Set Decorator, 'Napoleon', 'Gladiator 2' & AI

0:00Elli GriffWhen I'm dressing Napoleon, I've got to admit, I am Napoleon. You know, the boys go to lunch, I get into his bed, you know, and roll around and kick my slippers off and put, you know, you know, I become that character. What would he do? What... If I'm sitting at this desk, what would I be doing? You know, back in those times, these people, they all had attendants and scribes, and you know, they, you, it wasn't a photocopy or a send button. You know, the people did all these things. Everybody was surrounded by people and chatter. And I think that's the theme that runs all the way through Napoleon. In fact, in history, if you walked into any forest, there was the sound of the working man cutting, chopping, bodging, burning, working in teams, working with horses. And I think that's what you get with Napoleon, is the intensity of the private scenes in various state rooms, and the opulence and the encrustation and the magnitude of the politic.

1:05Jawad MirHow have you been?

1:06Elli GriffYeah, good. I mean, as good as we can be in this climate, you know? It's, it's, it's tricky times for the industry. I feel like it's in free fall, you know? God knows what it's, you know, d… how it's gonna reshape itself, with the advent of AI, everybody waiting for AI to solve as much as possible. I, you know, I know there's lots of productions still going, certainly things with big fan bases, which makes sense. But really anything else, anything creative and punchy is on hold. I mean, it's, it's, it... Quite galling what's happening in the world today and how it affects everything and everybody.

1:56Jawad MirYeah, I couldn't agree with you more. And I think also in the light of that, you know, with the free fall, if that's the word we wanna use, I do think we're gonna We're at that point, we're about to hit rock bottom, and from there it's only, the only way is up. You know, especially with films like

2:12Elli GriffYeah, I think…

2:14Jawad MirGo on, please

2:15Elli Griff... What's, what's interesting, to me, speaking to many designers frequently, is certainly in America, I tend to work outside the UK most of the time, it is this myth that all their work has come here and it hasn't, you know? I mean, it... Everyone has to remember that the backbone of our industry is fiscal, and it's all about investment, and anybody that's investing right now, for the last two and a half years, has been sitting on their hands waiting for things to settle down and pan out. And, I've been in the industry 44 years now, and it, you know, I regard myself as a filmmaker more than just a decorator or designer, art department personnel. And it, yeah, it's, it's never been more prevalent than it is today that people are really not gonna take the risk that they used to take.

3:15Jawad MirI agree. But I do think companies like A twen…

3:17Elli GriffYeah

3:18Jawad Mir... A24, which I'm sure you've heard of, they are doing some bold stuff and, you know, with the success of Obsession and Backrooms, yes, they are horror genres, horror genres tend to do well anyways because of their low budgets, but still it's a little…

3:34Jawad Mir... You know, glimpse into a room where there's a lot of stuff. And eventually, I do feel like all these streamers and studios, espe… you know, they're gonna run out of content. That's just bound to happen. If you wanna call it content or whatever, a series and material. So it's ready. It's good to be prepared, I feel, in whichever way, capacity, 'cause there's no other ch… there's no other way. I… To me, it's not AI. I used to think it's AI. I think it's just a, it's just this executives not taking chances, and that's it. I think that's the bold problem.

4:07Elli GriffYeah. I, again, which is, goes back to the investment, you know? It…

4:11Jawad MirYeah

4:11Elli Griff... Is that they can't pass on a sure return…

4:16Jawad MirYeah

4:16Elli Griff... To anybody, you know, like, as it was, you know, a few years, you know, the last few decades. What I do think is interesting but really saddens me, you know, is y… you know, personalities like Ben Affleck selling his company to Netflix, I believe, for a certain am… amount of money, and it's just broadly described as really all you need is the artists and, a gray stage, you know? I mean…

4:46Jawad MirI saw that

4:46Elli Griff... It's, I mean, it just breaks my heart to even hear it presented like that. You know, to have a gray stage, that's an awful lot of labor to even prepare that construction. Somebody's got to draw it up. You know, they have to know what they're doing. You know, they've got to have technical abilities. People have to be paid. It's, it's, it's presenting this myth that AI takes care of everything, and it doesn't. But it also makes the people that are working to present I as, AI as this masterful answer to everything as obsolete, and actually they're not, but they're, now they're nameless. They're just all these tradesmen are now just part of a gray stage set up, which I find really sad.

5:34Jawad MirYou know, speaking of…

5:36Elli GriffAnd offensive, actually

5:37Jawad Mir... Speaking of... It is, and I think speaking of what Ben Affleck said, and I've seen that p… like, I think he sold the company to Netflix for a few hundred million dollars, if my memory serves me right, and I've seen the

5:47Elli GriffHundreds of million, yeah

5:49Jawad Mir... Yeah. And I've seen the little demo that they had. I think Casey Affleck was in it or something and…

5:55Elli GriffThat's right

5:56Jawad Mir... The interesting part is about a year or two ago I'm sure the company was working at that time. He talked in an interview, he said that what's gonna happen is that AI is, AI is not gonna change anything. You're gonna have like, you know, people are gonna pay for avatars for, let's say, George Clooney or Matt Damon or, you know, whatnot, and they're gonna make their own movies, which is happening right now, which, you know, with CDance and all that other stuff. But, yeah, the whole set thing, to me, I mean, even like green screen is like, I can never… I've barely watched any superhero movies, just to be blunt, except Christopher…

6:33Elli GriffRight

6:33Jawad Mir... Nolan Batman trilogy.

6:34Elli GriffSame.

6:34Jawad MirRight?

6:35Elli GriffYeah.

6:35Jawad MirAnd I need physical spaces to be involved. Like even I am directing a couple of films that I'm in development for, like I want to go to Jordan and Poland to shoot them because they deal with the historical elements. I can do them in a set piece here, a green screen, but it's not the same thing. The actors are not going to feel that emotion and that, you know, that, space that's around them that's gonna, you know, bring out their performance. So I think it's just gonna be there, but I don't think it's re… I think people are gonna get sick and tired of it, just like they got sick and tired of VFX, green screen, and now people are tired of superhero movies. So I hope things change.

7:16Elli GriffWell, when I… firstly, I hope you're gonna call me to do those productions. But secondly, you know, I came up initially through the theater, and it's, you know, it's great to hear a director talk about that connection with the environment because obviously in theater design, you know, that's your initial training, is firstly character breakdown. And I still approach every film that I'm offered in the same way, in the theatrical way. It starts with a character for me, you know, and, you know, what they have in their pockets, who gave it to them, who put that... You know, why is that photograph in the wallet? What currency? Are there multiple currencies? Is there one? You know, you know, it… they just have a pocket of change. Is there a wallet at all? You know, if not, why not? You know, all that stuff that you… is drilled into you to strip down every p… starting with the character and then building up the set from there. And you know, in the years gone by, you know, we used to dress every single bookcase with the appropriate titles, and every drawer was full of, supportive memorabilia and props for the artist to really be able to project his performance as lightly or deeply as they needed to.

8:32Elli GriffAnd many accomplished, actors would come and thank you at the end of the day. I mean, I think their lives were split between theater and film. I mean, I'm talking thirty, forty years ago. You know, but they were appreciative that somebody had actually gone to the effort to cradle their character, you know, on the set, you know, beyond the work that they'd done on it themselves. And that's just such a privilege to have somebody work on, in the environment that you've created and recognize that y… you also know this person.

9:10Jawad MirYeah. I agree, but I... You know, it… when we're talking about set pieces, I mean, you look at Christopher Nolan's next film that's coming out, that's all it's about. Like, it's like seven, eight different real locations and, you know, set pieces…

9:23Jawad Mir... Of how the character... And I've watched some interviews of the cast, like Tom Holland, Robert and Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway, and they constantly talk about that, like how important it is. You know, it was very refreshing to see that. Obviously, it's Christopher Nolan…

9:39Elli GriffYes

9:39Jawad Mir... So he can do that. But hopefully it can... And I think IMAX, because it's the first, very first film to be shot entirely in IMAX, I think that's the next medium of filmmaking. Right? And I think that's where the money will be now. I feel then it's… considering if it's a success, which I think it would be. So it's gonna… I think we're gonna be living in different worlds where there are gonna be people making movies with real people, real spaces, you know, limited VFX. And then there's AI. Like on my LinkedIn, you know, there's five, six guys who are putting out like AI commercials every single day. And it gets annoying after a while. Like, okay, you know, it's great that you're able to do that. I know it requires like prompts and creativity. I get all that. But s… come on. Like, you know, it's not that simple to tell a story, 'cause I get sucked out of any AI related stuff. I cannot watch it. I'm done with it. Like, it just doesn't hold me, you know, to the emotion in any way.

10:37Elli GriffNo. Well, I totally agree. The, it's like, it's like a thin veil to me. I mean, it, I can almost do half a dozen other things at the same time and just have it burbling away at a light wash, you know? I'm… got half an eye on it. Whereas if you're really engaged in a, in a performance and a production, you're totally keyed in. There's nothing else you could possibly be distracted by, you know? And I think, I think, again, it's a, it, you know, everybody with screen time over the last ten years, y… you know, is our attention spans are just getting so fractured and splintered that, you know, anybody that didn't have, you know, a problem with ADHD, you know, they've probably got one now. You know, you have so many…... Visual balls in the air and nuggets of information that you, that you're retaining and absorbing, but a lot of it subconsciously, you know?

11:38Elli GriffBecause it's just, it's just such a clattering noise around you.

11:43Jawad MirI agree.

11:44Elli GriffYou know?

11:44Jawad MirI agree. I agree.

11:46Elli GriffSo…

11:46Jawad MirAnd I think, I think we're… I hope there are better thing, days to come. I really do. And I think there will be

11:53Elli GriffI hope so. I'd hate to think that, you know, I haven't worked for a while, I'll be frank, and this is what I say to a lot of people. I mean, I still get phone calls every week and, you know, people sending me their resumes and stuff and I try to be as realistic with them as possible, you know, and say, you know, it, th… this is normal for the industry. It goes through these cycles. Th… this is, this is actually a new thing. This is a new chapter and nobo… and as I say, it's in free fall and nobody quite knows, you know, how it's gonna hit the deck and scatter. So, you know, a lot of people say, "Oh, what did you do? Why aren't you... W… I don't understand why you're not working." And y… y… y… you know, and it's, it... One has to be realistic. A, Anno Domini, you know, I'm not 25 anymore, and B, the size of pictures that I make aren't, aren't being made anymore.

12:54Elli GriffThe Odyssey, is an exception and actually they did ask me momentarily to take on the North African end of that. And, but really the stuff that I… I've done and, you know, quite consistently, it's just not being made anymore. And actually recently I went... When Frankenstein came out, you know, you know, I've worked with Del Toro, as you know, and he's been very supportive of me in the past, and, he was on the stage with w… with his heads of department before the, awards and he was talking about how it's essential for him to try and, you know, honor the art of film and keep it in camera, and that we should all be striving to keep it in camera and, you know, that it is a metier that's worth preserving as opposed to everybody giving up and trying to use AI for the shortcut. And again, AI fiscally driven that, one company can, you know, cut the expenditure of putting skilled, teams together.

14:07Elli GriffThat w… they... It will replace that, and I just don't think it's possible. I think it's… I think any producer that accepts that is accepting a product that is not a film. It's not filmmaking.

14:24Jawad MirI agree. I agree wholeheartedly.

14:26Elli GriffYou know, maybe I'm being naive, but

14:30Jawad MirNo. No, you're not

14:31Elli Griff... I'm hoping, I hope and I... Do... I hope and I, somewhere deep in my soul, I believe that the human need is for other humans, other human experiences, and we've got so close to it in so many of our amazing, you know, publications and productions in the past that, you know, it's moved body and soul, and we can go back in history of all the greats, you know. But I think we are getting in a dangerous water where it's... We're almost gonna be watching cartoons again, you know, which are entertaining, but it's not the same as that person to person contact through performance. And I do think theater's important and expressive, you know, and movement forms, you know, dance, you know…

15:29Jawad MirYeah

15:29Elli Griff... Performance art, et cetera, et cetera. I think they're all really important and I think that, I hope and I feel in my gut that maybe beyond my years, people are going to drastically reinvest in the human experience and they're gonna want to sweep aside the over-perfected entertainment for more raw, you know, hard cutting edge reality and reactions, I'm hoping. So that we'll go back into, "I only wanna see stuff with real people made by real people," that it will become an, a cherished art form again.

16:13Jawad MirI agree. And I think... Well, there was a, there was an investor I saw an interview of. He used to invest into the entertainment business and he was shifting from it because... And his whole theory was what's really going to survive this tech evolution is live events. So sports, theater, you know, like the real stuff that cannot be replaced by AI. It's impossible. Unless…

16:40Elli GriffYeah

16:40Jawad Mir... Robot, robots start performing, right? Which may happen down the road, but until then, I think theater might... Theater is pretty big in Euro… in UK and New York, but it might become a pretty big thing throughout, and I think because people are craving for that human to human connection. Like even me, like for example, if I have meetings and if there's somebody local within, you know, an hour drive, I wanna go meet them. It doesn't matter whether it's work-related or not, I wanna go meet them. I don't wanna do Zoom stuff. Like if you and I, if I was in UK or you were in Toronto, this would be happening in person, right? But

17:14Elli GriffYeah. Great. Yeah

17:16Jawad Mir... Right? Because that's…

17:16Elli GriffSo important

17:17Jawad Mir... It's so important, the human... It make, it changes the entire energy. You feel the energy of the person right there, right? You know, it's, it's, it's pivotal. It's pivotal.

17:26Elli GriffLike that and also like, you know, if you go to the opera for example, and you might not be an opera buff, but y… miraculously there you are three quarters of the way through in floods of tears at the, you know, the, just absorption of the frequency of this incredible vocal that another human being is making in front of you and you're receiving, and it's pushing a button that is evoking an uncontrollable reaction. Beautiful, normal reaction. I mean, there's, there's so many interesting things going on today, you know. And at the moment, you know, I've been in the industry so long now, I diversify into my own kooky little approaches like, you know, I'm fascinated now by, you know, working with the DOP and the director but painting with light, painting with the fall off of the shadow. Which I, you know, if you… 20 years ago, I would've just thought, "What a load of," you know, "poppycock."

18:27Elli Griff'Cause that, you know, somebody d… having a bit of an artistic moment here. You know, what are you talking about? But actually, it's beautiful to explore, you know, a different realm and also frequency. Frequency of sound, light, and color, you know? And of course, y… I mean, I obviously, I think I have the best job in the world. I get to play with these ideas. I can either share with people, that's what I'm doing, or I can selfishly keep it to myself and experiment. And when we hit a pocket of absolute bliss, I can explain to somebody how I achieved that and y… y… you know, the, th… this whole, you know, thing that I'm experimenting with now about frequency. And it all comes from light. You can't do anything without light. You know, affects the color, affects the shape, it aff… it affects the, you know, the volume almost, the mass of what you're looking at. You know, albeit a person or a f… you know, a piece of sculpture, a dressed space, an undressed space, a partially dressed space.

19:31Elli GriffYou know, whatever it is. It, I think it's absolutely fascinating. And again, it's, it's in a dreamlike realm. There are so many different stratas around us that most of us are covered in lead and we're not aware of. But you start to, you know, like a mille-feuille, you start to separate them and investigate them, and we're made up of all those stratas. And it is beautiful. And I think, you know, well, that's where I am now. I mean, it sounds a bit kooky. It, and some of them don't visually represent, but th… that feeling, I think, is emotive and it goes into that production. You know, positive energy. If you've got a happy team and they're, they're helping construct an environment, that positive energy goes onto that set to cradle the performance. I, you know, I really believe that.

20:29Jawad MirAnd I agree with you 100%.

20:31Elli GriffAnd then, and... Yeah. It's like a win-win. You get, I get to work in a beautiful, interesting environment with fantastic creative challenges every day. But I'm hoping that we leave a imprint of, you know, joy and expectation. And y… y… I work with a particular team when I'm away, and they are so proud of their profession, and every single one is so, absolutely absorbed by what they do. And the thrill of the achievement at the end of the day of putting together, you know, an impossible environment in impossible circumstances, you know, fiscally, time-wise, schedule-wise, et cetera, et cetera. You know, these men and women walk away tall. You know, I, it's just a, it's an absolute privilege to see and be a part of. If only we could…

21:27Jawad MirYeah

21:27Elli Griff... You know, more of us could do that. But I mean, I am in an exceptionally privileged position when I'm working, and it's all very creative.

21:36Jawad MirIt is. And, you know, speaking of being creative and being privileged to work in the position that you worked on, you have worked on amazing films over your career, right?

21:49Elli GriffYeah

21:49Jawad Mir... And please correct me if I'm wrong, because IMDb sometimes is not accurate. You know, you worked on Ghost in the Shell, you've ta… worked on Napoleon, you've worked on Gladiator II, and so many other films. And I had the pleasure of having, I'm sure you know Sonja Klaus. She's in the UK too. She's a set decorator. She worked on, first Gladiator film with Ridley, and, I had her, she talked about…

22:16Elli GriffSo did I, yes. I did the North Africa end.

22:17Jawad MirOh, you did too? Okay. Okay. So you were on it too. You know, working, work…

22:22Elli GriffThere were... Yeah.

22:24Jawad MirPlease go on.

22:26Elli GriffSorry, there were four, there were four decorators on Gladiator 1. There's an HOD, decorator, Christian Salis. Sonja was his assistant, and then… ... I had, North Africa, and, I think Jilly Aziz had the UK.

22:42Jawad MirYeah.

22:42Elli GriffSo there, you know, there was a lot of us on it.

22:45Jawad MirYeah, I think, I think Sonja was just starting at the time. It was like one of her…

22:48Elli GriffYes, that's right. Yes

22:49Jawad Mir... Her early films. But, you know, working on Gladiator II, and you worked on Gladiator, and then working on Napoleon, how challenging was it for you, especially on Gladiator II, to honor the original Gladiator?

23:07Elli GriffWell, I mean, I think partially that's why I got asked to return. Because I did the first one and it went so smoothly. And y… you know, I mean, actually going back, it was like the return of the princess. I w… you know, I, it... All those people I'd worked with, you know, 24 years previously, I think it was, something like that. You know, they all remembered us from the first one and, you know, we more or less had the same crew back. It was, it was absolutely wonderful. I mean, I love Morocco anyway. But, I mean, all of them have their challenges. A… again, Gladiator 1 was probably about my fifth film set decorating, so, you know, I was entering an arena of, professionals, the like of which I had never worked with before, and consequently cut my teeth with them. I went on to do Black Hawk Down, and then we started another film, Tripoli, that unfortunately didn't take off. And then I went to work with Tony Scott for a bit.

24:13Elli GriffSo, you know, and these, th… th… this little, g… group of, filmmakers, you know, they work in a particular way and they're very fast. So they're all artists. They've a… all designed, you know, from, you know, the directors that have been designers themselves. So, you know, and they expect you to, You know, pitch up knowing your craft, no fuss, no complaints, and get on with it, have options, and support them morning, noon, and night until they fly off to their next, you know, destination. And, you literally, you know, live, sleep, eat your profession. It's... You know, for me it works. You know, for some people they fall at the first hurdle 'cause, you know, it is very intense. But, yeah, it's wonderful. You enter a world that you have the option to, you know, again, method for me, be that person, you know, and impress how you think they lived, you know, and present that to the director as his, y… you know, a finished set.

25:29Elli GriffThey rarely have time. They walk around the set the night before, and might make a few changes very rarely, and they turn up in the morning and they shoot it, and they go at very high speed and shoot the next one, and the next one, and the next one. And on and on it goes. But there's never any question that you're not gonna come up with the goods or that there's gonna be a problem. From the minute you're hired, you're trusted to get on with it without any, or very little input. It's about trust. They trust that they've hired the right person to stand shoulder to shoulder with them.

26:04Jawad MirRight.

26:05Elli GriffYou know?

26:05Jawad MirNo, that's, that's great. With Gladiator II, what was the most challenging or series of challenging scenes that you had and your team had challenge in terms of decorating? You know, if you wanna…

26:19Elli GriffOh

26:19Jawad Mir... You can talk about one. We… I'm sure they were all like that, but if that's a, there's a specific one that stands out with a great story behind it, that'd be lovely to hear from me and from my audience.

26:29Elli GriffWell, I mean, the, our first challenge was, you know, where is it being, you know, what country are we proposing to recreate? Where are we, you know? And, so we ended up in N… Numidia, but we were on the Egyptian delta at one point and, you know, time is running out and I'd done my buying. I'd been to India and we'd imported some stuff and we'd made stuff, you know. I have a manufacturing team always with me. And then it, you know, it moved from its original story location to, you know, various other, North African tribes. But fortunately we ended up on Numidia. But having, you know, bought for certain, architectural, a… a… and, vernacular motifs, all over the world, then you find, oh, we're not, we're not in this particular location anymore.

27:33Elli GriffWell, now it's gonna be Numidia, which of course a different set of, you know, trigger shapes and emblems that are completely different from what you've spent the money on y… three months previously, but you can't stop. So you, so we were, which is, you know, I absolutely thrive on this, continuously cutting and shutting what we'd bought to mimic the new location that we were trying to create. So, for example, at one point I was looking at a lot of, helixes and spiraled ornament, and then we ended up in Numidia where that wasn't the case, you know, if we were being historically correct. And history is a... It… it's such an enormous pull on any of the projects that I do, and an awful lot of research goes into it from myself and my department. And we unearth the most an… incredible jewels, you know, that we use in the, in the movies. And, but you know, we were constantly having to rework and change every time, you know.

28:38Elli Griff"Oh, no, now we're gonna be on the Egyptian delta. Oh, my God. Well, what..." You know, "What does that look like?" We'd all go off and research it and, you know, "Well, those legs have to go," or, "No, well, that has to return. Now it's a desert sled. Now it's a..." You know, you're g… trying to keep ahead, not, you know, not have a further fiscal drag on something that's already been spent and, you know. And so it's a bit like,.. I g… I can't remember what it's called. There's like a robot challenge, you know, where these people make these, make these robots to destroy each other. It's a television…

29:15Elli Griff... Program. It's a bit like that, where you're, you know, you have find something beautiful and then to make it work for what you've now been told the theme is, and there's only two weeks to go before you shoot. You have to get a chainsaw out and saw this beautiful antique in half and start, you know, sticking bits of ornament on that although it looks incredible and beautiful and nobody would ever know, it just makes your heart bleed 'cause the original thing you m… you found was perfect for the pitch that you'd been given. You know, and I think th… certainly that's how filmmaking has changed in my career when once upon a time there was one, at most two producers, and you were handed a script and that's what was shot. It was what was written on that page, and now quite often you turn up and there are no pages.

30:08Jawad MirYeah.

30:08Elli GriffYou know?

30:09Jawad MirYeah.

30:10Elli GriffSo that's, that's what Gladiator II was like to an extent, is that you still have to troubleshoot and produce a set. Your designer's in a different country, so he's not there a lot of the time to be with you, but you're hired to make sure that nobody hits the deck in a bad way, and that you've got everything covered. So you have to use your skill, your understanding of how th… this particular team works… and what their expectations are. And you have to make sure that when they arrive two days before the shoot date, that they are gonna come and do a recce of the sets that you've put together for them with the art department and construction from different countries. And they are gonna be so thrilled with them, they don't change a thing, and they shoot it. And luckily for me, particularly on Ridley's projects, it… that's been the case. You know, they've just walked in, shot it, and moved on to the next one. So I've been very lucky.

31:11Elli GriffBut there have been jobs that I've been on where it… it's not a Ridley Scott production, and it doesn't work like that, and people do want things changed, and you are working overnight, all day and all night, and all the next morning before they get there to amend stuff. But, you know, with his particular team, it's such an enormous machine that I think they know who they're hiring in the first place, that they can trust them. So yeah, it's like a big family really. And that's how…

31:44Jawad MirYeah

31:44Elli Griff... Gladiator 1 was, and that's how Gladiator 2 was. I know I was there. Arthur's mantra to his team about me as his decorator, and bear in mind he has many decorators, is, "Leave her alone. Don't interfere with her. Just let her do her thing." And, I'm sure his approach with another decorator might… may be different, but that's what he says, you know, to his art directors, "Don't interfere. Don't, don't, dictate to her. She knows what she... Just leave her, and she will produce the goods." Which, y… you know, it's very flattering.

32:23Jawad MirYeah. Well, when you put faith in somebody, they are, even if they had no intention of working that hard, for argument's sake, then they see that, like, "Okay, now I've got to work even 10 times harder," right? Because they put their faith and belief in me. You talked about Ridley Scott. You know, you worked with him over the years, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Napoleon, Gladiator 2, and s… what is one lesson that you have learned from him over the years? You know, whether it's…

32:50Elli GriffWell…

32:50Jawad Mir... Outside of the industry or within the industry.

32:55Elli GriffWell, funnily enough, I was chatting to somebody about this today and it, and it's what we briefly touched on. So when we were doing Napoleon, it was just hi… he and I alone in a room with a kind of regency dressing table, and he was just enthralled by the shape of it. And, you know, obviously we dressed the entire room. You know, it was period, it was supposed to be state rooms, et cetera, et cetera. And he just cleared back most of the dressing, and it was a night scene. But it, but again, it was this, it was this trigger for me, and this is now, what is this? It's got to be four, five years ago. You know, about the form of the piece, but what the light does to it. And, you know, and then I have a friend, you know, who's i… in the lighting department. Y… you know, d… he's not a DOP, but we have, constantly have conversations about the frequency of light.

33:57Elli GriffAnd so it was Ridley that was talking to me about how the light falls off an object. But that spiked the, my interest into, wow, you know, this is a, this is an element that I've not played with. I've played with everything else a million times, you know, an object. And I know that it gets lit, and we dress to the lighting, you know? Sometimes, we, once upon a time, we used to dress a set, and then they would light it. More often than not nowadays, because they're on a schedule, they'll come and light the set before you've dressed it and tweak it once the stuff's in. So it's all a little bit y… you know, arse about face, as they say. So, you know, but it really opened my mind to the, there's so much mileage in that, and there's so much, insinuation and intention with less. You know, I've not been a very, you know, minimalist decorator.

34:58Elli GriffI tend to overegg it and then pull it out a… as I r… re-tread the story, you know? And, so that we've always got, you've, so with s… with that particular team, there's always got to be options, at least three to six options on things. So, and, yeah, I mean, that was a, well, it was an amazing s… sideways conversation that I wasn't expecting, but it's taken my a… approach in a completely different direction, which works, you know? And is really rewarding.

35:35Jawad MirThat's amazing.

35:36Elli GriffIt's an art form. You know, people do believe that set dec… or set decoration is for people that aren't drafts people, that don't have a, you know, a mathematic bent. You know, "Oh, I can't draw, so I'll go into set dec 'cause that's cushions and curtains." But firstly, I won't employ anybody that can't draw. You need to be able to draw, you need to be able to read a drawing and, you know, be able to translate it, because it's gonna cost you money if you can't. And secondly, it's an important skill to have. So, i… i… set decoration is a heavy discipline I think. But, I mean, there are different decorators and different ways of doing it. Some people will hire, you know, with that, for speed and hire staff, and purchase stuff, and put it in. And then there's people like me that prefer not to do that and make and manufacture.

36:30Jawad MirRight. Well, it…

36:32Elli GriffSo, and that's the thing about Gladiator. It was all made and manufactured or, you know, cut and shut from a host piece

36:41Jawad MirRight. And you talked about Napoleon, right? So Napoleon is… So I was pleasantly surprised by Napoleon as a film, 'cause I didn't realize it was a more drama than anything else, which was fine. Like it worked for me, right? One of the things I noticed in Napoleon, like you have all these intimate rooms, you know, where the drama happens, and then they… you have these enormous set pieces, right? Two different worlds.

37:10Jawad MirHow do you make sure, as a set decorator, the story stays at the same level by not, you know, with not letting the spaces, whether they're intimate or enormous, affect it? Like the synergy of the story remains the same despite what the set piece is.

37:30Elli GriffYou know, again, I think it's like key… it's totally keying in to the history and the momentum and the energy. I mean, you know, when I'm dressing Napoleon, I've got to admit, I am Napoleon. You know, the boys go to lunch, I get into his bed, you know, and roll around and kick my slippers off and put, you know, you know, I, you know, wait until the boys all go trotting off for, you know, their lunch hour, and I method become that character. What would he do? What... If I'm sitting at this desk, what would I be doing? What would be, what... You know, these, you know, back in those times, these people, they all had attendants and scribes and, you know, they, it wasn't a photocopy or a send button. You know, the people did all these things. Everybody was surrounded by people and chatter.

38:31Elli GriffI mean, it's, it's the same as,.. So if you, if you put that in the interior and then you go to an exterior, certainly any exterior, it's full of people. It's, it... Again, frequency. It's full of people and chatter. People, you know, it's about survival. And I think that's the theme that runs all the way through Napoleon is this, is this fight for survival on all levels. And, you know, in, back in history, if you walked into any forest or coppice, there was the sound of the working man cutting, chopping, bodging, you know, burning, working in teams, working with horses, and I think that's what you get with Napoleon, is the intensity of the private scenes in various state rooms, and the opulence and the encrustation and the magnitude of the politic is also carried outside in different, you know, social layers and scales.

39:38Elli GriffYou know, the battle scenes with the soldiers, the ones that, you know, get maimed, the horses under the ice. You know, all that. It, brutal, but this quest for survival and some sort of rebirth. And I think, I think it was a constant theme, you know, that you had to join the military perhaps to survive. You know, these were the people that fed you. Did they pay you a wage? Not really. You, it was like the feudal system. You know, you worked for a landowner, a noble, and your payment was lodging and, warmth and food, you know? And I think, I think that's a prevalent thread through all of it. I mean, he was, he was searching for survival…

40:38Jawad MirYeah

40:38Elli Griff... And a dream, you know? As intermit… As, loose as it was, but it goes all the way through the interiors and the exteriors. There's this chatter of, you know, people trying to exist, you know? And, the world has changed, but, you know, there was a lot of noise, as I say.

41:00Jawad MirYeah.

41:00Elli GriffIt was the noise of l… life, survival. For nothing, for no reward. You know? So…

41:08Jawad MirI find inter… interesting, you ta… you talked about... You know, in the beginning of our conversation, you talked about that, how you consider yourself as a filmmaker, right?

41:17Elli GriffYeah.

41:17Jawad MirNot a set decorator. And then I think that kind of got, for the lack of better word, authenticated when you ta… when you just told me that, you know, when the boys leave, you are in the bed trying to be Napoleon, right? Trying to be that character, so how he would behave. And I'm sure in other movies too you've done this. And I think that is, that is…

41:39Elli GriffWell, it's my way. It's a bit nutty, I know, but it is, it is my way.

41:42Jawad MirNo. I don't think it is. I think that's phenomenal because normally it's the char… the actor who has to be in the character, right? The crew sometimes, yes, but I think that is a really cool thing that you do because it comes off in the work then. It automatically translate, you know, through your brain, through your movements and everything. It translates into the work that you're doing for that particular thing. I just wanted to mention that was, that is really cool. I think that's really cool.

42:13Elli GriffWell, you know what I think? It is a really basic thing, but I… If the set doesn't convince me, I, walking away from something where, that you've been pulled off before your time because they've either brought the schedule up front and suddenly, you know, something you were gonna do in three weeks is now today. You know, and believe me, that happens sometimes. And so you don't complete all those little details and dreams that you had for that particular set. You're just putting in a broad stroke and hoping That you could, y… you know, nudge in front of camera some of the details, but you're not there. You've already moved on to another location…

42:51Jawad MirYeah

42:51Elli Griff... Miles away. You do leave it in the hands of somebody else, which is difficult. But if it, if a set doesn't convince me, then it's heartbreaking because, I, you know, I... Well, obviously I feel like I've, I haven't achieved. But if it does convince me, then happily I will walk away, and happily I can defend it if it needs defending. And very rarely have I had to defend a set, but, you know, I'm happy to walk away after I've presented and know that it stands up for itself, you know? And i… and listen, our sets, honestly, they are simply there to support the performance, you know?

43:34Jawad MirYeah.

43:35Elli GriffAnd I think w… if you understand that, then it becomes a game. It becomes this amazing game that they, you know, the artist can't complete until you've completed.

43:47Jawad MirAnd locations matter, right? Whether they're a giant set piece or a real location. I mean, I have been in the documentary space for the last, two decades. Sorry, a decade and a half. And now I'm in th… getting into narrative space and, you know, you have this script that sets in two different countries in two different time periods, and I go to these locations for location scouting with my DP in Poland and Jordan, and we figured out where we're gonna shoot, and all these fascinating ideas start coming, right? Like, that you don't even write in the script, that you don't even imagine in the script. And a scene s… gets added because the space inspired you, the location inspired you. And that's what's so... And I think going back to what you were talking about, the Ben Affleck company, like, you're not gonna get that, right? You're not gonna get that opportunity to be able to come up with fascinating ideas while you're on location as opposed to just writing or, you know, working on…

44:52Elli GriffYeah. Well…

44:53Jawad MirAgainst a…

44:53Elli Griff... I have two thoughts about that. I mean, first I wanna say about, this isn't about, you know, besmirching Ben Affleck, God love him. Probably that little, y… you know, clip that was put out is edited in a way that didn't make him look very, supportive…

45:09Jawad MirI know

45:10Elli Griff... Of our industry.

45:11Jawad MirYeah.

45:11Elli GriffBut so for example, I had to go and do a feasibility study in UAE a few years ago. I'd never been there. And, we went to this, heritage, site of a town, I think it was. It was very run down, adobe, in the desert. You know, everything is low and hunkered down against the sandstorms, you know? In… incredible light. I'd never seen light like it. We walked past all these rotten, old, dried up palm trees, but they still had leaves on, and, something I'd never seen before, and I took right back to the director instantly. I said, "L… have a look at this. I've never seen this. It is so beautiful if you could get this in the film." In these palm trees, they had carved a hole and a hollow, and they were full of white doves. So as you walk past these trees, this stream, like a stream of bubbles, comes out of the, o… out of these trees, you know?

46:19Elli GriffLike, what is happening? This tree must be completely hollow. It is,.. These doves are roosting inside the trunk of this palm tree, of multiple palm trees, as part... You know, this is part of somebody's civilization. It, you know, we're in something that looks biblical. It probably is biblical. This has been going on for millennia, you know? And y… I've traveled the world wide… widely with my profession from a very l… young age, and there's so much to learn from, you know... And I haven't even started the conversation about the sisterhood yet, which is a, you know, it's almost a world secret, but it's fascinating. I traveled for many years with a small baby, so just me and her. And so of course we were supported by the sisterhood. But I'm digressing. But, you know, there was this stream of birds coming out of these trees, and I just thought, "I've never seen this." And I, and I consider that I'm fairly well-grounded in different cultures, you know?

47:22Elli GriffSo I took it back to him, and it was magical. And y… his intention was, like, the film didn't get made, was to include this i… in one of the opening, you know, scenes, because it was just such a nugget of information and culture that the rest of the world had no idea exists or why it exists, you know? I mean…

47:44Jawad MirYeah

47:45Elli Griff... I think when you and the DP recce, that's one thing. But when you bring in your creative…

47:53Jawad MirYes

47:53Elli Griff... You know, all they can do is share with you what they get really excited about and put it on a, on a platform in front of you, and you can either choose some of it or discard it. But the fact that they're able to share their vision with you to help your vision, I think is... I mean, it's a beautiful thing.

48:18Jawad MirIt is. It is. And it makes a huge lot of difference. When you talked about traveling the world, you know, you've probably traveled definitely way more than I have, and I've traveled quite a bit, you know, 40-plus countries. But the things that you learn from other places, you know, just walking down the street. You're talking about lights. You're talking about night sky. You know, you're talking about, you know, especially if you go to, like, Middle East or Africa and, you know, even India, like those places, there's just something… Either w… our eyes are not used to it because we're so used to the world that we live in and we kinda take those things for granted sometimes. But there's just so much variety and so much diversity, not just in the people, not just in the buildings, but in the way things are set up, you know, over thousands of years or hundreds of years. And I think it's very fasc…... And it inspires you, and not just for…

49:13Elli GriffOh

49:13Jawad Mir... The film, but even for yourself as a human being. You're, y… I think people who... The only difference between people who are very ignorant versus not are the ones who have traveled versus not. Because when you travel the world, you learn so much about so many things, and your assumptions go down the drain that you have learned from media and, you know, growing up and reading and all that stuff. So it's a very f… it's a really cool thing to do, you know, especially when you get paid for something that you love and then you're traveling.

49:41Elli GriffWow.

49:41Jawad MirWhat's your…

49:42Elli GriffI mean, you know, and some things, you know, are so unexpected they could just bring you to your knees with joy. W… I went to India recent… well, I, on Gladiator. I'd never been before. I'd always sent people in my stead because too busy, too busy schedule, gotta stay here with my nose on the paperwork, you know? And, but anyway, this time I managed to go. And, again, you had to pinch yourself. It's like G… Gabriel Garcia Marquez with the magic reality. You kind of like, "I know this is real because I'm looking at it and I'm touching it, but is this real? This is so incredible." You know? D… so, I mean, we all know what magic reality is, don't we? I mean, you know, the man gets on the bus in Bogota. There's a terrible bestial smell. He gets off the bus, and they realize that the s… the bottom half of him is cloven feet and, you know, and... But h… it's so seamlessly mitred with what's happening that evening that it's, it belongs.

50:44Elli GriffSo d… you know, that's his whole assumption of magic reality. So we went to India, and the first hotel we stayed at, we drove up, and in the canopy of these acacia trees, hundreds and hundreds of trees, were these neon plush teddy bears, two meters tall, one meter 50, a meter, you know, coral ears, yellow faces, orange tummies, pink legs and arms, you know? But hundreds of them. Nobody around, just these teddy bears, you know, in this modern fabric, d… almost eye-wateringly bright and joyously neon colors of the dusty green leaves above. You just like, "What? How?" You know, so unexpected. You know, I've been told, "Oh, expect to find a, you know, a man walking w… w… with, you know, a herd of cows absolutely covered in blue pigment.

51:50Elli GriffIt might be a saint's day, Ellie. You'll just be so delighted by what you see." But I didn't see that. What... I didn't see a human being at all. What I saw was a result of, you know, chemical manufacturing hanging from a living thing, but it just looked so cool. I mean, it was, it... And I got to witness it. And I… it wasn't just one. It was hundreds of these things. And then we went in. We dropped our stuff in, i… into our various lodges, had dinner, I got up in the morning, nothing there. All these neon bears had disappeared as if…

52:30Jawad MirWow

52:30Elli Griff... It had never happened. I mean, it's just…... I'm s… so lucky to have experienced that. I mean, y… stuff ha… like that happens w… when you're t… when I'm working, when I'm traveling, 'cause we're always the advance party all the time. I mean, I have so many stories obviously, but another one I remember is, I had a very small child, and so I hired... I always h… used to hire my childcare and nannies locally because they know the local infrastructure, and you get to experience a part of that country that nobody else on the unit does because you're involved in schooling, you're involved in feeding, it, and you get involved in their families, you know, and how that country actually really runs from a, again, from a domestic survival level. H… who they pay their bills to, what, you know, what bills to pay, how to avoid this, how to achieve that. Anyway, this marvelous nanny took me to a hammam. Now, we've all been to hammams, the hotel ones with the, you know, marble slab.

53:33Elli GriffThe lady comes in. She scrubs you down. It's g… they're great, amazing. We don't have them here like that. They're amazing. They transport you onto a different level. She took me into this really ugly tiled building. We went in. It was all horrible modern sharp tiles. We started to go down some tiled steps that turned into earth, trodden earth steps, and then we're underground, and it's all hewn out of the rock and the earth. The first chamber was young girls washing the elderly. I mean, it's all women. This is part of the sisterhood thing, you know?

54:09Jawad MirYeah.

54:10Elli GriffSo young girls washing the elderly. There were four wells, one in each corner. And the, and then same thing. You go into the steam room. Anybody elderly is accompanied and assisted. I mean, it was a beautiful thing to witness. And they'd booked me a massage, and I kid you not, on four, like... Well, I mean, I guess they were rock. They kinda looked adobe but, like sand piled up, but I guess it was like a red basalt-y rock with a fire underneath and a marble slab on these four legs, u… you know, and oiled like y… like I was going on the grill. And I had to lie on this thing with this fire underneath. It burnt me. I mean, I mean, it burnt me seriously. I mean, it, you know, it really was very warm. And I had this massage, and I kid you not… Again, this has been preserved, and not in the way that we preserve things, just out of necessity for communication, for care, for, y… you know, inspection of others' levels of ability and health.

55:21Elli GriffYou know, this is a community. The sisterhood drives the community. You know, it... And the fact that it was underground is a, is a, was a great metaphor because they're, you know, they're ki… they kind of exist underground, you know, even when they're above ground. You know, they're, they're pushed to the side, and they handle affairs in their own way. But they are the power behind everything. And they're… these women were all checking on each other, very pleasant, lots of laughter, lots of care, tears, hugging, cradling, you know. And I thought, "God, this has been going on, again, for millennia," and there's a reason why. And I'd love to be instrumental in the future to trying to bring that back to us, because we're losing it. We're, we're losing the connection that is all-important.

56:12Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, no, that…

56:14Elli GriffThis is not how I thought the podcast was gonna...

56:16Jawad MirNo. This i… this is, this is awesome. That's what I, that's what I enjoy is, like, you know, things kinda go in a segue direction, which is fine. I'm almost happy about that. Don't worry about it. And, no, this is a fascinating story, and I mean, as you're, as you're telling me this, you're a very visual person. As you're telling me this and I'm just, you know, sort of seeing all these images…

56:39Jawad Mir... And in my head it's like, "Boy, wouldn't that be a great documentary on that entire experience…"

56:46Elli GriffOh

56:46Jawad Mir... Right?

56:48Elli GriffYeah. I mean, I couldn't even tell you... I mean, I almost feel like I was blindfolded and taken there. I couldn't even tell you where it was. It, you know... And I've tried to track the nanny down since. Again, this weird… It's as if I never met her. She was never in our lives. She's completely disappeared off the face of the Earth. And she was an absolute sweetheart, a real favorite, you know. I, quite sad. I fear something not very nice has happened to her. But, yeah, I mean, I've had the most privileged, existence in the film industry. You know, not easy. I don't think it is easy for women, to be honest, when you have to behave in a certain way. And, you know, any woman that's survived and achieved, I, you, I can guarantee they've taken a few hits, you know? And certainly in England. I was chatting to a lovely designer recently, and I said… She was coming to England to work, and I said, "You do realize, don't you, that the, that the industry in England is, you know, it's Masonic?"

57:51Elli Griff"Oh, no, I didn't realize that." I said, "Well, it is. And so un… and knowing that, a lot of things will make sense to you." You know, that sometimes you'll be chatting and it will just seem to fall on deaf ears, you know? And it's not very prevalent today. Even people that work in our industry don't know that. I teach a bit at Pinewood, and it's one of the first things I ask: "Who here knows the history of the industry?" You know, and it's about the protection of the trades, you know? And…

58:22Elli Griff... And I've had to withstand people saying, you know, in my working lifetime to me, to my face, people that are working for me saying to me, "The worst thing that ever happened to the industry is women." You know?

58:34Jawad MirWow.

58:35Elli GriffYou can't imagine it, can you?

58:37Jawad MirThat's crazy.

58:38Elli GriffBut yeah. Well, you know, everything has a history, and, you know, sometimes to win you have to join the opposite side and fight from within.

58:49Jawad MirYeah. No, I agree. I agree. I think, I think things have improved, but they definitely need more improvement. And, you know, it's not... We can talk about, you know, men and women for sure, but I also think one of the things that I've experienced, right, like this is something, if you don't present yourself, sadly we live in this world, as you know everything, not that you should, as you... You know, the self-belief, right? That self-belief.

59:21Elli GriffYeah.

59:22Jawad MirIf that doesn't come across in your conversation, see you later, right? That is... And even if you don't know how to do something, sometimes you have to say that you do, you know what you're talking about. Which is, which is…

59:34Elli GriffWell…

59:34Jawad Mir... Which sucks. Which sucks. But it is what it is.

59:39Elli GriffTell me about it. I've been teaching. I, you know, I... It is ama… These youngsters, wow. I mean, wow. They... I wish I... I mean, you're born with confidence, aren't you? I mean, I wish I had the confidence that some of them have with absolutely no information whatsoever. But they, you know, that we're now dealing with generations of, you know, late teens who will trample over you for your job, your position, and your pay rate, and get it, because people believe the spin, you know?

1:00:15Jawad MirYeah.

1:00:15Elli GriffAnd it's only us old sages that realize that they're talking utter rubbish. And, you know, why is the industry not reinvesting in the people that really know what they're doing and have done their time? Because, you know... And again, anno domini. You know, they're not gonna employ a 62-year-old over a 32-year-old that's given a whole load of spin. But you know, equally, you can't know at 32 what you know at 62.

1:00:44Jawad MirI agree.

1:00:45Elli GriffYou can't. You know…

1:00:47Jawad MirAnd I think, and I... Sorry, go on, please.

1:00:52Elli GriffWell, you know, but also, you know, the older ones of us are now learning. Whereas, you know, when I started, it, the, there was supposed to be no difference between men and women, and if you were a woman running a department you were supposed to fight your corner as hard as any man. Always being told, "Toughen up. Toug… you must toughen up. You must toughen up. You gotta be tougher." So you… so I became tougher. Then the world changed. Had a little t… detour, "You're too tough," you know? You're now we're in you can't raise your voice, you can't fire anybody, you can't remove anybody. You can, employ additional staff, but you can't make anybody feel uncomfortable. You can't make them feel... You know, it's y… your team has more power than you have, you know, in terms of control. Which I think is slightly ridiculous, but then, you know, I am old school. And now we're employing enormous crews.

1:01:54Elli GriffWell, I like to keep it me, maybe two assistants maximum, you know, and that's it. I do… I... You know, I don't see why you need 14 assistants. I don't see why the job has become middle management where I'm expected to delegate to children that have never dressed a set before. And you've got 14 of them, and they're dressing, you know, 14 different sets, and none of them have,.. They don't know anything about history. They don't know anything about, you know, ca… character, breakdowns or anything like that. They've never done it. They've never been shown it or taught it, absorbed it, nothing. And they're now presenting environments for artists to do their best, you know, work, not understanding that, again, I think it's an energy that you hand over, that they're safe in that environment or they're threatened in that environment. Whatever that actor needs for that moment, that's what you're trying to present. It's not just a case of writing a list and checking things off.

1:02:58Elli GriffIt's so much more than that. So much more organic, you know? And that's, yeah, it's, it… it's quite sad. And I'm actually a little bit scared of these kids. They frighten me because they all wanna be directors or DOPs, and they refer to the other tra… you know, other, fringe departments, you know, costume, design, you know, whatever it is, as being lesser or under them, not as…

1:03:31Jawad MirOh, God

1:03:31Elli Griff... A part of them. And I, it, I find that really, well, just saddens my heart. You know?

1:03:39Jawad MirWell, film is a collaborative medium. I mean, everybody's equal.

1:03:42Elli GriffIt's a collaborative m…... And, you know, equally, like on a film, inviting everybody to sit at table with you, either at lunchtime or in the evening at least once a week is so important. Nobody should be excluded because it's in the storytelling around the table that you might find a gem that can float, you know, a, an issue, a proportion of your film. It just might trigger something so profound and beautiful, and it's in storytelling, which is so important. I mean, again, it's been going on for millennia.

1:04:22Jawad MirI agree. I agree, and I think, I think one of the key things for me has been, you know, you talked about learning and experience, right? There's no end age. There's no age for learning or not learning. I'll, I'll give you an example. Like, I started this podcast three years ago, I think, and 300-plus episodes, and the amount of knowledge that I have gained talking to DPs, set decorators…

1:04:49Elli GriffWow

1:04:50Jawad Mir... Production designers, you know, costume designers, editors, directors, producers, I probably haven't learned that much throughout my life, and that says something because not that I haven't learned anything throughout my life, but just the genius brains of people who have worked on these amazing films like yourself, like, you know, Don Burgess, who's worked on, with Robert Zemeckis as a DP for the last 30 years, and even sitting down having lunch with them and just picking their brain. It's... And I love doing this, but I've learned so much, and I've been applying that to my work, and that's what it is. It's like constant learning and killing your ego. And I think when you're young, you know, we all have egos, but as you get a little bit older, you need to get rid of it, especially when you come on a…

1:05:38Elli GriffYeah, I agree

1:05:39Jawad Mir... Production.

1:05:39Elli GriffI totally agree. I totally agree. I mean, you know, apa… apart from being strapped, you know, three years out of work, which is, I still can't believe, you know, gosh, I've worked consistently for 42 years, and now here we are, you know, n… nothing. I mean, I've been being offered stuff, but nothing's, nothing's financed. Nothing actually, "Yes, we still want you to do it," but, you know, s… you know, then you get involved in the Iran war, and then, you know, the whole world is bleeding. A… and sadly, I think it's gonna hit the rest of, the rest of us out there. You know, it's, it's gonna catch up with everybody in a minute and have a bit of a shakeup. But, yeah, I'm at a lovely place now where I'm actually happy with... I have a beautiful daughter. She's out there spreading her wings, trying to find her way with all the pitfalls that come with that, but they're supposed to be pitfalls.

1:06:41Elli GriffYou know…

1:06:41Jawad MirOf course

1:06:41Elli Griff... So that's another learning experience for me. And, y… you know, and I'm now at the point where I have to accept that I am not gonna go from job to job, A, because of the state of the industry, and B, because the stuff that I'm known for, people, everyone think, "Oh no, she wouldn't be int… oh, d… she's gonna be too expensive," or, you know, whatever the situation is. And, y… you know, so I have to accept that. I'm g… sadly, potentially towards the… Down slope on my career. It doesn't mean to say I have to give it up or give up the joy that it brought me, you know? But I have to be realistic about it. It's time to, for the old guard to move over and let the new, the new way in, whatever that's gonna be. I try to keep up to date with it. I'd like to be involved with it, but I understand if I'm not, and that's the way it should be. And that's… we all at some point have to accept that, you know?

1:07:41Elli GriffAnd not, I'm not just talking about the film industry. In many walks of our lives… ... You know, and relationships is, okay, it's time to move aside, move on, go for a change, because I can't go backwards. We… none of us can live in the past. We have to be fresh and keep going forward, and keep assisting, just like the women, the girls with the women, keep assisting and checking ourselves, and do what's right for yourself and the people that you care about that are around you. And that can be your work team and as well as your family. So, you know, I'm delighted when calls come in to do things, contribute, be involved with a production. You know, I… at the moment, because there hasn't been any work, I've got things like, theme parks coming in. It's a really good use of my skills, you know. There's a small film in North Carolina. There's an indie in LA. There's a, the martial arts franchise.

1:08:47Elli GriffThere's an architectural, project, a music academy in Los Angeles. They've all asked for my aesthetic contribution. I am so flattered. But the world is in a mess, and none of these things have got off the ground. You know, it's very tell… it's not just films. Y… you know, another thing that I like when I crew up is to just check that the people I'm employing do poke a toe in… into current affairs and are aware of world politics as opposed to, you know, just domestic politics, because it affects us, and it affects our work on a daily basis, you know?

1:09:31Jawad MirYeah.

1:09:31Elli GriffIt's... Yeah.

1:09:32Jawad MirNo, I agree. And I think, you know, the financing part is the part which we talked about in the beginning of the conversation. It is the most challenging part. I was just talking to, a, an animator. He is… he's got his own studio in Spain, and he's worked over the years with DreamWorks and Disney and Tim Burton, and Carlos is his name. And he was telling… And he's very well-established, and he was telling me that how there are producers, really well-established producers, who are not getting pitch meetings with executives, right? And they're just…

1:10:09Elli GriffYeah

1:10:09Jawad Mir... Kinda just stalled, right? Doing their… Even for myself, I mean, I'm, I'm not making big budget films. Like, even for the ones, the two projects that I'm trying to get off the ground, it's, it's challenging to get people to come on board. And, you know, I've been sort of self-producing it myself in a sense that trying to find investors or donors or whatnot, but it's hard. It's, it's really hard, and it is what it is. But the only option is keep going, at least for me, right? I can't, I can't pack my bags and... Right? And, it is what it is, but you gotta keep the battle going. And I think, I think it's important to keep telling stories because I truly believe, and I know this is a cliché thing, the world that it is right now, maybe it's always been like that, but we a… we know it because of social media and news and information, the internet, needs stories, needs emp… needs empathy, more than ever before. At least that's how I view it.

1:11:07Elli GriffNo, I totally agree, and that's, and that's the smoothing over that is AI, you know? I mean, even when you get onto a chatbot or you're ringing some sort of, you know, assistance, and you get the AI on the end of the phone, if you don't answer in the expected manner, you just find yourself going round and round in circles.

1:11:34Jawad MirYeah.

1:11:34Elli GriffThat empathy, that ability to listen and act on the information given has actually been rubbed out completely because now it's all automated, and if you don't conform with a certain set of responses, it won't conform with the answer that you need to move forward. And if your MO is to move forward in a particular way that doesn't conform, you're blocked off at every turn, and you find yourself going back to the switchboard on repeat and just having the same conversation. So in the end, you give up.

1:12:11Jawad MirYeah.

1:12:12Elli GriffAnd…

1:12:12Jawad MirIt's, it's interesting you mention that. So 25 years ago, I used to work in a call center, right?

1:12:20Elli GriffOh.

1:12:20Jawad MirLike taking calls for, like, you know, if the TV's not… the cable is out or the internet is not working, like tech support. And they used to tell us, the manager, my supervisor would tell us, like, "You have to follow this script." I'm like, "Dude, I'm not following a script. I don't… I can't… Like, I can't do it." Like, I lasted there for two years, and that was it. Like, then I got into film career. And then I remember I used to call Apple for support. They used to be…

1:12:45Elli GriffYeah

1:12:46Jawad Mir... Very helpful. But even before AI, just before AI, or even now if you call and you get a human being, you can tell. Like call Amazon or have Amazon call you. They have a script in front of you. You can tell. Now, if they're reading a script, they're pretty much enabling AI to take over your job because they're doing it themselves. Like, you know, what's… Like, just speak normally. Like, just talk like a human being. If you're following a script… Who care? Nobody cares. Like, I get turned off. Forget AI, I get turned off when somebody I know is reading a script. It really bothers me.

1:13:20Jawad Mir'Cause you're supposed to have that connection. I think we're doing that to ourselves more than anything else, and we've been doing it for the last 25 years. Now it just kind of becomes in the more s… you know, technological AI way.

1:13:33Elli GriffYeah. I mean, I just feel, you know, there's so much chat. There's so much middle management, bodies on seats chatting absolute rubbish…... On repeat.

1:13:47Jawad MirWell I…

1:13:48Elli GriffYou know what I mean? I mean, I just... You know what, I mean, my big question is why? Why? W… why? I mean, what is it all about? It's not even a job. It's, it's, it's va… the vaporous sort of words that just disappear into the ether. Why do we have to have all these intense…

1:14:12Jawad MirWell…

1:14:12Elli Griff... Conversations about nothing?

1:14:15Jawad MirWell, it's about making money, right? Mark, what's his name? Mark, one of the Shark Tanks. He's a billionaire. I forget his last name. He's so well known. He said, you know, OpenAI, the company that started ChatGPT, I can't believe we've started talking about Gladiator II and now we're talking about technology. It's awesome. But he said that most of the, especially OpenAI, they're never gonna make their money back, right? And a lot of these startups, they're doing this to make a lot of money. And when the bubble bursts, and if does burst, then it's gonna be what happened 26 years ago when, you know, IT crashed. I don't know if you remember that there was like a whole downfall. And, but it is what it is, and I think, I do think we need to go through chaos in order to come into some sort of an order because right now i… it is kind of insane. And I try to not personally try to connect myself to the AI world. I'll use it, I won't lie, you know, I'll use it here and there for fixing my emails, for fixing my writing, the grammar and all that, but that's about it.

1:15:18Jawad MirYou know, everything else…

1:15:19Elli GriffWell, I did have an unexpected experience with it where I was applauding it a few weeks ago, and,.. Because I feel threatened by it, which is why I negatively project about it, I suppose. And I feel like somewhere along the line, it's, it's taken my wonderful career from me, and it should be, you know, qualified people like myself that really seep themselves deeply in history and research properly that is putting prompts into a, you know, a vehicle that will help get things correct rather than someone that's just looked on Google, you know, about the period of a dinner service and said, "Oh, you know, can we have a..." You know, blah. It should be going to people that, you know, this is what we do. But I did try recruitment. So I did a, an AI recruitment request in the UK, and I did a dot-com one.

1:16:21Elli GriffAnd the dot-com one came back and said, was I prepared to step up from set decoration to production designing? And it spoke to me on the phone as if I was speaking to a human being. I couldn't bel… almost believe. I w… ended up telling it everything about me professionally in terms of recruitment, and my likes, dislikes, my concerns, et cetera, et cetera. And I also told it about all the offers that were on the table from America. And it came back, and it was really comprehensive. I was so impressed. It sent me jobs again, you know, Disney, theme parks, entertainment, you know, d… d… this big crossover th… th… it's all based on a visa. S… so for the, so for the theme park that I'm involved in, they've, they've started to process, you know, the visa for exceptional talent under the exceptional talent banner. And, oh, I had a green card years ago, but I lived there.

1:17:25Elli GriffMy daughter was born there, you know, but I submitted the green card to come back here. And, so they have to get me in another way. So but based on this golden ticket, this visa, of course the whole world opens up to you. And so that's what they sent me were these incredible... They wanted to know the level of pay, the last level, you know, my last y… you know, ceiling of pay. Could they match it? I was so impressed. And the one here in the UK came back with painter and decorator jobs. Domestic decorating, you know, with wallpaper and bit of carpeting and that, you know. That's what they thought I did. But the, this dot-com asked me all the right questions. It knew the strata within the creative side of our industry, that you go from decorator to production designer, you know. D… and there's a possibility to do that. Was I happy to do that? It used all the correct terms. I was astonished compared...

1:18:27Elli GriffI mean, everybody I talk to that's not in the industry, they literally assume that I slap paint on every day. You know?

1:18:37Jawad MirThat's awesome.

1:18:37Elli GriffSo AI, yeah, that blew me away. And that's, it's still in touch with me. Whatever I signed up to, it's still in touch with me, checking in and still dropping relevant jobs on the board every day and wiping off the ones that have gone or that just, you know, have disappeared.

1:18:57Jawad MirYeah. I think I…

1:18:58Elli GriffSo I was impressed by that.

1:19:00Jawad MirI think at the end of the day, to sort of wrap up this conversation, if AI is a tool, just like VFX is a tool, right? Like ILM and Digital Domain and all those companies, Weta from, Weta from New Zealand If we can use it as a tool, I think that's a good thing. But if we're going to completely replace everything, and then who decides what the cutoff line is, right? Like, what's right and what's wrong. But I think pe… companies and people... And, you know, Ben Affleck is an amazing director and writer. I think he's a fabulous storyteller. And we just need to figure out a way. Maybe we're in that phase right now. And I do think when I talk to people now, they talk about, like, how, you know, I could tell in a second when something is AI. Like, you can. You can tell very easily. And you just need to sort of treat it as a tool and…

1:19:54Jawad Mir... Still create, you know, have your creativity in place and try to engage with people in real places physically as much as you can, and that's all you can do. Everything else is sort of up in the air. And, you know, you talked about young people, and I think we were young too. We probably took away a lot of people's jobs. But one thing I will say is that a lot of young people now, especially in the social media age... So I have another company where we do a lot of branding work for companies…

1:20:26Elli GriffYeah

1:20:26Jawad Mir... Like brand storytelling in video, visual format, and you can't compete with these kids, you know? They would charge, like, I'm talking, like, two-digit numbers for something that we would do for a lot more because there's a lot of strategy involved and all that. But people who are hiring them, they would just hire them because it's cheaper, right? They don't think about the long-term implication, ramifications of it. But it is what it is what I'm saying. It's just part of the game, and you just gotta figure out a way and adapt and keep on going.

1:20:59Elli GriffYeah. Yeah, I think, I think so. It's, you know, you gotta, you gotta keep your finger on the pulse a little bit, you know? And then, and it's moving so fast that if you don't, you will be left out in the cold. And

1:21:12Jawad MirAgreed. Agreed.

1:21:13Elli GriffYeah.

1:21:14Jawad MirThat's…

1:21:14Elli GriffYeah

1:21:14Jawad Mir... That's the thing. Well, Ellie, that's an amazing conversation. Truly appreciate it and, you know, your work over the years has been absolutely amazing in so many different films and different genres that you have done, and I hope that you continue to work in whichever way you want to and you can.

1:21:35Elli GriffWell, me too. I g… I don't feel quite ready to hang up my boots yet. But sadly, I think it's almost like the perfect storm right now, and it's, it's happening to a lot of us. And if it hasn't happened, it's, it's going to happen. And, we have to be a lot more versatile to survive because, you know, what else can we do? Oh, you know, also when I talk to the kids, you know, when I'm teaching and everything gets looked up on Google and I say, "Listen, you know, d… you're gonna find stuff that nobody else has found out if you go to a museum and you find a boffin that, you know, this is what they've done for 40 years, and this is their, this is their life, their project, their interest, and, a… and their profession. You know, they can help you. Go and read a book. G… actually get a book and read it from cover to cover." You know, books are miniature performances. There's, there's, there's an energy a… a… and, a value to them which surpasses anything you're gonna find on Google.

1:22:41Jawad MirYeah, I agree.

1:22:42Elli GriffYou know?

1:22:42Jawad MirI agree.

1:22:42Elli GriffSo…

1:22:43Jawad MirAnd I…

1:22:43Elli Griff... Keep reading, everybody.

1:22:45Jawad Mir100%. 100%. Thank you, Ellie. Are you in London?

1:22:49Elli GriffYes. Yes.

1:22:51Jawad MirIt's…

1:22:51Elli GriffI'm in Marlow. I'm near Pinewood, yeah.

1:22:54Jawad MirIf I'm,.. I normally make a trip to London once a year. I was supposed to come this month, but I couldn't. So if I'm ever in town maybe later this year or next year, and I'm sure we'll have many conversations before that if you're still interested because I'd love to have you back on at some point…

1:23:09Elli GriffOh

1:23:10Jawad Mir... In town view.

1:23:10Elli GriffWell, I enjoyed it. It's gone in a completely different direction but, you know, it's just, yeah, it's lovely to talk to a normal human being about what we do, you know?

1:23:22Jawad MirYes. It, just the feeling is mutual. It's been fascinating talking to you and, I look forward to chatting with you again.

1:23:30Elli GriffOkay. Well, you have a lovely what's left of the day.

1:23:34Jawad MirYou too, and…

1:23:34Elli Griff... So it's been a pleasure to meet you.

1:23:36Jawad MirLikewise. Thank you so much. Take care.

1:23:40Elli GriffBye-bye.

1:23:50Jawad MirBye.