on DVD or you can watch them on whatever you can watch them on your telephone your iPhone. So you guys are really lucky and I’m envious of where you are and the time you’ve come along. But they’ve never improved they’ve never streamlined the motion picture technique. They still do it on a board. They still figure out the shooting days on a board whether it’s a virtual board or actually they make one with strips and an eighth of a page and half a page you shoot three and a half pages in a day. Can I get that done in the afternoon. They make you get up you know and show up at 7:00 in the morning when no one’s ready to do creative —- at 7:00 in the morning. I haven’t even had coffee at it. So it’s always the same. Then in television and some low budget films.

They start the workweek on Monday 7:00 in the morning and then during the week they move the call time back. So on Friday you’re shooting nights. They do that because they can cheat you because you don’t have the time on the weekend to catch up on your rest to start again Monday. It’s a grind. No one has fixed that no one has made it better. And I don’t understand why the Directors Guild try to show the studios that if you work three or four days a week you can get more done because the crew wouldn’t be so tired.

We’ve actually had deaths of people driving home after working 17 18 hour days they get into a car accident.

And they didn’t want to hear about because they’re geared to punish the filmmaker. No they’re not. But I’m saying that because. It’s awful. I don’t know maybe you guys love to get up in the morning. I never did. I was always so anyway. That would be if one of you could design a system of shooting a movie that wasn’t this same old factory setup that we’ve had since the beginning of studios and make it work and make it easier on people you’d make millions of dollars. OK. And if you could figure out how to light a scene quicker. This is what I hoped would digital came in. I hope that we wouldn’t have to spend all the time we do on film lighting a scene. Why can’t these cameraman come up with some simple techniques. Why do they have to have top light and backlight and sidelight.

What is all that —-.

That’s the other thing that really has it changed some of the lighting schemes. There was a big change in the 70s when they did overhead lighting on the Godfather movies. They just use tarps and shoot the bedsheets and stuff like that make it all come from overhead with shadows and faces. And nowadays you can work the contrast or the color or the exposure on the computer. So it’s a lot simpler that way and you can kind of get the effect of that.

But the basics of cinematography haven’t changed. One of John Carpenter’s most recognizable tools is his use of music. It only takes a few notes to know. You’re watching a John Carpenter film. He scored almost all his own movies with one notable exception.

The nature of music what it does for films is enhance the scene.

And for the thing the music was done by Ennio Morricone he’s a rather famous composer the spaghetti Westerns with Clint Eastwood and once upon a time in the West were scored by him he’s an incredible artist and composer. And we had a chance to work with him on this and he was just brilliant his job is to narrate and characterize and provide a sensuality to the film through music that’s his whole job. And anytime I do the music myself all I do is accentuate the scenes and make them work. Try to cover up the —- ups that I do as a director through music.

Eric: Directors will often talk lovingly or not so lovingly about their stars. Mr. Carpenter raved about one cast member in the thing who was both remarkably instinctual and dangerously volatile.

John Carpenter: The main dog in this was a wolf and they’re smarter. But they’re a little dangerous on the set. He would come in and we’d have minimal crew we’d have the operator focus puller myself and the dolly grip and the actors and for about 15 or 20 minutes he would wander around us and get used to our smell they said Don’t pet him don’t touch him don’t necessarily look at him. Just sit here don’t talk loud. Let him be with you a little bit and he did something in one shot I’ve never seen an animal do his job as actor was to come down a hallway look in a room on the left. Look in a room on the right. Look back in a room on the left stand there and then go in. And we put a camera right in front of it. We’re tracking with him down the hallway. And his job also is not to look at the camera.

And by God this dog is seven or eight times just like that. It was jaw dropped. Now he’s not with us anymore. Jeb is his name. He was a great great dog and a great actor. We didn’t use him in every shot we use stand in dogs but the trainer brought a unique performing animal to the movie. And had I not had that dog. The movie wouldn’t be as good. He was unbelievable. So yeah animals can be really tough. Horses don’t stop where you want them to they take a —- in the middle of the scene. You know if you watch westerns you see all sorts of things go on that you took for granted we were watching them but you see actors kind of they’re out of control. I watch a scene in the original True Grit nowadays where somebody is about to fire a shot and you see John Wayne reach up and grab the horse he’s on before the shots fired so he knows the horse is going to bolt. So he’s just thinking ahead just trying to control it for the shot kids. Boy there’s some great kid actors. They just come and do it. So you don’t have to really worry too much. Then there’s some that are troubled. It all depends man. But generally speaking you know you just don’t know with kids and animals. You get the right ones and you’re all set.

Eric: His praise for frequent leading man Kurt Russell was equally as effusive.

John Carpenter: He’s a great great performer and great actor. He’s you know he thinks he is old now. He doesn’t want to do any more action movies. He believes some strange things sometimes. I don’t know if you know about Kurt Russell. He is to the right of Attila the Hun I mean he is extreme right and I’m extreme left. But it’s love of cinema and love of the craft of movies that keeps us together. So it just shows you what the important things are in life. If you love something the movie making process in our case then you can get along. You never know. That’s one thing you say in this business. Never say never about anything. You just don’t know what’s going to happen. But no he’s been a friend for many years many years. Kurt’s a great guy. And he can imitate. Like the thing he could do an imitation of anybody. Any actor. He does an imitation of me. It’s unbelievable. He’s a born mimic. That’s one of the reasons he’s such a great actor is he mimics people it’s really astonishing.

Eric: Though he’s known for slicing and dicing his cast onscreen. Mr. Carpenter always shows his actors the utmost respect.

John Carpenter: I want to see several things at once I want to see first and foremost what do they look like you know in person. Is there a bad angle. And secondly the personality. Are they open are they guarded about being directed or authority figures. What do you think of the screenplay and the material. How much do they want to change. You’re trying to assess all these different things real quickly. But directors are all different in how they deal with casting Clint Eastwood for instance casts off of tapes that are submitted to him. He doesn’t read anybody. He gets a list a bunch of actors put their performances on tape and he pops it in the machine. That one not that one that one. That’s how he casts. So it’s different for everyone depends on what you’re comfortable with. I want to sit down with somebody and see if we can have a connection because that’s what acting directing is all about my job as a director is to be there to help you give the performance whatever you need as an actor. Is what my job is to provide if you need a bad father I can be mean all the time. If you need a good father I can be that a psychiatrist. It all depends on the person. That’s the whole secret of all of it is to everybody get comfortable. Get comfortable with the guy who’s directing you as an actor and the director getting comfortable that you have the ability to do it even if it means running afoul of the screenwriters.

From personal experience the two experiences that I’ve had with screenwriters. One was on big trouble little china and one was on this movie I made called Memoirs of an invisible man was my Chevy Chase movie. And both times my choice of leading lady the writer and writers were not very happy with it and they wanted to rewrite the scenes. And in the case of big trouble will China. Kim Cattrall came to me and said Please get this guy away from me because it makes me feel like —- he’s tearing me down. He doesn’t like me. He doesn’t think I can play this part. And everybody thought of Kim Cattrall at that time as sort of the girl from Porky’s who could do an orgasm. They didn’t take her seriously. She just a terrific comedienne just terrific. So I had to throwing him off the set and he was a friend of mine and then the same thing with Daryl Hannah. She comes to play this part and the writers start writing her like like some stupid girl and she says What are they doing. I signed on to do this and I just had to get rid of them. The writers want to be on the set. The writers guild wants the same contract that writers have in plays where you can’t change a word. And that’s what they’ve always wanted. And they hate directors hate directors and they hate people changing their words. And I don’t blame them I’m a writer I didn’t like it either but that’s the way it is. You know actors will come in and say no I’m going to change that.

They say whatever they want to.

So it’s a mixed thing. You know that famous story cautionary tale about a movie called I can’t remember the name of it altered states a movie I particularly like Paddy Chayefsky was the writer of that was on the set and just gave them hell because it wasn’t the way he wanted it and ended up taking his name off and changing it. And you get that sometimes it’s not pleasant. Well after we started working. If we get the actors say anything close to what you write you’re happy.

Eric: Almost all of Mr. Carpenter’s biggest films have been rebooted or remade or given a whole bunch of sequels which is not the least bit surprising to him.

John Carpenter: First of all remakes in general are popular now because of the amount of money a company has to spend advertising to get people in the theaters. And one way to cut through the clutter of advertising that’s out there is to come with a title in recent memory that they’ve heard of. So for instance all the horror remakes. The thinking is maybe you saw it with your brother when you were young on home video or you’ve seen it on television. We’re going to update it. So it has a built in awareness which is the number that they’re trying to reach to get the audience the customer out there aware that your movie is in the theaters. It’s called show business. It’s not called show art unless you’re very lucky or very successful like Jim Cameron can write his own movies and have final cut and get them in theaters. Unlike the rest of us peons. You have to compete with other films that are out there and one way of driving through to the audiences that your movie is going to be playing is to do a remake because the title is familiar. The title has awareness. I mean look at the number of movies that open every weekend and people it’s all a blur to them. Maybe I want to see the Adam Sandler movie but I don’t care about this other one. So are you trying to penetrate this advertising fog. And that’s one way of doing it but there are still really fine really creative movies being made now don’t subscribe to that idea. It’s all bull—-. There’s no even remakes.

They’ll just do a new take on something completely different. And that tends to be why they remake horror horror has been with cinema since the very beginning. It grew up part and parcel with cinema and it will always be with us it’s one of the most popular genres of all time and it’s an all purpose genre because it keeps changing every culture every few years it morphs it changes into something else it brings the sensibilities of the age in which it’s made. That’s what’s so fabulous. If you look at Frankenstein or Dracula or the Bride of Frankenstein the Karloff films. They are very much of the thirties and the depression their depression era movies they’re speaking to those audiences but if you look at modern horror films or speaking to you guys and they bring the sensibility that you’ve become used to seeing and you demand seeing in film

Eric: these remakes have enabled Mr. Carpenter to fulfill one of his lifelong dreams.

John Carpenter: My absolute favorite part of this business is that when somebody wants to remake one of my films what I do is if I’ve written it or originated the idea I extend my hand like this and they put a check right there. And I don’t have to do anything. My entire life I’ve been trying to figure out how to make money at doing nothing.

Eric: As a student raised on classic cinema John Carpenter is now the one influencing others. Escape from New York. The thing Halloween and his other films continue to resonate with audiences and inspire filmmakers even decades after they first hit the big screen. John Carpenter has truly earned the title master of horror. This episode was written by me. Eric Conner edited and mixed by Kristian Hayden produced by David Andrew Nelson Kristian Hayden and and myself executive produced by Jean Sherlock. Dan Mackler and Tova Laiter associate produced by Vinny Sisson big special thanks goes out to Sajja Johnson Chris Devane and the staff and crew who made this possible. This is a production of New York film Academy’s media content department and always magical Los Angeles. To learn more about our programs check us out at nyfa.edu. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes.

Director J. A. Bayona

In this episode, we sit down with J. A. Bayona, director of The Orphanage, The Impossible, and most recently, Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom. The director discusses the challenges he faced in filming the disaster movie, The Impossible, and trying to convey the devastation of the 2004 tsunami.

Eric: Hi I’m Eric Conner senior instructor at New York Film Academy. And in this episode, we bring you the director of The Orphanage, A Monster Calls, and most recently a little film called Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, J.A. Bayona.

J. A. Bayona: I mean for me everything comes from my childhood. The first memory in my life is a shot from Superman. So that tells you a lot about me. I don’t have a memory where I was deciding I want to be a filmmaker. I want to be a director it was always there.

Eric: Before directing. T-Rexes and raptors Mr. Bayona helmed the gut-wrenching drama The Impossible. It’s based on one family’s story of survival during the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. After screening the film for our students Mr. Bayona focused much of his conversation on this remarkable and powerful film. So you might want to familiarize yourself with it before listening.

— Do you know the most scary bit for me? – When the water hit.

If another wave catches us down here we will die.

The scariest part, when I came up and I was all on my own.

I won’t stop looking until I find them I’ll look in all the hospitals and I’ll look in all the shelters I will find them. I promise you that. —

Eric: Mr. Bayona’s story is fascinating tracing how he went from film school student to eventually helming a billion dollar grossing film. Though he admits he actually learned a lot more as a teacher.

J. A. Bayona: I’ve been a student in film school for four years and then I was six years more teaching. I learned much more teaching then as a student, as a student I spent too much time on the bar. You learn a lot of things on the bar. I mean but the truth is that I really learned a lot in teaching probably because it’s kind of like you need to be thinking all the time about why are you doing what you are. What are you doing? And as a director I never – I always follow my instinct when choosing the script in working the script and working with the actors. For me, it’s all about instinct. This is how you really find your voice and there’s a lot of, also of intellectualization after that. But the first thing is instinct. What was the question.

Eric:  Mr. Bayona’s instinct and talent helped quickly launch his career as a music video and commercial director. Meanwhile, he continued his film education the same way a lot of us do by watching DVD and their extras.

J. A. Bayona: When I finished school I immediately started to work in commercial and music videos and it was me with all these people in the bar, working doing music videos. And the truth is that we had a great school in there because we do everything ourselves. So I learned a lot of visual effects in working in commercials and music videos. So when I got to the moment of doing this film I was very involved in the preparation and also I used to watch a lot of extras on DVD so you can more or less have a sense of how does it work. Watching that I think it’s very useful to know how it works the Photoshop you know because when you work in post-production everything is made on layers also. So at the end it’s a question of having this knowledge of how could a shot be composed in layers. And also I really like the fact of using as much real as possible. The way James Cameron always says he does so I think one good trick is to use all the time different techniques. Don’t rely only in CGI or in miniatures. So there is a moment where the eyes gets confused and the audience doesn’t know what they’re watching. And I think that’s very interesting.

Eric: In 2007 J.A. Bayona directed chilling Spanish language horror film The Orphanage produced by the legendary Guillermo Del Toro. It’s terrifying and you should watch it. You know if you’re not too scared. The Orphanage went on to become one of Spain’s biggest blockbusters which meant Mr Bayona that his pick of the litter from more horror films but he didn’t want to be pigeonholed.

J. A. Bayona: After I finish The Orphanage I was offered all the. Horror remakes and sequels you could imagine. But you need to find something exciting and sometimes and not sometimes but very often, you need to find something different. I mean this is why even though I I I feel that Impossible is very close to the orphanage it doesn’t have nothing to do at the same time. So so you need to find something new something challenging. I would love to do another horror movie for example but I’m kind of sometimes – you don’t find enough excitement in doing another horror movie so you really need to, I don’t know, I mean I don’t like to think about genre, for example, what genre would you like to work? You go to your agent tells you, what genre would you like to do? I don’t know. I mean I don’t think about genre I mean for me a film is about the story and especially what lies beyond the story and what lies behind the story. It’s always you you need to find yourself in there. I mean I’m kind of like Polanski. He – you can notice that he is a film lover because if you take a look at his filmography he can do a pirate movie a horror movie drama from the Holocaust, I mean he can do everything. I mean he could do a comedy. I mean he loves movies and he likes to tell the stories from from his point of view and this is what I’m looking for.

Eric: The success of The Orphanage eventually enabled Mr. Bayona to direct his 2012 follow up feature The Impossible.

J. A. Bayona: I was very lucky the fact that The Orphanage was a huge success in Spain it was the biggest Spanish film ever. In Spanish. So so that helped me in having the trust of the producers in in doing this film. I remember. I was working on a film with also, with Sergio. It didn’t I mean I don’t know why but at the end we we it was a director doing that after work been working on a script for nine months. So the day after the story appeared by coincidence and producer heard the story in a radio show and she came to me and she tried to explain, “tries” because she couldn’t get to the end she was too emotional and I found myself exactly the same. So I realized that there was something very brutal and primal and that talks about something that goes beyond the fact of the tsunami or the context of the tsunami. And I wanted to explore what was that because it definitely was making this story something that goes beyond the context to make it something more universal and I wanted to figure it out what was that and then we had the script ready. We were working on the script for maybe. Yeah, nine months six-nine months. And we went to the actors and they loved it. They loved the script they loved The Orphanage so everything happened very easily surprisingly.

Eric: Even a movie like The Impossible with its built-in real life drama needs stars to get off the ground. Fortunately, Mr. Bayona was able to cast the talented Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor.

J. A. Bayona: I always was a huge fan of Naomi and Ewan and it’s a question of instinct and I could see them doing these characters probably because I see them not as Hollywood actors because they’ve been doing lots of different stuff with European movies independent movies. So I felt them very close to me. And I think that Naomi is very good in portraying dark sides of life. She’s very good at getting close to a tragic sense of storytelling. And I think Ewan’s is a guy who is very easy to get a sense of empathy and intimacy with with him. So I felt them right. The main challenge was to work in a different language. I mean I talk English now better than before but it’s not my first language. So so that was definitely the main challenge. And I mean right now even doing Q&As you want to talk about life and death and you find yourself having some problems in going into specifics, so can you imagine how I felt in the set with the actors sometimes? But the truth is that we had a very good relationship. We trust a lot to each other from the very beginning I wanted to have a long time of rehearsals and we created a strong bond there and it went really well in fact because Ewan had to shoot another movie. He was shooting Salmon Fishing in Yemen. So he came I was surprised. I thought people in Hollywood they do more rehearsal than what they do really. I mean to to talk to the agents about having a time for rehearsals. I was surprised about that because it seems that they didn’t rehearse that much. I mean I’m talking about my experience so I really maybe I’m saying that and I don’t know but probably every director is different. I know that Naomi has been working with directors where she did a lot of rehearsals but I was surprised how tough it was to find time to do rehearsals. But the truth is that with Naomi we spent three weeks – with Naomi and Tom doing rehearsals with Ewan we had the chance of working some days before the shooting of the Salmon Fishing. After finishing the Salmon Fishing he came join us and we were doing rehearsal for an extra week so we had a good preparation.

Eric: The Impossible is not your average disaster film. The film focuses not only on the tsunami’s deadly destruction but the humans who banded together to survive. So this story needed to rely on more than special effects alone.

J. A. Bayona: First of all you need to choose the best actor possible and also the one who fits in the characters. So the cast is a very important part in creating the character in creating the performance in this film. I remember there was a lot of work in the set to get to this level of exhaustion. So I remember there was a moment that I didn’t cut between takes. Especially because you need to waste so much time between takes. You realize that you’re not helping the actors that they they are loosing the moment. So even though we’re shooting on film I was all the time shooting take after take with no pauses in the middle. So I remember instead of saying cut, going back to first position all the time. It’s a very interesting story because as a filmmaker I realized that you never had a thought of what are they doing. I mean because these characters they didn’t have time to stop and think about that. So there is no moment in the story where they stop and think about what is happening except for the moment where you can see this old lady in the mountains with the kid, Geraldine Chaplin. She really has some thoughts about life and death in that moment.

— You like looking at stars don’t you. Some of those stars have been burned out for a long long time.

How can you tell which one’s are dead and which ones are not?

Oh you can’t. It’s impossible. It’s a beautiful mystery isn’t it? —

J. A. Bayona: But the rest of the film it’s not. There’s not a pause. It’s all about getting a sense of urgency but we talk a lot with the actors about the moments about what was the meaning every specific situation. For example, I’ll tell you that I had these emails very long email from Maria the real Maria telling me about the connection that she had with this old Thai man who rescues her. And even in that moment there were no lines. There were no dialogues it was just about this man dragging her in the muck. So I got to the set that day thinking all the time how can I do that? I mean I – I don’t have space in there. I mean I don’t have dialogues. I was thinking all day about that and right before lunch I decided to shoot that shot of Naomi’s eyes and I came to her and I, of course, she read the four pages of the email and I found a moment, ten minutes before we stop shooting that day to prepare the shot so we put the camera on her and I really like to work with music on the set all the time because it helps not just the actors but the whole crew to get into the mood. So I remember I put the camera on her eyes and it was a long piece of music around seven minutes. So we were shooting her eyes for seven minutes with this music that goes higher and higher and higher. And there was a moment that Naomi’s eyes were going to explode from her camera. She knew what she was doing, she knew the meaning of that scene because she read that four-page email. So putting them together the shot of the old Thai man and Naomi’s eyes everything was there.

Eric: Before he became our newest web-slinger and joined the Avengers. Tom Holland came to international acclaim playing Naomi Watt’s 13-year-old son. To be honest I am still baffled how he did not get an Oscar nomination for this film. Mr. Bayona explained how the future Spider-Man showed a maturity well beyond his years.

J. A. Bayona: I would never consider Tom Holland as a child actor. Because he even though he was 13 when we were shooting the film. He was already working in West London playing Billy Elliot for three years. So he was the central piece of a stage play with 100 actors more so. So he had a strong sense of responsibility. So I treat him exactly the same than Naomi or Ewan for me it was like working with an adult. And he’s an extraordinary actor extraordinary. So I never treat him as a kid. And talking about working with kids, I think you need to find a balance between create a sense of responsibility in them because they’re working so going to a set is going to school. So I treat them like the teacher. I mean they need to behave, they need to understand they have their responsibilities but at the same time you need to make them enjoy all the time because they’re kids so if they get bored. It’s a problem. So I mean they could lose focus on the scene or so. So it’s a balance of make them enjoy at the same time being responsible. Also there was a huge commitment from the actors I mean from the rehearsals we set the tone of the film and it was clear that we had a responsibility in telling the story of not just this family but all the people who was there. So we felt that not just me but the crew and the actors. We shot exactly in the same places where this story happened in the same pool, in the same hospital in the same hotel. I mean and we were living everyday with the Thai crew, dealing with them, knowing stories from survivors who were extras in the set or people who we were talking everyday. When you finished shooting you go to a restaurant and the owner has a story about the tsunami and you want to know that they want to tell you. And so there is a moment that you’re very surrounded by reality and that gives you a strong sense of responsibility.

Eric: Considering this film was based on the all too real events surrounding the tsunami Mr. Bayona felt that much more pressure to ensure the movie was accurate. During production, he collaborated closely with Maria Belón the brave woman whose family was the inspiration for the impossible.

J. A. Bayona: From the moment I knew I needed I was going to do a film about the tsunami of course. You. Tried to get in contact with as much people as possible. So we met some people in Europe and then we went to Thailand we met some people in there. There’s a lot of stories on the Internet also. And of course we work very close with the family especially with Maria she worked with Sergio very close in the script. And at the end I mean I was telling about the authority of doing the film I mean you need to feel the Authority I found the authority not in things related to the tragedy but in related in human nature. I mean I felt how emotional it was for me how these people found their dignity in those moments and how important was the legacy between the mother and the kid. If you think about The Orphanage it’s also a story about a mother and a kid in extreme context. I mean so this is where I found the authority. This is why I say that the film goes beyond the context of the tragedy to talk in a more universal way but the truth is that at the end you’re doing a portrait of what it was to be there. So we met a lot of people and wanted to create a big picture of what was the experience of being a foreigner in there. And also we wanted to tell a story from all the points of view but we wanted to be very attached to the point of view of the family because it’s the kind of – I like to work the stories from the point of view of one character in this movie was five characters but it’s for me it’s like one character. But these people had to be in contact with the rest of the people I remember the first conversation we had with Maria. It was obvious that this has to be the story of this family but also many many people who was there. Also the Thai people from the very beginning I never wanted to separate Thai people from foreign people. This is not a film about nationalities. This is why we didn’t say where the family is coming from. They are coming from the outside and when they went back home they feel that the world has changed they don’t feel secure anymore but we don’t talk about nationalities so so I never wanted to portray the Thai people as only as victims and one of the things I got in talking to survivors and talking to people who lost people there is that no matter if they lose people or not no matter if they survive all the people were talking about the Thai people with wonderful words. So I want them to portray also especially from the point of view of the gratitude of the people who was there because this was a movie made from the point of view of someone from the outside who goes there. So all these arguments all these things you find in talking to the people who was there talking to the family especially. Talking to a lot of Thai people, volunteers. Yeah that’s it.

Eric: He also found inspiration in documentary and home video footage of the events though not always in the ways he expected.

J. A. Bayona: I remember watching a documentary called tsunami caught on camera and in fact there were a couple of moments in that documentary that we share on this script. I mean we had these moments in the script so I was surprised when I. When I saw the documentary. And it’s all based on real footage and I was surprised to see those moments in real footage in that documentary. There was a moment in the documentary where you can see kids opening their Christmas presents and if you have the face of a kid really opening a present and you can catch that moment. I mean the sense of empathy with just one shot is immediate.

— It’s Christmas. It’s Christmas morning.–

J. A. Bayona: So we prepared that scene like a it was real footage. So we did it for real. We didn’t tell the kids that the presents were there. So they were surprised they found the presents and you can see the faces of the kids and you create a sense of intimacy and empathy.

Eric: Mr. Bayona gives much of the credit for the film to its writer Sergio Sanchez who also collaborated with him on The Orphanage.

J. A. Bayona: Sergio is a brilliant screenwriter I mean you can you can feel reading his lines. I mean it’s not just the description of what is happening it’s he’s also a filmmaker he has shot a couple of short films and some from for Jovito. So he really is able to capture emotion when he’s writing. And that’s very helpful not just. For me but also of course for the actors. The truth is that he was a very very emotional story from the very beginning. As I told you the first time. I was telling the story to my friends there were moments that had to stop because I was overwhelmed by emotion. And I wanted to figure out where that was coming from. It’s a disaster movie. I mean you can call it a disaster movie. It’s a film that talks about survival in an unconventional way. It’s not just about if you live or you die. There’s a lot of suffering also in survival. I mean there’s a reality of emotion. I like the fact that that you tell the story from the point of view of a foreign family. So it talks not just about a survival story it talks about this kind of like a coming of age story not just for Lucas, the character played by Tom Holland, but but for the whole family because it tells about the ending of a world of a world of innocence for world of materialistic things that they don’t use they don’t have a use anymore. I mean I like the fact at the end how you can see this guy from insurance company appears this guy who looks like a guy from another planet, wearing a suit.

— You have nothing to worry about now.–

J. A. Bayona: This guy represents the real world for them but the world is not the same anymore for them. And I thought that that was very interesting. And of course I am a foreigner in Thailand so it was the most honest way to approach to the tragedy also. And I liked the fact that the heroism in the story in the characters doesn’t rely in what they do for survive I mean the heroism relies in what they do for the other ones. There is a moment in the story where the mother who was a doctor she knew that she was bleeding to death but even though that she wanted to go and help this little boy that was asking for help.

— Wait. Did you hear that. There’s nothing we can do wait we are almost there we have to get to safety. No we have to help that boy. —

J. A. Bayona: So she was choosing in that moment what might be the last act in her life. I mean if you talk about life in story that is a moment you realise that you can not control life but you can control your own decisions. And what this woman was doing was choosing her last act. And she chose a lesson of what was the right thing to do. So the heroism relies not in what they do for survival but what they do for keep their dignity as human beings. And I thought that was very emotional.

Eric: On a technical scale, this movie had its work cut out for it. It needed to convince us that we were seeing the same tsunami that we all witnessed on TV back in 2004. You throw in working with young actors filming on water and a multilingual crew, it’s no wonder this movie was called The Impossible.

J. A. Bayona: Everything looks like impossible when we started to work on this in fact the title was kind of like a joke at the beginning. We were saying we are going to do the impossible because everything. I mean we were dealing with kids very young kids we were dealing with water. In a shooting in another country in another language with Hollywood stars. I mean everything felt like challenging. The logistics were very difficult. I mean to go everyday to the set and to have all the people in there it was an epic shooting. I mean there was thousands of extras. There was 100 people that fly to Thailand from the crew and there was a next. There was 100 people more from the Thai crew. So everything was kind of difficult. So I don’t know probably the difficult thing was to put all the pieces together especially as a director to balance the emotions in the story. I mean first of all to be close to the people who was there, trying to be respectful and then to balance. I mean it was a very emotional shooting just be there every moment. We don’t have a limit and then we measure all these emotions in the editing room. The truth is that it was very challenging because the emotions doesn’t work in a conventional way in a situation like that. I mean you can see in that scene when Ewan McGregor in the bus station you can see how the guy goes from zero to 100. That’s the way emotions work.

— Maria and Lucas are not here the ocean came and swept everyone away. —

J. A. Bayona: You can see the moment when the kids come together and it’s pure joy. I remember talking to Lucas and he was telling me to cry was a privilege. We didn’t have time to cry and we cried when we had a moment of release. So for him, he was telling me the moment I met my brothers it was the happiest moment in my life. It’s very simple. There’s no more explanation. And the whole idea of the film was to create an emotional journey in the audience, to put them into a theater and to send them back home with no explanation because this is what these people lived. These people they went to Thailand. They were expecting to have a happy holidays. What they what they had was a horrible experience and then at the end someone put them into a empty plane and send them back home with no explanation. So I wanted to create the same feeling in the audience to to live the moments of anguish the moments of fear, the moments of relief, of happiness, of joy. Of course not at the same level but try to make an emotional journey in the audience and then send them back home with no explanation so that so you leave the audience a chance of having their own interpretation on the story.

Eric:  J.A. Bayona’s done some truly magical work taming raptors in Jurassic World bringing a talking tree to life in A Monster Calls and capturing the real-life horrors of a tsunami. But his initial inspiration as a storyteller like most of ours came from his own life.

J. A. Bayona: I think my childhood I mean it’s your own personality. I mean you need to follow that and then you start to meet people you go to film school you have a lot of references. I mean you like Speilberg movies for example but there is a moment that that is only useful to put your personality. And it’s a question of instinct it’s not, it’s not a plan. Prepare. I mean it’s just follow your instinct follow what moves you. What makes you laugh. Truffaut used to say that movies are a mix of what you would like to live when you had lived and what would you be scared of living. I mean for me everything comes from my childhood. The first memory in my life is a shot from Superman so that tells you a lot about me. I mean it’s I don’t have a memory where I was deciding I want to be a filmmaker I want to be a director. I don’t have that memory. It was always there. But there is a moment that that you. Use that. All the references all your knowledge that you had in school. To just follow your instinct and this is where you find your voice. This is very important. I remember when I was a teacher at film school the first thing I used to say to students was listen to everybody and don’t listen to anybody. I mean it’s like just follow your instinct just try to get as much information as possible. And then follow your instinct. This is for me what storytelling is about when you want to. Tell a story from your point of view.

Eric: We want to thank J.A. Bayona for making the impossible possible and sharing his film and his experiences with our students. And thanks to all of you for listening. This episode was based on the Q&A moderated and produced by Tova Laiter to watch the full interview or to see our other Q&A’s. Check out our youtube channel at YouTube.com/NewYorkFilmAcademy. This episode was written by me Eric Conner; edited and mixed by Kristian Hayden. Our creative director is David Andrew Nelson who also produced this episode with Kristian Hayden and myself. Executive produced by Tova Laiter, Jean Sherlock, and Dan Mackler. A special thanks to our events department Sajja Johnson and the staff and crew who made this possible to learn more about our programs. Check us out at nyfa.edu. Be sure to subscribe on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. See you next time.