'Contact', Cinematographer, Don Burgess

0:06Jawad MirAwesome. How you doing?

0:08Don BurgessI'm good, thank you. How about yourself?

0:10Jawad MirI'm doing great, thank you for asking. How is the weather in LA today, warm?

0:15Don BurgessIt's warm. A little overcast. We've had some sunny days. It's been very nice. But a little overcast today.

0:23Jawad MirThat's, that's a good day for shooting.

0:25Don BurgessGood day for shooting, yes.

0:28Jawad MirFantastic. Well, thanks again, Don. Appreciate it. Really enjoyed my conversation with you last time. And just…

0:34Don BurgessAs did I

0:34Jawad Mir... Can't, can't wait to talk to you con… about Contact. On a, on a side note, after our conversation, I convinced my kids to watch Contact, and convincing them... And the first question is, how old is it? Right? You know that question. So I told them 97, and they're like, "We're not watching it." So I convinced them, and I kid you not, the moment it started, they were hooked. And the reaction that I had when I told you about that, stairwell scene, the mirror.

1:07Jawad MirMy son reacted exactly the same, was like, "What the hell just happened? Wasn't she coming up the stairs?" So it's good to see that young kids, especially of this generation, are noticing it, and he's not really into films like I am, but he picked it up, which was, which was cool.

1:23Don BurgessOh, great. That's fantastic.

1:26Jawad MirYeah.

1:27Don BurgessIt's, it... Yeah. Listen, it's great to be part of a project that after so many years, people still wanna talk about it and are still interested, and it's still, you know, a place to different ages of audiences, on all different levels. So yeah, so it's,.. You know, I hadn't seen it in a long time, and, enjoyed it very much, after all these years to see it again.

2:02Jawad MirWhen you saw it again, aside from the technical aspects that, you know, obviously jogged down memory lane about how we did this, so you probably remember the story behind a certain scene, was there a moment that made you emotional about watching it again, like certain scene that had some sort of connection with you at a deeper level?

2:28Don BurgessYou know, Jodie Foster is so good in the movie, and I think that the emotional connection is, as it was, I think, the first time, is when sh… when she sees what appears to be her father on the beach, is,.. That moment always gets to me. My father died when I was in my early 30s, and so the thought of, about, you know, being able to have a conversation with him once again, is... It would be pretty amazing. And I think anybody that's lost family members probably feels the same way. It's like to have that moment again wi… with, you know, especially a family member or a loved one, it grips you. You know? It's, it's pretty moving.

3:26Jawad MirIt's interesting you mention that, right? Because when I saw it before we last talked, and way before when it first came out, and just around when I saw it with my kids around that time, you know, my dad is old and just the natural course of life, and he was, he wasn't doing well, and that scene hit me at a completely different way than it ever did before. I mean, it is just... And it made me realize time is short. I mean, it just, I just did not want to think... I didn't wanna have that moment in future where I wish I could see him again. You know what I mean? So that…

4:05Don BurgessRight

4:05Jawad Mir... That, you're so right. It's just such a powerful scene, and Jodie Foster's scene, performance is mesmerizing and especially when that, there's a morphing scene when she says, "It's, it's so beautiful, celestial event."

4:19Jawad MirLike, that morphing scene in her eyes and everything was just bang on, and I... You know, I'm glad that you mentioned that scene. It really resonated with me, too, at a different level than it did ever before.

4:30Don BurgessYep. Yep. Yeah. Go ahead.

4:34Jawad MirGo ahead. Go. No, please. You go. What you were gonna say?

4:37Don BurgessYeah, it's interesting because what you just said is, you know, the, you know, that, we're not here very long, and that's a big part of the movie that we just did, which is called Here… ... What the film is about. And you know, you know, Bob playing with these themes, is quite interesting in his filmmaking, and, you know, because, I mean, to make Contact, which you could never get that movie made today, not a chance in the world.

5:15Jawad MirNo.

5:15Don BurgessSo you know, it's, it's great that we had, they had the opportunity to make it, but you know, to, you know, to attack these subjects of, you know, you know, is there intelligent life in the universe? You know, is there a god? You know, what is... Did I really have that experience? It's all, you know, it's all great stuff. Let me see if I can…

5:38Jawad MirYeah

5:38Don Burgess... Mute this phone.

5:40Jawad MirSure. From password.

5:54Don BurgessOkay. That seemed to work.

5:58Jawad MirGreat. We already talked about the stair scene from, in the last episode, so I'm not gonna jump into it. But another scene that really, again, when I was watching it again, it's that buildup of when she first hears the signal with the headset on the hood of the car.

6:16Jawad MirAnd I really loved, especially obviously Alan Silvestri's music, you know, came afterwards. But there's a shot of her getting into the car from a higher point, and the car drives in. If you wanna deconstruct that scene in any way that, you know, something that jogs your memory about how that took place. What did Rob want? What were your suggestions? 'Cause that, to me, is a very pivotal moment. I mean, I'm sure to you a… as it is. But the way it was done, it just built so much intensity and excitement.

6:49Don BurgessYes. So he wanted the feeling of her being out there alone at night and kind of at the dawn, right? So it's, so it's just as the light appears is… ... When she hears the signal, which is exactly how we had to shoot it. We had to shoot that before the sun goes up and after the sun goes down, are the two times of day where you can kind of make it feel like dawn or dusk.

7:21Jawad MirYeah.

7:22Don BurgessAnd you're in a real, we're in the real environment there. We're at the VLA, and this is where all the radio telescopes are. So we had to, we had to shoot it over a period of time where we could get as many dusks or dawns to get all the pieces to the sequence. So it was a complicated sequence nonetheless, just to do all of that, to get her from the fields out by where the big dishes are back to the building.

7:52Jawad MirYeah.

7:52Don BurgessAnd so the dramatic beats of being, you know, as there, as there was the first shot of the movie of the camera coming out of the eye of the, of her when she's a child. So you're in the universe, and you come out of the eye literally onto her when she's on the ham radio.

8:10Jawad MirYeah.

8:10Don BurgessAnd so he played that theme through the film a few times. And so when she hears the signal, the camera pushes into an extreme closeup of the two eyes waking up and realizing what she's hearing.

8:25Jawad MirAh.

8:25Don BurgessAnd so from that, the camera then, I believe, cuts wide and up high and reestablishes her when she realizes she's gotta get back to Mission Control, and jumps back in the car and throws all the gear, and now the race is on. So now she's gotta wake everybody up and get all the dishes pointed the right direction, and everything has to happen, and that's where the urgency and the energy came alive. And so the camera had to travel with her. And, several camera moves during the course of that when she's calling out all the commands to the, to the, her fellow workers back at the building. And so the speed i… is involved in being able to move the camera and the energy of her racing back, you know, to catch the signal and before it disappears and to line up all those telescopes. So we did the exterior part of it on location in Socorro, New Mexico, to the point where she goes inside the building, right? She, the car screeches up. She jumps out of the car. She runs in. The camera follows her. So it follows her into the building.

9:27Don BurgessBut the actual set piece of the control room was on a sound stage.

9:31Jawad MirI figured.

9:32Don BurgessSo while we're racing in the building, she goes through the second door. There's a blend. There's a blend from the shot on location…

9:40Jawad MirYeah

9:40Don Burgess... To a sound stage, where you match move the character and the surroundings, and you believe that you're still in the same shot. So the camera kept moving, and now we're on a sound stage and we race up the stairs and we go into the control room. And the last piece of that shot is the walkie-talkie being placed in the holder, and you see the dishes outside the window, the big radio telescopes adjusting themselves into pos… position. So by design, you know, you could, you could tell that story in a few shots or you can make it dramatic and cinematic like that and take the audience for that ride, which is the great part about it, so that you sitting in the theater are now with the character and you are part of the character and you're part of the movie. You're in the movie. You're part of it. And that's why, that's why it's so much fun.

10:35Jawad MirAnd what I loved about that scene of her jumping out of the car and going into the building was mostly, you know, the stuff, again, you and I talked about this last time, or in even Contact, everything is kinda like very, you know, smooth, dolly in, pull back.

10:49Don BurgessYeah.

10:50Jawad MirBut that was all handheld, at least from the hallway, like when the camera, you know, when you're following her. And was that something that Zemeckis wanted, or was it, like, is there a story behind that, or was it just kinda right off the bat, okay, this is how we're gonna do it because, you know, we have to be immersed into her character as the, as an audience member?

11:08Don BurgessRight. So the idea was to, was to connect us with the character. The difficult part of it was we shot the movie in 35 millimeter anamorphic, about half of it, and about half of it in 65 millimeter. And a lot of that had to do with vi… all the visual effect shots that are in the film. And so to keep the quality, the image quality of visual effects work back in that era, to keep it 100% from any kind of reduction of quality through image manipulation, we were working with a, as big a negative as we could to, as it goes down the line, keep that quality. So there was a head that was, had been developed to stabilize, cameras, for kind of sports and action, and, it's called the Librahead, Nick Phillips' Librahead. And so I took that head, and I mounted it on the end of the crane arm, which was attached to the insert car, which was towing her car for all those sequences.

12:13Don BurgessBecause Bob wanted these dramatic moves to push in on the subject and to Jodie Foster. But we also had to stabilize it 'cause we're on a dirt road towing the car out at the real locations. So the stabilization was fairly new, at that time for that p… specific purpose, and to use it in more, in a, in a production camera situation. So it allowed us to build up the energy to really feel like the character's driving the car, really heading down the dirt roads, which we were, but the difference was is we had it mounted on a crane arm so we could continually make these dramatic moves up high, booming down on her, pushing in on her as she's making these commands

12:54Jawad MirYeah

12:54Don Burgess... Racing against the clock, in essence, to get a lock on this signal, before they, before they lost it and the earth rotated too much. So that was, that was kind of the idea that Bob was getting at, and that's ultimately what we came up with to execute, in essence, the concept. And so when we, when she comes out of the car, it's actually a Steadicam that follows her into the building, and then the match move was as, was a, yet another Steadicam move that chases her up the stairs and into the actual office where all those computers were.

13:29Jawad MirRight. You know, I find it amazing that it's been, what? 26 years almost, and you still remember so many details. That's, that's, that's, that's amazing. And…

13:43Don BurgessWell, you know, there are no easy shots in a Bob Zemeckis movie. There's, there's never just put it on the tripod and frame it up and go.

13:51Jawad MirYeah

13:51Don Burgess... And so every shot, is discussed, and there's a reason for it, and there's, and it, and it takes a, you know, an army of us to execute these ideas. But that's m… that's the exciting part. That's, for me, that's what I love. To me, I, you know, Bob isn't a big fan of the actual shooting part of the movie 'cause to him there's a lot of compromise in it, but to me, it's game day. It's like, we gotta pull the shot off. We gotta, we gotta make this happen to the best of our abilities, and it's so it gets exciting, you know? E… especially when you pull these shots off and they're working. And in that film, there's a lot of shots like that, and some of them are so silky smooth and so slow you don't realize…

14:36Jawad MirYeah

14:37Don Burgess... What's going on behind the camera to actually execute this one shot of three minutes of movie making.

14:45Jawad MirAnd that's what I love about your work, right? It's just so, it's not like a gimmick. It's so natural, and you don't pick up on it. I mean, I, whenever I see your work, even as a filmmaker I'll, I'll notice it, but it's just immerses me in so much that I forget about it. And you know, that's, that's, that's the great thing, and it's also obviously has to do with direction and performances, but still, the way the camera moves and the way the audience is immersed in it, you know, I still find it, you know, fascinating. And I found something similar of what you did in Contact, I'm sure it's there in a lot of films, but to me, I picked up a lot of similarities in The Witches, which you did recently with Robert Zemeckis.

15:28Don BurgessRight.

15:28Jawad MirIn the way th… the shot design and all that. Going back to Contact, the sequence of the, when the bomb goes off, right?

15:40Don BurgessRight

15:40Jawad Mir... And this is obviously special effects even at the, they were in the early stages after Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump. Special effects are great. But how do you work with a sh… with a shot, scene like that even though it's a wide frame to kinda make sure that timing of the effects and what's happening, are you working with the, like, visual effects team on the spot, just with some mock-up, or what's the process of that like, if anything?

16:10Don BurgessWell, I, you know, the discussions usually get to storyboard form at some point so that…

16:18Jawad MirYeah

16:18Don Burgess... Everybody knows what the shots are and how they're gonna tie together, in essence. And so if there's a big visual effect shot like there was in those films, there's also, there probably were some mechanical effects that happened at the same time.

16:34Jawad MirOkay.

16:34Don BurgessRight? To help the interacting light of the situation. So the machine itself had this sense of light coming from below and hitting the subjects that were up on the gantry.

16:48Jawad MirYeah.

16:48Don BurgessSo we had to create what felt like a big arm going across a light source. So the way we did that is we, I used very small globes, like MR16 size globes, but a mass amount of them because the smaller the globe, the faster it reacts. Like, if you take a big globe and you wanna dim it and bring it back in, it's gonna happen slowly. And so but we needed an interactive light 'cause we didn't have anything big enough to kind of cover the light. There was no set big enough to actually do what really happened. So we designed these lights that we could create the fade of the light so the light would travel, like Las Vegas, you know as a cl…

17:28Jawad MirYeah

17:29Don Burgess... Right? So how light travels. So we made this light that traveled that created that flow of the actual armature going across in the actual machine that's built, and the light source coming from behi… from below. So you try to recreate all these light sources that are discussed in the script and then illustrated perhaps in storyboards, and then when we put the subjects in there, w… how much of that set are we actually gonna build? What's the, how's the light source gonna interact with the machine?

17:59Don BurgessWhat's the timing of that? How fast are those things really going at this point? So you have to figure all that out to create this light, interactive light with the actors on the set the day you shoot it. So you're always trying to, in essence, create this illusion… But you have to do it in pieces sometimes where it really gets pretty complicated. But, you know, i… and especially in that area… era when we did this 26 years ago, as you were saying, it was a lot tougher than it is today.

18:29Jawad MirOh, yeah.

18:29Don BurgessJust because, there was a lot more mechanical effect going on at the same time. The, and the timing of the camera and the lighting interacting to make the subject feel like they're really in that space.

18:43Jawad MirAnd you mentioned timing, right, which is what I, what I feel like when you're doing a scene like that, is there a lot of different ti… even though it's storyboarded, everything is planned. But, you know, sometimes things don't go as planned. That's just the nature of life.

18:57Don BurgessRight.

18:58Jawad MirAnd was there a certain point in that scene where you guys decided to do multiple time versions of it? Like, it's, you know, like 20 seconds versus 40 seconds, or was it just something that you guys figured out that this is how it's gonna be and that's it?

19:14Don BurgessWell, I think we always go in with a, our best foot forward in timing. But it, you do need to adapt on the day when you're shooting, and a lot of it comes from the gut, you know, the feeling of it, what you're seeing. And Bob has the ability to somehow keep the whole movie in his head while we're making the movie. So, you know, you know, i… if I'm not feeling it, I'll, I'll bring it up and say, "Gosh, Bob, I think this is too slow or too fast," or whatever it may be.

19:51Jawad MirYeah.

19:51Don BurgessAnd he'll look at it, and then he'll either agree with you or say, "No, this is it. This is, this is the way it should be." Like in What Lies Beneath, I felt everything we were doing was too slow. Although... And he was spot on in that situation. But I think that's, that's something that you, on the day when you're shooting, you're always, you're always working on that. You're always, you're always, especially when you have nowhere to go. Like, you can't change the, you can't change the pace in the editing room, right?

20:19Jawad MirYeah.

20:19Don BurgessThat's where it gets really difficult, and you really kind of really have to have it thought through the best you can. And then go with your gut at the end of the day.

20:29Jawad MirAnd as a cinematographer, when you were working on Contact, this was your second or third major or fourth major film, if I'm not mistaken, or around that number.

20:39Don BurgessYeah

20:41Jawad Mir... The way a director, Robert Zemeckis, you know, has the film in his head, are you ever trying to figure that out? Okay, how is this gonna be cut together? Like, are you envisioning it as an audience member or even as a d… as a cinematographer that is this gonna work? Or you're just... You know, does that ever happen?

20:58Don BurgessOh, yeah, definitely. I've definitely got a movie going on in my head. So, a… and it's the same as, well, you know, the movie I'm making in my head, here's what, you know, here's what I'm seeing. Because I think ideally... Listen, I have a great relationship with Bob. We've made a lot of movies together over 30 years.

21:15Jawad MirYeah.

21:16Don BurgessBut from the, from Forrest Gump on, we had the ability to understand each other, right? So I understand the film he's making. But no matter what director I'm working with, I'm always cutting the movie in my head. I'm always thinking, well, when I light it, you know, and how it's gonna be blocked and where all the shots going to be. So potentially, I'm always thinking every shot, whether the shot list has been made at that point or not. I'm always thinking it through, even the design of it. So at least I know the movie in my head, I've got an idea of where this could go. Now, that can change, you know, when the director's working with the actors, and the actors come up with ideas and, you know, the process is evolving. It's organic.

22:06Jawad MirYeah.

22:06Don BurgessBut as that happens, I always make sure that I under… I think I understand what's gonna happen and where it's going next from every transition. The Contact is a beautiful film, one of the best transition desi… by design that I think I've ever seen. It's, it's actually wonderful. If you turn the sound off and just watch the transitions of scene to scene and how it's all tied together. They're interlaced in a way that's really beautiful. It's not just, I'm gonna cut wide. I'm gonna cut from this close up here of the cup to a wide shot of the mountains. You know, everything is far more in depth and detail of that, of the storytelling weaving its way through the process. It's really quite beautiful. But that's, that's what's going on in his head primarily, when you're making a movie like that. And then, you know, you're there to support it. And if you know, if you have an idea, he expects you to, you know, he wants to hear it.

23:07Don BurgessSo that…

23:08Jawad MirYeah

23:08Don Burgess... That's, that's, you know, what makes the process great, you know? When you, when you're, you know, "If you can make it better, let me hear it."

23:17Jawad MirI bet.

23:17Don BurgessBut, yeah.

23:20Jawad MirWas there a moment in Contact when you saw the film or saw a scene in the film and you're like, "Okay, this is how I envisioned it, close to or completely opposite"? Has that ever happened, whether it's Contact or anything else that you worked with Zemeckis on?

23:35Don BurgessWell, I, you know, the one thing I remember when I saw the film was that there were several scenes where I thought what Jodie Foster was doing was... I didn't quite get it. I was like, I know she's doing something there, but I can't figure out, you know, what's going on there. And then you see the movie cut together, and you go, "Oh, that's what she was doing."

23:58Don BurgessRight? 'Cause we're, we're shooting it out of context.

24:01Jawad MirYeah.

24:01Don BurgessSo her growth as a character, she's got figured out. And so she knows she's gotta act this way at this particular time. And then even a lot of the emotional things that she did late in the film, when we shot them might have been earlier on, and they were like, "Whoa, she's, she's really going with it here." You know, you're kinda going… You know, is that too much? That's interesting. But then you watch her, you watch the film cut together, and you go, oh, that performance is so tight all the way across. It makes perfect sense. So yeah, in filmmaking, there is that goes along only because, you know, you're not involved in every meeting that takes place between the, you know, the directors and the actors and the writer perhaps or the studio or the producer. So there's a lot of things that can be a little bit of a mystery, and then you see it and you go, "Okay. All right. Now I get it." Like, and so…

24:50Jawad MirMovie magic.

24:50Don BurgessYeah, movie magic. But I remember I saw the movie, I guess, I think it was premiered. So the first time, when I, when I color time a movie, I'm watching it silently and you know, I'm not watching or hearing the movie. I'm just watching the imagery and working on that. So a lot of times the first time I'll see it all together with the music, sound, and, you know, all the effects is, you know, at the premiere. And that premiere was at the Fox in Westwood, so one of the bigger screens in the city.

25:27Don BurgessAnd, you know, there I was kind of sitting in the middle of that and found it to be, like, a really rewarding experience. It's like all the extra effort that we went to with the larger format cameras and changing of film stocks and j… just trying to pursue the quality of the image to the best of our ability. I really felt that we had pulled it off, and I was very proud of the way that movie looked on the screen on that particular night. You know, it was one of those I think we hit a home run here moments. So yeah, I'll never forget that.

26:07Jawad MirAnd there's just something about film, right? Like, the feel. Like, you know, I... Whenever I watch old films, I mean, now almost everything is digital unless it's, you know, something like Spielberg is making a film like The Fabelmans.

26:19Don BurgessRight.

26:19Jawad MirIt's just, you know, I literally can feel it. Like, I can feel the grain. I can feel the stock. I can feel the smell of the stock. And I... It's so sad that we're in that phase now. I mean, forget digital and analog. Now we're heading into this AI world where…

26:35Don BurgessRight

26:36Jawad Mir... Even digital is now becoming obsolete in a way. But there's just something to be said about film and, you know, Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on River Kwai, all these amazing films. And I wish there was a way to revive film because that's, it just does so much to the film than digital does.

26:55Don BurgessYeah. And the fact that we shot, you know, half that movie in 65 millimeter.

27:01Jawad MirRight. That too.

27:03Don BurgessNow, it was released 35 millimeter anamorphic, but to look at the dailies of actual contact prints of 65 millimeter was the most beautiful images I've ever seen.

27:14Jawad MirDo you still have those frames, like, that you keep from 65 millimeter, or is it... Like, do you, is that something…

27:20Don BurgessNo

27:20Jawad Mir... Part that you keep in your... No, you don't. You can't.

27:23Don BurgessNo.

27:23Jawad MirOkay.

27:23Don BurgessI don't have any of those images.

27:26Jawad MirBe nice.

27:27Don BurgessBe nice. That'd be a great idea. I wish I thought of it back then.

27:31Jawad MirYeah. Do they, do they still preserve all that stuff from back then, the '90s? I know they do now, but do they still keep a lot of stuff, the studios?

27:41Don BurgessI have no idea what they keep in their i… archives. I imagine they keep all the still photography that was made, and they keep, you know, the wardrobe of certain characters. They show up in museums eventually. And

27:58Jawad MirYeah

27:58Don Burgess... There's, you know, the original negative is somewhere, you know.

28:04Jawad MirYou know, I wish there was a book. Now… nowadays there's a lot of books coming out, like, of the films from the '80s and the '90s. Like The Ultimate Visual History of Jaws, E.T. I, and there's a Back to Future one too. I wish there was a book on Forrest Gump and Contact, where it just, you know, all the interviews and everything in there because they're, they're basically, for me, they're, you know, film school 101. Like, Forrest Gump in terms of effects and history, and Contact in terms of science and religion and the shot design. I wish somebody works on a book on that. I mean, that would be fantastic to read.

28:39Don BurgessYes. I agree. I'd like to see that.

28:43Jawad MirOkay, great. The next part is the climax scene, you know, the space travel. All of that, aside from certain parts when she's in the capsule, was more, obviously more so green screen pretty much all around her, correct?

29:02Don BurgessCorrect. So yeah. So we had her in the chair, and a lot of it she's actually in the pod.

29:08Jawad MirYeah.

29:09Don BurgessAnd once again, we had to create all the different lighti… light effects on her face basically and her ce… her body, for all these different elements of the wormholes that she's going through and all the different colors and the things that she sees and h… how are the colors on her face. And as r… as I... I wanna say there, I had, like, a, there's, like, 110. That number comes to mind. I don't know why. 110 light cues that we built for that sequence.

29:41Don BurgessAnd once again, we had to create the movement and the color of the light for this idea of what she was going through, the vibration, and the sense of movement even though you're in something that doesn't have any windows in it. And then ultimately the w… the translucence of the capsule itself allows her to see, you know, these beautiful things out in the universe. And so the light on her face reflects what she's seeing. So it was, it was, You know, it was designed. There was even the, you know, a talk of the color chakra, and how that plays into the personality and the emotion of what she's feeling, and so the colors that are used play into the, into that idea. And then finding all these different types of ways of creating a sense of movement in the chair that's, you know, sitting there on a sound stage basically.

30:48Don BurgessSo…

30:48Jawad MirAnd those... Sorry, go on, please. Go on.

30:51Don BurgessIt took us quite a while to do that. It was not a easy by any means to keep coming up with ways to visualize something that doesn't exist yet, a world that doesn't exist yet. And kind of work our way through all the different shots. So yeah, so that was, it was complicated. It took us a while.

31:16Jawad MirWould it be safe to say it took you guys two weeks to film that?

31:20Don BurgessI, yes, it's possible. It's possible, because there was so much to it. 'cause she's in the chair, and then she's floating and trying to do floating, you know, there's a couple sequences in the film where people are zero gravity floating, and it's, that's tough to do.

31:41Jawad MirYeah. And do you remember, I know it's been a long time, so I don't expect you to remember, do you remember the first shot that you guys did and the last shot, and what kind of head space were you in the beginning versus the end?

31:59Don BurgessThe film went 99 days. 99 days of principal photography. I rem… only reason I remember that is Bob said, "That's it, I'm done. I'm not going 100 days." "We're gonna finish this in 99 days." So that I remember. I remember it being the most difficult movie I've ever shot still to this day. It w… every day was very complicated, and there was a lot of, a lot of things we hadn't done before technically, a lot of things we, that I probably hadn't lit a certain ways before, so there was a lot of discovery along the way. And there's always that schedule that you gotta stay with, and we traveled a lot. We were in Socorro, New Mexico, we were in Washington, DC, we were in Puerto Rico at the real Arecibo.

32:53Don BurgessAnd so, you know, and every location had major rigging and lighting involved, and, so you've always have crews working ahead of you to get things ready. And just to do the one shot where she sees Arecibo for the first time, the dish, and the transition is from the young Ellie Arroway after her father has died, and he's…

33:17Don Burgess... She's trying to actually call him on the ham radio. And the camera tracks a… away from her to the side, and the background turns green, which eventually becomes a jungle, and then it becomes Jodie Foster as the adult in her first day at Arecibo. And you see the radio telescope in the shot, and it establishes her, the radio te… telescope, and the whole environment. The only way to do that shot was with a Technocrane. And the reason for that is because it was against a mountain road, and there was no way to get back any further, so you needed the extension, the retraction of the crane arm to actually make that work. So to get the crane arm to Puerto Rico and to Arecibo, 'cause there weren't that many Technocranes around at that particular time, we had to get it to the, to Florida, and then barge it basically to Puerto Rico, and then, and then get it to the dish. I believe it took us a month to get that crane there so that it was ready for us…

34:22Jawad MirWow

34:22Don Burgess... To start.

34:23Jawad MirThat's crazy the amount of time just to get a piece of equipment. Well, it's not a piece, but still…

34:27Don BurgessRight

34:28Jawad Mir... The equipment. Yeah.

34:30Don BurgessYeah, just to get it there. And so things like that happened all the time, so we were always thinking about every day of that movie every day, 'cause there was so much involved and all the different things that we needed in different places. So it just, it just seemed like you were always check… you know, you had your list of things that were, you were doing today, tomorrow, two weeks from that day, and a month later. You had to keep track of all that every day.

34:58Jawad MirYeah.

34:58Don BurgessAnd so, you know, I don't remember what we shot first.

35:08Jawad MirThat's okay. I don't…

35:10Don BurgessAnd…

35:10Jawad MirLike I said, I don't expect you to. I mean, it's been a long time. I was just curious.

35:14Don BurgessYeah. Yeah, you'd think you'd remember your first day and your last day of movies, but, the only thing I remember about the last day, which was on stage, I can't tell you exactly what it was, but we finished, at the studio, was, a couple of things. One was, thank God this is over. Thought that…

35:38Jawad MirI was gonna say it's probably that.

35:40Don BurgessYeah. And the other thing I remember is, that Bob decided to go on a diet at the beginning of the movie. And so at some point in the movie, there was money collected in a bet to see how many pounds he had lost. So everybody put the, put the money in the hat and tried to figure out how much weight Bob had lost. So that, he weighed in, and it was officially written down at the nurse's office at the sta… at the studio, and at the very end of the movie, he did the same thing. He had to weigh in again.

36:17Jawad MirDid he, did he end up losing quite a m… quite a bit, or did he end up…

36:20Don BurgessI think he did. I think he lost close to 20 pounds while we were making that movie. Yeah. Yeah, he's very disciplined with his diet and he's a very, he's a very dedicated director, and he has a tremendous work ethic. He is the most prepared one on the set every day. And…

36:45Jawad MirWell, yeah. I mean, if he's not, then everybody else is not gonna take him seriously, right? So.

36:50Don BurgessRight. I mean, it… yeah. He does. He's, he's, he's, he's thought about it, and he takes it very seriously, and he doesn't, you know, he doesn't wing it on the day. You know? He's, he's, he's thought it out, and he's l… he's let us know what he's planning on doing, and he expects all of us to be ready, for the, you know, for the day's work, for sure.

37:19Jawad MirYeah. Would it be fair to say that Contact, like the style that you have in Contact, right, i… is pretty much in every Zemeckis film following that you worked on? Would it be fair to say that Contact became a very strong learning ground for discovering your own visual style when you're working with Zemeckis?

37:45Don BurgessYeah. I think that I enjoy using the camera cinematically. And what that means is that, you know, you can, you can make a movie in the editing room with all the different angles and coverage…

38:05Jawad MirYeah

38:05Don Burgess... To make a scene work, which obviously works great. But there's also, I think for cinematographers, there's, and fortunately for that director, is that it can be so much more powerful if it's more organic and feels like you sitting in the audience really get to be there and be in that room or in that space, and emotionally, in essence, be led down this path so that it's always revealing more of the story and taking you somewhere, and you just wanna jump on that camera, and you wanna, you know, you go with it. And when it's, when I think when it's done really well, is you don't even realize the camera's moving.

39:02Jawad MirYeah.

39:02Don BurgessYou don't even realize what's happening to you. All you know is that you're emotionally connected to what's happening in the movie.

39:11Jawad MirYeah.

39:11Don BurgessAnd you're in the movie. And that's, I still think that's the why we go to the theater. It's the, it's the, it's a place where you can go and sit and become a character in a film you know?

39:23Jawad MirYeah.

39:24Don BurgessIt's bigger than life. And they take you places you've never been, experiences you'd never have, or you've never had. And so I think that t… type of storytelling and using the camera that way elevates that game and just sucks you right into it, which I think is fabulous.

39:48Jawad MirYeah. You mentioned, you know, when you don't notice the camera movement. I, when I was watching Cast Away again, a month ago, the two scenes that have always connected with me for some reason, it was not on the island. I just remember those scenes because the way the camera didn't move, but it moved. The first one was when he comes back home and Helen Hunt's character opens the door. It's in this trailer, too, I think. And you see both of them in that one frame, one on the other side and the, Tom Hanks on the other side. And you really have that scene and the one where he's sitting in the r… after that scene when they're having a conversation, and you really have to look at the edge of the frame to figure out if the camera is actually moving. Otherwise, you can't tell. Like, I have to, like, literally pinpoint my eyes to see if an object is disappearing or getting out of the frame. Otherwise, I can't, I can't tell because it's just so immersed into it. And again, going back, I keep saying this, and I'm sorry to making you, making you feel this way, but it's just such a beautiful work that you do, and I just gush over it every time I watch it.

40:55Don BurgessWell, I certainly, y… you can see in all the movies I've shot since working for Zemeckis that I've learned a lot from him about how and why to move a camera.

41:06Jawad MirYeah.

41:07Don BurgessAnd I think that o… once you get into the rhythm of the scene, that it becomes, feeling very natural to both of us, how the camera's moving. It becomes like, well, there isn't any other way to do this in essence, right?

41:38Jawad MirYeah.

41:39Don BurgessIt just feels that way. So when we're, we're both feeling like that, you know, like it's working, th… then, you know, we know, you know, we know we're in the zone. Now, what my part of it is, you know, is composition and color and light and the pace of the camera and the dynamics of the lens and all those sorts of things, right? Which Bob understands really well, so I'm not having to explain any of that to him.

42:12Don BurgessIn fact, he could probably s… explain a lot of it to me. What he does that is the super difficult part is now he's gotta wear all those other hats. He's gotta make sure that the actors are happy doing what they're doing and that they feel connected and that the scene is working. And that, "Well, we may have to change a line here. Can we flip that line and do it down here? Wouldn't it be better if we did that?" He's doing all of that too at the same time. 'Cause when you're shooting, don't forget, it's... You gotta do all of those things.

42:44Jawad MirYeah.

42:45Don BurgessRight? Right down to every prop that's sitting on any table, he's gotta make sure that, you know, 'cause, you know, it can be... There are mistakes all over. There's just, there's just all kinds of places to fall on your face as a director…

42:59Jawad MirYeah

43:00Don Burgess... Every day when you're shooting. And the pressure of the time of trying to get that work done is really difficult. But he has a, an ability to isolate and separate all those things going on as we're looking at the monitor. Because he'll come off this, off the rehearsal and he'll say, "Don, I think the camera was a little too slow at the beginning. I think we need to be to here by that point." I go, "Okay, great. Yeah, got it." And then they, and they go, "Yeah, but, you know, on the TV set, can we turn it just a little bit more so we see a little bit more of the image on the TV set? And you know what? I think the yellow coat is wrong. Do we have another colored coat that she could wear that's hanging on the hook?" I mean, that's the way he is.

43:36Jawad MirYeah.

43:36Don BurgessBecause he's... You know, the great movie directors just have this ability to see everything that's going on in that frame and make sure that it's telling the story to the best of his ability.

43:49Jawad MirYeah.

43:49Don BurgessAnd so it's, it's fascinating to watch, and I'm glad I get to be a part of it and do, you know, do my part of it. You know, be, you know, that instrument in his orchestra, you know? There's a lot of... He's doing a lot of conducting, and…

44:05Jawad MirSure

44:05Don Burgess... And it's a lot of fun to be, you know, where I sit. A, to get to watch it, you know, and be a part of it, and I think, you know, just make the drama connect more with the audience, you know, to kinda heighten that experience.

44:28Jawad MirYeah. No, I agree. I agree. And when you were done with Contact, I'm assuming, you know, when it was done, like, did you guys have any, in the post, you realized there needs to be any pickup stuff, or it was kinda like all in the can 100%?

44:47Don BurgessWell, here's the thing. Out of all the films that I've done with Bob, there's only been one reshoot where we had to pick up a, pick up any shots to make the movie. One. And that was in Cast Away. When they cut the movie together, and you get to the scene where he goes to Helen's house, which you were just talking about, and it's raining and he goes to the door and they see each other. And eventually they get to the scene in the car where they, you know, they've kissed in the rain, and they're in the car together, and then basically he realizes that she's gotta go home.

45:48Don BurgessAnd ultimately he drives off alone. Well, the audience was in shock that after all of this, that they don't end up together. And so Bob wrote a scene with Bill Broyles, and ultimately what happens in the movie now is that Tom goes to his buddy's house, his old friend. And they sit, and they have a scotch together, and there's a fire, and it's still raining outside. And he talks about the fact that, look, that little locket and that little picture of Helen that he had with him is ultimately what kept him alive.

46:35Jawad MirYeah.

46:36Don BurgessRight? And, you know, just the thought of not s… seeing her again was out of the question, that's ultimately what kept him alive and not committing suicide or whatever. That, you know, four years alone on the island with a volleyball. And so that's ultimately what the scene is. And he says, you know, to his buddy, he says, "Look." He says, you know, something to the effect of, you know, "The tide goes in, the tide goes out."

47:09Jawad MirYes.

47:09Don BurgessYou know, "Tomorrow the sun will come up, and it's gonna be another day, and we gotta, we gotta keep moving. You know, this is the way it is. This is what happened, and I, you know, w… we... I just gotta keep going." And so that was kind of a way of, in essence, letting the audience know that, you know, that it's a wonderful thing that she, that they were together, and that's what kept him alive, and that's not the way things are gonna work out in the end, that they're gonna get together. You know? And that was an important theme for the filmmaker because i… i… at the end of the movie, he basically... Tom goes to the intersection, and he's, you know, he has dropped off the box that had the angel wings on it at the house. And then he drives back to the…

48:02Jawad MirYeah

48:02Don Burgess... Intersection, the four-way intersection, and then sh... The red pickup truck shows up, and the pretty little redhead says, "You lost? Can I help you out?" And he's kinda going, "Well, I don't know." And she says, "Well, Mexico's that way. Canada's that way." And they have this cute little scene. And he says, "Thanks." And she takes off down the dirt road back towards the house where he just came from. And on the back of the truck is the angel wings that were on the box.

48:25Jawad MirYeah.

48:26Don BurgessSo then you know, you cut back to Tom, and he notices this. And, You know, you as the audience have to decide what his next move was.

48:38Jawad MirYeah.

48:39Don BurgessYou know, did he go back, did he go back down the road to, you know, to meet the girl? For some of us, yeah, that's exactly where he went. For others, you know, maybe he didn't. And so that was, you know, a major theme in the movie and what the filmmaker was really saying, you know, is how life really works.

49:05Jawad MirYeah. And closure is so important, and I learned that, two years ago myself, you know, w… with a film that I made, and w… obviously we didn't have test screenings like the way you guys do, but, you know, showing it to a group of people and just trying to get some feedback. Almost everybody said that the main character seems like he's a very selfish character, and all I had to do was put a photo at the end with a text to give that closure, and that worked. Because the audience, I think we, deep down, even though if it's a sad ending or a happy ending, whatever it is, or an open ending…

49:42Don BurgessRight

49:42Jawad Mir... Closure is made necessary.

49:43Don BurgessThat's very…

49:44Jawad MirIt's so important

49:45Don Burgess... Sure. I think that, you know, it's very true, especially with death, is there's, th… there definitely needs to be closure with people that you lose in that event. And in, you know, in every scene in every movie, you know, dramatic structure is, you know, conflict, crisis, climax, resolution.

50:11Jawad MirYeah.

50:11Don BurgessAnd if you don't have that, you don't have a scene. And, you know, it's so true. It's like it's, it's, to move on to the next page, we gotta have a reason, you know? And I think all those building blocks in telling stories need the dramatic structure to keep us interested in the stories.

50:34Jawad MirYeah. Great. And the next project that you're working on here, the production is finished, you said, right?

50:43Don BurgessYeah, we're fin… It's been... Yeah. It's in the can.

50:44Jawad MirIs it coming out this year or

50:47Don BurgessIt, you know what?

50:48Jawad MirIs it…

50:49Don BurgessI don't know what the release date is, honestly, but it could. I think it logically would, probably come out in the fall.

50:58Jawad MirYeah. Christmas time maybe.

51:00Don BurgessYeah. Subject matter. Yeah.

51:03Jawad MirGot it. And lastly, Don, how much involved are you in color correction stage, whether it's On Contact or any other film? Like, are you there on and off just to make sure the color palettes are there and the vision is being executed?

51:19Don BurgessYes. I'll do, usually a couple of weeks of color correction work, at the end, very end of the process. So the mix is done. Sometimes I'll start it while they're still mixing. I'll, I'll, I'll start my color correction. But, and then I'll get the director when he's done with the mix usually to come in and look at the movie, and then I'll make any corrections that the director would like to do. But, it's usually roughly, two weeks. If it's a big he… heavy visual effects movie, it just takes longer, 'cause the sh…

51:59Don Burgess... The shots keep coming in and coming in. It's like endless.

52:03Jawad MirSure.

52:03Don BurgessAnd so…

52:03Jawad MirWhat do you guys use? What do you guys use for color correction? DaVinci or something else?

52:08Don BurgessYes, DaVinci. And of course it always depends on which company that you end up doing…

52:14Jawad MirYeah

52:15Don Burgess... With. I have, you know, colorists that I've worked with, around town. And, actually they're all women now, come to think of it. They really, a lot of great, make really good, you know, fantastic colorists on movies. And, I'll, sometimes I'll be on location, and I'll have to do it remotely. Depending upon where I am, sometimes I'll go into a theater

52:52Don Burgess... And be in, you know, telephone communication, while we're color correcting the project. Pinocchio, I think I was in Atlanta actually when I did most of Pinocchio, while I was shooting. Yeah, that was kinda complicated, 'cause I had, kind of three different movies that I was... I was shooting one, color correcting one, and then doing the, this pre-production kind of figuring out how to do here, at the same time. So you were, you're always involved with…

53:29Jawad MirThat's amazing I'm so, I'm s… I'm so delighted to hear that you're still, you know, going, blazing out at this game in every stage, pre, post, and then actually production itself. And it's, it's amazing to see, because I truly feel now, you know, the way... And I'm not trying to criticize anybody. Everybody has a different way of doing things. I just feel everything is now so fast-paced, with the exception of some films. Like, the cuts are so many, and, you know…

53:58Jawad Mir... Yeah, the coverage is so much, which is fine, but that, again, going back to, like, I always use this example. What's that movie? God. Once Upon a Time in the West. Do you know what I'm talking about? Sergio Leone film?

54:15Don BurgessYep.

54:16Jawad MirThe opening sequence in the train, the train station. I mean, that has no dialogue, nothing. Like, it's just three people, and you're just figuring out in your head what the tension is about.

54:28Don BurgessRight.

54:28Jawad MirAnd it's done so masterfully. And I just hope that type of cinema and your type of cinema sticks around, because it's so important. I mean, we just get im… immersed into the world that you guys create.

54:43Don BurgessYeah, I, you know, as the, as people, you know, going to the movie theaters seems to be, you know, coming back, and films are…

54:51Jawad MirYes

54:51Don Burgess... Doing better and all that. And, I just went to see the, Air about Nike.

55:00Jawad MirOh, I saw that too, yeah, recently. Yeah.

55:02Don BurgessYeah. And, you know, my wife w… and I went to dinner, you know, and then we went to the show after having dinner. It was like an old-fashioned date, you know. And we just had the best time. You know? It was... It's still just great entertainment. And, you know, Ben Affleck, directed the movie and then also played Phil Knight hilariously.

55:26Jawad MirYeah.

55:26Don BurgessHe was very funny playing that character. So I enjoyed it. And Matt Damon, I've always liked Matt Damon. I did a little bit of work with Matt, and he's, he's a lovely guy. And so I enjoyed seeing him in that role. Did a, just did a great job.

55:42Jawad MirYeah, no, that movie was great. Have you seen the trailer for Oppenheimer, the one that came out yesterday?

55:47Don BurgessNo.

55:48Jawad MirOh, you gotta... Matt… Matt's in that movie, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt. But Matt Damon has a major part.

55:55Don BurgessOh.

55:55Jawad MirAnd he's, he just plays this amazing military guy. I mean, you gotta, you gotta watch the trailer. He looks, he looks hilarious i… in terms of his acting, but the film looks fantastic, as usual.

56:05Don BurgessYeah. It's funny, I... It's, you know... I did The Book of Eli in New Mexico, and of course, Socorro, New Mexico, where we did Contact, so I've, I've been there in a lot of commercials, in White Sands, you know, so I've done a lot of shooting there. But you... But... And I read one book about Oppenheimer, and so just d… just the subject matter alone, and of course, who's making the movie, you know, I've wanted to see the film. And I'm thinking, "Oh, good, I'll probably see a trailer tonight." And then there wasn't a trailer, and I was like, "Ah," you know? It's like the one trailer I wanna see, not the 14 that I didn't really care to see it, but…

56:42Jawad MirYeah

56:42Don Burgess... You know. But yeah, definitely it's on my list of something to see.

56:47Jawad MirIs Christopher Nolan one of the directors that you would love to work with?

56:51Don BurgessYeah, I think so. I think that when I see the w… the work that he does, it takes me back to when I was making the Contacts and the Cast Aways and all those movies.

57:03Jawad MirYeah.

57:03Don BurgessI was like, "Oh, my God, it's so exhausting." But I like that kind of, you know... The approach is always gonna be unique and different and interesting and cinematic. Now, he has a tendency to wander off in these movies, and eventually he comes back, but for the most part, it's always interesting.

57:30Jawad MirYou know what I find fascinating? And I'm not trying to say anything, this is just my personal observation. When I saw Interstellar, and... Have you seen Interstellar?

57:40Don BurgessI haven't seen it.

57:41Jawad MirOkay, then I'm not gonna say anything.

57:43Don BurgessOkay.

57:43Jawad MirWatch, w… w… watch that film. You will... I wonder if you will see something that I saw. I'll leave it to that.

57:51Don BurgessOkay.