Editing Wildwood | Laika Editor Christopher Murrie-Green

0:00What did you learn about yourself during the process of this film or after it was completed, just as a human being? I think I've grown to trust my instincts and my skills a lot more than in the past. We all suffer from imposter syndrome. There's always that sense of like any second now they're going to figure out, I have no idea what I'm doing. Were there any tough times of not necessarily dealing with anything from your childhood or anything, but certain things came back up that you kind of have sort of left. Alarmed by the great challenges and benefits of being an artist as you are charged with being vulnerable. To find the truth, you know, you have to plumb your own depths of experience and bring it to bear, which means sometimes examining difficult things. And our film deals with some heavy stuff. Is a huge emotion that's dealt with on multiple you Christopher thank you so much for joining I appreciate it thank you happy to be here are you in

1:57Yeah, same. I moved here 27 years ago. Best decision I ever made. More than half my life now at this point. I've been a Portlander. I can call it home efficiently I. Good. Well I've had the pleasure of watching Wildwood yesterday. I was highly anticipating it. I had to travel for the last two weeks. I just didn't get a chance. What a masterpiece. So much. Man I can't tell you like I walked a movie theater thinking is this movie better than for me like personally for me some of the favorite animated films have been Lion King, Prince of Egypt, Toy Story, Spirit Stallion of Simi-ron is it up there or even higher than that and I thought about it at the scale of this film right and the way it was done obviously you know stop motion It's an epic film. It gets just, I have never seen anything like that when you put into perspective stop motion.

3:01Right? I mean, you look at previous work of you guys, you look at Artman. Great stop motion, but it's not in that grand scale as this was. So bravo and great story. Thank you. I appreciate it. Rewarding to hear other people's opinions, because as you know, you work on a thing, you get so close to it, you can only evaluate it in terms of your own relationship to it. And like I can say, I think this is the best thing I've ever made, but that's still a very contained little thing, and it's only relative to my own perceptions of the process, as opposed to someone who's coming in cold. So it's always amazing to see how people react in the real world who aren't burdened with six years remembering every frame of the movie. Yeah. Thank you, that's very kind. No, deserving is not something I say lightly. I saw the 20, 25 minute preview at Toronto International Film Festival. I think one of the guy who played, what's his name? I'm horrible with character names.

4:07The kid who played the friend, I think he was here. Jacob Curtis, yeah, Jacob was And I think one of the directors, one of the animators were a

5:13I

6:13You know… We worked out a weird way where I could make cuts and send bins to my assistant to my assistant who the

8:05. The.

8:35Truth

9:35That

11:05The tone of the, He's my favorite character in the film. I found his arc personally very, extremely rewarding. I'm very much, I was a Curtis growing up, I know I, so I related to him strongly. And I, yeah, I think finding the truth. The truth of his character was a real joy because he is a brave kid. It's the thing I always mentioned to Travis. I'm like this kid, he kind of is meant to seem sort of and. Weak and stuff, but I'm like, he's talking to Pru right away. He fearlessly starts talking.

12:09He has no concept of what's appropriate. His filters are broken, so he has his own challenges to overcome, but bravery was never one of them, which is a thing I've always loved about this character. We can all remember that age and how terrifying it was to talk to somebody you liked, and he's just like, boom, right at it. Fearlessly, the faucets on full blast. His journey was so interesting personally, because I was that kid, I was the RPG kid, I love D&D, you know, still I'm a grown man and I'm taking sword fighting classes. You know, I'm in the hit very much in his realm of interest and to let a kid be plopped into a real fantasy world, a real fantasy world and be confronted with what it really means to carry a weapon in these things, and see it land on a, felt like those aren't places you in a war, you want that to land hard. And I think it's more meaningful if you are already kind of like warmed up to them, which I think the humor does great early on. But then, yeah, get out of the way and let the heavy emotions play out.

13:42Yeah, I'll come to a film for a second. If you remind me asking, you talked about how Curtis was your childhood, right? So six years is a long time to work on a project, And especially you're working on this project and there's a character, one of the main characters, that is you in your head, right? Like that's how you were. Were there any tough times of not necessarily, you know, dealing with anything from your childhood or anything, but certain things came back up that you kind of have sort of left, if that's okay for you to chat about. Oh yeah, no, absolutely. I think it's one of the great challenges and benefits of being an artist as you are charged with being vulnerable. It's that you, to find the truth, you know, you have to plumb your own depths of experience and bring it to bear, which means sometimes examining difficult things. And our film deals with some heavy stuff. Grief is a huge emotion that's dealt with on multiple fronts in this film. And it's a thing we all have to become acquainted with in our life. We don't get to choose when. I've had the unfortunate experience of becoming acquainted with it earlier than I'd hoped with some members of family.

15:06And it's the human experience, right? It's we all go. So it feels to me like it's an opportunity as a storyteer and as an artist to be like, all right, I've been through the sort of chapel perilous of this thing. And I can bring to bear my own experiences and help communicate to people and help other people going through it identify and be like, I'm not alone, other people know what this feels like. And then the people who haven't been there, it's a chance to vicariously they experience it and become acquainted with what it might feel like. I think that's one of the great things about kind of going to have your subject matter in family films is it gives kids a safe place to experience a little bit of these heavy emotions which they will have to confront in their life at some point. But you do it in a way that's safe and that offers solace and the comfort of like somebody else has been there and they know what it's like. And it gives me a chance as an artist to sort of examine my own relationship with grief and find the truth in it in a way that's an exorcism, you know, that allows me to lighten the burden.

16:13It's a burden you, grief, I would say grief is a burden you carry the rest of your life. It's just, you learn how to carry it, you know, it's like you put on a 50 pound backpack, you can either let it weigh you down and you collapse, or you gain the strength and you learn how to step different and carry it around the rest of your life and you're good. So being an artist is a great way to exercise those muscles and figure it out, and then also give the tools to other people, hopefully. Without giving away anything in the film, if it had been any other animated film R or kind of like how labyrinth was, which is another example of this film I would like to kind of put out there, you go into this world And you stay there, and then you sort of come back at the end. Right? And Labrith was similar, like searching for her brother and, you know, in that capacity. But I had no idea that things we were going to shift halfway into the film.

17:15And that was very surprising. That whole part of the story, the backstory and everything, and the way it was edited actually was phenomenal, because you couldn't see where the story was going. Talk to me, was that always the plan from the very beginning or that changed a lot throughout the years? Because I would love to know how you guys tackled that or yourself and Travis. No, I mean, structurally that was always the shape of it. I think, you know, one of the things I like about our film is the mid film, the big thing in the middle of the movie, which is usually a big turning point, isn't a big physical action scene or anything. It's about reveal. It's the reveal of Alexandra's backstory and then the reveal of Crew's parents' connection to her.

18:06They're emotional turning points. They're big gut punch kind of status quo shifts where one, you understand suddenly who this villain is that she's not really a villain even by normal standards. She's this tragic, broken figure. And then, proves parents, there's this crazy reveal that the magic extends outward from this world that came to the real world and it's affected proves origins and her relationship to her parents is changed forever. So, I always appreciated that, it's that idea that you can't go home again. She's left this magical place. She managed us to get home, but things will never be the same. And she's being forced to reevaluate her relationship with her parents, what that even means. She's no longer can relate to them as child to parent. The balloon has popped as far as like parents as these iconic all knowing adults.

19:08And if I, once I attain adulthood, I too will be an all knowing thing. She realized, oh my God, they're just disfoulable. They make huge mistakes just like anybody else. None of them are going to give me any answers. And in fact, now I have to not only solve this issue of finding my brother, but I'm gonna have to heal a broken relationship with my parents and I have no idea how to do that. It's such a great relatable problem. Cause you know, we all have those Thanksgiving dinners where uncomfortable conversations happen and whatnot.

19:44Yeah, it changed so that, you know, And you know that once, whatever she resolves in Wild, whatever gets fixed at the end of the third act, she's going to come home and it's not going to be the same. I think that's nice that it's established in the middle of the film, that it's not going to be a happy ending, happy ever after, reset… reset the status quo exactly things were the way they were. There's going to be a reckoning, even at the very end, even if she manages to stop this physical issue, the physical threat. She still has this family thing that's going, that's waiting for her at home. This was reckoning both with her parents and with herself. What is, what does it mean to be part of this family now that everything is upended and truth revealed and relationships broken. And now it's, it's lovely stuff I think. And there's, it's much more meaningful and relatable than just punch and fight the villain kind of thing. And that's one thing that I loved quite a lot is the antagonist, you know, I don't want to use the word villain because it was very I mean she had a very strong arc to like you find out How people become what they become, you know not to justify their actions But I really appreciate it and then I also appreciate it And I mean, I don't know how connected this I shouldnattach it connected But it kind of came out to the relevant of the times that we live in with a situation in the world You know the people who are to a land versus people who are not and that really was interesting But it had just so many layers right and I was very curious to find out about the battle sequences From an editing standpoint of course a storyboard of course done all that stuff But there's a lot of cuts like a lot of cuts How challenging was that?

21:36Or was, how did you guys tackle something like this? Because I don't think it's been done before. It was an absolute joy. This, I mean, speaking again to like my connection to Curtis, that's one of those sequences I always tell myself, man, if I can just go back in time and show 10 year old me, like you get to work on this battle sequence, I would have been so excited. And I was excited the entire time. It was an absolute joy to work on.

22:30Itself and knowing like how are we going to keep turning the screws on? How can we keep pushing people back further and further and further into their chair and just push it, putting the pressure on, knowing that we're going to build up to this intimate one-on-one fight up on top of the plinth, you know. So bringing the scope as wide as we do and knowing we're going to narrow it, till it's this really personal thing. And wanting to kind of keep the gas pedal down the whole time. It was a real puzzle to put together. So we had a lot of coverage. We had a lot of sort of g Rags, I guess you could say notn't funny gags, but just fight gags some vignettes to play around with. And initially it was a lot of cutting things apart and moving them around, you know, to try to find shape-wise, you know, what's the overall story we want to a tell? What are the beats and how do we want camera to represent that? How much, when do we want to be down in the scrum with people? When do we want to come back and take the kind of literally the bird's eye view of the battlefield?

23:35And I wouldn't say it was ever hard. It was challenging. That's a distinction. But it was such a joy. And we were just giggling with glee as we cut it together. Like the first time I put the sound on the artillery barrage, and we, and all the explosions and the coyote running by on fire, and we were just like, you know, kids on the playground just delighted as we're bashing our toys together. It was an incredibly satisfying part of the movie to work on. And of course, it was a very heavy lift to make it. But one of the things I really appreciate about Travis is when we were doing the storyboard phase, we just never once considered how it was just, let's just make this the best version we can. Let's tell the story we wanna make, figure it out. We didn't, we're a trusted the process. So we never once considered how on earth are we gonna achieve these shots.

24:35It was, what are the right shots for the moment? What's the story we're telling? That was the only sort of guiding star that we adhered to, which again, I can't appreciate his approach to that enough that we were just gloves off on this film. It… it was just, let's just do it and we'll figure it out. I think we did. No. It certainly did seem like gloves off, like even one of the moments that I just remembered. And, you know, I grew up with the eighties and nineties animated films, man. So like, I see stuff and I'm like, oh, you know, and even though that intention wasn't there, it was just in my head, right? The whole flight sequence reminded me of Rescuers Down Under, that big in the opening sequence. But then that flight scene, the way that flight scene ended, that was a shocker. I just gasped. I'm like, whoa. That was the introduction of how this movie is going to go from here on, the tone of it. You guys did go to a place where nobody's gone before.

25:39You can talk about anime and stuff, but in mainstream animation? No. And it was class. It's all about stakes, right? That's one of the emotional high points of the film for Prue is we take her to a peak and then we want to pull the rug out and make it clear that nobody's safe. I would hope that people got very attached to Angela Bassett's character and her performance and she's a big name, so you wouldn't expect that she's going to be a character to go. So I think that's a big turning point in the film where it hits home and you can't really trust anyone's going to make it through. So by the time we get to the big battle at the end, ideally you've got people in pins and needles that, you know, anybody could go. Obviously probably not Pru, probably not Curdis, but you just don't know what the body count is going to be by the end. And that's, that's, it's great when you don't know if everyone's going to make it. It makes it all much more meaningful than that clearly has plot armor and they're all going to survive.

26:45I mean, I will tell you, there was a moment when I felt that Curtis might not make it. That's good. That's good. Yeah. Because there were so many wild things that were taking place, you know, and even the whole idea of him doing what he's supposed to be, he does something in the end, right, which he even embarrassed to do of himself, that he did it. And he gets all the strength in the world to rescue. But it wasn't like your traditional, like, you know, Prince Charming comes and saves the princess and this and that. It was just done.

27:55His journey felt real and really earned and that the statement we're making about heroism is clear that these things aren't so cut and dry that there's a cost. So it's not just him learning a hard lesson about violence, but it's about, you know, how far will you go for the people you love? What burdens will you take on? What scars are you willing to take? And so he, you know, horrific act of violence, which at one point was something he would have thought, oh, it's so cool. And now it's like, oh my god, yeah, this is I've got so much therapy out of me. So we always talk about the unshot fourth act of the film has just proven Curtis in endless hours of therapy. But I love that we have a shot of Curtis at the at the end, when all the warriors are celebrating, and we punch in on him. And he's just, He's heartbroken, he's saddened, and he exchanges a look with Brendan and the two of them. Brendan kind of just gives him a nod, like, and now you know.

28:58And it's just, it's so meaningful to me that shot where Curtis, he has grown up, you know, he's learned one of the hardest lessons there is. The cost of all these things, and you know, he's never going to be the same. I can't believe because I realized that how from the beginning of his introduction to the last shot of him, we don't know who he is, other than a video game kid. We don't know who his parents are, if there are any parents.

30:01We don't know anything about him, who his friends are, if he had any friends, because that's the world that we are shown that he lives in. And that's it. And I thought that was really nicely done. Because you know, what's adding too many characters sometimes does just a little too much, but it was just kept it mysterious and you liked him more. Yeah. Well, and he becomes more of a character you can project yourself onto. Yeah. He does mention his parents very briefly, but it's just in his motor mouth. He just rattling things off.

30:44I was like, which I have one. And I'm like, Oh my God, I'm Curtis's dad. But, yeah, I, we talked a lot about what his family life was like internally, you know, but it was never a thing we were going to put on the screen. It was always just, you know, joking in between us of like, Oh gosh, imagining what him trying to explain where he's been for four days when he comes home wearing this armor and his broken glasses and stuff, knowing what he said about like his dad's short temper and stuff. Oh, gosh, there's a whole movie there probably of Curtis coming out and dealing with his parents.

31:20Yeah, he's a wonderful character. For sure. Tell me something, Christopher, just kind of going off tracks from the film. What got you into this world, into the world of stop motion animation? Was it a particular movie that you saw? Like what's your catalyst? What's your story? It's all kind of accidental. It's weird. It's one of those things where, you know, I look back and I see all these threads that go back into my childhood that it's all perfectly clear to me. I was a huge fan of stop motion growing up, particularly California raisins, because that was like I was just the right age when that became a phenomenon. And then like the pizza annoyed or whatever that was the Domino's pizza annoyed. And right around that time, because the raisins hit, they started touring all the like Claymation Festival stuff on 35 millimeter. And I like begged my mom to take me into Chicago to go see, to see that.

32:17But it never was more than just like childhood interest. And as a teenager, I started to get into movies because child of the eighties, you know, video rental was your babysitter. And I saw Terry Gilliam's Brazil. I was maybe 13 and I was a big Monty Python fan. I was like, oh, it's the Monty Python guy. I'd seen Time Bandits, which I loved, but I was not ready for Brazil. It rocked me. And it was like my first awakening to films as art, as something that was bigger. And that's when I suddenly became like, okay, there's more to this than just, you know, passing the time entertainment. So I started to really pay attention to credits. I started following directors, I, you know, saw Goodfellas and then Scorsese, oh my god, I got to see all of it, you know, so I started almost like I would when I bought records, I would look at who do they, you know, who gets thanked, who's friends with who, you know, kind of trying to find new and interesting titles through the liner notes or through the credit rolls or who released it, because you'd get these oddball video horror things, which I was really into, I got into really into Sam Raimi, Evil Dead 2, all these, of course, benchmark films.

33:39Akira was my first animated film that rocked me. Akira made me realize animation wasn't Saturday morning cartoons. It was like, holy crap, there's so much more to this. So all that's happening, I was very much a music person. I was a punk rock kid in high school skateboarder and I wanted to be in the music business. I wanted to record things like that. So in college I started in the music program. I was a music program and I was coming up with interesting ideas for how to get musicians to improvise. And so I had this crazy project where I'm like, I'm going to take a bunch of movie clips, I'm going to edit them together. I'm going to give all these musicians rules about when they see certain colors, they see certain things, they had rules for how they would play and improvise with each other, but no one knew what each other's rules were and nobody had seen the footage before. So that was my idea, that's fine, it was a fun experiment, but I found when I was putting the footage together that I was like wow this is really exciting. Putting clips together and finding ways to juxtapose the images. That was like my first taste of editing and just from there I just couldn't stop. I started, you know, dubbing my own soundtracks over things. Like I took Metropolis, I had the Giorgio Mordor Cored version which was not to my taste. So I'm like, well, I'll put my own soundtrack on it, you know, pulling movie scores together, not realizing that was making like my first attempt score in the process. But again, I was all focused on music and it was only And then suddenly, as an adult, just out of college, that I got a job at a news clipping service.

35:22Like the kind of people where like Oscar Meyer would be like, give us all the coverage of the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile when it went on. And so we'd gather all the news footage and package it up and edit it together and send them out. So I suddenly got 40 hours a week on an editing machine. Took an avid class because I was enjoying editing so much and it just never stopped. I moved to Portland on a whim and it ended up being where the California Raisins had been made. And I ended up as an assistant editor at Wilavinton Studios. So it all came full circle. I found myself an assistant editor at a stop motion studio purely by chance because I had picked Portland because it was a cool weird city out west. I was looking for an adventure and to completely like hit the reset button. It wasn't planned and I have not had a job interview in 26 years.

36:19It's been an incredible journey. I didn't expect any of this and couldn't be more delighted. Hopefully that was not overly verbose. No. It's always great because look, I understand your energy and your passion because I'm in the film world too and I've I've done a lot of editing, and I love editing, but I'm more into writing and directing features now. And so I understand, like, when you start looking back at life of how everything started, you're like, holy crap, it makes perfect sense why things happen the way they happen. But when you're going through it, you're like, what the hell is going on, right? So I totally get it, and I appreciate you sharing that because it means a lot to people who are in this industry because everybody has a unique story, and we all go through stuff to be where we are. Yeah, and I think it's an industry that feels unattainable or impenetrable to random kid in the Midwest, that you're a million miles from Hollywood and it feels like these are other people who make movies.

37:21So to have found my way here and working on things, the scale I'm at, and I never moved to California, I moved to Portland and I, how did that work? I moved to Portland and got into the movie industry. It just doesn't, I still am like, how did I manage to land on that bullseye? It's like jumping out of an airplane from 70,000 feet and landing smack dab in the middle of the bullseye with a blindfold on, but sure happy to be here. If my memory serves me right, Laika started in the early 2000s, right? Like that's when the first launch. 2006 or so, yeah. Yeah, because I remember. What year? So I went to Portland the last time in 2007. And I remember, because I was doing a lot of production work, and I remember I need to apply for a job. And I remember I actually sent a resume to Lake. I had no idea what I was going to do there. It was just one of those random things. But yeah, I mean, I remember them starting at that time, and then all the movies that we have sort of seen coming out.

38:24And it's really cool, man. It's really cool. You talked about music and the importance. I'm a huge music score lover, like that's all I listen to. And the music score in this film by Dario is phenomenal. Like it has the epic beats, it has the gentle emotional tones. Sometimes it overpowers the scene, sometimes it's very mellow, but it's perfect. Working as an editor with music is probably one of the most fun things that you can do aside from cutting the scenes. Just tell me the stories behind that. What was the process of working with Dario? And synchronizing everything, the visuals with the music. That was wonderful. This was my second time working with Dario, which was also great. So there was already a pre-established relationship there. And we had the good luck of getting to have him come on really early. I want to say our first demo was maybe in 2024, maybe 23? Can't quite remember. I know I had them for a few years.

39:25So we went through a round of initial scoring. I think we maybe did two passes with them, where we got demos for probably 90% of the film. So we finished. You know, they were loose because we were just in storyboards. But that meant all through production, I got to real music in there and kind of keep that alive as the cut was evolving and as we were plugging in shots from the stage. So we were seeing things in a context, which was way further along than we normally would have. And it got me a chance to work with him early. Dario is such a great collaborator because he's not shy about like he'll send us split tracks for everything. So you know, there'd be times where Travis and I would get in, we'd have eight or nine stems with all the different orchestrations broken out and we would retool and recut some of the score to give him kind of a sketch of like, okay, we kind of want it to be structured this way. We really went around the bend a bunch on the Alexandra and Prue struggle up among the Ivy to get that shaped exactly right. But it was so cool because we got to cut it apart and rebuild.

40:38And I had a synthesizer software that could sustain notes. So I would build in these overly long hanging tent strings and stuff and plug them in. And then we'd play him our versions of his demos and he'd then send us stuff back. So it was a really great hands-on wrestle with the material back and forth. He's such a great collaborator. And then he kind of went away for a couple of years and I got to go through the production process, which painfully meant I had to keep recutting his score, which is its own sort of beautiful nightmare of having to okay I've cut out four frames. How do I make that work now over and over again? Just by the time I played him, his demo was back to him after two and a half years and they were kind of mangled. I was hiding under the desk, but he's just such an incredible musician that he understood what we did and he elevated it, is what you'd always hope any step along the way with one of these things, you hand something over to a collaborator, you trust it's gonna come back even better, and it did.

41:49And going to the scoring, I was one of the most profound music experiences I've ever had in my life. We recorded the full orchestration for the flashback when we find out Alexandra's past and the truth about Alexi. He recorded a couple passes, full orchestration just in one or two goes, you know, before they then split things out and do multi-tracking passes. And it was right at the end of a day, a long scoring day, and we were at Air Studios, which is a church in north of London that George Martin of the Beatles fame had converted into a recording studio. The sun was coming through these stained glass windows and lighting up the orchestra, and they were getting to this profound piece of score about grief and loss, and I just poured tears. I've like heaving sobs. I was so deeply moved. I had to leave the studio and just walk the three miles back to my apartment and just find myself again.

42:53I was so transported emotionally, so profoundly moved by it. And what a joy. I mean, I've been through this process a number of times with composers and we get the demo, we get the final recordings back and you plug them in and it's great and you're excited. But this, I got to be there in the room and the perfect mulk timing of the light coming through and this beautiful music, it was one of those mountaintop events. I don't know if it'll ever be topped. Perfect music moment, which is what I'm here for. Yeah, no, it's a great score. I actually downloaded it last night and listened to it a little bit when I was driving home from the movie theater. Sort of wrapping things up two things and you may have already answered this in the light of being connection with Curtis. What did you learn something about yourself during the process of this or after it was completed just as a human being? And it could be something about you now or it could be something about you that you realize from your childhood or growing up years.

44:06I think I think grew a lot as an editor on this. I think I've grown to trust my instincts and my skills a lot more than in the past. We all suffer from imposter syndrome. There's always that sense, like any second now they're going to figure out I have no idea what I'm doing. There were times when I really felt confident. I'm like, I know this is right. I know this choice is right. I think I've kind of crossed the Rubicon in some way where I still have those moments as a shy person where I'm like, oh, I don't fit in this world. What they're gonna notice any second now that I'm not a Hollywood guy, which I'm never gonna be. But I don't know, there was something, there was an ease on this film about finding what was right. Were burdens that were pleasant to take on. There was never like a oh no kind of moment.

45:10How on earth are we going to solve this? It was each challenge was thoroughly exciting to head on. And I took on a lot more of the briefing animators. I interacted with people I interacted with people a lot more than I had in the past. Again, I'm a really shy person. I don't share a lot. It takes a lot for me to get close to somebody and open up. But it was sort of thrust upon me where I'm like, no, I've got no choice. I've got to like talk the crew through this shot. I've got to launch an animator on this shot. And I gained a lot of tools that I didn't have before as far as being able to verbally articulate a goal or what we're trying to achieve and finding the language to bring somebody into

46:27The concepts, the feelings that are ephemeral and finding a way to make them concrete and shareable in a way that people can grab onto it and understand it and then elevate it, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. And I think, as I shouldn't say, I think I should say, do you think Curtis had anything to do with that? Maybe so. Yeah, Curtis, certainly, just the subject matter of the film as a whole, dealing with these visceral, deeply human things, like grief and loss. They're things that I was confronting head on in real life at the same time. So it was a powerful way to bring to bear. You know, I lost my father while I was working on the show. And sorry, man. Oh, no, it's listen, man.

47:28It's the that's the that's the human journey. And we're all on and I'm grateful for the experience. It's a thing that I've I've learned both as an artist and just as a human that you have to accept the pain and the hardship of life alongside the good stuff because it's all part of what it is to be a human. We're all on this incredible journey. And the highs mean nothing if you don't have the low lows. It's funny, it all comes back. It's just that it's into editing. It's all about dynamism. It's about you cut quick so that you can cut slow. You give people an emotional high so that you can give them emotional low. It's finding the meaning and the contrasts and the swings and what are the transformational aspects of when it changes from one to the other. So grief works that way. Stories work that way. It was an incredible film to work at the time that I worked out. That looks very beneficial and I brought a lot to it, I think, as a result.

48:30No, you did, man. And the entire team. So thank you so much. And I'm sure your dad has seen the film and he's super proud of you. I sure hope so. Right. And it is. Yeah, it's just I was I even googled yesterday, again, as I was cob walking into the car, is there a sequel? Right? Is there a talk to sequel? And as I did that, I'm not asking you that. I don't want you to tell me that. As I did that, I'm thinking in my head, do I really want a sequel for something like this? And, you know, sometimes when you do something really great and very rarely you make a sequel or two sequels when they kind of come at the same level as the original. It really happens. I'm always afraid to look for sequels as much as I want them as an audience. I don't want to ruin the original experience. So whether it happens or not, I don't know.

49:31And if it happens, I'll watch it. If it doesn't happen, I'll still be happy. Happy.

49:43It's built in, you know, there's certain, I'm a fan of grew up with comic books and things like that. So serialized storytelling is a form I really like. I think that's why prestige television, it's so great right now as you do get that ongoing thing. But there is also something to be said for the perfect thing and you just let that live, set it aside and onto something new. 100%, 100%. Thank you so much, Christopher, man. My pleasure. I enjoyed it. It was great. And safe travels. Thank you. To the rest of the world.

50:20If I am due in Portland anytime soon, I should be there soon. Because it's been 20 years. That's one of my favorite cities. I will buzz you. And if you're around, we can grab a coffee or something. Absolutely. Sounds wonderful. Well, safe travels, sir. Thank you so much. Cheers. Thank you so much. Bye.