'Gremlins, Secrets of the Mogwai', Animation Director, Vaughn Ross

0:08Jawad MirYeah. Well, thank you so much, man, for, joining. It's good to have you.

0:13Vaughn RossYeah. Thanks for, thanks for having me.

0:16Jawad MirWonderful. I, you know, I, like most of us, I'm not sure if... I'm assuming you grew up on Spielberg, you know…

0:25Vaughn RossYes

0:25Jawad Mir... '80s and '90s. And, you know, films like, obviously he's directed a lot of films, but the ones that he produced that got really a lot of recognition were Goonies, Back to the Future, and Gremlins. And…

0:37Vaughn RossYeah

0:38Jawad Mir... Gre… Gremlins has been one of the things that's been, you know, I know ever since the internet came on, like, in the late, mid-late '90s, there has been talk about a sequel, and it never happened, right? And now…

0:49Vaughn RossRight

0:50Jawad Mir... The animated series, the miniseries that came out, which I saw, over the weekend, and I was quite surprised by it in the sense that I didn't expect... I mean, it sh… I should've put the two together. HBO, I didn't expect it to be for older gen… like, you know, I thought it was like a k… kid…

1:08Vaughn RossYeah, it's a little darker than you'd expect, right?

1:10Jawad MirYeah.

1:11Vaughn RossYeah.

1:11Jawad MirYeah.

1:11Vaughn RossYeah.

1:12Jawad MirBut it was good. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.

1:14Vaughn RossYeah. Yeah.

1:15Jawad MirLots of…

1:15Vaughn RossI mean, you can't have Gremlins without being a little darker than expected. That's kind of in the DNA, right?

1:20Jawad MirYeah.

1:20Vaughn RossEven when it first came out, it was like one of those l… you know, shocking. Parents were like, "What am I s…?" You know, I remember seeing it with my parents, and they were like, "Should we have brought him here?"

1:34Jawad MirYeah.

1:34Vaughn Ross"Brought him to this movie?" Yeah. It was pretty great.

1:37Jawad MirBut what's interesting, it, when the second one came out, that was less darker than the first one. I don't know if you remember.

1:44Vaughn RossYeah. Yeah.

1:44Jawad MirThat was more of a comedy.

1:45Vaughn RossIt leaned a lot more into the camp in that one, for sure.

1:48Jawad MirYeah.

1:49Vaughn RossYeah.

1:49Jawad MirAwesome, man. I was going through your, you know, your work, and you worked on several Star Wars, animated series. Correct me if I'm wrong, right? At least that's what IMDb says.

2:01Vaughn RossYeah.

2:01Jawad MirJust tell me, tell me your journey. I mean, how you came to be where you are. What inspired you? What got you into, doing the work that you do?

2:13Vaughn RossWell, I've always been, ever since I was a wee little child, I've always been fascinated by animation, you know? And I think at a very early age, and, you know, film in general, but… ... You know, most specifically animation. At a very early age, I kind of, I knew that's what I wanted to do, you know, against my parents' wishes a lot of times. But, at least I had, you know, somewhat of a direction. So, yeah. So, you know, right out of the gate, I went to, went to art school in San Francisco. At the time, I'm dating myself a little bit, they didn't even have an animation program, so I went into the illustration department and just figured…

3:00Vaughn Ross... You know, I'll figure it out, you know? If as long as I can learn how to draw, you know, at a certain level, then, you know, I'll, I'll f… I'll figure my way into the animation field somehow, some way. And, so was, studying there, and while I was there, I found out about some local studios that were, i… currently in the Bay Area.

3:26Vaughn RossIt's a funny story. I actually, was catching the 38L, for those watching that are from San Francisco and know the Muni bus lines, going to, school, going to c… you know, going to class. And I saw another rider had a Simpsons crew shirt on. And so I s… I saw this guy and I walked up to him and I was like, "Hey, you work, you know, you worked on The Simpsons?" He's like, "Oh, yeah." And but I could tell from, you know, from, you know, his bags and whatnot that he was go… he was heading the same direction I was. He was going to the same college that I was going to. And I was like, "Well, if you were working on The Simpsons, why are you, why are you going to school?" And he's like…

4:10Jawad MirYeah

4:10Vaughn Ross... "Well, you know, I decided I wanted to, you know, I wanted to pursue, you know, some other things." And, I was like, "Well, then how did you get into animation?" He was like, "Well, I just, I just went and, you know, knocked on some doors. And when I was, you know, coming out of high school, I, you know, did an animation reel and sent to some studios." And he was, and he suggested the same thing to me. He's like, "You should just knock on some doors." And so he gave me a list of a couple studios that were actually in San Francisco at the time. One of them being Twitching Image, which was, Henry Selick's, studio that did Nightmare Before Christmas.

4:51Vaughn RossAnd so I found about, out about them, and went and knocked on their door. And basically was just persistent and, like, you know, day, you know, week after week, I just ke… kept coming back. And finally they were like, "Fine, let this kid, let this kid in." And, that was my first internship, on James and the Giant Peach. And, you know, so I was going to school while doing my internship. And, you know, met a lot of great people. Sort of met my tribe, of, you know, filmmakers that, you know, were into the same quirky things that I was into, especially in San Francisco.

5:35Jawad MirRight.

5:35Vaughn RossAnd, ended up, you know, going from J… you know, an internship in the story department on James and the Giant Peach to working, in the ink and paint department, at Colossal Pictures. The, it was a studio that was doing all the Aeon Flux

5:55Vaughn Ross... Shows, as well as the, all the Liquid Television, like interstitials for MTV at the time. And then, yeah. So I just, you know, that's how my sort of animation career started. And, you know, I was sort of a junior animator for a very long time for, you know, for a while, doing like an assistant animator, and then sort of moved my way up through the ranks, to story artist. Directed some things and then, I had my own studio for a little while, called Maverick Studios based in San Francisco.

6:34Vaughn RossDid that for a bit. We were a little boutique studio. And then, I got tired of running a business and wanted to…

6:43Jawad MirYeah

6:43Vaughn Ross... Focus on, you know, focus on learning again. And that's when I started my, story, my story, career at Lucasfilm. And, started on, I think it was the second season of the Clone Wars, and worked on, worked on the Clone Wars for about, man, like five years. Took a break, went and worked for Paramount for about a year, then came back to Lucasfilm for another five years, before, you know, I j… I decided to make the jump and, go to Warner Brothers and work on Gremlins and see what it's, you know, see what it's like in the, in the LA pond of, animated, you know, animated studios. So that's, you know, that's how I'm, I'm, and, you know, currently at Warner Brothers for the past, I don't know, going on five years now. About four or five years. So yeah, worked on, it was episodic director, as you know, on Gremlins.

7:45Vaughn RossAnd then, got promoted to be the supervising director on a project that, got cut by Netflix, but it was a, Ava DuVernay, project, Wings of Fire, a, children's book series.

8:03Jawad MirOh, right, my kids have read those. Yes.

8:06Vaughn RossYeah. S… so have mine many times. And, yeah. And so then, yeah, so then after that I was supervising director on Batwheels, which was, is another, HBO Max, children's series, sort of like Cars but in the Batman universe.

8:24Vaughn RossAnd that kind of brings me to today. So I guess that sort of sums it up.

8:29Jawad MirThat's awesome, man. That's such a great story. And James and the Pie Peach, and J… bah, James and the Giant Peach, correct me if I'm wrong, that was in the mid…'90s, right? Around that. Yeah.

8:39Vaughn RossYeah.

8:39Jawad MirSo it's interesting because I'd be curious to know if you tried another place, which is where you are kind of indirectly working on Gremlins now. Well, not necessarily there, but associated with that. DreamWorks started around that time. And DreamWorks Animation…

8:57Vaughn RossYeah

8:57Jawad Mir... Mid, like n… 1994, and their first film came out in 1998. And I've spoken to a lot of directors…

9:03Vaughn RossYeah

9:03Jawad Mir... And storyboard artists from DreamWorks, and h… was that ever in your radar?

9:09Vaughn RossOn the radar?

9:10Jawad MirYeah.

9:10Vaughn RossOh, yeah. For sure. For sure. I think especially when at that time, I feel like DreamWorks was doing, like, the edgy stuff, right? They were like…

9:19Jawad MirThey were.

9:20Vaughn RossThere was like, Disney was like, you know, doing what Disney does and then, you know, Shrek was like this anti kind of Disney…

9:29Jawad MirYeah

9:29Vaughn Ross... Kind of, property. And so, yeah, so they were definitely on my radar. I definitely was interested in working with them, but it just, yeah, at the time, like I said, I was in the Bay Area and you know, I was still in school and…

9:46Jawad MirYeah

9:46Vaughn Ross... You know, still in college and I still, I still wanted to do that. I still wanted to sort of continue my education. Even though I was, you know, learning, you know, I had a, an… another education going on actually working in the field. And you know, at the time I actually, you know, as, sort of cutting edge dreaming DreamWorks was at the time, I felt like the stuff that we were doing in the Bay Area was just as edgy and just as, you know, it…

10:18Jawad MirSure.

10:19Vaughn RossWorking in the Bay Area at that time was like we were kinda like the, you know, the little, you know, the gaboo… you know, the, you know, the outliers, you know? We were like, you know, trying to, you know, especially with like, you know, Æon Flux and, you know, the colossal Pictures and the WildBrain were the other studio at the time. I felt like we were doing a lot of kind of work that you wouldn't necessarily see coming out of LA.

10:48Jawad MirYeah.

10:48Vaughn RossAnd that was, you know, that was pretty exciting, you know, for me. And there, and there was a lot of like sort of diverse styles that we were doing, you know? And I felt like at the time, LA had like, you know, there was a certain style that kind of everyone was doing in those studios.

11:08Vaughn RossAnd I felt like in the Bay Area we were doing stuff that w… you know, similarly to like even the East Coast, right? Like East Coast animation was doing like the Beavis and Buttheads and, you know… ... Stuff that you wouldn't necessarily see coming out of LA. So I, you know, I felt very proud to be kind of coming out of that, out of that tradition…

11:27Jawad MirYeah

11:27Vaughn Ross... In the Bay Area and contributing to that at the time.

11:31Jawad MirRight. It's interesting because DreamWorks at the time, well, in the beginning they were edgy and then they became, you know, kind of like they were trying to find their voice and then things went wrong.

11:43Jawad MirBut I think it was in early 2000s, if not mistaken, 2003, 2004, when they did open up. Th… there used to be this company called PDI which made Shrek and Antz. So they… ... Bought that out and it became PDI DreamWorks, and they used to have a giant office, or studio if you wanna call it, in Redwood City, which is obviously…

12:04Vaughn RossYeah

12:04Jawad Mir... You know, near the Bay Area. But yeah, then things collapsed after that. But you know… ... Those series that you're talking about, Æon Flux, I don't remember seeing them But I remember seeing the poster and the trailers when they came out, and of course Clone Wars and all the other stuff…

12:21Jawad Mir... That has come out in the recent days. So, you know, your work pretty much is right up there in terms of the type of work that you're doing. And coming to Gremlins, what was... When you were hired by Warner Brothers, for people who don't know how these things work, was…

12:38Jawad Mir... Were they said that, "We want you on board for Gremlins," or were you already there for something else and then that came about?

12:46Vaughn RossNo, I was, I was at Lucasfilm and…

12:50Jawad MirYep

12:50Vaughn Ross... Yeah. And one of, you know, a producer, came to me and, wanted to hire me to be an episodic director on Gremlins. And at the time, you know, I'd been, you know, I was, you know, I was comfortable at Lucasfilm. I'd been there for quite some time. And, I think, you know, what sort of drew me to the project was, you know, it, you know, first of all, I was, you know, a huge fan of S… Spielberg and a, and a…

13:30Vaughn Ross... Huge fan of Gremlins, right?

13:32Jawad MirRight.

13:32Vaughn RossI've always been sort of partial to the sort of darker, sort of content. And I felt like, you know, after years of working, in the sort of Lucasfilm tradition, it felt like a natural transition to go from, like, Lucasfilm to Spielberg, you know?

13:52Vaughn Ross'Cause it, you know, they'd done…

13:53Jawad MirOf course

13:53Vaughn Ross... A lot of movies together.

13:55Jawad MirYeah.

13:55Vaughn RossAnd, like, and I felt like, I would be able to contribute, you know, and grow as a filmmaker, in that way. Yeah. So yeah, so you know, they, you know, one of the, one of the, line producers knew me from Lucasfilm and, thought that I would be a good fit for the show. And so she reached out and, you know, the timing was just, was good. And it, and I felt like, you know, I felt like I, it felt like the type of show that I could contribute to, and it felt like the type of show that all of my work at Lucasfilm would benefit, you know, like the show would benefit from the experience that I had working on, Lucasfilm projects.

14:47Jawad MirRight. And you said as an episodic director, w… were you specifically focused on one or two episodes? If so, which ones did you, was your hand involved in?

14:56Vaughn RossYeah. I did the second episode. I did, the zombie episode, where it's called…

15:04Jawad MirOkay

15:04Vaughn Ross... They're called Jiangshi.

15:06Jawad MirYes.

15:06Vaughn RossThe jumping, the jumping zombie ones. And I did the one where they, end up getting,.. Where Gizmo gets stolen and

15:22Jawad MirOkay

15:22Vaughn Ross... Stolen.

15:23Jawad MirCloser to the end.

15:25Vaughn RossSo that, yeah.

15:25Jawad MirYeah.

15:25Vaughn RossCloser to the end. Yeah.

15:26Jawad MirYeah.

15:26Vaughn RossSo there was, there was, we, there was four of us as far as episodic directors go, and then we had, one supervising director, Michael Chang, great guy, really talented. And, yeah. So we would each, you know... And then, on my team, I had a team of three story artists that I worked, you know, very, closely with. But yeah, that's sort of how it all sort of broke down. Yeah, great scripts. The scripts were amazing. Zi Chan and Brandon Hay were the, executive producers…

16:06Jawad MirYeah

16:06Vaughn Ross... That were sort of the ones he… heading up that. And the scripts were hela… you know, they were great. They were laugh out loud as you're reading them, so that really made the, made the process and the, of directing that much easier when you had such a great thing to start, such a great script to start from.

16:25Jawad MirYeah. And in the, in the credits it said, Joe Dante as a consulting producer… ... I think, if I'm not wrong.

16:32Vaughn RossYeah.

16:32Jawad MirWere you ever in a sit-down meeting with him, like, to kind of go over…

16:38Vaughn RossI w…... Yeah. No, I wasn't. I think it was mostly Zan, Zi and Brandon…

16:43Jawad MirThe executive producers

16:44Vaughn Ross... Yeah, that were involved in that. Yeah.

16:47Jawad MirAnd do you know, even though you weren't involved with him directly, like, what, was it just kind of like, okay, after watching the episode or storyboards, this is what you guys should do? Was he, was he minimally more involved, like Spielberg as an EP, or was he intensively involved, or you're not sure?

17:05Vaughn RossNo. I mean, he, you know, I can't say for sure, for sure, but from what I know, I, he, I don't think he was that involved. I mean, I'm sure that, you know, he was definitely, you know, we definitely wanted his blessing on every… everything, you know. Same thing with Spielberg, you know, we would definitely, we would, we would always have, you know, those scary Spielberg approval, moments. But yeah, but it seemed, like I said, the scripts were so great, the team was so talented. You know, the notes, you know, always seemed to be pretty minimal, along the way. So

17:47Jawad MirRight

17:47Vaughn Ross... So yeah, that just makes, you know, it just tells me that they must have liked what we were doing.

17:53Jawad MirSure. Makes sense. And, you know, working on the episodes that you were involved in, what kind of… ... Even though you know, when you start with an animated series or even, like, a film, then you have a sequel, you already have these environments that are built, you know, for you…

18:10Jawad Mir... Obviously because you have to do it for the first episode or first film or second film, third ep. What were some of the challenges or pro… red lights that kind of prevented you from moving forward. Any specific example and then how you guys kind of, your team overcame it, whether it was through story, a scene, animation, storyboard.

18:34Vaughn RossWell, the, you know, like I said, the scripts were pretty strong. In animation you always have, s… you know, limitations of, you know, just sets and because everything has to be built, right? So everything needs to be, you know, sort of figured out beforehand.

18:57Jawad MirRight.

18:57Vaughn RossTo a certain degree. Especially the way that we were producing them in story. We were, you know, a lot of the sets we were building beforehand, so there wasn't a lot of wiggle room, like, in story to change. Like, we couldn't just say, "Oh, we don't, you know, this forest is great, but what if it was at the beach?" It's like, no, you can't, you can't do that because we already built the forest. The forest is where we're gonna shoot our things. So, you know, there are certain limitations, in that regard. But, you know, I think the biggest challenge for a story team is to bring to life, you know, the words on the page and, you know, tell the story, visually as opposed to, you know, i… if there's, if there's a way of, you know, telling the story with subtext and acting as opposed to the characters just saying the lines to inform the audience how they feel…

20:06Jawad MirYeah

20:06Vaughn Ross... You know, or what the situation is, that's, that's sort of the, you know, the meat and potatoes of the story team and how we can, you know, sort of, you know, bring an already fantastic script to, you know, that next level, you know.

20:23Vaughn RossAnd that, you know, and as a director that's, that's always, you know, where sort of I focus. As far as, like, the different episodes, the first episode was, you know, it was the second episode, so I think for that episode m… my primary goal was setting things up and sort of making things as clear as possible because I realized that this was a new world for the audience.

20:52Vaughn RossAnd I didn't want them to be confused. And I wanted to, I wanted to, you know, ease them in into the, to the sort of the rules of this, you know, fantastical world as far as, and, you know, as, and, as well as, like, the sort of the tone of the humor, the amount of, you know, the tone of the scares as well. The second, the Jiangshi episode, which was, I really enjoyed working on that one, was it was a zombie. It was basically a zombie episode. And so I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna scare the shit out of kids. That's my goal." You know?

21:34Jawad MirRight.

21:34Vaughn RossI wanted to make it as scary as possible. I wanted to really lean into the horror, in that particular episode. And then the third episode that I directed, which was where Gizmo gets s… stolen from the, from the group, that was the emotional episode. That was the one that was like, "Okay, I need to make, I need to make the audience cry. That's, that's my goal in this one." I don't know if I hit it, but, like, that was…

22:07Jawad MirRight

22:07Vaughn Ross... Sort of the driving force in that particular episode. And I would, you know, I would, you know, when we would have our sort of story launches with the team, you know, I'd let them know up front, like, this is, this is the, this is the target that we're going for emotionally. And so whatever we need to do to, you know, lead us to that end goal, let's, let's work together and find that. So yeah, so that, I guess if that answers your question.

22:36Jawad MirYeah. It does. It does. What inspires you? Like, what, not necessarily in context of Gremlins. Like, when you're about to get on to work on a project… ... What kind of inspira… where do you draw your inspiration from? Obviously it has to be depending on the theme that you're going, like, what you're working on. But is there any particular inspiration that you draw from? Do you have a process like that, or you just jump right in?

23:04Vaughn RossYeah. Well, I mean, it de… it really depends on the, what I'm working on, you know?

23:09Jawad MirLet's say Gremlins.

23:09Vaughn RossSo, like a... Yeah, so Gremlin, like, I mean, even as specific as the, you know, as the episode, right? So, like, the Jiangshi, I watched a ton of, like, Night of the Living Dead. I mean, these, you know, like I said, like, I jumped onto the, to, I agreed to work on the project because I knew that the genre itself had all these things that I was already in, or interested in, right?

23:33Jawad MirRight.

23:34Vaughn RossSo yeah. So for, you know, for, like, for that episode, I, you know, I just devoured a bunch of, like, horror movies, which is something that I already love, right? So yeah. I mean, you know, you know, you try to take from, you know, as well as, like, ta… you know, taking from life as much as possible, too. You know, like, with the more heartfelt episode in the end, you know, where, you know, Gizmo is stolen away from his family, you know. You know, I tried to, you know, you know, dive into, like, you know, personal experiences of my own that, like, that might, that…

24:16Jawad MirSure

24:16Vaughn Ross... That, you know, feelings of loss and feelings, you know, the, those types of things. So… You know, it's a combination of, like, life experiences as well as, films that I'm a fan of and, you know. And sometimes, you know, sometimes it might not even be, a film that's, like, directly related to the genre, you know, depending on the moment, you know. There might be a moment within an episode that I'm like, "Okay, I wanna hit this particular tone or this particular emotion," and that might, inform the sort of research that I might be doing for that particular scene.

25:03Jawad MirRight. And is there a particular animated film or show from the '80s and '90s that stands out, or a few of them that, you know, you always remember them as being the classic, the timeless classic?

25:20Vaughn RossLet's see. I mean, you know, I love Nightmare Before Christmas. I love, Miyazaki fi… you know, the Miyazaki films.

25:34Jawad MirRight, of course.

25:36Vaughn RossYou know, I mean, you know, I grew up in that age, so it was like, you know, I was watching tons of anime, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, all those kinda, you know, those, types of movies. I think, yeah, 'cause in… initially, you know, when I was a young, you know, when I was, you know, a kid, I was, like, all into Disney, and then, you know, as I became older…

25:58Jawad MirYeah

25:58Vaughn Ross... You know, like in the '90s, then all of a sudden I s… discovered anime, and it was like, whoa, what's this, you know, this s… you know, crazy, sophisticated, you know, sort of film language that I, you know, wasn't used to seeing. It just, it just kinda opened my eyes as to see, like, well, there's, you know, there's such a range of stories that can be told in animation. It doesn't all have to be about selling lunchboxes necessarily, you know?

26:25Jawad MirYeah.

26:25Vaughn RossYou can also sell action figures.

26:28Jawad MirOf course. I see a lot of similarities in that approach. Obviously Miyazaki is completely different, you know, standard of animation. His is completely…

26:37Vaughn RossYeah

26:37Jawad Mir... Different style. But I feel that there was a lot of similarities in that sense, not, you know, more of an inspiration than anything else.

26:46Vaughn RossYeah. Well, I think, I think in Gremlins, you know, credit to Z. Chan, you know, was definitely, you know, it's a traveling, it's a traveling show, which is also…

26:56Jawad MirYeah

26:56Vaughn Ross... Like, very difficult in animation because every, you know, every in, you know, every new episode is a whole new environment, it's a whole new place.

27:05Jawad MirYeah.

27:05Vaughn RossYou know, as opposed to your, like, sitcom where everything takes place in the living room, you know?

27:10Jawad MirYeah.

27:10Vaughn RossAnd, I think a big part of it was a big, you know, something that we were really aiming to do was to show, you know, the cult… you know, Chinese culture and mythology, you know, and really leaned into that and really tried to, you know, you know, show the, you know, show the diversity of the different, you know, different mythologies, the different landscapes, the different, places, the different people. And I, you know, I was, you know, really proud of that. And, you know, I think it, you know, with Miyazaki it's, it's Japan, so of course it's different.

27:49Jawad MirRight.

27:49Vaughn RossBut yeah, I think, you know, I think that when you have, when you have a show that's, that's sort of leaning into the culture in a way that's honest, I think it just kinda comes through, and it's… ... That sort of intangible, you know, background thing that people are attracted to and, you know. Yeah, and I, and I think, I think we did a good job of, like, having it feel authentic, but yet at the same time having it also feel,..

28:29Jawad MirWestern?

28:29Vaughn RossAttai… yeah, com… attainable and, like, comfortable for people. You know, it wasn't…

28:34Jawad MirThe audience, yeah.

28:36Vaughn RossYeah.

28:38Jawad MirHas it been…

28:38Vaughn RossSo..

28:38Jawad MirDo you know if it was sh… released in China? And if so, was it received well?

28:44Vaughn RossI believe it was, yeah. I believe it was, and I believe it was received well, as well. Yeah. Yeah, and actually…

28:53Jawad MirAwesome

28:53Vaughn Ross... My, you know, it's funny, at one point my wife is actually Chinese and, we had to do some, like, there was some, like, calligra… there was some writing that needed to be done. And so w… I reached out to my, a friend of my father-in-law's to do some of the, some of the writing, or even just to do some, you know, just to sort of oversee and see if it was, you know, if it was looking authentic and things like that. And so it was kind of, it was kind of interesting, 'cause my father-in-law's a very honest guy, you know, so I was very curious to see, you know, what his impression of it was. And it seemed to be, it seemed to be pretty positive, so.

29:38Jawad MirThat's good. That's good.

29:40Vaughn RossYeah.

29:40Jawad MirYeah, I mean, I did notice that there was a lot of, obviously b… when you have two EPs, you know, sort of overseeing the project whose background… ... Is from that part of the world, it ma… it shows, and it does show. I mean, aside…

29:53Jawad Mir... From the actual language being English, there's nothing…

29:57Vaughn RossRight

29:57Jawad Mir... There's nothing Western about that, you know, that series at all in any which way.

30:03Vaughn RossRight. Right. Yeah, and that's what we were going for and, you know. It's,.. I think that was, you know, that's the charm. That's definitely the charm of the show, you know.

30:14Jawad MirYeah. You mentioned your wife, i… is Chinese. Did you ever sort of come to her in the middle of the episodes when, w… or home and said, like, "This is what we're working on. What do you think?" Just from that cultural standpoint, even though you were not making those executive producer decisions, but just to get her input?

30:33Vaughn RossYeah. Every now and then I would, for sure. Yeah, and she would, she would, yeah, she, what would her reaction be? She... Yeah, 'cause I mean, well, she's not really into horror.

30:46Jawad MirOf course.

30:47Vaughn RossSo.

30:47Jawad MirThat makes, that makes it difficult.

30:48Vaughn RossThere's only so much that I could go to her about, but…

30:50Jawad MirYeah

30:51Vaughn Ross... But yes, we would have those conversations and, yeah, she... I mean, she just loved Gizmo. She's like, "He's so cute." so yeah, cuteness is a pretty universal…

31:03Jawad MirYeah

31:04Vaughn Ross... Universal feeling. But yeah, I would, I would come home…

31:05Jawad MirIt's kind of like Baby Yoda

31:07Vaughn Ross... Or something. Yes. The first Baby Yoda. Yeah.

31:12Jawad MirYeah. It's funny they look alike in quite, you know, the ears and i-i… ... Original, if you look at Yoda in the original Gremlins, like, you know, there was that, the ears and the similarities, and it's, it's cool. It's good. It's, it's nostalgia and it's awesome.

31:26Vaughn RossYes, definitely. Definitely.

31:27Jawad MirYeah. Go on. Were you gonna say something?

31:31Vaughn RossNo.

31:32Jawad MirOkay. Just a few more questions. One, when the f… series was finished and, you know, you obviously there's a whole process of screening it, and what was the initial reactions that you guys received from anybody? Or if there was ever a test screening, or a studio screening, what kind of... Do you remember that day when that started happening, or a certain experience that the audience, whichever that may be, started receiving it? Not, I'm not talking about when it's released, I'm talking about before it was completely, put on HBO Max.

32:08Vaughn RossRight. I think from what I w…... I mean, I think we got pretty, I mean, people were pretty into it. And you know, I think, you know, like with anything, you're, you are just hopeful that, like, the general audience is gonna love it as much as you do, and as much as…

32:29Jawad MirYeah

32:29Vaughn Ross... Like, as much as they do in the, you know, test screenings and whatnot, you know. And, you know, and you know, we ha… you know, you have your screenings with your, with your executives and your screenings with Lu…, with, Spielberg as well. And they all seem to be, you know, fairly positive, but I think it's, there's still that, like, you're still waiting for like, okay, what is it, what's, what's the Rotten Tomatoes?

33:02Jawad MirYeah.

33:02Vaughn RossYou know?

33:02Jawad MirIt's pretty good, actually.

33:04Vaughn RossYeah. No, we were really pleased with... I think that people that actually did s… that, you know, that saw the, saw the show, had a similar reaction that to, that you had, right? That it was like, they were surprised that it went, that we went as dark as we did, that we, you know. And that, and yeah, I was really happy with the reaction that we got, you know, in s… you know, from screenings and executives and Spielberg…

33:39Jawad MirYeah

33:39Vaughn Ross... As well as, you know, from the general audience.

33:42Jawad MirSure.

33:43Vaughn RossYeah. Couldn't, couldn't be happier, actually.

33:45Jawad MirAnd when I, when I watch a movie or a series, I mean, there used to be a time when I used to watch, look at Rotten Tomatoes before, but then I stopped doing that for the…

33:56Vaughn RossRight

33:56Jawad Mir... It's been like almost 10 years, because I started noticing Rotten Tomatoes start building, like, a preconceived ... You know, setup for me. Like, okay, and then I'll start, oh yeah, I understand why Rotten Tomatoes didn't like it. Like, you know what I mean? Like, the critics, all the critics.

34:10Vaughn RossRight.

34:10Jawad MirAnd now I do it afterwards… ... Just to see if I am crazy that I like this…

34:16Vaughn RossRight

34:16Jawad Mir... Or if I am crazy I don't like it.

34:18Vaughn RossYeah.

34:18Jawad MirAnd I was shocked to see, after I finished watching it, because I thought, "Okay, this was pretty good. This was really good series." And I, you know, 23 minute episodes times 10, you know, that's almost three and a half hours, three hours and 40 minutes.

34:31Vaughn RossRight.

34:31Jawad MirAnd I watched it in two different settings, and I was surprised, but I wasn't surprised that it got 100% by the critics and 86% by the audience. And I was like, "Wow." I m… I mean, you rarely see nowadays audience and critics that close. Nor… normally it's one way or the other way.

34:49Vaughn RossRight. Right. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, like I said, the scripts were really great, you know.

34:56Jawad MirYeah.

34:57Vaughn RossBut I gotta say, too, you know, maybe, you know, you know, part of it might also be, like, this hunger for, like, something Gremlins, right? It's been so long and people have been so hungry for, like, a s… like you were saying, like a sequel. And I found that, like, the criticisms that I did see, and I, you know, it's been a while since I looked, but they seem to be kind of in the vein of, like, "This was great." Not, it, the criticisms that I did see weren't, like, necessarily criticisms of the actual show, but were like, but were more like, "This show is great, but I wish it was a, the live action movie."

35:39Vaughn RossSo, you know, I'll take that.

35:43Jawad MirYeah.

35:43Vaughn RossIt's like…

35:43Jawad MirOf course

35:44Vaughn Ross... So it's like, you know, I get that, I get that, you know, that, you know, want to, like, have the live action movie, but this isn't a live action movie, and if that's the only criticism you're gonna give us, then I'll take it.

35:57Jawad MirYeah.

35:57Vaughn RossYeah.

35:58Jawad MirAnd sometimes these, a… again, I don't know the strategy of studio, but, based on being in the industry and how I've seen things, sometimes these kind of shows are put out there, obviously because from a storytelling standpoint and because there's an audience for it, but also to see how it be… how it does to see if there is a possibility of making a live action film, right?

36:22Jawad MirSo that would be interesting if that happens because it received really well. It was a good series. And I be… I believe one of the reasons it really worked, aside from the nostalgia and good story, was you guys went to the dark side, which is something that doesn't really happen. You know, nowadays everything is like… You know, there's ratings and, like, you know, somebody might be smoking, be careful. There might be flashes of lights, be careful.

36:47Vaughn RossYeah.

36:48Jawad MirSo it went the completely traditional way, the '80s way. Like, let's put it that way.

36:52Vaughn RossYeah. Yeah, I mean, it's like you have... And what's, yeah, I think what's kinda nice about it too is that it's kind of, it's still family entertainment.

37:01Jawad MirYes.

37:02Vaughn RossIt's still, it's still... You know, 'cause ri… I g… like you were saying, it's like you have, like, kind of the young kid stuff, and then you have anime. You have, like, you know, stuff that is definitely not for kids, right? Although they probably are still watching it. But what I love…

37:19Jawad MirWe did.

37:20Vaughn Ross... Loved about Gremlins, and yeah, but h… what I loved about Gremlins is that it is, like, it still is a family show, but…

37:27Jawad MirYeah

37:28Vaughn Ross... It still has the h… still has horror and as a kid, like, I loved that kind of stuff, and I, you know, I loved, like, you know, you know, the sort of darker kind of horror, scary kind of stu… you know, like, you know, I, you know. To me, I think sometimes, you know, we as a culture get into this mode where we, like, we feel like we can't scare kids. But I think…

37:56Jawad MirYeah.

37:56Vaughn RossAnd maybe, and some kids are wired that way. I have two kids of myself, of my own and you know, one could handle it and one can't, right? But I mean, you know, I grew up loving, like, campfire, you know, campfire s… ghost stories and things like that, right?

38:11Jawad MirYeah.

38:12Vaughn RossAnd I think that there should be, you know, I sh… there should be, even in kids programming or family programming, I think that there should be a place for that. And…

38:21Jawad Mir100%

38:22Vaughn Ross... It doesn't always have to, have to be, you know, you know, fluffy…

38:28Jawad MirYeah, no, I…

38:29Vaughn Ross... And sweet all the time

38:30Jawad Mir... I a… I agree with you because it builds them up in a different way too. Like, there's other elements…

38:36Vaughn RossYeah

38:36Jawad Mir... In life that will help them with that, right?

38:39Vaughn RossRight.

38:39Jawad MirSo there's that factor too. But yeah, no, it's, it's, it's a great series, and I don't know if you are aware, a… at least I read this on Google. I could be dead wrong. Is there a season two or that you're aware of that's being worked on that you can talk about? If not, you don't have to answer it. We can just skip the question.

38:58Vaughn RossYeah, I can't, I can't really say.

39:00Jawad MirGot it.

39:00Vaughn RossYeah.

39:01Jawad MirWhat else are you working on? Anything exciting besides that you're able to chat about?

39:06Vaughn RossI can't really…

39:08Jawad MirOkay.

39:09Vaughn Ross... Talk about it. Yeah. I just finished, supervising director on Batwheels, like the second season. So that…

39:16Jawad MirWhen is that coming out?

39:18Vaughn RossThat is c… it just recently started airing, so... And they're gonna be le…

39:23Jawad MirOkay.

39:23Vaughn RossThey're gonna be re… r… releasing them in chunks, so it's actually, yeah, it's actually out right now. The first…

39:29Jawad MirOkay, great

39:30Vaughn Ross... First couple episodes.

39:31Jawad MirAnd how many will there be? 10?

39:35Vaughn RossI believe so, yeah.

39:36Jawad MirOkay.

39:37Vaughn RossSomething like that.

39:38Jawad MirOkay.

39:38Vaughn Ross10 or 12, something like that.

39:38Jawad MirThat's awesome. Let… let's le… let's chat about that down the road if you have time. I would love to.

39:44Vaughn RossSure. Yeah, anytime.

39:44Jawad MirI'll have obviously have to watch the series and get on the speed with it, but would love to.

39:50Vaughn RossYeah. And I'll, yeah. And I'm working on some other stuff too. Hopefully later down the road I'll be able to talk about it then.

39:56Jawad MirObviously. No problem, man. I understand. Thank you so much for your time on. I appreciate it and

40:01Vaughn RossThank you for having me

40:01Jawad Mir... Thank you for h…

40:02Vaughn RossThis has been great.

40:04Jawad MirThe pleasure's all mine. Thank you for being on, and we'll chat more for sure.

40:08Vaughn RossAll right. Thanks a lot.

40:09Jawad MirTake care. Bye-bye. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Don't forget to subscribe, like, share and comment, and do come back for another episode. Until then, have a great day.