'Cast Away' & 'What Lies Beneath', Cinematographer, Don Burgess

0:06Jawad MirHow is everything? I think you've been away working on a project, unless you can't talk about it.

0:12Don BurgessWell, here's what I can say. I have been, in England, shooting a picture for Robert Zemeckis called Here, starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright.

0:25Jawad MirOh, right. Right. I th… I read about this two months ago, three months ago. Was it that... Yeah, okay. And I remember I read about it, and I'm just trying to figure out what was it about, and I was really fascinated by it. What is it called? Ad… Adhere? Adhere?

0:43Don BurgessHere, H-E-R-E. Based on a graphic novel, by the same title.

0:52Jawad MirYeah. Well, I'm looking forward to that now. Now I remember. Yes. I'm a huge Zemeckis fan. Like m… I mainly started off as a Spielberg fan, but as you know, their relationship and the… ... Work that they do, I mean, I'm crazy about Zemeckis' work, the way... And then obviously, you know, growing up watching Forrest Gump and Contact, at the time, I wasn't really into making films. And then when I, you know, became more familiar with it and got into this industry myself, I realized that how some of his most masterful work, you're the man behind it. So thank you so much. You know, the visual, the visual environment that you create, and I remember being familiar with your work, not knowingly it was you. The first time I noticed it, I remember wanting to see Contact, and that amazing shot of the steady cam coming up the stairs, you know, that young Jodie Foster's character running at it.

1:55Jawad MirAnd the mirror… and then that mirror open, it just blew me away. And that was like my first introduction to your work.

2:02Don BurgessYes. Well, you know, I'm fortunate that I've been able to work with Zemeckis and several other very creative directors who come up with these ideas, you know, and give us a, challenge all of us to accomplish, you know, the vision that's going on in their heads.

2:23Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, and just to kinda go back now, how did you get started in doing what you do now? Like, how did you get into film, and how did you get into cinematography?

2:35Don BurgessWell, we can go all the way back to high school, where I became, you know, very excited about photography in general. I took a black-and-white still photography class in high school, had a wonderful teacher. And, you know, as soon as you get that first 8x10 to develop, you know, I think it just grabs you. And so I was fascinated by that, and fa… fascinated by imagery and creating imagery, and then ultimately started making Super 8 movies in high school, where, you know, you took those images and you cut them together, and you made a movie out of it.

3:16Don BurgessAnd so I knew that was just something that I had to figure out how to make a living doing, something that was involved in filmmaking and photography. So after high school, I eventually got to ArtCenter College of Design, which had a major in film, so I could get a Bachelor's of Arts degree, majoring in film. And so it was really just a passion to try to figure out how and where and why and, you know, get yourself into an industry. Now, I grew up in Los Angeles. I wasn't far from Hollywood, but I didn't know anybody. And my parents had one friend who was, also a cinematographer. And so, literally kind of seeing, meeting him, seeing what he did, and he specialized in, you know, action-oriented things.

4:23Don BurgessHe worked on the movie Grand Prix.

4:26Jawad MirOkay.

4:26Don BurgessDid a lot of the auto racing sequences in Grand Prix. And so, you know, he, after that, he was shooting Porsche commercials and seemed like he was traveling the world, and he loved what he did. And so it inspired me to kind of go that direction. And so o… once I got into college, and studied film, you know, I just had a knack for cinematography. It's like I shot everybody's student movies that were being made at the school at the time, you know?

4:57Jawad MirRight.

4:58Don BurgessYou know, I just, I had some innate ability to shoot, to compose a frame, the understanding of the, of the camera itself and how it exposed film. And, so that's, that was always the direction, you know? It was always about cinematography. I didn't, in my wildest dreams, ever think that I would become the director of photography of Forrest Gump. But I certainly had desires to, pursue a career in the industry. My way in was, action and sports, and I did a lot of documentary work in those categories first, which led into the second units, the action sequences in movies. Worked for a great action director for 10 years, doing all kinds of big second units, and that's ultimately how I met Bob Zemeckis, was shooting the second units on Back to the Future II and III.

5:52Jawad MirAnd Death Becomes Her.

5:54Don BurgessAnd, that's the, where our relationship began. So, you know, from the time I… I kind of started school to the time that I shot Forrest Gump was probably a 15-year period of development, I always say, to get to the point where I was capable of shooting that movie.

6:17Jawad MirThat's really good to know because, I mean, it, you mentioned about, you know, working on documentaries, and you said it was like sports. And what was the other genre that you were doing?

6:25Don BurgessWell, action-adventure, you know, documentaries. You know, I got involved with people that climb mountains, some of the world's best…

6:36Jawad MirGot it

6:36Don Burgess... And shot documentaries about them, and I shot documentaries about the natural predation of sharks for National Geographic. I shot lots of, sports documentaries leading up to the Olympics. So, you know, you got into that group of, in that, in that era it was 16 millimeter cameras. You know, you had your own camera, and

6:58Jawad MirRight

6:58Don Burgess... You know, have camera, will travel, you know, and you kinda get on the list of being able to operate, a camera and, you know, follow skiers down the hill or, you know, race cars or motorcycles or things that moved fast, and you had to have the operating ability to keep up and understand what was going on. So that's kinda your way in, you know? And so the sports action led into the action units of movies and being able to shoot those.

7:33Jawad MirThat's, that's incredible. And the reason I asked you that, because I'm not a cinematographer. I mean, I can, I can shoot as a, with a camera and everything whenever I need to, but I normally have a DP myself, but I direct documentaries. And my documentaries are feature narrative documentaries…

7:51Don BurgessOkay

7:51Jawad Mir... And they're not obviously the nature of what you have done. And I'm s… right now, it's not something that I p… planned on doing. I never planned on making documentaries.

8:00Don BurgessRight.

8:00Jawad MirI always was into like, you know, making stuff like Spielberg does or like narrative films.

8:05Don BurgessYeah.

8:05Jawad MirAnd now I'm at that point where I'm trying to figure out how to transition from that into the narrative film world. Yes, you can write your own script, which is one route, but just trying to figure that path out. So when you said that, it kinda just, you know, rang…

8:22Don BurgessRight

8:22Jawad Mir... A little bell in my head. And

8:24Don BurgessRight. So, yeah, I mean, listen, you know, it's all about images that support the narrative, right? Whether you're making a documentary film or a dramatic narrative film, you still are telling a story. And so once you get your narrative figured out, then it's the best w… best images possible to support those ideas. And so my work in documentaries where it was either live sports, in essence, or, you know, climbing mountains in Venezuela, the storytellers that I worked for when I was doing that were, you know, ever as much as creative as a Robert Zemeckis, in essence. The difference is you're hanging off the side of a mountain, and you've got…... The story unfolding in front of you, and you've gotta figure out how to get the audience to understand what's going on here, right? So in climbing, it's A, you gotta get the camera in position.

9:26Don BurgessB, you gotta make it vertical, appear how vertical it really is and how difficult the journey is for the, for the climbers. And then ultimately, you know, if it's raining, you gotta get the cameras out and shoot in the rain. Otherwise, it never happened, right? And so, you know, y… you get that, you know, standing on your feet with the camera and saying, "What shots do I need right now to tell this story?" And, especially in, when I was shooting Olympic athletes, you know, the event's gonna happen, so, you know, you're, you're standing in the middle of it and you're going, "Okay, I need to see the shots guys coming out of the gate, and I need to get the shot of the clock, and I need to get the shot of the people watching them as they're going by, and I need to get shots of this that happened and that happened." So that training, you know, I think was a great experience for me to be, not be intimidated by a day's work, that's on a call sheet.

10:24Jawad MirYeah

10:25Don Burgess... Right? Because it, most of that I can figure out before the day. Not everything, because it's, you know, it's organic process. Things happen, things change.

10:34Jawad MirSure.

10:35Don BurgessWorkers, you know, have to, have to, you know, make it happen on the given day that you're shooting. And so there are audibles at the line, shall we say, so you gotta be ready for that. But I think all that documentary experience gave me a really good footing to always feel comfortable with change.

10:53Jawad MirAnd you're so right about that mindset of being able to capture all that's happening in real time because I always, you know, when I talk to my crew and my, even myself in my head, just to reinforce that we have to, like, when you're doing documentary, especially of a real time moment, you have to have, like, eyes in the back of your head like a ninja. Like, you literally…

11:16Don BurgessRight

11:16Jawad Mir... You literally have to think about what I need to capture while this 30 second thing is happening and how am I gonna do it and enough time on one shot, et cetera, et cetera. Or you can just sort of pan along with it, you know, follow the action.

11:29Don BurgessRight

11:29Jawad Mir... But I have to tell you that one of the documentaries that I made three years ago, it wasn't shot on any amazing camera or anything because the nature of the documentary was hidden camera and GoPro and all that stuff in a refugee detention center. And, it was, you know, me and my co-director, we both watched your stuff before we went on making it, and that's pretty much, I think, I was watching it at a screening yester… two days ago, and we watching it, I'm like Just looking at a frame, because a wide frame tells so much of a story as opposed to you cutting away, and that's something that you are so masterful at, with Zemeckis of course as well, right?

12:16Jawad MirThat you are letting the action flow into the frame, and you're just following it, and you're panning very slowly instead of cutting back and forth. And it abso… it immerses the audience in so much. You've done that so much in What Lies Beneath and Cast Away. How... Is that something that you sit down with Zemeckis and process it through or is that something, you know, like a y… on your own, or how… how is that collaboration that takes place?

12:43Don BurgessOh, it's definitely a collaboration. You know, Bob is, he loves that part of it. I mean, he loves, you know, figuring out, you know, how we're gonna shoot a scene. And a lot of times he'll come in with his, you know, what he's thinking and then he'll flip it right over and go, "So what are you thinking?" You know? I mean, he wants to engage

13:06Jawad MirYeah

13:06Don Burgess... Myself, but also actors, everybody else, in the process of telling the story. And so he's always got a game plan of how he wants to do something, but he's open to suggestion and ideas of how to make it better. And so we've, you know, we've been together a long time, and I think the reason for that is that, it… it's not as much of a struggle for him to communicate with me…

13:35Don Burgess... What he's trying to say and how he wants to do it. And, I think that I unders… I understand Bob, and I understand the movie he's trying to make. So the collaboration is, you know, I'll say, "Well, Bob, you know what I was thinking, is that if we start here and the door opens up, and the camera starts going down the walkway, and we see the shadow of something peeking out around the corner, and then the camera reveals, you know, the subject." And he… he'll say, "Yeah, but what I thought you were gonna say is..." And he'll take that thought and he'll make it better. He'll take it and go, "Yeah, but then wouldn't it be great if when we came around the corner, you know, this is what we saw. 'Cause the audience is gonna be thinking we're gonna see this. But how about if we come around the corner and we see that?" And you go, "Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty great, Bob. Yeah, let's do that." So it's that kind of collaboration, that is,..

14:41Don BurgessYou know, you don't get it with everybody. You know? You don't click like that…

14:44Jawad MirYeah

14:44Don Burgess... On those levels with everybody. So I think that the relationships, that I have in the, in the movie business where it's, you know, you go back again and again and again, you know, there's a lot of reasons for that. And I think that, you know, the work ultimately, c… can get better and better as you…

15:02Jawad MirYeah

15:03Don Burgess... You know, you understand each other, more along the process. Because it, you know…

15:08Jawad MirSure

15:08Don Burgess... The good part about it is it, you know, the great directors will always open up to the team to see if there's a better way, see if there's more to it. Because i… i… when you look at his films, from minimum focus to infinity, everything in that frame is telling a story.

15:32Jawad Mir100%. That's what I love about it.

15:34Don BurgessYep.

15:35Jawad MirI... You know, the shot, now you might think I'm overstating this, but I'm not. What Lies Beneath, the final sequence upstairs, that bathroom, the hallway, the bedroom. To me, without any dialogue, it's probably the best sequence of a thriller I have ever seen. Like, I even watched it yesterday, and I c… I knew what was gonna happen, like I've seen it so many times, but I was still on the edge of my seat. It's so crazy how you guys created that entire sequence without any dialogue. And you know, and that goes to show, and that immerses the audience. And so I, like I said, I mean, I can't, I can't overstate this, it's some of the most incredible work in cinema is done by Robert Zemeckis and obviously, you know, y… your collaboration with him. So love that sequence. And I imagine the house that was in What Lies Beneath was a, was a set that you guys built, especially I kinda figured that out, or I think I did, was when the camera goes under… underneath the

16:46Don BurgessThe floor

16:46Jawad Mir... Michelle Pfeiffer's character and beneath the bed.

16:47Don BurgessYeah.

16:48Jawad MirYeah.

16:48Don BurgessIt was under the floor, yeah.

16:50Jawad MirYeah.

16:50Don BurgessYeah, no, the house was built for the movie. And there's several scenes in it where, like that one, where literally, you know, I would get involved with the construction coordinator and say, "Hey, listen, can we run the floor joists the wrong way? Basically can we run them this way? Because I need the, you know, the crane arm and the Libra head, I needed to get it down under the floor, so I need the floor joists to be like this so I can get, actually get the camera down there, and we can pull out the floor and then visually put it back in later." So you get to plan those movies out, especially that s… that... 'cause it's such a Hitchcockian style thriller that you get to plan those things out.

17:34Jawad MirYeah.

17:35Don BurgessAnd so the, so what Bob is so good at, not only can he come up with these ideas for these shots of what he wants to do, you also have to convince the actors that's what they need to do, right? And you got two big stars. You got Michelle Pfeiffer, you got Harrison Ford, and they're gonna have, they're gonna have ideas about what their character's going to do. So he's very good about getting them involved and rehearsing those scenes, 'cause it's not something we can just do on the day.

18:06Jawad MirYeah.

18:06Don BurgessWe gotta rip this wall out. We gotta pull these floor joists out. We gotta do that shot. And then by the way, we gotta, you know, we gotta, we gotta do something else while we're putting it all back together in another room. So you have to figure all that stuff out. But if you have a director that is pushing the envelope to do shots like that, then you can figure it out. You can figure out how to do those shots. Now, the one thing that I think is fascinating is the bathroom. Okay? Now, we had three bathroom sets, three bathtub sets.

18:40Jawad MirI figured, yeah.

18:42Don BurgessRight? And we, and we l… and we laid it out so that I had the crane arm, in essence, in the middle, and then I had one bathroom here, and then I had one bathroom on e… on each side, so that we could…

18:53Jawad MirYeah

18:54Don Burgess... We had th… this bathtub, 'cause the camera had to get down to water level, so it had to be, really big on one side so the camera had place to get, and so to be placed, you know. And so each bathtub had a shot. So we had different designs of bathtub to get all the different shots, and it was laid out in a way that we could do all that. The bathroom itself, when he carries her in and puts her in the tub…

19:18Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

19:18Don Burgess... The walk way from the hallway to the tub is about 30% longer than it is in the original bathroom. So the wa… the walk became a longer walk to that bathtub. Every time we went back in there in that sequence, we started with light gray walls, and by the time we finished, we have very dark gray walls. I think it was gray. So it always kept the mood getting darker and darker and darker as we progressed through there. We built the house so that nothing lined up like a normal house would. Everything was a little off. So there was always easy to find a place where you could get the camera going past something, then revealing something. So it always lent to the, this idea of, you know, something going on in this house. I remember saying to him, "You know, Bob, this move is so slow. Do you want to do..." "Can we, should we do another one, just pick up the pace a little bit, you know, so we have that in the bank, you know?

20:24Don BurgessIt may just die on the vine." And he's like, "Nope, that's perfect. That's the one right there." And he was so right, you know. So right. It's so terrifying. And that's just…

20:37Jawad MirYeah

20:37Don Burgess... You know, it's a genre, and understanding the genre, and understanding, you know, what the camera needs to do. And it, for me, it was a, it was a blast. I loved it because, you know, it's, there's so much of, it's a character in the movie. You know? The camera is a character in the movie.

20:51Jawad MirIt is.

20:52Don BurgessAnd so, you know, figuring out how to pull off all those camera moves with a big crane arm inside the house and, so, you know, by design, you know, it's one of my favorites.

21:05Jawad MirYeah, no, it certainly was. And how did you guys do the pickup truck sequence at the end when the camera is on, Michelle Pfeiffer, and it goes underneath the vehicle, and then you see the shoe falling out? I'm assuming, what was, what was the process of that? I'm, I'm assuming it's it had a lot of digital composition to it, but I just wanted to find out from you.

21:27Don BurgessYeah. So, the shot starts out, I remember we had, I had to build this, a lot of different rigs for that one sequence. When the, when the pickup truck and the boat pull out of the house, out of the driveway, I mounted a camera on, I built a vertical dolly track on the insert car.

21:56Jawad MirOkay.

21:56Don BurgessWhich was difficult because you can't go under bridges or anything, so you have to you gotta build it on a location, and you gotta know exactly where you're gonna drive it, 'cause it's, you know, it's not a crane arm booming down. It, the shot needed to be straight vertical to come down as the pickup truck came close, and then ultimately it goes underneath and, you know, and the shoe comes out, and you know, wait a minute, they're not alone, you know?

22:19Jawad MirYeah

22:19Don Burgess... And so, it's kind of like, you know, there's so many shots in that film that took a special rig to do the individual shot, that it's not something…

22:34Jawad MirRight

22:34Don Burgess... You can cover and then figure out in the editing room how to piece it all together. You know? You really have to get the shot when you're shooting it. 'cause there's no other shot, you know. That's the shot. That's, that's the way the sequence, you know, he, Bob will sit down, and he'll, he'll talk it through. A lot of times he'll, you know, he'll have a storyboard artist, you know, that's drawing the key frames, so we can discuss ultimately how to execute the concept and figure it all out.

23:06Jawad MirRight.

23:06Don BurgessWhat's gonna be digital, what's gonna, what can we actually do for real. And, you know, to get that, it was a lot to getting that truck from the house to the lake, put it that way.

23:21Jawad MirYeah. I'm so glad you guys shot, What Lies Beneath on anamorphic, because I have a 32-inch anamorphic monitor and…

23:30Don BurgessOh, wow

23:30Jawad Mir... I didn't r… I didn't remember it was anamorphic, so I started watching like, "Yes." And it just gives you so much. And I, it makes sense now that why you guys did it, because it just gives you so much to work with, so much depth and, you know, f… in the frame, so much action is happening. Which was, which was great. So I just wanna let you know that was really cool that you guys did that.

23:52Don BurgessRight. I think it's a really good format for that genre because it allows you to do a lot of storytelling in the frame at eye level.

24:01Jawad MirYeah.

24:01Don BurgessRight? So wherever the character is, and wherever you're creeping along, it gives you a good composition on the subject, but yet all this other frame you can use for the spooky stuff. Yeah, it works great.

24:14Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. And so you guys, before you guys started production on What Lies Beneath, you did half of Cast Away, more or less, half of Cast Away, for which Tom Hanks had gained weight. And then…

24:28Don BurgessYes

24:28Jawad Mir... You guys went into production for What Lies Beneath, and then you went back by the time he lost weight for the remaining part of the film.

24:35Don BurgessYeah

24:36Jawad Mir... How was, how was that... Because one of the things I really loved about Cast Away, and I wanted to know from your own experience, so the character goes through this whole thing, a journey of, you know, as you show in the film, in the very beginning, it's like, you know, boom, tick-tock, tick-tock. Like very fast-paced, FedEx and delivery.

24:55Don BurgessRight.

24:55Jawad MirEverything is about time. Everything is about time.

24:57Don BurgessYeah.

24:57Jawad MirAnd even on a set, like Cast Away or any other film, everything is very crunch, right?

25:03Don BurgessYeah.

25:03Jawad MirAnd then you go, then he goes on the island where all he has is time.

25:07Don BurgessRight.

25:08Jawad MirAnd obviously, you guys were there too.

25:10Don BurgessYes.

25:10Jawad MirWorking in that environment versus in, you know, an environment where you normally work, did you feel something more of at ease too, in terms of as a, you know, just pretty much just not going as in boom like the character did, or was it something different?

25:27Don BurgessWell, by design, we were only... We s… we always kind of set our, we set rules for ourselves. At certain parts of the movie, like what lenses we're gonna use, what camera speeds we're gonna use, you know, how we're gonna light it. So on the island, it became about, no diagonal pans. Everything had to be horizontal or vertical…

26:01Don Burgess... In the way the camera moves were laid out. So in essence, if the movie is about cast away, in essence, the excess baggage in your life that you don't need, and you get, you simplify it down to what the essence of life really is and what's important. The camera is doing the same thing. So it gets as simple as you ever see the two of us ever shoot, on that island to kind of, in essence, put the audience with the character. I mean, ideally, if you're, if you're always approaching your narrative that you're gonna put the audience with the main character of the scene or the movie…

26:51Don Burgess... Then that's the, you know, that's what you want.

26:54Jawad MirYeah.

26:54Don BurgessThat's what works. That what keeps the audience connected, I think, to the story. And it becomes more subjective than in essence objective. And I think that's a really important thing to keep people engaged in your movie. And so if you break it down to Cast Away, there he is, man, 55 minutes on an island with a volleyball ultimately. And in the movie, there's no music.

27:26Jawad MirYeah. Until, when he leaves the island, when he makes it to the ship.

27:30Don BurgessAnd it could be one of the most powerful notes of music you ever hear because…

27:35Jawad MirI agree. I agree

27:37Don Burgess... You know, and it wasn't Bob's intent originally to do that, but they kept trying things, and nothing worked. And then finally he said, "You know, you know, I'll tell you what's working. No music." Right? That's pretty, that's a pretty ballsy move to have a, you know, nothing going on except a guy trying to survive on his own with nobody to talk to until, you know, he creates Wilson. But it's, it's so powerful in the movie because it's, ultimately, that's, that was the way to do it. But sometimes, you know, you gotta find these things along the way, you know? It starts talking to…

28:23Jawad MirYeah. And you know, I remember when I watched in the movie theater, and I came home, and that's when I found out, and I read that the music doesn't kick in until he leaves the island. I didn't even notice it. That's how great it was.

28:38Don BurgessRight.

28:38Jawad MirI didn't even pick up on it when the music did come in.

28:41Don BurgessYeah.

28:41Jawad MirThat oh, the music finally came in. So that's... And then, all of that kinda, you know, like it's a collaboration, right? Like editing, performance, cinematography, direction, everything kinda just... And s… I think the waves had a lot to do with it. Like, when you con… constantly hear water waves.

28:56Don BurgessRight.

28:56Jawad MirTo me, maybe that was like a way of music, you know?

29:00Don BurgessRight.

29:00Jawad MirJust listening to nature.

29:02Don BurgessYeah.

29:02Jawad MirBut yeah, no, another phenomenal film that you guys worked on together, Cast Away. And what was the biggest challenge that you faced being on the island that you probably didn't, normally don't face, you know, being in an, in an environment where it's more controlled? Because the Mechas like to work in more controlled environment as opposed to…

29:22Don BurgessOh, yeah

29:22Jawad Mir... You know, anywhere.

29:23Don BurgessWe'll ne… we'll never get him out there again.

29:28Jawad MirDid you, did you guys have a tough time?

29:31Don BurgessWell, yeah, sure. Anytime you go, you know…

29:33Jawad MirYeah

29:34Don Burgess... You go to a remote island that's, you know, an hour boat ride from mainland.

29:41Jawad MirYeah.

29:41Don BurgessYou know, he's very driven with his ideas. And ultimately, you know, every time you go outside, it's a compromise because the weather's gonna be what the weather's gonna be, you know?

29:55Jawad MirYeah.

29:55Don BurgessAnd we had major storms that hit us, and we had people, you know, getting seasick, and we had, you know, people getting sunstroke, and we had people... You know, it's, you take all those people out there, and, you know, I do my best to try to pick people that are capable of working in those elements. You know, I've spent my whole career working in those elements. So I, you know, I know what it takes, but you gotta get 100 people that are ca…... Capable of doing that. And, it's not easy. You know, pe… people think they could, you know, "I don't get seasick," 'cause they've been on a boat on a lake. They've never actually been in the ocean before, you know? And it's really, I feel sorry for people who get seasick. It's, it's the worst. But that's what happens when you have that big of... You know, I think we, between the sickness and the s… people getting seasick, the, you know, that you could, that kinda once you get to land, you're fine. But we had, we had a, I don't know what it was, but it went through the crew, and we lost half the crew after this big storm.

31:00Jawad MirOh, wow.

31:00Don BurgessSo we were lite… we were literally down to a skeleton crew. You know, I was operating the camera, and, you know, the first AD was sick. The camera operator was sick. The, you know, all the way down the list, so there was a, just a small group of us actually, you know, doing the f… you know, probably a week's worth of that movie, which is what, the way Bob always saw it in his own mind anyway. You know?

31:23Jawad MirYeah.

31:23Don BurgessHe's like, "I want 15 people on the island," you know? "I don't want 100 people."

31:26Jawad MirOh, yeah.

31:27Don BurgessRight?

31:28Jawad MirSure.

31:28Don BurgessBecause he's doing the same thing. He's trying to cast away all that baggage. It's turning around on a movie set to 100 people staring at him going, "What are we gonna do next, Bob?" You know what I mean?

31:37Jawad MirYeah. No.

31:39Don BurgessHe was trying to get

31:39Jawad MirI actually thought it would be, I actually thought it would be, like, 30, 40 people, so it's news to me that it was 100 people, and it went down to 15 for a week.

31:47Don BurgessWell, yeah, because, you know, you know, 'cause in the script it says, "And then the wind changes direction," right? How do you do that with 15 people, right?

31:56Jawad MirYeah, that's challenging.

31:56Don BurgessAnd the story begins. You know what I mean? So there's, there's, there's elements of Zemeckis that are in the movie that the only way you can do it is with 100 people. Now, there's a lot of the movie where it's Tom sitting there on the beach, and he's opening all the, all the packages. And he comes across the FedEx package. Yeah, you know, you need 15 people for that. I mean, but what we learned was that the way to get early morning shots and late light and all that stuff we love to do is to have the 15 people living on a boat at the island. And so we did that. So we had our 15 people, and we would shoot, you know, we'd go over in the dark, and we'd shoot at sunrise. And we would shoot, you know, probably two hours before the crew showed up on the big catamaran, and the same thing at the end of the day.

32:50Jawad MirSure.

32:50Don BurgessThey'd have to get on the catamaran, and they'd have to go home, and then we would shoot till dark, and we'd go back, you know, to the boat we were living on. So it, so in some ways, he did get to his 15 people. But you know, there's just, there's... The island, was in the Fijian chain. It's called Monuriki. And, the tides were so drastic that you would set up... Let's say you had 15 shots that day.

33:25Don BurgessYou would, I needed a crew to set up the shot we were doing first, and while we were doing that, they were setting up the next shot. So I had another crew setting up the next shot. 'Cause it might be on the water, and you knew that the tide was coming in or going out, depending upon where we were in the cycle.

33:42Jawad MirSure.

33:43Don BurgessSo you knew that in those, all those 15 shots, different locations that we had to be on the island, you knew when you needed to be where. So you knew you had, okay, I know the tide's gonna be here, and we gotta get this shot by this time to get to the next shot and then get to the next shot. So you had to figure out your whole day and where you're gonna be at what time of day. Because otherwise, you're gonna be, the water's gonna be up to here, where there isn't any water, right? So the beach all of a sudden is like, where's the beach? Oh, it'll be here in about two hours once the tide turns and starts going out. So you had to put that into the schedule, too. So that, those were the challenges of, you know, when you go out and you actually try to attempt to shoot a dramatic film in a location like that. And I think that's why…

34:30Jawad MirYeah

34:30Don Burgess... You know, those kinds of things of, let's do it with 15 people. You know, I grew up, you know, with… in the independent filmmaking world, right? I started that way, with 15 was our big crew, right? So you know, I know how to do that. But you know, I said, "Bob, we can do it, but you're gonna be here probably about six weeks longer than you wanna be."

34:59Jawad MirYeah.

35:00Don BurgessRight? You know, that's, that's, that's not... He wants to get the shooting part done as most efficiently as he possibly can and get into the editing room. I mean, his love of filmmaking is writing and then editing, right? The shooting part of it, to him, is the most frustrating part of the process.

35:23Jawad MirWell, it goes back to, again, that con… controlled environment.

35:26Don BurgessControlled.

35:26Jawad MirEditing is a controlled environment.

35:28Don BurgessRight. It's controlled. It's making your movie, you know? Yeah.

35:33Jawad MirYeah.

35:33Don BurgessSo…

35:33Jawad MirI was talking to, you probably know, Kim. He shot Welcome to Marwen. Yeah. I was talking to him last week.

35:42Don BurgessYeah.

35:43Jawad MirAnd we were talking about, and we were talking about this, that how editing is, for some people, it's like the pla… for a lot of directors, it's the place, they look forward to that, whether it's because they're introvert or whether they like controlled environments or whatever that is.

35:58Don BurgessRight.

35:58Jawad MirIt's just like, you know, you're away from the rest of the world, especially coming from a set. When you're working with, like, 100, 150 people, you need that…

36:05Don BurgessRight

36:05Jawad Mir... Break to be…

36:06Don BurgessRight

36:06Jawad Mir... Away from everybody.

36:08Don BurgessYeah.

36:09Jawad MirAnd in, I'm just gonna go over to Contact, which I'd rather not talk in detail, at this point, but just that film alone, when you know, when you get a script, you know, you go through it. What was your reaction of that film, the way it ended when you read the script?

36:36Don BurgessYeah. You know, it was so long ago, and so…

36:40Jawad MirOkay. Bad question.

36:41Don Burgess'Cause there were... Yeah. Well, no, but I'll tell you why. Because they had wanted Bob to make that movie years before he made it.

36:50Jawad MirOh.

36:52Don BurgessAnd…

36:52Jawad MirOkay

36:56Don Burgess... And Bob said, "Yeah, but I… it has to end like this." And they said, "Yeah, no, we don't wanna do that." And so it went away, and eventually George Miller ended up with it for a long time. And he got to a certain point, and they're, "Are you gonna make the movie, George?" And they're like... He goes, "No, I need another year of development." You know. And they're like, "No, we gotta make this movie now." And they, so they went back to Bob, and he said, "Yeah, but here's the ending." And they were like, "Okay." You know, they, in essence they had to agree to make the movie that, you know, with the…

37:42Jawad MirYeah

37:42Don Burgess... Ending he believed in. And so…

37:46Jawad MirThat's, that's…

37:47Don Burgess... In the book, of course, it's a much more definitive ending, that there is intelligent life in the universe, and we're making a connection. And in Bob's version, you know, it's up to you. You know? It's…

38:01Jawad MirOkay

38:01Don Burgess... It's, it's, and you're gonna read it the way you wanna read it, you know, and see it the way you wanna see it. In the version…

38:08Jawad MirI think…

38:09Don BurgessGo ahead.

38:10Jawad MirSorry, go. No, please, you go ahead. I interrupted you.

38:12Don BurgessNo, I'm saying, you know, in my mind, you know, you know, I'm, I'm convinced Ellie made the journey, right? To me, I... That's... I'm perfectly fine with that version of what happened. So, you know, but I think that's the filmmaker trying to make it, you know, eh, make people think and make people commit to what they believe, you know, and what they, what they see in the film. I mean…

38:49Jawad MirYeah. And that…

38:50Don BurgessListen, they're, they're, you know, he's tackling, you know, is there intelligent life in the universe? Is there a god, right? You know, it's like, it's, like, all these huge questions that Hollywood likes to avoid, you know?

39:02Jawad MirYeah.

39:03Don BurgessAnd people, you know, having to figure that out for themselves.

39:09Jawad MirAnd that's what was so thought-provoking about that film. For me, I remember, you know, I remember when I... 'Cause that, I think it came out in '97, so it was a year after Independence Day came out, all those Mars Attacks, all the alien movies that were coming out.

39:24Don BurgessRight.

39:24Jawad MirSo I remember when she sees that figure approaching her, you know, in, like, a waving for, you know, design. I was like, "Please, let it not be, like, you know, squiggly aliens coming around." But I had no idea what was gonna come out of there. And it was just done, again, you know, done so masterfully. And, a… and, what really sucks about that year was I think Contact didn't really make much headlines, was because Titanic did, 'cause Titanic came out in that same year as well.

39:55Don BurgessOh, was that same year?

39:57Jawad MirYeah. And Men in Black came out the same year, too, and those two films came out. I think that came, Men in Black came out in July, and…

40:05Don BurgessYeah. Yeah

40:06Jawad Mir... Titanic came out in December.

40:06Don BurgessI think Jo, I think Jodie got nominated. And is it, that was about it. I don't know if there was much else.

40:11Jawad MirYeah.

40:11Don BurgessBut I think it was…

40:11Jawad MirBut it wasn't, you know, because…

40:13Don BurgessOf all the films that I've done…

40:13Jawad Mir... Everybody was talking about Titanic

40:15Don Burgess... Right.

40:15Jawad MirYeah.

40:15Don BurgessOut of all the films that I've done, by far the most difficult film I've ever shot.

40:22Jawad MirWhy is that?

40:25Don BurgessAnd there, technically it was so complicated.

40:33Jawad MirOkay.

40:33Don BurgessIf you, if you turn off the sound and you watch that movie silently, you will see probably the most beautifully designed transitions in any film that's ever been made. Every one of those…

40:43Jawad MirI gotta do that

40:44Don Burgess... Every one of those, you know, the transitions from one scene to the next, it's so well thought out. It's so Bob and his way of weaving the story. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of wonders in that movie that nobody notices, because they're very organic. And Bob has a way of, making it f… you know, you'd say, "Oh, sh… that's a three-minute scene. By the way, that's all one shot." It is? Really? Then people have to go back and look at it. So I shot it in, half the movie's Panavision 65 millimeter.

41:23Jawad MirOkay.

41:23Don BurgessHalf the movie was shot anamorphic, plus all the VistaVision shots that needed to be done at that time. So at that time, you gotta re… remember that you needed a larger negative to keep the quality of the visual effects work up to, I think, release quality level. And so getting the 65 Pana… Panavision camera to shoot a lot of it, so... And basically I could, I could still put that in a remote head and move the camera like Bob likes to move the camera. You know, you can't do that with a VistaVision camera. You know, a sound blimp, VistaVision, Vis… VistaVision camera is, you know, the side of your grandfather's Buick, as I always say, or my grandfather's Buick. It was enormous. So with the Panavision 65 camera gave us that camera mobility that we were used to, and then ultimately released in 35 anamorphic. So all the visual effects work, I think, is f… first rate. And, the blending of shots which we were doing, we did a lot of blends in that movie back then, where Jodie Foster, for instance, hears a signal.

42:29Don BurgessShe comes racing in the car, and the camera starts up high in the air, and camera comes down and… And she jumps out of the car, and the camera follows her into the building.

42:38Jawad MirYeah.

42:38Don BurgessAnd then makes a couple of turns and goes through some doors. There's a blend there, and then you pick it up running up the stairs and into the office, which is on a sound stage in Hollywood. Now, we did that several times in the film. When she's a child at the beginning and y… the camera starts outside the house, seeing the house that she lives in, it comes up, it goes through the window down the hallway, and into her bedroom, where her dad is reading her a story. Once again, a blend, right? Arecibo was a trans light in one shot and the actual real Arecibo in the other shot, and you never notice that one's a trans light and one's the actual real Arecibo. So those kinds of challenges came up for me every day. You know, and especially the shot that you mentioned earlier, where the father's had a heart attack, the popcorn is splayed out on the carpet, and she comes into frame. And by the way, if you look at the way the popcorn is laying on the floor, it's actually a constellation.

43:43Don BurgessSo…

43:43Jawad MirAh.

43:44Don BurgessSo the detail, it's unbelievable. So then, you know, she gets up and go up the stairs. So it was a Steadicam shot. We shot with…

43:51Jawad MirYeah

43:52Don Burgess... The Beaumont Vista Vision Steadicam. K… or the, it's a Beaumont. It took 400-foot loads. It, the 400-foot Arri magazine sat sideways on the body that they developed, and so you had a Vista Vision camera that was light enough to go on a Steadicam. And then of course, the camera goes up the stairs. Now, on the set for that shot, the stairs are flopped, and they're on the, actually on the other side. So as you go back and look at it…

44:18Jawad MirOkay

44:18Don Burgess... You'll see that in the house, 'cause you'll see it at the funeral, stairs are on one side. But in that shot, they're already flopped, so you go up the stairs, they're on the other side. So the whole thing ultimately is a reflection in the mirror in the bathroom. So it's a reflection shot at, you know, ultimately. So, and then of course figuring out how to, we had to ramp the camera speed because back then it wasn't post ramps. We did a, we did the ramp and then we…

44:41Jawad MirThat's right

44:42Don Burgess... Yeah. And so the idea was that the Steadicam and the camera had to leave the girl, and the camera had to ramp the camera speed. So what it feels like is she can't get to her destination. It's, like, impossible for her to get there.

45:00Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

45:00Don BurgessSo that was the feeling he was trying to get to the audience, that she didn't, she didn't get there fast enough to get to the medicine to save her dad. And then ultimately…

45:11Jawad MirOne of the things I noticed in that sh… Sorry, go on.

45:14Don BurgessNo, I said then the, you know, the medicine chest closes, and then you see the reflection of the…

45:19Jawad MirYeah

45:19Don Burgess... Of her dad on the wall. And then it blows out, and it becomes a funeral.

45:25Jawad MirYeah. One of the things I noticed in that shot, tell me if I'm looking into it too much, because sometimes that happens with me when I watch something over and over again. When she's run… when she comes up the stairs and she's in the first part of the hallway, and then all of a sudden the light changes. Now, was that intentional in terms of a visual story representation, or is that just something that happened, or am I looking into it too much?

45:51Don BurgessWhen the camera turns and goes down the hallway and she's chasing the camera?

45:54Jawad MirNo, when the camera, yeah, when the camera moves up and she comes up the stairs, it's…

45:59Don BurgessYeah

45:59Jawad Mir... It's a little bit darker. And then all of a sudden you have these tungsten l… light that kinda just lits her up, and the camera moves away from her. Was that intentional in terms of lighting, or was that just something that I'm looking into too much, or that occurred, or?

46:17Don BurgessI'd have to look at it. I don't remember. I mean, we're, we're doing a speed ramp at that point, right?

46:23Jawad MirRight.

46:24Don BurgessSo the iris is opening up as the camera…

46:28Jawad MirOh, okay

46:28Don Burgess... Cranking faster. So that might have some feeling of that. And then of course the light in the hallway is, you know, a little bit more dramatic to feel the sense of movement and space of, you know, separating the lights…

46:40Jawad MirRight

46:41Don Burgess... So there's light. So, you know, to create the drama in the shot, I'd have to think about it, but that's all that I remember.

46:53Jawad MirThat's okay. No, I know it's been, it's been a long time, but, like, obviously you don't see this film over and over again.

47:00Don BurgessNo, the fact that people still wanna talk about, you know, that movie, I love that. I mean, I went to the BSC Awards in London, and I sat with this guy who was a cinematographer, a younger cinematographer. And, you know, we sat there for a while around the table and everybody got to know everybody a little bit. And then finally towards the end, he goes, "Listen, I can't let you leave this table until I ask you this qu… one question." And of course it was about Contact. So the fact that people still wanna talk about it, is great. Is great. I love that.

47:33Jawad MirI, honestly, I can talk to you about Contact all day long. Like, that's how much I love that movie, every bit of it. And especially that hearing scene at the end. That, was that intimidating to have that kind of a setup in that big room with so much crowd and managing all that? Not intimidating in the sense that, you know, you've never done that before, but just that mammoth of a scene and such a climax. W… w… was that in any way difficult to, tackle?

48:01Don BurgessIt was. It was in Washington, DC. It's one of those great big giant rooms. Fortunately…

48:07Jawad MirYeah

48:07Don Burgess... It had windows on both sides. And I think that my gaffer, Steve McGee, who was with me through all those big movies, just a wonderful gaffer. You know, I said, "Listen, I, you know, I want the key to be on this side and the fill to be on this side, and I think we gotta light up all these windows," you know? So it was like, "All right, I'm putting 18 K's out there all the way, and I'm putting 12 K's over there all the way, and I'm gonna put some, you know, up here c… for the backlight." And I'm like, "Okay, good luck with that." It's like, you know, it was a monstrous lighting setup 'cause it's a huge room and a lot of people. And, you know, you wanted, you wanted them to be chiseled out in that environment, especially Jodie.

48:51Jawad MirYeah.

48:51Don BurgessAnd, I came up with this idea, that when we would push into Jodie, instead of pushing straight into her, that we pushed on a diagonal. I had this whole thing in the, about the universe and the rotation and all this going on, and a lot of things that I did in the film, and that was the one place where I could, I could start on one side of her, and as I pushed in, I would, you know, push to the other side as we pushed in tighter and tighter and tighter. So the whole background behind her rotates behind her in those close-ups as we push into her. And so, you know, Bob was like, "Yeah, love that. Great, let's do it." You know? He saw it, and then he thought it was working. As he says, "Yeah, that's talking to me." So we did that. And, you know, that was kind of fun. But it's, it's, it's kind of, it's kinda having, I think, a filmmaker that can communicate with the people around him, and then give them the freedom to take it and, you know, come up with ideas like that, you know, and run it by him, to kind of like always try to do something that's going to, give more depth to the story, and to the viewing audience watching the film.

50:18Jawad MirYeah. It's, it's like giving ownership, right, to people who you're working with. Like, y… and then they put more effort and more time and more thought process behind it because the captain of the ship has believed in them.

50:30Don BurgessYeah.

50:30Jawad MirAnd, you know, a… again, what I, what I'm so... I kind of realized that I think... Let's see. I probably didn't realize it when I saw Contact, the difference between, like, you know, a wide shot, what the message that gives versus a close-up shot. I mean, that was 26 years ago. But over the last decade or so, I have come to appreciate that how much, especially after watching Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, like David Lean kind of an approach, and that's what Robert…

51:03Don BurgessYeah

51:03Jawad Mir... Zemeckis and your work reminds me of, that you have... Y… you just, you know, especially the, that hearing scene. If it was, the easiest thing could have been, okay, let's just do a medium close-up here, cut away, that's at the end. But to show that entire room in its entirety and to have proper lighting coming in, it just spoke so much to the story, like what was at stake at that scene. Like how she was the…

51:28Don BurgessRight

51:28Jawad Mir... Only person, you know…

51:29Don BurgessRight

51:30Jawad Mir... Believing in herself and nobody else cared.

51:33Don BurgessRight.

51:34Jawad MirSo, yeah.

51:35Don BurgessRight.

51:35Jawad MirRe… really masterful work.

51:37Don BurgessYeah.

51:37Jawad MirReally masterful work.

51:39Don BurgessAnd…

51:39Jawad MirI would love to deconstruct Contract, Contact with you more sometime if you're up for it.

51:44Don BurgessSure. Sure. I mean, you know, Bob did in that scene what he's done since his very first movie, is he has this, you know, he'll take a television screen, right, in the back of the room, right? There's those TV monitor set up, so and so you'll see this master shot, this huge room with all these people.

52:04Jawad MirYeah.

52:04Don BurgessAnd down in the frame, you'll see on the TV screen a close-up of Jodie. So…

52:09Jawad MirYeah

52:09Don Burgess... So yeah. And so, you know, and we did that in the film several times, like when she's in the White House press room. And she, you know, she thinks she's gonna speak, on behalf of what's happened and Clinton's in the scene.

52:29Jawad MirYeah.

52:29Don BurgessClinton never knew, but…

52:30Jawad MirI remember that.

52:31Don BurgessClinton never knew he was in the scene, but in the movie he's in the scene.

52:35Jawad MirYeah.

52:35Don BurgessAnd so Bob's sleight of hand was you see Jodie in the press room with monitors, and you see Clinton on the monitor, right? So you know it's Clinton. And so then when it's her time to get up and she walks, the camera goes with her, only to see, in essence, Clinton walk out of the room. And that's a sleight of hand…

52:56Jawad MirYeah

52:56Don Burgess... Part of that shot, 'cause it's not Clinton walking out of the room. It's, you know, it's a double. 'Cause you just see the back of his head.

53:03Jawad MirRight.

53:03Don BurgessIt's gone. But you see it in the close-up, so you really get the feeling that they're really there.

53:08Jawad MirYeah.

53:08Don BurgessThey're in the White House press room, and this is, you know, this is happening. And, you know, I love that. I love that cinema sleight of hand, you know, to con… convince an audience that something's happening.

53:23Jawad MirYou certainly convinced me for the longest time. I discovered that 10 years ago that wasn't the case. So…

53:29Don BurgessYeah.

53:29Jawad Mir... It really worked. It really worked. A… and one thing I wanted to ask you, so, you know, you worked with Zemeckis on Back to the Future, Second Unit, and Death Becomes Her. There was a transition in his approach of creating a visual image or, you know, story visually. You know, I think it changed from Death Becomes Her to Forrest Gump very gently, and then it took a, in my view, it took a big leap from that on to Contact. Because Contact was the most different shot film he has ever done, or at least you have ever worked with. 'Cause it was a little bit different than Forrest Gump, too. So was there, was there that time period in between Forrest Gump, Death Becomes Her, and Contact where you guys, you know, collaborated to kinda come up with this approach? Or was it like a very organic thing that happened with Contact?

54:30Don BurgessYou know, I would say that, I really, I really caught Bob at his like non-editing phase. So in essence, he kinda had the confidence in his, in himself and his ability to believe in the screenplay… To believe in the, in the words, in the structure of it, and to believe that he could judge a performance with the actors that he's cast. Because so much of it is done in the shot where there's no coverage. There's no way…

55:05Jawad MirYeah

55:05Don Burgess... To fix it. And I think that's, to me, I just happened to catch him at that. Now, for a cinematographer, it doesn't get any tougher, right? Because that camera's gonna push into that close-up from, in essence, a master and he, and you gotta light that close-up, and you gotta figure out how to do that. You know, when, wh… when... I think what I learned in that phase was when the camera's moving, the lights can move, too, and people don't notice. You can get away with kind of, you know, dimmers and adjusting lights and things as the camera's moving to get into that close-up, to get the light where it really needs to make, you know, the person, you know, look…

55:55Jawad MirRight

55:56Don Burgess... Proper for the, for the shot. So, and, I'm a very, you know, s… sports was a big part of my life growing up. You know, I was very athletic and certainly thought that's what my future was going to be until, you know, all those things happen to all everybody in high school. It's like, "Okay, this is over." Everybody's bigger, stronger, faster. Okay, I get it. I gotta find something else to do. So but I still, I love the challenge of game day, you know, as I called to Bob. I said, "Bob, I love this. This is game day to me, you know? This is us pulling off a shot that, you know, nobody's ever done before, you know?" And so it's, you know, it's, it's terrifying, and it's very rewarding. And for a director to get to his, I'll call it maturity level, where he is that good of a storyteller and believes in, you know, being able to judge performance, and timing and sense of timing, in the filmic world, which we know is completely different than reality…

57:08Don Burgess... To me is, fascinating. So I, you know, I loved the challenge of it. And I, you know, I would get hired a lot. People go, "Well, how do you do that?" And I said, "Well, I can show you how to move the cameras, but I can't tell you how to do the rest, you know?" You've gotta convince actors…

57:25Jawad MirYou have to make it

57:25Don Burgess... This. You gotta know that, you know, that this three and a half minutes is, you know, not gonna feel like 20 minutes when you're watching the movie. You're not gonna start sweating when you see it, you know, in the editing room going, or in, you know, when you're watching it with an audience 'cause it's just... I said, "That's, you know, that's a, that's a difficult thing." That takes, you know, I think all that experience to figure that out and to, and, you know, to have a sense of that. You know, to have that kind of command on storytelling. Because, as you know, we all, you know, all directors have their strengths and their weaknesses. You know, they're all, you know, some are very good writers. Some are just great with actors and performance. You know, some design great shots, you know, and they have a lot of razzle-dazzle. I mean, there's all kinds of versions of making movies and storytelling. But if you wanna do a Contact yeah, good luck. But, you know, it was, for me, like I said, toughest thing I've ever done. And, in some ways, I can look back at those shots, and I still can't believe that we actually pulled them off.

58:32Jawad MirWould you consider it your most proudest work, Contact?

58:36Don BurgessWell, I think it, I think from a technical standpoint, it was certainly the most difficult.

58:42Jawad MirOkay

58:42Don Burgess... And I think that I, you know, I stand behind the work today as far as the way, you know, what the lighting is and how we did it and what we did. So I, you know, I'm still proud of it. I'm still proud of it, in that regard. You know, there's, every film kinda takes on a life of it own, of its own.

59:00Jawad MirSure.

59:00Don BurgessAnd I, and, you know, I hope that my lighting is, at the end of the day honest, and it's not too, in essence, theatrical or lighting for lighting's sake, that it actually has, it puts the audience, I think, in the place they need to be for the story being told. So we all fight with…

59:25Jawad MirYeah, it does. It does.

59:28Don BurgessYou know, I think we all, we all fight with that on a, on a daily basis when we're shooting, you know, of, you know, the, by the way, you only have so much time to do these things, right? You gotta, you gotta get the work done, too. So there's that part of it that's always gonna exist. But the challenge is to try to hit those notes, you know, and get it to feel right, too, to get it to elevate, the story being told at the moment.

59:57Jawad MirYeah. That's the... Speaking of lighting, one of the things that I vividly remember, not saying that other films don't, but the four films that we were just talking about, Cast Away, What Lies Beneath, Forrest Gump, and Contact, they have a very natural lighting, either because it served the story or it was because in the current time period. Whatever the reason was, it just, it, you just never know. You know, sometimes you notice and you're like, "Oh, that's a great set of lighting." Like, when you start noticing things…

1:00:25Don BurgessRight

1:00:26Jawad Mir... Then you're being drifted away from the story.

1:00:28Don BurgessRight.

1:00:28Jawad MirAnd that doesn't happen in those four films. I'm not, I have, I don't remember other stuff that you worked on as thoroughly as I remember those four, so I can say that…

1:00:37Don BurgessRight

1:00:37Jawad Mir... With complete confidence that it just looks… ... So natural i… in those four films. Just few more questions. Who's your favorite cinematographer that you sort of looked up to or you get inspired to, maybe you watch from time to time?

1:00:58Don BurgessYou know, I think that when I was, you know, the aspiring young cinematographer trying to get my foot in the door, I think, I think Caleb Deschanel was, one of those guys that I looked at, you know, The Black Stallion and things like that, and just noticed how beautiful cinematography could be and how it could play in the storytelling. And I was in… I was inspired, you know, by, you know, Lazlo Kovacs and Philip Mossman and Haskell Wexler and, Owen Roizman and d… you know, that, all those guys, and then, Jordan Cronenberg, you know, with Blade Runner. So I think there were those films that took place in the '60s that really changed the way American films looked. And, you know, I, one of the compliments I got once was that my work was organic and, felt like, Haskell Wexler's, you know.

1:02:05Don BurgessAnd I, and that was like the biggest compliment I could ever get in life because I've always respected Haskell's work and Conrad Hall, you know. I mean, Conrad Hall…

1:02:20Jawad MirGreat

1:02:20Don Burgess... Watch his development from the professionals, say to, you know, the last one that he shot

1:02:30Jawad MirRoad to Perdition

1:02:31Don Burgess... Road to Perdition. Yeah. So, you know, they all inspired me to wanna become a cinematographer and, I really felt that it became so cinematic. And, really it just talked to me in a big way. So those were the guys that, you know, I tried to emulate. And I think that at the end of the day, it's, it's your aesthetic and the way that you light something. So ultimately I've gotta like it.

1:03:18Jawad MirYeah.

1:03:18Don BurgessAnd, you know, I get, I get pushed by directors, you know, to go certain ways with certain things. And, you know, I struggle with that because sometimes it pushed me outta my comfort zone of what I think it should look like.

1:03:36Jawad MirSure.

1:03:36Don BurgessAnd so I, you know, I work with that, you know, and I, and, but ultimately, you know, it's still gotta, it's still gotta talk to me. It's, I still gotta like it. So…

1:03:51Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

1:03:51Don Burgess... You know, it… it's your, it… it's, it's your gut at the end of the day. You know? You gotta tell the story. You've gotta see certain things in the frame and you know, if you're shooting a really dark movie, you still somehow there's, you know, there's light there. And where's that light coming from ultimately? Same place the music's coming from. But you gotta try to convince the audience, I think, that there's a reason for that light to be there.

1:04:23Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

1:04:23Don BurgessAnd there might, you know, there might not be a realistic bone in where I place a light and how something is lit at all. But if it feels that way…

1:04:33Jawad MirYeah

1:04:34Don Burgess... Then you c… and that's your gut telling you, yeah, we can get away with this and this is works, and I can see it in a way that, you know, the audience is gonna understand the story point. But yet it's, you know, it's could actually feel like it's real somehow.

1:04:53Jawad MirIt's, it's incredible that it's about a feeling, right? Because in post-production and editing as well, it's like, you know, if somebody asks me, "Why did you cut here?" I'm like, "I have no idea. It was just a feeling."

1:05:04Don BurgessRight. Right. Right.

1:05:06Jawad MirI can't explain it to you. It just, it's, it was a feeling…

1:05:09Don BurgessRight

1:05:09Jawad Mir... And I just did it. Now, whether it's right or wrong, that's a different story, but it was just a feeling.

1:05:14Don BurgessYeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:05:15Jawad MirAnd what advice would you give to young cinematographers, Don?

1:05:21Don BurgessI think the best advice that I got when I was young and starting out was shoot. Shoot as much as you can. You know, as a documentary cameraman, I shot thousands and thousands and thousands of feet of film in all kinds of situations. And I think that's ultimately how you're gonna find your voice. You know, you're gonna look at things, you're gonna see things, you're gonna go, "Why does that look so fabulous?" You know?

1:05:50Jawad MirYeah.

1:05:50Don BurgessAnd you're just gonna, all of a sudden you're gonna see a painting in a gallery and you're gonna go, "Whoa. Okay, hold on." And then you're gonna analyze that painting, and you're gonna look at it, and you're gonna see where that light's coming from and why it looks so sensational, and you're gonna study the composition, and you're gonna file all that stuff in your memory banks. And you know, it's j… it's time in the saddle. You know? It's time in the saddle. And ultimately you f… you know, you find, that you have, I think that y… you gotta have some kind of a natural ability to compose a frame and to light it. And I, because I came up in the independent film world and not in the studio system, I didn't learn all of the ways it was proper to do things at the time.

1:06:41Jawad MirSure.

1:06:42Don BurgessAnd I think that's an advantage because it, because when the crossover happened, there were, you know, people that would shake, kind of scratch their head and go, "You wanna do what?" You know? And ultimately it was me trying things till I found, you know, if I bounce the light off the floor here and it hits the mirror over there and it does that, you know, look at that. Doesn't that look great?

1:07:13Don BurgessAnd it, and they'll look at you funny, and then you'll, they'll, you know, they'll do it, you know? And then ultimately they'll come back to you at some point and say, "You know, I've, I've done that several times now for other people, and they love it too," you know? It's like you find things along the way that what light does, you know, is it, you know, you can't just turn a light on and aim it at something. You know, you got, you gotta, you know, you can do that and look at it and go, "Wow, this looks terrible." And, there's a little bit of trial and error there. So it's, it's really time in the saddle. It's shooting. You know, it's shooting, you know, I, you know, I married, I had young kids. I, you know, I shot everything, man. I had to take every job that was available. So because of that, it forced me to do a lot of jobs I wouldn't have done if I, you know, didn't have to. But I guarantee you I learned something every day I went out and shot something, no matter how horrible the job might have been.

1:08:18Jawad MirYeah.

1:08:19Don BurgessI still learned something. And so it's, it's, you know, putting that time in the saddle and shooting.

1:08:27Jawad MirThat's great. Thanks for the, kind advice, and, thank you so much for your time, Don. I had, I totally, you know, this is like one of those bucket list items talking to you, and it was…

1:08:40Don BurgessWell, great

1:08:40Jawad Mir... It was amazing. And I would love to, I would love to talk to you more, if you have time down the road about all your other stuff and other projects.

1:08:47Don BurgessSure. Sure. Absolutely. I've enjoyed it very much. I still love the movies.

1:08:52Jawad MirGreat. Thank you so much.

1:08:54Don BurgessAll right.

1:08:54Jawad MirWhat was that?

1:08:55Don BurgessI still love making movies, you know, 40 years later.

1:08:59Jawad MirYeah.

1:08:59Don BurgessStill love going to work.

1:08:59Jawad MirI can, I can see that in your excitement as a child that you still are deep down, so I appreciate it.

1:09:05Don BurgessYou bet. All right.

1:09:07Jawad MirThank you so much, Don.

1:09:09Don BurgessTake care.

1:09:09Jawad MirTake care. Bye-bye.

1:09:18Don BurgessBye.