Production Designer, James Bissell, 'E.T.', 'Jumanji', '300', 'Rocketeer'

0:00James D. BissellIt's not reality-based at all. It's purely dramatically based because E.T. Has to spy on mom with Gertie, and you don't question it that, "Oh, I've never seen a closet that opens up into a girl's room and then into a boy's room." Zack's solution was perfect. We called it the crush, 'cause he basically made it a high contrast look where you took all of the, all of the visual information from the high end of the visual spectrum, and you took all the information from the low end and crushed it. Water pouring down the staircases and, all of that's real. We rebuilt that whole living room and that ground floor in a wave tank. Cobb was the one who came up with the breakthrough idea, which was make it a twin pack. Put these le… these flap le… levers underneath the thrusters so it doesn't burn the butt. This was Kathy Kennedy's first producing, and so she said, "Well, here's the house Steven's picked." And I went out and looked at it, and I thought, "Well, you know, I think we can do better." And, she was like, "Well, yeah, really? You just got on the movie, and you wanna s… tell Steven Spielberg, you know, his choice for a house isn't very good?"

1:09Jawad MirI wanted to start off with E.T., if you want to talk about, first of all, the story of how you were discovered by Steven Spielberg. At least that's what I read online, but not everything online is true. So it was... If it is true, if you can talk a bit about that, and then working with Steven and, on that very special film.

1:30James D. BissellWell, E.T. Had a, had a fairly complicated sort of development history, like most films. But ... Originally, s… it was, it was destined to be a horror film. And Steven had worked with a fantastic artist named Ron Cobb. He had met him through John Milius, I believe, and had asked Ron to design the interior of the spaceship for Close Encounters for the special edition when everybody goes inside the spaceship.

2:02James D. BissellSo he was working with Ron and really liked Ron a lot and, eventually wound up asking Ron to design this film that,.. I mean, to direct this film that he was, currently developing, called, Night Skies. And, so they h… they had, John Sayles doing the script. They had, Rick Baker doing monsters, e… alien monsters, and Ron was gonna direct it. And, so Steven left them all busily working away at, Columbia, and he went off and directed, Raiders of the Lost Ark with George Lucas. Now, I don't know exactly what transpired, but you know, in my own romantic mind, I suspect it was, long nights in Tunisia and hanging out…... With Melissa Mathison and Harrison Ford. But somehow he got it in his head, "Well, maybe it shouldn't be, it... Maybe it shouldn't be a horror film. It should be, you know, a kids movie."

3:03James D. BissellAnd so he came back, and he looked at what everybody was doing and, you know, if you ever get Steven Spielberg on this, he'll probably correct a lot of the facts on this telling of the tale, but this is the way I understand it through Ron. He came back and he looked at what everybody was doing and said, "Yeah, no, I'm gonna use this film, to f… to finish out a three-picture deal I have with Universal, so... And I wanna do the kids movie." So he let everybody go and really pissed Columbia off. They were really upset 'cause they liked the movie that was, that was developing, and they thought, "Well, this is great." But he took it to Universal, and at the time, there was a threatened job action. I believe it was either from the DGA or it was from the SAG. And so he was looking at doing a kids movie, and a kids movie is in a very... It can be very vulnerable in the sense that once you start, if there's a job action and it lasts for a long time, you know, your actors change.

4:01Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

4:02James D. BissellYou know, a couple of months and they're different people, and they're a couple inches taller, and everything can go crazy. So he wanted to make sure that what he did, that he set up the production so that it wouldn't get interrupted in the case of a job action. So what he needed to do was make it an independent production, not a studio production, and do it on a non-signatory lot where it was just an independent, you know, four-wall kinda deal. Well, it just so happened I was doing this series with, Norman Lear and Alex Haley called, Palmerstown, U.S.A., and it was over on what was then called Laird International Studios, which were the old David O. Selznick Studios. And, I was having a great time. As a matter of fact, I won an Emmy for the sets. It was, it was a really great experience for me 'cause I'm from the South, and, you know, and depicting apartheid South of the '30s was right up my alley. It was something, you know, that was the picture I wanted to paint. And, so Steven came to look at the stages, and he looked at the three largest stages on the north end of the lot, and that's where all my sets were.

5:06James D. BissellAnd he liked the stages, and he also liked my sets, so I got added to the list of guys to interview for E.T. And that was it. I got the job, and E.T. Was my breakout film, and I loved working with Steven.

5:21Jawad MirThat's awesome. I mean, I did know about the fact that it was originally Night Skies and the horror film and all that, which in a, in a way I fi… I figure because the same year Poltergeist came out, right?

5:32Jawad MirWhich there's, which I don't wanna get into the whole story, which I'm sure you've read that. There's always these talks that Steven was behind the direction, but there's no official confirmation to that. So I always find that Poltergeist was, could have been the movie that Night Skies was going to be minus the aliens because that was a very scary film, Poltergeist.

5:51Jawad MirAnd it came out around the same time. But, E.T., I mean, yeah, I think what you theorized maybe in Tunisia somewhere, Melissa and Harrison came up with this whole influence on... And then they were both involved in E.T. Harrison never made the final cut, which was in the, in the scene as a principal.

6:08James D. BissellYeah.

6:08Jawad MirBut, right, and she obviously wrote the film.

6:11James D. BissellAnd she was a, oh, she was just a joy to be with and work with. I loved Melissa

6:17Jawad MirYeah

6:18James D. BissellI really loved her

6:19Jawad MirYeah, I've read, there's a book, I mean, there's so many books. There's a book I have somewhere in this pile. It's, it came out in the year 2000 or 2003, the 20... No, it was 2002, the 20th anniversary edition, and it was like a script, and there's a, there's a forward or a pref… a pref… preface by Melissa, and I've heard so many great things about her.

6:42Jawad MirAnd, yeah, it, she pretty much... She made a lot of people's childhood. I mean, you can say Steven Spielberg did, which he did, but, you know, for it to be coming to translating into celluloid, it has to come on paper first. So, she did a phenomenal job with the script. It was an amazing film. As everybody…

7:00James D. BissellWell, it was such an intimate project for everybody involved. And I think, you know, I think you can sit... And certainly Steven, you know, Steven was really having a wonderful look at his own childhood. And I could empathize with it because, we shared some things, together. We both had engineers as fathers, and we both came from dysfunctional families. And w… and the process that Elliott's going through was, I think, something he understood intimately and I understood to a degree, and Melissa was, you know, she had, she really understood it, and she worked really hard to understand it on a very intimate level. And then also, Carol Littleton, who was the editor, her office was right above mine at the sta… and at the, stages. And, just trying to think. It was just, you know, Al D'Avila, who shot it, was, you know, had his own things, and he was a wonderful guy to work with.

8:00James D. BissellIt was just a fantastic group of people to work together on and to be with the kids and to be, to be in this sort of little bubble and make this movie and have absolutely no idea if anybody would even wanna see it or not. But it was just, it was just fantastic. It was a really interesting experience.

8:19Jawad MirYeah. I mean, you wonder sometimes... I shouldn't say you wonder. I wonder sometimes that, you know, a film... Anything in life is about timing and execution, right? Had E.T. Come out a year later or a year after, maybe even in the winter that year, would it have had the same impact or not, right? Not saying that film... It doesn't take away anything from the greatness of the film, but just the timing and how it taps into people's emotions at that given moment, you know, that really, that really does a lot of wonder, and the word of mouth really spiraled on that film and, you know, it became the fastest growing, film, I think it was, I forget the numbers, in history at the time until films like Batman and Jurassic Park kinda came in terms of opening weekend and broke that.

9:05James D. BissellWell, it wasn't even opening weekend 'cause E.T. Built a, built an audience. It didn't even start at number one.

9:10Jawad MirOkay. That I did not know. Okay.

9:12James D. BissellYeah, no, it took three or four weeks before it then climbed... It climbed to the top, and then it stayed there all summer. And by the time when they, when they pulled it from the theaters in September, it was still making a million dollars a day, and, which was really phenomenal and it was the highest grossing film of all time up until Jurassic.

9:31Jawad MirYeah, that's right. Jurassic and then Titanic.

9:34James D. BissellAnd then Jurassic was, what, 10 years later.

9:35Jawad MirYeah.

9:37James D. BissellAnd

9:37Jawad MirYeah

9:39James D. Bissell... And, you know, that's, you know, pretty... Steven's got a pretty phenomenal track record when it comes to grosses, so... But the film itself, you know, the production of the film, was, you know, it was, it was sort of a low-budget film. Low-tech. You know, we had the kids. There was,.. And we were just,.. We had, we had a good situation. The,.. Well, I'll, I'll tell one story, which was sort of interesting, which was, you know, Steven had picked a house before I'd even come on board the... I think there was another production designer involved. And then they started him and then, and then shut down and let him go. And then when they started back up again, Steven wanted to make a change. And I think at that point he'd seen the sets on Palmerston, and he thought, "Maybe I should get somebody younger." and, the,.. But the house, when I got on, Ka… this was Kathy Kennedy's first producing effort.

10:43Jawad MirYes.

10:44James D. BissellAnd so she said, "Well, here's the house Steven's picked." And I went out and looked at it, and it was in Simi Valley. And I thought, "Well, you know, I think we can do better." And, she was like, "Well, yeah, really? You just got on the movie and you wanna s… tell Steven Spielberg, you know, his choice for a house isn't very good?" I didn't even think about it because I had, in my head, when I read the script, I had an idea, and the idea was this: that the movie, the story is about transition. It's about the fact that as human beings, you know, we start off not knowing anything, and we just clock things. We say, "Oh, well, th-this is like this. This is like this," and we just store data and we store information, and we get stuff from our parents, and we watch our parents, and we watch our brothers and sisters, and we watch our community, and we just keep piling in all this information and trying to put it together coherently so that we know what to do when things arise, you know? And it's, and it's amazing, but what happens is we just don't know enough until we're, like, 10 or 12 or 10 or 11 to even start doing anything.

11:54James D. BissellSo when we don't know stuff, we make it up.

11:57Jawad MirYeah.

11:57James D. BissellAnd that's magical thinking. That, you know, that's what magical thinking... It fills in all the gaps. And I think it's very ironic that, of course, I… AI does the same thing and we complain about it.

12:08Jawad MirYeah.

12:09James D. BissellBut, that process, that transition, you know, is really hard when you come from a family that's supposed to nurture you and feed you information and teach you how to be a viable citizen of the world, and yet It has its own dysfunction, its own problems, the absence of the father and the absence of any kind of real guidance when you're going into this alien situation, which is adulthood and the, and a whole, a whole new world. Because everybody thinks they know what's gonna happen, but they don't, you know?

12:40Jawad MirYeah.

12:40James D. BissellEvery generation confronts new challenges, every generation confronts a world that's changing. And this is what Elliott's confronting. And so, you know, he makes up, he makes up E.T. And E.T.'s going through this... E… E.T. Is an avatar. He's going through the same thing, you know? He's been left in a world that he doesn't understand, and how do you figure it out? And you do it with your pal, you know? You do it with a guy who's going through the same process. And then eventually, when you've accomplished a way of coping with life, you say goodbye. But you always know that if you can't find the information, you can make it up. "I'll be right here." You're, you, it's your…

13:24Jawad MirI was gonna say that, yeah

13:26James D. Bissell... It's, it's your imagination, you know? And so all of that trend, I f… I understood that process innately when I, when I read the script and I thought, "You know what this needs to be? This needs to be the ordinary on the edge of the extraordinary." You have to be able to see the magical landscape beyond the rigors of the structure of normal suburbia. And so that's what I wanted to find. And so Kathy, v… very obligingly, went to Steven and she came back and she said, "Well, you have a week." And I went, "Oh, great." "I've got a week." And so I got together with Dick Gain, who was the location s… scout on the show, and later became the location manager, and we went through the old Thomas Brothers maps and we looked at places where there were new developments right on the edges of mountains. And we just... He took part of it and I took part of it, and we started going out and looking. Four days later, he came back and said, "I think I found something." And, I said, "Great." So I went out and looked at it and sure enough, yeah, I said, "Yeah, this is it.

14:26James D. BissellThis is good." So, I told Kathy we were ready to make a presentation to Steven. I spent, you know, a couple of days just sort of rigorously throwing sketches together on how we could use the location, how we could tie it into, how we could tie it into sets on stage because, you know, this particular, production, because it was all kids, had a lot of night shooting, and you can't shoot at night with kids. You have no flexibility there.

14:53Jawad MirYeah.

14:53James D. BissellSo everything had to be built on stage. So I put together a sort of approach on how we could do it, and then Steven came out to look at the location. And the homeowner had this great Super 8 movie of me walking around with all sorts of drawings tucked under my arm and, you know, pointing out and doing this and that, and Steven with a little bit of a skeptical look, you know, looking around. And eventually he looked at it and said, "Yeah, this works." And of course, I was elated because I had... It really sort of met the criteria I thought it, that the location needed. You know, none of the interiors, that we built as sets con… corresponded at all with the interiors that were there, but the backyard did match enough that when we built the backyard on stage, you really felt like you were, you know, in that location.

15:40Jawad MirYeah.

15:41James D. BissellSo anyway, that was, that was how that evolved and of course, it was only, it was only years later when I thought back on it and I went, "If I hadn't found that house, I was out of there." I was, I was fired. And I went, "Wow, that was..." You know, that's one of the great things about being young and sort of, you know, a little bit overconfident is you're willing to take chances like that and say, "Steven, I think I can do better." You know? And to his credit, you know, he didn't see it as a control issue. He wanted to give me a little bit of cr… creative lev… l… l… creative leeway and I think we really did find the right place. Of course, he shot it, he shot it so beautifully, and so did Allen. It was... All of that stuff really worked out really well.

16:27Jawad MirWell, the great thing about the interior, which is obviously a sets, is, you know, you have the kitchen, you have the, sort of a kitchen/dining room, but mainly the bedroom, the closet, you know, where the most of the action sort of happens.

16:43Jawad MirAnd it's so funny, you know, like normally, like you worked on film like 300, which is like production design, right? Rocketeer production design. And not that others are not, but they are so vivid in there, but these are just like homes like you and I would live in now or in the '80s or the '90s. And it... I think your work is so underrated to an audience, which in itself is kind of a compliment that people don't notice it because it's a perfect space and you don't question anything. And I mean, that whole closet, like that's the, one of the most monumental things of the '80s for me, is that, you know, E.T. Hiding in it and the mom looking through when she opens the door and everything. I just think it's one of the most underrated production design of such a grand film in terms of, you know, popularity and fan base, that people don't talk about that. And I think without that space, E.T. Wouldn't be E.T. The film wouldn't be there. So it just... You know, even the counter when the, when E.T.

17:44Jawad MirUses his powers to fly the planets around, like that, all that stuff, it just, it's just so cool.

17:51James D. BissellYou know, the... I'm very, grateful that you point that out. But at the same time, I have to say that, you know, I come from theater. And my degree and my training, my early training was in theater. And the, my whole feeling about production design is it's context. It's context for performance, and that's, and that's, that given the thought as you create the context for the performance, if you get it right… Nobody notices it because you can't imagine it any other way.

18:28Jawad MirYeah.

18:29James D. BissellIt's like you found that and you just s… sat down and put the camera down, and this stuff happened, you know? And that's good acting, and that's good context. It's just I can't imagine it any other way, and you just immerse yourself in it, to it like it's a, it's an experience, as opposed to saying, "Well, I don't like the decor too much," or... I mean, how many closets have you seen in any houses that open to two bedrooms? You never see that.

18:57Jawad MirYeah.

18:58James D. BissellSo it's not reality based at all. It's purely dramatically based because E.T. Has to spy on mom with Gertie. And Gertie has to have access to this magical thinking, which makes sense in the psychology of a family growing up under stressful conditions, but... And so it makes sense, and you go, and you don't question it that, "Oh, I've never seen a closet that opens up into a girl's room and then into a boy's room and..." But nobody's saying anything about that because it just makes emotional sense.

19:29Jawad MirI never thought about that till you just mentioned it, and I've seen that film so many times.

19:33James D. BissellHow many times have you seen…

19:34Jawad MirYeah

19:34James D. Bissell... A stained glass window in a closet?

19:37Jawad MirNever.

19:39James D. BissellI know. But the motifs are there, all the stuff. The magic is there, and the magic makes sense. And that's…

19:47Jawad MirThat is so cool

19:47James D. Bissell... That's what's important. That's, that's, that's... And to me, that's good dramatic design, and I'm very glad that you see that and say, "Yeah, that was good dramatic design." Thank you.

19:57Jawad MirNo. Thank you.

19:58James D. BissellAnd incidentally too, the stained glass window, that was Steven and Ed Verreaux. They made that up. And Casette did all the storyboards with Steven, in the very beginning even before I came on. And they'd already sort of... I just had to figure out how to make that closet look like you don't question it and go, "Why is the closet like that?"

20:23Jawad MirThat is so awesome, man. That is so awesome.

20:25James D. BissellYeah.

20:25Jawad MirI love it. I love it. Unless you have something else to add about E.T., I wanna jump to your next film, The Rocketeer, if that's cool.

20:32James D. BissellSure. Well, that wasn't my next film, but no, I'll jump to Rocketeer and…

20:35Jawad MirWell, the one…

20:35James D. Bissell... If you want to

20:35Jawad Mir... The o… when I, when I wa… Obviously, that was like 10 years later, but I wanna talk about. Let's just put it that way. But you've done, you've done so much stuff, right? I mean, people can look it up. I think, I think you were also on The Sixth Day. Was that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, I think you were part of it. Am I correct in assuming that or IMDb is wrong?

20:51James D. BissellNo, I was…

20:52Jawad MirWas it? Okay

20:52James D. Bissell... I was the designer on The Sixth Day. I was fired by Roger Spottiswoode six weeks into shooting.

20:58Jawad MirWell, it's on IMDb. It says you were production designer, so there you go.

21:01James D. BissellI was. Yeah. But you'll see another guy there, but he just finished…

21:04Jawad MirYeah, I know. I know. Yeah

21:05James D. Bissell... Or did it. I designed the film.

21:08Jawad MirYeah. The Rocketeer is probably the second superhero movie after Batman that was made, or maybe Batman Returns, maybe third. And, you know, it had, I had, screenwriter Daniel on, I forget his last name, a couple of weeks ago, and it had…

21:29James D. BissellDanny Bilson.

21:29Jawad MirIt ha… Yeah, Danny Bilson. Thank you. Danny Bilson. He... It has so much, you know, the Indiana Jones influence. It has... And obviously it's based on a comic. Talk to me about the process of getting involved on that project, which is directed by Joe Johnston, who has worked on, who's worked at ILM, who's worked with Spielberg before and, you know, all that r… connection there. How... What was the story behind that and you getting involved and the challenges that you may have faced in kinda cr… recreating this world that already exists?

22:03James D. BissellJoe and I met on Always, which was a firefighting film that Steven directed, which I designed.

22:10Jawad MirYeah.

22:10James D. BissellAnd I had done some second unit directing on Always, 'cause I'm a pilot. And so, and Joe's a pilot. He's, he pilots ultralights. I was just doing single engine…

22:21Jawad MirYeah

22:22James D. Bissell... VFRs, you know, fixed wing stuff. And but we both love flying. And interestingly too, just as an aside, one of the reasons why that's one of the best scores James Horner ever composed is he was, he loved flying. Matter of fact, he died flying. He, you know, he was flying…

22:40Jawad MirYeah

22:40James D. Bissell... His own experimental aircraft and it crashed. But you can feel that love in the design and the building of that airfield and all of the stuff there. It was, it was amazing. So I met, I met, Joe. Joe was gonna do the, all the big miniatures and the fire sequences for the final airdrop, re… retardant drop, in Always. And so we had a, we were talking a lot to each other, and then when he went, this was, this was after he had done Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

23:15Jawad MirYes.

23:15James D. BissellAnd so he did that, and then he got, Disney hired him to do Rocketeer, and he called me up and asked me if I'd do it. At that time I was working on Arachnophobia with, Frank. And I said I loved it. So I went over and started working with him on that. And, you know, there were a lot of quotes that we just took and ran with, you know, like the Bulldog Cafe, which I just... The, there were a couple of really defining moments. First of all, the overall sense of speed and modernity that came with the deco design aesthetic, you know, and was incredibly embraced, really embraced in a lot of, Calif… Los Angeles especially, deco design.

24:00James D. Bissell... You know, it led to this almost, fever dream of a culture. You know, this crazy th… thing that actually defined Los Angeles for a long time, culturally. And so it was really fun to play with that and create sort of a hyper deco, hyper stylized, but it's still real. I mean, there were like… Five or six iterations of the Bulldog Cafe all through Los Angeles. The, it was real, but it didn't look anything like that on the inside.

24:34Jawad MirOf course, of course.

24:35James D. BissellThat interior design, that interior set's one of my favorite sets. I love that set. But it was, but,... So we started off with the Bulldog, and that was a given. You know, that was the place where all the pilots hung out and we… it had to have a real sort of worn but f… fantasy kinda quality to it. But when you were in the diner, it felt like a diner, you know? And it was like a cool diner you would really wanna go to and have a burger or a BLT and, or a really good tomato soup, you know? And, the rest, the rest of the stuff was just taking the feelings that Dave conjured and turning them into something you could shoot. And that was... There were some real problems with that. One of them was the rocket pack itself. You know, the... I went to a c… company I'd worked with, on a picture called Twins.

25:33Jawad MirYes.

25:33James D. BissellDesign studies. And I, and I, and had them build a mock-up of, you know, the design based pretty much on the sort of tubular design of the rocket pack as Dave had it. And we stuck it on an actor's back, and it just looked laughable. You know, it bounced around. It just... It didn't look like it should do what it... You didn't get that sense of speed. You didn't get... And so I had... We had a really great, b… bunch of people visually. And of course, you know, Joe is an incredible artist. And so we were playing with, how do we, how do we do this? How do we make it look like it really s… you know, sends this guy soaring through space and that he could actually control how he flies and it doesn't burn his butt off, you know? It's like h… how does, how do we do this? And so, I brought... At that point I was really good friends with Ron Cobb, so I asked Ron to give it a shot, see what he'd come up with. And Joe knew John Bell, and he asked John Bell to take a shot at it.

26:33James D. BissellAnd I was also working with another really great product designer, who would... Turned storyboard artist, named Ed Eyth, who, is a just a fantastic, designer. And we all started just trying to mess with it, and Cobb was the one who came up with the breakthrough idea, which was make it a twin pack. Wrap it around, make it a twin pack. Put these le… these flap le… levers underneath the thrusters so it doesn't burn the butt, and it'll really sort of hug itself to the body and make it look like what we want it to look like. Now his design was a little clunky, 'cause Ron has a certain design aesthetic, and he makes things look real industrial and... And so Ed took that and then started, and started, really working on making it deco. And he did something really ingenious. He took, he took a picture of a Ralph Loewy, train locomotive. Do you know Ralph Loewy, the deco de…

27:31Jawad MirYeah.

27:32James D. BissellYeah.

27:32Jawad MirYes.

27:32James D. BissellSo he took it and then he, and then he cut, he cut it in half and flipped it, and he put the two pieces together and played with that, and he came up with these twin rockets that looked so deco. And then I said, "Yeah, and we get this really muscular turbine, this feeding turbine in the middle, and we can... Then we have a really great noise effect and it really looks great." So he sketched that out, and started to look good. And we built another prototype and stuck it on, and we were really getting somewhere, but we weren't there yet. And then there was one other iteration after that, and then we got there. And I think the damn thing is, like, pretty perfect. It was just amazing. And the,... What was the other thing? Well, the, and then the other things were just, you know, like the South Seas Club. All those were not, drawn by Dave. But they had to have that sort of combination of the deco, you know, this incredible optimism for the future, this in… incredible sense of speed and moving forward and also the, it...

28:33James D. BissellThe one thing that was inc… im… important about the design of the, South Seas Club was the dance floor, because he had to, he had to be like a bee in a bonnet and then make an escape at the end of the scene. And so the thing that really inspired me on that one was, I don't know who designed it, but it's certainly credited to Cedric Gibbons at MGM, but it's the f… the floor pattern from Grand Hotel…

28:59Jawad MirOh

28:59James D. Bissell... Which we directly stole.

29:02Jawad MirNice.

29:02James D. BissellAnd used that and it really works. And it's a beautiful design. And then so we radiated out from that. And then, and then of course using the eggshell is for the reveal of the singer and the reveal of the bandleader. That was, that was the South Sea Club motif, and we were able to get a little humor in there when the, when the clam closes and…

29:20Jawad MirYeah.

29:22James D. BissellThat was, that was sort of fun. And we, and we sort of, we played with that whole thing, and I think that set was a really ter…... I mean, there were so many great sets on that show. I, l… I, you know, I love the variation on Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis-Brown House that we did for, that we did... That was sort of, you know, it was for, Neville Sinclair. And it was... It did r… it did sort of give a decorative spin to Albert Speer's designs. You know, I think, personally I think, Frank Lloyd Wright designed all of those cement block houses as mausoleums for his lost love, Mima Boswick. But

30:05James D. Bissell... But at the same time there was a, there was a little bit of a tie in there to Albert Speer and, you know, and that c… that sort of form of emerging brutalism and I thought it was a really good choice for, Neville Sinclair. Once again, going to the, into that kind of hyper-fantasy architecture of... That really represents…

30:25Jawad MirYeah

30:25James D. Bissell... Archetypes. You know, it's, it was, it was good fun. It was

30:32Jawad MirWell, one of the things I'll, I'll say, you know, aside from your work, just the film as a concept, right? This man with a rocket pack flying around. And… ... There's a scene in the trailer, obviously in the film, where he, when he first goes up and he goes by this plane, passenger plane, right?

30:50Jawad MirAnd now these, th… this technology, not similar to Rocketeer, but it exists. There are people with rocket packs now that fly. In Dubai I think I saw a video was,.. I wonder if they got inspiration from the Rocketeer. Was this ro… it had wings though, but it had like a rocket pack, like a little bit of a… wi… wings. And it was flying next to a, like a, an Airbus or a 747 or a Boeing. And I just thought it was, you know, how culture impacts reality, how popular culture impacts reality. That was really cool to see that the impact that film has had, whether people know it or not, I truly believe that was part of it. Because I mean, how many movies have there been with men with rocket packs? Like, you know, it's normally Superman or Spider-Man, you know, without any kind of equipment, just superpowers.

31:36Jawad MirSo it really is a testament. And you mentioned a few names. I've had Jon Bell on this podcast a couple of times, and, another director who you worked with, William Dear, I even had lunch with him. And I just thought it's really cool that how the entire, you know, the film family, the film fraternity is so connected to each other that everybody's sort of, everybody, you know, there's almost like this two degree or three degree of separation.

32:02James D. BissellNo, it's true. And I did, Harry and the Hendersons with Bill and Bill was originally attached to Rocketeer, and I think he was very disappointed…

32:12Jawad MirYeah

32:13James D. Bissell... In that when he…

32:13Jawad MirYeah. I've, or I've heard those stories from, Danny, and I've read about it too, and William told me about this too, but, you know, it is what it is. What can you do? It sucks.

32:23James D. BissellYeah.

32:24Jawad MirYeah. I want to jump onto, 300 where, you know, it's like to create that visual style of a comic book genre, and that's one of the most different movies even made to date. Right? Like, I mean, now you can say, oh, you know, again, I'm not saying it's possible. AI can probably make a scene out of that if it wants to. But at that time, to be able to do this on a stage and with the stylus of, styles of VFX and production design combined, it may not have looked 100% realistic, but it still sold realistically, and it really wowed the audiences. If you wanna talk to me about the stories behind working on that and, you know, creating that world, because again, without production design, especially in a film like that, it's just like, you know, a bunch of actors and directors working together, and that's about it.

33:25James D. BissellWell, it came at a particularly interesting part of my time in my career, which was, I went straight into, 300 right after, I did Good Night and Good Luck with George Clooney.

33:40Jawad MirYes.

33:40James D. BissellWhich was beautiful.

33:40Jawad MirWhich I wanted to talk about, but you can go ahead and talk about that first. Go ahead.

33:43James D. BissellWell, I, only and the two, the two were sort of related in that

33:47Jawad MirSure

33:47James D. Bissell... The evolution of the design for Good Night and Good Luck was one that, I can talk about later. But it really directly fed into what was going on with 300, which was that, Warner Brothers wanted to establish a relationship, with and make a Zack Snyder movie. And Alan Horn was in charge, at the, at the time of the studio, and, but he didn't really like R-rated films particularly. And he kept saying, "You know, I'll give you a lot of money to make the film if you make it PG-13." And Zack said, "No, it's gotta be R-rated," you know? And Alan said, "Well, if that's the case, you're not getting a dime over $59.99," you know? You know, "You don't cross 60 million because I don't wanna pay any more than that for this film."

34:42Jawad MirRight.

34:43James D. BissellThat was, you know, that was oversimplified, but that's sort of what happened. And the producer of the show was... I mean, there were many producers on the show, but the overall supervisor from the studio was, Chris DeFaria, who actually brought me on the project because I'd done Cats & Dogs with him. And

35:05Jawad MirLove that movie, by the way, just to put it out there.

35:07James D. BissellJust another one to put on. So, when I, when I came on board, I talked to Zack, and Zack really loved the way that Frank had very graphically told the story. He, you know, and, you know, and Zack is a really well-trained artist, visual artist. He's out of the art center, and he can draw like... He can draw like, not quite like Ridley Scott or Joe, but he's, you know, he's got a good, he's really got a good wrist and he knows what he wants. And he sees things very graphically, and he loved what Frank had done. So what I asked him to do was, "Give me all the visuals, the Frank visuals that you really love," and he did. And I, so I pu… I put them, I put them all up in a room and I just would keep looking at them and I would say, "Okay, where does this world exist?" And then I would start just generating a landscape, you know, where the cliff is that all the soldiers fall off.

36:12James D. BissellWhere the hot gates are. How does that military maneuver, that windshield wiper mover, maneuver actually happen in a place where they can't go anywhere else? And so I started just sort of creating a landscape and this peninsula that fed into a little single narrow coastal road where the army's massed, but they can only get so many people into the battlefield at any given time. And so, and where 300 guys could prevail over an army of almost 120,000. So I started playing with that, and then I created a sort of cyber landscape, and I start going to, going to, Zack with it. And I would say, "Okay, well, this is where, this is where Leonidas meets Xerxes. This is where battle takes place. This is where they build the Wall of the Dead. And this is how they block them, and this is why this goes w… this way."

37:12James D. BissellAnd so we started going through all of the sets that we needed and creating these big landscapes, and then conceptually, and then coming in and saying, "Now, how do we tell that story in the graphic s… manner of Frank Miller?" And then the way... And, Zack's solution was perfect. We called it the crush, 'cause he basically made it a high contrast look, where you took all of the, all of the visual information from the high end of the visual spectrum and crushed it, and you took all the information from the low end and crushed it. Then you ramped up the contrast in the midsection. And what that did was really amazing when, you know... It just is sort of a fairly simple, you know, post-production procedure. Took and made everything extraordinarily graphic, but still you captured the reality of the fact that we built modular sets in the foreground. If a, if an actor, if an actor, touched it, cast a shadow on it, had any interaction at all with it…

38:17Jawad MirIt was there

38:17James D. Bissell... It was there. And then you designed on how the handoff went to a dimensional midground and then to a flat background, and that was, 'cause that's very graphic. And so all the shot compositions were that way, and Zack was able to sort of break each scene out and do it that way. And then, and then I would work with him, and then what I would do in order to meet this, you know, 69, $59.99, criteria is we shot the whole thing in this, in this train repair station. We had four... Five big bays, and we had modular sets. And so you had basic terrains, and then you had stuff that got built up on top of it, and you're constantly moving and changing this all around so that it didn't have and suffer from the problem that, like, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow suffered from, which was everything was basically flat on stage, and they made it up afterwards. And that cost a goddamn... Excuse me, that cost a fortune.

39:15Jawad MirYeah.

39:16James D. BissellAnd, what we did was we pre-designed it. It was front-loaded. We designed the whole thing, and when the actors arrived on set, you know, everybody saw what it's gonna look... Sort of what it was gonna look like. "This is the, this is the world you're in, and this is the part of the world that's built right here." It's like a stage set. It's like a theatrical set. Now, that workflow, that kind of, that kind of front-loaded workflow is exactly what you need to do with, like, volumes now, if you're using a volume for production. It's exactly what you need to do if you're using Unreal Engine and you're, and you're... You have to design the whole thing, then you figure out how you're going to just sort of build this little part of it.

39:57Jawad MirYeah.

39:57James D. BissellAnd give your actors, you know, an arena to create magic, that only performance can come from performance. 'Cause if you don't give them enough to interact to, you know, there are really great actors out there who can, you know, read a phone book and you're mesmerized. However, if you don't wanna constantly rely on just technique, if you want real substance and you wanna make it feel like they're really doing something, then you, they have to go, move up, they have to move down, they have to... There's, it's, there's a dimensionality, and there's a way the camera moves that we're used to that makes you feel like you're in a real situation. And that's, that's what we did, was we built these modular sets that created terrains, and then we would supplement them with all the other stuff. But everything that you saw that the actors were in, that was there.

40:40Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

40:41James D. BissellAnd especially when you were in Sparta. They were the... The Sparta sets were big sets. And so

40:49Jawad MirYeah

40:49James D. Bissell... So it was, it was created in a way that accommodated what Zack wanted and met the budgetary, restrictions and, you know, that's a, that's a film, along with Good Night, and Good Luck, where I, where I always, when I'm, when I'm teaching, I always say, "Limitation dictates style." And this is the positive thing that can come out of doing low-budget work. 'Cause it makes you, makes you really think about what do you need to see? What needs to be there?

41:18Jawad MirYeah.

41:19James D. BissellAnd that's good, you know, good design. It's good filmmaking, you know? Really good filmmaking.

41:24Jawad MirYeah. I mean, I've, I've learned so much from, you know, the names that you have worked with, right? Steven, Zack, and, William, and, you know, so many other directors, even George Clooney, is that, you know, the in... The, your whole comment about "We'll fix it in post," one of the worst things you can do if you can do it on the set. In camera is the best thing to do if you can, if you have the budget.

41:49James D. BissellAbsolutely.

41:49Jawad MirAnd you talked about the, and you talked about the physical space, right? So I am, I'm directing this film, and it's supposed to be shot in Poland and Jordan because that's where the look's okay. And everybody's like, "Why don't you just do it locally in..." I'm like, "No." I, you know, the actors, the way, the way the actors work is, and even if you're doing... Whether you're doing a narrative or a documentary, if you put them in a stage, if there's a light that turns on hypothetically over there, their face not only will get lit, but they'll react to that, and that's how these spaces work around you, and it's so important. And, you know, I'm not against AI. We use AI all the time as tools, but this, I just feel there's gonna be this group of films that is just gonna be done, you know, with maybe real people or real actors, but AI around it. And I don't know. To me, no matter how great the technology comes, the people will b… never be able to react in the same way unless there's physical spaces around them.

42:46James D. BissellWell, yes. And, but most importantly, I think especially when dealing with a tool like AI, is you have to understand the process.

42:56Jawad MirYeah.

42:56James D. BissellLike I said, AI makes stuff up. When it gets too complicated, when you're doing really complicated perspective shifts, AI makes stuff up.

43:05Jawad MirIt does.

43:05James D. BissellAnd you, all of us as observant members of the universe, are a lot smarter than we think. We clock it. We clock it, and we see when it's wrong, and it doesn't feel like an experience anymore. It feels like we're just looking at a picture.

43:24Jawad MirYeah.

43:24James D. BissellAnd that's…

43:24Jawad MirNo, I agree

43:25James D. Bissell... And so if you understand the process, if you understand what needs to be there, you can break the process of execution of how do you get that stuff in front of the camera in a timely way so you can take a picture of it with a brilliant performance in front of it. You know how to break it down and use AI. There are things AI is really good at, but you really have to understand the design process and the process, the ex… the executive process of getting the stuff there, depending on the techniques that you're using, whether it's theatrical set desi… construction or whether it's digital construction of imagery or whatever it is. You know, you wanna do things like have interactive light in the deep background. Maybe you're creating it digitally, maybe you're not, but you wanna be able to see the effects in the foreground because it ties everything together and it makes it feel real. AI doesn't do that kind of stuff very well.

44:13Jawad MirYeah.

44:13James D. BissellBecause it, you know, it's just too much comput… even that is too much computation for AI. And what ha… what winds up happening, and I've, I've seen this in a lot of, contemporary filmmaking and design, is you go, "Well, you just put a wash over the whole thing, and that ties it together." No, it doesn't. You know, it... You know, you use some sort of big, broad struct… structure or some sort of, like, overglaze or whatever it is. It doesn't work, you know? It makes it look sorta cool, and then you go, "Oh."

44:43Jawad MirYou forget about it. You forget about it.

44:44James D. BissellYou forget about it, and you just go…

44:46Jawad MirYeah

44:46James D. Bissell... You know, that's dismissable. I, you know, I have the same problem with this film noir thing that's going on right now with Nic Cage. Y…

44:52Jawad MirYeah

44:52James D. Bissell... The images are sort of stunning, but they don't feel real. You just keep look... You feel like you're looking at a bunch of pictures. You don't, you don't feel like you're really having an…

45:02Jawad MirI haven't seen it yet, but I've seen the trailer. Yeah, I haven't seen the film

45:05James D. Bissell... Yeah, it's, it's... Anyway, you know, as artists and as filmmakers, we're gonna have to wrestle with this for a while, 'cause it's a really great tool. But, you, we have to learn how to use it effectively rather than, you know, use it too broadly. That happened, you know, that happened when computers started developing stuff. And I think the most, the... One of the relationships that we could really learn from was the relationship John Lasseter had with Ed Catmull…

45:32James D. Bissell... And how Pixar was formed. When you watch the way John's brilliant mind worked and how he would come up with, say, you know, Ed would say, "Well, we've got this software, and we've got this machine, and here's what it can do. Show it off, and let's sell the machine," then John would come up with more stuff and say, "Yeah, but can we do this too? Can we do this too?" And then you had this, you know, iterative process between art and technology that was really amazing and really brought the best out of both processes. And I think we're gonna, we gotta h… we gotta really, you know, jump in, roll up our sleeves, and do the same thing with AI.

46:07Jawad MirI agree. I agree wholeheartedly.

46:09James D. BissellYeah.

46:09Jawad MirAnd I think you were talking about Good Night, and Good Luck, so let's talk about that a little bit because you were nominated for an Oscar for that, correct? If I'm not mistaken. And…

46:19James D. BissellIt's the lowest budget film ever nominated for an Art Direction Oscar.

46:24Jawad MirWell, I didn't know that. That's, that's, that's even better.

46:26James D. BissellYeah. I think it is, anyway. It's... Somebody can disprove me if they want to.

46:31Jawad MirHow was it shooting something that I'm assuming you knew beforehand, everybody knew that it was gonna be a black-and-white film? Like… ... How much of that sort of played a role in you setting up the world that you set up versus that you have done in color film before? Like, what's, what's the difference and the challenges that you went through in creating those worlds?

46:54James D. BissellIt's dealing in imagery that's solely about value. And, you know, so I learned how to walk around squinting a lot. You know, just really l… looking at... A… and also, a… and, you know, and, that was the first movie, you know, actually Bob Elswit shot, vis… some visual effects on E.T., so technically we worked together on E.T. But that was the first movie I did with Bob Elswit. It was the f… first of, I think, six or seven. And I love working with Bob. I just think he's a fantastic DP. And, the biggest issue was how different colors would react tonally when we made, when we made it. It was shot on film, and, but it was color film that was then processed to look, you know, to be black and white. And, R… Robert worked a long time on how, on that process on getting it there 'cause I don't think there was any black-and-white stock, you know, that we could get enough of to do a film.

47:57James D. BissellSo it was a complicated process, but it was all about value. And the one thing that I did ask George, i… is, "Please, no color photographs on the set," because the sets looked crazy. They were stupid. You know, everything was picked for its value and not because of its color. So you looked on, you went, "Ugh, this is really ugly."

48:20Jawad MirBut in black and white, it's amazing.

48:22James D. BissellIn black and white, it's amazing. So it was really learning how, it was learning how to see things just totally in terms of value, which is incidentally the thing that then spread into 300 because when you crush, it's the same thing. What happens is in crush… crushing images, all sorts of flaws pop out. It create…

48:40James D. Bissell... And so when you walked on the sets of 300, they looked incredibly bland, primarily because it, when you crush the image, they would get splotchy, and they would look like, you know, ugh. So you, so one had to be really careful about especially detail and modeling In the mid ground. The, in the, in the mid, i… in the mid range of, you know, of the values. Because if you…

49:04Jawad MirRight

49:04James D. Bissell... If you put a lot of aging, for instance, on the walls in Sparta, and then you crushed it, oh, man, it looked awful. It looked like, you know, the set's got leprosy. So, y… you... There were a lot of camera tests and a, and a lot of w… ways to work out technique, you know, on how we were gonna treat the sets and, the paint finishes that we did on the sets, and how they were gonna tie into the background paintings.

49:33Jawad MirLast bit about Good Night and Good Luck, is this is not really a film related, since we talked about you being nominated. Do you remember that moment when you found out you lost, and do you remember that moment when you found out you were nominated? The feeling?

49:46James D. BissellWell, I'll tell you a funny story about the nominated part.

49:49Jawad MirSure.

49:49James D. BissellThe first movie I did with George was C… Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and at the time, runaway production was a big deal in Los Angeles. And The New…

49:58Jawad MirRight

49:58James D. Bissell... L.A. Times had decided they were gonna do a article on, runaway production. And, I think it was Tom Walsh at the Guild, at the Art Directors Guild, had said, "Well, talk to Jim. He's, you know, he's working in Montreal." And so the writer, Jim Bates, gave me a call, and it was supposed to be, you know, it was gonna... They were gonna look at caterers, they were gonna look at all the people that were suffering because all of this runaway production. And, eventually Jim came over, he talked to me. I had two young kids and we were... And but, you know, he could see I love what I do, and he could see my pa… my wife, my wife was the costume de… designer on Jumanji. She's in the business as well, or was.

50:39Jawad MirOh.

50:40James D. BissellShe wound up raising two wonderful kids, who are now adults, and one of them's in the film business and the other one's a geologist. And then she had, also a very good relationship with her stepson, my eldest son, who's

50:57Jawad MirRight

50:57James D. Bissell... Who's in the biking industry and lives in Europe. Anyway, so Jim came and started doing this article and then he later changed it and said, "Well, you know, we decided we're just gonna make the article about you and Martha." And I went, "Wow, I'm not so comfortable about that, but okay." He flew up to Montreal and we had dinner one night, and I think I had a martini then and I, and I... And during which I confessed... You know, he asked me about my career and about where things were going and how I was gonna balance family and everything else. And I said, "I don't know. I'm not quite sure, 'cause I'm in my late 40s and I don't even have an Oscar nomination yet. And so I don't... I'm not sure if I'm on the A list or if I'm at just at the top of the B list." And he left. Months later, the article comes out, front page article on a Monday, in the L.A. Times, and he puts that in, he puts that... He relates that story in the p… in the thing, and I get this phone call from Henry Bumstead.

51:58James D. BissellDo you know who Henry Bumstead is?

52:00Jawad MirNo, I don't.

52:01James D. BissellBummy was just a class... He and Bob Boyle. Bob Boyle ran the production design courses over at AFI, but really…

52:08Jawad MirOkay

52:08James D. Bissell... Wanted to keep working. And the two of them were good friends and probably the best production designers out of the old Hollywood studio system that pract… I mean, Bummy did all of the late Clint Eastwood movies, and he died, you know, e… e… he died on, Flags of Our Fathers. You know, his wife had to call up the art department and say, "The meeting's off today. Bummy's dead." So it was…

52:31Jawad MirWow

52:31James D. Bissell... You know, he worked until he was 94, and he was a great designer. And Bob died two weeks short of his 101st birthday and AF… teaching at AFI and his love for the art was what kept him alive. And, so anyway, Bummy calls me up and says, "Don't worry, Jim, you're gonna get your Oscar nomination." And I said, "Thanks, Bummy." And on the m… morning that I got nominated he called me up and he said, "See? I told you so." He was the first…

53:03Jawad MirIt…

53:03James D. Bissell... Call after the, after the announcement. And so I…

53:07Jawad MirYou should've manifested a Oscar victory more than a nomination, but go on.

53:12James D. BissellYeah. Anyway, at that point I knew I wasn't gonna win. I mean, how could you…

53:15Jawad MirYeah

53:15James D. Bissell... How... Because, you know, it... And it doesn't matter. I mean, that's the odd thing about the, about the, Academy is you're nominated by your branch. So to be nominated is to, is an honor because you're nominated by your peers.

53:32James D. BissellAnd but the overall winner's always determined by actors. The actors branch is so much larger than anything else and all of... So it doesn't matter what branch you're in, you're picked by the actors. And so it doesn't matter that much. And so they tend to go for, you know, "Okay, the... It looked okay, but, you know, who was in it? Who were the actors in it?" Or…

53:53Jawad MirYeah

53:53James D. Bissell... You know, did it have, you know, this sort of spectacular kind of period look or fantasy look? And so I don't, I don't think the actors... But it doesn't matter. I think usually the nom… the nomination is the thing that you really, you really…

54:05Jawad MirYeah

54:05James D. Bissell... Value because it's from your peers. And so I…

54:08Jawad MirMakes sense

54:08James D. Bissell... I never even thought about it. I never even wrote a, an acceptance speech. I knew there was no way in the world, in the world that I was gonna get the award. And John Meyer did such a fabulous job on Geisha that, you know, it was…

54:21Jawad MirThat was, that was an incredible film too. That was an incredible film.

54:25James D. BissellIt's a wonderful film.

54:26Jawad MirYou mentioned your son's in the film business. What does he do?

54:29James D. BissellWell, he's starting out. He

54:32Jawad MirOkay

54:32James D. Bissell... He's a really good shooter. He's a great photographer. He does a lot of, music videos, and he's…

54:37Jawad MirNice

54:38James D. Bissell... You know. And he's, and he's, he's an in… really interesting talent.

54:47Jawad MirAmazing. And your wife, you said she was a costume designer in Jumanji. Is that where you guys met?

54:52James D. BissellIt was. As a matter of fact, Joe, I was in New England scouting, and we had to go to Vancouver because, the tax incentives and the exchange rate to just… ... Bring the budget down. And so he was in Vancouver, I think, looking at casting, and he called me up and he said, "Yeah, and I hired a costume designer." And I got pissed off at him, and I said, "Are you kidding me, Joe? You hired a costume designer without even talking to your production designer?" And he said, "Ah, don't worry, Jim, you're gonna love her." We've been married for over 30 years now.

55:26Jawad MirWow, that is awesome. So, well, now that we're talking about Jumanji, you know, talk about Jumanji, to me, the challenges of obviously working with,.. Did Joe direct that film? No.

55:37James D. BissellYeah. Joe did.

55:38Jawad MirHe did, he did. Yes, he did. Joe directed that film. And, working with Joe again, and then getting to sort of know your wife, or at the time not wife, and how... Because Jumanji's a very special film. I'm not a fan of the remakes at all. I mean, that film, I... To me, was made by Kirsten Dunst, Robin Williams, and the spectacular house and the visual effects, but in a very, you know, typical Joe Johnston way, like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids type of style. Just talk to me about that process of working on that film. And if you wanna talk about, you know, working with your wife or not at the time, that's up to you. I don't wanna get into the personal stuff. But I would love to know the process behind that.

56:19James D. BissellYeah. Well, it was, it was really interesting because when Joe first gave me the script, you know, I don't know if you've read the Chris Van Allsburg, children's book, but it's…

56:31Jawad MirI have, a long time ago

56:32James D. Bissell... Yeah

56:32Jawad MirI have.

56:32James D. BissellIt was really boring. It was like you roll the dice, something happens.

56:34Jawad MirYeah.

56:34James D. BissellYou roll the dice and something happens. You roll the dice and something happens, and the story's over. And it was like, "Oh, this is bad." But Jonathan Hensleigh, Joe gave it to Jonathan Hensleigh to do a pass on it, and Jonathan Hensleigh came up with the ingenious device of the kid goes into the game. And also did the setup, which was, here's a g… Once again, this is sort of like the phase after E.T., you know, in the transition…

57:01Jawad MirYeah

57:01James D. Bissell... Between, magical thinking and adult rational thought. This is the phase after where you're handed the mantle of your family, of tradition, and said, "All right, assume this," but you can't do it effectively and live a good life unless you find out who you are. And that's what this game did. And, you know, and gaming, incidentally, goes back to, if you, if you study philosophy at all, this is Wittgenstein. You know?

57:27James D. BissellIt's, it's, you know, you're, you're gaming things. You're con… That's, these are the forces of nature that shape us, that form us, and this is what happens, is you know, you have the house represents the m… the mantle of tran… tradition, and it's, you know, and that's why it's, you know, it's Federalist style, it's Georgian style, it's, it's very New England in that sense. But it also had to be something that had a logical passageway that, you know, a herd of African animals could run down. You know, you don't get that in a lot of architecture. It had to have that principle that... And even in Chris Van Allsburg's, you know, he did graphic illustrations that constantly distorted space. Well, you can't really do that effectively in a film. You gotta, you know, you gotta stick with the scale for it to have the power and the real, the real, dramatic impact that you want it to have. So you had to have a space in a, you know, where they come crashing out of the, out of the library, a wide enough hall where, you know, a rhino can make an L-shaped turn, and then gather some speed and go crashing through the wall and out into the neighborhood.

58:32James D. BissellAnd so that's sort of where you start. And then the second place I started was the spiral staircase up into, you know, this, the Pandora's box, which is where this sort of, this, these powers, these forces have been stored but are unleashed. You know, which, you know, s… mimics a lot of psychological processes. And so the imagery is there, and it feels real even though, once again, this is... You'll never see a house like that, but it feels like it could be there, you know? And if, and it, and it had,.. I love, I love the house, and it, and it had so many different iterations. You know, the water pouring down the staircases and, all of that's real. We did that. We built it in, you know, we rebuilt that whole living room and that ground floor in a wave tank at University of British Columbia.

59:21Jawad MirO… okay.

59:22James D. BissellAnd we shot inside a wave tank with, you know, mounting levels of water for over a week, and everybody got sick.

59:30Jawad MirReally?

59:31James D. BissellIt was really tough shooting, yeah. That, shooting in water like that is really hard.

59:36Jawad MirYeah.

59:37James D. BissellAnd it's, that's something my poor wife had to contend with because they, in order to minimize the threat of illness, they poured tons of chlorine in there. The actors would be in the water for an hour and, you know, and suddenly the clothes were just wrought, you know, they were white and bleached and falling off their skin. They had... She went through, like, 30 replacements for the costumes.

1:00:01Jawad MirWow.

1:00:01James D. BissellIt was... Yeah. It was... And also keeping the finishes on all the vines and all the, you know. It was, it was hard shooting, but it was, but I think the stuff is really good. And the f… the, and the, and the end shot where the, aunt and the cop are outside, and he shoots the thing…

1:00:22Jawad MirYeah

1:00:22James D. Bissell... And water comes out, that was, that was, I think, probably something I'm more proud of than just about anything I've ever done in my career. Which, well, possibly except for covering the house in plastic on E.T. The, was, I worked with the special effects guy, who was brilliant, and, the on-camera effects guy, and we built the facade of the house at this, at this place in Vancouver that, where they do these, big… Their, you know, their autumn and spring festivals. It's a, you know, it's a big park. Not…

1:00:56Jawad MirStanley Park?

1:00:58James D. BissellNo, it's not Stanley Park. It was,.. It's out there in the, out, towards Burnaby. It's

1:01:05Jawad MirOkay

1:01:05James D. Bissell... It's like an exposition park. It has, you know, it has, places for expositions and... But one of the place… things they have is this shallow pool where they do, like, Ski-Doo exhibitions and things like that. So, a… and it has a little hill that goes up it, so we built the facade of the, of the house, and then welded three containers, or two containers, you know, shipping containers, those big metal ones. Welded them together, filled them full of water, put this big door with a, with a spring-loaded door on them, on it, filled it full of water. And then we… at the appropriate time, we had two st… you know, you see the two actors go in and do... And they're at the real door with the little water coming out and everything else, that was built in, on a facade that was in, one of the neighborhoods there. I can't remember. But then you cut, you cut to this. The, you cut to the facade, and the two stunt doubles, when you're shooting on the back, they're, they're arranged to be pulled out of the way, but you can't see the wires, because we still weren't doing very much wiring.

1:02:13Jawad MirRight.

1:02:13James D. BissellAnd they get pulled back and all of that water comes out, and it's just awesome. It's just fantastic.

1:02:23Jawad MirWow. That is so cool. That is so cool. I mean, work, working with water, I mean, Steven has talked about it on Jaws and then Abyss with James Cameron and, you know, Titanic and all. It's one of the most challenging things. I mean, I... My experience never came anything close to it. It was, it was my first feature documentary I directed and we went with fishermen into the middle of Atlantic Ocean, fishing lobsters, and the sea was re… really not that, you know, good at that day. And we had very minimal equipment, but we were there for eight hours, and it was painful as hell. Like, you know…

1:02:55Jawad Mir... Forget about the working the camera, but just seasick, you know, and all that. But I get it. Like, it's, it's such a traumatic experience working in water. It,.. I mean, now there's so much technology that you can just mimic it, but at the same time, working in real water is something completely different.

1:03:12James D. BissellYeah, I did a lot of the second unit stuff on 50 First Dates or 50 First Kisses. I can't remember which one.

1:03:18Jawad MirI thought you were gonna say 50…

1:03:20James D. BissellYeah

1:03:20Jawad Mir... I thought you were gonna say the 50 First Date. I'm like, "It's not been made yet."

1:03:23James D. BissellNo. Yeah. Oh, Canada's not our 51st state yet.

1:03:28Jawad MirI just had to drop that in there. It was just... But, you know, you worked with Joe twice, and I've tried to get him onto this podcast. He... I love his work, you know, from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids to Jumanji to October Sky, which I think is one of his most underrated film. The Rocketeer, the Jurassic Park III, which I think is one of the best Jurassic Park film in the entire Jurassic Park…

1:03:51James D. BissellOh, I totally agree. Yeah

1:03:51Jawad Mir... You know, saga.

1:03:53James D. BissellYeah. Yeah.

1:03:53Jawad MirRight?

1:03:53James D. BissellBest one.

1:03:53Jawad MirAnd, but not many people know about the guy, you know? Yes, he's not Steven Spielberg in terms of the number of films that he's made, but he is so talented and so good. I'm guessing he's just one of those kinda, like, introvert type of artist who doesn't want to sort of come in front. But he's a remarkable storyteller. I mean, they're all fantastic films that he's worked on.

1:04:16James D. BissellCouldn't agree more. He's a good guy.

1:04:19Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

1:04:20James D. BissellYeah. But he, but you're right, he doesn't like to talk that much.

1:04:23Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

1:04:23James D. BissellSometimes he just

1:04:24Jawad MirI will... I know we're sort of short on time. There were still Mission Impossible and Ring 2 we wanted to talk about. We can, we can skip that. I just sorta wanted to get an idea, just to wrap thing, some things up. I mean, you worked with so many great directors, right? Steven, Joe, Zack Snyder. You worked with, Christopher McQuarrie and bunch of other... William Dear and so m…

1:04:46James D. BissellDon't forget Ridley Scott.

1:04:48Jawad MirSorry? Ridley Scott. That's right. Thank you.

1:04:50James D. BissellYeah.

1:04:50Jawad MirRidley Scott. And I know it's like comparing apples to oranges, because I admire all their work, and if somebody asked me which one is your favorite, I would probably say Steven Spielberg, but, after that, it's like everybody has their own little place. Which one did you enjoy working with the most? Or, you know, not to put anyone down. I'm just... From your ex… personal experience, they're all great filmmakers. What... How do you, how do you w… how would you want to remember them and their work and then their relation with you and your work?

1:05:25James D. BissellYou know, it's a little bit l… like saying, you know, I, y… you love to climb tall mountains, and who's your favorite mountaineer, you know? It's…

1:05:37Jawad MirI know. I know

1:05:38James D. Bissell... You know, it's, it's, it's, it's impossible. I can tell you the guys I just wouldn't go up with again, because, you know, you do feel like…... You know, I'm not, that guy's not holding my belay line. There's no way, you know? But on the other hand, the number of people who I trust and who I love working with is... You know, I loved working with Ridley Scott. I loved working with Steven. I love working with Joe. I love working with George Clooney. And even now that I'm doing a lot of, really interesting work in low budget, real low budget films, which I enjoy, I'm meeting some people that I really love working with, you know? It's just a really great process. It's a fantastic art form, and I love what I do. And I love the people that I meet, and I love the people I work with, and I feel incredibly blessed. And, so I ca… I can't pick a favorite. I'm sorry.

1:06:31Jawad MirThat's fine.

1:06:31James D. BissellI can't.

1:06:31Jawad MirThat's okay. That's okay. I…

1:06:33James D. BissellBesides, I just did, I just did the th… the 35th anniversary, screening of Rocketeer, and Joe was here. And

1:06:39Jawad MirYeah, I heard. I heard

1:06:40James D. Bissell... Yeah, and it was, it was just so great to see him. I mean, he's, he's just an amazing guy, and I really enjoyed,.. You know, I, we incidentally were preparing, a sequel to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids for Disney when COVID hit and it got shut down. So I was gonna be able to add another movie with him, and unfortunately it never happened.

1:07:05Jawad MirWas that gonna ignore Honey, I Blew Up the Kids?

1:07:08James D. BissellYeah.

1:07:09Jawad MirOkay, because that... I remember watching the second one in the theater. I never saw the first one in theater because I watched it on VHS, but yeah, no, it's, it's remarkable what you do and I have so much respect for everybody in this industry, you know, but one of the things I've overlooked over the years are production designers and costume designers until I started this podcast.

1:07:31Jawad MirAnd I understood the appreciation and the value of that. But it's just amazing that the worlds that you guys create… ... I think the set designers and costume designers are the two of the most underrated professions in the film industry, unless you're doing a period piece, people recognize it, un… otherwise they don't.

1:07:50James D. BissellWell, thank you. Thank you for appreciating us. That's, that's nice.

1:07:53Jawad MirAmazing. Well…

1:07:54James D. BissellBut like I said, if we do our job well, you shouldn't, shouldn't even recognize what we did.

1:07:58Jawad MirExactly. Exactly. But still, you know, we're, we're, we're artists. We like to be given a little bit of a positive, you know, "Hey, great work…"

1:08:06James D. BissellYeah

1:08:06Jawad Mir... "you guys are do…" You know, it's, we... That's what, one of the reasons we do what we do, so. But amazing. I know you're gonna be busy tomorrow. You're, you have a project that you're starting on, I think you mentioned.

1:08:15James D. BissellWell, no, I'm just, following up a show I did a pilot for is, doing,.. Oh, tomorrow? Gosh, tomorrow is, no, the... Yeah. Yeah, I've got some stuff going on.

1:08:27Jawad MirYeah. Amazing.

1:08:28James D. BissellYeah.

1:08:28Jawad MirWell, I wish you all the best. Whenever you have time later in the year, if you do, if you're interested to come back, I would love to have you on. Again, it was a pleasure chow-chatting with you and, amazing films. Thank you so much.

1:08:41James D. BissellGreat. Thank you for some great questions and helping me revisit some fabulous times in my life. I look forward to talking to you again.

1:08:50Jawad MirSure. Thank you, sir. Take care.