'Anaconda', Cinematographer, Nigel Bluck

0:00Nigel BluckWell, it's interesting. There was some... At the beginning, there was some thought about building a snake, and there was a snake built, I think, that was gonna be practical that we could use some of the time maybe. And then there was the blue snake, of course, which you shoot so that the actors have something that is of a similar size to interact with when they need to do such a thing. But the puppet snake, as it were, was not used a lot. It was all digital really, or replaced.

0:31Jawad MirThat part where I think it was Paul Rudd's character where he says, "Wedding video," and, Jack Black says, "Wedding film." I can tell you I don't know how many times I've corrected that when I used to do that. That was just a nail on the head. Like, I was like could not stop laughing, 'cause that was so accurate. Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Kingdom of Dreams Podcast, the Making of Stories. My name is Jawad Mir. Today, my guest is Nigel Bluck, cinematographer of the film Anaconda starring Jack Black. Anaconda is not really a remake or reboot of the mid…'90s hit blockbuster starring Jennifer Lopez and Jon, Voight and Ice Cube, and I do urge you to take a look at this film. It's very different from the original. The original was a thriller. This is very comedic. It has some crazy, outrageous scenes that don't make any sense, but at the same time you cannot stop laughing. An excellent entertainer. It's been a while since I've seen a good comedy the way it used to be in the '90s. Jack Black, really delivered a phenomenal performance. Everybody, and there are some hidden, cameos as well from the original film.

1:33Jawad MirNigel Bluck, I had the pleasure of having him earlier this year on the live-action, version of Lilo & Stitch, so it was a pleasure talking to him again. We dived into lighting. We dived into the funny sequences. We dived into the challenges that they had during the production, which parts were the set, which were not, et cetera, and where they shot, making it look like it was the Amazon rainforest. So without further ado, here is my conversation with cinematographer Nigel Bluck. Had you seen the original Anacon… Anaconda before you were even asked to come on board on this?

2:05Nigel BluckYeah, sure. I think, I think most of us had. It was never something that really l… lived with me, but, you know, I really trust Tom and his, and Kevin, and their, and their point of view on these things. And they have a great way of, looking at these things in a different light maybe, you know?

2:22Jawad MirRight

2:22Nigel Bluck... Populace-wise it was something that's, that's had so much resonance with people. So many people have seen it, you know? So it's always a dangerous thing to go back down that road. But, it was nice. You know, I think it was at a time where we all need a laugh in this world, and it was just trying to do that and create an entertaining adventure vehicle, you know? It, we... The film we started out trying to make was more of a horror comedy, and just the way it evolved with everyone involved, it's, it was more like a straight down the line comedy. But that's okay. Yeah, still has some of the horror elements I think.

3:05Jawad MirYeah. A… and I appreciated the comedy because, especially nowadays there's rarely any comedies, if anything at all. And, you know, when you, when you're doing, watching comedy you gotta just put everything, all your logic and everything sort of out the window and just enjoy it. I'll, I'll tell you one thing that really personally resonated with me. So between 2008 and 2017, my wife and I used to run this company on, wedding cinematography.

3:32Jawad MirAnd that part where I think it was Paul Rudd's character where he says, "Wedding video," and, Jack Black says, "Wedding film." I can tell you I don't know how many times I've corrected that when I used to do that. That was just a nail on the head. Like, I was like could not stop laughing, 'cause that was so accurate. So accurate. Just, it was just a comment. It was a personal thing. But tell me how, w… first of all, where'd you guys shoot? Let's start ta… talking about that, because the locations were incredible. I thought everything was fantastic in there. I mean, I'm sure there were some studios and sets, but I'll let you take the floor.

4:08Nigel BluckYeah. W… we shot in Queensland, in, Australia, which, personally I enjoyed 'cause I've spent a lot of time shooting there over the years. I used to do a lot of stuff down there w… 'cause I'm from New Zealand. So I knew a lot of the crew. It felt very familiar. The landscape was something that I was really familiar with and comfortable in, and the light especially. So it w… that was a great, win for the production I think. You know, the great thing about,.. I'm so sorry.

4:39Jawad MirNo, it's okay.

4:40Nigel BluckThe great thing about Queensland is it has a river called the Tweed, which is very close, and it's a, it's the river you see in the film. And it's quite similar to a lot of parts of the Amazon. So that was, that was so… you know, Tom really wanted to shoot the film practically, and build a boat, and put it on the water, and photograph it in that way rather than do it... You know, traditionally when you shoot a film like this you would build a set on a backlot and shoot it all against blue and shoot plates. That's not what we did. We shot... So because the film had day component and night component, we decided to shoot all the day work on the river to sell the authenticity of the, of being there, as it were.

5:21Jawad MirRight.

5:21Nigel BluckAnd then when it came to night work, which is much harder to achieve on the water because you need a lot more large scale lighting, we decided to do that, in a studio. So we built part of the boat in a studio, shot it against blue. I then went and shot a whole lot of, plates, which I did actually day for night, so you can actually see the landscape and the river, and we dropped those in behind the set, o… in our studio. And the rest came together in post. So, it meant we didn't have to tell jokes at night, which I'm never a fan of trying to make humor at 3:00 in the morning. So it was good on the actors, good for our schedule… good for the lighting budget. And I think the result is good. I'm really happy with... You know, we knew we could afford and were aiming to heighten reality a little bit, especially in terms of the night work.

6:23Nigel BluckSo I was looking for something that was based in realism but still had a, an accent to it, if you will, visual accent that would work with the comedy and the content.

6:35Jawad MirNice. And you know, o… one of the things I truly appreciated was, because it did feel to me it was Amazon, like the way the original one was. I don't know where the original one was shot, but it just seemed very, you know…

6:46Nigel BluckSimilar

6:46Jawad Mir... Similar location. Yeah.

6:47Nigel BluckYeah.

6:48Jawad MirSimilar locations and whatnot. And I was watching that scene at the end when, you know, Jack Black's character, they're putting the squirrel in his mouth.

6:56Nigel BluckYeah.

6:57Jawad MirAnd I'm just thinking in my head, like, "How the hell did the crew actually film that entire sequence without bursting out laughing?" Because it's just one of those things that you wanna be disgusted with, but at the same time, you know he's not dead, right? And you're just... And he does it so, executes it so properly. So were there any moments, whether it was that or anything else, where the whole work kinda ethic went out the window because the humor that was kicking in?

7:23Nigel BluckYeah. There were several moments. I mean, you know, Jack and Paul and Steve and, you know, everyone, Tando, they're, they're an amazing crew. And because it's a four-hander and the, you know, the jokes are often scripted, but then it just evolves into this continuum, you know. W… you know, we, there was a lot of moments where people were laughing and cracking up, and the actors coming, falling apart in the moment as well. In terms of that, the, that's, the s… the ball scene we call it with Jack's got the ball on his back and the squirrel in his mouth…

7:56Jawad MirYeah

7:57Nigel Bluck... Definitely one of those moments where everyone was like, "This is, this is hilarious." So, and you know, it's, it's, it's hard doing those things because the snake's obviously not there. Nothing's there except for the actor and the notion of what's behind them. So…

8:11Jawad MirRight

8:11Nigel Bluck... Jack is very good at the, you know, he's a very well, practiced actor in performing with what's not there. And creating those stakes and those emotions even though he's, he's working with a vacuum. So all kudos to him for that.

8:31Jawad MirWhat was your favorite, scene or part, or an experience of filming a scene, or a favorite scene in the film that you always sort of reflect back to?

8:42Nigel BluckI'd say the swamp scene at night is probably my favorite visual scene. ... That was always gonna be really challenging. But it was, you know, it was an amazing location. It was actually a water-filled swamp, so again, kudos to the actors to actually get in there and be in there. Remember, this is Australia, and there are plenty of real snakes around. And you know, it was fun to light, and I think the performances were fantastic. And that was, for me, tonally in the movie, that was what I was... That is the film, I think. That is the humor of the film, these characters going through these slight existential crises at ev… in a moment and taking the world very seriously, and it's undoing itself at the same time. So you got, you know, you got these two characters. One of them is living through this crisis, and the other one is, Paul is kind of falling apart and just running off in the background. That's, that's very m… much Tom and Kevin's work or irv. You know, that is what they do, that these two different energies happening in the same frame and characters bouncing off each other for it, you know?

9:55Jawad MirYeah. That swamp scene, I will say I'm glad you brought it up, was beautifully lit. You know, it almost felt like a extremely dramatic film, you know… ... Even though it was not. But I, you know, I was wondering about the actors because the fact that it's in Australia, and Australia has, like, a huge, you know, bugs and snakes, how do you even go into that water and perform and think at the same time, "Is there something moving around my leg?" I mean, that's crazy.

10:22Nigel BluckI mean, you know, we always had snake, we always have on films in these places snake wranglers and p… a lot of precautions are taken, right? The place is…

10:29Jawad MirBut still

10:30Nigel BluckBut still, it's, it's there. And you know, the great, some of the great, you know, Tom puts his waders on and gets in the water with them to, you know, and there's a lot of crew there all in it for it. So, I'm not diminishing what they did, but you know, we do a lot to try and create a comfort zone for them, you know?

10:47Jawad MirRight.

10:47Nigel BluckAnd there's always a plan B, of course, in case that all falls apart. Like for example, in that, in that case, we were planning that, "Listen, if this falls apart, we'll do it with the doubles and the wides." And then we had a parallel set next door that was dry that we could cover the closer work if we came to a point where people were starting to freak out, but it didn't happen. The kudos to the actors. They were like, "No, it's fine. We'll continue here." which is great for me because all my equipment was in one place. It wouldn't have been a deal to push it over to somewhere else. But yeah, that was a great, scene. I loved some of the, resulting-wise, I really liked some of the day for night work on the boat and how that worked as, with a set. I was very happy with that. I was happy with where we came to with being able to work on the water in a pretty unfussy way. You know, the problem with working on the water is what you see, the audience, is just the boat and the actors, but what…

11:44Jawad MirYeah

11:44Nigel Bluck... Out the sides is insane. I mean, the amount of the flotilla of boats you have to have to manage that, manage the crew, manage the comfort of the actors, manage, ferrying equipment back and forth, manage controlling the light around that vessel, it b… can become a massive thing. But well, again, kudos to the Australian production and the crew there. We managed to scale it down to something very manageable… very flexible, which is what it always needs to be on the water. And we did something quite, unique in that we actually built a crane on top of the boat that could support lights or cameras so we could be self, our own entity. Often in those situations you have the vessel, the hero vessel, and you have another boat or another boat, another boat with a light and or equipment or cranes to photograph it. But we managed to keep it on the boat for the most part, and there can only be, I think the number was 35 or 40 people on that boat by law in terms of the numbers.

12:47Nigel BluckSo… ... That's not a big film crew when you're thinking of a film this scale with two to three cameras on a boat. That's the core of what it was actually, that was the set, as it were. So I think that was an efficient way to work and you get the reality of being on the water and the experiential reality of the actors actually being out there on the water, and I think that means something. And, it's especially when you spend a lot of time on this boat in this movie and you gotta try and keep it visually interesting in some way. So, that was, that was how that went, which I was very happy with. And I thought Stephen Jones, Evans did a beautiful job of the set, as he always does. So yeah, it, that wa… that was fun. And interestingly enough, we actually went to Brazil at the very end of the shoot. We'd always planned to do this, to shoot plates…

13:41Nigel Bluck... And to shoot just the world, as it were. And not a lot of that was used because so much of what we'd shot for plates in the Tweed River was actually very similar and actually in better light, because we had more time to do it. In Brazil, we only had a few days to work with what light there was there. So just shows you the suspension of disbelief and, you know, sometimes the imitation is, can be…

14:11Jawad MirYeah

14:11Nigel Bluck... Better than the real thing, you know?

14:13Jawad MirYeah. No, I was convinced that it was, the Amazon, to be honest with you.

14:16Nigel BluckOkay.

14:16Jawad MirI was totally convinced.

14:18Nigel BluckI mean, there are some, there are some shots there of the Amazon, and you'll see them. They'll, to sort of set it all up. But a lot of it is really, you know, National Park or Australian Rainforest.

14:29Jawad MirYeah. You talked about the, number of boats that were there. I mean, that whole amazing scene when the Sony rights thing kinda comes up and the big boat passes by, I thought that was hilarious 'cause I wasn't expecting it. Was that, I'm assuming that was one of the boats that you guys were using?

14:47Nigel BluckYeah, that was just our crew.

14:48Jawad MirYeah.

14:48Nigel BluckThey were our crew boats. You know, that was the, that was the green room for the actors, basically, just going the other way, and that was our equipment boat, the s… the slop boat, as it were. We, so, and there were a lot of our crew on there as well, sort of being crew. So in terms of the meta of it go… it runs deep, you know? It's

15:11Jawad MirYeah. You talked about having, like, a backup set, going back to the swamp conversation. Did the actors know about the backup set, or they were not informed unless necessary?

15:20Nigel BluckI don't think we actually went there.

15:23Jawad MirTold them.

15:24Nigel BluckNo. I think we were like, "Well, let's just see how we go here," you know, "and go from there."

15:27Jawad Mir'Cause if you give them an option, they'll be like, "Okay, let's just go for…"

15:29Nigel Bluck100%. 100%. It's like a hotel room, you know what I mean?

15:35Jawad MirYeah.

15:35Nigel BluckYou don't take risks.

15:37Jawad MirYeah

15:37Nigel Bluck... But yeah, that, and that was a very challenging, and actually that set flooded completely. Like, it was, it's a swamp, there was always gonna be water, but up until days before we shot we were like, "We don't think we can shoot this," 'cause it was, you know, knee-deep. So it just shows, you know, and Austral… the great thing about Australia is it's beautiful, but it's a very wet place, Queensland. It's a subtropical climate, and we had a lot of flooding. We had sets washed away. We had…

16:05Jawad MirOh.

16:05Nigel BluckYeah. We weathered a lot of rain. I actually had to leave the set a couple of days early because I had to come back for my visa at the time. And I had to drive through a rainstorm to get to the airport. It was ferocious, you know? But you know, the crew are so hardy of, to it down there, it's like y… you work it out. And

16:28Jawad MirYeah

16:28Nigel Bluck... It's about being flexible, having a backup plan. And we were lucky in that we had a, we didn't have a studio. Well, we made our own studio. We had a massive warehouse which, in which we put the ship and some of the, of the sets. So we tried to build a schedule that would allow us to have somewhere to run if need be.

16:46Jawad MirSure. That's awesome. One thing I really appreciated, and I talk about this on almost every film that I talk to a cinematographer, is the feel of the colors. It had a very much Technicolor feel to it, like the way, from the way from '90s and '80s. I mean, it's was not like that washed out, you know, monotone, like David Fincher style approach. And I really appreciated that. So with that in context, what cameras and lenses were utilized?

17:17Nigel BluckWe, that was all very deliberate. You know, we wanted to create something that was timeless, that was speaking to the original movie, the original film. Billy Butler, I believe, shot it, who's… ... The older school of the older school and does a, and his, does that very Hollywood painterly thing, I guess, that was almost at its height in that time, I find, I find. I was actually watching other films like Monos or like, what was the other film I was really referencing? Something that Darius…

17:54Jawad MirOh

17:54Nigel Bluck... Konduit shot. Tropic Thunder, of course.

17:57Jawad MirI was gonna say Tropic Thunder.

17:59Nigel BluckLet me just have a look here. Oh, The Ruins. Yes. The Ruins is a film that Darius Konji shot, also in Australia.

18:08Jawad MirYeah.

18:08Nigel BluckAnd I th… I felt that he had found a classicism that spoke to the '80s and '90s films… In a modern time. So I was really looking at what he was doing and trying to go there as well. I, so, you know, I worked closely with, our colorist, Alex Bickle. We worked closely with his color scientists, and we recreated a lot that looked a lot like nine three, like a, like an old vision negative. I used, E-Series based anamorphic lenses, which were very much of the period. They may have even been what Billy Butler shot at the time. I can't quite remember. And then I shot Alexa 35, which is just my favorite camera in terms of anamorphic pairing and, you know, Alexa 35 for me is the most sophisticated digital negative in terms of retaining highlights, which was all about dealing with what nature had, and we didn't have a huge amount of control all the time. So I needed something that would, that would capture a great negative with all the information with limited control at times.

19:14Nigel BluckSo that was the package as it were.

19:17Jawad MirNice

19:18Nigel Bluck... We shot a lot, mostly two cameras, sometimes three. We had a style or tried to develop a style. I mean, look, comedy is very, dictating, especially in a four-hander comedy of the style in terms of what you need to do to capture performance, what you need to do to capture what the actors will do off page, off script. And, you know, as a cinematographer that's, that means cross shooting sometimes. That means meat and potatoes coverage sometimes. That means not moving the camera too much sometimes because you need to be able to capture the actor all the time.

20:01Jawad MirRight.

20:03Nigel BluckYou know? I mean, not moving the camera, you know, you ca… being revolving around someone, you need to… the timing of that and needing to n… be there for the joke to be able to give the cut enough to create the timing for the comedy, that's the complexities of photography for comedy. And it's something that, I've… it's taken me years to get my head around and it's, it's a lot of compromise, but I think it's a compromise and a good thing. You're there for the comedy first…

20:32Jawad MirRight

20:33Nigel Bluck... And you need to find a way to have a visual style, but first of all addressing that without compromising too much on the visuals. So it's that yin and yang, give and take all the time about how to, how to give it something but let it have its own life and let it capture the surprises, 'cause the surprises in comedy are usually where the money and the gold is at, you know?

20:59Jawad MirYeah

20:59Nigel Bluck... So, you know, it's interesting. Coverage-wise that means that what you do is you try and create the visual angle in different parts of the scene, often in the establishes or the masters in a, in the scene. Unfortunately, that's also the stuff that's the first stuff that gets cut out and the cuts what's, you know…

21:21Jawad MirYeah

21:21Nigel Bluck... It's about timing, fitting it into a square box. So, you know, there's a lot of heartache for me in terms of some of the beautiful stuff that's not in the movie, but that's just the nature of the beast in these things. And…

21:31Jawad MirIt is

21:32Nigel Bluck... That's, that's, that's what it is, you know? You just try and have enough in there to be able to tell the story and keep it experiential for the audience in something like this as possible. And yeah, of course the VFX bring so much to it, what was built with the snake and the suspense of all that and I think, you know, Ireland did a beautiful job with the creature part of it. Yeah. That's it.

21:57Jawad MirYeah. First of all, I mean, I have an anamorphic, 32-inch monitor, so I always get delighted whenever I'm trying to watch something and it's on my TV and it's, I still have the black bars. So I'm like," Okay, even though it's like the big screen, forget this."

22:15Nigel BluckYeah.

22:15Jawad Mir"Let me go to my 32 inch and, you know, just we'll watch it there." So it's, it's really cool 'cause you just see everything like you just, all you see is the edges of the monitor, right? And that's it, and it's just so beautiful to watch. And this film deserved it, de… deserved the anamorphic, the colors and everything. Now you talked about VFX. Working with ILM or working on the set, I'm, I'm s… Tell me the process of that because from what I understood or what I saw, there were no puppetry. It seemed pretty, you know, computer generated. And working around that with absolutely nothing there or was there something there as a reference? Kinda like we talked about Lilo & Stitch

22:54Nigel BluckYeah

22:54Jawad Mir... Earlier this year. So talk about that please.

22:57Nigel BluckWell, it's interesting. There was some… at the beginning there was some thought about building a snake and there was a snake builder thing that was gonna be practical that we could use some of the time maybe. And then there was the blue snake of course, which you shoot so that the actors have something that is of a similar size to interact with when they need to do such a thing. But the puppet snake as it were was not used a lot. It was all digital really, all replaced. And that's working with the visual effects supervisor, who was Fraser Churchill from ILM on this, and he was great at guiding us through that. It's, it's pretty simple really, you know? It's when the, when the characters interact with it, they're interacting with a blue tube, or green tube. W… when the k… when the snake is moving through, the forest or the bush, in this case the jungle, you know, you articulate some of the trees of its passage and then some of that's VFX and added.

24:01Nigel BluckSo you do what you can to give the visual effects, something real to work with is the key to it I think. And…

24:11Jawad MirYeah

24:11Nigel Bluck... And, you know, y… you have to constantly visualize the snake… There. So if you're shooting a plate for a snake, you need to shoot a plate that's gonna be good for the snake when it eventually comes into fruition into the frame. So everything's calculated and considered in terms of, you know, you spend a lot of time, or you, or you're lighting something that actually isn't there. You're lighting an environment in anticipation of this creature that will live in the frame eventually, and you have to imagine how the light would react to that creature in that environment so that the visual effects people have something to work with that will allow them to make something great, but something also that f… that fits into the reality of the environment. So yeah, it's just a, it's, it's, it's, working very closely with the visual ef… VFX supervisor, and the director in terms of, pre-visualizing what it's gonna do when, that being the snake.

25:13Jawad MirYeah

25:14Nigel Bluck... We did quite a bit of storyboarding. More storyboarding than sort of visual pre-visualization. And that was really good, I think. And it was, it was something that, just allowed us to see what it might be like, especially in terms of the final sequence of it all. And, you know, constructing that. That sequence was something that was created, recreated, changed. It… W… We finally got pages for that, like, and that's why there's a joke in the film about it. You know, it's Hollywood. They just don't know what the ending is until you make the movie.

25:54Jawad MirYeah. Which it kind of felt like actually in some parts of the movie, by the way, just to put it out there.

25:58Nigel Bluck100%. You know, there's a, there's an intended slight hokiness to some of this, which is there in fun with what this is as a film…

26:08Jawad MirYeah

26:08Nigel Bluck... And sort of everything around it. So…

26:12Jawad MirYeah

26:12Nigel Bluck... Yeah.

26:13Jawad MirSo i… the, we talked about visual effects, we talked about water. One of the things over the last two and a half or three decades always been, like, it's very challenging to create visual effects water or visual effects in water. Obviously, times have evolved. But one of the things I noticed about this film is that anytime there was a killing by the anaconda, there were at least two or three times when you guys were un… under the water shoot… filming the whole, you know, wraparound and the squeezing of the bones and all that. Talk to me about that. Was that intentional underwater because you wanted to make it different than the original, or was it just something that was… And how did you overcome that? Because that's not an easy thing to pull off.

26:52Nigel BluckSure. Well, I think from Tom's point of view, and Kevin's, I think a lot of it was like, "What is the scariest..." It was… He would always say to me, "What's the scariest version of this?" And I would often think, and we would think as a team, well, the water. Being underwater, being attacked by a snake is one thing. Being attacked by a snake underwater is another, because the water is its realm. That's where it, that's…

27:18Jawad MirRight

27:18Nigel Bluck... Its place of comfort. It has complete control down there. You have no chance. So that is the scariest version of it, often I thought, you know? So that was… And then just simply a lot of it takes place on the water or around water, so it made sense. The cool thing about that is that when you get underwater, you can get away with more, I think, in terms of visual effects, because movement's different and y… you know, things can be a little more, bit more abstracted, and that's okay because it's underwater and our experience of being underwater is very imprecise, 'cause not very few of us have had a chance to be underwater and sit there and study it very carefully and really understand it. It's been usually a fleeting moment. So most of our understanding of what underwater is something we've constructed in our head. So it gives us, the filmmaker, a little bit more freedom, I think, when you, when you go below the surface. And you know, we did, we tried to do some stuff. We built a lens that was specifically the snake's point of view lens, which we photographed a lot.

28:21Nigel BluckWe didn't use as much as I thought in the film. But that, when that snake POV was often a half sky, half water frame, which was talking about where it lives, you know? And it comes from there, and it looks up above, and then it takes you back down there, you know? And, the heart of that is perhaps in the, in the swamp killing, scene where we stay above water, but we only imagine what's happening down there.

28:51Jawad MirYeah.

28:51Nigel BluckAnd this is what horror is at its height, is you only show the audience as little as possible and imbue as much as possible, because our imaginations are far more powerful than any camera in our, or any effect at our disposal. That's the, you know, the Jaws theorem. And I think it, we applied that all the time here. It's like, well, do we need to see it? How much of it do we need to see? How much of it can we imbue? And then it's just, is that enough? Because that conversation can run away with itself and it's like, "Well, we don't need anything here. It's fine. We can just have the sound." But that's, that's not enough either. So, you know, it was about seeing it very little. When we see it, seeing it as a very incredibly powerful, fast thing, like the kill that happens of the PA by the water, by the edge, water's edge. She's screaming, and then she's taken. That is one of the best, I find, 'cause it's, you really see violence there and it's a bit like, "Oh God, this is, this is for real." So, yeah, it's just choosing your moments with these things, you know?

29:55Nigel BluckMaking sure that the moments you show are at the height of their prowess, the strongest, the toughest, the fastest, the most powerful, and just show it very little. And then, you know, see the reaction of the actor rather than the actual source of the fright first, is often a great theorem as well. You know? Because that can be scary. What they're doing is often… More impactful than what the thing is that they're reacting to.

30:27Jawad MirYeah.

30:28Nigel BluckYeah.

30:28Jawad MirLess is, less is more, right? I mean, we talked about Jaws, but for some reason on my social media feed lately, I have been exposed to leopard and alligator fights and…

30:41Nigel BluckWow

30:41Jawad Mir... And it's just amazing. I mean, I'm trying to change my algorithm because it's all I see. But it's interesting whenever they have a fight, they both go underwater, you know, somebody's…

30:50Nigel BluckYeah

30:50Jawad Mir... Randomly filming. No clue what's going on, so you don't know who's gonna come up on top, and that makes it more exciting. That makes it more engaging. As opposed to there was this one thing that I saw where somebody had under camera… underwater cameras, and it just didn't feel the same, right? Like it just…

31:06Nigel BluckYeah

31:06Jawad Mir... It d… took it away from that whole, not knowing what's gonna happen, who's gonna come on top. So really cool. And there was a scene, I don't remember the dialogue. I... Paul Rudd, when he comes right in front of the camera on the boat and he says something. I... Like, it was like a really tight shot. This was like, I think…

31:26Nigel BluckJack Black.

31:27Jawad MirSorry?

31:27Nigel BluckJack Black.

31:29Jawad MirNo, it was Paul Rudd, I think. Was it Jack Black? Oh, you would know better. I…

31:33Nigel BluckI can't remember the moment, sorry. I

31:35Jawad MirYeah. But it was... I think it was Paul Rudd, and I thought the way he came in front of the camera, I should have jotted this down, and just kind of delivered this line was really cool, and it just, you know, con… He was trying to talk to the audience essentially. Now, I should have jotted that down, so I'll, I'll take, I'll move on from there because I can't remember. When…

31:57Nigel BluckWell, maybe something, I mean, you know, what we did talk about a lot with Tom and something that in terms of our coverage was, like, m… m… actors making their own close-ups. Like, instead of the camera moving into the actor for the close-up, finding a way to block the actor to move into the camera for their close-up, and that's a very Spielbergian thing. And it, and, you know, we're l… tipping a hat to a lot of Spielberg things here because this is, that was very much his film.

32:23Jawad MirOh, that's what it is.

32:23Nigel BluckSo maybe that's what you're ref… you're referring to. But that's... And, you know, Paul's very good at this. He understands camera, he understands blocking, he knows timing. He can do that in a way that doesn't feel like he's been told to go stand in front of the lens now at this moment. So, you know, kudos to him to, for pulling that off. But that is something... You know, we try and design blocking that is interesting but doesn't rely on the camera signposting to deliver that coverage. What I mean by that is, you know, the classic three-foot push, which is like da. Which we try and not go there unless it's absolutely right for that moment. And try and do the same thing, but in different ways and in this case it's the actor doing the, doing the work for us.

33:13Jawad MirYeah. I really, I'm not gonna... I mean, the whole, the way the film that ends and they're in a particular city, if you know what I mean. I thought that was really nice and intimate as opposed to, like, this grand, you know, Cannes or, you know, Venice or Academy Awards. It... And that's close to where I live. It's like an hour and a half away. So it wa… it was really cool to see that you guys kinda kept it kinda like a B movie kind of an approach. Like, you know…

33:40Jawad Mir... That has an audience and then the reaction of everybody while they were watching it. I thought it was really well executed. And e… even like, you know, the behind the scenes stuff in the beginning when they start shooting, I mean, that was, that was a delight to watch. It was really fun to watch that.

33:59Nigel BluckYeah, the EPK as you call it. So that was all done in, during the reshoot period. So Tom had this idea, "Oh, this, we need this to be able to pepper through the film to have this kind of see them having fun doing this thing as well," you know? So I think that worked out really well. In terms of the Buffalo and all you're talking about, you know, that was very... We tried to keep that tangible, realistic, like it could be anyone. Like it could, you know, like th… these people really existed, you know? You watch the real Anaconda, the original Anaconda, sorry, and you know, these characters are superhuman in a way. But the... We tried to start with characters that felt real, and the same of Paul's experience in LA. We, you know, he was, he was on a, on a tough, on a tough trajectory as an actor in LA and we tried to show that side of it, you know? So, yeah, it was, that was trying to imbue the hope in the film and the everyman sort of message of it and I think that was successful.

35:01Nigel BluckSo yeah, thank you. That was actually, in its original creation, that was actually a lot more downscale Buffalo than is in the movie, but we had to sort of bring it up a little bit because that's the plan from the ground, you know?

35:17Jawad MirYeah

35:17Nigel Bluck... But yeah, th… these, th… these were real char… they're supposed to be real characters with real lives and real, you know, humble American, town, you know? In the snow and the sleet, dreaming of what they could do in this other place. And I think, you know…

35:31Jawad MirYeah

35:31Nigel Bluck... Kenny is, he impersonated that so well. He, you know, you really... His character lived in that world so well, I think, and…

35:42Jawad MirIt did

35:43Nigel Bluck... Then incredibly well when he hit the river.

35:46Jawad MirNo, I mean, like I said earlier, like this whole, you know, the wedding video versus wedding film, it's like one of those insecurities a lot of people in that industry had. Like, I remember when I was... I w… I was sort of on the other side of the realm. I was in the film world, but you know, we used to talk about wedding, "Oh, wedding video? No, wedding film." And I just cannot get over that how accurate... I don't know if the writers experienced that themselves in their lives, but it was just so damn accurate. It was so damn accurate. Sorry, I j… I just, I can't get over that because it was so relatable, and that goes back to what you said, the characters are very sort of like, you know, grounded in terms…

36:23Nigel BluckRight. Yeah

36:23Jawad Mir... Of what they were doing. What's, what's next for you? Are you working on anything exciting?

36:29Nigel BluckAt the moment I'm, it's, I'm gonna, about to go into a pilot, I think. So nothing larger scale just yet. But, just kind of, you know, pick… picking my moment there and trying to find the right thing. Yeah.

36:47Jawad MirI hate to bring this up, but because this happened yesterday, have you seen the new, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt AI fight?

36:56Nigel BluckNo.

36:56Jawad MirOh, you should see it.

36:58Nigel BluckI will. Okay.

36:59Jawad MirVa… Var… Variety even did an article about it because I think it was some Chinese AI video generator, and they're just fighting on top of a rooftop, and from the skin tones to facial expressions to the voice, it's crazy how accurate that was. Yes, it's AI, but I'm, I'm always wondering, like, how people sort of... It's a hot topic. Everybody talks about it, right? So I was wondering if you had seen it, but if you haven't, go check it out. It will, it will blow your mind away.

37:27Nigel BluckI will. I mean, it's frightening.

37:30Jawad MirIt is very frightening. It is very frightening, but it is what it is. What can you, what can you do? Unless there's some copyright infringent… infringements and regulations that are set in place, then it's, it's…

37:39Jawad Mir... Gonna be a lot of work that's gonna be lost and a lot of art and skill set that's gonna be lost, right?

37:45Nigel BluckYeah. I mean, there's two sides of that coin, but I'm def… you know, I, it's, it's gonna be very difficult to talk a studio and an audience into it otherwise, you know?

37:58Jawad MirI agree. I agree. You know, w… while we sort of wrap this up, Academy Awards are coming up. You've seen a lot of films. From a cinematography standpoint, something that you appreciated a lot and why…

38:11Nigel BluckWell…

38:11Jawad MirThat you've seen this year

38:12Nigel Bluck... Sure. Look, Weapons was the highlight for me in terms of cinematography. Found that film so deft and accurate in its representations and its choices, even though it was very much a genre horror movie. It lived in a space that, was from a camera, mise-en-scène, directorial decisions, you know. For a humble film, it did something really superb, I think. And then on the Oscar level, you know, one battle for me is The Pick, in terms of cinematography. I've always loved PT's work. And, this is, this is right up there. You know, the work on that film, the work of the operator, Colin Anderson, and Mike Bauman, the DP, it's, it's just, it's at once looks absolutely simple, and I know how complex that is. And to see that aesthetic on the big Hollywood screen, in this sort of slightly unkept world and how timely.

39:26Nigel BluckI mean, it's almost like he was looking into the future when he... Remember he was making that film…

39:30Jawad MirYeah

39:30Nigel Bluck... Months before all this stuff was going down, and it was, it's so right on and accurate that, I mean, props, it's, it's, it's one of the greatest. It's what I love seeing happening on the Hollywood stage, put it that way. It's something that's…

39:45Jawad MirYeah

39:45Nigel Bluck... That's… still has a real artistic life and a, and a real message and, is just beautifully made.

39:56Jawad MirI mean, the whole, the finale scene, the car, the highway sequence and all that, but I was listening to a podcast or read somewhere that he, for certain scenes, they just used two basic lights, like very basic lights. And I mean, you look at the film and you don't see that because the story is so enriching, the characters are so enriching that you just overlook all that stuff, and you don't even notice it. So yeah, it definitely, for me that and then completely flip side of that was Frankenstein. You know…

40:28Nigel BluckYeah, sure. Yeah

40:29Jawad Mir... Right? That was really cool. Awesome. Any, last bit of information that I overlooked on Anaconda that you wanna share? Anything?

40:39Nigel BluckNo, I think we've covered it pretty well, I think. Yeah.

40:46Jawad MirAwesome. I will tell you, I was looking at yesterday, one last thing. I looked at the box office for Anaconda, the one that you worked on. I think yesterday I saw it was $131 million worldwide or something, and then I looked at the original. It was around $133, $135 million worldwide.

41:04Nigel BluckReally?

41:04Jawad MirYeah. So you're, you're, you're right there up there with the original in terms of numbers at least.

41:08Nigel BluckWow. Wow.

41:11Jawad MirYeah. Congratulations. Well, thank you so much, Nigel. I appreciate your time. I hope to talk to you soon. And if I'm in LA and you're around, I would love to grab a coffee with you, man.

41:20Nigel Bluck100%. 100%.

41:22Jawad MirThank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.

41:24Nigel BluckTake care, mate.

41:24Jawad MirTake care.

41:24Nigel BluckBye-bye.

41:25Jawad MirYou too, buddy. Bye-bye.