Original subtitles

hello everyone my name is Adam Wingard

and I'm the director of this movie

and I'm so excited to finally be at this point

where I'm sitting in a room

comfortable and recording the audio commentary um

I'm just gonna jump right in

we we just released the trailer a couple weeks ago

and that's been a real blast to see

you know the finally

you know be able to show people

you know anything in the movie

this opening actually um

I'm gonna probably talking about stuff like this

quite a bit throughout the movie uh

you know

about how there's alternate versions of the film

I mean uh

you know this was not the original opening of the film

it was something that came up

you know just as we were uh

deep into production um

uh originally it started with

you know Gia here

uh out in the jungle

so this was all the same but actually

starting with Kong as a character

was something that we really didn't have quite

the confidence to do until um

much later on um

you know once we really

were able to see the monsters as characters and

you know being able to

you know fully have the confidence of saying

you know what like

we can treat Kong just like another human character

we can point the camera at them and you know

but that was an evolving process

that shot right there I should give credit

to Josh Schaefer he's the editor

and when we were on production in Australia

he suggested that we throw something

in that little montage of Gia running around to try to

uh to imply that there's something more afoot

technologically uh

within this opening um

and actually the thing that's in the tree back there

that she runs past

the little piece of technology is actually part of the

the heave you can see it

it's it's

it's a little thing on the front of the heavecraft

and we we just had it

and we didn't have any money for anything else

so we just took it off and threw it in a tree

and it looks like something

it looks like a projector or something like that

um

yeah I love this this

this shot right here was one of those kind of right

right from the storyboard to the screen type of shots

Richard Bennett who

is one of my favorite storyboard artists of all time

he works with Christopher Nolan all the time

um he

he came up with that idea of the uh this

the the staff that he's throwing in the air

being sort of like a polo launch

you know shot and

and it's it really stuck all the way through Sector 7G

Simpsons fans will enjoy that part there

so this is a little bit of reshoot

and a little bit of original shoot

so the first two shots in the sequence were in Hawaii

and then these shots here are over at WB

and they work together really nicely

rivalry stems from Emi mythology

he's got too big overtime

this environment won't sustain much longer

it's too unstable

off site would be a death sentence

you don't think the king could take care of himself

there has to be another way

these are some more you and company uh

you and co titles um

which are really cool um

kind of laying in a little bit of a uh

in search of unsolved mysteries

uh you know colorful

colorful thing with the opening um expedition

you know I'll talk a little bit about the music here

uh right off the bat just because

you know music in my films has always been

the most important thing to me

I think in a lot of ways um

you know I always think about like

how John Carpenter always said that every movie he did

uh um

is really a western and um

I think in some ways uh

if if I had to pick my own version

I would say every movie I've done is

is actually a musical in disguise

um even though

I don't think I would ever actually do a musical

musical um

but this is really my first time doing a film

that has a big orchestral

big Hollywood score to it

and I have to admit I was a little um

resistant at first I really wanted

to go

much more of a synth wave route for the entire film

and

you know originally I wanted to um

to have uh

Matt Pusty who uh he

he's he's created the band make up in Vanity Set

and we end up using one of his make up in

Vanity Set songs he does some really cool stuff

it was very much more John Carpenter like

so then I started meeting with composers and

you know Junkie XL

you know Tom

he he was by far like

he was just such a big Godzilla fan

and we really hit it off right away

and he has that electronic

kind of inspiration in his music and background

and so I was like that that was like okay

I feel comfortable with this

he can do it all and give me everything I want and and

and he was very pro you know

the themes and all those kind of things

and um

I really came around on it as production went on and um

especially when I saw the movie playing for uh

an audience for the first time

it was like you know what

you know

this is not the time to rewrite the script on a score

it's like sometimes you gotta just get in there and um

you know let those themes rip

and

you know with

with this film

like you'll notice that there's no pre existing um

themes from the other Godzilla movies um

or Kong

we actually did everything from scratch and you know

we wanted to us I think it was like

you know Doherty did the

you know the the true Godzilla throwback stuff and um

and you know the um

the original themes

which are all just so gorgeous and great

and they work great in that movie but

you know for me it was like this is

this is the legendary Godzilla and this is

this is a new Godzilla and he's the

you know he's the villain in this movie

he's a different character sort of

um to a certain degree

so we wanted the score to reflect that and

and junkie came up with this great

great Godzilla theme

which I think really kind of lives up to the legacy

but is also doing something new

but that was really a conscious choice to to

to say this is

this is the legendary Godzilla and he's got swagger

you know he's a badass um

and you know

and I just talk a little bit about Godzilla to

in general and in the approach this film

I mean

obviously Kong has a very different look in this film

uh he's uh

you know he's older

he's he's more scruffy haha

he's worn down he's the gunfighter who's uh

you know doesn't have a gunfight to

to to keep him going anymore

and so he's kind of a little bit lost and yeah

so he he has like a much

more aged kinda look from Skull Island

but this film is a direct sequel to king of monsters

and uh um

and even though the studio would have let me put my own

kind of spin on Godzilla just like Dorty

changed the dorsal fins to be more classic um

I kind of just wanted to keep them

you know exactly the same as you saw in the last film

because with this film I wanted to be like

you know oh no

it's not like a new Godzilla and a new Kong

and we're restarting it I wanted it to really feel like

this is a definitive Godzilla versus Kong

and that's that's what you're seeing here

and so

that's kind of why we didn't really mess with Godzilla

even though I in retrospect

I wish I made his head a little bit bigger

because his head is a little small and

you know

and it does hurt some shots for you just like really

his head is really small

he looks good he's got his angles

you know and he's a great looking creature

but sometimes that head you know

and I hear that complaint a lot too

so but sorry you know

those are the sacrifices you got to make sometimes

haha it's from a toaster

look at this thing I have to go to the bathroom

is it 1 or 2 cause if it's 2

it's probably from these apples

and you wanna use the hand

sanitizer that I made I'm good

okay I'll just stay here

see

oh

that's great

what do they ship Hong Kong was so level 33

what the

evacuation Titan alert

that is my tube that's my tube

this was a sewage treatment plant

um actually that last one was Australia

that's a shot from one in Hawaii

and you know

the secret of these SCI fi movies like this

especially monster movies

is

you always end up shooting in sewage treatment plants

because they got all these miscellaneous pipes

and they just look technical

so every one of these films always

ends up in a sewage treatment plant

um for one

one way or another those are no Apocalypse

now Godzilla intro that was a late addition

um this

this this whole section here

you know was a

was um

you know I would say the first 30 minutes of this movie

went through a lot of different changes

there was a you know

a lot of different

actual story points that were kicking the film off

and this is kind of where we landed

but I'll get into that a little bit later

the helicopter the blades aren't actually turning

uh those are CG

but they look really great

and uh CG wind all around

um so

this section right here

used to be part of a bigger sequence

um this was actually a four day shoot of people running

you know there's probably lots of extras in this right

here there

oh actually

by the way I should mention that my first ad was

in that first shot of all the people running

he's in the foreground but um

this sequence was shot in Hawaii

and it was like four days long of just like

you know people running

and Millie Bobby Brown

and Julian Dennison's character

were originally in that sequence

being chased and there was a big human stampede and

you know all this stuff

and the sequence ended up changing

but we were able to kind of

repurpose that footage for this

right here and there's a lot of that

I mean it's shocking

when you're doing a movie at this big budget level

and you

you end up repurposing more footage in weird ways and

I mean than I've ever done on any movie

but you can you can't tell it's

you know and it's

some of those things is what makes the movie feel big

you know

that you can just cut to a crowd of 400 extras for

you know four shots and just be done with it

where it is an actual fact

it took you know

four days this was actually shot during daytime

that was a different

that used to be a different actual monarch base that

those were actually

monarch people getting blown up there

and in the production

we ended up changing things around

and repurpose that footage of those people blowing up

and my mom was actually there that day

it was very proud moment

we got to stand off to the side while those

jeeps were exploding

and it was pretty glorious looking

this shot right here of Godzilla on screen

this is interesting

because that's actually an unfinished V effect shot

from the original opening of the movie

and so it's actually

I think it only went through one pass

it just had like it was very unfinished

if you actually saw it just by itself um

but we needed a shot of Godzilla on the news and so my

um uh

VFX editors very clever guy

he just took his phone out and shook it around

and filmed it off of the his monitor

and we put it in there and it looks like a finish shot

and

you know there it is it's in the movie and you know

it's funny

like it doesn't matter what budget level you're at

you're just always going to have to cut corners and

and get get clever and there's never enough money um

movies are always budgeted completely wrong haha

they're always budgeted uh you know uh 30% uh

you know less than what you need um

no matter what size but it just upscales you know

because you know everybody wants more

and you got to figure out how to make it work

this was the first day with Millie Bobby Brown

and and Kyle

and it was really funny because this is the first time

I really had a real inkling of how famous Millie was

she was

not late to set

but she was one of the last ones to show up on set

and I remember all these extras

I think it was like 200 something extras

we're just standing around this base camp and um

you know we're all just waiting

you know things are getting set up

and Millie shows up and kind of just

you know she's always in a great little mood

and she's kind of bouncing around and um

she decides uh

we we talk with Kyle like well

why don't we you know

run run through your lines and you know

just see what this thing sounds like real quick

very informal no camera around or anything like that

and so they were just reading off the script

and I just noticed that like

suddenly the sound of 200 extras became dead quiet

and I looked over

and every single extra is just staring at Millie

and you can see them kind of like

whispering to each other and

you know they are very excited and I was like wow

she's she's she's bigger than everybody here

you know like

um it was it was pretty funny

um so this was uh another

this was our big reshoot scene

we only had one day to do it

of course somehow uh

it was like six pages long

my officers are 95 please don't land

guys like you and me we don't do normal hours do we

I've been fixated on all the earth

for as long as you have your theory

that is the birthplace of all titans is fascinating

your book was very impressive

oh yeah well

I got about 30 unsold boxes in my apartment

if you want some

well Simmons I know who you are sir

it's an honor the honor is mine as is the urgency

Godzilla has never attacked the some provoked before

these are dangerous times of to lend

allow me to introduce our APEX

Chief Technology Officer Mr Reza Dezawa

he has an interesting thing to show you

magnetic imaging from one of our new satellites

you know what this is right

power and ecosystem as fast as any ocean

right beneath our feet

whose energy signal is enormous

and almost and real quickly

I should talk about that

we kind of had a funny name for this scene

as we were doing it

which was Beard Gate because Scarsgard

he he just understand

and when we were doing these reshoots

he was in the middle of production

and he had to have a beard for that

and he couldn't shave it

we ended up like trying to figure out like okay

you know what are we gonna do with these scenes

and luckily this one's his first scene

so it made sense he had a beard fortunately

we were able to cobble together some footage

from other scenes

and inserted them in there and it worked great

you never know

we changed quite a bit in this first half hour

but we had to do it very very surgically

we ended up only having I think it was like five

maybe like a maybe there was like a half a day

for six days worth of reshoots

which is actually um

shorter than any of these movies have done

generally they they spend about you know

two weeks on reshoots and stuff but um

you know we we kind of came in this thing as uh

you know uh

one of these productions where we're like well

let's see if we can come in on budget you know

and and and try not to you know

blow a bunch of extra money

and so it was a bit experimental

but we pulled it off and

and I think to a certain degree that's

that's that's why probably hired me

cause of my independent background

and I've done movies of all different budget levels

and you know I've always been pretty responsible

bringing things in on time

never gone over budget and

and I'm very resourceful I guess

what if I told you that we are

APEX have created a phenomenal craft

which could sustain such an inversion

I love holograms so

fun to finally be able to shoot a hologram in a movie

this is obviously very Star Wars

holograms return of the Jedi came up a lot

and when we were talking about all this

help me

help everyone

finding this needle in a haystack

is our best shot against Godzilla

who I

might have an idea

but it's crazy I love crazy ideas they made me rich

are you guys familiar with genetic memory

it's a it's a theory that all types of

share common impulse

to return to their revolutionary source

expaulting salmon exactly

we're a we're a homing pigeon

so if if this is the Titan's home

and this life force sustains them

a Titan could show you the way

with a little help of an old colleague

I just wanna point out that I

I drew all those um

all the art there I really have fun doing

kids are like the one behind her head too

and a lot of those on the wall

like the funny thing is like

you can never get the art department to do uh

like real looking um

child art um

because they're they're

they're all just too they're

they're too good of artist haha

um they

they they paint too much in the lines

and so um

I I have a lot of fun sitting off to the side um

uh with a bunch of crayons

and the art department loves

just giving me a bunch of art supplies

and crayons and stuff and letting me go to town

um but

and I'm actually the type of guy that's like

going around on set to like

you know showing people like

you know like a kid

like look what I did haha

wreaks havoc on Kong's habitat

no way

am I letting you drag him halfway across the world

using as a weapon no

not as a weapon as an ally to protect us

lead the way down there

what even makes you think that he'll go in

you always believe that Skull Island was like

hollow earth come to the surface right

and that's where Cog's ancestors came from

through the entrance in Antarctica

we could help him find a new home

he could save ours

person

that power source maybe our only hope

we gotta stop Godzilla this is our only chance

we have to take it

oh my God

okay yes

alright but when it comes to Kong

what I say go

you name the terms thank you

sorry

thank you

you won't regret this I already regret this

together you and me

come on

if you could see me now

the water said

I'm the biggest Elvis fan of all time

um I have an Elvis movie that I've been working on

since the beginning of this production

and this song um

this song was the uh

the first piece of music that I found

that was really inspirational to me

um and I knew that I had to use it in the film and

and from the gecko

I kind of thought that this would be the place for it

like lyrically it's just so fun

like the tone of Elvis you know

I just I saw Kong as sort of like old Elvis um

you know like just a little out of shape and you know

not not doing too well haha

that's kind of like the you know

equating that and then obviously

um you know

Skull Island being in the 70s um

using a 70s Elvis song is totally the way to go

and so so

so happy that um

ended it ended up in the movie um

there's actually

originally gonna be one other Elvis song

um

later on but I didn't know

making it through probably for good cause

but you know one will one will do one will do

um so this is in Australia

this is a really cool set

we built the set twice once upside down

that we could lower in the water for later on

during the action scene

and this is the normal right side up version

I love her little smile there

um Gia the

the actress Kay Kaylee

she's um

so amazing she's one of my favorites ever

she's uh

she's one of those just natural performers

you know she's actually deaf and um uh

and and you know

I'll be honest like I

I I took um

sign language classes for

I don't know like 2

two and a half months or something um

maybe longer maybe 3 months uh

leading into production

and I was just so bad at it that um

I just ended up using uh translator the entire time

cause I just felt like I was gonna embarrass myself

and she was very no nonsense um

you know I was actually more intimidated by her

I mean like the

the the

the audition process for Gia was really funny because

you know

they were looking for a very specific type of person

and you know

and you know deaf actors

you know they don't really get a lot of opportunities

I think to light a Vegas for a week

feel free to be impressed

Kaylee I think you had done like a commercial

I believe like an app commercial

um but they found her and we kind of like

we didn't

I didn't actually see a lot of people for that role

the casting director saw a ton

but they widdled it down to about I think six people

we picked two to see and the

the other we saw a boy and a girl

she was obviously the girl and the boy was like

I think like 6 years old and he was just too young

I mean like when we brought him in for auditions

it was just he was a kid you know

like he wasn't focused and it was like

oh god so Kaylee comes in and um

and I'm I'm still kind of in kid mode

you know like I

I have my basic sign language

things that I'm doing for encouragement and I'm

you know I'm

I'm I'm handling her very slowly like you

you do kids sometimes and

and it was very clear that she was having none of that

and that um uh

that she was not to be treated like a child

at any point haha

she she just she was just she

she looked at everything immediately

from the character's perspective

and uh

there was none of this uh amateur hour stuff you know

like I was instantly just like

I mean I

I just knew that like she was gonna be perfect

I mean there was no question um

she just blew everybody away and um you know

I remember when we were shooting this scene actually

um she was always very serious like when she was on set

it was you know you do not treat her like a kid

she is a serious actor and which she is

I mean it's totally true she's really great

but I remember I was like trying to get her to laugh

and so I remember right before we shot this

like I have this little like dance that I can do

like I do this little kind of Michael Jackson

kind of moonwalk dance

you know with a little spin and I

I tried to do that in front of her to like

get a reaction and she was just completely dead pain

so I thought you know what

I'm just gonna leave her alone and just let you know

when she shows up I'm gonna let her do her thing

and I'm gonna stay out of her way and that's what I did

this was in Hawaii dumping rain on actors

always fun actors love that

you know this was actually at an airport

this is the same airport that they shot

the boat scenes for Kong

Skull Island you know

it's just the classic way you do these things

you take a big piece of tarmac you paint over it

and then you put your things on it and you know

green screen around the side and you're good to go um

yeah this was actually one of the first

like really cool pieces of concept art

I remember we got um

the the shot of Kong reaching down to her and

and the final version looks pretty much like it

I will say that

we were a little sensitive to some of the lighting

I know that like we wanted to make sure that you could

you know see the monsters

we didn't wanna

we didn't wanna get any complaints from anybody

necessarily about you know

not being able to you know

dig into the movie cause they you know

the monsters were hard to see but you know

we have this rain scene and you know

so there's a couple times where we're

cheating the lighting a little bit

and I think the shot would have been like

for instance the shot of him touching her finger

probably would have been a little bit better

if we could have just gone a little darker

but you know at the end of the day it's like

let's see the monsters

let's show everybody what we got and um

you know go from there which by the way

I mean

like this film originally I think had a lot more um

a lot more dark and rainy stuff in pre production

and you know I mean it's just like

you know when you're doing art for this type of stuff

it looks really cool and it's very epic and apocalyptic

and um

but we kind of slowly started moving away from that

even before um

king of monsters came out uh

you know for a variety of reasons

but this is sort of like

one of the last remnants of that

and um uh

yeah

actually I should mention like that out outside of the

the bridge all those scenes

all those nighttime scenes with the rain um

that's not green screen outside

that's all just real practical

those are practical lights and uh

and rain on the glass and looks 100% convincing

and again another nice uh low budget uh

if you can call it that which is not really

but you know

lower budget than just putting a green screen and uh

doing effect shots cause you know

those effect shots no matter what you're putting

in them are gonna cost a lot more money than

if you come up with another solution

um so again this was in Hawaii here

I actually was staying on the street um

my house was right down the road up there

so I was able to walk to set

for the first time ever in my life

that was fun you'll see that

Julian's actually wearing a different Judas

Priest shirt here um

then he is in the very next scene

and this is because this used to be a different day

originally they were gonna be going to the pier

which was in the opening the scene used to take place

this was like I feel like maybe the second scene second

yeah

second sequence in the movie after the failed mission

um

but we kind of reshot just a couple of these close UPS

you know just um

it's a little bit of both you know

like that's from the original shoot you know

that's from the original shoot you know

there's lots of scenes like that

were in these first half hour

where you get a little bit of the original shoot

and then the five day surgical shoot

um

the the Van I was really one of Terry Rossio's idea

he ran the writers room for this film

really brilliant guy

did like the Pirates of Caribbean and Aladdin

and that's kind of things

knock it off wait

this is the part I was telling you about

even though you've been marked

1 or 2 gallons won't cut it

I need my bleach in bulk because spiders is real people

I mean come on invisible to make it up

that's how we find them the bleach bleach

he consumes a ton of bleach he drinks bleach

showers with it oh yeah I shower bleach

know what

prevention against organic tracking technology

see

tradecraft

would have made more sense if we just drank it

one more play this is getting old hey

you sell bleach

this isn't one of those internet challenge things

because when I saw those kids

those detergent pods

I didn't know they're gonna eat them

still dealing with the lawsuits from that look

we're looking for a guy who works for APEX Cybernetics

buys a lot of bleach like every night

he's probably paranoid

high strung doesn't like daylight

you know

has a lot of crumbs in his beard if he has a beard okay

this is Ronnie he's really funny

he's improving the scene was just hilarious

he had so many different so many different versions um

some of which I can't even repeat cause uh

they're they're a little little racy but um

pretty funny um again

this is all Australia

this was right around the corner you know

it's uh

it's really funny when you're doing you know film

you're you're

you're constantly trying to find locations that are

relatively close to each other because

you know no matter what size production you are

you have to still be able to move

you know

quickly and efficiently from location to location

and so this was like literally

like a couple feet away from where we just were

and

you know like

you know now knowing that that's the way movies work

it's kind of funny

because I remember I visited New York

like about two years three years ago

and went to go see

Sigourney Weaver's apartment from Ghostbusters

and I was really you know

kind of fascinated by

the fact that there's a bunch of other locations

from Ghostbusters right around that corner

from that apartment

for the very same reason that I'm talking about here

but I won't talk about Ghostbusters anymore

even though I would love to

um you know

like I I just done Death Note right before this film

so I was like really onto the Neon Cafe look and um

so this is part 2 of my Neon Cafe series

that one was blue and Death Note and this one's red

which you know

which one's better I don't know

but this is one of my favorite kind of sets

and just from a simplistic

kind of cool lighting standpoint

um this is also kind of a turning point

stylistically for the film

where we start

slowly pushing the film into a more SCI fi colorful

vibrant direction um

you know I always wanted the movie to kind of

not just thrust you into this crazy color palette

but to slowly um

pull you in you know

as the movie goes

we get more and more over the top and SCI fi

you know in the color palettes

one of those things that really helps

and in the music as well

and that's something I've always done

in a lot of my movies like if you watch the guest it

the tone of it gets more and more ridiculous

as the film goes and

but you know

it grounds it at first in the beginning

and even the music gets more over the top

and that's always a good signifier to push the audience

in a direction

you know

of changing style I think

and it really goes back to that whole

you know every movie I do is a musical thing

I think

um this was uh

one of those scenes where we only had a day

and I remember it was a little stressful going in

but we everybody totally nailed it

uh you know

when you're working with um

underage actors um you

you get so little time to work with them

I mean like they have school hours

they have um

wait real quick I wanna talk about this

um this shot I've always on the fence on like

I like him kind of smiling here

you know like every other time I watch this

I feel like it's this cheap

you know like I wanted a moment where we

weren't just beating Kong up

cause I you know

this is a movie for kids really

at the end of the day and I

you know for me I

I'm I'm able to remember

and tap in pretty well to the feelings that I had

when I watched movies as a kid

and you know

you're feeling in

a lot of stuff in your head when you're younger and

you know things can be really dark and

and at a certain point

I just wanted to make sure that it was like

you know that

that kids can still enjoy Kong

and that he's not just sad and he's beat up

and it's maybe a little early in the movie to do that

but it was it was a point where I just felt like

you know what

we should show him at least enjoying something

you know he's getting fed

he's hungry you know

maybe he's still miserable in the boat

you know maybe he's a little messed up from those drugs

maybe that's why he's smiling

but like you know

we need to give him a nice little moment

um

originally right here uh

scars guards actually looking

so if you look um

at his finger there

he actually has a rubber band on his finger

and you can see it in the wide shot

and originally that's what he was looking at

because he proposed

in the original opening to the film uh

to his uh

um his fiance

um and he didn't have a ring

so he gave her this rubber band and he's kind of that

that was a signifier that he was constantly

always thinking about her in the movie

and that's one last little remnant of it there

and scars guards credit I mean

like that's one of those things where

you know it's really hard

you know when you're going into a reshoot

and you have to tell an actor like look

you know um

your character still the same except for all the haha

all the things that you know

why your character is the way he is

uh but he

he understood the process and

you know it's

it's for the greater good and uh

and ultimately I think his character comes off great

he was fantastic to work with both of these actors

this was one of the first few days on set and um

it was really uh

really cool to see them uh

uh you know

um being able to

you know chop it up together there

they were both

they had just immediately fantastic chemistry

3 2

3 2 3

and uh the

the line um

yeah nobody can keep the rains on Kong uh

I remember that in the in the

the first rehearsal we did of that um

you know Rebecca said that line and

and I instantly was like oh that's

that sounds really good yeah

make sure you do that she's such a professional

she could she could do anything

she could make any line sound legitimate um

but you know movie like this

you gotta have those kind of big ridiculous lines and

and they don't actually come off as ridiculous

when you're watching the movie

they just they're they're what they are

this was another one

I was very excited to have somebody say it's Godzilla

yeah you know

that was one of those moments when you're shooting

and you're like oh yeah

that's gonna be the trailer for sure haha

if you see really closely right there

if you look closely um

Rebecca has her hand on Kaylee's back

when they're running in the room

and obviously Kaylee can't hear the cue

because really

we're just counting the three and saying

shake or something like that

and so Rebecca's actually tapping Kaylee on the back

so that she knows you know the timing

and so if you look really closely

Kaylee's like

just like a couple frames behind everybody else

so finally here we are the exposition is over um

you know we were at the monster fight

we don't have to set up anything else anymore

and from this point on the movie is non stop action

and thank God cause this is super sweet

this is why I made this movie

I wanted to you know

I wanted to make shots of Godzilla tearing things up

I wanted Kong to be ferocious

you know this is what it's all about and um

you got to go

you got to do a lot of work around it to get here

but these are these are the rewards you know

every day you're going into VFX reviews

I love that scream that's one of my favorite shots too

I love that that kind of Cthulhu looking uh tail shot

um sorry

I'm gonna get like distracted watching this um

you know like

I remember during production whenever we were getting

if you look closely right there

you can see a couple guys

fly out the back of that boat

if you if you pause it

it's kind of entire strikes back at you kind of

kind of idea like the asteroid belt scene

where you can see a stormtrooper fly out of the

the tie fighter that gets blown up um

obviously you know

I like I'm not gonna like

point out all the Easter eggs in the movie

but this is clearly a a a jaws Easter egg um

you know jaws times 10 haha um

and you know

this sequence was always 100% in the outline in the

every draft of the scrap

this was something that never changed um

by the way the way we did that with scars garters

we just pulled them on the ground

and those other guys were on cables

and just moving the camera around um

but this was always gonna be sort of the the big

you know hot set piece of the of the film

this is gonna be the one uh

the one to beat and um

and we kinda knew it going into it

cause what I

what I like about it is that it's not just okay

here's a setting for the monsters to fight

the setting becomes really what the fights all about

you know like

you know Godzilla

who already has an advantage just from being Godzilla

um you know

has the water which you know

Kong is not good at dealing with and you know

just that gives you so much interesting kind of

you know fodder to play with as a director um

you know you you know

it's not just like what the choreography is

it's it's how they're utilizing the environment

and that's what makes Kong such a unique character

when it comes to monsters is uh

that he is just like a big human basically

um and so he can think like a human

and we can kind of project on him a bit more uh

I love the scale of this shot here um

I just

like Kong always looking kind of beat up and exhausted

I think that those are really that's

that's what makes a cool hero

you'll notice that there's a little bit of a similarity

we try to do this all

as much as possible between what the humans are doing

and the last thing we saw Kong doing

like both Kong and Scarsgarter

both getting up in the same shot you know

whenever Kong's underwater he's screaming

scarsgar screaming I tried to kind of

always tie in the human world to the

to the monster world in subtle ways

just so that it didn't feel like

you were just randomly going

from one to the next

I should also mention that we had

like five days to shoot all that underwater stuff

so we have way more footage of that

and that's why the few shots in there pretty cool

because we had way more than enough time to do it

because everybody was so nervous about

oh god we're gonna do underwater stuff you know

it's gonna go so slow

and it was actually a breeze for that reason

because we way overcompensated time wise

um Haroda written on the helmet there

that's Brian Haroda who's um

Scan Line V Effects Supervisor

Scan Line did the sequence

we broke up the V

effects into a couple different companies

Scan Line Weta and NPC and um

scan line got this sequence

Mechagodzilla's intro and um

the the ending Mechagodzilla fight

and they just did a fantastic job

I mean these shots are just so dynamic and cool

this was the very first shot that we actually did

in the uh

of any of the effects shot

they

scan line actually created sort of a mock up of this

it was it was different

but um the very similar to what that ended up being um

there's the bitch slap

are you okay

this is one of my favorite shots

of any of the effect shots actually

is Kong jumping off the boat John Mclane style here

haha you can see him down there at the bottom too

like the net wide shot it's actually a continuation

if you if you look

you can see a little Kong continuing to jump

it's that kind of detail is just so impressive

whenever you get into all these

you know the nuances of the V effect shots

it's just really staggering just even

even after all the V Effects reviews

and going frame by frame you know

still sometimes when I watch the movie

I'll notice one little little detail that I'd never

never seen before

um and you know

in the VFX supervisor of the film uh DJ uh he

he

he's such a big you know

just movie nerd and Godzilla fan and uh

we just had so much fun you know

anytime we were doing shots like the John Mcclain shot

you know just little reference shots

you're just always you know

got so tickled um

haha and we're joking about it

you know uh

in in those V Effects reviews

yeah one of the shots I forgot to mention earlier

that's one of my favorite in the sequence

and it was one of the first

shots that I'd kind of designed in my head um

was uh

the shot of uh

Godzilla and Kong underwater fighting and the uh

the the

the aircraft carrier you know

plunging into the depths and I just thought

it would be cool to just leave the monsters

for a second

and just see this aircraft carrier going down

it was you know

one of those things that um

you know just an idea that

you know it kind of flows really fast in the movie

but it felt really interesting at the time

but I love this part this is one of my favorite V

effect shots in the entire movie

as well I love seeing Kong Puke water

I kind of wish we did more

at one point

we had like fish and stuff flopping around

but it was just a little too over the top

it's like this is a this is a dramatic moment and um

it's already kind of funny seeing him vomit anyways

um but uh

you know I wanted to

you know stay serious

you know this is

you know Kong might lose here

uh supposedly

not that you really think that's gonna happen

but you know and

and Godzilla he's

he's you know

my my interpretation

maybe this is gonna be controversial

but I don't think Godzilla is ever afraid that

for a second he's gonna lose any of these fights

I think that he's playing with Kong

I think that you know

it's life and death for Kong

Kong's trying to you know

stay afloat but um

trying to stay alive uh

but you know at the end of the day

Godzilla is Godzilla I mean

you can't kill Godzilla basically

um I think Mechagodzilla comes close

I think

maybe if he had blown that red beam down his throat we

you know Mudo style that would have done him up

but potentially who knows

we don't know what Godzilla's insides are made of

I mean it might be just as strong

so who knows but you know

come on I mean

Godzilla's on the ocean I mean

look at me he's like smiling here like right haha

he's having fun Kong is not having fun

this scene I should say is my uh

this is inspired heavily from my cat mischief who uh

you know like the way that Godzilla is acting here

this is how mischief is every night

you know standing

I have like this kind of like full glass window porch

and we have raccoons in the backyard

and mischief hates those raccoons

and they just like then the raccoons are evil

they would come right up to the glass and they like

taunt her um

they're kind of scary and creepy

um and you know

they always have these like

staring matches back and forth and and

and it's kind of psychotic

I mean like

you can tell

mischief just wants to murder those things

and even though

I don't know that she would stand a chance

but um that just image of the back of her head you know

looking out

was definitely inspired in that moment there

I should say I remember every time we shot this

whenever he would say

you know House Kong with heights after Paul's

Rebecca would always

you know kind of sarcastically like

that's fine he's fine with heights

this was one of our only one take shots

I'm pretty well known for

I guess shooting way too many takes

and this one we've really ran out of time that day and

and we just had one shot at it and it's

you know I it's fine haha

um this sequence actually was originally um

supposed to it was designed to be that

we're gonna put rubble in this uh

little alleyway here and all the

like the beams and stuff

and like some of those things around them

we're gonna be digitally um uh

broken up and things um

and when we got here the VFX department said listen

we didn't budget for this um

I know that you guys are saying that

those are gonna be VFX

but we don't know how you're gonna do that

and we were like okay

whatever

and you know it was one of the things where I thought

you know we'll just figure it out down the line

I should also mention that Brian

Tyree Henry is wearing a different outfit there

because that was originally used from the opening again

repurpose footage so if you look closely

he's wearing his outfit from the opening of the film

but we need a little extra piece of him breaking in

just to make it more interesting

um but

so what we end up doing with that VFX stuff is

once we actually shot it and got it into the edit

nobody ever complained that it looked like

that those things should be broken

or that it looked weird

that there was just random debris around

perfectly functional equipment

and so we just left it in

and again cost savings haha

so that you can see you know

you wanna put the money where the monsters are

you know like sometimes it's like

do we wanna spend money on rubble

or do we get an extra shot of Kong hmm haha

um I

I I just loved

you know working with these actors

their everyday on set with them was so fun

like at first it was Millie and Julian

you know we shot a lot of them

their scenes alone and

you know when you're working with younger actors

um I mean

who by the way

you know I say younger actors

but they're always just as good as the adult actors

I mean skill of skill talents

talent or whatever um

but you know when you're working with younger actors

you really want

the production value that you're getting from them

is that they can do something that older actors can't

they can be kids they are still kids

and you want that kind of energy from them

and so I have this philosophy um

that if they're having fun

it's gonna come out on screen and so you know

we always I I would let them just you know

they between takes are always like playing these weird

like um

I don't know how to describe it like they

they had this clapping game that they would do

is like Patty cakes type of thing and um

you know and they're always running around and you know

like just having fun you know

and joking and being silly and you know

I think some people might

you know try to push away from that

but I really think that you know

even though it might lose you a little bit of time

here and there

you know

you gotta you gotta keep the energy going and you got

everybody's gotta have fun

if you want that performance to be fun

and um so I'm a strong believer in that but it's funny

cause once Brian Tyree Henry got in the mix

it felt like okay we got an adult with these kids

you know

it'll kind of focus the dynamic a little bit more

you know

we're gonna not just be joking around and stuff

but then Brian became even more of a jokester

I mean he he

he's even more of a kid than the kids

and so it was like times three at this point um

but it was one of those things where you just knew that

uh it it was gonna really work um

because we we were always laughing on set

so this I

I love this part of the movie

because I love that we're in these parallel trips

it's one of those things that you you know

when we were shooting

and we just knew things were working uh

or an editorial we knew it was working

because we have our future journey

we have our past journey

and there's so many parallels to

you know the way that these kind of cut back and forth

that it's really super cool that it landed this way

and you know I love that we were able to get

sort of our King Kong versus Godzilla homage here

I should really quick say that uh

that I think dorty whenever he

he cause I I showed dorty like some of our artwork

um early on I think he was a little mad at me um

early on because I had a scene in Antarctica

and he already did Antarctica scene

I think he really believed that uh

you know these movies should

really be going into new places every time

but you know at the end of the day

it's like I just I can't imagine the the

the opening to hollow earth being anywhere than

Antarctica

I mean I really believe in the old you know um

Admiral bird

you know the myths that are really out there and

you know

I think there's something to that so I just couldn't

I couldn't put it anywhere other than Antarctica

hmm

this shot was really funny cause my DP was sick uh

this was a different part of production

where everybody got sick

we got hit with the worst like swine flu

I think it was at the time um

and so we actually lost a couple days of production

and we we at one point I think we were like down 25

30% of our crew were hit with it and so on this day my

um the camera operator filled in as the DP and um

and that shot of Kaylee walking up with the big crane

and everything um

that was sort of an inside joke because my my

my DP he hates pointless or superfluous crane shots and

and I was just like oh man

he's not here you know

I was a little like what are we gonna do

and so almost you know

slightly because I just wanted to do it anyways

because I knew that at this point in the film

we needed a nice

kind of epic shot to bring you back to the characters

um but also kind of as a joke um

I wanted to shoot

the biggest crane shot of the entire movie

when my DP wasn't there and um

and of course we we

we filmed it off of iPhones and stuff um

behind the scenes and then sent it to him like

look what we're doing today hahaha

but he wasn't there so he didn't get a say so we

we shot the big Craig shot and um

it's a good shot so sorry Ben

um haha

I mean I will say Ben is such a great DP

he really grounded the movie

he he really he

he's he's a guy who

who's a strong believer of not doing anything

with the camera unless it's motivated and um

and you really need that in a movie like this

to ground it cause you know

when you when you're dealing with big monsters

you need something to anchor you and the

the stylization of the film kind of has to be that

real quick

talking about King Kong versus Godzilla again

with the helicopters lifting them up

I remember when I first signed on to this movie

one of the first things I thought is like well

I just hope we don't have like

a silly scene where Kong is being lifted by balloons

like in the original movie

and um that was literally one of my first thoughts

I remember having of like

okay that's one thing we're not gonna repeat um

and uh and

and sure enough we were

I was working with Terry early on

and we were trying to come up with like okay

well after this fight

how are they gonna get Kong over to um

you know Antarctica like because Godzilla is in the way

um

even though the fight's over Godzilla still out there

and I remember just being like

well

I guess what

if they just get a whole lot of helicopters

and lift them up that would be kind of cool wouldn't it

and it was like yeah

that would be cool and I was like

oh great why did I say that

but instantly what you see the artwork of it

it was like oh

this is sweet you know um

uh just all those helicopters and everything okay

so now we're in SCI fi territory

love it this is my first chance to do big SCI fi stuff

so I'm going all out already

you know this is our big return of the Jedi shot

you know you remember with the Millennium Falcon

obviously the the

the the heaves um

have a little bit of a Akira influence to them

I knew that you know I wanted these anti

gravity craft to have sort of this weird omission that

you know felt like the tracers from the motorcycles in

in the Kira oh

this idea right here

I I gotta give credit again to Richard Bennett

the storyboard artist um

he uh when he was boarding this scene

he he threw in the

the whole little thing

dropping the Alka Seltzer into the um

to the glass and as a way to just sort of prepping

the audience a little bit

you know in a

in a visual way of what we're about to go through

um and yeah

and that was his idea

and it ended up just becoming in the movie

so uh

so this this is one of my proudest scenes it

it's actually kind of

a throwback to my very first movie

which I did for $3,000 called Pop Skull

and in Pop Skull

the main character takes a overdose of Robitussin

and he has a trip out sequence and um

and we use lots of um

strobing lights to uh

you know affect the viewer in that same kind of way

so the effects that we were doing were made

designed to um haha

mess with you there um

so it was really cool to be able to do that

a lot of those um were

were inspired by effects that I even did on that

low budget film

so now we're in hollow earth

lots of talk about here um

this went through a lot of changes

originally this was a much more dark and Moody place

I remember thinking you know um

whenever I first read the outline

whenever I came onto the film

it was like I think

Terry had written just a couple pages of outline of

you know a proposal of the movie really is what it was

and um

and I remember immediately being like

oh my God

we're making a journey to the center of the earth movie

you know I don't know if I even

like any

journey to the center of the earth

movies that I've ever seen

so that was a little nerve wracking

um again

hadn't had too much experience with CGI

you know is this gonna look stupid

um you know

like what is the motivation of the lighting

in the center of the earth

and this and that um

but this really evolved over the course of the entire

production to being more like

this has to you know

what we realize ultimately

is that this has to feel like

the uh you know

this has to be like the fantasy world for Kong like

you know this is like his real home

this is where he's gonna thrive and

and it needs to feel inviting in that kind of way

but what's cool about whole Earth is that

it's got lots of different terrains

like many many parts of the world

and so

we weren't just restricted to doing this kind of

jungle thing

which I think if we did it would be a little

you know too familiar um

uh but uh

it's it's nice that we're able to kind of jump around

do lots of different things

you know this shot

it was something that

you know was later on put into the uh

film as a way to try to describe the physics of it

you know I wanna do something that was really

nice and trippy so that you could see that

you know you can stand on the ceiling

and all those kind of things

and actually

I had the idea for the way Hollow Earth would work

in general

one day when I was at my production designer

we had two production designer on this film

one was Tom Hammock uh

who has literally worked on every single movie of mine

and the other one was Owen Patterson

who worked on the matrix the original Godzilla 2014 um

and they uh they were paired up on the film

and I was over at Tom's house

I remember and you know

just started talking to him about ideas of

what can we do in Hollow Earth and

you know realized like well

if you're in the center of the world you know

the gravity is gonna be different um UPS

you know there's we don't have to

you know abide by different rules

and that's whenever I started feeling

really comfortable with the idea that okay

we are making a journey to the center of the earth

movie um

in addition to everything else Godzilla versus Kong um

but the way we're gonna make this really super cool is

oh

this my Robotech missiles I love those um is you know

we're gonna we're gonna

we're gonna do things like you've never seen before

with the gravity and all that kind of stuff

this is one of my favorite V effect shots too

it's so dynamic Wetta

Wetta did all this hollowar stuff

and they're just really I mean

obviously everybody knows Wetta

their work is just incredible

and I and I think I can't remember um

but I believe that it was their idea to

you know make this really gory

and we kind of just leaned into it

I just

I think they kind of created sort of a proposal of

you know um

previous for this and or post videos

I believe it was and whenever they

they leaned into the Gore

we just realized how hilarious and amazing it was

just to see Kong just rip something to pieces and

um oh

I like these little guys um

I think Tom Woodruff did these um

yeah he

he he designed uh

the looks of these and originally

I wanted them to kind of be inspired by the um

the the end of Demon Seed

there was like this robot

you know thing that comes out of the ground

and that was sort of weirdly where this idea started

and they went totally you know

evolved in a different direction um

but going back to Weta and the gory Nozuki death um

I uh

I

I we could have made that look a lot more uh

disgusting and realistic I think

but I

I like that it's very cartoony with the green blood

and there's some guts in there

but they're but they're not disturbing and

and the reason for that is

is like this is a movie for kids

like I said and

you know uh

I mean it's obviously for adults as well um

but when you're a kid you know

you get disturbed by things

I remember how it was

I didn't watch any horror movies until I was in

I don't know uh

like real horror movies until I was in middle school um

I would watch things like Terminator and aliens

but I don't consider that

those are the gateway horror movies

the SCI fi ones um

but uh

you know I

I I

I didn't want kids to be disturbed

I wanted them to rewatch this film

and maybe they have to close their eyes

but it's not gonna traumatize them

and so a lot of the violence in the movie it's

it's never it's never too much uh in terms of that

this was something that I came up with in Hawaii uh

there was like uh

I remember I was in the um

the art room we would have these rooms set up with

all of our concept art

and they were super cool to look at

I mean incredible

just to be surrounded by all this insane stuff

and uh

um I was in there one day

just trying to think about hollow earth

like what are some cool ways that we can show off

you know the physics and

you know make a really like dramatic moment

you know with Kong

you know having his own little moments here

um you'll notice that we actually leave

the human perspective entirely

and it's just Kong you know

as a character

and basically the point when he wakes up and uh

Antarctica I think

that the movie really goes through a shift

when his eyes open in that shot

because suddenly we're we're

we're able to approach Kong

even more as a character than ever before in the movie

and he he kind of takes the lead at that point um

takes it from scars guard sorry

sorry sorry

you know it's like you can't compete with

with King Kong but um

the

um

the the

the thing about that shot was

is that uh

you know where he's floating across to the to

to little the rock hand um

you know I just had this kind of visual

Kong floating between two mountains

and I went downstairs during lunch and DJ

the visual effects supervisor was down there

he always has his dog in a backpack

which is hilarious and um

he was kind of walking around with his dog

and I went up to DJ

and I kind of pitched him this idea

and he said you know

I love it and um

and DJ is really smart he's done this a lot of times

he's working with Zack Snyder and all those movies

and so he knows that sometimes

when you have these ideas that aren't in the

script and might be hard to pitch

uh you know

you gotta just do them and show and

and get everybody used to them so they don't go away

and that's exactly what we did

they they rushed it into previous and um

we were good to go

um so this scene

I should give credit to my friend Robert Wiley

um

who actually has some interesting connections to Demon

Seed as well

uh speaking of um

but Robert is uh kind of a metaphysical expert

um you know uh

very mysterious magician fellow

um but uh

he

I brought him in specifically for this sequence because

uh I

I wanted a different vibe

I wanted something that had sort of a

you know the ultimate depiction of

what an armonic death chamber would look like and um

and it's funny cause like I remember Owen Patterson

the production designer

he was originally sketching out this sort of dome

type thing cause I

I I described to him

I wanted this to be almost like a satanic

um you know

a cult ceremony haha of Mechagodzilla coming out and um

and what he drew was really cool

but it was like kind of what you would expect in

in a movie like this and so I brought in uh

robber and he he sketched out this thing

which was these designs which completely make no sense

where it's like these jagged edges

and you can't really tell what the curvature

of this thing is and he drew this thing to me

and it took me an hour

just to wrap my head around what he was drawing um

and then it took even longer for me to pitch it to Owen

cause I'm like cause

when

you're trying to create this thing in a physical space

which you have to do um

even in a 3D environment I mean

cause it it's the same as creating a physical space

you have to create the architecture for it

and it has to work um

and so

but he was excited by that and he took it and um

and and we beat it out and

and it's one of my favorite sets too

and um speaking of this this whole sequence you know

I love the red skull crawler um

but uh

it's funny how the skull crawlers are such like

they're like the movies bitch now

you know it's like back in the 70s they were

they were the big threat but now it's just like

and we're gonna blow your face off haha

originally they were in the opening tune

they just got blown up you know

poor skull crawler um

but I should give credit to Legacy Effects

they're the they're the ones who um

who who

who made the ultimate design of Mechagodzilla

and they came up with this design really early on

we had I mean

probably almost 100 different designs from different

companies including legacy

who created a ton of different designs

different artists there

and this one was by far like instantly when we saw it

it was kind of like

well you know we gotta beat that um you know and uh

and you you just couldn't beat it originally

I think the only real difference was

is that the the exterior was less of this sort of shiny

uh gun metal um

it used to be more of a uh a tank type um type metal um

it wasn't as shiny and it looked really fantastic

and I would have loved to see that but

you know brought to life in terms of a 3D asset

but what we ended up with

I think is just such a gorgeous character

I love this whole sequence

it's basically mechagodzilla porn um

it just movie stops and just enjoys

nothing really happens in the scene

other than mechadzilla blows up a skull crawler

but it takes like you know

4 minutes to haha to do that

cause the movie is just worshipping them

and you know

I remember the first test screening we had

it was just people didn't know the

Mechagodzilla was gonna be in the film

I'm sure they suspected but when he shows up

and it was still pretty rudimentary

the effect people were so excited oh

I should mention that shot right there again

cost saving measures

that was actually done in editorial um

somebody shot it with their actual phone

that's a phone shot in the movie

and we just ended up never changing it

because nobody ever noticed

but if you look at it closely

you can tell the frame rates a little strange on it

so here we are we're back in Hollow Earth

and you know this

this was one of the most challenging sections

script wise to get right I mean

you know these Hollywood movies

they have 50 riders on them and

you know you hear about that and you go

why do they have 50 riders

there's Vasquez Rock back there

um why do they have all these riders

what could they possibly be doing

and I can tell you from experience

what they're doing is

they are beating their head against the wall

trying to figure out

very specific elements of the movie

and it takes a long time for that to work and and

and eventually somebody just gets lucky when it um

it lands in the right place

um obviously a little bit of a 2001 homage

you know with the

the Kong and the um

the you know

the monolith here the monolith

entrance to this building

yeah I

I love this set this was one that like

you know we

we kinda figured out early on it

you know it went through a lot of different variations

in terms of just being even more

just kind of cave like but I

I like that we landed in a

place that definitely you see the architecture of it

and um

this is obviously uh

if if you're familiar with the GRTY on them

this is built around this and um

you know I'm you know

I'm I'm really big into Rudolph Steiner

so this

that's one of the biggest influences on this movie

in general I mean this movie is really um

maybe one of the first um

you know

major Hollywood films with Rudolph Steiner kind of um

background to it haha

um shots like this are really funny

like I always think about DJ um

the VFX supervisor

he would always say any shot is always improved with

with a spaceship in it and um

he's totally right anytime you see a shot with Kong

and there's just a spaceship

or in this case

you know same thing the heave in the background

it always is cooler so when in doubt

when you got the money to do it

throw a spaceship in and you are good um

so this axe thing I'm really proud of this

because this was actually an idea that I came up with

um

you know uh and it ended up becoming

you know the whole drive of the film

originally during the RND phase

you know

I was just trying to come up with cool ideas like

what can Kong find in Hollow Earth

that might give him an advantage against Godzilla

and you know I sort of thought wow

what if you you know

in the script

it originally he found a sceptre down here

and he kind of just had it in this scene

and he kind of left it you know

before he went back up to Hong Kong

and I just loved the idea of Kong

finding this big sceptre but then I started thinking

well is this an opportunity

you know to give him something else

and so the sceptre became this axe and I thought oh

you know this is where Godzilla's are from you know

there's other creatures like Godzilla down here

and there's this big war and all this stuff

and so that's when I started thinking well

if he had like an axe made with a Godzilla spike a

that's cool but it would be really great

if this thing could absorb Godzilla's energy

that's the whole reason that these Kongs made them in

the first place

and they did have an advantage because of that

and so originally

that was just sort of a cool aesthetic idea that um

as time developed um

it became kind of the main plot point of the movie and

you know and even you look at the advertising

it's really funny because the

the acts became there's the Oshima um

the um the main drive for the film

and this was always big point for me

this shot here

I remember this is one of the first shots

I had met Alsop who's one of our

visual designers who's worked on all these films

he does star movie Star Wars movies all the time

and he works with Gareth on Rogue One and all that but

um

he I I I I answer this is like man

you gotta you gotta do Kong on the throne

I was like that's gonna be like the

the one of the one of the big uh

concept art shots uh for the film

and so it was one of the first few that he did

and it was just you know striking

you know in every iteration of it um

I so I love SCI fi always by the way

this this this skull here is actually 100% real

that's a full set

you can walk in it you could go under it you know

like the set underneath it

we actually recently had some scenes

really snuck in underneath the

the mouth that was completely built in

the lighting is live on set

really incredible when you walk out there

and this actually came from uh

one of our meetings with Terry um

my my original assistant Gary

he actually came up with this uh

this skull idea we were beating our heads

trying to figure out originally

like how

the humans would communicate with

the other humans in Hollow Earth

from Hong Kong and

and Gary kind of was like well

you know like what what about he's like

you know that Ghidorah's head has like kind of psychic

psychic you know abilities or whatever is the you know

and so we thought oh wait a minute yeah

we could take like they could

we could have it

where the humans sort of reverse engineer

Ghidorah skull and use it as a psychic

resonant chamber using psionics and stuff

and again Robert Wiley he

he came in and helped me with the

the concepts of psionics and all that kind of stuff um

but uh yeah

so that that kind of came from there and then

and then again just like all these ideas

they start out like something really small

and then they become a bigger plot point

and then you know that became like

well what if we actually turned um

the skull into uh the actual piloting uh

you know uh chamber for Mechagodzilla himself

cause what cooler place are you gonna come up with

to pilot Mechagodzilla than uh

a Titan skull um especially Ghidorah skull uh

so this is funny

Lance Reddick who people have seen my films

you know will recognize obviously from the guest

and this is a nice little reunion

originally had a much bigger role

which is why

it's kind of weird that Lance Reddick just shows up

for that scene

and I think one other shot in the movie

but you know glad to have them no matter what

he used to have a really cool scene

because Lance supposed to be the head of monarch and

and his name is actually Gillerman

which is a reference to the director of King Kong 76

but um

which I actually like I really like that movie

that's one of my favorite King Kong movies um

even though some people don't love that one um

but yeah

Lance used to have this really cool boardroom scene

early on in the movie

really stylized looking boardroom scene

where they were debating

going in the hollow earth and all this stuff

and he was super cool he had a cool outfit on too

can't go along with Lance Reddick

I mean you know

give him any line

and he's gonna make it sound really cool

so again here we are

I mean like the you know if you look at this ground

I it's funny

like the trailers out right now

and there's one of these shots overhead of

of this mural um

one of the yoshuma later on swooping down

and nobody's really noticed yet so far in the trailers

that those spikes are all made of different weapons

from Godzilla if you look really closely

they're all like really crazy

different battle axes and lots of really great detail

oh Godzilla responding again

this was something always in the script

and this is one of our original concept arts

of Godzilla blowing a hole in the ground

that just always look cool um

that's entirely CGI shot those guys are CGI

we actually shot it with actors

but for whatever reason

they ended up just throwing in CGI guys

because it was easier um

to ultimately blend it or whatever

this was

this was the only part of this film at this point

that was like

kind of a big reshoot like

just like when they get out of the ships

and they have their little conversation here

I mean they're talking about

you know you know

the radioactive energy source

blah blah blah

none of this makes any sense

it doesn't matter um

we just need an excuse for them to do something

and they had to go somewhere

funny enough I was watching uh

Disney's Atlantis uh recently

I hadn't seen it since it came out and I was kind of

I was shocked that there's

certain parallels to that film

in this one like the discredited professor

you know is sort of like

the scars of our character in that movie

they're looking for a power source

in the middle of the earth

you know like Atlantis is very similar to

I think

what the Hollow Earth is and all those kind of things

so um

it's pretty funny that you know

those kind of things added up

this is the shot from the trailer

but if you look closely yeah

there's all these different weapons there

I guess I can see why people

um so yeah

now we're back on track or out of the

some more of the reshoot footage

start your engines the upgrade is fantastic

once we get online Gojiro wake up straight for us

he's been coming for we bent over backwards originally

trying to come up with these like

logical excuses for the humans to go on this mission

to hollow earth and

you know I don't understand it

I don't really know what Kong is doing

or why he's actually going there

what anything is going on

but um

all I know is that um

it doesn't matter

and we're here and that's where we need to be haha

and I think the audience is going to feel the same

cause ultimately they just wanna see monsters um

battle each other and see some really cool stuff

they've never seen before

and that's what we're offering

um haha

um

yeah this

this scene actually used to be a lot uh longer

like it was pretty funny

like scarsguard did this whole like

thing where he originally was trying to get the

Yoshima's attention here

and he was calling it Big Bird or something

and uh um

and this is a bit longer of a suspense piece

but eventually you know

just like everything else

you would look down and just get the core of what works

these guys actually were originally designed to be

full scale monsters

and the design of them was much more like an owl

um

they still look very similar to the way they look now

but they're the impression that they gave you was like

a wise old monster whereas we when we shrunk them down

we kind of turned them into little chickadees and and

and and I think that's fun in and of itself too uh

I love this I love this music right here that

yeah it's so cool

that kind of organ version of the Godzilla theme um

oh sorry

I'm getting sucked in you know

sometimes you know

that's the problem is like

I wanted to

make notes for the film before I came in here um

but every time I ended up watching the movie

I would just stop taking notes

and I would just start watching the film and

you know

cause it's even though I seen it a gazillion times uh

to a certain degree the V effects come in so late

you know you finish all that stuff so late

it's still so fresh so

I get so excited when I get to see all these effects

done with all the sound effects and

you know I get to really enjoy the movie just

I guess like anybody else you know

so

here we are going towards

rocketing towards what everybody is ready for and

you know

this is what it's all about you know

like it's Godzilla versus Kong

I love the fact that you know

I'm sure that people watching this film

are gonna be thinking well okay

we're in Hollow Earth how

we're gonna get

Kong together with Godzilla for this ending

and we just had Godzilla blow a hole in the ground

and it turns out that

you know that whole thing about

you know if you

you know drill hole

you know straight through the earth

that you'll come out on the other end in China

you know however that's supposed to work

it apparently is real and that's what we went with

funny enough

that shot right there was one that I felt like we redid

like 500 times you know

even though it doesn't look like it

but just to make it logical in terms of like the 1

2 three

you know those are the things that you never

would ever think that um

is an issue but you

you end up redoing things like that

a gazillion times to get it right

just so that it you know

you don't have to think about it

when you're actually watching the film

um Brian Tyreenery

so funny in this sequence

um you know that that's

that's what's funny about

you know when you're doing these commentaries

is every scene has so many stories

and every shot has stories in it that I could tell um

cause you know

movies take a lot of you know

time and effort and you go through so many

variations to get where you're going

and um

it's such a journey but

you know I just have to keep going because right now

we are finally at the big event

yes they are going to fight haha

oh yeah you know

I remember whenever the we uh

we had our first test screening

I had Robert Kirkman uh

who created The Walking Dead come

and he was sitting beside me

I remember right before the movie started he said

alright how long we have to wait to see the monsters

and then you know

the first shots of Kong and he just started laughing

I was like yeah haha

um so this was the uh

the very first uh idea I had for the movie

we were talking about Godzilla versus Kong as

is something that they were gonna be doing

I remember immediately I was like

I just wanna see Godzilla and King Kong fighting in

synthwave Neon City um

and that is 100% like my main drive

is that that's something I wanna see

and boy you know

the VFX department

they just really went all out making this so cool

the Supertron looking city and you know

we don't really cheat too much

you know about where they are in the city

I mean there is a logical

path that they're actually going through

you know in terms of actual Hong Kong

I love that shine right there

up

and here's the big homage to King Kong versus Godzilla

you gotta get the tree seen in there you know

I would have liked to make it a little

bit more ridiculous

but you know I think that it's just right

you know you don't want to go too far

because at the end of the day

we want to really take this fight seriously

and get into it

um originally

there was a whole little section here

that we ended up cutting

where Godzilla tried to drown Kong

he stepped on Kong in the water

and Kong originally grabbed the axe underwater and

and was using it to get Godzilla off of them

but we cut it cause uh

we just felt like you know

this is something that we've kind of

already seen before in this film

Kong uh

almost drowning and so it felt repeated

so we cut it out um

love that shot one of my favorite shots in the sequence

him coming down that uh

that uh

that that alley

and I love you you know

I got junkie to throw in some of the electronic stuff

oh I love Godzilla laughing right there

Godzilla's having fun I mean

like he's not really worried about losing

he's really not I mean

I know it maybe it seems like he is at certain parts he

you know he

he's got something to do he's

he's here to go get Mechagodzilla and take him out

oh by the way

this was uh

inspired by the back of the future ride uh

universal back in the day

um I showed DJ that

you can find those old videos online of the ride

and so I told him I

wanted to feel like this and you know

this should feel like our

our version of that but um

uh you know

Godzilla is not worried about Kong

he's just having fun you know

like he's he

he's here to get Mechagodzilla

he knows that Mechagodzilla is the threat

he maybe doesn't know what Mechagodzilla is

but he knows that there's something here

that he's gotta kill um

and you know he has no problem killing Kong

but at the end of the day

you know it's uh

this is this is not his fight

he's like okay

this guy thinks he's all that and um

I'll I'll show him up

I will admit

he's probably pretty surprised for this to happen here

as he looks right here yeah

he looks pretty surprised haha

I love the breath I like

I love how the the breath is backlit there

this is one of the last edition

that we made in the film for the effect shots

because we wanted to get just one quick

little glimpse of Kong and we really didn't have time

so they had to get kind of crafty in terms of

you know what they did there

but they made it really colorful and cool

and ends up being a really memorable looking moment

so this is one of the last of our little reshoot scenes

there was always a scene in here

but it was a little bit different

um and we kind of change this around and um

you know it's a bit more straightforward

but the big difference now is that originally

Mechagodzilla wasn't gonna become sentient um

originally he was gonna be piloted the whole time um

but we sort of realized after the fact that

that wasn't totally super interesting

and it was more

is gonna be more compelling of Mechagodzilla himself

ended up being a character

and so him becoming um self aware

which I mean you know

if we're gonna do a movie about the dangers of uh

you know technology and AI

you gotta you gotta get into the

the self aware AI thing and where that's gonna lead

right so

but I just like mainly

the idea that Mechagodzilla

gets to actually be another character in the film

and he gets to have a real personality

and and this is this is after this is when we get to

you know get to really get into that

and so here we are

the last bit of fighting between Godzilla

and King Kong you know

it's like it goes by so fast you want more

you know haha

um

you know

it's one of those things where it's like you get

you get some solid fighting here

and I'm so happy with it like

I think it could have used

maybe just another little section

you know I mean nobody would have argued with that

but I think every bit counts

and there's not a wasted moment

and oh I love that hit right there um

yeah like

so you know

Godzilla kind of gets upper hand pretty quickly

and again this kind of goes back to my whole thing

which is Godzilla knows he's gonna win

he's like okay

I'm getting done you know

the difference is now is Godzilla's really pissed off

he got hit in the face with the axe and he's like

I'm over this that's why Godzilla fights

a little dirtier than we used to seeing

he gets on the ground you know

he's he's not just taking it easy more he's like

I'm gonna kill this guy

he's really annoying me and he's really he

he's trying to take him out

you know um

and so yeah I I love these you know

these shots of him crawling around

it's something a little bit different

you know that we're not used to getting to see um again

this is me like I you know

like should this have been gorier probably

but you know I didn't want to be too disturbing um

I like the Kong gets one last hit in there

and then Godzilla's like nope

haha so this is really like

you know

when you're making a Godzilla King Kong you know film

like this is what it's all about you know

the shot of Godzilla Kong facing off and you know what

like you would think that the

the one of the main issues that we would have in

the script would be who's gonna win

you know you think that would be one of our main things

but that was never um

there's a little bit of blood on Kong's mouth there

on the other side that's as glorious he gets really

um

God I love this song sorry

it's so hard to talk about everything here

and all this is going on in front of you

um haha

but I get teary eyed sometimes when I watch that part

too I

especially the first couple times I watched it

with the sound and everything um

but the the

the question of who's gonna win

oh God this part is so cool right here

um

haha

and I love the score it's so dramatic

you know this

I hope that somebody makes it like you lose or

you know fatality or

you know like a video game thing

because that's what this always makes you think of

right there like you lose

um yeah

the the thing is

is um

it was never a question really

of who's gonna win or lose

like I came into this thing

you know knowing that Godzilla had to win

I mean I remember when I was on the playground

I guess I was in

it was somewhere between first and second grade

and I remember um yeah

some of my friends coming to school

and they were talking about who would win in a fight

Godzilla or King Kong and at the time

nobody really totally bought that original film

for whatever reason nobody felt like it was canon

maybe it's cause King Kong looks so different

because he he wasn't stop motion and all that stuff

so it kind of felt like a different character

kind of

going back to what I was saying earlier in the film

about keeping Godzilla the same

so that it felt like we were getting a defendant match

but I remember one of my best friends saying

that King Kong would win

I was so offended by that it was like

how is King Kong gonna beat Godzilla

I mean Godzilla is unstoppable he's Godzilla um

and so the second I got hired on this film I was like

I'm gonna say

I'm gonna win that argument from second grade right now

you know

this is gonna put that to bed once and for all haha

um but

but I also knew that like this was a film where

you know

Kong is gonna be the main character of the movie really

I mean and I I I love Kong you know

he's I mean in many ways you know

I I prefer Kong in this film over Godzilla you know

I think he's such a cool character but um

but I knew that you know

he needed to have his own victory

but it was pretty clear to me that

this is a big trouble

in Little China reference with electricity

the uh

we actually had the VFX department watch that for

for that um

the uh

but I I knew that

Kong's victory is gonna be the Rocky victory

you know you don't actually have to win to be a winner

it's about not giving up and

and Godzilla respects that in that moment

that's what's going on there is Godzilla could kill him

I mean we already set up early on

that if Godzilla thinks he wins

you know he doesn't have to kill you

you know he can kind of

you know walk away you know

just like he does at the boats

but I I

I think there's a genuine

moment of respect with Godzilla and

and King Kong in there uh

where Godzilla sees that Kong's not gonna give up

he knows that he's one and and

and I love that I love that kind of die

you know um

non verbal dialogue that the the monsters get to have

and now we have Mechagodzilla

who is the biggest jerk ever

I mean he just comes out of his mouth

and starts murdering everybody

I mean

like this is a bad guy and he's got to get taken out

I love his little laugh here

so they asked Jay Jennings

one of the E Square sound guys to do by the way

E Square just unbelievable

the sequence is awesome

they were always really big proponents of

you know getting gaps in the sound design

they did the other Godzilla movies

and really brilliant guys um

you know they were always like

we gotta find places where we take the music out

and it's just the sound effects

and we we create these different rhythms

because you don't wanna

just beat people over the heads with just

all this crazy stuff um

cause there's gonna be a lot of loud noises

and at a certain point

you get kind of desensitized to it

and so you have to kind of find these like

palette refreshers of of audio and unfortunately

also

the kind of motif we're doing here with Gia coming up

um

uh you know

being able to you know

go into her head and sucking out the sound

making it much more impressive thanistic uh

gives us the ability to uh again

like I said um

you know

refresh the palette the the sound palette boom

yeah so

this scene used to be much more of a Godzilla and

Mechagodzilla you know

battling it out and there was a lot more given take

and ultimately it just didn't work

it was like at the end of the day

the only thing that you

that really made sense to show in this part was

Godzilla just getting his ass handed to him

I mean Mechagodzilla is designed to take on Godzilla

and Godzilla by the way

I think would probably do a lot better in this fight

if he hadn't have just gone a couple rounds with Kong

I mean Godzilla is pretty tired

I mean he hasn't had a chance to really slow down uh

this entire movie I mean

presumably he's been swimming around and

you know

going nuts in the ocean when he's not on screen

and so um

when Mechagodzilla comes out

they just haha

you know he doesn't have a lot of reserves left in them

you know um

and so it it's a bit unfair

um I I

I like this set in in

in general is you know

it's really this is a Godzilla set

you know with lots of destruction

this is one of those things where um

you know

you get to do in a Godzilla movie

you look forward to doing

you know this type of thing

and this is the biggest sound stage at Gold Coast

and we filled it up three different times

this is also

like the same sound stage we use for Hollow Earth

whenever the characters are on foot there

um we use

we did two different streets

we did this street and then the one at the end

um we just reuse this and redressed it with trees

and all kinds of different debris and stuff

covered up different buildings

and really resourceful ways

and Ray will do that

and then also the Mechagodzilla chamber

when the kids go in there again

same big sound stage and just

you know it

it's really staggering sometimes

when you're making a movie like this

where you're doing

you just building all these incredible sets

and they're just gorgeous um

they they could be in museums really

and you're done with them and you know

they they take a hacksaw to it

and cut it to pieces and throw it away

and haha and that's that and you know

so all this money all these resources ultimately

you know it's

it's to go into this sort of

you know um

this thing that only exists on screens

which is really unbelievable um

I love this sequence this to me is like a moment for

you know almost to

to me it's beyond just what's going on in the movie

it's a moment where the film is kind of recognizing uh

the the

the kid audience is out there and saying like

okay I know this is a little scary

you know Godzilla's getting beat up

you know Kong's hurt

but it's almost like trying to recognize um

you know that it's gonna be okay

we're still having fun and we're back on it okay haha

um I remember when we were uh

doing this uh battle sequence the entire time I I kept

I don't know why I was so resistant to this

I was like I just felt like it's

it would be too cliche to have them shoot their beams

at each other and um

oh by the way

when we did this shot right there

the V effects guys when they showed it to me

originally during one of our reviews

they put like some sound effects of opera over that

and it actually sounds like Godzilla's like oh haha

it's very funny but um

the yeah I was really resistant to that

and it's

so that was one of the last little sequence in this

and then eventually like we just ran out of ideas

we just couldn't think of

any other cool things for Mechagodzilla to do

because we're constantly trying to think of like

what are some really interesting

you know attacks he can do

and ultimately it was like okay

well maybe we should just try them shooting at

beams at each other just see what it looks like

and then of course

they put it together and it's awesome

and so that that's what's in the movie

oh

this is what our Kong is he's Lethal Weapon to

you know popping his arm back in his shoulder haha

he's fun you know

that's what this is you know

and boy I mean

you know post covid

that's you know

we had no idea that this is kind

but that's what I think audiences want

they just wanna have fun and boy

would it have been a downer if conga died in this film

uh you know

I'm all for stakes and everything

but you know this is

this is a movie that's supposed to be fun

is a movie that you know

I want you to watch over and over again um

cause that's how I experience movies

you know when I like them

I watch them over and over and over and over um

including this one apparently

because I've done that quite a bit

so yes I thought

you know

I think that maybe he could have taken Godzilla out

here I don't know

I mean

it seems at least plausible in an interesting way

nice little throwback

you know originally

this was just gonna be

the way that he took out Mechagodzillas

that he was gonna do this

and he was actually gonna clamp

Mechagodzilla's mouth together

and is gonna internalize the beam

and that's gonna be how Kong was gonna destroy him um

but we were like they gotta team up

you know you gotta get the tag team

I love this

I love that they just humiliate Mechagodzilla here

look at him like he looks embarrassed

like he's a little flustered here

but now he gets it you know

he gets it back together boom

and then Kong goes down and then Wham

oh man you know

you gotta feel sorry for Godzilla

I'm sorry for all the Godzilla fans listen

I'm I came in this as like really Team Godzilla

as you know but you know

ultimately

Godzilla really gets beat up a lot in those old movies

it's really funny

if you look at Godzilla sliding off that building

in that last shot it's actually kind of humorous

the way he kind of faints

um but yeah

I mean he gets beat up a lot

you know I mean

that's Godzilla's thing is like

you know if he can't win the fight

he's like you know what

I'll just like tire you out from like

beating me in the head

and then I will murder you mercilessly

and I won't have a scratch on me at the end of this

um and you know

so I think other than that one moment

I think he pretty much had it under control

um this

this was actually inspired by some movie I saw in

the early 90s I can't even remember the name of it um

I remember

like a commercial that used to really scare me

it was like a guy had like a big fan and he's like

about to attack somebody um

it was a scary looking horror movie

I don't I literally don't even know what the movie is

but it always stuck with me as a kid

uh like

somebody like trying to like

cut somebody's face up with a

you know like a fan saw thing

yes this is the moment right here

the alley oop moment

get it

oh yeah you know like

um

this was actually kind of inspired by that Nozuki thing

cause when we're trying to think of like okay

how are we gonna make this really dynamic

you know

I started thinking about that movie Sandura where

you know

there's like a samurai fight at the end of the film and

you know this guy gets smashed or like

slashed and shoots blood out everywhere

and so I thought oh

this is an opportunity because it's Mechagodzilla

we'll just put like black oil

like it's blood and we can make this like

a gory samurai death scene mixed with Mortal Kombat

Sub Zero you know

this should also be another like you lose no haha

yeah but like yeah

I I

it was such a great opportunity to just like

have a gory moment that's not actually gory

so it's not disturbing um

you know and also just Mechagodzilla really

really had it coming

I mean he has so many cheap moves in that fight

I remember DJ always saying man

Mechagodzilla is just a dick

and that's sort of the vibe that that we always

that we always went with

are you okay I love

I love uh

Kaylee helping him up like

you know it's like

she's not really helping that much way down there

but it's pretty adorable um

this was the redress set that we did

obviously there's big green screen back there

but that's what the city is

but you know all the little trees and stuff they

this is the same set that we shot the other part on

we just lit it differently

but the trees make it feel different and you know

all the extras running around of course

I love I love these like kind of like

you know tie up scenes at the end of films where

you know everybody kind of meets up and

you know we sort of had our kind of cathartic like okay

the police are here and fire department

and all good movies kind of in this way

all good action movies my opinion

it's like the Ghostbusters ending really

you know that's what this sort of reminds me of

I love their costumes I forgot to mention

and Foley did a great job on all the costumes

in this movie

the Hollow Earth suits are just so cool

originally I wanted them to be silver

um I was thinking of like predator to the

the costume that Gary Busey wears

and they're trying to take out the predator and um

I think Anne hated the idea of doing silver um

costumes and she pushed me towards the gold uh

which I reluctantly did but um

she was right uh

it actually works really well

and also I think the silver would have been kind of uh

against the color palette that we were going for

so you know

you gotta listen to those costume designers

cause they definitely have

the good ones have really strong opinions and um

hahaha and they're usually pretty right about them

uh you know

if if they're really good

uh which she is

this is a nice epic shot in the trailer

you know giving away the ending

can you believe that I love the nuance on the bone

the red interior bone I've seen some people kind of um

talk about you know

the Moodo's bones and those kind of things um

but I I

I think that that's like a Godzilla type bone

I think that's what Godzilla bones looks like to me

that's sort of the thought

um

I don't know if it's Godzilla's dad or mom

or just something that was like Godzilla

you see that

Kong has like a tic tac toe game on his chest now

I wonder if that's gonna carry through to

there's ever any sequels um

so I this song actually

I never heard this song before

until I was in the office one day

I had it on my um Spotify on Elvis

Elvis Presley channel and I left the room and you know

it starts bringing up other artists and

and I came in and the song was playing and I was like

good Lord what is this song

this is awesome and you know

kind of design this ending around it

doing this movie was really a culmination of

you know a life's work for me um

you know I got into films wanting to do

you know big

big SCI fi epics the Star Wars films

Terminator films alien films

the predator movies back to the future

all those things Indiana Jones

those were all the movies that really inspired me

growing

up and that's what made me wanted to get into film and

you know as it is

it is somebody who kind of just started out in Alabama

with no real

you know ties to the film industry

um I it

it it's interesting cause you can't just start here

you can't just say well

I'm ready to do Godzilla versus Kong

who wants to hire me you know

you gotta you gotta prove

prove that you can do it and um

so I I started on very small productions and and

and slowly work my way up

I was really into Robert Rodriguez

his book

Rebel Without a crew was like my Bible in high school

I remember

I ended up actually dropping out of high school my

my last year to go to film school

I went to a 13 month film school

course called Full Sail in Florida

and and I did that

just cause I wanted to get that out of the way

but you know

as soon as I got out of film school I

I I made

you know a

a really bad slasher movie

which no one's ever seen um

well you know

no movies really bad it's really fun

it's gory super gory

Bill Mosley's in it some good performances

Tom told

I don't know I'm plugging homesick right now

but

you know I did that movie and then uh I

I I realized that I didn't really know how to make

movies really that well I just had jumped in

and so I made this other film called Pop Skull

which I mentioned for $3,000 with uh

just some friends of mine and and from there

you know um sorry if you're bored

me giving you my whole backstory about how I get

came to doing this film but you're gonna hear it

cause there's a lot of credits

or a lot of effects artists um

there's like seven eight

10 20 minutes I don't know how many credits there are

but um so um

so basically

like I did this little three thousand dollar movie

and that's what really got me

you know notice

you know

got me a manager who I'm still with today and an agent

all that stuff and um and so from there I really

you know back

that was back 2,005 and I finished that movie in 2007

took two years to make it for no money

and then I just started progressively meeting people

and working my way up over the years and um

and

to the point where I was finally able to get bigger

and bigger budgets and

you know I my first

you know big budget movie was $70,000

is called a Horrible Way to die

Simon Barrett wrote it for me

and I remember having a conversation with my DP

on that film was a friend of mine from Alabama

I remember he showed up to shoot that movie

and I remember talking to him like

can you believe that

we have tricked these people into giving us $70,000

to make this movie you know

like 100% serious about that

that felt like a fortune to us

and so over the years I kept building up in budgets

you know your next was about half a million dollars

I think 700,000 all in

um you know

the guest and Blair Witch are both about $4 million and

and then you know

Death Note was sort of my first like

you know

stepping stone to a bigger budget movie that was um

all in you know

about $28 million

and so I was finally at this point where like

okay

I have an idea of what most budget levels look like

I've had a little bit of experience with the effects

and so when it came to doing this movie

it was one of those things where it's still like okay

well you know

$28 million is one thing or 30 million

whatever it ended up being um

but what does a 200 million dollar movie look like

um

I had no idea cause I never even been on a set of a

200 million dollar movie um

and so I remember I was invited out to go see um

uh a couple days on Darty

you know as he was shooting uh

king of monsters

and he was nice enough to let me come and check it out

and uh

I was so nervous going there

just I didn't want to be in the way of anybody

you know like um

and

but I was kind of impressed right away that it's like

okay you know

at the end of the day this is a big budget movie

and there's a lot of things that go with that um

and uh

but at the end of the day

you know the core group around the camera

is essentially the same I mean you

you still have the same amount of people

you know standing around the camera

you can only fit so many people around there um uh

and there's a lot more people around

the periphery of the set but essentially

in the sets are bigger and more impressive

but ultimately um

you know movie

movies are a very simple thing

when you blow it down you got a camera

and you got to put things in front of it um

and that's all it is

you got actors in front of the camera

you look at all these effects uh

artist incredible um

you know I

you know I just wanna pay tribute to everybody

who worked on this movie I mean

everybody did such an incredible job

and I'll never meet most of you but um

I'm forever indebted to you for just really just

you know bringing all your talent and everything

but um

yeah I mean

like when it comes down to it

you know movies are just

you know uh

getting things in front of the camera and shooting

and it doesn't matter what the

the size of the the budget is or anything

there's still a you know

it's still a very small

simplistic thing at the end of the day

and that's why it's like

it's really funny when you think about

you know you know um

repurposing footage in a movie like this

which like I said I mean I

I didn't even nearly point out all the places where we

cleverly took shots from

scenes that were originally designed

for one other purpose and reuse them in a

in a different way um

you know it

it it's

you just have to be resourceful no matter what

what what the film is

it doesn't matter if it's Godzilla versus Kong or

you know um

you know something super tiny

um

you know it's movie

movie makings uh

it's a wild thing um

but uh yeah

so I'm just gonna wrap it up at this point um

there's no point of me trying to

to fill anything out but

you know

there's a lot of people that I didn't really mention

you know who really were integral into making this film

what it is um

and I feel bad you know like uh

we had great producers we had

you know the ad department was incredible

um uh

but um

you know and I should also give a special shout out to

actually right there Matt Pusty

who is making Vince I give him a credit because uh he

he did all those original

score pieces that we didn't end up using

and Robert Wiley obviously

um also I wanted to give credit to the uh

the special thanks to the monster verse directors and

uh

they all deserve it cause they really set this thing up

and you know we were

this is a sequel this is a true sequel to what they did

alright thanks everybody for listening

um hopefully this wasn't too boring or ridiculous

and I hope I didn't say um

and you know what I mean

and all those kind of things way too much

and it wasn't really annoying

um all the best goodbye