'Home Alone' & 'Home Alone 2', Editor, Raja Gosnell

0:05Jawad MirWhere are you, located right now, in, LA?

0:09Raja GosnellYes, correct.

0:11Jawad MirGreat. How's the weather there?

0:13Raja GosnellA little bit gloomy today, but that's okay. W… we'll take some gloom. There hasn't, we haven't had any crazy rain for a while, but, it's been a, been a good, interesting winter so.

0:25Jawad MirWell, that's good.

0:25Raja GosnellAnd you're, you're in Toronto?

0:27Jawad MirYeah. We're just…

0:29Raja GosnellOne of my favorite towns. I had the opportunity to work there many years ago and, just love the people, love the town, and, so good on you. Good place.

0:41Jawad MirYeah, it is. Well, when was that, and what project was that?

0:44Raja GosnellOh my gosh, it was, so long ago. It was, I don't know if you remember the Billy Jack movies with Tom Laughlin.

0:52Jawad MirNo

0:52Raja Gosnell... They're sort of '70s counterculture…

0:55Jawad MirOkay

0:55Raja Gosnell... And he was a, you know, a martial arts guy who beat up the rednecks who were beating up on the hippies kind of a thing. He intended to do a sequel, that took place in the city. It was, it was written for New York, but shot in Toronto. But it ended up not coming to fruition. But we were, we were there, I was there, you know, we shot, like, the first four weeks or whatever, and then it ended up shutting down. But, for the time I was there, it was a very lovely stay and just lovely people.

1:29Jawad MirYeah, it is a great city. It's, it's really nice. Different things, right? Was… it has a New York feel, but it doesn't, so good…

1:38Raja GosnellYeah

1:38Jawad Mir... To be here. Yeah.

1:40Raja GosnellClearer version of New York.

1:43Jawad MirIt's not as crazy as New York, but at the same time, it's the, it's the craziest city in Canada. Let's just put it that way.

1:49Raja GosnellThere you go.

1:50Jawad MirYeah.

1:50Raja GosnellIt's the city.

1:52Jawad MirYeah. But yeah, no, thanks, so much, for joining. I mean, as you probably have heard this millions of times, there's so many people out there who love the Home Alone films and obviously, you worked, I think, with Chris Columbus quite often, like on Nine Months and Mrs. Doubtfire.

2:13Jawad MirAnd, just one thing that I probably picked up 15 years ago, I mean, you know, you watch Home Alone, like, literally, it's like, it's not like a tr… traditional tradition per se that you watch it every Christmas like we make time.

2:29Raja GosnellRight.

2:29Jawad MirBut we always end up watching it anyways, like whether it's at my home or my parents, where everybody gets together. You watch Home Alone one and two.

2:38Raja GosnellRight.

2:39Jawad MirBut one thing that I picked up on 15 years ago, which I didn't appreciate because when I started editing myself, is that a lot of people compliment the film's performances, direction, script, music, as they should, but comedy is all about timing, right? And a lot of credit has to go into the editing of the way it was all tightly knit up together, and it's not an easy thing to do that. And maybe that's one of the reasons I never noticed it is because it was just done so well that you don't…

3:12Raja GosnellYeah, that's, good editing should be invisible, for sure.

3:16Jawad MirYeah. But just wanted to give you know, kudos on such a fabulous…

3:20Raja GosnellNo, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Yeah, it was, it was super fun to do. Chris and I had done, adven… we'd done, I'd worked on Adventures in Babysitting as like…

3:33Jawad MirYes

3:33Raja Gosnell... A second editor that sort of helped put together a scene. And then he asked me to do Harper's Hotel, which we did, which didn't work too well. So, I think both of us were thinking, "Well, career done," you know? "What are we gonna do now?" and then he got Home Alone, after meeting with, John Hughes and, yeah, it's just a, it's just a delightful movie that, it's like one of those things that everything worked, you know? Like the best movies that I've worked on, Pretty Woman, Good Morning Vietnam, as an editor, you know, they just sort of, they came together and they worked, immediately. So great concept, great performances, beautifully exe… ex… executed by Chris. And so the editing of it, I appreciate the compliment on the timing and, I think that, it wasn't something that I studied or went in thinking, "Oh, it's gonna be this," or, "It's gonna be that."

4:34Raja GosnellI just sort of went with my gut, but my gut, it turns out, had been, through osmosis, had been trained by, Looney Tunes and Road Runner. And so when I saw these sort of sequences, you know, in their raw dailies form and started to put them together, I think that timing was somewhere in the back of my head and, it just made it onto the screen.

5:00Jawad MirYeah. No, phenomenal. Absolutely. And going back to your beginning of your career, how did it all start? Like what got you into the world of film and then of, obviously editing? If you can, share that story.

5:15Raja GosnellYeah. Well, I was very lucky s… 'cause I had a father who was in the business, so nepo baby, I guess is the, is the new term.... But, I was, I was able to start, as a, they used to call them gophers. They call them PAs now, but i… it was basically a runner at, Robert Altman's film company. And at the time they were doing, his movie, A Wedding. And so my job was to be at the LAX, airport at, 3:00 in the morning to receive the, all the raw negative that was coming in and drive it to the lab, Have that there in the morning, and then I would go in and I'd work in the editing room and just like do whatever. I'd do, you know, do runs for the office or whatever. But I was immediately fascinated with the editing aspect of it. And, the guys were there working, and they were working on big flatbed chem machines.

6:18Raja GosnellSo, it was, it was a very observable, art form. You could sort of be quietly in the back of the room and say, "Oh, yeah, he's trying to get from that shot to that shot, and he's trying to match this," and, you know, this... Like I could understand intuitively what the goals were and what the, what they were trying to accomplish, and sometimes thought I could do it better you know what I mean? So I was a, you know, 18-year-old kid. But, so that was sort of the earliest days. And then I did, you know, a few films in a row with Altman and that same team of editors and, eventually, became I guess a second editor, co-editor, whatever, of his movie Popeye. And

7:07Jawad MirOh, you did Popeye. Okay.

7:09Raja GosnellYeah. So, I wasn't the main editor. I was, I was one of a big team.

7:14Jawad MirNo.

7:14Raja GosnellBut that's how I worked my way basically from being the guy that drives route to get coffee to being the, an editor on that. So it was, it was great. Like it was, it was like the perfect, lab, I guess, slash school university, you know, however you would call it. But basically, there was no studio structure, there was no union rules. At the time, like certain things you had to be of a certain union status to like load a machine or to do this, you know? There was, it was very sort of regimented and you had to be an apprentice editor for five years before you could be an assistant editor, before you could be an editor or whatever. That existed, in the Robert Altman universe. So like, you know, two months in I was like threading the projectors. It's like, "Hey, get out of here. There's a screen. You gotta learn to thread the projector." "Okay." So now I'm running the projection room and, "Oh, you gotta learn to do this, you gotta do that," you know?

8:16Raja GosnellSo, pretty much everything that they could throw at me, I gobbled up and was able, fortunate enough to leave there with quite a great post-production education. So it was a, it was a pretty miraculous time and just a fun place to work and I learned a lot.

8:36Jawad MirFantastic. And, you know, when you're editing, any kind of project, like mostly, I mean, from what your filmography I've seen, you know, especially in the '90s and the '80s, they're more or less comedies that you did. And when you get onto a project, no matter what kind of project it is, what genre it is, whatever, like how ar… early do you get involved or is it literally like, you know, depending on the project, if the dailies are coming in as they're being shot, do you start editing simultaneously because of maybe budget or time restraints?

9:15Raja GosnellYeah. Definitely. That's, that's, that's pretty much how it goes on every movie. I would usually, if I worked with a filmmaker before, say Chris Columbus, he'd say, "Hey, we're doing this movie, you wanna do it?" And I'd say, "Yes, of course." and they send me a script and, I'd sort of know the script. If it was a filmmaker I hadn't worked with, they'd send me the script and I'd have to go in to do the interview and like say smart things about the script and the process. But in terms of like the actual production process, yeah, we would, we'd basically set up shop a week before shooting, just so that the editing room was fully operational. Oftentimes we'd be on location. You know, like, Home Alone was filmed, in a abandoned high school, New Trier High School…

10:05Jawad MirYeah

10:05Raja Gosnell... In Northbrook, Illinois. And, basically the gymnasiums were sound stages and the, we were like in the basement down in the music room. And so you're, you're on location, so you need to sort of get set up and get the equipment there and so that, yeah, day one, when the, when the dailies hit, you're ready to fly and basically dailies hit at, 8:00 in the morning and you're have to have them all sunk up because the picture and sound is separate, and you get these little pieces of paper that say what it is, and you hear the clapper. Like all those processes that we used to have to do with film.

10:43Jawad MirYeah

10:43Raja Gosnell... To s… to sync them up in these big rolls. And so basically the morning in the e… every editing room was absolute chaos 'cause there was like film flying everywhere and you couldn't find this, and this was out of sync or whatever. So, then, the whole crew would come in at lunchtime and watch dailies and eat lunch and then they'd go on. So it was, it was really a nice... You got like instant reaction. I was, as I was seeing the dailies, the entire crew was seeing the dailies and I sort of hear where the laughs were. And sometimes they were like weird laughs, like, oh, something must have happened like off camera that, and this moment reminded everybody of it.

11:21Raja GosnellBut sometimes they're actually, you know, leg… legitimate laughs. So you, first time seeing dailies, you actually had a pretty sizable audience, and, you know, even though you're seeing it over and over again. So that was a, it was a really, good experience that just doesn't happen anymore. Like everyone watches dailies on, you know, on, streaming sites and like that. So you don't have that sort of big room experience in today's filmmaking. But it was, it was pretty special. It was a lot of pressure to get it done, but it was, also, very unique and, very educational.

12:00Jawad MirAnd how much work... Like after the production was done, you were on the set doing dailies and all that stuff. After everything was wrapped up… How much work, how many months of work did you have to do to obviously get it to the final cut?

12:15Raja GosnellI would say not that much. Generally, DGA, there's a DGA rule where the director has 10 weeks before they present their director's cut. So, Chris would usually, like take two weeks off after shooting, and I would show him, my editor's cut when he'd come back, which was great. It was great to have that much time to sort of, you know, figure it all out, add some music, like, you know, r… really s… really try and balance things. And he trusted me enough to give me... The two weeks he gave me came off his director's cut, time. So, but yeah, we generally were in really good shape by director's cut. We, you know, we had things working, we had it honed. Then you show it to the studio, and then, you have some sneak previews. So in the case of Home Alone, they scheduled a preview in the suburbs of Chicago 'cause that's where John was based, and he really trusted those audiences and he trusted his gut in that part of the world.

13:18Raja GosnellAnd then, you know, you start to, start to do the final sound mix. So I'd say all in from the time we wrapped, probably six months, maybe eight months, something like that.

13:31Jawad MirAnd where did the music come into play? At what stage, John Williams' score?

13:35Raja GosnellGenerally films are scored when they're in final cut. And we didn't... Sometimes, you know, people will have their composer from the, from the jump. Like if you've… I worked with Heitor Pereira, on a few movies and it's like, "We're doing this movie, Heitor, are you in?" "Yeah." So I knew who the composer was, and he might see, come to some screenings or whatever, but no one really starts writing until the movie's in a final cut…

14:01Jawad MirYeah

14:01Raja Gosnell... 'cause they don't want to rewrite and all that stuff. So, in the case of Home Alone, we didn't have a composer and, you know, the movie screened great. Chris actually did a lot of the musical, research on that. He'd say, you know, "Try this for here, try this for there." And, so he put in the Tchaikovsky mus… music.

14:25Raja GosnellWe temp… we tempted with a lot of, you know, what you would consider Christmassy things, but m… most specifically a lot of Nutcracker and the movie screened great and it's like, "Okay, well, we need a composer. Who are we gonna get?" And the studio, to their credit,.. Well, Chris said, "Can we, do we have a shot at John Williams?" I mean, you know, this guy was a god

14:49Jawad MirOf course

14:49Raja Gosnell... Of film composers. I mean, he'd done like everything already, you know, that you could possibly do. He writes the most memorable themes. You know, you or I could, hum a couple bars…

15:01Jawad MirRight

15:02Raja Gosnell... Of Jurassic Park or E.T. Or whatever, and you'd know that movie, and that's just so unusual in the, in the film universe. But, so yeah. So it was like, it was like the, you know, it was, it was the huge ask and some calls were made and said, "Maybe, you know, it's not, it's not a no." and so, John screened the movie for himself in LA and, I think just really a… attached onto the Tchaikovsky of it all. He appreciated that and he also, he was directing the Boston Pops at the time, and they always had a Christmas show, which he always loved. And so I think the combination of those two things and just the charm of the piece and of little Macaulay Culkin, w… whatever it all was, he said yes. And so, yeah. So then the mu… the music got scored, we finished the mix and it was out, you know, I guess, I don't know, probably four weeks later.

16:05Jawad MirYeah. The great thing about that music is, to me, that's Christmas music. Like, you know, you can, you can play that music and you can feel it snowing outside. That's how incredible that music is.

16:17Raja GosnellYeah.

16:18Jawad MirI mean…

16:18Raja GosnellI mean, it was... The music… The movie was a nine before John got involved, and it was an 11 after. I mean, he just…

16:24Jawad MirYeah

16:25Raja Gosnell... It was like everything worked, everything was great, but the magic fairy dust that he sprinkled through just made it, I think it made it the Christmas classic that it is.

16:34Jawad Mir100%. And, you know, you obviously trans… made a transition from film to Avid or digital.

16:45Raja GosnellRight

16:45Jawad Mir... You know, obviously I haven't done anything similar to your caliber, but I have gone from 16 millimeter and cutting them on flatbed…

16:55Raja GosnellYeah

16:55Jawad Mir... To final cut, to Premiere, to Avid.

16:58Raja GosnellSure

16:58Jawad Mir... And in that industry at that time when that transition was taking place, because, you know, you're talking about films that are, you know, millions of dollars of budget, how was that transition like making that from film to digital?

17:13Raja GosnellIt was, it was a lot. But it actually, it happened kind of at a perfect time for me. I was aware that this t… technology was out there. I hadn't done hands-on, but I'd, I'd done a lot of research. And, Chris was getting ready to do Mrs. Doubtfire, and I approached him and said, "Hey, Chris, you know, there's these digital editing systems. I think that, you know, there's gonna be a lot of takes with Robin, and it's, it allows us to sort of go through a lot of material quickly and, you know, just sort of all the pi…" I'd never worked on it, but that was sort of the pitch.

17:54Jawad MirYeah.

17:54Raja GosnellAnd he said, "Yeah, sure. Let's, if that's what you wanna do, let's do it." So it was, instead of like it being sort of forced upon me, I was sort of out there, researching it and going towards it because I, you know, you wanna be current and if someone says that there's a, there's a great new toy, you want to, you wanna, you wanna fly that machine. So, We did. It was hard. It was hard just 'cause storage wasn't nearly what it is today, and…

18:23Jawad MirOkay

18:23Raja Gosnell... And we used to have, a machine called Lightworks. I'm not sure if they're still around.

18:28Jawad MirRight.

18:28Raja GosnellBut there was a company out of England called Lightworks and, between Avid and Lightworks, at that time, they were both in their infancy, Lightworks just seemed a little more intuitive to a flatbed editor like myself. You could tell it was designed... Like, even the, even the motion controller felt, had a chem kind of a feel. So, but yeah, I mean, Chris shot a million feet of film on that movie. And so we had... Remember the big computer towers that when you used to, when you first got your computer, there was that big…

19:04Jawad MirOh, yeah

19:04Raja Gosnell... Massive tower that was the size of, you know, s… several bricks? We had, I think 22 of those full of material, and the machine could only handle three at a time. So to go through the mo… actually run the movie in the cutting room, we'd have to, like, stop, reboot, replug, and then go and then play that section, and replug, re… So, you know, the people at Lightworks were like, "What do you mean there's 22 towers full of material?" No one had ever seen anything like it. So, yeah, I think we, I think that we, it was a little shock and awe on both sides. So it was a great tool to put that together to go through 20, you know, 25, 30 takes of Robin Williams ad-libbing, and to find…

19:59Jawad MirRight

19:59Raja Gosnell... Those pieces and to be able to sort of actually consume that much material. And, i… in terms of,.. Yeah, but then, you know, the output was time-consuming. Like I... To do, to actually go to a mix, I had to sit at a machine with a, with a 35 millimeter recorder, and I could go on track one and wait the 10 minutes that reel was. Hit go on track two, and if there was, you know, 12 tracks, that's 12 hours right there just to do one reel to go to the e… editing, to go to the, mixing stage. Like, there wasn't the, there wasn't the back and forth that we have now where, "Oh, here's a file," or, "I'll just me… I'll just email it to you," you know? So…

20:40Jawad MirYeah

20:40Raja Gosnell... We were s… we were sort of breaking ground and, so there was a lot of kind of back-end unexpected work. But, all in all, it was, it was, terrific and, it worked out great and, again, I just had a great time, doing that movie.

21:00Jawad MirYeah, I, you know, to note, to your note about digital and, hard drives and all that, I remember I bought a drive. This was like giga… this big, right? It was 30 gigs.

21:14Raja GosnellRight.

21:14Jawad Mir30 gigabyte, which is like, you know, your phone doesn't even have 30 gigabyte anymore, and it cost me $500 at the time. This was like…

21:23Raja GosnellYeah

21:23Jawad Mir... When I did my first short film. But, and now you look at it, like, you know, you can buy, like, super ridiculous NV… NV…

21:29Raja GosnellYeah, this is, this is three terabytes right here. Yeah.

21:32Jawad MirYeah. It's, it's, it's... Even your phone has a terabyte now if you wanted to upgrade that to that.

21:37Raja GosnellYeah.

21:37Jawad MirBut you know, I think…

21:39Raja GosnellIt wa… it was definitely a, it was definitely a lot of pressure 'cause I was the one that wanted this machine, and so every time we had to, like, reboot, I could sort of feel Chris over there going, "Argh." If we wanted to screen the movie straight through, we'd have to just output it to video and then, you know, we could run it straight through. With the... Even output took some time 'cause you had to plug and replug all those towers. So it was, it was a learning curve for all of us. But I think that, I think that, you know, I think we probably broke through some... We were the icebreaker for people that followed behind us. It's like, "Oh yeah, okay. We know how to deal with this now," so.

22:17Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's... I wonder sometimes that what's the next leap gonna be, right, in the world of... I mean, there's a lot of stuff already happening now with AI and stuff.

22:28Raja GosnellYeah.

22:28Jawad MirBut as far as post-production is concerned, there are some…

22:33Raja GosnellYeah. Yeah

22:34Jawad Mir... You know?

22:36Raja GosnellI mean, the interesting thing is because, you know, the logical produce… producer thing is when you say, "Oh, I want this expensive new machine, 'cause I can do all this, I can do it, you know, so much quicker." They say, "Well, oh, so you can do the movie in half the time, right?"

22:53Jawad MirYeah.

22:53Raja GosnellAnd you're like, "No, not really." And 'cause there... Once you have, once you can do all the bells and whistles, like, oh, add titles and do a whole sound mix, well, now you gotta add titles and do a whole sound mix. Like, you can't... Like, no one runs a movie, a first cut, no editor runs a first cut without a full score, without titles, without visual effects built in. And so all that stuff takes time too. So this…

23:18Jawad MirYeah

23:18Raja Gosnell... This magic machine, didn't, did not cut the process in half. It, you know, the whole Marvel, system, I've never worked in it, but I have friends that have, and there's just this whole infrastructure around, you know, moving data around and, you know, editors that, like, mock up all the effects and it's, it's just, you know, because you can do more in a box, you do more in a box, and, but you need people to do it, and you need time to do it, so.

23:48Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, no, editing, you know, that's, that's the thing. That's what I was gonna say earlier, that even though I think AI may, let's say supposedly, do some stuff, but I still feel the, you know, a job of a director, a job of a writer, you know, filmmaker, editor, all will stay. You know, AI probably will do stuff that is more, you know, from the corporate end of things, like, you know, I feel. I think I actually think It's going to make the value of human beings that are still doing what they're doing go much higher than it already is, because then it's gonna become a scarcity, right? And the people who are really good at it and they wanna stick into that department, then they will y… they should be able to capitalize on. That's just my theory, I think.

24:37Raja GosnellYeah. Well, that's a very optimistic outlook and, it's, it's nice to hear. I don't, I don't know that much about AI as it app… as it applies to post-production. All I know is, you know, with sound mixes is the boards got computerized and you didn't have to like, you know, try and match in and, like, match the sound with your ear and find the thing. Like, when you went in to make a change, it's just like all the knobs go to where they were and all the EQs go to where they were. And if you need to put in a new piece, you pop it in, you pop it out. So, I don't think that's AI. That's, that's electronics. But

25:11Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

25:11Raja Gosnell... But, yeah, I think that certain things will become easier. I can't... It is hard to see how the jump goes, how it jumps into a creative thing in terms of, like, how, the machinations of how everything moves. You… it's easy to see how AI and computerization helps, but the creative,.. But I guess, like, if chat, if chat box can write a script, I'm probably saying that wrong, chat bot, whatever…

25:36Jawad MirYeah

25:36Raja Gosnell... Can write a script, it can probably edit a movie, you know?

25:39Jawad MirWell, there are services out there where what they do, I mean, it's nothing complicated as a movie, but if you tell Chap… ChatGPT to write a script about, let's say, who is God?

25:52Raja GosnellRight.

25:52Jawad MirOr, you know. And then it writes it and you take that, and then you take another platform which will have all these pre-saved individual faces… ... That can literally read it out for you on AI, and then you can manipulate sounds to whatever you want. And so it's like talking head on a, in a, in front of, like, a white background. That's where we are…

26:15Raja GosnellWow

26:15Jawad Mir... Right now with AI. Now, this has happened in a matter of months, right? ChatGPT…

26:20Raja GosnellWow

26:20Jawad Mir... Didn't exist but five, six months ago.

26:22Raja GosnellYeah.

26:23Jawad MirSo…

26:23Raja GosnellSo you can do a whole table read, all virtually.

26:28Jawad MirI guess. I mean, it's mostly designed for, like, corporate companies, like, you know…

26:32Raja GosnellYeah

26:32Jawad Mir... Corporate videos. Like, if you want to, like, a, an, a message to the staff or just, like, a real estate agent talking about their services or whatever, instead of you…

26:41Raja GosnellOkay

26:41Jawad Mir... Going up in front of it, you can just feed into the... And it takes matter of minutes apparently. You have to pay for it obviously.

26:48Raja GosnellRight.

26:48Jawad MirBut it… it take matters of minutes. So, but…

26:50Raja GosnellThat's my dream. I'm, I'm terrified of public speaking, so if I could send a bot up for me, that'd be, I'd definitely sign up for that.

26:58Jawad MirI don't know how you're terrified of public speaking. You're speaking extremely articulately and well right now, so I'm not sure.

27:05Raja GosnellWell, I'm in the comfort of my living room. I…

27:08Jawad MirNo, it's true

27:08Raja Gosnell... I'm not at some corporate table somewhere, you know.

27:11Jawad MirI'm sure you're fine. You're just being humble.

27:13Raja GosnellYes.

27:16Jawad MirBut Chris Columbus, you know, I obviously d… discovered him after Home Alone, like, even when I was... How old was I when Home Alone came out? I was, like, a teenager, like, 14, 15 years of age. And that's when my infatua… you know, my love for film began, around that time in the early '90s. And I looked him up and then I found out that he wrote Goonies, he wrote Gremlins. And then you look at his resume, right? Home Alone, Home Alone 2, Nine Months, Mrs. Doubtfire, and it's just like, Stepmom, you know, like a hit after hit. And such me… And that's what I love about his films, is, and obviously you were a huge part of his work, you know, in the '90s. They're just so s… simple, but the core of it's all that family thing, right? Like, and that…

28:04Raja GosnellThat's true

28:04Jawad Mir... We all resonate to. There's no cultural, color, religion barrier to that. It's just everybody connects to that.

28:13Raja GosnellYeah.

28:13Jawad MirAnd when you work with him on projects like those, as an individual, not as an editor, what do you feel? Do you have any kind of input as to saying, "You know, Chris, this is not gonna work with the audience," or, "This is great"? Any example that you remember for any of the films that you worked on with him?

28:31Raja GosnellNot so much. I mean, he, basically by the time I got involved or even sent a script, it was, it was somewhat locked and loaded. Like, this is, this is the movie we're making. It's already cast. And so I wasn't really sort of in the, in the internal brain trust of how he chose the movies he chose or, you know, you know, "Who do you think we should cast, Raj?" Like, it wasn't, that wasn't w… I didn't have a foot in that room, so

29:02Jawad MirNo, that's not what I meant. What I meant was when, you know how a film is get written three stages, script, production, post-production?

29:10Raja GosnellOh, yeah, of course.

29:11Jawad MirIn post, in post-production, did you have any in… Did you, do you remember, I'm sure you did have a lot of input, but do you remember any specific example where the script per se got changed or scenes got shifted around because of what you, your intuition told you or what your gut feeling told you?

29:28Raja GosnellNo. There was no, in the movies you mentioned, there was no, like, big rebuilding process.

29:34Jawad MirReally?

29:34Raja GosnellLike, I did, I did a movie, I did the first Scooby-Doo movie, which the, you know…

29:38Jawad MirYeah

29:38Raja Gosnell... Was part of show biz lore, what that movie went through in terms of rebuilding and restructuring. But no, none of those Chris movies, sort of needed any sort of major surgery. So it was, I mean, I make creative decisions every day. Like, there's 12 takes, I'm gonna use this one.

30:01Jawad MirYeah

30:01Raja Gosnell... And, you know, this is how I'm gonna structure. I'm gonna be in the wide shot here 'cause I think it shows blah. And we'd go through and talk about that. Like, "Why are you in this shot here?" And, you know, in my head I saw him over there and it's like, "Oh, well, this is why." And you go, "Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right." and so we had, you know, we had a very sort of, trusting back and forth s… relationship. I mean, there's a couple yeah, I think it was just sort of normal director

30:32Jawad MirGot it

30:33Raja Gosnell... Editing stuff. And like we'd, like I'd say, "You know, we really don't need this scene. It's not advancing the story. It's not particularly funny." He said, "You're right, take it out." So but that was, that was more like, you know, just tightening the film.

30:45Jawad MirSure

30:46Raja Gosnell... If he'd say, "Get rid of this scene," I'd say, "No, let me, let me try and, let me try and fix that. I have an, I have an idea." Like in the, in Mrs. Doubtfire when, Doubtfire's, calling, the Sally Fields character pretending to be all the different

31:01Jawad MirYeah

31:01Raja Gosnell... Nannies, the bad nannies. Like it wasn't working, it was kinda laying there, it was kinda dead and Chris says, "It was, you know, let's just take all this stuff out. We don't really need it. Doubtfire can just show up." And I said, "No, let me, let me take a crack at it. Let me t…" So I got a piece of Vivaldi, Four Seasons I think, and, just basically turned it into a montage, which allowed us to sort of get in for the greatest hits. It's like, you know, new face, n… new Robin voice, you know, Sally Fields reacts, boom, punchline, next. You know? And so what was a, you know, a four-minute scene turned into, 30 seconds of fun. So, you know, that's... But that's... I would consider that just sort of the n… the normal process of creative interaction. There was no, there's no sort of big rebuilds and just 'cause, you know, his, those movies just work. The scripts were good.

31:53Jawad MirYeah.

31:53Raja GosnellAnd, the same with Pretty Woman, you know? We, there was, there was no what Gary shot and what's on the screen. There's nips and tucks and whatever, but it just worked. The probably the most in terms of the m… movie that had the most direct impact on as an editor was 100% Mrs. Doubtfire because there, you know, literally 30 takes of Robin ad-libbing, and sometimes it would be funny and sometimes it would go dark. And I mean, I, the amount of, you know, choose your own adventures that I could have done with all that material, could've been like a, it could've gone, it could've gone wrong a lot of different ways. Maybe could've gone…

32:38Jawad MirYeah

32:38Raja Gosnell... Right in some more interesting ways, but, to weed through all that and like sometimes there were certain jokes that he would come back to once in a while, but sometimes the tee up for that joke w… would be in, say, take 5, but he sort of, he sort of muffed the payoff to it, and then the good payoff would be in take 25 but he said the setup in past tense instead of present tense.

33:09Raja GosnellAnd so now it's like, "Oh, these are gonna be great. Oh, they don't go together 'cause he said it, he set it up in present tense but paid it off in past tense. It doesn't sound right." So I'd have to go through hours of film to find a E-D that I could put on the present tense one to make it sound past tense so that the joke works. So just in terms of like granular deep dives to stitch all of that together was, probably my, the most creative input I'd ever had on a movie just 'cause it required it. And I was a little fortunate, I was a little fortunate 'cause I'd, I'd worked on Good Morning Vietnam and done all of the broadcast sequences, so that was basically Robin going off ad-libbing in front of a mic. And so I had a little bit of experience with Robin ad-libbing, so it prepared me well for Mrs. Doubtfire.

34:02Jawad MirAnd that must be really fun and challenging at the same time, right? Editing Robin Williams because you're, he's such a, well, he was such a great comedian, but also a great serious actor that… ... It, when you're watching him as an editor or, you know, even on the st… set, you can't help but laugh because of his performance, his physical movement.

34:23Raja GosnellYeah.

34:24Jawad MirBut at the same time, the guy would speak in so fast and in so many different tempos that to sometimes edit it, as you said, example that, you know, past tense and present tense…

34:36Raja GosnellYeah

34:36Jawad Mir... It can become challenging.

34:38Raja GosnellYeah. And there'd be, there'd be big tangents and stuff, and so yeah, tr… just trying to boil it all down into what you, what you see when you watch the movie was, it was a lot. I mean, it was, it was rewarding 'cause I knew that I was doing it well. And I felt like I was doing it well. And then, you know, we went to our first preview and, it killed. You know, it did great and we, you know, we found some more laughs along the way and,.. But yeah, ba… again, basically what you see is pretty close to, it's a tightened version of the, of my first cut, basically. So…

35:16Jawad MirYeah

35:16Raja Gosnell... Yeah, it was, it's nice when movies, when movies come out, come out of the box working.

35:21Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

35:22Raja GosnellThe best ones usually do.

35:25Jawad MirYeah. For sure. And then Home Alone 2, I mean, the way it was written was very similar to the way the first one was, right? Like in terms of beats, in terms of scenes, in terms of everything.

35:36Raja GosnellYeah. I mean, that's, you know, that's the... Sequels are hard, you know?

35:41Jawad MirI know, I know.

35:41Raja Gosnell'Cause you wanna deliver what worked the first time, of course, 'cause that's why the audience is coming back.

35:48Jawad MirYeah.

35:48Raja GosnellBut you don't wanna redo it, so you been, you end up changing the curtains a bit, but leaving the, you know, l… leaving the architecture. And I guess, I guess you could say that's, that's kinda what was done on Home Alone 2. You know, we moved it from Chicago and suburbs to, I shouldn't say we…

36:11Jawad MirYeah

36:11Raja Gosnell... I should say John. John moved it from the Chi… Chi… Chicago suburbs to New York City. But it was still at its core a kid defending his home…

36:21Jawad MirYeah

36:21Raja Gosnell... From the thieves and bad guys. And I don't know if you could've y… I mean, I don't know how far away from that you could've gotten 'cause that was, that's what Home Alone is, and it still had, I think, the emotional punch. I think that in my, in my opinion, I think that the

36:37Jawad MirFor sure

36:37Raja Gosnell... The, all the traps got maybe a little too aggressive you know? But again, one needs to feel one tends to wanna one-up oneself in the sequel or at least not repeat oneself, so…

36:53Jawad MirYeah

36:54Raja Gosnell... The slip and fall on ice became, you know, bricks from the fourth story. So it's a little bit, you know, just trying to keep that funny and like find the right sound effect where people weren't going, "Ah," you know? They were actually going, "Oh." You know?

37:07Jawad MirYeah.

37:07Raja GosnellSo that was a pretty, a pretty fine balance on those.

37:12Jawad MirYou know, I genuinely mean when I say this, among all the films that have been made, let's say since The Godfather, like I'm just gonna cut off from The Godfather, if there are any films that have sequels that come close to the first one, if not better, in my view it's The Godfather Part I and II, Back to the Future Part I and II, and Home Alone I and II.

37:38Jawad MirIn most cases, for me, Home Alone 2, we end up watching way more. I think it's because of its, city feel as well as like the stunts that they pulled off, like that brick scene at the end.

37:52Raja GosnellRight.

37:52Jawad MirI would watch... I would love watching it, but I would hate watching it…... Because every time the brick hit his face, I would just like feel like that's just hitting my face. And…

38:03Raja GosnellSo it worked.

38:05Jawad MirYeah, no, it did

38:06Raja GosnellIt had the desired effect. I mean, I would, I would say that certainly, Empire Strikes Back was, you know, a huge…

38:17Jawad MirYeah

38:17Raja Gosnell... You know, so there's definitely m… there's definitely more than the examples that you laid out, but, it is, it is tricky business

38:23Jawad MirWell, it's per, those are personal things. I mean, I…

38:26Raja GosnellYeah

38:26Jawad Mir... I'm not, I love the original Star Wars trilogy. I'm not a Star Wars hardcore fan, the original scene.

38:33Raja GosnellYeah. I'm, I'm the same way. I can't keep up with the, all the…

38:35Jawad MirYeah

38:35Raja Gosnell... 1,001 stuff

38:35Jawad Mir... Everything. But yeah, no, Home Alone 2, was it somewhat easier to edit in t… when I say easier I don't mean like time-wise, but because you knew what you were, i… in terms of the tempo, even though the script was, you know, fine and complete, was it…

38:52Raja GosnellI guess so. I guess so, but it, in a way it felt harder, I guess…

38:58Jawad MirYeah

38:58Raja Gosnell... 'cause you're, you're comparing yourself against what was before. And, like, is this as good? I don't know. Maybe I should try it eight different ways and see if I missed something or whatever. So the pressure of the sequel, you know, to match the original, that falls on the editor as well, you know?

39:17Raja GosnellSo as you're in the editing room you're like, "Oh, I gotta make this better somehow," you know? And so I would say it was harder to do,.. Well, the f… f… first one was such a simple story too, and the second one just got more complicated. We had the pigeon lady in the park, and don't forget that Donald Trump cameo.

39:39Jawad MirYes. Yes.

39:41Raja GosnellAnd, you know, we had, there's just more moving parts I suppose is the best way to put it and sort of to keep, to keep the tone. And we didn't have like the old man in the church scene. We kinda had it with the pigeon lady, but you know, so yeah, just I would say generally it was not easier because the first one was this fresh thing that we were doing, and the second one was, "Oh man, we gotta, we gotta match this…"

40:08Jawad MirThat's right

40:09Raja Gosnell... You know, $300 million grossing little, you know, movie that came out of nowhere, so.

40:16Jawad MirYeah. Is it... Well, you directed Home Alone 3, right?

40:20Raja GosnellThat's correct, yeah.

40:22Jawad MirIs it true, I read this somewhere, that originally there was a plan to make Home Alone 3 with Macaulay Culkin, and that didn't transpire because he quit acting? I don't know how accurate this information is, but I…

40:35Raja GosnellNo, if that happened, that happened behind the scenes between John Hughes and the Macaulay camp. By the time… ... I was involved, basically like new story, new kid, you know. And I guess the reason that I was given was that he'd written, he'd written it for a certain age, and he thought that Macaulay's age at this point would be a different, a different story, you know? If he's…

41:01Raja Gosnell... If it's, you know, that it might lack some of the innocence, I guess. You know, a 15-year-old, 16-year-old kid fending off…

41:11Jawad MirYeah

41:11Raja Gosnell... Fending off bad guys is just a different look. Not you couldn't do it, not that you couldn't do it, but, it wouldn't really be Home Alone. So I think 'cause, you know, he basically like, "We're gonna figure out about Christmas. We're gonna put in these international spy guys, and they're gonna need this thing," so he sort of changed up the whole formula. So no, I don't, I don't believe that... If that Macaulay, conversation took place, I wasn't aware of it.

41:43Jawad MirAnd how did you end up directing Home Alone 3? Because up until that point you were just editing. Was that like a very organic thing, or did you…

41:55Raja GosnellIt was semi-or... I mean, I kinda went after it. I saw that they had announced, Home Alone 3 was gonna happen. I knew Chris was, wasn't gonna do it. He was, he was over it. He felt like he'd done it and, wanted to move on. So I'm sitting there, I was actually editing, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion at the time, and I saw this in the trades. I'm like, "Oh, wow. They're gonna need a director. Wonder who they're gonna get. Why not me?" So I called my agent and said, "Hey, agent, I just saw this thing." He's like, "Yeah, so?" I said, "Well, you know, maybe pitch me for director." And he's like, "Yeah. Why not?" And so he did and, And John always liked me. You know, I did successful movies for him, so why not? And so yeah, next thing I knew is on a plane to Chicago. I read the script and, the, there's a totally different language to directing than editing by the way, and it's a totally…

42:55Raja Gosnell... Different, like, as an editor, I never had to sit in a corporate boardroom and talk about my vision. My vision was always like, "Well, you want my vision? Here, let me show you the movie. That's the vision." so, I was, you know, I wasn't great at it. And I still, my entire career I was never great at the boardroom portion of the, of the job. But you know, I think John figured, well, sh… you know, sh… this guy edited, you know, these two things, he probably kn… has, knows a thing or two about how they go together and how they work.

43:34Jawad MirYeah.

43:34Raja GosnellAnd, he might not be great with actors, but he might, you know. I directed a lot of the looping, the ADR, so I d… definitely had experience with actors, and we got the same director of photography from the original two, so I think as a pack… package it felt like, you know, what could go wrong? These…

43:53Jawad MirYeah

43:54Raja Gosnell... The people involved, you know, Sa… sans Chris, they seem, they seem they would know a thing or two about Home Alone.

44:02Jawad MirYeah. And with the, that transition that you made or a jump that you made, I know from my personal experience that sometimes directing and editing simultaneously is very rarely a good thing, but more than likely it's not a good thing because when you're directing, then you're, if you're editing the same thing, you know, you're too close to the project, you're too close to what you're, what you have done. But at the same time, transitioning between, and you know, you, it's so funny you mentioned this boardroom thing. I think you put, hit the nail on the, coffin, because that's something that I always... I didn't realize that was something that I was struggling with.

44:48Jawad MirBut that's exactly what it is, that, you know, when you're directing you have to do this whole extrovert thing, and when you're editing it's completely introvert.

44:57Raja GosnellYeah.

44:58Jawad MirSo w… how was that? Like, just being jumped on the set and dealing with everybody and actors? Was it a very quick transition?

45:04Raja GosnellOh, that, you know, that was, that was great. Like, I, for me personally, like having e… extremely creative people come up to you and saying, "Hey, you know, w… we're thinking this, we're thinking that. What are you thinking? Oh, yeah, great, yeah, that's great." You know? So I was, I was extremely comfortable on a movie set. I didn't have all the, all of the, proper words, you know, sometimes. I would, you know, I'd, I'd call th… those wires over there, you know, the wrong thing or the, you know, the snoot on the light the wrong thing or whatever. But I knew how to create shots and I knew how to say, "I want, I want the camera start here, I want to slide along with that little car. When the car gets here, I want the camera to stop and then rise up and see the kid." Like, I was very good at constructing shots in my head and so, like executing them in the real world sometimes there was hiccups where the camera doesn't do that, you know, it doesn't go from there to there.

46:06Raja Gosnell"Okay, well, we'll add a cut in." You know. So that, movie sets I'm great with. It can be fricking raining down, we're losing the day of shooting, I gotta figure out how to do this one day scene in one shot instead, you know, bring it on. But it's, it's honestly, for me, it's the, it's the go into the, go into the s… go tell the suits what the vision is and sell the movie, you know? So, that's where I feel like, I feel like there's people that are much better than me at that.

46:38Jawad MirYeah. But you know, the thing, good thing about directing is if you're an editor, because you're already editing in your head as you're shooting…

46:44Raja GosnellYeah, totally

46:45Jawad Mir... You know exact… you know exactly what you're looking for. You want a coverage here, you want a angle here.

46:50Raja GosnellYeah.

46:51Jawad MirBoom.

46:52Raja GosnellYeah.

46:52Jawad MirAnd it just, it becomes a lot easier in that sense.

46:55Raja GosnellThe downside I wo… I would say, is that you also know that, I found, like I may get in trouble that like if I have to like actually lift the whole end of this scene, like how the hell am I gonna get out of it? So I'm al… I'm also thinking about what the bad things that could happen, and so I tend to s… like shoot myself some trap doors in the, you know, like ways that I could get out of a scene earlier or get out of something if I needed to. And it kinda confused the first AD. It's like, "You got that fucking scene, didn't you?" You know? He was, he was Australian.

47:33Jawad MirYeah

47:33Raja Gosnell... And I'd say, "Yeah, I got that. That's good, but I just, I just need this one little piece 'cause just in case, you know, just in case." And so the just in case of it all was the editor working and it was not familiar to the, anyone else I was working with. I should have s… probably kept it to myself. But no, but I did use those trap doors, with some regularity, so I was really glad I did them and still do.

47:56Jawad MirYeah. And did you find any difference in s… the art of storytelling from post-production to production?

48:06Raja GosnellCan you repeat that? I'm not sure I understood.

48:08Jawad MirLike, did you, did you find any difference telling a story in an editing room versus on set, like just through visuals? You know, because you're, you're dealing with actors, you're d… yes, you have an AD and everything, but you're dealing with…

48:23Raja GosnellSure

48:23Jawad Mir... A complete…

48:24Raja GosnellSure

48:24Jawad Mir... Three-dimensional space.

48:26Raja GosnellYeah.

48:26Jawad MirWho's gonna be where, whereas, you know, all that cutoff and timing. How was that? Was that easy? Was that very organic or was there any challenges with that?

48:35Raja GosnellIt wasn't easy. And I'm, I think it's a bit organic. I think I can, I'm can envision three-dimensional spaces and objects moving in three-dimensional spaces…... Pretty well. I guess it's just the way I'm wired, and I can imagine how the camera might move against those in that three-dimensional space. So, in terms of shot design in my head, but it wasn't easy. I mean, I would spend basically the entire weekend whi… while everyone else was resting, I was, like, doing homework for the next week, and I'd put out shot lists at the beginning of the week, and I... You know, so yeah, I'm basically just doing all the brain work. And then once on set, generally it works, unless there's like, you know, I... And I got better at this as I did more movies, but, you know, my, in my earlier movies, like, yeah, will this camera go like this? And then, DP's like, "Dude, I'm gonna have to light the whole other side of that street. You know, that's g… I don't have the lighting package. That's gonna be hours.

49:36Raja GosnellLike, we're not gonna get it." Okay, so, okay. So I s… yeah, I'll redesign the shot. We're not gonna you know, I'm not gonna submarine the whole schedule to m… like, make the camera do that. So I did, I had some learning curves on things, and same things still happen. You know, I'll, I'll, I'll design a shot that I think is a Steadicam and…

49:54Raja Gosnell... They'll say, "you know, it's gonna be much better Technocrane." "Do we have a Technocrane?" "We just happen to have one." Yeah, so, or whatever. So there's, I mean, y… you're, you're, you're fine-tuning up until the last minute, and if a shot's just not gonna work and it's gonna burn, like, half your day on this one shot, sometimes you gotta punt.

50:15Raja GosnellYou know?

50:17Jawad MirYeah. And that's why you have professionals, right? Like, because your job is to direct with act… you know, work with actors, and you have a…

50:25Raja GosnellYeah

50:25Jawad Mir... Cinematographer. He's, he or she are supposed to think what's…

50:30Raja GosnellRight

50:30Jawad Mir... Doable and what's not. And you're so right about, because I've run into that trap too, where I'll just assume I've got access to everything. And then

50:39Raja GosnellRight.

50:40Jawad Mir... And then when you tell it to the cinematographer, he's like, "What are you talking about? Like, we don't have this, we don't have that."

50:48Raja GosnellYeah.

50:48Jawad MirIt's going well.

50:50Raja GosnellOkay, we'll do it in a close-up. It's a walk and talk. Here we go.

50:55Jawad MirSo

50:56Raja GosnellEveryone's complaining like, "They do this on, you know, freaking ER all the time." And they're like, "Well, they have the whole stage lit, Raj. You know, we're on a damn street." So, yeah.

51:09Jawad MirAnd…

51:10Raja GosnellI forget what the, I forget what the original question is. I got off on a tangent there.

51:13Jawad MirNo, it's okay. We're, we're, we're kinda going bouncing back and forth. My next, I just lost my train of thought. What was I gonna talk about? Man, I never, I never had a question.

51:25Raja GosnellNo, that was, no, you were saying that, you were saying that, you know, you have the department heads and they're all very smart, and, you, I'm working with the actor.

51:34Jawad MirYes.

51:34Raja GosnellWhich is all very true.

51:36Jawad MirYeah.

51:36Raja GosnellBut I learned, I learned, when I started doing the visual effects movies, the Scoobies and the Smurfs of the world, that, to ask a lot of questions, because very smart people will... And you'll have, like, a storyboard or something for a visual effect or whatever, and very smart people come to you and say, "Well, that's gonna be $750,000 that shot." Which obviously who can afford that? So I said, "Well, why?" "Oh, well, because you gotta da, and this and that, and the w… this is the, this layer is this company, that layer is that company. This, I gotta shoot a helicopter shot of it." And you're like, "Whoa. It's just a sketch of mountains, guys. Let's, let's, let's back it off, you know? Let's break it down." And so my point is that in all cases, because the, your crew's made a lot of movies and they're, and they're smart people, they come to you with, like, the first five or six decisions made, and now they're asking you to make the final decision.

52:40Raja GosnellLike, "It's down to this and this."

52:42Jawad MirYeah.

52:42Raja GosnellSo I had to learn to say, like, if none of those worked, e… early on, I'd say, "Oh, well, that one, I guess." And then I'd have this situation where it still wasn't working or what… whatever it is, so I learned to ask questions. "Well, why does it have to be those two?" And they get a little frustrated. "Well, because da." And they'd explain how they arrived at that, the decision they are now presenting me, and usually if I ask back enough questions, I get to a point where I'd say, "Oh, the, yeah, well, that assumption that you made on step one or two, forget that because we can just do it this way." And they go, "Oh, well, that's a lot easier." And I'm like, "Yeah." And so it was, it was a skill that I never had before that I had to learn. Sometimes I just say, "Explain it to me like I'm a two-year-old. Like, let's start absolutely at zero why this situation has to be this way." And, you know, they roll their eyes when they do it, but it usually led to me understanding the situation. Sometimes there was nothing to do.

53:43Raja GosnellYou know, they were right. "Oh, you're right. We, 'cause we do have to do, 'cause we do have to do, and that does have to lead to there." But sometimes they'd made an assumption that wasn't nec… didn't need to be true.

53:55Raja Gosnell... We could change that assumption, and suddenly that $750,000 shot becomes a $10,000 shot because we're excellent, you know? So that was, that was my tangent on the crew and all that. But you're absolutely right. You want everything working, 100% smoothly, so that you can focus on your actors and in my case, in some movies, my pretend little actors that were running across keyboards.

54:24Jawad MirYeah. Did you edit Homo in 3 as well, or?

54:27Raja GosnellNo, I had great editors. On all my movies, I had great editors. Bruce Green, Malcolm Campbell, Kent Beyda, Sabrina Plisko has done all of my later movies. So, I still edited. I still had a machine and an Avid. I still had an Avid in the office. And so, generally, like… I sort of compare it to a composer. Like if you're a composer, you can either sit down the keyboard and play, and you get in kind of a flow state and the music, you know, you find the music. If you're that same composer and you sit in the back of the room and you say, "Play E, how about a C? Now follow that C with a D, E." You know, the, it's, there's a lack of flow state to it.

55:16Jawad MirYeah.

55:16Raja GosnellSo since I came from editing, being able to sit at an editing board, and I'd only really do the problem scenes, like the scenes that weren't working. The other team was, you know, could do the notes on the, on the stuff that was working. But like if something just didn't feel right, it wasn't working, I'd sit down and I'd, I'd just, you know, do, try and get in that flow state and try and dig deep into it. So I've basically done that in all my movies and, so I don't take a credit, but I do edit it.

55:47Jawad MirYeah. And what's up ahead for you? Anything that you're developing or…

55:53Raja GosnellYeah, I've got a couple things, much more in the indie space than where I was working. The, you know, the major studios and streamers, don't, you know, seem to have moved on from the Roger Gosnell phase of their, making phone calls.

56:10Jawad MirYeah.

56:10Raja GosnellBut, yeah, I have a couple things going. And if they don't happen, life is great, and if they do happen, it'll be fun. Like I'm, I'm fortunate to be in a financial place where I can do things for fun or not do things, or if things happen, great. If they don't, fine. So…

56:27Jawad MirYeah

56:27Raja Gosnell... So yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a pretty damn lucky place to be.

56:33Jawad MirThat's good. I'm glad to hear that. And you know, I think it's, it's a good idea to at least keep trying and making films and telling stories, not just because that's what you love, but also for the, you know, sanity and just keeping…

56:48Raja GosnellYeah

56:49Jawad Mir... Keeping busy and…

56:50Raja GosnellKeep the muscles working. Yeah.

56:52Jawad MirYeah. And having a purpose.

56:54Raja GosnellRight

56:54Jawad Mir... But yeah, no, this has been, great. I really, appreciate your time.

57:01Raja GosnellOh, thank you for asking. Yeah, it's been, this is so fun. It's very fun to go back and talk about the, talk about the fun movies.

57:09Jawad MirAnd I, if you have time in the near future, would love to chat with you more in detail about Pretty Woman, Good Morning Vietnam, and a bunch of other stuff.

57:17Raja GosnellAbsolutely, man. Yeah. I'll, I'll bust out all the good stories.

57:21Jawad MirGreat. Sounds good. Anything else you wanna add?

57:24Raja GosnellNo, just thank you for this podcast and thank you for approaching me, and it was fun hearing, you know, the other stories from the other filmmakers that you worked with. And, yeah, no, I love the medium and, I'm very happy to be part of it.