Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

When you want somebody to understand the things that

have come with the ideas, you do it by talking or like a show

and tell.

You want them to get on the same road that you're on.

And that road is based on the ideas.

So every department, you need to get with them

and describe to them with words what

it is that you're after to make those ideas come true.

So if that's a production design,

you talk about furniture.

And you talk about rooms, windows, light.

You talk about what things go in the place

and how it goes and the feeling it is that-- the time.

Is it the 1940s, the '50s, is it, you know,

completely outside of any of that like science fiction

or some kind of strange place?

And you describe it to them.

And then they understand it.

And they might bring drawings.

And then you say, well, that's just about right.

But this thing is not quite right and this

and this and this.

And then they finally get going down the same road.

Same way with every department.

Same way with every actor.

You just keep going till we're all going down the same road.

It's not because I want them to be, you know, I want it.

It's because the ideas want to be that way.

When you get an idea, you see it.

So you know what it looks like.

And so if you could start building and keep

checking the idea, theoretically you

could build exactly what's in your head what

the idea looks like.

In this world, you can build some sets.

But you could also find locations.

And locations could be very close to what's in your head

and fill the bill, but not only that, sometimes, locations

will give you more gifts, more ideas,

because, oh, look at that, and oh, that could work then.

And ideas flow from those.

It's really strange.

A set would just be exactly what's

in their mind based on the idea.

But locations can sometimes be even more than that.

These are oil tanks that once existed underneath the Beverly

Center.

And this set of oil tanks had a donut of earth

that went around it.

So you couldn't really see it from the street.

The donut of earth was there in case one of the tanks burst,

this wall of earth around would hold the oil from going,

you know, too far away.

And so you go up and down into this world.

It's absolutely magical.

This here is high art.

This is one of the most beautiful places on earth,

and it's now gone.

I don't know how I found it.

But it was a lucky day.

I do drawings.

But they're very poor little drawings.

I do drawings to show where the furniture is

and where the people will be moving.

But while I'm doing the drawings,

I'm also talking to them about different things.

So they could look at the drawing.

And not much is there.

But if they remember the words, then they can go and, you know,

do the thing.

Well, I'll show you a pathetic thing.

OK, so here's the couch.

And here's the-- and then she'd be sitting right here.

And then she's going to get up and go to the window.

You've got to have that window here.

And then she's going to pull the curtain back.

You've got to have curtains there.

And this is like an old, old, you know, rundown place.

So it's going to have mopboard.

It's going to be, you know, like so, a standing lamp here.

And then, you know, it's going to look out.

And then Pete will come in here.

And so behind Pete, we got this side, this door.

It's an oval top thing.

And this is old wallpaper along in here.

You come in.

And she turns.

And she sees that he's got a gun.

And so he's here like this and points his gun at her.

She didn't see him come in.

If you can remember the words, if you'd looked at it later,

you'd say what the hell?

On Dune, Tony Masters was the production designer,

great, great, great, great British production designer.

I went for a boat ride one night in Venice, Italy.

And these strange mansions were coming out of the black water.

And it just was like another world.

And some of this, not all of it, but some Italian design,

I started talking to Tony about these things.

And that was the angle on a lot of the sets that he designed

and some of the costumes and some of the props.

When it's not of this world, it could be anything.

But it needs to be something.

So you get an idea of what that something is.

And then you build that.

In this case, it was a fleshy grasshopper that was the idea.

You look at a grasshopper and make it flesh.

And then you get pretty close.

Carlo Rambaldi build it.

He built ET.

And the thing, a lot of artists, they build themselves.

To me, the Guild navigator and ET, both of them

look like Carlo Rambaldi.

We have just folded space from Ix.

Jack Fisk is my best friend.

I met Jack when we were in the ninth grade.

First thing I ever told Jack was a lie.

He said what grade are you in?

I said I'm in the 10th grade.

[LAUGHTER] We became great friends because out of--

I don't know how many--

4,000 people in our high school, we were, you know, two of a few

that wanted to become painters.

And so we had four different studios

that we worked in during high school

and then ended up together in Philadelphia

going to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

And one of my four wives was Jack's sister Mary.

So Jack is family and my best friend.

And we share this, you know, living the art life thing,

which is super important.

We worked together on Mulholland Drive.

And Jack became a great production designer.

And so he was production designer on Mulholland Drive

and on The Straight Story.

And his wife Sissy was in The Straight Story.

There is very little room to move in a way

unless they get an-- give you an idea that you say,

oh, that would be incredible.

And, you know, that can happen.

Or they fulfill the idea so beautifully, you just

can't imagine it being any better.

That was the case with Jack for sure.

And so-- but it would be wrong to say, Jack,

you do whatever you want.

And this department, you guys, bring

me any kind of props you want.

And you guys, bring me those clothes.

Anything goes with me.

This thing's not going to hold together.

It's not a compromise.

And it's not exactly a mutual collaboration.

And it's not an ego trip for the director.

It's to stay true to the ideas.

Why wouldn't you want that to be the thing?

Why would you want a whole bunch of unrelated things to?

And the thing isn't going to hold together.

When you're location scouting, absolutely you're

looking for locations that fit the idea that you

saw in your mind.

And before you go out looking, you see many photographs.

So the photographs that hold promise,

then you have to go see the actual location

and see if it fits the idea.

I can tell you know, pretty quick, you know,

if it's going to work or not.

If the idea says it's this way, you

try to find the thing that fits the idea.

And you know, you see a thing like in the case

of Pete Dayton's house in Lost Highway,

their driveway was on the left.

The door was there.

The living room, you enter into.

On the right is a hallway that goes down to the bedrooms.

And the kitchen is over here.

Because the idea when you see it,

movements are all there in the idea.

And so you're trying to get the location so it, you know,

it flow like it does in the idea.

Cori is the script supervisor.

Studying her face, her face is very, very beautiful.

So we get to this location.

And I guess, maybe I saw that balcony up there.

I don't know what triggered it.

But I said, Cori, come over here.

And I just started looking at her face.

And she said, what is it?

I said, I want you to be in this.

And she said, no, no, I don't want to do it.

And I said, Cori, you know.

And then I got the costume designer

and tried to talk about this dress and all this stuff.

Pretty soon, Cori came out.

And she was just beautiful.

And there she was as the last line in the film.

No, it's just the idea popped in.

How can you take credit for these things?

It just happens.

Silencio.

Patty Norris was production designer.

And she came to me and she said, David, they

want to tear this cabin set down.

I'm coming to you to make sure you're finished with it

and would take it down.

And I said, well, let me think about that.

Don't take it down.

And but she started this thing going.

And I went over to Gary D'Amico's trailer.

And Gary is special effects.

And I say, Gary, could you blow up that cabin?

So Gary went to work.

I told Patty, we're going to blow it up.

And so not only are we going to blow it up,

but we're going to shoot it in reverse.

And what was even more beautiful,

since Gary didn't have the things he would have used,

he came up with these balloons of gasoline and other things

that he had.

And it was a soft explosion.

It was soft and different than it would have been.

The wind and dust and the soft explosion, it was so beautiful.

I think we had three cameras on it.

And it was just a magical, magical thing.

And it came out of, do you want it torn down or not?

It's like along the way, ideas can come.

And you say, oh, that is so necessary.

It changed the thing.

You know, when you have that thing going,

it's a magical place.

It feeds into the mystery of everything.

And it gives a feeling.

It gives a feeling and gives a thinking.

And it's just-- was just incredible thing that

came along.

James.

They're looking for you.

I'm gonna talk to them.

There's many stories connected to that particular scene

right there.

It was so cold, I went to this outdoor sporting store

and got clothes.

And the guy said, these clothes, you

could be warm at the North Pole.

I was freezing in those same clothes that night.

It worked-- the cold worked into the bones.

We were shooting this scene.

And it came time to move in to the closeups.

And we got in there.

Both James and Donna were shaking, they were so cold.

And snot was coming under their nose.

Their noses were bright red.

And it would have been a joke to try to make this thing there

at night with that weather.

So we pulled the plug and went home.

The next day, we woke up.

There was two feet of snow on the ground.

So all the things were supposed to do that day were out of,

you know, we couldn't do them.

And then I think it was probably Patty had the idea, come

to my workplace.

And on the second floor up the ramp is this concrete area.

We open up all the windows.

Bring in some trees.

And we can shoot those close-ups right there.

It'll be cold enough to see their breath.

And it will be beautiful.

And that's exactly what we did, indoors, daytime, against two

cut down trees.