'Elizabeth Taylor, The Lost Tapes', Composer, Logan Nelson

0:00Logan NelsonI remember when I was in, high school, they were doing these, like, film music concerts. So they were screening a bunch of Pixar movies, Ratatouille, Toy Story, all of th… this stuff with live orchestra and, like, playing the music to the film and everything. And, this was, happening in San Francisco, and I went to that concert, and this was kind of at the point where I was trying to decide, like, do I wanna do film music? Do I wanna be a normal Kansas kid and go into engineering or something? And I showed up to the concert, and I made a bet with myself. I was like, if Michael Giacchino, you know, ends up coming to the concert, I'll do it. I'll, I'll be a film composer. And he wasn't announced or anything. It wasn't anything. And he walked in unannounced to the concert and was like, "Oh, I'm here. Like, thanks for playing my music," everything. And I was like, dang, that's crazy.

1:00Logan NelsonLike, I have to do it now.

1:02Jawad MirWow. It's good to have you to talk about the upcoming HBO documentary, Elizabeth: The Lost Tapes. I took a... S… I saw the advanced, screening, and provided by HBO, and I absolutely not only loved the s… the film but loved the music. Especially…

1:35Logan NelsonOh, thank you so much

1:36Jawad Mir... Especially the soundtrack. You know, when I got the tracks from your agent, just listening it to itself, it's, it's very cool to just listen to it by itself and kind of feel reminded of a lot about classical music, which I think is sort of coming back now. I hear a lot of new series and mu… and composers sort of revisiting that era. So thank you so much.

2:03Logan NelsonYeah, for sure. I mean, I think I come from a classical background, so that's kind of always in a lot of what I'm doing. I grew up, like, playing in orchestras and, studying classical music in that way, so that always kind of influences what I'm working on. But yeah, I think, like, Nicholas Britell, there's some really classically influenced composers that are doing film music today, so. And, my approach to documentaries is kind of similarly been, like, music that you can listen to outside of the movie, as well. A lot of documentaries I feel like are very, just atmospheric scores or background scores. And, yeah, I kind of... I try to treat it just as you would a narrative film and yeah, and make the score really fun and listenable. So I'm glad you enjoyed it.

2:57Jawad MirWell, two things I really found interesting and I liked and I wasn't aware of them when I was watching them, when I was watching the film was, well, the first thing was the entire film is just a collection of, you know, as the do… as the title says, the lost tapes of, Elizabeth Taylor's lost interviews. And then, and everything is the visuals of her film, photos from premieres, videos, footage from premiere. Like, it was very unconventional. I'm, I'm a documentary director myself.

3:29Logan NelsonYeah

3:29Jawad Mir... So just watching all these visuals, right, from a different era and then hearing her talk to the interviewee… ... And at the same time not being able, which I think was a good thing, I couldn't distinguish the music that you had done and the music that was in some of the footage, like, by default…

3:53Logan NelsonYeah

3:53Jawad Mir... Which I thought was really cool.

3:56Logan NelsonYeah. That was a big challenge for sure, because at first when I saw the film, I was like, "Okay, this is gonna be super fun," because I'm basically writing music underneath all of these iconic movies that, you know, I grew up studying and watching and, yeah. To, like, have scenes of Cleopatra that you're writing clips under is a composer's dream, so I... That wa… that was super exciting at first. But then they told me, like, "Okay, parts of this are gonna have, some of the existing score. Parts of it you're gonna have to replace." S… like if, I guess if you used a certain amount of... If the music was to the scene that you saw, it was fair use, and if they didn't, it wasn't. And so…

4:44Jawad MirYeah

4:44Logan Nelson... I had to kind of create these, like, bridges and transitions between, score that had been created for these old films and then my score and try to make it as seamless as possible. So I ended up having to, like, figure out the keys and study the music of those older movies for a little bit to cr… try to, blend them together and just keep them as seamlessly as possible transitioning. But also, like, they also kind of just inspired me in the score. You know, just I wanted to do an orchestral score in that way and keep it in, a world that kind of a little bit felt like it could have been from that old classic Hollywood period. So, yeah, I was, I was listening to a lot of that music at the time.

5:34Jawad MirYou mentioned fair use, which, you and I know what that is. But there's always a gray area a… around that…

5:43Logan NelsonYeah

5:43Jawad Mir... Right? Like even, I mean, there have been cases where, people have, producers and directors have used fair use, and there's a limitation of that, and you can get into some sort of a lawsuit, legal trouble. But what kind of duration were you allowed to play with, keeping in the realms of the fair use, law?

6:04Logan NelsonI... Well, the funny thing is, like, they… They thought that a lot of it was going to… HBO thought a lot of it…

6:12Jawad MirOh, okay

6:12Logan Nelson... Was gonna be fair use. And then at the last minute, their lawyers were like, "None of this is fair use. You have to actually score a bunch of these scenes." And so I ended up having to go and like, a… and actually do more of these moments than I originally thought. But it w… it was kind of, I think the rule was if you saw the scene from the film and you were hearing the music as it was placed with that clip, it was fair use. But then if you cut away from the scene but were still hearing the music, that music wasn't fair use.

6:48Jawad MirYeah.

6:48Logan NelsonIt had to be married with the picture that you were seeing. So you would see part of Cleopatra, and then you cut away to a scene of Elizabeth Taylor, in Italy or something, or at the Vatican. And then, I would have to, like, continue that Cleopatra world for a second, since we cut away. So it was, it was difficult transition moments like that. That only happened a couple times. I think a lot of it we, you know, were playing as score. But, there were, there were some times where it was difficult.

7:26Jawad MirYeah, it's always the lawyers. I remember,... My very first feature that I directed, it was a similar thing. Like, we use a lot of music, like classical music, that has been sort of, in the domain, you know. And

7:42Jawad Mir... And but when it came to, like, go through festivals and distributions, you know, the lawyer had to go through every single scene in the musical track. "Okay, no, this is not it. This is not it."

7:53Logan NelsonYeah.

7:53Jawad MirBut obviously they're trying to... I mean, they're trying to... It's better to be safe than to be sorry, right? Because you don't want…

7:58Logan NelsonExactly

7:58Jawad Mir... It to come back and bite you. And the money…

8:01Logan NelsonYeah

8:01Jawad Mir... That you're trying to save earlier, you're probably gonna end up paying 10, if not 100 times more than that.

8:08Logan NelsonTotally. Yeah. No, I… documentaries are a unique challenge in that way with all of the clearance. Yeah.

8:17Jawad Mir100%. Logan, let's just go back a little bit. You kinda touched upon it very briefly. What was... I'm always very interested, because being in the, in the world, in the film world myself, there's always these little moments or a moment that defines your life to go on a path which you never probably thought that would, right? Like, what was that one moment or one movie or one soundtrack where everything sorta turned upside down for you as a young kid or a teenager or a young adult that, "This is where I wanna go. This is what I wanna do"?

8:53Logan NelsonYeah, definitely. I mean, I grew up in Kansas, where not many people are in the entertainment industry or, you know, going into film or music. And, so it was a big leap as a… as a young kid deciding to do this. I grew up playing in orchestras and playing music and my whole life being involved in that world. But, I remember I was, I was actually kind of starting as a filmmaker in a way. I was making little films and e… even a documentary is kind of where I first started. I was making a documentary for a class project. And as I was, like, making the documentary, I just stumbled into, music for movie. I didn't even really put it together that was a thing. And then I just, only knowing that, like, I had to put music to my documentary was how I discovered it.

9:57Logan NelsonAnd I was talking to my parents about it, and they were like, "Oh yeah, we have this whole CD collection of all of these soundtracks. Like, why don't you, like, take a listen?" And so I opened it up and started listening and exploring that. And, yeah, a lot of, Hans Zimmer was in there actually, so I ended up putting, like, ridiculously, epic Gladiator music to my documentary on the telegraph, I think. And so it was just... But it was my first discovery into it. And after that, I w… I was just listening to a lot of Michael Giacchino, Hans Zimmer, a lot of, a lot of composers, that were writing in the early 2000s when I was growing up. And, yeah, there was kind of a turning point. I remember when I was in, high school, they were doing these, like, film music concerts. So they were screening a bunch of Pixar movies, Ratatouille, Toy Story, all the stuff with live orchestra and, like, playing the music to the film and everything.

10:57Logan NelsonAnd, this was, happening in San Francisco, and I went to that concert. And this was kind of at the point where I was trying to decide, like, do I wanna do film music? Do I wanna be a normal Kansas kid and go into engineering or something? And I showed up to the concert and I made a bet with myself. I was like, "If Michael Giacchino, you know, ends up coming to the concert, I'll do it. I'll, I'll be a film composer." And he wasn't announced or anything. It wasn't anything. And he walked in unannounced to the concert and was like, "Oh, I'm here. Like, thanks for playing my music," everything. And I was like, "Dang, that's crazy. Like, I have to do it now."

11:44Jawad MirWow.

11:44Logan NelsonAnd so I went down and I talked to him, and he gave me, like, just advice about what I should study, what I should be doing to be a film composer. And, so yeah, there was a bit of divine intervention that…

12:00Jawad Mir100%

12:00Logan Nelson... Pushed me over the line. 'cause I…

12:04Jawad MirThat's, that's awesome

12:04Logan Nelson... I don't know if I... I w… I was just at a split point. I needed something to just…... Pushed me over the line and it's, it's the best decision I ever made. I can't imagine doing anything else now, so yeah.

12:18Jawad MirDid you tell Michael that I was, I told this mi… to myself? Like, did you tell him that?

12:23Logan NelsonYeah. Yeah, I did. He was like, "Wow, g… that's cool, kid." Like, "Keep going." But, he gave me some good advice 'cause I went to USC to study, film and film music, and, Michael had, spoken and kind of adjunct professored a little bit there for a little bit, and he kind of, told me what classes I should take. He told me to study film more than I studied music even. He thought that…

12:53Logan Nelson... Like film and the study of film was the most important thing that a composer could learn, more than even the craft of music itself.

13:04Jawad MirYeah. I think I even came…

13:05Logan NelsonWhich I similarly gathered from…

13:08Jawad MirSorry, go ahead

13:08Logan Nelson... Oh, I was just gonna say that also when I've worked with like, I worked with this composer, Carter Burwell, a little bit, and we do music for The Morning Show, and his knowledge of story and, how music works in the context of a structure and a, and a plot is really what makes him a great composer, and I can totally see what Michael meant when he was saying that you have to study film and understand film to be able to do anything else, so.

13:38Jawad MirThat is, that is so true. That is such a true…

13:41Logan NelsonYeah

13:41Jawad Mir... Story. I think the very first time I came across Michael's name was in the late '90s or early 2000, and I still have that soundtrack somewhere. He did the soundtrack for the very first, Medal of Honor game

13:57Logan NelsonYeah

13:57Jawad Mir... Because it w… it was by DreamWorks Interactive form, you know, part of Spielberg, Geffen, and Katzenberg, and then later I think he composed, I think his first major breakthrough, I could be wrong, was Lost. He did Lost.

14:10Logan NelsonYeah.

14:11Jawad MirBut, he's a great composer.

14:12Logan NelsonYeah, it was interesting. He was in,.. He almost started out in video games, which is really interesting, 'cause that's…

14:18Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

14:19Logan Nelson... Not what at all you know him for now, but he, yeah, it's an interesting world.

14:24Jawad MirAnd he worked with JJ Abrams, I think, on Mission Impossible 3. I could be wrong. But, you know, your story reminded me of another story. I was speaking to Andrew, I always have a hard time pronouncing his last name, K-A-W-C-Z-Y-N-S-K-I. I'm gonna, I'm not gonna say it, but…

14:42Logan NelsonYeah. Yeah.

14:42Jawad MirSo he did the, he did the music for, Gran Turismo, and he works with Lorne Balfe and Hans Zimmer quite a bit.

14:48Logan NelsonRight.

14:49Jawad MirSo he was telling me, 'cause I had him on for, Gran Turismo, like, I think late last year or summer last year, and, his story was pretty cool too because he was into music. He didn't know anything about this world of soundtracks. Like, he didn't know even know that existed, and he got... He was going to some school, and he got an option of, you know, working with a paid job at some, let's say, orchestra

15:21Jawad Mir... Or there was an unpaid internship, this is early 2000s, with a composer named Hans Zimmer.

15:30Logan NelsonYep.

15:31Jawad MirAnd he went to his parents, and his parents are like, "Take the one with Hans Zimmer", and, you know, the rest…... Is history. So it's, it's interesting how those things work. That, your story is really cool though. Like, a lot of... I mean, that is major divine intervention if you ask me.

15:46Logan NelsonYeah, I mean, I have points in my career where it's been situations similar to that where I… i… it's reaffirming that I'm on the right path. There was a big festival for film music, called the World Soundtrack Awards that happen in Belgium every year, and, it's, it's a very niche festival, part of the Film Fest Gent, and, but it's very big in the film music community. There's always a lot of people, composers, who fly out there and go to the festival and everything, and they have this, like, pr… program as a part of that's a, the best young film composer, competition, and so you have to submit a score to an old movie scene, and you send it off to Belgium, and they pick the best three of them, fly them out, and the orchestra plays their music, and they pick a winner. And so, I was submitting for it, and, this was when I was at USC, and I was just, like, working on it nonstop until the very end of the deadline.

16:56Logan NelsonIt had to be postmarked by a certain date, and so I was working up until that day. It was, like, 4:00 PM, and I went to the post office to bind the score, finish it up, get it postmarked and everything, and then I was gonna drive to the post office. As I'm driving to the post office, it's like 5:00 traffic, LA, terrible, like gridlocked, and the post office…

17:21Jawad MirYep

17:21Logan Nelson... Closes at, like, 5:30, and this is the day I have to get it postmarked. And I show up to the post office, like, 5:29. They let me in, and the guy behind me, they're like, "No, we're closed. You can't come in." And, th… they let me in and they, I mail it off, and it's postmarked by the correct deadline, but if I was, like, even a split second late, I wouldn't have made it.

17:43Jawad MirWow.

17:43Logan NelsonAnd that festival was a festival where, Carter Burwell was at, who I do a lot of work with now. I met him there. I met my agents there. I met a bunch of executive... It was really, like, a career-starting festival that I almost missed by one minute, so, y…

18:03Jawad MirWow

18:03Logan Nelson... Yeah, there's a bunch of, like, split second things in my whole career. Yeah.

18:07Jawad MirWell, somebody's…

18:08Logan NelsonIt's fortunately worked out

18:09Jawad Mir... Somebody is keeping an eye on you, which is good.

18:14Logan NelsonHopefully, yeah

18:17Jawad MirYou know, your career,.. I mean, I was going through your IMDb. You've done shorts, and you've done a couple of films, and you worked, on The p… The Morning Show, and now this Elizabeth, Taylor: The Lost Tapes. What was that anchor point? I mean, as after this, what you just told me, which was good, the festival, and the agents, and Carter meeting there, was that the turning point in your career where you started getting like, you know, shows like Morning Show or films like Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes?

18:52Logan NelsonYeah. So, I would say a lot of it comes down to the people I ended up meeting at that festival and also, friends that I went to USC with, I think. So, I, for The Morning Show, yeah, I ended up meeting Carter. And so Carter was being a… awarded the Best Film Composer of the Year, and Nicholas Britell was being awarded Best TV Composer of the Year for Succession. And

19:22Logan Nelson... Ni… Nick ended up coming with, Barry Jenkins, who he w… works a lot with on Moonlight, Beale Street. And it was such a small p… festival that me, and Barry, and Nick, and Carter, we were all hanging out and, spending a lot of time together. And so after the festival, I, go back to my classes at USC, and in my film symposium class they're presenting an, a screening of, Barry Jenkins' Beale Street movie. And

19:59Jawad MirYeah

19:59Logan Nelson... So he comes in, he presents it, he announces it. The class is like 300 pers… people big, and he gets up in front of the class. He's like, "Logan Nelson is in this auditorium. Everybody needs to work with Logan." Like, "He's like the best." Like, and to have like Barry like vouch for you like that was like…

20:16Jawad MirWow

20:16Logan Nelson... All the USC film kids were, all over me after that. And since then Barry has kind of like vouched for me, to a number of other directors and friends and, helped try to, you know, push me for different projects. And so he kind of was a great mentor as I was…

20:40Jawad MirSure

20:43Logan Nelson... You know, transitioning out of college and into, the real industry. So he was a… an amazing resource for that. And then Carter, of course, we do The Morning Show together, and so he's been a great teacher as well as I've kind of worked under him writing music for that show. So yeah, there's, it's, it's always you can never do it alone, you know? It's always there's people that are…

21:11Jawad MirYep

21:11Logan Nelson... Helping you and, supporting your next steps along the way. And, yeah, I definitely couldn't have done it without a lot of these people.

21:23Jawad MirYou know, I'm, I'm gonna say something which I truly mean, is, your music, when I, when, Christian sent me the tracks and I listened to it, like, I was watching Elizabeth. We were having some technical difficulties watching it, so I finally started working and I started watching it, and then I get the email. And I'm like, "Oh, okay, tracks are here, so let me just take a listen to that even though they're in the film, but I just wanna listen to them." And nothing against the film, I completely got pulled in…

21:56Logan NelsonYeah.

21:57Jawad Mir... By the opening track. That was really cool. And

22:02Logan NelsonYeah

22:02Jawad Mir... And then just listening to it, the rest of it, then I had to sort of stop and go back into the film. But it's just, I think Logan Nelson name is something that w… people will know in the next 10 to 15 years, as they probably do now.

22:15Logan NelsonNo.

22:17Jawad MirNo, I seriously, if you continue to do the work you're doing, it, your soundtrack was incredible. I hope it's available on iTunes so I can download it on my phone, 'cause it's really cool.

22:28Logan NelsonYeah. Yeah. I mean, it took a lot.

22:33Jawad Mir100%.

22:33Logan NelsonI have the score, the score manual, or the score for the whole thing. It's, just a physical representation of the, effort that went into it. It was, so many notes, so much orchestrated. It's the biggest project I've done to date, for sure. And, yeah, there's just so much music in it.

22:56Jawad MirHow big was your team?

22:57Logan NelsonSo I had a score mixer who I've worked with for a really long time, Bill McGowan, who, is phenomenal. He always just, the orc… the orchestral recordings that we get, he always just brings them to such a cinematic degree that, they just sound gorgeous after he's done with them. And then I worked with, a few orchestrators to basically transcribe and notate all of this sheet music for the musicians. And it was, it was such a tight turnaround for orchestration. I think we had like two weeks to orchestrate the entire…

23:41Jawad MirWow

23:41Logan Nelson... Thing, which i… it was just, it was a lot of mus… it was hundreds of pages of score. And so to actually like physically notate all of that in two weeks was, everyone was working around the clock to do it. But, from my classical background, like, I think that's where I see it differently on the score too. I think a lot of times, like, I don't know, you might write something and produce out the demo, and that's it. That's it. That's the extent of the idea. But, I s… once I see it on paper, I start to like physically I think see…... How it could be better even. I ha… I started to have, like, other ideas. I'm like, "Okay, there are, like, gaps in the horns here. Like, what if they do this?" Or, like, what if we actually can, like, notate this thing out? 'Cause there's almost like a gestural, like, physical element. It's almost easier to do on paper than with computers.

24:42Logan NelsonI mean, there's only so much you can get computer sounds to do. And once you…

24:46Jawad MirYeah

24:46Logan Nelson... Kind of free yourself and go to the score for a second, you can almost just, like... I was, like, constantly just, I had, like, my iPad and, like, a pen and I was just drawing shapes, giving them to the orchestrators. Just,.. It was a whole other level of being able to improve the music that I'd never done before. Or, I mean, we didn't have the time, but I did it anyways. It,.. Yeah, it really was nice to be able to do that and work with a full orchestra too. I think that's rare for documentaries too. But, they knew they wanted the orchestral thing, and so we had a 40-piece string, 30-piece string section, and then 10, eight woodwinds, that we recorded separately and then kind of combined them together. And then a lot of harp, too. Harp was, like, all over.

25:47Logan NelsonAnd so we did a big, harp session in my studio here, where we did tons of, like, glissandi and textures and, all these kinds of things. It kind of... It was used a lo… I mean, it was used in, like, the very, like, glamorous Hollywood periods where we're using, like, the harp suites. But then also, there's some more, like, intimate moments where there's almost, like, a solo harp cue where you're kind of in her head for a second and we really stripped the score down. So yeah, I think a lot of times when we… she got really vulnerable, we always tried to go, like, kinda smaller with the score and use some solo instruments like that

26:32Jawad MirDid you see any of her films, like Cleopatra or anything else? I mean, I ha… I didn't know I had seen,.. Was it Lassie Comes Home or something, I think? I don't know where Elizabeth Taylor was in this.

26:47Logan NelsonYeah, Lassie.

26:48Jawad MirYeah. No, the Lassie movie…

26:49Logan NelsonYeah, neither did I.

26:50Jawad MirThere's Lassie and then there's Lassie Comes Home. The one that she was in according to the doc, Lassie Comes Home. It's 1943 film. Yeah. Yeah, she was in it.

27:01Logan NelsonYeah.

27:01Jawad MirWhich was... And then obviously Cleopatra, but did you see anything before starting to compose aside from the doc? Like, any of her film just to kinda get a sense?

27:11Logan NelsonI watched Cleopatra. Yeah, Cleopatra was, the most exciting one I thought of watching off right off the bat. I was like, "Okay, she's in Cleopatra. I have to see that." And then, and Virginia Woolf too. I… but I watched that one after I was working on it for a little bit because, the... I mean, it sh… they talk about her having such a turning point in her career, in that film, where she really goes from being, like, a movie star to being an actress. And

27:43Jawad MirYeah

27:44Logan Nelson... And yeah, so that one I had to watch too. But, yeah, those are, those are the only two, I think. I… there was a screening of Giant recently that I didn't go to. That movie's, like, four hours long I think.

28:00Jawad MirYeah. I read a, I read a fun fact. Now, I don't know if this is true, so I don't wanna officially quote it. But I read it online…

28:06Logan NelsonYeah

28:06Jawad Mir... That because it had so many directors, the very first, I think it, they... It cost them $7 million for three months of production, and only 16 minutes of film was made.

28:23Logan NelsonOh my gosh.

28:24Jawad MirAnd then they had to... I... Something like that. But it was, like, really…

28:26Logan NelsonYeah

28:26Jawad Mir... And then they had to, like, fire the director and bring it on. But it's amazing.

28:30Logan NelsonYeah.

28:30Jawad MirAnd now I was just, I was just reading before I was talking to you that if you adjust it by in… to accord with inflation and everything, it would cost $350 million to produce that film today.

28:40Logan NelsonOh my God. That's crazy. Geez.

28:43Jawad MirIsn't that crazy?

28:45Logan NelsonAnd then the same thing happened on Cleopatra too, so it's,.. Yeah, she was an expensive actress.

28:51Jawad MirWell, that's what I'm talking. I'm talking about Cleopatra. That's the one I'm talking about.

28:54Logan NelsonOh, yeah. So yeah, Cleopatra…

28:56Jawad MirYeah

28:56Logan Nelson... I think it says it was the most expensive film that, I think Fo… I forgot who made it. The studio that made it almo… it almost bankrupt them. So…

29:08Jawad MirFox. 20th Century Fox

29:09Logan Nelson... Absolutely insane.

29:11Jawad MirYeah, it was 20th Century Fox.

29:11Logan NelsonFox. Yeah, 20th Century Fox. Yeah. Yeah.

29:14Jawad MirYeah.

29:14Logan NelsonIt,.. Yeah, multiple directors, recast the entire movie. Yeah. Ugh. I mean, the practical effects and everything they did on that though were great. You see the shots of the, all of the Italian people watching her go through it. That's just crazy the amount of... The scale of that movie, you know? They don't make movies with that…

29:39Jawad MirYeah

29:39Logan Nelson... Practicality anymore.

29:41Jawad MirNo, they don't. But I do think it's gonna come back at some point after we are completely burnt out, which we already are by visual effects, but now I think the next evolution is AI. So we'll see how that goes. But

29:55Jawad Mir... But going back to Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes and your work on it, what track, if any, was the most fun/challenging to create? It could be s… two separate tracks or multiple tracks. It could be…

30:11Jawad Mir... One. And why?

30:15Logan NelsonI mean, the... There's this piano cue that… It's interesting 'cause it's just a piano cue, but it happens, while... It comes back twice, but it happens while Elizabeth is, talking about Rock Hudson and James Dean and ev… all of her friends that she had. And it's just a solo piano cue but it's really, like, kind of inspired by, like, the jazzy, kind of Golden Age sound. And, I heard that in the temp and, Nanette, the director, was super attached to what was there. And

31:10Logan Nelson... I... It... Piano is always super hard because it's just, there's nowhere to hide. It's just piano. So

31:17Jawad MirRight. Yeah

31:17Logan Nelson... I knew it would be a hard one, but, I'm really... It was hard, but I'm really happy with what I came up with for that. And I th… I think as soon as I sent it, Nanette was like, "Where have you been all my life? This is, this is amazing." And it, I think it really captured, like, this balance between, like, you know, that jazzy Golden Age but then, like, modern score. And, yeah, I was super happy with the piano piece strangely enough. But I mean, the ending piece as well, the very ending of the movie, I knew I had to really get right. When I watched the cut with the temp music that I first looked at from Nanette, the ending, like, really made me tear up. It, I thought it was really an emotional…

32:11Jawad MirYeah

32:11Logan Nelson... Point as she's, like, coming into her own and she says she's single for the first time. Like, all of that, like, really, I don't... There was, after just seeing everything she'd been through and seeing how she had changed and everything, it was very emotional for me watching it. And then, and then the very end where they're kind of showing clips from a lot of her movies and then recapping that, it just felt like just such a beautiful, you know, homage…

32:41Jawad MirRight

32:41Logan Nelson... To Hollywood. And that, I don't know, I love that kind of, like, old Hollywood stuff. And so I just really teared up at that and I knew I had to kinda get that right for the emotion and really, I'll try to make people feel the same way that I felt. And so that was a tricky one to do and get right, but I'm, I'm also really happy with how I ended and wrapped that up in a hopefully emotional way. But…

33:14Jawad MirNo, it most certainly was. And one thing that I really loved about this film, aside from the story, the music, and I think of what you said, the old Hollywood, like, as soon as the film begins, it just pulls you in. And I mean, I didn't grow up in '60s, right? I grew up in the late '70s and the '80s, but still just that feel of old Hollywood and just also the celebritism and the…

33:39Jawad Mir... The cameras that were being used by photog… It was just, there was just something, there's just something about it, that I don't think it's ever going to go away.

33:53Logan NelsonYeah. It's, it's, it's all the stuff that I love about, like, that age is wh… I obviously didn't grow up in…

34:01Jawad MirYeah

34:01Logan Nelson... The '60s either. But looking at, the,.. I don't know. As a kid in Kansas, we would always just, we would watch the Oscars every time they came on and I, we would wa… watch The Wizard of Oz every time it came on. And just, like, there's, like, an old Hollywood, like, nostalgia element that, was, it's so beautiful and, like, emotional to, I guess, like, kind of how I, how I was brought up in a lot of ways. And so I... Yeah, it always makes me emotional to kind of see that kind of period. And, I thought they edited it just exceptionally…

34:42Jawad MirOh, it was…

34:42Logan Nelson... Well by…

34:42Jawad MirIt…

34:43Logan Nelson... Incorporating all of the footage and every... It, I felt like it was probably a challenge to do it in a way that's not

34:50Jawad MirYeah

34:50Logan Nelson... I don't know, tacky or just, like, disjunct, but it was emotional. And, yeah, I really felt something watching it.

34:59Jawad MirI think the thing with old Hollywood is that, and what you said something about growing up in Kansas, is at the end of the day, I believe no matter where you live, where you are in the world, there was something about old Hollywood was it was class, but more so simplicity. And at the end of the day…

35:16Jawad Mir... We all like simplicity, even if we don't think we do, because that's what we connect to. It's the simple things like your daily routine, your family, your friends, you know, that's… ... That just connects with you, and I think that will always live on. And probably that's why it's more in old Hollywood now because everything is, like, you know, everybody's on Twitter, that barrier has gone, and all that stuff, so. But yeah.

35:39Logan NelsonYeah.

35:39Jawad MirI agree with you 100%. I agree with you 100%. What's next for you, Logan? Any… anything exciting, cooking up that you can talk about?

35:49Logan NelsonYeah. I've be… I've been in the doc world a lot right now, which I don't know how I got here to. I just kind of fell into documentaries and, I love doing docs, especially in the way that I like doing them, that are very stylized, like, high

36:15Jawad MirYeah

36:16Logan Nelson... Impact scores. Like, yeah. And I just think do… docs are having such a good, period of time right now. It's just the era of docs and

36:31Jawad MirYeah

36:31Logan Nelson... I've loved doing it. Yeah

36:34Jawad MirIt is. And I, you know, when you said, "I don't know how I fell in… ... Into the world of docs," that's my story too. I've never wanted... I have never thought about directing docs. It was always narratives, and then somehow I just fell into it.

36:46Logan NelsonYeah.

36:46Jawad MirAnd which is, which is fine. It's okay. You can still tell a narrative story within a doc.

36:52Logan NelsonExactly. It's almost harder, and if you get it right, I think it hits harder. But, it's... Yeah. Do you wanna do more narrative films?

37:03Jawad MirI am now thinking of... I am developing something, as a short fiction, but into a feature eventually. But that's, yeah, that's a thing. The thing with docs is I think a lot of people have started doing it, not that it's easier. Actually d… making docs in terms of storytelling is much harder than telling a narrative, a fiction. 'Cause people who have made…

37:26Logan NelsonDefinitely

37:26Jawad Mir... Fiction narrative, they can't get into the world of docs, but people who've made docs, they can go into the world of fiction. But the thing with docs is because it's, it's about having a camera, having a small crew. As long as you have access and you know how to tell a story, it's somewhat easier than, you know, hiring actors and locations…

37:46Logan NelsonYeah

37:46Jawad Mir... And all that. Insurance, which you do for docs too, but you know what I mean. It's just, it's a little bit more easier. So I think, I think that's… ... Why a lot of people are doing it, I feel.

37:57Logan NelsonYeah, def… I mean, I think everyone, yeah, has a story or s… knows some crazy story that should be turned into a doc. So it's, it's easy to, I think, find something…

38:11Jawad MirYeah

38:11Logan Nelson... And go after it in that way. But, yeah, there's... That I think then differentiating the ones that are really artistically and, stylistically made, I think, is, like, the next kinda hurdle that I think people and, are…

38:27Jawad MirYeah

38:28Logan Nelson... Are trying to find with docs. You know, what's the,.. Yeah. There's just so many docs being made now that, like, what is

38:36Jawad MirI know. I know

38:37Logan Nelson... What's the good stuff?

38:39Jawad MirWhat's the good stuff? That's right. And what kinda... Would, do you wanna work in narrative fiction eventually?

38:46Logan NelsonI think that's the goal i… ideally. I've, I really have been happy doing docs that I've been doing. I just had a Hulu series come out, called Mastermind about, serial killers in true crime world. I'm working on some, episodes of that show Chef's Table. And so th… th… there's a, there's a bunch of directions of docs that I've been doing that have been really, fun to explore. But I think I've always... You know, what I, why I fell in love with movies at the beginning was, for narrative stuff.

39:28Jawad MirYeah.

39:28Logan NelsonSo I think that's where I will probably end up eventually. But

39:34Jawad MirI'm sure you will

39:34Logan Nelson... We'll have to see how I get there.

39:37Jawad MirWell, the…

39:37Logan NelsonOh, thanks.

39:38Jawad MirIt, the path is always something you can never predict as long as you get there. That's what I've learned. Like, I've always thought about getting to a certain place through s… this path, but it's always something that comes out of nowhere…

39:50Jawad Mir... That you don't even think about… ... And it just takes you on that journey, which it makes it exciting, but… ... At the same time unpredictable. But it is, it is what it is.

40:00Logan NelsonYeah. I mean, that's, that's the industry, right? Exciting and unpredictable.

40:05Jawad MirYes. It makes it, makes it fun. Awesome.

40:08Logan NelsonYeah

40:08Jawad Mir... Listen, Logan, this has been great. Anything else you wanna add? Do you have something to say about Lizbeth, Taylor: The Last Tapes? I think it comes out on August 3rd or 2nd on HBO. I just wanna get that right. Do you know…

40:21Logan NelsonAugust 3rd, I believe…

40:24Jawad MirOkay.

40:24Logan Nelson... On HBO.

40:24Jawad MirLet me just double-check.

40:26Logan NelsonYeah.

40:28Jawad MirTaylor, The Last... Yeah. August 3rd on HBO, yep. Yep.

40:34Logan NelsonYeah. Yeah

40:35Jawad Mir... I ha… I highly recommend people should see it. I mean, not only it's a great film, but it's a story of someone that was a superstar at her time and a very vulnerable human being. And it's, it's, it's a really great film, and I wouldn't be surprised... I would be surprised if it doesn't get nominated for an Oscar, I'll say that.

40:57Logan NelsonYeah. Fingers crossed.

41:00Jawad MirNo, it's, it's done really well. Not because it's a great story, it's just done really well too, right? So...

41:05Logan NelsonYeah. Yeah. Nanette, is definitely one of the best at what she's doing. And, yeah, she's, developing a few more things right now, so hopefully we'll, have a long director…

41:23Jawad MirCollaboration

41:23Logan Nelson... Composer collaboration going. Yeah. But, thank you so much, Joel. It was, it was great to meet you.

41:31Jawad MirLikewise, Logan. We'll talk more I'm sure in the future with your upcoming stuff. We'll be in touch.

41:39Logan NelsonGreat, sounds good.