'Lorenzo's Oil', Cinematographer, John Seale

0:08Jawad MirHello, everyone. This is your host Jawad from Kingdom of Dreams podcast. Welcome to another episode. Today my guest is none other than the great John Seale, who I've spoken to many times, and he's worked on films like English Patient, Harry Potter, and today I am gonna be talking to him about the classic Lorenzo's Oil, starring Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon. We touched upon a lot of different points, including George Miller's directing style, that it was his first film that he worked with George Miller at the time, lighting techniques, and just the overall story and performances, and the medical aspect of the story. I hope you enjoy this episode. Thank you so much. How have you been?

0:49John SealePretty good. Pretty good. Pretty busy. I went to North Macedonia for the, Manaki Brothers Festival, which was lovely. Went up to a little town up north, of Sydney, about four hours, four and a half hour drive. They had a, they had a rem… a sort of a lovely 50-year, ceremony of a TV series we did in a little country town 50 years ago, and they haven't forgotten it. So they got whoever's still alive, and we all went up there and walked along the beach where we shot it. So I did that…

1:32John Seale... A couple of w… two weeks ago. And now I've been asked to go to India, for a liaison, conference between Australia and India on co-production of feature films. So it's all go in retirement.

1:49Jawad MirThat's amazing. That's really good. Where are you going in India, in, Mumbai?

1:54John SealeGoa.

1:55Jawad MirGoa.

1:57John SealeThey're having a…

1:57Jawad MirThat's a, that's a touristy spot

1:59John Seale... Yeah, they're having the big play, the big conference there. So it's quite big. It's... I think it's, it's the Indian Film Festival as well combined. They're putting all of the film, s… kind of business into one eight-day festival. Includes the bazaar, the film bazaar, the film festival, and this great big, meeting between Australia and, India. I think Phil Noyce is going, the director, and myself. I'm not too sure who else is going to represent Australia, and obviously to give, master classes and things to students. So that's good.

2:45Jawad MirThat's really cool. I was at, TIFF, this year and, they had, in the, in the press and industry section, they had all the different countries' booths, and, Australia, New Zealand, India specifically was a pretty big one, and their co-productions were... Like, th… they were offering a lot of money. I think if I'm not mistaken, the banner that I read with Canadian co-productions, like, you could get up to, like, 40, $45 million and, you know, for a whole production. Which, so they're... You know, it's, it's good. It's, it's a big mar… I mean, Indian cinema is a big market. Just, A, the population, and B, the reach they have.

3:27John SealeYeah.

3:27Jawad MirSo it,.. And the cinema in India is changing. I grew up with it. There was, you know, what was called art cinema, but now there is the mainstream, which is kind of like Hollywood, like completely mainstream, and then there is real stories which are really becoming very well known among audience, and that's what I watch if I watch something from India.

3:50John SealeOh, right

3:51Jawad Mir... I s… I saw this film which I highly recommend when it comes out in January. It's based on a true story. It's called Super Boys of Malegaon. It's, about a small village and this one group of friends. They turn into filmmakers, and there's a lot of twists and turns in the story which... It's based on a documentary and a true story. When it comes... I think it comes out in January. Highly recommend you check it out. It's a great film.

4:19John SealeI'll keep an eye out for that. They may even have it at the festival, do you think?

4:23Jawad MirPossibly. E… maybe.

4:25John SealeAt the end... It's at the end of the month, so.

4:28Jawad MirWhat's the festival called? Goa?

4:30John SealeIt's, it's the IFFI, the International Film Festival of India, and it's at Goa at the Marriott Resort, Goa. I think it's…

4:48Jawad MirYeah, no, I don't, I don't see that, but I'll send you the name and you can... Yeah, you can look it up, but I don't think it's playing there from what I'm just looking at, in the quick Google search. But that's good. That's good stuff.

5:02John SealeYeah. It keeps me busy, and, with everything else I've got to do here in Sydney, it's all, it's all go. I keep telling people, "If I want to slow down, I'll go back to work."

5:19Jawad MirThat's a good one. Yes. Yes. But it's good to be busy, you know? Your brain needs…

5:24John SealeGood

5:24Jawad Mir... To be constantly functional and o… up, go. Because the moment you sit idle at any age, it's just that's when the crazy stuff…

5:33John SealeExactly

5:34Jawad Mir... Starts happening.

5:35John SealeExactly right. Yeah. So it's good. It's really good. And I had a lot of trouble working out what I would lecture on because I think we've discussed this before, that, chemical filmmaking, you know, a… as in film and negatives and positives, is gone, so there's not much point really in talking about that. Some people…

6:00John Seale... Are interested… But, the digital revolution I think has taken over. Unfortunately, or fortunately, that's changing every day, every week. There's new lighting gear, camera gear, post-production gear, post-production, you know, computerization of images, is changing every week. So I haven't kept up with that, and I didn't know quite what I was gonna talk about. But I found a little niche where I do like to talk about m… the attitude of the camera person with the camera in their hand to the written script, to the film that the director's trying to interpret. So I find that quite interesting and can become quite deep about that.

6:53Jawad MirI couldn't agree with you more because, you know, with all the technology that's been coming out, like I, you know, obviously my experience is last 25 years. Yours is much, you know, much longer than that. Twice as much, possibly even more. But from my point of view, like the evolution of, you know, from film to camcorder, then there was a Canon XH… sorry, Panasonic DVX100 that came out, then Panasonic HVX and Canon XH and Canon 5… the DSLR 5D market, and then the Red and all that stuff. But I remember I got myself caught in that technological aspect, and after seven, eight years I realized very thoroughly that nobody gives a crap about your equipment. It's just the story, which is what you're talking about. That will never get old…

7:51Jawad Mir... The art of storytelling, whether it's through editing, whether it's through directing, costume, cinematography, whatever. That just remains constant, and that's what people want to s… hear about anyways because they can find technology online or buy it in their hands and play around with it.

8:09John SealeVery valid points there. I agree with them totally. And I think it's good though that the professional people do maintain that, a high standard and use different cameras, different lenses, different filtration, whatever they want to do to make the image for their film the image that the film should…

8:33Jawad MirYeah

8:33John Seale... Be represented in. But I do agree then that the audience go in and they just haven't got a clue about that.

8:42Jawad MirYeah.

8:42John SealeIf you haven't grabbed them by the first three shots of the movie, then it should be rewritten. But, I'm fairly fierce about a lot of that. I think having very luckily have worked with some very good directors and good screenplays that, I d… I do feel honestly that's, where the power is. Yeah.

9:06Jawad MirYeah. And that brings me to our conversation about the film Lorenzo's Oil, which I had not w… I had seen it long time ago and I have completely forgotten the turns and the ups and downs and the story. And at the time that I saw it came out I think in mid…'90s, '92, '93, I think. And I think I saw it in 1995. It held a very different meaning for me because, A, I was young. But watching it now, being obviously, you know, a little bit more wiser, but also one of my cousins, my first cousin in the late '90s, early 2000s, I mean, they say that she got multiple sclerosis, who I had just met like maybe for a couple of weeks in my entire life. And that really came back, and I haven't met her…

10:09John SealeOh, good

10:09Jawad Mir... In like twen… 20 years because it was the same... It was not the same disease, but it was just the same kind of thing where you couldn't talk, where you couldn't see, where your hands were like this. And, what a powerful film and performances and cinematography was just top-notch as usual.

10:32John SealeOh, thank you. Yes, a v… it was a very powerful film. I remember, I couldn't get to any,.. I was shooting somewhere in America. And the film was released. And it came into a local theater, and the camera crew that I was working with, I said, "Do you wanna come and, you know, have a look at it?" And we went along, and one of the guys got up and walked out. And I thought, "Oh, gee, I wonder what's happened there." And afterwards, we met outside and I said, "Are you okay? You know, everything all right?" He said, "No." He said, "I couldn't handle that." He said, "My brother or sister or a cousin or something had a very similar problem," and he said, "It was too close to the bone for me. I had to get out." But I think that's where George Miller, our director, is such an interesting man that, it's a very interesting story I think of how he came to do that film.

11:36John SealeAnd I believe I'm right in that, he was on a plane from Sydney to London, which as you know is about a 23-hour trip. And he read the book, I think, or he read a, an article in a magazine. Might have even been, I could stand corrected here. I think it might have been the in-flight magazine was a story on the Adonies and the boy and the problem. And by the time he landed in London, having been a doctor himself…

12:15John Seale... He landed in London, and he rang his screenplay writer and said, "Get over here. We're gonna write this. This is a movie." And away he went. And, that was the i… instigation. He went straight away. He was going to London for s… some other film, I think, development. Canceled all that, I believe, and raced across to America to meet the Adones and say, you know, knocked on their front door, introduced himself and said, "I want to make a movie about..." And they wouldn't have it. They didn't want to do it. And he had to talk them into it, which was, which was the fierceness of George, you know? He doesn't, he doesn't give up, e… easily. And he ended up, getting permission to make it. I remember one of the conditions, though, was that the character who played, Mi… Michael Adone, I think it was, had to have, the accent.

13:25John SealeAnd George agreed straight away because, you know, we made films in Australia, and you made them honestly. But I believe there was a little bit of hesitation by the studios. They sort of, "What? What?" they didn't want this accent. But I love Nick Nolte. I know he's had a very exciting life. But I loved him in the part. He grabbed hold of the accent and the character, and he ran with it. It was fa… It was a delight to work with him. It really was.

14:01Jawad MirYeah. When he first started talking in the film, it was, I won't lie, it was like, "Okay, how am I, how am I gonna stay with this character?" Right? But it was just over time as the story moved on, you couldn't help figure but not think that this is the way this guy talks all the time, Nick Nolte, as an actor, too, because he was just so believable. It was so convincing.

14:27John SealeYeah.

14:27Jawad MirAnd it was such a s… gr… great balance between his character and his performance with, you know, versus Susan Sarandon. And you know, for me, from a cinematography standpoint, I took some notes. There are some shots that really st… I mean, there are so many, but there was a couple that really stood out for me, especially the one where the camera just dollies in, on Susan Sarandon's face, and it goes past her, and there's the window, and the kids are playing outside. And, you know, Lorenzo's g… on the bike, goes out of the frame and along with their kids, and there's another girl. She sees something and she runs, and she almost walks out of the frame, and then she comes back in.

15:10John SealeYeah.

15:10Jawad MirThat was such a great shot. Like, in just, you know, one... No cut, nothing. You just did everything without saying anything, without cutting. And another shot was... I'm just gonna t… name two more shots, and then I'll let you talk, was when he fa… falls off, on the chair with the Christmas tree. Just the way the camera movement was, and it wa… it w… There were obviously cuts, you know, because you wanted to make sure that the cuts were done in a way where you don't see him actually falling on the ground, but it was just so believable. The one that really stood out for me, I don't even know why, but it just did from an emotional standpoint and creative standpoint, I think it was Lorenzo with his teacher. Is it Lo… Laura Finney, is it, is her name?

16:02John SealeI think, yep.

16:03Jawad MirShe, they're standing on the steps on the staircase, on the top of the staircase, and the camera's right behind her, and at a far distant is Nick Nolte, Susan Sarandon, and I think one of the other teachers just having a meeting. I thought that was the best shot in the entire film. I don't know why, but I just, I, it just did so much for me emotionally and creatively.

16:27John SealeIt's where I, you know, it was the first film that I'd photographed for George and I was very excited about that, of course, and even more excited by the end of it because George showed me, not to be scared, not to be, so enamored with the formulaic way to shoot movies, to break out of that and shoot the movie that is written. And the camera finds the dramas in a way without necessarily being overly obvious.

17:12John SealeBy using camera. He was using Dutching angles that, you know, we used to Dutch be… prior to that film…

17:21Jawad MirYeah

17:21John Seale... We Dutch a little bit. George cranked it over nearly 45 degrees on two shot compositions where Nick Nolte was obviously taller than Susan, so the anamorphic frame, couldn't fit those in comfortably, so he tilted the camera over to make it fit comfortably. But in the way it was edited as well, it all worked so brilliantly, and I learnt so much out of that from George, that, it held me in good stead for the rest of my c… career of not being afraid to be, you know, very bold with the c… camera as long as it suits the story. And this is w… what I try to say to students, you know, be bold and brave, but suit the story. Don't just be a photographer. You're actually…

18:18Jawad MirYeah

18:18John Seale... Making a film, or helping to make a film. And I also use the example of when the m… medical, man is literally saying to the Adones, Nick and Susan are playing it, that their son with the problem he has will unequivocally die. And I just found that Susan Sarandon is a wonderful woman. She is a mother. She loves being a mother. She loves children. She loves family. She is perfect. And to tell that woman, that her w… her son would die was the gr… to me, was the greatest bit of acting. And the simplicity of the camera started as a two-shot with the two of them, and it just started slowly moving in while the doctor outlined the problem or whatever.

19:30John SealeAnd then it lost, Nick Nolte, and went in and in on the mother. And that, oh, that piece of performance, it'll, it, to be quite honest, it'll stay with me for the rest of my life, because there was a woman acting. Sure, she's acting, but she's the most wonderful mother in real life. And it just, she fell apart from inside, and then it slowly came out. And the simplicity of the camera just letting that happen is another lesson learned for me of keeping the camera simple, and let the actors portray the emotion of the script, the story of the situation that they're in, the emotion of it. Let them do it. You know, the camera doesn't have to do it if you're looking at somebody with the, qualities of Susan Sarandon. You gotta love it, and you gotta love Susan Sarandon.

20:32John SealeWho doesn't love Susan Sarandon? I wanna know.

20:36Jawad MirYou know, up until I saw this movie again, my favorite film of her, and I think one of the best performances ever by her in general, was Dead Man Walking with Sean Penn…

20:47John SealeYeah

20:47Jawad Mir... Which was directed by her ex-husband, Tim Robbins. But this, I mean, they both came around, like, I think five, six years apart. This was, like, right up there too. Like, just her anger and her tears and her denial and her not giving up. And one thing that you talked about that George was trying to tell, you know, was telling you, and obviously in editing as well, is to be bold. And one thing that I noticed in editing, which I, again, I'm, I'm gonna be very frank, and the very first time, a couple of times it happened, it took me out of the film, but then it brought me back in. You know, ep… there was a lot of five months later, six months later, one week later, four years later, and there was a lot of fade in's and fade out, which is not conventional for a film. I know it was like it took place over time, but just was happening so many times. Even though it was a little bit distracting in the beginning, it really worked in the end by the film ended because it was, you know, documenting certain stages of this boy's life and the disease and the family's struggle.

21:50John SealeWell, one of the, o… one of the really powerful visual things that George cr… created for the film, which very sadly didn't happen, and I'm very sad about that. And while we were shooting later on, Fury Road, I think it was, we were, we were discussing that. A… and I'll, I'll get to that later, but the moment the boy is diagnosed with this, disease and he's on the downhill slide, George wanted to take out all the color. So as he's, basically as he's heading towards death, the color would come out. I think it was over about a, nearly an hour of screen time, and he wanted to sift it out very slowly so that by the time the boy emotionally in the film hits rock bottom, you're now in full black and white.

22:55John SealeAnd he didn't want the audience to realize that's what had happened, that the emotion of that downhill slide from the actors, the editing, everything combined with the desaturation of the color out of the film, would take the audience into a very low place because the boy had got there. And then the moment they found an oil that halted it and actually helped him come back to a modicum of health, George was going to slam the color back in. And I think that was over, if I remember, 17 minutes. It was, it was 17 or 19 minutes, something like that the color would come streaming back in as the revelation that this oil would, stop the child's downhill slide and possibly bring him back to a reasonable nor… normality. And I thought that was one of the most wonderful and powerful pieces of cinematography that I could imagine in a film that is so simple.

24:07John SealeI… I… not a big action film where you can hide in amongst other forms of action or direction, that it can only hide behind the emotion of the people And that is the performance of those actors. I thought that was one of the boldest pieces of, cinematography that I had been asked to be part of or to help present. And I loved it. I loved it. Very sadly, back then, long before the computer, age, it was a nightmare. I went off... You know, George isn't fast in post, we know that, and it took a long time. And so I went off and did another movie, and in the middle of that, George started timing the film for the release print, and starting this desaturation, de… degrading it. But it was almost impossible. George kept ringing, and he'd say, "Two months" or something, "and I'm, I'm, I'm barely finishing reel one.

25:11John SealeI don't think this is gonna work." I, you know. Because it was a very complex technical process in a laboratory. And it didn't work. And I got…

25:24Jawad MirBut…

25:24John SealeI had made the mistake of shooting some parts of the film in black and white, in my mind. I, in other words, I was crossing over the color between daylight and tungsten. Because I didn't have to worry. I kept saying to George, "This is definitely gonna be black and white, George." And he'd say, "Yep, Johnny, it will be black and white." So I just didn't worry about gelling lamps to match, whatever I was shooting. So there was a big range of c… color shifts there that shouldn't be there. But it didn't harm the emotion of the film, I've gotta say. And in hindsight, a… as I said, I said to George, you know, "Maybe you can do one, do a d… a director's regrade in hindsight…... And do it on a computer in 10 minutes," you know? But, I don't think it's happened yet. I don't know whether it will or not, but…

26:25Jawad MirYeah. I'm glad you brought that up

26:28John Seale... It was a brilliant piece, you know? A brilliant concept.

26:32Jawad MirYeah. I'm glad you brought that up, because I read about it, and what I had read is a completely different version from what you told me, which is accurate. Is that you guys were planning to shoot the film as a halfway through in black and white, on film in black and white. But because of the cost of black and white, film, it just wasn't in the budget. So obviously, that's not the story that I read. But what you just said, it makes more sense because that would've been really cool. It's not that there's just going from color to black and white and that's it. It's like, you know, like a little wavelength, like color to black and white, and then coming back into color based on the emotion and the arc of the story.

27:16John SealeYeah. 'Cause most of the…

27:18Jawad MirThat's…

27:18John Seale... Most of the story up until the boy is diagnosed is in color. And I think that was, essentially that we kept it simple and shot that in color. Because he did want this very gradual slide from a full color, reality situation of life, contemporary.

27:39Jawad MirYeah.

27:39John SealeAnd then take it to black and white because of the medical reasons. I'd love to see him do it, I really would. I think it would dot the I on the emotion. It'll be interesting to see the psychological, result of it with people, that, do, would they get to seeing a black and white image and not realize it? It, because the rest of the film is a very powerful, emotional downhill slide for any parent to go through.

28:14Jawad MirYeah.

28:14John SealeAnd I think that's what George was aiming for, was to fully enhance that with a little bit of, cinema, reality of being able to take color out, and take it down to a rock bottom level of emotion. I thought it was brilliant. It was a bril… I thought it was a brilliant concept.

28:37Jawad MirI think if he, if he decides to do it is going to work, because one of the things that you said, that there are certain color tones in there that are not consistent. Honestly, I did not pick up on anything. Because, maybe because I was so emotionally, heavily invested into the film and the characters and the story, that it just did not... It was not, like I, it was like a reality for me, right? So I think that idea of slowly shifting into black and white would be really cool to see. It would be really cool to see. You know, George Miller being a doctor himself is something that I noticed in this film. I don't want to call the doctors in the film as antagonists, because, you know, they are trying to present science and these things take time, a lot of tests. But for the sake of argument, one of the things that I really found very effective, and every time I guessed that now there's gonna be a shift, I was dead wrong, because throughout the film you hear the doctors' sides.

29:43Jawad MirLike, you know, the... I forget the names of the doctors, but there was like four or five of them, and you constantly hear that. Now, I wonder if George was not a doctor, if that... And if it was not based on a true story, that shift of the doctors in, you know, kind of giving into the mother's emotions would have happened. Because in this one it did not. It was j… it just kept persistent, and that really, as much as I couldn't stand the characters of the doctors, that really worked i, in her quest in trying to go through the struggle up, out, over and over again.

30:20John SealeYeah, I think so. I think, I think that's what, jogged George on the flight to London, was being a doctor and u… understanding, you know, the dramas of the medical world, trying to stop this downhill slide of the child. And I would imagine that, as a doctor, he would, and he obviously did, find that a very exciting challenge. Maybe... And it wa… I think it was fairly obvious, was that the doctors didn't, back then, didn't really know what, how to cure it. And it was the Adonis per… per… perseverance with l… you know, the, you know, the looking for the answer. Somewhere there must be an answer in food or vitamins or, cell structure that, they...

31:25John SealeAnd I think that George's, medical history obviously instigated the film, but then pushed it, I think, a lot towards the Adoni's, perseverance, purely as the, as the film subject matter to be able to say, you know, that maybe for all of us, there's... You know, doctors are great, but it… a lot of it's up to us to n… not necessarily read between the lines, we can't do that, but to question maybe. Question in our own minds that, is there not an answer to this? Is there something, a link somewhere that could be found? And maybe that's what,.. I'm not sure, I'm guessing now, but maybe that's what George looked for, that from a medical world, he had to shift it over to, a parent's world of, the sheer, desire for survival of their child pushed them into a medical world, and they found the thin end of the wedge, which, is what the film really portrays.

32:42John SealeAnd, it's a ve… it's a very complex one. I love the way George did it. I'm not... I wouldn't like to guess how anybody else would do it. Maybe if they, if they didn't have a medical background that could balance these thoughts…

33:02Jawad MirYeah

33:02John Seale... Out. That's the difficulty, I think.

33:06Jawad MirYeah.

33:06John SealeI know that George... I remember we were shooting in Australia, endless, close-ups of words and, you know, the research by…

33:19Jawad MirYeah

33:19John Seale... The Adonis. I… endlessly shooting that. The finding of a th… a one word that would then, you know, push the film on to another emotional moment between the parents and the child, and the doctors, and then they go back to the library and find another word, was quite a wonderful way of showing it, how the Adonis did it.

33:48Jawad MirYeah. That actually, that... I'm... That was something that I... Again, it was just such a, such an unpredictable scene because normally when you see text overlaying and again and again, you figure it's gonna end after, like, five, seven, maybe 10 seconds, but it just kept going. And it worked…

34:03John SealeYeah

34:03Jawad Mir... Because you were, you were inside the character's head. And, you know, one of the things you mentioned earlier, John, was, you know, we... Doctors are great, but we have to do something ourselves, and I couldn't agree with you more. It's like I find that people are way too reliant on medication, as opposed to ta… looking after their health, what they eat, exercise. I'll give you an example. You know, this was, like, before COVID. I went to see a doctor because I had a fever. It, you know... I normally wait it out unless it gets really bad. And I go in and I'm like, "I don't want any antibiotics or anything. I just need to figure this out somehow." And the doctor looked at me, and she's like, "You're probably one of the first patients who has told me that they don't want antibiotics. People come in here with little bit of, you know, nasal cold or flu, and they want medication, and we just can't give it to them."

35:05Jawad MirSo I think people have become so reliant on this whole medication thing that even the littlest of pain, "Okay, let's go get medication," and when there's…

35:13John SealeYeah

35:13Jawad Mir... Natural solutions available.

35:16John SealeYeah. Yeah. It's, it's a pr… a pretty devastating... I will say, in all honesty that between the two countries, Australia and America, I found big differences in the use of antibiotics. We don't use them as much in Australia, anywhere near as much. And, I found I had an experience where I had a very minor operation

35:52John Seale... In Australia, and, I went off to Canada to a little cruise ship, a little one. I think it had about 50 people or something. But I got a urinary tract infection on board the boat, and they got very worried. But the boat happened to be full of American doctors. So, the captain of the boat was a lovely little lady, and she said, "I think you need antibiotics." I said, "Well, I don't have any." She said, "Oh, you don't?" And I said, "Well, no, I don't carry antibiotics." And so she said, "Well, we'll put out a notice on the ship's, on the ship's loudspeakers." Well, within 10 minutes there was a bucket full of antibiotics. And the one doctor who came offered to come and have a look at me and tested my urine and stuff like that. A… and I held, you know, I held it up and I said, "Look at that. It's as clear as white wine."

36:53John SealeHe said, "Rubbish. You've got an in… you've got a, an infection. We need the antibiotics." So they called them up and we got a bucket full of them. And, he took his pick. He said, "take that one. Try that one." And it dawned on us that everybody on board, had antibiotics and carried them as a normality when they're traveling, which we never do. And he said to me, he said, "Didn't they give you antibiotics prior to this, medical procedure?" And I said, "No, never do." He said, "Amazing. Amazing." And I think it's that you take it if you get the problem, you don't take it…

37:34Jawad MirYeah

37:34John Seale... To combat the possibility of the problem.

37:37Jawad MirYeah.

37:37John SealeAnd then you build up a resistance to it and... Oh, well, it goes on and on. But I think

37:44Jawad MirYeah

37:44John Seale... I think that's the, literally the film. Yeah, it's about the film pursuing the ends when you don't think there's any answer. Maybe there is.

37:57Jawad MirYeah. And it's, you know, this whole part about persistence and trying to find answers, it's amazing that how th… these parents who have never been to medical school, who have never probably picked up the biology book, or have or they failed the course, and they were able to grasp so much knowledge because the situation put them there, and they started talking like doctors.

38:24John SealeYeah.

38:24Jawad MirWhich I thought was pretty amazing that how human, as human beings, we have so much ability. If we really push for it, anything is possible.

38:36John SealeYeah. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Never give up. Yeah.

38:40Jawad MirYeah. What was your... Was there a moment on the set, a scene, I mean, there's a lot of scenes where the boy or different kids, I think, who played Lorenzo at different age, they have these sound, you know, they scream and they cry and it's not even a cry. It's like they can't talk, so they're just, like, letting out their sound. Was there any moment, something like that or anything else on the set where it just got you or the crew really deeply?

39:13John SealeOh, there was. I mean, it's not the nicest subject matter to have to go to work every day with this high emotion on set between, you know, the adult actors and the different children we used. Y… you know, it drains you. There's, there's no question about that. And you have to, I found, sit behind the camera waiting, for moments. And quite often those moments happened, on their own.

40:00John SealeAnd so your finger was always on the button, and it wasn't kind of like a standard, "Stand by, we'll roll on this," because that could lose the moment. Y… as the operator as well on the film, I found that I l… I just sat there listening to George, listening to where the actors were at a certain emotional moment and what we were looking for, what the, what the script and that moment was looking for. And if it started to look like it happened, you'd roll film, just quietly hit the buttons. And the whole crew were geared to that. The boom operators w… had their microphones in there nearly all the time ready for sound, capture. And we were sit, you know, well, I was sitting there with my finger on the button the whole time, and if it looked like the... Bam, you'd roll the camera real quick.

41:02John SealeAnd if it looked like you'd got it, you could quietly pan off and quickly do a little end slate, get the camera back on the subjects, and hit finger back on the button and wait again. There was a lot of that.

41:14Jawad MirYeah.

41:14John SealeBec… And it was... In all honesty, I think what I'm hearing you say and the way we shot it was, like, really a documentary, a very dramatized documentary, and w… we had to handle that way. I mean, it wasn't good, having to ask, a child to perform that and then maintain it. And the sets had to be very quiet and no noise, no sort of yelling or anything, or noise of shooting film. This is shooting film. It was just as though the camera wasn't there. Very quiet. Everything was quiet. So the day was long because of that. And it's, it's the difference between that movie and many others, where the noise and the energy is all part of a filmmaking process.

42:18John SealeThat one wasn't. It was, set up. Well, I knew what George wanted, I thought, like, visually. But then the emotion was something that we had to grab and capture when we could. A… and very demanding. Very demanding, that kind of film, I found, compared to others.

42:43Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, no, it, certainly there was a lot of elements in there where it did feel like a docu-style. But at the same time it felt like a narrative. You know, from a lighting perspective, this, it… it, you know, th… there were some... Compared to your other work that we've talked about, you know, Harry Potter, English Patient, from a lighting standpoint, because of the way the story was, it wasn't, there weren't anything, you know, super stylistic because of the nature of the story. But at the same time, you had to light it up and everything. Was there a particular scene or scenes that were difficult, not to light up, but just to make sure it reflects the tone of the story and what's happening in front of the camera?

43:36John SealeWell, that's where it w… it was quite interesting visually because the concept, of shooting natural reality lighting situation up to a certain point…

43:52Jawad MirYeah

43:52John Seale... Was quite relatively easy. I always, I f… feel and hope that I approached films in the nature and the situation that they were set in with a reality of lighting for that. And this was quite, easy in a way because it was a contemporary movie…

44:21John Seale... And it was reality up to that point where the boy is, where they're told that he's going to die. And then from then on, the concept was this desaturation, which, we didn't do anything to the lighting. And I remember that a lot of the c… the, crew, wardrobe, makeup, hair, wardrobe, were very worried about what the desaturation meant. They said, "Well, look, we've gotta desaturate our wardrobe." And it was, "No. No. That'll be done chemically in the lab. We'll just, we'll take the color out overall out of the thing." So that took a little settling down of crew. And we lived by that. We shot by that. And luckily it didn't, or wasn't, I didn't do anything in the camera on the film because it was gonna be done in the lab.

45:24John SealeAnd so luckily when it couldn't be done in the lab, the film was able to run in reality color, all the way through. But it, as I said, it did upset a few of the, few of the departments. ... Even at rock bottom we didn't, we did a lot of testing in post. We even started to shoot on transfer negati… transfer stock, which was a s… a slash print stock, which was a highly contrasty black and white. It was, it was a cheap sla… slash print, but, film that they had. And we started shooting on that, and George loved it. But it was black and white. It wasn't, there wasn't a gray to be seen in it. And it was stark. And it was brilliant for that. George was very excited about it. But we tested on that, and that was…

46:23John Seale... Looking really good for the, for the really rock bottom. But then of course that did… that didn't happen. But the actual shoot, no, considerations, weren't really taken in to desaturate the original negative, luckily. So we just rocked through…

46:42Jawad MirRight

46:42John Seale... Pretty normally. We did enhance dramatically some of the lighting to suit the dramas that the Adonis were going through. Particularly, Michael Adoni with, in the library. You know, we shut lights down and just gave him a light to work on to say, hey, he worked all night, and the library shut down. Reality might say the library would never shut down their lights.

47:13Jawad MirYeah.

47:13John SealeThey would leave them burning. But that, in the drama of the film…

47:18Jawad MirYeah

47:18John Seale... It was nice to be able to create a little visual drama as we went along to suit his moods and his, length of stay in the library was well into the night, into the dawn, trying to find answers. So we…

47:37Jawad MirYeah

47:37John Seale... We did a little bit of that. George was great because he doesn't and didn't like formality of lighting. There was a situation where, Nick ha… always wore his little glasses, and they gave me hell with light reflections and things. But there's a shot where he's standing over the top of a practical light, and he's looking down at Susan, and he's got his little bifocals on. And this light is reflected completely in the glasses, and we lose his eyes. And I said to George, "George, I'll try and get rid of that. Not too sure how." I didn't know how to do it. It was so funny…... Because the light was in shot.

48:29Jawad MirRight.

48:29John SealeBut I was thinking that I might put a piece of neutral density N9 or something…

48:36Jawad MirYeah

48:36John Seale... Hidden in the top of the light

48:38Jawad MirDiffuse it

48:40John SealeYep. And try and reduce it and not, you know. And George said, "Johnny, I love it." And I said, "Thank God, George, you've got it." So he was like that. He... I learned from him on that film that reality of lighting or, little traumatic moments of lighting that occur that are reality, he'll live with them.

49:07Jawad MirYeah

49:08John Seale... Which was most interesting, most interesting.

49:10Jawad MirNice. What... Just one last part, John. Was the film shot in a traditional way based on the schedule that you guys had, or was it in any way shot chronologically?

49:22John SealeOoh.

49:22Jawad MirIn terms of story unfolding. Do you remember?

49:27John SealeOh, I don't, no, I don't. But there is something to do with the way we shot it chronologically, and gee, I forget what it is. It might have been something to do about the boy, or availability. There was something there, but I…

49:46Jawad MirOkay. Okay

49:47John SealeI'm an old man now.

49:47Jawad MirThat's fine. That's fine. That's all good. That's all good. Well, this has been amazing and, you know, like always, pleasure talking to you, John, and learning from you about the amazing films that you worked on and keeping yourself busy with all the wonderful stuff that you've got ahead of you.

50:06John SealeOh, thank you very much for that. And, yes, I'm looking forward to it. The future in, maybe helping so… in some little way or form. It'll be fun.

50:18Jawad MirGreat. Well, if I don't talk to you until then, maybe in the new year, happy holidays and enjoy your trip to India and everything else.

50:25John SealeYou too, Shaul. Thank you very much.

50:27Jawad MirTake care, John.

50:28John SealeTake care.

50:28Jawad MirBye-bye.

50:36John SealeBye.