'Witness', Cinematographer, John Seale

0:08John SealeHow is, how are you?

0:09Jawad MirGood, John. How are you doing?

0:11John SealeVery good. Very good. Plunging through retirement.

0:17Jawad MirYeah. No, I hope you're enjoying it. I hope you're really enjoying it.

0:20John SealeI warned my agent the other day, that, if I wanted a good holiday, I'll ring, give her a ring and do a movie.

0:30Jawad MirIs that, is that something up in the, on the horizon you think?

0:33John SealeNo. No. But I realize now that, the way things are going with the digital revolution that…

0:41Jawad MirYeah

0:42John Seale... The, cameraman doesn't really spend a lot of time now on set, I found on the last film. With the digital cameras, you spend a lot of the time in the DIT tent, just sitting there eating donuts and drinking coffee. So that's why I said if I want a holiday, I'll go back to work.

1:09Jawad MirWell, it's interesting you mention that now, right? Because there was that, what you just said, there was that, and then there's all this new AI stuff that's happening, right? And the strike and how those things are unfolding. I mean, if anything, the animation division, like, you know, people who are full-time animators, they're... The way things are going, they're, they might be out of work in the next four or five years, maybe even earlier.

1:36John SealeYeah. Yeah. It's, and it's... I don't think anybody really has the answer because the answers…

1:45Jawad MirYeah

1:45John Seale... You know, the que… we're still asking the questions. So while that's going on, you're not gonna know the answer. It'll just evolve, I think.

1:54Jawad MirYeah, I think so too. But, you know, good to have you back, John. Really enjoyed my conversation with you about The English Patient. And, you know, I saw Mosquito Coast after a long time. I had actually completely forgotten the film. And maybe at the time I didn't unders… Well, it's a very deep film, right? I mean, it's just literally about per… in my opinion, Harrison Ford's best performance.

2:25John SealeOh, great

2:25Jawad Mir... Yeah. And, how it sort of deals with power and what happens when power gets to your head and what... You know, at a very small scale, but that's how things start. So totally love the film, love the cinematography, and that's why I wanted to chat with you, that how did you come on board? Was it your first film with Peter Weir? Or was it something else that you had worked on before? I mean, you guys are both Australian, so that was probably the biggest commonality.

2:58John SealeYeah. Oh, no. It wasn't my first film. I'd worked with Peter in Australia a lot, actually. I was camera operator for the great Russell Boyd, who photographed three of Peter's early Australian films. Picnic at Hanging Rock, Last Wave, and Gallipoli.

3:22John SealeAnd I was very lucky to be asked by the both of them to, be camera operator. And then later, due to conflicting schedules and whatnot, Peter asked me, asked me to go to Belize to shoot, The Mosquito Coast, and it was the first film overseas for me. But unfortunately, we went over to Belize, and we went through LA, and we picked up all the camera gear, electrics, grips, and we, you know, the gaffer and I from Australia went over there and did that. But unfortunately, it crashed, and we were given a ticket and, sent home straightaway. And so I thought that was the end of it.

4:15John SealeBut, I think it was only about six or eight weeks later, Peter rang and said, "Look, I've got another film to do in America. Are you available?" And I had a few commercials and, things lined up. Nothing big. There wasn't much movie industry in Australia. So I was doing commercials, and I said, "Look, yes, I am. I can cancel those." And he said, "Well, it's a cop film, set in Philadelphia with Harrison Ford." And I gulped and thought, "With Harrison Ford?" At that stage, Harrison was and obviously still is a top box office man.

4:59John SealeAnd, I went over there, and we did, Witness. And it was, I think it was out of the success of Witness that, the studios felt they would then back Mosquito Coast with Harrison in it. So that's how it d… it did a sort of a turnaround of collapsing it one minute, do another film that interests people, in America, and then going back and being able to do the original film.

5:28Jawad MirRight. Witness was a fantastic film, but I would sort of sway away from that for now for another day. But Mosquito Coast, I mean, it... How much time, how big was your crew, for that film especially, which is where, what the majority of the film takes place, in the jungle? How big was your crew? What kind of difficulties you guys had? How was it easy adjusting to the climate, the bugs?

6:00John SealeI think, I think to be honest, I took a lot of Australians in… ... Because I wanted that security, of mind that I had a crew that I'd worked with before in Australia. And I was treating, Witness, in fact, and Mosquito Coast, those early American films, as Australian films. I had a… I did have a little bit of a fall about on Witness, with the, this, camera, grip, electrics crew. In fact, the whole crew were from the East Coast of America, and they're noisy. They're a noisy mob, they really are. And I had this very lovely focus puller from New York, since passed away very sadly, Bruce McCallum. And we would be… had been shooting for a week on that, and I… he said to me, he said something to me about how I lit it.

7:12John Seale"Why didn't you do this?" And I thought, "Oh, gee, maybe I'm doing this wrong." And, but Peter, being a very astute man with people, characters, and personalities, I think he pinged to it, and he just said to me, "Johnny," he said, "Don't worry about anything with the crew. This is an Australian film. You and I are doing it. It's just that all of the rest of the crew have a funny accent." "Other, otherwise, it's an Australian film." And that set me straight on Witness. So when I went into, Mosquito Coast, I was a little more au fait with the East Coast. But we were gonna shoot, you know, pretty well all of the film in Belize, and I knew that Australians were very good travelers, workers and travelers. They, you know, they don't complain too much about food or accommodation. It's whatever they, i… is the best that the company can offer is good enough. So I thought, "No, they'll be more robust in, Belize," 'cause Belize was a really tough little place.

8:23John SealePeople got beaten up, going to the, anywhere by themselves. We never walked alone. You always had two or three of you. I… it was a tough little place, and I knew the s… the Australians could handle themselves. Some of them a little too well, actually. But, so I took Australians in. And of course, that comfort zone made the whole, exercise of shooting, in Belize very much easier, I think, and I hope, for Peter and myself. So it changed, capacity when Harrison came on board, because the original film that we set off to make before Witness, didn't have Harrison. Harrison came on board because of Witness. So we suddenly had a good friendly face there as well, and also somebody who would also,.. You know, I always felt he was more Australian with a funny accent than not.

9:27John SealeHe lived on a lovely luxurious ship, which was by virtue of the company because he's our, he's our star, our actor that needs to keep the film rolling, so we've got to look after him, he… health-wise, food-wise, water-wise. The ship had its own desalinators, had chefs on board. The food was carefully checked. We all got sick with food in Belize. It's, it, as I said, it's a tough little place to shoot.

9:58Jawad MirYeah.

9:58John SealeBut Harrison was looked after very well. But he blazed into the jungle. I mean, he's a, he's a great man and a, and a great actor in that role, and I think he enjoyed that role of being somebody who's very prepared to buck society at that time. And I think Paul Theroux's brilliant novel, I loved it when I read it, I thought it was fantastic, and it was a needed novel at that time. And I believe Peter felt the same, enough to do the film. So I think all in all, everything converged onto that film, using, say, Witness as an interim, exploratory film into the crews and Harrison. And then being able to put Mosquito Coast together, I think was very beneficial actually in the long run.

10:56Jawad MirYeah. It was, it was just one of those films with Harrison Ford where he, you know, he literally took charge from the opening scene. I mean, he does that in most of his roles, if not all. But it was just something so unique. Like, you know, we've seen him as Indiana Jones. We have seen him as Han Solo. I forget the name of the character in The Fugitive, and also in Witness. Like, all these characters, but this was just, like, he was just so full of himself. Like, the way Peter directed him and he acted the script was you are with him as, you empathize with him. But then as the film, you know, takes a shape, you start, at least for me, I couldn't stand him. Like, I started disliking him because of the way…

11:46John SealeYeah

11:46Jawad Mir... Because of the choice, with the choices and decisions that he was making. But that confidence level that he had, I mean, he just led everybody, like, and you know, to even his... Like, even to the last, I think it was the second last p… just before the last act, when they get onto the beach, I literally thought, because I wasn't sure how many minutes of the movie was left, I was so into it, I thought that this is almost over. And then he tells the kids that…... That there has been a nuclear holocaust, and everybody's convinced. I'm like, wow, this guy is, like, so, you know, such conviction. And I was talking to, Richard, Francis, who kind of came in at the end for just a little bit of editing. I was talking to him about Mad Max, and he said to me, and he didn't remember what it was, he said to me there was a lot more, that was shot in USA that gave context to his decision of moving, all of a sudden because he does kind of, it, the things kind of shift from US o… very quickly.

12:48Jawad MirDo you remember what that, what that was that the context of those scenes, if there was anything? That's what Richard was mentioning it.

12:57John SealeNo. As you know, with all films, you shoot a lot more, 10 to one…

13:01Jawad MirYeah

13:01John Seale... Ratio in a way. So there's always surplus material, for the editors and directors to play with in post. So, I, it's a long time ago.

13:13Jawad MirYou can't remember.

13:14John SealeSo and so, I can't remember exactly what scenes…

13:18Jawad MirNo worries

13:18John Seale... Might have, might have been deleted, but there's always that surplus.

13:23Jawad MirYeah

13:24John Seale... And it's, I've always admired, especially Richard Francis-Bruce. I mean, I did a lot of films with him in Australia, and I did a few, overseas internationally, over the years, and I've always loved the way he worked and thought and sussed out, the edit of a movie, on that 10 to one ratio or whatever the ratio might have been. I've always loved that. So I think with he and Peter in the editing room, they would have taken the bones out of obviously the material that we shot, prior to them leaving for the coast that, Peter could get the essence of the character out of that. You know, sometimes a cameraman can be very disappointed as to what's cut out of a film.

14:17Jawad MirOh, for sure.

14:18John SealeBecause sometimes you think, "Oh, that scene, that lovely scene that was so... I thought was... I shot it so beautifully and it's not in the movie." And I learnt very early in the piece, though, on another film that, if it doesn't make the film work, then you can't have it in the movie just 'cause it looks lovely. So, I didn't worry about anything that's not used and,.. But I've always, as I said, admired, not only Richard Francis-Bruce, but the combination of Peter Weir and Richard putting together a film as complex in its, in its characters and its portrayal of those characters, in, and cutting it to exactly what they feel is the quantity of the present… presenting of those characters. I think, I think in essence, I mean, I love that. I love the character fighting against society.

15:21John SealeI don't think a lot of people maybe in America did. You know, America is a very, materialistic place and, I think that, I think that the character wanted to be more independent of society. It's something I've always felt as well in a way that we're being too, we're leaning a little bit too heavily on, maybe government, departments that are, that would come and help us. My argument always is a little bit like the Allie Fox character is why not be more independent within yourself? So I enjoyed this, the book immensely, and I enjoyed, you know, crossed fingers that I was asked to help Peter, make it, because I just loved the idea of that character trying to say to people, "Be more independent within a family, within your self, to the, to the problems that are going to occur in our society."

16:41John SealeAnd that way I think you can survive as a family, which is what Allie Fox wanted to do. And I... But at the time of that film, maybe a lot of people didn't appreciate what he was getting at. So, I think it was very bold and brave of, Peter and of, Harrison particularly taking on a character such as that.

17:08Jawad MirYeah. And it was like, you know, even though it was man versus society, but I also fe… felt it was a man versus himself, kind of a, you know, a story where if he had any doubts, he would just cover them up or, try to look at a bright side. And you're so right about the being independent because, you know, we, the way the world is going, I mean, who knows what's gonna happen in the next five minutes or the next 50 years or five years. But if something does go down, I mean, COVID kind of showed that how do you survive as an individual? Like, if you are dependent so much on the government with every little thing, how do you survive? Would you be able to survive on your own in a jungle? Kind of like Swiss Family Robinson tale, right? Or Robinson Crusoe. But yeah, no, it, he, Harrison was just phenomenal. Like, I cannot stress that enough. I mean, I've pretty much seen every one of his film, and that to me was a standout performance.

18:11Jawad MirAnd it's, and you're right, I think it came out at the wrong time… Because that sense of individuality, I think it would do really well now if it was to come out. And I think there's a series now out too on Apple TV. I haven't seen it. There is a new series out, called The Mosquito Coast.

18:29John SealeYeah.

18:29Jawad MirBut, how many days were you in the jungle? How many months or weeks? Or was it continuous?

18:38John SealeAt the time, it always feels like a lifetime. I can't remember actually the exact, schedule. It was a few months we were in Belize. And then up on the East Coast to Boston. I think we went to Boston to do the departure scene where he's, he waves and says, "Goodbye, America. Have a nice day." which is another line, I think, which upset probably a lot, a lot of people at the time, but, the truth. And, but we're a few months in there. And, as I said, Belize was a very tough place to work, in lots of ways. The, there were a lot of, factions down there that were…

19:30John Seale... Quite interesting. A lot of people dropping out of society for a l… number of reasons. I remember you could buy a passport for $25,000, and become a Belizean overnight. Which a lot of people, I think, were doing down there. We had a situation where we had to take a, the, rigger and I took a boat down to find a tin of paint, water-based paint that had been thrown into the mangroves from a helicopter to get a spot for a cra… a, tower, camera tower to be built 60 feet high, to get those final shots of the boat coming down the river and out to the ocean. And, it was, we were told if we take the inland waterways down to that location, to be careful, don't stop, just go where you have to go. Don't stop on the way or anything like that.

20:32John SealeAnd it was quite eerie because we'd come round a corner and there'd be a house sitting up on the, up on the bank. And, as we approached, windows would close, doors would close as we went by. And it was, you'd, you'd look at it and you'd think, "Hang on, I don't know what's going on in there, but there's something going on in there." So it was a very tough place to work. And a lot of, problems came out of it. You know, some of the crew would ar… one of the crew might arrive in the morning with a black eye, and I'd say…

21:09Jawad MirOh, wow

21:09John Seale... "What did you do, G… yeah. Did you, did you walk down to the bar by yourself?" "No," he said, "Three or four of us went down." But he said, "Once we got to the bar," he said, "I went to the bathroom by myself." And they beat him up in the bar and took his money. So that happened a reasonable number of times. And we would, we'd be sitting in the bar and some Rastafarian would sidle up and say, "Hey, mon. What do you want? I get you anything you want. Anything." And you just knew that underneath all of that, there were anything you wanted to buy down there, you could buy in that bar of the Fort George Hotel. So it was,.. But I, it was a fascinating place to work. And

22:00Jawad MirSure

22:00John Seale... And I said tough, but we got on with it.

22:04Jawad MirYeah. I would just make a comment about two things that I really loved from a cinematography standpoint. And you know, there were... I don't know if you rem… if you have seen Mosquito Mo… Coast recently. There was two shots. One of them was when they're about to leave the house, and Helen Mirren's character, looks at the kitchen, and you see all these dishes just, you know, on pile on top of each other. And that visual said so much without ever saying a word. And then Harrison Ford's cha… character, when he is contemplating, about the decision to make that move, the camera sort of come... He's look… He's standing against the window, and the camera comes behind him. And he doesn't really turn around to get, you know, you don't see his profile, but he's thinking and he's talking. And you get that sense from his point of view that he's actually thinking about something very important.

23:05Jawad MirAnd I thought those two things, for me as a filmmaker, just stood out so much, and I really wanted to make that comment that they were, they just said so much without saying anything.

23:17John SealeWell, I think, to be honest, overall, through the work I was, I did with Peter, it was always very exciting because… ... Peter always made his film. And I really liked that in the early Australian days, when really we didn't... Those early Australian films were done on a more of a what if process. You know, what if we do it here? What if we do it there? And by doing that, if you had a mad idea, we would do it because there were, nobody there to say, "Hey, you can't do it that way. You got to do it wide shot, medium shot, close up. Otherwise, the editor can't cut it," which is what…

24:06John Seale... Was pounded into us in the early days. But we did them, and it, s… a scene similar to that oc… had occurred on Witness, where we set the camera up… on a, on a telephone booth with Harrison in the telephone booth, and he's ringing his office. And he... We're, we were actually waiting for the link to come through on the phones, which is what you did in the old days. And the camera's rolling, 'cause we weren't too sure exactly when the dialogue would come through on the phone, and Harrison would go into the dialogue. So we're, the camera was rolling on the back of his head for a long time, and then you hear the voices, and all you hear is, you know, that, his partner's be… been killed, has died. And it was such a powerful thing to be on the back of somebody's head, l… watching them listening in… i… inside their m… mind. And I think that sort of shot, pervaded maybe into Mosquito Coast, that you could do a shot of the back of somebody's head, and the audience was thinking along with them because that's what they were looking at.

25:21John SealeAnd I loved that with Peter and, on the films that we did that he was quite prepared and happy to do those sort of shots, and wanted to do them, without any fear of, the, you know, the upper office storming down and saying, "Hey, you can't do that." So I loved that way that we did that. It's very much like the look of the film, the overall look, which maybe, I don't know, you have a question with. But, at the same time, they were shooting The Mission

26:02John Seale... Two, film in Africa and, I checked everything out, of course. Chris Menges, one of the best cameramen the world's ever seen, was shooting on Agfa, I believe, 'cause Agfa was a beautiful negative.

26:20Jawad MirI remember Agfa.

26:23John SealeYeah. And, it just loved greens, and made them look so lovely. But when we tested all three negatives, we didn't, Peter didn't want to go for that. He didn't want Allie Fox's jungle to be a pretty jungle that everybody would li… love to go to. He wanted a, or if I remember, it was a black greasy jungle where nobody wanted to go into because of that blackness, that greasiness, that, colorless olive drab, olive drab green color, that only Allie Fox could see the beauty in that jungle, dragging his family along behind him. He… So that we selected then Fuji negative, which it didn't like the greens anywhere near as much. It did bring on a drab olive green. And so we shot the film on Fuji for that reason.

27:26John SealeAnd, I loved it because the Fuji was a very fast stock back then, and I used a high-speed negative for the whole film. And so that kept a nice constant color grade, and it also kept a nice constant, grain structure because back then the high-speed negatives had a nice grain in them, which we don't get anymore with digital which is very sad.

27:53Jawad MirYeah.

27:54John SealeSo all of those, all of those, preconceived ideas in pre-production, came to bear o… on the final result of the film. And I think people did feel that what the heck is Allie Fox thinking? How can he s… think this jungle's beautiful? It's as ugly as heck, you know? So all of that was part of, I think, building the character of Allie Fox to control the film.

28:23Jawad MirI'm glad you talked about the look because that was gonna be my next question. And it is so true that, you know, nowadays, like if you... I don't know if you've ever seen Swiss Family Robinson, the Walt Disney one, the 1960s. It wasn't like a dark film, right? But they're stranded on an island, and it was way more saturated than Mosquito Coast. Mind you, it was made 20 or t… 25 years before. And that's, that's one thing I loved about the look. It wasn't sat… Like, it wasn't black and white, of course, but it wasn't oversaturated and it had that rawness, that... And especially the grain. The tint of the green that showed up on the film, I think the grain stood out more on that versus it may have been on a different look. I'm, I'm, I'm not sure. This is just my guess. But it wa… it was phenomenal. And going back to what you were talking about shooting from the back, I think one thing is that it also makes the audience curious what kind of expression this person is having, right?

29:24Jawad MirAnd then you try…

29:25John SealeExactly

29:25Jawad Mir... To get into, like, a what's going on. Like, you just, it gets your attention. And you might think it's the other way around, but just not showing a face or the expression gets the audience right pulled in. But yeah, no, I just wanted to make that comment. I really enjoyed, the cinematography of it and the way the camera followed him in the jungle. You know, especially when they land on the is… the mayor of the city, right? Landed on the island and they're just building from scratch. It was just so, you know, well done in terms of seeing the jungle through his eyes, with the camera following most of the time.

30:05John SealeYeah. Yeah. No, that's where I'll reiterate again that, working with Peter is such a delight because he just, he can, he can see that. He feels it and can see that, putting the people into the, putting the audience onto the beach, putting the audience into the jungle by virtue of the angles or the, or the positioning of the camera. And it's very exciting working with directors like that really make that camera become... I mean, I think… A big part of helping to make films in a, the cinematography side is I've always felt, that we need to suck the audience out of their seat, and float them through the virtual window of the screen…

30:56John Seale... Into another world which we've created and hold them there. And the only way to hold them there is to have good words, good g… performance to those words, camera angles, editing, sound. That is all what I always hoped and felt was natural to that script and geographical situation. So the audience were very comfortable with all of the statistics in front of them. So those visual statistics would happily blend in a continual, form to keep them in the story, and that sadly if something jolted them out of that they would then sh… speck back into their seat and start eating popcorn again, and you'd have to pick them up again and pull them back into the screen, back into the story.

31:59John SealeSo I think, with Peter particularly, he, I felt, was very aware of that, and to keep the audience, in the film all the time by virtue of all the tools he had, was very important. And I think that the angles and s… and, suggestions of the shot to the audience were all part and parcel to lock that audience into the reality of that moment so they were actually there living, as an invisible observer really to this drama that's going on in the life there. I found that, a fantastic, teaching tool in a way to me, as a cameraman, helping on those films, for my future. It was learning to try and always think of keeping the audience in the movie.

33:03John SealeAnd beautiful pictures didn't come into it. The reality came into it. The reality of photography, of image making, I felt was far more important. And I do lecture now to, students that, beautiful photography never helped a bad script. You have…

33:26Jawad MirYeah

33:26John Seale... To have that script and then start working towards making that script a reality in their mind, and I think that's the wonderful challenge of filmmaking.

33:39Jawad MirIt's so true, and, you know, one thing that has suffered in cinema... And by the way, your work in Mosquito Coast and English Patient, I see, I see the similarities, but I see so many differences. And obviously it's because you've, you know, you learned your way through, but also sticking with the roots of what you learned on Mosquito Coast and Witness. But one thing, you know, that I probably started noticing in the last four or five years, is I used to appreciate editing a lot, right? Like, okay, where's what being cut at what timing and everything. But having watched so many films now from the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s more often now than before, I realize that how, and this does not take away anything from cinematography or direction or script, how nowadays special effects, enormous special effects, unnecessary non-practical special effects, and too many cuts, like TV style editing, takes you away from the story completely.

34:42Jawad MirLike it's, I… I don't know if you, have you seen Oppenheimer?

34:45John SealeNot yet. I haven't caught it, no.

34:47Jawad MirYeah. I'm a huge Christopher Nolan fan. I got sucked out of that movie in the ne… first 15 minutes because it was just so many cuts, and, that to me, and a lot of other films too, is just like you just gotta hold on. And I know it, you have to do coverage, and I know there's sometimes you're forced to edit because something was not right in one take or the other, coverage, but that's just something missing. And I, and I find in Durnk… Dunkirk it was there quite a bit. You know, when I saw Saving Private Ryan just recently with my kids, I showed it them first time, I noticed how less of editing was there. Same thing with…

35:24John SealeYeah

35:24Jawad Mir... English Patient, right? But you don't see that very often now, and it, and I think that's one of the reasons among many other audiences are not, they only care for like, you know, IPs like Super Mario, Ninja Turtles, or big superhero movies, because that's, that's what they're getting. And I really miss…

35:47John SealeYeah

35:47Jawad Mir... And I've learned that too. Like I did my first film, I edited a lot. Like I cut between, and then I realized, no, you know, then you gotta stay with the character as much as possible if you can.

35:59John SealeI think, I think, Joe, it's very difficult in a way. I've, I've often nowadays are doing, when I'm asked to do some lectures with students, and there's a lot…

36:14Jawad MirYeah

36:14John Seale... Of them around now.

36:15Jawad MirYeah.

36:15John SealeNobody around when I started, but there's thousands of them now. And they all are looking for the secrets of cinematography or filmmaking or whatever, thinking they're secrets, and I have to try and say to them, "There's no secrets."

36:29Jawad MirYeah.

36:30John SealeIt's, it's, it's the individual is making a film, and you become part of that individual. But some… Over the years, some films suit, longer shots in the edit. And others…

36:49Jawad MirI get it

36:50John Seale... You know, like Mad Max, George went for a very fast, high-powered editing, because it needed it to portray all of the action that was occurring between the…

37:07Jawad MirRight

37:07John Seale... The people. So he kept…

37:09Jawad MirI was referring to action films, just to clarify. Sorry, go on.

37:12John SealeYes. No, but, what I'm trying to get at is that, the rhythm and pace even within a film can be a slower edit to speed up to pass through, you know, a situation that's very vibrant, but then it can slow down again. But I do find that, and agree with you that, a lot of films are overly fast-paced for what seems to be the only reason is to create visual energy. And I think also I'm finding that a lot of camera work is so energized in handheld and, unmotivated zooms in and out to sort of try and energize visually the scenes as well. And I agree with you that when you go back to watching, films made by, say, Peter Weir that we're talking about, obviously, he… none of that came into it, and yet the power of the camera and the visuals during the presentation are all there for the audience…

38:23Jawad MirYeah

38:23John Seale... To be emoted by. They can, you know, either feel frantic or cry or laugh. It's all there. It doesn't need a lot of this sort of fake, visual energy. So I'm trying to tell a lot of students that, you know, go make the film that the director wants to make of that script.

38:48Jawad MirYep.

38:49John SealeNothing else really, you know. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong.

38:53Jawad MirNo, I think you're…

38:54John SealeI've been wrong a lot.

38:55Jawad MirYou're, you're so right, and I'll tell you why, because every… there's a couple of things that, you know, you learn over time. It's like they say, write what you know, right? Like, write what you know. Number one, that's a key thing, whether it's through your experiences or some historical references that you are very knowledgeable about, whatever that is. And I think the second thing is the editing and the camera work and all that becomes invisible, even if there are millions of cuts or camera is shaking or zooming in, if the characters and the script is great. I'll give you a great example. This just came out, six months ago, Blackberry. There's a movie called Blackberry

39:35John SealeOh, yes. I've heard of it

39:36Jawad Mir... On... Yeah. And, it's, I was talking… I was actually speaking to the DP, he's a young guy. They're… it's a Canadian movie, and I rarely watch Canadian films, but it was, it had so... It was like a documentary the way they shot it. It had so many tight shots. It was cut so often. It was, camera was shaking, moving and out. But it worked because it was such a strong, character-driven, intense, fast-paced boom, you know, story that it, I didn't even... Like, it bothered me in the first five minutes, but then I was so hooked, I didn't notice it. So I think…

40:15John SealeYeah

40:15Jawad Mir... That's the thing. Whatever drives the story, like, whatever story you're trying to tell, if you have the right marriage of camera, editing, lighting, direction, acting, characters, script, blend it in, it will work. But if you try to just find, oh, I need to get this cool shot, or I need to cut here just because I have to cut, or what, the... You know, it just, I think that's where everybody screws up. A lot of us. I mean, I have. I'm sure a lot of us do.

40:42John SealeI think there's... In the past, they had all these lovely old philosophies of filmmaking from, the pre-war, pre-Second World War maybe. You know, that all the, all the goodies go left to right and the baddies go right to left, and all of these sort of psychological, reasonings for what, the making of a film, c… in continuity or otherwise. But one of the ones that I always remembered and locked in, I felt, was the editing, philosophy of, you never see the perfect cut because it's what you wanted to happen, did.

41:24Jawad MirYep.

41:26John SealeAnd that, al… I always used to think about that. And when I was camera operating, because I so loved camera operating, I tried always to think about where will the cut be and try to anticipate it to the point so that the camera wasn't moving or it wasn't zooming in or out. It was ready for that perfect cut. I don't know whether it drove editors mad or what. I never did it as a big obvious thing, but was always in my mind while I was operating that the shot's over, and I would have wanted to have cut out a second and a half ago.

42:09Jawad MirYeah.

42:09John SealeThings like that whi… while you're operating. The, I can't ever say that I was right or wrong, because it's too intricate to follow. But that was the thinking of, thing. And that was the one that really stuck in my mind out of all those lovely old philosophies of filmmaking, was that, was that editing philosophy. And as I said, I tried to make it work as much as possible through the camera.

42:37Jawad MirI think y… you hit the nail on the head because filmmaking itself, whether you're making a documentary, or a narrative, whatever that is literally psychology You know, it's literally about trying to, trying to get into the audience's head and how they would relate to it, and that comes with your gut feeling and writing what you know. And I... One thing that I sometimes used to... It used to bother me, but again, with time, I've appreciated more. You know, there'd be a scene where two characters are talking, and you'll have like, you know, over the shoulder or, you know, for both, and then a shot will come where the camera will start dollying in on one character and, you know, kind of like a soliloquy from a Shakespeare play. And it won't cut, and it used to bother me like, "Why am I not getting the reaction of the other person even though this pers… person A is saying something important?" But it, then it dawned on me that how, you know, this character was saying something so pivotal and emotional in the sense of the arc of the story that you don't want to take it away from them, and that…

43:42John SealeYeah

43:42Jawad Mir... And again, it's ca… it's case by case basis, right?

43:46John SealeYeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it's that, terrifying thing in editing when, you're, you're watching a movie and suddenly they cut away and you think, "I wanted to see the end of that." To me, then the audience is out of the movie. You've got to then get them back into it, because any comment, any criticism of structure, coming through on that screen, that destroys the feeling of the film, is… is detrimental. Totally. So I think and a lot of it happens now more so than ever on the streamers. They're b… getting pretty wild, those streamers, I must say, with continuity and lighting and camera movement and stuff. It's pretty wild stuff out there.

44:38Jawad MirYeah. I mean, I wonder if digital one day died in the current time, and f… like you can't do digital editing, you can't do digital cinematography, and the old way came. I wonder if that would change the mindset of the studios and the crew because it's, you know, you ha… it costs money to have film and to process film. If that w… that has anything to do with that, or partially at least. What do you think?

45:10John SealeI think, a lot of people ask me would I be... W… would I have preferred to have kept shooting on photochemical, process, and I've got to say no. ... The… those new cameras, grip equipment, electric equi… I was amazed on, my last film, which was George's 3000 Years of Longing. I was amazed at what's on the marketplace now in lighting…

45:41Jawad MirOh, for sure

45:41John Seale... Grips and camera. It is incredible. It's stuff of dreams of 30 years ago, 40 years ago when we had gr… cameras half the size of a Volkswagen and trying to handhold that, you know, four of us trying to handhold a camera. But, nowadays too easy. You put it in the palm of your hand and just walk around with it or, you know, you do a cutaway with an iPhone and it's, and it's, it's... It can fit in. I mean, all of that stuff's incredible. So I don't feel I'd like to go back to photochemical, knowing that y… you've only got 1,000-foot load or a 400-foot load. And, you know, you... All of that sort of thing is a bit of the past, I think. We now fly around in slinky jets, you know, and the older, you know, older propeller-driven airplanes are come and gone. And, much that they're a fun thing to go in a propeller-driven airplane, you'd much rather go from Sydney to LA in a, in a 787.

46:48Jawad MirYeah. No, don't get me wrong. I mean, you're right. You're right about digital. I mean, I, you know, 95% of the stuff that I've done is digital and, of course, it's become so easy now. I don't know if you remember that big phenomena that came in the late '90s, The Blair Witch Project.

47:06John SealeYeah. Yes.

47:07Jawad MirYeah.

47:07John SealeYeah.

47:07Jawad MirI mean, what was the f… you've seen it, right?

47:10John SealeYeah.

47:11Jawad MirYeah. I mean, that movie cost them $15,000 to make, and I think it made like 500 million or something. And that was like one of the highest. It had m… it made 248 million in the US, and it cost them $15,000 to make, and it was all literally I think a camcorder just walking around in jungles…

47:34John SealeYeah

47:34Jawad Mir... Without you ever s… ever seeing faces, and that just somehow clicked. And now every horror movie sort of follows that as a template, right? But yeah, you're... I mean, I think it's... What I meant to ask you was if the studios would be more rel… like would they take more chances with film versus digital? But I think you answered the question anyways regardless, and it's, technology…

48:00John SealeWell, I think the tool…

48:01Jawad Mir... Is wonderful

48:02John Seale... I think the tools of trade are so advanced now in the digital revolution, and LED revolution that, it still doesn't mean I feel that directors have to use it in a very modern contemporary style. They can still…

48:21John Seale... Shoot that lovely, quiet, sincere movie of the past on that same equipment. So I don't think in a way in my mind that the tools of trade are actually controlling, the type of film that's made. It's, it... A… and I hope I'm right, in lecturing that…

48:44Jawad MirI think you are

48:44John Seale... Well, I hope I'm right that i… the, it's the script. I mean, if the script… It demands that kind of coverage to make it work for the director and what he will, he or she will then hope will be the audience. It doesn't matter what tools or trade you use. It, they can all be used any way or f… f… for form that, is needed for that particular, story.

49:18Jawad MirYeah. And I th… I think you and I are pretty much dancing around the same thing. It all comes to the story, right? It's, the bottom line is that it all comes to the story and what you're trying to tell and how you wanna tell it, and not thinking about fancy shots or fancy cuts. But if the story requires that, then sure, you know, if you wanna shoot the Sahara like Lawrence of Arabia by David Lean, absolutely. But, you know, just for the heck of it, I think that's where... And the secret sauce that you s… students talk about, and I think what the problem that has become now, and this is not everybody, is that everybody wants to hit that level of fame, right? Like, I wanna get that fame or recognition, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But I think the target should be making great art that will lead you to that, as opposed to going, thinking about that and working your way backwards.

50:08John SealeYeah. And I think it's, it then can segue back to Peter Weir's Mosquito Coast in the choice of the negative that we used. Fuji was not a good color rendition of the greens of the jungle, and that's what he wanted, was a, was a bad rendition of the c… of the greens. It also had heavy grain, because back then, the, negative filmmakers were trying desperately to make a high-speed negative and reduce the grain, and they were working on it, and it ended up l… years later beautiful stuff. But in those early days it had grain, and that helped, I think, The Mosquito Coast have a reality to it as well. And I think that boldness of Peter's back then in those days was quite refreshing, for a major film with, say, Harrison Ford in it, that would go, would deliberately almost, deplete the image to suit the story. And I think my, in my career that was a big one of the many stepping stones that I went through in that industry in learning about what are we trying to make?

51:31John SealeYou know, are we making a drama about a man who takes his family in deep into a dirty jungle and tries to tell them, "This is beautiful"? And that's what we're doing. And so you do, you're not gonna go to a pretty jungle. I remember doing Gorillas in the Mist just after, Mosquito Coast.

51:52Jawad MirOh, with Sigourney Weaver.

51:54John SealeWith Sigourney. And

51:55Jawad MirYeah

51:55John Seale... Go… oh, gosh, she's great. And, we tested all the stocks again and, of course, Agfa came good. Agfa was beautiful for that film because, you know, the Dian Fossey jungle was beautiful. Everything about it was beautiful, and it should've looked that way, we felt, to the audience. So we chose Agfa, and that had a lovely color rendition of the jungle, and we tried to make it look as appealing as possible. Whereas Ally Fox's jungle was appealing to him, but to the audience…

52:34John Seale... It needed to look dirty and filthy and dangerous, you know, all the time. So I love those bold decisions by directors, and did love them through the career.

52:45Jawad MirI find it interesting you said that how he liked the jungle. The way I look at it, again, that's the beauty of storytelling, is that he made himself believe that he liked it too, even though if he didn't. You know?

52:58John SealeYes. Yeah.

52:58Jawad MirThat... And, a… I think he was living in self-delusional world, like the character, and he didn't even realize that he was living in that.

53:07John SealeYeah

53:07Jawad Mir... But, you know, what a, what a fantastic movie. And honestly, with the stuff that we talked about today, I wish that there was more stuff on the recent films behind the s… I mean, there is, but just more in-depth about negative, about storytelling, about all that stuff, so people can learn, because that's all it's about. It's about, you know, learning every single day and moving on and making your own film, that you, the way you want to see it and the audience wants to see it. But

53:36John SealeYeah

53:36Jawad Mir... Thank you so much for joining, John. I appreciate it.

53:39John SealeSure. Thank you. Pleasure.

53:41Jawad MirI would love to chat with you more down the road, maybe about Witness or Dead Poets Society or anything else that you prefer. I would be game for that.

53:50John SealeOh, please make contact and we'll try and make the time zones work a little better. I…

53:55Jawad MirYeah

53:56John Seale... I com… I completely blew that last time. I really did. We had a big…

54:01Jawad MirNo, like I said, it's fine. Don't worry about it. Y… you're…

54:05John SealeYeah

54:05Jawad Mir... Living a part of your life that you're supposed to enjoy and not, doing a lot of interviews, so please do.

54:12John SealeThanks a lot.

54:14Jawad MirThank you, John. Take care.

54:15John SealeThank you. Bye.

54:16Jawad MirBye. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Don't forget to subscribe, like, share, and comment, and do come back for another episode. Until then, have a great day.