'Ready Player One', VFX Supervisor, Jonathan Privett

0:02Jawad MirWe'll, we'll get to, Life on Our Planet, but I'm always curious about everyone's journey, how they started their journey in whatever field in the filmmaking it is. You know, and y… yourself being in, visual effects. Just run that by, how it all began, what inspired you, and your paths that you have taken to be where you are.

0:23Jonathan PrivettIt's a pretty unusual one really, because, as you can see now I've turned my video on, I'm not a spring chicken. So I actually, I actually s… started, as an engineer. I mean, I've got a degree in mechanical engineering.

0:38Jonathan PrivettWhich obviously is a pretty technical subject, albeit a very creative one of course, 'cause engineers are responsible for most of the made objects around us…

0:46Jawad MirYep

0:46Jonathan Privett... That we use day to day, even though we forget that. And I was very much obsessed with the motorcar growing up, and still am actually.

0:59Jawad MirWow.

1:00Jonathan PrivettAnd so I pursued that career and I went to work in Detroit in the early 1990s…

1:06Jawad MirRight

1:06Jonathan Privett... Designing bits of car… ... Initially.

1:11Jawad MirRight.

1:11Jonathan PrivettAnd that it turned out that the software that we were using, which was very expensive, as were the machines at the time… ... To do pre-production work on cars and pre-visualize vehicle shapes and engineering, problems…

1:29Jawad MirRight

1:29Jonathan Privett... Got co-opted into filmmaking. So there was a weird junction at which we were essentially using the same technology, very similar. More similar than it is now. I mean, they still co-exist now, but in those days it was less specific for the two disciplines. And I'd worked in Detroit for four years, I think, and I wanted to move back to the UK, and there was a small users group of people.

1:57Jawad MirRight.

1:58Jonathan PrivettAnd I happened to know the guy, in the UK, and he was ironically called Gareth Edwards. Not the Gareth Edwards though, this different Gareth Edwards.

2:05Jawad MirOkay.

2:06Jonathan PrivettAlthough I d… I, the other Gareth Edwards worked in the UK in the early '90s doing the same thing as well. But anyway,... I phoned this guy up and the other Gareth Edwards, and he says, "Do y… how do you know how to operate the software?" I was like, "Absolutely." I said, "Are there any jobs going in the UK?" And he said, "Well, it's funny you should say that, but Kodak have just hired me to start a visual effects facility called Cinesite. Can you send me some of the work that you've done, to look over anyway?" So I sent him some of the things that I'd done sort of previous engineering-wise.

2:46Jonathan PrivettAnd he said, he phoned me back the next day and said, "I've got you a plane ticket. Get on a plane for an interview." And that was how I entered the film business.

2:54Jawad MirWow.

2:54Jonathan PrivettBecause it wasn't even, it, visual effects wasn't a thing. There was, you know, maybe one course in the UK possibly that touched on it at university. So it wasn't an aspiration you could have in 1994. So it happened slightly at random, as you said. And that was it. So I was, you know, one of the first few employees of Cinesite in the UK. I mean, they had a facility here in the States in Los Angeles. And that was it. That was how my career started, so on a, on a random phone call…... Would you believe it? I often say to people…

3:30Jawad MirI…

3:30Jonathan Privett... I wouldn't give myself a job today.

3:35Jawad MirYou know, it's, it's true in every time I speak to people, whether it's for the podcast, even my journey, everybody has just kind of popped into this thing out of nowhere unexpectedly. Or even, you know, some cases knowingly, but even when you know it you go through the most unexpected paths and that you don't realize are gonna take you there. So I of… always find that very exciting and fascinating more than anything else, because we all have journeys, we all have, paths that we take which may not seem the right ones at the time, but in hindsight they always are.

4:14Jonathan PrivettYeah. It turned out, I mean, obviously it turned out to be an excellent decision and, you know, it's been an amazing career really. You know, it beats working most of the time.

4:28Jawad MirYeah. No, that's great. And what projects have you worked on that I would probably know of, or the op… audience, watching and listening would know of in terms of your career over the years?

4:45Jonathan PrivettWell certainly at the beginning a lot, a lot of things that, are now, you know, gone down into lore. So one of my favorites from the beginning was Space Jam, the first one.

4:55Jawad MirOh, I love that movie.

4:57Jonathan PrivettSpace Jam. Yeah. But it's such a great, it's such a great movie and it was hard to make at the time. I mean, it was '96 I think when we did that…

5:05Jawad MirYep

5:05Jonathan Privett... And that was nearly…

5:05Jawad MirI remember that

5:06Jonathan Privett... An enormous undertaking, 'cause almost every shot in the film is visual effects. And I did the whole practice CG

5:14Jawad MirOh, wow

5:15Jonathan Privett... Just built and rendered it. Which, you know, it was f… it was a fairly big sequence in the, in the film and hard work, but yeah, looked great. It was great to work on, you know, privileged to work on that movie. It was really good fun. And I worked on the…

5:33Jawad MirYes

5:33Jonathan Privett... Very first Mission Impossible, some compositing on that. ... Armageddon, a few shots on that. We came in at the end…

5:40Jawad MirSome

5:41Jonathan Privett... And did some bits and pieces. So big stuff in the early days, and more recently I supervised the first season of Outlander, which is a, which is a surprisingly big hit, certainly with a certain group of people. Altered Carbon, Agent Carter, lots of telly stuff. Alan Partridge film. The list goes, the list goes on. I think, you know, there's over 100 projects, but… latterly more based on streaming and episodic work rather than feature films.

6:15Jawad MirYeah

6:15Jonathan Privett... Just because they're, they're hon… the honest truth is actually they're normally slightly more fun to work on in visual effects.

6:22Jawad MirRight. No, those are some great titles. And, you know, it's funny you mentioned Space Jam. My kids saw it, I would guess probably five years ago, and then we saw it again, couple of years ago. And then the new one came out, which it was like I just walked out after 10 minutes because it didn't have that heart that the original one did. I'm not even talking about visual effects, I'm just talking in terms of, you know, the original one didn't really have a riveting story or anything, but there was just something there that connected. I think it was maybe a combination of visual effects with the live action. Michael Jordan, of course. It was... It's, it's a very cool film and I... You know, in those times the only two films I think that came with that kind of a, you know, a live action versus animation mix was, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which was six, seven years before, and there was, the one with the, I forget the name, Cool World with Kim Basinger.

7:28Jawad MirI don't know if you remember that film. So it was…

7:31Jonathan PrivettOh, yeah.

7:31Jawad MirIt was... Yeah. So it was, it was a great film. I mean, just the moment you mentioned it I had a smile on my face because it's, it's a... It's something I remember seeing in theaters. It's something I... I don't even care for basketball. I don't even care for Michael Jordan, but I truly enjoyed it because I was a huge Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and, you know, all those, characters fans, so, yeah.

7:51Jonathan PrivettIt has a real charm I think. Even though, as you say, you know, there was, the plot's pretty loose.

7:57Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

7:57Jonathan PrivettBut actually the film is still charming. And you mentioned Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and Ed Jones, who was, in charge of Cinesite at the time also was one of the key people in… I think he won an Oscar for Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Actually.

8:13Jawad MirI think so too, yeah.

8:14Jonathan PrivettHe was certainly

8:15Jawad MirThat's awesome

8:20Jonathan Privett... Legacy film to have worked.

8:23Jawad MirYeah, no, for sure.

8:24Jonathan PrivettYeah.

8:24Jawad MirAnd I think at the time, I don't know if Amblimation was involved, 'cause Spielberg executive produced it, Disney was involved, and I know Amblimation before DreamWorks was formed was based out of the UK until after everybody moved over to DreamWorks when DreamWorks was opened. But yeah, you know, some great stuff in the '90s and the '80s. And, I always, I always wonder about the stuff, even if it was not that great, you know, from a storytelling standpoint and we all still remember. Like, when I say we all, I mean, like, people in our age group. Is it because it reminds us of our childhood or is it because, you know, it was, it was really that great? So it's an interesting psychological thing that, you know, I always wonder about that why do we like things, similar things that came out back then and similar things that are coming out now? At least for me, I don't resonate with it in any way. You know, story, no story, visual effects, no visual effects. But anyways, that's just a thought process.

9:25Jonathan PrivettYeah. Maybe there's a little bit of rose-tinted glasses there. It was quite funny because the first, the first film that I did at Cinesite was called Lawnmower Man 2, which was epically bad in every way. And we'd been on this long filming trip, and there were quite a few people who that film was made roundabout when they were born who were on the, on the trip.

9:48Jawad MirYeah.

9:49Jonathan PrivettAnd they were like, "It can't be that epically bad." I was like, "No, it really is." anyway, we re-watched it this week, and I thought it was as epically bad as I remembered. They thought it was, they thought it was extremely funny because it was so bad.

10:07Jawad MirYeah

10:07Jonathan Privett... But yeah, luckily that one has been buried in the mists of time. But if any, listeners want to dig out Lawnmower Man 2, like, you, and you can get to the finish of it, you should be proud of yourself. It's quite hard to get through.

10:21Jawad MirI'm probably gonna make an effort, to watch it on the plane. We'll see how long that lasts.

10:26Jonathan PrivettOh, it's so bad. Don't waste, don't waste those…... Hour and a half of your life.

10:31Jawad MirThe, and, you know, moving on to your current, your current projects, of course, Life and Our Planet. How... H… had you done, and I... Had you done any kind of, nature-based series beforehand? I'm assuming you had done something similar, but there isn't really anything similar in that nature except the Apple series, to my knowledge.

10:58Jonathan PrivettYeah, that's right. I mean, it's, it not really been a subject. Obviously, I'd done creature animation before, but not…

11:05Jawad MirYeah

11:05Jonathan Privett... In the aspect of working with wildlife filmmakers. I mean, that's what was the real hook for me. And the extraordinary thing about the project is we made it exactly like a wildlife documentary. You know, e… even the filming there is six people on the crew. I mean, there's normally six people on ca… in catering in the things that I work on. I mean…

11:27Jawad MirYeah

11:27Jonathan Privett... So there's the, you know, going from that to being in the field where there's the director, the DOP, myself, an assistant producer, and a couple of other people to help out, is quite incredible and quite thrilling. It's c… because it's quite freeing because you can be much more mobile, you can shoot faster. But it's a whole different genre of cinematography. I mean, Jamie McPherson, he shot most of it, and is Sophie's partner who you also had on your podcast.

12:04Jawad MirYeah

12:04Jonathan Privett... You know, he and I had to have a, and have formed a really good working, relationship on how to film it because… He, the, there's no discipline in wildlife photography for a star. I mean, as you can imagine…

12:19Jawad MirYeah

12:19Jonathan Privett... What happens is they go out to some extraordinary place to film something, they hit go on the camera and hopefully they capture whatever amazing thing is taking place. And then they sort out their story afterwards editorially often, whereas…

12:35Jawad MirYeah

12:35Jonathan Privett... The process of visual effects, you know, I want, I want slates and shot numbers and, you know, balls and charts and all this technical information. So it's quite a…

12:45Jawad MirRight

12:45Jonathan Privett... Heavy presence for them. You can't just turn up and hit go with visual effects.

12:52Jawad MirYeah. That's something that Sophie mentioned when I was talking to her, that how Jonathan told us that just make sure you get what you want to get the way you wanna get it because there's no, like, going back. It's just not like, you know, you know, b… but with other films you can. Like, you know, big budget films that you've worked on, you know, you have the budget, like, okay, let's just redo this, or there is some buffer zone in terms of budgeting. But with something like this, six people crew and, you know, the budget is always tight, and I know how that is. It's, it's tough. But, you know, that's the thing with limited crew, there's that freedom, but the budgets are always tighter.

13:34Jonathan PrivettYeah. It's a d… it's definitely a double-edged sword. And obviously, d… for the amount of creatures that we had to build and put in the show, the budget was extremely tight. So Sophie's right. I probably annoyed them terribly by going, "No. No, can't do that. No, you can't do that shot. You can't do this." So we did have, more restrictions than normal. But they were brilliant. I mean, th… the whole team, you know, working with Silverback, who are obviously, you know, arguably the world's best nature documentary makers, teaming up with ILM and Amblin was a great mix of people to have on board. But the budget was tight, and so, yeah, shortcuts had to be…

14:19Jawad MirYeah

14:19Jonathan Privett... Taken and decisions made very early. We couldn't waste any money. That's the thing. That's what I had drilled into them, is like, "We cannot waste money. We can't do shots that don't make it on screen. We just don't have that luxury. It's all gotta be up there. Every time we turn over that camera, we've gotta think, 'Yeah, this shot is gonna get in the cut.'"

14:41Jawad MirYeah. You know what I find fascinating, because it's a new genre and I think it's only gonna get bigger, something again I was talking to Sophie yesterday, whether we like it or not, you know, who knows in five, 10 years all the nature documentaries might be like that with the AI and everything. I hope not, but you just, the way things are going, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if things go in that direction at least. But, you know, what I, what I really found interesting, and obviously it's, you know, you see visual effects in films like Jurassic Park, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Space Jam, and all the movies that you worked on, and it's a little bit different than compared to... Well, I would say it's a lot different than compared to, like, nature docs. Because one thing I noticed is, you know, there would be shots, where the camera would dolly, you know, sideways and it will go behind a tree, and then it will get a revealing shot, so on and so forth. And just to plan that out, you know, from the production standpoint, and obviously then in post when you g… you guys, you guys are working on it, and the timing of it and the messaging that comes out of that timing is exactly the way you int… intended it.

15:55Jawad MirH… was there any time difficulties in some of the shots where the timing was a bit off to send the message that was intended to send from this, from the story? And if so, where was that in any of the ser… in any of the episodes?

16:12Jonathan PrivettYeah, I mean, it happened not frequently, but definitely there were shots we did. Because obviously we're having to frame and move the camera with an imaginary star, if you like. And so, you know, even though we knew the sizes of all the creatures and we knew roughly how fast they moved, and we would sometimes if they were human scale reenact it ourselves. You know, there's quite a lot of me crawling along the ground being a Lystrosaur or something else. You can get that timing wrong, and we did occasionally. What we would normally do in that situation is, it's generally to do with whether was the shot long enough or framed wide enough. And that, and there are probably 20 shots in the film where, ILM, we've had to doctor the whole environment. So we've basically remade, you know, the top third of frame out of something else or other shots that we did.

17:12Jawad MirOh, okay.

17:12Jonathan PrivettSo there are a few shots in where we physically basically widened the camera or moved it faster or slowed it down so that we could fit the intended animation into the, into the space that was available with the creature being at the right scale. I finished it so long ago I can't give you that many examples.

17:32Jawad MirNo, it's okay. I was just…

17:33Jonathan PrivettBut I think, I think there's a couple of T-Rex shots where we had to do that, 'cause it's such a big animal. You know, it's 14 meters long. It's hard to visualize a 14-meter long creature. It's b… it's big. I can tell you that much.

17:47Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

17:50Jonathan PrivettSo…

17:50Jawad MirGreat

17:50Jonathan Privett... Yeah. So there were shots like that. And also what we did, you were talking about, you know, tracking through and revealing with creatures behind the foreground element, which is very much, a part of the nature of filming wildlife, is that often they…

18:09Jonathan Privett... Don't get a clear shot of the creature. So it becomes part of the visual language that people are used to watching when they see wildlife, is that you don't get a clear head shot because, you know, the cameraman's in the Serengeti and there just happens to be stuff in the way. And so we would create that foreground stuff, of course, because that's all blue screened… Elements, to be able to put them in front of the creatures. So some of that stuff is artifice as well, where we've deliberately shot blue screen elements with Jamie.

18:40Jonathan PrivettBut to give us that feeling where we get those reveals and a bit like we're, you know, we have that window into the creature's world rather than just a, you know, a clear-cut thing that you'd have in a drama where you'd not obscure somebody's face for obvious reasons.

18:57Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. No, that's, that's, that's, that's something I've always enjoyed about the nature documentaries and, you know, it's just that level of intimacy. And obviously, you know, when you're watching it seems like it was a piece of cake. But obviously, you know, I remember watching behind the scenes of, I think it was Planet Earth, the first one, the series. And at that time I realized, I'm like, I think that was like 13 years ago, if I'm not mistaken. There was a sequence of, plants growing. I don't remember the details, but it was basically a 360 degree where the camera would go from the branch of the limb of the tree, come down, go around, and go through other branches and come back up. And that entire shot that lasted, I would like to guess 10 to 20 seconds, was a year-long project. And, it was, you know, it's just, it's amazing the amount of patience and p… people on field, especially for nature docs have, because it's not that easy.

20:05Jawad MirAnd to be able to pull that off, and then if something goes wrong, the shot's gone. You know, it's like you can't tell the giraffe or zebra to redo it or move back and it, you just have to wait it out.

20:15Jonathan PrivettNo, exactly. I mean, that's the thing. They, you know, they are very patient people and, yeah, some… sometimes, you know, they'll go out into the field and not come back. They, you know, they're obviously, without giving a spoiler away, there's a, you know, there's a sequence in this, a wildlife sequence not a visual effects one, where, there's a certain creature in it and there's a key moment, and actually they don't, they don't get the key moment. They get the, get the before and after the key moment. But you know, it's just that particular moment of what happened…

20:48Jawad MirYeah

20:48Jonathan Privett... Wasn't caught on camera. And you know, that can happen, you know. And if you spend…

20:52Jawad MirOh, yeah

20:52Jonathan Privett... Six months trying to get it, that's, that's it. That's what you ha… you have to live with the fact that it didn't quite h… work out in the way you wanted. So they enjoyed working with me 'cause at least I could get it to work out the way they wanted pretty much all the time.

21:06Jawad MirYeah. No, the, you know, capturing the moment, it's so key and it's in any kind of doc form. I, and I remember about 10 years ago, when I, when I made my first documentary, 10 years ago or 13 years ago, I remember like, you know, you're rolling and you're like, "Okay, this is getting a r… little repetitive," and you stop rolling, and then the something happens right there. Like, literally you stop rolling, what you are waiting for happens naturally. You're like, "Shit." So, you know, the ke… the lesson is you just keep rolling. You know, you just don't know what that second that you may need, it may pop up, and that's just the way the Murphy's Law works. There's always something that you'll end up missing and you have to work around it.

21:49Jonathan PrivettYeah. So obviously when they, when they work, they use pre-roll on the camera, which for the viewers who don't know, basically means it's sort of recording all the time.

21:57Jawad MirYeah.

21:57Jonathan PrivettBit like a dash cam.

21:58Jawad MirYeah.

21:59Jonathan PrivettSo you always know that it, that you can get what you need. So…

22:04Jawad MirYeah

22:04Jonathan Privett... I think a lot of great wildlife documentaries have been caught because of pre-roll, because of pre-roll with stuff happening.

22:13Jawad MirYeah, 100%. 100%. And what, when you, was, when you got the footage, was it coming in chunks or was it like when ev… when each episode was over, that's when you were starting it or was it just all over the place?

22:30Jonathan PrivettIt c… we filmed it, we didn't film it in order, in any real order. So it came in as sequences basically at random… ... Depending on when we film them. So the very first thing we filmed, we filmed in Chile in the Atacama before lockdown.

22:52Jonathan PrivettAnd so that was the, that was, well, by nature of the fact it was the first thing we did, came in. So it came in sequences. Yeah, they got turned over in a fairly arbitrary order depending on when we filmed them really. But nice. So the nice thing about the show is that it does stick with that wildlife format in that we tell discrete little six or seven minute stories about the creatures and how they fit into the overarching, story of, you know, life on Earth. Which is what made the story really great, I think, is that, you know, th… there is that continuous line even though bits of it fall off from the start to where we are now. Which is why it works so well, I think because you get, you can get involved in an actual story, whereas, although Prehistoric Planet is a great documentary, it doesn't have the same story arc continuing through the whole thing that we're lucky enough to have with telling the story of all of life on Earth.

23:56Jawad MirYeah. And I won't lie when I say this, when I first saw the trailer, like I remember the opening images when the T-Rex attacks the triceratops. I, my first reaction was, "Did we just not see this on Apple?" You know, like literally that was what's, just my first reaction. And then when I saw the trailer, I'm like, "Okay, this is interesting." But when I started the series, it was just completely different and, you know, nothing like Prehistoric Planet. Again, there's only similarity is there's just some dinosaurs and that's it. Like there's nothing else comparable, at all. And I found this way more interesting. I didn't finish Prehistoric Planet completely. I think I… Probably finished most of the season for first season, with my kids, and, now my kids are watching this one. They're on episode five, I think, and they're really enjoying it.

24:46Jonathan PrivettRight. Yeah, I think, I think the thing, great thing about Life on Our Planet is the story sort of gets more involving as you go along, a bit like when you watch a drama. So I think… ... You know, you watch the first episode, you're a bit like, "Well," you know, and then y… you get the hook in. So I hope, you know, listeners who are doing it, I would say, you know, you, if you get through, go through episodes one and two, and episode one is a bit of a sort of everything, to…

25:13Jawad MirYeah

25:13Jonathan Privett... Try and get started from a position. But once you get past that, I think you get into the meat of the story. It was really great. It goes along. And we deliberately, part of Amblin's input was to have to try and design cliffhangers, at the end of the series to go, oh, this is, you know, as you would do in a drama, to go, "I've got to watch next week's now to find out what happens with this…"

25:36Jawad MirYeah

25:37Jonathan Privett... "end," at the end of this particular episode. So and hopefully that's moderately successful

25:42Jawad MirAnd

25:42Jonathan PrivettEnjoy

25:43Jawad Mir... A… and no, a… and that worked because maybe that's the reason. I mean, I can't remember it now. That's the reason I probably kept watching it on the plane because, you know, normally on a flight, like when you're, you know, five, six-hour flight, you get tired and you wanna do different things. You wanna listen to music, you wanna take a nap, you know, a bunch of different things, but it was just like a continuous thing, like, you know, four and a half, maybe five episodes, if my memory serves me right. Yeah, and it was just, you know, so well done. And one thing I noticed, so I was always looking for, and just because the filmmaker in me, which footage is real. I mean, some of it was obvious, right? Like the dinosaurs or prehistoric creatures or prehistoric insects and bugs. But most of the stuff I couldn't differentiate between, you know, the way the movements were of, any prehistoric creature versus the current creatures, like, you know, whether it's a dinos… sorry, giraffe or zebra. Yeah, there you could tell maybe if you looked really closely.

26:46Jawad MirBut I think the challenge that I found, at least where it became very obvious for me, was the very first episode. I think it was... I don't remember the e… it was under the water. The very first, giant ma… fish that you guys show.

27:05Jonathan PrivettOh, yeah.

27:05Jawad MirIt's kind of…

27:05Jonathan PrivettThat's the one.

27:06Jawad MirYeah. I thought that was a l… because I know doing effects in waters is not that easy. It's like a very challenging thing. Like did, was that something that you were satisfied with as a just an individual, like the way it came out? How challenging was that to put that o… pull that off?

27:23Jonathan PrivettReally challenging, actually. The Dunkleosteus is the name of the creature, big bony head.

27:28Jawad MirOkay.

27:29Jonathan PrivettFish. And yeah, really that was a quite hard creature to animate because it is quite prehistoric. And so I, and it's much bonier than quite a lot of modern fish that we're used to. So the big front section of it is armored, and so that bit doesn't move very much because it's, I mean, it's completely rigid. And it's also a giant creature that they, I think estimates vary, but we made one that was about eight meters long in the end.

27:58Jonathan PrivettAnd you would think animating a fish would be really straightforward, but there's something about the motion that's very hard to capture, especially at scale.

28:09Jawad MirYeah

28:09Jonathan Privett... So we both needed it to move quite quickly to keep the pace up, but also to be real… realistic. And I think maybe as you picked up, maybe it's a little bit fast. I watched it again the other day

28:24Jawad MirYeah

28:24Jonathan Privett... And thought, "Yeah, could have been a bit fast for the scale." maybe that's w… that's what's wrong with it. I mean, we spent a lot of time doing that sequence because it's also one of the few sequences where everything is visual effects, so we didn't shoot any live action…

28:39Jawad MirYeah. I w…

28:39Jonathan Privett... Photography.

28:40Jawad MirRight. I was gonna say that I think…

28:41Jonathan PrivettFor the deep ocean, the…

28:42Jawad MirYeah.

28:43Jonathan PrivettYeah. 'Cause you got, because we can't track the camera, so we, i… if you imagine when we make these virtual creatures, we have to put them into the scene and, you know, their feet have to stick to the ground, and they have to be moving correctly in the environment, and we have to create a virtual camera to do that. But you can't do it in the open ocean because nothing stays still, so you have no reference point to work with.

29:07Jawad MirYeah.

29:07Jonathan PrivettEverything's just moving around. So that was one of the ones where we actually had to make everything. But yeah…

29:13Jawad MirYeah

29:13Jonathan Privett... Super challenging, to do, to do that big creature. And it's, and it's not something that people are used to seeing either. It's quite an odd-looking thing. So… ... Definitely one of the more challenging bits.

29:26Jawad MirIs it fair to say that was something that took the longest, or at least one of the scenes that took the longest?

29:31Jonathan PrivettIt would be the fairest to say it was one of the scenes that went the most over budget.

29:36Jawad MirOkay.

29:38Jonathan PrivettSo, yeah.

29:38Jawad MirFair enough.

29:39Jonathan PrivettYeah.

29:39Jawad MirThat's, that's long then. Yeah.

29:41Jonathan PrivettYeah, in relative terms, it took longer than it should have done. Yeah.

29:46Jawad MirYeah.

29:46Jonathan PrivettYeah.

29:47Jawad MirAnd I wonder, you know, like I, w… because human, w… there have been so many nature documentaries, you know, especially in the last 10 years, 15 years, that human eyes kind of become accustomed to what's underneath the water, right? Had that not been the case, I believe that people would probably assume that's how it is underwater. Like, that's how you film it. I think because people have become so immune to it, so accustomed to it's not, it's not that, it's, people can pick up things now very quickly, especially even underwater.

30:20Jonathan PrivettYeah. I mean, I think that's true of all the things that we did, is that i… your familiarity with w… observing things, y… you almost don't realize, but subconsciously you understand quite a lot about the world. So making a, for instance, making the Smilodon cat… Is harder than making some of the other prehistoric creatures because you know how that thing should move and what it should do and the expressions it should make and how its ears move and all those things, because you're familiar with watching domestic cats or indeed wildlife documentaries of lions and tigers, which are pretty similar.

30:59Jawad MirYeah.

30:59Jonathan PrivettSo the closer the thing is to, like, the human experience, the much more difficult they are to realize effectively. So a T-Rex is s… essentially fairly easy. I mean, we have no experience of huge bipedal, reptily things wandering around. Well, they're dinosaurs, not reptiles, but, yeah. So they are a little bit more forgiving than something like a fish, which everyone knows what a fish does. You know, you've seen lots of them.

31:29Jawad MirYeah. Right. How big was your team in the visual effects department?

31:37Jonathan PrivettPretty varied really. I mean, I can't remember the exact number of people that touched the show, but it would be between 100 and 200, and probably at the, at its peak we had sort of 70 or 80 people working on the show.

31:52Jawad MirIncredible

31:53Jonathan Privett... Towards the end. But it was a very long period of time. It turned out to be, you know, the production from, when we filmed in Chile to the end, you know, was at least three years. And I'd been talking about the show for a good 18 months, two years before we actually put pen to paper. So yeah, extraordinarily long time for…

32:16Jawad MirYeah

32:16Jonathan Privett... A project that will…

32:17Jawad MirWell COVID had a lot to do with it, right? So I mean, that pushed things.

32:23Jonathan PrivettYeah. It did happen, you know, slap back in, bang in the middle of COVID.

32:27Jawad MirYeah

32:27Jonathan Privett... And most of the work was actually done remotely, which is also pretty challenging for a visual effects supervisor. I mean, I like to get all the people in a room and point at stuff in person and talk through the creative issues. So yeah, it's, it's very much harder to do that remotely. You know, and a lot, a lot more time consuming 'cause you have to speak to people individually really. It's much harder to do it en masse. So that was, yeah, one of the more challenging bits. Though, you know, if I could turn back the clock, obviously I don't think anyone would want COVID, but, it definitely made the pro… the project more difficult. I remember handing out keyboards and, computer monitors at ILM on the day that London was shut down basically to send people home. So we had to send 500 people home from the office in one day.

33:23Jonathan PrivettA… and then get them all working from home, which is not…

33:26Jawad MirYeah

33:27Jonathan Privett... An easy task.

33:29Jawad MirYeah, no, that was, I, it was a, it's almost, it's almost a blur to me now all that time period, and I would like to keep it that way. I don't, I don't wanna go through that again. But, what was the... The show came out last week. Yes.

33:46Jonathan PrivettYes

33:46Jawad Mir... And…

33:47Jonathan PrivettIt did

33:48Jawad Mir... I should say the s… the series came out last week. What was the deadline in terms of from your team to have everything done by so that it gets, you know, picture locked basically?

34:03Jonathan PrivettWell, actually it was, it was really interesting. We d… we obviously are not in control of when Netflix schedule things, but we finished the show a year ago.

34:14Jawad MirOh, wow.

34:14Jonathan PrivettYeah. Yeah, so it was finished way... Our stuff was finished way before it was needed. I mean, and we didn't know what the scheduling was gonna be, so, but that was our deadline. Yeah, so we finished sort of October and shoveled on a bit into November, but over a year ago. Yeah. It, so, yeah.

34:38Jawad MirInteresting.

34:39Jonathan PrivettI've been working on the, currently here filming for at least since the beginning of this year anyway, or just a few months into this year. So yeah, it's quite weird. I was back on the road and filming in April this year, so yeah, a long, a long time between us finishing and it being on…

34:58Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, I wonder that, why that was. I mean, I'm sure it was, like, marketing reasons or, you know, the audience and…

35:05Jonathan PrivettYeah

35:06Jawad Mir... May… maybe the Christmas…

35:07Jonathan PrivettYeah, who knows at that point

35:09Jawad Mir... Thanksgiving approaching in the US and Christmas approaching. But yeah, no, it, that's interesting. And for me, one thing I truly enjoyed among everything else was, you know, the, b… we're moving on from visual effects a little bit, is, you know, obviously Morgan Freeman's narration, you know, that really did it. But also the s… the script was really well done. But the sheer amount of footage there was, I mean, if you start counting the number of shots, I mean, it's cra… I do that anyways, but for this particular film it's a little bit different because you have to add these visual effects. It's not like, you know, you have a zebra running in or a lion catching a deer throughout, in and out. But just to kind of go through all that and making, finding the right moments and adding those visual effects, i… it's just, it's a, must be a daunting task. I mean, you probably learned a lot, from this.

36:09Jonathan PrivettYeah. I mean, I think shot count-wise, certainly one of the biggest shows I've ever done, 'cause obviously it's stretched. I mean, Outlander was probably similar 'cause that was 16 episodes. But, yeah, y… this is, it, you know, it's, it's eight. They're not, they're not hour longs, but they're, you know, 45, 50 minutes, so it ended up being 900 shots, which is, you know, that's a lot of shots. It's like making an animated…

36:35Jawad MirYeah

36:35Jonathan Privett... Feature almost by the time you're done in terms of the shot count. I luckily, because it was spread over a long time and it came in piecemeal, it was, it never felt so daunting because it always comes in a discrete chunk where you're doing one. So, you know, you've got the Terror Bird versus Smilodon scene, and that's 40 shots. So you just go, "Okay, that's 40 shot chunk." We'll we'll do this chunk. We'll get that done, you know?

37:05Jawad MirYeah.

37:05Jonathan PrivettAnd then we're doing fish and... So i… I mean, it's the big challenge. It's a…... We, every time we version something, it gets reviewed, and it gets a little internal number, and we reviewed over 60,000 versions

37:23Jawad MirWow

37:23Jonathan Privett... Of shots. Yeah. Which…

37:26Jawad MirThat's…

37:27Jonathan PrivettIt's it's a lot of hours of looking…

37:29Jawad MirThat's crazy number. Well, it's not even…

37:31Jonathan PrivettYeah

37:31Jawad Mir... Just the hours and the crazy amount of footage and time, but it's just y… you get, you know, it's just like editing a feature. You get sick and tired of looking at the same thing over and over again, and your creativity kinds, you know, kind of fades out on that particular thing. Like, how much can I do or what can, what should I do? But again, that's, that's why creative people are creative people, right? So.

37:54Jonathan PrivettYeah. I mean, I d… I, by the end of it, I definitely had what I call decision fatigue, where you…

38:02Jawad MirThat's a great word for it. Yeah

38:03Jonathan Privett... Yeah, you're making so many decisions that in my everyday life, my poor wife had…... Had to put up with me going like, "Look, I literally, I can't make a decision about anything. Don't ask me whether I want, you know, my toast buttered or not. I can't make another decision. I'm out of decisions." Just bring me

38:24Jawad MirI don't…

38:24Jonathan Privett... Or whatever. But yeah, it takes a little while to recover. Takes a few weeks to get over decision fatigue, but

38:33Jawad MirYeah. I don't blame you. I don't blame you at all. And it can be daunting, but at the same time, when the results do come out and people start watching it, then that thing goes out the wi… you know, I'm glad I did what I did. And that feeling of people praising your work or even just watching it, not necessarily praising it, you know, it's, it's, it means a lot to an artist.

38:54Jonathan PrivettYeah. Yeah. I mean, the, just the process of creating a product that people are hopefully able to enjoy, it is…

39:00Jawad MirYeah

39:01Jonathan Privett... Is brilliant. I mean, it's a luxury that, you know, I don't take for granted, that I'm very privileged to be able to do that. You know, it was pretty terrifying really for the show because the budget was very tight for the ambition, and it, you know, the w… the way, the weight of it being ILM at the same time. So, you know, I say to people that the expectations I worked out just to scare myself, but I think we have about something like 1/15 of the money per screen minute that Jurassic Park has. So you have, so you have to make something that's roughly approximate on about 7.5% of the money that you would have had you had you…

39:45Jawad MirYeah

39:45Jonathan Privett... Made Jurassic Park. Which is a pretty daunting task. And h… and hopefully, you know, it stands up for the most part to that. I mean, obviously it's not as complicated as Jurassic Park. But it's a d… it's different. It has different challenges. There's a lot of long lingering shots which you get in wildlife, which obviously you don't normally do in drama. It's quite cutty.

40:07Jawad MirYeah.

40:07Jonathan PrivettSo there's nowhere to hide when you stick the camera in the face of a Smilodon for a 45-second shot. You know, it's fairly disturbing for a visual effects supervisor. But yeah, fingers crossed we get away with it most of the time.

40:24Jawad MirYeah. You know, speaking of Jurassic Park, did you see any of the films, you know, kind of just to get some... Not that you know, you need inspiration, but at the same time, like, I always watch The Godfather before I start anything, just to kind of be in that f… you know, mindset.

40:43Jonathan PrivettYeah. I mean, I watched quite a few wildlife documentaries interestingly

40:46Jawad MirOkay

40:47Jonathan Privett... To…

40:48Jawad MirWh… which ones?

40:50Jonathan PrivettWell, obviously Life on our pla… Our Planet, Our Planet, which had been made by Silverback as well, which is a fantastic…

40:58Jawad MirYeah

40:58Jonathan Privett... Series, by the way. Still on Netflix.

40:59Jawad MirYeah. Sophie was telling me about it. I gotta watch it.

41:03Jonathan PrivettYeah. It's really good. And Blue Planet. Some of the things that they've made when they were at the NHU with the BBC, obviously all those… ... Blue chip things. And Jurassic I have obviously seen multiple times. But I actually had to s… actually had to put a glass wall up. So David Vickery, my colleague, was making the most recent Jurassic World film at the same time…

41:27Jawad MirOh, wow

41:27Jonathan Privett... As we were doing this. And I knew, we both knew that we had some overlapping creatures that do actually appear in both films. A… and so we had to not, deliberately not look at each other's work really, 'cause it... I was told in no uncertain terms that if it looked like anything from Jurassic, I'd be in big trouble. So, I di… I didn't wanna give myself that visual stimulation of seeing anything that Dave was doing at the same time as, making Leap, which was quite hard. So we'd go and have the occasional beer and, you know, complain about making dinosaurs, but try not to look at what we were, each other were doing.

42:09Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. No, that makes sense. And that, now that I think about it, we're talking about Jurassic Park, and we're talking about why did they delay it that long for them to release it. It makes sense now because, as of September, there has been a massive promotion going on in UK, in US, in Canada for Jurassic Park, the original one, 30th anniversary. So I think they…

42:33Jonathan PrivettYeah

42:33Jawad Mir... Wanted to tie that in, you know, that same audience that excited about dinosaurs and Jurassic Park, kind of part of that audience. My guess is that because it doesn't make any other sense to me for them to delay it that long. But yeah, Jurassic Park, I mean, it's, it's one of the most amazing films ever made. And I'm happy to tell you that there were none of the dinosaurs, which I was hoping to, would look like similar to the Jurassic Park. It didn't come through, so mission accomplished for you.

43:01Jonathan PrivettYeah. I didn't get fired.

43:05Jawad MirI sure hope not. I sure hope not. Yeah. Listen, Jonathan, this has been fantastic. I'm sorry your flight's been canceled. I hope…

43:15Jonathan PrivettThat's

43:15Jawad MirI…

43:16Jonathan Privett... Like how that works out.

43:19Jawad MirI hope it works out. And, it's been a pleasure speaking to you. I would love to speak to you about anything that you've done recently or in upcoming, future. Whatever you feel comfortable with, let me know. I'd love to have you on. I had a great time and would love to, chat with you again.

43:37Jonathan PrivettThat would be great. Well, thank you very much for your time. Been delightful speaking to you.

43:42Jawad MirPleasure's all mine, Jonathan. Thank you so much.

43:44Jonathan PrivettThanks a lot. I'll see you again soon. Bye.

43:46Jawad MirYep, for sure. Bye-bye.