'Kung Fu Panda', Directors, John Stevenson & Mark Osborne

0:08Jawad MirWhat was with your transition to DreamWorks like? Like, how come you ended up at PD and DreamWorks or DreamWorks? Just kinda run that through for me. That would be great to hear.

0:16Guest 2So I came to America in '91…

0:22Jawad MirOkay

0:22Guest 2... From the UK, where I'd been a, I'd been kind of a free… after The Muppets, I'd become, like, a freelance commercial artist.

0:30Jawad MirSure.

0:30Guest 2And I'd done lots of commercials. I'd worked on, I'd done lots of storyboards for English animated TV shows like Camp Dracula, and Danger Mouse, and

0:44Jawad MirYeah

0:44Guest 2... A show called The Dreamstone, and some specials, you know, and some storyboards for feature film work. So that's kinda what I was doing in the UK. And then, I was, I was an overseas supervisor, for a show called The DreamWorks and went to the Philippines for a year. And w… and while I was there working on my show, I met some people, who were overseas supervisors from a company called Colossal Pictures in San Francisco.

1:14Jawad MirOkay.

1:14Guest 2And then, and we got on because it, what would happen would be all the overseas supervisors would just have a beer in the commissary at the end of the day and exchange war stories. But then Colossal Pictures got its first, animated, TV show, which was basically making Back to the Future the animated show.

1:35Jawad MirRight.

1:36Guest 2And they, and they were, they were primarily known for doing MTV titles and kind of cool commercials, but they'd never done a long form animation before. And so I got a call from one of the people I'd, you know, I'd met, asking whether I'd wanna come out to San Francisco for like nine months and be, you know, an art director on Back to the Future. But, and I just, I'd always wanted to go to San Francisco, quite honestly. You know, it was, I was more interested in San Francisco than the Back to the Future show, but I thought, "Sure, I can do that." And so that's what brought me to the States. And then after that, I worked at, I was a staff director at Colossal Pictures after I finished, Back to the Future for a few years, and then I went and worked with Henry Selick on James and the Giant Peach, and then I worked at Industrial Light & Magic.

2:30Jawad MirWow

2:30Guest 2... They wanted to do a fully CG version of basically House of Frankenstein. It wasn't, it wasn't... It was a new story, but it had Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, you know…

2:42Jawad MirSure

2:42Guest 2... Dracula, all the universal monsters, and this was back in, like, the late '90s. It d… didn't go anywhere. I think it eventually morphed into Van Helsing, the Stephen Sommers film.

2:54Jawad MirYep

2:54Guest 2But originally, it w…

2:55Jawad MirThe one with, Hugh Jackman, right?

2:56Guest 2Yeah. But originally…

2:59Jawad MirYeah

2:59Guest 2... That was an all animated adult CG…

3:03Jawad MirRight

3:03Guest 2... Film. That would've been... And there's a test somewhere of a, of a CG Boris Karloff that ILM did in the late '90s that, you know, that would've been a very cool thing if they could've pulled it off. Anyway, it didn't happen. And then I think after that, I kinda got sexy for, like, 15 minutes. It sometimes happens, and I got a call from Pixar, whether I'd go and be a head of story on, I think it was Monsters Inc.

3:36Jawad MirOkay

3:36Guest 2... And then it was literally that week, it like bizarrely, I got a call from DreamWorks, like a two days later or something, to be head of story on a film called Tusker, which is about, elephants. It's set in Asia. It's a film, sort of a cursed film that has never got made. It's been tried a few times, and for some reason, it's a great idea and it's just never, you know, never happened.

4:03Jawad MirI remember actually, now that you mention that, I remember when DreamWorks started, they put out a slate for all these projects that were gonna come out, and that name rings a bell, and the elephant concept rings a bell…

4:15Guest 2Yeah. Come on

4:15Jawad Mir... Among many other things. What was the concept? I mean, unless it's, confidential. I don't know.

4:20Guest 2No, I don't think so. I mean, it's, God, that was so long ago. So that was, but that was, that was what... So anyway, I got this weird thing where I had to sort of like, is Pixar or DreamWorks, trying to choose and, you know, it got very difficult and complicated because they were both, you know, like I didn't have a... I was very fortunate. I didn't have a bad choice to make, you know, and they were, both places were incredibly gracious, and they gave me tours, and they showed, you know, and I r… I really had a very hard time

4:50Jawad MirPicking

4:51Guest 2... Choosing. And I, at the end of the day, I just decided I liked the elephants story more. It was kind of The Dirty Dozen with elephants. It was like…

5:00Jawad MirOh

5:00Guest 2... Elephants on a mission to try and save their herd from poachers. And it meant that the elephants had to do all this kind of crazy stuff that elephants really shouldn't, you know, do, like, you know…

5:14Guest 2... Going over mountains, and sneaking through villages, and all this kind of, you know, stuff. And Tusker was this, it was set in Southeast Asia, but Tuf… Tusker was an African elephant, so he was this big, giant, grizzled, Clint Eastwood war elephant kind of a thing.

5:31Guest 2And I just found it really appealing, and I've always loved Southeast Asia. You know, I've done a fair bit of traveling in Southeast Asia, and I'm, I'm always very, I'm always very comfortable in Southeast Asia where, you know, it doesn't matter which country I am, I kind of just feel like, you know, I f… it… it's one of the places in the, you know, one of the parts of the world where I kind of feel very comfortable and relaxed. Not always true in other parts of the world, but all the countries I've been to in Southeast Asia I've always enjoyed. And I've always, you know, I like the food, I like the people, I like the countryside, so it just appealed, you know? And, I like elephants, so that was the reason. And then that film wasn't ready, so they said, "Would you work on Shrek, until Tusker's ready?" And, I was supposed to be the head of story on Tusker.

6:23Guest 1Right

6:23Guest 2... So they said, "Would y… would you mind just working in the story department, on Shrek?" And I was like, "Fine, sure."

6:28Guest 1I basically w… cold called into DreamWorks because my friends were working there, and just said, "Hey, you know, c… can I, can I come in and show you my short?" And, you know, that's the beauty of a nominated film. And I got my foot in the door and showed my film, and they hired me and gave me a two-year contract to develop projects. And they,.. It was Bill Damaschke who brought me in.

6:54Guest 2Okay.

6:54Guest 1And, you know, I played my film. You know, we sat in the theater, I played it on 35. It was a really exciting moment. And right afterwards he got on the phone, he made a couple of calls, and then he, they gave me a couple of scripts, and they asked me to write notes on scripts. And I met with Jeffrey, and it was like they, it was a time where they were really kind of trying to expand their roster and trying to bring in talent to try to, diversify the ranks. And so they saw me as a, as a filmmaker with a voice and it was a really interesting moment. And so I met, I met John, I met a handful of other directors there that were sort of in the same, you know, boat going from shorts or series to features…

7:33Guest 2Sure

7:33Guest 1... Like, you know, kind of developing things. And over the course of that couple of years I was, yeah, j… learning about the process and learning about how features worked, how CG worked, and lear… you know, learning about how they did things at DreamWorks. And I shadowed a bunch of projects. It was re… really exciting. And then ultimately, you know, I was constantly being asked to write notes on projects, and I had written a set of notes on Kung Fu Panda that were, I guess pretty succinct and to the point, and pretty, spoke to those that were looking for, you know, a way forward, 'cause the project sort of had a high concept.

8:15Guest 2Sure.

8:16Guest 1And they had some ideas about it, but, and I'm sure you know all the stories at this point. But I, you know, I was, I was writing from a point of view, looking at it going, "Wow, there's this amazing potential for this film," and yet, you know, it did seem like it was in search of, in search of a way and in search of a story, in search of, you know, sort of a unique approach. And I think at that time it was being thought of as, Kagemucha. Like, it was being thought of as a, as a, kind of a parody of the genre and a parody of martial arts films and, you know, kind of like how Shrek skewed…

8:55Guest 2Shrek, yeah

8:55Guest 1... Fairy tales and…

8:56Guest 2Yeah

8:56Guest 1... And it seemed like the... I, you know, I was like, "Well, why not make a great martial arts movie," you know? And I, that was the thing that I really... I saw Hero, and Hero blew my mind, and I had been a fan of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and, you know. So I was, like, looking at it going like, "There's a real opportunity here." and so yeah, like, I just, I guess I just had a unique

9:23Guest 2Sure

9:24Guest 1... Perspective and it was towards the end of my two-year development contract that I wrote those notes. And then I actually took a break. I actually, I walked away, because I got a Guggenheim Fellowship to do another short film. And so I was kinda leaving to go do that, and eventually they asked me to come back and if I wanted to join the project. And Melissa Cobb was just coming on as the producer at that point. And when they also told me that Jack Black was, that was the moment where they had asked Jack Black if he wanted to do it, and I was a huge Jack Black fan, like fr… from the beginning of

10:07Guest 2Mars Attacks? I think that was his breakthrough career

10:10Guest 1Well, I, yeah, I was a huge fan of Tenacious D. And I had actually, I was like kind of, I, you know, Tenacious D was the thing that really, got me, got me going and interested in hi… in he and Kyle and the, and like what Jack was doing. And even, but yeah, Mars A… yeah, I remember him from Mars Attacks, but I think it was, Tenacious D was the thing that really got me going. So knowing that Jack was involved and knowing that there was this opportunity because Melissa was coming in too, and I don't know if you've spoken to her or not.

10:46Guest 2No, I haven't. No.

10:47Guest 1Oh, she's amazing. And so there was this real opportunity, to sort of, take a step back and take a big breath about the project and sort of find a, find a dir… you know, direction for it that could ultimately, hopefully go in a more interesting and exciting direction, you know?

11:05Guest 2I know you were at DreamWorks for a long time before you directed your first, you did Father of the Pride episodes, I think, right? Or… Yeah, I, the way it worked at DreamWorks was, at least this is how I under… this is, this was my understanding.

11:21Guest 1Sure.

11:21Guest 2You could, you could confirm this with Jeffrey, but it was my understanding at the time I was there, which was sort of, you know, I started in like, you know, I think '98 I think I joined DreamWorks, and I was there and I think I left in 2009. So it was after sort of like 10 years.

11:39Guest 1Yeah.

11:40Guest 2And in the, and in sort of like the early 2000s, if you wanted to direct at DreamWorks you had to go ask Jeffrey. You had to, you had to, y… they weren't gonna come and ask you. You had to go to put yourself forward. You had to, you had to say, make the case, you know, "I want to be a director. I think I've got what it takes. I think I'm ready." And then you had to be prepared for Jeffrey's answer, which, 'cause Jeffrey was kind of like N… you know, Caesar, you know? It could be eh, or it eh. And the thing was, if it was eh, like Jeffrey's yes and no in story, that was it. That was your answer, you know. You might get told, "I'm never gonna make you a director. You know, I like you as an animator or a story person and whatever, but I'm not gonna make you a director." And so that was kind of part of the ritual, which was do you really want to know?

12:43Guest 2Do you…

12:44Jawad MirThat's fascinating.

12:45Guest 2And a lot of people didn't want to know. A lot of people, I think the idea of being told I'm never gonna make you a director w… was more f… off-putting than…

12:57Jawad MirThe not knowing

12:57Guest 2... The not knowing. At least if you don't know, you've got, you can imagine it might happen. You know, if you go ask and as, 'cause as y… as you know, Jeffrey's very direct and Jeffrey goes, "Nope, that's never gonna happen," now you've got that answer, and what do you do with that? You either stay and know that you can never be that at DreamWorks anyway, or you have to leave…

13:18Jawad MirSure

13:19Guest 2... And try it somewhere else. And that was…

13:22Jawad MirSo did you ask him for Father of the Pride first?

13:25Guest 2No. You don't, you, it, you... I just went and I thought, "I want to know. I wanna know that or that."

13:37Jawad MirYeah.

13:37Guest 2And so I just presented myself to Jeffrey and said, I, you know, I j… I'm, I'd, I wanna direct, I think I'm ready, you know. And that was kind of ba… basically it. I didn't really need to say anything more. You know, Jeffrey knew the reason I was having the meeting, so there was... I… in my memory, it was a short meeting. There was sort of a pause where you kinda go, "oh," you know. You're waiting for the eh. And then he, i… in my m… memory, he sort of went, "Okay, that can happen. I need you to show me some stuff." And that was it.

14:12Jawad MirOh.

14:12Guest 2That was the end of, that was the end of the meeting. And what that meant was up to me to decipher.

14:18Jawad MirProve yourself. Yeah.

14:19Guest 2So then I went through a period of trying to figure out what do I need to show to, you know, to prove that I'm ready. So I was industrious and positive and, you know, as full of team spirit as I could be, and beetled around trying to be a, you know, a good soldier and all of that. And then at some point, I remember it was at, it was up at PDI, you know, I was told to go and meet Jeffrey. We, you know, he would come up like every week and have a sort of visit with PDI. And so one of his meetings, I think, you know, towards the end of a week, as I remember, I was told to meet Jeffrey, and I went to meet Jeffrey, and he said, "You're gonna direct the pilot episode of Father of the Pride. I want you in Glendale at 9:00 on Monday." And the, there was only one required answer, which was yes. And that was the end of the meeting. It was done in like two minutes. I just went, "Okay."

15:21Guest 2And then, and that, nothing else was said. I, you know, I left and, you know, I, you know, I was on the, you know, the first flight out of San Francisco down to Glendale, on Monday morning to start, you know. And it wasn't, it was... I think the thing that was understood was you could always say no if you were offered something.

15:47Jawad MirSure.

15:48Guest 2But you would never be offered anything again.

15:50Jawad MirAgain.

15:51Guest 2So Father of the Pride was not necessarily the thing I wanted to do. In fact, the film I really, the project I really wanted to do at that time was Monsters Versus Aliens, which was not…

16:03Jawad MirOh

16:03Guest 2... Called Monsters Versus Aliens, 'cause I love monsters.

16:07Jawad MirYeah

16:09Guest 2... It had a different name. It was based on, or at least the original version was based on a comic book, and I can't remember what it was called, but you know, it was a monster movie, you know? And…

16:20Jawad MirSure

16:20Guest 2... And I just love monsters. So that was what I wanted. But you know, Steve Hickner, you know, who is very, you know, cool and smart guy, you know, he once, he once gave me a great piece of advice, and his piece of advice, which I remembered in that meeting with Jeffrey, was never turn down a battlefield promotion. So whatever the job was, you said, "Yes, sir, I'm on it," you know? And whether you liked it or you didn't like it, you, it was up to you to make it, make it work. And so, you know, I worked on Father of the Pride. I did the pilot. I obviously didn't screw it up too horribly, so they asked me to do some more episodes. And I was directing the season finale. I think I directed four episodes. The pilot, the, Thanksgiving episode and something else, and I was working on the finale, and they came to me.

17:24Guest 2I think this was... My memory is it was like, around Christmas 2003. And they said, you know, that the Kung Fu Panda was sort of, it was... Kung Fu Panda was in sort of pre-production…

17:37Jawad MirDevelopment

17:38Guest 2... With a…

17:39Jawad MirYeah

17:39Guest 2... It wasn't in development. It was in pre-production. It was pre-lit.

17:42Jawad MirOkay.

17:42Guest 2And it had two directors and a producer, and they, it wasn't going great, and they were gonna make a change with one of the directors. And they came then and asked me, and it wasn't just me. I'm sure they asked a bunch of people…

17:57Jawad MirSure

17:57Guest 2... Who'd g… who'd gone to Jeffrey and asked for a shot. They said, "Do you want, you know, would you be interested in being considered for Kung Fu Panda?" And I, you know, a… and y… I needed to sort of write a proposal on how I would make it

18:14Guest 1Different and better than what it was at the time. And, I did and I guess I got, I think after Christmas I was, I was told that I'd got the job. And I think I officially started on Panda in March 2004.

18:30Guest 1So, you know, that's…

18:35Jawad MirOkay

18:35Guest 1... That's how I got Panda.

18:37Jawad MirJonathan mentioned one of the things that I asked him, and tell me about your sh… story.

18:42Guest 1Sure.

18:42Jawad MirI asked him, how did you get involved in directing Kung Fu Panda? And he told me the thing with DreamWorks was, with Jeffrey was, that you have, if you went up to Jeffrey and you said you wanted to direct something…

18:57Jawad Mir... And if he said, "No," then that's it, you can never ask him again.

19:01Guest 1Right.

19:02Jawad MirAnd he went up to him and he asked him, and Jeffrey said, "Yes," and he gave him his blessing. What was your, was it similar story, or something different?

19:09Guest 1Well, I will, I mean, this is kind of, an interesting... So when I was, so I did my two years where I was developing things, and I was learning about politics the whole time I was developing.

19:23Jawad MirYeah.

19:23Guest 1And I w… I think I was at the c… tail end of my two years, I felt like I wasn't sure if it was a fit for me, and I wasn't sure if it was a fit for my sensibilities. And I remember they asked me to write notes on Kung Fu Panda, and I was looking at it at that time, and I think it was actually before John joined the project too. And I think at that, at that moment it was a different set of directors. And I looked at the project and I think because I was lead, I wrote, I wrote the most honest notes I think I had written in my, you know, my time there.

19:59Jawad MirRight.

19:59Guest 1I didn't couch anything, and I didn't, like, and again, I wasn't trying to get anyone in trouble, I just was like, "Well, here's what this could be." And I, and I kind of approached it, and I wrote very succinct, and I think it allowed me to write a notes from a different point of view than pr… in the past, I had written notes, I was like, "Well, it could be this, it could be that. It could be this, it could be that." And I just kind of was a little more direct, and I was like, "Here's the opportunity. Here's what's not working with the pr… current project, and here's where I think it could go." And it was in that moment that I think, I never said I wanted to be a director, but that was the whole premise of my contract, was that I was, being groomed to be a director for a project.

20:38Jawad MirSure.

20:38Guest 1But I think it was that set of notes that Jeffrey saw and th… and thought of me as a director. When he saw that, I think he thought of me as that. And so eventually when they came back and said, "Hey, we'd like you to be involved in a, in a discussion about the movie," I went to this, I went to the discussion and my notes were brought up as part of the discussion. And so I thought, "Oh, okay." And I was gone at that point. Like, I didn't have an office anymore.

20:59Jawad MirYeah.

21:00Guest 1I, you know, I packed up. But what's interesting is when they did come back and ask me to come back to the studio, they asked me to come back for a different project.

21:10Jawad MirWhich was? Do you know, do you remember?

21:12Guest 1It was Monsters vs. Aliens.

21:13Jawad MirOkay. Okay.

21:14Guest 1And they asked me to come back on that, and Conrad was directing that, and I, that was a project I had actually developed. It was called, it had been called, it was b… it was based on a comic book. Rex Havoc.

21:26Jawad MirI remember it had a d… I had, I remember it had a different name, but it…

21:29Guest 1It was called Rex Havoc. It was Rex Havoc.

21:31Jawad MirOkay.

21:31Guest 1And that was the ma… character's name. The main character was Rex Havoc. And anyway, I developed it into a place where they ended up sort of running with it, and Conrad was on it. So I had affection for the project. It was very different than when I, when I was developing it. But they asked me if I wanted to join that project, and I was like, "Okay." So I joined that project. But I had heard that they were interested in me for Kung Fu Panda, so it was really w… a little bit odd. So when they, when Jeffrey came to me and asked me to join Kung Fu Panda, that was the question, that was the question that I couldn't say no to.

22:02Guest 1And it was like, "We'd rather you join, we'd rather you be on this project," and that's when I started talking to Melissa, and that's when I met Jo… you know, like, in the context of the project, met John. And that was the moment where I was, it was, it was described to me as, "Yeah, you're being asked to do this. Like, this is the ask."

22:20Jawad MirSo you better say…

22:21Guest 1If you say no to this ask... Because in that moment it was like, I think they had just moved the release date. It wasn't a sure thing. I was, I was basically agreeing to join a project that was, in a sense, uncertain. And so it was like, "Do you wanna join this uncertain project even though you were on this other thing?" And so I said yes, again, and I gave you the reasons why. Melissa was great, I really liked her. Jack Black was great. And then the idea w… of sorta having this opportunity to sort of, you know, start over again. And we started the process of rewriting with Jenny Nelson and the story team, like really driving the what w… if this could be anything, what could it be? And we were, we were able to shed the, you know, the problems that it had, you know? And we were able to sort of work around it 'cause it was sort of everyone was clear. That was the most consistent feedback, was what's there isn't working, so let's try to get it to work.

23:20Jawad MirCast that you guys had, right? It, w… that's one of the things with DreamWorks Animation films, at least, I don't think if it's that like that anymore, but definitely was from the time of conce… like 1998, from Prince of Egypt up until probably like 2010, the cast was always big. Like, there were like, you know, huge…

23:41Jawad Mir... Celebrities and actors.

23:42Guest 1Yep.

23:43Jawad MirWhat was, what, how does that, on Prince of Egypt that was more like a team decision by Jeffrey Katzenberg because he's Jeffrey Katzenberg. He made all the calls and arrangements, and he was able to get everybody. Was it similar with Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angeli… Angelina Jolie, Jack Mc…

23:59Guest 1Yeah. I mean, I mean, basically, you know, there really, there really wasn't a plan B other than Jack, you know, for Jack Black. Everybody, you know, everybody wanted Jack, and Jack was on a hot streak at that time. And, you know…

24:14Jawad MirRight

24:14Guest 1... He'd done a voice in Shark Tale…

24:17Jawad MirYeah

24:17Guest 1... I believe. But he'd, he

24:18Jawad MirYeah, I remember that

24:20Guest 2And he'd also, I think, done a voice in, Ice Age again…

24:23Guest 1Yes

24:23Guest 2... But not a lead. But everybody loved Jack Black, you know, and was in, you know, and everybody just thought he would be perfect as Po. And there wasn't anybody we could think of who would, if Jack said no, that we would be happy with, you know? And we, and he didn't say yes straight away. I think he kind of was like, "I've already done a couple of animated films. I don't really want to." But I think Jeffrey just, you know, I think he came to us and said, "Okay, s… you know, what's plan B?" And we went, "We don't have plan B. If it, you know, we don't know who Po is if it isn't Jack." And so I think Jeffrey just worked on Jack until Jack said yes, you know? And then, and then, you know, when we had Jack, then kind of everybody else, you know, Dustin and Angelina and Lucy Liu and David Cross and Seth Rogen and Randall, you know, Duk Kim, and, you know, Jackie Chan, everybody kind of just it all fell pretty quickly, you know, into place.

25:26Guest 1That's interest… that's interesting you mentioned that he didn't wanna do another animated movie, and now he's still doing the voice for Kung Fu in the new series.

25:35Guest 2Well, at the time, I mean…

25:37Guest 1I'm just saying, right? It's interesting.

25:39Guest 2It, I mean, I don't know whether it was like, "I never wanna do an animated," or it may be like…

25:44Guest 1Yeah

25:44Guest 2... I've just done…

25:44Guest 1He was reluctant

25:45Guest 2... I've just done a bunch, and I wanna…

25:46Guest 1Yeah

25:47Guest 2... Try and do something else. But anyway, but here's the thing that was kind of interesting was the Jack that we all fell in love with was, and thought would be hilarious for Po, was the High Fidelity Jack, that kind of slightly wise-ass, snarky…

26:04Guest 1Yeah

26:04Guest 2... Kind of guy. And originally, that was how we were writing Po, as kind of a…

26:09Guest 1Yeah

26:09Guest 2... Kind of a smart mouth, kind of wise-ass. And because it, we all thought Jack was hilarious in those when he, when he played Jack. And I'm, I rem… you know, it's, it's my m… memory that when we were doing our first recording session with Jack, that was how we started. We w… you know, those, that was how we were directing him and how the part was written. And Jack did a, did a couple of versions, I think, you know, of some lines for a scene, and then he said, I, you know, check with Mark Osborne about this, you know. But, you know, this is my memory of it, that it was Jack who said, "I'd like to try this a different way," you know. And we were like, "Sure, whatever you want," you know? And then he tried this kind of more vulnerable, sort of self-aware character, as opposed to the... A lot of DreamWorks characters tended to be that kind of Teflon kind of character that was kind of cocky and snarky and, you know.

27:13Guest 2Jeffrey kind of had a lot of effect in the characters that sort of tended to be like that, so you often found a lot of that kind of character trait in a lot of DreamWorks, you know, leading characters.

27:24Guest 1Oh, yeah.

27:24Guest 2And Jack's played, suddenly he was playing Po as this kind of rather vulnerable, you know, somewhat insecure, you know, character who is aware of their limitations, as opposed to the kind of the brat, brassy kind of cultural kind of character. And, you know, the thing was, it was, again, undeniable. As soon as he did that, we all went, "Of course. Of course, that's much better. That's so much nicer and smarter." You know, it's much easier to get behind a character like that who want, who dreams big but is aware that, you know, "I can't be what I dream of. I, you know, I'm, you know, I've got these limitations and self-confidence, and you know, physically I don't fit the mold of, you know, what I aspire to be."

28:14Guest 1Sure.

28:15Guest 2And just the way Jack played it was suddenly like, you know, you feel for that guy. You know, suddenly, you know, suddenly he was everybody. You know, we all…

28:25Guest 1Yeah

28:25Guest 2... We suddenly realized, oh, we're all, we're all Po. We, you know, we all have big dreams, and we're all falling way short of what we would like ourselves to be.

28:35Guest 1Oh, yeah.

28:35Guest 2And so instance… instantly, and the write in it, and Jon, you know, Jonathan Abel and Glenn Berger, the writers, were always in the records. And I think as soon as we heard Jack do that, you know, it, like, lights went off and, you know, immediately they were rewriting Po and rewriting the script. And Po became the Po that he is in the movie, I, you know, in my memory, because Jack Black made that call and said, "I think the cocky guy is not gonna be as appealing as this guy," and he was absolutely right.

29:10Guest 1Well, the great thing about Jack was, like, it was really interesting. Like, I was a huge fan of his. We, I think School of Rock was, like, we were looking at School of Rock…

29:19Guest 2Yeah

29:19Guest 1... A lot. Our first animation test was…

29:20Guest 2I love that film

29:21Guest 1... To a clip of School of Rock, and I love that character a lot. But it was Cosmic Shame was the Tenacious D song that spoke to, like, I was a big fan of the D, and I could see a parallel between the character of Po and the idea of what Tenacious D was sort of cultivating and the, and how they approach, who they are as artists and, like, you know. But there's a, there's a song by Tenacious D called Cosmic Shame that it… it's brilliant because it's all about embracing being an artist and doing, like, putting yourself out there. But when you really love what you're doing, if you put it out there and you suck at it is more heartbreaking than anything you can imagine. So, and that's the cosmic shame, this idea that, like, when you really love something, you really make yourself vulnerable if you put yourself out there, but that's the only way you're gonna be great.

30:17Guest 2Yeah.

30:17Guest 1And the premise of the song is that Tenacious D, you know, they're basically asking you as ar… asking everyone in the audience as artists to put themselves out there. And then they said, "And if it's, if you suck, we're gonna come and tell you to stop." And that… that's the great paradox that was... And I remember giving that, the, it was a live concert CD, gave it to all the story team, and I, you know, 'cause it, to me, it really, it really, it kind of created this sense of, like, again, possibility of this character that loves martial arts so much, but is so afraid to try it, or so afraid to fail at it. And…

30:50Jawad MirThat's all of us, right?

30:51Guest 1Yeah, I know. I know. And here I was, like, coming in going, "I don't know how to make features." Like, this is a, this is, like, insane. This whole process is, like, so much bigger than I am, and it was, like, such a learning process. And, so it was, like, really scary, the parallel. But honestly, and I was afraid to tell Jack. I was such a fan of Jack's. I played it cool, and I never told him what a fan I was until the very end. We were recording ADR, he was doing the last bits of dialogue to drop in, and I told him that, and I told him what a fan of the Dio was, and I told him what a fan of that song I was, and how that inspired. And he said, he said, "That's bullshit." He said, "That's..." He said, "You're just trying to market the movie now, and the marketing team came up with this," and I was like, "No, man." I'm like, "No, it's real." And, it was a, it was a really amazing moment, because, like, I've, I've met celebrities before, met people I, like, heroicized before, people that I really looked up to, and I was always hesitant to say anything, and this was a time where I had restraint.

31:54Guest 1Three and a half years, I restrained myself from, like, geeking out. Like, I was trying to be professional.

31:59Jawad MirYeah.

31:59Guest 1And I think when I finally did, it meant, it meant a lot. You know what I mean?

32:03Jawad MirYeah.

32:03Guest 1'Cause it was, there was something there that I think really helped. So when you talked about the character, I mean, we were, we were creating, like, an approximation of a character that Jack, in the early days, we were, you know, we were... And he was snarky and he had attitude, and like, you know, we were kind of... And we kind of were painting a picture that he was amazing when he started coming and doing sessions, because at some point he said, "I just don't want this character to be annoying." And he said, "I want everyone to wanna hang out with this character." And he really tapped into the vulnerability, and he really, he really found the, he struck the right balance between the fanboy and the, and the real, like, human aspect of that, of that, like, what happens when you really love something and you care about it, and you're protective of it, but yet you ha… it still leaks out of you and it still drives you. It drives your desires and your, every waking moment is kind of driven.

33:05Guest 1You know, so it's sort of like, I think he really understood it, and it was fascinating, too, one of our record sessions, like, we were trying to kind of get him to a place and, you know, understand, like, oh, the Furious Five are coming, and, you know, and we were, and there was a moment where it was, like, seeing the poster, and it was, like, talking about, like, you're, you're seeing the... And I, so I was saying, like, you know, "What if it's, like, a b… a concert?" You know, like, what if it's a poster for, I don't know, in my head, I was thinking AC/DC or, you know, I was thinking of the character that he plays in Tenacious D, and I was expecting him to come back with some, like, heavy metal, like…

33:40Jawad MirSure

33:41Guest 1... Dio or something, and he said, "Radiohead." And he was like, "Oh, okay," and he was thinking about Radiohead. And I w… and I just remember being like, wow, like, there's so much more to Jack than we know.

33:52Jawad MirWe know, yeah.

33:53Guest 1And it was, I, he dug so deep, and I think he really created something really special. And we built on it, and that was the, that was the thing that was so exciting to work with him, because he was constantly, like, we were workshopping it. It was never a situation where it was like, "Well, we need to do it exactly this way." Like, he would always sort of absorb it and play with it, and he was an amazing, collaborator, you know? And he brought so much to the, to the table. And so that character really evolved in this process of back and forth, and let, and really giving him the chance to develop it. And with Dustin Hoffman, did John tell you about that session?

34:36Jawad MirNo, he hasn't. Please do.

34:37Guest 1Oh, my God. It was one of the greatest experiences I think I had, because, like, normally you don't put the actors together.

34:44Jawad MirYeah.

34:45Guest 1And, but we knew that something would happen if we could put them together, and we did for one session. We put Dustin and Jack, and they had never worked together, and they were both big fans of each other. So there was this really interesting dynamic. And, we just thought, "Let's just do it. Let's see what happens." And we were really just, like, and it was really, early on in the process, so we were really still defining who those characters were. And it was really amazing, because, oh my God, the stuff that, it was pure gold, what was happening. But there was a really interesting, Dustin was worried that he wasn't funny enough to be working with Jack. Jack was worried that he wasn't a good enough actor to be working with Dustin. So they both were, like, they were both were in this uncomfortable place. And at the end of the session, they both separately came to us and asked us to t… they said, "I wanna redo everything. I wasn't really good today," and they were both so insecure about it, but we got gold in that we used so much of that session, because it really, there was a, such a spark there, and there was such a, like, a human quality there.

35:54Guest 1Because they were both trying to really…

35:57Jawad MirYeah

35:57Guest 1... Meet each other, you know

35:59Jawad MirThat's so cool

35:59Guest 1... As artists. Yeah, it was great.

36:01Jawad MirThat's so cool.

36:02Guest 1Yeah.

36:02Jawad MirAnd I, and you said it perfectly. Like, I think the fact that, not in just this in case, in any case, when actors or even directors or, you know, musicians, when we think we have done the worst job, you know, most of the time it's the opposite, right?

36:17Guest 1Right.

36:18Jawad MirYeah.

36:18Guest 1Well, it's like we're our own worst critics.

36:20Jawad MirYeah.

36:20Guest 1And I think, you know, acting is particularly hard, 'cause, like, when you're doing it well, you can't see yourself. You can't, you can't both monitor your performance and come from a very genuine…

36:32Jawad MirSure

36:32Guest 1... Place, right? And so I think that's the thing. It's like you, so it's like you kind of lose yourself… When you're really, and that's what, I loved about working with both Jack and Dustin. It's like they would lose themselves, and then they would really, they wouldn't know what happened. Like, you know, they wouldn't, you know, they wouldn't, and I think that was the thing. It's like, "Oh, no, what just happened?" It's like kind of blacking out and then waking up.

36:54Jawad MirYeah.

36:54Guest 1You know, like, "Wait, what happened?"

36:56Jawad MirBut I think that's a testament to the writing too, right? Like when the, when the writing is really good, then you're not thinking about, "Okay, if the character's gonna say this or that," it's just natural, or, and then they can sometimes improvise too, I'm sure.

37:09Guest 1Yeah, and it was like the script was always like, it was always a place to play from, right? So the script, we always went into those sessions going like, "Look, this is kinda how we think this works, but let's see where it goes." And, I remember the first time we recorded Dustin, he was having a hard time getting into the character. He was having a hard time kinda grabbing onto it, 'cause he was, he also was, like, looking at the pictures of Shifu and he's like, "I don't know how my voice comes out of this char… you know, this little guy." And it was our second session with Dustin where we were actually took his voice and put it into the character, and he started to get it. So we showed him some tests and he, it was helping him. But the thing that unlocked it for him was we actually hadn't, from the first recording to the second recording, we had actually, we had actually, radically sort of altered, when you talk about the writing, we'd radically altered the course of the movie.

38:02Jawad MirOh, okay.

38:02Guest 1The, in the first time we recorded Dustin, we were still at the place where Shifu was more of like a Mr., Miyagi, like a kind of, kind of a kind, old kind of... And he was kind of exhausted and exasperated, and, like, he was like, "Ugh, how am I gonna do this?" And he was like, he was coming from a place of, like, kindness. And I think Dustin was having a hard time trying to understand the character or w… how to, how to, like, what was there, and was like, and so it kinda wasn't written right yet. And there was a point in the process where we were looking at the movie critically and trying to figure out, like, "Why isn't it playing? Why, what's wrong?" Like, something's not working.

38:47Jawad MirSure.

38:47Guest 1And Jenua Nelson was the one to say, like, "There's not enough conflict." She's like, "There just needs to be more conflict." And I'll never forget, and I said, "Well, what if Shifu wants to kill Po? Like, what if he, like, hates Po?" And it was like, and it started this whole conversation about, like, what if, as soon as, like, Po is the one chosen, like, what if his decision in that moment is, "I'm gonna g… okay, this guy's really into it, so this makes it easier for me to him, to get him murdered."

39:16Jawad MirYeah.

39:16Guest 1"And then once he's murdered, then I can move on and get Tigress to be the Dragon War…" you know, like, I can kind of move along with, like, what I think it should be.

39:24Jawad MirRight.

39:24Guest 1And when we went back to Dustin with that and we pitched that back to Dustin and I'll never forget it, Dustin went, "Ah, so he's a prick." And we were like, "Yes." And he goes, "I love it." And it was like, and it was the moment that, like, the character had texture, too. Like, and it was like, and he came at it in such a different way. And then, and then we were able to do the session with he and Jack. Like, so we were able to get them together once we had that breakthrough. But yeah, like, that's what I loved about the process. It was, it was a constant back and forth. Like, we're working together with the artists, working together with the actors, like, kind of y… you know, on this process of discovery to find the best version of the story.

40:05Jawad MirSure.

40:05Guest 1Best version of the characters, the best version of what, like, what would come from. And so yeah, that took, it took, it took, you know, everybody was constantly, you know, you sort of comment on the writing and it's like, it, one of the greatest things about animation is, like, the final draft of the script gets written in the edit room. Because the edit room is where all the ideas are coming together, all the raw materials that have come in from all the artists and everybody. Like, it all gets shaped in the edit room, and those performances get dialed in, and those attitudes get dialed in. And the animators are responding to the voices, and they're coming, bringing ideas in. And so it's like everything kind of shapes and adjusts and comes together by really out of necessity of having to get it up on reels and get it to feel right and get it working and get all the, you know, get all the conflict necessary. You know, each scene needs that, you know, that force driving…

41:05Jawad MirSure

41:06Guest 1... Movie. And so yeah, I think it's a credit to the entirety of the team and the creative process and honestly to sort of the studio for sort of recognizing and, you know, Melissa, Bill Damaschke were sort of pushing this to be different. And Jeffrey, you know, I'll, I'll never forget it. Jeffrey was like, "I don't get this character. I don't understand this character," because he couldn't relate to him, he… 'cause he was like, he was kind of like a loser. Like, he was ki… like, Jeffrey was just like, "I don't get it." But he goes, "It's working, so keep going." Like, he would always support us by going like, "I don't get it, but keep going."

41:42Jawad MirThat's a great quality of a leader.

41:44Guest 1Yeah. And it was inter… it was an interesting moment, too, because it was sort of a turning point, I think. People who had been there at the studio from the beginning, from the, from the Prince of Egypt days, they said, they said, "We haven't seen him lead this way on a project." Like, usually he's really gets his, rolls up his sleeves…

42:01Jawad MirYeah

42:01Guest 1... And he really is in there. And this was the first time that they saw him really pushing for, or al… allowing for the process to kind of generate something unique, and that was, I think, I always thought that was Bill Damaschke's plan, you know, trying to diversify the kinds of movies they were making and the voices and, again, bringing in someone like me, who came from, you know, making short films and came from more independent film.

42:26Jawad MirSure.

42:27Guest 1You know, sort of bringing in voices. And so it was a, it was an interesting experiment and J… and Jeffrey had all of his focus on Bee Movie. I don't know if you've ever heard this sort of. So we were sort of left to our own devices because he was very busy with that and giving us a lot of space to, kind of find this. And like I said, like, we kept hitting our benchmarks. We kept exploring something that was unique, and it was working for audiences and so yeah, we kinda kept…

42:56Guest 2Just pushing it and, yeah, it was a really exciting, great learning experience, but a great process to sort of see how this could develop and unfold. And it was kind of the way I'd learned, you know, what, like what I was describing about my shorts, where I was just kind of learning and by doing and making mistakes.

43:16Jawad MirYeah.

43:16Guest 2You know, and so they… I think we were sort of doing that on a grander scale and giving all the artists involved something that they could love and believe in and feel great about. And I think that's what was really exciting about the whole, the whole process, that it was... We were getting all this energy back from the artists because they were, they were so in love with what we were building and so inspired by what we were all collectively building. Yeah.

43:41Jawad MirThe opening sequence, where, it was more like an anime style than it was a dream sequence…

43:50Guest 2Yeah.

43:51Jawad MirHow did that… what was the conception behind it? Was that something that… how did that originate to be different than the actual film itself, and who was involved in it? Was it you? Was it another team?

44:03Guest 2Well, when I got put on Kung Fu Panda, I made a wish list for myself of things I wanted to try and do on the film, and, one of them was to put a 2D sequence into a 3D movie, which doesn't sound sort of radical now, but at the time, it hadn't been done. I think

44:21Guest 2... Horton Hears a Who pipped us to the post. They released first, and they had a 2D scene in their, in their film. But that was, that was, I mean, part, you know, partly it's 'cause 2D animation is sort of my first love. That's where I trained and…

44:36Jawad MirRight

44:36Guest 2... So I still, I still have probably the most affection out of all the sort of animation disciplines for hand-drawn animation. So partly it was a love of hand-drawn animation, and partly just I thought it'd be interesting to put a different technique into to break up, you know, the CG. The thing was w… w… so I had, I had this little, you know, in my notebook, I had like, you know, put a 2D sequence into a 3D film.

45:05Jawad MirRight.

45:05Guest 2I wanted to shoot in wide screen, in 2.39 to one, you know…

45:11Jawad MirYep

45:11Guest 2... Sort of CinemaScope, Panavision aspect ratio, which was not, common at the time. The, there was still resistance to it because of home video, but there was g… we were just transitioning around that time to the 16 by 9 plasma televisions.

45:29Jawad MirYes.

45:29Guest 2So that kind of tipped the balance. But at the beginning, in 2000… in 2004, when it, when we first kind of proposed it, there was some pushback because they, you know, they preferred things to fit 4 by 3, you know, without…

45:44Jawad MirYeah

45:44Guest 2... Without letterboxing. So but I wanted, really wanted to do... 'Cause, you know, all good martial arts films are shot in wide screen. Shaw Brothers films…

45:52Jawad MirOh

45:52Guest 2... Golden Harvest, you know. It's, so we def… I definitely wanted to do that. I wanted to do a split screen sequence. I love those kind of 1960s split screen sort of things. And so those are just like a little bunch of wish things I thought it would be cool if I could try and do them.

46:09Jawad MirSure.

46:09Guest 2I managed to get all three eventually. We have a little split screen sequence in the training montage with, Po and Shifu. We won the sort of the idea of shooting in wide screen. We presented to DreamWorks in 1.85 and also in 2.39 to 1, and it was obvious that it just looked much more elegant and handsome in the Panavision, you know, CinemaScope aspect ratio. And the animated scene, you know, was an idea that I just thought, "I wanna try that," but I had no idea where it could go. I didn't… I thought it might be a dream sequence in the middle of the movie…

46:51Jawad MirSure

46:51Guest 2... Or somewhere like that. And at some point, it became, you know, just blindingly obvious that the place to put the anime sequence was at the beginning because, one, it would be more surprising. People would come into, you know, a DreamWorks CG movie, and the first thing they see is not CG. It's, it's, it's…

47:11Guest 2... Kind of anime. So there would be, there would be more, you know, surprise by starting the film that way. But it was also, it just revealed itself to be, like, the perfect place because we're starting with Po's dream life. So s… his dreams are in a different…

47:29Jawad MirWorld

47:29Guest 2... Style to…

47:31Jawad MirYeah

47:31Guest 2... To the re… and in fact, we were able to use what hand-drawn animation can do, which is, you know, anime, in particular. I know Ninja Scroll was kind of our sort of, I think, our main, influence, although we all love…

47:48Jawad MirSure

47:48Guest 2... Various animes. But there are, there's a, there's some very particular deliberate, you know, tip of the hat homage shots to Ninja Scroll. You know, Po crossing the bridge, you know, is definitely, a sort of a deliberate homage to a very well-known shot in Ninja Scroll. But the thing that sort of anime and hand-drawn animation does really well is defy gravity. You know, because it's hand-drawn, you can really be, you can really push, you know, sort of unbelievable physics, if you like, in a way that is kind of acceptable in hand-drawn and is sort of would look weirder because of the, because of the sort of the physics of CG often makes you sort of feel those things are sort of more unbelievable. So we were able to sort of have this kind of gravity-defying dream where Po was sort of unleashed, and he could take on hundreds of bad guys and fly through the air and, you know, use his chi to defeat, you know, the bad guys.

48:53Guest 2And then, and then use all the things that CG does really well, which is sort of textures and surfacing and make you feel sort of the weight, and the reality of things So when he comes crashing back to earth, literally falls out of his bed.

49:09Jawad MirYeah.

49:09Guest 2We use it, you know, we're in CG. And so now you get hopefully, you know, first of all, it's, he's obviously in a very small kind of little room. He's been in this kind of grand epic adventure, and now he's in a very kind of small little bedroom, and he's fallen on the floor. And CG just helped us feel the weight and reality of his real life versus the sort of, you know, the freedom and, aspirations of his, of his dream life. And so that was why we chose to have that, anime, s… scene. And then, you know, it got f… it, you know, it... There was a lot of people on our s… on our crew, you know, who came from 2D animation and really loved 2D animation, were really great, you know, artists. Rodolphe Guendin, one of our key story artists and animators who was also in charge of, doing the, getting the kung fu technically correct, he was a really bona fide martial artist, was a gr… a great animator, you know.

50:13Guest 2You know, and Jen Yu-Nelson, who's our head of story, you know, one of the best draftspeople in the world, you know, just fantastic. So in the end, it got done, with Jen. We sort of, we, you know, Jen directed that scene and James Baxter, you know, one of the great all-time…

50:34Jawad MirOh, God, I love his work

50:35Guest 2... Animators. He had his own company at that time, and I think he was sort of, he was sort of, he'd been running it for a while, and he was sort of, ki… kind of done with it, I think. So we offered, you know, th… this idea of doing this, and I s… it was sort of a mix between his company and I think some of our animators and Jen directing. And anyway, it worked out better than…

50:58Jawad MirGreat

50:58Guest 2... You know, I could have, hoped. I mean, Jen did a brilliant job. James Baxter, you know, the master animator, his whole team, you know, did great. All the animators, you know, like Rodolphe, who wanted to work on it, did great, and I think it's, it's part of the texture and flavor of what makes Kung Fu Panda, you know, hopefully kind of interesting.

51:20Jawad MirYeah, no, James Baxter, I mean, I believe he also did the work on, Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron.

51:26Guest 2Yeah, I mean…

51:28Jawad MirAmazing

51:29Guest 2... Nothing harder in the world to draw…

51:31Jawad MirYeah

51:31Guest 2... Than a horse.

51:33Jawad MirYeah.

51:33Guest 2A horse.

51:33Jawad MirYeah, and then…

51:33Guest 2Yeah

51:34Jawad Mir... And then to convey emotions because he doesn't talk, right? That's…

51:38Guest 2Yeah

51:38Jawad Mir... That's another challenge. And I, you mentioned, Kung Fu Panda, 2, 3, 2.39:1. It's funny because when I started watching Kung Fu Panda a few days ago on my TV, and then something interrupted me, and I'm like, "Oh, you know what? I'll just watch it on my monitor." And I have a 32-inch, 2.35:1 monitor, and when it played on that, I was like, "Whoa, it's, it's, it's full screen, and it's, there's no borders, and it's perfect." And it just felt so ana… you know, it s… felt so real because anamorphic, right? And that's something you get with Quentin Tarantino movies too, like

52:13Guest 2Yeah

52:13Jawad Mir... Hate Eight and Kill Bill.

52:16Guest 2Well, yeah, I mean, you know, we love Kill Bill. We were working on Panda before Kill Bill came out, you know? So we all love Kill Bill, but we, but we, you know, we already had, we were drawing on the same kind of references that, Quentin Tarantino kind of was drawing on.

52:38Jawad MirThat's right.

52:38Guest 2You know, his love of, you know, Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers films. You know, we were drawing on the s… you know, we were going to the same well for Kung Fu Panda 'cause we loved all those films too, and we all had our favorite martial arts, kind of, kind of f… films. M… but we were trying to get that aesthetic in the film. So we r… you know, it was just kinda crazy that,.. I think I remember going with Mark Osborne to, like, a sneak of Kill Bill and thinking it was great, and actually thinking it probably helped us, you know. Because it was, it was sort of bringing that kind of, you know, sensibility and that kind of appreciation of great martial arts back. So I, you know, I think Kill Bill, even though it's obviously, the audience for Kill Bill is a very different audience to Kung Fu Panda.

53:32Jawad MirYeah.

53:32Guest 2But it helped to put, you know, martial arts and that kind of choreography and that kind of filmmaking, you know, back in the public consciousness, you know, sort of…

53:42Jawad MirSure

53:43Guest 2... So, you know, yeah, a huge fan of Kill Bill 1 and 2, particularly the uncut version of Kill Bill 1. So I have a Japanese DVD…

53:54Jawad MirOh

53:54Guest 2... Of Kill Bill 1, which has the House of, you know, Blue Leaves in color, not in black and white as it is in the, American version. In the Japanese version, you get to see the blood squirt in color, which is much better.

54:09Jawad MirI gotta, I gotta look into that. I didn't know there was one out there with the...

54:13Guest 2Yeah.

54:13Jawad MirI always find the Jap… Sorry, go on.

54:16Guest 2Well, no, there is. I don't know if you can, how easy it is to find now, but y… yeah, a… and yeah, I've been, I've been waiting for, you know, like everybody else, you know, who was a fan of that movie, been waiting years and years. Like, you know, I don't know how long it's been. Been waiting for, you know…... The Kill Bill, the whole bloody affair, where he was gonna re-edit the two films into one magnum opus and…

54:37Jawad MirYeah

54:37Guest 2... And put the stuff that was cut out to get the R back in, so you know, the un… the undiluted version. I'm still waiting for that. Where's my Blu-ray, Quentin? I want that Blu-ray.

54:47Jawad MirReferences to the older movies, I mean, I saw, for me when I s… you talked about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

54:53Guest 2Yeah.

54:53Jawad MirRight? Like, when I saw it, and I saw it when it came out, and I saw it again about a week before I spoke to Jonathan just for, you know, re… re… refresh my memory.

55:01Guest 2Yeah.

55:01Jawad MirAnd I definitely saw Yoda, right? Like, 100%…

55:04Guest 2Right

55:04Jawad Mir... I saw Yoda. But, for me, the biggest thing was Karate Kid. You know, that relationship between the teacher and the student, but at a completely different, you know, medium

55:15Guest 1Well, there was a, there was a whole period of time where, you know, the earliest in… incarnations of it was far more Karate Kid.

55:23Jawad MirOkay.

55:24Guest 1And I think that was, it was hard to get away from it, because it sort of felt like the heartwarming way to go.

55:33Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

55:33Guest 1And, but I think that was why that pivotal moment of going like, "Well, maybe he wants to kill Po. Like, maybe he doesn't like Po."

55:43Jawad MirThat same thing, yeah.

55:44Guest 1It actually created an even more interesting opportunity where, you know, Shifu ha… disliked Po and actually learned to like Po out of a necessity of facing the greatest challenge of his life, which was to train this guy he didn't like and didn't believe in, and it had sort of reawakened something in him that I think, and I think it's part of the power of that film, where it's like, you know, we said, like, Shifu's, believing bone is broken when we meet him. He's a character that's broken in a lot of ways.

56:21Jawad MirYeah.

56:22Guest 1And the story is about, really it's his story of healing and believing in a student again, and believing in a student that is risky is a greater challenge to Shifu as a character, and to be able to believe in Po, it puts him in a s… in a great deal of peril as an emotional character. And so I think that's, that's one of the things I love about it. But yeah, there's some Karate Kid there. There's definitely, there's a lot of... W… we t… we've, we've tried to really look at a lot of stuff and trying to sort of find... 'Cause it's meant to be a tribute, right? It's meant to be…

56:59Jawad MirYeah

57:00Guest 1... And in some cases overt, in some cases not so overt. But yeah, there was Barry Gordy's The Last Dragon was something we were looking at one point, you know…

57:11Jawad MirAh

57:11Guest 1... And the idea of chi as a power and the idea of like, and that movie is so completely in its own, like, you know, universe. But there was, there was stuff that we learned from, like, exploring that or, you know, you always learn when you sort of break things down, well, how did this work or how did this feel?

57:27Jawad MirYeah.

57:28Guest 1And then you gotta go find your own way forward. But there was a moment early on where we were exploring, like, Po gains chi, and he has, like, magic at the end, and instead it was far more interesting to sort of have Po unleash all the things he learned from Shifu so that he makes the most out of the real practical bringing of himself and the bringing of Shifu's training and everything he's learned along the way and let… allowing that to sort of come together in a way that feels more rewarding than magic, right?

58:00Jawad MirI wanted to know, I mean, I have a general idea, and I think a lot of people do, but still at the same time it would be nice to get a full scope as, without going into super detail, like, what's the process once a script is done? From that point on, like, which, w… what's the script's, what's the story's journey, like which department it goes to, then which department it goes to, then comes back, da, like, that th… that step, I mean, it doesn't have to be exactly, but just to get a sense of the flow how things get made over a course of two or three years.

58:32Guest 2Yeah. Well, the s… the sort of basic life cycle of a, of a studio animated film, and certainly when we were doing Kung Fu Panda, was that you would spend about 50% of your, production time in pre-production and story, and development, and then about 50% in actual production. So we spent a long time, we spent, like, at least, you know, I think Kung Fu Panda, I was on Kung Fu Panda for, like, two and a half, four and a half years. Sorry, four and a half years. So we were in story for about two years, and we, and the key, you know, really the key storytelling tool on an animated film is the animatic. That is the actual blueprint for the film. I mean, it's almost the fine cut of the film, before you make the film, you know? So the, you know, obviously a script is very important, but really an animated film evolves and finds its voice in storyboarding and in the animatic.

59:35Guest 2So, you know, I don't know how many writers worked on Kung Fu Panda. It was a huge number. I mean, I think it was something like six or eight, you know, writers before we finally ended up with Jonathan Abel and Glenn Berger, who kind of clicked with us and our weird way of working and got it, and then that became a sort of very osmotic process between, you know, stuff that Jonathan and Glenn would write, and then that would go into story, and then story would develop it, and they would, you know, ideas we created in the story department, then it would go back for rewrites to, you know, John and, Jonathan and Glenn, and then, you know, maybe back for more reboarding. So that's where we ended up. At the beginning we went through a number of writers trying to find the right voice for the film and script, and it took a long... A lot of people just didn't get it or they didn't get the film that, you know, that, you know, Mark and I and Melissa wanted to make, and all the people on the, on the movie.

1:00:38Guest 2So getting the right script for Kung Fu Panda took a long time. It, but we're always parallel processing, so while writing is happening…

1:00:48Jawad MirYeah

1:00:49Guest 2... Story development is happening. We have a crew of, you know, I can't remember, we probably came down to about eight people eventually. But when we started we had a fairly big story crew of, I don't know, probably maybe, like, 15, you know, and over the time we sort of came down to our sort of hardcore,... Crew. And you know, and there's writing happening in storyboards. It's, it's, it's not television where, you know, there's a script and the s… and the story artists basically illustrate the script and that, you know. Story artists, in, at DreamWorks and at Pixar, you know, they're writers as well as, you know, they just happen to, you know, they write with, in drawings. But they're writers, you know, as much as much as they are artists. And so, you know, lots of ideas are being generated in the story department, as well as in the script, and then you sort of try and have to put the two things together. But there's this sort of 18-month, two-year period where it's really the key, the key department on the film is the s… is the story department trying to find the film, trying to find the characters.

1:02:01Guest 2At the same time, you know, the art department is trying to nail down the look of the picture and the character designs, environments, and sets and all that stuff. And there's, there's technical stuff like, you know, rigging tests and, basic, you know, stuff happening. But the crew is fairly, you know, compared to what it will become, it's fairly small. It's sort of like somewhere between 30 to 50 people for, you know, 18 months, two years. And then at some point when you've got enough scenes that have been approved by the studio, that they go, "Okay, we are now gonna go into production," and there's some kind of lever gets pulled and you, and you just balloon from 30 to 50 people to, like, 400 to 500 people.

1:02:48Jawad MirOh, wow.

1:02:48Guest 2And all these other departments like, you know, layout and animation and surfacing and lighting and all these huge departments now come, you know, are activated. And now you've gotta feed the beast. Now the conveyor belt has to be, you know, sending a scene out of story into rough layout, you know, then out of rough layout into sort of rough animation and then into, you know, final animation, final layout, surfacing, lighting, you know, all those kind of steps.

1:03:19Jawad MirRight.

1:03:19Guest 2And it has to keep going. It's becomes very expensive to, stop that process or, you know, you don't wanna do that. It happens all the time but, you know, it's, it's, you don't want to do it. So there's this…

1:03:34Jawad MirWow

1:03:34Guest 2... Big, critical moment where you move from being basically, you know, 2D, you know, storyboards and paintings, you know, even if nowadays they're done digitally, to the full digital world where you're working with 3D models in rough layout and then, you know, rough animation and then, and then, you know, f… final animation and then surfacing and texturing and clothing and crowds and special effects and lighting and all that, all that, all the other technical stuff that comes on. You know, th… that… that's kind of the switch. And it's really important that you get your story sorted in that, in that 18 months to two-year period. You do not wanna be fixing your story while…

1:04:22Jawad MirYeah

1:04:22Guest 2... Some part of your film is in, is in production. That bec… and that happens all the time, I have to say. It didn't really happen with us. We had found our story, so you know, we kind of, we didn't have any giant, you know, fixes to do. But it does happen on films. I've worked on films where, you know, they suddenly realize that the main character doesn't work or they've got a huge problem in act two or act three, and they have to sort of stop the machine and take it down and do a huge amount of fixing. And that stuff is always incredibly expensive and painful. And I, we didn't have that. You know, we had, we had got our story, luckily, that the two, you know, the two years we'd invested in trying to figure it out. And we d… and by the way, you know, not to sound like we're super smart, I mean, we got it wrong a lot at the beginning.

1:05:19Jawad MirOf course.

1:05:19Guest 2You know, we were all over the map. We didn't know who Po was. We had all sorts of crazy ideas that never made it into the film, thank goodness, 'cause they were terrible. So you know, probably the first year that we were working in story and stuff, we were just getting all our bad ideas out the way, and luckily we managed to do that and then finally, you know, we locked in on sort of the zero to hero kind of s… sort of sport movie template, and then ma… overlaid that with sort of the martial arts.

1:05:50Jawad MirWhen you transition from being an independent, you know, filmmaker into going into this big studio, and from my experience as well, like, I'm at that stage right now where I have made, you know, films independently.

1:06:03Guest 2Yeah.

1:06:03Jawad MirAnd part of me always wishes that I had a studio backing, you know? Like, but at the same time…

1:06:09Guest 2Right

1:06:09Jawad Mir... There, it's a scary factor…

1:06:11Guest 2Right

1:06:11Jawad Mir... Because there's all the bureaucracy and all that stuff.

1:06:13Guest 2Yeah.

1:06:13Jawad MirHow was that transition? Like, did you, did it petrify you? Did you enjoy it? And would you like ever to go back into that independent world?

1:06:23Guest 1I mean, the independent world was, I felt, I think it was the right place for me to, like, explore. I, you know, and I, and I was in c… at CalArts I was in the experimental animation department, and I kind of fell in love with the, I fell in love with, like, a broad spectrum of film, and I was, fell in love with the animation medium because of its, sort of limitless potential. And it, and it kind of broke my brain because, like, I, the stuff I had experienced, the commonpla… you know, the stuff that was readily available to me was, some of it was exciting, like I mentioned, but, like, there was all this other stuff. And so I really wanted to just explore and see what was possible and I love the idea of mixing mediums and that, you know, is sort of evident in a lot of the things that I've done. And, I just like, I don't know, for me, the idea, when I came into DreamWorks, it was like I wanna learn about this process, I wanna explore. But I honestly didn't know if it was gonna be a fit. I didn't know if I was gonna be able to sort of join a project and stay on until the end.

1:07:24Guest 1And so I think Kung Fu Panda became a great experiment for me because every day I was looking, I wasn't just wanting to make a movie, I wanted to make a great movie. And I wanted to make something that would be a real, departure, and that's, like there were so many things that were exciting to me. And then learning how to work with a huge team, learning how to work with executives, learning how to be conscious. I mean, I think we had the marketing, you know, marketing drives a lot of choices and decision-making sometimes when…

1:07:57Jawad MirYeah

1:07:57Guest 1... When it comes to these big animated movies.

1:07:59Jawad MirYeah.

1:08:00Guest 1And the weirdest golden opportunity that we were given was they knew they had a title, they knew they had a poster, they knew they had a c… a character that everyone was gonna love. Like, there were so many things that were going for… like, for it that the marketing, it was almost like they kind of knew it was a sure thing in a way. And there was like, "Just make it good, and like we know how to sell it, you know," kind of thing.

1:08:23Jawad MirYeah.

1:08:23Guest 1And, so that kind of gave us a lot of freedom, I think, to sort of try to find the best version of it as opposed to the marketing team trying to tell us what it needed to be or anything like that. And to credit Jeffrey, he does create a real separation between marketing and filmmaking, so we were never, we were never pushed. But when you mention the difference between being independent and being like, having a studio, like to me, that's the biggest danger is that you're gonna be told how to ma…

1:08:52Jawad MirYeah

1:08:52Guest 1... How to tell the story. And the, that is a danger. But I think in the best cases, if you're, if you're finding the right story and telling the right story, it's gonna, it's gonna make it clear like what the marketing needs to be, right? And then, so there's all this benefit that comes from... Like I learned how to make animation and, you know, CG animation in like a Cadillac. Like, it was like, it was like I w… got, I got to drive like the n… like the smoothest running. Like, you know, it was such a great thing to not know. I didn't come, I never got my hands dirty with CG, so I had no idea like how hard it was, like how…

1:09:33Jawad MirYeah

1:09:33Guest 1... And so, and we were working with some amazing artists. But what was going on was like hidden. Like the, all, like when things break or when things weren't working, like very rarely was that shown to me. It was only shown to me like it was funny. And so I never quite had to get my hands dirty. And so I really had the great experience of really just directing and learning about the role of a director on a large team, and to get the support of, you know, a, an amazing team of artists to sort of help make something come to life. And it was like an embarrassment of riches always, like of... And so it was like guiding that process was really amazing. And so I've come away from that experience, it was, my wife reminded me at the end, like when it was all done, she was like, "You know, you just went there to gain experience." Like, you know, and I think, and I was like, "Yeah. Wow, I actually got through making, I made a whole movie." Like, it was like I actually made it, you know, because they were a little famous for their revolving door of, you know, directors in and out and kind of switching out directors.

1:10:37Guest 1And so there was a lot of that. And so it was always the possibility that, you know, just 'cause I'm joining a project doesn't mean I'm gonna stay on till the end.

1:10:45Jawad MirYeah.

1:10:46Guest 1And it was really exciting to be able to see it through to the end, and to actually be a part of the process that was helping make it better and helping grow the thing in a way that was actually... And like I said, learning to direct at that scale was really exciting. But I came away from that process wanting to take everything I had learned, and to take it more into, making a more independent project, and that's what I did afterwards. I developed a few things that, were exciting but didn't end up happening, and then The Little Prince was the film that came along that created this opportunity for me. And it was basically an i… an independent, project that was, you know, co-financed by all these different entities, so there was no like sort of studio boss.

1:11:34Jawad MirYeah.

1:11:35Guest 1And we had, a lot of freedom in that. And so I took a lot of the things I had learned about the process and then, brought that to that project, and it was a really exciting... But then I started to really understand how hard it is to make something in CG because…

1:11:49Jawad MirYeah. It's weird, right? Like when you're independent and you're like, "Oh, I wish I had a studio backing." And then when you do that you're like, "Oh, I'm..." You know, it's like we're never happy anyway, so.

1:11:58Guest 1Well, you know, it's like you…

1:12:00Jawad MirI like that

1:12:01Guest 1... Yeah. The grass is always greener, right?

1:12:03Jawad MirYeah.

1:12:03Guest 1The grass is always greener, but the good news is, like there's benefits to both sides, right? There's ben… and you really, as long as you're aware and you lear… if you go into that, so if you went into that realm, you would have an experience and you would gain insight. And then you would come away and go, "Okay, where do I, where do I wanna be, and what types of projects suit either side of that fence," right?

1:12:28Jawad MirYeah.

1:12:28Guest 1And yeah.

1:12:29Jawad MirBut I think what really, what I feel that what you probably come out with the most is knowing how you deal with certain situations. Like, you know, if there was somebody telling you, "Okay, it has to be this way," but you feel strongly about it.

1:12:41Guest 1Yeah.

1:12:41Jawad MirHow do you deal with, I think that's the key, right? Like you become much more a stronger person, a… and you discover yourself more than you probably did before, I feel. What do you think?

1:12:53Guest 1I agree. I agree. And the, and the process is like, can be like a pressure cooker, and it kind of creates this environment that there is so much pressure and the stakes are so high.

1:13:05Jawad MirRight.

1:13:05Guest 1And I think that was the thing that shocked me was like, right, the stakes are so high because there's like millions and millions and millions of dollars, like, and the, and there's a release date, and it has to b… be good…

1:13:16Guest 1... And it has to be done. And so that creates this dynamic that can… Really hurt the creative process. That dynamic, all those factors can actually hurt the process that is necessary to truly create something great, and that is creative safety, vulnerability, like the safe space that artists need to like do their best. And so it is a balance, right? And the thing I learned coming away from that was, because I think I was doubting myself throughout the process, doubting myself every step of the way, and you're constantly giving feedback, te… being told what you're not doing good enough and what you're doing wrong and what's not working. You know, you're constantly... But then to get the validation at the end to sort of have the crew love the movie, and then have the movie be sort of loved by p… like once you start getting that feedback and that validation, and then you can kind of like sift through the debris of like destruction that it took to get, you know.

1:14:12Jawad MirYeah.

1:14:12Guest 1And you kind of go through everything and go, "Yeah, you know, I was pretty sure I knew what I was doing when we made that choice." And now I know it was the right choice.

1:14:21Jawad MirYeah.

1:14:21Guest 1And I know that it was the right thing to do to stick to my guns. There was something that I stuck to my guns about, I really believed in, and I dug my heels in. And I'll never forget, there was a point where I r… and again, I, at this point, like if I went back and looked at the movie, like I w… it was life or death for me at one moment. Like I really, you know, I wasn't gonna walk, but I wanted, I really wanted and I really believed in this thing. And if I look back at the movie I could probably figure out what it was, but it's like, I just have a vague recollection.

1:14:49Jawad MirSure.

1:14:49Guest 1And, you know, it was like it was expensive to go and adjust things. And so ideas like that, we called it the, you know, the plussing ideas. The ideas where it's like, yeah, what we have works, but it could work better, right? And we were always told that if we weren't, if we did, if we were doing, if we were doing our jobs and we were getting to the finish line, that we would earn the ability to go back in and plus. Like that was gonna be how we were... So and it really gave us a lot of confidence, like, okay, well, let's move forward. Like, it, we don't, let's not get stuck in the details, let's move forward. This works. Like, let's make it better and let's keep our list. And, they came back to me and were gonna allow me to plus one thing. They were gonna allow me to plus and to make this idea happen, but to me the idea wasn't just in one spot, it needed, it needed like three or four little, it was like two, three or four little nuanced, moments to make that idea work. And to me the one spot wasn't worth it.

1:15:53Guest 1And I remember just saying, "No, we, it, no, that's not enough." And they were like, "Okay, well, we thought you wanted to fix that thing." And I remember that was something I might have actually, I might have like allowed for. Like, I was too stubborn in that moment, and maybe that one small thing would've been a little bit better. I still believe the four little things would have been, like, you know, could have actually…

1:16:13Jawad MirYeah

1:16:14Guest 1... Made a bigger difference.

1:16:15Jawad MirIn DreamWorks movies, aside from Prince of Egypt, Ro… Road to Eldorado, and maybe a few others, I mean, Shrek had background songs too, but in Kung Fu Panda I don't think there were any even background songs.

1:16:26Guest 2No. No.

1:16:27Jawad MirWas that…

1:16:27Guest 2It was one of the things.

1:16:28Jawad MirYeah, go on.

1:16:28Guest 2It was, it's something we wanted. We didn't want needle drop in Kung Fu Panda because we wanted to try and create a timeless world. It was, it was sort of a, you know, it was a Aesop's fable kind of a world, you know? No human beings, a sort of s… strange parallel universe where animals took the place of humans, you know, in some unspecified kind of time in China. We w… we weren't in any particular, you know, Chinese dynasty, but we were influenced by some key periods, but they were kind of a sort of mashup. But we took a lot of time to get the details right. But we wanted, we didn't want to break the spell of the world we were creating by putting in, you know, sort of contemporary…

1:17:19Jawad MirSure

1:17:19Guest 2... Pop songs or anything like that. So that was something that w… was not usual at the time for DreamWorks films. There was a lot of needle drop. In fact, when I first came on Kung Fu Panda, I think the first script I got of the film that it was at the time had the needle drop songs kind of written into the script. I can't remember what they were, but you know, there was a lot of kind of sort of '70s power ballad kind of stuff that was specified. You know, Po does something to, you know, hurry a speed wagon. I don't know. And I, you know, I really didn't wanna do that. And I don't think…

1:17:59Jawad MirYeah

1:17:59Guest 2... You know, I don't think Mark Osborne wanted, you know, or anybody on our crew wanted to do that. So we wanted a classic, you know, orchestral movie score.

1:18:09Jawad MirSure.

1:18:10Guest 2And we were blessed to get that from, you know, from Hans and John.

1:18:15Jawad MirGreat.

1:18:16Guest 2And Henry Jackman as well. Henry Jackman was also a big part of

1:18:20Jawad MirOh, okay

1:18:20Guest 2... You know, the, he composed, music that went off to, you know, he was sort of I think a, you know, a disciple of Hans' and has gone on to his own big career.

1:18:31Jawad MirYeah.

1:18:31Guest 2And he was in charge of, I think, orchestration, for Hans, you know, when we were recording it

1:18:39Jawad MirSure

1:18:39Guest 2... I think we recorded at Air. Yeah, we recorded at Air Studios in London.

1:18:44Jawad MirI think, I don't know if it still exists at the time, in the early 2000, Hans had this company called, Media Ventures where… ... It was John Powell, Harry Gregson-Williams, and the likes of that. I don't know if it still exists, but yeah, he had a big team, I, remember. You mentioned Mark Osborne. What, h… his background was in stop motion.

1:19:05Guest 2Yeah.

1:19:05Jawad MirWhat was it working, you know, two directors is always tough. It can be, depending on who you're working with. Sometimes it's a blessing. What was that like? Was there, was it a good chemistry of agreements and disagreements?

1:19:21Guest 2We, it was a good chemistry and we definitely had agreements and disagreements, you know. I mean, Mark is incredibly talented… He's a great guy. He's a really smart and super talented, great taste. Y… you know, the thing that was slightly tricky on Pando is often when you've got two directors it works very well if one of the directors is, tends to be front end, like pre-production, and one of the directors tends to be, you know, has come from a, you know, like a production or post-production, you know. Then you don't... Then you sort of handle different things. Mark and I kind of crossed over in a lot of places, which was both good, you know, a… and sometimes bad. I mean, we definitely had our, disagreements about things, all in the, you know, all in the sort of spirit of trying to make the best film possible.

1:20:14Jawad MirSure.

1:20:14Guest 2But Mark is like, you know, like one of the most, you know, nicest, most talented people, you know, I know. And so it was a, it was basically a really good relationship I think. Again, check with Mark. The good thing about having two directors is when you get tired, as you will, you know, you will hit the wall at different times. And so when you do burn out, you know, and just have a day when you're just like, "I've, I'm out of gas. I got nothing," then the other one can go, "Okay, I got this. I'll..." You know, and then when they…

1:20:50Jawad MirSure

1:20:50Guest 2... Hit the wall, you do it for that. So that is a, that does help. And also there's, you know, there's a sort of camaraderie of sort of, you know, brothers in arms f… you know, doing this kind of Herculean task of trying to get, you know, lead 500 people, you know, to make this huge thing over years. It is really good to have someone to not only share the load with, but to have someone who understands what you're going through, 'cause it can, it can be a bit lonely, you know, at the pointy end.

1:21:22Jawad MirYeah.

1:21:22Guest 2You know, it ultimately I think w… wor… worked really well. I think, I think we both were very happy with the movie and, you know.

1:21:34Jawad MirOf course.

1:21:34Guest 2So, yeah, Mark…

1:21:36Jawad MirI mean, it shows, it shows in the film. I mean, the, even the editing and the purpose of each scene, nothing like lagged for more than, you know, not even for a second. It just felt everything was just so fluidly and organically happening, and…

1:21:52Guest 2Well, that fluid and organic, you know, took a lot of back-breaking…

1:21:58Jawad MirOf course

1:21:58Guest 2... Blood, sweat, and tears.

1:21:59Jawad MirOf course.

1:22:00Guest 2Not just from Mark and myself, you know, but from…

1:22:02Jawad MirI mean…

1:22:02Guest 2... You know, from Claire Knight, the editor, from the, you know, Jen and the whole story crew. You know, like that, you know, it's, you know, the... I remember some kind of story, I can't remember whether it was Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire, you know, but sort of being asked how they made, you know, h… their dancing look so effortless. And I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like four hours in the gym every day. You know, that's what it takes to look…

1:22:29Jawad MirYeah

1:22:29Guest 2... Effortless, you know. You know, effortless comes with hard work. So I'm glad, I'm glad that, you know, it feels that way, but you know, it was blood, sweat, and tears to get it there. I mean, it, good, but you know, those, as I said, you know, you get a couple of scenes that just work out easily, and you get a few that are just, they're just the bane of your existence and they, and they just stay relentlessly…

1:23:00Jawad MirYeah

1:23:00Guest 2... You know, un-good. And then the rest of them just, you just grind away. You just keep working them until they're, until they get good.

1:23:08Jawad MirIf we look back at animation before Toy Story days, right? And may… correct me if I'm wrong, my knowledge is that at that time, up until Toy Story, after that things kind of changed in terms of, okay, this is like a collaborative effort. There's so many artists. Like, there was all these making ofs.

1:23:28Guest 2Yeah.

1:23:28Jawad MirIt wasn't that, maybe Lion King I think was one exception, or Little Mermaid. It wasn't there that much, you know, as much as we know now. Like, a lot of people…

1:23:35Guest 1You mean like having an auteur drive the process?

1:23:38Jawad MirYeah.

1:23:38Guest 1Yeah.

1:23:38Jawad MirYeah, like now everybody knows, I would imagine, people who are not in the entertainment industry as well, that it's a giant team effort. Takes four or five years to make a film.

1:23:47Guest 1Right.

1:23:47Jawad MirFrom conception to release. So, it, I'm, I lost my question a lot. I'm sorry.

1:23:55Guest 1Well, I mean, if I can bounce off of what you're saying.

1:23:58Jawad MirYeah.

1:23:58Guest 1Like, the collaboration is crucial, but sometimes when there's too many cooks in the kitchen the soup tastes terrible, right?

1:24:06Jawad MirYeah.

1:24:06Guest 1And so that's why I say, like to me it works as like there's all this collaboration, but at the end everybody's gotta sort of be allowing for one road. We're all going down one road. And so when working with a co… in a co-director situation, so like John and I, we had to agree on what that road was, you know? And Jen was also, like, again, critical in sort of defining what that road was and Melissa too, and what is that road that we're on that we're all gonna travel on together? And then it's a process of collecting everybody and giving them, showing them the target, showing them the road so that everybody has the best chance of succeeding on that journey. And but it is that one road, and I think Pando had a clear... At some point the road became more clear. And I'll never forget, actually it was, yeah, okay. Everybody was like, there was a point where people were so frustrated because they were like, "Is it a comedy?

1:25:07Guest 1Is it an action movie?" They were like, "What is it?" People, like, on our team, like brilliant artists, they were like, "I just wanna know, what is it? Like, what category does it fall in?" And I'll never forget the moment we coined the expression and I said, "It's if Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had Jerry Lewis as the main character."

1:25:28Jawad MirOh, my God.

1:25:29Guest 1And it was like as soon as we said that to the team… The most critical voices on the team, the most, like, questioning, like, "What is this thing?" Like, I'll never forget, like, the minute we voiced that, they said, "Okay." And they went away and they, like…

1:25:45Jawad MirThat's brilliant

1:25:45Guest 1... Did amazing things with that. But it was a real turning point because it was like, that's the beauty of it. It's a real martial arts movie with a guy who really loves martial arts, but, like, when he can't do it.

1:26:00Jawad MirYeah.

1:26:00Guest 1And that is the most painful thing in the world for him, and the shame, and that's why I go back to cosmic shame. The cosmic shame of the worst nightmare version of Po's experience is the most devastating thing that could happen, and that's... People's hearts go out to that character for understanding that.

1:26:20Jawad MirOh, yeah.

1:26:22Guest 1And I think it's something we all understand and feel and can relate to, and so I think that's... Okay, so I'll end with this, 'cause it's like the craziest aspect of this. I mean, for me, as a kid, my Star Wars figures were, like, m… creating, like, telling stories, like, grew out of, like, the creative play with me and my Star Wars figures, and, like, Star Wars was my whole childhood. I was seven when Star Wars came out, 10 when Empire Strikes Back came out. It was like, it was, it was everything to me. And so, I think all along the way, like, to me, like, I really understood and, you know, this idea of, like, wanting to be a filmmaker and w… like, "Well, what happens if I suck? Or what happens if the films I make are terrible?" It was like, well, you'll find out, right? And so at the premiere, I'll never forget, I'm sitting at the premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. It's the most surreal experience of my life. George Lucas is sitting in the seat…

1:27:19Jawad MirOh

1:27:19Guest 1... Like, just behind me. Like, I had better seats than George Lucas.

1:27:22Jawad MirNo.

1:27:23Guest 1And I was like, I was, I was losing it, because Oogway is a tribute to Yoda, you know, in a sense.

1:27:29Jawad MirYeah.

1:27:29Guest 1And

1:27:29Jawad MirYeah, for sure

1:27:30Guest 1... And Yoda, in a sense, is a tribute to all the great mystical, martial arts characters or the g… you know, characters from, you know, all the, all the great examples of Asian cinema that really brought, like, you know, that sort of archetype, I think to George Lucas. You know what I mean? So it's like, anyway, this really thing full circle, and then Jeffrey introduced him to me afterwards.

1:27:51Jawad MirOh.

1:27:52Guest 1And I almost lost it, because for me, that was, like, the moment of it coming full circle, from playing with the s… action figures and, like, wanting to make movies, to, like, actually being there in this process and being introduced to George as, you know, like, it was, it was r… you know, that was insane. And

1:28:12Jawad MirWhat did he say to you? What did he... About the film, or just about your work, or just in general, what kind of con… conversation did you guys have?

1:28:18Guest 1Well, he, I think Jeffrey introduced, like, I kind of blacked out a little bit, but I think he introduced knowing what a nerd I was. And so I think Jeffrey introduced me as, like, this huge Star Wars nerd, so j… as soon as he said, "Well, you'll have to come up to visit the ranch sometime." Like, that's when he said it. I was just like... And, yeah, like, and like, it completely... And then, and then he pointed out how when he saw the Oogway character, he leaned over to his wife and said, or no, sorry, his wife leaned over to him and said, and said, "That's like Yoda." And he was like, "Yep." So he pointed that out, and I said, "Absolutely. Absolutely, you know, I j… you know, George." And then I was able to sort of share with him, I don't think I ever shared, like, when I made More was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, and I was shooting on IMAX film, and it was a… all, like, an independent project, but I'd gotten amazing help and, resources to make the movie an IMAX short, which is kinda nuts.

1:29:19Jawad MirWow.

1:29:20Guest 1But it made it really challenging. And I had Yodas all over my set, because, like, my mantra was, you know, you know, my mantra was like Yoda inspired, and you know, try not, you know, do or do not.

1:29:39Jawad MirDo.

1:29:39Guest 1There is no try.

1:29:40Jawad MirYeah.

1:29:40Guest 1You know, this idea of like, are you doing this, or are you trying to do this? And so I think that was the thing that propelled me, and it was the wisdom that helped me accomplish that short, and I think I carry that forward with me in a way. But it even makes it even more surreal, again, to s… sort of get that validation from George, and to sort of…

1:30:01Jawad MirRight

1:30:01Guest 1... Anyway, so yeah.

1:30:03Jawad MirNo, that's fantastic. I mean, that whole circle thing is, like, literally like an arc in a story, right? Like, you know how you, in life…

1:30:11Guest 1It's so ridiculous, yeah.

1:30:12Jawad MirYeah. But that's what…

1:30:13Guest 1And then to do talks, you know, I did talks where I would s… would talk and I would show how I made More, and talk to students a lot. And I show the evidence, I show Yoda all around the room, and then when I, at the end of the talk I'll show a clip from Oogway, and it's so clearly portraying the same kind of like, philosophical, you know, in a sense, like, okay, it's a rip-off, like it's not, you know.

1:30:40Jawad MirYeah.

1:30:40Guest 1I ripped off George. But at the same time, it's like, it's so true to sort of, what inspired me. Like, it stays, it's, I guess it's, it's one of the aspects of the movie that I feel, I don't know, felt rewarding to me, that it really felt like, that, you know, I really believed in certain aspects of that story, and to see those work w… was really, yeah, rewarding. I learned so much, you know…

1:31:09Jawad MirYeah

1:31:09Guest 1... 'cause I was able to sort of, kind of go off and, it's definitely weird at this point, having made now a couple of films, a couple of features, to sort of have a better understanding of the process and to sort of, process-wise, and to understand the independent version, the studio version, and to try to find those balances, you know?

1:31:27Jawad MirYeah.

1:31:28Guest 1To g… have the best of both worlds, you know? 'Cause I think there's great, there's great aspects to either side of that, you know, very…... Grassy green fence, you know?

1:31:37Jawad MirYeah, that's, that's the thing with films and s… live action, but specifically animation. Like, you know, we go into a movie theater, watch a two-hour or an hour and a half movie, and that's it, right? And then the amount of work that goes behind, each of those films, especially animation, like, you know, three, four years, if you actually think about what it takes, it's, it's just mind-boggling and it's really, underappreciated by audience in some ways. I mean, they appreciate the film, but they don't understand…

1:32:05Guest 2Well, they shouldn't

1:32:06Jawad Mir... You know?

1:32:06Guest 2You know.

1:32:06Jawad MirYeah, I know. That's the thing.

1:32:08Guest 2It's not, it's not required of an audience, you know, and it, you know, the filmmaking should be invisible. I mean, you're, you are…

1:32:16Jawad MirRight

1:32:16Guest 2... You're presenting people with entertainment, with a story, you know, particularly if it's animation. You know, obviously films can do different things, but if you're making a big studio family animated feature, you know, job one is to make people happy, is to entertain, you know? And they sh… the last thing anybody should be thinking about is, "Oh my goodness, I bet this was really hard to make, and I bet lots of people had to work..." You know, if people are thinking about that, then you have definitely screwed up. You know, people should be s… they should only be thinking about the characters and the story and, you know, the years of work and all the sort of effort and stuff should, needs to be invisible, you know? That's, that's, that's the job that you sign up for as a, you know, if you work in animation in whatever degree that it is that, you know, it's going to be a lot of work, you know, and it'll be rewarding, and most people will never get exactly what it is that you do.

1:33:16Guest 2But if people like your film, then that's the reward.

1:33:21Jawad MirBut don't you think, I mean, there's a lot of, I think with every animated film and even live action, they also always show the behind the scenes and, you know, all…

1:33:28Guest 2Well…

1:33:28Jawad Mir... That goes into it. But…

1:33:29Guest 2There was, we did some of that on Panda. They did a DK…

1:33:33Jawad MirYeah

1:33:33Guest 2... For Panda.

1:33:35Jawad MirBut d… do you think that ruins the audience experience, like, after they've seen the film, not before, like after they've seen the film?

1:33:41Guest 2I don't think it ruins it. I mean, I always, you know, you know, when I was a kid, I, and I was really interested in movie making, I always found any of those kind of behind the scenes things…

1:33:50Jawad MirYeah

1:33:51Guest 2... Fascinating. I guess they're only fascinating if you care about films. If you don't, if you're not interested in…

1:33:57Jawad MirYou don't

1:33:57Guest 2... How films are made, then they're probably the most boring thing in the world. It's like, who cares? You know, so they're probably interesting for the people who find them interesting. You know, I don't, whatever.

1:34:05Jawad MirYou're right.

1:34:06Guest 2Whatever.

1:34:06Jawad Mir'Cause that's, that's what I do every time I watch a movie. The first thing I do is go to YouTube and just watch a whole slew of behind the scenes stuff. Okay, how did they do this?

1:34:14Guest 2Yeah. I love that.

1:34:14Jawad MirBecause that's my profession, right?

1:34:16Guest 2Yeah. I don't think that is everybody by any means.

1:34:20Jawad MirYeah.

1:34:20Guest 2I think some pe…

1:34:20Jawad MirRight

1:34:20Guest 2... You know, most people, you know, they just wanna go, "I just wanna be taken away for, you know, a couple of hours, you know, to be entertained. I've had a hard day, you know, I just want something fun or entertaining, and I don't wanna think about, you know, you know, the difficult things in my life, and I certainly don't wanna think about the difficulties of what you went through to make the film." That, I just, you know, let me just watch something that makes me…

1:34:46Jawad MirRight

1:34:46Guest 2... Makes me happy at the end of a tough day, you know?

1:34:49Jawad MirGot it.

1:34:49Guest 2It's, it's, it's a, you know, I think, I think it's a noble profession, you know? I mean, I really do. I think it's absolutely essential, not just animation, but, you know, storytelling, filmmaking, television. You know, everybody needs stories to relax to or to be challenged by or to be entertained with or to sort of, you know, be stimulated. I think if we didn't have that, we, you know, we would be vastly impoverished as a society. I think it's a very necessary thing. And often, you know, a lot of, a lot of crummy stuff gets made, you know, not because of, I think not because people set out to make crummy stuff, just because it's really hard to make something good. Everybody wants to make something good, it's just n… it's very, it's very difficult. So there's a lot of aspirations to make a good something, and very often you know, you come up short, you know?

1:35:49Jawad MirYeah

1:35:49Guest 2... But I think the goal is a noble one.

1:35:52Jawad MirI find what happens with... And I haven't seen Kung Fu Panda two or three.

1:35:56Guest 1Okay.

1:35:56Jawad MirI'll be honest.

1:35:58Guest 1Okay.

1:35:58Jawad MirI have seen Shrek two and Shrek three, and I find that a lot of films when the sequels happen, because you're trying to keep the essence, but you're trying…

1:36:05Guest 1Yeah

1:36:05Jawad Mir... To do something more.

1:36:06Guest 1Right.

1:36:07Jawad MirWhether it's live action or animation, a lot of characters get added on.

1:36:10Guest 1Yeah, they add characters and they a…

1:36:12Jawad MirAnd it's…

1:36:12Guest 1Yeah, it's one of the things that's hardest about sequels, yeah

1:36:14Jawad Mir... Exactly. Yeah. So do you feel that it's, it's something that can be avoided in sequels? I mean, without…

1:36:21Guest 1Well, I haven't made a sequel yet, so I don't know what it takes. And I…

1:36:26Jawad MirAs an audience, as an audience member.

1:36:27Guest 1Yeah, as audience, it's one of the things I find annoying. And, like, and especially in, like, superhero movies when there's, like, three villains and I'm like, "God," like, you know. Like, they have to kinda keep adding villains, right? I think low character count, I definitely gravitate towards a lower character count and I, and I think it's a more, it can be a more enriching experience. And, it's interesting that you say that because in Furious 5 we really struggled with, you know, they're, they're meant... There are a lot of characters in the movie, and the Furious 5 are very streamlined in how they participate in the movie. And, I do think we really worked hard to boil the movie down and make it very Po centric and to be very focused so that everything was relating to Po's experience. And then once we figured out the Shifu story, we could then sort of be with, aspects of, you know, Tai Lung and things that really were rooted in Shifu's story, right?

1:37:22Guest 1So that's, I think, what helped give it, that, you that sense where it's a shrunken character count because what's really critically important in the story is really focused on a, it's a, it's a triangle. You know, it's, Shifu and Tai Lung… a… you know, and Po, you know, they all, they're sort of participating in a triangle…

1:37:44Jawad MirYeah

1:37:44Guest 1... That is really…

1:37:45Jawad MirI…

1:37:45Guest 1... Critical to that story. So, and that was the big, that was the big, I think, the hat trick. That was the hardest thing to crack, was how to get that to all feel organic and feel like it came out of the same. And we cracked it when we realized that Shifu should be the s… the stepfather that trained Tai Lung and believed in Tai Lung as a son, and failed and broke his believing bone over his son. That was the moment, like, that was where everything sort of was able to sort of s… get solved, because it became a much simpler story and a much more…

1:38:23Jawad MirYeah

1:38:23Guest 1... Compelling dynamic. And I agree with you absolutely, like, too many characters, too many ideas. 'Cause what happens in a sequel is like, "Let's freshen it up."

1:38:32Jawad MirYeah.

1:38:32Guest 1But what's so great sometimes about an original property or by, you know, a first movie is like there's a specialness to that dynamic…

1:38:40Jawad MirThe novelty

1:38:40Guest 1... That gets created, yeah, that you wanna find a way to kind of go, "Well, what's a fresh take on or a fresh angle?" And I don't know. So that's why I was like, I was happy to walk away, like, I went off to go do other things and I was like, you know, Jenny Nelson like, you know, "Go for it. You're amazing." Like, you know, like… And you know, we both like, the handing of the torch to Jen, I mean, Jen was so, such a huge part of it that it was such a smart choice, you know, by the studio and such a no-brainer. You know, so, but yeah, I don't know how to do that, and I don't know if I wanna figure it out either, you know?

1:39:14Jawad MirYeah.

1:39:14Guest 1A… a… actually, Little Prince, there was a notion at one point of like, could there be a sequel to Little Prince? I'm like, "Oh, please." Like I can't even, I can't even e… entertain that, you know?

1:39:23Jawad MirIt's, it's a, I mean, I can't say much to it because I haven't been in that situation, but you know…

1:39:28Guest 1Yeah

1:39:28Jawad Mir... When you're presented with that situation, if there is a good story and, you know, naturally speaking you, y… it's your, it's your paycheck too, right? Like, you have to make money…

1:39:38Guest 1Right

1:39:38Jawad Mir... You have to do it.

1:39:38Guest 1Well, like I've, when I heard about Kung Panda 4, I thought to myself, like, if someone came to me and said, "Hey, do you wanna be involved?" Like I wouldn't even know where to begin. Like, I would be like, that would be such a weird thing, and I would have to begin by going back and watching Kung Fu Panda, which I haven't watched in years. And I'd have to watch it again and see how, what it, what it brought up for me and how it felt and, you know, 'cause I had to swear off watching it. You know, when you finish a movie and you go to festivals…

1:40:05Jawad MirYeah

1:40:05Guest 1... And you go, you watch it so many times…

1:40:07Jawad MirYeah, that

1:40:07Guest 1... And there was a point where I was like, "Okay, I need to stop looking at this." but yeah, I don't know. It's one of those, yeah, it's a h… it's a tough question, but yeah, if they came to me and said, "Do you wanna be involved?" I'd have to go, "Well, let me think about it," you know? But, it's, it's definitely a weird, yeah, it's so weird. 'Cause making the first one, like, I was like, when I heard, Jeffrey said at one point, like, "There's gonna be five of these." I was there when he said it to Jack.

1:40:34Jawad MirOh, really? He said that?

1:40:35Guest 1He walked into the booth, he walked into the booth and he said, "Jack, there's gonna be five of these," and he's like, "Get ready." And later on he said six, but in the, in the…... In that moment he said five, and Jack was like, "What?" And it was like, I'll never forget it 'cause I was like, it was the like, I was like, "All right," you know, like Jeffrey bets big, right? And I never f… I was like, I was like, "This is the only story." Like, I was like, "This is it, like, the universe..." And I think it was that was a protective measure, like, in order to sort of like stay focused on what we were doing, I was like, "There's not fi… if this doesn't work, there's no more of this. Like, how can you say there's five?" So I had to stay focused on making it work, and in doing so I think I really believed that this was the only story that existed in this universe that was worth telling. You know what I mean? Like, in a sense, like…

1:41:25Jawad MirYeah

1:41:25Guest 1... Like…

1:41:26Jawad MirIt is, if you think about it, right? Like it's, going back to my question about s… character focus and limited characters, there's this guy that nobody has ever met, like, you know, the audience hasn't met him yet.

1:41:38Guest 1Yeah.

1:41:38Jawad MirThey've watched the first film. You're getting to know him, you're getting to know him, and then you follow his story. But once the s… first film is over, no matter what it is…

1:41:45Guest 1Yeah

1:41:45Jawad Mir... That novelty, I think even Star Wars or Jurassic Park and all that stuff…

1:41:50Guest 1Yeah

1:41:50Jawad Mir... Like, you know what? There are six Jurassic Park movies that came out. I mean, the first one to me is still the dearest one to my heart.

1:41:56Guest 1Sure.

1:41:57Jawad MirLike, yeah.

1:41:57Guest 1Like I, yeah, you're like, "Six?" I'm like, "Are there six already?" At this point?

1:42:00Jawad MirYeah.

1:42:00Guest 1Yeah.

1:42:01Jawad MirYou know, part one, two, and three, and then the new, the new trilogy.

1:42:04Guest 1Right.

1:42:04Jawad MirBecause there was that sense of novelty, and it's funny because…

1:42:07Guest 1Yeah

1:42:07Jawad Mir... I'm, I'm going off topic, my kids, they can't stand the first one because it takes like an hour to build up to…

1:42:14Guest 1Oh my God That's hilarious.

1:42:16Jawad MirBecause…

1:42:17Guest 1But that was part of what was so amazing about that film, and it was part of the…

1:42:20Jawad MirExactly

1:42:20Guest 1... Necessity of how they had to make that film.

1:42:23Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

1:42:24Guest 1And that's why all the others have so much more…

1:42:26Jawad MirMore action

1:42:27Guest 1... Because they have to top that. Yeah.

1:42:29Jawad MirYeah.

1:42:29Guest 1We were just talking about Aliens the other night. My son had just seen Aliens and he loved it so much.

1:42:34Jawad MirI just saw it two nights ago again.

1:42:36Guest 1Oh, okay.

1:42:37Jawad MirYeah.

1:42:37Guest 1He loved it, and I said, "Okay, it'll be interesting when you..." 'Cause he's never seen the first one, and I said, "It'll be interesting 'cause it's gonna seem a lot slower to you, it's gonna seem smaller to you…

1:42:47Jawad MirYeah

1:42:48Guest 1... But it, in some ways it's more potent, you know? And in some ways, you know, it's like what you just described about Jurassic Park, like, it's like, but you're, it's, it's a lot more hide and seek. It's a lot more waiting for the thing.

1:43:01Jawad MirYeah.

1:43:01Guest 1Well...

1:43:04Jawad MirYour son should see the, there's an episode on Netflix on that show, Movies That Made Us.

1:43:10Guest 1huh.

1:43:10Jawad MirAnd there's a whole episode on how Aliens was made.

1:43:13Guest 1Oh, cool.

1:43:13Jawad MirAnd I was blown away by the amount of problems that film had, that James Cameron als…

1:43:18Guest 1Oh, wow

1:43:18Jawad Mir... Everybody almost revolted against him.

1:43:20Guest 1Oh, nice.

1:43:21Jawad MirSo, but yeah.

1:43:22Guest 1All right, I'll watch it. I'll check it out.

1:43:23Jawad MirYeah, it's incredible.

1:43:25Guest 1Okay.

1:43:25Jawad MirWhat are you working on next, Mark? Like, what's your pro… if it's something that you're at liberty of s… sharing.

1:43:31Guest 1I can actually say a little bit. I mean, I've been doing a lot of different projects. I've been, since finishing Little Prince, I actually at one point was, slated to dir… direct a tri… trilogy of…... Animated movies based on Bone, Jeff Smith's amazing comic.

1:43:49Guest 1And that was, set up at, Warner Brothers, and it was really cool. And then it went into turnaround, and we ended up selling it to Fox, and then Fox kinda saved the day, and we got green lit at Fox, and we were gonna start making it at Fox, and then Disney decided to buy Fox, and it went away.

1:44:04Jawad MirBlue Sky, right, was it, that…

1:44:06Guest 1Yeah, we were gonna make it at Blue Sky, and then it was pretty exciting. But anyway, so that was a little bit of, like, a, "Ah." So I've been doing, like,.. A… a… it since went on, ha… that project had another life. Jeff tried to turn it into a series, and there was a whole other life after my time with it. But I've been doing lots of other stuff. One thing in particular that we're actually out with right now, it's called With Kind Regards from Kindergarten, and it's an adaptation of a really beloved, blacklist script from 2007, written by Adam Klein. And it's a really incredible, wonderful, script that people have loved for years, and it's just never quite found its way to getting made. And so, we've been, we're a couple years deep into the process, but right now we're, we're, yeah, it's, it's hopefully gonna see the light of day in a couple years' time. We're about at the midway point. But that's a, it's a, it's a really cool film that has a sort of a mixed media feel.

1:45:07Guest 1It has some live action and CG animation. But yeah, that's all I'll say.

1:45:13Jawad MirGot it.

1:45:14Guest 1I'm, I'm, I'm still looking to mix mediums, and I'm still looking to make more, out of animation to kind of push the medium further

1:45:22Jawad MirSure

1:45:22Guest 1... Its expressiveness and yeah.

1:45:24Jawad MirA… a… and again, you don't have to answer this. Ha… is it, has it found a studio home yet or is it still at the peak of…

1:45:29Guest 1Well, we were a… we were actually making that movie at Netflix, and we're now sort of, in turnaround with the project out of Netflix and looking for a new home. There's been sort of some ups and downs at Netflix that kind of…

1:45:41Jawad MirYeah

1:45:41Guest 1... Resulted in, some changes there, which kind of… ... Created an opportunity for us to, you know, again, it's, it's taking a film that we really believe in and really wanna, see through. My producing partner and I, Jinko Gotoh, are sort of opting to sort of take the film elsewhere, really as a way to sort of, keep it, keep it whole, keep it intact, and keep it sort of true to the spirit of the original. When faced with, like, it was, it was needing to change a lot, into something else to stay at Netflix, and so we've sort of, we're taking the opportunity to try to sort of, see it through elsewhere.

1:46:21Jawad MirGot it

1:46:21Guest 1... So yeah, we're kind of mid-process right now, but.

1:46:24Jawad MirSomebody should make a movie on this whole process, right?

1:46:27Guest 1Yeah. It's, it's, there's always a story. It's never easy. It's never easy.

1:46:31Jawad MirRight. It's like

1:46:32Guest 1Like, I don't know why, but it's never easy.

1:46:34Jawad MirHave you seen that new series that just, came out on Paramount Plus, The Offer?

1:46:38Guest 1No.

1:46:39Jawad MirIt's about how Godfather was made.

1:46:41Guest 1Oh, okay. Yeah.

1:46:42Jawad MirYeah, it's…

1:46:42Guest 1Check it out

1:46:43Jawad Mir... Intense. It's crazy.

1:46:44Guest 1Okay.

1:46:44Jawad MirOne last question

1:46:45Guest 1Sure

1:46:45Jawad Mir... And I'll let you go, Mark.

1:46:47Guest 1Sure.

1:46:47Jawad MirYou've been talking about mixed media, right?

1:46:50Guest 1Right.

1:46:50Jawad MirDifferent facets of whether it's live action or different types of animation. To me, the first movie that ever came out mixed media, if you wanna call it, was Bedknobs and Broomsticks from Disney. I don't know if, Angela Lansbury, I don't know if you've seen that or Mary Poppins.

1:47:04Guest 1Yes. Yeah.

1:47:04Jawad MirRight?

1:47:04Guest 1Way back when, yeah.

1:47:05Jawad MirYeah. But the one that really tipped everything in terms of technology was Robert Zemeckis' Who Framed Roger Rabbit, right?

1:47:13Guest 1Yes. Yeah.

1:47:14Jawad MirWhen it, yeah, when it came out. So…

1:47:15Guest 1That made a major impact on me, I think, as a kid, yeah.

1:47:18Jawad MirI was gonna ask you.

1:47:19Guest 1Yeah.

1:47:19Jawad MirSo is that something that the project that you're developing, is that the kind of mixed media that you get, would want to get inspired from, or is it totally something different?

1:47:29Guest 1Well, I mean, look, I mean, Sledge Hammer, what I mentioned, like, seeing human being Peter Gabriel kind of moving in a weird way while animation was happening all around him in a real set, like, I think that's what started me on this road of being fascinated. And, like, the a-ha music video, going from live action to, wait, it's, it's pencil drawings. You know, like, that kind of hybrid, those are the things that really excite me. Whereas I think what was really exciting about Roger Rabbit was just how integrated and how well they were able to…

1:48:03Jawad MirYeah

1:48:03Guest 1... Sort of put 2D together with animation, and the way they did it. So that's a really visceral, exciting kind of, like, the way that they pushed that concept. But to me that's like, okay, that's been done. And so the things I get excited about is like, what can we do that we haven't seen before? And…

1:48:24Jawad MirAmazing

1:48:25Guest 1... And I would even say, like, the way they did Spider-Verse, like, Spider-Verse blows my mind, and I…

1:48:30Jawad MirYeah

1:48:30Guest 1... I so love that movie, and that to me was so much, they brought so much abstract expressionism in.

1:48:39Jawad MirYeah.

1:48:39Guest 1And to me, that's a mixed media film 'cause it's, it's using CG in a way that we've never seen before and breaking the rules of time and space in a way that, like, you're not allowed to do, right? You know? So those are the things that excite me. It's just expressionism, you know, using the medium to be more expressionistic than sometimes it's not allowed to be, you know. Kind of gets put in a box, right?

1:49:03Jawad MirYeah. Spider-Verse is actually, you know, one of the rare exceptions. I'm not a big superhero fan. Like, I… ... Haven't even seen any of them, but Spider-Man Verse, I remember my son was watching and it actually caught my attention because of the way it was done. And…

1:49:15Guest 1It's gorgeous, yeah

1:49:16Jawad Mir... Yeah, it's, it's absolutely amazing. And it…

1:49:17Guest 1And it all serves the story. Everything they're doing…

1:49:20Jawad MirYeah

1:49:20Guest 1... Stylistically, visually, it all serves the storytelling, and that's, that's where, that's where it's, like, total genius. Like, the application of all those ideas is just, like, that's, to me, it's, it's 100% on my personal Rotten Tomatoes rating, you know.

1:49:37Jawad MirYeah. We all strive to pe… like, which we're talking about, make people entertained, right? But once the film is completed, obviously it's in the audience's hand, and… Fortunately or unfortunately, the way a movie's success is measured nowadays, or for the last 15, 20 years, or 30 years, is box office.

1:49:55Jawad MirYou know, when the film was coming out on the Friday, what were you expecting or were, was there any kind of, or even with Mar… I mean, if you, if you can speak for Mark, you don't have to. Was there any kind of fear? What if it tanked? Will it tank?

1:50:11Guest 2Yeah. Well, of course. You know, it was te… absolute terror. You know, I mean, you spend, you know, four years of your life making something, and I, what I remember w… I had, I did not want to be around for when the numbers came in. So I had asked if I could go to the premiere in Sydney, Australia. So I was in the air when, you know…

1:50:43Jawad MirYou were flying

1:50:44Guest 2... Flying on the Friday and, 'cause I just didn't want to be, I didn't want the stress of waiting for the phone call. 'Cause you get a phone call to tell you how the sort of East Coast matinees have gone, and that predicts pretty much how the weekend's gonna go. So…

1:50:59Jawad MirYeah

1:50:59Guest 2... You get, you can get a very unpleasant phone call, or a very pleasant phone call on the Friday to say, you know, "Your film's gonna do this weekend, and therefore we project it's gonna go on and do this." And so, you know, on the day that it opens, you will either be a u… you know, y… you might be a god or a goat. And I just, that stress was just way too much, so I just thought, I s… I just wanna, I'm gonna fly for 20 hours. No one can get a hold of me. I'm gonna be in a plane. I'll deal, you know, deal with it when I'm on the other side of the world. And I im… I know that I was really, I was praying that we wouldn't make less than 16. I thought, I thought if we made, if w… if we could make 15 million, we'd probably be okay. If we made less than, it wouldn't be great, but it would be okay. If we made less…

1:51:52Jawad MirYeah

1:51:52Guest 2... Than 15, we would definitely be flopped and I would probably get fired. I think the studio was hoping for somewhere between 20 and 25, something like that. You know, so I was l… I was hoping we would not be less than 10 million less than what they were hoping.

1:52:10Jawad MirSure.

1:52:10Guest 2I think Jeffrey usually hoped for 10 million more than the studio prediction, so probably Jeffrey was wanting, like, 35. You know?

1:52:21Jawad MirAnd a bit more than that.

1:52:21Guest 2And I just, a… a… and I just thought, "Oh, there's no chance we can do that." And what I remember was when the plane landed in, actually it landed in Melbourne. We went to Melbourne first.

1:52:32Jawad MirSure.

1:52:33Guest 2The plane landed in Melbourne, and I'm getting off the plane, and I see somebody from Paramount, who was the distributor, w… waiting at the bottom of the stairs. And I'm like, "Oh, are they for m… that's not for me, is it?" You know? And I'm wa… as I'm walking down the stairs, before my feet have even hit the ground in Australia, the person, who was there at the bottom of the stairs said, "Mr. Stevenson, your film made, $60 million," or whatever it made. Something like that.

1:53:03Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

1:53:04Guest 2This o… this opening weekend. You know. And I remember just being, I could not process it. I was, I remember standing on the tarmac in sort of the hot Melbourne sun, having heard that, and going, "Is that good or is that terrible? I don't know." I, it was, it was just so crazy. I couldn't, it didn't fit with any of the numbers I had in my head. So suddenly I was in a panic, like it was either really good or maybe it was completely catastrophic. I was, I was absolutely like, "I don't know what's going on." And I, it wasn't until I got to the hotel and Jeffrey Katzenberg was waiting for me in the, in the lobby of this big hotel.

1:53:45Jawad MirOkay.

1:53:45Guest 2And again, you know, so again, I don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm like, I'm like, "Oh no, is this, is this terrible? Am I g… am I gonna get canned and yelled at?" And I think I remember literally, like, two gunfighters. It was a big atrium, and he was by the…... The desk, and I came in and I saw him. And I, and I just said, I think I just, I yelled out to him, I said, "Are we happy?" And Jeffrey said, "Yes, I'm happy." So then I was like, okay, it's, it's, it's, it's fine. It's good. It's all, it's all good. So yeah, we made, like, three times what…

1:54:22Jawad MirOh, yeah

1:54:23Guest 2... I think the s… the studio thought we would make. So yeah, it was, it was surprising and relieving, I have to say.

1:54:30Jawad MirWell, Friday it made 20 million, which was a weekend prediction, right? And then…

1:54:34Guest 2Yeah

1:54:34Jawad Mir... And then it went on to make 630 something million worldwide.

1:54:38Guest 2Something like that. Yeah.

1:54:39Jawad MirYeah. Which is, which is, m… that's why there was sequels and obviously…

1:54:42Guest 2Yeah. No, it was, it…

1:54:44Jawad MirYeah

1:54:44Guest 2... You know, it was a success by anybody's standards, you know. So… ... We could, we could all breathe out luckily.

1:54:53Jawad MirIt's something that even the greatest of filmmakers sometime end up deviating from. Right? Because there's all this budget and effects, and when you, and it's such an integral part of filmmaking or even writing a book or, you know, writing an article. What advice would you give to people, whether they're trying to get into, like, you know, young up, young people, live action or animation…

1:55:17Guest 2Yeah

1:55:17Jawad Mir... Like how to stay true to the story that you have? And you've sort of touched upon it, but just kinda in one, you know, final say.

1:55:24Guest 1I think, I think it's really important and it's really difficult to be inspired by everything you're seeing around you and the things that have moved you or the things that you're trying to sort of emulate, you know. Be inspired by those things but really try to dig down and try to find your own way and… Of going forward down the road of the story that you're on. And you have to listen to your story, you have to listen to your character. You have to let the, let that drive more than these outside factors of, "Well, we've got to make it more appealing," or, "We've gotta..." You know, it's, it's always a balance. Like, you wanna sort of like, you know, kinda stick your head in the, in the hole of story and, like, focus only on story, and then kinda poke out and sort of think about how it's gonna come across to the audience or maybe how it's gonna get marketed or whatever. You know, it's like…

1:56:18Jawad MirSure

1:56:18Guest 1... You kinda have to go back and forth. But I think the best advice I could give is, like, look, read the books. Find out about formula. Find out about why things work, but don't adhere to those formulas. Like, d… you know, don't go by the book. Go by your gut. Like, go by your heart. Go b… really try to f… really try to make yourself vulnerable in what you're putting out there. Like, allow yourself to be vulnerable, and that's where you're gonna do something unique and special, and you're gonna... And again, like I say, I'm very grateful to Jack for the vulnerability he brought to that character. And ultimately, when I look back on it, I thought of the things that were scary to me about that process, and I was able to sort of bring some of that and my vulnerabilities as an artist sort of definitely came in and informed how I was making decisions about how that story was getting told about that character, who was dealing with the grappling with that. So it's like, find the thing in your story that is meaningful to you or comes from somewhere in you, and find a way to build on that or stay,..

1:57:24Guest 1'Cause I think that's ultimately what, why you're doing it. You know, that's why you're there. And even if it's a project someone brought to you can find your own way through the material. And it's not to say that it's the only way through the material, but that's your best chance at finding what you can bring to the table and what you can bring to the, to the story and the story's gonna drive itself. Like, there's gonna be a point where the story will dictate the choices that you need to make, and you have to listen to that, and you have to learn from what your story is teaching you. You know, 'cause sometimes your story will teach you, "I know you love this idea, but it doesn't work." A… you know?

1:58:09Jawad MirYeah.

1:58:09Guest 1It's like an idea that is not actually helping, and you kinda have to let go of stuff sometimes in order to kind of let something really thrive, you know? So yeah, sorry. Long answer to a…

1:58:21Jawad MirNo

1:58:21Guest 1... Good question, you know.

1:58:23Jawad MirIt's, it's, it's, it's 100% accurate, and I truly appreciate your time, Marc.

1:58:28Guest 1Yeah.

1:58:28Jawad MirBeen a pleasure talking to you. I hope you had a good time too.

1:58:31Guest 1I did. I did. I appreciate your time because, like, it's fun to go and talk about this stuff. I haven't talked about Panda in a l… in a while, so it's, it's neat to do that, and I appreciate the opportunity, yeah.

1:58:40Jawad MirFantastic. Well, thank you, John, for your time. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Don't forget to subscribe, like, share, and comment, and do come back for another episode. Until then, have a great day.