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Jul
25
2011

Kodak ONFILM Interview: Rob Bowman

Jul-25-2011
Kodak ONFILM Interview: Rob Bowman

bowman_620X0

[Original article here]

“Filmmaking like any art is subjective. It is one thing to get excited about an abstract idea and get it on paper as a script. It takes discipline to do the hard work necessary to translate that concept to film. A film look is kind of a magical interpretation of the story and performances. It’s a chemical process that sees images the way we do with our eyes. I know how the light will fall off in the background, and what we’ll see in the foreground. That’s especially important when we are telling stories through people’s eyes to show the audience what characters are thinking and feeling. The more I study and practice the art of filmmaking, the more I realize that happiness, frustration, sadness, victory and defeat are universal themes that evoke similar emotions everywhere in our country and the rest of the world. It’s a gamble every time you make a film, but that’s a really exciting part of being a filmmaker.”

Rob Bowman has produced and/or directed episodes of nearly 40 television series and movies and films for the cinema. He earned four consecutive Emmy nominations for The X-Files. A short list of his diverse credits includes the television series StarTrek: The Next Generation, Parker Lewis, The A-Team and Castle.

[All these films were shot on Kodak motion picture film.]

A CONVERSATION WITH ROB BOWMAN

Filmmaking obviously runs in the Bowman family. Let’s begin this conversation with the father, Chuck Bowman. How long have you been producing and directing films?

CHUCK BOWMAN: I’ve been directing, producing and sometimes writing and acting in films for about 35 years. Before that I was a television newsman at KTLA in Los Angeles and at various stations in the Midwest.
Rob was born in Wichita Falls, Kansas, while I was working at a television station there. I was working my way to Los Angeles, because my goal was to work in the film industry. I got my first job in Los Angeles when Rob was 3 or 4 years old. I did voiceovers on travel shows.
I got into producing sportscasts and reporting during the mid- to-late 1960s and early 1970s. After a while, I decided it was time for me to buy some 16 mm camera gear and start producing and directing my own industrial films. Rob was the best crew member I had. His enthusiasm never wavered.
In 1976, I started producing television programs, beginning with Black Sheep Squadron, which was also known as Bah Bah Black Sheep. My next show was The Incredible Hulk. I produced and directed a lot of other shows, including about half of the Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman episodes, among others.

Rob, did you grow up knowing that you wanted to be a filmmaker?
ROB BOWMAN: As my dad mentioned, when I was very young and living in the Midwest, he brought me to places where he was working. I was a kid when my dad was working at KTLA. George Putnam was the news anchor. Near the end of the show, George would bring me on the set and stand me up on the news desk that he was sitting behind. The turning point was Thanksgiving Day when the station ran The Wizard of Oz. I was sitting on the floor at my uncle’s house. My dad was sitting in a chair right behind me. I remember this moment, exactly. I was completely swept away by the movie. That was the beginning of my fascination with making films. Knowing that things are ‘made’ was a very important lesson in my childhood. My mom was a highly-skilled seamstress and she used to make some of my clothes when I was little. I knew that she ‘made’ them. She had a skill and one can learn a skill. My grandfather was a painter and sculptor. He had a garage in Burbank that was a beautifully organized workshop. That is where I watched him create his artwork. Though he was a stern, old guy, his art always had a sense of humor. I realized he was always trying to entertain people and I found that fascinating.

How did that lead to you thinking about making films?
ROB BOWMAN: My dad was already making films and I wanted to understand the craftsmanship of filmmaking. From 4 years old through my teenage years, I was fascinated with the notion of organizing my thoughts and translating them into images that tell narrative stories. I had a normal childhood. I played sports, had girlfriends and did all the things that kids do. I grew up in Burbank in the shadows of Walt Disney Studios. Walt Disney was alive and The Wonderful World of Disney was on television on Sunday evenings. It was pure magic being a kid growing up in Burbank living near the place where Walt Disney created magic. If you didn’t go to Disneyland 50 times by the time you were 15, you weren’t up to snuff. I kind of turned away from it during in my late teens. Maybe it was too easy or too close. I went to Utah, where I became a ski bum and did some bartending.

How did you begin your journey into filmmaking?
ROB BOWMAN: I began by helping my dad on his projects. He was making documentaries, industrials and commercials and I worked with him from an early age. I took a film production class at the University of Utah. We were assigned to write, produce and direct a story. It became as clear to me as a Fourth of July fireworks display that was where my passion was. I was one of three people who wrote a screenplay. I got the other two people’s drafts and rewrote the whole thing in one night. A buddy of mine who is now a director and friend starred in it. That was the equivalent of putting my toe in the water, and realizing how badly I wanted to swim in the filmmaking business. I couldn’t get back to Los Angeles fast enough. I got a job in the mail room at Stephen Cannell’s production company. I took film classes and spent my days getting people coffee, Xeroxing scripts and doing whatever I had to do to pay my rent. I realized that a lot of people wanted to be filmmakers. I recall asking myself, ‘Why would somebody hire me?’ That’s when I realized I had to find my own point of view, my signature approach to filmmaking. First, I studied the great directors: Steven Spielberg, Billy Wilder, John Huston, Stanley Kubrick and many others. I was on a mission to see what appealed to me about their films and what didn’t. My goal was to develop my own signature. It took me a few years. My time at Cannell’s company was where the day-to-day, real world of filmmaking took place.

In retrospect, what were you learning?
ROB BOWMAN: I was learning how they told stories on film. Cannell always aspired to reach the highest levels of filmmaking. That experience helped me to understand and appreciate what it takes to tell a worthwhile story on film. I watched approximately 400 hours of television shows being made during the two-and-a-half years I worked there. It was an incredibly dense, seven-day-a-week education.

Who were the people who influenced you?
ROB BOWMAN: Obviously, my father is at the top of that list. One of the important lessons I learned was his work ethic. Filmmaking, like any art, is subjective. There is no one right way to tell any story on film. It’s not like you are selling insurance for a living. I think I was 20 years old when I made a commitment to succeed in the film industry no matter what it took. I wrote a mission statement for myself. I promised myself that I would not fail through lack of effort. Stephen Cannell was also obviously a big influence. I learned that creating art on film takes inspiration, discipline and hard work.

You are more than a little passionate about this subject, aren’t you?
ROB BOWMAN: I love talking about film. Telling stories on film is a very tricky thing to do because you are creating two-dimensional images that you want to have a three-dimensional impact. How do I construct images with dialogue and music so they’ll move the audience? How do I draw the audience into the story and evoke emotions, including laughter, suspense, tension, excitement – all those things and more? Getting it perfect every time is virtually impossible, but that’s the dream I keep chasing. Every day, I ask myself, ‘How can we make this a better story?’ I don’t worry about tomorrow. I concentrate on what I have to do to make this scene jump off the screen. It’s more of a challenge today that ever, because there are so many channels and options for the audience. I feel like I’m auditioning for the audience’s attention every day that I have a program on the air.

You don’t seem to have focused on comedy, drama or any other genre. You like to do all of it?
ROB BOWMAN: I have always wanted to try my hand at making films which are funny, dramatic, action-packed, creepy, and everything else. I have felt from the beginning that if I have passion and enthusiasm for a project, the only thing that could get in my way is me. I believe that if you never quit, you will never fail. You’ll have ups and downs, good times and bad times, including doing your best work when nobody is looking. All you can control is aspiring to produce the highest quality films possible, and don’t let rejection, frustration or fatigue discourage you. You are in charge of your own destiny.

How did you decide to focus on producing and directing?
ROB BOWMAN: It was my opinion early on that the director was the one who makes the movie, but I’ve learned that it takes many people to make films. Directing is the creative, organizational process of translating the script to the screen. I also like producing because it enables me to encourage, cajole and nurture other filmmakers. But, the most alive I feel is when I’m directing. It’s also when I feel most vulnerable because of the unpredictable variables. It keeps me on my toes and oddly enough I get bored if I don’t feel slightly overwhelmed.

Don’t you think filmmaking is probably the most collaborative art form?
ROB BOWMAN: No one makes worthwhile stories on film alone. It begins with the writer who starts with an idea and blank pieces of paper. As a director, I draw diagrams of how things should move and the choreography between the subject and camera before I shoot anything. When I walk on the set, I begin working with the cast and crew. But, the writer begins with a blank page. That strikes me as a daunting mission. My first obligation is to deliver what he or she intended. My second obligation is to elevate it and make it better.

When you’re reading the script for the first time, do you talk to the writers and make suggestions?
ROB BOWMAN: Absolutely. I torture the writers, because I want to talk about everything. I ask about their intentions for the story because sometimes the writers don’t always get their stories on the page exactly the way they want. We’ll talk about the central idea—is there a better way to express it? Sometimes I may have a suggestion about structure, action or dialogue. It’s that critical back and forth with a writer that I need and enjoy. I cannot say enough how much I appreciate writers.

Obviously, getting the right words on the paper is just the beginning, isn’t it? 
ROB BOWMAN: Everyone makes a contribution. There is a critical relationship with everyone involved in the making of a film or TV show. From the writer to the producers to the actors to the editor to the people who make the sound effects to the composer to the colorist – all the people who touch the project elevate it. By the time it’s finished, it’s greater than the sum of the parts.

How about sharing memories about some of your early projects?
ROB BOWMAN: After I left Stephen Cannell’s company and floated a video of my work around town, the first people to respond were Rick Berman and Bob Justman, the executive producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I was around 26 years old and probably looked like I was 19. Bob Justman said he liked my footage but was concerned about my age. Rick Berman popped his head in the door and asked ‘Are you the pizza delivery boy?’ I said, ‘No, I’m Rob Bowman.’ From that day forward, he would occasionally refer to me as ‘pizza boy’ and say, ‘Hey, great film, can you shoot a little faster?’ I remember the month before I directed my first episode; I was going to the sets quite frequently to figure out what I was going to do. The sets were a big part of the story. They were modified from Star Trek movies and were huge. Star Trek had a large cast, and they all got close-ups. One of my challenges was figuring out how to do that and also use the environment. I storyboarded the entire episode, but I was terrified. We started with a daunting scene with 10 or 12 people on the bridge set. On the first or second day of production, the Enterprise was hit by a photon torpedo. I asked the cinematographer, how do I make the ship shake when the torpedo hits? He grabbed the magazine on the Panaflex camera and said, ‘You tell me when the torpedo hits and I’ll shake it like this.’ I thought he was being sarcastic, and said, ‘Don’t play with me. I just want to know how to do it.’ He said, ‘I’m telling you.’ I asked him twice, and he said the same thing twice. So, I said, ‘Okay, shake the camera on cue, but the ship gets hit on the left side, so it’s going have to tilt the other way. The cinematographer said, ‘Tell the actors to lean camera right or left.’ The next day the dailies came in and the impact was perfect. It’s difficult explaining how I felt standing on that multimillion dollar Star Trek set with the legendary Gene Roddenberry, creating a believable effect by yanking the camera magazine around.

Does that feeling ever go away?
ROB BOWMAN: No. I have earned a lot of credits for producing and directing, but the thing that has never changed is my love for doing my homework – sitting alone with a pencil and script, dreaming up and executing ideas on a set.

What was the next television show that made an impact on you?
ROB BOWMAN: That’s like asking who my favorite child is. Parker Lewis was interesting, because it was a comedy with aggressive camera movement. That landed me my first movie (Airborne), a little film about rollerblading with a young Jack Black and Seth Green in the cast.

After directing that film, you went back to producing and directing episodic television programs. Please share some thoughts about that.
ROB BOWMAN: I saw a trailer for the pilot of The X-Files. There was a shot of a kid standing in the forest with leaves swirling around him. I said that’s the show I want to work on. I called my agent and asked him to get me an interview. I just got to work on one episode during the first season. I loved it. We tried some pretty unusual things to grab attention, including shooting dialogue scenes with silhouettes of characters, and long sequences with no dialogue that required some savvy camerawork. I remember thinking; this is a television show where you have to be a filmmaker. That was what Chris Carter expected from everybody.

You directed more than 30 episodes of The X-Files and earned Emmy® nominations for four consecutive years. You also produced more than 90 episodes. What do you remember most about those years?
ROB BOWMAN: I just felt it was the right place for me. I remember us shooting a night scene on a farm that was like putting the pieces of a puzzle together. I called Chris Carter and told him that in order to get this done in one day, I was going to have to cut back and forth between what they are looking at and their faces. That means you can’t change it in editing. He gave me the go ahead. I had a great time because it was a tremendous challenge. The next season, they asked me to stay on as producer/director. It took me about half a second to decide that’s what I wanted to do.

How do you make decisions to make commitments like that?
ROB BOWMAN: I believe it’s the result of having spent all that time with my dad when he was doing those industrial films when I was a kid, and then going through an apprenticeship with Stephen Cannell. I also learned a lot while I was working under Gene Roddenberry on StarTrek: The Next Generation and being mentored by (executive producer/director) Jeff Bleckner. He took me on as sort of a protégé when I directed a few episodes of Mancuso, FBI. Jeff is a wonderfully finessed director who knows where to place the camera and how to talk to actors with brevity and accuracy. Dan Curtis was another great mentor whom I worked with on Dark Shadows. I remember my agent calling me and saying Dan Curtis wanted to meet me. I was 29 years old. At one point in our conversation, Dan asked, ‘If you weren’t a director, what would you be doing?’ When I told him that I didn’t have an answer, he said that’s what he had wanted to hear. Dan took me under his wing. He called me his surrogate son. He took me to dailies for other shows and explained what he liked, what he didn’t like and why. After the first day of production of an episode that I directed, he told me that I had what it takes and that he thought I was going to have a big career.

What was the next step on your journey?
ROB BOWMAN: My singular focus was directing and producing The X-Files over the next eight to nine years.

How did you create paranormal monsters?
ROB BOWMAN: That was another learning experience. The monsters were usually either robotic, which meant they moved funny, or it was a guy wearing a rubber suit or prosthetics. Whenever a monster would come on the set, I would turn off lights until there was just enough illumination to get a sense of the creature. Not a literal sense—just sort of a visceral sense of the creature. It was interesting because you couldn’t see how big it was or what sort of murderous weaponry it carried. Leaving those things to the imagination was a lot scarier. We took a ‘much less is more’ approach to filming those atmosphere scenes, because there are no limits when you engage the audience’s imagination.

That also had to stretch your imagination.
ROB BOWMAN: There is no reason why you can’t take a cinematic approach to storytelling on an episodic television series. Sometimes filmmaking is more about what the audience doesn’t see. It’s like the downbeats in between the notes that engage them.

How do you define cinematic storytelling?
ROB BOWMAN: Using images to evoke emotions and feelings is cinematic storytelling.

When you are directing, are you generally in the video village or at the camera with the actors?
ROB BOWMAN: Both. A lot of the time I want to be with actors who are in front of the camera, where I’m an eye-witness as it is happening. Other times, I want to be at the monitor in the video village because I want to make sure everything is in the right place in the frame.

I can tell from our conversation that you use light, shadows and darkness as well as words and the actors’ performances to tell stories.
ROB BOWMAN: I’ve always been conscience about how you can use light and the absence of light as a narrative tool. It’s another way of conveying emotions as subtext for the dialogue. Earlier in my career, Stewart Copeland, a drummer for The Police, scored my first movie. He invited me to visit museums in England and see the paintings. I went to his place in the northern countryside and hung out with him for a while. Then, I visited the British Museum which has more mummies than paintings. I went on to Paris, where I stayed in tiny hotel room across the street from the Louvre and other museums. I walked to each museum and looked at 500 to 600 year old paintings that were among the most beautiful things I had ever seen. There was no electricity when those paintings were made. The artists used sunlight and candles, and shadows and darkness like words. It was remarkably simple and effective. I also went to see Dutch master paintings in Amsterdam. There was a painting that had sunlight coming horizontally through a window and falling on a wall covered with heavily textured stucco. I noticed the way that the artist used sunlight reflecting off walls to motivate light on faces.

How did that influence your thinking about producing and directing The X- Files?
ROB BOWMAN: I had the cinematographer place big lights outside of windows. That allowed us to shoot faster while getting the right looks. We used silhouettes and darkness to create a very specific look for the show.

That’s interesting. You almost sound like a cinematographer.
ROB BOWMAN: I get eye rolling when I say this to the wrong person, but I like to paint with light. Lighting films is a form of painting. Sometimes you do it just right and other times you miss. I keep trying to do it better.

We also wanted to ask you to share some memories The A-Team television series. You produced more than 30 episodes of that program.
ROB BOWMAN: The A-Team was produced and aired during the mid-1980s. My claim to fame was that I directed montage scenes. The montages were used as cutaways to close-ups of faces of characters as bridges between first and second unit shots. I have to admit that it was fun.

In 2002, you directed a movie called Reign of Fire. What was that like?
ROB BOWMAN: Reign of Fire was a story about fire-breathing dragons which come out of the center of the Earth and attack mankind. I envisioned a very gritty sort of William Wyler-approach to making this film with dragons that look real. I thought it would take about three weeks to design the dragons. It ended up taking many months.

The visual effects artists started with illustrations and built a digital dragon. We brought a paleontologist in to scrutinize it. He told me it wouldn’t fly because it was too heavy. It needed bigger wings and the legs were too skinny. He explained that the dragon weighs four tons. It needed big legs that could carry that weight. We didn’t want it to look like an alien. It was supposed to be a freak of nature—sort of a hybrid between an alligator and king cobra snake. I was determined that it look like a misfit of nature with the goal of creating a visceral reaction. I wanted everything else to be realistic, including wardrobe, music, set construction, performances, camera work, lighting, color timing and mixing. I was aware of how fragile the idea of that movie was. I planned to focus on what it was like to live in an environment like that.

Let’s fast-forward to Castle, a relatively new episodic series that you are producing and occasionally directing.
ROB BOWMAN: The story revolves around the relationship between Castle, who writes mystery fiction novels, and a detective named Kathy Beckett. Castle gets permission from the mayor to tag along with Beckett during murder investigations. He is seeking inspiration for new stories. Kathy was motivated to become a homicide detective because her mother was murdered, and her killer was never found. This is serious work for her. She doesn’t joke around. Castle, on the other hand, can be goofy and funny at times.

Their relationship is fascinating. They seem like people we all know.
ROB BOWMAN: Ninety-five percent of what happens in each episode is in the script. The rest are spontaneous things which happen while we are shooting. Stana Katic plays Kate Beckett and Nathan Fillion plays Castle. They have both brought their characters to life. I also have to applaud Andrew Marlowe. He created the concept, writes many of the scripts and shepherds the other screenplays to keep them realistic and occasionally funny.

You are producing Castle and directing some episodes. You have spoken eloquently about why it is so important for different films to have the right visual grammar. Which cinematographer was brought onboard to collaborate on this project?
ROB BOWMAN: The cinematographer is Bill Roe (ASC). We have a tremendous relationship, because Bill knows and appreciates how important his lighting is to me. I admire and respect him for what he does. We push each other and collaborate to keep each other in the game. Bill will ask if it is okay if this person is standing or sitting here instead of there. My answer is always, of course. We push and challenge each other in kind of a brotherly relationship that includes everything from cajoling to sarcasm and criticism. It’s a very active verbal relationship that is all in fun and in the right spirit. I admire his ability to create the right images for different situations. We have to shoot so many pages every day, so there is no time for being overly clever. If I can get in my car at the end of the day, and say we did a good job of telling the story, I go home feeling good.

Why do you produce Castle on film?
ROB BOWMAN: If I want to watch a television program with a live look, I’ll tune in a football game or watch the news. A film look is kind of a magical interpretation of the story and performances. It’s a chemical process that sees images the way we do with our eyes. Those images are sent to our brain. There is a random disbursement of silver halide crystals on each frame of film that gets sparked to life by light like its passing through a magical filter. I don’t mean for that to be a technical explanation. It’s something I feel. You are painting pictures with light. The nuances in densities of light falling on someone’s face that we can capture on film is how I see the world with my own eyes. I know exactly what it’s going to look like. In fact, I rarely watch dailies, because I know what we are getting when we’re shooting film. I know how the light will fall off in the background and what we’ll see in the foreground. That’s especially important when we are telling stories through people’s eyes. I want the audience to know what characters are thinking and feeling. Film gives you that latitude. I know how the images will look on film if we decide to be slightly out of focus. If you shoot the same set with an HD camera that interesting texture in the background becomes a distracting highlight.

Those are intriguing aesthetic issues. Are there also practical issues?
ROB BOWMAN: We have to shoot a lot of pages every day to produce an episodic series. There are enough things that can go wrong and to slow you down. If a film camera gets sick, it tells you right away to stop filming because something is broken. With an HD camera, you can shoot a sequence and move to the next location where the assistant cameraman tells you, it looks like we didn’t record anything at the last location.

Are there other intangibles?
ROB BOWMAN: Another intangible is the myth that producing in HD format is cheaper. I don’t agree. One of the studios did a total cost analysis. Because of the perception that digital production costs less, some directors do a lot more takes. They think it is free, but then they have hours of extra dailies that they have to watch. Film is also a proven archival medium. We watch television shows today that were shot on film 40 or more years ago. Digital archives have to be updated and migrated whenever the technology changes.

What role do you think films play in our society? Are they just entertainment or something more?
ROB BOWMAN: Film is a way of telling stories in communal environments, ranging from movie theaters to television screens in our homes. Films influence how we think and feel about the world. We can learn from the experiences of characters in films and television programs about everything from the darker side of life to what it is like to live in the White House.

The first episode of the third season of Castle aired just before we began this conversation. How has it been received by the audience and how is the story evolving?
ROB BOWMAN: The audience for the first episode was 33-percent higher than last year. That tells us that the audience has connected with Rick Castle and Kate Beckett and their dedication to bringing criminals to justice. Filmmaking is a fascinating experience. A writer makes up an adventure and puts the words on paper. You rehearse and decide how it should play on a television screen to engage the attention of millions of people. I think that the more you study and practice the art of filmmaking, you more you realize that happiness, frustration, sadness, victory and defeat are universal themes that evoke similar emotions from people in this country and everywhere else in the rest world. It’s a gamble every time you make a film, but that’s a really exciting part of being a filmmaker.

When students and other young filmmakers ask you for advice about what it takes to succeed in this very competitive industry what do you tell them?
ROB BOWMAN: I tell them they need the talent to create ideas for telling stories on film, and the discipline that it takes to produce those stories. I tell them that they better have a spine of steel and be committed to dealing with peer pressure, frustration and rejection because filmmaking is a subjective art. You may think something is funny or romantic but someone you are collaborating with may not agree. It can be pretty devastating when someone tells you that you aren’t good enough to make films. I went through so much of that during my 20s, but it just made me more committed to following my dreams.

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Jul
01
2011

Kodak ONFILM Interview: John Bartley, ASC, CSC

Jul-01-2011
Kodak ONFILM Interview: John Bartley, ASC, CSC

bartley

[Original article here]

“Everything you do in life helps you later on. I began my career lighting variety shows and TV news programs in Australia and as a gaffer in Canada. When I shot The X Files, we blended light and darkness so the audience saw some things, but wasn’t sure whether they saw other things. That added to the aura of mystery. For Lost, we strive for a lot of color saturation, particularly greens. There are also campfire scenes with saturated red tones lighting the darkness, and flash-forward and flashback sequences weaved into each episode. As a cinematographer, I have to be flexible and trust my instincts, especially when directors or actors do something spontaneous. I think movies and television have a great affect on society, because so many people get their ideas about past, current and future history from them.”

John Bartley, ASC, CSC earned an Emmy® Award and another nomination for The X Files, an Emmy nomination for Lost, and three ASC Outstanding Achievement Award nominations for The X Files. His other television credits include The Matthew Shepard Story; Black River; Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus; and the episodic series The Commish.

[All these films were shot on Kodak motion picture film.]

A Conversation with John Bartley, ASC, CSC;
by Bob Fisher

QUESTION: Where were you born and raised?

BARTLEY: I was born and raised in Wellington, New Zealand. It’s a city located on the southern tip of the north island. There is a channel between the two islands, and the wind can be extreme. We call it Windy Wellington.

QUESTION: What did your family do for a living?

BARTLEY: My father was a career Army officer. After he retired from the Army, he was the manager of an automobile parts shop and also worked for a local newspaper. My dad died at the early age of 53 when I was only 12 years old. My mother was the cashier at a local theater since she was 17 years old. They featured everything from stage plays to rock ‘n roll concerts. My brother and I were with her in the back of the ticket booth until she went home at night.

QUESTION: Did that experience influence your thinking about a career?

BARTLEY: I loved watching theater and saw many shows. During the week, we only got to stay until nine o’clock at night and then we would go home. But, on Saturdays mom would let us stay and see the whole musical or play. My first job in the theater was helping the actors with their wardrobes. That lasted about two weeks. To tell the truth, I didn’t know what to do with my life when I finished school. One of my uncles had an electrical contracting business. I worked with him as an apprentice electrician for four years and eight months, including backstage work at theaters.

QUESTION: What was the next step that you took in your career and life?

BARTLEY: I learned about the outside world by listening the BBC and other programs on short wave radio. After I finished my apprenticeship, I decided to move to Sydney, Australia. I stayed with some friends from New Zealand who worked for a theater company. They gave me a ticket to a stage production. After the play, I thanked the manager of the theater and told him that I thought the play was great. He introduced me to the lighting director who offered me a job.

QUESTION: What was your job?

BARTLEY: My first job was operating a rear screen projector during a stage play called The Flintstones. When it got to the end of a reel, I stopped the projector and loaded the next clip. After doing that for a while, I sent resumes to the three television stations in Sydney. I was hired as lighting director for Channel 7 in Sydney.

QUESTION: What did you do as lighting director for a TV station?

BARTLEY: I was responsible for lighting everything from variety shows to news broadcasts. I was really lucky. I didn’t know anything about television, but there were two lighting technicians at the station who taught me what I needed to know.

QUESTION: Did you learn things that helped you later in your career?

BARTLEY: Everything you do in life helps you later on. Television was black and white in those days. I learned how to use light to accentuate black-and-white tones and colors, so they helped tell stories on television screens.

QUESTION: What was the next step in your life and career?

BARTLEY: I decided to explore a different part of the world by moving to Toronto. It took about five months for me to get a work visa. After I got to Toronto, I found out that I couldn’t work at a TV station because I wasn’t in the union. I got a job with an equipment rental company. I initially worked in the maintenance department repairing and maintaining lighting and grip equipment. After a while, they sent me out on non-union jobs as a lamp operator on electrical crews.

QUESTION: Let’s turn the page to the next chapter.

BARTLEY: After about a year, they asked me to run their office in Vancouver. I remember thinking that they were going to pay me to see the country. The first job I did after arriving in Vancouver was changing a flat tire on the camera van.

QUESTION: When and how did you become a gaffer?

BARTLEY: That happened in 1976 on a film called Who’ll Save Our Children? The cinematographer was Don Wilder. For some reason, he decided to give me a chance. George Schaefer was the director and Shirley Jones and Len Cariou were in the cast. After that I worked as a gaffer on everything from commercials to TV programs and movies with Sven Nykvist (ASC), Hiro Norita (ASC), Tak Fujimoto (ASC), Frank Tidy, BSC, Bob Stevens (ASC) and other amazing cinematographers. There is no school like that.

QUESTION: This question could apply to all of them, but tell us what it was like working with Sven Nykvist?

BARTLEY: He was a wonderful human being. Sven just used a spot meter. I remember being too intimidated to bring my light meter out, so I learned to trust my eye. Sven was a brilliant filmmaker and warm human being. He showed me how to create looks by keeping the light level low and very subtly bringing it up to reveal things to the audience.

QUESTION: When and how did you begin working as a cinematographer?

BARTLEY: Around 1986, I began shooting film on weekends. Originally, it was trailers for movies and music videos that we often shot with short ends. Most of the time, they weren’t paying jobs. I did a lot of favors usually for young, aspiring directors.

QUESTION: When and how did you earn your first cinematography credit?

BARTLEY: It was in 1989. I got a phone call from David Saperstein, the director who also wrote the script for Beyond the Stars. He told me about his film, and asked if I was interested in shooting it. It was a science fiction movie with an absolutely great cast, including Martin Sheen, Sharon Stone and F. Murray Abraham. After I said yes, he asked if I could bring my reel to the hotel where he was staying. I didn’t have a reel, so I brought a bunch of three-quarter-inch videotapes of music videos and other things I had shot and my three-quarter-inch videotape machine to his hotel. He watched them over the weekend and called me Monday morning and asked me to shoot his film.

QUESTION: Did that first film push your career as a cinematographer into high gear?

BARTLEY: I thought my career would really take off, but absolutely nothing happened. I went back to mainly shooting commercials. I didn’t know what to think.

QUESTION: What kept you going in pursuit of your dream?

BARTLEY: It takes perseverance, but at times that is easier to say than do. A few years later, I shot a few low budget movies and began a two season run on a television series called The Commish, which was produced in Vancouver, Canada. Michael Chiklis was in the leading role as a police commissioner. There were a lot of great scripts.

QUESTION: You shot a few movies after two years of The Commish. In 1993, you began working on a classic television series, The X Files. Tell us about that experience.

BARTLEY: I had worked with Bob Goodwin, the producer, on other projects. He called and said he was starting a new series that I might like. Bob asked me to meet with him, Charlie Goldstein from 20th Century Fox and Chris Carter, who created, co-produced, scripted and occasionally directed episodes. Tom Del Ruth (ASC) had shot the pilot. During that first meeting, they discussed their ideas for making a program with a science fiction theme that looked and felt believable. They were planning to produce 12 episodes that first season. After our conversation, I went back home and thinking that I really wanted to do that show. I tried to contact Bob at the hotel at about 4 p.m., but he had already checked out. I called him at home, but his wife didn’t know where he was. He called me at about 5 p.m., and jokingly said that he tried really hard to convince them I wouldn’t want to shoot The X Files, but they still wanted me. We filmed The X Files in Vancouver (Canada) from 1993 through 1996.

QUESTION: The X Files was about two main characters who investigate stories about aliens on Earth. How would you describe the look or visual style that evolved?

BARTLEY: The look was dictated by the stories. I still remember shooting episode six that was directed by David Nutter. It was called ‘Ice.’ I think that episode took the series to the next level. David pushed the envelope and challenged me to make every shot better. We blended light and darkness. The audience saw some things, and they weren’t sure whether they saw other things. That added to the aura of mystery.

QUESTION: The use of darkness on television was a bit revolutionary at that time.

BARTLEY: A still photographer came up to me one day and said, ‘I figured you out. You light the walls, but you don’t light the actors.’ I told him sometimes that’s true. You light walls and let the actors find their light at the right moments. But, other times, we lit the actors and let everything in the backgrounds go dark, maybe with little highlights here and there. We didn’t reveal what’s in the darkness.

QUESTION: You earned more than a little recognition for your artful cinematography on The X Files. There were three consecutive nominations for Outstanding Achievement from your peers in the American Society of Cinematographers in 1995, 1996 and 1997. You were also nominated for an Emmy in 1995 and you won that award in 1996. We were wondering how those nominations by peers affected your career.

BARTLEY: I met a lot of people, and some said they would send me scripts someday, but I shot The X Files through 1995. That didn’t leave a lot of room for other projects.

QUESTION: Did The X Files affect your thinking about what you wanted to do?

BARTLEY: Not really. I enjoyed shooting the series. There were challenges everyday, and instantaneous decisions had to be made to keep pace with the schedule. I think shooting a television series is even more challenging today. Directors and producers have higher expectations. They want more shots and more alternatives without compromising. We used to do a wide shot and a couple of close-ups and move on to the next scene. Now, it’s more like 10 to 12 shots a scene. On Lost, we average 50 and 80 setups a day.

QUESTION: Why did you leave The X Files in the wake of all that success?

BARTLEY: I loved working with the people on The X Files, but I wanted to experience working in different places on different types of films. I went to Chicago, where I shot three episodes of a TV series called Early Edition. That led to an opportunity to shoot the first few episodes of The Visitor. Randy Zisk was the director. He and I have been friends ever since. That was the show which got me the hours I needed to become a member of the International Cinematographers Guild in the United States. That opened doors for me to work on other films produced in the United States.

QUESTION: That is a bit of an understatement. You have earned more than 20 credits during the past 10 years for movies made for television and episodic television. There are many notable achievements on that list. We are going to repeat an earlier question, and ask what you learned from working on those different projects.

BARTLEY: Every film and each director is a different experience.

QUESTION: How do you see television changing?

BARTLEY: I could take a month to answer that question. Things are always changing, and they are also staying the same. We shot The X Files in Super 35 format and framed for 4:3. We protected for 16:9, because we knew it was coming. We also do that on Lost.

QUESTION: Let’s talk about your experiences on Lost.

BARTLEY: I came onto Lost about mid-way through the first season. I was working on a television movie in New Orleans when my agent called and asked if I was interested in shooting alternate episodes of Lost. I had never been to Hawaii. They sent me some DVDs of episodes, and then I went to Hawaii and watched them shoot an episode for a day or so. Michael Bonvillian was the cinematographer, and there was a great crew.

QUESTION: How would you describe the look or visual style of Lost?

BARTLEY: As a lot of Lost takes place on a tropical island, the greens are saturated, skin tones are warm, and the hand-held camera is fast moving with four different sides of coverage. At night, a blue-green moonlight contrasts with saturated fire and torch light. Flashbacks and flash-forwards do not have a different look. It’s up to the audience to figure out forward or back.

QUESTION: Do you generally work with one or multiple cameras?

BARTLEY: In the beginning, it was mainly a one camera show. I liked that because it gave us more flexibility for lighting, and Paul Edwards, the operator, was always in the right place at the right time with the right composition. We are now mainly shooting with two cameras to get more coverage, but we are not compromising.

QUESTION: Cinematographers choose films to shoot with like artists choose paints for their palettes. What negatives are you currently using on Lost?

BARTLEY: We have mainly been using (KODAK VISION2 500T) 5218.

QUESTION: That’s interesting, because there are a lot of daylight exteriors.

BARTLEY: It is true that there are a fair number of daylight scenes on the island, but there are also flash forwards and flashbacks weaved into each episode. Many times, we are manipulating images while we shoot as well as in postproduction. There are also a lot of interior scenes that are filmed on sets on stages.

QUESTION: There are two of you shooting alternative episodes of Lost. How much prep time does that give you to get ready to shoot your episodes?

BARTLEY: We usually end up with four to five days of prep time after I read the script and talk with the director. Mainly, we use that time to scout locations. The gaffer and rigging gaffer have to see where we are shooting and what lighting I plan, so the cables and everything else are ready when we are. You have to plan, but you also have to be flexible when the directors or actors do something spontaneous.

QUESTION: Do you have different directors all the time?

BARTLEY: We have two producer/directors most of the time. Occasionally, they bring in other directors for specific episodes when that’s what the schedule requires.

QUESTION: What other negatives are used?

BARTLEY: The other negative is (KODAK VISION2 250D) 5205. It is supposed to be a daylight negative, but I have used it for scenes filmed in firelight and bright moonlight, usually when we want a contrast between very warm firelight and a cold night sky. There are no rules for making these types of decisions. You have to trust your instincts.

QUESTION: You were nominated for an Emmy this year. Tell us about that episode.

BARTLEY: ‘The Constant’ was the final episode of the season. It was the most lineal episode I shot all year. There were flash forward and flashback scenes, but they aren’t confusing for the audience. They always know where we are in time. We don’t want those scenes to be noticeably different to the eye. It is more like the audience innately knows they are watching things happening at different times and places.

QUESTION: Do you expose or process film for flash forward and flashback scenes?

BARTLEY: No. It’s in the performances, editing and the sound plays a huge role in Lost.

QUESTION: Tell us more about ‘The Constant’ episode.

BARTLEY: There is a new character named Desmond who arrives on the island in a yacht. He joins the people who are survivors of the plane crash. One of the survivors is a woman whom he is in love with, but her father is a business man who doesn’t think much of Desmond, because he’s an army officer who doesn’t have any money. That makes him a poor prospect as his daughter’s husband in the father’s mind.

QUESTION: This is a totally unfair question. Telling stories with moving images is a relatively new form of expression. What affect do you think that television and movies have on how we think and perceive the world we live in?

BARTLEY: I think movies and television have a great affect on society, because so many people get their ideas about past, current and future history that way.

QUESTION: Do you think filmmaking is a form of literature?

BARTLEY: Some films are obviously better than others, but I am always amazed when the Television Academy sends members DVDs of the different series and movies at Emmy time. Some incredible work is being done.

QUESTION: How do you answer when film students and other young people who want to be cinematographers ask for advice?

BARTLEY: I don’t think they come to me for advice. I think they just want to talk. Back in early 1995, a schoolgirl sent me an email from Australia. She was interested in cinematography, but lived in some country town that wasn’t anywhere near a film school. We exchanged emails from time to time. She would tell me what she was doing, and was always interested in hearing about what I was working on. We haven’t met, but I still get emails from her. She began working in the film industry in Australia as a video assist technician and is now pulling focus on some big movies. I still get emails from her about how hard it was to make certain shots and what she did. She always asks what I am working on and how it is going. The best advice I can give anyone it that there is nothing easy about working in this industry. You have to love it, because it is tough on family life when you are working 70 or 80 hours a week. Not everyone can do it.

Oscar and Academy Award are trademarks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

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May
03
2011

Shock Till You Drop: Exclusive: Jodie Foster on The Beaver and The X-Files

May-03-2011
Shock Till You Drop
Exclusive: Jodie Foster on The Beaver and The X-Files
Silas Lesnick

[Original article here]

On talking puppets and killer tattoos

In her latest acting and directing project, The Beaver, Jodie Foster tells the story of a man (Mel Gibson) and his collapse into depression to the point that he develops another personality in the form of a talking beaver puppet that quickly winds up taking control of his life.

You can check out the full video interview with Foster and co-star Anton Yelchin over at Shock Till You Drop’s sister site, ComingSoon.net, but, as you can see in the video below, we couldn’t resist asking Ms. Foster about her previous on-screen relationship with an inanimate object’s imaginary personality: voicing a killer tattoo on a 1997 episode of “The X-Files” titled “Never Again”.

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Apr
25
2011

The Junction: Truth, Trust and the Magic of Mulder & Scully: 13 Questions for X-Files Writer and Producer Frank Spotnitz

Apr-25-2011
The Junction
Truth, Trust and the Magic of Mulder & Scully: 13 Questions for X-Files Writer and Producer Frank Spotnitz

[Original article here]

Hardly any other series left such a profound impression on the 90s like the sci-fi cult show The X-Files. Not only did it win an incredible amount of awards, attracted a huge fan following and led to two movies, but it also influenced the way stories are told on the small and the big screen. Even today many shows continue to cite The X-Files in one way or another: Be it LOST, Bones, House M.D. or Fringe – just take your pick. And if everything goes according to plan and the optimism of many fans, a third movie should hit screens next year – after all the complex mythology about aliens, invasion and conspiracies makes it a necessity. We got together with X-Files writer and producer Frank Spotnitz to talk about the impact of the show as well as about his experiences as a storyteller.

Drawings by Rose and Roxanne Goldfish from heART for Charity (http://heart.keyofx.org/)

Drawings by Rose and Roxanne Goldfish from heART for Charity (http://heart.keyofx.org/)

Source: Anastasia Hansen and heART

So what is it exactly that made and makes The X-Files such a hit? It is a mix of different aspects – the high quality of the scripts, directing and acting, the mix of creepy and funny stories, the challenging mythology, the unique score by Mark Snow, the atmospheric camera work and, of course, the main characters Mulder and Scully. Two smart characters with different belief systems and world views that were always treated as equals – and even led to a gender role switch to a certain degree: While Mulder is the more intuitive and open-minded character, Scully’s rationalism exhibits more supposedly male qualities. Not to mention the sizzling chemistry between the two: Hardly has unresolved sexual tension been more attractive. When the resolving part does finally take place, it happens off-screen.

Hence it should come as no surprise that The X-Files is still very much alive today. Especially the online community is very active and offers a diverse source of creativity. During the early 90s the show was actually even one of the first to play such an important role within the internet world. When you search for it today, you find a wide range of online forums, creative video editors, news networks, conventions and even charities.

TheJunction: How do you approach storytelling and writing a script?

Frank Spotnitz: When I’m looking for a story to tell, I look for something that I care about, both emotionally and intellectually. The emotional connection comes first. That’s the fuel that drives me through the process of devising the story. But at the same time, I’m thinking about what my story is saying, what questions it’s asking about life. And whether I feel I’m saying something true. That may seem surprising coming from someone who’s written so many stories in the supernatural genre. Ironically, I find it’s easier to identify interesting ideas in supernatural stories. If you’re going to depart from literal reality, then you have to think about why you’re doing that, and what rules govern the reality you’re creating. And in that process I invariably end up finding something I want to say about life.

My frame of mind each time out is that I’m going to try to write the best thing I’ve ever done. I tend to be very meticulous in the process of drafting a story. I typically spend weeks devising the story for an hour of television, thinking about each scene, how they end and begin, the journeys the characters take, what makes the story work. Then I sit down to write, and try to make my first draft as polished and well crafted as if it were my final draft. It never ends up being my final draft, of course — the cliché that most of writing is rewriting certainly holds true for me.  But the stronger the first draft, the stronger the platform upon which to build all my revisions.

Please tell us about your current projects.

I have many projects in development, most of which I can’t really talk about yet. The movie and television business is speculative, so you often have to cast a lot of lines before you get a network or a studio to bite. The project that’s occupying my every waking hour right now is tentatively titled Morton. It’s a spy thriller commissioned by the BBC and co-produced by Kudos Film and Television.

How did you find your way into storytelling and the film industry?

Circuitously. I wanted to be a writer, actor or director from a very young age, but I ended up getting sidetracked by journalism. My first quarter at UCLA, I had this amazing journalism professor, Jim Howard, and I just fell in love with the idea of being a reporter. I ended up writing for wire services for seven years — in Indiana, New York and Paris — before I realized I didn’t love it enough to stick with it. So I moved back to Los Angeles and studied screenwriting at the American Film Institute, where I was blessed with two more wonderful teachers, Beth Sullivan and Howard Dimsdale. The X-Files was, believe it or not, my first job in Hollywood.

How did you become involved in The X-Files?

Dumb luck.  I’d met Chris Carter in a book group while I was in film school. The book group ended, we didn’t really keep in touch, and he went on to create The X-Files. Toward the end of the first season, an old friend of mine who knew of my connection to Chris asked if I’d call on his behalf to see if he could pitch an episode. I felt somewhat uncomfortable doing it, but made the call anyway. Chris said he wouldn’t hear my friend’s pitch, but he’d hear my ideas, if I had any. Up to that point, I’d never thought of writing for television. I thought I was going to write movies. But I figured what the hell. So I came up with three story ideas, went in to pitch them, and Chris promptly shot them all down. I thought that was the end of it, but then a few weeks later, I got a call from Chris. He said two writers were leaving the show — I later found out this was Glen Morgan and Jim Wong — and asked if I’d like to come onboard as a staff writer. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I still can’t.

What do you think was decisive for the major success of the show?

So, so many things. When you have a big success like The X-Files, you have to do everything right — and then get lucky. I think it started with an amazing pilot episode, and the inspired casting of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. From there, the competition between Chris, Jim & Glen and Howard Gordon & Alex Gansa made for a first season that just got better and better. And I would argue that competition to outdo ourselves continued until the very end. It’s incredible to look at the creative trajectory of the show, how restless our imaginations were, and how it just got more and more sophisticated.

How important is the relationship to the fans for you?

I think The X-Files was the first series to have a deep relationship with its fans via the Internet. While we were writing the show, I’d frequently check out the newsgroups, and then the message boards, to see how fans were responding to the stories. Especially with the mythology episodes, it was incredibly useful to see what ideas were landing and which weren’t. In one instance, a fan’s question about the aftermath of Melissa Scully’s death inspired a two-part episode (Piper Maru & Apocrypha). The interesting thing is that the fan base evolves. I suspect of the people who are talking about and following The X-Files online now weren’t online when the show was first broadcast.

What makes the relationship between Mulder and Scully so unique?

You can’t overstate the importance of David and Gillian’s performances, or their chemistry together. Beyond that, I think it’s enormously appealing that Mulder and Scully are two incredibly smart people with boundless respect for one another, despite their profoundly different points of view. During the course of the series, it was their work that brought them together, but also kept them apart.

Since you explore the profound connection between being an author and storytelling in the episode Milagro, how do you perceive the interrelation between an author and the story he/she is telling?

It’s a very interesting subject to me. One of the reasons Milagro is one of my favorite episodes is because it’s about the power of storytelling. The mythologist Joseph Campbell once said that people need stories to survive — not “want,” “like” or “desire,” but “need.” When I first heard that, I thought it was an overstatement, but I’ve come to believe it’s true. Stories help us make sense of the world in which we live. We connect to the emotional lives of fictional characters in a very intimate way that can be incredibly helpful to one’s life. That’s certainly true for me — stories and fictional characters helped me get through some difficult times as a kid, and they still help sustain me in many ways. I am aware when I’m writing that by asking myself what’s true, what I care about, I’m learning things about myself and about the world around me. But at some point, the story becomes its own thing. And then it’s there for other people to draw from, to find meaning.

Do you have any favorite episodes or ones you are particularly proud of? If so, why?

I love the fact that The X-Files was so many series in one. Just about anything Darin Morgan wrote. So many of Vince Gilligan’s episodes and the ones written by Morgan & Wong, And of course countless episodes written by Chris Carter. His craftsmanship and fierce dedication to excellence continues to inspire me.

Big Light, Frank Spotnitz’s production company

Big Light, Frank Spotnitz’s production company

Source: http://www.biglight.com/index.php?p=about

Are there any funny anecdotes you could share from the time the The X-Files was being filmed?

Only over a drink, and off the record.

While working on Millennium, how did you manage to keep a distance from the often dark nature of the show?

I didn’t! But it’s actually incredibly liberating writing about dark things — it helps you sort out your feelings about things that terrify you.

Do you have any advise for people striving to become filmmakers?

Don’t be afraid. If you love it, do it. But work hard. Allow yourself to be as good as you’re capable of being.

Is there anything you would like to tell those out there waiting for a third X-Files movie to be greenlit?

I still don’t have any news to share. But I won’t give up. And the fans shouldn’t, either.

Thank you for the interview! If you want to learn more about Frank Spotnitz and his production company Big Light, check out the homepage for the latest news. And until December 2012 comes around: Never give up on a miracle.

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Apr
05
2011

Who Forted?: Interview: The X-Files’ Dean Haglund

Apr-06-2011
Interview: The X-Files’ Dean Haglund
Who Forted?
Tony Hart-Wilden

[Original here]

Actor and comedian Dean Haglund, best known for his role on television’s the X-Files (and more recently, as the host of Ghost Adventures Live), has more in common with his television role than one might think. He’s a self-proclaimed geek, an inventor, and even a bit of a conspiracy theorist. Regular contributor Tony Hart-Wilden had the chance to sit down and pick his brain about HAARP, the second shooter, alternate dimensions, and even Jane’s Addiction’s feelings on Alien/Human relations.

deanh

TW: You’re most well know for you portrayal of Richard Langley, one of the X-Files‘ Lone Gunmen, but you in fact have a long and varied career, tell us a bit about your background:

DH: It’s a green screen! (My background? Special effects? Anyone… hello?) Okay…. I come from Canada and was acting since I was 12 when I was doing children’s theatre and moved into the comedy racket when I was old enough get into a bar. And I never looked back.

TW: People may be surprised to learn that you may have more things in common with your Lone Gunmen character than they are aware of..

DH: Yes, including me. I have invented a laptop cooling system called a Chill Pak.

TW: Do you think your fame as one of the Lone Gunmen has helped you persue your interest in conspiracies?

DH: Yes, I didn’t really know much about them till I started researching my character and then meeting real researchers and occult scholars and ex-military dudes. And the stories were too fascinating to be ignored. All of them would probably make great movies…

TW: Although a fictional TV show, do you think the X-Files influenced people to take a greater interest in real life UFO incidents and conspiracy theories, maybe even to question what their own government may be hiding from them?

DH: I think that may be true, but there is also an alternative viewpoint and that is the government keeps creating shows like the X-Files so that when real life UFO or paranormal occurrences happen they can all say “you watch too much TV.” Even Jane’s Addiction lead singer, Perry Farrell refused to participate on the X-Files CD that came out a while ago because he said that X-Files set back “Human/ Alien relations by twenty years.” They are using the media to dazzle and confuse us from the truth.

TW: Do you believe that earth has been visited by extraterrestrials? If so, what is your most compelling evidence to support this?

DH: I think that term extraterrestrial needs some highlighting before answering this. I do believe that the universe is too large for us to be alone out here. Statistically there has to be other life forms. But are they coming here and sticking flashlights up our ass, I am not so sure. The majority of UFO sightings are now in Mexico, and in all those sightings, not a single incident of anal probes. That would suggest that all previous sightings and abductions were tapping into some other primal brain issues.

But then what are these things, and I know from my mathematician friends that the math indicates 11 to 13 other dimensions existing right around us all the time, with it own set of physical laws and functions. These would also be extra- terrestrial. And I would think that DARPA and other military branches are working in these fields and getting multi dimensional vehicles or something like that in those particle accelerators they build everywhere.

So I would say we are visited but it could be others who are right in front of us and they just happen to change frequencies where we can see them. Of course, the recent report by the Brazilian air force also is intriguing and argues against everything I have just said here. So… that puts me back into the “I dunno” Category. ”

TW: Conspiracy theorists are often labelled as “crackpots”, do you think there is an element that deserves this label?

The X-Files’ Lone Gunmen: RIP

DH: Unfortunately, paranoia is a sliding scale and some is healthy and a lot is an imbalance. So if you have lots of time and can follow some odd occurrences in your life and make a few logistical jumps (not everyone is trained in logic) then you can drive yourself crazy, quite literally. And some do. Others are clearly part of something, and choose to remain silent; I have met them as well. But “crackpot” is also comforting to those who don’t want to believe. Like in the Matrix when Joe’s character chooses to go back into the Matrix, He says “I know it’s fake, but it tastes so good.”

TW: The X-Files character you played was part of a group by the name of the Lone Gunmen, which was obviously a reference to the Kennedy assassination; do you think there was another gunman involved apart from Lee Harvey-Oswald?

DH: Yeah, I do. Even the 1975 acoustic ballistic tests found that a second gunman had to be involved. And that was commissioned by the government. A mob hit, a Vietnam cover-up, or something darker.

TW: Do you think we will ever know who killed Kennedy?

DH: They were supposed to open the files on that, but Bush pushed that date indefinitely into the future. That and his Dad’s records as well.

TW: Which conspiracy do you find the most disturbing if true?

DH: I would have to say the HAARP project which we know bounces 3.5 gigawatts of electricity off the Ionosphere from the University in Alaska, to help, they say, with cell phone reception. But if you research brainwave and neural disruption devices they are basically electric fields that alter brain wave patterns. So is HAARP a mind control device…? Let me just tell you that my cell phone still gets crap reception.

deanga-300x211

Dean hosting Ghost Adventures Live

TW: Do you have an interest in the paranormal? What are your beliefs on ghosts and the afterlife?

DH: I love a good ghost story, and I think that no energy is ever destroyed, as Einstein stated… So whatever keeps us going would seem to have to the ability to go somewhere else. And for those who don’t read up on science you wouldn’t know that your energy could go anywhere else so you stick around and scare those who remain. Next time you see a ghost, explain quantum mechanics and tell them to move on.

TW: As a result of the freedom of information act, the U.S government has been forced to release some of its previously top secret documents to the general public; do you believe that the government would ever really release information that would implicate them?

DH: John Greenwald Jr. has been getting Government info through the FOIA since he was fifteen and putting it all at his site, the www.BlackVault.com. Here huge amounts of info are blacked out and key details are lost. So I think we will know everything one day, but it won’t come from the powers that be. Some other revolution will bring on complete disclosure.

TW: The CIA acknowledged that they employed “psychic spies” known as remote viewers under their Project Stargate programme, they claimed to have discontinued their research in 1995; do you think we should take their word for it?

DH: I think that they have discontinued the “research” and now employ them full time. All those books, like the Psychic warrior and the like lay out the way it is done and what they saw. The simplicity of it and the results would say that from the 70′s till 95 you probably got it all mapped out and then just hire as needed. Research is over.

TW: You have travelled around the world with your stand up comedy and convention appearances, do you find that there are particular countries that are more into conspiracy theories and have a stronger belief in the paranormal and UFOs then others ?

DH: No, they are all pretty good. Some seem to have more distrust of their government than others, and all seem to know that the US has some sort of hidden agenda. But the UFO stories stay fairly consistent and the ghost stories relatively, some would say eerily similar.”

TW: What do you say to the skeptics?

DH: I would say, prove that I am wrong and you are right. I present this plethora of information and facts. Now you prove that my conclusion, whatever it is, is wrong, because what was a conspiracy theory 5 years ago is now a best selling book by Carl Bernstein. Just because the research is ahead of the curve doesn’t make it wrong.

TW: What projects are you currently involved in, what are your future plans?

DH: Chill Pak, of course, and three or four movies on the go, perhaps hosting a show on Discovery. All too soon to say.

TW: Finally, will the Lone Gunmen ever be returning to the big screen?

DH: Hopefully, though we will have to find a way to come back from the dead.

Find out more about Deans laptop cooling system, the Chillpak: http://www.chillpak.com/

Dean’s Official Website: http://www.deanhaglund.com

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Mar
14
2011

411mania Interviews: TV Producer and Author Howard Gordon

Mar-14-2011
411mania Interviews: TV Producer and Author Howard Gordon
Al Norton

[Original article here]

411’s Al Norton sits down with TV producer Howard Gordon to talk about the plans for a 24 movie, his two new shows, working on Buffy and The X-Files, and his new book Gideon’s War.

Howard Gordon has one of the more impressive resumes in television, with writing and producing stints on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Spenser for Hire, and serving as an executive producer on The X-Files and 24. He currently has two new dramas in the pilot stage (Homeland with Showtime and REM with NBC) and a new novel – Gideon’s War – in stores now.

Al Norton: When I mentioned in my column that I would be interviewing you I got inundated with emails about one subject so I decided to make it my first question; what’s going on with the 24 movie?

Howard Gordon: I think the 24 movie right now, as it stands, is on hold. Keifer (Sutherland) has signed on to do a TV series, so I think it’s not going to happen this summer. I think the conversations will continue and when we find an idea that makes it worth doing, we’ll do it. In the meantime there are no immediate plans for it.

Al Norton: Was the Homeland pilot the first thing you had written that was an adaptation of something else (Homeland is based on a popular Israeli series)?

Howard Gordon: No, I actually did a pilot 10 years ago called Ultraviolet that was an adaptation of a British series.

Al Norton: I have the DVD set of Ultraviolet.

Howard Gordon: Isn’t it great? I was excited about it but unfortunately it didn’t get picked up.

Al Norton: What challenges do you face as a writer when adapting someone else’s work?

Howard Gordon: The challenges are knowing not to fix what isn’t broken – some people can’t resist tearing something apart that’s not theirs – and to know what works and what doesn’t and on the other hand to resist the temptation to just change the names. Changing the names from Moshe to Mike didn’t work in this case. You really need to know what works for your market and with this adaptation it really was very specific to an Israeli audience and would not have worked so it really needed to be reinvented.

Al Norton: Not that the entire cast isn’t great (Claire Danes, Mandy Patinkin) but how thrilled were you to get Damian Lewis as your lead?

Howard Gordon: Unbelievably. I didn’t know how much until I saw him work. I mean, I knew he was one of our best actors but I didn’t know just how great he was until I saw him work.

Al Norton: How’s the pilot coming?

Howard Gordon: We’re cutting it right now. Without jinxing it I’m very, very excited about it.

Al Norton: Is part of the appeal to doing a show on a cable network that you avoid the very quick trigger that the major broadcast networks seems to be using recently?

Howard Gordon: I would think so. I think for a number of reasons the expectations are lower in terms of the numbers. I think the criteria for keeping a show on that air are different. If there is some critical reaction and some buzz about a show it doesn’t have to have the same ratings a network series does. Damages is a great example, or maybe it’s a bad example, because it never did very well but got some critical attention and lasted for a bit. Cable is great because I think you’re not broadcasting, your narrowcasting.

Al Norton: Is it REM or R.E.M.?

Howard Gordon: It’s REM (laughing).

Al Norton: My guess is that the idea you might have two shows on the air at once is a bit of a dream come true and a bit of a logistical nightmare.

Howard Gordon: It is absolutely both. Clearly what would have to happen if that situation took place is I would have to do things differently than I have before. I am usually fully hands on in any and all ways. I try not to think about it too much or it will drive me crazy before it even happens. I usually don’t oversee an assembly line very well, I usually have to get down and make the suit myself, so it would be an interesting exercise.

If Showtime picks up Homeland it would be a short order, 10 episodes or so, and we’d already have the pilot done, so I’d have a head start on that and some time before REM began.

Al Norton: The logline for REM that’s out there is “police officer wakes up from accident and finds himself in duel realities” and a lot of folks out there are calling it an “Inception like drama”; do you agree with that and can you expand on it?

Howard Gordon: It’s only Inception like in that someone’s dream world is a character in it. It’s as much about Inception as Time Traveler’s Wife is about Terminator. They couldn’t be more different and I think it’s a shorthand the press has latched on to.

It’s about a cop who is in an accident where his son is killed and his wife survives and he has these very vivid dreams where his wife has been killed and his son survives and the dreams are so vivid that he doesn’t know which is the reality and which is the dream.

Al Norton: Life on Mars has come up as a comparison as well although you don’t have any time travel.

Howard Gordon: The interesting thing about the Life on Mars one is that there is an organic creation of the very strange conceit of REM, which is a guy refusing to give up the loss he is facing and so his mind creates this place where he doesn’t fully have to and in Life on Mars there was a randomness to it that might have been a bit distancing. I think this has a more identifiable emotional center.

Al Norton: You’ve got Jason Isaacs REM, so it seems you’re getting to be a master with actors doing American accents.

Howard Gordon: I don’t know if it’s that we’re mesmerized by the Brits or what (laughing). It’s interesting, particularly in Homeland, because as we’ve written it it’s a uniquely American show but three of our cast members are doing American accents.

Al Norton: Who’s more passionate, Buffy fans or X-Files fans?

Howard Gordon: Oh boy (laughing). I’d have to say Buffy fans have it, mostly because it’s a more female and younger demographic. Buffy was a click behind X-Files in the generational sweep so the whole social media thing really helped carry Buffy along.

Al Norton: At this point can you just name your price at the Sci-Fi conventions?

Howard Gordon: You know I haven’t tried it but that’s a great idea. I haven’t been to one in a long time. We tried to get one going for 24 but it never came together.

Al Norton: Tell me something about Joss Whedon and Chris Carter than you’d only know from working with them.

Howard Gordon: They share a meticulousness, a real hands on approach and a dedication. They lived their work, particularly in those series. Most anybody who does the job kind of has to but in this case it kind of became all consuming. Really strong work ethics with both of them.

In Joss’ case…the word genius gets thrown around lightly but in this case it applies; he truly saw things in a way that no one else does, particularly with Buffy, since he was drawing on this vast bibliography to quote from an issue of Spider Man and the third act of King Lear with equal ease. He put stuff together in a tone like no one else had, and that’s sort of my definition of genius, someone who creates something that is completely new and where you can see the authorship.

Al Norton: 24 fans have their favorite – and not so favorite – seasons. When you make a show do you look back and say, as an example, “season three was amazing but five not so good”?

Howard Gordon: Absolutely. On one hand it’s all a blur because of the intensity of the experience but on the other hand I have very strong sense memories of that time, most of it nostalgic. I think you always love the beginning, much like a romance; there’s nothing like the beginning, the honeymoon. As it catches on and it grows it’s that start that keeps you coming back, and that’s why the first season of 24 was my favorite, because it was all so new. Joel, Bob, and me had such a good time. It was really hard and it was really fun. I learned a lot from them and I hope they learned from me and we were a real team. It was like a band coming together and having a hit song, or imagine that’s what it must feel like. Then, after a time, expectations get built up and the financial and creative pressures become more cumbersome when you’re at the top of the heap. Things start fraying at the edges like in any relationship and you have to work through it.

Al Norton: You’ve worked in TV for a long time with great success so did you write a book because you had a story you thought was right for that medium or did you decide you wanted to write a book and go from there?

Howard Gordon: A little bit of both. I had been carrying the idea of writing about brothers since college; my thesis was a novel about two brothers who had been orphaned and had to raise each other so that pairing had always intrigued me. The story itself was somewhat reverse engineered in the concept of a thriller. I had wanted to do a thriller and my publisher certainly new that, from a crass commercial potential point of view, if I had any name recognition it would be to write a thriller. It was during the writer’s strike and I was a bit fed up with the entire entertainment industry and thought, “let me try this thing I’ve held on to for so long.” I had no more excuses and a lot of time on my hands and took a shot at it.

Al Norton: Was the way in which you approached writing a book different than how you do TV? Were you on a schedule?

Howard Gordon: As deadlines approach you always find yourself being a lot more productive. I made a lot of wrong turns and the fact that I had to produce and write 24 at the same time meant I ended up doing much of this in the margins of a very busy schedule. It was tough but fortunately my publisher was very forgiving and happened to be a huge 24 fan; it helped because she’d say, “don’t screw up my show. You can have two more months (laughing).”

Al Norton: In your mind is Gideon’s War the first in a series?

Howard Gordon: In my mind and also in fact (laughing). It’s at least two books since I am writing the second one now. I’ve also been very humbled by this process. I feel like I’m running for local office; you go from book store to book store, five people in one store and fifty five in another.

Al Norton: Any talks about film rights?

Howard Gordon: We’ve got the book out to a couple of companies but nothing is close to done. I keep hearing people are interested. I’m not chasing it; I didn’t write the book for it to be turned into a television show or a movie.

Al Norton: People who work in TV usually don’t have much time to watch TV, but if you do watch, what shows are you watching?

Howard Gordon: It’s really true; during 24 I watched almost nothing. The only things I watched with any regularity were Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Office. Once 24 ended I caught up on a lot. I love Dexter, I love Breaking Bad…I own the DVD’s for The Wire and The Tudors and their up next. I also haven’t seen enough of Lost. I love Modern Family, just love it.

Al Norton: Because you work on the production side of TV, will you find yourself watching, say, an episode of Dexter and thinking, I want to go back and see who wrote that so I can hire them down the line?

Howard Gordon: It’s always a bit of a busman’s holiday (laughing). That may be what keeps me from watching a lot of TV as I find myself in one of two places, disgusted by something and very critical or jealous, and neither of those are very pleasant experiences (laughing). Being merely entertained isn’t that easy.

Gideon’s War is available at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com as well as in bookstores everywhere.

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