Editing 'Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die', Craig Wood

0:00Jawad MirI feel in about 15, 20 years people will remember this as they did Blade Runner and 2001: Space Odyssey.

0:06Craig WoodIt was the most challenging and is probably why, major studios wouldn't take this film on. The part of visual effects that I take as my duty is to keep the storytelling on track. I usually do a full sound pass on a scene as I'm cutting it.

0:24Craig WoodSo that at the end of the film, we actually have a film that plays in 5.1. One of the most unusual things on this one, with the help of, composer Geoff Zanelli, Gore wrote a lot of the music. That's right. And my God, aren't we lucky that we're able to do something that we can love?

0:42Jawad MirWe love, we get paid for it, we get to travel for it. And all of the above, right? It's just like…

0:47Craig WoodI always say they pay me to play.

1:00Jawad MirWelcome back everyone to another episode of Kingdom of Dreams podcast. I'm your host Jawad Mir. Today my guest is editor Craig Wood, who worked on Gore Verbinski's most recent film, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die. It's an incredible piece of cinema that most of you probably haven't heard of. It stars Sam Rockwell. It covers so many genres, science fiction, satire, social message. Editor Craig Wood, who worked on Gore Verbinski's earlier films like Pirates of the Caribbean, The Mexican. So good to have him back, and without further ado, here's my conversation with editor Craig Wood. I gotta tell you, I was blown away by Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die. I was completely bl… blown away.

1:39Craig WoodWell, I'm very glad to hear that. We put a lot of love into that one. It was, it was one that really mattered to us.

1:49Jawad MirAnd it shows, it shows. And I'll tell you even go one step further, I know the film didn't result in, you know, the box office earnings with I think it was 8 million, which is nothing for the type of film it was. The grittiness, the rawness, I feel in about 15, 20 years people will remember this as they did Blade Runner and 2001: Space Odyssey. It just has so much in it that touches upon so many c… you know, cultural aspects and executed brilliantly.

2:18Craig WoodWell, thank you so much for that, and, you know, we're hoping it finds a whole new life on, Blu-ray and streaming. Because we'd, we'd like a lot of people to see it, and, 'cause I think it's, it's got an important message. And it's fun.

2:37Jawad MirVery much so. It's, and it's fun too. And it's fun too. It's d… it's, it's... It kinda reminded me a lot about Mousehunt, which was I think one of his early films too, like it had that same kind…

2:46Craig WoodYeah, that was the very first one Gore and I did together.

2:48Jawad MirTone. R… right. But yeah. So tell me, I mean, I know you've worked with Gore before so many times, so the question of how did you get on the project is pretty obvious. But more so when did you hear about the project and what was your reaction when you read the script?

3:03Craig WoodWell, Gore approached me as soon as he was interested in the project and sent me the script to read. And I've gotta say it was one of the best reads I've had of a script before doing a film of any of the projects I've worked on. It was such a good read. It was strong, message. It was totally fun. You laughed out loud at points. You know, I could... He already was approaching Sam Rockwell for the, for the lead role, and I can't imagine anyone else in that, in that role. It was just an ideal project. And, you know, right from the beginning I thought it was the kind of project that would suit both Gore's and my particular talents. You know, our, what we love about cinema and, the type of humor that we enjoy.

4:08Craig WoodThe messages we like the things we like to talk about.

4:14Jawad MirYeah. And, you know, when you're reading it, obviously there's so many amazing moments in the script. One that resonated with you the most, whether it was emotional, whether it was funny, whatever that was that sort of s… you know, gave you that spark, the initial spark. Do you remember? I know it's been probably a while, over a few years, but do you remember that initial spark that it gave you?

4:35Craig WoodIt's been a while.

4:39Jawad MirOkay.

4:39Craig WoodI think it was just how timely it seemed. ... So there was no particular scene. I could see the challenges. You know, it, the film takes some rather, it zigs and zags a lot. You know, the tone shifts a… and that's one of the things Gore is, has been very good at over the years in all of his films, and this one particularly, changing from, you know, the wackiest comedy beat to something that's really serious. And putting those together in the same film, it's, it's completely surprising.

5:23Jawad MirIt is, and that's one of the things I loved about it, and that it kind of, it, those little... I'm not gonna talk in detail because people probably haven't even seen this film and…

5:31Craig WoodWell, that's why I'm being careful not…

5:33Jawad MirRight

5:34Craig Wood... Spo… putting spoilers in 'cause there are…

5:36Jawad MirBut there are s…

5:36Craig Wood... A few things.

5:37Jawad MirYeah, there's tons. And there's those times when things sort of shifts in different tone, if you know what I mean. Those kind of scenes reminded me a lot in... And it was executed in such a small, a short way. Like, you know, it was probably like 10 minutes or eight to 10 minute sequences. But it spoke, gave you so much about the character, and it kinda reminded me of the series Lost. I don't know if you remember, you know, where you learned a lot about the characters in a, in a very short amount of time.

6:05Craig WoodYes.

6:05Jawad MirAnd it was just to the point, like all the necessary things that you need to move the story forward for all the characters. I think it was Ingrid, and I think one of them was Sarah, right? If I'm getting their names right.

6:17Craig WoodI… it's oh my God, I'm forgetting the characters' names.

6:21Jawad MirI know one was Ingrid for sure

6:23Craig Wood... Ingrid is the lead female. There's…

6:25Jawad MirYeah

6:25Craig Wood... The Jena Temple character who is Susan. You are correct. There's Mark and Janet, who are school teachers. It always amused me about the scene at the school 'cause, I have very good friends that are school teachers. A… and I was always very curious how they would react. And when they finally got to see the film, they went, "Oh my God, it's so on the money for how kids are in schools now," you know, totally on their phones, not engaging. You know, science fiction when it's done well is quite often a cautionary tale of things to expect. We're in the middle of something that w… we're gonna have to be very careful with, you know, both the AI-ness a… and our disconnection through social media.

7:30Jawad MirYeah. And I do think it's kind of shifting in some parts of the world. I know Australia passed a law under 16, no social media. I think another coun… country did it. I know my kids that go to school, they go to, they're not allowed to have phones in their classrooms, period. Like, they're just not allowed to have them in the classrooms.

7:46Craig WoodWell, you know, whether, you know, forbidding it or putting those sorts of rules in place is the solution, I'm not sure. But we do have to do something. You know, we have to learn how to live with this 'cause it's here. It's been here for a time, and it's getting more here. You know, the, day-to-day life that AI is now touching on, you can't avoid it. And the thing that we were always promised that, it wouldn't affect, creative jobs, it seems to have tackled first.

8:32Jawad MirYeah.

8:32Craig WoodAnd that's very scary.

8:35Jawad MirWell, the first people that got lost their job, were transcribers, right? I remember the first documentary I ever did, I had a transcriber created this much of a folder of all the notes of the au… you know, whatever was said, and now you go to DaVinci or Premiere or Avid, and you just hit a button, and boom, it's all done and transcribed for you, and then you export it into whatever format you want. But yeah, it's, it's happening very rapidly. In some parts, I mean, I, again, everybody's guess is what it, when it comes to this is that it might not tackle this job this early. It might not tackle this job that early. But who knows, right? We're just kind of playing along. But I feel with the phone thing, I think it's not even just the kids, I think it's adults. I mean, have you ever seen in a subway or in a bus or a train…

9:23Craig WoodOh, we're all guilty of it.

9:24Jawad MirRight?

9:25Craig WoodAbsolutely. We're all guilty of it.

9:25Jawad MirEverybody is like this.

9:29Craig WoodYou know, you know, I'm in New York at the moment, and that's how people stay in their personal space surrounded by people is on their phones. But we are all guilty of it. We've all been in rooms where everyone has been on the phone rather than talk to each other.

9:50Jawad MirYeah, 100%. I, again, I wanna talk about that character, which I'm just trying to, figure out how to articulate this without giving away. She goes into this place to get something that she had lost, if you know what I mean. Right?

10:09Craig WoodGo into this pla… you're being very cryptic.

10:11Jawad MirI know. Not the lead, the other character, the mom, the mother.

10:18Craig WoodYes. Oh, you are being, yeah. That section of the film, it was the most challenging and is probably why, major studios wouldn't take this film on, because it has a strong message, which is why it's done the way it's done. But it co… could offend people. I think the point is that we're making is that our society is becoming desensitized to these things, and rather than try and tackle problems head on, we create these convoluted worse solutions to the problem that... It's so hard to talk about without saying what it is.

11:14Jawad MirYeah, I know. I know. It kinda sucks.

11:20Craig WoodBut it's some of the root things in our society, with, we're losing things that we love, but the solution should be, you know, tackling what caused the loss, not solving... It's a placebo society. You know, we give a pill to solve a problem, and that's the point of those scenes.

11:52Jawad MirYeah. But I mean, that, I think that's like the way I find if you look through history, not just this topic that we're talking about, we look at all the wars in the world, everything, like all the social and political, you know, wars and everything else that's going on, we're always trying… we never under… try to understand how did this happen? Where did it get started from? And until we start recognizing that, we will keep making those same mistakes. Finding a solution in the moment is great, but finding the root of the problem is more necessary.

12:22Craig WoodIt's much more important.

12:23Jawad MirYeah

12:25Craig WoodYeah. You know, we tackle, we often tackle a problem by adding a stronger version of the same problem.

12:37Jawad MirYes. I agree. That's really well said there actually. That's a really cool way to put that. I will kind of jump back to the film and the technical sides of it. So you have the script you've read. Were you physically on the set, during production?

12:55Craig WoodNo.

12:56Jawad MirNo.

12:56Craig WoodFor cost reasons, the whole film is set in Los Angeles, but for cost reasons they shot in South Africa. Crazy. Gor… Gore and I have never... Because we've got this great shorthand…

13:12Jawad MirYeah

13:12Craig Wood... We've worked together much, we don't need to be in the same place, you know? A… a… any questions I have could be answered in a phone call rather than having to be together while he's shooting. You know, if I'm concerned with something in, the dailies, I'll just call him or email him or text him. And that's usually good enough. M… well, it was totally good enough. And then, you know, he can look at his film fresh once he's finished shooting it and, you know, I've, I've put it, the first cut of it together. And he can just react to it honestly. And then we start to make it what it became.

14:04Jawad MirWas there, is there a story that you can remember where there was a phone call, I'm sure there are many, or text about the dailies, "Oh, we're missing this," or, "We should do this," or kind of like he called you trying to get an opinion or suggestion?

14:16Craig WoodThere was never, there was no… nothing major, but I do remember one particular scene, where the group go down into a basement. And, the Sam Rockwell character becomes very suspicious of one of the other characters. And there was just the turning moment for what happens in that scene that didn't seem to be covered. And I talked to Gore about it, and he went in and shot a close-up of Sam Rockwell to just get us through that. So that's a case. It felt like a moment was missed and, you know, with the best of intentions you're, you're moving so fast on set that you can miss a moment. And it was a tiny little thing, and it just helped the scene.

15:11Jawad MirRight. And there's quite a bit of visual effects in the film, and actually I have to say they were executed really well, especially a lot of the films that don't really execute the VFX really well. And here it was done seamlessly, you know, pretty much throughout the film. Your…

15:31Craig WoodGor…

15:32Jawad MirSorry

15:32Craig Wood... Gore… Gore's thing with vi… visual effects has always been, shoot for real as much as possible.

15:40Jawad MirYeah.

15:40Craig WoodAnd pretty much always have something real in the frame. We call it keeping us honest. The real thing next to a, the fake thing makes you have to make the fake thing look better.

15:55Jawad MirYeah. And that's what I appreciate about that kind of cinema, especially his work too, because there's very few directors who do that, like Zemeckis, Spielberg, Cameron, you know, who actually you try to, and Tom Cruise, who's not a director but a producer, try to sort of use the practical practicality of the sit… you know, the surroundings and everything. The finale scene that, with the kid sitting on this thing, was that all stacked up practically? Like, was that real? I mean, it looked real to me.

16:29Craig WoodIt, they built a full scale version of it. There are whole sections of the scene that take k… take place at the pinnacle of that pile of stuff. So that was built near the ground, just to facilitate moving the camera around, as a separate set piece.

16:53Jawad MirAnd I was gonna go, I'm gonna go back to what I was gonna ask you earlier about the VFX. I know you're, you're the editor, but what's your collaboration like with the visual effects team in any kind of a film? You can use this as an example, another Gore's film, or any other film that you worked on. How do you, what's the workflow like working back and forth with the team of visual effects?

17:11Craig WoodWell, the, you know, there's usually, a couple of hours a day just assigned to talking to the visual effects, house, the pe… the people doing the visual effects. I'm usually involved in that as well. Gore is point, you know, the main guy of course, but, the part of visual effects that, I take as my duty is to keep the storytelling on track. You know, when you decide you're going to do a visual effect in a shot, making sure that it's actually doing its storytelling point as clearly as it can. 'Cause sometimes just in the process of making the shot interesting or spectacular or whatever, the point of the shot gets lost. So I'm the policeman for that.

18:12Jawad MirAny specific, example that you can refer to, that happened on this film when you were the policeman and trying to clear the green light?

18:23Craig WoodI don't, don... 'Cause, you know, Gore is terrific at it as well, but, and… He ju… he uses me as a sort of, memory pad to remind him of things that we talk… talked about, and, you know, it's just two brains on it rather than one. I can't really think of a specific…

18:44Jawad MirThat's okay

18:44Craig Wood... Example. It's sort of a general thing. It's on everything.

18:48Jawad MirNo, I get it. I get it. So I read that Gore was, Gore hadn't directed a film for eight years. Is that correct?

18:55Craig WoodWell, it's, that's not exactly true.

18:58Jawad MirOkay

18:59Craig Wood... You're talking about Cure for Wellness being the last film. But he was working on a Netflix anima… animated film called Catty Wampus for, like, three or four years, in the middle of all of that, and got it to a point it would have been spectacular, but, Netflix had a down year. It was produced by Netflix. Had a down year, and they decided that it was going to be too expensive for whatever their purposes are. So we lost something big there. That would have been fantastic. It was a full-on musical, and it had Gore's wackiness to it, and it was going to be fantastic. I wasn't involved in that one, but I would have loved to see it.

19:46Jawad MirYeah, I mean, that sounds very exciting. But what, as far as I understand, most cases when you are working with a studio on a film, any project, and if the studio, you know, decides to, like, "Okay, we're done. We don't have the budget," or, "The management has changed," do they still retain the full rights to the project?

20:05Craig WoodThey do.

20:05Jawad MirOr is it... So it's gone?

20:07Craig WoodThey do. So it would be so expensive for someone else to take it over. I'm, I'm sure Netflix would sell it to someone, but

20:18Jawad MirWho's gonna buy it?

20:19Craig WoodIt would be expensive.

20:20Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, that sucks.

20:22Craig WoodIt was expensive and…

20:24Jawad MirI've always, I've always, I've always,.. I was talking to somebody. Who was it? Simon Wells. He's, an animator at DreamWorks. He's directed Time Machine, Prince of Egypt. I was having a tea with him, and we were talking about this, that how there are so many projects in the animation industry that animators come up with, and they pitch it, and they start working on it, and it just gets, and then you never hear about it, never see it, because they own the rights to it. And it sucks, I think, because if, as a director, if you've come up with this idea and it's gone.

20:56Craig WoodI know. And, you know, in the, in the case of this film that you, Catty Wampus that Gore was working on, they had recorded with major artists the songs. They…

21:07Jawad MirWow

21:08Craig Wood... They were, they had spent a lot of money, and then it was just gone. And I can only imagine how devastating that was for Gore because he put a lot of time and a lot of love into it.

21:23Jawad MirNo, for sure. And honestly, like, even not speaking in this particular example, we all, when we have an idea, we all want to do the best we can to make it the best film or, you know, TV series that we can, possibly can. Sometimes that doesn't work out for many reasons, but because you've put your heart and soul into it just hits you so hard because you've lived, like, four or five years of your life with these characters and with this story.

21:49Craig WoodWell, y… you know, the film we're here to talk about is an exact example of that, and both Gore and I are so grateful, that this film got made. You know, it was very low budget. No one got paid properly. It had to be shot in South Africa when it should have been shot in Los Angeles.

22:11Jawad MirYeah.

22:11Craig WoodThere were so many things against it, but there was so much love for the project. Everyone working on it, you know, gave their all, because we thought it was important, and it was really good.

22:32Jawad MirIt was. It was. And I do think it's one of those films that will live the test of times, and people will recognize it maybe, you know, not this year, not next, eventually. Sometimes these films, they get streamed on Netflix, and after eight years, people find, it finds an audience. It's just bizarre how those things work, but I hope sooner for this film because it's very timely.

22:53Craig WoodYes, it's timely. It's a message for now. So I hope it doesn't take too long.

23:00Jawad MirYeah. Your workflow, in terms of editing any film, how big is your team, and what's your process like, you know, from an assistant editor to, your, for logging footage in Avid and working through it? Just kind of run me through the process of that. That'd be really cool to hear.

23:22Craig WoodWell, it's the same on all films. We had a small crew. I had to fight to have a second assistant just because of, you know, the scale of the visual effects 'cause we didn't have a visual effects editor on this one. So it was just the two assistants. There was a visual effects, supervisor that we brought in. Gore's, Gore's key people had to take on roles that, they were not familiar with. They had to learn whole skill sets. Just we kept it so small and in-house. Gore set the cutting room up in, he has an office in Pasadena.

24:25Craig WoodAnd my cutting room was in the screening room, so I had a 13-foot screen to look at all day, every day, with proper surround. It was great to actually cut a film as if it was cinema rather than on a TV. So that part of my setup for that film was better than most. Workflow-wise, it, you know, da… dailies come in, it, the footage comes in from South Africa, each day. It's all logged and checked and arranged in scene bins. And, as soon as that's complete, usually by end of day, I get that footage and start cutting it. I'll, I usually do a full sound pass on a scene as I'm cutting it…

25:26Craig Wood... So that at the end of the film, we actually have a film that plays in 5.1. And then we continue to tweak it. We come up with ideas of things to change. Gore's as much into sound as I am, so, we both spend a lot of time. And actually, that brings me to one of the most unusual things on this one. With the help of, composer Geoff Zanelli, Gore wrote a lot of the music, and he was just…

25:59Jawad MirReally?

26:00Craig WoodHe was, he'd just go off on the weekends and use, I don't know what software he was using, but, the, and create music and we'd have things to try immediately as we were cutting each scene. And the music in the film is more than 50% Gore.

26:24Jawad MirWow. Wow. I actually Googled yesterday after watching the film the second time, was who the composer, because it sounded very much like, kinda like Klaus Badelt or Media Ventures, Hans Zimmer days, the style, and I was, like, completely surprised that it wasn't. But it had its own uni…

26:43Craig WoodWell, Geoff Zanelli is from the Zimmer camp.

26:46Jawad MirOh, is he? Okay. So…

26:48Craig WoodWe've, we've worked with him a lot over the years

26:48Jawad Mir... But it still had its own identity.

26:51Craig WoodBut so it will have a little bit of that in it.

26:55Jawad MirYeah.

26:55Craig WoodWe wanted, you know, that level of scale, a… and Geoff definitely brought that. But the quirky, the quirkiness in the score is all Gore.

27:07Jawad MirYeah. No, that's really cool to know. And I'll tell you were talking about your setup, so I watched the movie twice in two days, right? Once on my television, 65-inch TV, and then I have a 32-inch anamorphic monitor.

27:21Craig WoodOkay.

27:21Jawad MirAnd to watch it on anamorphic, oh my God, I just love watching anamorphic. It's just, you're just so immer… I was more immersed into my monitor than I was onto the television just because of its, you know, the dimensions and everything.

27:34Craig WoodYeah.

27:34Jawad MirIt was fantastically, the visuals were great.

27:37Craig WoodNo, it's a very good-looking and sounding film. You know, it was mixed in Atmos. It didn't get a very wide Atmos cinema release, but that it is streaming with Atmos, and it'll be with Atmos on the 4K Blu-ray. So anyone that can hear it that way should. It's an amazing sounding film.

28:00Jawad MirYeah. In terms of color, so when the film, I'll be very blunt. When the film started, one thing that I don't have a appetite for the last couple of years, you know, David Fincher started this whole look, like Seven and Alien 3, and you know, all that stuff, and I find a lot of films go into that realm. I find that…

28:24Craig WoodYou mean a particular color tilt?

28:27Jawad MirYeah. And I find that one of the, I think Barbie, the movie Barbie, one of the reasons it succeeded aside from its story were the visual colors were so powerful.

28:35Craig WoodOh, it's so colorful.

28:36Jawad MirRight?

28:36Craig WoodIt's all about the color in it.

28:37Jawad MirRight? And when I started watching, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, I felt the same. I'm like, "Okay, I can't deal with the colors," but genuinely. And then when things kind of flipped back and forth in story, I was so relieved and glad, and especially when the ending came, it made sense to me that why it was like that because of the connection and the contrast there needed to be in different arcs of the storytelling. So I just wanted to make that comment. It was really beautifully, the colors are fantastic i… in those parts.

29:10Craig WoodDid you feel it had a particular color bent in the diner scene at the beginning?

29:16Jawad MirA little bit, but honestly, it's, as an audience member, I, as much as I understand as a director, as an audience member, I just kinda start feeling this is too flat. Like, just my personal opinion, right? But I understand the reason for that because if you look at Bra… Blade Runner, right? If it's completely, like, dark green tilt, tints and stuff, and, but it speaks to the story, and that's what this did. It speaks to those moments and the grittiness and the darkness of it until the film shifts into more of a, you know, different space…

29:50Craig WoodWell, when…

29:50Jawad Mir... And different medium

29:50Craig Wood... When color is used well, that's exactly what it does. It s… it speaks to the mood and tone.

29:56Jawad MirYeah.

29:57Craig WoodIt creates a world. Co… color does so much…

30:01Jawad MirSo much

30:01Craig Wood... Emotion.

30:06Jawad MirYeah, 100%. W… what's cooking on your plate right now, or are you taking some time off?

30:14Craig WoodNo, I'm helping out on a Disney film, i… in New York at the moment. We're, we're finishing up, we're in the last few months of finishing up, the live action version of Moana.

30:30Jawad MirOh, you're working on Moana? Okay, great.

30:32Craig WoodI'm just helping, you know? I…

30:33Jawad MirHelping, okay

30:34Craig Wood... Came on towards the end to just help them get it to the end. It's in great shape. It's not like I came on to save it or anything silly. Like, it's in great shape, so I'm just, you know, helping.

30:51Jawad MirThat's good. That's good. I, we kinda talked about AI, and it's in the film too, so let's talk about AI a little bit and the work that we do, especially what you do. You know, there's a lot of stuff now in soft… built-in softwares, whether... Obviously it's not like, you know, professional Hollywood level, but audio mixing, cleaning background noise and, you know, different plug-ins of... Even I was looking at some filter the other day, I haven't tried, I just saw a video, that allows you to use ChatGPT or Claude, and it is able to figure out your story points for you and create a rough cut…

31:32Jawad Mir... Which I thought was crazy.

31:34Craig WoodThat's…

31:34Jawad MirI don't know how effective.

31:36Craig WoodThere's a lot of the AI tools, I don't use any of them, but I know they're used around me, that are very useful. You know, the, I know it's, we've used it for adjusting hair. You know? It'll analyze, the look of hair in various other scenes in the film, and you've got this problem scene, and it'll create new hair for you. That's sort of impressive and very useful, because doing it the old-fashioned way is never very successful and, very labor-intensive.

32:28Jawad MirYeah.

32:28Craig WoodThere's a bunch of things like that. There's a, you know, a lot of AI tools for sound. And it's, it's about making the sound better than we're ever able to make it, rather than, you know, taking jobs away. It's like…

32:45Jawad MirAgreed

32:45Craig Wood... A new filter. And that's, that's wonderful.

32:50Jawad MirYeah. But do you feel, in your particular realm, the world that you're in, is that going to get affected rather quickly or rather late, or not at all? I don't think it's gonna get affected…

33:02Craig WoodI…

33:02Jawad Mir... At all. I think tools will be there.

33:04Craig WoodI don't. I can't see it. You know, people, tell me the gloom and doom stories about it, but I feel like I, you know, if I was presented an AI first cut of a film, I'd virtually have to start again to know if it was even right.

33:21Jawad MirExactly. 'Cause there's so much there, especially in documentaries. I mean, even in narratives too, but still.

33:28Craig WoodSo I, you know, the idea of AI doing the first cut and then bringing an editor on to fix it or to polish it or whatever, give it some quirk, I think you'd just be a start again situation.

33:45Jawad MirI agree. I agree. I, again, I hear a lot of doom and gloom too, and I think I was part of that doom and gloom in the first year of AI and ChatGPT. But after that, I mean, I think it's just, I don't think it's overblown, but I think it's just one of those things where people talk about it a lot because they're scared and they have this fear factor. I d… I... Ben Affleck's video, I don't know if you've seen it, he explained it really well about AI, what it's gonna do. It's gonna have, like, you know, people be able to direct Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, for the lack of a better example, these avatar films on their own. And the avatar's licensees, you know, will go to the actors, and that's pretty much it, at least in the film world. And I see that happening too, because if AI was supposed to take over all of our jobs in the film world, I think it would've happened by now at the pace it's been moving.

34:32Craig WoodWell, y… you know, and it, but it will always get better.

34:36Jawad MirIt will. It will, but…

34:37Craig WoodSo

34:37Jawad Mir... I don't think we're gonna get replaced.

34:40Craig WoodI hope not. I…

34:42Jawad MirI don't…

34:42Craig Wood... Love what I do too much.

34:43Jawad MirI know.

34:45Craig WoodSo I don't wanna be replaced. No.

34:48Jawad MirNo, but, you know, I was... D… do you know Chris, what, I always have a hard time pronouncing his last name, Chris Lebenzon?

34:55Craig WoodLebenzon.

34:56Jawad MirOr...

34:56Craig WoodYes.

34:56Jawad MirLebenzon, yes. You know, we, again, I've had him, I've sat down with him too. We've had this conversation too, and it's just one of those things. I think, again, I think it's gonna get better, but it's just not going to 100% take over, at least in our lifetime. That's all I will say.

35:16Craig WoodYou know, I'm all for embracing it for the, to help us.

35:20Jawad MirYeah. I use it all the time. It helps me, for sure.

35:23Craig WoodYeah.

35:24Jawad MirYeah.

35:25Craig WoodNo problem with that, but we've just gotta keep an eye on how much we're letting it do. You know, friend… friends that use it f… for creating videos and things, have told me that it's great at doing a sort of general thing, but you wanna go in and tweak something specifically, it's terrible.

35:47Jawad MirIt is, and I'll give you an example. So for this podcast specifically, I don't have t… too much time. I've got my own projects to work on, but, you know, with the way, the way the world is, everybody likes, like short clips, right?

36:01Jawad MirSo I can manually go and edit, which is great, but I would say when I spoke to you the first time, just after that, I started using this, service called Opus Clip, which is like, what it does is, like, you throw in a URL or upload a video, and it finds the best moments for you, right? But the problem with that became, and I realized that maybe about five, six months after posting, is that it was, the algorithm was not picking it up properly, because it was sort of…

36:28Craig WoodWell…

36:28Jawad MirThere was no context for it

36:29Craig Wood... I immediately asked, you know, best moments? Best by what criteria?

36:33Jawad MirExactly. Exactly. Right? So again, that's something I learned, and now I don't use it even though I've paid for l… the next two years. I don't use it at all. I do not use it. It's just, I'd rather just sit down and quickly spend, like, you know, 20 minutes Finding what I need to find and boom and put it out there

36:53Craig WoodAnd a… aren't we told that AI's energy requirements are so off the charts enormous?

37:02Jawad MirIt is. I read somewhere, I don't know if it's true, when we enter in ChatGPT, "Can you take care of this please?" The word please, I think Sam Altman said that it cost them ridiculous amount of money when we enter in please. So imagine video and audio and all the other aspects.

37:22Craig WoodIt's scary because, you know, the energy affecting the planet as well.

37:29Jawad MirYes.

37:29Craig WoodSo…

37:30Jawad Mir100%. 100%. I just wanted to sort of close it up, Craig, with just some general questions, kind of like a little pop quiz if you wanna call it, just whatever comes to mind. A, you know, series of questions about life and work and just in general. Nothing personal, just fun stuff. What scares you the most in your work or in your personal life? What's, what gives you the most fear?

37:59Craig WoodI've always, throughout my life, I've always gone, "If I wasn't able to do this anymore, what would I do?" And I can't imagine another thing.

38:21Jawad MirAnd I will second that because that's the biggest fear that I have too. 'Cause I love what I do and I don't know anything else. I'm sure I can learn, but it's just that idea of not being able to love what you do, right?

38:31Craig WoodThat's right. And my God, aren't we lucky that we're able to do something that we can love?

38:38Jawad MirWe love, we get paid…

38:38Craig Wood'Cause it's, it's not a little love, it's a big love.

38:42Jawad MirYeah. We love, we get paid for it, we get to travel for it, and all of the above, right? It's just like…

38:48Craig WoodI always say they pay me to play.

38:52Jawad MirThat's right.

38:53Craig WoodAnd what better job could there be?

38:55Jawad MirWhat do you think is purpose of life? I know it's a very big question, but something that comes to mind that you feel is the necessity and the purpose of life.

39:06Craig WoodThe purpose of life for me is my co… connections with the people I love. The more and stronger those connections are, I feel like I have a purpose.

39:19Jawad MirLovely. And f… is there a specific director that you would l… you've always sort of wanted to work with? You know, Gore of course you worked with so many times.

39:31Craig WoodYeah. It…

39:31Jawad MirA fabulous director

39:32Craig Wood... It's Gore. And I hope he gets another movie really soon.

39:37Jawad MirW… what's the, what are your personalities that are alike that connect? I mean, I know there's a shorthand, but what is that about him that you think that connects with who you are, aside from the work that you do together over the years, right, over the last two decades?

39:50Craig WoodWell, I think we enjoy each other's sense of humor. But w… we have a love of science actually. We love to talk... He, Gore's father is a, was a physicist. So he comes from a science background. And it's the, it's the way science influences our world that we're sort of excited about and it's a little awe inspiring, and we love to talk about aspects of science when we're, we're together.

40:23Jawad MirThat's interesting because aside from this film, at least to my knowledge, I don't think his films have had that much of a science element in it. Here and there, but not to this level, right? Am I correct?

40:35Craig WoodThat is correct.

40:36Jawad MirYeah.

40:37Craig WoodYeah, this is his first, it's the first outright science fiction, yeah. But that doesn't mean that's not something that we love.

40:50Jawad MirWhat's one thing…

40:51Craig WoodSo excited to do a science fiction film together 'cause we've alwa… we love science fiction.

40:57Jawad MirAnd it, you know, it's, it is science fiction, but when people say science fiction they think about Star Trek, Star Wars, you know, like that kind of a realm. It's, it has no spaceships, right? I'm just kind of putting that out there. But it's just, it's... Spielberg used this one word, about one of his films, I think it was Jurassic Park. Somebody asked him, "Is this science fiction?" And he said, "It's science eventuality." And this…

41:19Jawad Mir... Is more like science now, right? Like it's happening right now and eventuality.

41:24Craig WoodI actually saw on Instagram a physicist talking about Good Luck, Have Fun Don't Die. And…

41:31Jawad MirReally?

41:32Craig Wood... She was delighted that it doesn't try and explain its science. You know, there's time travel, there's this suit that does it, there's a button you push, that's all you need to know. And she was so happy about that.

41:48Jawad MirAnd those are the films that if you really think about, if you look at the first Matrix, right, you look at Looper, you look at Blade Runner, it doesn't really show you the awes of the time traveling, the cool visual effects. It just kept it very grounded.

42:03Craig WoodYeah.

42:03Jawad MirWhich is why I think I was able to connect to it at a very deep and emotional level. Among many other reasons.

42:10Craig WoodI think that's all true.

42:13Jawad MirIs there a place in the world that you would love to visit?

42:19Craig WoodI've always wanted to go to Egypt. I think our, the political nature of our planet sort of makes that more and more difficult. But I've always loved the ancient world. There's something science-y about it for me. It's very odd. And spiritual as well. I love to walk around ancient ruins a… and feel the history of the place. But it's more ancient ruins…

43:01Jawad MirYeah

43:02Craig Wood... Than, you know, just old buildings.

43:05Jawad MirYeah. So you must love Stargate, the film.

43:08Craig WoodI do like Stargate quite a bit.

43:11Jawad MirYeah. That was a phenomenal film. I was… I just remembered that as soon as you mentioned science and ancient culture, and it… that's the first film that came to my mind. Awesome. Anything else that you wanna add about Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die? I have to think twice before saying that title because it's…

43:30Craig WoodIt took me a while

43:31Jawad Mir... Which one comes first?

43:32Craig WoodA while to get. It's, it's like I always call Everywhere All of... I have trouble with that one. I just call it the Everywhere movie, which is a movie I really love and I compare a little bit to our movie…

43:49Craig Wood... In its sort of out there wackiness. Though, I think our movie's a bit more of a message movie.

43:58Jawad Mir100%. Since to… tomorrow's Academy Awards, I don't know how many films have you seen of the, that are nominated. Any predictions that you think might win or you like?

44:09Craig WoodI'm not allowed to do that.

44:10Jawad MirOh, right. Because you're part of the Academy. I'm sorry.

44:12Craig WoodYes.

44:13Jawad MirMy apologies. I'm gonna have to axe…

44:15Craig WoodThat's all right

44:15Jawad Mir... This question out.

44:16Craig WoodThere were a lot of great films, and I have se… seen almost all of them. There were a couple of categories I could not vote in 'cause I hadn't seen the films.

44:25Jawad MirYeah. I will tell you that I loved... I think this year was a lot better year for cinema than the last four or five years combined.

44:33Craig WoodYeah.

44:33Jawad MirAt least for me. You know, Good Luck, your film, One Battle After Another…

44:39Craig WoodYeah

44:39Jawad Mir... Sinners, Hamnet. There's been some great stuff. So hopefully we're…

44:44Craig WoodAnd there's such a range of stuff that…

44:47Jawad MirH…

44:47Craig Wood... That was great. There was a film early in the year that got no O… Oscar consideration that I really like, which is called Life of Chuck. I really like that film.

44:57Jawad MirIt sounds familiar. Who's in it?

45:00Craig WoodIt's Tom Hiddleston, I think. My God, I hope…

45:05Jawad MirLife of Chuck

45:06Craig Wood... I got that wrong.

45:08Jawad MirIt is, let me just Google that. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, Tom Hiddleston. Okay. I gotta check that out. It l… it has a nifty poster. I like that.

45:20Craig WoodMy husband and I thought it was terrific.

45:23Jawad MirWonderful. I'm looking forward to seeing that. Well, Craig, it's been wonderful. Again, thank you for your time, for this film. I'm blown away, as I said earlier, and I hope more people see it. It's an ex… incredible cinema and with a great messaging and very timely messaging, so thank you.

45:41Craig WoodAnd it's a lot of fun.

45:43Jawad MirAnd it is a lot of fun. And people are not supposed to die.

45:49Craig WoodYes.

45:49Jawad MirThank you so much, Craig.

45:51Craig WoodThank you very much. This was great.

45:53Jawad MirFor a pleasure.

45:54Craig WoodThank you.

45:54Jawad MirThank you. Take care, sir.

45:55Craig WoodBye-bye.

45:55Jawad MirBye-bye. Bye.