'The Creator', Production Designer, James Clyne

0:03Jawad MirWelcome back to another episode of Kingdom of Dreams podcast. I'm your host Jawad Mir. Today's guest is James Clyne, who served as a production designer on Gareth Edwards' sci-fi film, The Creator, which came out in theaters back in September and is now available on digital VOD as well as DVD. I cannot wait to share this episode with you. We had a great conversation with a little bit of connection from the back in the early 2000s when movies like AI and Minority Report by Steven Spielberg came out. So without further ado, here's the episode and my conversation with production designer James Clyne of Gareth Edwards' film, The Creator. You probably, I would say you definitely probably don't, don't remember this, but I spoke to you I think when AI came out, way back.

0:47James ClyneOh my God.

0:49Jawad MirThis was…

0:50James ClyneNo

0:50Jawad Mir... Back in the day.

0:51James ClyneWay before podcasts, so this must have been some…

0:53Jawad MirYeah

0:53James Clyne... Other form of…

0:56Jawad MirIt was, I think it was over the phone or email, 'cause I used to run this, fan site on DreamWorks and Spielberg, and I remember talking to you about AI very specifically. And

1:07James ClyneOh, wow

1:07Jawad Mir... And then when, and then when I remember when I was chatting with James, Mo… Modrall, who you've spoken to about the book.

1:15James ClyneYeah

1:15Jawad Mir... And then I read the, and I read the book, and, you know, your name popped up and how that just triggered, and it was... I still remember that. It's good to see that you have, you know, you are doing something completely different with the film that we're about to talk about, The Creator, compared to what you have done throughout your career.

1:34James ClyneYeah, I mean, it's, it's science fiction, and I've obviously done a lot of science fiction, but I think…

1:38Jawad MirYeah

1:39James Clyne... Every project I work on, I think I try to do something a little different with it, of course. I mean, yeah, I've got a short attention span, so it helps.

1:50Jawad MirYeah, but I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think you've done production designing at that, at a level that you've done on The Creator.

1:56James ClyneNo.

1:56Jawad MirPlease correct me if I'm…

1:58James ClyneYou're right. This is the first one. I was involved in production designing a feature, animation film years and years ago. It never happened but this is really my first go at it. Yeah, it's it was a big one to go out the gate and, a little terrifying but also just super exciting as well.

2:26Jawad MirYeah, it's, it... I guess that the whole idea of being, doing something out of your comfort zone really pushes, you know, people, including yourself, and, you know, while we're talking about that…... I, even though I have read it in the book, I've gone through the whole book, by James, and…

2:43James ClyneI see it there. I... You've got it

2:44Jawad MirYeah

2:44James Clyne... Stacked right in the, right in the shot.

2:47Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

2:49James ClyneNice.

2:50Jawad MirYeah. I love reading these, books. I'm in the film industry myself, so it's just something for me to always keep myself feeding information and knowledge and fun stories behind the scenes.

3:01James ClyneNice. What do you do in the industry?

3:04Jawad MirI'm a producer and director. I've, directed…

3:06James ClyneOh, great

3:07Jawad Mir... Sev… several feature documentaries and got couple more in the works. So this is just something that was born…

3:13James ClyneOh, man

3:14Jawad Mir... This was something born out in COVID. It started off as a DreamWorks podcast, and then I realized I need to expand it, and it's just, it's just fun doing it. I love chatting with people like yourself, and it's just really cool and therapeutic at the same time.

3:29James ClyneRight. Yeah.

3:31Jawad MirYeah.

3:31James ClyneWell, thank you for having me.

3:33Jawad MirThank you. I would love to know your journey with, on The Creator, giving that we were just talking about that you've not done production design, and Gareth's work that he has done from Monsters to Star Wars Rogue One to Godzilla. How did that marriage start, that work relationship?

3:55James ClyneYeah, I think, in a weird way, we have similar backgrounds. We, well, we're, I'm a little older than Gareth, I'll, I'll admit that. But we kinda grew up on the same, you know, all the same films.

4:08Jawad MirYeah.

4:08James ClyneWe grew up in the '70s and '80s and '90s just growing up on just some of the most amazing filmography in history. Like, it's just…

4:18Jawad Mir100%

4:18James Clyne... Such an explosive time.

4:20Jawad MirYeah.

4:21James ClyneAnd for me, being, you know, a young kid seeing s… you know, I think I was a little too young for the first Star Wars, but I really remember seeing Empire Strikes back in the theater and just being so amazed by the visuals and how much visuals were just stuffed in it. Like, I remember coming out of the theater and I was like, "I think there were, like, these big walking tanks in the snow," but I can't even remember because there was so much stuff after that…

4:53James Clyne... That it just made me wanna go back and see the movie over and over again. I think this kind of genre, that's what you want. You wanna go experience it and be in that world again and keep reliving those experiences. So, I think because Gareth and I grew up at that same time, we obviously have this kind of shorthand of, like, what types of movies we like. There's always the obvious ones, like any Ridley Scott or Cameron film or Spielberg.

5:24Jawad MirYeah.

5:24James ClyneThose are all the obvious kind of touchstones. But we also love kinda some of the more, like, B-movie science fiction. Like, I love Cronenberg and, you know, smaller films like Enemy Mine and even some of the, like, cheesy bad films like Schwarzenegger, like Running Man and…... So I think that kind of s… those kind of convers… and those are the kind of conversations we had initially. I got set up with a, just a lunch with him, down at Santa Monica at Barney's Beanery, and… And we were supposed to…

6:06Jawad MirIt's a great place

6:07James ClyneIt's a great place to hang out and just…

6:08Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

6:08James Clyne... Yeah, relax. So we were just there, and we're supposed to talk about the movie, and we spent hours just talking about, like, the films we love and, you know, what we get excited about creatively. And then it just kind of grew from there. My background, I worked mostly, like, in LA. A big chunk of my, of my professional life was in LA working in art departments, being on set, and trying to understand all the ins and outs of set design and film design and production design. And then 10 years ago, I've always been, of course, in love with all the work that ILM has done over the history. They have their own kind of, you know, amazing history when it pertains to film.

7:01Jawad MirYeah.

7:02James ClyneAnd I was hired, and then Star Wars just started to kick off literally, like, a month after I was there. And I got pulled into all of that and got to work with amazing artists and work with great people. And, so one of those producers, Akiri Hart, she was, she was a producer on Rogue One, and we worked together on Solo and some of the other Star Wars films, Force Awakens. And, she kind of knew that I was wanting to work more on a, on a different level. I'd spent a lot of time at Pinewood in the UK, so working not only the effects on the end, but working in the art department, again, being around set construction and all that. So she set up this meeting at Barney's Beanery, and Gareth didn't wanna approach this movie, the same way that other filmmakers might approach it.

8:09James ClyneAnd one of the big things that he wanted to accomplish was d… l… leaving some of the design to the end of the film, meaning he wants to shoot his film light and go on location, go on real locations, shoot his actors, interacting with real places, and then, and then we would kind of top off our sets or our locations with more of the effects on top of it. It was just a comfortable way he wanted to work. He convinced the studio that if he was able to work that way, he could do it for a certain budget.

8:51James ClyneAnd it was, it was a little bit scary 'cause it was kind of a bit backwards in how we typically make a movie, but to your earlier point, it was, like, really exciting to kind of go, "Oh, this is a big challenge. It's a big problem to solve. Let's figure out how to do it." yeah. That basically in a nutshell is how we…

9:13Jawad MirYeah

9:13James Clyne... We met, and then just it started with more conversations of, like, what is his movie and, what does he need out of it, and how do we accomplish that? We actually, and I hope it comes out on some Blu-ray or kind of behind the scenes, release where we actually made, like, a little 10-minute proof of concept short, prior to the full production. So Gareth went out to Southeast Asia, shot all these beautiful locations, Nepal, Vietnam, Thailand, a little bit in Japan, and then he took all that material back to ILM, and we kinda just did little paintovers of like, hey, we can do a bigger futuristic building here. We can add robots here. And then there was a little bit of a team that kinda took those ideas and comped them in, you know, built little models, of the robots and vehicles and buildings.

10:22James ClyneAnd we made this, like, beautiful reel that, he then took to the studio and said, "This is how I want my movie to look," and they were, they were all in once they saw that. Yeah, I'm hoping somebody can see it, publicly see it…

10:38Jawad MirI would love to see it

10:38James Clyne... 'cause it…

10:39Jawad MirI would love to see that

10:39James ClyneYeah, it's really beautiful. There's actually a couple shots from the short that, made it into the final film. So I don't know if you remember, there was, like, a robot on a moped, and it was kinda shot from a car.

10:53Jawad MirYeah.

10:54James ClyneAnd there's just a robot on a quick shot, and there's, like, a bunch of bananas on the moped. Well, that was basically just Gareth in a production car shooting out the window just random traffic. It might have been Cambodia or Thailand. Couldn't tell you. But, it was just somebody on a moped probably commuting to work, and then in the computer we just replaced the head with a, with a robotic head. So that…

11:26Jawad MirThat's pretty cool to know

11:27James Clyne... That's, that's one of several, shots that we, that we actually put back into the final film.

11:39Jawad MirThat's remarkable, and that's one of the things I've loved about Gareth. I have been a huge fan of his when he came out with his, I think it was first film or his first film that made a splash, Monsters, in 2009.

11:54James ClyneYeah.

11:54Jawad MirAnd it was, I think… If my memory serves me right, after t… two and a half years of that, I made my first feature doc… I started working on my first feature documentary, and I think that was one of the many catalysts in my life where I realized that if a guy can go out around the world, use real location, real incidents, and turn them around into a alien invasion, it's not that difficult to make a film. And, you know…... From a very, innocent point of view, even though f… making films is very hard, no doubt about that. And but his work is very few directors, and I'm gonna name the directors that, to me, he stands among with in terms of embedding visual effects with the real images. Spielberg, Cameron, and Ridley Scott. Maybe there are…

12:42James ClyneWow

12:42Jawad Mir... A few other that I'm forgetting. I just think he has this way of embedding people into visual effects shots and real shots, and it doesn't look fake, and that was exactly the thing. When I remember I saw the Creator trailer, I didn't, had no idea he was working on it. It was just a random movie, when I went to see and I was like, "Oh, this I'm looking..." Like, as soon as I saw from the director of Rogue One, like I knew this is something that's gonna be very special, and it was. It was a very good film. It had its little bit things here and there, which a lot of films do, but I really enjoy it and I truly believe it's gonna become like a cult classic down the road, as time passes by.

13:24James ClyneHm. I hope so. I mean, yeah, we're all very proud of the project. I mean, as you're talking, I'm just thinking about documentary filmmaking, and one movie that we... I don't know if it's classified as a documentary film, but one film we constantly talked about early days and throughout production was this film Baraka.

13:47James ClyneIt's directed by, Ron Fricke, I believe. Maybe in the late '80s, early '90s. Just beautiful photography. It's non-narrative, just gorgeous, 70 millimeter photography all over the world, all different kinds of cultures. Just beautiful. Just beautiful, on every level, and it was a huge inspiration to us in that we thought, "Ooh, what if we can just do a Baraka that was 100 years in the future?" And you just went and sat down and looked at this pastel of different cultures, but whoa, there's, there's some flying vehicle. There's a robot just kind of shopping in a market. There's, you know... I think, I think why we like that idea is we wanna feel like we can coexist in that place. And I think only the real world ultimately can kind of stand in for that.

14:50James ClyneIf you travel to,.. I just got back from Iceland, and Iceland was just… You can't create a more strange, otherworldly looking place. It's so beautiful and it's, in its, in its beauty, its natural beauty. And, I think we just wanna, we wanna keep creating those feelings of being in natural beauty, but also the designer in us can't help but, you know, tweak it, create something new and different. And I think people like Ridley Scott and Jim Cameron, they create these worlds that your brain is just saying, "This has to be real, what I'm looking at."

15:33Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

15:33James ClyneAnd I think Gareth, I think Gareth really strives for that as well.

15:39Jawad MirAnd I think it's also a combination of that, what you just said, but also telling a really good story with really good characters, right? I mean, if those…

15:47James ClyneYeah

15:47Jawad Mir... Were not there, then that, there would be a, you know, like a very big gap between the visuals and the story and the characters, and that's something that he's really good at. And I, and I was talking to James Moderam. He was saying that how Gareth is just such a down to earth kinda like one of us kind of a guy. Like, you know, he's not like a big celebrity. He doesn't, he doesn't come across like that in any way, and I think that's what's, it reflects in his films the way he shot this film on Sony FX3, keeping the bidget, budget minimum, and just in a docu-style, and doc… you know, being a camera operator himself. And it shows, and it, again, I mean, I'm... He's probably the same age as I am. I'm a huge fan of his work and, just always looking forward to his stuff. But, you know, going back to your career, James, the beginning of your career, you started off in the late '90s, if I'm not mistaken, in terms of your first proper film credit. Is that correct to say?

16:50James ClyneYeah. I think it was, in this movie called Instinct with Anthony Hopkins…

16:58Jawad MirOh, yes

16:58James Clyne... And River Gooding Jr.

17:00Jawad MirI remember that.

17:00James ClyneOh, you remember Instinct, huh? Wow.

17:02Jawad MirYes.

17:03James ClyneI was just... Yeah, I got lucky to get on the film. It was a recommendation from another artist, and, I was flown to, Orlando, Florida, which is where we shot it, of all places. So I lived in Orlando for a couple months, and, you know, just drew. This was in the days, the late '90s, when everybody, there was no Photoshop. There was…

17:29Jawad MirYeah

17:29James Clyne... Nobody had laptops in the art department. We did real draftings, and had them, you know, blueprinted and distributed out to other pr… other parts of the production. The illustrators concept artists would work on a paper called vellum with marker and paints. So, everything was done that way. There was no kind of, control Z going back and undoing what you'd done. Kind of what you did was kind of it. So if you… If you did something that just simply wasn't working, you would just start pretty much from zero and do it all over again. But it, that kind of thinking made you really have to think about the work and think about, "Okay, where am I gonna go with this? How tall are these ceilings?"

18:24Jawad MirYeah.

18:24James Clyne"How wide is this doorway?" That kind of stuff. And yeah, it was a great experience. I worked on, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for a little bit, designing, like the circus, kind of game fronts.

18:40Jawad MirRight.

18:40James Clyne'Cause there's this, like, Circus type of Las Vegas casino. So early in my career it was just, like, bouncing around just doing bits of everything.

18:52Jawad MirYeah.

18:52James ClyneAnd I think that, I think that as filmmakers, we're best when we-re a little bit of a jack of all trades, if that... I mean, there's, there's the

19:05Jawad MirYeah

19:05James Clyne... You know, there's kind of the Wes Andersons of the world who have, like, a real point of view that wanna stick with that point of view, but most of us are kind of jack of all trades. We have to, you know, we'll, we'll be on a historical Civil War drama one year, and the next be on some futuristic other planet kind of…

19:25Jawad MirYeah

19:26James Clyne... Sci-fi film. So yeah, I started out just doing all types of films, and then I got lucky enough to work on, with Mr. Spielberg on AI and Minority Report just prior to the 2000s. Rick Carter, who's a…

19:46Jawad MirYeah

19:46James Clyne... Famous production designer, I consider him a bit of a, you know, he's a bit of a guru, to be honest.

19:54Jawad MirFor sure

19:55James Clyne... The way he, the way he approaches filmmaking and design and storytelling, he's, he's, he's really one of a kind. So, he kind of got me my start. And he would kind of push me in front of the directors. I remember on AI, I was, I was in my mid-20s. I didn't know anything about anything. I was just, I was just in love with filmmaking, in love with being, you know, having that opportunity of working on the Warner Brothers lot, while they were shooting. And I had done this image, and he's like, and Rick was like, "This is great. Go take it down to Steven in between shots and just have a conversation with him." Well, I had never, like, it'd always been, like, a scenario where, you know, you would do the art, it would go to the art director or the production designer, then they would present it formally to the director or producer or the studio. And Rick, he just didn't work that way.

20:57James ClyneHe was just like, "Take this down, see what he thinks, get some notes from him, and keep going." So I waited off the side while they were shooting, and he took a break, and I came in, and we had a little discussion about it. It was, it was unbelievable. It was, it was so…

21:13Jawad MirSure

21:13James Clyne... Surreal and incredible. And, you know, gracious of Rick giving me that kind of opportunity to kind of, have those kind of conversations. So, yeah.

21:25Jawad MirYeah.

21:26James ClyneOnce that started to kind of kick off, yeah, that's all I would really wanted to do.

21:32Jawad MirThat's awesome. And, you know, your career had, like, I remember, I mean, we talk about the '70s and '80s, which you grew up on, I grew up on, but also '90s was a big era, right? Like, it was a revolutionizing way of internet coming in, marketing was changing, independent cinema was kicking in at a mainstream…

21:49James ClyneYep

21:49Jawad Mir... Level. And the films that you had worked on, I mean, I, especially your earlier works that I've, I was going through your IMDb, Bicenten… Bicentennial Man, Mystery Men, Titan A.E., which bombed at the box office, but I remember people loving it. You know?

22:05James ClyneYeah.

22:05Jawad MirAnd it was a great film. So I mean, you've done some great stuff, and you still are. I guess what I would love to know, what was that moment in your life as a young James Clyne that triggered that thing that, "This is what I want." Whether it's my journey is in the world of films, or whether my journey's in the world of conceptual art, being illustrator in the film world.

22:31James ClyneYeah, I have to give credit to George Lucas, basically. I had a, I still have the book. They, you know, they did a bunch of, editions of making of books. I mean, exactly…

22:45Jawad MirOh, yeah

22:45James Clyne... Like the stack you have there. They had, I think they had, like, a making of for every of the first three movies, or I think it was called the, maybe The Art Of. But they did these also, they did these sketchbooks of, like, Joe Johnston and Ralph McQuarrie. And I think I still have it somewhere, and I would draw, I would try to replicate what they had drawn right next to the drawing in the book. So I'd have my really terrible drawing next to Joe Johnston's drawing. And I think what happened is that book was a, was an entry into the world of filmmaking in that I didn't know that you can do a drawing that would eventually evolve into a miniature or it'd evolve into a set or involve, e… evolve into a visual effect or something. Like, that was, that was such a bizarre idea.

23:46James ClyneAnd maybe it was just I didn't even think of it. But knowing that there were artists out there that would draw with pen and ink and pencil and really kind of create these germ of ideas just on pencil and pen, that would, yeah, would eventually, kind of turn into these things that you almost believe. You believe that those AT-AT walkers…... Live and kind of exist in those worlds. You believe that Han Solo and Princess Leia existed in those worlds, and I think, I think being at the right age of, like, eight years old and being exposed to all that just set it all off for me. But it took, it took decades for me to understand that you can actually get an education. I studied in, industrial design, more automotive design initially. But, I had some instructors that, introduced me to more film design. And I think, I think I was just drawn towards it.

24:49James ClyneFor the reasons that we've been talking about too, like…

24:52Jawad MirYeah

24:52James Clyne... I get to work on a Civil War drama one year, and then some sci-fi thing the next year. Like, I think my patience would wear thin if I had to work on…

25:03Jawad MirYeah

25:03James Clyne... You know?

25:03Jawad MirIf you're doing the same thing over and over again, it's gonna end up r… you're gonna end up repeating yourself too. That's another thing.

25:11James ClyneYeah, for sure.

25:14Jawad MirBut you know one thing I wish, and I learned this I think around the time when I spoke to you first, like, that's when I understood there's a thing called concept design, like concept illustrator. Like, you know, cr… creating the visuals. And I, you know, like to call people who are doing this kind of work is, like, director's eyes. Because before dir… It's, it's actually a director's vision is before it comes to screen, he or she wants to see it on paper, right?

25:43Jawad MirAnd you guy… you guys are able to pull that off directly from his mind and his eyes and put it on paper. And it's just a fascinating thing to me. I mean, now we live in digital age, but when you're drawing with pencil, like, you know, or colors or whatever it is that you're doing…... With the, with the use of technology, it is something that's completely from the scratch, right? Like, it's just…

26:06Jawad Mir... There's nothing out there that exists like that. At least with a director making a film, like you base it on the concept, and you take it on, and you try to find locations, and you build sets or you do, you know, visual effects and everything. I just think it's one of the most underrated jobs from a mainstream point of view, that many people don't know what you guys do. And it's, it's incredible piece of work that takes so much time and so much visuals and, you know, hard work. So I just wanted to commend you on what you do. It's incredible what you guys do.

26:37James ClyneOh, thank you. Yeah. I think, I think it's, it's, it's not an easy job. It kind of looks fun and exciting and you just get to kind of like sit there and just dream up new ideas. But really, there's, there's a script. There's a director who has their vision. There's a production designer who has their…

26:59Jawad MirYeah

26:59James Clyne... Vision. There's a budget. There's a schedule. All those things kind of play into, you having to kind of think about, okay, well, I need to do, design this thing, but it needs to be a certain way. It needs to be built a certain way or it... Not that you have to think about that all the time, but there are certain kind of, I wouldn't say constraints. There's just kind of rules to the game that you have to…

27:25Jawad MirYeah, of course

27:26James Clyne... Kind of navigate. But yeah, it's, it's a unique art form in that, you're not just in a studio by yourself painting on a canvas. You're working with hundreds of people…

27:41Jawad MirYeah

27:41James Clyne... To kind of create the, th… this thing. And, I think that's what's exciting too, is that we're all kind of in this collaborative effort together.

27:53Jawad MirYeah.

27:53James ClyneAnd

27:54Jawad MirYeah

27:54James Clyne... I just get so much pleasure out of working with, you know, like-minded creative people, that we might not even all have the same idea or come from the same background or have the same angle, but it's like we're all doing this. It's one just big problem-solving thing. We're just, we c… I'm terrible at math, but we are given an equation, and that equation is the script, and we have to come up with the solution to that equation. And that's, that's fun. From a visual creative standpoint, that's a lot of fun.

28:30Jawad MirAnd I think one of the things that people share in the industry, whether you're, you know, production designer, costume, whatever your job may be, you know, spot boy, lighting, is that we are all, if not majority of us, I would say a good 99% of them are in it because we love films. And that…

28:49James ClyneFor sure

28:50Jawad Mir... I…

28:50James ClyneYeah

28:50Jawad Mir... And that idea of being around people, y… even if you haven't, like, you know, the way you told me that you met Gareth, and instead of talking about the film, you start talking about films, the past films.

29:01James ClyneRight.

29:01Jawad Mir'Cause there's that sense of family, that sense of camaraderie that this person understands versus the 20 other people that I really know what I want to do and what I'm all about.

29:11James ClyneRight.

29:11Jawad MirAnd I think that people really enjoy doing that, and that comes across, like, in that problem-solving task.

29:18James ClyneVery much so. Yeah, very much so. It's, it's, it's, it's a way to kind of be able to communicate immediately with somebody on that level. And that's

29:30Jawad MirYeah

29:30James Clyne... That's a really, that's a really kind of beautiful gift to have, to be able to kind of sit down and talk about, you know, you even mentioned storytelling. That's such a big part of all of it. As concept artists or production designers, we're still storytellers. We're still trying to tell the director's story, the writer's story through visuals. And that just, you know, that's, I guess, inherent in all of us, going back tens of thousands of years of just wanting to…

30:02James Clyne... Tell stories. So, yeah. But yes, we all are just big fans of obviously of filmmaking and…

30:11Jawad MirYeah Yeah, it's incredible

30:13James Clyne... That's the core.

30:15Jawad MirTalking about the creator, James Like we said that you were, you know, we talked about how it was your first main production designer job of a film that came out. And working with Gareth was a first time. Despite all the similar interests that you guys had in the, you know, in films that you've watched or you've grown up with or the visuals and the vision, w… do you remember a moment when things weren't... The, a challenge essentially, where things weren't going as you had hoped, in terms of whether it was designing something or working on a particular scene? If you, if you have a story to share about that. It's not necessarily anything controversial, I just love listening to things…

30:58James ClyneSure

30:58Jawad Mir... The problems, and then trying to find a solution to it, because that's what it's all about.

31:03James ClyneYeah. I mean, there are many cases, where, you know, it's that kind of blank page syndrome of like, oh my God, we've got this whole scene to work out. How do we do it? And one of the more complicated ones was towards the end of the film where Joshua and Alphie are trying to escape in this escape pod, and there's…

31:29James Clyne... Multiple kind of chambers. There's, there's the escape pod, there's this main chamber, there's like an airlock where Joshua has to get air back, or oxygen. There's some tentacle creature that comes down. Now, in an earlier edit, that was a much more expanded, scene, but you can still see the amount of complexity that came into, okay, how do they come into this room? How do they get to the end of the room and are able to... Alphie has to go turn on the oxygen again. She has to start up the escape pod and all the systemat… systems of starting it up. There's a r… door that has to come down.

32:16James ClyneAll of that stuff was in the script, but it wasn't so detailed that I can just start designing the space. It had to require Gareth and I getting on Zoom call after Zoom call of like, okay, well, is this thing here? Maybe this whole thing rotates, and new escape pods kind of c… rotate down into place so you can load in and drop another one in. How does that play into the sequence? How does that play into the emotional context of it all? And it was a lot of just me kind of sketching in front of Gareth on a Zoom call, like copy-pasting, industrial spaces with, really crude sketches of what this could look like. We knew, Gareth knows that because of his VFX background and just filmmaking background, he knows that, he doesn't need everything completely fleshed out initially.

33:23James ClyneIt could look…

33:24Jawad MirYeah

33:24James Clyne... Like a, I did so many really bad rough sketches that he, if he was l… if he found what he needed in it, if it worked shot-wise or it worked visually for him, he wouldn't sweat then having to get into the details. We'd kind of put it aside and then move on to something else. But that whole, airlock sequence was…

33:47Jawad MirYep

33:47James Clyne... Was a real brain twister. And the other one was the Nomad itself, that big kind of flying, bird of prey, US military bird of death kind of thing.

34:02Jawad MirYeah.

34:04James ClyneWe didn't really, it was just kind of described as a bit of a space station that could kind of float above Earth and kind of, you know, target different locations. The actual look of it, we just didn't have any idea. It was just, again, we had the benefit of the pandemic. Our production was actually s… supposed to start to shoot in the spring of 2020 when the pandemic really kicked off.

34:32Jawad MirYeah.

34:32James ClyneSo unfortunately, we couldn't shoot then, but there was money for Gareth and I to jump on Zoom calls once in a while and spend a few hours together and try to kind of work some stuff out. And one of the big ones was that Nomad and trying to understand not only what it looked like, but how it functioned, where the targeting systems came down, where the missiles were loaded, all that stuff. But we went through hundreds and hundreds of sketches and ideas of what that thing could look like before we arrived at what you saw in the film. Yeah. And then that collaboration is what helped keep a little bit of the production down, the budget down. We worked very kind of smaller teams than typical. We had a little bit more time to kind of work together one-on-one rather than huge teams of people…

35:31Jawad MirRight

35:32James Clyne... Trying to push it forward. It was h… it was important to Gareth to work kind of hands-on and as intimate as possible with all the filmmakers. It allows him more freedom, it allows him to not have to think about the logistics of everything. It lets him be creative, so.

35:52Jawad MirYeah.

35:54James ClyneIt's one of the big things we tried to keep going was the kind of one-on-one contact, not only with myself, but with all the filmmakers.

36:05Jawad MirYeah. And I think that's important, a… a… at least, I mean, even for me, like, you know, I'm, I'm not really on massive sets, but that level of intimacy whereas that, you know, people know each other. You know, on a film… Like for example, War of the Worlds, or Star Trek, the ones that you worked on. You know, obviously you have a crew of sometimes 150, 200 plus people, and you don't get to meet or connect with pretty much all of them, but that's just…

36:34James ClyneRight

36:34Jawad Mir... The nature of business.

36:35James ClyneYeah

36:35Jawad Mir... But in that le… and of course it depends on the production budget and, what the vision is. But it just, it, there is this, I feel, and I think it sh… again, I said it earlier, it shows in the film, almost pretty much every film that Gareth has done, but especially this one and Monsters, where there is that feel that it was a very intimate production. Whether it was because of…

36:58Jawad Mir... COVID or whatever the reason was. And it makes it more human. Makes it much… ... More human.

37:05James ClyneWell, he's, he's.. I don't know if he'll say it, but he's, he's an emotional guy. He's, he's got a, he's, he puts up a front sometimes, maybe it's his English kind of, w… manner of just communication. But he is like a real, he can be a really emotional and like really caring and, individual who really wants to kind of get at the core of what it means to, you know, to write stories about fictional characters. It's really, it's some… and it's, it's not only the characters, it's obviously the design and how he makes a movie. It's, it's very personal for him.

37:55Jawad MirYeah

37:55James Clyne... I'm sure if he had it his way, and maybe someday the technology will be there where h… he'll just be able to make the most personal Gareth Edwards movie, 'cause he'll, he won't need hundreds of people.

38:10Jawad MirYeah.

38:10James ClyneI mean, that would be a sad thing, 'cause I love working with filmmakers, but there might be a point where, you know, you just have a library of assets in Unreal Engine, and it just, you just drag and drop stuff, and you drag and drop location, shoots and all that stuff, and you can build your own movie.

38:35Jawad MirYep

38:35James Clyne... But until that, until that day, he likes to work with crew that, you know, are on his level.

38:43Jawad MirYeah. 100%. 100%. No, it's, it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's I truly enjoyed your work in it and you know, just that sense of... When I w… saw the trailer the first time, without watching the film of course, the first things that came to my mind, besides being a Gareth Edward film and it looks cool, these were the three titles that came to my mind. Apocalypse Now.

39:13Jawad MirAI Artificial Intelle… AI Artificial Intelligence. And I don't know how, I, and I thought about it after, it was more about the visuals of the droids, the way they were designed. I don't, you probably remember Short Circuit from the '80s.

39:26James ClyneOh sure. Yeah, of course

39:27Jawad Mir... Number, Johnny Number Five. And you know, the, especially the first two titles, like it just felt like a, you know, a criss-cross from a standpoint of visuals, and it wasn't in any way, about, you know, AI and then the Vietnam War, and then what the insurgency sort of that took place…

39:47James ClyneYeah

39:47Jawad Mir... In post-9/11. And yeah, it, there's a lot of his childhood movies that he grew up with, you grew up with, I grew up with in that film. And especially with AI Artificial Intelligence, which you worked on, you know, where it's talked, the, where the whole concept of the film was discrimination against, robots, right? And that's…

40:08Jawad Mir... Pretty much what this tackles too, but in a complete different way. It, I'm just kinda going on with my comments, but my next question is more about if you are able to discuss, what is in future for you, or right now for you, what are you working on?

40:26James ClyneI would love to talk about it, but I can't.

40:29Jawad MirThere's always a but. Yeah.

40:30James ClyneYou know, NDAs…

40:31Jawad MirI know

40:31James Clyne... And all that stuff.

40:32Jawad MirI know. I know.

40:33James ClyneBut

40:33Jawad MirI get it

40:34James Clyne... Yeah, I would love…

40:35Jawad MirSomething ex…

40:35James Clyne... To talk about it

40:36Jawad Mir... Something exciting that people should look forward to?

40:39James ClyneYeah, I think so. I think, I think, I mean, we're so early days, we're just wrapping our heads around it. But, working with some wonderful filmmakers. And, yeah, it's yeah, it's…

40:57Jawad MirGot it

40:57James Clyne... Can't s… can't say much. But…

40:58Jawad MirThat's okay

40:58James Clyne... Other than that…

40:59Jawad MirYou have worked with JJ…

41:00James ClyneWe'll, we'll talk in a, we'll talk in a couple years, and I'll tell you all about it

41:03Jawad MirAbsolutely. You worked with JJ Abrams, you worked with Spielberg, you worked with Gareth, you know, you worked with some great directors. You have y… the filmography that you have. Not just great directors, but very good films, great films, memorable films. Who is one director that you would love to work with, or you've been itching to work with for a while?

41:25James ClyneOoh, that's a good one. Oof. I mean, there's so many. I…

41:32Jawad MirI mean, you worked with James Cameron too

41:33James Clyne... I worked with J… Jim on a couple things.

41:37Jawad MirYeah

41:37James Clyne... I mean, Ridley Scott I have tremendous respect for. I love, I love the films of Quentin Tarantino.

41:45Jawad MirYes.

41:46James ClyneMartin Scorsese. Like I love all those kind of movies. Even like, you know, Paul Thomas Anderson, and, yeah. I mean, there's, there's so many people that I'd love to work with. I think it's important that I'm the right fit for those projects.

42:04Jawad MirOf course.

42:04James ClyneYou know, Christopher Nolan. But it's, it's really the people that are building the movie, primarily the director, but also the producers and… ... DPs and everybody that's surrounding the whole, the whole core team. Is most important to me. And then, you know, obviously the kind of subject matter and whether I like the sc… or not that I like the script, that I connect with the script on some level, or I have some kind of vision of what it could be. But, yeah, probably those people. I mean, there's just so many wonderful…

42:45Jawad MirYeah

42:45James Clyne... People, out there. It's, it's a long list. We'll just leave it at that.

42:52Jawad MirNo, that's, that's fair enough. And you know, the thing that I just sort of wanna close up with… Oh, geez, I just lost my train of thought. What was I gonna ask you? It was a follow-up to the question that I was just asking you. Yeah, I'm just gone blank. In any case, wha… oh, let me think of another one here. I had another question in my mind. I never prepare this stuff. I just kind of go on a, on a wing based on a movie…

43:22James ClyneThat's great

43:22Jawad Mir... That I've seen or book I've read. So sometimes…

43:24James ClyneYou're going on instinct and yeah.

43:27Jawad MirYeah.

43:28James ClyneEmotion.

43:30Jawad MirWhat… Oh, yes, I remember now. An experience on working on a film, doesn't matter if it was a box office hit or a failure or whatever it was, that you enjoyed the most, just like a child would.

43:47James ClyneMe personally working on a film? I mean, I would say I had a lot of fun, but it was also one of the more difficult productions, was For… Force Awakens, 'cause it was kind of… ... This whole circle of, you know, growing up as a small child and seeing all those movies and never even dreaming of working on one of them. Like everybody says, "Oh, I wish I can dr… I dream of doing that." I didn't.

44:21James ClyneThere's no dream there. There was just a sheer fanaticism for those movies. So to be able to kind of work on a Star Wars film that, you know, took place 30 years after Return of the Jedi and I remember sitting in a screening room with all the ILN people. We're, we're getting the first cut sequence back from JJ, for the film. And it's a small little viewing station.

44:58Jawad MirYeah.

44:58James ClyneProbably 20 people in there. And I was just looking at everybody, and I didn't say anything, but I was just looking around going, "We are watching, you know, the first clips of a, of a Star Wars movie that's part of that original storyline, that we were all kids all growing up on." Like, I was just… I was in this kind of very surreal state at that point. Like…

45:21Jawad MirYeah

45:22James Clyne... I can't believe not only am I in the room looking at this, nobody else is getting to see, I'm actually a small part of it. So it was, that was a real trip to kinda be a part of. And that film was very difficult because, you know, we were trying to kinda define what a Star Wars movie was 30 years after Return of the Jedi. But it was, it was also just so much fun to kind of, be involved in it on every level.

45:54Jawad MirWhat a great arc to your own story that is continuing on, and I hope continues on for a long time. I… You know, whenever you have time and if you're up for it, I would love to chat about your other work from the past, and you know, hopefully in the future as well.

46:12James ClyneYeah, of course. Reach out, reach out anytime. It's a pleasure to kinda... Again, all we're doing is, just like-minded people wanting to talk about films. Like there's, there's just nothing better. So, yeah, reach out anytime.

46:27Jawad MirWill do. Thank you so much, James, for your time, and wish you all the best in the next coming, upcoming projects.

46:31James ClyneAll right. Thank you, Johan. I'll

46:33Jawad MirThank you

46:33James Clyne... Talk to you soon. Bye.

46:34Jawad MirTake care. Yes, absolutely. Bye. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Don't forget to subscribe, like, share, and comment, and do come back for another episode. Until then, have a great day.