Alrighty there folkerinos, Harry here with an interview that our faithful intergalactic movie-going stud up in Toronto, Anton Sirius caught on his holo-transcriber. But... as far as I can tell... bopping around searching for distributor news.. I just can't seem to find one or a release date... but from the sound of it... it's pretty darn good. And it's one of the best effects guys in the biz's first directed film. I'm curious as hell about it. So... if you know anything about release or distributor info... by all means... let me know. And man... I want to see this thing. I've been a giant lizard nut ever since THE GIANT GILA MONSTER!
Michael Lantieri Interview
Michael Lantieri is arguably Hollywood's top FX guys, having worked as FX supervisor on Jurassic Park and the Lost World, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Mars Attacks, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and countless others.
Anton Sirius: Did doing big lizards on Jurassic Park inspire you to take on Komodo?
Michael Lantieri: Believe it or not Jurassic Park is not connected with Komodo. What brought me to Komodo were the two producers of Mouse Hunt- I was over at Amblin for a long time and doing a lot of their movies, and while I was doing Mouse Hunt Alan Riche and Tony Ludwig bought Komodo, were developing the script and asked me to read it, saying that this would really be perfect for me to go and direct. The thing about Komodo that was attractive to me was that it was a living, existing creature. The other reason was that being a lower budgeted movie, I think that it needs to be proven that you can put photorealistic, 3D computerized image effects into lower budget movies. It's at the point where I've seen all the bigger movies as an effects supervisor and the answer is always "Let's put more special effects into it, let's do this, let's do that" and then they get great big bills and everybody's mad. So I think its time for the whole industry to realize its how you use the tools, and not just sheer volume.
AS: Were there any difficulties working with the smaller budget, getting the effects the way you wanted them?
ML: As a director I would always say, "I want five more days of shooting and another $2 million" no matter what. From a technical viewpoint I'd say "I put the money on the screen", which is important to me. Whether its $1 million or $100 million it's important to me that the money gets up on the screen. And what I'm seeing nowadays is the money going other places.
AS: So would you say you're happier in the director's chair?
ML: I'm happy when I'm solving creative problems. I had a good time directing Komodo, I had a plan going in and I had it all storyboarded and I was very careful because of the expense of the tools involved. But I learned that from some very good filmmakers as well, Steven Spielberg could have all the money in the world to work with but he doesn't just go and shoot, he's probably the most economical director I've ever worked with. Also, I was fortunate enough to already have relationships with people who have on just those kinds of films- Michael Fallavollita was assistant editor on five films before he edited Komodo; Phil Tippett, who I worked with on Jurassic Park, did the CGI work; Alex Sydon, who supervised all the plates, is with ILM; Jerry Summers and Bruce Lacey designed and mixed the film at Skywalker Ranch. So while I didn't spend any less money I knew what I wanted, and I knew who to go to, and I didn't waste time.
AS: In addition to Spielberg you've worked with the biggest names in Hollywood- Tim Burton, Robert Zemeckis, Francis Ford Coppola. They all have very different directing styles. What did you learn from some or all of them?
ML: My job as effects supervisor is to try and get into the head of the director, find out whatever their vision is and try to make that real. So, communication is a really big part of the job. As a director I felt every bit of that responsibility, I felt it was my responsibility to make sure each department head, through a photo, whatever, knew exactly what I wanted and they weren't just running off working on things that weren't going to end up being in the film. And I learned that from all of them.
AS: How about working with 'real, live' actors? Was that am adjustment for you?
ML: The transition from effects supervisor to director, because of the films I've chosen to work on, wasn't that hard. If you think about Roger Rabbit, if you think about Casper, and Mouse Hunt, those require effects people can sit down with actors and say "Now, there's going to be a character three feet from you looking over your left shoulder, and your focus is going to be there, and what's going to happen is they're going to move something in a funny way and you have to react to it." It was a very natural transition, in fact, but only because of the types of films I've worked on.
AS: How long did the project take to get to the screen, from the time you were approached with the script?
ML: From being approached by Tony and Alan on Mouse Hunt to a final mixed print was probably two years of my life. That's a long time. Some people will tell you "Oh, you just go and make a movie and it's over". The way I always describe it that doing effects for a big film is like having a child, but directing a movie is like giving birth to a child. But it takes a long time, and it never really ends for you because people look at you after everything you've gone through and say "Well, here's a simple answer- why didn't you just do this?" To me it's almost ruining the movie-going experience, having to analyze movies so much, through DVD, through…
AS: And of course you'll be expected to give your commentary on the DVD for Komodo.
ML: Of course! I still get letters from that little boy in Japan who asks me why the Mr. Fusion in Back to the Future leans to the left in one shot and then to the right in the next, so the audience has become a lot tougher. People used to just go and say "Oh, that really affected me" and that's great, whether it was the music or the effects or whatever, they were affected and then the mind took over. What they do now is they go home and wait and the DVD comes out and they go through frame-by-frame saying "Oh, look, the tooth of the T-Rex on the left side was actually cracked."
AS: So how did you first get into effects?
ML: I was always interested in making films and in photography in particular so I studied photography, and studied film a little bit at UCLA, and an opening in the effects department at Universal studios happened through a friend and I went to work on the Six Million Dollar Man, if you can believe it. And that was a temporary job that I took twenty years ago, and as effects grew and became bigger and bigger and more an integral part of telling a story I found myself creatively being able to do what I wanted to do.
AS: It was a long apprenticeship.
ML: It was a great big long apprenticeship.
AS: So would you ever consider doing a straight drama, for instance, a project without effects?
ML: I enjoyed the interacting with the actors, the relationship that you have with the actors, what they're thinking about, both of us having insecure moments over what was going on, but yeah, yeah, I really would.
AS: What's coming up on the horizon after Komodo?
ML: I've been talking to a lot of people, actually. I'm currently working on something called the Sixth Day, the Arnold Schwarzenegger film being directed by Roger Spottiswoode, which is a movie about cloning, and it's a very interesting script which presents lots of challenges, so I'm going to be busy solving those problems. I'm still reading a couple of scripts that are attached to major studios, trying to figure out how to make them work as a director. I'm just being careful about what my second choice if there would be one as a director would be. George Lucas said it best. He said your first directing job is not the hardest thing, it's getting your second, because they can scrutinize your first so much and come back and say you should have done this, or you should have done that. I do see directing another movie in the future, though.
AS: You talk about being second-guessed. Do you do that to yourself, sit in the back of the theater and say "Oh, why didn't I do that?"
ML: Every movie I've worked on- and I've worked on 48 different features now- I look at every single one of them and I do believe that I failed to achieve what my goal has been. I think if you ever achieve that goal you've set the bar too low. So I'm pained and agonized over every single frame of film. And that's the honest truth, I would always want to make it better, I would always want to do it again. In the case of Komodo I would want to go back to Day One, and go through it again, and not necessarily change it all but just try to make it better than it is. And that's with Jurassic Park, with Roger Rabbit, with anything.
AS: How have audience responded to Komodo?
ML: It's interesting, I've gotten different responses from different target groups. The film is a PG-13 film, and I fought very hard to keep right on the edge of PG-13 and not R, because you need the PG-13 audience who will go and see a film more than once, who will talk about it, so when you show an 11 year old through to a 17 year old, let's say, you get one response, but you show 19 through 30 year olds you get another response because some of the lines are very humorous, you're responding to this big lizard hanging on the back of her car saying wait a minute. It's like why did the Poltergeist family move into haunted houses three times? So I'm enjoying the different responses, I'm really having a good time with it. Tim Burton gave me the best advice, he said "You can't make a bad movie. Go, have a vision, make it and be done with it." He learned that on Mars Attacks, because in the States it was received kind of, well…
AS: I thought that was just the bad marketing. They brought it out after Independence Day, and tried to make it look like an action film instead of a spoof of that.
ML: Right! I'm glad to hear you say that. The biggest deal for him was calling me from London and saying "They get it here! They really get it!"
AS: Let's talk about that PG-13 rating. Was it much of a struggle to get?
ML: Yes, it was.
AS: Anything specifically you want to go into that got cut, or anything?
ML: There were some pretty intense pieces. One of them is a death that's in the film, and it really doesn't show much, but they fought with me over that, and I backed down on the sound, then pushed it back up, and they took a frame here, and took a frame there, and it took two screenings with the ratings board to get PG-13. The first board could not rule on it. They said if they had to rule that day it would get an R, so we said no no no, let us work on it. It's tough.
AS: Had you been involved in that side of things before, as effects supervisor?
ML: You hear of what's going on ,and being friends with the staff, and the directors you hear what they are fighting over, and sometimes you have to go and re-shoot. With the Lost World, this is a classic example, do you remember the scene with the two T-Rex's, um, sharing the meal? What they made us do was paint the mouths closer on the body, just so there was a percentage of the body showing. That's how strict they are. That's not re-shoots, that's just frames of film. And if you're careful you can trick them. You move them closer, and raise the sound, then you pull them back where you want them and lower the sound a little bit, so it's one big game, really.
My time ran out, but here's one interesting bonus question from the Q & A at the screening:
Q: What's your involvement with Jurassic Park 3?
ML: Funny you should mention that. I just had a meeting with Dennis Muren (from ILM- I think thats' who he said), and we were talking about that, how we wanted to keep it 'in the family. Joe Johnston's directing and he's done these kinds of films before- Jumanji, the Rocketeer. So it's moving ahead.
