'The Forgotten Island', Simon Wells, Storyboard Artist

0:00Jawad MirAs a storyboard artist in this film Talk to me about the sequences, the scenes that you were responsible from the scratch or you kinda came in afterwards. Would love to hear some of those

0:12Simon WellsAnd this is a little bit of a spoilers of a story. Raisa, has to try and get to, her friend Joe before Joe's memories are erased. Here are the scenes from the movie that are core memories for Joe that we want to see Raisa trying to get to Joe to stop them from being lost. It was genuinely one of the most interesting and challenging things I've ever had the opportunity to storyboard, and it has this, amazing emotional undercurrent that's the imperative driving it. Yeah, and you wanna keep that alive and keep reminding the audience of what this means to the characters. So I have to ask, you've seen the movie now. You saw it yesterday, right?

1:11Jawad MirYes, I did. I did. It was an amazing experience, man. It was. I really…

1:17Simon WellsIt's a lot.

1:19Jawad MirIt's one of the most visuals, visually breathtaking film I've ever seen, like not animation, non-animation. Like it just has so much color, which is very refreshing. And you know…

1:29Simon WellsYeah

1:29Jawad Mir... It's kinda gone out, of the cinema world, but yeah. Amazing story, amazing colors, amazing animation, the songs, the music, and the characters. It got quite emotional at the very end, at the end of the climax.

1:43Simon WellsIt is, it is actually astonishing how emotional this is. It…

1:48Jawad MirYeah

1:48Simon Wells... Really catches you. I mean, it still catches me, and I've, you know, I helped create the thing. I know, I've known the story for two years or something and, yeah, I think the amazing thing is, they've created a pair of characters who really live. They really exist, and you understand why they need each other. You understand what's going on inside these characters. And so yeah, the emotional stuff really hits hard. It's, it's astonishing. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna go and see it again on Saturday, with other members of my family. My wife Wendy saw it, because we had a, there was a wrap event, actually at Caltech. It was very funny. They, the, those last scenes in the movie take place in the auditorium at Caltech.

2:43Jawad MirYeah.

2:43Simon WellsAnd literally we're sitting in that auditorium. You know, we're sitting in the seats which are visible on screen, you know? They, yeah…

2:55Jawad MirThat is so cool.

2:55Simon WellsYeah, they modeled it exactly. So yeah, that was very weird. But yeah, it was funny. Wendy said that her first reaction, like, you know, she's like 10 minutes into the movie and she's thinking, "Yeah, I can see this is pretty well done, but it's not really for me. It's a bit, it's a bit frenetic. It's a bit kinda silly and lot of, lot of, you know, dumb gags and stuff." And then it gets into the story and she got swept up in the story and the emotional stuff at the end. She was just like, "Holy shit, yeah. I love that movie." I mean, that's, that's sort of the difficult thing about this movie is that, you know, if I'm honest, i… if I saw the trailer, I would be, "Yeah, I'll probably go and see it just 'cause I need to see what's current in animation." But it's not a thing that immediately attracts me. It's not my kind of, you know, taste. And yet, I love the movie with my whole heart, and I'm, I'm a huge booster for it. And, so yeah, it's a, I wish one could get that message out to, out to the punters.

4:02Simon WellsLike, yeah, give it a go. You'll actually really like it, you know?

4:07Jawad MirYeah, no, it's, it's true. And you know, I love the, whenever, like, there was a character reacting, there was a specific kind of animation that had a little bit, like, a Batman TV series, like, you know, like the little sort of reference. But my favorite part was, I mean, I shouldn't say my favorite, but one of my favorite part was it was very subtle, and it happens towards the end of the film, which I won't reveal, but there is an audio which suggests the timeline where this scene was taking place. "Dylan you son of a," which is a quote from…

4:38Simon WellsOh, yeah

4:38Jawad Mir... Predator, right?

4:39Simon WellsYep.

4:40Jawad MirAnd I thought that was so neat, the way that was put in. And you know, the whole thing with the arms because that's what the scene involved in Predator.

4:50Simon WellsYeah.

4:50Jawad MirThat was really cool. But yeah, on a grand scale, the characters, the humor, and the animation of course was just breathtaking. And I really hope people watch this because I've been waiting for a film like this with that much color. You know, Barbie was one of them, and I have to think this is, like, another level. It just, we need more color in our films.

5:10Simon WellsYeah, this is all the colors. This is polychromatic…

5:13Jawad MirYeah

5:13Simon Wells... On a magnificent scale. It's, like, no compromises. Yeah, let's just, let's just cram a bit more color in there.

5:21Jawad MirNo, but it needed it in the story, right? Because it's, it's an island…

5:24Simon WellsOh, sure

5:24Jawad Mir... That's forgotten, right? And it was not just…

5:26Simon WellsIt…

5:26Jawad Mir... Like thrown in there for no reason.

5:28Simon WellsOh, no. It's, it's definitely, it's because it's a magical place and because…

5:33Jawad MirYeah

5:33Simon Wells... Yeah. But, yeah, no, I think that the thing which is remarkable about the movie is that at every step, at every stage, everyone who touched it picked it up and made it better. They got the idea. They got, you know, the thing that Joel and Januel, were really good at communicating, the enthusiasm and, the sort of the joy of it. And everybody… You know, from story right the way through to color final timing, you know. Everyone got it and they kind of made it, like, they took possession of it. They made it their own. They made it the very…

6:14Simon Wells... Very best they possibly could. And so, you know, just seeing stuff that was really good in story that just got better and better at every stage of production, really impressive. And I, you know, that's, that's down to Joel and Januel, who are superb directors, writer-directors indeed. Yeah.

6:39Jawad MirYeah.

6:39Simon WellsI mean…

6:39Jawad MirNo, and, sorry, go on.

6:41Simon WellsWell, I was just gonna say, you know, you might guess as much 'cause they did, Puss in Boots 2, and before that they did Croods 2.

6:48Jawad MirYeah.

6:48Simon WellsBoth of which were by the way, kinda suicide missions because both of them, had been developed for over a year by a different group of people with different directors. And Joel and Januel, in both those cases Jan was the head of story and Joel was the director. But both of those, it's like you've got 18 months left, fix this movie. And so both those two movies were done at an absolute flat-out run, and yet were superbly developed and, you know, just tweaked and adjusted and corrected and, you know. I mean, Puss in, actually, both Puss in Boots and Croods 2 were very much ground up rebuilds. They didn't, they didn't follow very much of what had been done before. I think Puss in Boots…

7:40Jawad MirRight

7:40Simon Wells... Inherited, a certain amount of act one had been kind of put in place, but they nonetheless did a lot of changes to them. So yeah, Forgotten Island was Joel and Januel's chance to actually write something from scratch and pursue it all the way through, which, I think is the first time that's ever been done at Dreamworks, and it frankly is pretty rare in the animation business that, you know, the same di… get, set of directors get to write this thing and see it through. So…

8:16Jawad MirYeah, and I think it's harder to do something original, right? Like, with Puss in Boots 2 and Croods 2, the world was already created, the characters were there, which, you know, is, it may sound easy, but it's hard. But to do something like Forgotten Island, you know, in terms of the story and the bold steps they took in dialogue, in animation, it's, it's obviously, you know, you can credit Universal, Dreamworks, and whatnot, but the vision that they had was something that they probably had to go through a lot of obstacles and hurdles.

8:45Simon WellsOh, man. Yeah. I mean, you know, first off, you just gotta pitch the idea of the movie, is like, "Well, it's about these two girls and they grow up together and one of them's gonna go off to college. And just before they go off to college, they find this magical portal to a magical realm, and it's gonna be based on Philippine, folklore." And it's like, "Yeah, it really is. And this is gonna be a commercial movie that's gonna appeal to the whole family?" And, y… yeah, I mean, it's, it's a pretty hard sell. What they had to do was actually create a sizzle reel, which was kind of s… some story stuff and some artwork and so on, and really sell kinda how much fun the movie was going to be, and that sizzle reel was incredible. They really put all of their energy and effort into it. This was, like, you know, two years ago.

9:37Jawad MirRight.

9:37Simon WellsOr more, two and a half years ago. But even so, yeah, it was, it was an uphill task all the way. I remember the, there was a meeting that they came back from and they said, "Okay, Universal Marketing is really on board. They love this movie." And it's like, "Oh, okay. Now we're in good shape," because they can, they can feel that this thing is gonna sell, and they're, you know, they wanna get behind it. But, yeah, you know, and the sort of, the incredible ambition of what they wanted to do, you know, in a world where budgets are tending to pull back and restrict. And, you know, we're gonna have, oh, I don't know, all of these different magical creatures, dozens of different magical creatures. And oh, by the way, let's just have a market where there's just hundreds of these guys walking around. And then, yeah, let's do the animation where it's not just straight 3D animation, which is hard enough, but we're gonna introduce 2D elements.

10:46Simon WellsWe're gonna change animation styles completely. We're gonna just snap into, kind of extraordinary, anime convention faces just for a moment. And, yeah, it was, it was pushing the boundaries all the way at everything. So yeah, managing to, managing to keep that on track and reassure, 'cause I mean, let's be honest, movie executives are afraid. They are afraid.

11:18Jawad MirOh, yeah.

11:19Simon WellsThey n… you know, they desperately want something original and they want a hit and all of that, but, they also are terrified that you take a massive swing and you miss. And, which, you know, fair enough, their jobs are on the line.

11:35Jawad MirOf course.

11:35Simon WellsBut, so reassuring people and getting people on board with, "Yeah, and then we're gonna do this." And it's like, "That is fucking crazy, but okay, you gotta do it." And I, it really, I mean, it speaks very much to what Joel and Januel are like as people. They can go into a meeting and th… they raise the em… the emotion of the meeting. They raise the temperature in a good way. They… There, I, actually, we had a toast at the studio on Wednesday, and Mark Swift, the producer, who I've known for, you know, 35 years or something, he said, "The amazing thing about Joel is he makes everyone believe that you're his best friend." And we all know that Jan's actually his best friend, but you still feel like, "Maybe I'm his best friend." He, it is extraordinary. I, you know, people work their asses off, for Joel and Jan, Joel in particular, because he's just this really nice guy, and he's so full of enthusiasm, and he's so appreciative of what it is that you specifically do, and what you've brought to the process.

12:48Simon WellsAnd yeah, he, they can do that. They have a great, kind of, two-man show. They're always, they're always cheerful, always joking around, always massively enthusiastic. And then also incredibly competent at getting it done, which is, you know, I have known plenty of people who, as they say, give good meeting. You know, y… you come out of the meeting feeling like, "Oh, we're in good hands. This guy's gonna be great." And then, you know, they're kind of not. No, these guys, they're the real deal, and it's, you know, as a director, or a sometime director, it's, it's a thing that I am chagrined by. They are far better directors than I have or ever will be. And I admire them, with a small degree of, you know, professional envy.

13:45Jawad MirThat's okay. I mean... Sorry, go on, sir.

13:48Simon WellsNo, small degree, I was going to say, but yeah, you go ahead.

13:51Jawad MirNo, I was just gonna say that's okay because I think it's, appreciating who they are, right? And I've been hearing about this film from you specifically, I think, last year and a half or so.

14:04Simon WellsOh, recently, yeah.

14:05Jawad MirAnd, y… yeah, right? And I've been s… it's sort of been building up, and I had no idea, like, until I saw the trailer and, you know, when we were together, what it was about, and the visuals really got to me. And I feel that now that it's out in the world, people should see it. But to, in terms of your involvement as a storyboard artist in this film…

14:29Jawad Mir... Talk to me about the sequences, the scenes that you were responsible from the scratch, where you kind of came in afterwards. Would love to hear some of those, stories.

14:39Simon WellsOh, okay. Yeah, I worked on quite a lot of bits of the film. I mean, it's interesting. There's an awful lot of parts of the movie that, you know, several storyboard artists took passes at one time or another. Partly 'cause, you know, you do something, and then when they want to do some fixes, you're not available 'cause you're on something else at that point. And so, you know, you bring somebody else on. But sometimes it's good just to have somebody else take a pass because they'll produce a cinematic idea, or they'll have a couple of gags or, you know, they'll, they'll introduce a fresh way of looking at the scene. So, you know, sometimes you do that simply because it gets more brains engaged in that moment. But yeah, the first thing, it was interesting. I came on the show, I can't remember exactly when now, but, Joel and Januel were still in the process of writing the script. And they had this big action sequence.

15:39Simon WellsI tend to get, lumbered with the big action sequences 'cause I can, I can do the cinematography, and I can juggle a lot of things at the same time. But, they had the concept of, and this is a little bit of a spoiler to the story, that Raisa, has to try and get to, her friend Joe before Joe's memories are erased. It is, it is not unlike the, that sequence in, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

16:18Simon WellsA Jim Carrey movie. And that was certainly something they were thinking about, in much the same way as they were thinking about The Hangover as the sort of structure of the movie overall, which, you know, when you think, this is, this is a family version of The Hangover. But, so they had this idea, and, they had kind of, okay, we, here are the scenes from the movie that are core memories for Joe that we want to see Raisa trying to get to Joe to stop them from being lost. But they didn't really have an awful lot of idea of how that was gonna connect together. And so, yeah, there was, there was about sort of, a more than a sketch of the script, but not what one would call a fully realized script. And they actually said, "Yeah, we've been holding a sequence for you to do 'cause we know that you'll, you'll dig us out of this hole."

17:22Simon WellsAnd it was an incredibly interesting sequence to do.

17:27Jawad MirIt was.

17:27Simon WellsYeah, really fun from, just from a cinematic point of view of like, okay, how can I join things together? How can I make different transitions? How can I introduce these new ideas in a surprising way? How can it take, you know, Raisa finds herself in a new scene, but how can I get her there in a way it takes her a moment to realize where she is and what's going on? Now, it has to be said, quite a lot got done to the sequence, you know, before it got to the final version in the movie. But it's also very satisfying how much of the sequence still looks very like what I originally boarded.

18:06Jawad MirOh, cool

18:06Simon Wells... And it was genuinely one of the most interesting and challenging things I've ever… Had the opportunities to storyboard. 'cause, you know, there's an awful lot of stuff which is like, "Okay, this is, this is fun to do. I know how to make this dynamic and interesting and exciting," but, y… you know, we've seen chases. I'm, I'm, you know, vigorously ripping off, Jim Cameron and people like that, who I've studied and it's like, "Okay, I know how to put together a chase that's gonna be exciting," and, you know, the challenge becomes, like, can you think up some new gags, some new pieces of business, something that you haven't seen before? But, the mechanics of how you put together a chase sequence are pretty straightforward. This was a wholly new kind of sequence. It's like, y… yeah, and it has this, amazing emotional undercurrent that's the imperative driving it.

19:08Simon WellsSo, it... Yeah, and you wanna keep that alive and keep reminding the audience of what this means to the characters. So yeah, it... That was, that was genuinely an exciting thing to get given, and, yeah, I enjoyed doing that. There were a lot of other parts of the movie that, were fun. I mean, God, I'd have to go through the movie bit by bit to say. I took a pass on that. I mean, I did bits of, you know, when Joan Rice are sitting on the hood of the Jeepney before, you know, on their last evening, before they find the portal key. I did a pass of that. Some of that still looks the way I did it. Some of it's very different. So, you know, I did straightforward dialogue, things like that as well. And there's some things that didn't end up in the movie, really.

20:12Simon WellsThere's a whole chase where the terrifying demon, Manang, is chasing after them and they're on the speed demon, bird. And I did a pass of that was much longer, and went out across rice fields and

20:31Jawad MirOh

20:31Simon Wells... Involved, the, a whole three-part chase because the, you know, the little mushroom guys come riding in on their chickens and ... And they interacted with Manang and, yeah. And the whole bit where Manang goes invisible was a much longer extended thing. I mean, there's vestiges of what I did. They ended up cutting it right down. There's an awful lot of vestiges of what I did in there, but yeah, it was like a five-minute chase sequence which is now, you know, very compact, like a minute or so in the movie. But yeah, I mean, that's, that's kind of the case with the movie as a whole. It's like, it's about a two-hour movie crammed into, you know, 86 minutes, so

21:19Jawad MirYeah.

21:20Simon WellsIt comes at you like a freight train. What other things? I, yeah, I mean, just an awful lot of bits. I sat watching the movie going, "Oh yeah, I did a bit in that, didn't I? Yeah. Oh, and oh yeah. Oh yeah." I mean, I've, I've got my storyboards. I could go through it, but, it... There's very little of the movie I can actually sort of claim authorship to. A… and partly because, you know, whatever I gave to them, other people added so much in addition.

21:59Jawad MirSure

22:00Simon Wells... You know, it's not like, "Hey, I just did that sequence, and there it is." and there are sequences on movies that I can look at and go, "Well, they executed the storyboards very faithfully and, but you know, I did the sequence." This, I don't feel that way at all. It's like, yeah, I provided a lot of the sort of initial ideas and then people said, "Okay, I can take that and I can put this on top of it and make it better." and the interesting thing is that sort of process, the, you know, adding to process, sometimes, you know, you can end up with a hat on a hat on a hat. It's like, yeah, you've now, you've now so buried the idea with gag on a gag that you've lost what the thing was actually about.

22:46Simon WellsThis, and again, this is down to Joel and Januel, they really kept their eye on the ball. They d… they changed things, they adjusted things, they... But they always knew what it was they were aiming to achieve.

23:01Jawad MirYeah

23:01Simon Wells... And, yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a real, it's a real lesson in writing and directing, that writing is providing the initial impetus and the guiding framework, but,.. And directing is about making sure that you stay on track, but being open to what each part of the process can add, so long as it's adding in the right direction, results in stuff that is just way better than any single person could've done. You know, when I was younger, I thought directing was about like, "I have a vision in my head and I have to make sure that vision arrives on screen exactly the way I had conceived it."

23:51Jawad MirRight.

23:51Simon WellsAnd really and truly, it's, it's not that at all. I mean, you can say Joel and Januel absolutely have a vision, because they had a concept of how wild and crazy this was going to be, but how heartfelt it was in the center. And, you know…... Less than they had a lot of really wild, crazy ideas that pushed people out there. But they were also ready to take on whatever other people kind of provided and said, "Hey, what about this?" and channel it into the thing it was trying to be. So yeah, it... Did they have a vision? Absolutely they had a vision, but it was a vision that was open to including a lot of stuff, not a vision that was, "It's my way or the highway. It's gotta be exactly that."

24:47Jawad MirRight. No, fair enough. I have to say that, you know, you're talking about the last, the sequence, it, a… as you said about cinematography, it has so much, so much different lighting in different sequences, the transitions, and deeply emotional. Like, there, I think that was the most emotional part of the entire film. There were other elements, but that really summed it up everything. And the mushroom guys, I forget if that was their name or they had a different name.

25:11Simon WellsYeah. Yeah. I forgot. The Duende.

25:14Jawad MirThe Duende.

25:14Simon WellsDo not disrespect, do not disrespect the Duende. Yeah.

25:17Jawad MirThey reminded me of the penguins from Madagascar. Like, they had…

25:20Simon WellsLittle bit

25:20Jawad Mir... A similar kind of... Yeah, a little bit.

25:22Simon WellsYeah.

25:22Jawad MirLike, in terms of character and their little part, you know, their presence in the film. But

25:27Simon WellsWell, and there's, there's a certain amount of Minion about them as well, that they're…

25:30Jawad MirThat's true too

25:31Simon Wells... They're just, like, instead of being irascible, they're, they're just ridiculously cute. Every time they try and be angry, they're, they're stupidly cute. But yeah, they're, they're, they're I mean, in all honesty, they are a, they're a one-gag character, but, it's a good gag, and they use it really well in a number of places.

25:51Jawad Mir100%. Just jumping away from the movie, I'll come back to it, because the movie's about memories… ... Right? Like, literally, like, that's something that we can all relate to. You know, especially as you get older, you start remem… you know, think about your memories a lot more…

26:08Jawad Mir... For whatever reason, right? You can call it midlife crisis or you can just call it, you know, growing out of it. What are some of the memories, you know, while working on this film that kind of dawned upon you that you may have sort of overlooked or put on the back burner? You know, it could be from your childhood…... It could be from 20 years ago.

26:27Simon WellsOh, I see. In the sense of, w… what did you bring back, you mean? What…

26:33Jawad MirYeah.

26:34Simon WellsBoy,..

26:37Jawad MirAnd it could've been subconscious too, right? It couldn't have been a conscious thing.

26:43Simon WellsYeah. I, that's a, that's a really difficult one to say, because yes, there's probably a lot of subconscious stuff in there, but I'm not sure I know how to unpick it to say, y… you know, where that came from. Yeah, I…

27:04Jawad MirOr you can talk about just memories in general, like, you know, putting the film aside. Like, something that, even watching the film, you know…

27:12Simon WellsWell, I mean…

27:12Jawad Mir... Was there something that…

27:14Simon Wells... Th… th… this is slightly a bleak answer to the thing, but, one of the things that they do really well, there's, a thing I refer to as the power of objects… ... And how objects, you know, particularly on film, objects can represent an idea. But because…

27:34Simon Wells... They're a physical thing, this is now, you know, this object is now, imbued with the concept that you're trying to y… you know, carry along. And any time the character picks that object up, and so this movie is an essay in the brilliant use of the power of objects. But yeah, I mean, I think we, w… we all... Look, I have a collection here. I have a collection of objects. This is just, you know, crap from various movies…... That, you know, I have collected over the years. And sometimes they're, they're things like, you know, this was the Mars rover. This was a, model was a gift from the producer on, Mars Needs Mums. Y… you know? But, an awful lot of it is just kinda, you know…

28:26Jawad MirYeah. That's awesome

28:27Simon Wells... Accumulated crap from various movies. But…... But yeah, I, you know, it's good to hang on to that stuff because, like, oh yeah, you know, you look back and you go, "Oh yeah, it was that thing." I mean, you know, hang on.

28:43Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. I'd love to see more.

28:45Simon WellsThis, that is a… an Acme pegbar back in the days when we used to draw on paper. And…

28:55Jawad MirYeah

28:56Simon Wells... Th… you, it fits, the paper fits on it, so that's always in register. But these are a specially made set with, extremely tall pegs, 'cause normally an Acme pegbar looks like this. And, as you can see, the pegs are, like, twice as high.

29:16Jawad MirOh.

29:17Simon WellsBecause I had this made for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where I was drawing, I had to s… I wanted, I didn't like having other people do the rotoscoping, so I actually stacked up the rotostats in between my sheets of paper so I could draw directly where the, you know, e… each printed photograph was. So yeah, that, there it is. That's a…

29:38Jawad MirThat's awesome

29:39Simon Wells... Ancient piece of stuff.

29:42Jawad MirNot that, not that ancient.

29:45Simon WellsIt pretty much is actually. It's getting on for 40 years, isn't it? So, yeah, I think, you know, I'm, I'm a bit of a hoarder, as you can probably tell from my office here. A… and, but the hoarding is always because, yeah, this was a thing that carried a sentimental value. This, I remember doing this. I remember the people. You know, it can trigger a lot of s… You know, like memories of who you were, what, who you were with, what was going on at the time. I mean, both good and bad. But, you know, it's, it's fun to keep objects for that very reason, you know? But, and…

30:31Jawad MirI agree.

30:34Simon WellsSo yeah, and I think that's a thing that the movie is very clever. I mean, it's a thing which all movies do this to a great, a lesser or greater extent, you know? It's always good to have a thing, you know? The MacGuffin, the, what was it in the first, Spider-Verse movie, you know, the Goober, you know?

30:59Jawad MirOh, right. Yes.

31:00Simon WellsIt's, it's, it's like there's always a Goober. There's always a thing. There's always, you know, it's an object that you're trying to get hold of, and that represents the mission. It's, it's much easier than saying, "Well, I have to, you know, do a thing, or I have to say a word," or, you know. Actually, an object, is a much more powerful thing. And yeah.

31:22Jawad MirIt is.

31:23Simon WellsThe running thing through, the clarity of, you know, this charm bracelet that both the girls have in the movie that is loaded down with individual memories of individual moments, that meant more or less to them depending on which character they are, that was kind of a genius thing.

31:47Jawad MirYeah.

31:49Simon WellsBut yeah, and look…

31:50Jawad MirYeah, I agree.

31:52Simon WellsYeah, but I, as for memories that, you know, did memories come flooding back w… while making the movie? No. I just, you know, it, like every movie, it's, it's head down, get on with it, you know? Get the damn sequences done. Do the fixes. Clean stuff. Re, you know, help with the, okay, there's a new concept here. How much do you have to fix to change it to get it to work? Yeah. It, all movies are a slog. Some movies are a fun slog, and some movies are just a slog. I have, I have to say, generally, my experience in recent years, movies have been a lot more fun, but then part of that is because I'm just working on other people's movies, not trying to do them myself. Movies that you are responsible for, that is exhausting. It's, it's really hard work. I mean, ul… ultimately, I suppose, it's, it's, it's enormously rewarding, but, or can be.

32:56Simon WellsSometimes your movie just goes out and disappears into a hole in the ground, so yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm much more of the opinion that, yeah, you should, you should be having fun while you're doing it. And again, one of the really irritating things about Joel and Januel is they make it fun to work hard. It's, it's really strange. There was a great comment that some animator made on the end of Puss in Boots 2, "I have never worked so hard on a movie or had as much fun doing it." You know? It's, yeah.

33:31Jawad MirThat's amazing.

33:33Simon WellsYeah. You wanna deliver, and, you know, and also, you know, you look at other storyboard artists who are doing extraordinary things and you go, "Oh, shit. They're, they're, they're really, stepping up with this. I better, I better make a bit more effort here."

33:50Jawad MirYeah. No, that's true, and I think that is a testament to their leadership, right? Like…

33:55Simon WellsHopefully

33:55Jawad Mir... Most of the time f… most of the time, whether you're in a company or film or anywhere, the staff will start to, you know, fiddle away or show less interest if the leadership is not great. But when the leadership is always encouraging you and, you know, constructive criticism and making you better, you wanna perform better, which is, which is what's…

34:15Jawad Mir... Shown in the film, 100%.

34:17Simon WellsYeah.

34:17Jawad MirAnd…

34:18Simon WellsAnd yeah, when, you know, you're called back to do changes on something and you can look at it and go, "Oh, okay. I can see why you're making this change, and this is actually materially better. It's not just different. It's actually definitely that hits harder, that delivers the point more succinctly," yeah. That's, that's very satisfying, and you feel like, yes, I'm, I'm motivated to work hard to make this better, and I've been given the opportunity to make this better, as opposed to, you know, these dumb bastards just want me to do a different version of it, you know? And it's basically doing the same thing.

34:59Jawad MirYeah. And you talked about the animation, and we've talked about this before too, you know, you saw that in Puss in Boots 2. You've seen that in Spider-Verse, kind of a little bit in Wild Robot, but very heavy in this. Like, the amount of 2D with 3D, but blend of both to, the te… there was so much texture in this that…

35:23Simon WellsYeah

35:23Jawad Mir... I feel, I feel, you know, kudos to all computer animation. I love all the computer animation films, but I think we've been at it for 30 years, and the audience needs some change. And I don't feel that same kind of texture on a completely CGI, you know, computer generated film. But I did in Wild Robot. I did in Puss in Boots 2, Spider-Verse, but heavily on this.

35:45Simon WellsYeah.

35:45Jawad MirAnd I think that's gonna resonate with people a lot.

35:49Simon WellsYeah. I hope so. It is certainly, it's exciting. It's, it's not just, yeah, the texturing of the thing. It's using very wide angle lenses.

35:58Jawad MirYeah.

35:58Simon WellsIt's, it's in the sort of a characteristic of the, of the snap and movement of things. But yeah, then the addition of 2D elements or elements that feel 2D. I'm, I actually don't technically know whether the stuff that looks like it's drawn on their faces, whether that's actually a... I don't think it's a hand drawn process.

36:20Simon WellsI think it's actually a CG process where they're manipulating lines that look like they're drawn lines.

36:26Jawad MirSure.

36:26Simon WellsBut… Nonetheless, it, yeah, it looks great. And there are parts of, there are parts of the movie that do actually go off into genuinely 2D drawn stuff. Like, when Roy is re… recalling, or telling a completely made up version of how the girls arrived on the island, and he's in the middle of his beach body workout, that sort of ridiculously muscled stuff. Which it was, that was a, just a genius thing that, Aaron, one of the storyboard artists, he, I remember him doing the first pass of that, and it was just like, it was hilarious from the get-go. But yeah, and that I think they, I think they actually, subcontracted to a, another company to do that little, like one minute…

37:18Simon Wells... Long piece of 2D animation. Not that there aren't people at DreamWorks who could have done this. I think it was just, like it…

37:25Jawad MirTime

37:25Simon Wells... It, yeah. And there is a policy within DreamWorks that, a certain percentage of the movie is going to be, it's gonna be farmed out. So like Sony Image Works did a certain amount of stuff on the movie. And, so yeah, if you look at credits, there are a number of companies. And I think they chose sections which were stylistically a, you know, transportation to something else in, where, wherever they could to actually send out.

38:01Jawad MirYeah. And I was gonna... What was I gonna say? I just lost my train of thought here. But it was about the animation and the... Anyways, I'll come back to... Oh, yeah, the credits. You talked about the credits. I love the credits of the film, the end credits. I totally loved it. It was so different. It was so cool, and it kind of just connected with the film in a very deep way of watching these real photographs of people. Right? I just thought I should... You mentioned credits, so it just kind of came to my mind.

38:30Simon WellsYeah. Well, I, you know, it comes down to that ethos of, yeah, caring about the people who made the movie just as much as… ... Getting the movie made.

38:42Jawad MirYeah

38:43Simon Wells... And that's, yeah, again, that is, that is the leadership style that these guys do. It's like everybody is actually important. Again, Mark Swift said a really funny thing. He said, "The trouble with working with Joel and Januel is it's really difficult to get them from one meeting to another meeting, 'cause everybody wants to stop and talk to them on the way. So, you know, getting them from one meeting to another in less than like half an hour is really hard."

39:12Jawad MirI bet.

39:12Simon Wells'Cause, you know, 'cause everybody, you know, feels like they can approach the directors and talk about stuff. So, yeah.

39:24Jawad MirIt…

39:26Simon WellsNo, go ahead.

39:27Jawad MirYou t… you talked about the wide angles, which was very refreshing… ... Especially for a film like this, which is full of color. I mean, you could have gone, you know, the directors or the studio could have gone the other way. "Okay, let's minimize, you know, grand sequences to save the budget, to save the money," and all that. But it re… and it kind of is the way the films used to be done, right? In the '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s. The sh… the ex… the actual environment, the space that the characters are in and how they related to that. And I genuinely really dug that. Like, I thought it was really phenomenally done in terms of connecting the audience to their space and to who they are as friends.

40:06Simon WellsYeah. It speaks to, kind of the age and mental outlook of the characters. ... Yeah, I, you know, it feels like a younger sensibility. I, you know, it's a movie I look at and go, "Oh, fuck, I couldn't make this." I, you know, I don't have the sensibility and attraction to this. And it absolutely works, and I'm, you know, I don't in any way reject it. It's just like, wow, I'm not sure I couldn't have come up with this, and I'm not sure I would've, encouraged pushing it or i, you know, or pushed people to push it that far. And yet, yeah, I admire the results so much. But yeah, it's, it actually, the style of the cinematography gives a great deal of the flavor and feel of the movie, and…

41:16Simon Wells... And the, and the character of the movie, the character, of the, of the protagonists. It's, it's interesting how much, you know, th… that wildness in the cinematography is representative of the character of Joe.

41:36Simon WellsYeah. I... Yeah. Anyway, that's, it's, it's kind of an amazing thing. It's kind of astonishing. I look at it, with a degree of kind of awe from a, from a technical point of view, quite beyond the fact that, yeah, it's just a really enjoyable film, and I really care about the characters, and I've been, you know, I've been fooled into believing these are real living beings with real cares and, you know, dreams and emotions and needs and all of that. But just on the purely technical level, it's like how the hell did you get this done? And it was a fairly compressed schedule. It wasn't as insane as Puss in Boots and Two and Croods. But it was still, it was like a, you know…... Two-year production schedule instead of, you know, it used to be like, eh, usually you'd make a movie in about three years.

42:38Simon WellsThat's, that's sort of…

42:39Jawad MirYeah

42:40Simon Wells... What you'd reckon. I don't know how long it was from Joel and Januel's initial concept, to, but yeah, it was, it was fairly fast. I mean, they w… they were saying when they were originally, coming up with this, they were also developing, a movie, which I'm really sorry they, the powers that be chose not to go on with, which they were gonna do a kind of Guy Ritchie version of, sort of the backstory of, oh God, Goldilocks and the three bears, you know, that's in Puss in Boots 2.

43:22Jawad MirOh. Oh.

43:22Simon WellsIt's like…

43:23Jawad MirOoh

43:23Simon Wells... Okay, let's do the three bears crime family and really go into that. And they created a whole pitch for that, which, you know, everyone was excited about, "Yeah, let's do a Guy Ritchie version of Goldilocks." And then when they actually presented it, everyone went, "Ooh, well, maybe not."

43:42Jawad MirI would've loved to see it. I would've loved to see it.

43:44Simon WellsI still want, I still want to see it, but, yeah. Well, maybe, you know, ideas never really die. It's, you know, how many movies have you heard of that's like, "Oh, yeah, we've been working on trying to get this done for eight years."

43:57Jawad MirYeah

43:57Simon Wells... It's like most movies are like that. I mean, that's another thing that's incredible about this, is that it went from concept to writing to, you know, initial development, to green light and through, really remarkably fast. You know, I've, I've watched an awful lot of other, particularly originals at Dreamworks, you know, kind of bubble along and then flounder and die. And, I, again, I think it's just relentless enthusiasm that's just barreled people along. But also, you know, just, okay, this is act… when I, when I see this realized on screen, I realize how much fun this is. And, but it's, it is an incredible achievement technically. It is an incredible achievement sort of from a storytelling point of view.

44:59Simon WellsBut mostly it's an incredible achievement politically. It's like, how the hell did you get this done? So…

45:08Jawad MirEspecially in today's day and age where…

45:10Simon WellsOh, yeah

45:10Jawad Mir... Existing IP, IPs are just dominating, right? I mean, I think that the arc is shifting a little bit, but still the fact that this was started a couple of years ago back then it wasn't like that.

45:20Simon WellsYeah. Well, I, yeah, I mean, couple of things. The real, I mean, the fact that two or three years ago, the jumpiness that studios had about like, y… you know, the budgets of feature films, what with, you know, streaming not making money and then, you know, the writers and actors strike and the whole close down of COVID and so on. The business has been in a very, a very regressed and frightened state for many years. And to be able to make something like this in that climate is amazing. I mean, you know, look, Spider-Verse was an incredible achievement, but that was now what? 10 years ago.

46:05Jawad MirAnd that was an IP too, right? So.

46:07Simon WellsAnd it had the prop up of being an existing IP.

46:10Jawad MirRight.

46:11Simon WellsI mean, they got away with it because apparently, you know, nobody was really paying attention. They, the Sony, as, you know, wasn't really focusing on it, and by the time, Sony turned around and said, "Yeah, what's going on with this, Spider-Man movie?" They actually had developed the, kind of the look and the style of the thing. And then when you saw it on screen, I remember seeing the first couple of test shots and going, "Holy crap, this is amazing."

46:40Jawad MirYeah.

46:40Simon WellsI so, I wanna see this movie happen. And, but in a sense, they were given the time to do that in secret. And whereas this was, no, you are in the full scrutiny. The, you know, the eye of Sauron is on you. And you don't get to mess around. It's like, you better be right. So, yeah, I, breathtaking achievement. I gotta say, I'm, I'm nervous about the opening weekend. I'm, I'm not afraid for the movie as a whole because I am, I am convinced that word of mouth, anybody who sees the movie, I, you know, the fact it's got 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and they've got like over 40 reviews so far, and not one of them's been bad, is amazing. But I haven't actually talked to anybody who's seen the movie who said, "Eh, not for me."

47:42Simon WellsYou know, even people like me who would look initially and go, "Don't think this is gonna be for me," I, you know, love it. So I think word of mouth will be very strong, but, and that actually saved Puss in Boots 2 at the time when it opened. I think it opened to like $14 million domestic, which is, in today's…

48:04Jawad MirWow

48:04Simon Wells... Numbers, that's a flop. And the studio was very subdued after the opening weekend, but it actually, it increased in the following weekends.

48:14Jawad MirYeah.

48:15Simon WellsBut the, but the danger is if you don't have a big opening weekend, theaters start dropping screens so quickly.

48:24Jawad MirYeah.

48:24Simon WellsAnd, you know, I look at, I, you know, I booked in to go and see our local, Regal Cinema, and… there's only, there's only like three screens running it. It's not, it's not like, you know, you go and see the latest Spider-Man and literally four out of five screens in the, in the multiplex are running this movie. You can go and see this movie every 10 or 15 minutes throughout the day. So you know, there's obviously some caution from the distrib… not distributors, the exhibitors. And I think if it doesn't have a good opening weekend, yeah, they're gonna start shedding screens quickly. Which is a sort of painful reality of the way that the business works now. So yeah, I hope word gets out and a lot of people go and see it.

49:27Simon WellsI really do.

49:27Jawad MirI agree. I agree, and I think we are seeing a very big shift in movies now. I was at TIFF… ... And I saw the footage from, Wildwood, the stop motion film.

49:42Simon WellsOh, man. Yeah, I wanna see that so badly.

49:44Jawad MirOh…

49:45Simon WellsThat looks…

49:46Jawad Mir... Dude, it's…

49:46Simon Wells... Extraordinary

49:47Jawad Mir... It's, it's amazing. Like, I think they showed us 20 minutes maybe, if my memory serves me right. It's extraordinary, and then I saw another film with Mahesh Lalvani, Your Mother. I'm not sure if you're aware of that movie.

49:59Simon WellsYeah, I saw that. I actually…

50:00Jawad MirWhich…

50:00Simon Wells... Movie, yeah.

50:02Jawad MirYeah. Well, it's like a father and kid story, and

50:06Simon WellsOkay

50:06Jawad Mir... And it's a, like a hitman and all that… ... Kind of embodied with spirituality. But it, that got 100% on Rotten Tomatoes too. And it is good to see that now because these couple of these films that have come out in the summer and now, you know, Forgotten Island, Your Mother, and hopefully Wildwood, it's gonna give executives a little bit more confidence that, okay, you know what, maybe we need to put some new stuff out there. And

50:31Simon WellsOh, yeah

50:31Jawad Mir... I'm really hoping for that

50:33Simon WellsYou know, you can't have number movies without having the original. You've gotta, you know, you've gotta keep on... And people do get tired of…

50:41Jawad MirOh, God, yeah

50:41Simon Wells... Of sequels. And I mean, it's that thing of like, well, yeah, a sequel usually doesn't do quite as well as the original, and they gradually, you know, they peter out. But of course, it's much more guaranteed than an original, 'cause an original might be fantastic or it might be lousy, whereas a sequel, you kinda know what you're gonna get. So yeah, it, I do have sympathy for movie executives who are trying to balance out the kinda reliability of sequels versus everybody saying, "Oh my God, I want something original." You know? The audience says they want something original, but they still go and see the sequels, you know? And they don't go and see the originals. So yeah, it's, it's, it's a difficult dilemma. And, but yeah, this movie is about as original as it gets. You know, you want original movies? This is original.

51:42Jawad MirYeah. And I think at the box office, the only competition it's gonna have struggling with is Brad Pitt's, new movie. What's it called? Beast?

51:53Simon WellsOh, the Beast…

51:53Jawad MirIs that the one?

51:54Simon Wells... Beast Within? Is it Beast Within?

51:56Jawad MirNo, it's,.. No.

51:57Simon WellsIt's the one where he's…

51:58Jawad MirIt's, it's…

51:58Simon Wells... He's, he's, yeah, lost in the wilderness with a dog.

52:02Jawad MirYeah. It's, it's called, The Heart of the Beast. Heart of the Beast.

52:06Simon WellsOh, The Heart of the Beast, yes.

52:07Jawad MirYeah.

52:08Simon WellsThe Beast Within.

52:08Jawad MirSo there's, there's that…... And then there's To… Tom Cruise next week with Digger, which I'm dying to see. But you know, I think…

52:15Simon WellsYeah

52:15Jawad Mir... I think they will have separate audiences, and even if it doesn't open, you know, in a grand way, I think the word of mouth is definitely gonna be there. Because, you know, the whole thing about friendship, because when I, my whole initial reaction when I saw the trailer was, okay, it's a s… movie about memories and a story of two friends who are h… who are girls. Okay. You know, maybe it's not a guy movie. You know what I mean? Like, in that sense.

52:37Jawad MirBut I think it still, it still pulls you in regardless of the whole, you know, whether you're two guys or a girl…

52:42Simon WellsOh, and there are big chunks of it that are very bro coded. I mean, the, it…

52:46Jawad MirOh, yeah. Yeah

52:46Simon Wells... I have to say that the character of Joe, she's theoretically a girl, but she does not in any way behave like a girl character.

52:54Jawad MirYeah.

52:54Simon WellsShe is the most bro character I've seen in a, in an animated movie pretty much ever. And, yeah, and then there's also the character Roar who, is about as frat boy as it gets. So… Yeah.

53:09Jawad MirYeah. Da… Dave Franco did a remarkable job in that. He was, he was…

53:13Simon WellsHe had such a good time making the movie apparently. He, and I actually saw him, after a screening about six months ago or so, and you know, he didn't wanna leave. He was just standing around chatting with everybody bec… and so happy about it 'cause he'd had such a good time recording and he was so pleased with the way it had come out…

53:32Jawad MirOkay

53:32Simon Wells... Looking and yeah. So, and I, yeah, again, everybody had a good time doing it. They thought they got to bring their A game, and their A game was appreciated and ended up on screen, so yeah.

53:47Jawad MirYeah. Were you at the Lucas, Museum? There was a little premiere. I just read that before w… we started chatting. Two days ago.

53:54Simon WellsOh, no. No, that was the proper film premiere. I, no, I went to a, you know, like the studio wrap event… ... That was the sort of screening and the wrap party. But yeah, I'm, I'm a wee unimportant storyboard artist. I wasn't invited to…... To premieres. No. That's

54:15Jawad MirWell, you attended something far more, far more important, which is a wrap party with the team that you made the film with, right? So that's, that's far more…

54:22Simon WellsYeah

54:22Jawad Mir... Important than a premiere.

54:23Simon WellsWhich by the way, oh my God, the catering on that party was fantastic. They had, like, genuine Filipino food. They had…

54:30Jawad MirOh, really?

54:30Simon Wells... The, you know, just the lechon, you know, the roast pig… they just had one after another of these things coming out. And they had a live karaoke. They had a band doing karaoke you could sign up for. And, yeah, I mean, it was, it was the physical embodiment of the party that's in the movie.

54:52Jawad MirSee, you won't get that at the premiere, right? So, you got…

54:55Simon WellsNo

54:55Jawad Mir... Went to something a lot better. Was this at the DreamWorks, cafeteria area or was it, like, offsite?

54:59Simon WellsNo, this wa… this was, like I say, this was at, Caltech.

55:03Jawad MirOh, Caltech. Right.

55:04Simon WellsYeah

55:04Jawad MirI forgot. Yes.

55:05Simon WellsYeah.

55:06Jawad MirYes. That's awesome, man. No, listen, Simon, it's, it's an incredible film. I mean, you know how much I love animation. You know how much I love DreamWorks. But without being that in there, it's, it has such a great story and a soul, and the animation…

55:21Simon WellsYeah

55:21Jawad Mir... Is spectacular. And I really hope this paves the way for many other films that are coming out from all animation studios, because we really need them.

55:30Simon WellsI hope so. There was a really smart thing that Joel said in, an interview in, I think it might have been Variety, where he was asked about, AI. And he's, he is quite vigorously anti-AI. But what he said in the interview was really smart. He said, "Look, AI can produce stuff like the stuff that's already been done. So, that's just incentive for us to push further, run faster, do better stuff."

56:00Jawad MirThat is a smart answer. That is a…

56:02Simon WellsYeah

56:02Jawad Mir... Super smart answer.

56:03Simon Wells'Cause we can do stuff that AI can't do, because we haven't thought of it yet, and so AI can't steal it.

56:11Jawad MirThat's gonna be my answer from now on when people ask me about AI and film. It's already been done, so that's why AI's good at it.

56:18Simon WellsYeah. It, if what you want... I mean, actually, there was a really… Did you see that, Lisa Kudrow series, The Comeback? They've done three seasons, each 10 years apart, and they've, they've just had the new season. And it's specifically about AI, being used in kinda sitcoms. And the, there's a horrific point where the guy who's the CEO of the company that's making the sitcom that Kudrow's character, Valerie Cherish, is starring in says, "Look, it's written by A… AI because it, this just has to be something that, people have on while they're doing whatever." It's literally…

56:59Jawad MirTrue

56:59Simon Wells... It's just filler. It's not, this isn't gonna win Emmys. This isn't what it's for. This is just to be on in the background while people do something else. And I thought, "Wow, that's, you know, that is not exactly an indictment, but it is..." Yeah. If what you want is just kind of more of that, more kind of the average stuff, then yeah, that's what it's gonna do.

57:24Jawad MirI agree. And I... One of the things that I'll say, that I've never said this publicly, what the hell, I'll just say it. I truly feel what the, I truly feel AI filmmaking, you know, that's fine. It'll have its own space. People wanna do it, cool. But it's for people who do not want to do the hard work on making a actual film or a TV series. Like, I genuinely…

57:44Simon WellsYeah

57:44Jawad Mir... Feel that now.

57:45Simon WellsYeah, it gives…

57:45Jawad MirIt's like, you know, you're just prompting and that's it.

57:48Simon WellsYeah, it gives me access, it gives me access to skills I haven't been bothered to learn.

57:53Jawad MirYeah.

57:53Simon WellsYou know, "Hey, look, this looks like a drawing." Yeah, it isn't a drawing though. You didn't draw it. You didn't create it. It is, it doesn't have any internal life and reason to be. It just looks like a drawing. Yeah. I mean, the danger is that, it makes people who don't understand the thing think that they do understand the thing and they, and think they've got the thing. And I can see the enormous temptation from the sort of executive level of, "Well, this gets me what I need quickly and cheaply."

58:32Jawad MirYeah.

58:32Simon WellsAnd, oh, God, there was a wonderful phrase that summed it up. AI gives wealth access to skill while denying skill access to wealth.

58:47Jawad MirOh, wow. Oh, wow. That is awesome. I got, I gotta share the, I try to share these stories because they, I'm part of this WhatsApp group and there's this person who is always praying for Hollywood to just, you know, collapse so that it opens the door for all these other artists. And I'm like, "Dude, you're a PhD, and if somebody wanted to copy your speeches and your writing, like, how the hell would you feel," right? I mean, it's just, it's just not the way it is. It c… AI filmmaking is not filmmaking, it's just a fricking prompt. The end.

59:18Simon WellsAlso, you want Hollywood to collapse. What is it about Hollywood you want to collapse? Because, you know, literally the tools to do this are now so democratized that, you know, you can shoot in 4K on this. You know?

59:35Jawad MirYeah.

59:36Simon WellsYou've literally got, you've got a better filmmaking tool in your pocket than anybody had 30 years ago. And you, y… you know, you buy a Mac computer, you've got an editing system on there. Make your film. Go on.

59:52Jawad MirI agree.

59:53Simon WellsShut up about whingeing about, you know, why does Hollywood make such rubbish? Make your film. Come on, step up. Do it. If you think you can do a better thing, th… there's literally nothing in the way of you doing it now. It's not like there was a time when, "I can't afford a camera. I can't afford, you know, an Avid editing system." No, these things are so stupidly cheap now. And, so yeah, it comes down to, oh, you've actually got to learn the skills of how do you put, how do you tell a story in images? How do you create character through dialogue and performance? How do you m… blend that all together and piece it together so that it tells a coherent and emotional story? That's really hard to do. That's where the actual work is.

1:00:49Jawad MirYeah.

1:00:49Simon WellsIt's not in, you know, can I get a crew together and, you know, and a bunch of lights and hire some actors. That's, that's the easy part.

1:00:58Jawad MirI agree. And I mean, you talked about this, right? The phone. I was just at a... I mean, I've been doing this for a while, but this past, last week I was at a retreat at Zion National Park in ... Utah. And, I literally shot everything on ProRes Apple log, so, you know, I have the ability to color it after. And that's, this is all I used. There was no mic, there was no rig, nothing. And if I sent that to you and you saw it, you'd be like, "Holy crap."

1:01:25Simon WellsYeah.

1:01:25Jawad MirLike, 'cause that's how powerful this guy is.

1:01:28Simon WellsYeah.

1:01:28Jawad MirAnd…

1:01:28Simon WellsIt looks professional. Yeah

1:01:29Jawad Mir... And everybody has this. And why not use this as opposed to just AI? You know? Like, just go out there and shoot stuff, make stories.

1:01:38Simon WellsAnd also the guilty truth of AI is it's not free. It's massively expensive.

1:01:47Jawad MirOh, yeah.

1:01:48Simon WellsAnd…

1:01:48Jawad MirThe tokens

1:01:48Simon Wells... The cost of tokens is 10 times what anybody's getting charged for them at the moment. This is why, you know, the OpenAIs of this world are burning through billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars a year, is because they are subsidizing the use of tokens so that we all get addicted to this thing. If you actually had to pay, you know, if you actually had to pay $10 to make that picture of Garfield with big tits, you probably wouldn't do it, huh? It's, it's not like, at the moment, it's just a push button and look, magic, you get this thing. But, yeah, the idea that you're gonna be able to make films using AI. No, the sheer amount of compute that goes into generating that shot, which by the way, when you try and put your next shot next to it, you'll find you can't get them to cut together because…

1:02:44Jawad MirYeah

1:02:44Simon Wells... It's just randomly created. So you end up doing so many iterations on each shot you're trying to get to work with the previous shots. The cost of that is going to be phenomenal. I heard that recently, Microsoft programming people, were told that, "You know what? You can stop using, you know, Claude to write." You know, this whole vibe coding thing where you write code using AI. "We'd like you to go back to writing the code yourself, 'cause actually, you're cheaper than the tokens we're actually…

1:03:23Jawad MirYeah

1:03:24Simon Wells... Having to buy to do it." And so, you know, the cynical part of me says, "Huh, this might be why they're delaying going for an IPO." Because when you go for an IPO, you've got to kind of open your books and let people really see how it, how the sausage gets made. And…

1:03:40Jawad MirRight

1:03:41Simon Wells... Gee, that might be why, these, you know, these stunts where AI broke containment and, you know, hacked companies and governments and stuff like this. I got a feeling these are stunts deliberately designed so that people can come out and say, "Gee, we better slow down development because this is just way too powerful." And, oh, so now the IPO's getting pushed off another six months. Funny that. Maybe I'm just cynical.

1:04:12Jawad MirI… I, no. I agree with you because I was actually looking into this thing. We're going way off topic.

1:04:18Simon WellsYeah, sorry.

1:04:18Jawad MirWhat is it? Well, no, that's fine. What is it called? Anthropic? The, this guy who was a whistleblower, he came out and said that's it's the end of the humanity. And then I was watching this piece, and I did my little own digging too. So the guy who came out, he only worked there for like six weeks.

1:04:34Simon WellsYeah, he'd previously…

1:04:35Jawad MirAnd…

1:04:35Simon Wells... He'd been working at OpenAI, and then had moved to Anthropic.

1:04:38Jawad MirRight.

1:04:38Simon WellsAnd…

1:04:38Jawad MirSo weird

1:04:39Simon Wells... And then he's saying, "Yeah, I still wanna stay in the business, maybe in some sort of consulting role or whatever." Oh, you're basically being put out there as kind of the guy who would be the government watchdog on these companies. And the rapidity with which Dario Amodei and Sam Altman came out and said, "Yes, we agree. It would be a good idea for there to be more regulation, and we should absolutely slow down on development." Like, this was so coordinated.

1:05:11Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

1:05:11Simon Wells... I'm sorry. I'm, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but…

1:05:14Jawad MirNo

1:05:14Simon Wells... Man what…

1:05:15Jawad MirNeither am I, but it's, it's, it's very... These things that you hear in news nowadays, it's very coordinated PR campaign that they do.

1:05:24Simon WellsYeah.

1:05:24Jawad Mir100%.

1:05:25Simon WellsSo, but…

1:05:26Jawad MirIt's, it's crazy

1:05:26Simon Wells... But yeah. And coming back to, you know, is AI going to be applicable to filmmaking? Y… y… yes, it will, I'm afraid. I wish it wasn't. And I am afraid for the jobs of junior people who, need to do the donkey work in order to learn how to fly. You know?

1:05:51Jawad MirYeah.

1:05:52Simon WellsYou, y… you don't become a,.. You know, I am a very experienced senior storyboard artist, but you know, 30 years ago, I was a kid trying to figure this shit out. I wasn't brilliant back then. I'm brilliant now, of course. But…

1:06:11Jawad MirI love it

1:06:12Simon Wells... But the thing is, you've, you've gotta go through the apprenticeship to get to be good.

1:06:18Jawad MirYeah.

1:06:18Simon WellsAnd if all you have is us genius senior artists, like, controlling AI systems, what happens when we die? Then there isn't anybody. So…

1:06:30Jawad MirYeah

1:06:30Simon Wells... No, I reject that. And also just the thing of like, well, you'll, you'll just have more that looks the same. And if what you want is more of the same, then… Fine. And so I think there will be a certain amount of that if it can turn out to be financially viable.

1:06:53Jawad MirYeah.

1:06:53Simon WellsIf AI actually can be made to be cheap enough.

1:07:00Jawad MirI do think though that this whole thing... I mean, you talked about Microsoft, right? So I was reading somewhere that this company let go, like, 30,000 or 3,000 of its staff members, and a year later they decided to hire back most of them.

1:07:14Simon WellsHire them back, yep.

1:07:15Jawad MirRight? So there is this awakening that's happening, that reality. You know, everybody kinda jumps on the ship in the beginning, and then slowly and slowly the reality hits. And, but I'm, I'm optimistic. I think, I think it's necess… It's, it's a good thing that we're going through this AI part because it's making people realize how important art really is, storytelling really is, the real one. And you're seeing that in result of box office. Like, aside from coming out good films like Spider-Man and Odyssey, which are dominating, and, what was it called? The independent, Obsession.

1:07:49Simon WellsYeah.

1:07:49Jawad MirSo I th… I think we're heading in the right direction, and I'm not in any way afraid of AI taking over. Sure, it's a good tool that you can use here and there. But, yeah.

1:08:00Simon WellsBut it, but it can't... It cannot make anything original.

1:08:04Jawad MirNo.

1:08:04Simon WellsI mean, mathematically it cannot. That's not what it does. It... Well, I mean, the trouble is there are a lot of different things that are called AI, but large language models, a ChatGPT that, you use for image creation, no. All it can do is statistically predict the next most likely, you know, word or pixel. There are other things, you know, there are th… what one might term machine learning things, which are tremendously useful. And I think there's, there's a lot of good possibilities with that stuff. The idea that, LLMs are in any way going to result in, AGI, you know, a… artificial general intelligence…

1:08:53Simon Wells... You know, seems to be zero. Honestly, that's just not the way the brain works. They were sort of hoping for some kind of emergent behavior, but it's not really true. Y… you know, and then there's a lot of frankly sort of sci-fi talk about, what is it, recursive self-improvement. The idea you build a machine that can rebuild itself and make itself better, and it, and it will eventually become a super intelligence because it has continually refined itself.

1:09:26Jawad MirSure.

1:09:26Simon WellsYeah, right. Sure.

1:09:32Jawad MirYeah. No, it's, it's true. It's true. I think, I think we're gonna be okay. Lastly, let's talk about what you're working on now, if that's something that you're able to reveal. What's coming up?

1:09:41Simon WellsI think I'm, I think I'm allowed to talk about, the, 'cause I think they've announced Wild Robot, Wild Robot Escapes. It's a sequel…

1:09:49Jawad MirYeah

1:09:49Simon Wells... To Wild Robot. And, I didn't get to work on the first one, and it's one of those movies that came out from Dreamworks, and it's like, damn it, why did I not get to work on the... It was just…... A scheduling thing. I, the productions I was working on or the productions that needed me, like I was working on, like, Kung Fu Panda 5, when W… Wild Robot was being made. And so I sort of, I regretted it. And so the s… the chance to actually work on the sequel is really good. And Troy Quane, who, took over as the director, good guy. He's really smart, seems to know what he's doing. He, and the writer collaborated on,.. Oh, God, what was that movie that originally, f… Blue Sky were doing it, and then when Disney bought Fox, they ba… they, ne… it began, begins with an,.. Nimona. Nimona.

1:10:48Jawad MirOkay

1:10:48Simon Wells... Ended up getting made at Netflix. And I thought really smart, really n… really clever, fun movie. So yeah, that's, that's what I'm boarding on at the moment. We're, we are…

1:10:59Jawad MirAwesome

1:10:59Simon Wells... Racing towards a screening that's gonna happen in November, but, y… you know, November seems like a long way off, but actually we've gotta be pencils down at the end of next week, because then it's gotta start being assembled in editorial, and then they've gotta come back with the things they want fixing. And so yeah, it's, it's, like, I've, I've got a large chunk of action crowd scene that I've gotta get done before the end of next week, which, has been going slower than I want it to. But then I always find that anything I'm boarding, by the time I've figured out what I'm gonna do, the actual process of drawing it is painful. I'm never a… never as fast as I want to be.

1:11:41Jawad MirNo. It, that, I'm, I'm glad that you are on several other projects, and I've always had a pleasure and fun…

1:11:46Simon WellsOh, I've been on a whole bunch of projects this year. But, and at one point three simultaneously, but, yeah, some of them are as yet unannounced, so I can't, can't really talk about that.

1:12:02Jawad MirYeah, of course.

1:12:02Simon WellsBut, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm busier than I want to be, to be honest, although I have no right to complain about that. I know plenty of people…

1:12:09Jawad MirYou…

1:12:10Simon Wells... In the business who would envy that, so yeah.

1:12:14Jawad MirYeah. You should never complain when you're busy, anybody, because that…

1:12:17Simon WellsYeah

1:12:17Jawad Mir... Comes and goes, right? Yeah. Simon, th… thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. Thank you for sharing your little collection. I also saw their, Back to the Future sticker. I actually was talking to Bob Gale yesterday, who

1:12:31Simon WellsOh, yeah?

1:12:31Jawad MirYeah. This, you should get this.

1:12:34Simon WellsOh, right.

1:12:35Jawad MirIt comes out next month. It's this complete…

1:12:37Simon WellsOh

1:12:37Jawad Mir... Screenplay with, a whole bunch of production stuff and screenplay pages…

1:12:45Simon WellsOh, right

1:12:45Jawad Mir... And stuff. So anyways, I just…

1:12:46Simon WellsFun. Yeah. No, I…

1:12:47Jawad Mir... Was remind… yeah, I was reminded of that

1:12:48Simon Wells... I would get that. Yeah. Those actually…

1:12:49Jawad MirSo…

1:12:49Simon Wells... I think the, probably what you were seeing... Let, hang on, let's see. Where is the... Oh, yeah.

1:12:56Jawad MirI saw this.

1:12:56Simon WellsThose are a… tho… those are actually, they're sew-on patches, that on Back to the Future II and III, we got these amazing leather jackets as the crew jacket. And the jackets were so nice that, I think Bob actually said, "Yeah, let's not sew the patches on. We'll give people the patches, and they can sew them on themselves if they wanna ruin a jacket." But…

1:13:21Jawad MirThat's really cool. That's really cool, man.

1:13:22Simon WellsYeah. I, but yeah.

1:13:26Jawad MirAwesome.

1:13:26Simon WellsWow. God, that was a long time ago.

1:13:27Jawad MirIt was a long time ago.

1:13:29Simon WellsThat was '89.

1:13:29Jawad Mir41 years ago. Well, original…

1:13:31Simon WellsYeah

1:13:31Jawad Mir... Back to the Future was 41, but the other one's, like, I think 35 or 36. But yeah.

1:13:36Simon WellsYeah. Right.

1:13:36Jawad MirAwesome.

1:13:37Simon WellsI worked on them in '80, '89, '88, '89, something like... Oh, no, early '89. That was it. Yeah.

1:13:45Jawad MirAwesome. Thanks, Simon. I appreciate your time, and I know you're so busy.

1:13:48Simon WellsAll righty.

1:13:48Jawad MirThis really means a lot.

1:13:50Simon WellsOkay. Always good to talk to you, though. This was fun.

1:13:53Jawad MirPleasure. Please, give my regards to Wendy.

1:13:56Simon WellsYep, will do. And give me a shout next time you're in LA. We'll, we'll have lunch.

1:14:00Jawad MirFor sure. Take care, buddy.

1:14:02Simon WellsOkay. See ya. Bye.

1:14:03Jawad MirBye. Bye.